Rocky Mountain Women in Business Series Video: Ashli Fry

Speaker 1 (00:10):

So my name's Ashli Fry. I own Morphos Homes. We are in the Missoula area, but cover out into Frenchtown East Missoula, a little bit in Bonner and are slightly down into the Bitterroot, just not quite down to Hamilton. Florence, Stevensville, Lolo. And we primarily do residential cleaning and vacation rental turnover cleans. Right now we are finally encompassing Morphos Homes, which is what I rebranded into, and providing home services management, which includes a lot of cool little things to help maintain your home, the annual maintenance, things that are required and things that pop up. You've got a leak under the sink, so we'll just manage all that for you. And then home organization, I finally finished my certification and I'm registering with NAPO. So finally starting some of those projects too. So really more of a home services management, kind of where we're going with a big focus on cleaning still.

(01:13):

The start of my business inspiration is really kind of random, and the irony in my family that I own a cleaning company is still very strong. I was the gross, messy kid. I didn't care. That was not a priority and it didn't bug me. So I have three daughters. The youngest will be five this month, but her first year and a half-ish, she had some medical issues, so I had to stay home with her. We moved back to Missoula and around two years old, I was super burnt out of just being at home. And the past two years were really hard, and my daycare that I trusted could take her for four hours, three days a week. And I'm like, what am I supposed to do for three hours, three days a week? I had a history in banking. So a really good friend introduced me to her good friend who owned a cleaning company in town and was looking for a little help, but our schedules were opposite of what we had available.

(02:19):

So I was just talking to her on the phone, she hadn't even met me, and she was like, it sounds like you could do this yourself. And I was like, what do you mean by that? And it was basically, anybody can clean and learn how to clean well, but managing client relationships and building a client base and networking is something that not everyone just can naturally do. She's like, just from talking to you, I think that you can handle that just fine. And that's how my business grew in just the weekend. I did everything over a weekend because I needed to get it going really fast and I didn't have any professional experience in cleaning just customer service and client management from being in banking for so long and my other jobs. And so that's just kind of what inspired it. It was very random and I absolutely love it.

(03:14):

It's worked out really well. Yes, no, the irony is still, it's still there. And my house, I'm finally to a point, I scapegoated my kids. They're great to blame so much on, but one, they come by it honest. And two, it's still me too and I'm finally at a point where I can prioritize those things in my own home and it feels so good and it's a process, but I think everybody would enjoy and thrive from a clean and organized home. But it's kind of hard to get the systems in place for a lot of reasons. And so yeah, I'm transforming my own life slowly too, and it feels really good to live a little bit less in chaos every day. But yes, the irony is still there that I own a cleaning and organizing company now. It's not that I'm not good at it, it's just like, really? Interesting. So the qualities and experiences that it we'll say takes to become an entrepreneur.

(04:20):

I think it really comes down to one thing, and I think a lot of people in your life that you kind of weed out think you're kind of crazy for starting a business I grew up where it's getting into the medical field or a trade or these very popular, an accountant, very popular, steady jobs that traditionally you think pay well is where we were steered. And so I never really knew anyone who started a business. And even as I got older, I didn't know a lot of people. There weren't a lot of people in my circle at that time who started their own businesses and were doing really well. So it was a terrifying concept. I think the, outside of a customer service background, I think that that's really important. Being able to network and build relationships. Ultimately, that's something you can learn if you continue to put yourself in those situations and be uncomfortable for that kind of growth.

(05:21):

But I think really the skill or mindset that sets entrepreneurs apart, especially ones that were pre or post or during Covid, that was a hard time for not just entrepreneurs, but a lot of most businesses is the mindset of problem solving. I would be like, Hey, I think I'm ready to hire someone. And people would be like, oh, don't do that. You don't want to hire people. It's like, I'm going to, and so I want your advice because it's like this is in my path now and there's a solution for it. So it's just the problem solving mindset of you can overcome probably anything that comes into your path. You just have to have the mindset of being able to shift your mind of, okay, process that this hard thing is happening or this obstacle's in the way, or I don't know how to do this.

(06:17):

You're not reinventing the wheel in a sense. People start businesses all the time. People have hired, people are in HR, people network, people market. You're not creating this brand new thing. Maybe your business is unique, but the ideas and concepts of starting and running and building a business aren't necessarily new. So the information's out there, you just have to be willing to problem solve and find it. So yeah, I think just the problem solving mindset of, okay, I'm dealing with this now. What are the options and what can I do? Not just like, oh, it's over. That's not overcomeable.

(06:56):

I think that's what the entrepreneurs have that maybe some people think they're crazy, is like, I could figure this out, or there isn't a problem that I can't find a solution for. Somehow, even if you need to process and grieve that's happening a little bit, you'll come back and be like, okay, now how do we move forward? Yeah, I think that's the grit that it takes in a way. Especially in Montana, I think this is probably true of most places, but referrals are just the best way to grow. So I started my business with six clients. They were every other week that I had three hours, three days a week because of commute time too. So as my daycare could take my daughter more, and the referrals kept coming in from those clients. They were like, oh, so-and-so would love to talk to you about cleaning their home too. So as I was able to build that, it got to a point where I can't fit anymore in my schedule. I have three kids, I can't work 8:30-5. There's just too much going on. And so it got to a point where I had the referrals coming in and I could see that soon I was going to have more than what I could do. I was like, okay, I think I need to hire someone, which was absolutely terrifying.

(08:23):

And so just talking to people, I was referred to a really great payroll, Gusto, it's been great for me. I don't know if it's just really good for small businesses, but it was really affordable. I had finally nailed down the supplies that I was going to use for my company, so I really knew what my costs were and what I was going to be able to pay my employees, employees because now it's employees, but the first employee at the time and financial, I guess we can get into that later, but taking care of my employees was really important to me. So they started at a really good wage and there was a lot of budgeting and spreadsheets involved in what can I afford? And it was really inspiring of I had this little spark ignited of I'm going to build my little empire now of getting into this process.

(09:19):

So it was creating an ad on Indeed. That's where I always looked for jobs, so that's where I posted. I know there's a lot of different platforms and people gave me a lot of advice on where they've posted before in different industries, but I just did Indeed. Hiring is hard. I went through 33 people my first year, a third no call, no showed to the first day. Really, it blows my, it was surreal. A third did a couple of cleans with me and they were like, you know what? I don't think this is right for me, which is totally fine. And then a third, after doing lots of training, I was like, I'm not comfortable putting my name on your work, and after this amount of time, I don't see that changing. And so it took a long time to get the people that I still have that stuck and for me to figure out the interview process. I didn't have an experience in any of this. So the interviewing and I do a trial period now at a lower wage because I don't make my clients pay for my onboarding training that's coming out of my pocket.

(10:34):

Yeah, it's been an interesting process and I've really learned that maybe just in my industry, I don't know if it's with everyone, but you don't really know until they start working for you. So because I came from a banking background, I was used to those typical questions during your interview, and then for some of my positions, there were two or three interviews with the next level up. And so I just completely rewired my brain. I just had a very short interview process basically, you need to show up and care and I can probably work with you. Those are my only two requirements now, you need to show up and care and everything else is great. That's the only two things I need at this point. So it's been a long process. It was a really big learning curve to invest a lot of time in someone and not have them work out.

(11:24):

And so figuring out how to do that differently. So I have a really great training program that I've been working on and creating to save myself a lot of time and people I'm hiring a lot of time because a team of 10 now, including me, there's 10 of us, which is a lot to navigate. I think that's probably still my biggest challenge is managing people and managing different people differently and keeping that consistency. So if you're ready to build your team, kind of everything, just do it. There's really great places to post ads now, and especially in my industry. I'm sure I could post at the university for people looking for part-time work during the semester and full-time during the summer, which is great for me. And vacation rentals, Google became my best friend, asking a lot of questions from people and doing a lot of research. So I would say just finding the right place to post, maybe chat GPT your ad and adjust it so that it really says concisely what you want it to say for what you're looking for.

(12:37):

And do things different than me. Plan out what you want your interview to look like. Plan out what you want your onboarding to look like. I did all that in retrospect because I grew so fast and I was having a lot of really stressful personal life things going on that it was just like, I just need to do it. So if you're going to do that, great, and you'll learn the longer harder way. But I highly recommend building your plan first of this is what I want onboarding to look like. This is what I want my training to look like. This is what I require before they're out on their own and doing their own job, or what does that mentorship look like depending on your industry. And then when do I check in? How often am I going to check in? Am I going to have a sign-on bonus?

(13:23):

What's going to be required for that? Or referral bonus from employees or for employees, things like that. So you can make it a less scary process, a less hard process. But yeah, it's getting better. But I definitely learned some things the hard way when it came to hiring that it's less scary now. I know I'm going to need to hire someone probably by the end of September. And so I'm prepared for that now. And I still post on Indeed. I don't post anywhere else unless there's a referral from current employees. And sometimes clients have people that they know are looking for it. It just kind of works out as you build your network, but, yeah. I'm really lucky in my industry because I listen to books while I clean. Audible's my best friend, I dunno where my stats are at now, but January, I listen to 150 hours on Audible because I can listen to it while I'm working.

(14:25):

And I just kind of switch through genres. I'm back into a nonfiction. So one of this was just a networking group recommended Crucial Conversations, which is a really great book to help. I'm a recovering people pleaser, so managing employees has been an adventure because I was a people pleaser. I say recovering because I'm finally, this is how we need to do things for me to run a successful business and still get along and have a fun engaging team and work environment. That culture is really important to me. I have stayed at the longest at jobs that I maybe didn't love because my manager was amazing and I loved my coworkers. And so building that company culture has been important to me for helping with, I guess maybe the personalities that I attract for my employees. And they're all wonderful and I love them so much, but they're all very different.

(15:28):

Some are a little more neurodivergent too, which I have my bachelor's in psychology. So I think I'm using it in ways that I didn't necessarily anticipate outside of my own kids, but it helps me be more open-minded to learning. And I just listen. I read a lot of books because again, I'm not reinventing the wheel, and people have experienced this and they have shared their experiences and their knowledge via books and podcasts, and really there are some really great resources on helping you manage different people differently, but also consistently. They all still need that equality of treatment and consistency. I've built a team of 10 now, which some of them have been with me for a very long time, but there's been turnover.

(16:21):

I was at a different place in my personal life. So mentally I went through a divorce last year and there were a lot of emotional times in my life from the beginning of my business. So I was in a different place mentally and emotionally in my personal life and in a different place in my business. At the beginning, it was very yes, yes, yes, yes, yes to everything because I felt like I had to say yes to everything to keep things coming in, and it was really hard to be like, I'm not at that place anymore. I don't have to say yes to everything and set those boundaries of what do I want my business to look like. So every single one of my employees got a different experience from me. When they were hired, it was kind of a different, Ashli and I was also in a different place in my business, so they all got a different Ashli, and that's why almost three years in I'm, I'm doing a lot of things backward.

(17:23):

So I just created a training program. I did my own videos and have a really great onboarding where they do this before they even work, on the job, we'll say and have a skills checklist. I have a training onboarding process now, which feels good. So in retrospect, we're all going to do that together at the end of August one to help get feedback of anything I might have missed, but also to get us all on the same page of they were all trained differently. They, again, they all had a very different experience with me over the last three years of whenever they were hired. So I think for me and for them, it's also my own personal growth has slowly helped me work on my communication and work on my own consistency and being able to support the team. So I try to get a lot of feedback from my employees on what can I do better to help support you for what you need in your job role.

(18:35):

So I think the biggest thing to help me manage my team and what each of them need differently is really just a lot of one-on-one communication of what do you need from me and trying to get that feedback, please tell me. You know me well enough that you could say absolutely anything to me. It's very hard to offend me, and I do take things personally, but not in a way that I'm going to lash out. But it's because I care like, so I will take whatever you have to say and really sit with it and what can I do differently? Because ultimately anything my team does is a reflection on me and my company and I'm responsible for that. So yeah, just being open to feedback has been really helpful And, books, books.

(19:25):

I didn't grow up around a lot of people that I knew who had started and were running their own businesses. And it wasn't until I kind of started my own that I started finding those people through networking. And that's just, you just start to attract those like-minded people. So now that I, and then I have a lot of ideas. I've got a 10 year plan of all these things I want to do that I'm stoked for, but I know nothing. I constantly, I don't know what I'm doing. And so Google's my best friend and I do a lot of Googling and research and I was trying to find help locally and networking. So I found a couple of networking groups, but when I had this crazy idea, which is still in the works, it just wasn't the time now is when actually I think it was when I was hiring, when I needed to hire the first time is when I found Rocky Mountain Women Business Center because I had a lot of questions. I was like, I'm from a banking background. So my first client I ever met with who I just posted on Nextdoor, that's the only time I've advertised. And I got my six clients in a weekend. It was just the right weekend to post a brand new business. I'm licensed and insured.

(20:51):

They have a 5,500 square foot house. I only had three hours at the time. I can knock it out in four hours now what I need done there. But she just showed me her whole home, what they wanted done and gave me a code, a personal code for their door. And I grew up in Las Vegas. So I got in my car and I'm like, I am so uncomfortable. I was like, is this just a Montana thing? Is this just, I was like, they don't know me. They didn't ask for professional references. They didn't ask to see my license or insurances, nothing. They just showed me their whole home. They gave me a code to their door. I was like, oh, this is how this works. So I was like, okay, that's just how the cleaning industry is. So now I'm doing a lot of backtracking because, and I have my really good friend, my first Montana friend who I met at the bank, she works for me part-time as an operations manager and she is helping me.

(21:55):

I'm like, I need more regulation. So I just kind of flew with that. This is just how it is, and that got really hard because it gets a little chaotic when you don't have a lot of policies and procedures in place already. So we're backtracking and we're making all those policies and procedures still, which feels really good. But when I went to hire someone, I'm living in this chaos of this is just how the cleaning industry is, but it doesn't have to be that way. And hopefully that was just me. Trusting? Yes, I've only had two people ask me for references in my almost three years. So that's just how it is. Maybe it's a Montana thing.

(22:41):

So when I was going to hire, talked to my grandma a lot, asked a lot of people questions, and then I found, but in my mind, I'm in banking, I was like, there's a lot of legal stuff to having an employee. I was like, I know that I need to cover my butt. I was like, I wanted them to be a W2 employee. I didn't want a 1099. I felt better knowing that the insurances and things were in place, the liability and workers' comp, and then they would do things the way I want them done, not just contracted through me, and I'm not just hoping they have all of their insurances and ducks in a row if something happens on the job. So I found the Rocky Mountain Women's Business Center, set up, my first one-on-one coaching call with Marguerite. I was like, this is what I've got going on and I need some help.

(23:30):

I was like, I know I need an employee handbook or something. I was like, I don't know if contract's the right word that feels like you're stuck with me. And so she was extremely helpful. She provided a lot of resources and she gave me a template for a handbook that covered all of the legal stuff for Montana and then I could customize it to my company and make it feel like me. But it had all the stuff to cover my butt legally on it. And then client contracts too. It was so helpful. I was like, I can Google as much as I want, but when it comes down to it, I don't know if that's enough. So she was an amazing resource. She was really easy to talk to, has a lot of connections and a lot of her own knowledge. Very good background, was extremely helpful in me feeling like my company was protected at this next level for this next phase of hiring and growing a team.

(24:35):

And then they do trainings and it's virtual, which is great. That can fit in my on the go schedule. Sometimes I can listen to it while I'm cleaning and kind of chime in. Hopefully I can block out the time so I can take the notes that I want to and really absorb the information and sit with it and not be doing other things. But just the monthly topics. Actually, the first one I went to was, it was an accountant or a tax advisor. That feels like forever ago. That was at the beginning of when I found them, and it was very helpful because I was a growing business. I now had an employee, I don't, didn't know what was deductible. That was, again, I knew nothing. I was like, I'm just doing things and hope that they're okay. So it introduced me to things I hadn't even thought about yet, which is what's really great.

(25:30):

So it's not just social media marketing and stuff. There are some really great business tools. The accountant one was a really good one for me, so I was like, yes, please help me cover my butt financially too. I don't know what I'm doing. There's lots of resources, but it really helps to have someone local who you trust and that you're getting good information. So really invaluable resource for me in what I was doing. People thrive on relationships and healthy relationships are amazing. And finding a community of people of, when I say like-minded people, I just mean doers and entrepreneurs and dreamers. Having people you can be like, I have this idea, or I want to do this. And instead of them being like, oh, well, then you're going to have to deal with this and that's going to come up and that's going to be hard and this, that, and the next thing, they're like, great, let's figure that out.

(26:35):

Because they also are, dreamers, have ideas and visions and they're just like, great, let's figure it out. That's the people I want around me is the great, let's figure it out. Oh, I'm a dreamer too. What about this? This would be cool. And that may happen now, it may be like, great, that's a future project, but we can still dream about it and talk through it and kind of do some problem solving now. So building a community, especially of women, and there are a lot of business owners at all levels that I connect with and they're really good resourcefully. But I think women entrepreneurs specifically, mostly just because women in general are just kind of late in the game for what they were allowed to do and then what they were, we're just a little later in the game of being able to do this kind of stuff. So I have found some really great support in women entrepreneurs and it's really helpful on the hard days, I think the most. So I love that we have people to dream with and problem solve with.

(27:52):

I get imposter syndrome every week hardcore, maybe just because I care so much and I know I could be doing so much better than how I'm doing it now. And so I'm really hard on myself and also, what am I doing? Why am I even doing this? I don't belong. This isn't my role. This feels like, maybe this isn't the right thing for me. And so I have a lot of those really hard moments. I think imposter syndrome is probably the best way to describe it all as a whole. And so these women that I've met through Rocky Mountain Women Business Center and through some other women specific networking groups and just people I've met through that. Having community, I wouldn't be this far if I hadn't found this community, especially of women because I don't think I would've made it this far without that community support, especially local, the local community support, even just Montana. Montana is its own different beast of owning a business in. It's just different and unique with the different rural areas and combinations of city culture that I think, yeah, Montana is just a very unique place to start and own a business itself. But in general, women supporting women has helped me get where I am. Absolutely, yeah. So starting a business, capital. Thankfully with my industry, it didn't take a lot to start up. The supplies, registering as an LLC wasn't expensive in Montana.

(29:56):

Cleaning supplies wasn't too big of an investment for just me when it was just me. I think the vacuum is the most expensive thing because I like a really good vacuum. My vacuum's like almost $400, which is not where I started. I did not start with that vacuum. There's also no vacuum repair in Missoula. So if someone could do that, that would be great. I've got a graveyard of money sitting in my office, so I'm just going to throw that out there. If someone could fix my vacuums. I would really love that. I found one person and he can't quite figure out my brand because he's used to working on commercial vacuums that don't work well in residential homes. Anyway, totally off ranting there. Someone start a vacuum repair comapny, some trades or if you're out there, reach out.

(30:46):

So fortunately for my specific industry, startup costs were really minimal and I had a lot of it already. So setting my prices was really what it came down to. And that was hard. One, imposter syndrome, and I didn't know what I was doing. So I started on the lower end. People laugh at me when I was like, I know I need to raise my rates because post covid, everything was just, my insurances were getting more expensive. I need liability coverage, workers' comp. When I had employees, I didn't need that for myself. And also I was just a single member, LLC. So I'm not giving any advice on how to structure your business or your tax classifications. This is just what I did. Ask your professionals, they will help you do what's right for you. So I applied for an EIN, just with my banking. I wanted to keep that separate.

(31:52):

So I had an EIN though you're still taxed as a sole proprietor, essentially as a single member, LLC. So my insurances were going up. The cost of running business is a lot. I had no idea what my taxes would be, what that looked like, and I wasn't on payroll as I was just taking owners distributions because of how I was structured. I couldn't put myself on payroll, which there's a lot of nuances. Again, this is how I started out. So I didn't need funding at the beginning, and it really came down to getting my prices right. So when I knew I needed to raise my prices, it was so hard for me. I was so scared of losing clients, and I raised it $2.50 an hour, which I can tell you is not fun math.

(32:53):

It's not fun math. Everyone's really, I was like, it made me feel better that it was not a huge jump. So I eventually raised that to an even amount. So I think I started at $30 an hour and I'm now at $45 an hour is what I charge now that I have a team. And that's because, so women supporting women, but also I've been a single mom before. I have had to budget, not just paycheck to paycheck. I have had, people are like, what is that? I've had a spreadsheet for an entire year because I was budgeting tax return to tax return. I am not even kidding. I wasn't even paycheck to paycheck. I was tax return to tax return that had to get me through the year. And so I needed a somewhat idea of where I needed to be hitting each month because there were a lot of variables.

(33:53):

Your food costs change, your clothes and shoes, things are variable. But yeah, I was budgeting tax return to tax return for a good portion of my life. I had kids really young, was in a not healthy relationship, and so women supporting women and me helping my team with financial literacy and growing to be financially independent is really important to me. So supporting my team, not that I will only hire women, I just happen to have a team of women. I was like, I'm open to all, but that's a really important thing. I was like, so what can I do to support my values in my business? And so finding the right way to raise my rates. Because I start at a really good wage, I offer mileage reimbursement, which is not required, so it's not 65 cents a mile that the business owner can claim, but I still do a mileage reimbursement for employees.

(34:58):

I now have a 401k that they're vested in right away. I hated that in banking when there was this vesting schedule. And I'm just like, I just want my money that I've put in. So they're vested right away. I contribute 3% whether they do or not. So I'm contributing to them and supporting them in that way. Lots of little fun things like Artcake Montana has a cupcake subscription that you can do for your employees and for your businesses that they absolutely love. And so it's different flavors each month. So that's a monthly thing. And then they fill out a form and they get their birthday cakes. And eventually I'd like to do a gym membership reimbursement because your physical and mental health is a big impact on everything. But again, these things are important to me of not just giving back to my community that I have some plans for that in the future too, but the way I can do that now is supporting my employees. So knowing what benefits I want to offer, which I offer insurance now too because of the divorce. I needed insurance.

(36:01):

I'm the only one on it right now. Nobody needs it yet, but someone might. And I don't know a lot of other cleaning companies in town that have that full spectrum of benefits. I was like, so what do I need to do to still support myself and my employees because it's expensive out there. My rent alone is like, okay.

(36:32):

I am starting some branches of my business in some other places, so I'll be in Huntsville, Alabama soon, which is purely because my oldest goes to space camp there every summer, and she's amazing. And you can charge $80-$125 an hour out there, and that's standard. And I'm like, what? I was like, Montana's never. That's not going to be that way. Putting my rates to 45 an hour was really hard, and I didn't lose any business.

(36:58):

So I waited probably six months. I had drafted this letter to raise my rates, really explaining the why's and then editing it a lot. And I had this ready for months and I was finally like, I need to do this now or I'm not going to be, the business is just going to be a zero lining because I want to support my employees and not just to be a super profitable company, but I want to support my employees. So I needed to raise my rates because my expenses were going up as a business owner. Ooh, taxes too. That's fun. And I didn't lose any clients and none of them questioned it. I don't even know if they all read through just very like, I'm so sorry I have to do this kind of letter. Not in that way. Definitely more professionally put, but that was the heart behind. I was like, I'm so sorry I have to do this. This is really hard for you to raise my rates. It's been fine.

(38:02):

So have confidence in yourself. I maybe lost one client and there's a couple that I was like, I'm fine. We can grandfather your rate. Absolutely happy to keep helping you, but if you refer anyone in the future, this is my rate and I'm happy to do that with some people. I especially have some clients in the LGBTQ+ community that have unfortunately had some discrimination with some home service providers. I was like, that's your rate forever. I'll do it for free, maybe, happy to support you. I'm really sorry that you experienced that. So yeah, I think money's hard. Rocky Mountain Women Business Center's, very helpful, very resourceful. If you are not sure how to get started, they have the tools and information for you for some other things that I have down the line. I was like, I do need capital for this.

(38:57):

Where do I start? I can't fund it. The resources are out there. And that's a great place to start. And they will refer you to where you should contact next if you have no idea where to start in starting your business. If you need funding or you need capital or whatever that looks like, yeah, absolutely. Start there and they will help you brainstorm or figure out where to start. Absolutely. They have that experience and knowledge base that Google's harder to find the answer, just to schedule a call with Rocky Mountain, 100%, save yourself some time.

(39:37):

Or for my age, I should probably be more technologically savvy than I am, I feel like I'm in that middle ground. And so I was trying to sync a specific email to one of the platforms I use to run my business on, but I just wanted to sync my schedule and not my 10 employees schedule to my Gmail and was trying all these things. And I spent an hour and a half messing with stuff. And so finally I just messaged this technical, I just messaged support. And they're like, oh, that's a feature everyone's been asking for, but we don't have it yet. And I'm like, oh man, I just spent an hour and a half trying to figure out something that's not possible yet. I should have just asked them from the beginning instead of being prideful. And I'll figure this out, just ask for help.

(40:28):

I don't want to say I did a lot of things the wrong way, but I did a lot of things the hard way. I learned a lot of lessons the hard way. I've lost clients because of inconsistency with my cleaners, and I had a hard time addressing it and finding a way to keep them accountable without feeling, because a recovering people pleaser. So trying to keep people accountable for their work and their work ethic, but also maybe there's gaps in what I was training because we all think kind of differently. So it's like I may not need anyone to tell me that. And also at the time, I was the only one who had kids as well. So I think I kind of look at some things differently as well.

(41:11):

And so I lost some really amazing clients because of inconsistencies, and we really tried to work on it, but I had a hard time not giving the feedback that part's not hard, but finding a way to have accountability and consistency. And so I think, like I said, the chaos of me first starting and like, oh, this is how the industry is. They're just going to show me their home and trust me to just show up and do these things and just kind of flew off. And again, lots of stuff going on in my personal life too that, I think there was a good chunk of time, and I'm almost three years in, which feels really surreal, but there was a big chunk of time where I couldn't show up for my employees the way that they needed, I would say. And there's a lot of chaos and a lot of just let's just do it.

(42:19):

And I was a very big yes person and just saying yes to things and jobs and things that added a lot of stress to all of us. Doing a residential home and then doing a vacation rental and then doing a commercial type building and then doing a move out clean or doing a move out clean for property management company. They're all a very different type of service that you need to be in a different mindset for each of those. And so you're just jumping around from these different types of cleans and then some things would get missed because it's just a whole different beast. Doing a detailed move out clean is very different than doing a vacation rental turnover clean. You have to have a very different mindset and tools going into it. And I was a very, I want to make people happy and give them what they need. And that was a decision this year of, what services bring us joy and what services that we provide bring us a lot of stress, and do I need to do all of those anymore? There's a lot of cleaning companies in town. There's work for all of us. I still get referrals coming in. I'm not hard on, I don't have to be the yes man anymore. And that was a really hard transition.

(43:50):

But I think my biggest advice for people is yes, do it, but first sit and think about it and not to not do it, but what's the best way to approach this that makes the most sense in the long run too. I've got a lot of things to pay off that are sitting in my office that are never going to get used again, which will get paid off and it's going to be fine. And again, I'm finally, when I did my rebranding, so my business started as Fresh Space Cleaning. I did this all over a weekend. I named it. I made my own little logo in Canva. I just had to get done. I just had to get started. And while I was like, okay, I'm going to do this. I need to do everything right now, or I'm going to lose this courage to start this thing.

(44:42):

So I knew in the long run I wanted to help people in a different way and give back to the community in a different way. And I found that almost every single client, no matter what their home looked like, apologized in some way for the state of their home. When I came to do my walkthrough and I was like, wow, on wherever their spectrum was of what you would consider messy or dirty versus cluttered, those different aspects of your home, the messy and dirty is different than it just being cluttered. But no matter where they were on that spectrum, almost every client was like someway apologized for the state of their home. And so I think there's just this, it's hard for people to ask for help and then to justify why they're asking for help, because everybody has us come in for kind of a different reason.

(45:51):

So it was learning to navigate that with myself and with them, and really fell in love with the idea of home organization. I had a lot of clients ask me for it, but again, imposter syndrome, I was like, I need to take some trainings or certifications first before I feel like I want to know more. I want to know more. So constantly learning more. And then I was like, so I want to do that. And then another call I had with Marguerite is something that I'll keep to myself because it's still a project that I'd like to do, but it's kind of on a retail side, which is way outside of my scope of knowledge. Very excited to do that in the future as well. Which again, that's the one that's like, I don't have the capital for that. I would need a partner in this or an investor or something. How do I do this? Because I'm going to, I just dunno, how to do that yet. One, Fresh Space Cleaning's really hard to say when you answer the phone. Didn't think about that when I named it Fresh Space Cleaning was really hard to say.

(47:05):

And also didn't encompass the future vision that I had for my company. So went through a rebranding with a local company who was great to work with. So Morphos Homes, they used my Phoenix tattoo as my logo inspiration and it says the soul knows on there, and so they put it in a window. There's so much meaning in my company name and my logo, and a lot of that stemmed from my own personal experiences, but also clients apologizing for their home and essentially apologizing for asking for help for whatever reason they needed the help. And so Morphos Homes kind of encompassed, morphos is Greek for, depends on how you translate it, for change or beauty. And so Transforming Lives is kind of the tagline. Well, Transforming Spaces and Lives is on my website, but Transforming Spaces is on the logo because the other ones really long to put on there.

(48:08):

And so that's why we kind of morphed into the home management services, kind of like a concierge or personal assistant, but with your home services and a couple of other really fun things that we're adding in there and that helps support local tradeswomen and local creators. Really excited to support local women, especially local tradeswomen. Like, yes, if I can find a plumber who's female, I'm going to give you as much business as I can. Women supporting women in the community. But had I not been in such a rush at the beginning, the rebranding was expensive, to tell you how much a website alone cost, like a really nice professionally done website. Holy moly. Sticker shock. I was not expecting that. Luckily, I'm a very decisive person. I know what feels good. So it saved me a lot of money in the long run because the decisions were made pretty quickly and I could give the feedback of what I didn't like and they were able to do a really amazing work.

(49:20):

But if you're wanting to start a business, even if you're rushed like I was, I needed to get it going. Take the time to reach out to Rocky Mountain Women Business Center. They will give you some really good guidelines on where to start. Marguerite for my next, my other business project, which was our last call on Friday, which I also can't tell you about. They give you, gosh, I can't remember what it's called now. My brain's not going to work when I want it to, but kind of like a branding. And branding is not just like the marketing and what you do with your logo and your colors, but the values of your business, doing the market research, all of the little things that'll really help you build the foundation of your company and what you see for its future. So I guess my biggest longest story ever short, what I was getting to is I am almost three years in and I'm backtracking on stuff I should have had at the beginning that could have avoided the loss of clients over the years and maybe some employees that might've still been around had I had a different onboarding process and not been so chaotic in how I was running things.

(50:36):

I was like living in chaos and not living in chaos is uncomfortable because my life's been so chaotic for so long. But that's where I want to be. I think that's where my mind and body would like me to be as well. So I'm going back even now because a lot of my clients don't know the value proposition of my company, the ultimate values of creating financially independent women and instilling the financial literacy in women and the ways that I am working on giving back to the community and what I'm really building with my business, not just a cleaning company, like what our ultimate values and goals are with the company and what I want to do with it in the future. It's not about making money.

(51:27):

So I didn't do all those things in the beginning, even though they were there in my brain, I didn't set it up that way. So now I've had way more stress over the last three years than I needed to, had I really built these policies and procedures when I knew I was ready to hire. That would've been the right time to create an onboarding program and a training program and the proper onboarding procedures and the benefits layout, like all of those things. So I think my biggest advice, yes, one first, reach out to someone who has all those resources for you, even if you're going to do it over a weekend, do it this way. Start with that. Start with the ultimate values of your company and your branding and what you want that to look like and decide maybe what you might want to scale it to in the future or just take that as it comes. But have those thoughts in mind of do I want this to be just me? Or am I open to growing? Am I open maybe a year down the road of having a team? And think about that at the beginning ish, or at least when you're ready.

(52:39):

Don't do what I did because it's like, again, I take those things to heart and I still think about some of the clients that we've lost that had this experience with my company that I really wish that that didn't happen, and I could have avoided it had I done these things that I'm doing now, if that makes sense. So maybe you can save yourself some face one by getting that stuff organized at the beginning, even if you are in a time crunch, I promise you have time to do those and it's going to save you a lot in the long run to do it at the beginning.