Post-Construction Cleaning & Our Culture: Relationships, Systems

With Host: Charly and Jeff Dougherty, General Manager at Crystal Clean

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Introduction

CHARLY

Welcome to the Cleaning with Purpose podcast. Today we're going to break down one of the biggest things that have happened, I would say, in the last few years for Crystal Clean. That's this idea of construction cleaning and really bringing the talent, really building great systems and moving things forward with honesty, transparency, care, compassion, love, these kind of things.

CHARLY

So to start off today's podcast, I'd love to talk about this idea of what a great business is. Two things that I've seen in my history now since the early 80s, where I started paying attention and built my own entrepreneurial endeavor with woodworking, then went into computers, then went into the internet business, and retired early, all this really fun stuff in my life. Two big themes.

CHARLY

The first big theme for any business who's exceptional is the creation, building, and sustaining of great relationships. The second big thing I noticed is the creation, building, and maintaining, and I would even say the iteration, the constant improving of great systems.

CHARLY

So breaking down the systems part a little further, a lot of people are like, well, what is a system? A great system is simply the series of habits. And it's also a great series of these habits being executed with a great attitude.

CHARLY

So when we think about in the world of systems, a lot of people pay a lot of money for a franchise. And what is a franchise? A set of great systems. And in the best franchises, they also tell you how to relate. If you ever look at a systems guide for Wendy's or a systems guide for McDonald's franchise or any of these bigger food service kind of businesses, you'll notice they tell you smile on your face, make sure that you take that extra beat, that extra second to ask, would you like anything else? Is there anything else I could do to help? And do that from your heart.

CHARLY

And then the training of it all, if you ever step into that. They really go through an onboarding process that isn't just, hey, watch this video. Tomorrow you can start. It's like a mentoring process over time.

CHARLY

I keep thinking of what you and I have talked about in previous podcasts, the Crystal Clean University, this idea of assuring that when people are brought on to the team, that they're really aware of — and you've done the recruiting on the front end — but they're really aware of the values of Crystal Clean. And then they're really aware of what a system is.

CHARLY

One of the big things we've shared in previous podcasts is the idea that the quality of service typically for cleaning companies varies over time. A lot of times cleaning companies will come in and they'll start out doing really, really great work. And then all of a sudden the shift change or something happens and they're like, wait a minute, were the cleaning people here last night? They didn't do that.

CHARLY

So one of the things we've addressed in our previous podcast is this idea of lead techs. I think that's how you referenced the lead tech. We do have lead techs. Yes.

JEFF

Yes. And account managers. They kind of play a very key middle role where they work with our cleaners, help train, coach, inspect, talk with the clients. We make sure they come and go intermittently to make sure that they're there to cover all those bases.

CHARLY

So the biggest thing that I want to make sure that we landed out of the gate is this idea that no matter the service that Crystal Clean provides, our core philosophies are great relationships and great systems. The relationship part is keeping that engagement, joy, connection, care, compassion, courage alive with the team over time.

CHARLY

That, what I've learned, is typically top-down. I've noticed with Dave, with you, with the big players here at Crystal Clean, it's a top-down thing. Everybody has that as part of their being. On the systems side, it's not only keeping them going, but it's also listening to feedback from customers and from team and lead techs and account managers to say, how can we make this thing work better, more efficient, to assure that we're delivering towards the outcomes of each service that we provide.

CHARLY

So let's talk a little bit in the first part of our podcast about the relations, and then we'll go into the systems. But then we'll get into how it rolls into construction cleaning and what you've learned about that over the last few years.

Building Great Relationships

CHARLY

So let's unpack the relationships part. One of the things we were talking about pre-show is this idea of where in the world were we infused with values that help us understand what's right and wrong and to live into and make an intentional commitment to live into the best of us and to recognize and even feel guilt for times where we're like, oh, I wasn't a good person.

CHARLY

Like illustration — when I was in my teens, I had a bad temper. So if I wasn't in a temper state, I was a pretty good kid. But if you triggered me, watch out. I was in detention, out of school, in school suspension because I just reacted with fists. It wasn't good. So my pastor at my church, Pastor Hirsch, amazing guy. He's like, Charly, here's a scoop. You're an A student and you're on your way to juvie if you don't change.

CHARLY

And I go, what does that look like? And he goes, why do you work there? And let me just talk you through it. And if you want, we'll go tour it together. And I'm like, I don't need to go tour it. I get the message. So at that point I made the change for that to be better relationally. And it literally took me 20 years to get it out of my system. It wasn't until my early thirties that it was completely gone, but I was right away not being reactive as much.

CHARLY

So that was a big illustration as we step into this conversation about — if there are things that I'm not necessarily good at towards the way that I want to be in the world, that we're going to work on it.

CHARLY

But backing up a minute, when we think about some of the values that make for great relationships, some of the ones that come to mind for me: care, compassion — well, empathy is a part of that. Feeling what other people feel, but compassion takes it a step further to say, I feel what you feel. And I also feel that if you're struggling, I want to help alleviate it. It's the arc of sales, essentially. Then we have honesty, trust, respect, integrity.

CHARLY

I'd even say great communication — good communicators. That's a value of great relationships. We also have this capacity and I noticed this with you and I just love this. I've noticed this since the day I met you. You have an incredible capacity to actively listen. There's an active listening component where we're fully present and you're in a listening state, and you can tell when people are listening to reply versus they're listening to hear.

CHARLY

Listening to reply is like you're waiting for the person to end because you want to talk, and you can sense an energy there. But true people who practice active listening — which I believe Dave, the owner, does; you do; sales does; even the lead techs that I've met — there's a component to their being of active listening.

CHARLY

So I know I've done a lot of talking so far. I want to lay the groundwork here. So I'd love for you to talk to us about how you and Crystal Clean have really built great relationships through the application of these values, but also where they come from. When you think of your history, where did you get right or wrong, and where did you get the infusion to do good and be part of teams that do good? What's that look like for you?

JEFF

Yeah, that's interesting. I think yourself, Dave, and I — we'll start with these three. Similar model, raised similar timelines, Midwest. There's religious influence, definitely. And through the years, what you pull from and what you cling to and decide is your truth. I think we kind of similarly came together to know that when we do pay attention to other people's needs and try to get them what they want, in the end we also get what we want — sort of the Zig Ziglar philosophy. But we believe in it.

JEFF

So from early on, I guess we all adopted the idea that leading with trying to be good and kind is at least the better way, the better path. And we probably, again, similar to you, have our scenarios of growing through problematic times where we didn't always perform that way or maybe even think that way. But I know now solidly fixed — all of us would agree — go, well, we can get what we want out of life, but let's make sure that we're treating other people correctly and giving them what they want along the way. And we're all going to be happier for it and get to a really good place. And so we're running the company that way.

CHARLY

I love that. And there's two parts to what you shared. Talked a little bit about this pre-show. There's an inherent part to you, Dave, and I that's growth-minded. There's another part that's ambition-oriented. So we're always looking to say, are we taking care of people the way that we want to be taken care of? Kind of the golden rule. But are we growing? And is there an opportunity to grow?

CHARLY

Oh, and if we have to grow through the lens of adding more team to our group, let's find people who are value aligned through those lenses. And the cool part about the way the human brain works — this is my studies in psychology — the reticular activating system. This is a thing in psychology where if you get a white Tesla and you're driving down the road, all of a sudden you'll see white Teslas. But if you sit down every morning and you say, these are the values that are important to me...

CHARLY

And I'll give you a couple of examples there. Growth mindedness, ambition oriented, loving energy. And on the bad side, we'll say blame, excuse, denial, gossip, drama, just negative energy. Our brain is looking for the good and it attracts the good.

CHARLY

So when we think about that through the lens of customer acquisition or meeting with a customer in a discovery session, as I call it — where we're just getting to know each other and see if we're a good fit — you can immediately feel resonance. You shared this pre-show too. Somebody said they did the research, they did the diligence, they did dozens of different bids and proposals, figuring out companies that could provide bids and proposals to figure out that you guys were the ones because they looked at your videos. Any thoughts or takeaways of what I've shared?

JEFF

Yeah, I mean, we're in agreement. You know, what happens on our personal growth comes into our business, and you even used the word ambition — I think all of us would go, but in a good way, right? We're driven with a purpose, take care of our families. That's where our core values start with family. We know that all of us kind of come to work and have our goals because we're trying to take care of our family. But then we work together 40-plus hours a week and we're family. And that's how we view the people that we work with on a day-to-day basis.

JEFF

And I think the clients that we go out and meet with, not only are they kind of getting to know us, but it works the other way around. They know this or like it. Sometimes you just go, no, I know this won't work. We're not on the same plane. We're not really looking to accomplish the same thing. Learning to pull away from those accounts and chase the work that makes good sense has always been part of our overall schematic for doing business as well.

CHARLY

I can't say enough about the reality of your growth — at least from my perspective — and maybe I'm wrong, but the reality of your growth through the lens of attracting great people. I'm talking about this from the team side, but I'm also talking about this from the customer side. If you go on the Crystal Clean website right now and you read the FineMark Bank testimonial, it's not like they did a great job. It's broken down to say, I have hunted my entire life — that's my interpretation of it — for a company that can do even part of what they do, and they deliver. And if we ever have a problem, we make a call and that problem is taken care of.

CHARLY

Any thoughts with that piece to this puzzle, about the attraction of great people and the attraction of great clients?

JEFF

Again, even FineMark Bank is a really good storyline for us. We love to promote it, and Blaine is the client who wrote that, and good relationship. He feels probably similar to us in all these conversations, but he's easy to work with. If there is a problem, and of course there's been problems, he knows we're going to be quick to take care of it.

JEFF

I think it's always the next best thing you could do, and often that's what promotes the relationship. If they just see the day-to-day and it's very consistent, that's great. But when there is a problem and you come in and step up and do what you need to do, usually that builds the relationship. So we've had some of that, and now we've got a couple years under our belt where the dynamic there is as good as it gets. You wish you had more clients like Blaine and more accounts like FineMark, and we have plenty of really good ones, but that one stands out, and it is relationship-based more than work performance even.

Building Great Systems

CHARLY

Yeah. But the idea is that these two things tie into each other — is that you can have great relationships and have a really cruddy service. I'm probably going to let you guys go. But we are hitting the pillars. And the way that we think about great service, and going back to the other part of our discussion today, is great systems. Such that if a new person comes on, or a person's out sick, there isn't a degradation in service. There's a very clear path with a very clear visualized outcome of how this is going to work.

CHARLY

Now when we bring in — and this is something I think I've noticed is a big part of your superpower outside of the relationship work — is the systems part, is really making sure we've got great systems and we have great people in play to strategize, plan, and act to those systems. So let's switch the conversation a little bit to the systems here. In your mind, when you think about systems, anything come to mind? Like what makes a great system? How the systems have evolved, the Crystal Clean commitment to systems — what shows up there for you?

JEFF

Yeah, and evolve is a good word. So systems, process — starts with the employees really. When you know, when you want to put together Legos, right? Block by block. And you can make almost anything. And if you start down a wrong path, fail fast, correct it, bring in different Legos, recreate. So I feel like we've been doing that a little bit. And we continue to refine the process for educating our cleaners, helping them know that they joined a company who believes in family, client, company, that we want to help them succeed.

JEFF

If we can help them — even in our particular case, citizenships, language — it helps them become better cleaners and helps them reach also levels of being able to manage and make more money and things that are important to them. So we try to let them know early on, if you join the team, you're part of a family, we want to help you. As you work through this process and we put together Crystal Clean University to help educate, and we start to build our lead techs to be stronger, more facilitated to helping the cleaners understand this, it's been a little bit of a building block process, but we are really doing so much better.

JEFF

Like you said, we've attracted good people, our operations team and the lead techs and account managers and cleaners, therefore everything is a constant state of improvement. And you don't ever expect that to stop. You go, it is a state of improvement. We've adjusted. We've grown. We see we have more good people. We have a team we really like. But you hope to always say that. A year from now, I go, boy, we've grown some more. And we've really made some strides. And we just keep doing better.

JEFF

And that's kind of how we feel right now, that you just take the last five years as a window, and we've grown. We keep getting better. And that's what processes and systems are for us. We just want to keep getting better. And we know that does equate to more business as well. So it works together.

JEFF

The volume of the company works around and rotates around the people. And I know it's a little cliche — you go, oh, you know, it's about the people. But it really is. Our cleaners need to be able to clean and they need to feel good about it. And that starts with who is leading them. And so the lead techs are very important. And the operations team — you know the dynamics of a cleaning company. What we have going on every day, the details are incredible. So to have a couple of key people sitting there just watching the windows of who's where and what can we do to fill this role and get this done — there's always a phone call that something's happened, someone's missing, something else came up that needs to be done on an account. It is nonstop.

CHARLY

The biggest things I want to take out of what you just shared — this is some pure gold. And I would always challenge the listener to think about it. If I'm running a business or thinking about running a business, these are principles that we need to apply. One is there's an inherent shift in people's psychology, especially when you bring people in. Some people that we hire, 'I have to go to work. I have to do this.' But if we change the dynamic of their language to 'I get to do this' — it's the 'I have to' versus 'I get to' language. I get to do this, and I get to do this in an environment where they actually care for my well-being.

CHARLY

That's a different part. And I just love the fact that one of the big things that I've seen you fly — if it isn't like a big flag that you fly virtually — is this idea that I actually do care about your psychology, and I do care that you're on a growth path. That's a huge part. Any other comments on the 'I get to' versus 'I have to' ideal?

JEFF

Cleaning, as most people know, most people don't look forward to going and cleaning their toilet or their sink or their house. So helping them with the idea that we are being paid to go in and accommodate people to feel more safe, more secure — that if we pay attention to the right details, like when you come and go from an office, sometimes just making sure little things — the trash is empty and the floor is vacuumed, swept, mopped to the appropriate level — they're actually relatively simple things to accomplish, but they're a purpose to helping the people that we perform the work for feel safe and secure and comfortable.

The Crystal Clean University

JEFF

And if you smile at them and wave and come and go and carry out these tasks, you get to go home with good peace of mind, feeling good, and money at the end of the week. So it's not just 'you have to go clean 2,000 square feet of office space today.' We try to establish that very early. And like I said, some people really latch on to it and are like, wow, this is different than anywhere else I've ever done this before. And not always, but we're looking for those cleaners who really get it and want to achieve more.

CHARLY

The part I love about what you shared is — and I know this for me — I have such reward if I clean my bathroom, for example, the sparkle at the end. I used to do — we had a bigger house, had like an acre of land — and I used to get on my John Deere tractor, mowed the lawn, did the edging. And I got done with it and I just sat in this awe and go, I made this look awesome. And it's amazing. So these are the kind of traits, though, that we're looking to attract.

JEFF

Yeah, the accomplishment, the mindset of going, hey, I get to do this and it's going to be the best ever — that's always the end game. And we apply that to ourselves. I'm like you. You go, well, it needs to be done. How fast can I do it? How good can I do it? Let me try the 45-degree angle on my yard today. Let me try a new product and see if it shines. Let me put sparkle in my pool and go, wow. And you want cleaners to think that way. Because some of it is about timing. Some of it is about work. But in the end, if they take on the mentality to go, I'm going to crush it — that's what you want.

CHARLY

The essence of it — and I want people to take this away too — is we ask the question, what can I do to make this fun? What can I do to make the outcome of this exceptional? So if anything out of our podcast today, people take from it, two questions to increase the quality of life, whether you're in a job or whether you're just living life: What can I do to make this fun? What can I do to make it exceptional? And when you have that capacity, that's a great way to increase quality of relationship and also a great way to increase the system — to really bring in the fun and the exceptional piece. And another way of thinking of what it means to make something exceptional is: what can I do to make this world-class?

JEFF

I'll tell you something interesting that I notice. The cleaners that I would say work the hardest — and we have a couple that we could name and go, this guy, he doesn't have a slow mode. He works hard no matter what he's doing. He's just on it, go go go. Not everybody has that much energy. So all things being relative, but what I notice is the people that take on the mindset are the happiest. People that come back after working really hard in a new construction clean or in a really big project together, and they know they've put in a good day's work, they're the happy ones. Sluggish people are also typically not as happy. It's interesting — there's a tell there.

CHARLY

So there is a Crystal Clean University. And so for a lot of people that are listening to this, there is an onboarding process that has an installation of Crystal Clean's values and the way we approach work that's part of the process of getting into the Crystal Clean team and becoming a fully functioning team member. Can you expand a little bit on that Crystal Clean University and where that maybe was born or amplified through your work?

JEFF

In our conversations early on about how to bring people in and onboard them and make them feel more engaged and bring in the training component, the word training comes in. I used one of your marketing tools from early on. You go, let's have a good name for it. And Crystal Clean University is what came to mind. So then we started to make our own videos. And then we started to research videos online. And of course there's many out there. But mostly we create our own because we really want to start with the fundamentals.

JEFF

You come in and we want you to have the right attitude and the right expectation and know how this works. Have some water, some soda, coffee, sit down. Can we get you a snack? They get to meet team members while they're here. And that's important. Again, cleaners could be told day one, you go there, you're assigned out to clean over that place. Instead, I'm like, let's bring them in here — make sure we, just for a day, pay them to come in and do nothing but walk around and meet people, take in Crystal Clean University.

JEFF

Which is really — total up the videos right now that we expect them to watch — about an hour and a half of multiple different videos, none of them over 10 minutes. And so they'll walk you through the fundamentals of cleaning. There's just certain procedures on what type of cleaner to use, how we go about with our mopping. Don't think about the old ringer mops anymore. Think microfiber and think about neutral cleaners and disinfectants and sanitizers in a whole new way. Here's how we do it, and this is what you're going to learn when you go through the warehouse. They get a tour of the warehouse. These are the products that you'll be using.

JEFF

So we try to educate them with a good set of fundamentals, and also get to know us while they're here. And I think that social part is every bit as important as the educational part. When they get to meet Dave and John and Jeff and Charlie, if he's here — you go, this is the team around you, the support team. Always feel free to call. They get to meet the people face-to-face. We get them their shirts and their lanyards and, like I said, try to make them feel special in the moment. I think the social component is just as important. So they feel like they've just joined the team.

CHARLY

Oh, I love that. One thing is a takeaway that we've learned through the onboarding process, especially if there's videos involved, is that after they've watched — it could be 10 minutes, could be half an hour — is to have them give you three breakthroughs, thoughts, insights, to share three, and then two things they're committed to.

CHARLY

A lot of people that have onboarding processes are watching their new hires go through the process, and they're like, they think they got it, but I'm not sure. So if we make it a socialized learning — go through the videos, then share three major insights that you had and why — and two things you're going to apply into your workflow based on what we've trained. And that's the socialized piece.

CHARLY

Because what happens if that's set in advance of the employee's learning through the onboarding process? They watch the information differently. 'Oh, I'm going to be quizzed on this?' So this is something that I've noticed as we apply what I call high-performance principles into the learning journey. And a high-performance principle is socialized learning. Also socialized deadlines. So a socialized deadline is where you'll tell them, listen, you can go back to your house and watch these videos, but you need to tell us what your deadlines are. When are you going to have them watched? When are you going to report out the three insights and two things you're committed to from the videos?

JEFF

I do, yeah. Mental note taken. We need to add that to the curriculum.

CHARLY

Yeah, it's fun because they'll send you — and sometimes people just do that through email, right? Or text me what you learned and text me three things that you found insightful and two things you're committed to. And when they share that with you — if they're the performer that we want them to be — they're going to be pretty articulate about it because they want to make sure they're doing it right. If you get the answer of, 'Yeah, I learned that you guys are good. I'm committed to being good.' Well... maybe we need to go back through the onboarding process again.

JEFF

Takeaways, thoughts, insights — what I've shared. No, I definitely do want to incorporate that. You're right. To watch it with a different view, knowing that afterwards there's a little expectation will bring it up.

CHARLY

Yeah, and if this is another takeaway for you and for so many people that have onboarding processes that are going to build that as part of their systems — if there's a group going through the onboarding process the same day, get them in the room for half an hour afterwards, and then they share their three things and two things they're committed to. And you have all of them take notes on the other people's. And then you have them reiterate of everything they learned from the group, what are some things that are major takeaways.

The Five Ps of an Exceptional Business

CHARLY

And there's a difference because people do not like to show up after going through that with 'Well, I only got one.' It just doesn't happen. And they're really committed to the integration of it. The other side to it is — going back to the relational side — is they feel like they're part of a group, a team. One of the things that we teach in high-performance coaching is this idea of socialized learning, socialized deadlines, co-creation, collaboration, teamwork, and the infusing of values from the top down.

JEFF

Pretty good. Want to put it to work. And the other thing that we'll do, we'll keep making better videos and a better process because the feedback that we do get ultimately — you know what we're finding? — and then we'll start to tweak and fine-tune, which is a constant effort on our part anyway.

CHARLY

The cool part is this. If you are actively listening, when you hear a common question that wasn't answered or that was sparked from the onboarding, we just sit down and make that video. Hey, one of the big questions we have — that might be part of the last part of the onboarding video training. These are the common questions you've asked. These are the additional videos we've made to accommodate those.

CHARLY

One of the big things I learned through my work in video work — 2008, 9, 10, 11 — was it's so much better for me, instead of answering everybody with a long email, I just answer it on video. And I work to speak extemporaneously on video, meaning I don't have a teleprompter or notes. And I just answer the question. It could be two minutes, it could be 10 minutes, it could be 20 minutes. And then I put that question back to them and say, I just created a video for you, and I'm going to roll it out in rotation on YouTube and within our intranet or whatever that might be, to help our team as well.

CHARLY

So this is another takeaway for you and for others: if we're getting common questions after they're through the onboarding process, write them down and do one topic, one question per video, and roll that back into the onboarding process. This is iteration of systems. This is saying we are so committed to your growth that when you ask us a question, we're going to put it right back in the system.

CHARLY

Another thing from the onboarding process that we've noticed with high-performing teams — they have them, much like the nursing industry has CEUs, continuing education units credits — go back through the onboarding videos every quarter. Report three insights and two more things they're committed to. They hear it a different way if they're in the system. So quarterly we're doing reviews, and by then, if you're integrating an iteration of it, there's going to be new content as well that can be very helpful.

JEFF

It needs to be incorporated into our Crystal Clean University. So thank you, Charlie. No, really, we enjoy Charlie's visits. Outside of you being here, Dave and I are like, well, Charlie, we always learn something, and the guy really knows his stuff. Thank you so much. I appreciate you sharing that because that will only improve what we're already doing. We're making the effort, and that's going to be an improvement.

CHARLY

So when you think about Crystal Clean 2025 and really amplifying quality — why is this important? That's something I came up with over the years, primarily from coaching. I've probably done 7,000 or 8,000 sessions — 60-minute sessions of high performance. I've been doing this since March of 2013 when I got certified. These are the five Ps of a truly exceptional business.

Construction Cleaning: Process & Approach

CHARLY

The first one is Purpose. At the top end of any purpose in anybody's life — whether they're in an entrepreneurial endeavor or whether they're just living life — is to improve the quality of their life and others. So I want to improve my life and I want to improve other people's lives. On the business side, a purpose is to grow somebody's business. So when we raise up the purpose for improving the quality of my life and others' lives and grow a business, I feel with what we've shared so far today, this is what Crystal Clean is all about. That's the first P — Purpose.

CHARLY

Second P is Passion. Are we emotionally engaged and enthused about what we do? And again, there's going to be times where we're not. That's okay. The third P is Positivity. Are we bringing the joy? Am I 'get to' or am I 'have to'? The fourth P is Productivity. And productivity ties right to the systems work we did today. The idea that if we're going to be ultra productive towards specific outcomes for us and for our customers, then we're going to need an onboarding process, a deeper level of integration of what that onboarding process teaches us and trains us.

CHARLY

If those first four Ps — purpose, passion, positivity, productivity — are held in, and we're clear about what we offer, we can create Profit. And that's the last P. What I've taught a lot of business owners is that when we get clear on what we offer and we're priced right, and we just park that over here and we live into the behaviors to build the business, increase customers, increase total sales, and we live into the first four Ps, the last one happens automatically.

JEFF

And that's something that I really appreciate. Years ago, I just kind of came up with my own simplified motto of — I'm going to try to do the right things and I know that I'll get the right results. I don't have to focus on the results if I'm doing the right things. And it really is your five Ps, which is a better definition of that.

CHARLY

Yeah, well, the thing that I love about the five Ps — and I hope this is a takeaway for people listening — is that you can put them in a line item, like on a spreadsheet, and you can rate it. Did I live purposefully today? Zero, not at all; 10, crushed it. What felt purposeful today? What am I going to do that feels more purposeful tomorrow? Simple, every day. Think about that — 365 days a year. By the end of the year, purpose is going to be top of mind.

CHARLY

Did I live passionately today? Where did my energy go? Did I get my sleep? Did I get my hydration? Did I eat nutrient-rich? Did I exercise? These are some of the baselines for feeling some energy. And then the next piece, am I bringing joy? There's a technique that we teach in high performance called 'Done by One.' Get all the meaty stuff you've got to get done today — aim to have it done by one. The rest of the day is yours.

CHARLY

The big part I also wanted to cover here — what's the process look like for a person calling us, emailing us, putting in our contact form on the website? When that hits you, what's the next steps for them, just so they have a frame for what that experience can look like?

JEFF

Well, in the wish list at the very beginning, we want them to call us early. The more time we have, the better. Often, as you know, calendars get away from people. So in the world of construction, you'll have estimators on the early end. And sometimes we get in at that point, and that's nice. The estimator then leads us to the project manager that might then lead us to the site superintendent. But often what happens is the site superintendent is the one on point going, we've got to start cleaning next week. Probably 80% of our calls start like that. They're in an immediate need.

JEFF

Calendars get away from people. And time pressure for deadlines and schedules is a very real part of construction. Post-construction cleaning is at the end part of that where they've kind of been doing all the other things they need to do. So I think the reality is, while I would love to have people call us earlier, and sometimes they do, it's often — we're going to need it started next week. Can you do that? So I've never been one to say no. I believe in either we can or we can't, and I'm willing to check with the team to figure it out.

CHARLY

Let's talk about what the construction cleaning work itself looks like. When you think about the construction cleaning that your team is best equipped for, categorically — can you share a little more around what those cleaning jobs look like?

JEFF

Yeah, I think the first breakout is just the difference between commercial and residential. Most people would immediately go, okay, so commercial — more on the business class side. So we've done a lot of everything from storage units to warehouses, but a lot of office spaces. So office spaces and the commercial side, I think, is our ultimate sweet spot.

JEFF

These are construction companies that are putting together medical facilities or offices that are going to be leased out, usually by a tenant that's going to come in with a pretty high expectation. They want to make sure they get it done right. They don't want to just go out and find somebody who's new to construction cleaning. They like to know that you know the process.

The Suncoast Beverage Project

JEFF

So to start that off, when we meet with people or have the opportunity to even email early on, I'll send them something that shows them how we go about taking on a construction clean project. And there's very specific things that I think they should look for if they don't know. You can start with a rough clean. There's always the debris side. Even the ones that keep the cleanest of sites, you're going to come into a lot of dust and debris that you need to clean off once, and it's going to resettle — and be up to a point where now we want to do a really full, what we call final clean. And after that, we're going to walk and inspect it together, and then we'll do a touch-up clean, or a lot of people call it a buff clean. We understand these exist.

JEFF

And on the bigger projects, you're talking multiple days. So you kind of factor the team to go in and do the rough clean and what that's going to take. The battles with construction clean — being clear up front — and I think the client recognizes that we come in with some experience and we're going to speak truth because there's no reason not to. We're going to be fighting around other tradesmen. You're going to ask us to come in and clean before you're actually done with the project because you have a timeline where everybody's going to be working right up to the point where the tenant comes in.

JEFF

So all of my best clients — and we've been building them, and I know that's why this is working — it resonates with them that we understand what's about to happen. Instead of complaining about it once we get in here, we have the conversation in advance. We're going to be working around other tradesmen. And so that room that we just cleaned got dirty again. We're going to go back and clean it. I'm factoring all of this in. And if you don't believe me, you haven't been in construction for very long.

JEFF

Here's the hours I think we'll spend in each of these areas and categories. And that sets us off on a proposal that can be signed off on. And of course, there's hourly rates if they want us to do other and extra things. And often what happens — I try to price it right where it's a walk away where we're done. And they like that because if I've offered time and materials to people, they don't want that. Nobody wants a runaway train on time and materials. They're afraid of what might happen. So they want a firm proposal.

CHARLY

The thing that I love about what you shared is this fact of the reiteration of education. The value that we haven't talked about in the great relationship part is courage. You have the courage to step up and tell them, listen, this is how it actually is. This is what you really need to be considering. And I'm just knowing — because I know you very well — you deliver that positively, sternly if you have to. Is that true?

JEFF

Yeah, you hope to come off that way. And I think all of us, if we talk to someone about a service, you want to be really knowledgeable. That helps. We feel better if they seem knowledgeable. So you want to come off knowledgeable and not bullheaded and not stubborn about it. If they don't want to fall in line with how a post-construction clean works, then usually the deal falls apart as well.

CHARLY

Let's talk about one of the biggest jobs you've recently taken on. We're talking construction cleaning because construction is going nuts here in Southwest Florida. What is it — the new Suncoast Beverage?

Lessons Learned: Training & Accountability

JEFF

That's it. World headquarters out at MLK and Ortiz. Being headed up by Arco National. And from that, we've also gotten work with Arco Murray. That one's about 90,000 square feet — that's our primary cleaning focus. And with the added warehouse space and maintenance shop in the back, the total square footage of the entire plant is like 200,000 square feet. So yes, it's the biggest project we've ever had.

CHARLY

So I'm just saying that when we think about what we've been sharing here so far in our podcast, there is a belief that, whoa, this is massive. But with the talent set, our belief in ourselves, the power of great relationships, the power of building great systems — sometimes we've got to take a system we've got that's for 10,000 square feet, and we're going to need to think bigger. Okay, cool. Got this. Let's figure it out. Together, we'll figure it out. And it's a relationship story, first and foremost. It really is. You want to break that down a little bit?

JEFF

Well, it was a referral to start. I had a post-construction clean-out at the airport with a guy named Joey Champion that worked for a different company and knew Neil Wiseman, who is overseeing the new Suncoast Beverage plant, and it was early. He's like, you should go talk to Neil. Go talk to Neil face-to-face. Starts off the relationship, and he kind of buys into going, I think these guys will do a good job for us. Still have to win the proposal, which we do.

JEFF

And then as we're going through a project like that, there are moments. You go, come on, things happen. And consistently, the relationship is always the salvation. First of all, we send people in to do a good job. We start with that mindset. If anything happens, we're quick to get on the phone with Neil or one of his assistants. And they're cool about us chatting through it. Here's what we're going to do. Here's the correction. And we've worked through the whole process like that.

JEFF

We're actually going to be wrapping it up, the contract itself this week, and we'll be there for about another four weeks just helping make sure we facilitate getting the tenants in, which is Suncoast Beverage. And the relationship is what carries it all out. But then, back to the process — we have found some excellent cleaners in this process, people that are new to us and being put out there. We have found people who we had, but we put them out there on a regular basis and they get to know the client and the client gets to know them. There's a relationship level that's happening on site that totally boosts our performance in our client's eyes.

JEFF

Wonderful learning curves happen when you take on even things that are unknown to start. You learn as you go, and this is a place that all the OSHA regulations apply, and they're there, and they're on site, and it makes a difference as to your PPE. It makes a difference as to your performance on lifts and windows.

Service Areas

JEFF

I'll share a black eye story just because it's truth. We had some cleaners — and no fault of their own — you go, well, training, we should have trained them better. So a lot of glass. The exterior glass is one story — we learned a little bit about that, which came out just fine. But on the interior glass, we had some people who really hadn't been fully trained on glass. You want to be careful never to scratch glass. I know that sounds simple, but they also have stickers and construction debris. And sometimes the best way to go about it is to scrape it. And usually, hopefully a plastic scraper with a little bit of solution will do it. Sometimes you get into a razor. And if you have the razor, this is where the training comes in — really sharp, fresh razor, really delicate in the task because you will scratch the glass. And that's what happened.

JEFF

So we scratched the glass — one of those moments. Your team scratched our glass in its interior, and it's by the executive offices. And okay, you know what? We accept responsibility for it, and we replaced it. We were cleaning it yesterday because we got the fresh glass in. We cleaned it yesterday, and we're right back on track, and every conversation we've had has been positive.

JEFF

I can say successfully. And that was one of the things that we learned. You cannot stop and blame the cleaners in the moment. That was training. That was on us. And we're going to take care of it, and we did. So when you can't perform perfectly up front, the next best thing is taking care of it. And I think that's what keeps us going with all of our clients that have been with us for 10 years, 20 years on the recurring accounts, and even 30 on some.

CHARLY

Oh, that's a massive story that lives right into the principles of what we talked through. Systems. Okay, we got something to add. And that might be a 10-minute video now — back into Crystal Clean University. If you're going to clean glass, here's some things you need to think about. And here's an illustration of how that went wrong once. And it was on us, and we got to make that better. The other side is a great relationship side. Got it. Okay, sorry that happened. We'll take care of it. And moving forward.

Closing Thoughts

CHARLY

One big final question is the service areas that you support construction cleaning in. Can you just break down the cities or regions?

JEFF

Absolutely. Yeah, so we have, of course, our Fort Myers office and our Naples office. So we just finished a job in Punta Gorda — that's kind of a northern point where we just did a job in Punta Gorda last week and finalized that. Worked throughout Fort Myers and Lehigh and Cape Coral, Bonita, Estero, Naples. And of course, now Sanibel is back online. We've been gaining more and more workload out in Sanibel. And even Marco Island — we've been out on some new jobs recently as they come back online from all the hurricanes and devastations. So we work that zone, Southwest Florida, pretty readily.

JEFF

And then all the major areas. How far inland? We've had work in the Immokalee area and Lehigh area. We've been all the way out to LaBelle on a project about three months ago. And then Fort Myers Beach, Bonita Beach — a lot of work out on Fort Myers Beach right now. And we had a Captiva house last week. You name them, we've been there.

JEFF

Oh, and one more — North Fort Myers. We've been getting a lot of work in North Fort Myers lately. So I should honor it with a title that it is differentiated from Fort Myers.

CHARLY

So coming back to our conclusion, we have really dove deep today on the power of great relationships. And I hope we've done justice in illustrating stories, anecdotes, these kind of things that really help people understand what great relationships look like and how they take form in a business — at a team level and at an onboarding level. And they're from top down. We've talked at length about creating, building, sustaining, and iterating great systems. And sometimes we get a job that's new, bigger than we've ever done, and we've got to iterate fast.

CHARLY

Then we really focused those two energies into a big segment of business for us here at Crystal Clean — construction cleaning. So as you think about our journey today, any insights, thoughts, takeaways, things that you want to make sure the listener hears from our lessons and our stories and our learnings today?

JEFF

From a business model, of course, you and I agree. The systems and the process, relationships, the intertwining of all of that — if you're looking to manage your own business or grow. Along with the growth, I would say when you learn as you grow, and you will, and if you just go ahead and adopt the mindset that there'll be learning curves and things that come up that you just kind of have to work your way through — and there's been so many of those — but it's helped us enhance all of our other commercial cleaning segments.

JEFF

We have a deep history in common area cleaning, and we clean large offices. We have a good foothold in all these things, but the construction cleaning has helped us more with our window and glass cleaning and our power washing and our floor cleaning as well, because it just provides more of those opportunities. So we keep refining and growing those areas within our company as well. So kind of it's a natural process — as you take on more work, even things that might be a little big and scary at first, it helps grow other things and services within a business.

CHARLY

I love it. I want to add a PS to this. If you're cleaning for the first time a new area — construction cleaning — and you develop the proper way to clean this area with the proper intervals and provide that as a guide, that seems like a next step for you to maintain that cleaning. So can you talk just a little bit about this idea of — if you do a construction cleaning, they may ask you, can you keep this space clean and get a contract on that? Does that happen at all?

JEFF

It does happen. And there is a division, though, between the construction company that brings us in and the ownership on the building. We have had that happen. We look for that opportunity. In fact, we usually will ask because we realize you get into a large facility — we'd love to do your recurring cleaning. And it's about a 50-50 where they go, oh, we have a cleaning company because these are different people. But we are aware of it. And we have won new work, of course, where we're doing the recurring cleaning on facilities that started off as a post-construction.

CHARLY

Fantastic. Well, that being said, this ends this episode. Cleaning with Purpose — great systems, great relationships, construction cleaning, the service areas, and then some of our other services whose quality is being increased just because we're learning and applying and integrating as we move along. Final note — thank you, Jeff.

JEFF

Alright, thank you so much. Take care.