Yeah, BUT...

Smart Cleaning School

There is an emerging Mindset Series that started with my interview with Coach Josh called "The Value of Coaching" and followed up recently with "Are You Truly Coachable". I spoke from the position of being coached for over 20 years and being a coach myself for the past 7 years. The topic today is a major pet peeve and a classic tell-tale of someone UNcoachable and UNteachable. It's when I hear the words "Yeah, BUT..."
I know I've been guilty of it in the past but when I recognize it today it just irritates me. This is a major fundamental to overcome. It falls under our mindset. Are you coachable? Many say they are. But few really are. I did a coaching call recently. This cleaning company owner was operating solo to do houses during the week and was growing a team to do commercial cleaning nights and weekends. I dug and dug until I understood the why behind the goal of wanting to grow commercial with a team. The goals and the why were awesome. The strategy was not and during the call I realized that the mindset was not either. Here's what I discovered. This solo cleaning mom with a full-time job dad had to pay a certain amount of money for daycare. Many listening to this podcast can relate to that right now. She did not know her numbers, so there's the next fundamental flaw. I helped her figure out her numbers because I'm really good at this. Her solo house cleaning profit was basically covering the cost of daycare give or take. The commercial was not bringing in much because the revenue was just big enough to pay for the cost of a team. The hope was to grow commercial but maintain the residential to pay for daycare. This made absolutely no sense to me. Her goal was to earn $40,000 as a second income in the family. That's an awesome goal! I showed her how she could do that as a residential solo cleaner. Then I heard it. "Yeah, BUT..." Then she had a reason why she can't do that. I told her how she could hit her goal as a commercial solo cleaner and I got another "Yeah, BUT..." and another reason why.
There's always a reason why you can't. There's also always a reason why you can. If you look for an excuse, you will find it. And if you look for a solution, you will find one. In "The Magic of Thinking Big", Excusitis is listed as one of the failure diseases. In this case it was very clear to me. She could easily increase her solo house cleaning to $3,000 per month profit. This would net $1,000 after daycare and might be worth it. $2,000 or $3,000 net after daycare would be better! By the way, if she was earning $1,500 and daycare costs $2,000 no one would take that deal. I don't think daycare is worth it for a mom unless the thing she does to create income creates at least $500 per month over and above the TOTAL cost of daycare. This is daycare expenses, plus gas, food prep, lost time, etc. That was the direction I was taking her. She could build up the solo house cleaning profit herself, hit the $40,000 income goal and forget about commercial cleaning. When I sensed the desire to grow commercial with a team, I switched to different coaching to help her achieve the $40,000 goal. Her strategy was to continue farming out her kids to daycare for another 1-2 years. My coaching and experience would have her stay home with her kids and hit the goal in 6 months! Her answer each time was "Yeah, BUT..."
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