Episode 429 – Special Case Study With James Berena
Today Mike is doing a case study with his special guest James Berena, Owner of Truly Fresh! James found Mike while searching online for help with his cleaning company. He had recently gone through different ‘business coaches’, and was running low on money, but really wanted to attend one of the live events that Mike was having with different owners of cleaning companies in Valencia, California. He decided to scrounge together all the money he had to fly out from Canada to the event, where he, Mike, and other owners of cleaning companies spent the weekend having fun and talking about their ideas and growing their companies. In today’s blog, we are going to tackle some of the case study questions that Mike has for James.
Before you came out to California, what were you expecting?
“To be honest, I was just expecting to learn a few things about how to grow my company, but when we spoke on the phone you asked if I could get time off from work, and I said that I may be too busy cleaning, and you told me that I would have access to the clean profit method and that I would be able to get time off from my business before even coming out to the event, and sure enough after three weeks I was out of the field, only coming in if someone gets sick, or to clean with my dad since I enjoy that.”
What was the easiest, and hardest concepts that gave you and your company the most value?
The easiest and most valuable thing that I got out of all this is the community. I can ask people about specific things and having that support is great. The most difficult was raising prices. It was so valuable, but also super difficult. Once we broke it down and really looked into it, I realized that I had accounts that I was actually losing money on. The customers that I had to cut were also the ones that were always nitpicking and being difficult, and I wasn’t even making any money!
Where is your business now after having this experience?
“I’m actually going to tell you the story of a recent contract, In October these people asked us to drop our price down to a point where we couldn’t even make money, but it was such a large contract that it was about 70% of our income. After speaking with Mike, he said at that price that I would have to let it go. There were about 3 people working on this contract, and I was really nervous about letting these people and account go. I actually ended up finding my people other jobs, and after letting them go after a few months they reached out and said that they had gone through countless other companies, and none of them could match our quality and atmosphere, and they ended up hiring us at a much higher price point, and now I have a contract that is $30 thousand a month in labor alone and I’ve hired 9 people just for this job.
If you would like to watch the live video, click this link, and If you enjoyed this and would like to watch a complementary master class, head over to this link and find the most suitable time for you!