How Robots Help Derek Foster Clean Smarter

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Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

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Speaker 1
All right. Welcome, everyone to Blue Collar Start Up, the podcast where hard work meets big ideas. This is your home for real talk, real stories and real strategies from the frontlines of life in the business of the trades. I’m your host. Or one of them, I should say Mike Nelson from Five Towers Media.

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Speaker 2
And I’m your other host, Derek Foster, a big bagel cleaning systems care clean of Saratoga. How are you doing, Mike?

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Speaker 1
I’m doing well, man. I’m doing well. You know, just, fresh off of many hours of snow moving and, shoveling and snow blowing with the, I don’t know, almost for the snow that we got over here in Saratoga County.

00;00;53;22 – 00;01;10;03
Speaker 2
Yeah, I, I heard and and we, where I am, where I was, we didn’t end up with any. And, I was in the snow belt yesterday and making the trip back, and I was waiting for, a huge snowstorm, but didn’t see any. And then I hear, you know, Saratoga, you guys got hit pretty good.

00;01;10;03 – 00;01;11;23
Speaker 1
So we got crushed.

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Speaker 2
Winters here early.

00;01;14;01 – 00;01;23;22
Speaker 1
Yeah, we got crushed. I still got I’ve got a roof that the the snow does not shed off of the roof. I got to go out shovel it. And it’s.

00;01;23;25 – 00;01;26;23
Speaker 1
It’s easily over because I didn’t touch it after the last storm.

00;01;26;26 – 00;01;28;18
Speaker 2
You got one of those roof rakes.

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Speaker 1
No no no I well, I shouldn’t say that I have one. It doesn’t do shit. It like the angle of where you’re at in the ground versus where the roof is, the length of the roof rake the whole thing. Like, you can get, like, the top two inches, but as soon as you need to, like, really get some snow off it, it doesn’t work.

00;01;50;14 – 00;02;00;19
Speaker 1
So I got to go up there with a shovel. I pitched the snow off the roof on to the ground. Then I got to come back through and shovel and snow blow to get it off the patio. It’s it’s a pain in the ass.

00;02;00;21 – 00;02;05;23
Speaker 2
Well, if I can give you some advice, it would be don’t fall.

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Speaker 1
Good advice.

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Speaker 2
Wear harness. Right. Tie.

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Speaker 1
I actually fell on the roof because it’s, a seamed metal roof. Yeah. So, like, once, even worse. Once you get underneath the snow, man, it is so. It is so slick. And last year I knew it was going to happen eventually. And I like, you know, did the whole thing where you’re up in the air and you come down and like, right.

00;02;31;20 – 00;02;47;02
Speaker 1
The one of the seams in the roof, like, right into my arm. And I was like, oh my God, it just broke my arm. I it hurts so bad. I thought I broke my arm, but no break. It’s just a, nice bruise. And, hopefully I don’t do that again, but. Yeah.

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Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;02;47;14 – 00;02;53;11
Speaker 1
Don’t worry about you, man. You’re, you’re are you kind of fresh back from vacation?

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Speaker 2
Yeah. We, we decided to, to pack up and go away for the holiday. Thanksgiving. And, it was it was nice, but, still playing catch up and, it’s good to be back to, you know, it’s always nice to, to come home, so.

00;03;06;29 – 00;03;31;18
Speaker 1
You know, is not the worst about being. And this is for anyone considering owner business ownership. Vacations are the worst. And like you, you have to, like, triple the work you do before you go on vacation so you can enjoy the vacation. And then when you get back, you got to dig out. It’s like you got again, you got triple your work effort for the week or two after you get back.

00;03;31;18 – 00;03;33;27
Speaker 1
It’s there’s such a cost to going on vacation.

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Speaker 2
I did a yeah, I did a lot of the work up front this time just because I did want to, you know, spend as much time as I could, you know, with the kids and, and whatnot. But, I still stay on, my email a couple times a day, you know, making sure that things are going well, people are communicating, and we’re getting done what we need to.

00;03;51;12 – 00;04;09;20
Speaker 2
Yeah, it it never really goes away. And honestly, I’m able to stay on top of things. So if a customer or a client needs something, we can get right on it. You know, I’d rather do that than come back to, you know, seeing things that might have slipped through. And and I’m just it’s my mentality. It’s how I’ve always been.

00;04;09;20 – 00;04;16;06
Speaker 2
So I stay caught up and it’s not as bad when you get back, but you know, there’s still definitely, enough to do.

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Speaker 1
When I get.

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Speaker 2
Back to where I was.

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Speaker 1
So, obviously that we’re not talking about vacations, but, I know today’s show. We’re going to talk. You know, we had, we had a guest on a few weeks back talking about robotics, in robotics, in the trades. And, you know, we wanted to kind of do a follow up episode and bring you on and talk about it, because you have implemented some of these solutions in your company.

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Speaker 1
And, so I want to get into that. But before we do, for some of our newer listeners, I thought maybe what we should do first is kind of back up, and just kind of give them a quick overview of who you are, dago cleaning systems. And, and then and then we’ll get into the robotics side.

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Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely. So, I’ve owned and operated Diego Cleaning Systems with, my mother, Michelle, since 2011. We’ve grown over the course of time. And if anybody wants to hear the full story, jump on the Blue Collar podcast and take a listen. You know, it’s been a really fun journey. I love the industry. I love working with people.

00;05;21;04 – 00;05;42;27
Speaker 2
I love seeing people grow and develop, you know, through the organization. We work with a ton of wonderful clients and, you know, it’s really we have a lot of fun doing it. We provide complete building cleaning services, window cleaning, carpets, floor care Post-construction cleaning services. Really, what problem solvers. And, the world of cleaning is how we like to look at it.

00;05;42;27 – 00;06;09;15
Speaker 2
So if a customer comes to us with an issue or needs something, fixed or our solution put in place, we can typically find the answer. And we don’t like to say no. So you know, that’s really what we do. You know, we are starting to get into some different, verticals within the industry. We started, kitchen exhaustive cleaning portion of our, our business, a couple of years ago.

00;06;09;18 – 00;06;36;21
Speaker 2
That’s been going really well. We’ve grown quite a bit on that end. We serve as restaurants and maintain their exhaustive cleaning compliance, for the jurisdictions locally. And, that’s been a lot of fun as well. Something new, different, exciting. But still within the same realm of what we’re doing, you know, and we’re we’re always looking for ways to improve our services to offer new services that benefit our current customers and better ways to do things.

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Speaker 2
So, you know, that kind of ties into the robotics portion of it, Mike, that that you brought up and, you know, Bob called the rabbi who was who was on the show. I’ve known him for a while now, and, I’ve learned a lot from him. He is an expert when it comes to robotics and implementing implementing them.

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Speaker 2
Not so much back of house, but now in front of house operations for businesses of all shapes and sizes. So, you know, back of house, traditionally you would look at a production line or, you know, even back of house in a hospital. They’ve been using robots for a number of years to perform surgeries and complete different tasks in a hospital setting.

00;07;24;02 – 00;07;49;02
Speaker 2
Right. But now the shift is starting to move to where these robots are so sophisticated that they can actually work alongside employees and be a complement to their current job role. And they’re also customer facing because they’re they can be in the waiting rooms, they can be at the front of the restaurant, they can be in the lobby of a building vacuuming a floor.

00;07;49;04 – 00;08;18;27
Speaker 2
So you’re starting to see the progression in that industry. And, you know, I’ve learned a ton from Bob and, you know, his team at Clear Focus. And, we’ve implemented a number of those robots into some of our facilities for our customers who, it was a good solution for, again, always looking for ways to improve what we’re doing, ways to ultimately reduce the operating costs, be able to save our customers some money while delivering a better result.

00;08;19;00 – 00;08;22;23
Speaker 2
And it’s been a key part of what we’ve been doing for the last year and a half.

00;08;22;26 – 00;08;41;24
Speaker 1
So yeah. So I’ve got a couple questions on the robots. I want to, back up real quick. You know, I know you’ve been in business since 2011, and I think, was it four years ago that you bought another, cleaning company in the area?

00;08;41;24 – 00;08;53;02
Speaker 2
It was not the ideal time. It was during Covid. I want to say 2021, 2022. Right in that time frame.

00;08;53;09 – 00;09;03;16
Speaker 1
Yeah. Somewhere around there, it was close to when we around the time we started the podcast. Like it was a little bit before that, but yeah. Yeah. So in it it’s clean to sell.

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Speaker 2
So yeah. So we I was introduced to actually through, a customer of ours, to one of their clients and, you know, she was they had been in, the industry for a period of time and, was looking to do some different things, had a couple other, business ventures going on that she wanted to get involved with.

00;09;24;11 – 00;09;50;00
Speaker 2
And, you know, we met and, we actually ended up, taking over her staff and, and book a business and allowing her to be able to retire. And, you know, that was the first time that I had ever done something like that so completely outside of my wheelhouse. I kind of learned as as I went, but, you know, we were we were able to work together and do what was best for the customers and, and her employees.

00;09;50;00 – 00;10;14;18
Speaker 2
And, you know, it worked for everybody. So, worked out good. And, you know, we rebranded, the original company was clean. So we just added care cleaning Saratoga. You know, we brought that and added it to our brands. Seeing as we do service Saratoga, we do a lot of work, north of the Twin Bridges, from, you know, Clifton Park all the way up north to Warrensburg.

00;10;14;18 – 00;10;28;24
Speaker 2
So we are, you know, expanding in those areas. A lot of people think because we’re based out of Albany that, you know, that’s our our main market, but we cover the entire capital region.

00;10;28;27 – 00;10;52;16
Speaker 1
I know I want to excuse me, I want to do a entire separate episode with you talking about the acquisition itself. I think that that’s a really interesting topic. And for companies that are out there in the trades that are looking for expansion ideas, you know, obviously you can grow through new client acquisition, but you can also grow through buying other businesses and adding them to your portfolio.

00;10;52;16 – 00;11;15;26
Speaker 1
And and I want to spend some time on that. But obviously today we’re talking about robots. Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, I, I just wanted to, touch on that before we move back to robots. So when you integrated care clean of Saratoga into Daigle cleaning systems did that because you’re what? You’re 200 employees right now.

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Speaker 2
Yeah. Now we’re we’re right around that 200 mark. A little bit over.

00;11;19;25 – 00;11;25;21
Speaker 1
And did that. Like, did it did it give a big boost to the employee count or was it,

00;11;25;23 – 00;11;54;29
Speaker 2
Not not really. You know, with that one that that was you know, we ended up with probably ten, ten new staff members, some full time, some part time. You know, that, again, I mentioned earlier, I, I love watching people grow. And we actually have our, our director of operations now, Jamie. Jamie, who should be embarrassed that I’m mentioning her name here, but, we should really get her on the on the show as well at some point.

00;11;55;02 – 00;12;21;10
Speaker 2
She’s been an integral part of helping us grow over the years, and she’s grown a lot personally, you know, and has done the work to get to the next level. She started off and came on board with us from that, that deal where she was, technician and was cleaning post-construction houses. And, you know, I saw that she had some basic skills that could be developed.

00;12;21;10 – 00;12;45;12
Speaker 2
And now she’s our director of operations. You know, you fast forward four years and, you know, it’s incredible to watch the growth of people when they have the opportunity in front of them. You know, you know, as much as, as much as anybody. You can put the opportunities out in front of people all day long. But at the end of the day, it’s up to them to seize the opportunity, put the time in, put the effort in it.

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Speaker 2
Just like anything in life, if you want to be successful, you have to work hard at it. Put yourself in a position to be successful and do the work. And she’s done it. So, you know, again, from from that standpoint, it was, you know, very valuable, the employees that, that we did bring on. Yeah.

00;13;05;06 – 00;13;28;24
Speaker 1
Amazing. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks for letting me go off on that tangent. I just wanted to make sure I asked about curriculum. And again, I want to do a whole episode just on business acquisition and what that looks like. I’d love to hear about your experience going through that, especially for the first time. So you were mentioning the robots,

00;13;28;26 – 00;13;48;01
Speaker 1
And one where that really popped in my brain was you were talking about hospitals and waiting rooms and having robots being able to be like, around people, like in a waiting room or whatever. Yeah. Just to tell me how that works. Like you got people walking through a waiting room, you got this little robot scooting around, like how does that not, like, run into people?

00;13;48;01 – 00;13;50;00
Speaker 1
Or you can safely.

00;13;50;02 – 00;14;12;15
Speaker 2
We could do a whole, I could talk for days on this, but, so real, real high level. The robots are there. There’s a couple different things. They will do exactly what you tell them to do. So it’s not like you take it out of the box. The robot just goes and does its thing. It doesn’t work that way.

00;14;12;17 – 00;14;32;17
Speaker 2
So there’s there’s human interaction with the robot. And you know, what we’ve done on our end is created a position within our company where, you know, we have somebody who’s a robotics expert and we train them and and we give them the tools that they need. They have to do the work. Again, back to that. But they learn.

00;14;32;17 – 00;14;49;09
Speaker 2
They learn how the robots operate. They learn what needs to be done. But long story short, you take the robot out of the box and then you tell them what to do. And they are very literal. So they will do exactly what you tell them to do when you tell them to do it. And the memory on the robot.

00;14;49;09 – 00;15;19;13
Speaker 2
So picture, full computer, touchscreen, tablet, computer built into the robot. And that’s exactly where the technology is today. A few years ago, that wasn’t there. Now the interface on these is so complex and so well developed that you know, in our world, we create a full map of whatever building or facility is there. Terry, Hubbard from peak Environmental.

00;15;19;13 – 00;15;50;27
Speaker 2
He talked a little bit about it with the lawn care robots. They run off of a satellite. So, you know the satellite, it shoots up a signal to the satellite, generates a map of the area based on the cameras of the robot. Similar concept indoors. What you need to do is select your starting point. So you scan a QR code essentially wherever you want that point to be, and then you move the robot throughout the space and it generates a map with light, our technology.

00;15;50;29 – 00;16;22;18
Speaker 2
So it’ll shoot out, you know, lidar and sound waves and develop that map. Once you have a map developed, you then whatever area or task you want it to do, you create that, in our case, a cleaning area. Right. So you actually physically can draw that on the touchscreen and you create that box. You add any file zones, any specific things that need to be blocked off or areas that may or may not be needed to be done.

00;16;22;20 – 00;16;46;06
Speaker 2
And you create that cleaning area, you put a task to it. So the robots that we have, his name, scrubby, by the way, are four and one are four and one. I didn’t come up with the name. It is. It is trademarked, though, by the manufacturer. But, we, you know, you program them and you have the starting point.

00;16;46;06 – 00;17;04;25
Speaker 2
You create the map, you select a task. So the 4 in 1 robot, it sweeps damp mops and auto scrubs floors and, you know, vacuums, carpet, as well as scrubs, tile and grout. So it will actually perform four different functions. So once you have your area mapped out, then you select whatever function you want it to do in that area.

00;17;04;28 – 00;17;24;23
Speaker 2
It saves all of this on its own internal memory, but it can also be uploaded into the cloud, you know, via Wi-Fi. So the robots run off the Wi-Fi, indoors, or they can run off a mobile hotspot, whatever the setup is. And then you’re set. You can schedule a time for it to go out and do that task in that area.

00;17;24;26 – 00;17;52;26
Speaker 2
You can schedule multiple different tasks to be done in different areas. And really, you just you work with the robot to customize it up front to what you needed to do. And it will do exactly that. No more, no less. The functionality is incredible. So, you know, we we did a demo, for a, potential large customer in the health care space, last couple days.

00;17;52;26 – 00;18;16;02
Speaker 2
And they were like, yeah, we’re we’re a little concerned about salt in our entry ways. And we said, okay, it happened to be snowing. So there’s salt all over the sidewalk. So we said, okay, we’ll go out and we’ll manually vacuum it with with the robot and we picked up two trays of salt that was embedded in the carpet that a normal vacuum wouldn’t pick up.

00;18;16;02 – 00;18;57;07
Speaker 2
So the functionality of the machines is just as good as the technology. You know, Hepa filters, solid components. I mean, it’s they’re really, really well-built machines and it’s all there now. You know, a few years ago, it probably wasn’t all there, but it’s gotten to the point that the technology can save real labor and fill a lot of gaps where, you know, facilities might be lacking, you know, due to labor shortages or just due to other time constraints, certain areas not being able to be accessed, by a human at certain points, you put a robot there and guess what?

00;18;57;07 – 00;19;17;27
Speaker 2
That’s automated. So there’s a number of different things. And for us that we found, you know, not every facility is a good fit. You know, you have to have large open areas. It doesn’t completely replace the human. I don’t think it ever will. In our industry, they are developing a robot to clean bathrooms, but it’s not quite there yet.

00;19;17;29 – 00;19;18;22
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;19;18;25 – 00;19;37;11
Speaker 2
So again, there’s that human robot interaction and working it into the, into the program to say, okay, well, the robot is going to take care of all of the stuff that can be automated, but we still need a human to vacuum under the desks the wrong one of the chairs to take care of the high dusting, to take care of the spot glass cleaning.

00;19;37;11 – 00;20;11;01
Speaker 2
Right? There’s so many different things that happen within a facility that you plug it in, where you can automate what you can, and then the rest is supplemented by human labor. You know, they yeah, there’s robots for parking garages, for sweeping parking lots, warehouses. There’s one for secure delivery. There’s a wheeled out meat product, that’s out there that’ll do heavy lift and will carry carts and transport materials and supplies from one end of a warehouse or a health care facility to another without a human touching it.

00;20;11;03 – 00;20;20;02
Speaker 2
It knows where to go. It’s programed, it goes. And I mean, you know, some of these employees are walking hundreds of miles a week.

00;20;20;04 – 00;20;21;00
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah.

00;20;21;03 – 00;20;36;24
Speaker 2
Right. And that in the long run, it wears out. The employee could become a comp case. You know, there’s a number of things that, you know, the robots will save in the long run and allow the humans to do the work. That requires thinking. If that makes.

00;20;36;24 – 00;20;57;14
Speaker 1
Sense. No, it does it. You’re actually reminds me of the conversation with Terry that we had, with the robots where he was saying that rather than worrying about his team members doing a lot of the just the mow and go type work, it allowed his team members to focus on more detailed stuff, more like to your point, more thinking work, right?

00;20;57;14 – 00;21;22;27
Speaker 1
Like the the landscaping and, you know, mulching and whatever is going on. Right? So it it kind of sounds same thing for you. Is it? The scrubby is handling a lot of the, You know, mopping the floor. Right. So scrubbing, mopping the floor for you while your team gets to go, then focus on the detail work.

00;21;23;00 – 00;21;38;00
Speaker 1
And I would have to it’s going to increase their time of production, because now they don’t have to worry about doing that whole work. It’s happening at the same time. So now you’re less invasive with your clients because you’re there for a short amount, shorter amount of time. Yeah.

00;21;38;02 – 00;22;05;07
Speaker 2
So to go back to your question about when they run into people. Yeah. So all of the robots are built with cameras 360 degrees around, at least the ones that, you know, we, we work with. And I have yet to even see them come close to hitting anybody, their settings built in that will detect motion or an object 5 to 10ft in front of them.

00;22;05;09 – 00;22;32;07
Speaker 2
And they’ll actually you can choose for whether you want the robot to stop and divert to gradually divert and go around the obstacle, or just stop completely. You know, you have that choice as the operator. It’ll document in its memory that exact spot in the map where it had to divert, and it will go back and clean that spot when it’s clear.

00;22;32;10 – 00;22;56;12
Speaker 2
Really it will. Yeah. So what I that’s what I mean by the the functionality of these being so sophisticated at this point. And we’ve had at a different conference we did the health care conference a few few months ago. We had our ultraviolet disinfection robot, in the booth with Scruby, and we program scrubbing to have a cleaning area.

00;22;56;12 – 00;23;11;03
Speaker 2
And we just let Violet run around and, you know, move around. However, I wanted to. They never hit in a ten by ten by ten area. They came close, but they never, never would touch each other.

00;23;11;05 – 00;23;11;21
Speaker 1
Interesting.

00;23;11;27 – 00;23;13;14
Speaker 2
It was very impressive.

00;23;13;16 – 00;23;15;08
Speaker 1
It’s group.

00;23;15;10 – 00;23;44;14
Speaker 2
It’s it is. And and for us, you know I, I really like this the, the technology aspect of it and figuring out how we can deliver for our customers and move them into the future. That’s exciting to me. So if we we have the ability now to even facilities with their own EBS staff or their own janitorial programs, we can go in and take a look and help them figure that out.

00;23;44;17 – 00;24;06;25
Speaker 2
So now we have the ability to help not only the customers that our traditional services were a good fit for, but now we have the ability to help folks who had a different solution put in place, you know, and work with them to help institute that within their own program. So it’s really opened a lot of doors for us over the past year or so.

00;24;06;28 – 00;24;30;20
Speaker 1
Yeah, I know it. Well, it’s it’s I know you and I have had obviously had conversations about this stuff. And, you know, I thought one of the interesting things about this was and to, to exactly what you’re talking about is even if, well, I should back up a little bit previously before you in implementing this solution in your business, if you went to a company that already had their own in-house maintenance staff, they’re going to be like, yeah, we have our own.

00;24;30;25 – 00;24;48;13
Speaker 1
We do it in-house. We don’t need you. Right? And then now the door shut and there’s no no business relationship there. But this gives you the opportunity to say, hey, I’m not here to replace your staff. We’re going to augment what they’re doing to make them be able to focus on detail work while scrubbing Violet handle these things.

00;24;48;15 – 00;25;08;18
Speaker 1
And I just thought that was really cool. Or in the case where someone is having trouble staffing their maintenance department or their janitorial department, right. And you can go in and either support them with your humans and robots or just augment them with robots. And now that staffing problem is solved. So it’s it sounds really wow, man. Like what.

00;25;08;18 – 00;25;25;12
Speaker 2
A yeah. We can be a resource. And you know, again I, I love talking about this stuff. So if anybody does want to reach out and have a conversation see see if robots are right for your facility. I mean, happy to talk to anybody about it, but it really is a good way to solve a lot of problems quickly.

00;25;25;14 – 00;25;49;08
Speaker 2
Yeah, with intention. And yes, there’s a cost to the robots, the return and the value that we see. It’s paid back in six, seven months. So, you know, at the end of the day now you own an asset that is now producing and able to do, let’s say, you know, you have a staff member who goes and vacuums the carpet once a day.

00;25;49;11 – 00;26;03;23
Speaker 2
Well, now for a fixed cost, you can go and vacuum that carpet three times a day with zero additional cost to your bottom line. So it’s just a more efficient way to operate. And it’s exciting. It really is.

00;26;03;25 – 00;26;23;15
Speaker 1
Yeah, it I mean, I’m not even in janitorial, which sounds really cool. The question I had for you is let’s pretend, you know, again, waiting room. Someone spills an iced tea, like, can can you do, like, an on spot thing where you, like, trigger the robot to go out and clean that.

00;26;23;17 – 00;26;53;16
Speaker 2
So you, you could, the new version of Scrubbing the scrubbing Pro actually has spot cleaning detection built into its AI platform. Okay. So as it goes and moves throughout a facility, it can identify spots, spills, and and stains, target them and clean them. However, that area would need to be programed as part of that cleaning area that I mentioned before.

00;26;53;19 – 00;27;08;18
Speaker 2
So there’s two things you can either. Yes, have the robot take care of that when it gets to it. But if somebody spills an iced tea on the carpet, you know, most of our customers like, hey, we got something going on here, can you get somebody over to take care of it? And it’s like, yeah, we’re on it.

00;27;08;18 – 00;27;29;05
Speaker 2
So again, the traditional method, you know, the robot’s probably not ideal for that right now. You can use the robot manually as well to go over and use it as a machine to go machine, scrub that spot on your carpet, treat it and take care of it in the moment, but you still need the human behind it.

00;27;29;07 – 00;27;34;24
Speaker 1
They’ll need the human there. Okay, sure. All right. So as humans are safe, at least for a little while longer anyway.

00;27;34;26 – 00;28;13;22
Speaker 2
Yeah. Listen, I don’t again, there’s always going to be the critical thinking aspects of any job, right? Are always going to be or the, the areas that are difficult to access or are not commonplace, repetitive, mundane tasks. There’s always going to be the human element. So at least in our business, you know, I know it and I see it as an opportunity for people, you know, who are interested, you know, in robotics to really get involved and learn.

00;28;13;24 – 00;28;30;26
Speaker 2
You know, there’s a big learning curve. I mean, we’ve been learning these machines for a couple years now and are finally and there’s new things that we discover every time we go out and try to solve a problem with them. You know. Oh, I didn’t know could do that. Well, there you go. You know, and so there is a long learning curve.

00;28;30;26 – 00;28;47;09
Speaker 2
And anybody that is interested, I would encourage them again, do you want to reach out? I’m happy to have the conversations. But you know there is going to be a big opportunity, I think, over the next few years, for people who know how to operate these robots.

00;28;47;11 – 00;29;10;19
Speaker 1
I’m curious from, you know, for our listeners that maybe they have a janitorial company. Either they’re thinking about introducing this into the picture, but still trying to figure out, like where they would use it. I guess along those lines, I actually have a couple of questions. Number one, like. What kind of business? Are you working now?

00;29;10;19 – 00;29;20;27
Speaker 1
We said healthcare. So like hospitals and you know, your urgent care facility or whatever. What other kind of buildings are you putting these things in?

00;29;20;29 – 00;29;40;19
Speaker 2
Office buildings has been the latest. It has to be the right fit again, depending on the amount of open space and the ability to see a real labor savings or reallocation of labor, it’s important so, you know, you can’t just go through and stick a robot in any building and say, okay, we’re you know, we’re set, right?

00;29;40;19 – 00;30;01;19
Speaker 2
There’s a lot of strategic planning, there’s a lot of partnership with the customer to walk them through the process and show them and get them to believe in the technology and what’s there. So it’s not just, hey, here’s what we’re doing. It’s really there’s there’s got to be buy in, you know, on the part of the customer as well.

00;30;01;21 – 00;30;22;12
Speaker 2
And and they got to have confidence. Right. There’s a we we try to walk them through the process as simply as we can, show them the robots, show them other cases where, hey, we’ve been we’ve had a lot of success here with this, and we make it interactive for the customer. It’s not always the case. Not everybody has time for that.

00;30;22;12 – 00;30;44;03
Speaker 2
But, you know, I do recommend for anybody who is a facilities manager or in facilities management or operations management to start taking a look at some of this stuff, because it is going to become relevant very, very quickly. And the only way to make an informed decision is to understand how the technology works from a basic level.

00;30;44;05 – 00;30;55;10
Speaker 2
And just a look across your own horizon and see what’s there and where. That could maybe eliminate some of the sticking points for your team.

00;30;55;12 – 00;31;21;05
Speaker 1
For, for our listeners that maybe have a janitorial company or, or maybe they’re thinking about starting one or whatever. Do you think that let’s pretend I’ve got a small residential cleaning company. I want to get into the commercial space. And would implementing the robotic solution help them to be able to perform their. Or is there too much of a curve?

00;31;21;08 – 00;31;54;22
Speaker 2
You’re you’re talking about two different things. So the the residential cleaning side of the business which which we do, we have, you know, a lot of, residential clients and we, we go in, we’ll clean their houses monthly, bi weekly, weekly. Brittany, who is our, our local franchisee, she’s done a great job, building her business and working with our systems and processes and, you know, she’s done a really nice job, but two different animals.

00;31;54;25 – 00;32;25;08
Speaker 2
Two different types of businesses. One is, you know, more structure around a smaller environment, right, where there’s a lot of personal belongings. There’s, you know, a lot of furniture and, you know, dishes around. Right? So it’s a different setting and it’s a different skill. It’s a different frequency, you know. And then when you jump to the commercial side, it’s more wide open space, larger facilities.

00;32;25;10 – 00;32;45;02
Speaker 2
You know, for somebody who’s newer to that, it could be overwhelming to take a look at it. And you really have to, you know, understand it took years and years to learn and develop the processes that we have now for the commercial facilities, compared to the residential houses that we started with. And you know that we have service for years.

00;32;45;02 – 00;33;10;18
Speaker 2
So you have to you have to crawl before you can walk in other words, and you know, working with customers, there’s there might be different there might be different objectives that they need to accomplish. Right? A homeowner is probably going to have a different set of expectations or results that they want to see compared to, like a commercial facilities manager.

00;33;10;21 – 00;33;34;07
Speaker 2
So you’re dealing with two different types of individuals who are looking for two different types of things. And typically in a commercial building, there’s more than just emptying the garbage and cleaning like there’s security that, you know, you have to worry about making sure buildings are secured, lights are off. Carpet cleaning and maintenance becomes part of the regular service.

00;33;34;09 – 00;34;01;28
Speaker 2
Window cleaning, floor care. All of those things need to go into a commercial building on a regular basis in order to keep that building looking its best. You’re dealing with, you know, 100 people going in and out of a building, as opposed to 3 or 4 people in and out of a residential home. So the best advice I could give is, you know, you have to don’t be afraid to, to jump into it.

00;34;01;28 – 00;34;13;28
Speaker 2
But there is a learning curve and you have to start somewhere, and you have to be open to adapting your thought process to meet whatever the expectations are of the client.

00;34;14;01 – 00;34;25;10
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I and for let’s just say for again for our listeners and you know, is that something that you guys are helping people do that are obviously not direct competitors in your market?

00;34;25;12 – 00;34;48;09
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, listen, we we have our franchising system and we’ve been operating that for seven, eight years now. And so, you know, we currently have two franchise locations, one here locally in the Capital Region, and a one in Westchester County, downstate. You know, Tom’s down there and he’s mainly on the commercial side. He’s got in the kitchen exhausted cleaning.

00;34;48;09 – 00;35;14;00
Speaker 2
We’ve helped him grow into that segment as well. And, you know, they own and operate their their own entity. They’re they’re motivated, driven individuals who have goals that they want to accomplish. And, you know, we we gave them the guidelines and the processes to be able to make it happen. I made a lot of mistakes over the years, Mike, like I learned the hard way.

00;35;14;00 – 00;35;40;04
Speaker 2
And, you know, we try to take those learning lessons and mistakes and we turn them into processes. And that’s really what our franchise system is about, is taking the guesswork out of it. For people who want to get into the industry and the business and they still have to put in the work, but they can avoid a lot of the costly mistakes that typically happen with learning on your own.

00;35;40;06 – 00;35;41;13
Speaker 2
That makes sense.

00;35;41;15 – 00;35;58;27
Speaker 1
Yeah. No, it makes perfect sense. So what about, you know, from, let me ask from a customer standpoint. So, you know, you’re saying we talked about banks, health care, schools like colleges and things like that.

00;35;58;29 – 00;36;20;10
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I mean, really, the sky’s the limit. We’re seeing a lot of interest in on the robotic side, you know, from colleges, from schools. That’s ideal for them because they’re big, wide open spaces and they can automate a lot of the work there. But, yeah, we service all of those, and what are some, you know, limitation.

00;36;20;13 – 00;36;36;17
Speaker 1
If let’s just pretend I’m the facilities manager at one of those kinds of locations, like, what would be the signifying, symptoms or triggers that I might want to talk to you about? Robotics and automation.

00;36;36;19 – 00;37;02;11
Speaker 2
If you’re having trouble accomplishing what you need to do on a daily basis with the staff that you currently have, and there are tasks that can be automated. How much time do you have a technician vacuuming carpets on a weekly basis? How much time do you have them? Auto scrubbing and pushing a walk behind scrubber? All those things can be automated and, you know, relatively quickly.

00;37;02;13 – 00;37;22;29
Speaker 2
You know, you can have a fleet of robots to do the work of positions of staff members that you can’t fill that position or you’re having a hard time filling that position. Or you simply you don’t want to, a lot of folks and, you know, you know, this from, blue Collar. I forget what the stat was about.

00;37;22;29 – 00;37;28;21
Speaker 2
How many blue collar workers are going to be retiring over the next, you know.

00;37;28;24 – 00;37;30;24
Speaker 1
2.2 million every year.

00;37;30;27 – 00;37;57;23
Speaker 2
Right? So, okay, where’s where’s all that labor going to come from? And yes, obviously the the trade schools and everybody’s doing their part on that end. And you know we’re trying to help that cause by bringing awareness to it. There’s a lot of careers there, but there’s also a lot of roles and tasks that are done that can be done more efficiently and can be automated.

00;37;57;26 – 00;38;31;28
Speaker 2
Not all of them, right. But a good amount can be, with the right tools and the right robotics in place. So it’ll be interesting to see, you know, how that all works out. But it’s definitely a possible solution. You know, to anybody, who is looking at, you know, outsourcing their facility services, one thing that, you know, I think is important, the Iza who is the governing body of the cleaning industry, they have their their SIM standard, which is the cleaning industry management standard.

00;38;32;00 – 00;38;51;22
Speaker 2
And, you know, there’s there’s only a couple companies locally that have that certification. We’re one of them. And you really want to take a look at that and make sure that they have that stamp of approval from the I’ll say the reason being is they do a full audit every two years of anybody that has that certification.

00;38;51;24 – 00;39;15;29
Speaker 2
They come in and they audit everything that you do from an operational standpoint, all of your equipment, tools, accounting practice practices and processes, your inventory practices, your customer service, practices, they come in and look at everything and they evaluate and give you a grade. And it’s relatively it’s a it’s a long process to put all everything together.

00;39;16;02 – 00;39;41;06
Speaker 2
They send out an auditor. I think our last auditor came in from Chicago, and they spend a few days with you, and you have to take them around and show them what you are doing. You don’t meet the standard, you don’t get the certification. So, you know, again, to anybody out there who is looking to outsource that you know, take a look at that, because that is something that, you know, your your service provider should have.

00;39;41;08 – 00;39;55;11
Speaker 1
Yeah. I’m glad you brought it up because that was one of my next questions was the was to talk about that. How does that like how difficult is that for you to attain that certification.

00;39;55;13 – 00;40;16;01
Speaker 2
It’s it’s challenging. It’s a lot of time and effort. From our standpoint, we, we first went through it and received the certification six years ago. So it’s every two years you have to get re certified. April will be our third B certification.

00;40;16;04 – 00;40;16;17
Speaker 1
Okay.

00;40;16;17 – 00;40;44;23
Speaker 2
So it is a stringent process. But what was fun for us was that I got to get our managers involved and the leaders in the organization. So, you know, they got to come in and see how it went. And they got a good understanding for why why the processes are the way they are. And that really helped, I think, open their eyes to why we do things the way we do it.

00;40;44;25 – 00;41;04;26
Speaker 2
And, you know, it’s been very beneficial for them. They felt involved in the process. And we we passed, you know, it worked out well, but it was a lot of preparation, a lot of work up front, a lot of planning. Once we went through it the first time and we were able to show, hey, look, you know, these are our processes.

00;41;04;26 – 00;41;26;25
Speaker 2
It’s the way that we do things. And, you know, now that we’ve we’ve gotten all those ironed out and they’ve been in place now for a period of time, the renewals are much, much easier. So it’s very difficult upfront. And then once you go through the process, you learn a lot, fix what needs to be fixed and move forward.

00;41;26;25 – 00;41;38;20
Speaker 2
So you know the renewal. I actually look forward to it. Because again, I get I get to get people involved in the process and they have a, a good understanding of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.

00;41;38;23 – 00;41;42;22
Speaker 1
Amazing. The juice is worth the squeeze.

00;41;42;24 – 00;42;08;16
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the with the green building with our certification as well. So they look at your cleaning cams, your processes for laundering, laundering cloths for example. Minor detail. Right. But what kind of laundry detergent I using. What type of setup do you have? How do you separate the incoming cloths from the outgoing cloths? I think there’s, a million different things that they take a look at.

00;42;08;18 – 00;42;34;03
Speaker 2
Are your or your chems green. Okay. And, what about your more aggressive cans? Like a toilet bowl? Acid toilet bowl cleaner. And a certain percentage of your products can not comply, but it’s very, very minimal. So you have to be very selective with what products you’re going to use for which applications. And, you know, luckily the the vendors that we work with are great.

00;42;34;03 – 00;42;48;04
Speaker 2
And the products that we work with are fantastic. And it’s worked out really well for us. Everything from our carpet shampoo, our carpet cleaning process is great. Our floor process.

00;42;48;06 – 00;42;57;20
Speaker 1
What happens if you have something that isn’t, that doesn’t comply with their standards? Do they give you an opportunity to change it, or do you just fail the audit?

00;42;57;22 – 00;43;17;26
Speaker 2
So they do give you an opportunity, but it’s a limited window of time. So, you know, they may ding you on. Let’s say for example, they walk through the the warehouse and there’s a bottle that’s not label. Okay. Well that’s a major red flag. And we actually got dinged on that the last time, we went through the, the process.

00;43;17;26 – 00;43;31;17
Speaker 2
My, one of our team members had brought back some product and the label was ripped back, ripped off from the day in the field or whatever it was. And that auditor went back. He’s like, hey, what’s that? You know?

00;43;31;19 – 00;43;32;06
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;43;32;09 – 00;43;48;21
Speaker 2
That’s, you know, you apologize and say, okay, look, we’re we have a process for it. There’s just came back and they give you an opportunity to fix it. So, you know, they’re. Yes. They look at everything, they are fair with it. So it’s,

00;43;48;23 – 00;44;16;13
Speaker 1
That’s the point, though, right? Is that they look at everything exactly right. Like. Yeah. And it’s and if I remember, like you said, is it’s you’re they have a list of best practices for the industry based around certain parameters. Right. Green chemicals being safe. And they’re going to hold you to that standard. And without that no one’s holding any the cleaning company to any standard whatsoever.

00;44;16;13 – 00;44;27;17
Speaker 1
So, you know, like you could do any practice that may not be good for your customers, may not be good for employees, maybe not good for anyone. I mean, I think it sounds pretty amazing.

00;44;27;20 – 00;44;48;23
Speaker 2
It’s cool. And, you know, the nice part about the ISS is they’re very education heavy. We use some of their training and certification programs for our supervisors, for our technicians. So, you know, there are certain levels in our career roadmap that we have internally to where certain positions require certain certifications. So we tie the training back in to the position.

00;44;48;23 – 00;45;25;28
Speaker 2
So the GSA has been very good at helping with that. I actually went out to their conference this year in Las Vegas. And you know, again, they have all the latest and greatest. They do a big trade show, with a trade show for, well, latest and greatest products, but they also have an educational component. So for me, I spent one full day learning from, you know, folks that are doing this across the country, different software vendors and different, you know, cleaning product vendors who actually come up and talk about some of the different components and, you know, a lot of useful information that you can sit down and nerd out about.

00;45;26;00 – 00;45;52;27
Speaker 2
You know, with our industry and it’s eye opening, it was cool to see, but they really do have, you know, not only the, the best, intentions in mind for the contractors that are our members, but also the facility managers who are the end recipients of the service. There’s a lot of facility managers that attend that conference as well, because they understand the value of it.

00;45;53;00 – 00;46;09;07
Speaker 2
So the SSA essentially does a lot of homework for them. And that’s why I say, you know, if you’re a facilities manager or an office manager and you’re looking for a company to service your your office or your location, you should look at that certification pretty closely.

00;46;09;09 – 00;46;36;00
Speaker 1
Look at Dia. I know we got to jump over to the Patreon portal section of the episode here for a couple of minutes. But before we go, though, I just you know, I wanted to ask one final question here in the main episode is, you know, if you were going to tell our listeners and anybody, listening to the show right now, one thing about adding automation and robotics to your portfolio of services, what would it be?

00;46;36;03 – 00;47;03;15
Speaker 2
Don’t be afraid of the technology. It’s very easy to get caught up in. I don’t know where to start. I know I should do this, but I don’t know where to start. There’s people that can help you with that, you know, whether it’s us, whether it’s Bob at Clear Focus Robotics, there are people who are very well educated in the space and use that as a resource.

00;47;03;17 – 00;47;29;21
Speaker 2
Start having the conversations. If you identify, you know, the fact that you could automate some of the things and, you know, part of your program, whether it’s, you know, in any type of facility, a warehouse, health care facility, an office building, just have the conversation. It may not be a good fit. Now, or there might be a product that you didn’t think of that’s actually out there, and it already exists.

00;47;29;21 – 00;47;47;10
Speaker 2
You just don’t know about it. So the only way to, to learn is to to have the conversations and and reach out, happy to talk to to anybody, you know, in the robotics space. I really enjoy it. And, you know, I, I’d love to help anybody that I can.

00;47;47;12 – 00;48;07;15
Speaker 1
Awesome. D of course. Thank you for, humoring me and getting on the, talk about robotics. You know, I it’s. Yeah, of course, I also think it’s really interesting, and I, I just think it’s something that can help our listeners and, also educate people. You know, this is a crossover episode. So we’re doing this for blue collar and for buying local.

00;48;07;17 – 00;48;39;00
Speaker 1
So for our local people that, you know, are interested in and talking to Derek about how they might be able to implement those, robotics and automation systems into their maintenance and janitorial, you know, please reach out. Also, for folks that are listening to us on buying local, you know, welcome to the crossover. If this is, your first time being exposed to our other podcast, Blue Collar Startup, you know, we are here to empower people into starting businesses and joining the trades.

00;48;39;02 – 00;49;04;22
Speaker 1
And we also have our Patreon portal, which is where we’re going next. It’s a member only portal cost you a whopping $5 a month, but we fill it full of all sorts of other goodies, specifically around helping, people grow, scale, sell, market their businesses, in the trade. So if that’s interesting to you, please click the link in the bio and join up for our membership so you can hear what comes next.

00;49;04;28 – 00;49;13;26
Speaker 1
If you don’t choose to do that, that’s okay. We just love you for listening. Thanks for listening to Blue Collar Blue Collar Startup and you’ll hear from us next week.

00;49;13;26 – 00;49;42;03
Speaker 1
And that wraps up another episode of Blue Collar Startup. A big thank you to our sponsors, Five Towers Media, Daigle Cleaning Systems, Daigle Fire Solutions, The Michaels Group, Martin Electric, MLB construction, Pinocchio Construction People, and Catamount Consulting for making this podcast possible. And thank you for tuning in. If you learned something or felt inspired. Connect with us on our website at Blue Collar Startup Bio or email us at hardhat Dot CSU at gmail.com.

00;49;42;03 – 00;49;54;10
Speaker 1
We’d love to hear your questions and topic ideas. Help us spread the word by sharing the show and following us on social media for updates. Until next time, keep on building. Keep on dreaming and keep hustling like your future depends on it.

00;49;54;10 – 00;50;09;20
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

00;56;55;12 – 00;57;10;24
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

00;57;10;24 – 00;57;13;27
Speaker 1
robotics service. Fascinating.

00;57;13;29 – 00;57;22;10
Speaker 2
It’s cool stuff. It really is. I mean, restaurants, they have them, like hostess, like you walk in. Yeah. I’ll bring it to your seat.

00;57;22;13 – 00;57;54;19
Speaker 1
Feature. Yeah, yeah. The robots are cooking fries. They’re seating at tables. They’re mopping floors, I mean, and again, these, to be fair, I know, like, in the main episode. And anytime I’m in this conversation, I think even Bob kind of was a little reticent about the idea that it’s going to remove humans from the workforce. But realistically, the jobs that we’re talking about are the jobs that people have a really tough time filling, because not a lot of people want to do that work.

00;57;54;19 – 00;58;20;16
Speaker 1
Or if they do that work, it’s only temporary because they needed a job, and that was the only one they could get at the time. And then when they find something else, they move on. And so it’s I know that we’re all kind of tiptoeing around the idea that it’s going to remove humans from the equation. However, you know, there is a huge shortage on all that labor pool of and it’s just ones that not a lot of people want to do if they have other opportunities.

00;58;20;16 – 00;58;24;23
Speaker 1
So I it’s, you know, I think it’s huge. Yeah.

00;58;24;23 – 00;58;50;23
Speaker 2
And and to add to that, Mike, so there are UVC disinfection robot Violet, for example. This is a perfect example. So in the healthcare space, nurses, doctors, you know, facility staff at a hospital, they can be exposed at any given point in time to a number of different viruses. Right. We saw that during Covid. But there’s a number of other ones.

00;58;50;25 – 00;59;32;22
Speaker 2
And our UVC disinfection robot can autonomously go into a room so a staff member can literally push it into a room, push the button to go, select the level of cleaning that they want it to to disinfect at. And level one is Covid level all the way down to level four, which is kind of level. So the the AI algorithm and the chips and the cameras will actually look for and identify touchpoints, bed rails, doorknobs, light switches, and it will automatically map the room and move completely around the room to disinfect to whatever level you set it to with Uv-c light.

00;59;32;24 – 01;00;03;12
Speaker 2
Whatever it comes in, the contact with will be disinfected, right? Whatever surface. If you leave UVC light on a surface for too long, it can actually damage the surface. However, with the robot that’s on wheels that moves, it’s not staying concentrated on that surface for longer than it needs to, so it will gradually move along and around that room and stay on that surface for the length of time it needs to to kill the bacteria or viruses to the level that you set it to.

01;00;03;14 – 01;00;24;04
Speaker 2
It’s pretty wild stuff. So if you have a patient with an illness, you can push this thing in the room and have that go through and disinfect the room before you send your staff in. Yeah. And now you’re protecting your staff. You’re eliminating hospital associated disinfection or infections driving down costs. It’s just it’s mind blowing.

01;00;24;06 – 01;00;26;28
Speaker 1
Are you are you doing it when the patient is still in the room?

01;00;27;01 – 01;00;30;26
Speaker 2
No. So the Uv-c light can obviously harm you. Right.

01;00;31;00 – 01;00;32;14
Speaker 1
Okay. Yeah. That’s why nobody’s.

01;00;32;14 – 01;00;42;14
Speaker 2
In the room. And there’s sensors on these machines to where if it detects a human, a pet, any motion, it will stop and shut off. So you got to make sure that the room is empty when you use that.

01;00;42;14 – 01;00;49;25
Speaker 1
But. Got it? Got it. Okay. All right, all right. So I got a couple of questions here for the portal side of things for you.

01;00;49;28 – 01;00;52;22
Speaker 2
Yeah. No problem. I just I have a hard stop at three. So what do you do?

01;00;52;22 – 01;00;55;23
Speaker 1
Oh, okay. All right, well, I’ll ask two quick questions. I’m sorry.

01;00;56;00 – 01;00;57;12
Speaker 2
No problem.

01;00;57;14 – 01;01;17;10
Speaker 1
So first question is, I’m just curious of how you’re using this in your sales process. As far as are you using the I mean, probably all of the above, but I’d love to just hear real quick about how you’re using it to get a foot in the door with potential prospects, drive interest. Close deals.

01;01;17;12 – 01;01;43;28
Speaker 2
So as far as incorporating it into our sales process, we don’t there’s a lot of education still that that is happening. And just like everybody, all of our customers are learning about this. I’m learning about it. Our solution specialists are learning about it, but they know enough to see a space and say, that’s a good, this would be a great solution there.

01;01;44;00 – 01;02;05;26
Speaker 2
Right. So as far as building a sales process around it, there’s, there’s not that there’s not really a sales process to be built around it other than the fact of this is a good solution for here. Now how do we identify or bring that up and have that conversation with the customer. And what does that look like for us.

01;02;05;28 – 01;02;34;20
Speaker 2
What we can automate versus what we still need the human interaction to be. Right. So it’s really more of just identifying good cases for it and then being able to work hand in hand with the end user, because at the end of the day, it might be a perfect fit in their facility, but they don’t want a robot running around, at night or during the day for whatever reason.

01;02;34;25 – 01;03;07;00
Speaker 2
So it wouldn’t be a good fit. So it’s more of just having the conversation. And if it’s a if it’s a good solution, we have the conversation. If the client likes it and they agree, then we work together to make it happen. But you’d be surprised a lot of people are still hesitant about the technology. I can I can tell you from our experience that we’ve been able to take a look at facilities and be able to say, okay, we can automate this.

01;03;07;03 – 01;03;47;27
Speaker 2
Vacuum your carpets instead of once a week. We can do a detail vacuum every day, charge you the same, and everybody wins. So we look for ways to add value while bringing down overall costs. That part of it is what I’m working with our team on right now to really understand. So that way they can not only identify the uses but then work with the customer to say here’s how we would normally approach it, here’s what we could do with the machine to automate some of this, give you a better result.

01;03;48;00 – 01;03;51;06
Speaker 2
Essentially, they get better value more more money for their buck.

01;03;51;09 – 01;03;57;18
Speaker 1
Yeah. So maybe it’s the same amount of money, but they get more more cleaning out of it. Or maybe it’s the same amount of cleaning and less money, right?

01;03;57;18 – 01;04;06;21
Speaker 2
Like that’s right. And to us it makes no difference because the machine’s there. It’s there. Yeah. Whether we run it once a day or twice a day, it make a difference.

01;04;06;21 – 01;04;10;02
Speaker 1
Yeah. You’re not paying an hourly rate. You don’t have worker’s comp on it on the road.

01;04;10;05 – 01;04;33;28
Speaker 2
Yeah. And those are all real, you know, real costs. We haven’t been doing it long enough to see any, you know, see really the, the reduction and the comp cases or anything like that, you know, but, you know, let’s face it, a lot of our best employees are 50 plus years old, 55 plus. And, you know, pushing a vacuum every day for, you know, years.

01;04;33;28 – 01;04;48;27
Speaker 2
I mean, we have some employees that have been with us for 15 years. This alleviates the potential for them to slip, trip, fall. You know, have a back injury from picking up the vacuum. You know, any number of things.

01;04;49;00 – 01;04;51;14
Speaker 1
I tweaked my knee doing the dishes the other day. So there you.

01;04;51;14 – 01;04;51;22
Speaker 2
Go.

01;04;51;27 – 01;04;54;10
Speaker 1
Again. It was back again. And that’s right, you’re over 50.

01;04;54;10 – 01;04;56;00
Speaker 2
I forgot that was not.

01;04;56;02 – 01;05;16;21
Speaker 1
But I’m not over 50 yet. But I’m close. So close. All right, so last question. We’ll get you out here. The, as far as you know, obviously, when you’re running a business, especially a smaller business, you got two big concerns. How much revenue is coming in the door from sales. We just talked about that. The other key is how much labor costs I got going out the door.

01;05;16;23 – 01;05;28;00
Speaker 1
So from a business standpoint, can you just touch on, you know, the two minute answer of how it’s affecting your your labor costs on these jobs and on these projects?

01;05;28;02 – 01;05;29;15
Speaker 2
The robots, you mean?

01;05;29;17 – 01;05;31;29
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. How about.

01;05;32;01 – 01;05;56;26
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, it’s pretty simple. And and in our business, you know, the majority of our expenses are labor directly tied to labor. So, you know, the more we can automate, and reallocate labor, you know, for example, we had, one building where we put the robots in and we were able to reduce that staffing by 3 or 4 hours a day.

01;05;56;28 – 01;06;22;20
Speaker 2
And we didn’t need to reallocate that person in that building. So we were able to take a really good employee, remove them from that building and put them in another building. Right. So we’re able to amplify the good employees and what they’re doing, you know, and let them buy into it. And, and we I, as I mentioned before, created a robotics expert position.

01;06;22;20 – 01;06;41;07
Speaker 2
And I think that’s going to grow as as this evolves. But you know we’ve got a lot of staff. It’s curious. They’re excited. They like working alongside the robots. So complete opposite reaction of what everybody thinks. Yep we were I’ve done demos and you roll this you roll in the door and they’re like oh that’s here to take our jobs right?

01;06;41;09 – 01;07;09;16
Speaker 2
Yeah. Not not the case. It really isn’t because there’s such a gap to where know that your boss may take you and either make you that robotics expert if you want to learn, or they’re going to take you and put you somewhere else that your skills can be utilized. Yeah. So, you know, it’s, it’s interesting to see the integration and how things are changing.

01;07;09;18 – 01;07;14;08
Speaker 2
But again, only time will tell where everything lands.

01;07;14;10 – 01;07;19;09
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. The. I know you got to go. Thank you so much.

01;07;19;11 – 01;07;21;05
Speaker 2
Appreciate this. Yeah, I appreciate it. My.

01;07;21;08 – 01;07;27;07
Speaker 1
Absolutely. And thanks, everybody for listening and being members and our Patreon account. And you’ll hear from us next week.

01;07;27;07 – 01;07;55;14
Speaker 1
And that wraps up another episode of Blue Collar Startup. A big thank you to our sponsors, Five Towers Media, Daigle Cleaning Systems, Daigle Fire Solutions, The Michaels Group, Martin Electric, MLB construction, Pinocchio Construction People, and Catamount Consulting for making this podcast possible. And thank you for tuning in. If you learned something or felt inspired. Connect with us on our website at Blue Collar Startup Bio or email us at hardhat Dot CSU at gmail.com.

01;07;55;14 – 01;08;07;23
Speaker 1
We’d love to hear your questions and topic ideas. Help us spread the word by sharing the show and following us on social media for updates. Until next time, keep on building. Keep on dreaming and keep hustling like your future depends on it.

01;08;07;23 – 01;08;23;03
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.