What do you do when a referral goes south?
We're going to talk about that today.
Hi there, I'm Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner.
This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question
and I get to help you find an answer.
Now, I don't always have the answer, but I probably know somebody who does.
I am connected to the best and the brightest in the house cleaning industry.
So these are my colleagues and my peers, and my friends.
They are international coaches and trainers and consultants,
and we all partner together and we get together and spin ideas so that
we can bring you dynamic shift in your business.
So if you have a question, bring it to me.
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There's a little blue button down there in the corner, you click on that and a little
microphone appears, and you can leave us your questions.
Or, you can email me: Angela@AskAHouseCleaner.com
I'm here to help you find an answer.
All right, today's question came from a house cleaner that we're going to call May.
Now, May had a customer that she did not get along with, she didn't like the lady.
Nothing good came from it, so she decides she's going to quit the customer.
Then she turns to her friend … we'll call her friend Karen …
Karen to go clean this customer's house.
Well, Karen really needed the business and she said, "Sure, I'll do it.
I get along with everybody," and she went to clean the customer's house.
Now, Karen has been a house cleaner herself in her own right for dozens of years.
So May quit the job, gives the referral to Karen.
Karen, who can do no wrong, goes over to the customer's house, and she and the customer
get in this huge knockdown drag out fight.
They're throwing things at each other.
They're cussing at each other.
They're yelling and screaming, and it was over the job that was done
and the money that was paid.
The lady decides of her own volition she's going to change the price of the house cleaning
and she's only going to give half of what was requested, half of what she agreed to
on the walkthrough with Karen.
So Karen is like, "Oh, no, no, no.
that's not how I do my business."
She falls apart at the seams.
So now she goes back to May and she's telling May this story and May feels horrible.
She says, "What do I do when the referral that I gave Karen goes south?"
That's a fair question.
I share the story with you minus about 30 minutes of details, because it was a horrific story.
During the story, there were several things that went off in my mind.
One of them is either one of those women could probably file a lawsuit on the other woman
and win for torts.
It's where you touch a customer or you yell at them in a certain way or whatever.
They're damaged goods, right?
But now that it's a knockdown drag out fight, we got two hateful, angry women at each other,
and now they're blasting each other on social media and it has just escalated to be this
huge monstrosity of a deal that went bad.
All right, if you were May and you give someone a referral, once you give them the referral,
it is out of your hands.
Okay, so I know you feel bad.
I know your friend came back to you to share with you the bad news of what happened.
Whatever happened between Karen and the homeowner really is between Karen and the homeowner,
and if they want to file a lawsuit, between them and the judge.
It's their deal.
So as easy as it is to feel really bad and May was like, "Well, should I pay her the
extra money that the woman wouldn't give her?" and all these things.
No, that's not your responsibility.
You did your job by recommending a customer to your friend.
That's all you did.
You gave them a recommendation.
So your friend on the good recommendation got the job, and the customer was miserable
and mean and hateful and probably shouldn't have any house cleaner because apparently
she doesn't know how to treat people.
So I'm very sorry about that.
I don't know what it is, if Karen has been a house cleaner for dozens of years, and she
doesn't do anything wrong and she gets along well with everybody, I'm suggesting it may
be the customer's fault in this scenario, because Karen has a long history of customers
that have been with her for years.
They love her.
She's amazing.
So I don't know what happened because, again, I'm only hearing May's side of the story she
heard that was Karen's side of the story.
In all fairness, the customer probably has their side of the story as well.
So from where I'm sitting, it's a very convoluted story but the reality is this: if you give
someone a recommendation, you're done.
You're done with it.
Don't feel guilty.
Don't feel bad.
Don't offer to pay.
Don't offer to make amends.
Don't offer to come in and fix the problem.
You did your job.
You passed a recommendation on and that's all.
Your job ends there.
All right, now, one thing that I would like to mention is there are hateful customers.
I ran into a few myself.
I don't know why.
There are people that if you have happiness and misery, they choose misery.
I don't know why.
It doesn't serve them in any way, but that's their choice.
So when they choose misery and they choose to nitpick and fight with people and argue
and be belligerent, again, that doesn't serve them in any way, but that's their prerogative.
So if they keep trying to hire people, and those people don't keep working out because
they are the miserable one, you have to pick up on that.
As you're doing a walkthrough, if you pick up on clues, like, "Oh, yeah, I've been through
45 house cleaners."
Whoa, wait a second.
I promise you, I will not be 46th.
There is something about this house or this deal that is not a good deal.
You keep running off house cleaners.
So if you hear things like that, turn and walk away.
Just say, "We're not a good fit for each other."
Don't explain; don't get into any details; just walk away.
There is one particular woman whose house I did clean, and we tried every which way
to make it work, and we could not make it work between the two of us.
We tried and tried and tried and tried.
One day, I said, "I no longer can clean your house."
I had to let her go.
She said, "Can you recommend somebody to me?"
I said, "I cannot."
I did not want to put myself in the situation that may put herself in where you turn an
evil customer onto a great house cleaner that really deserves a great customer.
I don't know any house cleaner that I would want to put in that situation.
I just don't.
So I was trying to be polite because I didn't want to hurt the woman's feelings and I didn't
want a knockout fight.
But she said, "Well, don't you know somebody?"
"I do.
I know a lot of house cleaners, but none of them that I would have come to your house."
So she kept calling me and she kept harassing me, and she kept texting me.
Then she changed her phone number, like she used someone else's phone number and had them
call me to see if someone could come over and bid a quote.
But when we looked at the address, it was the address of the house that we were no longer
cleaning.
We have blacklisted this client.
It happens.
It happens.
If you're one of those customers that doesn't get along with anybody, you probably should
clean your own house.
Because now there's this big thing that's happening and it's on social media and it's
blown up out of proportion, and you have a house cleaner that is now telling, "I belong
to a group of 8,000 house cleaners.
We are business owners of house cleaners."
So now, this person is telling our group, "Hey, don't do business with this customer."
Then I have a consulting group that we're a member of about three and a half thousand
people.
They're telling this group, "Don't, whatever you do, hire or work with this customer."
So you can get blacklisted as well.
It's an ugly thing when that happens.
But if you're a customer that just doesn't get along with anybody, then you need to change
your game because the world is full of people who want to bring their services to you, and
they want to make your life easier.
But if you're nitpicking and you're just micromanaging them, and then you're arguing with them and
you're belittling them, all these things, that's not a good way to spend friends and
influence people at all.
You're not going to have anybody that's going to come help you out, and then as you get
old, you're going to die alone because even the caretakers won't take care of you.
If you are a miserable person, my suggestion is please stop whatever it is you're doing
because it's not serving you.
Then if you are a house cleaner and you have one of these customers, please don't recommend
any of your friends go over there.
If you have a miserable customer, please leave them alone in their misery.
It is their freedom of choice and if that's what they choose, please leave them alone.
Don't send any of your friends.
Don't send any of your enemies over there.
It happens.
In the course of my career, there are probably three or four people that I have walked away
from, never to look back.
They'll keep coming back, like, "Oh, you're the best house cleaner we ever had," and I'm
like, "Yeah, it's not mutual.
I didn't feel the same way."
Then they're like, "Well, please, can you give me another try?"
"Mm-mm (negative), no, uh-uh (negative).
Under no circumstances will that happen."
"Can you recommend somebody?"
"Mm-mm (negative), no, I sure can't.
Well, good luck with you."
Just be nice.
Be polite.
You don't even have to give reasons.
You don't have to say, "You are so miserable."
You don't have to fight with them and you don't have to throw things and yell and scream
and all these stuff.
It's not important.
The important thing is your safety.
Get out of the house.
Just say no, and then if you have to block their phone number, block them from social
media; if they engage with you on social media and they try to leave you bad ratings and
reviews, it's going to speak volumes about that person.
Their hate and their venom is going to come through.
There are going to be people that are like, "Who is this miserable person?"
Then don't even engage.
Don't feed the bully, as they say.
Don't give them fodder because everything you say and everything you do can be screenshotted
and it can be blasted all over social media again, that you are mean to them or that you
are defensive or whatever.
This is your character, and so it is just really important that you just focus on being
the best version of you.
If there's a hater that comes along, let them hate and just walk away and don't engage them.
Eventually, they will get bored of no drama, and they will go away, and then you just go
on with your merry life.
If you are the one that referred to this type of customer, please don't do that again.
It's not healthy for you.
It's not healthy for your friendship with Karen.
It's not a good deal.
All right, so that's what you do in the future.
You don't recommend miserable clients because no one wins.
All right, that's my two cents for today.
Until we meet again,
leave the world a cleaner place than when you found it.
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