Cleaning and Cocktails

🎙️✨ Welcome back to Cleaning & Cocktails — and buckle up for an insight-packed episode featuring three powerhouse leaders who’ve spent decades transforming the janitorial and building services industry from the inside out! Whether you’re scaling your cleaning company, trying to boost profitability, or simply hungry for leadership gold, this is the episode you’ve been waiting for. 🚀

👔 Jordan Tong, Owner of Elite BSC and CEO of Frantz Building Services, brings a dual perspective: coaching contractors nationwide through Elite Business Coaching while also leading a high-performance janitorial company. With a background in civil engineering and a deep understanding of what it takes to scale operations profitably, Jordan shares proven strategies that help BSCs gain freedom, financial control, and focus.

🏢 Brian Lewis, President of Frantz Building Services, is a Six Sigma Green Belt and CBSE with over 25 years of operational leadership under his belt. Known for his customer-first mindset and systems-driven approach, Brian dives into how he builds lasting relationships and fosters a culture of servant leadership across a rapidly growing organization.

💼 Jeff Carmon, Business Consultant at Elite BSC and former VP of Customer Experience at Frantz, is a seasoned executive who’s spent the last decade helping BSCs improve client retention, build high-performing teams, and win big contracts. With a passion for real-world solutions and a 36-year business career that spans finance, healthcare, and cleaning, Jeff delivers powerful takeaways for leaders at every stage.

🎬 In this episode, we break down:
* How to scale your janitorial business with coaching, systems, and clarity
* Lessons learned from leading multi-state cleaning operations
* Creating customer experiences that actually stick
* Real-world strategies to boost profitability and grow smarter

📈 Whether you’re a founder, operator, or team leader, you’ll walk away from this one ready to take action. There’s no fluff here — just raw insight, proven playbooks, and a heavy dose of leadership inspiration. 🏆

🔗 Connect with today’s featured guests:
* Jordan Tong: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-tong-43a22715 | https://www.elitebsc.com
* Brian Lewis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-lewis-541bb1117
* Jeff Carmon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-carmon-8b586041

✅ Don’t miss out on more real talk, real stories, and real strategies from leaders in the cleaning and facilities space – Subscribe now and stay plugged in!

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Creators and Guests

Host
Ricardo Regalado

What is Cleaning and Cocktails?

Welcome to Cleaning & Cocktails! I’m your host, Ricky Regalado CVO of Rozalado Services, Founder & CEO of Route.

In this show, we highlight the cleaning industry by sharing valuable stories, practical tips, and expert insights from cleaning business owners and professionals. Our mission is to elevate the cleaning sector and act as a guiding light for everyone involved.

So go ahead and grab your favorite Cocktail or Mocktail and enjoy the show as we dive into discussions that talk about the challenges and successes we all face. Our goal is to unite the community under a shared mission:
“We are building a **StrongerTogether Community**.”

Ricardo Regalado:

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Cleanin' and Cocktails. We are on-site live at France Building Solutions in Owensboro, Kentucky. You guys know how I love these on-site episodes. We got an action packed day ready for you.

Ricardo Regalado:

A full, full day of content, storytelling, and creating a narrative that I'm excited to share with you guys. I've known Jordan for many, many years, and I've been waiting to share his story and the company's story. So let's go take a look inside. Jordan, what's up?

Jordan Tong:

What's up man?

Ricardo Regalado:

How you doing? Good. Good. Thank you for having us.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah, man. Glad you guys are here.

Ricardo Regalado:

Hey. Excited about this. This has been a long time coming.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Right? I think we've been talking I asked you that the other day is

Jordan Tong:

At least for a couple years.

Ricardo Regalado:

Couple years we've been talking about this. We we started talking 02/2017.

Jordan Tong:

Okay.

Ricardo Regalado:

Right? You

Jordan Tong:

I think you you It probably wasn't long ago. Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

So we've been in the industry for a while. I know we look young. Right? But you guys, this is Jordan Tom with France Building Solutions as well as LSB SC. We are in Owensboro, Kentucky, like I said.

Ricardo Regalado:

And Jordan, obviously we're gonna walk and talk. He's gonna show you guys the office space. It's a beautiful space. As we're walking, point out some stuff for us, Jordan, but we always wanna, from here to where we're walking, start off with just the origins and the story of like, what does France mean to you and France mean to to this industry?

Jordan Tong:

So so I'm a third generation owner, in France. And my my mom's maiden name was France, and so her parents started the company. Okay. And my granddad grew up poverty here and from in a really bad family. And his dad was an alcoholic, he was, like, told you'll never amount to anything.

Jordan Tong:

And he lied about his age and joined the army, And then ended up meeting my grandmother who was in Germany. And they ended up getting married and moving back here, and he was a union worker for a while and just was tired of the grind

Ricardo Regalado:

The grind.

Jordan Tong:

And not having work and then having work and being gone. And so they were just trying to figure out what do we do. And he was like, I've been in the military. I know systems. I know how to do things, and I like things to be neat and orderly.

Jordan Tong:

Literally, that was and so that's that's sorta how, like, it was birthed. And they sold and they cleaned Just like a lot of people in the industry.

Ricardo Regalado:

And he signed up for more grind.

Jordan Tong:

That's right. He signed up for grind. And it was a grinding. He goes

Ricardo Regalado:

It is on grind.

Jordan Tong:

I wish, you know, he passed away in '2 I think it was '99 or February. Mhmm. And he never got to see where things where he wanted things to go.

Ricardo Regalado:

And he did

Jordan Tong:

grind for a long time. Yeah. And never really got to see the fruit of that labor.

Ricardo Regalado:

But I know you showed me some photos earlier, so they'll we'll pay there'll be

Jordan Tong:

some hot we're gonna we're gonna

Ricardo Regalado:

be able to see some photos of it and pay some homage to that. But hey, real quick. To us about this.

Jordan Tong:

Everyone always loves the floors here. And they are really unique. And so these floors were built or were crafted by like Amish people in Kentucky. And so there's they disassemble these old barns that have been built for, you know, hundred plus years that are falling apart, and then they redo the wood and mill it, and then they sell it as flooring. So this is original Kentucky barn wood flooring here.

Jordan Tong:

It's like saw marks and insect holes and everything else to go with it.

Ricardo Regalado:

So you guys are gonna see Kentucky is gonna be infused in a lot of things that we talk Yeah. Here. Right?

Jordan Tong:

We're proud of it. We've got stuff from the city here. Yeah. There's a local artist did like a little rendition of our bridge that's right beside our building and using newspaper clippings from the city as sort of the backdrop for the painting.

Ricardo Regalado:

And Jordan, the one thing I liked and and you guys, this is why we love coming on-site, Jordan, is because what we're about to walk into and see, like, do you know. Mean the stigma or the outlook on the cleaning industry is always like you know it's low to middle wage, it's a grind. But just see how like this is a beautiful space, you're gonna get to show it to us, but like this is what potential looks like and what you could do in this space. Right?

Jordan Tong:

Like It didn't always look like this.

Ricardo Regalado:

It didn't always look like this. Right? Like, you gotta get here, man. So Yeah.

Jordan Tong:

Let's follow you. Absolutely.

Ricardo Regalado:

Show us around.

Jordan Tong:

Yep. So on our First Floor here, we do this is our home office. So we got office we have operations offices. Yeah. Yes.

Jordan Tong:

This is our home office, and we have operations offices. Another one here in this city that's actually just across the street. A few in Indiana and one in Tennessee or a couple in Kentucky, a couple in Indiana, then have an operation in Tennessee.

Ricardo Regalado:

And those are branch locations?

Jordan Tong:

Those are branch locations where the operations operate out of. And this is all the corporate administrative staff that works in this particular building here.

Ricardo Regalado:

Okay. And this is two floors. Right?

Jordan Tong:

Yep. And my mom still works here. She's not here today. She's watching some grandkids, but she's still our finance person.

Ricardo Regalado:

So we can get her out of FaceTime. She could FaceTime.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah. We could. Yeah. That's her office right there. So she would have loved to have been here, but she couldn't today.

Jordan Tong:

So this is Pam here.

Ricardo Regalado:

Pam, nice to meet you. Thank you for letting us in. This

Jordan Tong:

is my second mom, Lisa.

Ricardo Regalado:

Lisa, second mom.

Jordan Tong:

How are

Ricardo Regalado:

you doing?

Jordan Tong:

Nice to meet you, guys. So Lisa has been with us. Lisa, how long have you been here? It will be fifteen years. Fifteen years.

Jordan Tong:

Okay. So Lisa is my mom's right hand man, essentially. And yeah. We love Lisa so much. She's awesome.

Ricardo Regalado:

And you guys already see, we're three for three on branding. Everybody's wearing brand. This is a big thing here. Big thing.

Jordan Tong:

We were coached well. So here's our conference room. This this table is actually something my dad built. And we had leftover of this barn wood. And so we built

Ricardo Regalado:

Oh, so they and then they finished it.

Jordan Tong:

On conference table and This finished is nice.

Ricardo Regalado:

This is like a Tony Tony project. Right, Bill?

Jordan Tong:

Yes. And actually, my dad so interestingly, my dad he married my mom and my dad's family. Kind of a rougher background too, but was a blue collar, was a construction worker. So he grew up, my granddad had a little small construction business and they built houses and remodeled and stuff. And it wasn't ever a whole lot of anything, but that was his background.

Jordan Tong:

And so he started out working construction making six, seven bucks an hour. And and yeah. And then he ended up joining the business. He got tired of working for his dad.

Ricardo Regalado:

So that's it. It's like everybody reaches a breaking point.

Jordan Tong:

I think

Ricardo Regalado:

I told you about mine, my breaking point.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. So here's a a little bit of photo.

Ricardo Regalado:

Let's take a look at this, guys.

Jordan Tong:

So an old photo album. I don't know if the lighting is

Ricardo Regalado:

good enough here, but

Jordan Tong:

so this is my grandparents that started the business, Bernard and Gefriede, France. So Gefriede is a German name. And they would start they started the business in 1985. So this is an old photo of them. This is actually a picture of them.

Jordan Tong:

So Host was like an old carpet cleaning thing, and so they went to this training. And they actually were members of, like, our industry association when they were it's just the two of them. So they joined BSCI when it was just

Ricardo Regalado:

the two of them. Wow.

Jordan Tong:

And they went there and they saw they went to the convention and were just blown away. Yeah. And they're like, look at all these businesses. Wow. Maybe one day.

Jordan Tong:

And my grandmother still says she remembers going around and people were always like, hey, how many employees do you guys have? And they would be like,

Ricardo Regalado:

you're looking at them. Two. You're looking at them. But dude, so Jordan, that tells you, even to this day, that's a perfect example of you're never too small.

Jordan Tong:

Yep.

Ricardo Regalado:

Or too big to be going to these

Jordan Tong:

Oh, absolutely. It was actually and I always credit the BSCI for being just this entity there that built that gave inspiration to my grandparents who

Ricardo Regalado:

who needed a vision that they

Jordan Tong:

didn't have. Yeah. And then here's another little picture of this is when we moved into one of our maybe our first nicer office. We're still a real small company, probably less than a million dollars in revenue in this picture. And that's a picture of my dad who started running the business, like, in the late nineties, and a couple of our that's George and Robert.

Jordan Tong:

George has passed away, I think. And and Robert, I think maybe works for another cleaning company now. But he was with us for, like, twenty five years. Wow. Awesome guy.

Jordan Tong:

And a lot of history there.

Ricardo Regalado:

And as a kid,

Jordan Tong:

I worked for these guys. I'd go out and do floors with George and I'd work for Robert.

Ricardo Regalado:

Well, was gonna ask you is, yeah, at what age was that when you were first introduced?

Jordan Tong:

Yeah. Probably when I was like 13.

Ricardo Regalado:

13.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

No loss.

Jordan Tong:

Like when I got to high school.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah. I'd

Jordan Tong:

sit out and yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

What would so when you did so floors? Yes. So I would

Jordan Tong:

do floors. Yeah. And then I I would help on some cleaning projects. And and then when I got to where I could drive, like, started cleaning some bank branches and

Ricardo Regalado:

Perfect summertime job.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah. Summertime stuff. Yeah. Like, some of our manufacturing plants we do. One summer, I had to pull weeds all summer at a manufacturing plant.

Jordan Tong:

I had to, maintain their lawn care and stuff. And, I hated it. I hate it. I'm like, I ain't doing this. I'm not back here.

Jordan Tong:

And I did. So

Ricardo Regalado:

Nice. Nice. Alright. Keep us going. Keep us going.

Jordan Tong:

Yep. So let's let's take let's go on up to the Second Floor. Okay. And meet some of the ops people here.

Ricardo Regalado:

So is that where more of the people are? Upstairs?

Jordan Tong:

Yep.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah.

Jordan Tong:

This building's an old building too. Probably think it was built as a plaque on the outside. Think it was built in the eighteen eighties maybe.

Ricardo Regalado:

Does this do you guys own the building? Or at

Jordan Tong:

We do.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yep. We do. The other buildings too? Is that a part of the plan?

Jordan Tong:

A couple of them. Yeah. It is actually part of the plan. Brian it'd be something to talk to

Ricardo Regalado:

To Brian? To Brian about. Cool.

Jordan Tong:

We've looked for ways or thinking of ways to have we call them equity mechanisms, like where people, other people who are leaders in the company that probably can't be an owner of France, but provide other ownership opportunities and other things.

Ricardo Regalado:

By way of

Jordan Tong:

Yeah. Real estate. Real estate is one that we're thinking about how what that might look like.

Ricardo Regalado:

No. That's smart. Yeah. Well, especially because it's such a family, like, legacy business. It's hard, right, to have that conversation.

Jordan Tong:

This is my temporary office right now because we had a bunch of hail damage and my office flooded up front.

Ricardo Regalado:

So here a look. It's okay to go back. You know, it's okay to come back come back come back to the roots.

Jordan Tong:

So many young people come in here and get boxes over top of my head and

Ricardo Regalado:

So like you?

Jordan Tong:

This is where the extra drinks are stored.

Ricardo Regalado:

This is a store again. Pretty much a store.

Jordan Tong:

I've actually grown fond of this office. It's small and That's hilarious. Nobody hugs me. I don't mean to bombard y'all, but this is Ricky and crew from Chicago. This so these are are so HR, there's four on this team.

Jordan Tong:

I've already forgot your name because you just started here, like Carrie. Okay. Okay. Carrie, and then this is Luis.

Ricardo Regalado:

Nice to meet you, guys.

Jordan Tong:

Originally from Cuba. Right? Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Cuba? Cuba? Cuba? Cuba? And the left.

Ricardo Regalado:

Okay. Gonna talk to him about that.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah. Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Get him a couple of questions on that.

Jordan Tong:

Desmond's our head of our operations there.

Ricardo Regalado:

Okay.

Jordan Tong:

This is Bobby g.

Ricardo Regalado:

Bobby g, how are doing? Nice to meet you. Sales. Zanya. Zanya, how are you doing?

Ricardo Regalado:

Nice to meet you.

Jordan Tong:

Purdue graduate. Ain't that right? Okay. In engineering, just loves the cleaning industry so much. Just thought she would You

Ricardo Regalado:

can't leave. No. You can't leave.

Jordan Tong:

So her and I are two engineers in the building that don't that don't practice. Here's the big boss's office right there. Brian.

Ricardo Regalado:

Question. How did he so he's almost out. Right? So it's the last office, and then just there's nowhere else to go. And then he's out

Jordan Tong:

of He's the almost pushed me He's almost pushed out of

Ricardo Regalado:

the office.

Brian Lewis:

Next step.

Ricardo Regalado:

Out the door. Out the door.

Jordan Tong:

And then this is Ben. So Ben is runs Clean Train U.

Ricardo Regalado:

Man, how you doing? Nice to meet you. Ricky. Good see you. Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Good to see you. We'll probably chat with Ben.

Jordan Tong:

Let's talk with him. Probably chat with Ben at some point.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yep. Cool.

Jordan Tong:

Now this is where my office normally is. But

Ricardo Regalado:

Oh, so what happened? A bunch

Jordan Tong:

of water damage. We had a hailstorm that came in, and so I had a bunch of water damage. So I have all my stuff on my shelves. I collect old books and they all got stuff got wet and there's my whiskey barrel.

Ricardo Regalado:

Damn. Come on.

Jordan Tong:

It is not full. There's nothing in it. So we could go up one more floor Okay. And then I'll show you where the elite crew works. Okay.

Ricardo Regalado:

So this is three or four floors then?

Jordan Tong:

Three. And then the basement. Okay. Which has got a film studio and some workout equipment.

Ricardo Regalado:

Okay.

Jordan Tong:

Which I used to work out here. Like I built you know, I thought about sending you all something last night. I thought it'd be good for a video. You and I could do a workout session. Oh.

Jordan Tong:

Could've got a little competition.

Ricardo Regalado:

Let's go, man. Push ups. Pull ups. So Oh, this is nice though. Hold on.

Ricardo Regalado:

Okay. Well, this got this got damaged too or

Jordan Tong:

Yeah. This got damaged too. Yeah. So we finished this out when we bought the building. My wife got tired of all my books at home and said you have to

Ricardo Regalado:

Like take them somewhere.

Jordan Tong:

You have to take them somewhere. So So

Ricardo Regalado:

tell me I mean, talk to us a little bit about the books.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah, man. So I just I love to read books for me, like, tell a story a little bit about what's happened in my life and my mental thinking and so different struggles. Like, you're gonna see stuff that's like theology and Christian living books and philosophy and politics and history and wrestling with OCD and anxiety and Do Do you think that You name it. Like, stuff if I'm this is just the way I'm wired. Like, if I'm struggling, wrestling with an issue, a concept, whatever I'm trying to figure out or maybe I'm getting beat up by something.

Ricardo Regalado:

Mhmm. You've been going through I've book read as much

Jordan Tong:

as I can to

Ricardo Regalado:

Do you

Jordan Tong:

I mean understand a topic and

Ricardo Regalado:

Does that uncover new ways of thinking for you? Right? Because I've noticed that myself. When I read a book by reading it, I'm not gonna grasp the whole book, but there's certain things that I'll grasp.

Jordan Tong:

It does, I'm

Ricardo Regalado:

like, wow.

Jordan Tong:

You start looking things more and more categories and they always say I think it was Dave Ramsey I first heard say this, that leaders are readers and successful people read. That initially planted the bug in me but then you know, everything that I want to know or learn about can be found in a book. So Yeah. Now my buy to read ratio is probably four to one or five to one. Meaning for every five books I buy, I probably read one of them.

Jordan Tong:

But How

Ricardo Regalado:

about you? I think Julia makes me

Jordan Tong:

wait for that.

Ricardo Regalado:

I'll order books on Amazon all day and he's like, are you gonna read all those?

Jordan Tong:

I do. Yeah. Yeah. So this is a space that we host company meetings in.

Ricardo Regalado:

This is where you

Jordan Tong:

guys do the workshops. We've got some of our workshops here. Yeah. We probably won't do them here anymore.

Ricardo Regalado:

Too many people or is it too tight?

Jordan Tong:

Yeah. It's difficult. It's tight. Yeah. You can only fit about 35 people in here comfortably.

Ricardo Regalado:

Okay.

Jordan Tong:

But, yeah, this is a cool space. My dad and a couple other guys, we had a little construction company for a while.

Ricardo Regalado:

Okay.

Jordan Tong:

And and so because that's my dad's background and that was I'm an engineer, civil engineer, and worked in construction before I moved back home.

Ricardo Regalado:

Okay.

Jordan Tong:

And yeah. So we we

Ricardo Regalado:

did all stuff building too. Mean, I I remember I didn't I didn't realize the roof was like that when we came in.

Jordan Tong:

And then here's the elite offices. I also work up here some.

Ricardo Regalado:

It's nice. You guys are like multiple different Yeah. The

Jordan Tong:

angles and spaces. Yep. Yep.

Ricardo Regalado:

Hello. How you doing?

Jordan Tong:

This is Bethan. Probably see her name

Ricardo Regalado:

a lot. See your name a lot. How are you doing? Ricky. Nice to see you.

Ricardo Regalado:

Nice to meet you in person.

Jordan Tong:

So Bethan's sort of the what's your title?

Ricardo Regalado:

Jack. She runs everything. Jack, what so you and Bill, they should get to know each other.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

People ask Bill, Bill, what what is your exact role? Today? Or what what what

Jordan Tong:

You were just saying, were talking to your daughter. Her son or whatever, trying to explain what mom does. And he was like, I honestly don't know. And you were like, I have an equally hard time trying to explain that that to you. Yeah.

Jordan Tong:

Same. So there's your bottle of bourbon right there.

Ricardo Regalado:

Where we at?

Jordan Tong:

A bottle for you guys. Nice. Nice. So oh, Jeff works up here when he's in town. So Jeff so

Ricardo Regalado:

he lives in town? Okay. Yeah. So how often do you come out here then? About once a month.

Ricardo Regalado:

Okay.

Jordan Tong:

And he's here for four days or so once a month. Yeah. Okay.

Ricardo Regalado:

So actually, it's a topic to discuss since we're here. And Jeff, you could jump in on it too is when I was on the website, was, know, doing my research on you. I know you guys personally, but I like the further research and the word service came up a lot. Servant leader service. Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

And you know, it's used a lot in general with a service based company. But I think for you guys, it's more personal. Right. So it's like, what does it mean to define who you guys are? You're defined by service.

Ricardo Regalado:

And this is an example

Jordan Tong:

Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

For me to share with everybody, not we're gonna go into Elite BSC later on in the episode, but like, that's a way of service. You guys are serving back to the community of our industry. So like what does that mean to you guys as far as service?

Jordan Tong:

Yeah. I mean that's for in terms of what Elite does. Like that is what we do. We were just talking yesterday about mission. Like what our vision is for Elite.

Jordan Tong:

And we haven't been able to capture that yet in the words like we want to. But it's essentially just that we wanna help people in the industry. Like, it's it's fun. It's fun. Like, I mean, even these folks up here, like, are helping like, they're working on marketing stuff for other clients to because we wanna see small businesses find a measure of success.

Jordan Tong:

You know? Because they're all they're families, and they're people who risk stuff to get something started, and they have dreams and ambitions, and they want stuff.

Ricardo Regalado:

And they're

Jordan Tong:

it is fun to help them in that.

Ricardo Regalado:

You're serving them by helping them. Yeah. Right? That's right.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah. And there's a whole this is it's kinda cheesy now thinking about it, but Zig Ziglar was like an old motivational guy from eras gone by. And he but he said this quote, and there's a lot of truth to this. Said, you can have everything in life you want as long as you help enough other people get what they want.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah.

Jordan Tong:

And there's a really is a lot of truth to that. There's lot of to comes on the heels of doing really good stuff for other people.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah. And not asking for it. Yeah. Like you just you're good to be good. Or you do good to do good.

Ricardo Regalado:

Right?

Jeff Carmon:

That's right. That's right.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah. So another And businesses do that. Like they provide good products and services that people need. Like they serve people. I mean,

Ricardo Regalado:

we're in the service business, but you guys are also now serving the service business. Because like you just said, marketing, you know, website training, education, like these are things that when you're 1, maybe even 2,000,000 in revenue, especially under you guys, right? Like, they don't have the bandwidth.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

They don't have the firepower. Like, they don't have the funds to necessarily hire their own people. So it's people like you guys that they get to leverage, and you're seeing it through. I always I'm not joking, talk about the mastermind group all the time. And it's like, I was, I thought I was like one of the first five.

Ricardo Regalado:

He says it's the first 20. Okay, I was close.

Jordan Tong:

Close, yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

But it's like, people sometimes, you know, I'll have my brother took over as a CEO, and he was our CFO guy. There was a time in 02/2122, he's looking at the books. Right? And he's like, oh, my so Rick, what's this $1.30, one 40, one 50 a month right here? My god.

Ricardo Regalado:

It's a mastermind group that I'm a part of. Like, do you do? Like, what what is it? What does it do, though? I'm like, no.

Ricardo Regalado:

It's just it's when I need help, I go there, and I ask the right question. I trust that I trust that group. Okay. But, like, when's the last time you I'm asking me questions. I'm like, are you drilling me right now?

Ricardo Regalado:

He's like, no. Just wanna know. Like, every line item matters. And I'm like, okay. Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

I'm like, well, that is the one question. And I brought it back to you guys as specific, actually. I just thought about it. There was a question I had about a financial piece that he's our finance guy that I would I had shown him what we did. I'm like, do you remember when I showed you that when you had a question, I went back to industry folks to ask?

Ricardo Regalado:

Oh, okay, cool. I'll skip that one. Alright, cool. But it's do it like I pay to be a part of that group, just in case I have a question. I'm asking them, not Facebook.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah. Right? We won't get into all that.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah. That sounds good. This is the end of the the building tour, so we can grab Brian and head by down there.

Ricardo Regalado:

Let's go. Yeah. But I have one thing. One more thing for you, Jordan. Alright.

Ricardo Regalado:

I'm ready. Is so what is one lesson of humility? Because now you have stepped out of the day to day of France. Yep. But you've been in France, and it's been a part of your life But for a like, what is one moment of time where you were humble, and it really taught you a little bit more about yourself in a leadership role?

Jordan Tong:

Well, probably one of the more humbling things that I've had to deal with and and still wrestle with a little bit is there began to be a point where I was not the best person to lead the organization. I mean, as as we interact with Brian, like, you'll see, like, he's very competent in that role. And he's just he's just quite frankly just better equipped to Lee. Like, he's wired that way and his skills and strengths and desires there. And it it is a little bit because there's you get sort of this, like, Messiah complex as a business owner.

Jordan Tong:

Like, this whole thing depends on me and it rides on my shoulders. Mhmm. And at some point, realize, hey, that's actually and a good a good leader actually should go there. Like, hey, this is not really all on me. And and to figure out, hey, these guys are actually they're smarter than me in this and better than me.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah. And so that it helps I had I've had to think and wrestle through. It's part of where Elite came from. It's like, where do I invest my time and money that still serves the mission of the organization, what's best for France, but also, you know, where can I turn my time and attention and skills to? And so it's been my dad had to wrestle with the same thing because as he passed the company off to me, I think he struggled.

Jordan Tong:

Even emotionally, like, identity for men in particular, think is wrapped up in what you do. Yeah. It's like when guys get in a conversation, like one of our first things is, hey, so what do

Ricardo Regalado:

do? Right.

Jordan Tong:

So when that sort of goes away, like you sort and you're having to shift what that is, it's it's

Ricardo Regalado:

an easy I check for would tell you it's it's remarkable because it tells you who you are as a person. Mhmm. Right? Because like I relate to that just because I'm in the same boat with some of the decisions we made as an organization. Like, dude, like, you can't tell that it affected you though.

Ricardo Regalado:

Like, for you, like, you jumped right in. From what I've seen, from the outside looking at when we're at events or things

Jordan Tong:

like When I'm wired like you, I'm sure they tell you Ricky, just stay out of it.

Ricardo Regalado:

Stay stay out of You're only going to

Jordan Tong:

mess things up.

Ricardo Regalado:

What do we build my guardrails? He's Rick, you don't need to know half the stuff. We got it. We got it.

Jordan Tong:

She tells me that all the time. We got it.

Ricardo Regalado:

Cool. Alright, man. Well, I know there's a lot more we're gonna get into.

Jordan Tong:

Yep. Let's grab Ron

Ricardo Regalado:

and

Jordan Tong:

then we can Let's go. Head down to the

Ricardo Regalado:

Jeff, you ready? Alright, guys. We're back here cleaning the cocktails, a special segment in the conference room here at France Building And I'm excited because I know these guys for a while now, especially Jordan. We've we've gotten to know each other for a long time. Brian and Jeff, I've met you guys through the years.

Ricardo Regalado:

So we got Brian Lewis, who's the president of France. Jordan wears many hats, but owner of France Building Services. And Elite BSC, Clean Train U. We'll get to learn more about all those brands, but we're gonna talk specifically about France here right now, guys. And we have Jeff Carmen, who his favorite role was in the operations department of France.

Ricardo Regalado:

Loved it so much. Yeah. Yeah. Director of sales now over at Elite BSC handling membership. All things Elite BSC.

Ricardo Regalado:

Right? I see your name on everything. Yeah. So we're here in in in this segment, you guys. We really wanna dig into leading with the heart.

Ricardo Regalado:

Right? And really still digging into, we heard a little bit about the origins, Jordan, early on. But we're gonna talk about now the foundation of the company and where it is today, where it came from, but more importantly, it's going. And this question is for everybody. And Brian, sit with you to the left here.

Ricardo Regalado:

But leading with heart, you know, it's easy to say it. It's easy to try to live by it. But each one of you, but starting with you is what does leading with your heart and especially here with this company Yeah, mean

Brian Lewis:

that's a good question. For me, that's evolved over the years. Know, toward the beginning of my career, especially as a leader, there wasn't a lot of leading with heart necessarily. There was heart for being successful, for taking this thing and making it that thing for transforming an organization. But for me now, I think my entire role as a leader at this company, it really for me now boils down to creating opportunity for people.

Brian Lewis:

And that could be creating jobs. It could be creating promotion. It could be developing people. It could be a whole array of things. We want people to be better having been part of our company.

Brian Lewis:

So for me, it's all about just creating opportunity.

Ricardo Regalado:

Nice. Yeah. Nice. You don't see problems. You see opportunities.

Brian Lewis:

I see opportunities. Yeah. For sure. For sure.

Ricardo Regalado:

Jordan, what about you? No.

Jordan Tong:

That's really fair. It's been fun to watch the Brian's evolution because I've just been able to have a front row seat to watching him. I would say that's maturing in leadership as well, and that's that's been really fun to see. And I've I've went on the same sort of journey as as him as well. And so in in some ways, ours just kinda parallels one another.

Jordan Tong:

And I would say that that is what gets me out of bed in the morning too. Because I don't think anybody gets out of bed thinking, yes. We're gonna go clean today. That's right. It's just not.

Jordan Tong:

But I think there's a lot of other things. And so getting your hands dirty with people and being able to help them in a lot of different capacities, and particularly creating opportunities. So we're helping them get from here to here is a lot of fun. And like it really is kind of what we enjoy doing and what maybe turns everybody's crank a bit here. And it's really kinda what we're doing at Elite too.

Jordan Tong:

Like we're trying to do that maybe on a little bit different scale. But you got to, and this is what you were talking, you have to be able to get out of bed and think, man, here's what we're doing. Here's what we're about. We believe in this.

Ricardo Regalado:

Because the moment you're not, what are you doing? Yeah. You're checked out.

Jordan Tong:

For sure. Sure.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah. Jeff, what about

Jordan Tong:

you?

Jeff Carmon:

Yeah. You know, it's interesting. And we, we talked about this a little bit. Some of our desire to serve and love people, it comes a little bit from our world view. I mean, think I think so and I I think that's a part of it but it it's interesting.

Jeff Carmon:

So, I learned a lot of this idea of serving from the heart for my dad and so, he was, my dad worked for a public utility and he was over a a division. So he was over the natural gas division. And he would take me and my brother every Saturday morning. He would come down there. He didn't have to work, but he came down there and he would introduce us to every one of the guys who worked for him.

Jeff Carmon:

He would have a little story. He'd say, Hey Jeff, come over here. This is Teddy. Teddy's son plays Little League Baseball. Great pitcher.

Jeff Carmon:

And I just watched how he loved people. And for me, that's kind of came naturally just following his lead to say, Hey, if you're gonna get things done with people, then you have to love on them and you have to serve them. And so I had a kind of a front row seat to that when I was a kid.

Ricardo Regalado:

And you gotta think about that. This is the people industry. Sure. Right?

Jordan Tong:

For

Ricardo Regalado:

sure. I love that we have the different dynamics because it's like from the BSC side, leading a BSC, you got the people that are working within the BSC company and in the field and your clients elite. Now it's like the fellow cleaning company people. Right? Like, so it's again, it's all it's all about people and the fact that your father showed you that.

Ricardo Regalado:

That's a big deal because it's like, look at where it reflected on you now to this day. Right. So let's talk about, talking about people, let's talk about culture. And Jordan, upstairs, you were talking about being humble and humility, right? At a moment in time for you when transition happened, transition from your dad happened to you, transition from here to Brian.

Ricardo Regalado:

Talk about each one of you guys since you've all had time here at France is a pivotal moment where you felt culture was tested with how things were going within whether it's internally or externally.

Jordan Tong:

Good question. I'll so I'll say this. I think that we have made a couple of hiring mistakes in the past by not, I'm particularly thinking in sales, business development, or just, like, out of a sense of urgency

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah.

Jordan Tong:

Where there we knew like, this humility is a big one for us for a lot of reasons. I think it is necessary in this industry. I think it captures the heart you're talking about leaving from the heart. It captures sort of the heart of what we need and want to embody. And we've made some hires out of feeling like, hey.

Jordan Tong:

We need someone to be in sales here. We really need to grow here. And they get that hunger or whatever, but they they really aren't with us on or you could sense that. And we would pull the trigger on them anyway, and it it ended up not working out.

Ricardo Regalado:

Mhmm. Yeah.

Jordan Tong:

And so those are good lessons to think about over time. Like, it's probably better to don't sacrifice on that because it's gonna come back to bite you. That'd be one example I think of where it's been tested. And we failed sometime at times. And some of our best hires are people that have been like, We want that person on our like, they're a good per we want them on our team.

Jordan Tong:

And they're workable in the other areas. So I don't if there's anything else comes to mind with you.

Brian Lewis:

Yeah. No. That that's really good. I think for me, it's you know, I'm a guy, I'm a competitive guy, and I want, you know, our company to be successful. And, you know, so our mission is to love and serve well.

Brian Lewis:

So I think there have been times where I look at maybe financials, I'm concerned with financials and sales and certain other things that are not really directly people related. And I lose sight sometimes or have in the past during heavy growth periods of, you know what, my core function needs to be to love and serve our people really well, and then those other things are gonna happen.

Ricardo Regalado:

They're components.

Brian Lewis:

Yeah, for sure. And I think also even with customers, so we talk about loving and serving well, and your mind probably initially or default goes to our employees. Our customers are people too. We impact people at our customer locations as well. So really that's what it's all about is putting that at the front seat at all times, loving and serving people really well.

Brian Lewis:

And those other things, they're gonna take

Ricardo Regalado:

care themselves.

Jeff Carmon:

They're gonna take care of themselves.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Carmon:

I guess what I've seen kind of over and over too, is there's this, especially as it relates to you know, policies and procedures. And there's always that tension between that's the policy, but what's the right thing to do for this person in this situation? And I think we default to what is the right thing to do for this this person. A lady comes to mind that worked for us at long term. Started out as a cleaner, eventually grew into an account manager and she had a terminal illness and we were faced with what do we do with that situation.

Jeff Carmon:

I think we loved her and her family really well through that situation. And so, you know, when you when that kind of thing happens, you go, gosh, this is a play this is the kind of place that you wanna be associated with and and work for because you know deep down that there is a genuine love for people.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah. No, and yeah, like, because we're gonna talk about next, the people in the field, right? Which we know. They're the ones that drive everything for us, but we cannot lose sight of the people in the office as well. There's gotta be a good compliment or mix.

Jordan Tong:

I would say our biggest challenge in the future maybe not biggest, but one of the challenges in the future we're gonna face as it relates to vision and our values and things is as we look at growing, there's this temptation because you mentioned it. You wanna win. You wanna succeed. You wanna crush the competition. Like, you know, the whole the one on yards.

Jordan Tong:

And so there's this there's this draw to that being the sole focus. And not this is not to, like, knock anybody, but, like, as companies grow, then they start gobbling up other companies. And it's like, let's go here and everywhere. And, like, it's e it'd be easy to lose sight. So I think there's gonna be times where we're gonna be faced with decisions.

Jordan Tong:

Does does growing like this help advance the thing we're wanting to

Ricardo Regalado:

do here?

Jordan Tong:

And if it does, then we should. Yeah. But if it takes away from it, then we probably shouldn't. And those will be hard decisions to make.

Ricardo Regalado:

No. I'm turning out. Yeah. That's a great point actually because I'm like I'm bit like scale, grow. Right?

Ricardo Regalado:

Right. Take not take over. Right? Take the

Jordan Tong:

world. Take over the industry.

Ricardo Regalado:

But like you wanna grow but learn, I've learned from those mistakes too. Dude, was a great point is like, we sometimes grew in areas or markets that we shouldn't have because we didn't have the right person to lead that market. It was so much easier when you had the right person first to go into that market. Then it's like, cool. The people centric approach here at HQ can go with this person here.

Ricardo Regalado:

Success versus picking growth. Like you're saying, there's a lot of acquisitions happening, right? And you'll lose sight you know, by looking at the big picture and shiny object of growth. I wanted to touch on just the people in the field. Again, with growth, you lose the touch of the people in the field.

Ricardo Regalado:

What have you guys seen that's been successful for you when, let's say you get into a new market or the company is growing and people are in the field more and they're not coming to the office or a manager different pivotal moments. What, how have you stayed connected to the field?

Brian Lewis:

That's a really good question. So I think it varies a little bit by level in the company, but we've tried to be very intentional about keeping a family feel at this company. This is a third generation ownership family. I think that ownership feel is a big contributor that kind of got us to a semi successful company. We've tried to be very intentional about keeping that.

Brian Lewis:

So we do regular, we bring in, even though we're spread over three, four states, do regular manager, we call them manager summits where we have all of our field managers in here at the corporate office. And we pour into people, develop people, connect, fellowship, have a meal together, all the things. So we've found that that's a good way, I think to keep in touch at least with field managers.

Ricardo Regalado:

No, like that manager summit. Did you all get aggressive

Jordan Tong:

with this? Layer down the organization

Brian Lewis:

or the chart,

Jordan Tong:

it's harder, it's easier to lose culture. It's it's easy to maintain it here. It's harder here and here and here. And so so that point, like, I think be given the nature of what we do, it's really difficult to because of the dispersed workforce.

Brian Lewis:

Yeah. So I understand.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah. The culture can be lived and embodied at the field manager level. Yeah. And I think those are the best people to take it to the final level in the organization. That's a great, that's where more of our focus

Ricardo Regalado:

has been.

Jordan Tong:

We know we've got a lot of ground. I think we're still weak in some areas. Yeah, for sure. We're trying to figure some of that stuff out.

Ricardo Regalado:

Right. Don't you guys think it's like the ultimate mission and my family, I have a big family business too. You guys know that. I'm always like, man, I want every, if anybody ever walked up to a Rosolado employee, I want them to be able to recite like who, what we are and who we And my mom's already charged. She's like, Rick, that's not easy.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah. Just because we're dispersed. Like, there's some accounts that we start and like, it's an hour away, two hours away. Like, don't feel that feeling sometimes. And I struggle with that because I'm like, man, like, why not?

Ricardo Regalado:

Like, we should be able to do that. But to your point, if you train that field staff management, they are the ones that could be that that lever. Because I'm I always had thought, well, they gotta come to the office. They gotta come to office to feel that. They could feel it in the field.

Ricardo Regalado:

They're really good.

Jeff Carmon:

Yeah. And I think we're, again, talk about tension. There's a tension that we're expecting these folks to do certain things. Expecting to manage labor and we're expecting to visit customers and all of these things. And they've got a workforce that can sometimes be a challenge.

Jeff Carmon:

So they're managing a workforce that might be kind of challenging. Customers who are typically not coming in and going, gosh, the building looks great today. They're noticing things that are issues, and so they're surrounded by that. And then they also, in their own personal lives, they've got this stuff going on. So they're just critically important to our business.

Jeff Carmon:

So I think these summits allow us to come in and get to know them, get to know what's going on in their family life, those kinds of things. They just help us lead them and guide them and love on them better.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah, I

Brian Lewis:

like That is to me the most important role in our company. Everything about that. That's the face of our company to our employees and to the customers, And a lot of times that's the least developed person in the company. 100.

Ricardo Regalado:

That's coming to my next question. This is something I actually just looking at the elite logo real quick. Like you guys are helping train cleaning business owners, but like what is it that you could do or are thinking of doing to that exact point is that role, right? What does career growth look like at France? Because we're in, again, the honest truth, right?

Ricardo Regalado:

Tough margin business. It's, you know, it's difficult. It's competitive at the janitorial technician level. And then for them to get to a supervisor or manager, like, again, it's not rocket science. Like, the way of growth within our companies are pretty much similar.

Ricardo Regalado:

But what are you guys doing to promote that or embody that or develop that

Brian Lewis:

Yeah, once again, I think it depends on the level, to our end team members, I mean, one's a challenge. We're spread over sometimes four states, three states right now, and completely dispersed. Now remember the days where we would take physical papers out. Hey, we've got to get this list of people trained and you have a little checklist and you go and you train 40 people over a couple of week period. But, you know, I think at this point where we are as dispersed as we are, as many employees as we have, it's gotta be an electronic version of training for the most part on how to do the job.

Brian Lewis:

And more importantly, we want to develop content to even spread culture and value related things via electronic platforms. Well

Ricardo Regalado:

think about that is a way and we'll talk about if we can train you later on, It's like that is a way to stay connected to them.

Brian Lewis:

Like For sure.

Ricardo Regalado:

If they see you know, they relate to, you know, a certain language or they relate to a certain type of person or leadership, it's like, alright. Cool. Let them be the person, the face Mhmm. Relating that content to them. Because you're right.

Ricardo Regalado:

That is a way to stay connected then too. It's it's it's digital. It's gotta be.

Jordan Tong:

It's gotta be. Yeah. Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Alright. So let's talk let's end with this point. Because, again, the whole point of this, guys, is when we're doing it is leading with heart in this in an organization that is a very gritty industry. But now let's use some, some coined terms here, but emotional intelligence. Like how do you think emotional intelligence plays in, in the landscape of a cleaning company organization and growing a cleaning company organization?

Brian Lewis:

Good question.

Ricardo Regalado:

EQ. Yeah,

Brian Lewis:

it's very sometimes hard to come by. You know, as you all know, our industry is grindy. And it can be very challenging at times with challenges with team members, challenges with customers. And man, it can wear on a person. So I think a high level of, I guess emotional intelligence would be one way to put it, but just a high level for a high capacity for tough situations.

Brian Lewis:

I mean, it's crucial at the account manager level, it's crucial at the regional manager level, and not everybody has that. So one of the things we've started doing with a lot of our leaders is we do some personality type things. And those kind of allude to how much capacity somebody has for emotional intelligence or that kind of thing. But it's imperfect, but yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

No, and I'll tell you, crazy because there was, I think a few years ago, cause I started to do strategic coach. Don't know if you've ever heard strategic coach. I was like, man, they got these Colby scores and like, there's, man, I wanna do this for the company. Right? And again, my mom, I love you mom.

Ricardo Regalado:

She's like, Rick, it's, I get it, but it's difficult to try to do that across the company. Like, can't do that to the janitorial technician level and then like supervisor trip. But I think what you said is a good point of at some level it is because if, as an example, area manager or a field supervisor, they're leading the group in the field. If they can conduct themselves in a high capacity level of, for the most part, 90% of the time is what? Complaints.

Ricardo Regalado:

You're dealing with

Jordan Tong:

a problem. That's right.

Ricardo Regalado:

Where if you can have the person I had to take that on and then re I don't know how you say it, but like relay it back to the team in a positive way, you won.

Brian Lewis:

Right.

Ricardo Regalado:

It's all about positivity.

Jeff Carmon:

That's

Ricardo Regalado:

right. Everything's negative, but like if they can lead with positivity, I think that's half the battle. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah. So to bring it all back here. At the end of the day, as France continues to grow, right? You guys have a beautiful space here, by the way. You know, I thank you guys so much for allowing us to be here and taking up some time with you guys.

Ricardo Regalado:

But we started with Leading with Heart. How does the future of France look like as far as continuing that Leading with Heart path? Right? It came down three generations now, Brian. You're in charge of where it's going here to the next future.

Ricardo Regalado:

Are you excited about to continue to grow this business with that mindset in mind?

Brian Lewis:

Yeah, so a couple things. Number one, the thing that floats my boat the most in our industry is the development of people and seeing people, especially people who couldn't maybe traditionally go to another company and excel through the ranks. I think it's continuing to develop people to push them into the larger leadership roles in our company. That really excites me. And I think to echoing what Jordan said a little bit ago, just making sure that we're growing for the right reasons.

Brian Lewis:

We don't want to grow just to pat our pockets to grow the bottom line. We want to grow to further our mission of loving and serving well.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan Tong:

Nice. And I would say, on that, that particular point, in terms of growing as the company, you know, for a time it was, it was a family business, and you and everyone that starts, like, has these motives for why they started. Like, we're we're trying to do something better ourselves and better our family, etcetera. But at some point along the way, the company begins to take on a life of its own. Like, becomes its own thing.

Jordan Tong:

It is now, even though you're standing on the shoulders of all the generations and everyone back all the beginning, like, is now taking on its its own thing now. Oh, yeah. And so, and so I think that there's a sense of that and we're stewards of making sure that that that goes on. And so, you know, our job, I see, you know, talked to you earlier. One of the hard things for me has been having to set aside and let other people lead.

Jordan Tong:

And, but the one thing that I still feel like, and it's in some ways why I show up and why I'm here physically is we just wanna protect. I want to protect that vision always. So if I have a job to be in France, it's it's always be making this. Cheap as you do. But like, I think, you know, us being an alignment and rest of the team being alignment is hopefully we maintain that.

Ricardo Regalado:

Nice. Nice. Well, you guys, thank you so much. Cleaning Cocktails family. We're not done yet.

Ricardo Regalado:

We got a lot more to come. Just bring it in here real quick, you guys. Right? Thank you so much. I appreciate Alright.

Ricardo Regalado:

You Let's keep it going. Let's keep it going. Hey, Cleaning Cocktails again here. Ricky, your host. I'm with Brian Lewis, the president of France Building Services, not solutions, services.

Brian Lewis:

Services.

Ricardo Regalado:

Alright. So, Brian, we've we've been enjoying the day here, getting to know you guys and getting to know the the story behind France. But before we get into where you are today, I wanted to set the tone with people getting to know Brian Lewis on, how did you arrive at France and, like, kinda bring us up to speed.

Brian Lewis:

Yeah. Good question. So it's actually been this is this is fourteen years of the company this year, so it's been a little while. And, you know, about that time ago, I, I was in the corporate world. I worked for a company probably a lot of people know, Cintas Corporation.

Ricardo Regalado:

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Lewis:

Big, big, big company. So I went from a really, really large company, you know, $7,000,000,000, I think, to a family owned company. Wow. Complete opposite. So but, anyway, I had met Jordan.

Brian Lewis:

There's a little bit of dispute as to how I met Jordan. We don't remember exactly how, but somehow we got connected and, you know, just chatted a little bit about this industry, and I I saw a a potential for bigger things. You know? And I was coming from a situation in the corporate world where, you know, once a company gets really, really large, there's just not a lot of room to change things or move things or it's pretty restricted, you And, and I just remember working and working and working a whole lot in that corporate life. And I remember looking down at my family on the beach at one point, and I'm working on the balcony as I always did on all of our vacations.

Brian Lewis:

And I thought, man, there's gotta be something different out there. And but anyway, that's about when Jordan and I met and just talked about some potential happenings with the company and the the potential that's out there in our industry and and and took a leap took a leap. And it was it was a big leap for me because the visuals of corporate life versus family owned cleaning life, especially at the time, you know, we were maybe 100 employees, $3,000,000. Mhmm. So we were really small at the time.

Brian Lewis:

It's a it's a a vast difference.

Jordan Tong:

Vast.

Brian Lewis:

That visual.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah.

Brian Lewis:

You know? So

Ricardo Regalado:

But speaking of visual, you obviously saw something, though.

Brian Lewis:

Saw something. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And but also knew that that something that I saw would take a lot of years of grinding.

Brian Lewis:

So while I was kind of trying to leave some of that grind from the corporate world, little did I know that this industry, you know, those building years

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah.

Brian Lewis:

From 100 to a few 100 employees, they're hard. Yeah. They're hard. And you know, like we talked earlier, you know, they require, man, there's a lot of nights out. There's a lot of grind with, you know, upgrading, turning managers, just developing people and improving staffs and processes.

Brian Lewis:

And, you know, we run lean, you know, in our industry, we run lean. Oh yeah. We have to, to have anything left at the bottom line. So there were a lot of, a lot of years of grind before we've gotten, you know, to the point where we are.

Ricardo Regalado:

So let's talk about, you were talking about building and I wanna talk about building trust, right? Because, this segment you guys is really on, Brian was entrusted with the France legacy, the France brand and companies are built on trust. Success is built on trust. So as France has evolved, which you just really started to give a visual of hundreds to hundreds of employees to where you are today over the years, what are some examples of how it was built on this trust?

Brian Lewis:

Yeah, really between Jordan and I. So I think it was a mix between trust and myself being a little bit of a stronger personality when it comes to business. And I like, you know, I like to take things and do them on my own. Yeah. You know, if that so, you know, Jordan knew that.

Brian Lewis:

And and our our personalities and the way that we go about business, they complemented one another in that. He likes the vision of getting something started, something rolling, but he's not cut out. He's not programmed to make things happen day to day. Whereas I am a little more programmed that way.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah. But you need that kickstart of a vision, right, to complement you Yeah.

Brian Lewis:

You know, that's changed over the years. It used to be very black and white that way. He's the vision. I'm the implementer, you know, as EOS might say.

Ricardo Regalado:

But us as a

Brian Lewis:

You know, it's it's evolved a little bit over the years. But but Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Execution is everything, man.

Brian Lewis:

Is. For

Ricardo Regalado:

sure. Like, can't you need it. Like, you can't the the growth doesn't happen without it.

Brian Lewis:

That's right. Yeah. And you guys know operationally, you know, that that day to day drive in our industry, whether it be with labor, whether it be with anything, you would think a lot of those things are just one time conversations with leaders or managers in the field. But, you know, our business, you have to continue to drive day after day after day the same thing.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah. So let's talk about, you said operations. So let's stay on the operations pieces.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

You're making, you know, in the operations space, you're probably, not probably, but you're making promises of service delivery to the client. You're making promises to the team about growth and where the company's going. What's your approach to maintaining consistency with that service?

Brian Lewis:

Yeah. That's a really good question. And like everything else, we've learned everything the hard way. You know, we've failed a lot and but but in regard to what you're saying, one of the biggest changes that I've seen that we've had to make over the years you know, there are lots of in business, lots of little shelves or breakthroughs or steps that you have to take in business. And we've we've gone through a lot of those, but operationally is to me, that's where our biggest challenge was.

Brian Lewis:

And it was moving from some of those smaller customers as we've evolved as a business. It's moving from those smaller to medium to large customers. You know, when we were serving those smaller to medium sized customers, and we still have some of those, you know, you can round up a group of people and go scrub on some things and be all good. Whereas as we started to grow, both geographically and with targeting bigger customers, those customers expect more, and those customers demand more. And a big part of what they demand is proof of service.

Brian Lewis:

So we have had to make changes over the last few years to not just trust people to go out and do the thing anymore, but we trust with verification.

Ricardo Regalado:

Oh yeah, I like

Brian Lewis:

And it took us a long time to learn that. We were very hardheaded with that thing.

Ricardo Regalado:

So you guys heard that one. Trust by verification. I've heard that before, but I like it. It's really strong. So we're gonna we'll we'll wrap up this short here with this piece though, is obviously while building trust, you're gonna make some mistakes.

Ricardo Regalado:

Correct. How have you handled some mistakes that that you feel you guys have made or you have made while trying to build that trust?

Brian Lewis:

Yeah. That that's a really good question. I think that so we have we have a whole culture that we try to live by in here, and humility is one of our values. So I think it's just being open and honest with team, with customers about the fact that we're not perfect. Yeah.

Brian Lewis:

And we are gonna make mistakes, and we've made lots of them through the years. And that's kind of why this EBC, you know, elite business coaching came about is because, hey, we've already tripped up and made all these mistakes. Here are some ideas on how you don't have to do that. But I think it's really just that. It's being humble.

Brian Lewis:

It's living through humility and knowing that we rely on people.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah.

Brian Lewis:

And no matter how good our processes are, we rely on people.

Ricardo Regalado:

I love that you referenced Elite BSC because like, in a way what that shows, Brian, is because it's I when I think of that group too, think of all three of you guys, you guys all Yeah. A hand in supporting and doing that is you're exposing or recognizing the mistakes you made Mhmm. To allow those not to make those mistakes. For sure. Or maybe make them quicker.

Ricardo Regalado:

Right? Because you're still gonna make those mistakes. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome.

Ricardo Regalado:

Wait. Yeah. Thank you so much, man. Appreciate the knowledge. Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Always dropping knowledge. We got way more nuggets coming, guys. Thank you so much. And, we'll catch you soon. Hey, guys.

Ricardo Regalado:

Ricky here again, your host for Cleaning and Cocktails, sitting next to Jeff Carmen, who you are going to get to know and have gotten to know throughout this day. Jeff, before we get into it, the the the title of this segment, this special segment, because we're doing segments now

Jeff Carmon:

Alright.

Ricardo Regalado:

Is Yeah. The strength and stewardship.

Jordan Tong:

Okay.

Ricardo Regalado:

But before we get into that, I I want the audience to get to know you a little bit more. Yeah. The story of how Jeff began with France and where we are today.

Jeff Carmon:

Yeah. So, so I was with, so at the end of the year, I made the jump over to Elite, but I worked for France for a little over nine years and how I was introduced to France was we actually was a medical practice administrator at a local orthopedic Oh, I surgery

Ricardo Regalado:

practice this year.

Jeff Carmon:

And France really, France cleaned our office and so I knew of that business, but I also knew Jordan. Jordan and I were friends from church and I had just, I just had gotten a little bit weary of that business. And there's just some things that were going on in this community in terms of the hospital buying up practices. And so I just told Jordan, I said, you know, if something ever were to come up to your company, mean, I think I'd like to I think I'd like to get back into sales again. I'd done that in a previous career in natural gas business.

Jeff Carmon:

So, so this it worked out. I came here and had, you know, nine great years, working with these guys and seeing the business grow. So, yeah, it's been it's been real rewarding. Nice.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah. Then will lead to actually where what you're worried right now is but then this journey now led to to Elite BS BC. BS BC. Yes.

Jeff Carmon:

Yeah. Yeah. That's right. And so, probably when, this Elite started in in 2017, I believe. And at that time, it was it was really kinda Jordan and Bethan who were doing all of the work.

Jeff Carmon:

And then he would kinda feather me in and say, hey. We're gonna have a sales conference. Why don't you lead the sales conference? Or, hey. Help me write some content.

Jeff Carmon:

And so I would pitch in on projects. And so over time, I was I would I would work 80% France, 20 elite, and that just kind of kept moving the needle that way until last year I was probably spending 80% of my time doing elite work and 20% doing France. And so we had a nice transition. We had a fellow that we found who great guy filling in, the role at France now. And so, yeah, I'm doing this full time now.

Jeff Carmon:

Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

I like, know, Billy, know you're off camera here, but like, this sounds familiar to how we operate. There's roles that were like, you're 50% Rosolado, you're 20% this, you're 10. So it works. Yeah. We are here now.

Jeff Carmon:

And this was, you know, doing this work was really appealing to me because two of my career, so I used to be in the gas business and then I used to be a medical practice administrator and in both of those industries there were really strong associations and these associations were it was the one I worked for was all medical practice managers and all medical practice managers and orthopedics. And so we shared how we did things. We shared our numbers so that we could benchmark against one another. I could share that information with the providers. And the same thing was in the utility industry.

Jeff Carmon:

What I saw, what was in common was it was a sharing of ideas, it was a community, it was training, it was best practices and benchmarking. That's exactly what we can do And you know, the thing is, we are all competing to a certain degree against one another. But when you've got the right people who you know, the whole you know, the idea is, you know, high tides make all boats rise.

Ricardo Regalado:

Oh, yeah.

Jeff Carmon:

When when that occurs, I mean, there's plenty of business to go around, and we wanna see our competitors who are trying do the best they can. We want to see them win as well. And so I think that's why it works out really well.

Ricardo Regalado:

And I think and that leads me to a question here on just, like, stewardship. I've seen, you know, the word is on the website. You guys speak to it. I feel like you guys embody it. But, like, to you, Jeff, what does stewardship mean?

Jeff Carmon:

Yes, stewardship is, is, you know, I would say that everything that's entrusted to us, I mean, it really, I mean, it comes to us from the Lord. And so we have a responsibility to take everything that's given to us and and and steward it and grow it. And so whether that's people or whether that's customers Customers. Yeah. Or whether that's now other janitorial companies, the industry is to take that and make it better than than than what it was when you when it

Ricardo Regalado:

was handed to you. So let's talk about so you kind of talked about the things your learnings and you

Jeff Carmon:

know yeah

Ricardo Regalado:

being faith based and things like that and then the working in the gas industry and things. All those things you probably you're taking something from everything.

Jeff Carmon:

For sure.

Ricardo Regalado:

Right? And you're trying to pass it on right now. Like what what is one of the biggest lessons that you've carried on and on and to this day is something that you feel like it's crucial and critical for you as a person?

Jeff Carmon:

Yeah, I would say it's this. It's whatever role that I've been in is figuring out the people that you're serving is to find out how you can bring value to them. And so, for instance, in our business, it's very much the value that we bring at France was to the customers who were bringing us on. It was to reduce their anxiety that somebody's actually gonna show up and clean the building or to make them more productive so because they don't have to to take care of, you know, complaints and those things. But really, and and again, I've I've talked about my dad before.

Jeff Carmon:

My dad was real instrumental in telling me and teaching me, Hey, listen, learn what customers like, learn what people need, and figure out a way to deliver that. Nice. And so that's kind of what I've, I guess, I've built into every position that I've been in.

Ricardo Regalado:

And now let's bring it all back to where we are today. You can see some of the learnings back here secret stuff guys secret stuff. That's it. That's So let's end with what Jeff is and you know from an outsider looking in you could say like man what are you know what is Elite doing they have they have their own cleaning company now they're training other cleaning companies right like but I've got it it speaks to who you guys are the mission the values as a company what what is the most exciting thing now for you in this role yeah like it's now you're showing other yeah cleaning companies yeah how to how to do some of the things that you guys are doing in France and really sharing it with them now

Jeff Carmon:

yeah The I guess the most exciting thing is and and I I I'll say this. I didn't get much of this at France because in the cleaning business, we're doing work day in, day out, and rarely does somebody come and say, golly, this place was spotless when we came in. But I'll get regular emails back from elite members to go, gosh, we've implemented that sales process you talked about. And and now I feel like we're for the first time, we've really got something in place. Mhmm.

Jeff Carmon:

Stuff is coming in. You know, that service model you told us about, it was I I mean, the lights just went on for us at our company. And so what's exciting to me is to to is to really feel like the things that we're doing are impacting the lives of the owners and the leaders and then, hopefully, the team members and their customers. So there's just a lot of satisfaction that comes out of hearing that you're making a difference in people's lives.

Ricardo Regalado:

I actually I love to end with that is the fact that like again you're right you don't you just don't get too many comments. And the good news is But the fact that you're feeling that impact that you're making on the membership and the companies that are part of Elite, that's gotta be gratifying, motivating, and inspiring. Obviously, there's something for you to, and Jordan, to think of, you know what, let's move Jeff into a full time rowing. Yeah. Because Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

There's a lot more that

Jordan Tong:

you guys

Ricardo Regalado:

can probably

Jeff Carmon:

It's time we're scratching the surface.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah. Yeah. We'll talk more about it. Alright. Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Hey. Thank you so much, my man. I appreciate it. You guys, we're gonna keep it going here. Alright?

Ricardo Regalado:

Hey, everybody. It's Ricky again here at Cleaning and Cocktails on-site at the France Building Services headquarters in Owensboro, Kentucky. I'm with Jordan who you got to meet a little bit earlier. Jordan, what I wanted to touch on here, actually, we get into some of these questions, and we were just talking about it, because we're we're gonna be talking about legacy family. Let's talk about your family.

Jordan Tong:

Yep. Your wife. So yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

So I Go down the line.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah. Everybody always enjoys hearing this. They're shocked to hear this. I have six kids. So I'm married.

Jordan Tong:

I've married and wife for nineteen years. And we have six kids going from 17 all the way down to a two year old. And so yeah, how the Tong House is bustling man. There's a lot of testosterone going through us and I have two girls and four boys.

Ricardo Regalado:

It's exciting though. It's fun. It's fun. It's tiring.

Jordan Tong:

I mean, I do two things in life. Go to work and I'm a dad.

Ricardo Regalado:

You got no more time for anything?

Jordan Tong:

That's it. Anything revolves around one of those two things, anything I do.

Ricardo Regalado:

But you enjoy working out.

Jordan Tong:

Also know. I do. Yeah. But if I work out or I fish or whatever I do, it's something with my kids. They're there or around.

Ricardo Regalado:

That's awesome. And that speaks to what we're going talk about guys here is, again, you've heard it through the episode already is is a family business generations, right? Three generations. But Jordan, I wanted to ask you from a personal perspective is stepping into this legacy, what what what were the fears like? What was that that early early stage in the early moments when you knew, oh man, I'm about to step into something that I've never seen.

Ricardo Regalado:

Oh yeah. Well, I

Jordan Tong:

was too stupid to immature to have any fears early on to not feel the gravity. And my, I'm seeing now, even with my 17 year old son, like there's just, he's just not all fully developed there. And so, you know, your risk taker, you flick, you take on the world and How old are you? Actually, I never asked that. How old is I went to college, and I worked in construction.

Jordan Tong:

I'm an engineer by education. So but I was 23. 23? 24 when I came back and started in

Ricardo Regalado:

the business. But when did that when did

Jordan Tong:

yeah. When the transition probably happened with maybe within three years of that. So would've been in my my mid late twenties. That's

Ricardo Regalado:

And my

Jordan Tong:

dad was, you know, around, but our company was right when my parents brought me on. It's not because of me necessarily, but I certainly helped in the process. We were just hitting an inflection point. Our company for twenty years had been like this. We were right on the front end of about to go like this.

Jordan Tong:

And so I got to ride that way and be a part of that. Nice. And the gravity starts to hit once you start hiring more people and you got people who giving their lives and their careers to be a part of this. That that's when the the weight starts kicking in a bit.

Ricardo Regalado:

So talk to me about again, you know, if you guys go to their website, you'll see just the mission, the values, what you guys stand for. Values is a very big thing for Yeah. You and your company. And I know you push that into the elite side as well. But is there a specific value that you've carried on through that you saw your father or grandfather, the legacies bring it through that you said, Hey, I have to bring this value through and keep pushing it forward for them, Brian, to take it

Jordan Tong:

to? Man, good question. So I think of two things. One is my family and I'm in Kentucky too. So we got this five years as well, but like I just come from a blue collar kind of family that was hardworking and, and my parents, this sort goes along with our humility values.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah. It just my parents were never too good to do anything. Like my dad was taking me out and he's showing me how to clean the toilets. Know, here's the right way to clean toilets, right way to sweep up stuff into a dust pan, you know? It just like and so I I think that and so when I graduated college and came back, I shared this a lot.

Jordan Tong:

I was kind of prideful and like a little embarrassed to be in the the industry. So I'd always try to like sugarcoat it and make it something that wasn't. So I had to learn over time and it's something I want to pass on. The idea of humility in a sense where we're blue collar professionals. That's what

Ricardo Regalado:

we are. Oh forget it.

Jordan Tong:

And that's not a bad thing. And there is and I can't talk about my age without talking about, you know, I'm from a, I guess, faith perspective, I'm a Christian. And so like, and I believe that, I believe that's true about the world. And so it just, it infuses what I do and those values. And humility sort of comes with the package there as well.

Jordan Tong:

And so, and there's dignity in everybody, like every job. And so just having to learn some of those things over the years, not that knocked off my horse

Ricardo Regalado:

a little

Jordan Tong:

bit. So that would be what I want to pass on. Like there is dignity in whatever job we're doing

Ricardo Regalado:

from the

Jordan Tong:

bottom all the way up. And it's our job to lean through them well.

Ricardo Regalado:

So this leads me to the final point I wanna make here too is, again, legacy and family, faith based stewardship. We're talking to Jeff about being a steward and how you guys carry that. What what how do you feel and are do you feel honored that you had the ability to do what you're doing right now and continue to do? Does honor play a role?

Jordan Tong:

Yeah, I think, I think about that a lot as more as I get older. And so for instance, dropped my kids off of basketball training yesterday. I went and spent an hour with my grandmother just to talk with her. She's in her eighties. She's among the ones that founded the business.

Jordan Tong:

And I did a part of me wants to just do well for her to carry on the torch, you know, just like you went to, you know, not be ashamed of your father and your grandfather, but like, Hey, I carried on the name. Well, so you want, you want to do that. And I told her last week, I said, you know, I wish it makes me sad. My granddad had dreams before, like, right. I saw him and I got

Ricardo Regalado:

to say, hey, look what

Jordan Tong:

look, look what we did. And, so, yeah, there's a weight to that. And that's what the legacy that we leave in the vision, that's the stuff and the, and the lives of the people who work. That's the stuff that keeps me up at night. That's way that I feel now early on it was kinda, can we make my financials?

Jordan Tong:

Yeah. Being the black, you know, it's a, it's a, that weight's changed

Ricardo Regalado:

a little

Jordan Tong:

bit over time.

Ricardo Regalado:

It's a different weight. Like I goosebumps, because it's, it is a different weight early on. You're it's, can I make this business work? Can I grow? Where now it's probably like you said, it's more do I make that progress?

Jordan Tong:

Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Right? Like like

Jordan Tong:

you said,

Ricardo Regalado:

your grandpa grandfather not being able to see it, me for my father not being able to see where we were. Yeah. But they do see it by the people you're impacting. Because I I guarantee you, if I asked you, have any of the older employees from the past ever sent to you, like, bang. You know, so and so would have loved this.

Ricardo Regalado:

You know, he he was all about, like, just that moment is like, ah. Yeah. Because they saw it. Yeah. He sees it now.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah.

Jordan Tong:

It is. It's one of the few things that, like, can make me emotional thinking about it. So and you can't I mean, I know you come from a similar sort of background, just like blue collar background. You know, that that

Ricardo Regalado:

To my father, this was the most high paying job you ever had. Yeah. Forty six years he lived in America. Yeah. To to buy Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Company to pay him the most. Like Yeah. You know, there's there's a different feeling. So I don't know. Good, though.

Ricardo Regalado:

It's

Jordan Tong:

Love it. Love it.

Ricardo Regalado:

Thank you, man. Thank you. We got more coming. Alright, guys. I feel like somebody said it.

Ricardo Regalado:

It's like the last supper here. This is this is where we come to an end with with the episode, and I think it's a great place to kinda have a cocktail. In this case, have a bourbon, right, with everybody. And this is what is it? We got Green River.

Ricardo Regalado:

Green River.

Jeff Carmon:

Made here. Made here in Owensboro.

Ricardo Regalado:

Made here in Owensboro. Shout out to Green River. So I wanted to end with you guys is is a couple things and and a couple topics, but most importantly is respect and integrity is something that's on the website of France. And I think it is something that every cleaning company should strive to to to want to be recognized as. And I think Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Jordan, you said this in when we spoke when we huddled up is you wanna be you wanna be known as the most respected company in the in the industry. Right? That's a bit that's a big big

Jordan Tong:

It's big.

Ricardo Regalado:

Expectation. Is it is it the most respected? The most. I'm sorry. I forgot the the.

Ricardo Regalado:

I forgot the the.

Brian Lewis:

It is the. Yeah. Alright.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah. That that is a tall order. Yeah.

Brian Lewis:

So, like It's a order.

Ricardo Regalado:

Let's think about what that looks like from leading respect for the industry, and I'll I'll start, Brian, with you first. Is what does the future of cleaning look like, and how is France gearing up to do something about that?

Brian Lewis:

Boy, that's a big question. You know, you see all these robotics and a lot of these things out there. I don't know. I I think that is our future to some extent at some point. It definitely involves technology.

Brian Lewis:

So I think if we're talking just real high level, technology is the future of our industry. But I think more so than robotics and things like that, I think we're still a ways off from that stuff. I think it's more in just our everyday service model. I think it's tech using technology as proof of service, as an extra layer of value to the customer. You know, as we've started, you know, partnering with larger customers, just providing good data filled value to customers is outrageously important.

Brian Lewis:

And I think technology plays a big role in that. So we have, over the last couple of years really been incorporating a lot of technology is once again, for those things, proof of service, value filled charts and things like that for customers. So we're going to continue to go down that path. I think that's what our near future looks like anyway.

Ricardo Regalado:

Nice. And we'll talk about because Jordan, you reminded me, we're going to talk about some strategies for what how to shape the future of cleaning by way of growth. Right? We'll touch back on that. Jeff, I wanted you to take that question on what does the future of the cleaning industry look like?

Ricardo Regalado:

Take it from an elite standpoint.

Jeff Carmon:

Yeah. Yeah. One of the things, you know, again, we're trying to serve the community. And I think probably the onus is on us now to kind of get out in front of the train and figure out some of these tools, especially technology. Certainly, technology is going to help us become more efficient, serve our customers better.

Jeff Carmon:

So as elite, we need to be out in front kinda learning how these tools not just talking about them, but but day to day, how do you bring these things into your organization and use things like ChatGPT, for instance. It's how do you use that on a practical basis? How do you use all of these tools that are available to help? Go back to, we want members to grow with healthy growth. We want them to operate efficiently.

Jeff Carmon:

But we also want to help them have balanced lives. Know, we don't want them to be a, you know, kind of like a slave to their to their company. We want them to be able to enjoy their lives.

Ricardo Regalado:

And I and I I wanna make a quick note. Like, even looking at the whiteboard that you guys had up there, I saw, like, tech stack Yeah. To your point on technology, like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Like, those are things you, as elite, have to be thinking of That's right.

Jordan Tong:

That's right.

Ricardo Regalado:

For for the industry, but also incorporating it. Like, Jordan, you were saying, even clean train you. Like, man, we need to implement that even better within our company. It's we're always needing to implement. Right?

Ricardo Regalado:

And before we keep going, though, we got these bourbon drinks here. I think we should cheers because did you just sip that? That was fire in my mouth. It is. It is fire.

Brian Lewis:

Am burning

Jordan Tong:

in my

Brian Lewis:

mouth right now.

Ricardo Regalado:

Is Oh my god. It's tough. Cheers, guys. Gentlemen. Cheers.

Ricardo Regalado:

Cheers to you all. I'm talking fire. Whoo.

Jordan Tong:

Okay. I took I was I think I was the first one at SIP when y'all were talking, and I was in my head, I was like, oh my gosh.

Ricardo Regalado:

I want that. Literally. I just I just had to take a big dick. Thought it was being a real bug

Jordan Tong:

expressive on my face. Like Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Alright. Good good stuff, though. That's good stuff. Alright. So, Jordan, this is to you now.

Ricardo Regalado:

Hold on one second. If France were to write the next chapter in the industry

Jordan Tong:

that's okay. Thank you.

Ricardo Regalado:

Thank you. Actually, I'm gonna rephrase the question. If France I'm not keeping the same, but from your perspective, because, again, you're where you're at in in your career, in your in your in your in your hemisphere. If France were to write the next chapter in this in the industry, what would France and Jordan Tong write about? Because you also have a book.

Jordan Tong:

Right? Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

You also have a book. You don't think or two about writing a chapter. Like, what how do you what do

Jordan Tong:

you think? Man, that's a good question. So and I think it it is just piggybacking on the things that they've already said that I think, you know, you're gonna have we talk about the being the most respected in the industry is is a goal. And I think that is something we aspire to, but it's also something that's given a little bit of life to the things Elite is doing in CTU and also how that makes sense with what we're doing at France. So we're trying to live out and embody that at the company level, and then we're trying to do things that help not only our company, but other companies in the industry.

Jordan Tong:

Okay. You know, you're always gonna have your big giant companies and that are gonna be, you know, your ABMs and others that are pursuing that track. And and while they're gonna have influence and their shadow will loom large in the industry, you know, I hope that they're not the ones that are leaving their mark on the industry. I hope that some of us in the trenches who are doing different things, maybe operating on a little bit different model that's more relatable to 95% of the population is able to do things that make small businesses in our industry thrive. And that may I don't know what that's gonna look like.

Jordan Tong:

I don't know what specific changes that's gonna be or whatever, but but we wanna be an innovator and be on the forefront of of seeing that happen. And we just have a heart and passion for the everyday person, the everyday business owner. And so Yeah. Hopefully, becomes the future of the industry. And and hopefully, you know, the rising tide raises all ships, and hopefully, we can do that with Sure.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

So here, let me let me put this out there, then we can all collaborate on this piece, and I will keep going. I am a believer that, to your point, you are making a difference right now. There is more room than ever before for small to mid market to make an impact than ever before. I've been told and and I've been you know, again, I've only been in the industry for ten about ten years now.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

And so many people that have been in it for longer are like, Rick, for the first time, everybody's connecting, everybody's collaborating, the guards are down, we're sharing information. And I say all this because you you were asked or you were saying about you really hope that others can make an impact. Mhmm. Well, Jordan, when you made the mastermind group again, I'm gonna argue I was in the first five, but maybe top 20. But you you reached out to me.

Ricardo Regalado:

I vividly remember. I was like, I was $23,000,000 in revenue in the ship. And you're like, hey, man. I know you're, you know, you're active. You're trying to get active.

Ricardo Regalado:

I'm trying to do this thing. And Yeah. You wanna join? You know, like, just let's just share some stuff. I don't know what I'm doing yet, but, like, we're gonna be on base camp.

Ricardo Regalado:

And I jumped at her. I was like, finally, I could talk to somebody else, you know, because you couldn't talk to anybody. Right.

Brian Lewis:

Right.

Ricardo Regalado:

So since that moment, you've grown that. I started doing a lot of the cleaning cocktails thing. Right? And others have now really embraced it. Like, now more than ever, I think what you've done for France has given France credibility.

Ricardo Regalado:

Mhmm. Vice versa.

Brian Lewis:

Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Elite, clean train you, marketing.

Brian Lewis:

Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Like we're saying, all those things come to be because of the experiences you had at France. Yeah. One is feeding the other.

Brian Lewis:

Yeah. I'm

Ricardo Regalado:

sure. But it's giving you credibility to say, hey. I'm gonna raise my hand. I think I can help. Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

People are gonna answer, man. So how does that make you guys feel about I truly do think the small to mid market companies are in a position to make an impact where those others are just they're in a different hemisphere. And that's okay.

Brian Lewis:

Yeah. For sure.

Ricardo Regalado:

It's okay.

Brian Lewis:

Yeah. I think it's important to remember you don't have to be big to be great. I read a book not too long ago called Small Giants, and it talked about that. It was a group of business owners that that said, you know what? We don't care about growing and growing and getting large just to get large.

Brian Lewis:

Like, we care about being great. And it really kinda struck a chord with me because I had never really thought about our company really like that. Yeah, man. We can be we can be sub $20,000,000 and still be great and have an impact on people.

Ricardo Regalado:

Oh, yeah. Well And

Jeff Carmon:

and we put an emphasis on and I think all of the people that are in our group put an emphasis on customer retention, and that's the key to growth. Mean, you Key. You can't grow your company if everything's going out the back door. And so when we're thinking about elite, we're saying, hey, what are ways that we can help you grow? But not only that, let's talk about some ways that you can enhance your service so that you keep those customers for a long time, this whole customer lifetime value, and you can keep them for ten and fifteen and twenty years, man, it's it's it's the key to success.

Jeff Carmon:

Really is. And I think I think this this size company is really, really good

Jordan Tong:

at doing that. Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah. And I and I would say, like, if you did so I I do pay homage to Jordan. Right? And, like, when you did the mastermind group, that was the first time I realized. And then I went to BSCI, then I went to ISSA.

Ricardo Regalado:

I think it was all in the same year. Yeah. '16 and '17. And I think you said it, Brian, where you're like, the first time Jordan, you might have said it's just they went to the oh, it was your parents. Went to the BSCI.

Ricardo Regalado:

And they were like, this industry is big. Dude, when I went to the ISSA show

Jeff Carmon:

Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

I shit you not. I was like, this is how big the industry? I was like, holy shit. And then I went to the BSCI, and then the and then I quickly then joined the group. But I was like, man, that showed me validity that I'm in the right place if I wanna do something about it.

Ricardo Regalado:

Right. I mean, not everybody wants to grow

Jordan Tong:

Right.

Ricardo Regalado:

Like, to your point to a degree. But it's if you if you didn't do that, I didn't do that. Others aren't doing it. BSCI is embracing more and more middle management or small to medium. ISSA.

Ricardo Regalado:

There's so many groups and companies out, but it's time.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

It is time for collaboration

Jordan Tong:

Yep.

Ricardo Regalado:

More than ever.

Jeff Carmon:

Yeah. One thing I would say too, just to work in my time at Elite is and I think there's a lot of this, and we've talked about, you know, we're providing tools and we're doing this. I'm telling you, I get as I get as many ideas from the member companies as we're giving out. So that, you know, there's just a lot of and it there's there's companies much smaller than France who will say, hey. Here's what they're doing.

Jeff Carmon:

I'm thinking, man, that's a great idea. And so, again, it just goes to this collaboration, I think.

Ricardo Regalado:

Because it's not about size. It's not. It really it really is. I mean, the the bigger companies learn from the smaller. The smaller they're pretty big.

Jordan Tong:

Right. Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

So let me

Jordan Tong:

go let me go back to something you said earlier about the just because I know your audience is mostly smaller companies. And, like, I mean, like, 20 mil under, 30 mil under, whatever. So not the ABM is not listening to this podcast.

Ricardo Regalado:

ABM, you should listen. No. Yeah.

Jordan Tong:

But if you think about it, like, are some industries where the larger your company, the more access you have to new customers, distribution channels, if you can beat out smaller competition. There's a sense in where if you're good at what you do in this, you can be better than any of the bigger competitors in the market that you're in. That's right. Mhmm. Yeah.

Jordan Tong:

Because and I don't foresee that changing anytime soon. And, actually, you have a more advantage now because of all the technological tools that you have to be like a big player.

Ricardo Regalado:

You could

Jordan Tong:

you could On a really small budget. Yeah. And so I think now more than ever, the small guy can build a really good thriving business in a market or two markets or whatever. Yeah. I do too.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah. That's encouraging. That should be encouraging to anybody in

Jeff Carmon:

the industry.

Ricardo Regalado:

No. Think about it. Technology again, I've said this many times where it's like, you didn't have if you don't have the process or the manual approach first, tech's not gonna solve it. Like, you have to you have to go through the manual piece before. But to your point, Jordan, now more than ever, a smaller company has visibility on their workforce, visibility on their performance, a a pulse of what's going on in their business, you could act like a bigger company.

Jordan Tong:

Oh. Oh, yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

But but and without the burden

Jeff Carmon:

Right.

Ricardo Regalado:

Of all that Yeah. That they have too. Right?

Jeff Carmon:

Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

So it's it's just it's a fun it's a fun environment. So to that note, let's talk about fun from an m and a perspective as far as growth strategy. Because now that we're having bourbon, I think it's always it's fun to like, I'm a big guy on big hairy audacious goals. Uh-huh. So, like, I love talking about, like, big goals and, like, what you wanna be and how big you can get or we all have done it differently.

Ricardo Regalado:

Like, we were just saying, Jordan, like Yep. Like, Brian and and Jordan, what's France's approach up till now been to now? What do you have an appetite and are curious about moving forward from what?

Brian Lewis:

Yeah. Well, you know, as we spoke about this a little bit earlier, largely over a lot of years, we've kinda grown by bootstrap and grind. Yeah. And it's really hard in this industry to do that. We've started new geographies, new markets by sheer organic.

Brian Lewis:

Let's get this thing, and then we'll start growing around it. And it's very difficult in our industry to do that. So while we've grown in large part due to bootstrap and grind in the past, I don't see our four I don't foresee our future being as much of that. I would I would venture to say that acquisition will will be a a big part of our growth in the future. And once again, we wanna make sure we're growing for the right reasons.

Brian Lewis:

We don't wanna grow just to grow. We wanna grow to further our mission, but I would venture to say that that acquisition will be a big

Ricardo Regalado:

part of that

Brian Lewis:

as we move forward. Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Jordan, what do what do you think?

Jordan Tong:

Yeah. I I would agree with that. I think the the other and it sort of goes alongside it is in terms of growth for us in the new markets. You're right. Like, saying, hey.

Jordan Tong:

We're gonna be in that city, and then we go start an operation there. I don't I don't think we'll do that again. No. But we we are looking. We have some target markets.

Jordan Tong:

We'd like to be here or here or here, and we'll go target some larger customers in those markets. And if one of those drops, that gives us sort of an entry.

Ricardo Regalado:

Point. Customer gets you. Yeah.

Jordan Tong:

Mhmm. Yeah. We have to be a big customer in order to

Jeff Carmon:

But don't you think don't you think it's important to to find companies who kinda have a similar culture view on service that Like like minded. Yeah. Minded. Yeah. And that's all that takes a little longer to find those.

Brian Lewis:

It does. It does. When I think about all the things I'd love to align as we look for different companies, I think, my gosh, it would take the the stars would have to. It's it's crazy.

Jordan Tong:

Was very true. Yeah.

Brian Lewis:

Was very true. But, yeah, I don't know, man. I I think I think we wanna use acquisition to either a, launch new geography. We wanna be purpose purposeful with our acquisition. So it's a, to launch new geography or b, to maybe start a new vertical that we're not in Yeah.

Brian Lewis:

That we wanna get in. One of those two reasons is why we'd we'd want to acquire another company. And Perfect World, they already have a turnkey management team in place. Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Well, because I mean, what seeing what we've seen with you guys already too is you're you're in the right position to make somebody's moves because you gotta get the core right first.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

And you guys have the right leadership, right core. You guys on the training. Like, there's a lot of shared resources that that's when acquisitions make sense.

Jordan Tong:

No. That's what they that's what they've They've done so well. And why an acquisition even helps further our mission is I think a lot of these companies and you know this, owners hit a ceiling sometimes. And for whatever reason, it's maybe the best thing for the business. That may be the case for us one of these days.

Jordan Tong:

No. 100%. The business is gonna be better off doing something a little bit different. Yeah. And so it's exciting to be able to go in and really help change a company in a good way.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah. And sort of all of sudden give all the because I remember the first acquisition we did, there's lot of people that had reached their ceiling because the owner was right above it. There was nowhere else to

Ricardo Regalado:

go. Yeah.

Jordan Tong:

Had some turnover there, but it's one employee in particular just to see them rise up Yeah. And develop a career that they didn't think they would have. It's been a lot of fun to watch.

Jeff Carmon:

Yeah. Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

No. And and I think the shift of the industry changes as far as like, I've run into clients that care more about, like, the delivery of service quality. Right? And like this like, my whole mission and passion is to reinvent the service delivery model with what I was telling you guys about. I think there's a world you could do both subcontracting, which we're trying to figure out a better name.

Ricardo Regalado:

This is a collective Yeah. We gotta figure out a better name than subcontracting.

Jordan Tong:

You do. It's like a dirty word.

Ricardo Regalado:

It's a dirty word. It's like unbelievable. Like, is it Revered partner. Revered partner. Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Independent service partner. I don't know. But I think there's a world you could do both because clients, those that wanna stick with you, because it happened to us, you guys, twice is they're like, man, Rick, we're going into two new states. Yeah. Mhmm.

Ricardo Regalado:

We love you. I don't know if you could do

Jordan Tong:

this though. Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Right? It's like, oh, man. If I didn't have the model, we would have to say no. Right. But there's that friction, right?

Ricardo Regalado:

Where it's like, we didn't let it be friction. We said, you know what? We'll figure it out. Yeah. We'll embrace So I just I think if clients end up liking working with a service partner, the service partner's gotta be ready for that.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Right? Like Yeah. To for you to be able to take that go where that client takes you to your point, that's the ideal situation. Yeah. Get into a market because a client took

Brian Lewis:

you. Right.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah. You gotta set up shop.

Jordan Tong:

Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Can do it like that. Alright. Well, I think I'm getting a little hungry myself again. So I think we're gonna wrap it up. But before I wrap it up, I wanna do one more cheers.

Ricardo Regalado:

But any last words? We're at the last supper here. So any last words

Jordan Tong:

that you guys have? Which one of you is Judas? For for

Ricardo Regalado:

our for our audience. Yeah. I don't think you wanna leave the cleaning cocktails community with us.

Jordan Tong:

Man, I just I appreciate what you're doing. You you and I've had a lot of conversations and and both trying to figure out what each other's doing. I just I love that we I feel like we're complementing what each other is doing. And and I hope that because you fostered this, and I hope we have too, that there's a sense a real sense in where we're all in this together, and then we want to help each other. Yeah.

Brian Lewis:

Right.

Jordan Tong:

And I think everyone's gonna find more success in that process. So I'm thankful that, you know, we can be a part of that, that you guys are a part of that. And hopefully that hopefully, that will begin to make ways in the industry. And it would create a really cool industry to be a part of.

Ricardo Regalado:

Yeah. No. And I think, Jeff

Jeff Carmon:

Well said.

Ricardo Regalado:

Ryan, I think. Yeah.

Brian Lewis:

No? No. Very well said. Yeah.

Ricardo Regalado:

Very well you guys, we gotta cheers to that because I think that is the opportunity we have here is to do just that, Jordan. So cheers to you guys.

Jordan Tong:

Yes, sir.

Ricardo Regalado:

So I believe we have a saying that we've said a couple times. Yeah. We'll say it

Brian Lewis:

one more time. Say it again.

Ricardo Regalado:

Right? Let's do on a count of three, we're gonna say I'm gonna say we are, and you guys say stronger together. Ready? Let's do it. We are Stronger together.

Ricardo Regalado:

Cheers.