Louise Starkey from Stark International CEO been doing this 43 years wow and you I’m Xavier medicine Director of Education at Starkey International happy explore City everybody loves him you know because he’s so fresh and croissant and don’t forget my prayer here and I’m really lucky because my Frenchman here takes care of us and the students when they do come and when we go to do private training he takes care of everybody on staff so we want to do a private training we get calls often and so one of the first things we ask people is okay how many square feet of home do you have because that tells us how many hours of cleaning there actually is in a home we have a baseline for most everything we also ask how many people are on staff oh and I’ll be trained do they know anything about the other product we’re going to teach they want to learn yes I’ll be willing to uh to learn or are they uh don’t they want to um understand what we’re going to we’re going to teach and we have Alison in Spanish and so when we go we will always make sure there’s at least one person that knows how to speak English even if the rest only speak Spanish you’ve done it many many times so we have a book in Spanish we have a housekeeping book in Spanish so that helps a lot for the people who do not speak um very well in English so we show up and we are greeted by the principal and we start out by spending a little time with the principal I want to know how she thinks I want to know what’s driving her crazy about her staff you want to know I want to know what how this stuff is doing and whatever needs water just the stuff is missing how well is a house clean what kind of surfaces do they have to clean and what product they use so I never go into our homes and take over our staff I want the staff to teach me I want to learn first what they know and how they do things so it’s an it’s a win-win situation because I don’t come in as as a as a teacher I come in as well as the students to begin with then when I go around and talk to each of the different uh staff and what they do and how we clean and what product they use and what kind of surface they have then I can I can make my suggestions and and start by showing them what’s the best way usually if I come into our homes the staff is willing to learn very few times do I have a staff that is a wall it’s very rare because before I get there I make sure that this I speak to the staff on the phone each and and each individual and learn a little bit about them so I kind of break the ice you know and I want to know if you want to learn if they are willing to um willing to listen to me to show them how to do things but I am willing and I tell them that I’m willing to learn about them and what they do because you know you’re not from a baby in the water together you just keep what’s working and because you know and and change what need to be changed with a common sense of stuff it’s important that you don’t come in I’m the one you’re gonna listen now but I’m the one that’s going to listen to you first then I will make suggestion and then we will agree about how we’re going to proceed so Mary and Xavier would you when you first go Would You observe the staff doing their chores cooking and their daily things and then give them feedback okay no we don’t because we set it up so that the staff from the very beginning know that they have a whole week of training and you cannot work and do your regular job and get trained so they’re kind of standing around and and we have them take us on a tour with the principal and we go through the entire house and we look at uh the closets that are a disaster how are they a disaster well obviously mismatch everything they throw things in the closet and close the door not knowing how to organize a closet you know but I also look at the uh job description if there is one often the the problem in a home is there is no job description so people are kind of not knowing what they are supposed to do and not supposed to do what is their uh what is it what is it what what they were hiring higher to do and so what do they do all day that’s a question what does someone do all day so that the health can be organized within the day so my role when we do a private training is Xavier’s teaching uh and working with the actual staff people I meet with the staff individually and they say okay in bullet form talk to me about what you do all day and I write it all down and I begin to see the needs of the overall staff by knowing what’s each individual does all day long in fact we were recently at a private training and discovered that the um two housekeepers were not very happy with the Houseman or the butler because he didn’t have enough to do so he kept trying to do their jobs yeah interfering with our daily routine that’s kind of a it’s kind of uh difficult to work with you know in the homes and someone doesn’t know what to do today so again adding a job description for each and every one of the people in the homes is a good stocks and if we don’t have them I create them you know also when I go into a home the staff is 50 right 50 wrong the reason they call us to come is to make sure that what they know is correct or if it if are not correct meaning that are we doing it right is this a way to do a a process of cleaning the surface is this the right product and often they don’t know because you know multi-million dollar homes have a multi-million dollar surfaces and each surfaces is totally different so it’s important to use the right product and if they don’t know what product to use um then that’s where they get um panicky they get stress you know they want to do their job people I have never met somebody in the home who doesn’t want to do their job but they have to know how to do the job correctly so that uh when they come when they show up to work in the morning when they leave their homes they know what will happen today and that’s really the point where we feel more comfortable be happier in their work even know what’s going to happen everybody loves being successful yes everybody wants to be successful I remember being in a home way back it’s been a while and all the surfaces in the of the furniture all had a a uh what do you call it English is that the English uh no there was uh a surface within they were putting oil on a Surface that’s what I said you know Old English and and you it didn’t go in because it had a it had a coating a finish that didn’t accept anything yeah like a piano you don’t put any finish on the piano because the piano has already a coating at make it shine so you don’t want to use this kind of product so if you have fine antiques in a home uh not not you know most of my clients don’t buy from American Furniture you know they have really high-end beautiful things so it’s important to know what people are doing and what products people are doing oh that’s that’s right what do you think’s more um when you meet with them individually after you do a private training what are some of the things that the staff will say back to you of wow this was you helped me with the time management now I can I have a little more of a schedule like what tools do you leave with them that they can continue to tap into when you’re gone well first of all you know we have different books for example if I go for a housekeeping then I have these housekeeping books which has everything in there uh so if you start this off with uh we leave our uh we leave our clients with great tools and then go into what you’re saying yeah we we leave our clients with with tools our the staff we stool and then we have books so when they when they train people I always bring the books for each individual uh stuff every staff person has their own books so they can refer to it once we’re gone you know um and also you would bring the entertainment book oh the entertainment yeah the Entertainment Book when we work with a client we always try to find out their focus is it housekeeping is it entertaining or both well both yeah also their focus has to have both then we have to have time to train both yes by the time we’re done the student the staff member has a week long with us to answer all the questions that come up the surfaces that are really hard to clean they will have management tools like for instance will develop a whole housekeeping plan based on every single day what did they do so that they know how to be successful yes remember that a housekeeping plan is not a checklist you never use a checklist for a housekeeping plan for any plan as a matter of fact it’s always time oriented it’s important that we know what it takes to clean a room how long does it takes to clean a room so that when we add all the room together and all the items in each rooms we know by the end of a week how many hours it takes to clean a home so often you will have too many people or other stuff and so when you have too many people people start to get in each other’s way get in each other’s way like we have it in Sacramento but if you are under staff with a number of hours for large homes that is not enough to cover the entire clinic by the time it gets to Friday evening that’s when the house will be finished because there’s no cleaning on Saturday and Sunday of course then you are you have not finished your priority of having a home beautiful and the home beautiful is what the clients want you know so having having finished by Friday everything’s in its place everything is a place and every place has a thing there you go so when we meet with the client from the very beginning they’re involved they want to typically be part of the training because they want to know what their staff is being taught and we’re grateful for that because if they don’t know what they’re being taught then things get lost well also you know Atlanta doesn’t really know what he really takes to clean the homes they are very good in their business are doing what they do and making their money but really running a home is a is not their Forte but if they participate in a training because we are interested in what we do and why we come we pay us a lot of money uh they themself learn and by the time they finish a week now we understand better what their staff has to go through to get their home ready beautiful stop um how typically principals have no idea what it takes for a staff member or members to clean an entire home they’ve they’ve never had to do it so they don’t know so it’s it becomes a yeah are you playing it becomes a learning process for both the staff as well as the principal if you see that you remember when I put a little coaster underneath I put my Patty over here that I am from France I’m from France and the little lemon inside so it’s refreshing we’re good anyway where were we at this is what I put up with all the time my Frenchman here yes so I introduced your little dog well we didn’t introduce you look at his beautiful coat uh winter coat we have Timmy with his uh uh snowman coat it’s cold 15 degrees last night in Denver they were shivering so outside of cleaning which we know is a huge part of why you guys go in and educate I love I love going and educate because you know 35 years of of working in a homes for different uh High Network clients royalties or president I came to a point where I want to teach that I want to teach what I know and I want people to be sponge and willing to learn and I’m willing to share everything that I know there is no secrets you know teaching is about opening up it’s about being being honest with people being totally upfront genuine genuine and sharing stories of my mistake I wasn’t perfect all the time I was not perfect okay so but I’ve learned and uh when you when you make mistake it’s completely okay as long as you learn from it you know don’t be stubborn you know so that’s my that is my I cherish going into a home first of all because first of allow me to travel to meet people to meet people who are willing to and open to learn and and share with stories and we are in the same Industries so it’s important for me that I feel I feel that I give everything I can you know uh to the people I go and teach them people really love Xavier as an instructor and while he’s teaching I’m meeting individually with each staff person for about an hour right and listening to what works in their position the bullet points of what they do what is the first question you would ask what do you do all day that is the most important you work into a let’s say we place you we you want to be placed into your home right the first question is we have before we yes what do you want to do really because you know when you’re looking for a position you should have a list of things that you want to do during the day because you’re going to be doing it eight to ten hours a day right and if you don’t know what you want to be doing all day you’re in trouble if you don’t know why you’re going into our homes and what’s what family how big of a family or Geographic locations you need to know all of that where you feel you will feel comfortable about taking the positions you must ask a lot of questions to yourself so let’s let’s bring everything to a head there is when we do private training when we leave staff members will be empowered because they know what they’re supposed to be doing secondly there is a written housekeeping plan that the employer and the staff people can refer to there is uh there may be new um cleaning tools and products that work maybe work better than what they had maybe not um remember housekeeping you have to keep the product as simple as possible you do not want to get all those chemicals it has it’s not necessary there’s two mechanic too much chemical on the market but simpler let’s say uh fee bee Works be wax is perfect because first of all it’s wonderful smell it’s natural and you can use that on a lot of Furnitures without having to worry about you are using the wrong product so water and vinegar it’s as simple as that you want to kill bacteria what’s better than vinegar and so on and so forth there is a lot of simple thing you can do to make a house beautiful and looks like uh you use the best product but in you know in the world the most sophisticated chemical now you use the more simple product works fantastic okay so we have the housekeeping thank you down pat yes and they may also want to be trained when they entertain entertainment our our last client that we were at she wants to entertain friends and they have a whole Legacy going of of people that work for them that they want to bring in and make part of their extended family and so they want to entertain well they didn’t have any people that would help them entertain and no person said I’m exhausted yes so the next thing we do is the entertainment we have this big book of entertaining you’ve done everything in this book about entertaining there is not one thing that’s missing about creating an event this is your Bible for entertaining there is no better books uh on the market than what Mrs turkey remember these books I’ve been reading by Mrs Starkey for the last 30 years so we know we use all the technique in the books where we have what she has written down so uh interesting is not about serving uh to the right and picking up service to your left picking up on the right it’s it’s an art form it’s beautiful it’s it’s uh it’s um uh you call it gives you some energy and and doing it with Grace and beautiful uh pet setting and it’s a show you are an artist you are an actor you are on stage the entertainment piece gives The Graduate the staff people the ability to show what they know it’s a it is Showcase it’s a showcase people who have never been trained in in obtaining maybe lovely people but unless they know the art form of it of how it’s done correctly doesn’t work how do you set a beautiful table how do you bring how do you bring foreign how do you serve people always a train a trade shows your knowledge Australia shows that you you know how to serve people carry things in their hands you know and they put it no no no no it’s you want to entertain and people want to be entertained by principal and so this is a combination of receivers and givers if a giver is not willing to receive what uh if a receiver is not willing to receive what the giver is giving there’s no service taking place and if a giver is not giving what the receiver wants again there is no service taking place so it’s a mutual agreement that is a win-win situation where you do your Giver gives with Grace and Company and love and the receiver we see with love receive love and understand the grace talk about the event planner oh the event planner so we have an event planner in this book that will teach you exactly no matter what the event is to show exactly the step-by-step how to prepare an event you could do a like we do a lot you’ve done it for 40 years down with the principal you should know my principle right and she or he answers specific questions what 20 minutes worth 30 minutes worth yeah 20 minutes whose and and then in his in his in his uh in this plan you will have who does what during the service you know when and how you don’t want people to walk around and get lost I used to work for a president in Africa and we have different people and they all came to the president every two seconds seven minutes and it will be different people you have you have to have a plan of whoso who and when and how you know so it’s otherwise you’re on Crisis crisis month people walk around like they are lost so you cannot do that everything has to be every movement every step is calculated so that it shows Grace and minimalists right I have a great little story I was having a formal dinner once speak to me I was having a formal dinner I’ve had many of them over the years probably 25 years of formal dinners every year multiple every year so we have a General in his whites and his spouse with a backless beautiful gown and the the server who had been trained the person came up to serve the dessert and on the tray was a oh give me that that’s much better was was uh chocolate mousse chocolate mousse and as he was serving this one he also had a tray in this hand and as he was serving it went like this and I tried to grab it I was sitting next it was a slow motion slow motion I’m trying to catch it I didn’t and you see in your head the disaster coming up it it went all over his whites went all over the back of her beautiful gown and then I turned around and I said where is everyone and they all went out into the to The Back Garden and hid because they were so they knew they were in trouble yeah but the point is we didn’t have enough practice it was our fault we didn’t teach them enough and most importantly here’s a here’s a big one the service receptacle that we had the uh chocolate mousse in yes was the wrong one it was tall it should have been a short one yes so it wasn’t gonna fall anyway so between myself and the chef and the server we all took our part I wasn’t here okay it wasn’t me I didn’t train because I would have done it differently sure I was the beginning we’ve never seen a general again we’ve seen over generals and oatmeals and you know but but this one they never hired one of our drive-throughs so we make mistake you know we learn and never happen again so now go into um you know we would love to if you’re interested in our private training be a part of anything of your needs or your wants or you know just you know reach out to us we customize our private training to meet the needs of the client oh yes every client is different every problem is different there’s not one home in the world that is the same so that is people who take an agenda from a previous employment principle and move it to their new homes with the same agenda uh oh I used to serve a John this way there’s no reason you shouldn’t be served that way for my new pressure part doesn’t work like that they don’t last very long you must understand who your principles are what is their lifestyle goal what is your vision of service you know what is the what is a bullet point that they want to tell you this is what’s important in the stage that’s important somebody was fruity as well compared to somebody a principle was 30 and 40 is different approachable with 17 now so you cannot have the same service for everybody it doesn’t work there’s no one fits all like a pair of socks it’s not possible so ask us to come and do a private training you won’t be sorry we but when when we leave your home is spotless your staff is as I said invigorated the employer knows what she wants oh remember the last training we had at in Sacramento we did housekeeping and entertainment we finished for a week with a formal dinner because that’s why they created these beautiful homes and they never got the service they wanted before we showed up and I at the end the staff line up in the living rooms after the service and you won’t believe but the principal started crying because we spent 50 million dollars in our homes beautiful home for entertaining and nobody really knew how to oh everything the best they could the staff was just wonderful but they didn’t know and they were tipped on you know and so that’s what made it uneasy but once we finish on the Friday on Saturday we didn’t we dinner on Saturday with the 12 guests and we finally presented everybody at the end and the guests uploaded the principal both with tears in their eyes and that’s why that to me is the reward it was great better than the money that we achieve our goal so that’s what we want we want you to have tears in your eyes when we’re done teaching your stuff thank you for listening thank you God bless you and have a wonderful holiday season and Jimmy say goodbye bye-bye bye bye