Episode 17: Quality Control - A Critical Part of Keeping Happy Customers with Sid Graef

In this episode of The Huge Insider Podcast, host Sid Graef dives deep into the critical topic of quality control—the first pillar in a four-part series on building happy, profitable client relationships. Speaking directly to home service pros and business owners scaling past the $1M mark, Sid breaks down how quality is not a fluke—it’s a system. He shares his proven framework used at Spectrum Window Cleaning, where performance-based pay, job ownership, and strategic incentives create a culture of accountability and pride. From smart hiring to random job site checks, Sid explains how aligning incentives with expectations leads to fewer callbacks, better reviews, and long-term client retention. If you’re ready to reduce chaos and scale responsibly, this episode is your blueprint.

Show Notes

Topics Covered:

• The 4 pillars of client happiness: Quality Control, Reviews, Referrals, and Retention

• Why quality control begins with hiring the right people

• Performance-based pay: benefits and pitfalls

• How job ownership prevents corner-cutting

• Spectrum’s 3-part quality system (Training, Ownership, Random Checks)

• How to align pay structures with performance standards

• Real-life incentives and consequences to drive better behavior

• The long-term impact of enforcing high standards

 

Mentioned Resources & Links:

• The Huge Insider newsletter signup

• Downloadable action guide

• Foundations platform trial offer

• The Huge Mastermind info page

• Facebook group for service pros

• 📍 The Huge Convention 2025 — Nashville, TN, August 20–22

• 🌐 Spectrum Window Cleaning (Business owned by Sid Graef – more at upcoming episodes)

 

Connect with Sid Graef:

• LinkedIn

• Facebook Group

 

 

Transcript:
Welcome back to the Huge Insider Podcast. Hey, the huge insider is the show for home service professionals that are striving to break the million dollar revenue mark. If that's you, you're definitely in the right spot. If you're already over a million dollars in revenue, you get even more out of this show.

So here's the thing, we really want to help you skip the BS and get real wisdom from experienced business builders. We have gathered. Wisdom and insight directly from seven and eight figure business owners, people that are running companies that do anywhere from 2 million a year to 40 million a year.

And we bring you the best insights every week, all focused on a single topic every month. Real owners, no, no opinions, just experience. So here's the thing. This month we're focusing on the things that you must do to get and keep happy, profitable clients. These four things are quality control. Reviews, referrals, and long-term retention.

So today's topic is quality control. Might sound boring, but it's incredibly important. So today I get to share our processes and the core principles behind quality control. So last thing before we dive in, wanna remind you, we've got a downloadable action guide for you. It's available@thehugeinsider.com and I hope you download it and use it.

So let's get into it. Quality control. If you've got a crew that's out doing window cleaning or pressure washing or whatever your business does, and you're not on every single job site, you're growing your company, then this episode is for you. Here's the deal. Quality control is not an accident, it's a process.

It, here are the underlying principles for quality control. Number one is what gets measured, gets managed, and then number two is incentivize behavior that you want. And disincentivize behavior that you don't want. So if you don't build systems to ensure your quality, you end up with callbacks, bad reviews, lost clients, and honestly, that would be your fault, even if you're not the one holding the squeegee because you are the business owner and you're the one that sets the tone, the foundation, and the direction of your company.

So here's the foundation of quality. It doesn't really start with a checklist or inspection. It starts with your people. The kind of people who care. So when you're hiring, you need people that have solid character. You need people that are coachable. You need people that have attention to detail, and you need people that have a personal standard for doing great work.

If you instill a core behavior, like own your work or always go. The extra mile or take pride in your work, enforcing quality becomes way easier. It's not just about rules, it's about pride. But here's the kicker. Even if your team is full of good people, you still need systems because hope is not a strategy, and growth without systems leads to chaos.

So I'm gonna walk you through how we do it. It. This is how we handle it at Spectrum Window cleaning. First, our techs are on performance based pay, so this can vary for you because maybe you pay hourly or some other way. But we pay performance based. That means our techs get a percentage of the job, regardless of how fast they finish the job.

So let's say it's a thousand dollars job, they finish, they get $250. That motivates them to move fast. The faster they go, the more they can make. But here's the dark side of that speed. Can lead to a technician cutting corners so that they can get more done and get faster, make more money. If you don't address it, that will end up happening.

It's. It's the kind of the natural course of things. So we built in ownership of the job. So when a technician's assigned to a job, they own it from start to finish, it is their job. They're responsible to show up on time to follow the customer service scripts, to clean to our standards. They're responsible to, at the end of the job, to walk the customer through the work, and they have to double check everything before leaving, and nobody comes behind them to inspect it.

So how do we make sure they don't take shortcuts? We align the incentives. Here's the incentive and the way it works. If a tech gets a call back, they own that job, so they have to go back and fix it themselves. With no extra pay. That a thousand dollars job example, their $250, that's what they get, whether there's a touch up or not.

So if they have to go back out and touch up, it's gonna cost them an extra 30 minutes to an hour, depending on drive time just to go and look. Plus the time it takes to do it. So it's more important for them. It's in their best interest to do it right the first time. And this is what we repeat over and over.

It's like it's better for you to just take an extra 10 minutes to check your work before you leave than spend an hour going back for a touch up. So just double check your work. And here's another layer. If they get multiple callbacks in a short window of time, for example, if they get, if they got three callbacks in a single week, they're gonna drop a commission tier for 30 days.

And that hits hard. It hits 'em in the paycheck. But it reinforces that quality is non-negotiable. Now here's a little bit more of our system. It's like a three-part quality system, and at the end of the day. W. We have quality control on three main levels. First is proper training in a strong culture fit.

We try to hire the right type of person, but once we hire 'em, we train, we train, we train, we train, we train, we train 'em how to do the job correctly. We train 'em the technical skills. We train them with attention to detail. We teach 'em how to inspect their work, and we teach them how to take pride in their work.

Number two is what I had mentioned just a little bit earlier. Job ownership from beginning to end. Every tech is the boss of their job. There's no babysitting, but that means they own that job and they're responsible for it from beginning to end. So if they get a call back a week later, 10 days later, it's, they're responsible to go back, touch up, rec, reclean, whatever it takes to handle that job.

And number three, we do. Have random site checks, our production manager, our operations manager on occasion, will drop in without warning and inspect the work while the guys are there. Or after the technicians have already cleaned and left. And that keeps everybody sharp because it's like the random check at the airport, except it makes sense.

Ha ha. As we wrap it up. Here's the thing, your customers don't care really how fast the job got done. They just want to know that it's done correctly. They want their windows clean. They want their house clean. They want their experience to be great. So if you want fewer callbacks and better reviews, and a team that performs like a pro.

You've gotta design your business to reward great work and punish poor performance. If somebody does great work, they're gonna rise to the top. They're going to make more money, they're going to be rewarded for it. But if they don't perform well, it's like they're gonna lose time and money by going back to fix things, or they're gonna leave your company.

And either way, it's fine because you are sorting and training and working to get a high performing team, high performing individuals that. Get rewarded for doing things right, and that is going to help you build a business that has a great reputation for quality, for responsibility, and that's gonna help you keep your customers long term.

And so here's the deal. Incentivize what you want, disincentivize what you don't want. That's how you build a team and a reputation that you can be really, really proud of. Thanks for listening. Okay, so normally I have somebody else record the middle part. You know, that they share their insight once in a while, and I'm, I'm really excited I get to share some of the things that we do in our company to help it better and or to help it be better, to help us build a better business.

So I always ask this question, what did you learn today? What did you learn about quality control as a system, as a principle, as a philosophy? And then what are you gonna do with it? Because, the more you build it in and prepare and just drive it home, that quality is key or paramount, the better quality you're gonna have.

And here's the next step for you. I. Take action. We've got everything that was covered today is in the show notes. There's transcript, all that stuff. But the most important thing is every time we do a new weekly episode, we prepare a five page action guide for you and it's downloadable and it helps you execute the strategy.

It gives you the bullet points and the how tos, and that's located@thehugeinsider.com, so the huge insider.com. And while you're at the huge insider.com, downloading your action guide, there's more ways to level up your business and they're all there. One is sign up for a free newsletter if you haven't already done it.

It gives you weekly insights straight to your inbox. They track pretty closely with this podcast. Two, you could join our Facebook group and community where we discuss, we help, we answer questions. Everyone in the group answers each other's questions, and we help build each other up. We help solve problems and.

Help one another, build better businesses. The next thing is the huge convention. If you haven't been, let this Be Your Gear. Every year we have the ultimate event for home service business owners and pros. This year we're in Nashville, Tennessee, August 20th through 22nd. You can still get cheap tickets. And this event is where real breakthroughs happen.

It is the place for networking for education. It's the biggest trade show in the industry for. Our industry in home service, and next is a huge mastermind. If you've got a company that's already pushing or doing more than a million in revenue every year, you got five employees or more, this is the fast track to a freedom business.

You'll learn and implement the Freedom operating system to get to time and money freedom predictably and quickly in your company. So that's it for today. If you find value in this, if you like this short form. Podcast where we just get straight to the point and give you insight and actionable actionable insight.

How's that? That you can apply to your business now that will make a difference, that will help you make more money, more profit, give you more time and money for your, if you like this, go ahead. Share it, post a review, whatever post on social media. But we really appreciate your time listening and we look forward to seeing you next time.