Hey, good afternoon everybody, I'm Stuart here, I'm with Liz Trotter and a host of other people who are all big winners in the jobber boost grant program, and we're going to be talking about their businesses, this really awesome program that jobbers doing to help professionalize the cleaning industry. We're going to have a lot of fun. Hey, how's everybody doing today. Amazing. We've got representatives from three businesses here today. We have Courtney and Burgess. Hey, Berber, they are from Santa. Hey, Berber. That's kind of like, what was the Steve Martin version of the Pink Panther? Oh, yeah, good job, Tom. We're getting there. Santa Claus exterior cleaning from Santa Claus. Is it Indiana? It is. That is awesome. We'll want to hear more about what's happening in Santa Claus. We've got Amber Starling with good witch cleaning services and that's in Kansas, right? Absolutely, Manhattan, the little Apple. That's where my daughter lived. She went to college there. What? Yeah, K-State. Yeah, she's a huge K-State fan. Yeah, huge. That's what I'm talking about. We have Eric Kirk, Kirk Caldy. Kirk Caldy. I'm not really awesome. Liz, why don't I do this? Why don't you just do this? I'm much better with names. You are much better. I'm a geography person. Sparkle and Sheen Organize and Cleaning Services. Where are you guys located, Aaron? We're in Edmonton, Alberta, up north. Oh, right. So this is really kind of a cool program. JobResponsor to Program had thousands of applications from, I guess, home service companies. It was a grant program and out of the thousands of applications, they selected 30 home services entrepreneurs, basically. And out of those 30, they gave out grants in total for $150,000. Each of you guys, your company's got $10,000 from JobResponsor. Is that correct? Yep, we did. $7,500. Yeah, I got $7,500 as well. $7,500. Okay. Well, that's still a grant. We get that portion. Yeah, I know. So it's about the same. I didn't think about that. That was good, Aaron. And as we've learned with the series of unprecedented events over the last year and a half and COVID and everything that, you know, the SBA is doing and PPP funds a grant. It's pretty cool because that's just money that you never have to pay back, right? Yeah. So Courtney and Burgess, could you tell us a little bit about your company? What you guys do, the services you offer, how you got started in the business and a little bit about the grant process and what you guys did to become a winner in their program? Absolutely. Burgess, why don't you start talking about the company and then I'll talk about the grant process. All right. Well, Santa Claus exterior cleaning is a company, our bread and butter is low pressure house washing. So we do low pressure house washing, which is basically the exterior of the home. We do low pressure roof washing, which is applicable like metal roofs or asphalt shingles roofs. And we do high pressure concrete cleaning as well. So those are our three primary services. We also do some specialty stone cleaning. We do monument and headstone restorative cleaning. So we do that following the same process. It's used at Arlington National Cemetery and the National Park Service. So those are where we're at right now. We've been in business. Well, we started advertising in June of 2020 amidst a global pandemic because we like things to do things in hard mode. Wow. You know, it was one of those situations where strike by the iron is hot. We saw some opportunity when we replaced the roof on our home. There was a lot of heavy moss and algae growth on it. And I was researching how to keep that from happening on my new very expensive roof that I just had. And it kind of led me to look around and realize that there was a big need for this service in our community and our local area. We service several counties around Santa Claus, Indiana and Southern Indiana. So I was a research and development scientist for a global corporation. I was working on formula and child nutrition. And, you know, I really want to wash houses. So we did this on the side a little bit. It quickly became apparent that there was a need for this and we were getting a lot of response from our community. And it kind of in a very short period of time made it obvious that this is what we should be doing. So our business donates 10% of all of its profits on any service. And we always will to local children in need. So in our first year of business, we've purchased 50 or 60 winter coats for local children in need, 60. And we started a new scholarship local high school and we've made a bunch of financial donations to local nonprofits. So we're very fortunate to already be making the impact that we want to make. And I'll let Courtney talk a little bit about herself, but helping children is obviously in my previous role. And the important thing is current one is very important to us in the company. Yeah, it's been a ride, you know, since we started just last year. But I'm also a public school teacher. I teach middle school music and I just got my administrator's license. So we're very busy and we're very, very much our whole lives are about giving back and about giving giving to kids and helping kids. And so one of the biggest reasons why we did start the company was so that we could have an impact, you know, not just what we were doing personally, but what we can do for the greater good, you know, so. And then the grant process, like you mentioned, we the boost by job or grant was an awesome opportunity. We filled out all the paperwork went through all these interviews and everything. And as you guys know, it was a it was kind of like a shot in the dark. Let's try this out and see what happens and you know, whatever. And it after after different interviews and things that we were chosen and it was unbelievable when we heard so it was very cool. Very awesome. So you were definitely surprised when you found out you were a winner. Looks like they were all surprised.  And you're you know why no one's going to win. Well, yeah, you do sometimes. Amber, would you like to tell us a little bit about your business and how the grant process went for you. I would love to tell you about us. I founded this company in 2017 I was 24 at the time. We had just moved to Kansas from Florida to follow my husband's career in the army.  And I had like a high school diploma so when I was trying to find work. Nobody would hire me because I either had too much experience or too little education.  So we're going to do this. I started all by myself. I had $100 worth of cleaning supplies from Dollar General, and I had a vacuum from my house. In 2018, I became the first ICRC certified house cleaning technician in the state of Kansas. And I hired my first employee. In 2020, I became a journeyman textile cleaner with the ICRC. In 2020, we also face the pandemic and we really reevaluated our core values. We decided that we were going to give it a shot to be a very progressive company in a conservative state. We rewrote our mission statement. And what it is today is to prove that you don't have to be an evil corporation to be a successful company. We have worked really, really hard in the application, which was like way back when I put that we had nine employees. We're now up to 12.  The grant process was awesome. I kind of had like a similar experience to them. I went to my staff meeting that night and I was like, hey, we applied for this grant. It's a long shot. Don't hold your breath. We later went second round and we were like, okay, well, we made it to the second round. It's still a long shot. Don't cross your fingers. And then we got the news that we were actual winners and it was just amazing. They went out of their way to be as clandestine as possible. So we were actually preparing for another round of interviews when they sprung the news on us. So I'm over here. I have like bullet points and note cards everywhere. I look like a conspiracy theorist. I have all my notes because I was so nervous.  I feel like I'm ready. I'm ready. I love that. So Aaron, you want to tell us a little bit about your company and what your experience was going through the grant process? Yeah, absolutely. So Sparklin Chain is a family run residential and commercial cleaning company. It was kind of starting right before COVID hit. So a little bit awkward timing to launch a business. But the help I had between myself and Raquel, she's my mom. So she kind of helped me along the way kind of learning ins and outs of cleaning. But we're a lot more than just a cleaning company. We offer a wide variety of services just to meet any of our clients needs. We do laundry and light housekeeping. We do elderly companionship services. I mean, we even launched it in Turquoise that does that waste removal. So we'll do absolutely anything for our clients just to leave that lasting impression. I mean, a lot of people think it's just cleaning, but it's so much more than that. Just so many of our clients. I'm sure all these other business owners understand too. No one understands what people are going through. Whether it's mental illness or just lost a loved one. Like we've got so many calls after we've done talked about and claims of people just crying and just saying how really changed the way they look at their house and to get back on track and get things back together and get things back in order. So it's something very important to us is just kind of doing whatever it is to help. Like we're very senior focused. So a lot of our work is for the seniors. It may not be the most like the most efficient way to make money, but for us, it's it's so much more than that. And just a lot of these seniors don't have family in the area, which is why we offer the elderly companionship services and stuff like that.  Like it's as simple as that. Just to let them know. And not down there down there, but you have us. You do have someone that you can always know and will always be here. So that's kind of like what our vision and values are here as far as machine is super important to us. And yes, it's got it to where we are today. And I think it's really what separates one of the other cleaning companies and engine here. So, um, as far as the job program goes, um, we're kind of the exact same as you guys. You felt the application here kind of like, well, it's probably a long shot like 45 countries. Probably not. We're going to have looked at, but as the process went on, we just, we knew what we had and we built confidence throughout the way. And kind of by that second round, we kind of knew we had a chance because just what we offer compared to so many other companies. Right. So it was an awesome experience. They came out, we had a big staff meeting because they said they were bringing us some ice cream and stuff. So they kind of came out and met all of us in the staff and played a little game with us and surprised us with the game. So it was an awesome day. The one that I'll remember. Wow. I love this whole story.  I'm like, I love all these stories. I'm like, I love all these stories.  I'm like, don't make me cry. I don't want to cry. There's definitely, definitely a common theme here, isn't it? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Definitely here that you guys are all, all about giving back and being more than just, you know, trying to trying to do a little bit of work to make a, make a buck here. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.  An evil corporation to be successful. Yeah. I'm like, I want to write that down. I mean, not only do we try to give back to the community. We worked with the Manhattan emergency shelter last year. We, not only did we do like a huge cleaning for them because the property hadn't been able to be maintained properly by their volunteers because the volunteers were excluded from the property for a long time due to COVID. They just couldn't have that many people in and out. So we did a big clean to get everything back on track and then we went to our cleaning supply distributor, BD for distributing, which is just like a small local distributor. We're like, hey, we're going to donate a bunch of supplies to them.  We donated over $4,500 worth of consultation and supplies just to keep them running. And then when it comes to our staff, like we start them off at a living wage, we give them access to health care and mental health care, whether they're full time or part time staff. And then we just really try and set them up for success at every step of the way. And we find that when you treat people like that, they treat your clients really, really well. So we do a lot of work with cleaning companies, consulting, training, coaching, have a lot of discussion about financials and how important it is to be profitable and what you can afford and maybe what you can't afford. You guys are all giving money or time that you're paying for. So I mean, this is this is all really spent. You know, Courtney, I'll ask you, do you guys like ever have concerns of, you know, can we afford to be making the giving that you know that the contributions that we're giving is that something that our budget would allow? How do you, how do you get over that hurdle?  Giving back is what is the whole, that's the whole purpose, you know, the whole purpose is, is to give more. And I think that what it comes down to is if you are just going to put the effort in and actually live by what you stand for, or if you're not.   And you have to always think about that, but as long as we're able to, to live our lives the way we like to live them and we help our employees do the same thing while doing the right thing, then there's, you know, you just, you just build, you just build your life around it. And, and I'll, yeah, and I'll just add to, you know, we don't, we don't cross our fingers and hope to give back 10%, you know, whatever year I mean it's built into our business plan. So, you know, our prices are set with that in mind that, you know, a portion of this is going to be going back, period. It's a non-negotiable line item on our budget, like it's going to happen, maybe in our budget, but, you know, you kind of get that. And a great good parent to our customers, you know, to our clients, we say, you know, we do these things. So you are not only hiring just a local company, but you're helping your community by hiring this local company. But you've got good financial controls. You know your numbers. It's not a question. Can we afford it or not? You know you can. Yeah. How about you, Aaron?  And I mean, that can get really expensive after a while. Do you have controls in place to track that, to make sure that, you know, you have the means to do that and still take care of your other commitments? For sure. I mean, same as Santa Claus here, we have it built into our business plan. We know exactly how many clients we have, how many seniors we have, where we're making money and where we're not making money. But in the end, it covers our people's wages. If it comes out of money and the other owners' pocket, it doesn't matter. Everything we do for this business, we put back into the business. We're not here to make a paycheck. We're here to build something really special. And that will go so much farther than whatever we could make off other cleans. If we were spending the time doing move out cleans, we'd probably make a lot more money. But I believe in the hanging it forward and getting good karma back your way. I mean, we do so much for our community because the community is what drives our business. The community is what gives us the reason to wake up in the morning and go help them out and try to make Edmonton a better place. And I mean, when they talk and tell other people about all the things we're doing, I mean, we get tons of clients through that as well where people will call and say, Oh my God, I saw you donated this. That's so amazing. Why did you do it? And you're just like, well, you just want to give back. We want to pay it forward. And then they sign up with us. So I mean, it's kind of like give and take thing. As much as we are given back, I mean, I can't say we're not reaping the rewards from it as well, right? And not to mention the way like the people you're touching and how it makes us feel as well. So it really can't trade it off for anything. In the end, we're going to be able to run whether we're doing it or not. It's all built in a plan. That's all it comes down to have a solid plan because if you just bring it, you're not going to last very long. So I think I may have misunderstood something that you said.  Do you have a different job or? Well, I just mean in general, like we could make a lot more money, but it's not about the money. It never has been. But we're still getting paid. Yeah, we still get paid. We do things once a month. So I take submissions throughout the month for people that think some of people that could use a hand and we'll do a full top to bottom, 12 hour clean, organized, don't really care how long it takes and we don't charge them anything. We do it just completely free out of good will. So like there's times like all that took was enough of our staff to believe in us to want to give some of their time to help other people, right? They share the same vision as we do. It's not just us as the owners. It's our whole company. Every single staff member through training understands what we're doing. So it's like they'll sacrifice their Saturday to help out. So it's kind of like one of those things that you can always make it work. You just have to find the way to motivate people to want to help. And like when they talk to our clients, yeah, exactly. Like our cleaning techs talk to our clients and they see the direct impact they have. So it's like they feel good when they go home too. So they were all on the same page here. All right. Well, I have to jump up on my soapbox here. Everybody just has to forgive me for a second. I won't stay up long, but I do proselytize about matter meaning measure and autonomy.  And you guys are really giving some amazing examples of how to bring meaning to your employees lives and also do your customers lives. And it sounds like to your own lives as well, that having that, that meaning, you guys are able to see how, how motivating that is and how inspiring it is. So I love all your examples. I just want to make sure everybody is still getting paid. Literally running a nonprofit. So I'm glad to hear everybody's getting paid. But the big on the meaning love that. I mean, we all got paid by a job or at least so. That's right. Yeah. The truth is right here. Yeah. I'll be really grand every year to get paid. Yeah. So, Amber, with the grant monies that that you received, do you have any particular ideas as to how you're going to put that money to work? Oh, absolutely. So the best advice that I would give somebody who is applying for a grant is to have a specific plan for that money. Have it absolutely broken down into what you're spending it on. Do at least a basic market analysis. You don't have to hire a firm to do that analysis for you, but do a short competitive analysis. Do a SWOT analysis on your own company and be able to like make a case for yourself. We specifically, when we applied, we have a specific plan to expand into the Wichita market. So Manhattan, Kansas is population 55,000 ish. Wichita, Kansas is population 350,000 plus. So the Wichita market is about two hours away. It's going to be a great place for us to launch our second location. And so we're using that funding to just go ahead and get that first six months off the ground. We are explaining to Wichita only on our commercial side for now because it's just easier to get things established. And so because commercial accounts don't pay net now, they sometimes pay net 30 or government accounts can pay net 60 or 90. We are using those funds to get our lease established, make improvements to the lease, washers, dryers, equipment, stuff like that, and just get everything running for the first six months until we can get that location cash flow positive. All right, I love it. Yeah, so we really know our numbers. Jobber did an amazing job of kind of getting everybody into their own categories so that younger entrepreneurs who started during the pandemic and needed COVID-19 support or newer entrepreneurs who started before the pandemic and we're just starting weren't competing against experienced entrepreneurs like myself. Nice. Yeah, that was really helpful, honestly, because we were nervous as a one year old company that we were going to be up against a lot of people who had been in the business for a long time. And so the different categories of experience was very nice. It was nice for them to separate that out. I agree. Yeah, but that is great. But the good work that you do for the people that work for you in the communities that you serve, I guess, is probably a big part of why you guys wine, correct? Yeah, we're definitely seeing a pattern as we talk to each other. It sounds like it's community engagement business plan and then that leadership philosophy were big hallmarks of our winners. Yeah. And the really cool thing about this is it's like a virtual virtuous circle because the grant money is that you're getting you're using them to grow your business and the bigger your business becomes the more resources you have to do more good work. Yep. Yes, absolutely. Well, how about you, Erin? What are your plans for your 7500 bucks? Well, as you can see, our office is in my mother's house. For us is, I think we've really all grown our office space here. We're up to 18 employees. We keep all the supplies here in the basement, people in and out. I feel bad for the rest of my family members that still live at home that it's just so much traffic in and out. So for us, the biggest thing is just getting a bigger space where we can really like show what we're about have our own, like our sign and everything that people can come in, meet us, meet our technicians, whatever, and just give them the house back a bit. When your office is at your house, it feels like you know, don't really have a home anymore. So we have client kits with cleaning supplies all over the place and when she's on the field, some days are doing this with work and then she's finding off and walks down the stairs just to be around more cleaning stuff. For us, it's like we're ready. We're ready to take that next step in the business and we're not going nowhere, so we know we're ready for it. So that's where honestly, probably the majority of it's going to go. And a little bit into some extra training. Just we work with a CVF. I don't know if anyone. So she has taught us tons of cleaning techniques that we've worked with everyone but now we have that freedom to kind of put in a few more extra hours with them and have our own or out in the field, working with them directly. Kind of seeing if we're falling short in any spaces, if there's more efficient ways to do things with us growing so rapidly, it's been so hectic here at the office that we haven't given all the time we'd love to give to the staff and really working with them and watching them grow into what we know they can become. So a lot will just go office and just giving us a nice structure to everything how it's all going. Cool. Courtney, do you guys have plans for your grant monies? We are in the exact same situation as Erin is. We are living, well no, and working out of our garage. So we're working out of our personal garage. So we have cleaning stuff everywhere and we have a daughter and thankfully our employees that we have, we do have employees that are either family or close friends or people who we just really trust them and so our daughter loves them too. So it's not a huge deal right now, but as we grow, we need more space. So we'll definitely be going towards an offsite location or adding a garage or something because right now our one and a half car garage for ourselves and our business is a little crowded. Not to mention it's not the most professional thing to have your employees stumbling over your lawnmower and things. So we're definitely in that spot whereas we're getting closer to launching a second crew, a second truck, equipment and everything. So the money is definitely going to go towards some equipment purchases and but the majority of it would be expanding that space so that when it's time to pull the trigger on the second crew, hiring more people and and you know, getting to work will be able to do that. I have my own manager working in my kitchen right now so. For sure, absolutely. I don't know how many times I've had pressure washer equipment scattered across our living room, getting everything ready before Monday morning so. Just don't come to our house. That's how we started to that is we had a two car garage one side was supposed to be mine one side was supposed to be my husband. And then he was like, Oh, I'm going to get into woodworking and he just saw us everywhere and I was like, I guess we need a new office. Thanks. So expansion.  Amber, it certainly caught my attention that you've got several certifications through IIC or C including course the HCT certification program. Yeah. Tell somebody HCT a little bit and has that, you know, been a contributing factor to. So the house cleaning technician course is a I will preach this forever I've taken the class twice just for funsies. It is a two day class it culminates in like 160 question exam they're finally offering it online. Let me tell you when I had to first take it I drove down to Dallas to the trade show took the class. I was so committed to taking this I was like look if I can't afford this I'm just going to sleep in my car for three days. Right. So that's that's how much I believe in this class. I'm actually one exam away I'm taking it tonight. I need my repair and reinstallation technician, and that will complete my coursework for my master textile cleaner, which will make me eligible as an instructor for house cleaning which has been my goal ever since I first took the class I was like we need this we need this to keep going. It offers you understand the the chemicals that you're using you understand the pH of what you're doing. You really start to understand safety and furnishings and surfaces, how to present well how to run a business. That class is extremely valuable. The manual is great. So do you know why Tom is asking you that. Did we write it or something just write it. Yeah. Yeah. Tom is the author on that or one of the authors on that manual. Yeah. And they are so sweet. If you end up taking our classes from them. They will be at the ISSA show North America this year they will be offering the class there this year. So if you don't like an online format and you're like you know what I just want to be in a classroom. Then that would be the place to do it.  And if you have an opportunity to take it I would highly recommend David is started to offer it as well. David Kaiser. I don't think he's going to be in Las Vegas, but I haven't asked recently. He has started offering it online. That's the best thing that's ever happened to the ICRC to be honest, like the whole COVID pandemic, they started re evaluating how they were going to offer those classes. It used to be circuit by base where you had to like drive into a major city and stay overnight. And now they've got it to where it's online. It's easier than ever to access this information. And you, you know, when you are taking your employees to these classes and they're saying that there's professional recognition and education for it they start seeing it as a career. Well, it is, it is a career. I mean, that's, you know, the whole mission is to professionalize the industry. Yeah, I get it. Yeah. All right, Amber. There's just this thing that anybody can clean, you know. Yeah, yeah. And everybody can clean, but not everybody can clean professionally. Right, right. And there are surfaces and homes now that are extremely high end extremely valuable and very chemical sensitive. So you can mess up real nice. And then if you don't have insurance on top of it and then you're liable. So that education is is worth its weight in gold. Well, I can give you lots of examples of how to mess things up from personal experience. We only have an hour list. Do you guys, I'm assuming you guys use job or within your, your, your business. Could you tell us a little bit about how job or works and how that contributes to your success? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, job or so we were very picky when we started this business because there are a million types of softwares for anything you can imagine for marketing, your finances or customer management. There's lots of things we were very picky. But job or really, I mean, it's like the backbone of our business. We use it for everything. Our employees clock in out on it. We assign jobs to them. They're notified immediately. They can review what the job is going to be, the details of what's expected, private notes I might put on there for them. Our customers use it whenever they visit our webpage or our Facebook page. They're linked to our job or quote request form. So they can go on there and submit a request to us and we can almost immediately respond to their request to get in touch with them. We've got automated, automated email follow ups, text message follow ups. You know, we use it for payroll. We use it for, I mean, really every, you know, core. All kinds of different things. Yeah, I mean, it's been well worth the money that we spent on job or not. Obviously just because of the grant, but because of the fact that, you know, if we get one extra job a month, I mean, it's worth its weight. And we most certainly have gained business from the use of professional service like Jobber. It's really what's given our company kind of a way to stand out. I mean, I could run the business from my cell phone and not everybody can do that. People have been in business for 30 or 40 years aren't able to do that. Just trying to handle it all individually on their own. So that's a service that I think on day one, we had activated our trial with it and we started using it and we've only expanded. I think we were on like one of the lower, you know, plans and then we expanded that to be able to add optional services to our clients. Maybe they didn't even realize that their roof could be washed and they want to know more about that. We can put that on there and it's increased our tickets and yeah, we can't speak. They're a great partner. I mean, they've been there for us anytime we've had any issues or anything with feedback and stuff. Just professionalism. You know, I mean, it really does help you come off the ground as a professional, not just people who are starting a company. You know, obviously we've done lots of research. We've been trained everything, but Jobber really led us take the step into professionalism rather than just a mom and pop. Even though we are a mom and pop, you know, it's still it took it to that next level. Well, and I can see how that would be even more valuable. You're just starting. You're right in the middle of COVID. It's a pandemic. It's like you really need the edge all of those ways that anything that you can find that's going to actually make you stand out as a professional. Because otherwise, why is anybody going to hire you? Yeah. And you're not just getting on the phone with someone and spitballing what you might do or how much it's going to be. You don't leave anything, you know, there's nothing to question whenever they receive an email from us. It's in a template with our welcome message talks a little bit about our company. It talks about, you know, the charitable. The first message they get from us talks about our charitable giving the things that our company does. So you're really selling yourself through an automated system. And that's I like as many systems as possible. So every every interaction with the customer, they all get the exact same treatment.  So the grant money is nice, but it sounds like that the bigger benefit that you've gotten from job or is just running your business. Absolutely. Yeah, without a doubt. Like, like, like we said, you know, I've applied for different grants and things with my education background and you apply for them and you're like, OK, let's see what happens. We would have always been up.   Yeah, I see we have Deneet on here. She's excited. She's loving this. Did you see so amazing to hear how each company is giving back and focusing on their team. Such an inspiration. Well, it's super nice when we say, hey, Deneet, I'm Katie Fitz. Congrats to all the booster recipients. My guess is she might be a job or user because she knew the correct term. Right. A booster recipients. Yeah. Well, the only things that Courtney and Burgess didn't touch on was because those are all great features. It's the two C's. We have C Y B, which is cover your booty. Which means that like, when you, when you put out a quote, it's completely itemized. They have to sign the quote and then they can't come back and be like, oh, well, why didn't you do this thing that wasn't even in the original scope of work? And you can be like, wow, is this your signature? And then the other one is, you know, that there's a satisfaction signature as well. So my employees are collecting that satisfaction signature at the end of the job with the walkthrough. And then if they try and come back later and they're like, oh, and I wasn't satisfied. So you should give me all my money back. You can be like, wow, is this your signature? Yeah. So that's the cover your booty. And then the other one is cash flow. Right.  Let me tell you, we pieced together like a Google calendar and quick books and like a telephone system and like all these different things that didn't even fit with each other. Post it notes. Oh my God. I had a paper calendar at one point, literally a calendar that you buy from Walmart. I would not recommend that. Please never do that to yourself or others. But so because we were like working together, this awful system are accounts receivable. So we all know cash is king cash flow is where it's at when it comes to the health of your business. If a business fails, it's usually because they run out of the resources to keep going and cash flows, which drives that. So our accounts receivable was over 10% before we started using jobber. So gross revenue is 10% of our gross revenue, which is devastating to a small business. And we are now under 1% because as soon as we send out the invoice, we, you know, either we already have a card on file that we can charge or it's a commercial account and they're going to pay that 30 anyway. Right. So nice. That's amazing. That is makes you so much more scalable. Do you guys does jobber link up or sync up with quality driven, or do you have a quality aspect to to jobber? I thought that they did sync up with. No, everybody's giving you blank faces. I haven't used it. Sorry. I know it does. There's a number of integrations. Yeah, there's a few different integrations that you can do, you know, like QuickBooks and broadly and convert and jobber payments and MailChimp, but I don't know about. I don't, I don't know. Quality driven. Yeah. I just, I thought that it was jobber that I had heard people were having a lot of success with that integration with maybe quality driven. Yeah. I'm often finding features. Yeah, I'm often finding features. Every single day. Like every day I find a new feature that I'm like, oh, wow, I didn't know that. That's so helpful. That's forms. We literally just learned about that three weeks ago. People don't want to lead voicemails like if they call your number, they don't want to lead voicemails. So bit.ly slash Santa quote, we'll get just straight to our request form. Yeah, exactly. We're just through jobber. Well, there's a certain segment of customers who just, you know, honestly, I'm one of them. I don't like picking up the phone and calling. I don't like talking on the phone. I like to text. Guess what? I can text in the request form. I can, we can text. We've, especially during the pandemic, it's actually been, it was really nice to have like many different ways to communicate with your customers, have them request things. And as much as I love to meet my customers, shake their hands and really get to know them, we've got a lot of customers that we don't even see face to face until we're done with the job. And I say, hey, you know, let me know before you receive your invoice. You're totally satisfied with everything. So, you know, it's one of those things where you could, there's so many different ways it really opens up avenues to get new business and to reach out to existing customers as well. Nice. Well, it definitely sounds like you guys are all avid job or users, even without the money. But I'm sure that money is a nice little bonus for there. Yeah. Okay. So one thing that I would really love to hear from you all, at least a couple of you are pretty new in the business. So I'm curious, what are your longer term goals with your business? Where are you planning on being in 10 years or five years, 10 years, whatever? What's on your horizon? Anybody? I want to hear everybody's story. All right, Erin, you're up. I can start. For us in 10 years, I'd like to see my mom be able to retire and get some of that legacy money. And for me to just be able to step in and seamless transition with me being here this whole time, it's like to learn from her every day as well. So when she does finally decide to step away and retire, I think it will be a pretty smooth transition with everything. Just so much focus in the training to set ourselves up for the success for the future. Like our very first employee that we hired is our quality control manager that she jumps job to job throughout the day, can answer questions if anyone is missing stuff. She'll notice and let them know everyone's super receptive to her because she does a lot of the training too. So just trying to set things up where we're able to succeed even if Raquel stepped away. She's the brains behind the operation with the cleaning stuff. She's been a cleaner for 35 years. She knows the ins and outs of cleaning. Whereas myself, I was her son getting her to pick up all my stuff when I was growing up and all my clothes on the floor, she picked them up. You know what I mean? So I'm not an expert on cleaning by any means. I learn new things every day, obviously. I try to get out in the field and do training sessions and try to learn. But I just want to be able to in 10 years look back and know where everything covers with our staff and who we have in place with our office management, our schedulers, the quality control, the training. Like I just want to make sure everything is still the same way that we do it, but more have not as much day to day impact. I don't want to have to be involved in all the conversations that happen with the clients. I love talking to clients. Don't get me wrong. One of my favorite things is getting to know them while they're trying to learn about our services and stuff. It's great. But for me to be able to focus on the bigger picture, I need to be able to step away from some of those things sometimes and really put my focus and energy into the actual business. Or we're just going to be unstructured and it's just going to cause headaches. I mean, in 10 years, that's what I want to see happen. So I think we're well on our best. It sounds like it. It sounds like it. You're well on your way. Amber, what's your long term vision for good which cleaning? Yeah, so we are currently in a program through the SBA Emerging Leaders Program. If you are, you know, over 250,000 gross revenue and more than one employee, you should definitely apply for the program in your area. I can't recommend it enough. It's free training. It's like a $20,000 scholarship. And if you're driven and you're doing your homework, then you're going to get a lot out of it.  We are doing our Wichita location next. We will own Manhattan, Wichita and Kansas City within the next 10 years. We intend to franchise nationally. Nice.  Then we can have nail box money and be on a beach somewhere. Who doesn't want that? Nice. Courtney Burgess, which one of you want to field the question for Santa Claus exterior cleaning? I'll take a stab at it. It's really similar to Erin with wanting to get to a point, you know, right now we're very new. So the most important things that we become as exceptional as possible at the services that we're currently offering. But we're listening to our customers. There's already a lot of things we're hearing that they can't find reputable businesses in our area to do. So we're looking in and kind of doing that framework planning now for the future on being able to add additional services. So right now we're Santa Claus exterior cleaning. We'll have to see how we handle that naming structure with new services you might offer. We're looking into doing things, you know, obviously adding additional crews and building out our core business. As big as it's going to allow us for our area and then deciding on what we want to do to extend our reach. You know, there's a lot of opportunity in here where we're at in southern Indiana. And so our number one goal is extending and expanding the core business. But then ultimately some spin off companies that do kind of in the cleaning arena, but probably more like commercial kitchens and things like that as well. Cool. Well, you all have some some good plans. I'm going to say one thing to that, especially to Amber, because I love that big plan that you have going there. So entrepreneurs, people in general tend to overestimate how much they can get done in a week.  So whatever you've already got planned, chances are good, you can do more. Amber, even more than that. I mean, if that isn't already like an amazing big plan, right? A nice big BHAG right there, you're probably going to be even doing more than that. So I'm looking forward to that. We have a tendency to underestimate what we can get done in the in the long term.   If you're considering it, then go for it. That's bad advice. I'm a middle school teacher having a heart attack right now. Everybody, it's not everybody and not everybody should feel forced into it either. Yeah, I was going to say, here I was. I was in an office, in an office doing a corporate job with my college degree. And sometimes you learn things different paces. Yeah, truth. I mean, I do have plans to speak. You know, we're speaking with case state and with the Fort Riley Employment Readiness Group on Entrepreneurship and Leadership. I was selected as a speaker this year for the ISSA show North America. So if you're there, come see me hang out. Maybe I'll bring cookies. Maybe I won't. Who knows? What are you? What's your topic? I'll be there for cookies. It's the 17th of November. It'll be, I think it's on the showroom floor, but I'm old and senile, so don't quote me. It's from 2.30 to 3.30 p.m. It's Generation Y. I wrote down how it's W-H-Y. Yeah, you get it. Generation Y finding what matters to the modern workforce. I like it. What type of cookies? Camille, no, you don't care. Do you have a preference, Tom? I'm a big cookie fan. It really doesn't matter. As I said, it doesn't matter. I guess I'll have to blow up homemade cookies. You did say cookies though. Liz and I and about 25 other cleaning business owners are going to be spending a week next week together on a training program.  We are. There are talking about all the different kinds of cookies. And I think we're also going to get some crème brûlée. I heard. Yeah. That's classy. Yeah. Well, it's Derek's birthday. So an early shout out to Derek Hazelwood. It's his birthday coming up on Monday, I believe. And so they're making him crème brûlée. We all get to benefit. Yeah. All right, Tom, I know that we are getting tight on time. Actually, we're not. We're doing pretty good. We got plenty of time, Liz. What would you like to see? We're having all of these people in here. I'm kind of amazed that we still have six minutes left. We got right to work though. We didn't spend the first 15 minutes talking about silly stuff. That's true. Classes or yeah. It's because nobody on here is old enough to wear glasses, Tom. Unlike the normal. Not even Amber, who is apparently so old. Let me tell you, I do wear glasses. I don't wear them with my headset. Oh. All the girls over here. That was so awesome. Curtis, are you feeling out of sorts? You're the only one with no glasses on. You just can't see my glasses. I've got contacts in. I got to stay next to the bed. So if you guys kind of go getters, I mean, not everybody is in the situation that you are. Thousands and thousands of people applied. You guys won because you were doing, you're doing something different. But as go getters in the industry, especially if you haven't been in this industry very long, none of you have. Although I know the old lady over here, Amber, really, I'm so old have been in business longer, but really you guys are all go getters, right? You're out there. You're making a move. You're making your mark here. What kind of advice do you have to other business owners that are, like, it's not, you guys are making it sound really easy. Like, oh my gosh, we're just going out there and we're making all the money. We're giving money away. We're doing all the stuff for all the people. What kind of advice do you have for the people that are like, I can't find anybody to work for me. And I'm two steps up. I'm one step back. What do you guys got for them? I can start if you guys want. Yeah. Well, for us, it's if you do something you love, it just doesn't feel like work. Not saying I love cleaning, but I love people. I love the day-to-day interactions with people, meeting everybody. As far as growing and stuff, it's a struggle. Like no one just starts a business and next thing you know, they have a million clients. Like you just have to believe in what you have. It's like something special. That's why you should do something you love, because you're going to be passionate about it and you're going to put the work in. Because when we get off at six o'clock here, we don't get off. We go to a different room and start working on something else. So as long as you are loving what you're doing and you're passionate about your vision and what you want to build with your business, it's going to find a way to succeed. You just have to just keep plucking away at it. Don't give up on yourself. When you're not seeing the results right away, I know people that I've talked to that have tried to sell us their client lists and stuff that have been like, we've been in business for 10 years and we're just in so much debt. Like we're just struggling and it's just, they didn't set it up properly. They didn't believe in what they had there because there's no reason after 10 years that that should be happening if you truly believe what you have is special. So I'd say just don't give up. Just every day, just keep working at it. It takes time and it takes a lot of work. Everyone here totally knows what I'm coming from there. It takes countless, countless hours. I don't even know how Courtney does it as a teacher as well. Like unbelievable. So get on you. But it's just putting in the time and believing in yourself. In my opinion, I'm sure he's going to tell. And not listening to the naysayers. Exactly. I think that's some of the biggest thing was, you know, Burgess was a scientist. You know, I'm in education. Like this is not, you know, we have lots of family who support us, but there were definitely naysayers. Like what are you doing? You know, don't do what you want.  And we want our lives to be a life of giving and of sharing love and of helping people. And we just happen to be able to do this really well with our business plan, you know? So start off on the right foot and stay motivated because it will be rocky. And let me be the first person to tell everyone those people who are saying you're crazy for leaving that secure job and the benefits and salary and all this are the exact same people who now say, well, you'd be crazy to go back working for that company. So you have the people speak with, I think that if they say things because they care about you, they love you, they want what's best for you, but only you know what's best for you. So you have to listen to that voice in your head. A few like random, little random things, you know, I hear all the time I've talked to friends, I've always wanted to own a business just as long as I can remember, I wanted to own my own business. I grew up around small business owners. I just liked the way they lived their life. I liked the small town feel of it. And what I hear all the time is, yeah, I would like to do that, but there's already so many people that do it. I see the vehicles out or this or that. Well, they're doing it because there's clients. There's business. You know, and like we were joking the other day, it's like, yeah. And that's the thing and just do what you want to do. Do it well, be the best you can be at it and you'll succeed. I mean, but the thing is you can't, you can't get bogged down by analysis paralysis, like they say. You can be in planning stages forever. You can believe in yourself up to a certain point, but if you really, you just have to act on it. At one point or another, you have to decide, I'm going to do this. You need to put all your energy in it. And as long as you're putting everything it takes to be successful into your business and into yourself, you will be successful. But like we joke, success is like a buffet, but you have to go up and get it. And no one's going to serve you, you know, your slice of the pie. So you have to, you have to go do it. I mean, you might kick me out for this answer, but it's a little bit counter. You get to define your own success as an entrepreneur. So like if you look at us and you're like, Oh, he has 18 employees. She has 12 employees. I don't even know how many Courtney and Burgess have, you know, five employees, right? And you're like, every time I hear it, you know, everybody who's making $50,000 a year, they're trying to get to the six-figure mark. And everybody who's at the six-figure mark wants to get to the seven-figure mark. And I just throw that out. Like if you want, if your idea of success is like, I make a good wage for myself. I don't have any employees. I don't have any of those headaches. And I'm always home at night so I can go to my kid's dance recital and football games. And I'm always home on the weekends. That's valid. You get to define your own success, but take the time to sit with yourself and introspect and decide what that is. And don't let somebody say if, oh, well, you don't have employees yet. You've been a solo cleaner for 10 years and you don't have employees yet. So you must not be successful. Don't listen to them. You get to define what success is. And the other thing is to find your niche. So, you know, you don't just have to do residential cleaning. There are some people who do only hard water restoration in showers. They make $200 on one shower because they're really good at it. They know how to recock. They know how to get everything clean. Some people only do ovens. You know, if you have one little thing that you're good at, not only will you get clients for that, you will also have other cleaning companies that are like, hey, we need a specialist. I'll just subcontract the job to you. Let's just fix this. When I'm kicking you out for that. No, you're good. This was really an awesome show. I mean, this was a lot of fun. Thank you guys so much.  I had fun. I'm looking forward to watching all of you guys. Yeah. No kidding. We need to do like a reunion. You know, let's put this on the counter. Maybe get together this time of year from now and see. Well, all the women from the beach in 10 years. Yeah. Yeah. Mark and Kelly. Yeah. You know, I want to thank Java for sponsoring the boost grant program and the hundred and fifty thousand dollars that contributed to home service providers to help professionalize the industry.  You guys are great. Thanks so much. Liz, are we done? Thank you so much. We are. But one thing, one more day, y'all, anybody that's looking to sign up for the managers, success for managers group, go to cleaningprofitbuilders.com. Last day is tomorrow for the big special. I know we, I'm over time here, Tom. So cut it short. That's okay. We had, we had a lot of, and we worked the whole, this whole hour. Sometimes we goof off a little bit. The whole time. No, we actually talked about work today. A little bit. Again, seriously, I'm going to, you know, I'd like to do this again in about a year or so. Absolutely. Let's, let's, let's all see each other at the show in Vegas. Amber, I'll be at your, I will be at your session. I'm looking forward to it. I'm nervous now. I can't wait. Thanks to Tom for having us. You guys are awesome. We'll, we'll be back Monday, five o'clock. No, wait a minute. We're going to, we're off next week. Next week we're off. That's right. We're going to be in Charleston. So we will not be back until the 11th. Boy almost messed that up. Yeah. We're doing foundations next week. We're going to be working. We're going to be working hard next week. Yes, we are. Yeah. We'll be back. Are you ready? Stop whining. Stop whining. We're getting cookie's crumb relay. She's right. You got the, you can, you can work hard and get fat at the same time. I was seeing that. Wish it wasn't true. Wish it wasn't true. Bye y'all. See everybody. It was nice meeting you all.


Hello everyone, my name is Nikhil Gadjam working as assistant professor in department of computer science and engineering. In today's session we will see Python function. Learning outcome of this video is students will be able to declare and define a function in Python script. Syntax for writing a function in Python, so DEF space a function name and then in bracket argument list. Now argument list is nothing but the variables or the values which are passed to the function while calling the function, we call it as argument. That may be a single value or multiple values and this argument list it is not compulsion, it is optional. Either you can pass the arguments while calling the function or you cannot pass the values. DEF it is a keyword stands for definition used for defining a function. So DEF space a function name, a function name can be anything and then argument list. So this is declaration of a function, then body of the function. Remember that in Python there are no brackets available. So at the end of this function after argument list a colon is there, it is must indicating that it is a start of new block. So all the statements after this function having a same indentation belongs to this function. Next one we will see an example. Suppose example is add a two function using add a two variables or two values using the function in Python. So we will see an example we write a code for adding a two numbers using function. So this is a pyCharm, this is IDE for Python. Suppose I will declare one function called as add which is not accepting any parameters. So I will take a two number, suppose this is num1 equal to int in bracket input, then I will enter a message as enter number one and then this is num2 equal to again int again this input, then enter number two. Now this num1 I am taking a value from the user and similarly num2 I am taking a value from the user. So this message is displayed on the output screen first called as enter number one. Then input is a function for taking input from the user. By default return type is string. So I have typecasted that into the integer values. So these are the two integer value I have taken from the user. So I will add these two values and store in the result variable. So result equal to num1 plus this num2. I will print the result, print this is result equal to comma result. After this apart from this function I will call that function from outside the function. So how to call that? Just call the function name. I am not passing any arguments because this function is not accepting any values. I will execute this. I will right click here and click on run file. So it is asking number one, suppose number one is 10 and then number two. So number two is 20. So result equal to 30. Now it is a function which is not accepting any value. So how to call this function? Just function name. We will move forward now. So similarly we can pass arguments to the function while calling the function also. So same example I will take adding addition of two numbers but with parameters passing. We will remove this. So this is def add. So it accepts one integer value and another integer value sorry a and b this is colon. So result equal to a plus b and then print result comma result. So this is my function. So I will take two values from the user. Num one equal to, this indentation problem is there just a second. This is num one equal to integer then input then this is enter number one. Similarly num two equal to integer then again input enter number two. Then I am calling the function. Function name is add. For that add function now I am sending two values num one and num two. So your execution starts from this statement. So first a message will be printed on the output screen called as enter number one that will be converted into integer value stored in the num one. Similarly enter number two message will be displayed that will be converted into integer value stored in the num two. Then I am calling a function add and I am passing two values whatever entered by the user. So this function is getting called. So num one and num two these values are passed as an argument and that will be stored in a and b. Then result will be calculated a plus b then result is printed. So we will execute this. This is num one. Enter num one suppose 10 enter num two suppose 20. So result equal to 30. So this is an example for passing arguments to the function. So I have passed two arguments num one and num two to the add function. We will go for one now. You can pause the video and you can answer. Is it possible to have a function overloading in Python? You can pause the video and you can answer. Answer is yes. As we know function overloading it is a concept of object under programming where two or more functions are having same function name but different arguments that different arguments may be in terms of numbers or in terms of data types. So we will try this function overloading. Suppose I will write another function def add which is not accepting any values and suppose inside this suppose I am sending print and this is I am writing example of suppose this is function overloading. Now so these are the two functions which are having same name but these functions are accepting different types of arguments. This first function is accepting two values and second function is accepting no values or zero values. So this concept we call it as a function overloading. So how to call first function? So this is the first function call where you are passing two values to integer values. How to call the second function? Just add. So this first add function call a first function is getting called and for this second only add which is not accepting any parameters any argument the second function is getting called. You check this suppose enter number 1, 5, number 2 is 10, just a second it takes two arguments two given just a second I will remove this and we will execute this and number 1, 5 and number 2 is 10. What will be the error? Just a second def add. Just a second I will remove this. It is called as confusion or ambiguous function call where two functions it is not decided during runtime that which function is getting called. So this is called as an ambiguous situation compiler is giving error that which function is getting called that it is not deciding. This term we call it as method overloading where two functions are having same name but different arguments or different types of arguments. We will move forward. Now there is another concept in functions in Python we call it as default parameters. A non-default and default parameters may be mixed in the parameter list of the function declaration but all the default parameters within parameter must appear at the end. Now what is default arguments when you are passing arguments to the function and that value is fixed during that while declaration of the function only. We call it as default argument but there is one rule while defining the default arguments. Whatever default values are there if you are mixing the default parameters with non-default parameters in that case default parameter must be at the right hand side. Example is this one. So DEF sum range is my function name it is accepting two arguments n and m but m equal to 100 this is called as default arguments. So by default value of m will be 100. But whatever default arguments you are passing to the function that must be at the right hand side compulsory. Similarly in the second example DEF sum range n equal to 0 and m equal to 100 in this case there are two default arguments. If all the arguments are default then it is okay no problem. But default arguments values must be start from right hand side. But in the third example DEF sum range in bracket n equal to 0 and m only it is not allowed because there is only one default argument and that is n it must be appear on the right hand side. On the left hand side it is not allowed. So this is a rule of default parameter or default argument. We will see an example. Same example I will take instead of writing now DEF add a and b equal to 100. So by default value of b is 100. So I am calling that function now. If you pass now only suppose 50 and execute this result is 150 when you pass only argument 50 that will be stored in a and by default value of b will be 100. So 50 plus 100 it will be 150. You can pass two values also 50 and 200. If you check this output will be 250. So 50 will be stored in a and 200 will be stored in b. So output will be 250. So this is default argument. These are the references I have used for creation of this video. Thank you.


Well, welcome back to my little mini-series of what happens when videos. Today, what happens when you're running a business without a plan? Uh oh! So can you imagine if you got into a small boat and you started rowing with no idea of where you wanted to go? Or even if you had a rough idea, you've actually got no idea how to get there? Now sure, you might find some really nice little islands along the way, places to stop, things to explore, little tributaries to go down, but ultimately, you're not going to end up where you wanted to go, unless by sheer luck. So making a living from your art and building that dream art business like any business needs a plan. A roadmap for yourself which outlines what you want, where you want to go and how you're going to get there. So without a plan, you're likely going to waste a lot of time and money on unnecessary ventures. Randomly invest money in marketing and see no return whatsoever. Quickly lose focus and motivation. Get really frustrated as you just don't know what you're doing wrong. Have no way to track your success, you know, what's working, what's not working. And of course ultimately, not make a living from your art. Now listen, as daunting and dull as a business plan can seem, it really is the key to success. For you building a successful, profitable art business. So write a plan, use a template. I have one in my art business academy membership, as well as training on exactly how to fill it out and bite the bullet and get it done. Trust me, you're going to feel so relieved when you've completed it. You're filling control for the first time. You'll know exactly where you're going and you'll be excited about taking the actions to move you forward. Towards what it is that you want to achieve. And luckily, no more chasing your tail for you. Hope you've enjoyed today's super short bite-sized video. What happens when look out for others in the same series.


Crazy how we've got two movies about Elvis. Two very different perspectives on Elvis in the last two years. Ooh, that's a hot mug, guys! Hey guys, this is my review for Priscilla. This is a film written and directed by Sophia Coppola, and it follows the life of Priscilla Presley from her first introduction to Elvis up until the relationship fell apart and she left him. I was very interested in this movie because while the Elvis film directed by Baz Lazarum had an absolutely amazing performance by Austin Butler, it did kind of just stay pretty close to what I already knew about Elvis. It was very grandiose, sure, but it didn't really do anything different for me and so when I saw that Priscilla was coming out and it was being written by Sophia Coppola, I knew that I was going to get a little bit of a different experience and you do with this movie. Most people would probably be wondering if this is going to be entirely a negative movie about Elvis because there are some things that you just cannot deny. He met her when she was in grade nine, when she was a minor, and he was in his 20s. Obviously there's a saying that it was a different time. I have friends who can say that their grandparents met and basically got married before they were 19, in some cases even before they were 17. It happened back then. That's an undeniable fact and I like how Sophia doesn't shy away from that. She doesn't shy away from a lot of things. The film does very much give an even footing about why she loved him and why she left him. One of the very big things you got to talk about first off is Jacob Elrodi. Apologies if I said his name wrong. His performance as Elvis was very subtle, very swagger, very good. But Kaylee Spaney, apologies if I was wrong about that. I really liked her as Priscilla because she gave a very authentic, a very soft, a very nuanced performance about this lady that I've always seen to the side but I've never really gotten her perspective. And this is based on her book. Don't hold back from a lot of the bad, they also don't shy away from the good. That's something that I know some people went in and kind of came out a little bit confused because they didn't know how to feel and I liked that.  He definitely was a bit toxic and a lot of the things he did but you also can see where the love for each other stemmed from. It wasn't just a fascination with him. It might have started as that but it did become genuine love but you also can see how it fell apart and a lot of that was Elvis's doing and just the lifestyle he lived in. And it does exclude a lot of what we got from the Elvis movie. I could say that maybe by having that movie in the background I can know what's going on at certain points in the time because it is a bit kind of just here and there with elements that happen. There are these really cool references and pieces of memorabilia that they were able to get Jacob's version of Elvis on it. There are elements that can be interpreted in different ways because they are just spelled out. There's a moment that I had several feelings about and I could see that it changed my perspective just in how the scene was enacted and Elvis is in his office and he calls Priscilla in and he talks to her about like maybe I think we need to just kind of be apart from each other.  She doesn't beg to stay with him. She's like okay sure and then she walks out and it's a power move for her because he then you can hear him begging wait wait maybe come back come back. Liked that moment because it was these subtle little drops of her independence, her resilience, her taking hold of what she wanted from the relationship because Elvis wanted to do all these things and he kind of did I guess see what you would call the end of Greece where he told her how she should change her hair what she should wear the makeup she should have on. You kind of see where he thinks he's coming across this from a perspective of like oh it's better for her. I feel that that's better so it should work but not really letting her live and that's what you get from the ending of the movie is as the relationship does fall apart you see those moments of her taking her own independence and eventually becoming herself and being her own woman. Not to say that there aren't a little bit of faults with this movie I would say that maybe the pacing in some sections could have been better. How the movie ends is great I like how it ends and I like what leads up to it but I feel like there's like 5% that was on the floor that could have just given you that full explanation that full resolution. That's probably the better word the full resolution for it. If you want to watch a video let me explain where he talks about it there's a lot of things that they left out Priscilla had a few affairs of her own well of course because Presley was having God knows how many affairs. The symbol that Presley had that was all over the marketing for the Baz Lazer movie that was made by Priscilla. She drew that up while on a plane flight and kind of felt weird that those parts were omitted there's a few more personal moments that I think could have been in but the movie was already running a like what was it running like a 2 hour run time it almost was at 2 hours but otherwise I liked how this movie was put together I liked the cinematography liked the music I liked the performances I liked the subtle nuance to it and the kind of time capsule sort of setting of it and from what I'm correct to this movie was made with a lot of money that I've heard the budget was not very high and this is Sophia Coppola movie her movies sometimes don't are really big box office draws but I'm very happy that she got to make this kind of movie and I'm happy that we got to have this kind of story so while there are some narrative flaws some pacing kind of critiques here and there I still think it's a solid movie and I very much like what its purpose was its intention was that it gives an equal balanced interpretation of their relationships not leaning to one side or the other its just saying what happened so in the end I'm going to give Priscilla a 5 out of 7 it's definitely going to be on my honorable mentions for the year I liked it and kind of wish like I said I got a little bit more I would have liked even more from this movie so that's something to be said anyway guys I hope you enjoyed this review if you guys saw this movie let me know what do you think about this one compared to the Baz Lazer movie very interesting to see what you guys have to say otherwise hope you enjoyed this review if you did leave a like and if you're interested in more subscribe and I'll see you all next time


Okay, so I'm from New York, and this is the final talk of this morning. So the title of this talk is A Subversion Resistance Dark by Pezad Abdul Maliki, Karen Baylori, Helger Litma, Michal Zech, from the University of Tartu in Estonia, and as I said, this is the second article invited to the Journal of Cretology, and the talk will be given by Neho. Hi, so roughly two hours ago, Niky Mukhan apologize for standing between you and coffee, and now I'm standing between you and lunch, so I think I'm in much worse situation. So thanks you, thanks for inviting me here, and it's a real pleasure to present you my joint work on the Subversion Resistance Dark. So let me start with a brief outline. So I will start with motivations for our work, and the motivation is the problem of verifiability of computation. I will introduce some zero-knowledge notions, and I will tell quickly what snarks are. Then I will say why Subversion Resistance framework for snarks is actually important and what could happen if public reference strings, public reference parameters are generated maliciously. Then I will go to the main part of our work that is Subversion Resistance Snark. I will show how to achieve zero knowledge in the subverted setting, and this will be a shift for quite recent graphs snark for quap, and finally I will conclude with showing you some numbers to convince you that our framework, our technique is really efficient. Okay, so we can illustrate verifiably computation by two machines. So we have a client and we have a server, and client maybe is like not very powerful machine, but it wants to compute program P on some input x. On the other hand, we have a server that has the required power and maybe has some additional input x prime that makes computation possible. So basically the client sends program P along with public input x, and the server replies with evaluation of this program on x x prime, but of course server needs to provide also a proof, because otherwise the server could just send some random garbage and claim that that's the hope. So an important comment is that the client can actually send a program once and then evaluate it on as many inputs as it wants. So we represent a program as a circuit, so part of the circuit input is this input given by the client, another part is given by the server. So how we can verify the computation? So if server reveal all intermediate values on this arithmetic circuit, then the client could just run the circuit and verify the program on its own. But in this case, we basically don't need a server. So what if x prime is secret? So we need to provide correctness that doesn't reveal intermediate values in particular this secret input x prime. So correctness is verified by showing that some relation on the circuit on wires values hold and there's like national reduction from arithmetic circuits to quadratic arithmetic programs, and keeping an internal secret is related to zero knowledge rules. So in zero knowledge we have two settings, interactive and non-interactive. In interactive setting there is many messages exchanged between the prover and verifier, the client and the server. On the other hand, we have non-interactive setting when the server has to convince the client that the computation were performed correctly with like one message. So we want to work in this setting with this single message setting is non-interactive. So we want to prove that is non-interactive and is succinct. And here comes snarx. So snarx are non-interactive proof that are short. So basically the idea is that the proof itself is much shorter than the state. And to get the non-interactive zero knowledge we need some trust assumptions. So basically the most popular tool is either random oracle or common reference string. So the problem with random oracle is that it doesn't exist, but usually it makes zero knowledge proof really really efficient. On the other hand we have trust that we have common reference string setting where a trusted third party can generate some common parameters, common string that will be shared between the parties. And the problem with this model is that sometimes it's slower than just model with random oracle. But in case of snarx, the situation is quite opposite. Usually snarx that are based on CRS are faster than this based on random oracle. Okay, so in zero knowledge proof we have some NP language L and we want to prove that some X belongs to M. So we have three parties. So this trusted third party in the middle and some prover that is equipped with statement X and witness W. And on the other hand we have verifier that has only statement X but doesn't know the witness W. And this trusted third party picks some secret numbers called trapdoor and computes common reference string as a function of this secret. Then it provides the CRS to the parties. So with this CRS given, the prover is able to give the convincing proof to the verifier. In fact, in zero knowledge proof, we need one more party. It's called the simulator. And simulator is given this secret numbers, this trapdoor. And this allows him to simulate the proof as prover would do. But without witness. So zero knowledge proofs has three properties. So versus completeness, so an honest prover should be able to convince the honest verifier we have soundness. So in this setting, if prover is malicious, is not honest and wants to convince the verifier that some X belongs to the language but that's not the case, then the prover should be able to do so only with negligible probability. And the third property is zero knowledge. So we define zero knowledge by the existence of a simulator that given this secret trapdoor T.S. produces fake proof that is indistinguishable from a proof given by the real prover. So in Eurocrypt 2016, Fien's growth proposed a snark for quadratic arithmetic programs. And up to date, it's the fastest snark for this relation. The proof contains only three group elements, so it's really, really short. It's based on billionaire pairings and it's secure in both symmetric and asymmetric setting. And its security was shown in a generic group model. So let's go back to our picture with the trusted third party providing CRS in the middle. So the question is, what happens if we substitute this party by some malicious subvert? And this problem was discussed last year on Asiacrypt by Valare Pugsbauer Scafuro. So in this setting, we cannot trust the outputs given by the subverter, right? And it affects CRS given to prover and verifier and also affects the trapdoor given to the simulator. So let me point some problems we may have. So if subverter cooperates with prover, they can potentially break sounds, right? So we need a system that remains sound even if the subverter cooperates with the prover. And this is called subversion sounds. On the other hand, the subverter may cooperate with verifier to break zero knowledge, right? Or may give some trapdoor that is not well formed to the simulator. So the simulator is not able to simulate anymore, right? So we need a system that remains zero knowledge even if the subverter cooperates with the verifier and this is called subversion zero knowledge. Actually last year Valare Pugsbauer and Scafuro shown that it's impossible to get both. So we focus on getting subversion zero knowledge because that's a more important task for Snarks. So as I said, zero knowledge may no longer hold because of basically two reasons. So the first is that the trapdoor given to the simulator may not be the same trapdoor the subverter used to produce a CRS. Or maybe the CRS is just not well formed so maybe just some random bits without any meaning. So basically we need to make sure that we can still simulate. Okay, so in a verifiable computation let's go back to this picture. We still have the client in the server, a client sends program P but also sends the CRS that will be used by the verifier. And also it's malicious and wants to learn this secret X prime. So the problems, so we need to provide the simulator with a correct trapdoor and we need to check that the CRS given to prooper is well formed. Okay, let's start with the first one. So how simulation in a hostile environment look like? So basically we cannot trust this trapdoor given by the subverter. So the idea is that the simulator will use extractor to extract trapdoor from subverter. And in the end the simulator will produce the very same CRS as subverter. And we will define one simulator for all subverters. So this simulator uses extractor to get the trapdoor and we need knowledge assumptions here. And actually this extractor can depend on the subverter. So before we continue, please let me introduce some notation. So we use additive notation for groups. We have three groups G1, G2, Gt of the same size P. And by alpha in brackets with index one, we denote an element in this group G1 and its element alpha times G1 where this G1 is the generator of the group. And similarly for group 2 and group T. We use billionaire pairings. So it's mapping that goes from G1 times G2 to target group Gt. And we denote the pairing by multiplication. So basically alpha one times beta 2 equals alpha beta t. Okay, so knowledge assumptions we use is billionaire Diffie-Hellman knowledge of exponent assumption. And it's quite well-known assumption if you work with knowledge assumptions. So basically we allow adversary to return some alpha alpha prime in brackets such that it holds that alpha in a group 1 times 1 in the group 2 equals 1 in group 1 times alpha prime in group 2. So basically we assume that in group T these elements are equal. Okay, then we say that alpha equals alpha prime and then there exists an extractor x such that if we run this extractor along with the adversary then we can get alpha. And for that we actually need a symmetric pairing because this assumption doesn't hold in a symmetric set. So as I said we will need to extract chapter from the subverter so we need to make sure that in CRS we can compute both yota in group 1 and yota in group 2 for every yota in n-chop. Okay, so that's how we make sure that the simulator gets the correct chapter. So let me show how to check that the CRS is well formed. So subverter cooperates with the verifier and the idea is that to give a prooper an algorithm that will check that the CRS is well formed. So we define an additional algorithm called CRS verification, CV, not very fancy name. And this algorithm doesn't have any superpowers. Basically it can do only what prover can do. So it can add the group elements or make bearings. And this algorithm needs to be run only by the prover because that's the party that is interested in zero knowledge. We want to make CV as efficient as possible. So we think that roughly the time needed to verify the CRS is roughly the time that is needed for a prover to give a convincing proof, then we are fine. Okay, so how CRS is generated in this original graph 2016 paper. So first we generate a secret chapter that contains five elements. We compute the common reference string. And this common reference string is divided into three parts. So basically the first part is CRS-P. It's a part of CRS that is used only by the prover. And the other part is CRS-V, that part used only by the verifier. And we actually needed to add CRS-CV, additional CRS that will allow us to extract the trapdoor for the simulator and will allow the CV algorithm to check that CRS-P is well-formed. So how CRS verification looks like. So the setting is that we have trapdoor elements that are secret, but usually known in exponents. And we have some polynomials, Ui, Vi, Wi, that are publicly known. Here we have this polynomials, but it's not known the values on the secret key. Okay, so our checklist list is as follows. So do we divide by zero? Okay, we have some elements that cannot be zero in the CRS. We have also elements like this beta here, that should be represented in both groups. So we need to check whether if the subverter claims that this element is equal to this element, like the value hidden in both groups is the same, we need to do to check that this statement is true. And of course we need to check whether all polynomials were evaluated at the same point here. So how CRS verification looks like. So as I said, we need some additional help. And this help is this CRS-CV. It contains elements like, for example, alpha in group 2 that is necessary to be able to extract alpha from the CRS. On the other hand, we have also the ground polynomials that makes verification really, really efficient. Okay, so our checklist. Do we divide by zero? And let's check the really, really simple, so we basically check that the elements that shouldn't be zero are not a zero element. If we need to check whether two group elements carry the same value, then we use the same equation we used for the knowledge assumption. So we check whether yota times one equals one times yota prime. We also need to check that all the polynomials are evaluated at the same point. So we have two types of polynomials basically here. First are consecutive powers of he. And it's checked by by bearing he to i times one equal he to i minus one times he. And we need to check all these polynomials ui, vi, wi. And this is checked by by evaluating these polynomials using Lagrange basis. Okay, so that's how we check that CRS is well-formed. So the CRS has the correct form. The simulator knows exactly the same trapdoor as the subverter used to create the CRS. So we can we can simulate. Let me tell something about soundness. So this graph is knowledge sound. And it's proven in a generic group model. So proofs in generic group model highly relies on what is in the CRS and what's not in the CRS. So basically if you add some element to the CRS, you can easily have a situation that that the security doesn't call it anymore. And we in fact added some elements to the CRS. So we need to we needed to to reprove soundness. So graph snark is secure for symmetric setting also. So basically in the symmetric setting G1 equals G2. And these parts of CRS that are represented in one group are the same in both groups. So the CRS is like contains more more elements. And we preserve we preserve this this property. Okay, so let me tell something about efficiency. So we implemented our verification algorithm on a not very powerful machine. It's like five year old laptop. The implementation was done in C++ in a Lipsnark library. I will show some numbers for this circuit size. So we have circuit size up to half a million. Input size, this input size of of of prooper is 1000 and all times are given in seconds. So basically what we can read from this table is that the time needed to verify the CRS is roughly even smaller than the time needed for for prover to give a convincing convincing proof. Okay, so let me make a short commercial break. So if you are bored with your snark or you are worried about CRS generation, please don't and use our framework to give your snark subversion resistance for basically free. And our framework is well fitted for snarks. It's suitable for zero knowledge and doesn't require any change in the original simulator. It's well fitted from snarks and it's efficient and it's really easy. Just add CB algorithm. So let me conclude. We proposed new definitions for subversion resistance framework and this definition covers statistical zero knowledge. It also gives one simulator for subverters and that only extractor depends on the adversary. We took the most efficient snark for Guap and made it subversion resistant. We show that the CRS does not need to be trusted by the prover and the CRS can be efficiently verified. Thanks for your attention. I'm sure everyone is hungry but we have time for one question. Maybe? Gens? Maybe? No? Help me out. Are we sure? I guess my question is whether you looked at other snarks. Is this sort of a general framework that applies in all sorts of snarks or is it specific just to this 2016 snark? So the CB algorithm itself has to be suited for a particular snark but the framework is general. We used the same framework to show that Pinocchio is subversion resistant and some later implementations of Pinocchio that made it a little bit more efficient. We also shown that your recent snark from crypto, sorry, don't recall the factor is also subversion resistant. So that concludes our morning sessions. Let's thank the speaker again.


Are you an absent self-parent?  Are you an orphan when it comes to self-parenting? In this video we're going to talk about the fundamental importance of self-parenting and how practicing self-parenting can transform your life. You know there's a lot of different tools we can use when we're healing and we're working on ourselves. We can do meditation, we can do grounding exercises, we can do journaling, talk therapy. There's so many different things we can try. Inquiry, things like this. But when it comes to sort of the practical aspect of well how do I sort of take this healing or these insights I'm getting and then apply it to my life? How do I start living this? This is what I think self-parenting is about. Self-parenting is so important because it's about being attuned to yourself. Which is really one of the things so many of us didn't really get in childhood was to have an adult nearby who was keenly attuned to our needs. To be not just about basic survival needs but attuned to the inner life of the child. Quite often there's an indifference about that. So therefore we sort of get the attitude or the philosophy of the inner world is kind of irrelevant. So what we train ourselves to do in this thing called self-parenting is to become attuned to the inner world. And really I don't mean anything mysterious by that at all. I mean basically what are your needs? What do you need? What do you want emotionally? What are your emotional needs? Now the reason we need attunement to be paying attention to that is that your needs are not really these the one-time deal thing where you meet them and you're done. And even the method by which you meet them or the way you meet them is not here's the way I do it and that's that. Knowing what the needs are because the needs can change and how to meet them is something that requires ongoing attention or attunement. And that requires time. You know it's a big big investment. So I'm definitely I'm advocating for self-parenting here to become more self-attuned but I'm not going to say it's easy. It requires work. It requires time. It's not difficult but it does require a real commitment to it. It's like I'm going to start sitting down some reflective time to myself to really sit with what my needs are. Where are my disappointments? Okay there's a disappointment that's reflecting an unmet need I have. Well how can I change my approach? How can I structure my lifestyle so that I am beginning to get those needs met? And you know the reason we have such kind of resistance to do in that is exactly what I just mentioned before. It's the daily disappointments of life. Unmet needs are painful and they can feel like small disappointments. Sometimes people will say it's like a death by a thousand cuts. Just life is full of all these little disappointments. Sometimes life can be full of things like distractions or things get complicated and therefore that gets in the way of meeting your needs. But you know at the end of the day when you come home or at any point in your day whenever you would tend to do reflection it's like do I really want to sit down and really pay attention to the disappointment that I have that I've been carrying for the last week, month? Well maybe it's just a little bit easier to ignore and hopefully things will get better by themselves. But things probably aren't going to get better by themselves. Things absolutely can get better through this attunement and the thing about it is you will find solutions if you go in and sit and be reflective and pay attention to your your emotional needs and ask questions like how can I do better meeting this need for myself? How can I be more compassionate to myself? How can I prioritize myself? How can I have better boundaries with my own personal productivity maybe and people in my life? These are the type of things we start to question and ask when we're doing this self parenting. So it is possible and it does work but you will have to overcome that okay look I'm going to have to sit down with this this negative feeling that I have to begin with and that's the natural resistance that is always there with the self parenting. Self parenting is something that is a lifelong process. Attunement isn't a one-time thing. Attunement isn't an ongoing practice. It's it never ends. It never ends. As long as you have emotional needs there will be a need for this. Attunement and you'll have emotional needs only as long as you're alive so it really is a lifelong thing but it can be a joyous thing and the beauty of it is also that there's this accumulative sort of compound interest effect through the practice of ongoing attunement or self parenting. You get little insights that little insight that you get about oh that's something I could give myself or there's a boundary I could put in place. That's something I could do a little bit differently.  I want to finish this video today with this idea and it's you know the biggest block to self-attunement and self parenting people aren't usually aware that they're carrying it but it's this belief and the belief is this it's a belief that I'm not really worth the time. Now people will tell themselves all sorts of things like oh I'm too busy or something came up which is not true like I'm talking about a practice that might take 15 minutes a day or something you know regularly, regularly attuning to ourselves but really what's happening and there's that resistance to it yet there's that disappointment and there's those negative feelings but there's also this belief running in the background. I'm not really worth the effort to sit down and attune to. So start to realize that's if you're having that resistance to it at all that belief is probably there and it's not true it's just a lie that you interjected somewhere in your in your past history. You can start to say look okay it's probably there sit with some inquiry in that question it and look at the precise opposite I am absolutely worth the time to attune to and this will work this will work you know it it it can't but work because you will gain insights through paying attention focused attention to yourself it's that cliche that the the answers are within you know seek within yourself seek not without outside yourself and you know some of those cliches are true and this one is very true. So guys I'm going to leave it there but just a final sort of statement about the importance of this I would really really encourage you to set up a practice if you're doing meditation or you're doing various different things for yourself keep doing those but just incorporate this sitting and reflecting on what your needs are and you'll find that as you do it regularly and consistently you'll get these these little insights you'll almost get to the point where if you miss a day of doing this you'll think I kind of wonder what insight I could have picked up there today that would have changed my life. So see every day as an opportunity to get deeper insights about yourself guys I hope that's useful and as always thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video bye for now