Want Royal Treatment from Your Household Staff? Stop Doing These Three Things

Did you watch last weekend’s coronation with King Charles and Queen Camilla? (I’ve been a more active royal watcher since Princess Di came onto the scene.) 

King Charles’ coronation was an extraordinary experience filled with pomp and circumstance, gold and glitz, and all of the eye candy we royal watchers can stand. But many who posted on social media this week – I’ll call them the lip readers – counted the times Charles said, “Thank you.” 

So, we all know that he was hyper-aware of the millions of people watching him during the coronation. But what a nice thing to focus on in his role and stature. 

Quick aside: I couldn’t watch the whole thing. I’m not a Camilo fan. Sorry. Lady Di will forever be my queen of hearts. 

Anyway, the coronation is a reminder that we’ve talked before about royal treatment and what it takes to get that in domestic staffing in your own home – whether you’re in 2,000 square feet or a palace, it doesn’t matter. There are some essential experiences and lessons to be learned about how that will add value, security, and privacy to your life. 

So, I want billionaires and millionaires to stop doing these three things that prevent them from attaining the level of value, security, and privacy they deserve.

One: Stop creating unsustainable roles. 

Now, this rollout continues from Covid, under which everyone wanted less staff in their home. We all understand that. But at the same time, it’s unrealistic and unsustainable to think that somebody’s going to prepare your meals for you, do your laundry, and do your housekeeping at the same time that they’re going to meet with contractors, negotiating contracts, preparing household budgets…and more on a very, very long laundry list. 

Let’s evolve out of that so that your house manager doesn’t burn out and so that they have something realistic under their feet where they can feel successful and appreciated. Those are the people that are going to stay in those roles for a long time. We want just to make sure that we set that person up from the start – and that’s going to be through a thoughtful job description. 

So, contact me or a domestic staffing recruiter to help you write your job descriptions. Many homeowners – I can say 99% from experience – do not know what an unsustainable role is, nor how to make sure that unsustainability isn’t written into the employment contract for new household staff through job descriptions.

Two: Stop assuming that your staff knows what you want. 

As a result of the Dear Billionaire Podcast and my YouTube channel, I’ve had people come back to me and say this is too hard; household staffing shouldn’t be this hard. 

Well, OK, but let’s look at all of the relationships in our life that matter to us. They take time, effort, and focus to ensure they’re a win-win scenario. 

Consider: You may be writing the paycheck. However, in order to get what you want, you have to communicate that as something beyond simply: “Hey, would you buy a birthday present for my mom’s 80th birthday?” Are you picturing…

• Flowers?

• Diamond earrings?

• Something else? 

It takes so little time and effort to set your staff up for success where things like this are concerned. To address the above, for example, you might write a little statement – just once, and it can be duplicated as needed – into your personal memorandum of understanding saying “I want good, better, and best options.” Or…

• “I want purple, pink, and red.”

• “I want a low-cost, medium-cost, and high-cost option, and make sure you can return every single one of those.

• “I also need it by X” or “I need X by Friday” or “I need X by 5 o’clock today.”

This type of communication will give someone the go-juice to get what you want. And if you don’t communicate that, it won’t happen. I’ve been in scenarios where I’ve purchased 20 options, and none were correct. Not because I didn’t know anything about this homeowner; I didn’t know anything about their parents. 

It behooves you to communicate at least weekly – one-on-one, face-to-face if you’re able – to talk about the birthday present and everything else related to making your house operations go more smoothly.

The final thing that you’re going to want to stop doing is…

Three: Understaffing your household. 

Now, this doesn’t have to be full-time staff. It can be part-time staff or subcontracted labor. The point is that if you don’t know what it’s going to take to meet your needs – and that’s the mechanical needs of the household, your personal service needs, and anything related to keeping your house, your life, your children’s lives, and your pets’ lives running smoothly – I would suggest sitting down and completing our master maintenance task list. This allows you to outline absolutely everything that you need to happen on your property and in your life within the span of twelve months. 

We are providing this free template for you, so download and check out that content. It’s a really simple Excel spreadsheet, but it’s also impactful data about what it’s going to take to make your life go more smoothly. Realize the energy you put into this will equal the outcome you get from it. 

So if you’ve got a task – say, checking the generator once a year – who is it assigned to? A handyman? Are you going to hire a subcontractor? If it’s staff, determine how long it takes to do that so that when you sort by that handyman’s duties on your Excel sheet, you can see that they are either over-committed on responsibilities, under-committed, under-performing, or whatever. This one example shows that when you invest the time, you will get big, big dividends from that investment. 

Several things happen when your household is understaffed. 

If you have the best housekeeper in the world – and the best landscape gardener, and the best house manager, personal assistant, driver, whatever – they are going to feel unsuccessful and likely will not stay long. Or they won’t have the option to stay long because their bodies will burn out. 

If they don’t feel successful, if they feel overburdened, if they don’t feel appreciated, or if they don’t feel valued – they’re eventually going to leave you, or you’ll fire them because they look like they’re not a good fit. I don’t know how often I’ve heard from homeowners: “just not a good fit”; “not up to par.” Well, realize how much you might have a hand in that by over-expecting, under-communicating, or maybe under-funding that role. 

So, take a moment…

Take a moment to figure out how your entire life can become more peaceful, more secure, and more streamlined with the right staff, given the right information, and what it would take to say thank you and let them feel appreciated. King Charles is doing it. 

Let this information absorb, and I hope it helps things go more smoothly in your castle.