Transcript:
Welcome to the service legend podcast, a show for home service business owners who are looking to dominate their market and see more profit, more freedom, and more impact from their service business.
Hey, I’m your host, Ryan Davis, CEO and founder at service legend in Cardinal concrete coding alongside my co-host Marco SIPA CMO here at service legend. In each episode, we’ll be interviewing home service legends, industry experts, coaches, consultants, software companies in a whole lot more. Hey, see you guys on the pod.
What is going on? Everybody happy Thursday. And welcome back to episode 10 of the service legend podcast. I am here with an absolute service and painting. Legend, Jason Phillips. Welcome to the podcast. Wow, what a generous introduction, Ryan. Thank you. I appreciate it. It’s my pleasure to be here today. And after some technical difficulties, I apologize for running a little bit late today, guys, but, um, let me do a quick intro of Jason.
Um, most of you guys that are listening, whether they’re live on the replay here, um, probably know who Jason is, um, extremely successful, not only in the actual service business, but, um, in the industry from a thought leader perspective and, um, from an influence perspective. But, um, right now Jason is the CEO of Phillips home improvements based out of Dallas, Texas, which he started in 1997, knocking doors, like just knocking on doors.
Um, you know, and, um, man, I love, I love that you really take a lot of pride, um, in your marriage, um, in your five children, you have four daughters, one son, two son-in-laws, uh, you’re a devoted follower of Jesus and a husband, a follower. And I just love that. Uh, I love that you’re passionate about leadership, family time, personal growth, health fitness, and helping contractors get out of the contractor prison.
Man. I love all of that, like exciting. And I will say, uh, you know, you’ve got quite the record here. I mean, uh, or I should say Phillips home improvement does, um, 2019 torch award winner, uh, BBB of central north Texas board of directors member. Um, Jason is a advanced certified human behavior consultant. Um, and you know, I think one of the really cool things here just to kind of like to some groundwork here is, um, 1997 is now 2022.
Knocking on doors and then this, just this amazing bio. Um, so I just wanted to highlight for anyone listening that is whether you guys are just starting out, uh, whether you guys are doing, you know, 500 grand a year or a million or whatever it is. Um, if no matter where you’re at, you can go anywhere. I mean, just start knocking on doors, you know, and you can be anywhere.
So that’s really, really cool. I wanna highlight that. Um, thank you so much for being here and I know your time is precious. And so, uh, I really appreciate your time. It’s my honor, Ryan. Yeah, man. Um, okay, so we can go a couple different ways here. Um, I love getting out of the contractor prison. Um, maybe you could just kind of give us, um, some, just lay some groundwork to.
What is the contractor prison? Great question. So when I started knocking on doors, right, I started, I had no money. I had, you know, I had the plans I had were the Goodyear plan, the Goodyear being the tread on my sneakers. Okay. So knocking on doors, I had, I had all the time in the world, but I had no money.
So started selling jobs, started producing jobs. Okay. And, and things got, I had some pretty early success. I got busy very quickly. I was running the entire company. I was a Jack of all trades. The one thing I was not doing was the painting started out with just interior, exterior, residential painting.
Right. And before you know it, I’ve got, I’ve got, uh, you know, couple crews going, running me full time. I’m doing everything, but the painting I’m, I’m even the repair carpenter. Okay. And so I, I look up and guess what my family has has food on the table now. Okay. I’m not struggling for cash, but you know what?
I had no time. So I took, I, I took my big, my big full bucket of extra time and I emptied it and I traded it for money and I had money, but no time okay. And so after about 18 months, um, I’m like, wow, this, this can’t continue. I’m I’m constantly, I’m, I’m coming home late, late, late, late, late, sometimes after midnight working in the office.
And it was a regular thing to miss recitals, missed T-ball games, missed dinners, I’d come home and the, the lights would be off all the, the wife and kid would. My, my first daughter, I say kid, I was gonna say kids, but my first daughter, they would be in bed. And my, my, my, my dinner would be in the microwave, covered up with a paper towel.
And so, and so I just like, man, something’s, something’s gotta change. I was working like seven days a week. And, and honestly, you know, I just, man, I just, I give it to God. I just start praying like, God, what can I do? You know, You’ve brought me this far. What do I need to do? And my, I came to a decision I either needed to pull back, make less be miserable.
Cause I’m really not the I’m. I’m not the, I’m not the guy that’s gonna go halfway. I I’m gonna turn it up to 11 guy. And so you don’t seem like that at all, man? No. So, I mean, I don’t, I don’t really believe in work life balance. I want, I want every area of my life to be at 11 every area. And I love that anyways.
And so the other, it was either pull back or it was build a. And I chose to build a team. I didn’t know much about team building back in the day, didn’t know much about leadership, but I knew I needed help. Okay. So, so I, I hired at the time, what I called him was estimators sales people. And, uh, then that started carving off.
And, and before, you know it, after you know about, you know, 18 months, uh, or so I had, uh, several sales people and, uh, someone answering the phones and helping me process the, the, the administrative work. Right. Mm-hmm . And so we, we got to this new level that ended up being a new plateau. And as we continued to grow, I ended up in what I call phase two of my business.
But at the end of phase two, I was back in contractor prison. Again, I was doing things different. I wasn’t running sales leads or scheduling crews or doing those things. Yeah. But I was still running around like crazy working all kinds of hours. And I was, I basically, I had more money, but still no more time.
So I got my time back and I traded it back again and went right back into contractor prison. Right. And so, uh, when I started, uh, training, okay, I got to this next point, I was just gonna tell you this. And, and I literally wrote out an org chart, you know, here’s, here’s the president and CEO, here’s the person in charge of sales in charge of marketing, in charge of production.
Okay. In charge of finance. And I, I put my name in all the boxes that I was, uh, functioning in those roles. Right. And so, and I, I literally just, I just prayed and I said, God, you know, what do I need to do? And I, I, I didn’t say what I need to do. I said, God, I need these boxes filled. I need people. I need the right people within one year.
I had every, one of those boxes filled. Okay. And I didn’t fill ’em all at the same time. But I had everyone filled. And then at that point I had a steep growth curve and I had, and I got my time back, so started making more money and I got my time back. And when you have time and money, now you have the magical word, freedom, freedom to live my life.
Like I want to, and with, with purpose beyond and outside of my business, I’m not a slave to my business and listeners. You don’t need to be a slave to your business. There’s a way you can run your business with excellence and you can have time, money and freedom, and, uh, learn, learn from guys like me and others who have, who have, who have a lot of battle scars of doing things the wrong way, because there’s really not.
There’s really not a college. That’s gonna teach you how to run a, a painting or home improvement contractor business. Yeah, I wish there, um, it’d be interesting, right. If in senior year you’re like, okay, um, you’re gonna be a lawyer. Okay. You wanna be a lawyer? Okay. You’re a doc. Oh, you wanna be a contractor?
Here’s the college you go to. Right. Um, and I imagine back in the, um, in the mid, late nineties there, um, you know, today there’s, you know, there’s a lot of coaching programs. I mean, the PCA’s amazing. There’s a lot of resources there and, um, you know, there’s podcasts like. There’s more consultants and kinda like what you do, uh, just, you know, with, with, with, with, um, consultant work there’s, um, coaching programs.
There’s, there’s more resources now for sure. Uh, but you know, I was telling, um, autonomy and a couple people yesterday, um, information’s free implementation is worth, I mean, a million dollars or millions, right. I mean, it’s, you know, you know, it’s priceless, but, um, I imagine back in the mid, late nineties, there, there wasn’t as many resources available.
Like there is today to find, uh, or to get out of that prison. Okay. We were still using the yellow pages. The worldwide web was relatively new. I was one of the first companies I knew to even have a website and an email address. Okay. Okay. We had fax machines and things like that back then. Right? Yeah. And, uh, you’re right there.
The information is free. Now. One of the, the, the, the downside of that is there’s also a lot of bad information in our industry. Yeah. There’s a lot of blind leading the blind as well. And so sometimes, you know, uh, you don’t, you don’t necessarily have to be the expert, but you gotta know just enough to know that someone is not someone else is not the expert and who to listen to.
It’s very important to listen to the right people and 100%, um, okay. I wanna peel the onion, uh, kind of like, like the layers back here. Um, I know there’s three phases. And is that, what is that? What, um, the prison really is consisting of is three phases mainly of the business there. Well, there’s, I, I say I suggest that there’s three phases of business.
Okay. The fir the first phase. And, um, and I’m not the only one to come up with this idea. I discovered this on my own. And, but it’s the idea’s been out there. Yeah. That when I first started out, I was a painting contractor. Was focused on focusing on getting the work done or making the widget. Okay. Mm-hmm and then in phase two, I was focused on selling and marketing the widget, the painting service.
Okay. And then phase three is about people development because you’re building a team of people who are gonna build the business, not just even run the business, but build the business. And those are three phases. You’re you’re, you’re doing the work you’re in, you’re now a sales and marketing company.
There was a, there was a period of time where I’m like, well, I’m a sales and marketing company in the painting and home improvement business. Now, if you ask me now I am in the people development business. Hmm. And so those are the three phases and, and, and contractor prison is simply at any time where you don’t have both time and money you’re in contractor prison because you don’t have freedom.
Love it love it. You don’t have freedom of time or freedom of money you’re in contractor prison. Yeah, it makes so much sense. Um, if you guys are catching this live, please post in comments, hashtag live. Um, and if you are catching the replay type in hashtag replay, um, also if you’re in that prison at any level, um, or if you’ve been in that prison type in hashtag prison as well.
Um, and so we can try to reach more people with this, get some engagement going on these, on these posts. Um, okay. So I wanna peel some of these things back. Um, so you started in 1997 knocking doors. Um, and so obviously, like how long did it take for you to figure out like that there was a prison like, like from starting to like phase one?
Like if you could walk us through that, that like period of time, like how long did it take you to like figure out, oh, crap I’m in prison. Um, and kinda like, what was that? What was that like? Well, I kind of, I kind of knew it all along because I, at first Ryan, I was in survival mode. Okay. I, I had to do whatever it took to put food on the table for my family, because I came out of a very bad situation from another company.
I was weeks and weeks behind on my pay. I was in debt. It was, it was just terrible. It was terrible. And, uh, so I did what I had to do. Okay. But then you start realizing, okay, I’m, I’m cracking that nut every week and I’m, I’m making things work. We’ve got some money in the bank. Okay. Bought a new, bought a new SUV for the wife and the kids to roll around in.
Right. But you’re, then you’re like, wow, everybody else is like having family time on the weekends and things like that. And what am I doing? I’m working. And I didn’t like that. And I’m like, okay, that’s, that’s when I’ve gotta do something about this. Hmm. So that was that awareness stage. Um, Like what year was that?
If you, if you remember at all, like, um, cuz I think it’s important, you know, like a lot of companies or a lot of owners in the painting industry in, in, um, in the coding industry and et cetera. Um, I think it’s really important to, to, to identify and, and, and, and to be aware of that. And, um, I imagine a lot of people have, are going through what you’ve gone through, uh, or will be going through it, uh, or have gone through it.
Um, but like for those, um, maybe that are probably in there, uh, in that prison mode right now. Um, how long did it take for you to kind of like. I guess start phase one. I don’t know, like from 1997 to phase one, like what was that timeframe like? Okay. So from when I started working until I ended up making that decision of, Hey, I’m gonna build a team.
Mm-hmm . That was, that was about 18 months. Wow. Okay. Like I said, I had some, I had some pretty quick, some pretty quick success. Okay. Keep in mind. I’ve never painted a house. Well, I take that back. I painted a house as a helper when I was in training way, way, way back in the early nineties as a helper. Okay.
So I’m, I’m not a, I’m not a painter. I, I started out in, in sales and marketing. That was my mindset to start with sales, marketing, customer service. Okay. Yeah. So I didn’t have the issue of, of, can I get off this job and go work on something else? Because I was never the one, I was never the one with the brush, with the spray gun, with any of that.
So, okay. So 18 months, um, so from starting to 18 months, um, you really figured out a lot. And what, so the reason why I was kind of going down that, that right there, uh, Jason was, you know, I feel like there’s a lot of contractors in our industry, um, that they’re in five years, they’re in 10 years and then they realize, oh, I’m in this prison, you know, and I know you see it all the time.
I see it all the time too, where, whether it’s a client at service legend or just someone who I’m talking to or whatever, um, they’re 15 years in and they’re like, oh, I just realized that I’m in the prison, you know? And, um, gosh, it’d be so amazing for everyone to figure out, oh, I’m in prison. Cause obviously every addiction or every issue starts with identifying, right.
I mean, we gotta be aware and I feel like. You know, if we could touch on, um, what was like, if you could go into the pain a little bit of like, of, of, of the awareness or the identify identifying stage of that I’m of I’m in prison because you identified it really quickly. Uh, and I think that’s really special.
Well, okay. For one, um, do you have anxiety when this thing goes off? If, if, if, if you would do anything to get away from this, can you know, can you go on a vacation without having to be tethered to the office? Hmm. Okay. Let, let’s just condense this down even more. Can you go on a Friday night date without taking business calls or dealing with business texts?
Okay. If, if you can’t do that, there’s a good chance. You’re in contractor prison. Okay. And again, there’s the time piece of it and there’s the money piece of it, right? Mm-hmm and I feel like a lot of guys, they, they they’re making good money, but they’re in this, they’re in this pressure cooker and eventually sooner or later, they’re gonna explode in one way or the other they’re gonna burn up, burn out, you know?
And, uh, but if, if you’re, if you’re missing your kids’ events, okay, if you are, uh, if you’re too busy to take care of your health and work out too busy to eat, right? And so you’re gorging on fast food. Mm-hmm, too busy to go to church or, you know, read your Bible or whatever those things are that you feel are valuable.
If you find yourself being too busy to do those important things, there’s a chance that the chance are that you’re slave in prison to your business. wow. That’s that that’s really profound right there. Um, simple but profound. Um, and I know for me, I mean, I’ve been in it in both businesses 100% and you know, obviously the marketing company wasn’t contractor prison, but we’ll call it agency prison.
Uh, but it same concept it’s, it’s the right. Yeah. Small business prison. Yep. Um, and, uh, man, this is phenomenal. Okay. So let’s, let’s fast forward to phase three because obviously that is where magic happens. Um, and you know, um, service legend runs on EOS. We have a great leadership team, um, and, um, our director of operations, Renee she’s completely changed my life.
She’s a, um, John Maxwell certified coach. Um, she’s helped us implement us, completely changed my life in terms of, uh, leadership communication. And I, and I’m just starting this whole journey. Wow. Of, uh, of, of, of, of developing myself as a leader and it’s, and it’s, um, um, it’s amazing. Um, and, uh, and then we’re doing the same thing here at Cardinal.
Um, and so we’re going through this whole process and we, you know, we’ve got our level tens and we have, um, you know, the leadership between team being developed, um, the policies, everything like that. Um, but if we dive deeper into your story on phase three there, um, how did you start that process? Like, I mean, like, how did you start the, you know, just the concept of developing, um, that leadership team?
Well, the, the, the, the first leadership team that I built really took me, you know, took me up to a new, new level, like I said, but at the end of the day, you know, I got in this place and I’m like, Some something else has to change. And I knew at this point that if I was going to, uh, if, if my company was going to touch more, people help more homeowners and, and just empower more people.
My life is really about empowering Le leading, inspiring and empowering leaders and my vehicle for doing that is my home improvement business. Okay. So, so I, I knew if I was gonna accomplish the vision that I had to, I had to personally grow as a leader. So I’m, I’m gonna tell you a little secret is that, uh, all through high school, I never read a single book.
We had this thing called the cliffs notes back in the day. I don’t know if they had ’em in your day. Okay. Book summaries. Yeah. All of books look like, you know, warning signs or whatever. Yeah. Oh yeah. I did those. I was a really good test taker and I was really good at math and things like that, but I just, I was a, um, I was really good at grammar, but I just wasn’t a, a fast reader.
And so anytime I’d start reading, I get distracted almost like a D D or something. And, and so I never read a book cover to cover, and I knew that I needed to become a better reader. Okay. And so I, I literally, I closed my eyes and I said, God, I, I, one of my keys to becoming a better leader is I need, I need to become a reader.
And so about that same time, I had three daughters. That we’re in competitive cheerleading. If you know what that is. Okay. So these you go, my four year old just started gymnastics. So I’m just, just getting into that world right now. Yeah. So you go to the, you go to these, uh, uh, cheerleading events and they’re like at the civic centers or at the, the trade centers where there’s thousands and thousands and thousands of people.
And since I had three girls on three different teams, I would have to be there like 7:00 AM and I couldn’t leave for like 8:00 PM. Okay. So it’s me and my wife and the kids and cheer stuff. And cheer music is just blasting. It’s it just it’ll drive you nuts. Okay. Again, I’m proud of my girls. It’s not about that, but it just, after a little bit, the same music, everything over and over.
So here’s what I did. Okay. I brought my iPad and my Bose, I had at the time I had Bose noise, canceling headphones, and I got my Kindle and my audible and I started doing what I, uh, Reading on my Kindle and listening to the book on the audible at the same time and boom, that solved my attention problem.
And I started chewing through books and then I just, I became a better reader and, and, and some books I, I read without the audible. Some, I listen to the audible. Some I do both at the same time, some I reread and reread and take notes. And, and, and I really, I read books about self-improvement about, you know, uh, spiritual things and business.
I don’t, I don’t read any, any fiction personally, but I, I, I want to read books that I can implement and do. And so I’m, I’m surprised at the number of people, Ryan, that actually share my story about not liking, to read and actually read a statistic a while back that says that after, uh, our formal education is done our high school or college or whatever, only 10% of people read a book covered to cover.
For the rest of their life. Wow. After that only 10%. That’s incredible. And, and, and thank God that we have audible and we can, you know, we can, while we’re going from appoint to appointment, we can listen these days. Right. I had to, I, that tapes was Zigler back in the day, but, but reading has really made a huge difference in my life, in my leadership, in my, uh, in my relationships, just the skills that I’ve accumulated through reading.
And I just wanna encourage any reader and listeners out there. If you’re, if you don’t, if you find yourself struggling, reading, get a book and put it on an audible and, and listen to it, you can speed it up. If you need to listen a little faster, you can slow it down. You can go back, you can hit pause, whatever it’ll keep your place.
And a lot of these books now will actually have the audio integrated into the Kindle mm-hmm and it will highlight the words as it reads as it speaks them out to you. And it’s just, it’s amazing. Well, I tell you, so I’ll tell you, um, I, I was a horrible student and, um, you know, I had, um, I would say a pretty severe, um, ADHD growing up.
I still, um, have it here and there, um, had, um, in my opinion, a speech impediment of stuttering and, you know, I still do it here and there. Um, and so I share that as well. Um, and I, and, and, um, Alex Hermo talks about that same thing, how he struggled with reading as well. Um, and he preaches the same thing.
Read your book and listen to the audio version at the same time and actually, um, is actually hyper, um, or tension even more than just reading. So I’m glad that you touched on that. Um, I think it’s phenomenal and I like, I like how, you know, you. You started reading and that helped you start to become a better leader as well.
Um, I imagine some of the books you were reading and things like that, but, um, why do you think the reading helped you become a better leader? You think? Well, one, because I was, uh, reading about leadership and how everything from John Maxwell, every single thing from John Maxwell over and over and over. Oh, there you go.
I just started this one. OK. It’s the workbook version. That is that yes. I’ve got that. That’s that’s very good. Yes. And so reading about leadership and business and becoming a better leader, I’ve known for, for all of my adult life, that, that my purpose in life was to be a leader of leaders. And so that’s the, the one thing that I really wanna learn more about is becoming a better leader.
I strive to be a better leader. I believe I’m a better leader than I was a year ago, five years ago, 10 years ago. But gosh, I’ve got such a long way to go. Yeah, 100%. Um, well, I love, I love that aspect about you and I can, and I can tell you, um, by just listening to your content, your articles that you write, um, well, I wanted ask you, do you write your own blogs and all of that?
I do. Okay. They’re they’re really good. Um, oh, wow. Really good. Thank you. Yeah. Um, I can, I, like you were saying earlier, you can kind of, you know, like your BS meter, you know? Um, and when I, when I read your stuff, I’m like, you know, really makes me think about my situation, what I’m doing. Um, and even as I’m listening to you right now, I’m thinking like, wow, you know, um, and for me, whenever I feel that in my heart and have that conviction, I know it’s real.
And, um, uh, I know it’s authentic. And so I appreciate that about you. Um, okay. So when did. Started in 1987. And you identified kind of that prison, uh, you know, 18 months in, um, when did you like start to develop the leadership team? Um, because I think that’s important because a lot of companies, I think, um, you know, they start their company and then in five years they get to phase three or 10 years or it, you know, it’s incredible.
Um, and they never reach, and sometimes it seems like something, some companies will actually get to 1.5, 2.5, even 3 million, um, because they’re good at that phase two, you know, but they never get to phase three. Um, and so if you could break down, um, when did you start the leadership team and, um, like who was your first leader on your, on your team?
Outside of yourself. Okay. Gotcha. So very, very good. And by the way, I might just add this as a preface, is, is. Friends, if you’re listening out there, you know, sometimes you see these businesses that take off and just have explosive growth and I’m telling you don’t compare yourself to them. Okay. No matter where you’re at, gosh, there’s businesses I’ve seen that have done 50, 80, a hundred million within two or three years.
Okay. And it just, it blows me away. So it, it, it doesn’t matter. Your only competition is yourself of yesterday. That’s all you gotta worry about. Okay. So once I had, once I had my whole team, the, the, we didn’t have cloud services so, um, one of the first positions that I hired was an it person to develop my, uh, to run my whole network.
I had like four servers and all these terminals and, uh, and right. My further develop the CRM that I had written back in Microsoft access or VBA code and all that stuff. Okay. And so that was one of the first positions. I don’t know if it was the first one. Um, and then I, I hired a marketing manager. And a sales manager and a production manager.
Hmm. That all happened within once I started that process, I’m gonna say 18 months, give or take. And, you know, it’s, it’s a big, you know, I was just on a call earlier today and a, guy’s a, a guy’s like, well, um, I, I struggle with taking care of, of the admin work. I’m really good at marketing and sales. I’ve got my, my guys, you know, doing the, doing the painting.
And he said, I just don’t know if I can afford to hire that person in the office. And so I did some, I said, okay, let’s look at some simple math. Okay. You know, um, how much, how much time is that gonna save you in a week? Or how much time does that task need? He, he said, oh, about, you know, about 10 hours a week is probably what it needs.
I said, guess what? You’re probably giving it five. If it needs 10, you’re probably giving it five cuz you hate doing it. And he’s like, yeah. And I said, what, what would, uh, you know, what would it cost to hire someone to do that? If you were able to get that five hours back, could you go sell market, get some leads and sell and make enough to pay that salary?
I said, then it’s a no brainer. Do it. Yeah. And do it for a month and see if you can prove yourself, right. You don’t have to do commit to it forever. Do it for a month. Now you’re working more in your strength zone and in your fund zone. And that’s where we’re gonna be more productive and find the person over there that is drawn to consistency and detail and routine that wants to handle those things and thrives on that part of it it’d be a win-win situation.
Yeah. So, so what, what, when I started building my leadership team, uh, the, and I say leadership team, I wanted leader manager leaders. I didn’t just want managers. I wanted leaders. Okay. Yeah. And, and anyways, uh, I actually, one of the first positions that I, that I hired out was, uh, sales management, because I had, uh, I had five sales people and that’s, that’s a handful.
Okay. That’s a handful include with all the other, I’m still doing the market. It’s like five kids running around at home and in the business. Exactly, exactly. And I mean, I, I can’t tell you how much, you know, how much waste there has been, which, you know, the, the waste as you grow is, is a whole nother story about, about all the holes in your bucket.
It gets exponentially complex. Mm-hmm but I, I, I delegated the sales management, not because that was my weakness, but because I felt like I could delegate that out well, and I knew enough to, to hand the, to hand the, the, the range or the Baton to someone. Well, yeah, so I started that. Okay. And what’s interesting about that is, um, usually what we hear, um, and probably what you and I would recommend to people and what you would recommend to me.
And, you know, vice versa is hire your deficiencies. Um, which is funny. And in, uh, in the marketing company, um, we started the marketing company about three years ago. Um, and the, well, the first employee, we had some, um, some admin people, we, we hired an account manager, but like our, the second employee was, um, a salesperson, but he landed on my lap and I was like, well, I’m really good at sales and I could do the sales, but it, it has happened that way.
And, you know, and obviously God had had certain plans, um, for, you know, for us at that time. But, um, usually we, we would recommend, Hey, hire your deficiency. So Hey, if you’re the sales guy, hire an ops person, right. Or hire a production person. Um, and I find it interesting that I did the same thing you did is, you know, I kind of hired someone.
You know, I was good at, but I was able to manage him pretty well because I was, you know, I had, I was, I was decent at sales. Um, and obviously you had five people in that place, too. Um, what was number two? There, was it the marketing or production next? Uh, production. Okay. Yep. A production manager and again, we’re subcontract model.
So the production manager was really visiting the jobs, helping the project manager and managing the projects? Yes. Okay. Very cool. Um, also that did that wasn’t after 18 months, 18 months is when I, my first, when I moved from phase one to phase two mm-hmm and built the sales team and some of the admin staff okay.
Building the leadership team was a transition from phase two to phase three that started in like 2000 and, uh, So that was, that was like, you know, six, seven years in. So you were locked up for like six, seven years? Yeah, exactly. maybe not the whole time, but definitely for the last year. Definitely for the last year.
Yeah. Wow. That’s incredible, man. That’s incredible. Um, really, really cool that you push through that because I think there’s a lot of companies out there, you know, and the data will show that they get up to that point, you know, like, like that, like that picture of that guy, uh, with the, with the hammer, with like the gold, that’s like a foot away and he stops and runs away, but the guy can be gets there.
Yes. Five feet from gold. Yeah. So you were five feet from probably like, oh my gosh, like I’m gonna give up, but you pushed through that. What made you push through that versus giving up? You know, I just, I knew, I knew I had more to accomplish and I knew I could do it. I knew that’s what I was called to do.
And I just, I had a vision of what I, of what I wanted to do and I had a very, okay. Let’s also say I had a very supportive wife. Okay. I’ve worked a lot of hours. My wife and I, we, when, you know, we were in full agreement. When, when we met, we both had the same vision of a very traditional family. Okay.
Nothing against anybody else. I mean, Hey, I got daughters that are career girls. That’s not the problem, but my wife wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, raise a bunch of kids and, and I wanted, I wanted to go, I wanted to go hunt and bring it home and she could cook it. And that’s, that’s what works for us. Okay.
I could not have, I could not have done this without each of us doing our roles and what we’re good at. Wow. That’s so awesome, man. Um, I love that. Um, so. Now, obviously you were married before you started the business, it sounds like. Yes. Okay. Wow. So you were able to start the business with that type of, um, unit?
Um, that’s really cool. And so she was supportive from the beginning. Um, that’s amazing. That’s amazing. Love that. Okay. Um, I also wanna jump into the able systems, you know, repeatable, teachable and transferable. Um, was that something that, um, that, that was implemented once you had the leadership team or did you like develop those systems and then had them follow it?
If you could walk us through that? Okay. So initially when I, all the systems I built I’ve, I’ve always been, I’ve always loved technology and automation and all, and I’m very fast paced person. All the systems that I built were made to make me a personal powerhouse. Okay. And, you know, they might break or something might go wrong.
Well, guess what? I can fix it. I can develop it. And the problem is, and it was all right here. Was not in writing. When I tried to pass these things off, whether it was whether it was my CRM or my sales process or my follow up process or my scheduling process, whatever it was. Okay. There was never a good handoff.
And, and I called these fragile systems because they really only worked well for me. And the moment I tried to transfer, ’em like a, like a house of cards they would fall down. And, and so what we ended up with is because I had fragile systems and, and they weren’t, there wasn’t clarity. There wasn’t a clear way of doing things there.
Wasn’t training enough training on the way of doing things. Okay. We ended up with people that are just trying to get things done and they choose what they feel is the best way we call that freelancing. There’s either the there’s either the Phillips way or freelancing. Okay. And I don’t necessarily blame the employee for freelancing.
I, I blame, uh, me slash leadership slash we should have, we should have, uh, trained them properly. Okay. And the one key in all of this Ryan is we always have to remember who’s responsible. Hmm. Okay. I’m responsible. I’m not gonna blame my employees. I’m never going to blame my employees because I hired them.
I set the expectations. I trained them. I, I either did or failed to have the hard conversations with them or early on to make corrections on things. It’s all comes down to me and my leader. Yeah, that’s, it’s, it’s so true. And, and, and I was meeting with, um, I have a home service coach, um, that I, that I, that I meet with biweekly.
And we were talking about that yesterday. Um, we had a, we had an employee, um, actually leave us at Cardinal. Um, and you know, he quit, which was pretty odd for us, you know, like, um, you know, cause I felt like we have a really good culture and, and uh, my first thought was, well, there’s this, this and this. And he goes, well, uh, let’s do the exit interview with him and you know, let’s do that and let’s ask him, you know, and, and, and I made a post yesterday.
Um, and it’s, he told me, Hey, let’s not judge, let’s be curious first. Yes. And I was like, oh my gosh. And like, just since he told me that I just, I couldn’t even sleep, you know, last night I’m like, oh, be curious, Hey, you know, Mr. Employee, what made you feel so. X Y and Z, that, that, that you wanted to quit. And I think it’s so important as leaders of service companies that we really take ownership of, of those things, you know, and, um, it really comes from our place of humility too, you know, um, is what I’m realizing.
Um, and I, you know, I, I call myself a newbie leader. I’m just, you know, um, just started my first business three years ago. And, um, you know, I would say right now, Jason, I I’m I’m, you know, I’m in phase three, I would say, but I’m, you know, I’m pretty deep into it. Um, but the Lord has been convicting me past six months to be a better leader, a better communicator, and to take more ownership of what you just said.
And so it hit me right in the heart there. Um, Why do you feel that most service business owners don’t feel that way though? Because I feel like a lot of, you know, we see a lot of, you know, a lot of the forums, um, you know, at the trade shows you name it and most service business owners, um, probably older, bad leaders.
And, you know, it’s more of like, how come you’re not doing this? How come you’re not listening to this? Right. Um, why do you think that is though? I feel a lot of, it’s just, it’s human nature and it’s, and it’s immaturity. Hey, why didn’t things go my way? Hmm. You know, there’s an unmet, there’s a, there’s a gap.
There’s an unmet expectation there, uh, between, between what you expected them to do and, and what they expected to do. And there’s, of course, there’s a number of reasons why things can go south in an employment relationship, but I think it’s just natural to blame. And we, we don’t always see our side of it.
I mean, we only see our side of it. We don’t see their side of it, what they came into. And I feel like as business owners. Okay. People generally speaking, most people don’t have self-awareness of, of what environment they’re gonna thrive in. Hmm. Okay. They, you know, what, if, if they’re out of work they’re, they may be desperately looking for a job.
Okay. And they may take the job they may interview. Well, that doesn’t mean that they are, that they’re internally wired, that their personality is wired to go after the challenges in the unique position that you’re gonna put them in. And I feel like the onus is on us as business owners to have that knowledge, uh, not, not just for us, but for them, because if we hire them and a week or a month or months down, if it fails, it fails for both of us.
We’re set back in our business. Like, you know, our painting business is seasonal. We could have, we could lose that opportunity until the entire next season. Mm-hmm and maybe they’ve lost, you know, six weeks of, of. Finding the right seat for them in some, in an area which they can thrive. Right. And so I just, I feel like it all comes down to man.
We need to be amazing leaders. We need to be students of leadership constantly, so we can help guide and guide people and build them. Yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah, it’s so true. Um, I mean, I’ve, I’ve, I feel like I’ve been on both sides of it. Um, and I didn’t even, I didn’t even know anything about leadership probably until like a year and a half ago until I met, uh, you know, I’m telling you Renee, she’s probably listening here.
She changed my life. Absolutely changed. Wow. Um, what’s, what’s funny is, uh, I was looking for a, uh, automation specialist for our marketing company and she saw the posting and was like, Hey, I saw your posting and thought I would reach out and see if you needed an operational. And it was, and she’s a follower, you know, obviously, and, and, and she said, yeah, you know, the Lord just said to just reach out to you.
And, um, so I can, you know, I can, I can, I can assure everyone listening here that, um, developing the leader within you, isn’t only gonna help your business be more profitable and things like this, but it’s gonna help. I mean, it help, you know, it’s helping me be a better husband, uh, you know, a better father, brother, you know, all these things because I’m, uh, you know, I like what you said, the awareness part, because you know, that awareness part really starts with humility for me, you know, and just being able to say, Hmm, you know what X, Y, and Z, you know, and it’s, so it’s like humility, it’s awareness, uh, and it’s so critical to our businesses and to develop our leadership team.
Um, so I wanna go back up just a little bit here, um, to the dis, um, how do you use disk? Um, and like those types of things, uh, within the business there. At every point. Okay. I, let me, let me start with this, Ryan, you know, in our industry, most, most of the business owners, not all of them are very dominant driving people.
Okay. They’re fast paced and they’re about the numbers. and about, you know, the, the, the, you know, oh, systems, systems, this process, this, yeah, that’s important. At the end of the day, your systems don’t run themselves. People run your systems, your business systems are run by people and we need to be people, experts, experts on communicating with people and adapting our communication with people.
Okay. So we, we use, we use disk in our hiring process. We, uh, we use it in our management process. And just all throughout we have, we have adopted what I call the language of disk throughout our whole company. At some of our quarterly EOS meetings. We, we have, uh, little activities that, that, uh, help help reinforce disk and everybody’s disc profile, uh, is public for every, you know, for, uh, uh, across the team.
Um, we should put ’em on the walls, you know, like, uh, like plaque, no yeah. Oh, you have it in your office. Like, Hey, each employee has their own disc profile and their . Yeah. So yeah, it probably help us communicate better. Right. Cause Hey, companies do that because when you, when you, when you know, okay, the first thing about disk is this, it help, it helps you with a self-awareness that, for instance, when I first got mine, I’m like, man, that’s so true.
I’ve never, I’ve never verbalized this, but I’m reading. I’m going, wow. That’s true. And I, I, I went and showed it to my wife and she’s like, Duh. I knew that okay. And that’s something called the Johari window things that people, uh, that, that other people know about you that you don’t know about yourself.
Okay. Yeah. So anyways, uh, is self-awareness and then you start to understand people around you, what they’re, how they’re going to act in certain situations, most likely, but then the beauty of it is this is when it comes to team building. Okay. We, my team doesn’t need a bunch of Jasons. Your team doesn’t need a bunch of Ryans.
Yeah. Okay. We need, we need people in our, for instance, our accounting department, we need Tim to be consistent and accurate. Okay. And if we don’t surround ourselves with people that are different than us, we’ll have a lopsided team. Okay. We don’t need a team full of quarterbacks or full of, or, or full of, you know, tackles, whatever we need a well-rounded team with everybody playing their own, their own.
Uh, Th their own spot. Now, the, the problem is, is that there’s friction in the way in which, uh, different personality styles communicate and like to, and, and perceive things. And, and the beauty of disc is when you understand you and you understand them, you can adapt your communication style to drop into their world and their reality and talk to them in that way.
I’m gonna give you an just one single example. Okay. Um, uh, my, when I went to express appreciation to my accounting department, okay. I don’t come in and go, rah, man, you guys won, you did it. You got the reports out on time, you know, here’s I say, you know, winning is not their deal. That’s my deal. Okay.
Someone with a high D is really big on winning. Okay. I go in they’re they’re they’re CS, which means they’re very steady. They like the status quo. They don’t like change. They’re very accurate and competent. Okay. And sometimes skeptical that’s that’s the, that’s the way they’re built. And I need to appreciate that.
So here’s, here’s what I tell ’em ladies and they’re they’re currently, they’re all ladies. Okay. Ladies, you guys are so amazing. You guys are like a metronome. You never miss a beat. You keep our financials on beat the payroll on beat and everything’s accurate and reconciled. Thank you so much. And when you speak to them in that manner, their eyes light up and on this, isn’t just about them.
But when you, you know, when you’re speaking someone’s language, when their eyes light up, it’s going beyond their ears and speaking like right directly to their heart. It’s like a, it’s like, um, it’s like a love. It’s like, love languages here. It’s like, you know, with our very similar, our spouse is, um, you similar?
Well, there is, you know, the five language of appreciation for the workplace, which is the work version of, uh, five language. I’ve never heard of that one. I don’t know. Yeah. It’s a good book. Here’s a great book. The the five languages of appreciation in the workplace. Okay, cool. And so, so anyways, when I, if I’m, if I’m gonna take time to appreciate someone mm-hmm gosh, I want it to mean something.
I want them to feel it the way, I mean it, and I need to speak it in their language. Right? Yeah. Now again, disk is not just about expressing appreciation. Okay. Um, I’m gonna give you, I’ll give you another example. Okay. This is when I first started discovering disc back in the day and, and I laid out at the time, at the time, my company was much larger.
Okay. I completely remodeled downsized to re, to re redo some things had like 18 sales people. Okay. And every one of ’em did a, did a, did a, a disc profile. And I began to, without looking at the names, I began to stack them in stacks of, of the graphs that looked similar. Okay. And, and I’m like, wow. And, and I’m, I’m like these people over here, they’re amazing at closing the deals.
But they never get the details. Right. Okay. And they’re slow on, they’re slow on responding to customer requests. These guys over here, man. They, their closing rate is terrible, but every, every job is profitable. The customers love them. Okay. These guys here are moved over to production. These guys here so I split anyways.
I used to have sales and project managers together. Yeah. But, but what happens? One of, one of the things in, in our, uh, we request to meet with all homeowners on our appointments. Okay. We don’t require, but we do request it and, um, the paperwork or, or now the iPad that our salespeople go out with says who they’re supposed to meet with.
So, so, you know, we might knock on the knock on the door, knock, knock. Hi, Mr. Ryan. Hey Ryan, I’m Jason with Phillips home improvements here. Thank you for inviting me out to your home today. Uh, now my paperwork says I’m supposed to be meeting with you and Ms. Davis, um, is she available because she didn’t answer the door with you, right?
The very fact or sorry, someone without a high D will not ask that question. Got it. Yeah, it brings them too much. Even something is so simple. Now someone with a IDs, like of course ask the paperwork. They already said they would be there. It’s not a big deal, but someone with a low D feels like it feels like that’s gonna be an intrusive abrasive question and they won’t ask it.
Okay. So you cannot put that person in the job that has a requirement. We, we know that not only when we meet with multiple parties is our closing rate higher. Right, right. But also we know statistically through our own statistics that our, that our likelihood of being dissatisfied at the end is way, way, way less.
If we go all the way back to, uh, like I, I did a, I did a, a study a while back of, of, of our dissatisfied customers. Uh, yes. I confess I don’t satisfy every customer. I wish I did, but I fail. Okay. And, and I, I looked over several years and for every 2019 where a single party initial appointment and only one was two party initial appointment.
Wow. Literally it was big of a difference. Okay. So that was an eye opener for our, for our appointment setters. When they’re trying to get the, you know, get the other party like, wow, this makes a, this really does make a difference. Yeah. And so, anyway, Anyways, you, you, you can’t put someone in a position where their intrinsic, the intrinsic needs and rewards of that job are different than their motivations.
Hmm that’s it’s like going against their, their soul, if you will. You know, it’s like in, in a way, if you know what cognitive dissonance is, it’s similar, but it’s not a moral dilemma. Okay. Yeah. Um, for instance, if, if, if you consider yourself to be a very honest person and you’re working in a position, you need the job and your manager asks you to lie on some tax forms.
Okay. And, and, you know, he doesn’t maybe doesn’t speak it, but you know, if you don’t, if you don’t fill those out, you’re gonna lose your job. so you may do it to keep your job, but there’s this inner tension and stress that happens. It’s gonna carry, you’re gonna carry that home with you. Mm-hmm okay. When you’re asked to do that kind of stuff, that is called cognitive dissonance.
And although that’s a moral dilemma, this pressure is the same. When you’re asked to do something like ask for two party when you don’t, when you can’t ask those type of questions. Yeah. If that makes sense. Yeah. Hundred percent. I actually have a salesperson. Uh, that’s probably like that because, um, one thing we do with the codings is, uh, you knock on the door.
They’re like, Hey, just go around back, meet, grab the patio. Okay. You know, go around this side versus Hey, would love to, uh, be, but before we go out to the patio, I have a couple things I wanna go over with you before we get started today. Do you have a place where we can sit down and just kind of go over those things?
Yeah. Just ask the question. Right. For me, it’s like natural. I’m like, you know, of course I’m gonna ask that because how can I serve the customer if I don’t know, you know, X, Y, and Z. And I can’t perform a customer, you know, discovery assessment or whatever. And, but, uh, you know, to him, he’s like, I just wanna go to the patio.
Like they wanna go to the patio, you know, and, um, wow. That’s, that’s very, eye-opening um, pretty incredible. Um, good. When did you start the disc? Like, was that early on or was that more recent or no. No, it wasn’t. I wish it was much earlier, but it’s been transformational, uh, in, not just in my business. In my it’s in my, in my, in my business, in my leadership, in my marriage, in my parenting, trust me, we ran my whole kids through this, and then my daughter started dating.
They ran their, they ran their boyfriend through it and we all know it. Okay. It’s, it’s common in our family. It’s by the way, guys, if you have not done it before, you’ve gotta do it. And there’s, you know, start with doing a disc profile for yourself. There’s, there’s all kinds of ’em out there. Heck I’ve even got some on, on, not, not here to sell anything, but you can get ’em on my website too.
And, uh, they cost a few bucks. What’s your website, by the way? Uh, my personal website is Jason w phillips.com. Yeah, I, so do you, um, do you, do you have a consulting business as well? Um, in addition to the home improvement? Uh, not currently. I’m just doing it for passion right now, but, uh, I’ll be doing, I’ll be doing some more of it in the future.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I was curious about that. Uh, I know you could change a lot of lives. Uh, well, you’re already doing that, but, um, um, I could have SWO well, so triple crown contractors, is that kind of like the, like the brand that you run with? Like the name of the brand? Yes. Yes. That’s exactly. That’s that’s the, the triple crown time money.
Freedom. Oh, okay. That’s what it is. Yeah, love it. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, um, we’re gonna jump into your, your business a little bit. So, um, how many team members do you guys have at Phillips home improvements? So employees, uh, I think right now I have 33. Oh, wow. Okay. I think 33. Um, now are those those, so those are w two and then you have a bunch of painters I imagine.
Or, or how does that work? So we have, um, yeah, so that only one of those person does, uh, uh, does actual installations. Okay. And that’s a third generation gutter installer. We have. And he’s just, he’s just amazing. And, uh, but all of the, the roofing and the painting and the, uh, uh, the gutters is all done by subcontract crews.
So all of my, all of my employees are sales production call center, uh, HR, or, uh, or accounting basically, or marketing interest. So those, those 30, 37, you said, I think 32 33 right now, 32, sorry, heard wrong. Um, those 32 people are in-house marketing sales. And then, and then in addition to the 32 there’s there’s subcontractors that, that really the production.
Okay. Yes. Incredible. Um, so what is your guys’ like from a marketing perspective? Um, so I have a couple questions about the business. So, um, from marketing perspective, like what type of marketing do you guys do and kinda like what’s the mix. Okay. So we do, uh, we do a little bit of everything. We’re not currently doing any television or radio, but, um, we, we do, uh, we do some, uh, targeted mass mail, like coupon books.
Mm-hmm uh, we do, we do a little bit of direct mail. We’re we’re expanding that our, our, our solo direct mail, we’re expanding that we do, we do paper click. We do Facebook. We do, uh, we do, um, Angie ads as well. And, um, let’s see, what else do we do? Uh, some small little publications. Um, there’s some, uh, there’s some paper lead services, um, that are, that are pretty good for us.
They’re not in every market, but they kind of review companies and put out these magazines and say, Hey, these are the top companies in each category. We do, we do some of that. And, uh, yeah, that’s, uh, we, we do, uh, little bit of what I call, um, Neighborhood marketing mm-hmm um, just Cloverleaf around the jobs.
Interesting. Oh, I do some home shows too. Like three or four home shows a year home and garden. Yeah. I saw some of those photos actually look pretty cool. Um, you’ve always got a really cool brand, whatever you guys are doing, um, like good graphics, good brand, um, in, in that marketing mix. Um, cause that’s a really good mix there.
Um, is that, what do you feel like is the most like, um, I guess, um, effective, um, marketing channel, like what, what marketing efforts drive the most leads there for you guys? Okay. So our, our best leads is, is the leads we already have. Okay. The, the, the ones that our sales team didn’t close, we call those people, get someone back in the home and that’s our highest, uh, net sale per lead issued is on the reissued leads that follow up.
Yeah. We call that rehash. Yeah, that rehash. I love that. Um, have you ever heard of a, a software called hatch? We, we implemented hatch over the summer. Did you? We did. Okay. Is that going well, I imagine it’s going pretty well based on what you said. Yeah. Yep. Interesting. Okay. Very cool. And we’ve had some bugs to work out of it, but it’s, uh, it does its job.
It, it needs a babysitter. It’s it’s amazing. Yeah, it’ll definitely, uh, you know, because you know, the statistics about how many people respond to text versus versus phone calls and such. So we hit ’em with text, we hit ’em with email, we voicemail drop and we phone call them all, all of the above. Beautiful.
Okay. Yeah, I would, um, you know, If you’re listening to this and you’re closing and you’re closing 40% of your leads, um, on a monthly perspective, if you, if you insert some follow up, whether it’s hatch or, you know, um, something that, um, had some automation to it, things like this, you could easily grab another 10, 20% on top of that, with that follow up.
Um, and I love that you mentioned that, um, do you have, like, so you have some automation, do you have a, uh, like an actual person calling like the next day or, you know, what have you as well in, in addition? Yeah, so, so our N our CRM, um, uh, it triggers, uh, marketing tasks that come up in a call queue and it auto dials through the VO system.
And so we’ve got people working those queues, you know, every single day. That’s awesome. And we have different queues for, you know, fresh leads that, that are, you know, what we call demo, not sold. So fresh leads are ones that we haven’t had an appointment with demo, not sold ones. We failed to sell people that canceled.
You know, we call them back a week later, then like a couple months later, uh, and, uh, then ones, uh, demo not sold that, uh, are like super old. We call those as well. Plus we do, uh, we do email campaigns as well. Beautiful. Um, now what, what are some marketing efforts that you guys have stopped using over the past couple years?
That just didn’t work? Um, we, uh, things like, uh, what I call lead aggregators, which would mainly be, um, Like porch and home advisor slash Angie leads. Now we’ll tell you this right now, we’re doing a test, uh, with Angie Le slash home advisor. Everybody needs to be clear on the difference between Angie ads and Angie leads.
Okay. Angie, Angie leads is paper lead. We’re doing a test right now, uh, with, with hatch to see what we can do with our set rate. Our initial problem with those was the set rate, because you need to, if you’re gonna book those leads, uh, if you wait more than a more than a minute to contact them, your, your, your chances of getting the appointment, just dive.
Sharply it’s speed. Delete is absolutely vital when it comes to those type of leads. Again, if someone, if someone comes to my website, fills out my form, they see my name, they’re looking specifically for me, they may be getting other quotes, but they know, I know they want to quote from me. Okay. Those are still hot and urgent, and I need to get on those.
But when someone is on something like, uh, Angie’s list or an, or Angie leads slash home advisor, okay. They’re just saying I need someone and immediately it’s sending it out. And most contractors already know that sending out to a number of people. Yeah. And, uh, there’s some statistics, like I think 70% of people end up doing business with the first company that comes in contact with them.
Yeah. Yeah. It’s incredible. Um, similar to Facebook leads. Um, I know a lot of, um, clients, you know, we have a lot of clients that do cabinet painting, um, re paints and, you know, but, um, the re paint leads, the cabinet painting leads from Facebook. I mean, we can produce a lot of volume and the quality’s good, but, um, You’ve gotta jump on ’em and the speed delete is the same thing.
Um, so I love that you mentioned that, um, what do you guys do to attract online reviews? Okay. So, um, we have a, uh, a purposeful purpose purposeful system for that. We start out when we’re gonna start a project. And, um, we, we tell the customer that, that our project manager is a part of his, his job starts script.
He, he, he tells the customer, um, that we want, we, we expect to wow. Them so much that they would wouldn’t have a problem giving us a review when we’re done. And if there’s at any point, we’re not headed that direction. Mr. Mr. Ryan, please let me know right away. And at the end of the job, we have a script that we run through and we ask them for that review right then and there.
And, um, we, we. We like to do it while we like them to do the review while we’re actually there. So we, we’ve got a couple different ways we use we’ve used we’ve used podium. Well, it’s basically the idea is we send ’em a, a text or let, ’em send a scan, a QR code. The point is do it while they’re there before your guys leave.
Because it’s like, uh, only if you can get seven in person and you leave only one of ’em is going it’s it’s seven times better when you do it in person, how do you do it in person? Like, like, um, because I think the same thing, I mean, well, right, you finish, you’re signing off and they’re like, oh my gosh, man, this is awesome.
Thank you so much. We’re walking the job, whatever, whatever. Um, and there’s that emotion there? Like, do you guys have. A specific like phrase or sentence or? Yeah, we, we have a script that we teach our project managers. Okay. And I don’t re I wrote it, but I don’t have it memorized. Um, but it goes something like this.
Uh, um, thank you so much, Mr. Ryan, you, you, um, you’ll be getting a, a receipt in your email. Um, you know, have a question for you on a, on a scale of one to 10. Um, you know what my, my, my performance is I’m graded. My performance is graded on your satisfaction. Hmm. On a scale of one to 10, how satisfied are you with the service you’ve received?
Okay. And there’s one script. If they give ’em a, you know, nine or a 10, and there’s a different script. If they give ’em less than that. Okay. Nine, if it’s a nine or 10. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. Could we, could I ask you a favor? You. Did you look at online reviews when you were considering what company to trust your home, trust your home too, for your home improvement project.
And you know, who’s not gonna say no to that. Most people are gonna say, yeah. Yeah, those are important to me, right? Yeah. Would you do the other homeowners a favor? Would you please take a moment and, and give us a review? It, it would would not only would it help us, but help other homeowners just like you.
And so here I can text you this link. Can, can you get your phone out real quick? Will, will you grab your phone? Okay. I’m gonna send you this link. Sometimes it’s a little wonky, so I’ll just walk you through it. If so. Okay. So you got it. Okay, great. Okay. Did it come up? Yeah, just that right there. Okay. I, I’m gonna go make a quick call.
Let me, I’ll be back in a minute while you fill that out. So I walk out to the. Make a quick call, come back, make sure they didn’t have any problems with it because sometimes, you know, they don’t know where to click or whatever. Right. Just hold their hand. I’m not telling ’em what to say. I’m definitely not telling ’em what to say, but I’m just making sure that, that, that, that they complete the process and that don’t, they don’t have any problems completing the process.
Mm-hmm that’s awesome. I like that. You kind like guiding them it, you know, it’s like in sales, right? It’s like most of the time, you know, as sales, we should guide them, you know, into that decision. Um, and not force them, but guide them and, and, and, and things like that and help them. Um, so it’s same approach, um, with the review.
I like that a lot. Um, now if they say, no, I imagine that’s more of a, you know, that’s more of a production or quality assurance, um, type of, yeah. At that point, we’re like, wow, I’m so sorry. Now it should, if, if it’s not gonna be a nine or a 10, we, we should already know our guy should already know, but say for instance, that he doesn’t know.
Yeah. Yeah. He he’ll apologize and say, wow, well, you know, what can I do to turn this around? I wanna make this a nine or a 10, what can I do to fix this? That really is part of the script. Yeah. I love that. Okay. Um, now I wanna talk about culture just for a little bit. Um, so how do you build an amazing culture and I, and we could probably do an entire other podcasting like that, but just a quick summary.
Um, you know, is there anything special that you do maybe on a weekly basis that, uh, you know, that helps kind of build the morale and kind of maintain the amazing culture that you have there? Okay. So yes, one. Okay. You’ve got a culture at your company. Whether you think so or not, you have a culture and why not make it purposeful instead of accidental or incidental.
And you know, people these days, they don’t wanna just be a number. They don’t just want a paycheck. They really want their life to matter. I, I think even through going through COVID people like, man, why am I working that dead end job. I’ve been here with my family, that they people reevaluated life. Okay.
Yeah. Wow. People don’t just want a job. They want, they want a place where they, they have some people want stability. Some people want opportunity, they all want respect. They wanna be able to use their skills to add value. They wanna learn and grow. They want to, they want a career path, you know? And what do I want?
Well, I want enthusiastic employees who are ambassadors for my brand out there, wowing customers. That’s what I want. Yeah. And so one, one of the things is I think it starts with putting people in the right seat. So they’re not doing a job. They. That helps greatly. Yeah. Okay. Um, another thing is, is, uh, celebrating, celebrating, wins, getting together.
Look, we have some high eye people on our team too, that are great at, at, at being inclusive and, and making it a fun work environment. Look, we’re not there to have fun it’s work. Okay. But why can’t we do both at the same time. Right, right. And so, so we do those things. I, I made this little automation that, you know, every time, every time, um, one of our sales people results an appointment in the system and it’s sold.
It goes out to our all team elite chat. Hey, congratulations. So and so just contracted, you know, or every time one of our project managers completes a project or adds onto a project, it goes to the all team elite chat, or every time, even if we didn’t sell it, if the salesperson results it. And, and he says it, the, that two people were there instead of just one, it, it says, Hey, great job, great job to the appointment center.
It always includes the appointment center on anything, great job for setting a two party appointment. And so those are some of the things that we do as well. Yeah. You know, and there’s, of course we have our, we have our quarterly offsite quarterly. We might go bowling or just do whatever. And, uh, uh, we occasionally we’ll have, you know, what we call, we call ourselves team only.
Okay. Which is this crazy term. We, we work together like a team and we care for each other, like a family. And together we squished those together and call ourselves teamy I know it’s really teasy but it’s, part’s part of our culture. Okay. Yeah. And so, so that is our values are faith people, teamwork, and the pursuit of excellence.
And, and when you see, when you see people going the extra mile, giving up things for others, for the sake of the team, or for the sake of others, you know, you’ve got a thriving culture at that point. Yeah. It’s incredible. Um, we do the same thing. So this Saturday we’re gonna go, well, not the same thing, but, um, similar, we, we’re going to top golf this, you know, this, uh, this Saturday with the teams, we super fun.
Um, and I, and I started to like, try to like, um, you know, we’re gonna work. And we’re gonna go have fun together. So once a quarter, and that’s kinda how I pitch is, you know, we work together and we’re crushing it, you know, um, you know, we’re working with excellence and, you know, we’re making sure that customers are satisfied, et cetera.
Uh, and, and, and we’re being productive, but we’re also once a quarter, we’re gonna have fun and we’re gonna go have fun together, just, you know, non-work, but also we’re also gonna serve together. So when wanna work together, we’re gonna play together and we’re gonna serve together. And so also once a quarter, we’ll go out and serve ion things like this.
Wow. Um, and, um, and so. The first time we’re gonna serve together will be this quarter. Uh, and, and we’re gonna go to the Phoenix mission. Um, and, um, but I, you know, I think it’s so important for, for culture. And I think a lot of times, you know, I made a post the other day about hiring. I said, Hey, you know, is there a hiring shortage or does someone wanna work for you?
You know? And it’s like, what does your company look like? You know? Um, like it, you know, are you doing these things that Jason’s talking about or, you know, are you serving together? You know, are you guys playing together or do you, you know, or, or, or, or it just work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work. And then there’s no appreciation, you know, you know, Ryan that if I could, if I can inject this, mm-hmm, , you know, there’s this idea of, of separation of church and state.
Well, there’s a similar idea that never existed. There’s this other idea that you should never get close to the people you work with. Mm, okay. And the reason I, I believe the reason is, is because in those circumstances, people have problems speaking the truth to someone. They have a relationship with outside of work.
Yeah. Work doesn’t need to be cold. I feel if you really care about them, You’re gonna be strong enough to tell them the truth, even if it hurts and, and to lead them. And so I want team members that are that strong and that care about each other, that much, that they will speak the hard things that need to be spoken.
Yeah. It’s like, you know, it’s like a culture of accountability and trust. I was just talking to one of our clients. Um, and, and we’re, we’re, um, we’re, we’re talking about doing business together and, and, uh, you know, he goes, Hey, you know, Ryan, this relationship’s gonna have to start on trust if we’re gonna, you know, if it’s gonna be successful.
I said, I said, you’re 1000%. Right. And same thing with, you know, with our teammates here. Um, and you know, last night our, um, our production manager here sent me a text and he built like this like new training thing. It was like a vertical, like, you know, to do the flakes on, on the verticals. He was so excited about what he did, you know, and, and, but not just about what he did, but he was like, man, our team is gonna be able to learn so much better now because, or like on this specific thing.
And it made me really happy to know that he was happy about doing work. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know, exactly. People wanna add value, man. Nobody wants to just come watch the clock and be bored all day at work. They absolutely. They wanna use them. Yeah. Okay, so we’re almost done here. I got a couple more questions.
Um, I really appreciate we’re going over here a little bit. Um, what is the best advice you’ve ever received? The best advice I’ve ever received was this, um, find someone who is, uh, who, who is, or has been where you want to go and learn everything you can from them. Hmm. Love it. I freaking love that. Um, what is the worst advice you’ve ever received?
Ooh, wow. The worst advice. Oh man. That’s a uh, you can’t trust anybody? Yeah. Well, that’s a big one in, in, in, um, in our, our society these days. Right? I’m not gonna trust anyone. Screw everyone. You know, trust, trust trust is, is makes you vulnerable. Trust is risk. Okay. But studies have shown that those people who extend trust first end up getting more.
Wow. In the long run trust, trust, trust is like, is like investing for the long run. When you extend trust, that person may let you down, but, but you’re going to develop more relationships when you start extending trust you, you can’t just say I’m, I’m not gonna respect them. They haven’t earned my respect yet.
You know, they have to start a ground zero. Now, why don’t we just start ’em up here a little higher and give ’em something. Yeah, that’s awesome. Um, okay. Last question here. Um, what is the greatest insight that you can share with our audience that has helped you find success in your painting business? Um, there’s already been some amazing ones, so so, okay.
So at the end of the day, every great and amazing thing that I’ve set out to do or done big or small has stemmed from my, my connection and faith in Jesus. Okay. Period, that my inspiration. There’s, I’ve got some big stories about where I’ve had to take steps of faith, sailing out into the deep blue unknown in business.
I mean, I’m just a little Jason, I’m just a little guy here, real small business. Right. But, but when it’s all you okay, and, and the buck stops on your desk and you’ve gotta, you gotta figure out who to trust. Right? You wanna, you wanna meet some people and, and, and have some good advice, but ultimately, uh, those, those times of just quiet time, just reading the Bible and just stopping and listening and, and praying and just hearing God speak to me directly.
Those are the most, the most powerful things. I can second that 1000%. Um, well, man, it’s been, it’s been an honor and a privilege here. Thank you so much for your time. I know we had some, some, uh, tech issues here early on. We’ve kind of gone over the time here, you know, I’m sure you had to push back a meeting or two and, um, I really appreciate your time.
Um, and, um, now if anybody wants to get in contact with you, whether it’s, whether it’s leadership stuff or disk, or just to, you know, to ask you some questions, because I mean, you’re, you’re an absolute gym here, man. Um, how can they get in contact with you? Well, one thing go to, uh, Jason w phillips.com. Uh, they can find me on, uh, Facebook it’s Phillips Jason w or whatever I’m on all.
I’m all the different social medias. You can find me in the different painting groups, uh, Facebook email. My email is Jason Phillips, painting.com. You can, you can connect with me there as well. Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. Yeah. See you guys next time. Bless.
