Transcript:
So welcome back to another amazing episode of the Service Legend Podcast. Guys, I have a real treat for you guys. I just can’t wait to dive into it. Creighton, welcome to the podcast. Hope you’re doing well.
Doing well, Yeah. How are you doing, Ryan?
Good, man. Good, good, good. For those of you that don’t know Creighton, number one, he’s a client of service legend. And this episode, we’re focusing on the category of client success. So we dive into those types of things. And service legend is just a very, very small piece of what Creighton is doing. But Creighton is from Crown Point, Indiana. He saw a niche within the industry and transitioned from another home service industry. His role is the the owner, the the entrepreneur. And he loves to focus on the sales and the marketing side of the business. Creighton Cordell is a successful entrepreneur and business professional who is passionate about business development, personal development and achieving success. He grew up in Crown Point, Indiana, which I was born in Lafayette, so I love that about you. And he was inspired there by his entrepreneurial parents From a young age. Creighton was curious about business and personal growth and pursued it in college. He gained valuable experience in the landscape and Hardscape Industries for six years, and then he founded Level ten Epoxy, which we’re going to dive into today, which is a concrete coding company founded in May of 2022, which was obviously not too long ago. So if you guys are new in business and your first year of business, tune in to this podcast. You’re going to love it.
But they they quickly exceeded $1,000,000 in revenue by the end of the year. So he is dedicated to helping others and is always striving to be the best version of himself and his free time. He enjoys traveling, playing golf and attending sporting events. Awesome, man. And we’re going to dive into that here a little bit more. For those of you that are listening, I already saw somebody here live. I’m not sure who that is. I’ll look here in the group. Lawrence, What’s up, Lawrence? Those are those of you that are alive. If you could put in the comments, hashtag live. If you’re on the replay in the Facebook group, type in hashtag replay. And those of you that are on Apple Spotify podcast, I was looking at our data and the majority of our downloads off of off of Facebook are Apple and Spotify. So if you’re here on Apple and Spotify listening, what’s up to you guys? Hope you guys are doing well as well. Let’s get into it, man. I mean, a six figures, you know, I thought six figure was was the first three months and I was mistaken. You crossed the six figure threshold in month one. Could you just kind of like before we go into the back story like how like, how do you do that?
A lot of marketing. Yeah, like we did. We did, like, a job like mid-April, where we kind of learned on a good friend of mine’s garage and then we went and worked a couple of weeks with a vendor in Ohio. So like first, our first full 30 days was May and we just hit that six figure mark in May. But we were pushing it. I mean, these guys are working 80 hours a week trying to learn and do it at the same time. So a lot of marketing. I mean, we started right in the midst of the busy spring season, so we’re just fortunate to be able to get a lot of jobs. I mean, we probably spent 15 to $20000 on marketing to get that work, but we were able to get it. So a big learning curve, though, for sure.
Love it, man. Love it, love it, love it. I see it all the time. Kardinal grew pretty quick. Obviously, you guys grew very, very quick. There’s a lot of others that have that have grown really, really quick. And I think there’s a lot to say about quick, quick growth, right? You’ve got to have a lot of things in place to handle the production side of the office side, the operations side. But I think fundamentally, there’s a lot of home service contractors or people in home service that that literally believe that When I say we took cardinal from X to X or you did six figures in your first couple of months or first month that it’s just a lie, that it’s that that is not real, that you can’t do it. And so hopefully we can debunk that myth today with some practical stuff. But before doing all of this, just break down and elaborate for us, kind of like the origin here, if you will, from the landscape side, the college side, like just maybe like the I don’t know, the previous 5 to 10 years maybe, of what you’re doing for level ten.
Absolutely. Yeah. So I’m a 27 year old entrepreneur, young like yourself and Marco, born and raised in the Midwest, very fortunate to have two 2 to 2 parents that are very entrepreneurial. So I always saw that growing up. I have a very entrepreneurial brother as well who’s ten years older than me. That is a big role model as well. So always hungry, curious, wanting to learn. It all started once I realized I wasn’t going to get anywhere with sports. That was just a five foot ten white boy that wasn’t going to do anything.
That sounds like me, that sounds like me. I like to think I was like, good. I was like, barely. Okay, you know?
Yeah, I was I was good at baseball, but like, no, I couldn’t even I could barely probably couldn’t even play D1. So I was like, all right, At some point you realize like, man, I’m putting a lot of work in for what, so late in high school? Kind of got interested in personal development, started My mom’s a big on coaching and learning, so started reading John Maxwell, Listen to Tony Robbins, Grant Cardon, all that good stuff got obsessed that and then started a little home Service business in late high like senior high school going under freshman year college, mowing lawn, not mowing lawns, but like doing minor landscaping, pressure washing deck staining, all that good stuff. And then it all started my freshman year of college when I took an internship with a company called College Pro Painters. Dude, College Pro had a unique business model man, where they would recruit, recruit entrepreneurial freshmen or sophomores in college that wanted to run their own business and they give you all the resources to do so. They helped you learn how to do the sales and marketing side. And then they kind of they took 40% and then they set you up with account Sherwin-Williams and all that good stuff. When I realized like, No, I’m not doing this is when they made me make a list of the 200 people I knew closest to me to call and be like, Hey, I’m doing this this summer. Are you interested in maybe having your deck stained or exterior painted, etc.? I was like, Give them 40%. Nah, no thanks. So I started doing like, push it hard that summer after freshman year at college, doing more like pressure washing, landscaping, my own painting stuff.
And then through that I got tied in with a landscaper that was growing and just kind of led to a sales opportunity. And from there transpired being with a few landscape companies and being a part to That’s where I got my foundation of business knowledge of sales, marketing, scaling, managing people, selling projects, project management, all that good stuff. Next thing I know, I was making six figures plus fortunately at a young age, and so just kind of stayed in it and it just it just ran and transitioned out of that industry. I also had an outdoor lighting company. We did a lot of Christmas lights, transitioned out of both both both of those at the end of last year and then was kind of I was looking to get out of home service, to be honest with you, because I was like, no, same headaches, too many people, you know, saturated market, but then kind of was looking at different things. And I’m very fortunate to have a very good. Couple of people in my circle that one of them who he’s a he’s a partner and he. Wanted to do this. And so we looked at it, went to a training at easy concrete last January and started working on a brand. And here we go and was able to start the year off with four guys and here we are. So I saw a niche in this in this industry, which is nice because there’s really only four or five main competitors in my area. So it’s not too it’s not as difficult to build out. I feel like to dominate the market and be different.
Yeah, it’s true. I mean, here in Phoenix, too, we don’t have a ton. I mean, there’s probably like five or so, maybe 5 to 8 that are like some really solid companies. But beyond that, it’s just not really a lot of competition. So for those of you that are listening, obviously this this podcast I posted in in the comments there, it’s if you’re in your first year of business, this is really going to help you out here. But could you like how much money did you guys have to start Like was it a big investment? Was there a lot of financing? Like.
I mean, I’m fortunate in that matter. You know, a lot of people that segway in just buy used stuff and just kind of ease their way into it. And don’t get me wrong, that’s what most people have to do and they’re doing the work. I’ve I learned the process and done a little bit of the work, but at the end of the day, I’m not the one doing the work. I’m very fortunate to have a good production guy that four or five good team members from the beginning. But yes, it wasn’t an investment. I mean, dude, we easily invested 200 grand or so just to get started to buy legit, to come up with a legit brand, you know, build legit website, have actual marketing capital to start. You’re going to learn, you’re going to fail. You’re going to have to redo some floors that you fuck up, you know, I mean, all of that.
Wait, wait. So you’re not perfect with your floors? No.
Not at all. Not at all. Not at all. We’ve had some flaws. I can say. We haven’t left a half assed product out there, but we’ve definitely learned and had to redo some things for sure. I mean, point blank part of it, right? So yeah.
Yeah, it’s part of it, man, for sure. And a cardinal. I mean, we’ve had times where the go back percentage was high. Thankfully, we’ve, we’ve really dialed that in. I mean, I think last month there was one go back from the four crews, there was one go back. So I think obviously it was less than 10%, which is for me in our size, less than 10% Go back is what you should focus on. Jeff is here live. You might have something better to say, but 10% or less go back across. The company will keep it very fruitful. And then we even gave our our guys a bonus for achieving that. So so from going from there to now, what has been like the biggest challenges that you’ve seen? Was it was it production, Was it admin or was it marketing sales? If you just walk us through maybe it was leadership or culture. What has been the biggest challenge from from May to now?
I think the biggest challenge I would say I’d say the two biggest challenges were one is learning the industry, learning the different business models that there is with it. There’s a lot of ways to go about it. In our first year, we did a 150 plus garages, six figure plus commercial job with polished concrete. We’ve done one or two metallics, so we’ve done solid color floors, a little variety. So there’s a lot of ways you can go and it can be a very crowded space. So one becoming aware of the industry and deciding what route we’re going to go and to is culture. I mean, I think that that’s that’s huge. That’s been a little bit of a struggle, but I think we’re fortunate to have people. So we’ll see how it goes in the spring. We’re trying to ramp up big time. So figuring out the best way to train these guys in a quickly efficient time matter without having as many of those go backs is been the biggest thing. And then for me, I think for me personally, is learning the sales cycle coming from one home service industry to the other. They’re completely different. The sales cycle with the way you sell a garage floor coding and the way you sell commercial coding are different. Similar in some ways, but different versus the landscape design and build world I came from. So and I think we’ve talked a lot about this, but dial on that in which I think I’ve got a pretty good understanding. But in six months from now we’ll really have a dialed in.
Yeah, 100%. It’s tough to like any new business you’ve got to develop. There are so many things to develop. There’s, I mean, gosh, marketing, admin, production, sales, leadership coaching, coaching, your team systems, it’s incredible. So what has been the easiest thing for you guys or for you specifically?
I think growth, to be honest with you, not afraid to try different marketing tactics and spend money this or spend money at that. So we’ve been able to get some jobs just by. Spend money. To be honest with you, it’s all at the end of the day, like we’ve talked about before on here. It’s a dollars thing. It’s how many leads do you need? What’s your closing percentage? How many marketing dollars do you need to spend? Who’s your ideal client and how are you going get in front of them, right?
Yeah, I love that. Okay, so. Going back to some more practical stuff. How many employees do you guys have? What’s the approximate revenue now? Maybe monthly or whatever? How many crews like production crews, sales people? What are the services being offered? And I can repeat some of this, but just those few things just kind of like the practical side of the business.
Yeah, for sure. Right now, we’re running two production crews. First week of March, we’ll the goal is to hopefully be at three by April, first to be at four, and then by the end of the year to be a511 sale time, one full time sales person. That kind of transition to sales is in November. I’m still selling probably about 50% of stuff, too. And then we have two full time admin support and a virtual assistant. The spring. We’re going to set it up to where hopefully we have two salespeople rocking full time come mid spring and we can run. 3 to 4 in store crews every single day. I feel like that’s a number where you got to be at this to make some money. But really, market domination in our local area is the goal this year.
Nice. And then in terms of the product offerings, so obviously, like Cardinal and I think, you know, I mean, you look at what what Tzr does and the companies that revamp Holdings company is acquiring is like these is is is these single focused product lines where it’s only for like or whatever are you guys offering just whatever, whenever and whatever the customer asks or have you guys systemized kind of the offering?
I would say we’ve done about 80% of the systems that we need to. There were some trial and error. Just say, Hey, let’s see how we like this or that. Yeah, we had we’d done driveway overlays, we did a couple metallics, we’ve done some other things. So going into 23, we’re more focused and we kind of have an idea with how things are and what we want to do. Residential wise, it’s garage floors, basement floors and exterior coatings, full flake floors and garages. Basements will do a little variety, like try to push them to flake. But we will do a metallic, but we’re pricing them at $14 a square foot. So that way, if they do it, you know, it’s worth it. But really just trying to push them to flake and then exterior, we’re only doing flake, so pretty dialed in a residential commercial. Were you still doing a fair amount of volume in there? Really? So the goal the goal would be to be like a 65, 35, 70, 30 split this year. I have two really good guys that can do polished concrete and then we can do like a solid color floor, like a neat or stout floor with sand broadcast because there’s some money in it. If it comes our way, it’s just come our way naturally through marketing.
So yeah. Nice, nice, nice. Okay, so who is the ideal customer for you guys? Like the ideal target market or ideal customer four level ten out there right now.
Our ideal residential customer in our market is obviously different than most. I mean, 500,000 to an eight 800,000 house here is pretty nice. I know that’s not crap in Phoenix, but or Naples.
Unfortunately, just like Je suis. I was looking at houses with my wife because we’re going to move here in the spring and I’m like, Jeez, Louise, do I got to move? Like, I got to move to, like, fricking somewhere else? This is crazy.
I know you’d be living a king somewhere else. So. Yeah, like a residential customers 30 to 65, 500,000 800,000 house they’re looking to spend. Most of our residential transactions are 3 to 7000. That’s good. It’s an easy sales price process. Easy to get in front of that person to market towards commercial obviously is different. But residential wise, that’s where we come together to.
How are you guys landing all the commercial projects and things like that.
Commercial have been bid to owner through just marketing. I’m fortunate to have some relationships to just because my family’s in commercial real estate, so we’ve gotten some that way to kind of get some experience and segue into it. But through bid owner, through really honestly sell and then have done a couple off of the construction connect and things like that, just local ones, but not a lot of like just bid bid bid to build. We’re not doing that.
Yeah yeah that’s pretty cool. So that really speaks. I mean, like if you’re in your first year of business, you’ve got to start building relationships. You know, obviously you were you were fortunate to have some relationships through some of your connections already, but if you’re in your first year, that’s what I’ve seen a lot with you is like you’re you are not afraid to build relationships, to build connections. And I know that’s true in your local market because I see it just whenever we hung out, whether it’s in Detroit or here in Phoenix, you’re not afraid to meet people, connect with them, build rapport instantly. And I imagine that’s helped a lot, not only on the residential side but on the commercial side to develop those relationships with people. And I imagine that would be a lot of success if you’re in your first year, right? I hear all the time they’re like, you know, a companies that are in their first year, you’ve got to spend it’s it’s it’s more expensive because you’ve got to buy your customers until you start having repeat business, start having some brand in the marketplace where people are coming to you, your SEO is starting to really kick in, where people are coming to you. You’ve got to get out there, you’ve got to build relationships, call people, connect with people. How did you do that, by the way? Was that like phone calls, cold walk ins, if you could just.
Not really much cold calling? A couple of things. I mean, obviously to me there’s two there’s always been two types of marketing. There’s the digital side, which is your your organic SEO, which is huge. Our websites half assed right now, and I know we’ve been working the last eight weeks on redoing it, so I’m excited about that. And then our Google and our Facebook ads, we’ve obviously been spending a fair amount of money on that trying. Figure out what type of ad works and run some variety. So obviously your digital side. And then on our traditional grassroots marketing, I had two or three girls out putting door hangers and Main 2025 subdivisions within two or three counties. So we invest some money into that. It worked pretty good. And what I would do, what I would do is because I was selling all the jobs at that time, I’d be like, Hey, I know I got two coming up in this new subdivision that has 400 houses. I found a hungry two, 17, 18 year old girls and would send them out and they would go do 434 hours. And then we also tried the yard like the the non branded yard sign approach.
Like a phone number or whatever.
Yeah. One day garage floors, phone number because a lot of the towns, they don’t like the yard signs And if you’re branding on it they’ll send you a ticket. So it’s kind of been a soft approach cost effective way to print 100 and 250 yard signs. So we did that and then we did a lot of direct mail. I mean, we sent over probably sent over 75,000 200,000 direct mailers out to to a specific audience, you know, dialed in with our household income, household household value and also targeted area that we like to service.
Interesting. I’m actually working on a an info product that we’re going to because as you know, we have blueprint and mastery and then we have our events that we’re starting at Service Legend, but we’re working on an info product for people that are doing less than 30 grand a month that so they can have something that for them. And one of the things that I’m that I’m working on in that in that in that course is how to generate your own leads organically. Right. We’re like very little to like to know spin door hangers are a big thing and I was talking a lot of painters use that like Brad Ellis, Jason Paris, all these guys will do it and they have like massive success, like, I mean bigger success when they’re spending like a couple of grand. I’m like, it’s just mind blowing.
Yeah, five rounds, especially when your guys are waiting for your probably read a dry and middle the summer. They got 60 to 90 minutes. Yeah. Go make those two or three guys. Go put 50 to 100 know door hangers out. It works. It does work. I also am excited this year to do like we’re going to do a plug in with and service titan with send him or we’re going to send a direct mailer to. Once a sales guy goes on an estimate, it’s going to automatically send a stage of two direct mailers saying, We’re going to be working in your area over the next seven days with an offer. Every single estimate we go on and it’ll send it to the nearest 25 houses just automatically. So it’s you’re hitting them in two different ways because I don’t know how many times you’ve seen it, but what annoys the heck out of me is when we go do a job in a brand new subdivision and we’re doing the job and we get a call for someone and then two weeks later that we’re doing another garage, it’s like, why couldn’t we have done both of those garages at the same time? It would have been that much more efficient. So we’re going to try to pick that up this year. You know.
Or also to what pisses me off to in those in those new build areas, you go in there and they’re building everything right? And we’re doing a job. And I look over it and there’s another company doing a job. I’m like, Dude, like, we’re like, Man, we could have just like, picked up all this business.
So another thing that’s low cost is builders. I mean, I know right now it’s funny depending on the market you’re in, but to have a good relationship with your custom home builders where they can either a refer you or be a lot of when I was doing landscaping, a lot of people were rolling the cost of that into their mortgage because they were spending a good chunk of change. Like why couldn’t they roll the garage for coding in there? If you get it, get in early enough and they can put it in their budget because then people aren’t shopping you then either they’re just like, Hey, I know that this is a five or six or 7000 thing. Is it something you’re interested in? If so, here’s the guy and you can call them and make your selections. Yeah.
Yeah. I love that, man. It’s so huge, especially in the first year to start those those boring things, right? Because I think I think with the rise of digital marketing, which digital marketing is fantastic, you should be doing SEO, Facebook ads, Google ads, TikTok YouTube ads, you know, there’s Hulu streaming ads, There’s there’s so many things that you could be doing. And by the way, if you’re going to the world of concrete, Creighton’s going to be there. I’m going to be there. We’re hosting the Sales Legend Synergy event, and I’m going to be talking about basically the predictions of the platforms and the strategies or the best strategies on each platform. There’s about eight or nine of them I’m going to be talking about, and it’s just incredible. It’s it’s amazing. But I think a lot of times we do forget about the offline marketing and the guerrilla marketing when we’re like in our first year. And I’m guilty of this too. I mean, like with Cardinal, we’ve really only done Google ads and Facebook ads. And so that’s that’s all we’ve done. But there’s so many more things out there, and it seems like you’ve had a lot of success with those things. So if you’re in your first year, you should be listening to. To this.
Type. It’s all about balance. At the end of the day, you don’t want to spend. I mean, I would say we spend a good chunk of our money on with you guys. You know, we’re spending ten, 15 grand a month or whatever thing in the month. But it’s all about balance. It’s all about timing. You could send a couple of direct mailers out, time it in the spring time in the summer or time it in the fall, because you want to be pre-booking things and then you know, your other forms are good in every market is different what works. But you get in front of one person one way and another person a different way. It’s not all not everybody is just through Facebook or sell. Most are. It’s cool and it’s awesome because you get a lot of leads, you know, for a cost effective price, but you got to do a little bit of everything.
Yeah, there’s like the branding side. Like, like with Tommy’s company, a one. I mean, this guy is freaking everywhere. It’s, like, incredible here in Phoenix. And I know there’s some types of marketing that is hard to really attribute and get that, you know, the attribution on certain things potentially like the billboards and random like things that you might do offline. But it all comes together with building that online and that offline. Kind of like just that omnipresence. Yeah, yeah.
Like the it’s all full circle. There’s there’s a difference between brand awareness and lead generation. You know, when you first start, you need leads point blank. You just need leads. You’ve got to get at it. You want to work, you want to make money, you know, And then as you grow like, I mean, we’re to the point we’re not doing brand awareness stuff yet, like TV or radio or billboards probably would not do as much value right now. Try that stuff in the past. That’s more brand and market awareness when you want to really put it out there. So you need to spend money on what works and figure it out quick.
Yeah, I know. I was talking to Jeff Gear. I’m not sure if Jeff is still alive with us, but this was maybe a year ago and I was talking about maybe putting Cardinal on TV and he was like, Yeah, good luck, bro. Like, I mean, like if you’ve if, if you don’t have 20 grand to spin, like, dude, like, don’t don’t waste your money there because you’ve really have to have money to to quote unquote, waste. Obviously, you don’t want to waste money, but you’ve got to really Oh, he’s still here, he says. And so that was an eye opener for me. Like Cardinal does not need to be on TV, you know, unless unless unless revamp owns, owns Cardinal. They could do that. Cardinal can’t do it on its own.
Your ego may your ego may want it, but.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That’s what I was thinking about. I was like, man, like, oh, dude, we should be on TV. And, you know, just being in rooms where I am the smallest guy ever. Yeah. So, Jeff, he says Arizona TV. It’s different. Yeah. I don’t think Jeff likes the West Coast as much, but it’ll be nice to see you on the West Coast next week, bro. But anyways, that’s something to really hone in on. Guys, if you’re listening Apple Spotify on the Facebook group live or on the replay and you’re in your first year, don’t go crazy with brand awareness. Like you need leads. Now you need to convert those leads into highly qualified sales appointments. You convert those appointments into sales, find repeat business, referral business and review business. And I call it the triple RS. Find those three things from those current customers and then just do it all over again until you’re 40, 50, 60, 80 grand a month. And then you can start kind of having the margin to do other things. Would you agree with that?
Yeah, I would agree. Yeah, I would agree. Yeah, absolutely. We probably wasted 50 grand on marketing last year. That just was like stuff that didn’t work. Yeah, I mean, but it is what it is like. You’ve got to figure it out and I want to figure it out fast. So let’s talk about sales.
Yeah.
So marketing is huge, right? You want to get the business. But for me, the one thing that I think I could share value on that has been huge this year is. Service legends. Amazing to work with. They’ll get you as many leads as you want, but once you get that lead, how are you handling it? How are you handling it in house? How are you setting the appointment? What does that estimating process look like? And. And all that, but. For me trying to figure out how to manage that lead once. Once it came in, because there’s a difference. When somebody calls inbound, there are more pre qualified lead, these Facebook leads when you’re getting a bunch of them, I mean, you’ve got to get on them ASAP. So you need to have a CSR or virtual assistant or an office admin reaching out to them as quick as possible. And I know I saw you posted something about trash leads yesterday. There are some of them are trash. You get these leads for 25 to $75. I mean, Facebook’s gone way up, but they are what they are. So you’ve got to get in front of them quick. But setting setting the process to me, there’s a difference between an owner operator doing sales and a sales person doing sales. And I’ve kind of been seeing that as we’re building out our sales cycle. When I was doing the sales like. I was preventing them more than I probably should have. I wasn’t. I was seeing 20 to 25 people a week, but. I also probably was losing a good ten, 15% of leads because I was basically like, Are you willing to spend the three grand or 3500 on the phone or not? You know.
Just like like just a little abrasive, a little bit too much friction too soon.
Maybe a little bit too much in their face. Yeah. Yeah. So when you’re the owner operator starting, you’re doing the sales. Naturally, most people most people aren’t hiring a sales person right away. And you’re learning the industry. Go see as many people as you can, because then you’re going to learn the why. How people make their buying decisions in this industry, what your market looks like, who you’re competing against, where their prices are, what their process is, all that good stuff. And you need to learn that information as quick as possible. The first 30 to 60 days in your market is almost research. Sure, you might win some jobs, but you also might outbid yourself on some jobs you might underbid. You’ve got to figure out where your market is and figure out that sales process. The second thing is, is setting those appointments like you can’t be booking appointments two weeks out. You’ve got to be meeting people within 48 to 96 hours if you can, because you want to stay in front of them before they get to somebody else. And then the other thing I would say is, is as far as estimating goes, I feel like that’s a whole thing. We could have a whole workshop workshop on its own because there’s so much stuff out there. The biggest thing I hate is everybody goes on the badass group or epoxy Gods page and goes, What are you guys charging four square foot for poly four?
It’s like it’s like, what city and what season? How how big is your company? It’s a vague question.
Like what? Yeah, come on. Like, oh, $5, $8. It’s like you can’t take that stuff at the end of the day. I think it’s good to be aware with where everybody’s at in your market, but you have to price where you need to be. Yeah, you have to learn how to like we had to learn as quick as possible and I think we’ve just finally learned it and they’re learning it. What system you’re going to use, what that product cost you, how to buy it in bulk and save on cost. So you need to know your your material pricing per square foot for your standard 450 square foot two car or 800 square foot three car. Yeah, but also you need to know what your labor costs are like, you know, Are you starting a two man crew out? A three man crew? You got you’ve got to be able to dial that in to know what a day’s worth of labor is for that one day system and then know what your business overhead is. So you’ve got to be able to figure the numbers out in this business before you can say to charge 615 a square foot or 750. Yeah. So for me it’s like don’t price a job based on what your competitors are pricing it at. Hmm. Because just because they’re doing it for 550 a square foot doesn’t mean that’s where you need to be, right? Because who knows? You may be working for free and who wants to work for free till the end of the year to find out?
A lot of business owners do work for free early on is, you know, they they own a job, you know, maybe a decent paying job. But the tons of responsibilities but also to you can start job costing which Jeff probably does this in his sleep. But your job cost those projects. You start to understand where your cogs are. Obviously your pal, you can understand those things and understand where your cogs are. It’s the biggest issue there. And then also look at the job costing that, you know, like it’s a Google sheet or a template that you might have. By the way, everybody that’s coming to the sales legend Synergy event, Chuck Toki and I provided a free job costing template that you guys can use and that’s where you’re going to find all those things. You know, the labor is too high, the payroll is too high on each project. What was my gross margin on each project? And that’s going to be a big eye opener. And that’s just a big one that I cannot express more is if you’re in your first year, don’t skip out on this stuff. Don’t be afraid to look at the bank account. Don’t be afraid to look at your pal like what Creighton is talking about. Understand your your gross margins, your labor and things like that. It’s going to save you in the long term if you want to exit your company. I mean, you’ve got you’ve got companies like revamp that are buying amazing companies that are profitable, that have great systems if you want to if you want to be in that position one day, you’ve got to you’ve got to do these things. So I’m glad to hear that you’re doing that, man. It’s awesome.
Yeah, you got to take that. That data of that first 90 or 90 to 280 days and extract it and really dial it in. Otherwise you’re not making money and nobody’s in business. Let’s face it, a lot of us have created ourselves a job, which I’m guilty of right now. You don’t go in business to have a job. We can all go. Any of us that are skilled can go get a job making 80 to 106 figure plus job somewhere else. And guys like you and I, Ryan, naturally like to go, go, go, go, go. Sometimes we don’t pay attention to the numbers as much as we should. We got to slow down. And that’s one thing I’ve had to learn since being young entrepreneur and I’m learning it now is like really take that time to build that foundation and then push from there. So that’s, that’s essential. The other thing would be is like, you want to there’s a few guys that you want to learn from in the industry. You want to be very careful who you talk to. Like you can you can get bad advice from inexperienced sales reps or people that just operate a company that’s not very efficient or profitable. You know, talk to Jeff, talk to David, talk to Ryan, talk to Oliver. I’ll answer questions. And if I don’t know it, I’ve built some good relationships. Luckily, I’m very thankful for that. So that that goes back to like, don’t be afraid to reach out to people. If you hear somebody running a good operation, ask them to talk for 5 minutes. Yeah, and that can save you a lot of money and time right there.
100%. Those of you that are live, could you post in the comments what year or like how many years your business has been in business? You can put like 0 to 3 or 3 to 5 or something like that. Just curious because we’re we’re talking about a lot of foundational stuff. So in the comments, guys, if you guys are live, put the amount of years that your company has been in business. If you’re on the replay, put that in the comments as well. That would be very helpful. We’re just kind of curious here on that. We got six months. There’s a lot of early ones here. Okay, cool. So on the on the sales kind of trend here, you know, how important is the pipeline management side of this? Like, Yeah. And are you doing that or that your sales person or ops admin if you could walk us through like the pipeline management side of things like the follow up.
Yeah, right, right. So all of our what everybody in our industry refers to things as CRM, the jobbers, the house call pros. The service titans build a prime. All of those. None of those are true CRMs. Some have more CRM components than others, more follow ups. It’s like Drift Jobs is great, it’s super simple, it’s great, it’s got that. But they don’t have some other layers that you may want or need. So what I’ve learned is through go high level. Go high level is an amazing tool. You’ve got to customize that system to fit your sales process and the way that Tzr may sell and garage experts and we or Juan’s painting service may add on a poxy service and sell are completely different. But those of us that are actually trying to build a legit business that operates itself, that’s scalable, you’ve got to dial that in the pipeline. Management is very essential from when that new lead comes in to reaching out to them, to moving them to the next status. If they haven’t answered free quote, appointment to where they’re getting the automations and the calendar reminders, Once you send the estimate, it should automatically move it to bid center for follow up sequences.
Once the job’s scheduled. It’s in a certain status, once it’s complete for review sequences, all that good stuff. I think it’s huge and it gives you the data to have accurate KPIs to know, Hey, my salesperson went on 22 appointments last week. He closed 13 at x amount per sale. You know, we had 200 and some leads in November. And our cost, our cost per lead was X. So the accurate status is huge and it’s hard to do, dude. It’s hard to do, especially in spring and summer when you’re running like crazy. So if you can automate it to run as best as possible to sync through Zapier with your your CRM. So when you set an estimate, it automatically moves it. That’s what’s huge. But you’ve got to have one person that manages that every day, whether it’s a virtual assistant or an office manager that is responsible for it. So that way you’re extracting enough data to make on the fly decisions to adjust things and and find out why we’re not closing enough jobs or we didn’t have enough leads and things like that.
Yeah, for sure. I love that. Also to the the biggest issue I see right now is I would say people not being prepared for the next thing. So a lot of painting companies, for example, they have to work inside now, you know, in the Midwest and on the East Coast especially, you know concrete coating companies, but painting companies, they do cabinets and interior during this time of the year. Well, they usually wait until December or January to start kind of like generating business, right. Or start doing like the marketing for that versus doing that in summer writing the blogs and summer doing all those all those prepping strategies and then now having a fruitful winter. Same thing for spring and summer. So if you’re going to maximize spring and summer coming up, you’ve got to have the data templates and all of those things in place. Now to understand the sales metrics, the marketing metrics, the admin metrics, like what’s your account account receivable process? Is that is it documented? Is your office admin dialed in to to collect are what percentage and you know basically bonus this person to what percentage of total projects. So if you have 100 projects, yeah. What percentage of those projects should be collected in that week. Right. So what’s that limit. What’s the production limit and the percentage. So do all those things now don’t do them when you’re crazy, crazy busy in summer or spring and then you’re kind of playing catch up, have a very fruitful time there. So I wanted to ask, what are you doing now from a marketing or sales perspective or just in general with the business, whether it’s culture or operations to prepare for spring and summer there?
Obviously we’re in the Midwest, so it’s freaking cold right now. So so.
You have a lot of time to think about this, I.
Imagine. Yeah, I mean, a little bit more. We’re staying busy. We’re we’re definitely staying busy. And the weather’s actually been pretty good. So I’m thankful for that. But right now, my focus between I’d say now and April 1st is to really dial as much of the foundation in as we can. So getting my getting a salesperson brought up to speed and in a training process documented so we can repeat it here as soon as we’re ready, preparing, marketing stuff, you know, getting we’re we’re refreshing our brand. So changing that from level ten epoxy to level ten coatings. So it’s a little more relevant. I wish I would have known that. Are you doing.
Yourself or are you hiring somebody to do that?
I’m working with someone on that. Yeah. Nice. Nice. Cool. Yeah. And then. You know, so getting our marketing ready, figuring out a marketing strategy and plan and getting some of those things ready to launch that way come March 1st. We don’t have to think about what we’re doing in June, July, August, planning for the season ahead, essentially. Yeah, and we’re in the middle of right now onboarding with Service Titan. So we’re the 23rd. We start our full onboard plan with Service Titan and then we’re going to work with get that customized with go high level as we’ve talked about, to have some automation. So really trying to build a good structure. We just moved, we’re moving into a new shop in two weeks, so that’s exciting. So that’ll be huge for culture to have a training area, get our shop built out, organized so we can stock a lot of product. And because come March, I’m going to have to hire probably five or six people, so. We gotta be ready to go.
Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And those things you’re doing now is going to be a part of that culture process and the atmosphere process, like you mentioned. And I love that man. One of my passions is to professionalize this industry. Matter of fact, it’s one of our core values at Cardinal is I don’t know where it’s at, but to professionalize the industry, you know, and I’ve talked about this with Jeff, I’ve talked about this with others. This industry is in the very, very beginning of the renaissance of professionalization. It’s been done in other industries like HVAC, you know, garage doors with what Tommy has done. You look at plumbing and again, they’re still very unprofessional companies. But as a whole, there’s been a massive surge of just culture. Brand four on one case benefits for their employees. You know, those types of things with what’s kind of what we’re talking about here, what you’re doing is is quite frankly, amazing. It’s why I want to bring you on here. Yeah. And I want to transition into the culture side of things like, what are you doing? I mean, obviously you’re a great guy. You know, you’re you’re you’re very enthusiastic. I’m sure everyone loves working with you and for you, but if you could just elaborate. Yeah. Yeah, there’s always a few.
Right.
But just how do you build a culture there? Like, what have you done? What are you planning to do to build just an awesome atmosphere for the business?
I would say we’ve done an okay job, but it’s not great yet. But we’re really trying this winter. One thing is education, really trying to value giving our guys an opportunity to learn new things just outside of doing it every day. So the education too is doing like company outings, you know, doing something for Christmas, going out to eat once a quarter or different things like that. Three Right now we’re in the middle of the next eight weeks where I’m onboarding a full benefits package. So with gusto, we’re going to we’ll be doing our payroll, we’ll be offering insurance benefits and. Q two, we can add on a41k plan. So something just to be a little bit different, to have some competitive advantage because let’s face it, putting epoxy floors down is not the most glamorous job, but I know it’s definitely not. But trying to build a model to where my goal this year is to really build a model to where we can bring someone in that’s used to making 5060 grand and give them an opportunity to make 80 to 100 if they want and give them a plan to accelerate up rather than just paying paying a crew $25 an hour every day to go and clock in and clock out. Like I really love what Lee Baker has done with your one day floor.
I got to know him pretty well last week. He’s part of my business coaching group Conquer, and very interested in that model. The performance pay, you know, giving them a baseline pay and then giving them an incentive pay based on production. And there’s a lot of ways to do that. So we’re really trying to dial in our numbers here Q1 and Q2 and then look at adding that on, because then the day I mean, if these guys can get their jobs done by 4:00 versus 530 and still of quality, then let’s do it. You know, just trying to give people a place to grow, a place where they can come and learn about leadership, like we’re going to implement us this year. So that’s huge. But I’m tired of and I get stuck in it too, is I pour a lot into myself right now. Now the challenge for me is as a leader is to learn how to pour into others and then also help them achieve what they want. Personally, because I’m a firm believer you can go a lot. You can go if you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go further, go as a team. Yeah, and that’s what I’m trying to do. So that’s, that’s our goal this year.
Yeah, I love that. So a leader is always create leaders. Leaders don’t create followers. So if you’re out there and you have thousands of followers around you and that hasn’t changed for years, time to kind of self reflect and maybe read some leadership books, maybe take a course, maybe go to an event or something like that, because you should be creating leaders. You should have entry level team members that are now managers or maybe have left your company and gone in with a manager. I think Jeff was saying that a lot of his guys go elsewhere. But you know what? That’s a compliment because he trains his guys so well, provides them so many resources that some of those people are going to be a players and they’re going to go do their own thing or they’re going to grow up into the company, take a location or whatever. To me, that’s a compliment to Jeff’s culture, his leadership and things like that.
And some people just can’t handle it. Like, yeah, you’re not a fit for everybody. Like, some people are small minded, do not want girls, they just want to come and collect a paycheck. And it’s like when you’re big, you may have a little of that, but you want to try to minimize that. And your core foundation team that you’re growing with, they’ve got to be a players. They don’t don’t, don’t, don’t come here if you don’t want to if you don’t want to put in the work, learn, grow and push yourself to eliminate those self eliminating beliefs and those small mindsets in that. I’m like, let’s let’s grow. Like, let’s build something. Be. Be a small part of something really big.
Yeah. As you’ve as you started out to. How did you find all of your your current people. Was it indeed Facebook. Like walk me through kind of how you found your initial group of, of of team members.
Yeah. So I was fortunate to have a group of. Three guys that are main guy or two of his good friends, and they all had construction experience and specifically concrete construction. And one of them worked at a at a large company for about seven years. So that was good. And then we’ve added a few others on through. Indeed, I mean, we probably went through. Heck, I got have to look but 15 or 20 people just to get two or three decent ones. So indeed, indeed. Simple hack for you guys. Indeed. Don’t do the paid ads. They’re a waste of money. You’re just competing against other people and they’re sucking your money just like Google and Facebook and you got no control. Simple hack is. My business coach taught this to me. What I. What I did to transition my job posting in the middle of the summer was make garage floors beautiful again. And then rather than So it’s almost like Craigslist back in the day, like you would make a creative, clever caption. So you install beautiful patio coatings or make garage floors beautiful again in all capital letters. Just the job posting put your your top pay as the pay so it lures people in and you’re not lying. They have the potential to earn up to. And then rather than a boring long job description that says you must be able to pass a piss test and carry £50 and just literally talk a little bit about who you guys are.
So I would put at the top call Crayton at my direct cell if you’re interested. Join a star studded team. Work in a new environment daily on the job, training 3 to 5 things that just make it seem like, oh, what’s this? This is cool. And then I’d put my phone number again at the bottom, and I’m not even kidding you, Ryan. I would get over 100 applications in like 15 days and literally I didn’t even go through them all. But people were calling my cell directly, so I interviewed those people that wanted it, right? That’s how I found my sales guy. Wow. And he’s a blessing. And he was a pastor and he wanted something different. Like he was running a cold call center. And I’m like, You want to do garage floors? And he goes, No, I want to do sales with you. I’m like, Oh, okay, we’ll come learn it and then do it. So that’s a good tip is to just get creative with writing the job description and I’ll share it with anybody. I’m not I’m not a hoarder, so and it’ll save you a lot of money versus spending three, four, 500 bucks a month on a deed and trying to get people.
Hey, if you guys want to share that, that little that little tip and that and, and that indeed copy or post, if you will, put in the comments, put something in the comments like a one or two or something like that. Let us know that you want to share that with you. If you’re on the replay, just post the one or two as well. Creighton will be in the in the Facebook group answering some questions. If you have questions for him and then he’ll come back in, whether it’s this week or next week and post that in there. But I would love to see it as well. You know what’s funny about the job posting is it’s most people treat it like back in the nineties or whatever it was where it’s like very friction, you know, it’s like either you pass these requirements or you know, like it’s got to be more diffuse, it’s more value experience. It’s just like how we talk about selling customers today. You don’t talk about your product as much, you talk about the benefits of the product and the experience and the value, right? So you don’t talk about the requirements of the job. You talk about how amazing job is going to be. And it’s new. Brandon Von taught me this or he explained this to me goes, You think as a business owner that most people don’t want to be in the field, right? Because we don’t want to be in the field. I want to be doing the things I want to do. But there’s a huge amount of the of the American population that would hate to do what I’m doing. And they love to be in the field, in the field every day talking to customers. And so we’ve got to find those people, man. So love that.
No, you’re right. Absolutely. No. On the other thing, that’s cool that Brandon Vaughn taught me actually, and through Concord coaching is a program owned by Brandon Vaughn. If you guys aren’t familiar with who he is, highly recommend going on YouTube and watching Maps to a millionaire. He owns the franchise Wise Codings and he literally walks through the process as he developed a brand set the mission, the vision, the core values, their focused services and all that good stuff. But the one quick thing he taught me was Higher bus is a resource that you can use. You can go on and create a profile for yourself and it tells you kind of how you are. You answer some questions and then you send that as a link. Is it like a pre req on the front end of the hiring and onboarding process? And they fill it out and it literally tells them how. It tells you how well they would be as a as a laborer or an office manager. Sales And kind of their strengths and weaknesses based off of that that paired with a risk assessment. So you understand the personality and how they’re wired. That’s huge. You can literally make a decision without even meeting them based off of that stuff.
Yeah, it’s incredible with what he’s done.
Ryan, let me ask you one thing. Yeah, I got I got you for a minute here. Yeah, we’re in a challenging economic climate. I think a lot of people are in fear right now, especially in our industry. But home service in general, people that start every year at zero, they have to sell new jobs again. Right? Cool. We all may had a good year last year, but I think this year is a little bit unpredictable and it’s natural to let fear in. Yeah. What what are one or two things you think people could do to. Separate themselves to. I know they’re going to earn it a little bit more. People aren’t going to just throwing money out as much as they were and just saying, yes, yes, yes. So what are one or two things that you could you could say that you could do from a marketing standpoint to kind of separate yourselves and educate that customer on why they should go with you.
So I would say, number one, as like step number one, it’s you’ve got to get your mindset right because step number two, and I’ll go into that just a quick off the top here. But but number one, you’ve got to have your mindset, right? So whatever you’re doing, like you have to have like your personal development, right? You have to be reading books on podcast YouTube, like you have to be a go getter. The people that are going to get left behind are going to be people that had been fed everything. Like all the guys that that you see in the forums that say, I don’t need marketing, I have referrals. Those are the guys that won’t be here anymore, you know, because there’s no predictable, consistent flow of new business coming into the business because referrals are going to dry up, right? I mean, that person still might have some referrals, but you’ve got to have your mindset, right? You have to realize that you need marketing, that you need to be better, you have to get rid of your limiting beliefs. So things like that or again, podcasts like this, it could be in Facebook group asking questions.
It could be joining programs like Conquer. It could be going to events like the sales legend Synergy event, getting around like minded people, listening to the experts, things like that. That’s what I would say. Number one, because without the right mindset, nothing you do is going to be fruitful anyways because you’re going to get bogged down. And when times get tough or when there’s some friction, when you need to adapt and overcome, you won’t be able to because you’re not strong enough. You don’t have the strong enough mental fortitude to do it and you don’t have the connections around you to ask questions. So you’ve got to get your mindset right and you have to get educated on on those things. That’s what I would say, number one. Number two, you’ve got to differentiate yourself on the marketing side. So Dan Antonelli talks about all the time either be bland or brand, right? Or what’s his book say? I actually got his book. I’m going to get Dan on the podcast. Dan, if you’re listening, I’m going get you in the podcast. But he has a book called Branded, Not Branded. It’s like prolific, but Dan take charge Ghetto.
He branded ghetto, didn’t he?
Yeah, Ghetto, A-1 He’s done so many brands. Absolute airflow. Victor Ranker He’s done Ishmael so it’s branded not branded so the. So the companies that never invested into branding, into their systems and processes like documented systems and processes, the companies that don’t know their numbers, the companies that haven’t looked at a pal in six months, the companies that again, might have been just fed business, the companies that have white trucks, you know, the companies that have not taken care of their employees, they don’t have four on one case. There’s no benefits. Those are the companies that I think are going to go away. The companies that don’t have they haven’t been doing so for the past two years that have optimized their Google my business. I haven’t been spending any money on Facebook or Google because those things take time. It’s not just like I turn it on and then everything is perfect. Sometimes that can be the case where it’s like, boom, it’s just crazy. Other times, you know, it takes the market to get ramped up. So like a new Facebook page takes longer to optimize and one that’s been around for for, for ten years it’s been spending money. So those types of things, if you haven’t invested into yourself into the business and you’re just starting to do that, that’s going to be step. Step number two is that you should have been doing those things.
And if you haven’t, you need to get after it. So that’s developing a world class brand, getting your vision, mission and core values together and helping the marketing department. Because if you just expect the marketing department to just make magic with like nothing, right? It’s very challenging. But if you give the marketing department a lot of juice, right? So there’s a lot of messaging, there’s a lot of branding on point. You have an amazing team that can fulfill. You have sales systems in place, you have the data to support the money you’re going to spend. So if you’re going to spend 15 grand on marketing, you should know what’s it cost for me to acquire a customer? How many leads can I convert into a sales appointment? What is that percentage? I believe it should be 70% or more. What is your sales closing rate? All of these things need to be in place, otherwise you’re going to get left behind. So that’s kind of like an all encompassing one. A bonus tip on step number three is to get very creative with the marketing, and we’re going to talk about it here in a second. I think we’re going to go offline and talk, but get very creative. You know, you’ve got to have offers. You know, there was a client that I talked to that we’re no longer working with, and I won’t talk about him badly at all.
But he came on board and wanted the world right, Which we all want The world. I get it. Yeah. I was like, I’m not going to do any offers. I don’t do discounts, you know, all this stuff. And I’m like. I’m like, Dude, you want the world, but, like, you won’t let us do our, like, some strategies, like some marketing strategies because he felt like if I do an offer or if I give discounts up front, then I’m devaluing my, my, my quality of my business. I don’t give discounts, etc. That type of head trash, that type of ego and prideful ness, you’ve got to take that and throw it in the trash because there’s going to be competitors like Jeff, like Cardinal, like all ten that don’t have that ego, not that prideful, and they’re going to crush you. So don’t be that guy. So get the ego away, get the pride away, Develop some creativity in your marketing, whether that’s graphic design, video editing offers, create a website that people actually like to look at and be on. Things like that. Those are the things that I believe that are going to help people get a W versus an L this year. So hopefully that that that answer the question.
And I’ll second that with two things. One, just I mean, just what you basically said was. The mine trash. Like what? You feed yourself. Is is what you get. I mean, what you put in your body, you get out what you listen to, what you read, what you watch, all that is what you get out. So get rid of the news. Cnn’s constantly negative news. It’s not good stuff, especially right now. Ever since the COVID 19, it’s been even worse. So channel that out. And. Economy. Good or bad? At the end of the day, you control your what’s in front of you and the results you get. So I agree with that. So get your mind right. You know, be careful with what you listen to, who you listen to, what you’re learning and all that. The second thing is. For me. What I’ve come to realize is a lot of people in the construction, home service, business industry, even just a lot of business owners in general, they’re very uneducated. You don’t know what you don’t know, and that’s okay. But you have to make a self conscious decision to become educated. You need to be able to have a somewhat educated conversation with your lawyer, your accountant, your small business banker, your office manager, your salesperson, your marketing person, your install techs.
You may not know everything they do Like, for example, Darren, your production manager, he may know a lot more than you, but you need at least know surface level just to be able to have an intelligent conversation and hold those people accountable. So if you don’t if you feel very uneducated or ashamed of one area of your personal growth in the business world, being in a business owner, you need to know basic accounting right off and things like that. Take a class this year. Invest in yourself. Yeah, like be beyond the sales and marketing stuff. Just just take a class, reach out to somebody, take a class, sign up for something, learn something new to build your skill level so that way you can become more well rounded and be a more educated business owner. I think that’s going to separate people in the next year or two years, however long we’re in a recession or any challenging time, but just in general. But that stuff points out more now than it ever did before, because when the time gets tough, the weak get going and the tough the tough stay. So that’s my recommendation.
I also noticed, too, with our sales team, the the customers that are actually committing to an appointment and we convert. I mean, you’ve got to like if you get 100 leads, you’ve got to convert 70% or more ideally, right. Or somewhere close to that number. Otherwise you’re going to be your cost to acquire customers are going to go through the roof. But the people that are actually committing to an appointment that are not canceling an appointment like the actual sit appointments, they’re somewhat serious. Like they’re not like, you know, whereas before, I mean, you might have a lower closing rate, but our closure rates seem to have gone up a little bit because the people that are like, committed like they’re like they’re like they’re they’re a little bit more serious, even if they’re from Facebook and things like that. So I think our lead to appointment percentage got went down a little bit, maybe 60%, I think 65% like the past month maybe or or or so, but they’re more serious. So take advantage of those serious buyers, the people that are committing to meeting with you and this type of economy, like they’re serious, don’t let them tell you they’re not serious. Like get after it. So make sure your your stuff is together. So when you go out there, right. So don’t don’t wink things have those process in place. Great. I got two more questions for you, man.
Yeah, go ahead, man.
They’re they’re kind of interesting and thought provoking, but what is the best advice you’ve ever received?
Um. There’s a handful of things, but I think the best advice I’ve ever received is. Probably the law that the best thing I’ve learned or advice I receive is the law of attraction. My mom, when I was probably 15 or 16, when I was smoking weed and doing things that weren’t so good and hanging around people that really were not going to get me anywhere. I learned that you become the average of the five people you surround yourself with or the five people you spend the most time with. So in that I’m sorry to say it, but that includes your family, like family. We can’t choose by choice friends. We choose by choice. But when you’re an adult, you definitely make, make, make the choice of who you surround yourself with, including your partner in life. So probably choose wisely who you become, who you want to become. Because if you want to be a millionaire, start hanging around millionaires. If you want to become a better golfer, hang around a better golfer or whatever. Like you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So take that very seriously because that is definitely true. And you think what you think about you bring about that goes along with that.
Yeah. Love that, man. That’s solid. Last question is, what is the worst advice you’ve ever received?
Um. I’d say the the the worst advice I’ve ever received is that if you want it done right, do it yourself. Because I think that. If you have that mentality, you’re you’re just putting yourself in a box. Like, sure, you know, people like you and I might be high level and maybe able to be more productive than most, but. I don’t know everything and I’m not good at everything, nor should I be doing everything. And I can’t get more done if I can’t trust other people to do things. That’s one thing I’ve struggled with 100%. So hire the right people in your personal life, in your business, to help you do the things that you’re not good at or shouldn’t be doing. And focus on what? You’re good at. Like you really need to become aware of what your role in your business is, because not not all. Some of us are operators that are very good day to day operators and some of us aren’t. Some of us are just visionaries that need to really put somebody in place to run the business. And some of us are really good at running the business, but don’t have the capacity or the vision to see what’s next. So you need to figure that out and you can’t do everything yourself. So if you’re listening to this and you’re doing everything yourself and you want more out of life and you want a quality life and you want time and financial freedom, take the necessary steps to put the right people in place, the right systems in place. And you can’t do everything at once but one thing at a time and you can get there. That would be my I would say, the worst thing I’ve ever the worst thing I’ve ever listened to and get in my head.
My head. It’s so solid, man. Look, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for your time, man.
If you are reading.
Live or on the replay, if you’re on Apple or Spotify, but if you hear it on on Facebook, on the replay and you got value from this podcast, I would just ask two things post in the comments, hashtag value, but also share this with other like minded contractors, whether they’re in concrete, coding, painting. This year we’re going to be actually getting into garage doors, HVAC, and those are to be like the first two. There we have. I have amazing connections there as as we go through the new year, tons of new products that we’re going to be diving into like Hulu, streaming ads, YouTube ads, Nextdoor Yelp, Pinterest, video editing. Tons of awesome things. So make sure you share this with your friends, your other contractor friends. We don’t run any ads on the show. We don’t. We don’t run ads like for drip jobs or for service. Type on here like we could we do this just for value and value only. So all I ask that you share this with other like minded people. Help the podcast grow outside that guys, we’ll see you guys next week. Crayton thanks again and we’ll talk to you.
Brian Thanks for having me. See you guys. Take care. Best of luck in 23.
