The ServiceLegend Podcast – Episode #35 – Creating an Exceptional Service Experience W/ Cory Pollard

 

Transcript:

Well, happy Friday, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Service Legend Podcast. Today’s podcast is the category of client Spotlight Sessions with Corey Pollard. Welcome to the podcast, Man.

Hey, thanks for having me, Ryan.

Good to see you. Um, for those of you that don’t know Corey just yet. He’s making some waves in the concrete coating industry and really just thrilled to announce, uh, our guest today. Corey He’s from Aubrey, Texas, with Over. And I believe you’re in Dallas now, though, right?

Yeah, Well, Aubrey’s Aubrey is like, just north of the Metroplex, so. Okay.

Okay, Good deal. Um, he’s got over three years of experience in the concrete coating industry. Um, proud owner of a successful concrete coating company called LZ Concrete Coatings right there in the Dallas area. Um, and you know what started as a favor for his brother turned into a passion for creating an exceptional customer experience that sets his business apart from the competition, which is just cool. And we’ll dive into that. Um, Corey’s leadership style is centered on empowering his team. We’ll dive into that as well, giving them ownership of their work and making them a part of something bigger. Um, awesome, by the way. And by providing his team with a stake in the company’s success, they take pride in their work and strive to deliver the best outcome for clients. And obviously, you know, you’ve got a seven figure company and, you know, dive into kind of the size of the team. But if you could just elaborate on on that for us, Corey, just, you know, just give us a little backstory before like what you were doing beforehand. Um, you can go back as far as you’d like to. I always like hearing the story of home service business owners, like how they got started, you know, uh, you know, for you, as a favor, you know, Jeff Gear talks about how, um, someone gave him. You know, I think they gave him a quote. He got the floor done, and he was like, Man, I could do this way better. Just like, you know, it’s funny how we get into our industries. Um, you know, talk about that and then kind of follow us up to speed or bring us up to speed on the team now, the size of the team and things like that.

Okay. So pretty much the way I got started was right out of high school. Um, I was so sick of school that I was like, I’m not going to college. I need to get out there and I need to just get busy. Didn’t really know what I was going to do, but it always wound up being in construction, right? And it always it always ended up being, for the most part, usually stuff that was in residential. So in my early 20 seconds, I did custom trim work in new build homes. Um, that was really fun because it got to teach me a lot about, you know, paying attention to the details and making everything fit just right and making just just making sure that, you know, you’re, you’re taking care of things, uh, in the, on the beauty side of it, right? Because you take everything that everybody else screwed up and then you’d have to trim out the house and make it look like everybody did a good job. Um, so I did that for a while, got out of it just because it wasn’t a very consistent business, at least the people I was working with. You know, you can’t go to work for a couple of weeks and then have a week off, right, while they’re looking for another house. Right. Um, so moved on from there a little further down the road.

I ended up working on RVs and motor homes. Um, I worked for a local company here, and after five years, I was actually, I had passed the test and everything had become a master certified technician. And then the recession in 2008 hit and nobody was buying toys. So I basically had a worthless skill set because nobody’s buying them. So you get paid based on what you produce and there’s nothing to produce. So. Right. Moved moved on at that point. My brother owns a window and door company, so window and door replacement for residential. I went over and started working with him and replaced Windows and Doors for years and then moved into helping him in the office and doing things like that and helping, you know, run production and scheduling and quality control and all those sorts of things. And then that led to the favor that you were talking about earlier, where he’s he’s like he’s like, Hey, man, I want to get my garage done, but I don’t know who does it like who. You never see anybody advertise for that. And I know that’s crazy for us in the industry now, right? Because all you see are advertisements for it now. But back then, nobody advertised for it. And again, when.

Was this, Corey?

Um, so that was, that would have been 2000 and probably 15 when we started talking about it. Okay. Um, and then it was actually late 2015 and then during 2016, one of his, one of his contacts from the window industry had changed jobs and started working for Pentech actually, and came through and they were looking for dealers. That was back when Pentech was just like trying to actually find dealers in the very beginning. Yeah. And so he was like, Well, this is always interested. Me, you know, he’s a business owner. He pretty much had that on lockdown. So it’s like, I just want to I just want a new toy, right? He didn’t say that, but that’s all he wanted. He just wanted a new toy. Right. Hopefully a profitable one. But he wanted a new toy.

So the life of the entrepreneur always looking for some new toys, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely. So he sat there and decided that, yes, we were going to do it. And I was like, okay. And he’s like, And you’re going to you’re going to head it up like. I didn’t I wasn’t in control of the marketing. I wasn’t in control of those sorts of things. But he was like, You’re going to go learn how to do this. You’re going to teach and run production. You’re going to train the crews. You know, you’re going to you’re going to basically do everything aside from the money part. And I was like, okay, you know, I love learning new things. So I was like, I’m down. So I actually started doing. Coatings in late 2016. So I’ve been I’ve been doing it for about six and a half years. Um, after, like while we were doing that for his company, though, it kind of got to where he was used to marketing for Windows and Doors. He didn’t really, he couldn’t really find that good connection on, Hey, this is a neat item now. Now we need to advertise for a want item. He couldn’t make that transition very well and he wouldn’t. He listened, didn’t listen to other people. Right. Because he knew it worked in his business. And, you know, if you’re going to be spending your money because, God, how much do we all spend on marketing dollars, right? Like what? Massive amounts of money. So he’s like, he just tried his old school, same stuff. And it didn’t really work out for him the way that he wanted it to. So what we did was it kind of fizzled out.

I mean, we still did jobs over off and on throughout that time. Um, but it wasn’t, it wasn’t enough to sustain more than a crew. Like we got up to two crews at one point, but then it went back down to one and then that got kind of spotty. Um, so anyway, they decided to actually at the end of 2019, beginning of 2020, they had decided to. Uh, just drop the coatings, get a little personal here. But in 2019, my brother was diagnosed with a brain tumor, so things kind of got very serious. Um, and then when they. They successfully removed it, I mean, this thing was the size of a golf ball, but they successfully removed it. What he couldn’t he didn’t have he didn’t have the energy capacity while he was recovering to run two businesses. So he’s like, let’s just stick with what we know. So we we’re getting rid of the coding business. I decided that. You know, it’d been a good ten year good run. I worked with him for a little over 11 years and I was just like, Man, it’s I’m ready to go do my own thing. I’ve always wanted to run my own business, so I’m going to go do something. And since they were letting go of the coding business, he actually kind of talked me into getting into coding because I wasn’t even going to go into coding, you know, just so we started in February of 2020. It’s been an interesting run since then. We opened an interesting.

Time to start to write because. You know, the C-word started because this will go up to, you know, to YouTube. You can only be careful what words I say here, but the C-word started, right um, you know, at that time. So that’s, that’s, you know, a very interesting time to start. I imagine.

It was. It was so, you know, it was funny because I was seeing all these other companies that were very well established were just like, oh, man, this is the best year we’ve ever had, right? People are working from home and everything else, and it’s like you’re just trying to get in front of people. But it was funny. We opened the doors and then three weeks later the state of Texas got shut down. Yeah. And we were like, Well, can we go to work or are we screwed? Right? Like, who knows?

We all were thinking like, well, do we just sit on the couch or do we go back to work? It was kind of interesting, right?

So it was pretty cool because I got I got authorization pretty quickly from the state of Texas saying that, no, you’re a you could go to work because you add safety to the floor with your your, you know, your slip resistant surface. And I was like, I’ll take it, right? So we just went back to work. And then so trying to learn how to run the business on my own with, you know, also introducing all the mandates from that. It was, it was interesting. I mean, you can’t say you know, can’t say that we haven’t necessarily struggled or, you know, had an uphill battle to get where we are, but we keep on going. So we’ve and had the.

Experience, too, right, of, you know, um, the past couple years of, you know, running the coding company and you weren’t doing everything, but, you know, would you say, Corey, that that experience, um, really helped you kind of just get some momentum early on when you first started your own thing?

Absolutely, Because having that knowledge, um, you know, it’s funny you read I know you read a lot, you’re always talking about reading books, but, you know, you read a lot of these books and a lot of the things that that they talk about in the entrepreneur entrepreneur books is start a business like a lot of people start a business just because, hey, I want to do X, but they don’t know anything about it. And then the the people that have the experience are like, Hey, start a business with a skill you already know. So that’s, that’s, that’s on autopilot. And then you can just focus on all these other things. And I do think that that tremendously helped us get a good handle on things because, um, me personally, I’m a very detail oriented person. I want the flaws to come out. Just stupid. Perfect. Yeah. Um, and then so then I have to set my standard, my expectation, and then I have to back it back down into real life expectations and, you know, and, but it definitely helped having three and a half years of, of knowledge to, to, to base that on.

And then, you know, it’s not like, hey, I quit working for another dealer and then now I’m in competition with that dealer. So I still had the support of my brother from that business aspect, you know, just talking things through. And and so it’s been I mean, it’s been a really good it was a really good start. Um, even though we basically started with almost zero money, you know, it’s like, uh. Working for him. He paid well, but didn’t really have a whole lot set aside. So it’s not like I had like a $50,000 kush. Okay, I’m going to plan on starting a business and this is how it’s going to go and blah blah, blah. I really didn’t have anything to start with. So, you know, I got like a little personal loan and I got a loan for my box truck and then I got a loan for the equipment that he had. And I got all that from him. And we just got out there and got after it. Wow.

So you risked it all, really? You know, um, yeah, that’s a that’s a really good story because, you know, you know, I think a lot of times in business, you know, people look back and like, oh, you have a seven figure company or Hey, wow, you’re doing eight figures or, you know, Tommy type guy. Oh, you’re doing nine figures. And they have no clue, you know, you know, friends or family or customers or, you know, people in these Facebook groups online or anything, right? Like no one knows the, you know, the real story. But, you know, for you, you risked it all in the beginning. Um, what was that like for you? Because, you know, I think a lot of people, um, you know, here live, we get a lot of our listeners on Apple and Spotify afterwards. I think a lot of us can relate with, you know, having that risk and, you know, that fear in the beginning. What was that like for you, man? Like just, um, the raw feeling for you?

It was it was scary for me. Um, I overthink things a lot. Like, that’s just the way that my personality is, right? Like, I overthink every single decision. And I will say that through business I have learned you don’t have time to overthink. So that’s really honed that skill to where there’s a whole lot more of just yes, just no answers, right? Like, no, this is just how it’s got to be. And you don’t get to think it through the way that I have all my life. And so. You know, I’d talked about going into business for myself for years and my wife and my parents, they just kept telling me over and over, Just do it like you’ve got this. You can figure it out. That’s, you know, that’s what you do. You solve problems. You’re good with people. So just do it. And I’m like, everything that they kept telling me I was good at, I’m like, I’m not good at those things, right? Like, I mean, I’m okay, but, you know, so that that was an interesting that was an interesting thing. So, I mean, when we when we started. It was a big enough just, okay, I’m doing this like now I’ve got to get customers right? Like, that’s the biggest, that’s the biggest thing. That’s that’s all we ever do, right? We got to find more customers, right? Especially in the coatings world, because you do a job, you do it well.

You don’t go back unless they’ve got an additional area, right? So we’re always trying to generate new customers and then they shut the state down. And then it was just like, so the first three weeks in, yeah, I was probably about ready to have a heart attack and thought I was going to have to declare bankruptcy by, you know, month two. But, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s crazy. Um, I got out and I started working and I would say a couple of months in there was this guy that, that sold the coatings when we were both working together at my brother’s company. And I called him to let him know I was like, Hey, one of your customers called. They sent them over to me since they don’t do coatings anymore and they’ve got a questionable issue. So I just want to let you know, hey, you know, just a heads up. If she calls you, this is what it’s about. And we got to talking and he was like, he’s like, well, hey, man, you know, I figured it was just an offhand remark. He’s like, Hey, man, whenever whenever you get busy enough for, uh, uh, to have somebody come sell full time for you, let me know.

I’d love to talk to you. And I’m like, Well, I’ve got enough leads right now. I’d love to have a sales person so I could focus on getting installers trained. Yeah. And he was like, You mean like, like now? And I’m like, Yeah, like now. And he came over and he’s been with me ever since like, so, you know, he’s been, he’s been an incredible help. So we’ve really gone through this, this path together and he’s a great dude. And, you know, he just, he, he helps keep me, you know, through all the tough times and everything. He kind of helps keep me sane. And, uh, I don’t know, It’s just, you know, it’s. It’s. It’s been an adventure. It’s been a lot of learning. Um, guarantee you don’t jump in, you start finding out. Especially when you start, you know, talking with other business owners. You really start finding out that just like you were talking about, it’s not given to anyone. It doesn’t just happen, Right? Right. It’s a ton of work. It’s a lot of learning. It’s a lot of screwing up. You know, you got to mess this up and learn from it and move forward. And you just have to have the will to just keep getting up every single day and pushing forward. Like that’s that’s a huge part of it to me.

Yeah. I mean, 100%. And Brandon Vaughn, um, he, he owns the Wise coating franchise and then he owns, um, Conquer the coaching program. And Brandon, um, talks about, you know, he calls it maps. It’s marketing admin production and sales. And, you know, in the beginning, you know, we don’t really think about, you know, all these things, you know, like systems and hiring systems and all the crazy things scorecard and, you know, all the departments and, but like, you know, if, you know, if you want to scale to seven figures and multiple seven figures, you know, and so on, these things start presenting themselves that, you know, all these little issues where, you know, the hiring issues or training the technicians or, you know, getting the sales people up to KPI, you know, there’s so many different things to do. Um, and you know, I know one of the things that you’ve done a really excellent job at is this this team, you know, this empowering the team thing, um, and you know, and also, you know, talking about just giving the, you know, like the ownership, if you will, to the team. Like if you could talk about that a little bit. Like as you started the business was getting a Rockstar team and the training and you know, all that stuff. Was that part of the deal in the beginning for you? Is that something that you wanted to do? Was that something like that happened over time? Just talk to us a little bit about how you, you know, build that team and, you know, like how important that is to you.

So so with with. Every job. Every job I feel like I’ve ever had. I feel like I’ve always worked for people that for the most you know, for the most part, I’ve worked for people that it’s like, you know, hey, it’s my way or the highway type people. Right, Right. Um, they. You’re there to make them money. You’re going to do it exactly their way, but they don’t really ever give you any credit for it. And it’s like, I’m not the kind of guy that goes around saying, Hey, I need the credit. I need the spotlight. That’s. That’s not me. Yeah, but I would always see how it would affect people around me, right? Like it would just affect the mood of the job place. Right. And one of the biggest things that like what led to the way that we treat our team is. I’ve worked in so many places to where the attitude across the board is so just toxic, right? Like nobody wants to be there. People are like, Oh, we got to go to work today. I did not want to have that kind of company. It’s like. The work is hard enough on its own, right? Why would we want to add to that with having people fighting at work? Adding in drama. Adding in cancerous people. The toxicity. Like. Like I wanted to do as much as I could to keep that out.

So, you know, when we started hiring people and we started getting some some team members kind of locked in place. Uh, part of the thing we do in our interview process, especially when we’re interviewing installers, is it’s like, hey, you know, what we’re going to do is we’re going to sit down. Michael has kind of a short, quick phone conversation with them. So he has like first, first kind of phone interview. Then they come in in person and they’ll he’s like both of us. Corey who’s Michael’s? He’s my right hand man. He’s the guy that’s been with me forever. Okay. He’s it’s funny. I hate titles, but he would be, I guess my GM. Okay. Right. Okay. Don’t even introduce myself as the owner when I go out and meet customers, Somebody else has to say, Oh, you know, half the time the customer is like, Wait, you’re the owner? Oh, yeah, I’m the owner. You know? Sure. But so they have a quick phone conversation with him, you know, five, ten minutes. He kind of vets them. If they make it past that, then they come talk to me. Um, either me or me and Michael. It depends on if he’s around that day, if our schedules align. Um, and then we pretty much tell everybody. It’s like, look. I know this is a risk because you’re starting a new job.

But here’s here’s the thing. If we’re going to bring you on, we’re bringing you on. You’ve got a two week probationary period. That two week probationary period is for me to see how well you you interact with the guys. They will see how well you interact with the actual application and if you can pick this up, but it also gives you two weeks to figure out if this is something you want to do. Because if you don’t want to do it, I want you to go find something you want to do. I want to find people that want to be here, right. And they get, you know, the ones that want to work, they get all excited, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. This is great. And I always say, now, fair warning, if you don’t get along with those guys out there in the shop. You will not be staying. It doesn’t matter if you’re good or not. You won’t stay because they’ve earned their spot and we build teams here and that is more important than anything else. And so it’s like if you can’t get along with them and your personalities clash, We just need to know that up front, you know, like setting expectations with everything we do. If we’re going to go do a job, if we’re going to hire someone, whatever, it’s set the expectations.

That are very realistic, very reasonable, and then just blow them out of the water all the time. And I will say we’ve got we’ve got, uh, currently three installers. We were running two crews, but I had to let one guy go because he was becoming toxic. He was bringing bad vibes into work and we will release someone just because of that, you know, even if their work ethic is good enough to pass, you know, it’s like I just nobody wants it. And that’s, I think, the guys that we have here. Um, have really have really gravitated towards that. They really appreciate that. They feel like the boss is actually looking out for them and has their back as opposed to, you know, the boss. That’s just like, man, whatever. Stop crying. Just go back to work. Right? Right. If they are crying. Then they do get that answer, stop crying, go back to work. But if it’s a real if it’s a real thing to where it’s causing disruption and it’s, uh, you know, it’s causing, uh, just emotional distress and nobody can focus on the task at hand. It’s like. You know, But it’s a real problem. You know, like I said, if if it’s just a light problem, it’s like, hey, man, Ryan, do you ever heard the expression doggy at the door?

No, I haven’t. I feel bad for. Not for not knowing.

No, no, that’s okay. That’s okay. This is this is an old sales expression, you know, like when you when you go to run an appointment, um, your your emotional problems. Right. Because salespeople never have emotional problems, right? They’re not ever complaining. So they have emotional problems and it follows you around. You just say, you just tell them. Say it follows around like a little dog. Right? So it’s going to follow you. Your problems are going to follow you everywhere you go. But if you take your problems into the home with you, then you’re never going to make a sale because you know you have to present positive and exude positive energy, right? So the expression of doggy at the door is the doggy is your emotion. So when you get to the door, you leave the doggy at the door, you go in, you do your pitch, and when you come back out, that dog will go with you, right? Yeah, yeah, that’s solid.

That’s a good one.

So we, we use that. We use that a lot with, with pretty much any of our guys. It’s like, you know, if you need real help, man, we’re all here for you. But if you just be in a whiny little, you know, just, just just take that out, you know? So it’s kind of a happy medium of, of this, of my old school type philosophy, trying to figure out a way to blend in with these this younger generation. Right. So they’re a lot more emotional than they used to be. So, you know, just trying to figure it out and make a happy medium because we need everybody.

So, you know. Yeah.

And what’s, what’s really cool about that is you, you go over those things right from the beginning. And I think that’s so important because I think a lot of times a lot of home service business owners that are less than $1 million a year, even some that are over, it’s, you know, a lot of reactive, uh, you know, stuff with the, the team, you know, reactive hiring, right? Or reactive, um, um, coaching or mentoring or, um, um, consequences, if you will. And I think what’s really important about what you mentioned is it’s very proactive, you know, and you’re setting those expectations and, you know, even if it doesn’t work out, they respect that they have clarity. There’s good communication kind of channel there. And then also your, you know, your current team has a lot of respect and trust for you because they know that you’re going to do the right thing. Um, and so that, you know, that creates that culture at, you know, at the company. Um, and I imagine that, um, it makes it a lot easier to manage on a daily basis when you’re always being transparent, always being proactive up front. Um, and, you know, I want to talk real quick about, you know, you know, about the hiring process, just, just a little bit more digging on that, Um, what has worked best for you? This is a big discussion, you know, you know, obviously finding good people. What does work best for you to find the best people? Has it been referrals? Indeed. You know, just kind of walk, you know, like us through how you find those, you know, those good people.

So I’m going to I’m going to disappoint anybody that’s looking for a shining light of hope. Um, hiring good people is, in my opinion, it’s a total crapshoot. Um. To get the three guys that I have now, which I believe the three installers that I have now, we’ve got three installers, the salesperson, and then my office manager does everything, whatever he installs, sales, whatever, um, to get those guys I’ve gone through, I’ve hired.

Joe 20. 4 or 25 people in the last three.

Years and gone through that many.

People to end up with five.

Employees right now.

Wow.

So. Now, I do realize that, like, for me, I do realize that I’m very particular about what I’m looking for. And I’m not saying we’re not all particular, but like I know I’m very particular because I want the you know, I want the attitudes to be in place. I want the teams to work. Well, I would it’s not that I would it’s not that I want to grow slowly, but I have grown slowly because I just I’m not okay with just throwing money at it and then just sending some guys out that have only had a couple of weeks training and and they just roll with it. Right, right. Um, so, you know, my installers, I would say they’ve been with me, uh, between nine months for two of them, probably about nine months. And then the other guys been with me for about 14 months. Um, so, you know, we’re, we’re starting to get into that, that time where it’s like, okay, now we’re starting to build like solidity within the team. You know, they’re really doing, uh, really fantastic work out there. And then, yeah, we’re fortunate enough that because I’ve got the amount of experience I’ve got with the coatings. That my lead guy that kind of ran, he kind of ran both crews, so to speak. When we had two crews going, he he’s intelligent enough and he’s solid enough that.

That.

By calling and talking to me and.

Getting some generalized questions asked, you know, he can.

Produce what he needs to.

Produce and.

Then they know where my standards are. So, you know, we’ve tried indeed, we’ve tried Facebook, we’ve tried referrals.

Um, I.

Would honestly say. For me, my luck has been I don’t get any referral hires. I’ve always heard that they’re the most amazing things. Um, but I swear to God, I only hire introverts and they don’t have any friends.

I don’t.

I don’t know how it happens, you know? Um, I got one referral hire, and that guy worked for me for he worked for me for almost a year and he was fantastic. So, you know, one for one on referral. Yeah, one for one there. Um, but I would say Facebook has been a no go. We never got anything positive out of Facebook. Um, I do think that it’s good for your brand to post it on Facebook when you’re hiring. Yeah, just because people should know that you’re busy and you’re growing.

Yeah, right. That’s a good point. Yeah.

You know, so I still post it on there, but I don’t. I don’t bank on it to do anything. We’ve actually got all of our guys so far, all the other guys off of indeed which I thought was strange. There’s a new hiring.

Platform I can’t remember.

Boom, boom.

Nation. Um.

If they can ever get that platform in place the way it’s supposed to be, I think it’ll be positive. But it’s just not big enough yet. But it’s basically an indeed for construction workers for blue collar jobs.

That’s pretty cool.

You know, so I really hope that they get it in place. But currently I’m not using them because I got no hits off of it. It’s just it’s a great idea, but it’s not in effect well enough currently.

Yeah, well, I really like the idea or the concept that you have in place over there. Um, that you’re not just grabbing anybody and everyone that wants a job, you know, training them for two weeks, you know, really quickly and then throwing them out there. And it really speaks I mean, you’ve got 98 five star Google reviews. You don’t have anything less than a five star, you know, on your on your Google business profile. Um, and so obviously the quality of your work really, you know, speaks volumes here. Um, just quickly, you know, how do you get those reviews? Like, you know, what’s your process to get five star reviews? You know, are you calling people? Is there automation? Just kind of walk us through that because obviously, you know, social proof is, you know, is mission critical these days.

Oh, sure. So, um, we approach, we approach reviews just like we’re trying to get a sale, um, or trying to book an appointment. Right. It’s. How often do I hear you talk about, you know, when you’re trying to set an appointment just because you don’t get a hold of them, it doesn’t mean you stop trying. Right now, with our clients, I’m not going to sit there and just harass them over it. But we’ve got a few key things that that we try to keep rolling in place, and it seems to work very well for us. Um. So the first thing is, is as soon as the job is finished and the customers come out there, one thing that’s great about this, this this industry is. When you’re doing concrete coatings since it’s a want product when you get finished. That’s what they wanted, right? They wanted they they’re not paying you to come out and fix something that broke. So they’re super excited. You should get them in that momentum and your installers should be asking for the review right then. Now we use we use an app. I know there’s a few different versions and there’s a few different ways to go about doing this. Honestly, they if you don’t want to pay for an app, you could go into like your notes on your iPhone or whatever and you could create a hyperlink and you could just text it to them. You know, you could you could do it as simply as that. Yeah. Um, but we use an app and our app is integrated into our website. So what it does is it winds up doing like check ins and creates, it helps.

Add for our SEO wherever the.

Photos are.

Tagged. Yeah.

Um, and so that’s helped, It’s helped with our SEO, but it also shows what we’re.

Currently working on. We’re constantly.

Doing updates on.

It.

And.

Then.

But that allows that app allows my installers to just say, you know, hey, if you love the work, would you mind doing us a favor and giving us a five star review? And if they say yes, they’re like, Cool, I can send you a link. Would you like it? Texted or emailed? So they, you know, they tell them they’re like, okay. And then they just go ahead right there and send it to them right there.

Now.

They don’t they don’t follow it up at that point. They don’t say, well, let me show you your phone and let me show you how to do it. You know, they don’t they don’t go that far, but they at least give it to them right then. Um, and then they, you know, they at that point they should be finished with payment collecting payment. They should be finished with going over the expectations of the next 48 hours. And then it’s kind of a the way we do it is it’s kind of a at the very end. Oh, by the way, since you love this thing, man, you know, my performance really might look good in.

Front of my boss.

If I can get this review, you know, because people love helping people out.

Yeah.

And as an owner, I can’t ask that if I ask for it doesn’t seem to work. But my guys, when my guys do it, it just seems to work all the time.

The technician play works best for you. So that’s what which is very interesting because, you know, I hear that a lot, you know, from bigger companies where like, that’s the best opportunity. Um, you know, because they also connect with, with the technicians out there longer, you know usually yes they’re getting tips a lot of times out there, um, you know, they order food for them. They’re, you know, they, they talk to them when they first get there during the job. And, and so they have more of a relationship than, um, you know, like an office admin con. Like, hey, this is, you know, this is Sally. I talk to you one time, you know, and trying to grab that review. Um, so yeah, man, that’s awesome to hear.

Well, and you think about it. You think about it, right? Like, like you break this down. And I’ve talked to a lot of people, and it surprises me how many people haven’t really thought about this. But, you know, when you’re when you’re talking to them and booking the booking the appointment and you’re following up with the customer throughout the process, you know, thanking them for the sales, scheduling the install, all that, you might have a total of 30 minutes on the phone with them maybe, right? Like and that’s probably pretty high whenever you go out and run the sales appointment, the sales person is going to be with them for what, 45 minutes to an.

Hour, Right, Right, right.

These guys that are not trained in customer service, uh, normally. Right. Which are your installers? They’re going to be there 6 to 8 hours.

Each day.

If they’re there multiple days, they’re going to be there more.

We train.

We train our installers.

On how to what our expectations are.

For customer service so that you know what I mean. So they know how to interact so that when someone comes and asks them a question, this is how you handle the response, you know? Right? You walk away from the noise, you give the customer attention. So, you know, we really work on that with with our installers and that seems to help. Um, but I’ll tell you what, the, the other thing is, is your installers have to ask for that review. And just telling them to.

Ask.

Doesn’t really.

Always work.

Like we set up a bonus program and it’s like, hey, whoever gets the most Google reviews this month gets $200 cash bonus. So.

They’re fighting to ask for.

You know, and we’ve got a list on the wall and it’s up there and it’s like it says, Who got it?

Like a little leaderboard. How many reviews? Yeah. Yeah.

And so, you know, they’ll sit there and.

They’ll man, they’ll dig in on each other and they’re like, Oh, I got the last two months. What do you got? You got nothing, you know, And they’re just talking trash, but it’s.

All in a positive.

Manner. Right, Right. And that’s kind of cool because.

You have that in sales a lot, right? There’s leadership boards and you have competition and there’s this whole culture there. And a lot of times technicians get left behind in a lot of home service companies where, you know, like you said earlier, just, hey, just out there, do the work, don’t complain. I like that you have, you know, some fun, some culture stuff. And, you know, the, you know, those incentives there with the 200 bucks. Um, and how long have you been doing that for?

Uh, we’ve been doing that for. Probably the last ten months.

Very cool. And it’s funny, if you go back through and you look at Google, once we implemented that, we we started getting a lot more reviews per month. So it’s it’s proven. It’s proven that it’s working.

Yeah. The the other.

Thing we implemented.

Alongside of that.

Is whichever crew gets the review.

Whenever they get the review.

The following morning when they go to the the gas station on the way to the job or whatever, and they’re filling up.

With fuel and everything they get.

They get breakfast.

On the company. So it’s like even if.

Even if Trinity gets the review, Trinity and Blake both get breakfast the next morning. Right. So it’s like they’re they’re getting in an immediate reward and then they also have the big reward to look forward to. So.

I mean, as far.

As I’m concerned.

Because I was like, am I spending too much.

Money on this? You know? But then you think about it like Google reviews are gold and you can’t technically buy them. So I mean, guess, you know, you can illegally buy them.

Google and Black Flag you and yank you off Google.

But you know, every single one of those you go back through and you read our reviews. Like if you actually read them, do they almost look paid for? Like it’s it’s mind blowing how people react to the way that, you know, the process we use throughout our company is. So that’s but that’s the first step, right? That’s the first step of getting a review. The second step is, um, the sales person.

Should call the day after and they should just call and.

Check on the floor. Right. How the guys treat you.

Did the install go well? Do you have any questions?

Because most salespeople disappear.

No one does it. It’s so funny, right? No one does it. Mean girls.

There’s repeat business review. Like.

Yeah, you know, they’re just.

Leaving money on the table, right? It’s like, Hey, man, you. They already are happy.

With you, or they wouldn’t.

Have signed with.

You.

Well, hey, a lot of times it’s because, in my opinion, it’s because, um, you know, a lot of sales guys know that. Hey, tomorrow I’ll have another four appointments and tomorrow. And like, what you mentioned, like, with your technicians, like, you intentionally put forth a training, like, Hey, guys, we’re going to get reviews and I’m going to show you how to do it. I’m going to train you on how to do it. I’m going to reward you for doing it. Same thing with the salespeople where it’s like, you know, we sometime, as you know, as business owners and, you know, you learn this after you read traction and all these different things that usually we have these these these expectations that we’ve never communicated, you know. Yep. Yeah. Or put like, you know, policies in place in the business. And so with salespeople, if there’s not a, you know, an expectation, if it’s not in their job description, it’s, you know, if there’s if they’re not, you know, being asked about it or, you know, held accountable about it, they’re not getting incentivized. These guys have appointments, you know, all week, next week. Like they don’t mean they don’t want to. Now, some salespeople are like, you know, are true sales guys, lifelong salespeople, and they do those things. But, um, you know, I think it’s so important in, in your business, whether you’re in concrete coating, painting, etcetera, is you’ve got to really put these things that you want done. I want technicians to get reviews. I want sales guys to get referrals, all these things. You got to put it in their job descriptions, you got to have training on it and you got to show them how to do it. Don’t just like write it down and say, Hey, go do that. And then and then you get upset when they don’t do it right, you know? So I love that you have that in place over there.

Yeah. And then so.

And then so the, the sales person then.

It. It also re-establishes.

That your company has good people, right? Because.

Oh wow. Sales people don’t reach out.

So they should call, talk to them about the the experience.

Did they leave?

And and these are great questions, right. Now, your.

Guys shouldn’t ever leave anything.

Over there. And there should be the expectation is no trash perfectly cleaned up every time.

Right. But the.

Sales person should.

Still ask.

Did did they leave anything?

Do I need to come pick up any trash? You know, is everything cleaned up? Did they leave any tools and all those answers.

You’re getting the customer be like, No.

That was great, right? You’re getting them to to.

Get back in that positive mood.

Of again. I loved what happened. Yeah. And then at the very end. Okay, well, hey, I hope you have a great day. Hey, you know what? Actually. Um. Did. Did. Would you mind? We love doting on our installers, you know? Would you mind sharing everything you just shared with me? Just put that on Google. So people that are looking for a company to work with that, that they could, you know, do that. Oh yeah, they sent me a link, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? So there’s, there’s your second touch. And then.

What we do is, you know, different manufacturers to fill out the.

Warranty.

For polyurea coatings, one day floor systems. They they’ve got a form that you have to fill out and submit. Right. Well, I’ve seen a lot of companies. They just, you know, the technician at the end, he just hand writes all the information in and then hands them a sweat stained, dirty, you know, dripped on piece of paper. Well, we don’t do that.

We we get.

Our technician to do all that. We bring it back in.

House and.

Then actually fill it out.

On a fillable I’ve made it a.

Form filled PDF, put all the information in. So it’s very clearly written. I submit it to the manufacturer and then I also send it out in an email to the customer.

That.

It’s got. I don’t remember it verbatim, but it’s basically it’s got a paragraph in there that says, Hey, thank you so much. We really enjoyed working with you on this project here at Concrete Coatings. Our expectations are you deserve a five star experience, no less. So if there’s anything that we could improve upon or could help you with or could come need to come back and take care.

Of, please absolutely.

Let us know. Um, we want to make sure that.

We change the way people think about contractors in the industry.

Um, if everything was amazing and it was above and beyond your expectations, please share with other people looking to get this kind of work done. And then we’ve got hyperlinks built into it for Google, Yelp and Facebook. And, you know, it takes us right to our to their stuff. And so we get for each customer, we get three touches to get a review. And I mean, it’s it’s working.

I mean, we’ve been.

In business for three years.

And we’re fixing.

To break that 100 mark. I know there’s going to be some people out there that have more in a shorter time.

But.

I’m pretty proud of the 98.

Yeah. And then you’ve got 59 on Facebook and then a couple on Yelp. But, you know, the the Google reviews are so important. You know, Google clearly says that those reviews, um, help, you know, increase your rankings with your Google business profile. Also, you want to make sure that you’re replying to them and all those different things, but, um, the social proof is incredible. It’s very rare these days, you know, especially in this industry as it’s newer and there’s a lot of, um, a lot of owner operators. And so customers are really checking those reviews, you know? Yeah. And when they go there and they see all five star, it’s, it’s really hard to have all five stars, um, in home service because. Right, I mean it’s very hard. It takes a lot.

It takes a lot of work. Yeah, it takes a lot of work.

It’s incredible. And six figures is, you know, we’re not six figures. Um, um, a triple digits reviews on Google is very rare. Like, you know, I would say it’s a very small percentage of home service companies have triple digit reviews on Google, especially in the five star range or 4.9. A lot of it’s like 4.6 or, you know, 4.3 and these types of things as as start to grow. So it’s really incredible. Um, I want to touch on your, your quality assurance, um, um, kind of policies because you know, all five star reviews and what you’re doing, you know, it’s incredible. Um, what type of like do you have in place or, or is it more of like, you train the guys and they just know what to do and it’s, you know, it’s, you know, it’s a little how do you go through and, you know, ensuring that, um, you know, the jobs are, you know, just done really, really well. And the reason why I ask this one specifically is because there’s so many people getting into this industry. And you see it all the time in the Facebook groups where, you know, they get their equipment from, you know, easy concrete supply or valence or wherever, and it’s up for sale. And the Facebook group four months later, you know, um, how do you make sure that that’s in place over there?

Um, so.

I wouldn’t.

Uh, how do I say this? I don’t. I don’t like complimenting myself, so this feels weird, but I’m pretty damn good at what I do as far as installs are concerned, very detail oriented and what I mean detail oriented oriented. I mean, like, I’m talking like when I’m mixing that bucket better be level and the mixes go specifically right to the right lines, right? Like we’ve got check, we’ve got checklists mounted inside both of our rigs that basically have, you know, like, hey, these are your common mixtures. So like this one’s, you know, this one’s 32oz, this one’s 64oz, this one’s, you know what I mean? And so it’s broken down in a chart and it’s all broken down saying, hey, this if you’re doing this much square footage, you need this mix. If you’re cutting in, you need this type of mix. If you’re rolling, you need this type of mix. And it’s it sounds more complicated than it is. It’s pretty quick. Just visual reference. So like we put things in place.

All of our processes.

That we do put in place are all.

Specifically designed because I’m human. You’re human. My guys are human.

We’re all going to screw up at some point.

Yeah. So So you don’t just, like.

Just kick them to the curb and tell them. Figure it out then, huh?

You’re right. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, it’s weird because it’s weird because, like.

Our, uh, we call them. We call them callbacks. I think you call them go backs.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I call it the devil, basically. No. Yeah.

Yeah.

And. And what is your what is your number that.

You try to keep. Keep. I think 10%. Yeah.

You know if, you know, if one crew is doing, you know, 20 jobs, 10%, it usually comes to 1 to 3 jobs a month, ideally like 1 to 2. We’re willing to say, hey, look, I get it. Things happen. Sure. Our biggest go backs have always been and we’re doing really, really good now. But like early on, we had some trouble. But, um, it was, it’s rough floors. That was the biggest one is rough floors. You know, it was, it was more of an expectation thing, but it was like just the training around, you know, changing this, you know, the blades. We had some earlier technicians that were like grinding the blade with like a four inch grinder and keep on using it and using it. I’m like, dude, like, so having these, you know, these policies in place definitely helped, you know, I’ll tell you.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I’m a better marketer than, than than home servers business owner, you know, I’ll put it that way.

Well but you know it it I don’t even know that it comes down to.

Necessarily the owner. It comes down.

To.

You know, the like, like the way that I train my guys and the knowledge.

That I have.

I could be the the production manager, I could be the main lead.

I wouldn’t have to be necessarily the owner. The the only thing that I think that helps me being the owner is the fact that it’s like, Hey. You can’t argue with me because we’re doing it my way, right? Like I do get to play that card now.

But like for our company, since we’ve opened, um, our our callbacks, uh, I’m pretty proud of this one. We’re like 1.4%.

Wow.

That’s incredible.

For the whole. For the whole shebang. Right?

So that’s.

So. But it’s because we put.

In so much time in training and.

Like, my guys have to get to a certain level of expectation before I’ll release them out. And so. I mean, I’ve said this and I don’t mean this as a knock on anybody out there at all.

I’m just very.

Proud of my guys. But my of my guys that we’ve trained.

Any one of my guys could go be a lead at.

95 plus percent of just about any of the coding companies as long as they knew what the mix ratios and things like that because of how often we we give them information and because of the level at which we actually understand and comprehend the information. Um, it’s not just.

Yeah, we.

Just have to mix it and throw it down. You know what I mean? It’s like, Yes, but I want to know, you know, what is the humidity? What’s the dew point? What’s the concrete doing? What’s going on? You know, I mean, like, we’ve got, uh, the.

But who is it? The. The suppliers Don’t don’t really like.

This, but.

I’ve kind of overcome a couple of options, like rain.

Days. Um, I know you guys get a bunch of hot days, but I don’t know how many rain days you get, but.

There’s probably unless.

We’ve got a severe storm coming through that’s going to have really high winds and, you know, hail and like severe stuff. If we are just going to have a day where it’s just going to be like regular like rain with low wind, we can still go install a garage. And because of how specific we are with the temperature of the concrete, knowing where the dew point is, knowing where the humidity is, like we take meters.

Into the.

Garage and actually measure the relative humidity inside the garage instead of just looking on our phone. Yeah. And I’ve got a.

I don’t.

Know what you would call it. It’s a it’s a plastic tent setup that I designed and built.

Um.

And it’s adjustable to fit the, the door size of the garage. So it expands out to the whole thing and then it gives a, it gives like eight feet out of cover and it slopes and the water runs off and everything. So like when that thing is set in place, no water is getting in there. So it’s not like.

Yeah, it’s getting close or, you know. Yeah, Yeah.

And you could probably sell that, uh, you know, a lot of, a lot of companies could use that. That’s for sure.

I mean, if anybody wants to try their hand at it, I’ve done some modifications to it since it did.

My original build. But on YouTube, I think if you search concrete coatings, I think there’s.

A link on there to watch it.

It’s it’s interesting because it just.

It like I.

Said, it’s adjustable and it does different things, but it’s much better now. But it saved us, right?

I mean, how much money do you lose when the guys can’t go to work?

They lose money. You lose money. Um, but it’s yeah, the process is like you said, the processes.

Are, are huge. I don’t necessarily have them all written down in, in place.

But training is huge.

Making the, making sure you find guys that want to learn the information, that want to make sure that it’s correct, that take pride in what they’re doing. And that’s hard.

To find.

Right That’s why we’ve cycled through.

As many people as we have because.

If they don’t hit.

Our our level of expectation with that, then it’s like and you’re not going to train that in right like that. You’ve got to find somebody that.

Is naturally.

Gifted with that.

That type of.

Understanding of, Hey man, I’m going to work because I want to do something with my hands and I want to be proud and I want to sleep.

Tonight. Like like if you find.

People like.

That, as long as they can be.

Taught how to do it, then you’re.

Down the right path.

But it it’s hard to find.

Those because.

Everybody that you interview says that.

Yeah, right. I’m going to be the most amazing person you’ve ever had, right? What? Oh, yeah. No, you’re not. You’re not.

You’ve got to definitely have a good hiring process in place. And, um, yeah, we experienced the same thing at Cardinal where, like, early on it was just, man, we were trying to find the right people. And it’s, you know, it’s a, you know, it’s a lot harder job than, you know, I think a lot of us thought it was originally, um, you know, it’s pretty extensive when when you, when that calendar is packed, you know, pool decks and, you know, all types of stuff, it’s it’s tough work. Um, and especially, you know, we get hot in Dallas and you know, in summer and keeping guys all year long um is a big deal. Um, and it’s, you know, it’s pretty incredible what you’ve done though. Um, I want to switch gears real quick just to some marketing stuff. Um, what have you done early on that worked best and then kind of like what you’re doing now, you know, obviously you’re working with us and we’re, we’re doing, um, you know, things for you when it comes to the digital side, but just what, you know, like what worked for you early on and then kind of what are you doing now when it comes to the online stuff, but also the offline stuff, you know, home shows or like anything that you’re doing offline as well?

Um, I would say from the beginning, um, I had, I had the, the fortune of.

When I was working with my brother’s company, I had the good fortune of actually meeting Jeff Gear at the it was the first Penn Tech, um, dealer meeting that they had. Yeah. Um, and you know here comes in Jeff gear and you know, everybody’s like, oh, that’s Jeff. And I’m like, Who’s Jeff?

You know, like, what’s it?

And then you start hearing all these.

Whispers and rumors.

About, you know, Jeff and.

Who’s.

Jeff? He’s, he’s this guy that, you know, he got into the coding industry and before they.

Went to class, you know, they sold $80,000 worth of business. Right? And then they, they, they first.

First year, right. When we went to the dealer meeting, he’d been selling for seven months. And, you know, he pulls up his, his market sharp CRM. He’s like, yeah. $2.2 million in sales so far. Right. And you’re just like, okay, so I’m going to listen what this guy has to say because, you know, he’s obviously got something going, right? And so that was when I was working with my brother’s company. Well, he was going on about Facebook, so I was fortunate enough when I started my own business. It’s like my brother never utilized Facebook, but I’d been dying to try it out. And he he was like, Nah, we’re just not going to do it. That’s not the way we work. I’m like, Okay. Well, when I started my own, I was looking to see and back.

Then, dude, back then the advertising wasn’t that expensive. It’s gotten.

It’s gotten more right. Like it’s, it’s it’s becoming more and more expensive.

I remember when I.

First started running the ads, you know, for Steve, for Steve Holloway was a pirtek dealer. I mean, I mean, I could get leads on Facebook back then for like ten, 15, 20 bucks all day long, you know? And gosh, um, that was pretty cool.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and it is.

Right, Especially when you can.

Even if you’re.

Closing.

Um.

And don’t let your salespeople hear this, but if even if you’re running Facebook leads and you’re only closing 20% at that.

Point, who cares if they’re costing you, you know, ten bucks a piece? It’s like you can still afford to do business.

Even if you have a bunch of people that are kicking tires.

Right, right.

Um, but I would say for the most part throughout we’ve tried.

We’ve tried pushing a bunch of different services.

Tried.

Uh, tried pushing Yelp.

Um, you know, I keep my yelp active just because, like, don’t, don’t push money towards it for actual active.

Advertising.

But keep it active because.

Yeah, you’d be surprised.

You know, we might.

Have 2 or 3 people maybe a month reach out and they do turn.

Into jobs, you know, just because.

It’s it’s active and we’ve.

Got projects on there. Um, you know, I mean, 2 or 3 jobs is 2 or 3 jobs. So I think my membership with Yelp is, I don’t know.

150, 200.

Bucks or something. It drafts once a month. So it’s paying for itself. You know, get a couple of Yelp reviews up there. And I think, I don’t.

Know, we might have.

Like.

I can’t remember two Yelp.

Reviews, you know, but they’re both five star and on Yelp. That’s a big deal that.

They’re five star, right? Because that’s where.

Everybody goes to.

Complain. Yeah. Um, Google.

I have a love hate relationship with Google. Um, even I was just talking with Patrick about this the other day.

Google doesn’t like the Dallas Fort.

Worth marketplace for for concrete coders because.

Um. We have so much competition here. Okay. Mean pages like you.

Google search.

An epoxy floor and.

There are.

Pages. You guys have to have.

Like a thousand owner operators there at least. Oh, my.

God. Man. Like.

And, and and they’re catching on, right, that Facebook ads are working. So you get you get.

The the guy’s name and he’s like.

Epoxy floors done $3 a square foot right.

Full flake. And it’s just like I mean so very confusing to the client base. Right. So we’re trying to always sort through that.

Um, but uh, so, so Google is hard for me. Like I said, love hate relationship. You do get very high intent leads from it.

But our cost per. Just phone call. Somebody calling in is astronomical for the keywords that you use in our industry. Astronomical.

And and is this Google ads you’re talking about?

Yeah. Yeah. Adwords. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. It’s like a it’s it’s, it’s definitely a, um, a pay to play game and if there’s, I mean you’ve got guys like in Phoenix sometimes like in the painting industry or think about garage doors. I mean, you know, imagine competing with a one out here, you know spending five grand a day. I mean, I’m not sure what they’re going to spend, but, um, you know. Yeah, it’s incredible. Um, so Facebook has worked good for you? Seems like from the beginning. Um, you know, a little bit of Yelp, which, you know, I second the Yelp because Yelp is really, you know, when you get Yelp leads, you’re getting SEO leads, basically. I mean, you’re getting somebody that went to Google searching and clicked on Yelp. And Yelp is optimizing for, you know, for organic organic rankings as well. Um, anything else that you might have done? Cary Um, when it comes to like offline stuff, like, like radio billboards, have you done anything that’s worked well or home shows, things like that?

No. Um, well, no, as in we haven’t done radio. We haven’t done.

Billboards. Um, it’s funny because we’ve been off and on exploring these options. We’re actually going to start doing some TV.

Um.

I think April 5th, we’re set up to go do the, the promo shoot. Um, and then we’re going to start getting into getting into some TV advertising, um.

Not.

In the Dallas Fort Worth market, but kind of in the outer areas and just kind of give it a test run and see.

Um, but I don’t know. I’ve kind of.

Got the itch.

Um, I’m really thinking that.

May say, to hell with it and just go ahead and contact one of the bigger stations in the Metroplex.

And I mean.

It’s just.

It’s going to be expensive.

Because it’s a big.

Market, right? Yeah.

But as long as the return comes, that’s what you’re looking for. So. Right. Um, but we’ve done, we’ve done my guys do, um, door hangers. Um, they do a canvassing neighborhoods and such and then also doing, um, you know, we’ve, we’ve generated.

The guys, the guys when you’ve got, when you’ve got a.

Sales person and he sells a job and that job is being installed. People don’t realize how important this is. I mean.

You hear.

Guys that are talking about like, you know, you talk about it and you read the books and you hear, but but guys are like, uh, I’m just not going to do it right. And some people.

Call it.

Knocking. Um, or I can’t. Everybody’s got a different terminology for it, but the sales person goes by during the install, drops by, says hello.

Bring the installers a Gatorade or something, you know, whatever. And then and then say.

Hello to the customer. Just a quick hello. Is everything going okay? You know, do that real quick thing and.

Then go hit.

Either the ten houses closest or, you know, the knocking. I think they call it, you know, it’s the three across the street and the two neighbors. Yeah. You know, some people say hit the street. Right. But your guys are there.

Put you know, give them.

They’re getting the touch of the wrapped vehicle. Right. If your vehicles aren’t wrapped, do it.

Look.

Professional. So they’re getting that touch and then you’re going to get the touch of throwing out.

A door hanger.

And like our door hangers, you know, we’ve got QR.

Codes on.

Them.

And then we’ve got.

Codes to where it’s.

Like, I even tell my guys, Hey.

If you.

Go hang the doors, write your initials, there’s a there’s a spot on the back that says your.

Promo code, write your initials there. And if they call in and.

They say that.

You got a self bonus.

Yeah, like I’m giving you the marketing material. And you’ve already got a.

Place designated to go because we’re doing the job. So it’s like.

You have to think as little as possible. Just go there, throw some door hangers, you know, talk to some people. Yeah.

And it’s amazing because we’ve generated, you know, you generate jobs when the guys show up and do that, they generate business like, Hey.

What are y’all doing? You know, walk around, you know, walk around with a sample or whatever. And.

Um, you know, the other thing that we’ve used, if you’re not.

As.

You know, because some people are intimidated by doing that, um, but we’ve got.

We’ve got like little.

Post-it notes that basically say, you know. Uh, sorry for the noise. Um, we are here working on your, you know, neighbor neighbor’s house. Um, they are getting there. And then you’ve got a list, right? Uh, garage, pool, deck, patio, driveway. And you check whichever one. Right. Give them the options. We’re not just doing garages.

And.

Then it’s got a QR code, uh, for.

For, um.

You know, Thank you. As an apology for the noise. Um, here’s a discount code. If you are looking to get this same project done as well, that’s cool. And and you just go by and it’s just, you know, just stick them, right? Because again, and give credit where credit’s due. That is another Jeff idea from six years ago. Um, he or five years ago. Guess it was. Um, but that’s another one of his ideas because his thought process is everybody hangs door hangers, everybody puts crap on the door. Nobody pays attention to it. But if you have one of those little post-it note things, it’s usually UPS or USPS or something. You missed something. So they’re going to pull it off and look.

Right? So they have to at least look before they.

Throw it away. Um, but those things.

Those things help. Yeah. Um, I would say. Things that we’re trying to get better at utilizing are going to be calling and asking for referral business. We do get a lot of referral.

Business, but it’s not business that was asked for.

Like we didn’t call and generate it right.

And there’s a difference.

There because you can.

You have the opportunity for both, right? You can get the generated referral or just somebody just called in and so we get. Because people are impressed so much with our work. We do get a lot of referral business that that people call in or we get repeat business when people move and go into a new home.

Yeah.

They’re like, Yeah, we’re not.

Using anybody else but you.

It was fantastic last time, you know? So that’s a really cool feeling that that people feel and they remember who you are, right? Because that’s the other thing. Are they going to remember.

Who you are? Yeah, I think that’s one of.

The scariest things owning a business, especially in a market like this, because.

I mean, they see, man, if you come.

To Dallas and you scroll through Facebook, you can see 30 different companies in Facebook just trying to look at your.

Updates. Yeah, you know what I mean?

And I don’t know if that’s because I don’t know if that’s because I’m a, you know, I’m in the industry and I’m always clicking. And so I don’t know if it’s just because it’s following my information.

It could be that. Yeah. But, you.

Know, I’ve had customers say, Yeah, we saw your ad, we clicked on it and now I can’t get rid of, you know, the other 20 companies showing up in my feed. And I’m.

Like, you know.

So you just got to be careful of that. But yeah, I think there’s always I think there’s always new things to pay attention to, to get out there and.

Do the.

Hustle. I don’t know how TV’s going to go, but.

I think we’re going to give it a shot. And.

You know, but that’s I would say that’s the hardest part about running a business is constantly finding new customers right?

That’s it’s the lifeblood. You know, the lifeblood of the business is new customers, obviously. And then you have your team. But, um, man, this has been really, really solid, man. Um, for those of you that are live with us, um, put in comments, um, the word value, if you’ve gotten any value from, from Corey today over at LZ and, and also if you’re on the replay put in the comments, uh, hashtag replay. And then if you’re on Apple or Spotify, um, give us some love as well. If you got any value from the podcast, share the podcast with other home service business owners that, you know, leave us a review. We’d love to hear your feedback. Um, but today really was everything when it comes to your team. Um, you know, how do you start and kind of scale up a seven figure concrete coding company in 2023? Um, well, focus on your team. We have focusing on, you know, like the policies when it comes to training and quality assurance. We talked about some of the marketing that’s working with us today and we got Jeff live as well. So hopefully Jeff got some, um, some love from you today.

Um, I think he’s going to, he’s going to need like a royalty or something like that. Um, right, right. But, um, man, it’s been great getting to know you. And obviously, um, those of you that might not know, uh, Corey does have a inventory software that he’s, that he’s developed and, um, kind of just getting really out into the marketplace right now. Um, and it’s really specific for concrete coding companies to really, um, optimize and prioritize organization when it comes to ordering material, organizing the inventory and things like that. Um, and if you are struggling with inventory, if you’re a concrete coating company, let us know as well. Um, Corey might, might come back through in the Facebook group, answer some questions. Um, but we’ll be most likely be doing a webinar on inventory management when it comes to concrete coatings, how to really optimize that. So if that’s something that you’re interested in, let us know as well whether it’s in the comments or send us an email or something like that. But man, Corey, thank you so much, man, for your time. Um, I really appreciate it, man.

Absolutely. It’s been great. Thanks.

Ryan Yeah. Um, guys, we’ll have another episode next week, so stay tuned. And, uh, outside of that, guys have an amazing Saint Patrick’s Day amazing weekend. Have some fun out there and we’ll see you guys next week.

See you guys.

 

LET’S GROW YOUR BUSINESS

 

VISION

Our vision is to set the bar in digital marketing for all home services known for our legendary client experience & results.

MISSION

Our mission is to double or triple the revenue of 500 home service companies & help them create MORE profit, freedom & impact.