$1 MILLION Business CAN'T MAKE PAYROLL...

WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.091 --> 00:00:01.674
Cash reserves are depleted.
2
00:00:01.774 --> 00:00:03.256
We're covering payroll this week.
3
00:00:03.437 --> 00:00:07.524
We've got to cover payroll next week, too, just in case either of us didn't know that.
4
00:00:07.604 --> 00:00:08.986
How are we going to do next week at all?
5
00:00:09.588 --> 00:00:09.988
I don't know.
6
00:00:10.148 --> 00:00:13.991
Today, we're in Texas, visiting Seth from EcoWorks Plumbing.
7
00:00:14.091 --> 00:00:19.154
We were like, okay, we gotta do something before, like, you know, IRS or something shows up.
8
00:00:19.194 --> 00:00:21.075
He brought the account on a stack of papers like that.
9
00:00:21.195 --> 00:00:22.496
Like, five years worth of bank statements.
10
00:00:22.676 --> 00:00:25.338
The business only has $3,000 in the bank.
11
00:00:25.418 --> 00:00:27.059
We're at, like, three grand this morning.
12
00:00:27.439 --> 00:00:28.580
We're at three grand this morning.
13
00:00:28.600 --> 00:00:31.622
But they have $200,000 worth of debt.
14
00:00:31.682 --> 00:00:33.323
We did have to take a loan from his dad.
15
00:00:33.363 --> 00:00:36.465
His dad loaned us, like, 15 grand, and now we're down out of that.
16
00:00:37.005 --> 00:00:41.266
Revenue has declined by 70% and leads have dropped off a cliff.
17
00:00:41.466 --> 00:00:43.787
We're not going to try to make money on something like that.
18
00:00:43.887 --> 00:00:45.467
When everything slowed down, it got worse.
19
00:00:45.747 --> 00:00:50.088
Ty, the general manager of the business, is the one that reached out for help for the turnaround.
20
00:00:50.288 --> 00:00:54.930
I feel pretty alone since he's going through what he's going through, so any help I'd really appreciate.
21
00:00:54.970 --> 00:00:57.770
Because the owner, Seth, is in the middle of a divorce.
22
00:00:58.010 --> 00:01:00.711
I lean on Ty heavily, probably too much.
23
00:01:00.731 --> 00:01:02.212
I don't know what Seth's goals are.
24
00:01:02.812 --> 00:01:03.812
Just stay in business.
25
00:01:04.012 --> 00:01:05.993
This is the Business Turnaround Show.
26
00:01:06.053 --> 00:01:07.193
My name is Mike Andes.
27
00:01:07.253 --> 00:01:11.354
I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn Care, where we have over 175 locations around the world.
28
00:01:11.414 --> 00:01:14.535
And I travel around the country fixing struggling businesses.
29
00:01:14.655 --> 00:01:18.236
Like you have the capacity to probably do $80,000, $90,000 a month in revenue pretty easily.
30
00:01:18.256 --> 00:01:19.056
Easy.
31
00:01:19.276 --> 00:01:19.796
Yeah, easily.
32
00:01:19.816 --> 00:01:20.896
So we can double the business.
33
00:01:21.176 --> 00:01:26.738
Our goal is to give Seth and Ty a strategy to turn around the business in the next six weeks.
34
00:01:32.710 --> 00:01:34.970
I think it's the first plumbing business we've done a turnaround for.
35
00:01:34.990 --> 00:01:40.632
A little bit awkward how the person who actually asked for this turnaround is the general manager, not the owner.
36
00:01:40.692 --> 00:01:43.572
We are having trouble scaling the business.
37
00:01:43.832 --> 00:01:50.333
We, at one time, had three trucks on the road and payroll and everything was killing us.
38
00:01:50.554 --> 00:01:55.555
We'd really appreciate it if someone could really help us in this aspect.
39
00:01:56.355 --> 00:01:57.235
I feel pretty alone.
40
00:01:58.253 --> 00:01:59.775
since he's going through what he's going through.
41
00:01:59.875 --> 00:02:01.696
So any help I'd really appreciate.
42
00:02:01.796 --> 00:02:07.382
As the leader, if you're not showing up, yes, you have personal stuff, but realize it's going to affect the business really negatively.
43
00:02:07.562 --> 00:02:12.767
And the fact that his general manager is the one that applied for the turnaround tells me that like, there might be a problem.
44
00:02:13.485 --> 00:02:13.925
How's it going?
45
00:02:14.145 --> 00:02:14.706
Howdy, howdy.
46
00:02:14.866 --> 00:02:15.606
Is it Seth, right?
47
00:02:15.626 --> 00:02:16.307
I'm Seth, yeah.
48
00:02:16.327 --> 00:02:16.927
Nice to meet you.
49
00:02:16.947 --> 00:02:18.107
Hi, good to meet you.
50
00:02:18.147 --> 00:02:19.668
This is the next little spot you got.
51
00:02:20.069 --> 00:02:20.329
Thanks.
52
00:02:20.629 --> 00:02:21.849
So you originally started, right Seth?
53
00:02:21.869 --> 00:02:22.070
Yes.
54
00:02:22.370 --> 00:02:24.231
And how long ago was that?
55
00:02:24.251 --> 00:02:24.691
2016.
56
00:02:24.731 --> 00:02:26.332
My name is Seth Sonye.
57
00:02:26.352 --> 00:02:28.933
I'm the owner of EcoWorks Texas.
58
00:02:28.953 --> 00:02:31.495
I'm doing business as EcoWorks Plumbing.
59
00:02:31.655 --> 00:02:33.075
And then when did you come on, Ty?
60
00:02:33.256 --> 00:02:34.796
October of last year.
61
00:02:34.836 --> 00:02:36.457
My name is Ty Malagueri.
62
00:02:36.557 --> 00:02:41.600
I'm the service manager slash acting GM for EcoWorks Plumbing.
63
00:02:41.660 --> 00:02:47.103
Do you all know each other beforehand or how did they- I apprenticed under him before I was a plumber.
64
00:02:47.243 --> 00:02:49.664
So like when I was learning to be a plumber, I apprenticed under him.
65
00:02:49.704 --> 00:02:51.825
So I'm a second generation plumber.
66
00:02:52.105 --> 00:02:53.346
My dad was a plumber.
67
00:02:53.586 --> 00:02:56.427
So like when I graduated, I went to college for a while.
68
00:02:57.268 --> 00:02:58.128
Wasn't really my thing.
69
00:02:58.288 --> 00:03:01.530
So my dad got me a job and I worked my way up very well.
70
00:03:01.750 --> 00:03:04.852
I got my first manager job at 22.
71
00:03:05.912 --> 00:03:07.373
And it's just been up from there.
72
00:03:07.761 --> 00:03:11.782
And then last year, did we go ahead and get a couple more trucks and kind of scale it up?
73
00:03:12.043 --> 00:03:13.743
Now we have too many vehicles.
74
00:03:14.043 --> 00:03:18.065
He's personally financed every vehicle except for the Dodge that's out there.
75
00:03:18.085 --> 00:03:20.546
That's my personal vehicle that we wrapped.
76
00:03:20.806 --> 00:03:26.748
Whenever I came on, we almost quadrupled monthly revenue and we kept that consistent until January.
77
00:03:27.468 --> 00:03:29.729
And then we kind of plateaued, went down.
78
00:03:29.789 --> 00:03:30.729
February was good.
79
00:03:31.350 --> 00:03:35.071
And then March, April, May, it's just, it's been a downward slide.
80
00:03:35.111 --> 00:03:36.571
We also have a profit and loss statement.
81
00:03:36.712 --> 00:03:40.153
And yet again, we have a business probably gonna do a million dollars in revenue this year.
82
00:03:40.293 --> 00:03:43.294
And so the fact that this business now is gonna do almost a million in revenue.
83
00:03:43.394 --> 00:03:45.155
Now we have a divorce with an owner.
84
00:03:45.475 --> 00:03:46.935
Everything's getting very involved.
85
00:03:46.955 --> 00:03:48.756
We have $150,000 of debt.
86
00:03:48.916 --> 00:03:53.398
It compounds the magnitude of risk that you're taking when you don't have your numbers.
87
00:03:53.658 --> 00:04:00.280
We want to grow to maybe branch out to other locations, but we want to master this location first.
88
00:04:00.320 --> 00:04:04.361
The owner is going through a divorce, so that's really hurting us.
89
00:04:04.461 --> 00:04:10.603
And he does have a larger salary, which kind of does hurt us in a way because there's no production there.
90
00:04:10.823 --> 00:04:14.984
And we're walking a business that is providing for several families.
91
00:04:15.024 --> 00:04:19.145
And it sounds like the owner is taking a lot of money from the business, but that can stop very quickly.
92
00:04:19.305 --> 00:04:20.767
The leads have fallen off.
93
00:04:21.067 --> 00:04:26.315
Our market spend has not changed, and we went from ranking number one, number two, to being between four and six.
94
00:04:26.735 --> 00:04:29.659
Everybody's gonna click on the number one, number two spot on Google.
95
00:04:29.880 --> 00:04:34.586
The market share here isn't really big enough to hold.
96
00:04:34.927 --> 00:04:36.549
The 50 companies that work here.
97
00:04:36.649 --> 00:04:44.817
The market is so flooded, washed out with so many different plumbers and Billy Bob Thornton and everybody that knows how to plumb as a plumber.
98
00:04:44.897 --> 00:04:50.802
One of the main struggles we fight is you go to people's houses and you give them a price and it's like, wow, it's so expensive.
99
00:04:50.842 --> 00:04:53.305
I called somebody and got a $500 bid and it's like,
100
00:04:54.287 --> 00:04:55.008
That lady learned business.
101
00:04:55.428 --> 00:05:02.293
And then the bigger companies that are private equity just can dump as much money as they want.
102
00:05:02.453 --> 00:05:03.934
We're converting our jobs well.
103
00:05:03.994 --> 00:05:06.616
It's just getting the jobs right now is kind of rough.
104
00:05:06.916 --> 00:05:12.400
As you see it, the problem is like, we simply are not getting leads and that has been a downward trend since February.
105
00:05:12.740 --> 00:05:13.001
Yeah.
106
00:05:13.201 --> 00:05:14.623
And has anything changed on the website?
107
00:05:14.643 --> 00:05:16.225
Like did you change who built the website?
108
00:05:16.285 --> 00:05:18.428
Or did he make any SEO changes or anything like that?
109
00:05:18.489 --> 00:05:20.812
I mean, they update it regularly.
110
00:05:20.832 --> 00:05:25.078
I'm not going to pretend like I know SEO.
111
00:05:25.118 --> 00:05:27.382
That's why I pay somebody up until...
112
00:05:27.742 --> 00:05:30.585
Until recently, they've kept us ridiculously busy.
113
00:05:30.765 --> 00:05:35.210
Are you paying them for the ads and the marketing side as well as the website?
114
00:05:35.250 --> 00:05:36.251
Is it all one big package?
115
00:05:36.271 --> 00:05:42.178
So like we pay $1,600 a month and that's for they built our website and they maintain like our Google ads and stuff.
116
00:05:42.458 --> 00:05:45.501
And then we pay Google, of course, however much Google charges us.
117
00:05:45.541 --> 00:05:47.904
Most people, they spend money blindly to an agency.
118
00:05:48.044 --> 00:05:51.448
And whenever I see that, I consider, what if we just turn the ads off?
119
00:05:51.628 --> 00:05:55.212
And many times if you do that, you'll still get 60, 70, 80% of your leads.
120
00:05:55.352 --> 00:05:58.736
And then what are we spending on Google itself in terms of ads right now?
121
00:05:59.163 --> 00:06:01.545
I would say like $500 a week.
122
00:06:01.605 --> 00:06:02.746
A week, week and a half.
123
00:06:02.846 --> 00:06:04.528
And how many leads that usually generate?
124
00:06:04.628 --> 00:06:06.870
In a typical month, it would be like 80.
125
00:06:06.890 --> 00:06:07.350
80 to 90.
126
00:06:07.390 --> 00:06:07.870
80 to 90.
127
00:06:08.010 --> 00:06:09.612
But here recently it's been like 29, 30.
128
00:06:09.652 --> 00:06:10.272
Got it.
129
00:06:11.213 --> 00:06:25.305
Many times the leads that are coming in, assuming your trucks are wrapped, assuming you have a great website, a lot of that traffic that's being attributed to Google is actually just last click attribution, which is they searched for EcoWorks plumbing, they clicked on your ad.
130
00:06:25.485 --> 00:06:29.390
versus them just clicking on the link below, which is your Google listing or your native search.
131
00:06:29.470 --> 00:06:30.331
How long you been here now?
132
00:06:30.351 --> 00:06:31.392
Almost three years.
133
00:06:31.852 --> 00:06:32.733
Oh, it's big back here.
134
00:06:32.934 --> 00:06:34.315
The whole thing's 5,000 square feet.
135
00:06:34.355 --> 00:06:36.137
This is a thousand bucks a month?
136
00:06:36.278 --> 00:06:37.839
Yeah, 20 cents a square foot.
137
00:06:37.960 --> 00:06:38.560
Let's go.
138
00:06:39.261 --> 00:06:41.023
Everything right there is Seth's junk.
139
00:06:41.103 --> 00:06:41.644
Just junk.
140
00:06:41.724 --> 00:06:43.987
The rest of it's kind of just tools, parts.
141
00:06:44.547 --> 00:06:46.571
It probably gets like super hot in here.
142
00:06:46.611 --> 00:06:46.971
It does.
143
00:06:47.112 --> 00:06:47.733
Okay, all right.
144
00:06:47.753 --> 00:06:51.038
During the summer when it's like 110, it gets pretty hot in here.
145
00:06:51.058 --> 00:06:52.901
Okay, and then when did, what was her name, sorry?
146
00:06:53.082 --> 00:06:53.222
Abby.
147
00:06:53.242 --> 00:06:53.643
Gracie.
148
00:06:53.823 --> 00:06:54.424
Gracie.
149
00:06:54.444 --> 00:06:56.027
Gracie started two weeks ago.
150
00:06:56.468 --> 00:06:56.848
Oh really?
151
00:06:56.908 --> 00:06:57.349
Okay.
152
00:06:57.529 --> 00:06:59.330
And so is she answering the phone and everything now?
153
00:06:59.530 --> 00:06:59.770
Yes.
154
00:06:59.950 --> 00:07:00.230
Okay.
155
00:07:00.310 --> 00:07:02.151
Well this is also a lot different for me.
156
00:07:02.391 --> 00:07:04.552
I served tables for the last five years.
157
00:07:04.893 --> 00:07:05.093
Oh really?
158
00:07:05.113 --> 00:07:06.133
But then now I'm here.
159
00:07:06.273 --> 00:07:09.735
So yeah, it's a big difference, but I like a lot better.
160
00:07:09.955 --> 00:07:11.396
Yeah, she's actually, she does really good.
161
00:07:11.436 --> 00:07:17.499
I mean, so like another issue is, is that, because we're trying to figure out, we're running around trying to figure out what we're going to do.
162
00:07:17.559 --> 00:07:19.961
And like, she still needs to be trained on everything that's her job.
163
00:07:20.001 --> 00:07:26.184
Like we trained her where we can, but there's still things that she also is in her job description that I haven't been able to teach her how to do.
164
00:07:26.344 --> 00:07:33.468
I don't know a lot about clombing, so they're having to like inform me on things as I am like tainting the phone calls I guess.
165
00:07:33.488 --> 00:07:35.909
Like I have to like stop asking questions sometimes.
166
00:07:36.369 --> 00:07:42.473
That's my only problem, but they are working on getting me like a paper of everything so like I know exactly what to do exactly.
167
00:07:42.493 --> 00:07:45.174
But it's a saying I don't have to put the customer on hold so much.
168
00:07:45.254 --> 00:07:45.494
Yeah.
169
00:07:45.614 --> 00:07:49.016
Because that is one of my big problems that I have to have to say.
170
00:07:49.036 --> 00:07:49.657
That's all I mean.
171
00:07:49.717 --> 00:07:51.698
And that's just because we're trying to figure out how to stay.
172
00:07:52.458 --> 00:07:53.018
Afloat.
173
00:07:53.379 --> 00:07:55.880
And so as it currently stands, the leads have come down a lot.
174
00:07:56.180 --> 00:07:57.661
Have the crews basically staying busy?
175
00:07:58.241 --> 00:08:01.463
Or have you just been like, hey, we're going to pay the same and we just don't have as much work?
176
00:08:01.683 --> 00:08:05.826
Trying to keep them busy and paying everybody full weeks.
177
00:08:06.426 --> 00:08:09.548
We're getting to the bottom of the barrel on that.
178
00:08:10.028 --> 00:08:11.169
Our cash reserves are...
179
00:08:12.370 --> 00:08:14.691
Most of their assets, their trucks, are all underwater.
180
00:08:14.731 --> 00:08:16.692
In other words, you owe more than what they're actually worth.
181
00:08:16.772 --> 00:08:23.156
Technically speaking, if you take all the assets of a business and it's less than the liabilities, if you were to sell them all off, then we'd actually be insolvent.
182
00:08:23.296 --> 00:08:25.858
In other words, we should sell the business because there isn't any value.
183
00:08:26.078 --> 00:08:29.020
Now, if the business is generating cash flow, that's a different matter.
184
00:08:29.180 --> 00:08:30.781
And right now, I don't even know if it does.
185
00:08:30.801 --> 00:08:32.162
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that.
186
00:08:32.502 --> 00:08:35.705
Technically speaking, we're probably at a break even in terms of our balance sheet.
187
00:08:35.745 --> 00:08:37.527
And we just don't know, because we don't have any numbers.
188
00:08:37.687 --> 00:08:42.451
I know when you originally applied, it was down to 10 grand, which is one payroll essentially.
189
00:08:42.752 --> 00:08:44.553
Yeah, now we're down like $1,300.
190
00:08:46.605 --> 00:08:49.106
We're at like three grand this morning.
191
00:08:49.126 --> 00:08:50.146
We're at three grand this morning?
192
00:08:50.166 --> 00:08:53.247
Yeah, that financing for that one job came through.
193
00:08:53.307 --> 00:09:01.668
And so really last year when we started getting really busy, I'm assuming from your perspective, like, okay, I'm going to try this again, scale back up, and then reach out to him.
194
00:09:01.708 --> 00:09:06.249
Like, hey, I need some more help from someone who's done a bigger business before and brought him on.
195
00:09:06.890 --> 00:09:07.890
I have big goals.
196
00:09:08.630 --> 00:09:20.118
For growing this business outside of definitely one store, I'm thinking maybe a plumbing franchise to combat these big companies that are taking advantage of their customers and not providing a quality service.
197
00:09:20.359 --> 00:09:21.339
Is that kind of how that worked?
198
00:09:21.459 --> 00:09:22.360
Or what was your reason?
199
00:09:22.380 --> 00:09:24.221
Because you've done this before and you didn't like it.
200
00:09:24.401 --> 00:09:26.083
I guess a lot of life changes.
201
00:09:26.303 --> 00:09:29.965
The ultimate goal is scale as large as possible.
202
00:09:30.066 --> 00:09:32.027
Probably get out of plumbing.
203
00:09:32.227 --> 00:09:35.748
A year ago, they probably weren't planning for a divorce to pop up inside this business.
204
00:09:35.788 --> 00:09:37.729
That's why they got way more trucks than they should have.
205
00:09:37.929 --> 00:09:40.070
That's why they're like, way grow, grow, grow.
206
00:09:40.210 --> 00:09:41.590
The pieces on the board change.
207
00:09:41.630 --> 00:09:50.374
And so to think that in 10 years, I'm going to understand where all the pieces of the board are going to be, and then I'll know the decision for the business will be best that we franchise is ludicrous.
208
00:09:50.654 --> 00:09:55.976
Just focus on making a business that is so profitable, it can run without you, and then go figure out franchising.
209
00:09:56.016 --> 00:09:57.556
Because franchising is a completely different business.
210
00:09:57.576 --> 00:09:58.496
It's literally not plumbing.
211
00:09:58.516 --> 00:09:59.877
It has nothing to do with plumbing.
212
00:10:00.017 --> 00:10:01.037
I have five kids.
213
00:10:01.498 --> 00:10:02.518
It's a task.
214
00:10:02.678 --> 00:10:03.398
Homeschooled kids.
215
00:10:03.418 --> 00:10:03.678
Homeschooled.
216
00:10:03.698 --> 00:10:04.359
They don't go to school.
217
00:10:04.559 --> 00:10:06.219
Yeah, homeschool.
218
00:10:07.280 --> 00:10:13.982
And so why, so like your thought is like, hey, I'm going to scale a business so it can run without me and or sell the thing.
219
00:10:14.202 --> 00:10:14.362
Yes.
220
00:10:14.762 --> 00:10:16.523
And then I want to be able to get out of it.
221
00:10:17.055 --> 00:10:17.956
Yeah.
222
00:10:18.256 --> 00:10:26.883
Or at least be hands off or minimal, you know, come in, make sure everybody's doing what they're doing and be able to, you know, take care of my kids.
223
00:10:27.143 --> 00:10:32.127
I feel like I'm a thousand places in my mind at once.
224
00:10:32.387 --> 00:10:35.290
So whenever I get to work, it's like, what do I do?
225
00:10:35.550 --> 00:10:40.775
So Seth had started the business as a solo operator and then tried to scale it up and it didn't work.
226
00:10:40.955 --> 00:10:44.959
And so the goal is like, how do we build the business now in a way where that does work?
227
00:10:44.979 --> 00:10:58.311
A lot of times though, when someone scales up a business in order to not have to work as much, I actually see them build it in the wrong way because they try to do that, not work so much in the business, prior to it being capable of not having the business owner around.
228
00:10:58.411 --> 00:11:00.633
Do you wanna sell or do you wanna build this to run without you?
229
00:11:00.973 --> 00:11:02.893
I'd rather build it to run without me.
230
00:11:03.294 --> 00:11:06.994
And, you know, I mean, we've talked about loyalty stays there.
231
00:11:07.054 --> 00:11:15.316
Like, you know, eventually like giving him a share of the business because he's helped grow it to whatever it can become.
232
00:11:15.336 --> 00:11:22.938
Because there was a point, like I would say, December, January, where he was able to not completely step back, but take like half of what was on his plate off.
233
00:11:23.158 --> 00:11:23.318
Right.
234
00:11:23.698 --> 00:11:25.300
and like stay home with his kids a little.
235
00:11:25.560 --> 00:11:26.761
I needed it.
236
00:11:26.781 --> 00:11:28.562
With all of his personal stuff, he needed time off.
237
00:11:28.823 --> 00:11:35.588
The only thing that we've talked about that I really don't want to happen is me go work somewhere else, because I mean, that's how he feeds his family.
238
00:11:35.628 --> 00:11:37.970
I can get a job somewhere else if I had to.
239
00:11:37.990 --> 00:11:41.753
I don't want to, because I put everything into this.
240
00:11:42.694 --> 00:11:43.254
that I can.
241
00:11:43.414 --> 00:11:48.597
We were doing really well, but like when the leads slowed down, like I was calling him, cause I don't know what to do when the leads slow down.
242
00:11:48.637 --> 00:11:51.419
I worked for companies that have millions of dollars worth of backing.
243
00:11:51.439 --> 00:11:52.600
They're going to get leads somehow.
244
00:11:53.060 --> 00:11:54.821
I've never managed like the money.
245
00:11:55.021 --> 00:12:00.484
And so because of the personal circumstances and the divorce that has happened, Seth is trying to spend more time with his kids.
246
00:12:00.684 --> 00:12:01.344
That's great.
247
00:12:01.444 --> 00:12:06.067
But right now the business needs like someone that's willing to work 16 hours a day to make these changes happen.
248
00:12:06.127 --> 00:12:11.250
Whether or not he's able or capable of being able to spend that time and energy to make the turnaround, I don't know.
249
00:12:13.425 --> 00:12:15.906
You've probably seen me use the 4.0 framework before.
250
00:12:15.926 --> 00:12:16.346
Yeah.
251
00:12:16.386 --> 00:12:18.546
In terms of like, where's the constraints in the business?
252
00:12:18.566 --> 00:12:22.568
The 4.0 framework identifies the four ways that a business stops growing.
253
00:12:22.628 --> 00:12:27.869
Either because we don't have enough liquidity, we don't have enough leads, we don't have labors, or we don't have leadership.
254
00:12:27.909 --> 00:12:29.970
From a liquidity perspective, first off,
255
00:12:31.290 --> 00:12:47.328
we have way too little cash in the bank a big reason why the business can't grow is they don't have enough money growth takes cash and right now liquidity is a huge constraint to why ecoworks can't grow and so three thousand dollars cash the problem with having that little cash is we also start to make dumb decisions
256
00:12:47.848 --> 00:12:58.619
because we just have the stress of not being able to pay the bills, not being able to run payroll, having just constant financial stress causes us to make other admin operational errors in the business.
257
00:12:58.739 --> 00:13:03.284
Because we get reactive, we start, oh, we need more leads, okay, we'll dump more money in LSA, or whatever it might be.
258
00:13:03.324 --> 00:13:06.748
We have $150,000 right now on the trucks in terms of debt.
259
00:13:06.908 --> 00:13:07.769
Is there anything else?
260
00:13:08.089 --> 00:13:09.391
in terms of the loans?
261
00:13:09.591 --> 00:13:12.836
Yeah, so I actually took a $15,000.
262
00:13:12.956 --> 00:13:14.959
Oh, you told him about the long term said.
263
00:13:15.140 --> 00:13:16.121
Okay, yeah.
264
00:13:16.141 --> 00:13:18.104
But is that the only other personal debt?
265
00:13:18.144 --> 00:13:19.546
And there's some credit card debt I assume?
266
00:13:19.606 --> 00:13:21.830
Credit card debt, yeah.
267
00:13:22.210 --> 00:13:22.951
Probably about,
268
00:13:24.289 --> 00:13:26.370
18K credit card debt.
269
00:13:26.390 --> 00:13:28.832
This is the worst constraint in the business currently.
270
00:13:28.892 --> 00:13:30.854
And the reason for that is because there's $3,000 in the bank.
271
00:13:30.894 --> 00:13:31.954
And sometimes that hits zero.
272
00:13:32.014 --> 00:13:34.156
Next week, they're not sure if they can hit payroll.
273
00:13:34.176 --> 00:13:36.397
And we also have almost $200,000 of debt.
274
00:13:36.417 --> 00:13:37.798
$150,000 for the trucks.
275
00:13:38.078 --> 00:13:38.999
Then we got credit card debt.
276
00:13:39.019 --> 00:13:42.041
And then we got a personal loan that just bridges over the past few weeks.
277
00:13:42.181 --> 00:13:47.685
And to fix any of the other problems in the business, they've got to make sure there's enough money in the bank so they can just think clearly.
278
00:13:47.945 --> 00:13:50.127
From a liquidity perspective, those are some of the problems.
279
00:13:50.167 --> 00:13:52.128
From a leads perspective, the biggest problem
280
00:13:52.308 --> 00:13:55.249
trouble I have is that we are blindly spending money on LSA.
281
00:13:55.509 --> 00:14:09.215
LSA has been the lead source in the past, but we know that there's gonna be people that are willing to outspend us in that market and the leads that come in from that are gonna be more price sensitive as well as only people that are buying from us because they have an emergency.
282
00:14:09.555 --> 00:14:11.636
We were simply there when they had the problem.
283
00:14:12.356 --> 00:14:18.980
And so the LSA dependency, you have single channel risk here, which is like you have all of your leads coming from one place.
284
00:14:19.680 --> 00:14:27.164
And if that was the change, like, for example, if tomorrow someone came in and like, we're willing to spend $200 and we're just going to completely blitz this market, we would have no leads.
285
00:14:27.485 --> 00:14:29.926
And there's a chance in the past month that's what's happened.
286
00:14:30.925 --> 00:14:37.832
is other companies just come in, they bid you way up on your LSA, there's more of them that come in, and they just put their budget to a bazillion dollars and like, let it run.
287
00:14:37.933 --> 00:14:50.626
Is there ever a time that you're spending money on a marketing channel and you're just crossing your fingers and hoping it works, you don't have any way to verify whether or not there's good cost per lead or customer acquisition costs, and it's the only way for you to make money, you're handcuffed to that channel.
288
00:14:50.646 --> 00:14:59.730
And so if Google changes its algorithm tomorrow or your ad agency changes their mind or their pricing, you are completely handcuffed to that decision and it could tear the whole business apart.
289
00:14:59.750 --> 00:15:09.355
And that's what we've seen over the past few months as their revenue has literally gone down by more than 70% simply because Google local services hasn't been printing leads like it had for them in the past.
290
00:15:09.375 --> 00:15:13.117
I haven't heard that since January we had a huge drop-off in conversion rate.
291
00:15:13.757 --> 00:15:15.798
So it's not like they're all pricing us.
292
00:15:15.898 --> 00:15:18.220
It's a matter of they're controlling the lead somehow.
293
00:15:18.420 --> 00:15:19.620
And so that's single channel risk.
294
00:15:20.161 --> 00:15:25.664
If tomorrow LSA just stopped working for whatever reason, or they decide like, hey, we're going to move on from this program, we wouldn't have a business.
295
00:15:26.584 --> 00:15:27.765
That is a huge risk.
296
00:15:27.805 --> 00:15:29.326
We've got to diversify out of that.
297
00:15:29.486 --> 00:15:34.869
And I don't know, like used to whenever I was, I guess I've gotten complacent.
298
00:15:35.549 --> 00:15:37.391
Because used to, I was hungry.
299
00:15:37.591 --> 00:15:40.433
Like, you know, I started with one customer.
300
00:15:40.714 --> 00:15:55.647
So it was like, you know, like if he didn't have work, I'm sitting at home, you know, and I had sold my wife on, hey, if I do three jobs a week, I can make what I, you know, make on a paycheck.
301
00:15:56.008 --> 00:15:58.290
So I'll have way more time at home.
302
00:15:58.670 --> 00:16:00.251
And then I realized, oh no, I'm...
303
00:16:01.312 --> 00:16:14.135
out eight hours a day whether I have work or not, like handing out business cards, like stopping and talking to people and just trying to, you know, make connections.
304
00:16:14.515 --> 00:16:19.917
Because like right now, from a leads perspective, we're really waiting for leads to come home through LSA.
305
00:16:20.857 --> 00:16:21.218
Yes.
306
00:16:21.538 --> 00:16:21.818
All right.
307
00:16:21.838 --> 00:16:22.039
Sorry.
308
00:16:22.099 --> 00:16:23.120
Go ahead.
309
00:16:23.160 --> 00:16:24.662
And then we have mailers.
310
00:16:25.183 --> 00:16:26.364
Where'd they go?
311
00:16:26.504 --> 00:16:28.407
Abby has them in the second drawer.
312
00:16:28.687 --> 00:16:29.147
Gracie.
313
00:16:29.588 --> 00:16:30.429
Gracie.
314
00:16:30.589 --> 00:16:31.951
Can you hand me one of those mailers?
315
00:16:32.692 --> 00:16:35.115
And then we got to go to the post office and send these out.
316
00:16:37.549 --> 00:16:38.970
Have you sent these out before, these ones?
317
00:16:39.230 --> 00:16:41.231
No, that's fresh from Vistaprint.
318
00:16:41.571 --> 00:16:43.912
Okay, and are you doing this every door direct mail?
319
00:16:44.433 --> 00:16:44.653
Yes.
320
00:16:45.053 --> 00:16:45.873
How many of these do you have?
321
00:16:46.454 --> 00:16:46.934
A thousand.
322
00:16:47.274 --> 00:16:48.795
Okay, I don't know if they'll let you send these.
323
00:16:49.495 --> 00:16:49.695
Why?
324
00:16:49.735 --> 00:16:52.036
They don't have the EDM stamp on this.
325
00:16:52.136 --> 00:16:53.037
Okay, the more you know.
326
00:16:54.338 --> 00:16:55.858
It's fine.
327
00:16:55.918 --> 00:16:57.019
We'll pass them out somewhere.
328
00:16:57.279 --> 00:17:00.421
And so is this like $600 off a tankless water heater?
329
00:17:00.441 --> 00:17:02.962
Is this like an entry level offer for a residential typically then?
330
00:17:03.282 --> 00:17:03.542
Yeah.
331
00:17:03.923 --> 00:17:06.304
I mean, because a lot of people will call, because like,
332
00:17:07.530 --> 00:17:10.152
Tankless water heaters are starting to become more mainstream, I guess.
333
00:17:10.732 --> 00:17:14.935
So the initial cost of converting from tank to tankless is expensive.
334
00:17:15.415 --> 00:17:19.277
So like $600 off is a pretty generous amount of money.
335
00:17:19.758 --> 00:17:24.941
And if we're doing a lot of them, then we can make up for how much we're taking off of it.
336
00:17:25.301 --> 00:17:28.243
Yeah, it's just cutting into the profit margin.
337
00:17:28.263 --> 00:17:28.363
Yeah.
338
00:17:29.223 --> 00:17:31.044
It's not like we're not losing money.
339
00:17:31.785 --> 00:17:31.925
Right.
340
00:17:31.945 --> 00:17:32.105
Okay.
341
00:17:32.405 --> 00:17:38.308
Like my concern with this offer, and this is like, part of this is we just haven't done a lot of outbound on marketing in general.
342
00:17:38.328 --> 00:17:42.090
We're just kind of waiting on LSA, which is very much like needs driven.
343
00:17:42.110 --> 00:17:42.891
The customer needs it.
344
00:17:42.931 --> 00:17:43.411
We pop it.
345
00:17:43.751 --> 00:17:44.652
Google pops it at the top.
346
00:17:45.012 --> 00:17:45.752
They're just finding us.
347
00:17:45.772 --> 00:17:46.673
They're calling us, et cetera.
348
00:17:47.073 --> 00:17:52.176
Like from a marketing perspective, as a consumer, I don't know what a tankless water heater is.
349
00:17:53.036 --> 00:17:55.237
I also know if $600 off is big or not.
350
00:17:56.237 --> 00:18:01.359
Like, I would say like, we want to come up with offers that are understandable to the customer.
351
00:18:01.379 --> 00:18:03.299
To us, we know at Tankless Water Heaters are.
352
00:18:03.559 --> 00:18:05.220
Because we're operating them every day.
353
00:18:05.460 --> 00:18:06.360
We know they're more efficient.
354
00:18:06.380 --> 00:18:07.341
We know they're getting popular.
355
00:18:07.361 --> 00:18:09.862
We know all the benefits, efficiency wise, etc.
356
00:18:09.962 --> 00:18:11.182
It's very easy as a home
357
00:18:11.242 --> 00:18:21.671
service business owner or professional to be in the weeds so much in your business that you're constantly talking about certain types of equipment, certain types of fixes and problems and situations and tools and supplies.
358
00:18:22.031 --> 00:18:29.818
When your customer doesn't think about your business all day long, they have never used your services and are completely oblivious to what you're talking about.
359
00:18:29.978 --> 00:18:31.339
How long does it take for them?
360
00:18:31.359 --> 00:18:33.381
Like, is it way more efficient, a tankless water heater?
361
00:18:33.401 --> 00:18:33.781
Yeah.
362
00:18:34.161 --> 00:18:59.247
What a less risk like what's 35% more efficient than they last longer and then you also don't have a 50 gallon tank of water heater water in your attic That can burst flood the house Yeah, but they are endless endless water You have endless hot water you can take as long as you want and you can run everything in your house at one time Yeah, it's like that's the thing that speaks to me as a homeowner is like endless hot water Are you tired of getting having cold showers?
363
00:18:59.267 --> 00:18:59.327
Oh?
364
00:19:00.862 --> 00:19:05.826
And then secondly is, like, the efficiency thing probably is going to take forever to pay off, so I'm not going to focus on that.
365
00:19:05.906 --> 00:19:08.628
Yeah, it actually, like, if you study it, it's...
366
00:19:08.728 --> 00:19:10.069
I only mention it if they ask.
367
00:19:10.169 --> 00:19:11.070
Like, is it more efficient?
368
00:19:11.090 --> 00:19:13.171
Yeah, it's 35% more efficient over 10 years.
369
00:19:13.191 --> 00:19:13.372
Right.
370
00:19:13.532 --> 00:19:14.532
Like, that's... Yeah.
371
00:19:14.773 --> 00:19:16.274
Yeah, so I'm focusing on the pain points.
372
00:19:16.294 --> 00:19:20.857
It's like cold showers, because when the family comes in town, two showers, we're all cold.
373
00:19:21.618 --> 00:19:26.281
And then I'm seeing the pain point of the risk that, hey, that water here, if it blows up, you have a $50,000...
374
00:19:27.646 --> 00:19:28.790
you know, thing on your hands.
375
00:19:29.151 --> 00:19:29.332
Yeah.
376
00:19:29.713 --> 00:19:34.569
And so either you switch that thing out every 10 years just to be safe, or we switch this over to a tankless water heater.
377
00:19:35.885 --> 00:19:41.046
So those are the type of things that I genuinely believe that most homeowners don't know what a tankless water heater is.
378
00:19:41.626 --> 00:19:43.747
Like they really could not answer that question.
379
00:19:43.767 --> 00:19:45.407
Some people don't even know they have a water heater in their house.
380
00:19:45.887 --> 00:19:46.467
That is true.
381
00:19:46.567 --> 00:19:50.188
I think using that logic though in your marketing in general is important.
382
00:19:50.208 --> 00:19:50.788
Even on your website.
383
00:19:50.808 --> 00:19:52.888
So just dumbing it down to where they completely understand.
384
00:19:52.928 --> 00:19:59.329
Because as a consumer, if I'm going to hire someone, I feel either I have to admit that I'm a stupid person because I don't know what I'm doing.
385
00:19:59.810 --> 00:20:01.970
And be like, I don't know what a tankless water heater is.
386
00:20:02.630 --> 00:20:04.051
I don't want to make my customer feel stupid.
387
00:20:04.071 --> 00:20:11.016
I just want to be like, hey, a tankless water heater makes you never run out of hot water, and you don't have the risk of this thing blowing up and causing $50,000 worth of damage in your basement.
388
00:20:11.737 --> 00:20:11.917
Right?
389
00:20:12.157 --> 00:20:13.078
That I can understand.
390
00:20:13.738 --> 00:20:14.619
And here's the value prop.
391
00:20:14.699 --> 00:20:17.941
And by the way, $600 off of what is the other part of it?
392
00:20:18.402 --> 00:20:21.424
Hey, for $8,000, like what's the average is all?
393
00:20:21.444 --> 00:20:22.865
$4,000?
394
00:20:22.905 --> 00:20:23.185
$6,000?
395
00:20:23.205 --> 00:20:26.148
$6,000 to $8,000 depending on what all is going on.
396
00:20:26.168 --> 00:20:27.969
But to switch to tankless, you're talking about $6,000.
397
00:20:28.009 --> 00:20:28.870
Like $6,000, yeah.
398
00:20:29.090 --> 00:20:30.511
Got it, and you can make money on that one.
399
00:20:30.771 --> 00:20:30.991
Yes.
400
00:20:31.071 --> 00:20:31.251
Yeah.
401
00:20:31.331 --> 00:20:36.673
I mean your material is like between $1,500 and $2,000 but it only takes like four hours.
402
00:20:37.373 --> 00:20:39.174
But there's a lot of work that goes into that.
403
00:20:39.334 --> 00:20:39.554
Right.
404
00:20:39.574 --> 00:20:40.535
Totally.
405
00:20:40.955 --> 00:20:55.080
My thought is if we have an offer like is that an offer if you are the tankless water heater guys is there enough work that comes around that minus the emergency my thing is blocked up and the sewer stuff.
406
00:20:57.305 --> 00:21:04.810
Because the challenging part with the emerging part, like my thing is stocked up, they see if you advertise that, they would just be like, okay, great.
407
00:21:05.450 --> 00:21:09.113
Maybe when I need it, I'll remember EcoWorks plumbing.
408
00:21:09.693 --> 00:21:10.433
That's like our hope.
409
00:21:10.914 --> 00:21:15.417
But in this case, it is a function of how can I sell someone who's not even thinking about plumbing into an offer?
410
00:21:16.313 --> 00:21:19.195
And in that case, I actually like the tankless water heater thing.
411
00:21:19.375 --> 00:21:21.156
I think it's just how it's portrayed.
412
00:21:21.636 --> 00:21:24.257
Like, first off, free estimates, I don't really care.
413
00:21:24.357 --> 00:21:25.438
Like, I would expect that.
414
00:21:25.478 --> 00:21:27.599
And if it's industry standard, it's not differentiating.
415
00:21:28.099 --> 00:21:32.722
And we're wasting half of the marketing material on something that everyone else is doing.
416
00:21:32.932 --> 00:21:35.453
I like how he explains it very nicely.
417
00:21:35.593 --> 00:21:40.015
Like when you say something that's not a good idea, he's like, yeah, that could work, but it doesn't.
418
00:21:40.295 --> 00:21:43.837
When I first talked to Seth, because I applied without even telling Seth.
419
00:21:43.957 --> 00:21:44.857
I didn't tell him anything.
420
00:21:45.297 --> 00:21:48.719
And then when you got back to me and you were like, hey, we're doing this, and I was like, okay.
421
00:21:48.999 --> 00:21:51.740
So I told Seth and we watched some of the videos.
422
00:21:51.760 --> 00:21:53.321
He was like, yeah, but we're not a long company.
423
00:21:53.341 --> 00:21:54.761
I was like, business is business.
424
00:21:54.801 --> 00:21:58.383
I was like, it's same principles, just different products.
425
00:21:58.883 --> 00:21:59.844
So, I mean, he...
426
00:22:00.684 --> 00:22:02.705
He's definitely not a plumber, but he brought up...
427
00:22:03.625 --> 00:22:05.525
He could probably run a plumbing business.
428
00:22:06.146 --> 00:22:11.607
I would focus on like this half of the page is like tired of cold showers.
429
00:22:11.827 --> 00:22:14.428
This side, did you know you have a ticking time bomb in your basement?
430
00:22:14.888 --> 00:22:15.048
No.
431
00:22:15.688 --> 00:22:16.649
Like that will wake me up.
432
00:22:16.889 --> 00:22:19.029
Do you even know where your water heater is?
433
00:22:19.209 --> 00:22:20.830
And did you know it's a ticking time bomb?
434
00:22:21.790 --> 00:22:24.211
That will wake me up as a homeowner, right?
435
00:22:24.451 --> 00:22:28.652
And then making the offer of like, hey, here's the value prop of a Tinko's water heater.
436
00:22:30.391 --> 00:22:33.534
And I think that's the challenging part is that we have never done marketing in the business.
437
00:22:33.554 --> 00:22:37.759
We've really taken the leads that come in from LSA and just done the work.
438
00:22:37.879 --> 00:22:42.784
And now it's like we will have to learn the game of marketing and sales to generate leads.
439
00:22:43.185 --> 00:22:45.427
The way to do that is like we create a brand that people call.
440
00:22:45.848 --> 00:22:50.533
And they call because we have offers that are good enough for them to actually care about.
441
00:22:50.873 --> 00:22:51.053
Yeah.
442
00:22:51.193 --> 00:22:55.294
And so even from the website's perspective, we are speaking plumber language.
443
00:22:55.614 --> 00:22:58.595
If I go to your website, I get all these different services.
444
00:22:58.715 --> 00:23:00.475
I have a clue what half of those mean.
445
00:23:00.835 --> 00:23:09.558
And so if your marketing message uses lingo that is completely industry specific, you're actually alienating your customers to speak to things they do know about, which is their pain points.
446
00:23:09.578 --> 00:23:12.598
What are they experiencing in their daily life that you can solve for them?
447
00:23:12.658 --> 00:23:15.139
How you solve that for them, they don't care.
448
00:23:15.239 --> 00:23:19.320
Focus on the solutions that you bring, not how you're going to solve the problem for them.
449
00:23:19.340 --> 00:23:20.860
Because most customers don't understand.
450
00:23:20.880 --> 00:23:22.681
We don't even know where their water heater is.
451
00:23:22.841 --> 00:23:24.041
We don't know where their water meter is.
452
00:23:24.461 --> 00:23:25.561
We get bigger problems.
453
00:23:25.581 --> 00:23:27.802
Like if we're talking the lingo of a plumber.
454
00:23:27.942 --> 00:23:31.003
Yeah, I guess that makes a lot of sense.
455
00:23:31.083 --> 00:23:35.964
Like instead of being like, here's our services, here's what your problem is.
456
00:23:36.164 --> 00:23:38.204
It's nothing surprising.
457
00:23:38.304 --> 00:23:44.566
The part that surprises me most is that these are things that we haven't implemented already.
458
00:23:45.466 --> 00:23:48.670
When he says it, it's very common sense, you know?
459
00:23:49.050 --> 00:23:52.353
Like, he's just, he walks in and he's like, oh, that's what you need to do.
460
00:23:52.413 --> 00:23:52.954
Come on, man.
461
00:23:53.214 --> 00:24:01.503
I sit here, like, Ty and I, literally, we were here till 9 o'clock the other day whenever we were like, dude, we're, like, on the verge.
462
00:24:01.523 --> 00:24:01.763
Yeah.
463
00:24:01.863 --> 00:24:05.167
You know, we were racking our brain like, okay, what can we do?
464
00:24:05.227 --> 00:24:05.928
We can do this.
465
00:24:06.308 --> 00:24:13.217
That's why I started like posting on Facebook every day, you know, just trying to get a little more presence out there.
466
00:24:13.357 --> 00:24:17.502
And you would know like when someone calls in, what are the five things they say all the time?
467
00:24:17.982 --> 00:24:19.222
Is it they can't flush the toilet?
468
00:24:19.423 --> 00:24:20.963
Is the fact that their sink aerator doesn't work?
469
00:24:21.183 --> 00:24:22.644
Is it the fact that there's a smell?
470
00:24:22.864 --> 00:24:23.724
Is the fact that there's a leak?
471
00:24:23.924 --> 00:24:27.145
Like, why is my water meter going through the roof and my bill was huge last month?
472
00:24:27.565 --> 00:24:31.047
What are the five things that like are the pain points of my customer?
473
00:24:31.207 --> 00:24:34.208
And I speak to those on my marketing and in my website.
474
00:24:34.448 --> 00:24:39.510
So this is like more homework for both of you, is like, what are the five pain points that everyone has when they call us?
475
00:24:39.810 --> 00:24:43.771
Speak to that on the website, not the type of service that you do and the trenching.
476
00:24:44.211 --> 00:24:45.332
I didn't know half of those terms.
477
00:24:46.070 --> 00:24:46.310
Right.
478
00:24:46.350 --> 00:24:48.931
And like I'm decently abreast of the industry.
479
00:24:49.071 --> 00:24:51.352
And furthermore, they can't connect their pain with their solution.
480
00:24:51.672 --> 00:24:53.392
You're talking solution, solution, solution, solution.
481
00:24:53.512 --> 00:24:57.333
In order to be able to make payroll, we're going to have to double the size of this business.
482
00:24:57.393 --> 00:25:08.457
And that is either going to be done through a going on getting more leads, which we are working on in the background, but also it's going to come down to each and every one of us thinking about how do we solve more problems for our customers and increase the average ticket value.
483
00:25:08.477 --> 00:25:11.778
Cause I genuinely believe they can double the size of this business, get a,
484
00:25:12.158 --> 00:25:18.925
to capacity or 80, 90,000 a month in revenue simply by taking the current leads they have and being able to sell more to them.
485
00:25:19.046 --> 00:25:21.288
And so I think right now we have single channel risk.
486
00:25:21.728 --> 00:25:25.953
We also have the fact that we are paying for every lead.
487
00:25:26.353 --> 00:25:27.254
We have no brand.
488
00:25:28.452 --> 00:25:34.757
for every lead, I believe that eventually you turn LSA either off or massively limit that.
489
00:25:34.777 --> 00:25:44.905
Because I do believe there are people searching for plumbing that would otherwise click on your Google listing or on your native search and then now they're seeing LSA at the top and you're paying $150 to acquire that customer.
490
00:25:44.965 --> 00:25:51.409
So the PE companies that we compete in LSA for, they definitely don't outprice us, that's for sure, because they are sky high...
491
00:25:52.330 --> 00:25:54.431
borderline screwing people on every job.
492
00:25:55.132 --> 00:25:58.193
Like ridiculous, like making 80, 90% margins.
493
00:25:58.874 --> 00:26:01.095
We can't do that, we would go out of business.
494
00:26:01.375 --> 00:26:08.479
So you're saying the PE companies overspend on marketing, they get in the door, and then they basically scam people into services they don't need.
495
00:26:08.499 --> 00:26:10.641
Yeah, so I worked for the big PE company here.
496
00:26:10.741 --> 00:26:16.204
The manager walked in there like first day, and he was like, I don't care how good of a plumber you are, we're salespeople.
497
00:26:16.244 --> 00:26:17.545
And it shows when we go behind.
498
00:26:17.585 --> 00:26:18.545
And it shows when we go behind.
499
00:26:18.805 --> 00:26:21.287
So then, that leads us to labor.
500
00:26:23.446 --> 00:26:26.707
The next constraint of growth in the 4L framework is labor.
501
00:26:26.847 --> 00:26:30.328
And right now we have great plumbers and their reviews speak for themselves.
502
00:26:30.348 --> 00:26:34.069
They do great work, but we've got to take these plumbers and train them to be salespeople.
503
00:26:34.189 --> 00:26:37.310
That individual, the reason they made a bunch of money is because they had salespeople.
504
00:26:37.511 --> 00:26:38.371
That's what they focused on.
505
00:26:38.431 --> 00:26:41.812
They basically like, I don't care about your plumbing experience because we're gonna scam people.
506
00:26:42.172 --> 00:26:43.512
We're just gonna make you sell stuff.
507
00:26:43.612 --> 00:26:45.493
The reason they make money is because of that.
508
00:26:46.153 --> 00:26:51.135
We are also gonna have the component that like, hey, we're here for the longterm and we care about our Google reviews and we're not gonna scam people.
509
00:26:52.188 --> 00:26:55.189
We're going to go get plumbers and then train them on how to sell.
510
00:26:55.349 --> 00:26:57.710
I've always been good at selling myself.
511
00:26:59.490 --> 00:27:03.571
So in a way, yes, sales comes naturally to me.
512
00:27:03.671 --> 00:27:07.973
I'm good with customer rapport and stuff.
513
00:27:08.253 --> 00:27:12.714
I guess the salesman mindset doesn't come naturally to me.
514
00:27:14.058 --> 00:27:18.339
Like, I want to solve your problems and then move on.
515
00:27:19.120 --> 00:27:34.544
But, like, if there's other avenues of revenue, then that's where I need to start changing my mindset to where it's like, okay, yes, but we're also providing a better service if we're addressing these issues that could potentially be...
516
00:27:34.904 --> 00:27:35.304
the problem.
517
00:27:35.765 --> 00:27:39.888
And so I don't see the labor as a constraint as much as I don't need more plumbers right now.
518
00:27:40.329 --> 00:27:41.870
You guys are good plumbers.
519
00:27:41.890 --> 00:27:43.431
And you're trustworthy, honest people.
520
00:27:43.611 --> 00:27:44.812
We need to make them salespeople.
521
00:27:44.952 --> 00:27:47.374
We need to become salespeople and not plumbers.
522
00:27:47.875 --> 00:27:51.798
And the reason I look at your website and I look at this, I see plumbers.
523
00:27:52.719 --> 00:27:54.060
I don't see people that know how to sell.
524
00:27:54.220 --> 00:27:57.483
And so that is a new skill we have to acquire in order to make the business successful.
525
00:27:58.003 --> 00:28:00.185
Because right now we are paying every single lead
526
00:28:00.912 --> 00:28:04.434
we are paying the handicap to Google because we do not have the skill of selling.
527
00:28:04.974 --> 00:28:07.335
And so we're just requiring them to bring us leads.
528
00:28:07.815 --> 00:28:08.476
And we can change that.
529
00:28:09.116 --> 00:28:10.857
But that's like the current constraint I'd say with laborers.
530
00:28:11.097 --> 00:28:12.938
We need to take plumbers and make them salespeople.
531
00:28:13.178 --> 00:28:16.140
We're not gonna take random Joe Blow that doesn't have plumbing experience into a salesperson.
532
00:28:16.420 --> 00:28:17.660
That's scummy.
533
00:28:17.880 --> 00:28:20.802
But we gotta figure out how do we take a plumber and make them a salesperson.
534
00:28:21.202 --> 00:28:23.443
How do we take a $1,500 ticket and make it $3,000?
535
00:28:23.703 --> 00:28:27.826
Not because we're scummy, but because we have warranties, because we know how to sell the warranty.
536
00:28:28.026 --> 00:28:33.309
We know how to do all these other aspects that we train our team members on to be able to increase the average ticket.
537
00:28:33.489 --> 00:28:35.310
Yeah, I mean, I just lost that touch.
538
00:28:35.390 --> 00:28:37.891
I mean, I like – I can still do it.
539
00:28:37.952 --> 00:28:45.176
And I just – I haven't really been preaching it because like the whole corporate sales structure left a really bad taste in my mouth.
540
00:28:45.656 --> 00:28:48.578
And so like my whole thing was like let's try to do this like –
541
00:28:49.498 --> 00:28:51.460
the best way possible without doing that.
542
00:28:51.980 --> 00:29:01.309
But in the end, like if you do not sell your customers things that they might not know they need, not necessarily that they don't need, but don't know that they need, then you're going to go out of business.
543
00:29:02.370 --> 00:29:03.651
You have to have sales to make money.
544
00:29:04.032 --> 00:29:15.142
So the traditional way of thinking of like, yes, I have a pain point and I will hook you up with a customer that actually wants to pay you for it is very difficult because you are limited by how many people currently have their subject backed up.
545
00:29:16.297 --> 00:29:17.158
That's what you're limited by.
546
00:29:17.758 --> 00:29:18.538
That's not our market.
547
00:29:18.618 --> 00:29:22.401
Our market is homeowners that have a stinking water and you can blow up in their house.
548
00:29:23.922 --> 00:29:24.122
Right?
549
00:29:24.722 --> 00:29:30.806
And so I agree with the marketing company on the premise that you can't spend more.
550
00:29:31.626 --> 00:29:32.787
There's only so much you can spend.
551
00:29:33.728 --> 00:29:38.991
If you use your current offer, which is we're only speaking to someone in dire straits that needs us to come out of their house.
552
00:29:39.491 --> 00:29:41.853
But if we're speaking to all homeowners, we have a very different offer.
553
00:29:41.873 --> 00:29:42.353
Right?
554
00:29:42.533 --> 00:29:44.634
Like a door to door campaign would work.
555
00:29:45.054 --> 00:29:47.454
Cause I'm simply like, hey, we're on the street today.
556
00:29:47.474 --> 00:29:49.335
We're working from EcoWorks Plumbing.
557
00:29:49.835 --> 00:29:54.056
We'd give a free analysis of your water heater and making sure that you're not overpaying your water bill.
558
00:29:54.276 --> 00:29:55.256
It'll take me five minutes.
559
00:29:55.436 --> 00:29:59.057
Like I believe one of 30 people will be like, yeah, can you come in?
560
00:29:59.537 --> 00:30:01.758
Cause like, I feel like my water bill has been going up a lot.
561
00:30:02.318 --> 00:30:03.258
I believe that will work.
562
00:30:05.059 --> 00:30:10.460
And like $3,000 a month spending on ads is the equivalent of almost a full-time person doing that.
563
00:30:12.009 --> 00:30:17.357
So, I mean, door knocking is going to take a little bit of...
564
00:30:19.402 --> 00:30:45.647
I guess work, but I also, for me, when I think of like marketing ourselves, I'm like, okay, let's get like, I'm sure you've seen Chambers Media, you know, like that style of video where it's like people automatically are engaged because it's kind of like crazy, funny, something out of the norm of just like regular marketing.
565
00:30:46.627 --> 00:31:01.661
Um, that I feel like doing, doing videos and like posting them and hoping for organic shares because of the quality will, will also like, that would be something I would feel more comfortable with.
566
00:31:02.322 --> 00:31:05.465
But yeah, but that takes money.
567
00:31:05.925 --> 00:31:08.508
You know, that's, it's, it's not cheap to produce.
568
00:31:11.579 --> 00:31:14.141
And so right now, let's just say you're getting one or two leads a day.
569
00:31:14.362 --> 00:31:20.007
I happen to believe someone was knocking on these homeowners doors with three offers in their back pocket of knowing the pain point based upon the neighborhood.
570
00:31:20.147 --> 00:31:22.289
So older neighborhood, I'm going after the ticking time bomb.
571
00:31:23.049 --> 00:31:26.653
Newer neighborhood, I'm going after like saving your water bill because that's their first house.
572
00:31:26.673 --> 00:31:28.734
And they're like, I don't want to pay $100 a month.
573
00:31:29.675 --> 00:31:32.578
So like you have the offers to match the pain point of the customer.
574
00:31:33.308 --> 00:31:34.008
And then they're going to be free.
575
00:31:34.268 --> 00:31:35.308
And you're just trying to get in the house.
576
00:31:35.629 --> 00:31:43.150
And I believe if you did door-to-door or some, anything better offer, but if you did door-to-door, you would be able to convert one or two customers a day.
577
00:31:43.390 --> 00:31:46.791
Most plumbers didn't wake up today thinking, I want to go do door-to-door sales.
578
00:31:46.931 --> 00:31:49.652
Most landscapers didn't wake up thinking, I want to go do estimates.
579
00:31:49.712 --> 00:31:55.073
But in order to be able to take your craft, the thing that you're good at, and make it into a business, there has to be transaction.
580
00:31:55.093 --> 00:31:57.974
There has to be a time where you actually sell your service to the customer.
581
00:31:57.994 --> 00:32:03.095
And that means that many times the thing that's bottlenecked in the business is not you doing a better job of your skill.
582
00:32:03.415 --> 00:32:04.216
or your trade.
583
00:32:04.316 --> 00:32:07.860
It's a function of how do I make this a more marketable service to my customer?
584
00:32:08.080 --> 00:32:15.969
How do I figure out sales and marketing, advertising, and the business aspect to turn my service into dollars and cents and getting more customers?
585
00:32:16.209 --> 00:32:24.278
If we take just our average ticket now and double it because we teach people how to sell, we take the same number of leads we have right now and go from 40, 50,000 a month in revenue to 100,000.
586
00:32:24.298 --> 00:32:24.398
Yeah.
587
00:32:25.659 --> 00:32:30.602
just by taking the current upsell of $1,500 and making a $3,000 ticket.
588
00:32:30.842 --> 00:32:31.923
Do we need a scam to do that?
589
00:32:32.083 --> 00:32:34.184
No, but we can sell them insurance.
590
00:32:34.564 --> 00:32:35.905
We can sell them warranties.
591
00:32:35.985 --> 00:32:38.726
I'm always going to pitch this on every single house I go to.
592
00:32:38.927 --> 00:32:47.892
Having an outsider perspective helps a lot because you're withdrawn from the emotional state of it.
593
00:32:48.332 --> 00:32:51.073
And yeah, I'm right here where I can't see
594
00:32:52.434 --> 00:33:14.123
past like Shoot we have this much money in the bank and it's you know Thursday and we got to turn in Payroll you could even have like a good neighbor bonus Or a good neighbor offer now giving me your offer is like a we check these two things on every single property If we're in the house no matter what and as a breakdown We know exactly what's it look like to be able to get them on a tankless water heater
595
00:33:14.243 --> 00:33:26.306
So the good neighbor guarantee that I made up on the spot, which is probably a better term for it, but ultimately it's a matter of how do we actually create a system for upselling the customer in a way that is solving their problems and serving the needs of the customer.
596
00:33:26.486 --> 00:33:31.307
And if the idea is like, well, is that really going to scale or can we really grow the business on the back of a free offer?
597
00:33:31.387 --> 00:33:38.949
The whole point and the success of this guarantee hinges on the ability for us to create a system of upselling and taking something, someone that comes in for a free offer.
598
00:33:39.230 --> 00:33:41.010
And instead of getting one or two leads a day,
599
00:33:41.230 --> 00:33:43.933
maybe 10 or 20 leads because it's a free offer.
600
00:33:44.033 --> 00:33:53.021
And the exact moment that you switch from a paid offer to a free offer, you increase the amount of people that will actually participate and fill out the S-request form or give you a call because you're giving free value.
601
00:33:53.082 --> 00:33:56.365
And when I say upsell, that immediately it comes across scammy.
602
00:33:56.545 --> 00:33:59.348
But the ultimate thing is like, they people have other problems.
603
00:33:59.608 --> 00:34:00.789
We are not identifying them.
604
00:34:01.690 --> 00:34:05.593
So we go there and we fix the septic, but are we doing a water tank inspection?
605
00:34:06.013 --> 00:34:07.334
Are we checking their water meter?
606
00:34:07.434 --> 00:34:09.235
Are we making a septic line inspection?
607
00:34:09.255 --> 00:34:16.440
Like there are three other things we could just immediately give them that might take us 20 minutes, but possibly 50, 60% of the time leads to an upsell.
608
00:34:16.660 --> 00:34:19.822
And I think that becomes, we take plumbers and make them salespeople.
609
00:34:20.893 --> 00:34:23.175
And now you have both, and that's the unbeatable combo.
610
00:34:23.535 --> 00:34:30.380
Because they'll sell people, but then they're on the back and they got better reviews, people are telling everyone and their mom about how horrible they are, you don't have that.
611
00:34:30.720 --> 00:34:32.041
That's how you beat them on brand.
612
00:34:32.502 --> 00:34:34.163
And that's the long-term strategy that you'll play.
613
00:34:34.343 --> 00:34:37.485
And again, you will go into that house knowing, okay, how old is this house?
614
00:34:37.546 --> 00:34:39.427
What is it gonna be approximately, et cetera.
615
00:34:39.567 --> 00:34:40.347
That makes sense to me.
616
00:34:40.667 --> 00:34:42.568
I don't ever want to get completely out of the field.
617
00:34:42.648 --> 00:34:48.130
Now, would I like to have enough text to where I don't have to be in the field unless I want to or unless someone needs help?
618
00:34:48.730 --> 00:34:52.491
Yeah, I mean, because plumbing is really hard on your body.
619
00:34:52.931 --> 00:34:58.793
The way you bend yourself in weird ways and you're always hunched over, you're on your knees.
620
00:34:59.873 --> 00:35:01.974
So like, it's hard on your body.
621
00:35:02.034 --> 00:35:05.695
So like I see my dad, he's in his 50s and like he hurts all the time.
622
00:35:05.775 --> 00:35:07.256
So I'm not trying to be like that.
623
00:35:07.456 --> 00:35:14.618
So that's why I've taken the initiative to move from the technician role at a young age to something else.
624
00:35:15.138 --> 00:35:18.359
That scripting part is really, it's gonna turn plumbers into salespeople.
625
00:35:18.379 --> 00:35:23.781
That scripting and that like training of how this whole process works is how you convince your team.
626
00:35:23.821 --> 00:35:27.022
It's like, hey, our goal is to take 1498 and make that 3000.
627
00:35:27.042 --> 00:35:28.683
That's the whole goal of the business.
628
00:35:29.183 --> 00:35:32.586
The whole goal of this upsell process, the whole goal of giving something away for free.
629
00:35:32.666 --> 00:35:37.429
You're not selling anything, you're doing a free inspection and you're doing service to the customer to ensure that that doesn't mess up their house.
630
00:35:37.569 --> 00:35:43.514
And for even someone who doesn't like to sell or feels like it's slimy or comes from a company, they feel really against that.
631
00:35:43.674 --> 00:35:47.677
You pitch them on the idea that like, you would potentially save them from a $50,000 liability.
632
00:35:47.737 --> 00:35:49.759
It's your responsibility as a plumber to do that.
633
00:35:49.999 --> 00:35:50.239
Yeah.
634
00:35:50.399 --> 00:35:58.466
And see, that's kind of the opposite of how I've always done things because I've always been like, this is your problem, I'm gonna fix your problem.
635
00:35:59.447 --> 00:36:01.149
and then move on.
636
00:36:01.429 --> 00:36:04.514
What's crazy is customers don't even know all the problems you can solve for them.
637
00:36:04.754 --> 00:36:12.966
It's a function of we need to identify the problems for them and we're gonna do it in a service manner, which is we are going to serve you by making sure you don't have a ticking time bomb, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
638
00:36:13.087 --> 00:36:14.088
Now as the business grows,
639
00:36:14.228 --> 00:36:17.609
and we take liquidity and we get more leads and we get more labors, we need better leadership.
640
00:36:17.629 --> 00:36:22.690
And so down the road, in the next few months, if they're able to turn the business around, they'll have to focus on this constraint.
641
00:36:22.710 --> 00:36:28.171
And that is focusing on sales, operations and admin and creating clear roles and responsibilities.
642
00:36:28.251 --> 00:36:31.652
And in these departments, have people that are responsible for each one.
643
00:36:31.772 --> 00:36:40.314
My concern is like, I feel like there's a whole bunch of other structural issues that like would take me a long time to dig into around like software, how the phones are answered, like,
644
00:36:41.508 --> 00:36:43.330
Are there systems being created for that?
645
00:36:43.370 --> 00:36:58.002
Yeah, so I've been working on some SOPs, like how things should work, like how we should operate all the time, and like trying to get him on board with it and then roll it out to everyone, and then making sure we withhold those standards all the time.
646
00:36:58.543 --> 00:36:59.504
Cause like I made them.
647
00:36:59.864 --> 00:37:05.609
Like they're, we had a meeting on Monday or Tuesday about like what, how everything's gonna run.
648
00:37:05.629 --> 00:37:07.471
It's just making sure we do it.
649
00:37:08.011 --> 00:37:08.311
And then,
650
00:37:08.952 --> 00:37:09.852
Because that's how we grow.
651
00:37:10.332 --> 00:37:14.294
I literally just took what these multi-million color companies do and scaled it down.
652
00:37:15.234 --> 00:37:17.875
Because like, there's certain things that we can't do that they do.
653
00:37:18.295 --> 00:37:19.015
Right.
654
00:37:19.295 --> 00:37:20.495
Trying to make it that way.
655
00:37:20.535 --> 00:37:23.116
Because I mean, they obviously have a system that works.
656
00:37:23.376 --> 00:37:23.916
Yeah.
657
00:37:24.757 --> 00:37:26.337
Systems build businesses.
658
00:37:29.283 --> 00:37:35.666
but also is trying to get him to go from owner operator to business and it's two different things.
659
00:37:35.826 --> 00:37:36.146
Yeah.
660
00:37:36.266 --> 00:37:41.328
I think it's like, so when the crew right now, the crew has proms, who do they go to for operations?
661
00:37:41.348 --> 00:37:43.129
Like if they have a problem with a job, who do they call them?
662
00:37:44.161 --> 00:37:44.961
They would call me.
663
00:37:45.262 --> 00:37:45.722
Okay.
664
00:37:46.062 --> 00:37:55.406
And so when I look at the business like internal sales, operations and admin, we now have someone in admin, but I'm assuming you all kind of split it right now because she's new.
665
00:37:55.846 --> 00:37:56.286
Yeah.
666
00:37:56.606 --> 00:37:56.927
Got it.
667
00:37:57.587 --> 00:37:58.227
Operations.
668
00:37:58.687 --> 00:38:00.788
So when someone calls out in the morning, who are they calling?
669
00:38:01.389 --> 00:38:02.089
They would call me.
670
00:38:02.209 --> 00:38:04.150
I'm going to eliminate your operations.
671
00:38:04.831 --> 00:38:05.031
Right?
672
00:38:05.491 --> 00:38:08.993
When it comes to sales right now, we are also kind of splitting that, am I correct?
673
00:38:09.473 --> 00:38:16.095
If we follow these other steps and leads are coming in, there needs to be definition of like, who takes care of the job before it's a job, i.e.
674
00:38:16.115 --> 00:38:19.917
the salesperson, who's answering the phone, who takes care of the crew.
675
00:38:20.097 --> 00:38:25.879
In the perfect world, and we're not here yet, that phone never rings for the crew, it's only to you, only operations.
676
00:38:26.339 --> 00:38:27.880
And to you, only doing sales.
677
00:38:28.060 --> 00:38:33.802
Whether it be knocking on doors, whether it be doing an estimates, whether it be working on scripts, like you are sales.
678
00:38:34.142 --> 00:38:37.324
I lean on Ty heavily, probably too much.
679
00:38:37.644 --> 00:38:52.313
But if there was like, okay, this is all you're doing, I feel like that will give me a better sense of direction to where I can focus on that and be like, well, I'm going to become the best I can at that.
680
00:38:52.604 --> 00:38:58.329
And that might mean that individually, both of you focus on that as the area of education and where you improve.
681
00:38:58.429 --> 00:39:03.513
Sales gets the work, operations does the work, and admin greases the gears so everything gets done.
682
00:39:03.673 --> 00:39:09.838
I mean, it feels like, so not necessarily like stepping on toes, but like who's accountable for what?
683
00:39:09.958 --> 00:39:15.563
Like, and Mike nailed that on the head, is when something's wrong, we're like, well, I did this.
684
00:39:15.603 --> 00:39:16.924
And then Seth's like, well, I did this.
685
00:39:17.665 --> 00:39:20.267
We need to be on the same page of like what we are doing.
686
00:39:20.707 --> 00:39:20.847
And,
687
00:39:21.588 --> 00:39:27.731
It's like everything that Mike says, like things that have been kicked around, it just, you need someone to like give you that direction.
688
00:39:28.071 --> 00:39:34.575
Someone that's not here every day and someone to look at it from no, like no emotional connection to it.
689
00:39:35.515 --> 00:39:36.996
And that really helped a lot.
690
00:39:37.316 --> 00:39:44.880
The challenging part is when we're all crossing over, like a little bit of sales, a little bit of admin, a little bit of operations, no one takes accountability.
691
00:39:44.920 --> 00:39:45.881
And that's what I see.
692
00:39:46.021 --> 00:39:46.501
In the business.
693
00:39:46.681 --> 00:39:49.643
I think right now we have a huge amount of overlap
694
00:39:51.822 --> 00:39:54.664
of sales, operations, and admin.
695
00:39:55.244 --> 00:40:02.428
And the trouble with that is no one has any accountability for the KPIs and the metrics of like close ratio, conversion ratio.
696
00:40:02.488 --> 00:40:08.932
Like if the phone is ringing in four different spots and we all have phone calls ringing, we can't ever hold someone accountable for their booking rate.
697
00:40:09.252 --> 00:40:11.133
We can't hold them accountable for did you upsell.
698
00:40:11.373 --> 00:40:13.614
Business has been growing quickly from a team perspective.
699
00:40:13.654 --> 00:40:16.175
Just seven, eight months ago, this was just Seth by himself.
700
00:40:16.455 --> 00:40:22.998
As they've added more team members, it's easy to start being generalists, where everyone just kind of splits the needs and the demands of the customer evenly.
701
00:40:23.018 --> 00:40:31.441
And that's good, but if you're gonna scale a business, pass six figures a month, try to build a million dollar business a year, we're gonna have to actually have departments, sales, operations, and admin.
702
00:40:31.501 --> 00:40:38.884
And keeping people specific to those departments will allow them to actually know whether or not they're doing a good job because the metrics will be owned by them.
703
00:40:38.984 --> 00:40:40.145
If that department's not doing good,
704
00:40:40.405 --> 00:40:41.706
they'll be able to take ownership of it.
705
00:40:41.906 --> 00:40:49.373
Right from the very beginning when they call her to the time that the tech is there to the time that you're getting payment, there should be process for upselling the customer.
706
00:40:49.773 --> 00:40:50.814
And this is not scamming.
707
00:40:51.034 --> 00:40:51.975
This is not scummy.
708
00:40:51.995 --> 00:40:55.098
We are identifying more problems with the customer and then we are solving them.
709
00:40:55.378 --> 00:40:57.500
I'm definitely like not
710
00:40:59.123 --> 00:41:06.632
I won't say I'm not a businessman, but I didn't have the proper training of like, this is what you need to do.
711
00:41:06.932 --> 00:41:14.441
That's kind of where now we're growing in the proper way and fixing all of my past mistakes.
712
00:41:14.641 --> 00:41:18.084
And then we know what our offers are and what pain points we're going to speak to.
713
00:41:18.244 --> 00:41:24.669
It's like, hey, we inspect your water heater to make sure that it is not going to be a ticking time bomb in your basement and cause a $50,000 repair.
714
00:41:25.009 --> 00:41:28.472
And because we care about you in the long term, we want to have a relation forever.
715
00:41:28.953 --> 00:41:34.997
We want to make sure that before that thing blows up while I'm here checking the septic, I'm also going to check your water heater.
716
00:41:35.077 --> 00:41:40.722
Because like we've just seen time and time again, this area, these things blow up and then we have to be here for $30,000 and I don't want that for you.
717
00:41:40.822 --> 00:41:41.682
So I'm just gonna check it real quick.
718
00:41:41.842 --> 00:41:43.483
Half the time it's gonna be like, it's overdue.
719
00:41:43.523 --> 00:41:45.703
And the other half of the time, I'm gonna try to sell them a more tankless water heater.
720
00:41:45.743 --> 00:41:49.764
And I'm gonna identify the fact that they do have those problems that I can solve for them.
721
00:41:49.844 --> 00:41:51.104
I've really gotten out of that routine.
722
00:41:51.124 --> 00:41:55.625
So like when I worked for the company here, they sent me to dozens of sales training.
723
00:41:55.645 --> 00:42:00.506
Like they called me for one thing and then I would just make it seamlessly like, hey, let me go look at these other things while I'm here.
724
00:42:00.746 --> 00:42:02.206
How often do you have a plumber in your house?
725
00:42:02.386 --> 00:42:10.348
And I've gotten out of that routine because I've been more focused on the plumbing aspect of it and less about true customer service and more about doing the job.
726
00:42:10.588 --> 00:42:13.990
I genuinely believe we can double the business with the same number of leads.
727
00:42:14.170 --> 00:42:15.551
We're going to keep these leads coming from LSA.
728
00:42:15.571 --> 00:42:16.451
For now, we're not turning it off.
729
00:42:16.591 --> 00:42:20.373
But when they come in, we have three other areas we're going to upsell the customer into.
730
00:42:20.393 --> 00:42:26.117
Figuring out what that looks like in terms of wording, scripting that on the call, scripting that for the technician is something we'll iron out.
731
00:42:26.297 --> 00:42:33.881
If EcoWorks is able to successfully turn around the business and improve their liquidity, get more leads and get more labors, we're going to have to have better leadership.
732
00:42:33.901 --> 00:42:36.942
We're going to have to have sales, operations admin clearly delegated.
733
00:42:37.062 --> 00:42:38.863
All right, so in terms of like...
734
00:42:40.284 --> 00:42:45.311
A plan, we want to focus on upsells and creating offers.
735
00:42:46.091 --> 00:42:50.717
We've got to create an offer on the website, on marketing material, on our calls.
736
00:42:51.078 --> 00:42:51.878
That is free.
737
00:42:51.939 --> 00:42:52.559
That is entry.
738
00:42:52.599 --> 00:42:53.320
Gets us in the door.
739
00:42:53.420 --> 00:42:54.201
Next thing is website.
740
00:42:54.221 --> 00:42:54.602
Website.
741
00:42:56.785 --> 00:42:58.767
is going to speak to pain.
742
00:42:59.148 --> 00:43:01.290
Is this for me, my pain, and is it going to solve it?
743
00:43:01.390 --> 00:43:02.171
That's all I need to know.
744
00:43:02.371 --> 00:43:04.313
Website redesign, I would go through the whole thing.
745
00:43:04.453 --> 00:43:10.379
I would, you know, it's like your spouses or someone else who doesn't really know a ton about what's going on with plumbing, and be like, do you understand how this is?
746
00:43:10.579 --> 00:43:11.741
No, great, off.
747
00:43:12.161 --> 00:43:13.022
Next, do you know this is?
748
00:43:13.102 --> 00:43:13.903
No, off.
749
00:43:14.243 --> 00:43:16.085
Okay, ticking time bomb will work.
750
00:43:16.285 --> 00:43:17.887
That makes sense to everybody.
751
00:43:17.907 --> 00:43:19.349
We know exactly what that means.
752
00:43:20.227 --> 00:43:21.768
I would speak to those things on the website.
753
00:43:21.788 --> 00:43:26.249
Number three, we've got to create another lead source besides just Google local services.
754
00:43:26.489 --> 00:43:29.410
So we're not paying them on every single customer we get.
755
00:43:29.470 --> 00:43:35.913
And what I'd like to see them do is actually try out door to door sales because now we're attacking the pain points of the customer with a free offer.
756
00:43:36.053 --> 00:43:41.755
So in six weeks, I think we can absolutely develop another sales channel outside of just LSA.
757
00:43:41.895 --> 00:43:45.778
From your website, for example, you should be able to get leads if you have a free offer.
758
00:43:45.858 --> 00:43:50.241
And it's like, fill this one out to get an offer for your free water bill analysis.
759
00:43:50.841 --> 00:43:52.522
10% guaranteed reduced.
760
00:43:52.822 --> 00:43:56.885
And like, you're guaranteed is tied to the fact that we're going to do a service of some sort for you.
761
00:43:57.245 --> 00:44:01.448
And I genuinely believe a door-to-door strategy here, like just brute force works.
762
00:44:01.748 --> 00:44:03.149
Is it fun to do it right now?
763
00:44:04.830 --> 00:44:08.754
I mean, door knocking is going to take a little bit of work.
764
00:44:09.174 --> 00:44:25.628
I do things like sponsor a local football team where they make 100 shirts that have our logo on them, which are probably a complete waste, but I feel like there's way cheaper ways to get marketing done.
765
00:44:25.868 --> 00:44:30.553
If you do door to door, you will knock on between 50 and 150 houses, depending on the density of the homes.
766
00:44:31.173 --> 00:44:41.984
I generally believe one out of 10, one out of 20 homeowners, if you build a great rapport with them, and you have three really solid offers, and you're targeting the offer to what their needs are, because of the house structure,
767
00:44:43.145 --> 00:44:45.746
I generally believe 5% of people are like, yeah, you're here, like, let's go.
768
00:44:45.986 --> 00:44:47.987
And your whole premise is like, hey, we're here working on the street.
769
00:44:48.007 --> 00:44:48.747
We're here right now.
770
00:44:49.208 --> 00:44:51.588
I just want to bop over and just offer this to you.
771
00:44:51.608 --> 00:44:52.689
It's not like you're selling anything.
772
00:44:52.709 --> 00:44:53.889
You're offering them something for free.
773
00:44:54.009 --> 00:44:56.010
And the first hundred you're going to stink at.
774
00:44:56.030 --> 00:44:57.111
You're going to probably get zero.
775
00:44:57.291 --> 00:44:59.492
And then what is going to happen is you're going to get more and more refined.
776
00:44:59.512 --> 00:45:01.832
And how do I open up when they first open the door?
777
00:45:02.093 --> 00:45:02.733
What do I say?
778
00:45:02.773 --> 00:45:04.634
What offers working better in this neighborhood?
779
00:45:04.654 --> 00:45:07.815
Because if you pitch the ticking time bomb to a brand new house, like that's not going to work.
780
00:45:08.675 --> 00:45:15.500
If you pitch that to a neighborhood that is 20 years old exactly when it was built, there's a really good chance half of those houses do have a ticking time bomb in their house.
781
00:45:16.261 --> 00:45:21.664
So stops LSA single channel risk, I'm going to say for now, that's going to be door to
782
00:45:22.872 --> 00:45:32.457
The fourth thing that they've got to do in the next six weeks is create scripts and training for their technicians and their CSR in the office to be able to make sure that we're constantly upselling these customers.
783
00:45:32.597 --> 00:45:35.238
I really want to refine scripting.
784
00:45:36.238 --> 00:45:38.460
Step one is we're going to make the upsells and the offers.
785
00:45:38.880 --> 00:45:39.200
Great.
786
00:45:39.500 --> 00:45:41.921
But I'm now going to create scripts from the CSR.
787
00:45:42.241 --> 00:45:48.843
So when someone's getting an appointment booked for their block-up septic, I am also, quote, upselling them on a free inspection of their water heater.
788
00:45:48.863 --> 00:45:49.943
You're not even asking them for it.
789
00:45:49.963 --> 00:45:50.623
You're just telling them.
790
00:45:50.663 --> 00:45:55.565
Like, we do that as part of our, we feel obligated as members of the community to make sure you're covered.
791
00:45:55.905 --> 00:45:56.845
And we're just going to check it for free.
792
00:45:57.531 --> 00:45:58.471
No one will say no.
793
00:45:58.752 --> 00:45:59.692
It's not even an upsell.
794
00:45:59.712 --> 00:46:01.813
It's like, fantastic, I'm gonna get this covered.
795
00:46:01.953 --> 00:46:04.354
And then they wrap this bad boy up, they pay.
796
00:46:04.674 --> 00:46:05.614
Great, let's go do the water here.
797
00:46:05.694 --> 00:46:07.315
And then it's, we know what we're doing.
798
00:46:07.575 --> 00:46:09.656
So we're finding the scripts of the CSR and the text.
799
00:46:09.696 --> 00:46:13.117
That's kind of the labor part, turning plumbers into salesy bullies.
800
00:46:13.157 --> 00:46:19.359
If they're able to do all four of these things in the next six weeks, by that time, the business will have grown and they'll need to make sure they delegate.
801
00:46:19.399 --> 00:46:20.199
That's number five.
802
00:46:20.279 --> 00:46:26.880
The sales, operations, admin functions of the business that should be set for sales, tie for operations and Gracie in the admin role.
803
00:46:27.060 --> 00:46:33.662
I think I think when I look at the six week plan, that last one will become a result of fixing the lead problem.
804
00:46:34.102 --> 00:46:38.565
And I know that when liquidity is so tight, it is very difficult to think clearly.
805
00:46:38.685 --> 00:46:39.385
It just is.
806
00:46:39.465 --> 00:46:41.646
But like this is a roadmap that will work.
807
00:46:41.666 --> 00:46:47.150
And I do believe it relatively quickly because right now you have so much capacity for your current team to do more work.
808
00:46:47.370 --> 00:46:50.932
Like you have the capacity to probably do $80,000, $90,000 a month in revenue pretty easily.
809
00:46:50.952 --> 00:46:51.752
Easy.
810
00:46:51.972 --> 00:46:52.213
Yeah.
811
00:46:52.273 --> 00:46:53.593
So we can double the business.
812
00:46:53.773 --> 00:47:00.157
The speed at which you get the six week plan done is simply dictated by how violent you are with taking action.
813
00:47:00.317 --> 00:47:01.558
In six weeks, this can be fixed.
814
00:47:04.555 --> 00:47:11.979
Still trying to get money in the bank, but it seems like every time we get money in the bank, we're pushing it right back out.
815
00:47:12.500 --> 00:47:21.765
We're about to get paid on the... Yeah, we've had jobs going on kind of like all week, and we're getting paid today on a couple of them, so that...
816
00:47:22.583 --> 00:47:23.083
That helps.
817
00:47:23.564 --> 00:47:25.305
We just got behind in the slow period.
818
00:47:25.365 --> 00:47:30.029
I mean, that's really what the money crunch is, is catching up from when we were slow.
819
00:47:30.169 --> 00:47:35.273
Like this bill can wait, this bill can wait, this bill can wait, and then they get to the point where they all want their money.
820
00:47:36.294 --> 00:47:36.454
So.
821
00:47:38.166 --> 00:47:57.603
Yeah, it's definitely, I think, a few more weeks of kind of white-knuckling it, and then we'll be back to where we have a comfortable cushion and able to just...
822
00:47:59.380 --> 00:48:04.143
less stress and focus on, you know, just continuing to grow the business.
823
00:48:04.884 --> 00:48:07.225
Overall, I've seen an improvement.
824
00:48:07.505 --> 00:48:18.513
Defining the roles has made it easier for us to focus on our tasks and not necessarily, you know, be all over the place, both of us.
825
00:48:20.454 --> 00:48:22.996
We haven't got a chance to do much door-to-door.
826
00:48:23.556 --> 00:48:28.319
Yeah, we're almost to the point where Seth is completely not running the...
827
00:48:29.251 --> 00:48:46.899
anymore for his job is to get customers and yeah so I've joined joined a local referral marketing program that's basically become at least a part-time job but it's it's starting to pick up and gain speed
828
00:48:48.039 --> 00:48:50.081
getting more visibility.
829
00:48:50.421 --> 00:48:54.184
I wish we had more time to do door to door over here.
830
00:48:54.664 --> 00:49:00.108
That's a stack of flyers and then we've got stacks of door hangers next to it.
831
00:49:00.468 --> 00:49:06.912
It's just we've kind of been so busy that we haven't really had the chance to go door to door.
832
00:49:07.233 --> 00:49:16.799
I'm in talks with a couple of people that go door to door for their business and they're willing to put door hangers out when they're putting their door hangers out.
833
00:49:18.242 --> 00:49:22.052
That should be happening here in the next week or so.
834
00:49:24.846 --> 00:49:28.989
So we have passed that to our marketing team.
835
00:49:29.450 --> 00:49:37.516
Our, I guess, client success person, she happened to get married, like, last week, so she's on a honeymoon.
836
00:49:37.616 --> 00:49:46.823
But she does have the website design people in the background working on that because we kind of talk to her, like, customer-facing.
837
00:49:46.883 --> 00:49:51.107
We want that to be more to the pain points and stuff, so...
838
00:49:51.467 --> 00:49:58.350
It's, I guess, a little bit slower of a process to get it taken care of, but it is in process.
839
00:50:00.731 --> 00:50:05.193
We've been having our CSR kind of... Do more.
840
00:50:05.313 --> 00:50:05.873
Do more.
841
00:50:07.233 --> 00:50:08.154
Just answer the phone.
842
00:50:08.474 --> 00:50:15.837
Yeah, so kind of handing off the role of admin to her, or at least guiding her through that.
843
00:50:17.907 --> 00:50:26.129
So we're definitely starting to be more intentional with our monthly goal.
844
00:50:26.689 --> 00:50:31.910
This month, we're shooting for 80K with a 100K stretch goal.
845
00:50:33.131 --> 00:50:36.491
And so that's written real big on our board.
846
00:50:37.312 --> 00:50:46.154
And we're posting each job on our board so all our technicians can see, hey, this is how much we've got coming in this week.
847
00:50:48.194 --> 00:50:51.635
Let's, you know, with integrity, let's upsell.
848
00:50:52.016 --> 00:50:52.836
Yeah.
849
00:50:53.856 --> 00:50:56.717
Yeah, it's definitely helped.
850
00:50:58.138 --> 00:51:09.422
And I definitely thank Mike because, you know, I think sometimes you can be a little too close to the problem to see the bigger picture.
851
00:51:10.162 --> 00:51:17.065
And so being that he can come in with an objective...
852
00:51:17.685 --> 00:51:40.964
you know vision and and say hey here's this here's this here's this these are the main things that you need to focus on even you know i i kind of hate that at our six week we're not like hey we did every single thing and you know uh but you know it is real life and so uh but still having having those goals
853
00:51:41.846 --> 00:51:50.805
and things that we can do has really let us focus.
854
00:51:51.307 --> 00:51:53.191
So we do have the game plan.
855
00:51:53.271 --> 00:52:02.251
We still have the roadmap thumbtacked next to our board, and we're definitely focusing on it.