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you’re listening to the simple growth
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podcast
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the show that helps business owners get
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their life back
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here’s your host mike callahan hey
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welcome back to another essay weekly
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talk show
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uh i am here as always doing we’re
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switching it up
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this week and i’m doing the intro for
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mike mike callahan from simple growth
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uh essay certified advisor mike thank
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you
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so much for uh doing a presentation for
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us bringing us a little blast from the
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past
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yeah absolutely i’m going to be talking
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about dominate your market the blueprint
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offer action and i’m going to pop the
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screen here so you can actually see the
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slide deck but
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basically an updated version of my sa5
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talk and give you a little background of
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the talk
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and what um kind of precipitated this
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was
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jonathan the co-founder service auto
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pilot and
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of the uh lawn care millionaire uh
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created a pr uh a conversation about
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going out and dominating your market
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this was basically step two so this was
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the
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uh jonathan talked about the overall
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theory of going in and dominating your
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market and then what i did is
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uh what you’re going to see here is how
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to actually take jonathan patoshnik’s
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theory of dominating your market and
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actually how to use that theory
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and actually utilize it by utilizing
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service autopilot
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as your tool to go out and dominate your
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market as well as some other things
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as well so we’re going to be talking
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about uh how to sell gateway services
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over the phone offline marketing
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um and getting some examples how in my
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company callahan’s lawn care went up
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with nine different pieces
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and actually had a little over 300 000
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direct mail pieces cody
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and that’s right 300 000 literally about
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a month and a half um so i’m going to
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show you the game plan
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how we broke that down and then um
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the different trip trips and tricks
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right now of digital marketing so what
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was
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applicable at sa5 and some of the new
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things that we really should be looking
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at in our marketing plan to go out and
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dominate our market for this fall and
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uh even going into next season of 2021
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so some of this stuff just doesn’t
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happen overnight we want to go in
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and start building a foundation of a
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marketing plan a budget and a plan of
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attack
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so um had a great essay weekly last week
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with
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martha woodward with qds i’m still
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looking for an extra pair of shades and
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trunks to meet them down at
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qds2021 but as we pop into this cody do
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you have any comments questions before
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we flip the screen and kind of get into
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it no let’s put rubber to the road
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all right perfect so like i said we’re
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talking about
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uh the continuation of jonah patosnik’s
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talking with jonathan’s talk
02:28
really talked about is really focusing
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in on
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making some actions happen in your
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business to actually really grow and
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dominate and outscale your competitors
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but
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one of the things that i at least
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learned in my business
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is that if we’re going to go out and
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have rapid
02:45
excessive growth just like we did at
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callaghan’s and even its simple growth
02:48
where we scaled a little over 467
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percent in q1
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of last year um and uh very similar
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growth
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again in 2020 uh there was certain
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things that i’m going to
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want to dive into before we actually go
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into the blueprint and
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the first thing we’re going to talk
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about is the bottlenecks of growth and
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how to overcome them and especially
03:09
right now with kobit
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we’ve got some issues going on uh with
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labor to say the least
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so we’re going to go in and show you how
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to tackle the labor
03:19
and creating that virtual bench and the
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second part
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of the things foundation you really want
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to set up your business before you grow
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that business is
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your office and the workflow
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particularly
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in service autopilot but really the
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whole workflow so
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the biggest uh well i guess one of the
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biggest pivotal points in my learning
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was when i actually had the
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ability to go out to service autopilot’s
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original office
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and it was like in a strip mall
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basically but um development was one
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side of the
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the parking lot and uh support and
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training was on
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the other side of the parking lot uh but
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it was interesting because it was myself
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uh jonathan obviously and
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uh garrett matthews and chad cranston
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amongst two other
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individuals but that’s when i met
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garrett and chad and that was pretty
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instrumental in
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the way i looked at business and how i
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wanted to go out and out learn my
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competition but
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uh really unique situation in the early
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days of assay you could pay
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a a decent chunk of money but actually
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have a two day or two and a half day
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sit down round table with jonathan and
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the one thing that i went there and
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wanted to learn was as we were about to
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scale to a million and beyond
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how do i set up my internal office to
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handle
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the influx of phone calls and estimates
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that are going to happen because i knew
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if we went out and dropped 35 or 40 000
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and estimating uh or in
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in marketing and had an influx of
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estimates the wheels would have fell off
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the business
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immediately um and one thing jonathan
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talked about in his talk which was
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interesting is
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test the waters don’t go all in i made
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the mistake of
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literally dropping 30 to 40 000 over
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about a month and a half period in new
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york and
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the phones exponentially exploded
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thankfully i had learned from jonathan
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in the sa team at that round table
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how you need your software set up and if
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you’ve been watching any of my videos
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that foundational workflow of the
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flowchart of lead acquisition through
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estimating to scheduling billing and
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fulfillment
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really is that uh take away what i took
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away from those two and a half days so
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um as we’re diving there i just want to
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throw a little caution the wind
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you want to test this in little chunks
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before you go out and drop
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30 to 40 thousand dollars in an
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advertising budget or
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whatever that may be a substantial gain
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on whatever
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you’re doing now and if you’re not doing
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any and you’re just maybe going in for a
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couple grand you’re still going to see a
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quite an influx from what you’re used to
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so just be aware
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that that’s the case so foundationally
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we want to make sure that office is set
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up correctly and we want to look at the
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three major bottlenecks of growth and
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we’re going to focus on
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labor today we need to address labor
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first and double down so the three
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bottlenecks of growth are really growing
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fast without the right people
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growing fast without knowing your
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numbers and growing fast without
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enough cash flow so either one of these
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three things
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will literally destroy you in your in
06:11
the process so the first thing is
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jonathan talks about building and
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growing that virtual bench
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and the idea is the methodologies you
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want to really go out and
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constantly be recruiting for each person
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in position in your business before you
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need them because if you’re looking for
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them
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uh before when you need them it’s too
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late so you want to go out and
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constantly interview once a week i’d say
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to bare minimal
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for every position and maybe even your
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own position that’s how i found my
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replacement
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of the gentleman that ran my business
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but the idea is we’re creating this
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virtual
06:40
labor pool or virtual bench and have the
06:43
ability through an automation or even a
06:45
manual process to be able to go in and
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sort down
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hey i want all my a applicants from the
06:49
last 20 days or 30 days
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and now you’ve got a glorified hiring
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checklist so when you have that employee
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that
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comes in and uh the guy or girl they’re
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working with is a no call no show that’s
06:59
when you’re probably gonna get
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blackmailed cody for hey i want a dollar
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an hour raise if i got to work by myself
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today
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um so it’s going to guard you from uh
07:07
your internal team right now so you are
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back in control
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but more in um perspective of this talk
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is
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growing fast without the right people
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you need that virtual bench because when
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you slam the gas on
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uh for that sales machine you are going
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to need to add bodies in there so you
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better have that pipeline of ready
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employees ready to go
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and then um before you go out and make
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that massive
07:30
growth uh play we want to know our
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numbers are we pricing our jobs
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correctly
07:34
uh do we know what it costs us per hour
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to break even uh
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before we make a profit and what’s the
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desired dollar per hour that we’re
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supposed to do and hopefully have some
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production
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rates as well um we don’t want to be
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basing our numbers on the competitor
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down the street because that’s going to
07:49
be a recipe for failure and
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um cash is king we want to make sure we
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have enough cash flow in
07:56
our reserve so one of the other speakers
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at sa
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uh three and i believe it was sa six was
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mike mikallowitz uh
08:04
profit first and pumpkin plan so what i
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really recommend is type it into profit
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first and figure out
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what those cash flow allocations look
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like and being able to see the ebbs and
08:13
flow of your cash flow before you go in
08:16
and make a really strong play like this
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because
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if you go in and double or triple or
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even like simple gross case growing by
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400 percent a quarter
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if you don’t have that cash war chest
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and have a projection of what your cash
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outlay is going to be
08:28
uh you can literally bankrupt your
08:30
business overnight so those are big
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things that we need to look at before we
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pump the gas on this exponential growth
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so the cost of a bad to your team cody
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traditionally
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um is two to three times the person’s
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salary and i kind of looked at that and
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i said well that
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based on the stats before i did this
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talk that seems ridiculously high that
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can’t be possible
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um but the stats i’ve got here are
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actually kind of interesting so
08:54
turnover was a major problem in
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callahan’s lawn care
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and that created some indirect costs
09:01
there
09:02
and based on obviously got the direct
09:05
cost of help ads
09:06
screening interview training bonuses
09:07
those are obvious but the indirect cost
09:10
is that employee turnover and having to
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continue to retrain those ploy
09:13
employees and then based on the
09:15
inconsistency of the new employees and
09:17
the training
09:18
while they’re still getting acclimated
09:20
you’ve got lower customer satisfaction
09:22
and then we went in and looked at the
09:25
damage caused by some of these wrong
09:27
hires they weren’t a good fit we kind of
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knew they weren’t a good fit but then
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we kind of let that go in the early
09:32
years um so we’ve got lower customer
09:34
satisfaction we get cancellations and
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then
09:38
having the wrong people on the wrong
09:39
seat to the bus like you have the best
09:41
weed whacker the best mower the best
09:43
cleaner
09:44
um but if they’re not a good fit for
09:46
your business culturally and how you
09:48
work
09:48
it’s going to take your a players and
09:50
probably drag them down to b so you’re
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gonna have a loss in productivity
09:53
and then loss in morale so not only is
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it affecting
09:56
the new folks you’re bringing in but can
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also negatively affect your core
10:00
eight players on the team because these
10:02
things are starting to
10:04
wear on them because the weight of that
10:06
is really going to be held on their
10:07
shoulders so
10:08
as we’re looking at i kind of said you
10:09
know two to three times a person’s
10:10
salary from the stats
10:12
all over the internet the different
10:13
books i was reading that seems kind of
10:15
crazy
10:15
so i actually went in and did some
10:17
research of some of the bad hires that
10:19
we had at callaghan’s and we were
10:21
anywhere from 25 to 30 employees
10:23
depending on the season
10:24
um plus subcontractors but cody any idea
10:27
uh if you’re looking at a million and
10:28
beyond business
10:29
the cost of a bad hire in the field not
10:32
management
10:33
what would that run and i i’m gonna on
10:35
the next slide here i’m actually gonna
10:36
show you what it cost us on average
10:38
i would bet from because i do not
10:41
remember this talk so i’m not cheating
10:43
uh i would bet that the way that you are
10:47
talking about it is going to lead to
10:48
it cost you more than two to three times
10:50
this person’s salary
10:52
so if you’re to throw a ballpark number
10:54
out there and i mean we’re telling
10:56
and i i sorted through some of the
10:57
horror stories but i mean these were
10:59
these were individuals that we should
11:00
have
11:01
either coached up or coached out and we
11:02
didn’t and things happened and then
11:04
we kind of figured out over a 12 or 13
11:07
month tenure how what this actually cost
11:08
us
11:09
um so let’s so
11:12
taking into account like customer
11:14
cancellation
11:15
uh or like customer satisfaction where
11:18
like they don’t like what you’re doing
11:19
week to week
11:20
so call backs complaints got to go back
11:22
we didn’t blow off the patio set
11:24
whatever that
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was i’m to say uh
11:28
100k pretty close 125
11:33
000 so before we go out and scale that
11:36
business
11:37
we need to make sure um and i’m reading
11:39
off some notes here but we
11:41
we figured it covered customer cancels
11:43
damage
11:44
um production projected production drops
11:47
due to morale and motivation kind of our
11:49
budget versus actual
11:51
um and then what we looked at is said
11:53
okay well based on
11:54
that uh we need to figure out how to fix
11:57
our labor cost so we went in and created
11:59
a piece rate pay system
12:01
uh so we paid the guys and girls on a
12:03
budgeted uh
12:04
time and they got paid for the budgeted
12:06
time
12:07
um not the straight time obviously
12:09
there’s overtime rules and things you
12:10
need to be applicable if you’re watching
12:11
this
12:12
uh but the goal for also was to actually
12:14
get them more money than they would have
12:15
made with overtime uh but what we were
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looking at
12:18
is with that piece rate pay system we
12:20
were being able to generate per crew an
12:22
extra 12 to 1300
12:24
a week without changing a guy or girl on
12:26
that crew
12:27
and or a piece of equipment but what
12:29
that did is it started to
12:31
change the way we looked at
12:35
hiring and there was some very three
12:37
distinct
12:38
things that we came up with that
12:40
actually helped and i want to share
12:42
those
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um and they’re really they’re three low
12:44
cost high return hiring strategies so
12:46
the interviews
12:48
are screening for values alignment so
12:51
i’ve used the example before but i’ll
12:52
use it again because it really works so
12:54
one of our core values is
12:55
we’ll do what we say we’ll do uh at
12:57
callahan’s is one of the core values we
12:59
had
12:59
um so on a interviewing screening call
13:02
the office could one of the questions
13:03
that asked like hey how do you feel if
13:05
someone says they’re going to call you
13:07
back but they never do
13:08
that’s an alignment for our values how
13:10
are they aligning
13:12
uh with things that we’re actually
13:13
standing for now if they’re like yeah
13:15
whatever it’s
13:15
not a big deal if they call me back or
13:16
not that’s a red flag was that that’s
13:18
not a cultural alignment
13:20
then we had job descriptions that
13:22
focused on the culture so
13:23
just like um we’ll do what we say we’ll
13:26
do we had another
13:27
uh one that was basically we give you
13:28
the lifestyle you desire it was actually
13:30
twofold
13:32
and when we built that uh over an elite
13:34
momentum
13:35
and forum that we were looking at we
13:38
wanted to give our employees
13:40
the lifestyle they desired so if they
13:42
wanted to be out by three o’clock
13:43
to go see their kids baseball game or
13:45
football game or ballet class whatever
13:47
that was
13:48
that was an alignment we wanted to
13:49
empower them to make as much money as
13:51
possible but with a quality constraint
13:53
get paid for maybe till five o’clock
13:55
with that budgeted time so now we’re
13:57
starting to drive the ability for them
13:59
to almost run
14:00
their own little business within ours
14:02
and i’m going to show you actually some
14:03
job descriptions and some help ads that
14:04
we did later in the talk
14:06
that focus on some of this but the idea
14:08
here is these job descriptions
14:10
focused on the culture that we had and
14:12
we also had it on the front end of the
14:14
focus of culture
14:15
we wanted to give our customers the
14:17
lifestyle they desired so just like our
14:19
internal employees maybe
14:21
our customer wanted to go to their kids
14:23
sports event
14:24
um and not have to worry about cutting
14:26
the lawn on the weekends or
14:27
cleaning the house or whatever that was
14:29
so it was two-fold it was internal and
14:31
external
14:33
and then the final thing was standard
14:35
selection
14:36
processes we talked about jonathan in
14:38
building that virtual
14:39
bench what we had built into an
14:41
automated process that originally was um
14:44
not automated so it was manual so if
14:46
you’re not automating things yet this
14:47
still applies but we have a standardized
14:49
selection
14:49
process and that process literally is
14:52
going into an online application
14:54
that makes them jump through some
14:56
virtual hoops to make sure they’re
14:57
actually
14:58
ready to apply for the job and we’re
15:00
trying to buy some time back as well
15:01
but once they get through that
15:02
application uh part of the process is
15:04
somebody in the office is gonna set up
15:06
an interview date and time with them and
15:07
plug that into a master
15:09
form and then that automation is going
15:11
to either email or text message them the
15:13
week the week before the day before the
15:14
interview
15:15
and give them some homework going down
15:17
the dmv to get a driver’s abstract now
15:19
if you’ve been to
15:20
the dmv lately cody but let me tell you
15:22
if you’ve been there
15:23
uh if they got there and waited through
15:25
that list and actually
15:27
uh got that driver’s abstract by the
15:28
time they got to the virtual interview
15:30
or the in-person interview we knew
15:31
somebody
15:32
um was actually interested in that job
15:34
and then
15:35
we standardized the questions it wasn’t
15:37
always the same exact five questions
15:39
that we’d ask we’d ask more
15:40
but there was at least five that we ever
15:42
we asked every applicant
15:44
and they also focused on that culture
15:46
and alignment and if they were a good
15:47
fit
15:48
but the idea is we had a non-bias of at
15:50
least five questions every applicant
15:51
would get asked
15:52
and then we would rank them a b and c in
15:55
that automation then we could pull up
15:56
that virtual bench or that qualified
15:58
labor pool uh but right now the labor
16:00
market’s tough so these three
16:02
uh low cost high return strategies the
16:04
ones we use to
16:06
help tackle those indirect costs upfront
16:09
and hopefully alleviate
16:10
the no shows the turnover the cancels
16:12
and the effect of morale of our
16:14
um folks in the field or even in the
16:17
office for that matter
16:18
so as we’re looking at before before you
16:21
get into
16:22
this next slide here um
16:26
the the hiring landscape is is really
16:29
different right now
16:30
than it was you know last season when
16:33
people were trying to staff up
16:35
because of the amount of layoffs that
16:37
we’ve had
16:39
how do you think people should be going
16:41
after
16:42
like non-traditional applicants
16:46
well i still think right now uh for what
16:48
we’re seeing is indeed right now is
16:49
probably a hot spot
16:50
um there’s some other plays that right
16:53
now
16:54
that that we traditionally did and i
16:56
think jonathan has done it as well he’s
16:57
probably talked about it as academy but
16:59
um
17:00
traditionally we had a very large
17:02
hispanic or guatemalan workforce
17:04
so we would actually sometimes go out
17:06
and recruit at some of the churches
17:08
um and talk to the pastor to see if we
17:10
could somehow
17:11
either donate some money to the church
17:13
or somehow get into that ecosystem
17:15
couple of our managers actually went to
17:16
the church services
17:18
um but our we knew our core group of
17:20
guatemalan employees
17:22
uh hung out at certain churches in
17:23
certain areas on the weekend so we went
17:24
there to actually re
17:26
try to recruit them and then in addition
17:29
we had uh i would say
17:31
as far as our american workforce there
17:32
was two or three trailer parks that a
17:34
lot of the guys and girls lived at
17:36
uh so we did some heavy extensive um
17:39
basically advertising to those trailer
17:42
parks as well as doing a referral
17:43
program
17:44
uh we’d always laugh like hey if
17:46
somebody’s car broke down or these guys
17:47
couldn’t get to work
17:48
we might as well just buy a bus and just
17:50
send it over because it was literally it
17:51
was a central area between
17:53
three or four trailer parks so that was
17:54
those were our key areas that we found
17:57
our best employees were hanging out yeah
18:01
does that make sense yeah so what i’m
18:04
thinking
18:04
is uh like i
18:08
know a ton of people who worked in
18:12
the service industry like restaurants
18:15
bars who are out of work right now
18:19
um and i mean as you know from
18:22
your days uh uh djing
18:26
if you don’t know about that uh martha
18:29
will send you a picture
18:30
i get in touch with martha complete with
18:31
frosted tips but no i mean
18:33
and actually when i was a nightclub dj
18:35
um
18:36
depending on the individual they were
18:37
great they were great folks because that
18:40
it was the opposite work shift uh as
18:42
long as they’re responsible at night and
18:43
we’re not not only benders they were
18:45
they were really great and it was
18:46
non-traditional
18:47
uh but they were used to standing on
18:49
their feet and going 24 7
18:50
and a lot of chaos around them so they
18:52
were um those were great folks
18:54
especially the bouncers and the
18:55
bartenders
18:57
but i’m just trying to get strategies
18:58
out of you for pursuing
19:00
you know like back of house people at
19:02
restaurants and
19:03
even like waiters in the front of the
19:04
house like you said they’re used to
19:06
being on their feet
19:07
pushing all day uh and
19:10
you know the kitchen may be
19:11
air-conditioned but it’s not like
19:14
yep you’re used to that so the kitchen’s
19:17
a tough one
19:18
um i’m not sure how but what i will tell
19:19
you is business cards here
19:21
always have money uh i won’t mention the
19:24
fast food joint but there was one local
19:25
one here that
19:26
uh there was two or three individuals
19:28
working that fast food um
19:30
window kind of and just like they
19:32
weren’t lawn care folks but
19:34
i will tell you if you can grab somebody
19:36
that can run or register to mcdonald’s
19:38
or wendy’s or tim hortons or dunkin
19:39
donuts
19:40
those folks are handling a lot of
19:42
different things at once and there’s
19:43
precision and there’s detail
19:45
it’s not your typical lawn care home
19:47
cleaning folk but i tell you what if you
19:48
put me on that register at mcdonald’s
19:50
with
19:50
the drive-thru i would fall apart in
19:52
about 10 minutes i don’t know how they
19:53
do it
19:54
it there is a skill set as well as um
19:57
some of the management
19:58
uh for those fast food organizations you
20:00
know they’re making 60 70 000
20:03
a year but a lot of times they don’t
20:04
like to be stuck in the hot
20:06
uh kitchens and in that environment um
20:08
but those individuals that if you could
20:10
find some that runs and manages fast
20:12
food joints
20:13
for for a corporation they are a really
20:16
good fit for management style
20:18
of a service business in my opinion at
20:20
least
20:22
but yeah it’s tough and you got to be
20:23
ethical but if you’ve got a card and you
20:24
give it to them
20:26
i tell you what nine times out of ten i
20:27
got a phone call back within a few days
20:30
so uh good question though any other
20:32
questions there no no keep going
20:34
so as we’re kind of do looking into this
20:36
now we want to visually break down the
20:38
employee recruiting
20:39
um starting with the higher train and
20:41
the core values so just as a quick
20:43
visual we’ve got our craigslist facebook
20:45
indeed uh referrals from employees like
20:47
i
20:48
talked about and something else we’ve
20:50
recently uh been playing with
20:51
is uh facebook messenger bots to
20:53
actually create another funnel through
20:54
there through messenger
20:56
um but the idea here is we want to get
20:57
them in and we want to interview and
20:59
align to those core values and then
21:00
we’re going to go in and
21:02
hire and onboard and reinforce those
21:04
core values
21:05
and then once they’re in there
21:06
traditionally especially my company in
21:08
the beginning
21:09
uh before we really invest in this is we
21:11
wanted to wow them in align
21:12
with cultural values and one of the ways
21:15
we did that was reinforcing public
21:17
service
21:18
and different things we did but a lot of
21:20
times once we get somebody in the bench
21:21
and they’re working for us
21:23
uh we kind of forget to reinforce those
21:25
core values so those are things that are
21:27
important to continue to reinforce
21:28
and keep them engaged and believing in
21:30
not just a paycheck but what you guys
21:32
actually stand for
21:34
so as you mentioned he said maybe we’ve
21:36
got traditional or non-traditional
21:38
employees now
21:39
um that we’re going out to recruit so
21:41
how do we attract and sell your
21:43
companies to the right
21:44
prospects but not the wrong one so
21:47
uh this was in the early days of calling
21:49
hands here but we had
21:50
dug it up and snow removal professionals
21:52
the lifestyle you desire so that is what
21:54
we’re standing for
21:56
we’ve created a company video here and
21:59
i’ll break down what i included in this
22:00
but this is still
22:01
very applicable uh right now um but the
22:04
main thing is
22:05
what are we looking for so we set the
22:07
example
22:08
of either whether you’re a subcontractor
22:10
employee
22:11
there’s two different ads we ran but we
22:13
we dialed in
22:14
what the day in the life looks like and
22:17
what are you going to be doing
22:18
what you’ll need to be successful and if
22:21
you want to stand out here and really
22:22
excel these are the things you’re going
22:23
to need
22:24
so we broke those down into what are we
22:26
looking for what you’ll be doing
22:28
what you’ll need to be successful and
22:30
you’ll stand out here if
22:31
so these things through an interview
22:33
when we start hitting on these major
22:34
points start to
22:36
figure out if they’re a cultural fit and
22:37
if they can actually hack the work of
22:39
being outside
22:40
so in this video here or slide deck
22:43
depending on how you do it we used to
22:44
have a big
22:45
60 70 inch tv in the office and we would
22:47
do a google slide deck
22:49
or powerpoint or we had a recorded
22:51
version when we standardized and
22:52
delegated but the idea here is it went
22:54
through
22:55
every position in the company and the
22:57
pay rates
22:58
and the responsibility so we showed them
23:00
that as they came into the company
23:01
there was literally no glass ceiling
23:04
they could evolve from the bottom all
23:06
the way up to the top to my my position
23:08
eventually i got replaced
23:10
so people could actually see the
23:11
ballpark range of what my salary
23:13
replacement would have looked like
23:14
um and then we dove into uh some
23:17
pictures here so there’s probably i’m
23:18
guessing 12 or 15 vehicles here
23:21
in the shot that we could fit with the
23:22
guys in that morning um
23:24
near the end of it we were around 19 or
23:26
20 trucks uh but we had
23:28
pictures of literally when we had two or
23:29
three trucks the five or six seven or
23:31
eight and then the whole entire fleet so
23:33
we showed as the business grew
23:35
the everything kept growing so we wanted
23:37
to show that it wasn’t just static there
23:39
was growth there’s a potential
23:40
because a lot of times when people go
23:42
work for a lawn care company
23:43
probably 95 of them when they come in as
23:46
a technician they’re really never going
23:47
to go past that crew leader
23:48
we wanted individuals that want to grow
23:50
their career uh in addition to that we
23:52
had a
23:53
picture of a guy with a hedgerow it was
23:55
actually my ex-brother-in-law
23:57
and uh he was he was trimming a hedgerow
23:59
and this thing must have been about a
24:00
quarter mile long it was 90 degrees out
24:02
and he looked like he was going to die
24:04
but we showed him the realities of the
24:06
work and there was a few other pictures
24:07
of a guy pushing a
24:09
uh basically a salt spreader and he had
24:11
been out in a rain ice storm for 12
24:12
hours and he was just soaked he looked
24:14
like a wet dog
24:16
but we built them up we want to make
24:17
sure the line but we also kind of wanted
24:19
to scare out the applicants that hey
24:20
this this is out in the sun you’re going
24:22
to get a sunburn like it’s hot you may
24:24
be carrying equipment for 10 11 hours
24:26
you may be out in a snow storm for 10 or
24:27
11 hours with some break state mandated
24:29
so
24:30
we wanted to give them a taste of the
24:31
reality um and then we touched on some
24:34
things about cultural alignments we had
24:35
a culture of giving back so
24:37
this is a really sweet couple if you’re
24:39
on youtube you probably can still find
24:41
it but um
24:42
this is a video where my manager
24:43
followed me into this house and they’re
24:45
i think their daughter or their niece
24:46
submitted them in
24:47
because every year before veterans day
24:49
we would raffle off free snow plowing to
24:51
a veteran
24:52
um these guys had one and eight i forget
24:54
it was i’m assuming it was probably
24:56
world war two but they were in their mid
24:57
to late 90s
24:58
really really sweet couple so we
24:59
surprised him and gave him a certificate
25:01
for free plowing
25:02
um and they invited us in the house and
25:04
let us share the video
25:06
but the idea is we wanted to reinforce
25:08
the cultural alignment of what we stood
25:10
for
25:10
and ask the new employer the potential
25:13
employee how do they feel about this
25:15
we want to give back and give that
25:17
lifestyle people desire internally as
25:18
our employees and externally outside so
25:21
um these are the types of things that we
25:22
did
25:24
and then uh obviously we’re constantly
25:26
recruiting with that automated
25:28
system so i’m not going to get the into
25:29
the total details of
25:31
the idea of the process but we’ve got an
25:33
english and spanish landing page
25:35
and those are the job descriptions that
25:36
fit culture when we do the interviewing
25:38
process we got interviews that
25:40
screen for values alignment and then
25:42
that selection process is standardized
25:44
with those five questions and that what
25:46
it kind of looks like in an automated
25:48
flow uh english and now basically street
25:50
spanish is what we’ve been doing
25:52
so the final thing is before we go in
25:55
for this market or this blueprint to
25:57
really go out and exponentially grow
25:58
your business
25:59
is you want to look at um creating
26:02
prospects
26:03
in leads and service autopilot so
26:04
service autopilot at this point
26:06
uh in 2020 does not have the ability to
26:09
automate
26:10
employees but what we’ve done is taken
26:14
clients or leads basically and we’ve
26:16
added some some
26:18
structure to it and now you can sort
26:20
down on job
26:21
applicants and this is something we
26:24
built in callaghans and now we’ve
26:25
repurposed at simple growth
26:27
but the idea here is now i can go in and
26:30
filter down to those a b
26:31
and c job applicants with a date range
26:34
or a time filter
26:35
so we’ve created basically jonathan
26:37
pitocinic’s virtual bench all inside
26:39
service autopilot
26:40
and foundationally these are all the
26:42
things that in my opinion you need to
26:43
have your ducks in a row
26:44
before we go out and dive into this life
26:47
cycle marketing to dominate your market
26:51
so uh probably most people tuned in to
26:53
figure out how to dominate your market
26:54
but i thought
26:55
it was really ethically a thing i had to
26:58
get into before we do it is you need
27:00
that foundation because if you go in and
27:02
do all the things i’m going to show you
27:03
here
27:04
the wheels are going to fall off if you
27:05
don’t have those foundations um
27:07
especially the cash flow knowing your
27:08
numbers
27:09
and having the right people on the bench
27:12
so
27:12
life cycle marketing is um basically a
27:15
way that we attacked our marketing and
27:17
really what it is is we’re to talk to
27:19
the
27:20
lead or the client where they’re at in
27:21
the life cycle
27:23
and what i’m going to suggest is most
27:25
businesses have four or five areas where
27:28
they’re literally
27:29
physically taking the money um in their
27:32
business and dropping it in the trash
27:33
can and you can kind of see some of
27:34
these little red cans here along the way
27:36
so on a real high level i’m going to
27:37
connect life cycle marketing
27:40
and then show you the different pieces
27:42
that we use to go out and dominate my
27:44
market
27:45
throughout the years so right now
27:48
we should be probably going out through
27:50
facebook adwords
27:51
uh niner rounds that’s when you drop a
27:53
pin on a house that new lead comes in
27:55
and we market the ninth surrounding
27:57
homes potentially banner ads every
27:59
georgia direct mailing and now
28:01
updated um conversational marketing
28:03
we’ve talked about kodi is
28:04
facebook messenger bots that can
28:06
automatically
28:07
estimate uh pricing based off of the
28:10
square footage at zillow
28:11
so we’ve got the ideas we’re driving
28:13
them into our website here
28:16
and if they’re not ready to con convert
28:19
we should have something called a lead
28:20
magnet i’m going to break down what a
28:21
lead magnet is but it’s going to be a
28:23
simple ask for first name last name and
28:25
email
28:25
that gets them inside service autopilot
28:27
because if you’re spending all this
28:28
money on facebook and adwords and niner
28:30
rounds
28:31
you’re driving traffic to that website
28:33
um but if you’re not capturing them if
28:35
they’re not committing to an estimate
28:36
you’re throwing all that marketing money
28:38
away
28:38
so we’re gonna have a lead magnet so we
28:40
can continue to nurture them and when
28:41
they’re ready to buy
28:42
hopefully we’re top of frame of mind in
28:44
addition we really should have a
28:45
facebook pixel on the back
28:47
back end of your landing page or your
28:49
website to go out and retarget them
28:51
uh through a custom audience um these
28:53
are things that can be set up very
28:55
quickly and easily
28:56
and there’s pennies on the dollar but if
28:58
you’re not tracking a lead magnet that
29:00
facebook pack pixel
29:01
and retargeting that custom audience of
29:03
people that have hit that website
29:04
uh that’s one whole now in your sales
29:08
funnel
29:08
we really should have a short term
29:09
education and some kind of automated
29:11
estimate follow-up so this is very
29:13
similar to what we do in 20 days to
29:14
close
29:15
so we’re educating them how to do the
29:16
service themselves and
29:18
whatever service they’re interested in
29:19
but in that process we’re overcoming
29:21
sales or price objections so we’re
29:22
shortening that sales cycle
29:24
and we’re making the business owner the
29:26
experts we’re creating a higher
29:27
perceived value
29:28
so you can charge a higher price uh most
29:31
service businesses including my own in
29:32
the early days didn’t have
29:33
the time or ability to follow up on an
29:35
estimate so we view service autopilot
29:37
automations
29:38
to follow up um in that 20 days to close
29:41
process so if we lose that estimate the
29:44
next hole that you’re potentially going
29:46
to see
29:46
is loss estimates do you have a way to
29:49
bundle them up
29:50
per service nurture them and then about
29:52
a month to a month and a half before
29:54
that particular season starts so if
29:55
we’re going into the fall
29:57
and all our estimates for say fall time
29:59
aeration and overseeding
30:00
uh do we have a way to go out and
30:02
reactivate them and upsell that service
30:04
so
30:04
instead of taking all that marketing
30:06
money and literally taking all the lost
30:08
estimates and
30:09
physically you’re you know somewhat
30:10
physically taking the throne in the
30:12
trash
30:13
now we’re creating a database that we
30:14
can nurture and upsell
30:17
if the sale is one do we have a way if
30:21
it’s a one-time
30:22
sale so very similar like a cleaning
30:24
company if somebody signs up for a
30:25
one-time cleaning but doesn’t
30:26
buy the reoccurring weekly or bi-weekly
30:29
cleaning or lawn care if they sign up
30:30
for a one-time spring cleanup
30:32
in the beginning of the year but they
30:33
haven’t bought a reoccurring fertilizing
30:35
or mowing
30:36
we should have some place in effect to
30:39
make sure the automation
30:40
or manual process triggers five days
30:42
after that service if they haven’t
30:44
scheduled the reoccurring service
30:45
to upsell it otherwise you’ve got a huge
30:47
hole in your sales funnel here
30:49
and then when we’ve got that reoccurring
30:52
sale
30:53
right out the gate a gateway service
30:55
we’re going to talk about gateway
30:56
services here in a minute
30:57
um do we have a way to upsell another
31:01
reoccurring service so something that
31:02
we’ve seen
31:03
uh real success in the service autopilot
31:06
academy ecosystem
31:07
without giving away any of the tips or
31:09
tricks is a lot of the academy
31:11
elite members and regular academy
31:13
members are taking the teachings of
31:15
academy and saying
31:16
how can we take a stop of say
31:18
fertilization
31:20
and maybe be licensed for perimeter
31:22
pests
31:23
and mosquitoes so now that we’re not now
31:25
that we’re going there with the same
31:26
truck and very minimal
31:27
extra equipment expense we’re not only
31:29
fertilizing but we’re doing perimeter
31:31
pass
31:31
and we’re doing mosquitoes for an extra
31:33
10 minutes they’ve tripled
31:35
um or doubled the bottom line uh margin
31:38
on that so we’re going out and
31:40
creating a process there and then we
31:43
want to go out and cross-sell and
31:44
upgrade
31:45
with seasonal timing and then be able to
31:47
cancel any reactivate any loss sets
31:49
those cancels again
31:51
uh based on the seasonality so those are
31:53
the kind of core areas you want to look
31:55
at before we dive in the
31:56
to the axial uh takeaways of this talk
31:59
but the
32:00
next thing we’re looking is i talked
32:01
about a lead magnet cody and a lead
32:03
magnet
32:04
is just literally something of value so
32:06
this was right off the callahan’s
32:07
website
32:07
uh six reasons to hire a professional
32:10
video series
32:11
and we utilize the back end of a service
32:13
autopilot form
32:14
it would automatically enter them in the
32:16
service autopilot and then we’d start
32:17
nurturing them
32:18
uh so lead magnet ideas video series
32:21
white paper or how-to guides with
32:23
pictures so
32:24
this is actually a screenshot here of
32:27
when we had the pleasure of flying down
32:28
to dallas
32:29
a year or two ago to meet with all of
32:31
the service autopilot academy elite so
32:34
if people are watching this
32:35
and wondering about academy um from the
32:38
things i’ve seen
32:39
it is worth every penny uh it is great
32:42
and they bring in professionals in like
32:43
jason cupp
32:45
uh jim houston they brought the simple
32:47
growth team in
32:48
uh but we had the pleasure hanging out
32:49
with academy elite two days and
32:51
part of that time we taught and did
32:54
automations with him but one of the
32:55
things we provided them
32:56
as an elite member as your four big
32:59
essentials for
33:00
lawn care and this was a lead magnet
33:02
with all the content that we wrote for
33:03
them
33:04
but a lot of academy members are still
33:05
using this cody and actually have a
33:06
really good success for that
33:10
um up to that point cody any questions
33:14
this is all good stuff is there
33:15
somewhere if if people want
33:17
a a copy of that flowchart
33:21
um is that somewhere that they can get
33:23
it or can we like come back and put it
33:24
in the comments later yeah we can put in
33:26
the comments i can uh i can put it right
33:27
on
33:28
uh the messenger bot right on the simple
33:30
growth facebook page
33:31
and um you know give me about 24 hours
33:33
and we’ll put that back on the notes and
33:35
we’ll just have they can type in slides
33:36
or whatever that is and
33:38
it’ll automatically give them a pdf
33:39
download right there often yeah i think
33:41
that would be
33:42
a really helpful thing to like print out
33:44
and have near your desk especially as
33:46
you’re thinking about your marketing
33:47
plan
33:48
just being able to identify which of
33:49
those trash cans you’re letting people
33:51
fall into
33:53
absolutely yeah definitely yeah happy to
33:56
do that so
33:57
if you were an essay five and you heard
33:59
jonathan’s talk he talked about
34:00
anchoring your business with two to
34:01
three
34:02
core recurring services so
34:05
i’m going to break this down kind of
34:06
industry specific so lawn care what i’m
34:08
going to recommend as a core recurring
34:10
service is your lawn care
34:12
so far as far as lawn mowing
34:15
fertilization
34:16
are your two core uh gateway services so
34:19
those are things that you can go in
34:21
right now
34:22
and measure through smart maps or maps
34:23
pro depending on version two or version
34:25
three
34:26
and automatically calculate a price and
34:28
budget time and sell over the phone
34:30
now home cleaning uh is pretty
34:32
interesting so you can actually pull the
34:34
square footage off of zillow
34:36
pretty quickly in the office and ask
34:37
some qualifying questions of number of
34:39
people pat’s different things for that
34:41
um you know kind of that dirt code how
34:43
dirty is the house
34:44
um but the idea is we want to be able to
34:47
sell
34:48
um two maybe three recurring services
34:50
right over the phone
34:52
and close them right there because speed
34:54
is the name of the game so
34:55
when we anchor those two to three
34:57
recurring services we want to use
34:59
digital marketing to cast that broad net
35:02
and we’re going to use such things as
35:03
custom audiences in facebook
35:05
uh list of prospects and service
35:07
autopilot and import those into facebook
35:09
for other custom audience
35:10
and then facebook ads targeting your
35:13
ideal geographic neighborhoods or
35:15
demographics so we’re just going to plug
35:16
basically a geo fence over your service
35:19
area
35:19
or your ideal service area and we’re
35:21
going to go out and cast that digital
35:22
net and we’re going to have that
35:23
facebook pixel hopefully on that website
35:25
so we can retarget those people as they
35:27
look at it but the idea is
35:29
the digital net is going to cast around
35:31
your whole entire service area
35:33
um but now we’re getting customers
35:36
popping up over here over here over
35:37
there cody
35:38
and name of the game is route density so
35:41
we don’t want to be driving all over
35:42
so what we’re going to do then is use
35:45
offline marketing to zero
35:46
in for route density and the way we’re
35:50
going to do this is use maps pro to
35:51
create a list i’m going to show you how
35:53
to do property specific pricing
35:54
a couple things that we did um at
35:56
callahan’s it actually
35:58
we had a list of over 10 000 homes being
36:01
currently mowed by commercial prop
36:03
our competitors so i’m going to break
36:04
that down for you how you can do that in
36:06
your market before it’s too late for the
36:07
fall
36:08
and then we also use the sun gym
36:09
integration for cards gifts
36:11
and ringless voicemail bombs so we’re
36:13
gonna cast that digital net out
36:15
through facebook and maybe pay per click
36:18
and then we’re gonna use offline
36:19
marketing to focus in on the areas we’re
36:20
already at
36:21
or if you’re looking at the map the big
36:23
gaps between your dense areas so we can
36:25
minimize that non-billable drive time
36:27
so we’re going to dive in now to show
36:29
you how we use service autopilot to
36:30
actually
36:31
um handle these objectives here hey i
36:34
want to point out one thing real quick
36:36
about
36:37
your facebook retargeting
36:40
you have the pixel set up on your
36:41
website anyone who comes through no
36:44
matter what source
36:45
they’re coming from so if they’re coming
36:47
from an adwords click
36:49
they’re coming from their neighbor told
36:51
them about
36:53
your company you know whatever that
36:54
source is if they have a facebook
36:57
account
36:58
they’re getting put into your custom
36:59
audience to then get followed around on
37:01
facebook by you
37:03
so that retargeting audience is so
37:05
important
37:06
because it helps you spend a little bit
37:09
more
37:10
but it makes all of your uh
37:13
campaigns more successful okay yeah no
37:17
good good input too
37:18
and i mean i’m actually i wasn’t
37:20
planning on it but a couple of
37:21
screenshots i have maybe
37:23
are well i know a couple of them are a
37:24
little outdated just with the facebook
37:26
pixel
37:26
um because it’s constantly moving but i
37:28
will give everybody an idea of where to
37:30
find that stuff as well and you may have
37:31
some input is that cody
37:33
uh but the online marketing that
37:34
facebook pixel so uh using knowledge
37:37
um you gather about them to build a
37:38
stronger relationship so
37:40
target those users have been to a
37:42
certain page of your website if you want
37:43
so maybe somebody was looking at snow
37:45
removal or lawn care
37:46
or pest control go out and you can
37:48
basically dial into certain pages or all
37:51
the pages on your website
37:52
track how many visitors converted after
37:54
seeing a particular ad on facebook
37:56
and then the stats most new sales take
37:58
about 43 days to convert into a customer
38:02
uh at callaghan’s when i read i ran the
38:03
metrics before this talk it was about
38:05
64 days so we need to continually be out
38:08
with those retargeting ads
38:10
to stay in front of them and they’ll
38:12
short term or the long term nurture
38:13
depending where they’re at in that
38:14
customer life cycle
38:16
and on average they will click at least
38:17
five call to actions so ctas before
38:19
buying
38:20
so it could be that lead magnet it could
38:22
be um
38:23
the google review link it could be the
38:25
customer testimonials you have on your
38:27
website
38:28
um so you want to make sure you got
38:29
enough beef in there that they can go
38:31
through
38:32
and click on different things um we want
38:34
to continue to provide that free
38:35
valuable content
38:36
uh to let those cold leads know who we
38:38
are and hopefully
38:39
warm them up so they’re ready to buy
38:42
and we definitely want to go out through
38:44
education and not
38:46
a sales pitch because we want to get
38:47
them to know like and trust us
38:49
and those are going to convert into
38:51
better customers so as you go in here
38:52
the facebook ads
38:54
pixel now like i said some of this stuff
38:55
has been moved around but this at least
38:57
give you a base idea of kind of the
38:59
things you need if you don’t have it
39:01
um so right now we’re going to go and
39:02
set the pixel here
39:04
um and we’re going to select our
39:07
campaign objective so
39:08
most people are driving brand awareness
39:11
or messenger right now
39:14
but obviously you want to talk to a
39:15
facebook ads expert before you do this
39:17
but i want to give you some overview
39:18
kind of what this looks like behind the
39:20
scenes if you’ve never gone into
39:22
the ads manager so next thing is we want
39:25
to go in
39:26
and name the campaign make it something
39:28
with a standardized naming convention so
39:29
you can go back historically and see
39:31
what it is
39:32
and it makes sense um and then we want
39:35
to go in and
39:36
grab that pixel and it could be from any
39:38
url
39:39
on your website or it contains this
39:42
so people have visited the specific web
39:44
pages in the last 30 days
39:46
i believe what is it 180 days uh that
39:48
can be retargeted now
39:50
uh yeah it depends on what kind of
39:54
retargeting you’re setting up
39:56
there’s some things that’ll go 365. okay
39:59
so
39:59
obviously we want to set that um
40:01
retargeting as well
40:02
yeah and then we want to downsell our
40:05
gateway services
40:06
so we’re going to sell those core
40:07
services like lawn mowing the
40:09
fertilizing or the cleaning
40:11
over the phone so we’re going to use the
40:12
utilized maps pro to measure the
40:14
property or get the
40:16
custom fields off zillow for the home
40:17
square footage for cleaning
40:19
we’re going to create custom fields and
40:20
store them in there so
40:22
turf square footage or home square
40:24
footage goes in there and then we have
40:25
price matrices
40:26
that automatically calculate a price of
40:28
budgeted time and a cost before profit
40:31
in the pre-templated service autopilot
40:33
estimates so these pre-built estimate
40:34
templates are going to create speed and
40:36
accuracy
40:36
and allow people to down sell so we’re
40:39
not going to try to sell everything in
40:41
our our
40:42
our service mail offering we’re just
40:45
going to get them
40:45
on the one or two services we can get
40:47
them over the phone quickly and then
40:49
we’re going to go back out there
40:50
and say 20 to 30 days and upsell
40:53
additional reoccurring services so the
40:55
idea is lock them up on the phone for
40:57
speed and accuracy
40:59
so now that we’ve gone in and cast that
41:02
digital net
41:03
um and sold over the phone
41:07
we really want to go in offline and
41:08
build route density so
41:10
in the leads feature in version two of
41:13
service autopilot
41:15
we’re able to go in and dial into a map
41:17
here what i’ve done
41:18
is you can see here these tabs here
41:21
these yellow ones
41:23
um i can go in and click on each house
41:26
in a neighborhood or the nine
41:28
surrounding houses and what it does is
41:30
it creates a
41:31
lead list here for you so what we did is
41:33
we made
41:34
marketing lists of all the homes around
41:37
um our existing clients and then we
41:40
brought college kids in in the
41:41
winter to actually go in and create
41:44
property specific pricing based on our
41:46
matrices
41:47
and then we did direct mail campaigns
41:49
offline
41:50
to those homes um and that was one of
41:53
the plays the additional play was we
41:55
actually went out
41:56
and um took like a notebook
41:59
and it you know ethically i think this
42:01
is okay i didn’t make some of my
42:02
competitors really happy when we did it
42:04
uh but we drove around every single
42:06
neighborhood that we uh we serviced cody
42:08
and we created a list and it was like
42:09
123 main street we put the name of the
42:11
street in the notebook
42:13
and then just listed the house numbers
42:14
underneath it and this we
42:16
ended up creating a database about 10
42:18
000 homes and we could tell they’re
42:20
being mowed
42:21
uh at least in the northeast by the
42:23
lines in the lawn
42:24
in the front when we drove up you could
42:26
tell this lawn was probably commercially
42:28
mowed here
42:28
especially when you’re looking at it
42:29
directly so any long that looked like it
42:31
was commercially mode
42:32
we added it to list and then we had some
42:34
college kids come in in the winter
42:36
measure them and create a database and
42:38
then what we did
42:39
i’ll show you a picture of it a little
42:40
bit is we mailed all of those out
42:42
property specific pricing
42:44
and on the envelope uh the we went to a
42:47
mail house that did it
42:48
and it said lawn mowing customer with
42:50
the address
42:52
um and the first time we did that we had
42:55
a very significant
42:57
adoption rate now the effect of this
42:59
went down but the first year
43:01
we probably picked up over 200 lawn
43:02
mowing accounts alone but we had the
43:04
lawn mowing
43:05
the fertilizing and the aeration and
43:06
overseeing all there are three options
43:08
and then bundling and save
43:10
but that’s this is one way of using
43:11
service autopilot um
43:13
and then if uh you’re using a product
43:16
like send jim a radius bomb would
43:18
literally just drop
43:19
here and it would grab the closest nine
43:21
addresses and could potentially
43:23
automatically send postcards
43:24
one three or five times is what i’d
43:26
recommend uh but probably three or five
43:28
is what you want but the idea is you can
43:30
do this manually
43:31
or you can automate it through send gym
43:34
and then want to streamline our pricing
43:35
with that pricing matrix i
43:36
told you about so this is a big
43:38
commercial property where we actually
43:39
went out
43:40
and dropped these pins uh to measure the
43:43
the gross lot and then we’d go in around
43:45
the building and parking lot and suck
43:47
that out
43:47
with the plus and minus features of
43:49
service autopilot maps pro
43:50
or smart maps now in v3 but these are uh
43:54
the things that we’d want to do
43:55
we do that for the niner the online
43:57
niner rounds or that database as well
43:59
um so everything went out with property
44:01
specific pricing and it allowed us to
44:03
sell even quicker
44:05
so offline marketing um 3 000 or 300 000
44:09
plus direct mail pieces
44:10
uh in one spring this is a picture of uh
44:12
what we did here but
44:14
the the bags go way beyond here uh but
44:16
that’s me in the background
44:17
everything’s stacked here and all these
44:19
bags are our portion of the direct
44:22
edm and direct mail piece that we did so
44:25
we had eddm every direct door mailing
44:27
and then we had property specific
44:28
mailing um in there as well
44:31
uh with services and the key to this
44:33
really is
44:34
if you’re gonna drop a 30 to 40 000
44:36
spend or even three or four thousand
44:38
uh you don’t want to just take it out
44:40
and push say
44:41
three hundred thousand flyers out to
44:43
three thousand three hundred thousand
44:45
homes
44:46
you would wanna go out three to nine
44:48
times
44:49
and have each house get three to five
44:53
different uh mailings because it’s that
44:55
frequency they need to see it three to
44:56
five times before it resonates so
44:58
if you’re looking at a massive ad spend
44:59
you want to consolidate that down
45:02
and take whatever that spend is and and
45:05
hit those folks so
45:06
uh the page we did a full page insert in
45:08
the community newspaper
45:10
that went out nine different times it
45:11
was three different ad copies
45:13
and they alternated one two three one
45:14
two three one two three
45:16
it was interesting by the third time it
45:17
went around they’re like oh we recognize
45:19
you
45:20
but the first one they had no idea they
45:21
just threw in the trash but it started
45:23
to build
45:23
so those are some of the keys to success
45:25
there um and once you did this we wanted
45:27
to create this pre-built estimate
45:29
template with the pricing matrix i’m
45:30
talking about so
45:31
in the lawn mowing example the square
45:34
footage
45:35
here for 11 000 square feet fictitiously
45:37
calculated a price of 55 bucks
45:39
0.48 hours to do it on site in a cost of
45:43
17.72
45:45
before profit and then we had the
45:47
ability to break down my market
45:49
in either postal codes or towns so we
45:51
put the number one in here
45:53
it calculated an extra eight dollars and
45:55
nine cents for mobilization that
45:56
non-billable time
45:58
now if you’re working with an expert
45:59
like jason cupp uh he may give you a
46:02
number
46:02
your break even per man hour may cover
46:04
that non-billable drive time on average
46:06
in your over budget
46:08
but what you’re going to find is you may
46:09
not want to charge extra because it’s
46:11
already included in your hourly
46:13
um revenue or billing rate but what the
46:16
biggest disconnect is folks don’t put a
46:18
budgeted time
46:19
for these certain areas that they’re
46:20
going so if you’re going to that piece
46:22
rate pay system
46:23
or you’re putting a big you know board
46:25
on the wall of what your
46:27
your basically your your percentage of
46:31
production
46:32
so 100 are you hitting 100 or better
46:35
for production uh there was actually
46:37
there’s a post on the facebook group
46:38
yesterday like hey
46:40
what’s your ideal uh production most
46:42
people are like 70 80
46:44
um i think most people thought i was
46:45
nuts and i said well 100
46:47
if you’re covering the budgeted um
46:49
average non-billable drive time and that
46:52
needs to be there because you’re setting
46:53
an unreal expectation
46:55
your team if you’ve got the right team
46:57
wants to hit 100 every day
46:59
and it’s demoralizing when they’re
47:00
they’re hovering around 80 percent so
47:02
in my opinion is we want to be at 100
47:04
percent and
47:06
if you’ve worked with an industry
47:07
consultant doing finances like jason
47:10
cupp you may not be charging extra for
47:12
that because that’s
47:13
included in your hourly rate but in my
47:14
opinion you should at least be including
47:16
the budgeted hours
47:18
for the drive time in this i’ve got .48
47:21
on site and i got .16
47:22
drive times that’s in the mobile or the
47:25
printed version here in the close out
47:26
day screen you’re going to have 0.64 man
47:28
hours
47:29
for on-site and average drive time
47:30
that’s going to give you
47:32
um the numbers for 100 efficiency each
47:34
day and you can hold those teams
47:35
accountable
47:36
and it’s an apples apples comparison if
47:38
you’ve done your work right based on the
47:39
zones or postal codes
47:42
mike to make sure the that i understand
47:44
here how
47:45
is the team tracking that in the field
47:48
uh the team is literally grabbing their
47:50
mobile app hopefully if not on car
47:51
like printed out copy and you’re
47:53
clocking in and clocking out and what
47:54
i’m going to recommend is you clock into
47:56
the drive time in and out
47:58
and the job because there is a job cost
48:01
effect and there’s a drive time cost
48:02
effect
48:03
if you have your employees set up
48:04
correctly under the uh edit
48:07
payroll job costing tab on the employee
48:09
there should be an hourly wage and an
48:10
hourly wage
48:11
regular in overtime with labor burden
48:13
that’s going to include your fica
48:14
unemployment holiday pay
48:16
and a few other ones so i’ve got some
48:17
videos out there on it but those are
48:20
data in data out or no data in no date
48:22
out or
48:23
very bad data very bad data out so you
48:25
want to make sure you’ve got the right
48:26
numbers in the right places
48:27
but great great question cody because
48:29
you’re clocking in and out and now we’ve
48:31
got this non-emotional reporting machine
48:34
for the right players on the bench
48:35
hopefully that are going to be motivated
48:36
with quality to do that
48:39
in addition if you’re doing a large
48:41
amount of um
48:44
jobs and selling the way we were pumping
48:46
out 1100 to 1200 estimates a month
48:48
uh we need to automate the business
48:50
owner to be to automate the sales person
48:51
so you can
48:52
embed inside service autopilot uh videos
48:55
right on the line item
48:56
of the service so shrub pruning here we
48:59
talked about what was included what
49:00
wasn’t included
49:01
and we overcame any sales or price
49:03
objections through an educational video
49:05
in the bottom of the estimate we had an
49:07
additional um nine videos and actually i
49:09
think i’ve got it here in the next slide
49:11
of our core services not necessarily our
49:13
gateway services but our core services
49:15
that we offer
49:16
uh so we are allowed people 24 7 to
49:18
understand what they include and what
49:20
they didn’t
49:21
and how how to do that and in the essay
49:23
estimates we can also include some
49:24
buttons
49:25
to automatically call or text if they’re
49:26
on their mobile viewing the web
49:28
uh the estimate or check out the website
49:30
so these are
49:32
uh really important i know it’s awkward
49:34
making videos but
49:35
i mean first draft is better than no
49:36
draft uh jonathan
49:38
uh of essay there in the long community
49:39
he’s always always laugh that
49:41
he had one for his company city turf
49:43
that he never swapped out he has now
49:45
recently
49:46
um but the original video for city turf
49:48
and the original video i had at
49:49
callahan’s
49:50
was um definitely a first draft of not
49:53
being used to be in front of the camera
49:55
um but it was quirky enough that the
49:56
consumer related to you
49:58
as a person and that you actually stood
50:01
behind it it wasn’t like a fast-pitched
50:03
sales on a commercial so
50:05
um you don’t want perfection in those
50:07
videos from what i’ve seen
50:09
so as we kind of bring it to the end
50:11
here uh
50:12
still up there estimate template with
50:14
videos if you go on the service
50:16
autopilot marketplace
50:17
uh upper hand corner a little avatar you
50:19
go to marketplace
50:21
um search for estimate template with
50:23
videos i’ve got a pre-built
50:24
free template in there um that you can
50:26
download right into service autopilot
50:28
and it’s got instructions how to get
50:29
those videos from youtube
50:31
and all the things we did it demystifies
50:33
the whole thing for you cody so that’s
50:34
just a free give for everybody
50:35
hop up to the essay marketplace and
50:37
download your own version of the
50:38
estimate template with videos how to do
50:40
that um and it breaks down the other
50:42
buttons too so it’s just a turnkey thing
50:43
that we wanted to give for value here
50:45
um next thing we looked at is a ringless
50:47
voicemail bomb so the send gym
50:49
integration uh obviously there’s
50:51
additional cost but one of the things i
50:52
really liked outside of the nine around
50:54
is
50:55
something that we use in 20 days to
50:57
close a lot so
50:58
um at certain points we recommend a
51:00
physical phone call
51:02
to someone you dropped off an estimate
51:03
to if they haven’t signed up yet
51:06
well if you don’t have the time or you
51:07
just don’t want to make a phone call
51:09
ringless voicemail bombs can be
51:10
automatically be triggered
51:12
and it hits the cell phone without
51:14
ringing but it looks like a missed call
51:16
and it might instantly be like hey it’s
51:17
mike from callahan
51:18
so sorry i missed you calling about the
51:20
estimate you dropped off three days ago
51:22
lo and behold it’s exactly three days
51:23
because the automation
51:24
knows that um but the idea is like hey
51:26
we want to leave you a match to see any
51:28
questions regarding the estimate if you
51:29
do give us call back at this number or
51:31
feel free to sign up on the online
51:32
estimate that we gave you but we’re
51:34
creating a
51:35
personal but automated um
51:38
voicemail that’s not a robocall so huge
51:41
huge deal there and most people for a
51:42
lawn care home cleaning company
51:44
have no idea this is automated they’re
51:46
just jazz you actually picked up the
51:47
phone and answered the call or called
51:48
them back so
51:49
this is uh definitely huge
51:52
and then as we’re looking at it this is
51:55
kind of the overflow of our
51:57
automation and how we handle these
51:59
different things but when they hit the
52:00
website
52:01
or the office we drop that lead letter
52:03
the five or six main thing reasons why
52:05
we’re different
52:05
and before the estimate we do that short
52:07
term education so we’re nurturing we’re
52:09
educating we’re not selling
52:11
once the estimate is done we’re focusing
52:12
on conversion
52:14
that 20 days to close automated estimate
52:16
follow-up will be automated text email
52:18
and phone call or ringless voicemail
52:20
bomb
52:20
once the estimate has won we’ve got an
52:22
automated process i call welcome in wow
52:25
but we’re going to nurture and get that
52:27
credit card on file automatically
52:29
through a pci compliant
52:31
form through clarence which works really
52:32
well tokenized it’s great
52:34
and then when we’ve lost the estimate
52:36
we’ve they’ve canceled the service or
52:38
they need renewal a reminder
52:40
um in the upsell we’ve buttoned in and
52:43
created a
52:43
streamlined automated process to make
52:45
sure what should happen happens when it
52:47
should happen
52:47
because traditionally when we have to do
52:49
those things we’re all too busy to
52:50
remember to do them so now
52:52
utilizing service autopilot automations
52:54
we’re able to handle the nurture the
52:56
conversion
52:57
the nurture for the loss estimates
52:58
canceled and then we upsell them and
53:00
reactivate them
53:01
through that process at the end and
53:03
bringing it home
53:05
uh last part of nurture is like we’re
53:07
going to provide that free valuable
53:08
information that people want and need
53:10
if you had been to i believe it was sa5
53:12
with
53:13
marcus sheridan uh he talked about how
53:16
people buy now
53:17
and how if you’re not providing the
53:19
information
53:20
live on your website um in video and
53:23
social media they’re going to continue
53:24
looking to the next competitor that does
53:27
so this is something that
53:28
um when i had the pleasure of speaking
53:30
before marcus uh he gave a couple kudos
53:32
after i got off the stage because we had
53:33
been doing this
53:35
for probably six to seven years very
53:36
similar to garrett matthews in the sa
53:38
ecosystem as well
53:39
but these things work so if you’re not
53:41
creating free valuable information
53:43
through
53:43
either written text or video you really
53:46
need to start doing it
53:47
because we need to nurture them and then
53:49
we’re going to create that higher
53:50
perceived value and make you the local
53:52
expert
53:53
outside your competitors so short-term
53:56
nurture
53:57
in there was just basically to educate
53:58
on the specific service they’re
54:00
interested in
54:00
and have an automated but personal
54:02
conversation around it and we want to
54:03
address those sales or price objections
54:04
so
54:05
do i need to be home to have the service
54:06
done if i’m a home cleaning company
54:09
what kind of insurance should i be
54:10
looking for if it’s a lawn care
54:11
landscape company are they going to
54:12
close the fence gate behind them when
54:13
they leave so the homeowner is worried
54:15
about the kids and the dog running out
54:16
of the backyard
54:17
these are objections that people like
54:18
i’m not sure if i’m really going to hire
54:20
this out because i don’t i’m not
54:21
comfortable
54:22
are they going to do the things that i’m
54:23
concerned about we want to address them
54:25
up front before they ask them and then
54:26
they feel comfortable with us
54:28
and then our conversion 20 days to close
54:30
so whether you’re building
54:31
your own automated estimate follow-up or
54:33
using a product like 20 days to close
54:35
with simple growth
54:36
there’s some key things that i’m going
54:37
to recommend you put in here scarcity
54:40
spots are filling up fast we don’t
54:41
overbook our schedule
54:43
um so now they’re like okay well they’re
54:45
concerned about quality they’re not
54:46
going to over overbook
54:48
we better act quick we have a deadline
54:49
so within 20 days
54:51
so the 20-day contact at the end of 20
54:53
days to close literally says
54:54
do we have permission to close out your
54:56
account and close out the estimate so
54:58
the consumer’s thinking like
54:59
wait a minute if i don’t accept this
55:01
estimate i may have to go through this
55:03
whole estimate process again because
55:04
it’s only good for 20 days
55:06
in a cta a call to action call or text
55:09
back now to save your spot and that’s
55:11
where those little links in the estimate
55:13
or the email may be applicable and
55:15
making it easy just let them click that
55:16
cta
55:17
and there’s multiple communications
55:19
channels cody are really important that
55:22
uh mail hard mail phone calls are
55:25
ringless voicemail bombs text
55:26
and email and we can automate a lot of
55:28
this but yeah some of the mailing
55:30
um should be sent to a mail house or an
55:32
internal team because
55:33
a lot of people aren’t doing the edm or
55:34
direct mailing so
55:36
if you’re in the mailbox by yourself in
55:38
the spring season there’s a good chance
55:40
they’re going to notice and look at up
55:41
out of pure curiosity and then the final
55:45
part here is
55:46
we want to follow up and upsell more
55:48
profitable work so
55:49
automating the follow-up systems through
55:51
repetitive tasks so the daily weekly
55:53
monthly yearly and quarterly things you
55:55
should be doing
55:56
uh we’re going to automate through a
55:57
process i like to call repetitive tasks
55:59
so
55:59
inspections on site after 30 days so
56:02
basically what we did at callahan’s is
56:04
we had an automation so
56:05
30 days when they bought one of those
56:06
gateway services lawn mowing fertilizing
56:09
we would go out with an sa form right
56:11
inside the um
56:12
the phone there and they would fill it
56:14
out but basically what we were doing is
56:16
we were
56:17
yes checking the quality but we were
56:19
capturing through an on-site estimate
56:21
form
56:21
the square footage of the bed the number
56:23
of small medium and large shrubs all the
56:24
services that we could provide at that
56:26
home
56:26
we collected the data in custom fields
56:30
and in that form now the automations
56:33
could trigger and pull that data out we
56:35
could upsell
56:36
throughout 12 months of the season based
56:38
on the information we got so we’re going
56:39
to sell the service over the phone
56:41
so we don’t have to do an on-site
56:42
estimate and then 30 days later we’re
56:44
going to do a qc
56:45
with collect custom fields to go out and
56:48
never have to go back out to that house
56:50
ever again
56:50
to do an upsell so seasonal upsell
56:54
examples based on the time of the season
56:56
weed control grub control aeration and
56:57
overseeding
56:58
deep cleaning for the home cleaning
57:00
industry before the holidays yeah you
57:01
may be getting a weekly or bi-weekly
57:03
clean
57:03
um but a deep clean is literally going
57:05
to go through and take care of the
57:07
baseboards the shades everything else in
57:09
the house
57:10
and in addition to that we can upsell
57:12
some additional services home cleaning
57:14
far is
57:14
uh stove cleaning refrigeration cleaning
57:17
those things are gonna need
57:18
probably done for the holidays you don’t
57:19
want your your relatives and your guests
57:21
to see what a mess the
57:22
the uh the fridge has become in the last
57:24
12 months so um
57:26
we’re gonna take those one time to
57:27
reoccurring service and increase that
57:29
client lifetime value
57:31
um and that’s how we’re gonna tackle it
57:34
so the last thing i got here for you
57:35
cody is
57:36
stay consistent by automating repetitive
57:38
tasks and make sure what
57:40
should happen gets done um so this was
57:43
the final piece of automating
57:44
my journey in my business uh to become
57:46
an absentee owner but i realized with 25
57:48
30 employees
57:49
i got sucked back in as a full-time
57:51
daycare um and i had to tell everybody
57:53
what to do every day every week every
57:54
month and so on or it never happened
57:57
so what we’ve learned specifically
57:59
inside service autopilot is
58:01
there’s seven core areas of business we
58:03
can automate
58:04
and they are sales customer service
58:07
scheduling
58:08
billing office manager maintenance and
58:10
yes owner
58:11
so the owner should be holding
58:12
themselves accountable for things like
58:14
taxes maybe they have to do quarterly
58:15
tax returns
58:16
whatever that is hold yourself
58:18
accountable and what we’ve done for real
58:20
brief example um as the last point here
58:22
is if you had a salesperson
58:24
say his name’s dave dave’s job is to do
58:25
all his estimates and make his follow-up
58:27
phone calls
58:28
if we’re doing manual phone calls for
58:30
follow-ups if dave doesn’t do his job
58:33
i’d say 5 or 5 15 the automation would
58:35
either text mail message them or email
58:37
them say hey dave you didn’t do your job
58:39
this is what should have been done and
58:40
then based on the severity of that
58:42
the way you would set the automation up
58:44
the automation would either email or
58:45
text message
58:46
the manager or the owner letting us know
58:48
dave didn’t do his job but the whole
58:49
idea is
58:50
service autopilot in the automation
58:51
tells people what to do every day every
58:53
week every month every quarter
58:55
and annually and if it doesn’t happen it
58:57
pulls the appropriate person in to
58:58
handle it
58:59
and it alerts the person responsible if
59:01
they should have done it and they need
59:02
to get it done
59:04
um so i know that was a lot all at once
59:06
um but foundation we want to work on
59:08
that labor pool and that labor bench
59:10
and make sure we don’t have those three
59:12
pitfalls of cash flow
59:13
knowing our numbers and the right people
59:16
and then we can go on through online
59:17
marketing cast that digital net
59:19
and then offline marketing to build
59:21
route density we really want to focus on
59:22
selling those core
59:23
gateway services that we can sell over
59:26
the phone and then go back 20 you know
59:28
20 to 30 days later on site collect all
59:30
the information and upsell those
59:31
reoccurring services just like the
59:32
example of
59:33
going out for the fertilizing and then
59:36
going to upsell the pest control with
59:37
the mosquito control so you’re there an
59:38
extra 10 minutes but you’ve tripled your
59:40
revenue
59:41
so that’s all i got for you cody i know
59:42
it was a crazy essay weekly here
59:45
um on this lovely afternoon
59:50
all good info absolutely any questions
59:53
before we wrap it up i know you got to
59:54
go
59:54
i appreciate hanging out with me here
59:56
for the last hour or so oh no no problem
59:58
uh mike i think that was all
60:00
good stuff i’m excited for people to let
60:02
us know how they implemented it
60:04
uh by way of reminder mike
60:08
is going to have it set up if they send
60:10
uh the simple growth page a message
60:12
they’ll be able to get
60:13
uh that flowchart from you guys yeah
60:16
absolutely so if you go in it’s uh
60:20
simplegrowthsystems.com
60:21
uh give us like an hour or two i’ll have
60:23
my automations team hop behind it
60:25
um actually brand new look to the
60:26
website too i’ll actually pull it up in
60:28
the stream so you can actually see what
60:29
i’m talking about
60:29
um so we’ve got uh the new look of the
60:31
uh website here
60:33
uh finally we’re the shoemaker’s kid but
60:34
now you can see it here this chat bot
60:36
pops up
60:37
uh if you go you can either continue as
60:39
yourself in facebook or a guest so
60:41
that’s another huge thing right now
60:43
with that online digital marketing um
60:46
the facebook bots that we’ve been
60:47
building here
60:48
uh will now act as a chat bot or chat
60:52
uh help feature or automated quoting but
60:56
the cool thing is now
60:58
it doesn’t matter if they’re uh facebook
61:00
messenger or facebook uh person you can
61:02
go in as a guest
61:03
and you click that once that pops up uh
61:05
where it says ask a question here
61:07
um just put um essay weekly slides and
61:11
somebody on my team
61:11
will fire off your pdf and we’ll
61:13
obviously automate that in the next hour
61:14
so i didn’t think about providing that
61:16
but it was a that’s a good
61:17
that’s a good move cody for sure you
61:19
should print it out and put it next to
61:21
your desk is what i’m saying i think
61:22
that it will be super helpful
61:24
for you to uh keep in mind as you’re
61:26
working on your marketing plans
61:28
especially going into fall upsells what
61:31
is the hold that i’m letting people fall
61:33
out of
61:33
so if we’re gonna give homework on here
61:35
uh your homework is to go find those
61:37
holes
61:38
absolutely well i appreciate it once
61:40
again essay weekly talk show
61:42
uh coming to come back live every week 1
61:45
p.m eastern 12 p.m central
61:47
uh cody i will let you take it away
61:48
because uh you did me a favor of uh
61:51
actually running the helms today and uh
61:53
i’m just running the technology so it’s
61:54
beautiful so
61:56
alright guys well we will see you uh
61:58
next week we should have an exciting
62:00
guest
62:00
all right see you next week 1 p.m
62:02
eastern 12 central essay weekly talk
62:04
show mike callahan cody owens we’ll see
62:06
you
62:06
next week if you like this show
62:09
you might want to check out our
62:11
resources at www.startsimplegrowth.com
62:15
while you’re there enter to win an
62:17
estimator chat bot
62:19
mike callahan is available for private
62:21
coaching
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