00:00
you’re listening to the simple growth
00:02
podcast
00:03
the show that helps business owners get
00:05
their life back
00:06
here’s your host mike callahan
00:09
welcome back to the essay weekly talk
00:11
show mike calan here with co-host cody
00:13
owen
00:14
and special guest dylan rothenberg of uh
00:17
originally sudbury ontario but now of
00:19
kingston ontario
00:20
up in the north so uh dylan and i go way
00:23
back he was actually
00:24
probably the first simple growth
00:26
automation client so
00:27
uh we’ve known our known each other
00:29
quite a bit in uh talk some serious
00:30
business and
00:31
particularly around snow removal so the
00:34
time we’re getting into right now
00:36
um doesn’t really seem like it’s ready
00:38
for snow but if you were in the north or
00:39
northeast
00:40
uh right now is probably the time you
00:42
want to start thinking about snow
00:43
removal contract renewal and marketing
00:45
if you haven’t already so
00:46
i’m going to probably suggest you behind
00:48
the eight ball already so we thought it
00:49
was
00:50
no better time to bring in the expert of
00:52
all things snow removal
00:54
and disruptor as well of different
00:56
technologies
00:58
and equipment that dylan had been using
01:00
in his company maximum lawn care so
01:02
uh dylan if people haven’t met you
01:03
before if you wouldn’t mind just giving
01:04
a little background how you got into the
01:06
uh
01:07
lovely world of landscaping and
01:09
particularly snow removal
01:10
in uh sudbury ontario
01:13
yeah so it’s uh definitely a unique
01:16
segment to be in for sure
01:17
uh long hours but basically i started
01:20
out with just a landscaping company we
01:22
eventually
01:23
especially being in sudbury where we get
01:25
250 plus centimeters
01:27
a year on average it was just
01:30
the logical solution to roll into snow
01:33
removal eventually
01:35
kind of picked off picked up fairly
01:38
slowly
01:38
but as we started dialing in our
01:40
services a little bit better
01:42
that was the most explosive part of our
01:43
business and
01:45
by the end of it before i had sold my
01:47
business actually that was probably
01:49
about 60 to 70 percent of our actual
01:51
total revenue
01:53
so yeah definitely use some some pretty
01:55
unique equipment uh at least for our
01:57
market it’s becoming a little bit more
01:58
and more popular now with our
02:00
uh tractor snowblowers and and stuff
02:02
like that but i’m sure we’ll
02:04
we’ll get into that a little bit deeper
02:06
yeah and that’s something that i’ll be
02:07
honest i had never really
02:08
seen uh until i saw uh i believe it was
02:11
protects
02:12
uh snow warriors or something like that
02:14
it was uh a documentary they did it was
02:16
the vanderzine company up out of um
02:18
iv quebec canada and they had kind of
02:21
revolutionized uh the way they plowed
02:23
snow
02:24
up there and they get so much freaking
02:25
snow that you can’t plow it because the
02:27
mountains of snow literally are 12 to 15
02:28
feet
02:29
on each side of the road in the driveway
02:31
so they went in and created this
02:33
inverted
02:34
uh snow blowing opportunity and
02:37
a lot of guys like yourself um about the
02:39
same time jumped onto that
02:40
now in the states it’s probably not that
02:43
uh well adopted so if you’re looking to
02:45
actually see what this looks like here
02:46
i’ll actually blow up my screen and then
02:48
we’ll get into the content but uh if
02:50
you’re watching live on the facebook
02:51
here or
02:52
listen to the podcast it’s worth
02:53
checking out the live stream here
02:55
because it’s
02:56
uh very very interesting what this
02:58
actually looks like here so you can kind
02:59
of see it uh here’s dylan standing in
03:01
front of a couple of the tractors that
03:02
he owned
03:04
in his business but um really
03:06
interesting on the back of the snow
03:07
blower it’s just an inverted uh snow
03:10
blower that drops down and shoots
03:11
everything else out so
03:13
it allows you to move a lot quicker and
03:15
we’re going to talk about the benefits
03:17
and disadvantages of
03:18
actually a tractor-mounted snow blower
03:20
as well and if you look in the links
03:21
of the essay weekly here on the facebook
03:24
live um
03:25
there is an additional article that
03:26
dylan has been featured in in snow
03:28
magazine
03:29
three keys to revolutionize your market
03:31
so in this article dylan was kind enough
03:33
to break down
03:34
uh three of the main things he did to
03:36
differentiate himself in that market and
03:37
pretty much go out and dominate it so uh
03:39
got a little added bonus content um
03:41
there hey mike let’s drop let’s drop the
03:44
link to that article again i think you
03:46
gave
03:46
everyone the link to join our broadcast
03:49
oh yeah i did didn’t i yeah welcome to
03:52
the show
03:53
everyone welcome to the show
03:57
all right there we go last time i’m
04:00
allowed to handle the technology here so
04:02
i appreciate that cody
04:03
all right so we’ve got that and that
04:05
should be in the notes live here
04:07
in a few minutes so we’ll see who else
04:10
is joining the show is a special guest
04:11
in a few minutes
04:12
um but i guess the first thing dylan i
04:15
really want to talk about here is
04:16
uh marketing and one of the things that
04:18
i was really impressed with you right
04:19
out of the gates when we met
04:21
was your approach to marketing so would
04:23
you mind breaking down
04:24
how you went on actually marketed your
04:26
snow removal services and then
04:28
did it transition or did it change the
04:30
type of marketing of the content
04:32
from when you went to uh snow plowing
04:35
with actual
04:36
trucks to actual um tractors was there
04:38
was there a different
04:39
uh play on the marketing there yeah so
04:42
when we first started marketing it
04:44
pretty heavily
04:45
uh we were just doing the plowing and
04:48
the the thing we kind of found was there
04:50
was a wide range of what people were
04:51
charging for a driveway or a lot
04:53
commercial lots are going to differ
04:55
entirely yeah you most likely need to
04:57
do a specialized quote for that but we
05:00
really wanted to have like
05:01
simplified upfront pricing for our
05:04
residential customers
05:05
and kind of change the conversation
05:07
where instead of they’re calling for a
05:08
quote they don’t really know when you’re
05:10
getting back to them
05:11
they had already seen all of our content
05:13
on our website on our postcards door
05:15
hangers whatever that might be
05:17
and they could already kind of place
05:19
where they were in the pricing structure
05:20
and they were calling us more to maybe
05:22
ask one or two final questions and then
05:24
actually sign up for the service
05:25
instead of a week or two week long
05:27
estimate and finally getting them to
05:29
sign up process
05:30
so when we were able to to kind of turn
05:33
on the the jets when it came to
05:34
marketing
05:35
we were able to actually accept much
05:37
more customers rather than have it be a
05:39
big big
05:39
burden on our office that was kind of
05:42
the very very initial
05:43
starting of it when we were still doing
05:45
the actual plowing
05:47
basically everything had kind of changed
05:49
we were growing
05:50
steadily but nothing really to write
05:52
home about
05:53
when it came to the snow plowing the
05:55
minute we got the tractor
05:57
uh basically everything had changed
05:59
there was actually already another
06:01
company in our market
06:02
that was well capitalized had purchased
06:05
several
06:06
uh very nice brand new tractors before
06:08
us we were kind of a little bit
06:09
late to the jump in our relatively small
06:12
market
06:13
but the the service was still so unique
06:16
and and so different compared to all the
06:17
plowing companies that
06:20
with the right marketing we were
06:21
actually able to explode that segment
06:24
so we started off with just like the
06:27
regular
06:28
facebook ads google ads and stuff like
06:30
that
06:32
and i thought it was interesting to note
06:34
that uh
06:35
our best performing facebook ad that we
06:38
ever had
06:38
we tried you know uh discounts
06:41
catchy little phrases whatever that
06:43
might be we’d even tried radio
06:45
advertising stuff like that but
06:47
the thing that performed the best and i
06:49
found this kind of unique was
06:50
literally just a video about a 30 to 40
06:53
second video of a guy doing
06:55
a driveway with her snow blower i mean
06:57
it kind of makes sense when you think
06:58
about it but
06:59
i found that very unique that we
07:01
probably had over a hundred thousand
07:02
views of that video
07:04
uh on facebook of people just watching a
07:06
guy do a driveway with this unique
07:07
technology
07:10
interesting so in that and it kind of i
07:12
think that makes sense
07:13
uh because a lot of us are kind of
07:14
engaged and if it’s new we want to
07:16
figure out how is it going to work
07:17
what’s it look like and as you’re kind
07:19
of looking at that marketing play dylan
07:23
once people saw that video what it
07:25
actually looked like and how it operated
07:27
was there certain things
07:28
based on the regular plowing with a
07:30
truck versus a tractor was there
07:32
benefits pros and cons that were
07:33
highlighted in that marketing concept
07:35
how did you
07:36
use the the ability of that track to
07:38
differentiate yourself from that market
07:40
yeah so there was there was definitely a
07:42
couple main points you touched on one of
07:43
them the fact
07:44
especially in sudbury you’re you’re 100
07:47
right like by the end of winter
07:48
sometimes you’d literally have
07:50
on regular uh winters like six to eight
07:53
feet
07:53
of snow banks at the end of your
07:54
driveway right becomes quite a bit of a
07:57
hazard
07:58
um and and you actually do run out of
08:00
room sometimes
08:01
uh with just a regular truck where you
08:02
have to back blade and push it up into
08:04
the lawn
08:05
so on heavy winters people would
08:06
literally have to call like a backhoe or
08:09
a loader and actually push those banks
08:11
back in their lawn
08:12
with the snow blower there was no chance
08:14
of that right so you had full visibility
08:15
all winter
08:17
and there was never no matter how uh
08:19
intense the winter was there was never a
08:21
chance of you having to to call someone
08:22
to actually relocate the snow
08:24
that was that was a really easy point
08:26
sorry go ahead oh
08:27
uh i wanted to ask a question and this
08:30
might be like
08:31
because i grew up in texas and the most
08:33
snow i’ve ever seen is like
08:35
you know a half inch one winter 10 years
08:38
ago
08:39
um how is a snowblower creating
08:43
like not creating a bank and this is
08:45
probably just me not understanding the
08:46
technology so feel free to
08:48
no no that’s a great question so rather
08:51
than like the typical residential
08:52
snowblower where you’re kind of pushing
08:54
it and
08:54
it’s going up right this has quite a bit
08:57
more power
08:58
so you could literally launch the snow
09:00
you know 30 40 feet up in the air right
09:03
depending on the size of the tractor
09:04
that you had so by putting it so far
09:06
back initially
09:07
and then eventually being able to load
09:09
the snow on top and on top
09:11
you never really ran out of room it’s
09:13
dispersing it okay
09:14
yeah exactly cool yeah and these are
09:17
these are big agricultural tractors
09:18
these aren’t just like a little tractor
09:20
to get down to home deeper lows these
09:21
are
09:22
these are good size uh almost a cab of a
09:25
backhoe to put it in perspective
09:26
someone’s seeing these things they’re
09:28
they’re good sized machines um and
09:29
they’ve got a lot of horsepower off the
09:31
back end
09:32
um so talk about the the benefits there
09:35
and the differentiation
09:36
of that equipment dylan uh one of the
09:37
things i found interesting is it
09:38
actually looked like if i had done my
09:40
research right that you actually
09:41
gps enabled the tractor um
09:44
but the take on it is a lot of us into
09:46
snow removal including myself head gps
09:48
and all our trucks and salters and
09:50
loaders
09:51
um but did you actually open up the gps
09:53
to your client base
09:55
yeah that’s a great question so we did
09:57
uh not for
09:58
the commercial just we we didn’t really
10:00
want to open ourselves up to
10:02
kind of the liability potentially there
10:05
but for all of our residential customers
10:07
for sure um and it was something we kind
10:09
of had to look at
10:11
uh just due to the volume of requests
10:13
and calls that would come in during a
10:15
storm
10:16
we were kind of looking at any any way
10:18
possible to diminish
10:19
that amount of response during a
10:21
snowstorm when everybody’s wondering hey
10:23
where are you guys or whatever if the
10:26
snow started late at night
10:27
so by opening up the gps um we were
10:31
basically able to allow them to look and
10:33
see where their specific tractor was so
10:35
as we were dispatching the the different
10:37
tractors they were all numbered
10:39
each each tractor had a number and then
10:41
the root had a number as well
10:43
the customers eventually started to kind
10:44
of realize that okay
10:46
tractor number six for example was their
10:49
tractor
10:49
so when they got that dispatch hey
10:51
tractor number six is your tractor here
10:53
is the login
10:54
most people would save it on their phone
10:55
or on the app and they would actually
10:57
log
10:58
in and see that and not everybody but
11:01
like 50 to 75 percent of them were
11:02
actually really good at that
11:04
and um you know kind of diminish the
11:06
amount of calls coming into the office
11:07
which is
11:08
huge during a stressful snowstorm yeah
11:10
and i can’t i
11:11
i you know i wish you had shared that
11:13
with me in the earlier years because i
11:14
tell you i almost had some heart attacks
11:16
along the way i mean
11:17
callahan’s we were plowing uh at our
11:19
heyday uh when we capped it at 600
11:21
residential driveways
11:23
so you can imagine obviously very
11:25
similar to what you were doing at
11:26
sudbury when that if you if you don’t
11:27
have that kind of volume you could
11:28
imagine what that looks like
11:30
you know 600 driveways are getting all
11:33
done you’ve got
11:34
you know 15 or 20 vehicles or tractors
11:36
going out
11:37
the call volume and especially a massive
11:40
storm uh
11:42
was unbelievable and the worst was ones
11:44
that they actually the city would shut
11:45
down the main streets to just plow
11:47
trucks and emergency vehicles
11:49
and you’d get so many calls you couldn’t
11:50
go anywhere you literally would get out
11:52
of your driveway and it’d be half a foot
11:53
of snow
11:54
but everybody wanted to know when you’re
11:55
going to be there so the ability to open
11:57
that up and that was one of the things
11:59
in the article
11:59
um that i really loved in snow magazine
12:02
based all around dylan’s uh outfit is
12:04
how he had that transparency the
12:06
communication um
12:07
and in addition how some of he utilized
12:09
the power of service autopilot to go out
12:12
through his estimate process and
12:14
actually communicate
12:15
uh through different mediums such as
12:18
email and text
12:19
so kind of dialing into that dylan now
12:22
that we’ve kind of
12:24
set our marketing play and we’ve kind of
12:26
differentiated ourselves based on the
12:27
equipment we’re using and the different
12:28
features of that equipment and
12:30
the communication uh what did your
12:32
estimating process
12:33
look like and i know you had an
12:35
interesting approach to it so i’ll kind
12:36
of let you explain it but uh
12:38
would you kind of mind breaking that
12:39
down um the estimating process and how
12:42
you
12:42
you broke down the different service
12:43
offerings all inside service autopilot
12:47
yeah for sure so even though our pricing
12:50
was very very upfront and it was visible
12:52
on our website and like i said earlier
12:53
people were calling more so to sign up
12:56
due to even a little bit more limited
12:58
liability when it comes to residential
13:00
snow removal we still had to get every
13:02
single person to sign off on something
13:04
so you’re right uh essentially the the
13:07
only variable that we really needed for
13:09
the driveways
13:10
was driveway size so i know some people
13:12
do
13:13
driveway square footage we simplified it
13:15
even more
13:16
how many cars could you squeeze into
13:18
your driveway um so basically anything
13:20
up to six cars was our standard price a
13:23
couple of years back that was about
13:24
400 500 sorry 499 550ish plus
13:28
tax so we would actually send them a
13:32
proposal
13:33
in service autopilot they kind of have
13:34
this unique installment
13:36
amount field that you can pull from so
13:39
we were able to offer them kind of the
13:40
seasonal rate with the discount
13:43
but then also have a secondary kind of
13:46
merge field at the bottom it said if you
13:48
were looking to break this into
13:50
six installments we also have that
13:52
option and we would
13:54
give them the installment amount and i’d
13:56
say about
13:57
25 percent of people would just respond
13:59
back and say okay i’m going to sign it
14:00
but let’s proceed with option
14:02
two which was essentially the the flat
14:04
rate billing for
14:05
um i think it was either the five or the
14:07
six months of the contract
14:09
um we we’d also have kind of like the
14:11
templated
14:12
services for sidewalk shuffling and
14:14
salting as well
14:15
but we were we were able to get quotes
14:17
out basically within seconds while on
14:19
the phone with people we wouldn’t even
14:20
tell them to like get off of the phone
14:23
because we’d say hey your quote is done
14:25
and we send it over
14:27
they basically accept it right then and
14:29
there as soon as we got the acceptance
14:30
back we’d grab their credit card
14:32
and that was essentially the extent of
14:33
our estimating process our terms were
14:35
right at the bottom
14:37
of the estimate proposal so there was no
14:39
secondary contract that they had to sign
14:41
or anything like that and
14:42
i’m sure most people know but obviously
14:44
it saves the pdf right in their file
14:46
so there was no question as to what they
14:48
were actually accepting
14:50
so just as a quick recap so you’ve got a
14:52
couple different options one for an
14:53
installment or paid up front
14:55
and the process was you basically closed
14:57
them over the phone and to simplify the
14:59
process
14:59
you may have checked it on maps pro or
15:01
pro plus but or maps plus or smart maps
15:03
but
15:04
the idea is to even really create that
15:06
speed so very
15:07
similar what jonathan toshnik of the
15:08
lawn care millionaire talks about those
15:10
are your gateway services the services
15:12
you’re selling over the phone and you’re
15:13
closing them immediately so you took
15:14
that to the next level and said hey
15:16
how many cars can you fit in that
15:17
driveway approximately it’s going to
15:19
come out in the wash
15:20
to get that process going and then you
15:22
had them actually sit on the phone while
15:24
you quoted it live and you
15:25
literally closed them over the phone and
15:27
had them sign and accept the electronic
15:29
signature
15:30
inside service autopilot on their phone
15:31
so i’m assuming probably so you can
15:33
handle any sales or price injections
15:35
when they got to the letter of the law
15:36
in the actual contract itself is that
15:38
is that a fair assessment of the process
15:40
dylan is there anything else we missed
15:42
no you’re 100 bang on and you’re right
15:44
we we did basically pull up the street
15:45
view while we were talking to them
15:47
i mean you can’t really take their word
15:48
for bond about how many driveways they
15:50
think they could
15:51
fit so you’re right we would pull that
15:53
up
15:54
we’d verify the driveway size and that’s
15:56
really all we’d have to enter into the
15:57
estimate
15:58
the pricing would come in based on our
15:59
price matrix and and you’re right we
16:01
would answer any objections write that
16:03
in there
16:04
okay because that seems like a big big
16:06
concern with a lot of people especially
16:07
in the service autopilot ecosystem is
16:09
how do i go out and actually get these
16:10
estimates out there quickly usually it’s
16:12
i got to go bebop around town when i’m
16:14
done doing my
16:15
my aeration and overseeding or my fall
16:17
cleanups and now i’ve got to spend the
16:18
next three hours driving around
16:20
haphazardly looking at all these
16:21
driveways so
16:22
what you’ve done is created this
16:24
on-demand uh buying
16:26
process well before it was really a
16:29
thing in the service industry so that’s
16:30
really interesting i think one of the
16:31
keys to success by watching you
16:34
from afar is the ability to have people
16:36
buy
16:37
immediately um you know over the phone
16:39
or through the website
16:40
through those processes and service
16:41
autopilot so now we’re all accustomed to
16:43
the amazon the netflix the uber
16:45
the doordash like people want it when
16:47
they want it and they want to check it
16:48
off their list so well before that
16:51
major shift in buying habits you know
16:53
dylan’s out here hitting this
16:55
cody you know probably three four years
16:57
before that so that was pretty
16:58
interesting especially in that snow
16:59
magazine article if you check out the
17:00
link it kind of breaks down
17:02
in even greater detail step by step how
17:04
he did that
17:05
um so dylan as we’ve kind of now defined
17:10
the process
17:11
uh you’ve got several hundred plowing
17:13
accounts
17:14
what did that look like in your business
17:16
um to actually go out and renew those
17:18
contracts
17:18
i know at callaghan’s before we put a
17:20
system to it that would be almost a two
17:22
to two and a half month
17:23
process to actually go out to 600
17:26
clients
17:27
um the first couple of rounds is pretty
17:29
easy but then we were literally having
17:30
to get on the phone and chase these
17:32
folks
17:33
and then anybody who didn’t sign back up
17:35
we were trying to go back out
17:37
and fill those gaps so i’m kind of
17:38
curious how you
17:40
tackle that in maxim lawn care it was
17:42
there any tips you could share with us
17:44
for anybody watching right now going out
17:46
to renew their snow removal contracts
17:47
whether it’s
17:48
a smaller company maybe doing 70 or 80
17:50
driveways or a company doing upwards of
17:52
a thousand i mean
17:53
um i’m assuming these tactics will work
17:55
at scale depending where you’re at
17:57
yeah for sure so so we actually tried to
18:01
we were one of the first ones in our
18:02
area to actually try to auto renew
18:05
uh very very common in the south but in
18:08
the northern markets really no one auto
18:10
renews you essentially lose all your
18:12
customers and then you need to re-sign
18:13
everybody back up every spring or every
18:16
fall
18:17
so with our full-year customers we
18:20
really tried to cement
18:21
in their minds that you’re signing up
18:23
you can cancel at any time
18:24
but this is an auto renewing service uh
18:28
how everybody still needs kind of a
18:31
reminder though
18:31
especially if they’re not a full year
18:33
customer that you know you still have
18:35
service with us and we are coming back
18:37
so we kind of uh altered a couple
18:39
automations that we had
18:41
just to remind them so at the end of
18:43
their season we would kind of remind
18:45
them
18:45
you know thank you for being such a
18:46
great customer just
18:48
just a reminder that your services do
18:50
auto renew will be by
18:52
i think it was roughly october 1st to
18:53
stay go your driveway again
18:55
and if you pre-paid we’ll take your
18:56
prepayment at the same time as you did
18:58
last year
18:58
if you paid monthly your monthly
19:00
payments will start at the same time
19:02
but then we would always hit them with
19:03
another automatic email so everybody who
19:05
had the the tractor snow blowing
19:08
in our service autopilot would
19:09
essentially get
19:11
another email usually about september
19:13
just reminding them that you know we’re
19:15
going to come and stake out your
19:16
driveway and all those other things
19:17
again
19:18
so most people were kind of regimented
19:20
to that process
19:22
you’d get a small influx of people that
19:24
you know obviously wanted to cancel
19:26
you can’t please everybody um and then
19:28
other people that wanted to change their
19:29
service or had moved that just hadn’t
19:31
informed you but this email reminded
19:33
them
19:33
and we were pretty much able to by
19:36
september have a fairly accurate count
19:38
of who
19:39
was actually renewing right the the
19:41
amount of people that were basically
19:43
confirmed again we had a valid credit
19:44
card on file
19:45
we hadn’t heard anything back from them
19:48
and
19:48
we almost used that email and then the
19:51
staking
19:52
of their driveway as a way to as a
19:54
secondary reminder to weed out the
19:56
people that potentially didn’t want us
19:58
we’d bill one month in advance for all
20:00
of our monthly customers as well
20:02
so that there was no chance that we were
20:04
showing up
20:06
even though it was an auto renewing
20:07
service there was no chance that we were
20:08
showing up
20:09
come november 1st and then trying to
20:10
charge their card and it was declining
20:12
and they
20:13
never got back to us about wanting the
20:14
service so we tried to reduce the risk
20:17
of
20:17
accounts receivable and and cancels by
20:21
addressing it months months in advance
20:24
dylan sort of a theme that i’ve heard in
20:27
kind of all three of the things that
20:28
we’ve talked about
20:29
is really taking a big load off of the
20:32
office staff
20:34
by by trying to set up processes that
20:36
help customers serve themselves
20:38
make things easier for them it was that
20:41
was like the office’s
20:43
throughput like a big bottleneck for you
20:45
or were you just like
20:46
focused on streamlining everything and
20:48
it just so happens that we’re talking
20:49
about the few things that
20:51
impacted the office no that was a huge
20:55
point of
20:56
like a reason why we made that decision
20:59
by the end of it we had basically about
21:00
a thousand driveways that we were doing
21:03
and that becomes like a pretty momentous
21:05
task to renew all those people
21:07
especially when the conversation for 80
21:10
90
21:10
of them is yep sign me back up you still
21:12
have my credit card right charge it
21:14
they just want the service right so it’s
21:17
it’s kind of
21:18
a little bit foreign that everybody
21:20
still has this these old tactics
21:22
regimented that you need to send them a
21:23
fresh estimate you need to do all these
21:25
things
21:26
right so we really just thought that was
21:29
a little bit crazy to be perfectly
21:30
honest and and we really tried to cement
21:32
in our market that
21:33
if you if you want us we’re going to
21:35
continue to come if you don’t want us
21:37
we’ll we’ll cancel
21:38
and that did lighten the load obviously
21:40
very substantially on the office
21:42
if any of my older office employees are
21:44
are ever listening to this they’ll
21:45
probably laugh because
21:46
we definitely filled up all their time
21:48
with new sales and that was kind of what
21:50
we wanted right to be able to focus on
21:52
new sales and
21:53
continue to grow the business that way
21:55
rather than spend months and months on
21:57
renewals
21:59
awesome so i know i’m just taking a look
22:01
it’s a couple notes here on the other
22:02
screen that i had and basically
22:03
you know you went in and you increa
22:05
increased the efficiency with the
22:07
machines
22:07
uh you started selling early um one
22:10
thing we didn’t touch on um that i’m
22:12
assuming
22:12
is did you use uh any of the database or
22:15
anything
22:16
inside service autopilot fire is um
22:18
automations or even a manual process to
22:20
go in and say hey it looks like you’ve
22:22
got
22:22
either regular lawn mowing or the
22:23
automated lawnmower
22:26
bot service but you don’t have snow
22:28
removal was there any segmentation of
22:30
the database to actually upsell that
22:31
service to kind of create a year-round
22:32
client
22:34
yeah so as you mentioned a little bit of
22:36
shameless self-promotion for simple
22:37
growth i was the
22:39
first automations client i believe that
22:42
they got transferred over to surface
22:43
autopilot when they first had their
22:44
automation so
22:46
that made it very very simple to segment
22:48
based on who actually had the service
22:50
who potentially had canceled the service
22:52
who had gotten a quote for that service
22:54
before so we can kind of start to have
22:56
those different conversations
22:58
but for sure we basically segmented it
23:00
into a couple emails we weren’t
23:02
necessarily bombarding them
23:04
but we made it very very simple for them
23:06
to respond to those emails and
23:08
not necessarily sign up but request the
23:10
quote or book a call to speak to us
23:13
and i forget the exact subject line of
23:16
it
23:16
but um there was one that we we used
23:20
kind of an odd subject line for the very
23:21
very last email that almost made it seem
23:24
as though like
23:24
um i i should have pulled it up but it
23:27
was essentially like there was a mistake
23:29
or something
23:29
and the open rate on that last email was
23:31
just absolutely insane but
23:33
the mistake the play on it was that they
23:35
made a mistake for not hiring us
23:37
but the subject line almost grabbed
23:39
everybody i’ll have to pull that up and
23:41
maybe put that in the notes but
23:43
we did use a segment of a couple emails
23:46
to at least nurture those people
23:47
but then we were also targeting those
23:49
neighborhoods with with postcards
23:51
and um another thing that i wasn’t sure
23:54
we were going to touch on that
23:55
i definitely want to mention is a
23:57
relatively low cost
23:58
option for the marketing was actually
24:00
our driveway markers as well
24:02
so every single one of our tractors was
24:04
orange
24:06
and every single one of our driveway
24:08
markers was orange as well
24:09
so they’re essentially about three
24:11
inches wide by about six feet wide
24:14
and when they’re new to your market they
24:15
look really obscure and kind of ugly
24:18
but eventually everybody kind of got
24:19
over that
24:21
essentially you’d put two on each side
24:23
or one on each side of the driveway to
24:24
mark your driveway and
24:25
yes it helped you find the driveway in
24:28
the middle of the night so you weren’t
24:29
gpsing every house when you can’t really
24:31
see the host numbers
24:32
six foot tall you’re not missing those
24:33
bad boys by the end of the by the end of
24:36
the season sometimes they
24:37
they were hidden um but essentially that
24:41
was also a
24:42
really really key marketing thing right
24:44
so they’ve gotten a couple of these
24:45
postcards they’ve probably gotten some
24:47
of these emails
24:48
um and then they start driving home down
24:51
their street and they see
24:52
six driveways in a row with these
24:53
markers right and this is in like early
24:55
october
24:56
so every day they’re driving past these
24:58
markers and it kind of starts to
25:00
regiment that
25:01
almost every single person on my street
25:02
has these guys so they look at the
25:04
website
25:05
and then they maybe get hit with another
25:06
email or another postcard
25:09
and it just starts to kind of drive
25:10
everything home as like a full-bodied
25:12
approach
25:14
weird cody are you seeing any
25:16
similarities well before jonathan
25:17
patosnick’s talking essay
25:19
5 of dominate your market uh dylan has
25:22
single-handedly i think taking at least
25:24
six of the seven things that jonathan
25:26
broke down in about 45 minutes to
25:28
literally dominate your market
25:30
um so he literally went out through the
25:32
facebook ads and google and casted the
25:34
digital net
25:35
he went to offline marketing to build
25:37
route density through
25:39
door hangers branding through the
25:42
tractors that were all orange and the
25:44
the plow stakes so when jonathan tells
25:46
about his
25:47
his business city turf the lawn care
25:49
company when the things that he scaled
25:50
the 10 million beyond
25:52
an annual revenue residential only was
25:54
that these city turf yellow trucks would
25:56
literally just be dominating these
25:58
they would consistently see them in the
25:59
neighborhoods and that’s all they saw
26:01
very similar if you’ve got a thousand
26:03
driveways and you’ve got these tractors
26:04
i’m seeing they just saw maximum lawn
26:06
care orange in their sleep these things
26:08
are just pumping through reinforcing it
26:10
then you’re hitting them with emails and
26:11
postcards and everything in between so
26:13
it’s really interesting that
26:14
if you’re gonna compare the two
26:15
businesses i think there’s some key
26:16
factors if you’re watching this just
26:18
starting out in snow removal or
26:20
really looking to go out and grow that
26:21
business is it isn’t just one
26:24
secret uh silver bullet it’s a
26:27
combination of things that
26:28
dylan is is so kindly breaking down to
26:30
us but that offline the online to the
26:32
offline marketing
26:34
and then building route density if
26:35
you’re being awareness and going in and
26:36
doing that
26:37
and then taking the pain of actually
26:39
signing up in the estimate process and
26:41
expediting that
26:42
um and those factors at least from
26:44
looking at the outside is what i
26:46
really think amongst some other things
26:47
dylan has been the key to to your
26:49
success is a lot of other people
26:50
using essay and kind of following
26:52
jonathan’s um
26:54
footsteps of that i know obviously uh
26:56
this is well before essay five so i
26:57
gotta you know i gotta give you credit
26:58
man to go out and do your homework and
27:00
figure out these systems and processes
27:02
whether it was through reading or you
27:03
know just coming up on your own
27:05
but really really impressive there how
27:06
you how you did that
27:08
um i guess as we kind of wrap this up
27:10
cody i know if you have any other
27:10
questions but uh
27:12
i guess dylan would be is my question
27:14
would be
27:15
um what would be what you know now if
27:19
you knew it earlier when you first
27:21
started snow removal what would be the
27:22
one or two takeaways
27:24
um in in hindsight like if you knew this
27:26
when you first started
27:28
how would you have changed or what would
27:29
you have done to pivot
27:32
uh that’s a great question so the the
27:34
first thing that kind of comes to mind
27:36
is is just being more selective uh
27:39
when you’re like first starting to grow
27:41
and you’re you’re actually getting some
27:43
traction it’s
27:44
it’s definitely hard to say no to those
27:46
things so if i was to relaunch
27:49
my business i definitely wouldn’t do
27:51
like residential
27:52
plowing and all these other things and
27:54
and even commercial plowing even though
27:56
it definitely uh brings in some nice
27:58
sales
27:59
the level of service that is required
28:02
there compared to these driveways
28:04
is is a complete basically a completely
28:06
different business model
28:07
um so so that i would say would probably
28:10
be
28:11
be the main thing and just really
28:13
focusing in on this one service
28:16
um that was really the key like it was
28:18
more than the 80 20 principle it was
28:20
like the 95
28:22
5 principle if we would have just
28:23
focused on this from day one
28:25
um we would have got a lot farther and
28:27
had way
28:28
way less headaches the only other thing
28:31
i want to touch on is
28:32
is kind of honing in on that a little
28:33
bit more we would take
28:35
rental properties we would take other
28:37
little um
28:38
odd properties like that and that
28:41
actually ended up kind of hurting us in
28:43
a sense
28:44
where and like you said the the influx
28:47
of
28:47
of responses on a big storm can be
28:49
massive well it’s even more massive when
28:51
you’re dealing with rental properties
28:53
that have like six tenants that could be
28:55
kind of trying to contact you right so
28:57
not all thousands of those driveways
28:59
were rental properties but even if
29:01
two 300 of them that could be 1800
29:03
people right there that are
29:05
potentially wondering where these guys
29:07
are and they don’t know the the ins and
29:09
outs of the contract their
29:10
landlord signed either so it definitely
29:13
causes some issues there
29:15
we would have just stuck to cookie
29:17
cutter
29:18
nice neighborhoods with accessible
29:20
driveways
29:22
and the tractor snow blowing and i think
29:25
we would have had a lot more of an
29:26
efficient of a business
29:28
and that’s interesting that you
29:29
mentioned that so standardizing the
29:31
actual type of property that you’re
29:32
servicing so if we’re talking snow
29:34
removal right now
29:35
uh there was a area at callaghan’s as
29:37
well so we had
29:38
unbelievable route density it was an
29:40
older neighborhood and we had originally
29:42
started where literally it had to be a
29:44
square driveway an
29:45
idea was 12 to 1300 square feet but we
29:47
had such
29:48
great density with the lawn care in this
29:50
area and it was really older homes that
29:51
we thought well
29:52
this would just make sense it’s going to
29:53
be low hanging through but what we found
29:55
is
29:56
when we got out of our perfect product
29:58
fit just like you’re mentioning dylan
30:00
some of these driveways sweeped around
30:01
the side of the house they’re up against
30:02
a house
30:03
they had to drive the house and then the
30:05
driveway the garage was off like kitty
30:07
corner on a 45
30:08
so we didn’t ever really have issues of
30:11
plows rubbing up against the sides of
30:12
houses hitting garage doors things like
30:14
that
30:15
and when we got away from the
30:17
standardization of what we were good at
30:18
what the equipment was set up for
30:20
we had the same issues i mean we had one
30:22
truck that was buried behind a house
30:24
literally for like seven or eight hours
30:25
and a
30:25
storm of like over a foot of snow but it
30:27
was because we got out of what we were
30:29
good at we kind of got greedy and
30:30
thinking like well
30:32
if we if we stretch this out a little
30:33
bit we can even get more work so
30:35
i think that’s a big takeaway not only
30:37
for snow removal for lawn care and home
30:39
cleaning as well
30:40
uh but particularly for snowmobile if
30:42
your equipment is not set up for and you
30:43
haven’t standardized it
30:45
that’s a big issue and i guess we didn’t
30:48
really talk about this beforehand a
30:50
little bit um
30:51
based on the standardization of your
30:53
equipment and standardization
30:54
particularly
30:55
if you’re to do it again of the actual
30:57
driveways
30:58
um did that lead to any uh i guess
31:02
benefits in your training as far as
31:04
being able to standardize the training
31:06
as well and what did that look like
31:07
because
31:08
you know with snow removal with plowing
31:10
occasionally you’ll see some guys or
31:12
girls get
31:13
like real dry soil or maybe some loose
31:15
gravel
31:16
and at least be able to manipulate what
31:18
that looks like because you can’t train
31:20
until it snows and when it snows you got
31:21
to be out there so
31:23
was there the ability um to at least
31:26
train folks on those tractors before you
31:28
had a snowfall and
31:29
in in since you’ve trained folks on the
31:31
tractor versus
31:32
the plow what’s the difference i
31:34
obviously don’t know but i mean i’m
31:36
assuming there’s got to be a bit of a
31:37
different learning curve
31:38
or is it the same no definitely
31:41
different learning curve
31:42
and the other thing i didn’t mention was
31:44
every single one of our tractors is
31:46
hydrostatic so there was no gears to
31:49
shift
31:50
anything like that you’d see on larger
31:52
tractors basically if you could drive
31:54
like a go-kart you could probably drive
31:56
one of these tractors
31:57
in a couple minutes now you’re not going
32:00
to be perfect doing 20 30 40 driveways
32:03
an hour
32:04
but you’re going to be able to go out
32:06
there and actually do it so
32:08
that definitely shortened our learning
32:10
curve and our training
32:12
down quite substantially uh definitely
32:15
compared to a plow truck where you
32:17
you definitely need to be more careful
32:19
and there’s so many more factors then
32:21
simply just back in
32:22
drop it turn on the pto and and drive
32:25
out
32:26
so we were able to basically train
32:28
someone up to be functional on a
32:30
driveway not super efficient i’d say
32:32
within like 20 to 30 minutes
32:34
but for them to become an expert
32:36
obviously there was
32:37
a couple weak learning curve so we would
32:39
always try to
32:41
get those people out quite early uh
32:43
during the storms but
32:45
honestly i’m sure you’ve experienced
32:47
this too no matter what amount of
32:49
training it seemed like we did
32:50
before the the season began the
32:53
uh the first storm is always interesting
32:56
to say the least and i kind of got
32:58
first-hand action with that again
32:59
actually helping the company that had
33:01
bought me out um
33:03
last year during the first storm of the
33:05
season so
33:06
it was a pretty interesting perspective
33:09
just just talking about this i got the
33:10
snow anxiety
33:11
kicking in already so i if you’ve never
33:14
plowed snow or run a business
33:15
um you know you don’t know what snow
33:18
anxiety is but anybody’s watching this
33:20
knows if you
33:21
i don’t care how big the business is how
33:22
removed you are
33:24
if you’ve sold your business i will tell
33:25
you uh even after going on two years now
33:28
with callahan’s
33:28
uh being acquired i still wake up in the
33:31
middle of night when i see snow and i
33:32
get the i get the snow anxiety i’m like
33:34
a little kid licking the window like
33:35
oh it’s snowing uh what’s going on out
33:38
there so it’s interesting that
33:39
uh you know there’s such commonalities
33:41
no matter where in the market
33:42
um but as we’re talking about that
33:44
equipment in that train deal and i also
33:46
i guess
33:46
uh naively want to know because a lot of
33:48
people are intrigued by the equipment
33:49
set up
33:50
what’s it look like far as visibility so
33:52
not being a tall guy myself sometimes
33:54
i’d have to get the old uh
33:56
phone book out of the old uh you know
33:57
out of the house and be able to put it
33:58
underneath you so i can see over the
33:59
back of the truck and
34:01
when i’m backing up so what’s that look
34:03
like are those seats adjustable
34:04
is it i’m assuming it’s almost a glass
34:06
cab 360.
34:07
so are you having better visibility is
34:09
it just is it safe or is it easier to
34:11
manipulate
34:12
around those driveways yeah it’s great
34:14
visibility compared to a truck for sure
34:17
and the other thing that people don’t
34:18
realize about the tractors is most time
34:20
you think of a tractor you think it has
34:21
like the
34:22
the the plow attachment in the front
34:25
and like maybe something in the back
34:27
well all we had on the front was
34:29
basically
34:29
i think it’s about eight suitcase
34:31
weights and they’re right down near the
34:33
tires
34:34
so you had literally full visibility out
34:36
in front of you there was no bucket
34:38
anything like that so the
34:39
maneuverability and the visibility was
34:42
completely night and day compared to uh
34:45
compared to a plow truck for sure
34:47
the other thing too is you back in with
34:49
these blowers because they’re inverted
34:51
so you you back into the garage and then
34:52
you drive forward
34:54
uh so you’re never backing out onto a
34:57
road like you would
34:58
with a plow truck which is very very
35:00
common you’re always driving
35:01
forward out onto the road which
35:04
definitely helps quite a bit
35:06
you know inevitably you’re going to be
35:07
doing some plowing during the day
35:10
on a busy road and backing up you know
35:12
you could be stuck in a driveway for
35:14
easily 20 minutes but
35:15
if you can pull out quickly you’re able
35:17
to actually kind of squeeze out do it
35:19
and then maybe back in if you need to do
35:20
another pass so
35:22
there are so many benefits if anybody is
35:24
looking to
35:25
to actually implement this i definitely
35:27
definitely recommend it
35:30
awesome cody any closing thoughts here
35:32
or questions for dylan um i know it’s
35:34
it’s a little bit outside your realm
35:35
with snow and probably the most snow and
35:36
ice you’ve seen is probably in a snow
35:38
cone but uh
35:41
we’ve definitely seen enough of the you
35:43
know the the service autopilot ecosystem
35:45
in this
35:46
in industry and it continues to grow um
35:49
i remember my talk in front of 4 500
35:51
people at
35:51
asca um last year in pittsburgh in the
35:54
top 100 there for the snow contractors
35:56
um that industry and the technology and
35:59
everything that’s going on continues to
36:01
evolve
36:02
um and i know a lot of people that work
36:04
with simple growth as a certified
36:06
advisor
36:06
um recently like right now the big push
36:09
is i need to get these estimates set up
36:11
or the contracts set up
36:12
for snow so is there anything that
36:14
you’re seeing in the on the essay side
36:15
of things that
36:16
would be applicable to dillon or just
36:18
thoughts or comments before we uh wrap
36:19
it up here in a bit
36:21
yeah actually i had one more question
36:22
for dylan as
36:24
someone who clearly has like really
36:27
wrapped their brain
36:28
around marketing for service businesses
36:32
what do you recommend other business
36:34
owners
36:35
read or watch like is there something
36:37
that like really sticks out as like a
36:39
turning
36:40
point for how you thought about
36:41
marketing
36:43
uh that is a great question so honestly
36:46
not so much um like books per se
36:49
with regards to my specific snow removal
36:52
or marketing strategy for that
36:54
but the one thing that that kind of
36:57
comes to mind is like
36:58
there’s people doing this whether it’s
37:00
snow removal or something else there’s
37:02
someone that’s doing it that’s doing a
37:03
really really good job at it
37:05
so you don’t need to completely reinvent
37:07
the wheel
37:09
and you know being a first mover in a
37:11
market is great but sometimes being a
37:13
second or a tenth mover is actually even
37:16
better you can take like the best parts
37:18
of each one of these businesses
37:20
and implement them right from the get-go
37:22
rather than making all these mistakes so
37:24
whether it comes to marketing or the
37:26
actual business process
37:28
there’s people out there in like ottawa
37:30
and montreal specifically and lots of
37:32
places all throughout ontario
37:34
doing this and doing this amazingly well
37:37
so you can definitely replicate those
37:39
models and marketing models to to have
37:41
success right out of the gate
37:44
awesome awesome feedback guys i know a
37:46
lot a lot of people in the states right
37:47
now are looking at this and trying to
37:48
figure it out
37:49
uh there’s one guy locally that i think
37:51
he’s got one tractor he’s kind of got it
37:52
dialed in but i don’t think
37:54
the ability to scale that has really
37:55
been done at least in
37:57
um in my market and right now we’re the
38:00
third
38:00
rochester new york actually is the third
38:02
largest snowfall mark in the whole
38:03
united
38:04
states so if it hasn’t really been
38:06
adopted here i think that
38:07
at least the states this is uh kind of
38:10
the next shift of snow removal and one
38:11
thing you didn’t hit on dylan that i i
38:13
always felt that was an issue
38:14
at least in our market is was the turf
38:16
damage significantly less with these
38:18
snowblowers
38:19
and i know sometimes in a rough winter
38:20
we would be literally spending thousands
38:23
and thousands of dollars just in
38:24
materials
38:25
not even including the labor to fix
38:27
these lawns we destroyed
38:28
yeah that was uh definitely something we
38:30
had plastered all over our marketing
38:32
materials as well
38:34
just to kind of put some some scarcity
38:36
into to people’s minds
38:37
maybe not scarcity is the correct word
38:39
but
38:41
people even though it might not be 100
38:43
true they associate plows
38:45
with potentially after you implement
38:47
these
38:48
these tractors with special cutting
38:50
edges people associate these
38:52
plows with damaging driveways whether
38:55
it’s
38:55
asphalt or interlock versus these
38:59
tractors that have kind of
39:00
special uhmw kind of hard and plastic
39:04
blades that won’t scratch the interlock
39:06
so as soon as you kind of start
39:07
cementing that in people’s minds that
39:09
hey we’re not going to damage the
39:10
driveway
39:11
and there’s no need to drive on your
39:13
lawn like a plow
39:14
where you actually do need to push the
39:16
snow considerably far back
39:18
um they instantly start thinking about
39:20
this is the only reasonable option to do
39:22
it as long as the price is
39:24
is valid and then when they see the
39:25
price and the amount of service that
39:27
they can get because you’re so much more
39:29
efficient
39:30
it almost sells itself so that’s awesome
39:33
awesome dylan appreciate you dropping
39:35
some knowledge on us here
39:37
um obviously uh cody thanks for joining
39:40
us as well today uh essay weekly here
39:42
coming up
39:43
we’ve got a special guest uh hopefully
39:45
going to be announcing later
39:47
uh next week um headliner and then the
39:49
following week we’ll be diving into
39:50
accounting
39:52
and um financial numbers as well so kind
39:54
of
39:55
rounding it out if you have any
39:56
suggestions if you’re watching the essay
39:58
weekly talk show on facebook live or the
39:59
podcast
40:00
feel free to drop us a note of any
40:02
suggestions um
40:04
that you’re doing and as well uh don’t
40:06
forget if you are part of the sa
40:07
ecosystem we’ve got
40:08
uh sa thrive the basically on-demand
40:12
digital um
40:13
conference basically that is going to be
40:15
going live i believe november uh is it
40:17
10th and 11th coding
40:19
i believe you are correct i don’t have
40:21
the data i believe it is but right in
40:22
the beginning of november as always
40:24
uh obviously this would have been essay
40:26
seven but uh some individuals like
40:27
myself are
40:28
are some long time goers haven’t missed
40:30
one so i think essay probably made a
40:31
decision that uh
40:32
this would be essay thrive so hopefully
40:34
if covet is dying down and we’re back in
40:37
shape next year we can have sa7 proper
40:39
and uh
40:39
we can get the pin that we’ve been to
40:40
all seven so we are
40:42
officially saying that sa7 is delayed
40:46
to next year and this is kind of a a
40:48
whole separate
40:49
event but honestly it’s going to be just
40:52
as good
40:53
as as a normal conference except you
40:55
don’t have to buy a plane ticket you
40:56
don’t need a hotel room
40:58
you can i mean if you want to travel
41:00
somewhere you can
41:01
because uh it’ll all be online you can
41:03
watch it from acapulco if you want
41:06
love it but absolutely excited marcus
41:07
sheridan going to be the keynote speaker
41:09
martha woodward one of the certified
41:10
advisors
41:11
uh going to be doing one of the headline
41:13
talks myself as well i’ll represent
41:15
simple growth
41:16
i’m going to have jonathan toshnik a
41:18
whole bunch of the service autopilot
41:19
team is going to be out talking as well
41:21
among some other probably late arrivals
41:23
that are soon to be announced so
41:25
if you haven’t checked it out the early
41:26
bird pricing is still in effect
41:29
that can be found on the service
41:30
autopilot website as well so
41:32
we will see you again next week essay
41:33
weekly talk show 1 p.m eastern 12 p.m
41:36
central
41:36
dylan cody thanks once again and we’ll
41:38
see you guys next week
41:40
see ya see ya
41:46
if you like this show you might want to
41:48
check out our resources at
41:51
www.startsimplegrowth.com
41:53
while you’re there enter to win an
41:54
estimator chatbot
41:56
mike callahan is available for private
41:59
coaching