From Couch Surfing to Millions & Why Your Yard Signs Aren't Working Anymore

[00:00:00] . Entertainment. Insights. Don't take life too seriously. Welcome to Brainsky Unleashed. Hello and welcome everyone to Brainsky Unleashed. Today I've got a total badass joining us. This is Colin Dihar. Now Colin is a bit of a unique individual.

[00:00:21] He's created a business that helps businesses in ways that are very uncommon. Most of what business people and the nine to fiverr's experience is this need, right? They have this need to just step out on their own, but maybe they're afraid of it or they're

[00:00:35] banging their heads against the wall and they don't know what to do with it. And he just kind of came out with an idea and it's just expanding rapidly. And I thought I got to dig into this like a juicy steak and get all succulent in this interview.

[00:00:47] So Colin, welcome to the program. Thank you so much for having me on. I've heard amazing things from all a handful of your guests and was honored that you reached out. So thank you for having us. Appreciate it. Absolutely. And everything you've heard is totally true.

[00:01:02] And before we jump in, just a general reminder, you got to hit the subscribe button, ladies and gentlemen. I mean, this is important. It's right there. You can see it. If you see me, you can see it. If you can hear me, you can feel it.

[00:01:16] Hit the subscribe button. Five stars, no less than five stars is accepted. Leave a great review. Hey, I just clicked my toenails. Great show. Awesome show. Love that. Put anything down. It helps us with the algorithm. Okay. So Colin, right now you have gutter launch.

[00:01:31] Now let's go into gutter launch. What is it? And then you're going to parlay that into something bigger. So let's just go with the initial introduction so we could just dive right in. Yeah. So essentially what gutter launch is and does is helps people take your established

[00:01:50] or new gutter business and actually scale it. Now people think that scaling means just doing more numbers. That's like the smallest part of what scaling actually is. The bigger part, the meat and potatoes if you will of scaling is reducing your need to be in the company. Right?

[00:02:12] So what that means is hiring people, being really good at delegating and succeeding yourself in every position that you're doing. So things that people don't think about when they think of us is marketing. Right? That's a big deal.

[00:02:26] That takes a lot of brain space to do the marketing. General managing, managing your employees, ordering of your products, sales management, all those nuts and bolts. There's a lot of people I can't tell you how many people I talk to every day that

[00:02:44] think getting off the truck means they have an automated business. I'm like who's hiring for you? Well, I do all the hiring. How many hours a week does that take? Well, I only have to hire once a month. Okay. How many hours is that?

[00:02:58] Probably like when I have to hire five, five hours or so to hire one person. Okay. So that's five hours. How about all your marketing? Oh yeah. I mean, yeah, I have to do that. I have to order the yard signs. I have to order the door hangers.

[00:03:11] I have to talk to the Facebook guy or the Google guy or the website guy or whatever. And it's like, okay, by the end of it, you're still working 40, 50 hours a week. Well, yeah. You literally just said it.

[00:03:22] Because you were describing it, you were using the phrase, the letter I. And I mean, if a business owner is doing all of these things, they are not ready for scale. One of the things that's also so critical with scale, because the last thing you want to

[00:03:37] do, and I'm just going to throw this in there because it makes sense because I'm a badass, of course, is profitability. If you're not profitable, you don't want to scale. If you are not profitable, all you're doing is growing your problem. Right.

[00:03:51] And having the systems and the scalability comes down to systems. So you've actually set up systems for scalability, which protects profits, correct? So much so. And I want to tell you a little story about this. And it's crazy because it all just kind of came full circle.

[00:04:08] My headquarters, which is where I'm at right now, and it's really cool. I come here and I just hang out with my team or do strategy session. I don't know. I'll go to church on Sunday and it's like, hey, you guys came into gutters this week. Some cool.

[00:04:22] I didn't know that, right? But we do roofing and gutters here. And there was a company that just exploded like two, three years ago. They went from 4 million to 12 million in one year, right? And roughing in our south of me. Now watch this guy grow.

[00:04:39] And then it just like disappeared. Boom. And so I grew with it one day and there was all these different lawsuits. And we had competed to give some out a few jobs. And I was like, how did I call them? I know. How are you doing roughs?

[00:04:52] It's cheap. Like it doesn't make it. It doesn't make any sense. And he was like, oh man, we can do what we do this, this, this, this. And I'm like, yeah, but who's selling these for you? You didn't include commissions on it.

[00:05:05] He's like, oh no, no, we're good on that. OK, well, who's managing these roughs? Are you doing it? He's no, no, project managers man. Like we're going to have my you're losing money. No, no, we're making a ton of money. Blah, blah, blah.

[00:05:17] OK, well, sure enough, he just called me last week looking for work. I had closed everything up. And what happened is he went from being the owner operator where he could sell roughs, let's say was $400 a square and scaled his numbers so high. Right?

[00:05:35] Went from doing 4 million to 12 million but didn't change his numbers. Well, one dude can do 12 million like he could at four. And so now he adds all this overhead office, project managers, sales managers, all that good stuff at $400 a square. Well, he was digging himself a hole.

[00:05:52] He couldn't get out much and he couldn't see it and he couldn't see it. Right? And so he I mean, he lost everything, lost his house, lost his cars, his marriages falling apart. Right? His kids are living with his his or her parents because they don't

[00:06:07] have a hole right now and like their couch surfing. And he's like, I mean, I lost everything. I literally don't have a car to come to an interview with you. And I'm like, this is ridiculous. Yeah. I mean, obviously I'm not interviewing anyone.

[00:06:20] Well, hey, I'm going to give you a number to my sales manager. Right? But just perfect example. Oh, I mean, you take them on for sales. You just don't want running anything. Exactly. Well, that's it. Well, I was like, I'll take you out for sales.

[00:06:34] I'll even need your sales car dude. Let us go. I scratch your ear back and scratch your bottom. Let's get some deals. But you're not selling a 400 bucks a square because I'm a real business and I like making money.

[00:06:43] And we actually have all the stuff in place to support you. It makes sure we don't have to close our doors. So it happens all the time. People think that what they're selling at now and they look at companies like mine and be like, oh, screw you.

[00:07:00] How long your just growing over the customer and say, no, you just don't understand how much it costs to actually run a business. You think that having a business means you own an LLC, but you're just a slave to somebody else at that point. Well, you know what?

[00:07:14] Let's let's talk about that from them because, you know, there's plenty of trolls on social media. You know, we've all encountered them where, you know, you could be posting something or have a video on something and you get that you get that random troll.

[00:07:25] I'm sure you're out here feel free to comment. That's going to go, well, you know, these evil business owners are just trying to get rich off the backs of people. And it's like, yeah, that's kind of not how that works.

[00:07:38] Just because they sell or run a business doesn't make them these crazy rich people who are just making money off the backs of the employees and bending over the customers and all that. You know, so from a number standpoint, a very basic

[00:07:53] comments at standpoint, you know, can you kind of speak to that? Because there's no way in hell that any of the people that you work with, I guarantee it, I would stake my freaking life on it. I would bet that damn near golden gutter behind you that

[00:08:09] people are doing really healthy business, but they're not screwing anybody from the employees right down through the customers. That's it. I mean, I could, I could grab my gun, walk out the door and say to my team, Hey guys, get your guns, let's go.

[00:08:24] And half of them will be like, okay, boom, let's go. And the other half of that, okay, where we going Colin? But everybody would follow. And you know, you know why that is? Hey, because I give a shit about them. Right. That's that's number one. We'll visit them.

[00:08:39] And I got to, I got two girls that just had babies, right? We go, we visit them, bring them gifts like all that fun stuff, see their family. Um, but we care about them. But two, they all make more money than they've ever made before. Right.

[00:08:51] Every single one of my employees makes more money working for us than they've ever made before. Most of them also make more money than most owner operators out there. Right. So, um, so that that that's important to me, right? That we take care of our team.

[00:09:07] And like why should I be the only woman can afford the new house or the Ford Raptor or whatever that is, right? Like why should I be the only one can afford that? No, I want my guys to go out and buy that brand new

[00:09:18] truck they want or put the lift kit on or had their crotch rocket or whatever that is. Sure. You should be able to have that. I want that for you and me giving customers discounts, saving a one-time customer a few bucks versus giving my

[00:09:37] internal customers by employees or an infinite raise. It's a no brainer. So why would I know? Let's talk reality for a moment. Um, let's start with, let's, let's start with, uh, gunners, right? So you've got a gunner solution. You're going to prevent leads from going in gunners.

[00:09:55] You got, uh, what's an average, uh, what's an average job, uh, cost to customer? Yeah. Our average ticket in gunners 3400 dollars. 3400 dollars. Okay. So $3,400. I'm the internet troll. I'm the guy who's accusing the world of trying to rip people off. $3,400 is not a million dollars. Correct. Correct. Okay.

[00:10:20] We understand that now of the $3,400 there has to be a percentage that goes towards materials and labor, right? Correct. Right. Uh, then there has to be a percentage that goes towards the marketing because you wouldn't be able to do this without that. Right. Benefits do they exist?

[00:10:38] We do. Okay. So so the cost there insurance. Yeah. Uh, equipment. Got it. Right. Budgeting for future repairs and cap X capital expenditures, right? Relay. All the, all that goes into this $3,400. Yet still there has to be enough to be a profit to the operator.

[00:10:59] And of course your company, right? Correct. All right. Did we make a million dollars off of that $3,400? Far from it. No, but what happened was that one job helped support people and it helped people, you know, in their personal lives, it helped people maybe

[00:11:16] put their kids through school, it put food on a plate and it certainly takes care of your family. So again, for my audience that may have trolls in it, God bless you. Thank you for commenting. Uh, what you see here when we look at guys who,

[00:11:30] you know, give big Lee, uh, is, is, is just someone like everybody else, someone who's got a heart that cares and we're not dealing with giant figures where people just pocket cash and roll off like daddy war bucks. So let's kind of move on a little bit here.

[00:11:47] You have this structure and the structure is that you essentially are working with who to help them with what? And we'll start with the gutters and then grow into the next biggest project. Yeah. So, so in gutter launch, we help people take,

[00:12:04] take their established or their new gutter business in the scale. All right. So we're right there. Stop right there. Right. Established or new. Correct. So question number one, uh, let's say I've got an established gutter business. We call mine, my, my business, uh, gutters, guacamole, perfect name.

[00:12:24] And so gutters, guacamole has been around for 10 years and you know, we haven't been making a hell of a lot of money. You've been banging my head against the wall and I come across gutter launch and I go, hmm, what's this? So that's, that's one.

[00:12:36] And I want to go, I want to go into both what it would look like for gutters, guacamole, but then you say new. So let's imagine that, you know, now you've got, uh, you've got a husband and wife team. They just sold their business that was

[00:12:47] involving, um, uh, selling water bottles to water companies, right? Whatever. I mean, got something right here. It's a perfect example. And they were at it for years. They know absolutely nothing whatsoever about gutters. Are they also possibly a client of yours?

[00:13:05] So can you speak to both of us? Yeah. So the existing gunner company, what we see with existing gutter businesses on average is two to two and a half acts revenue boost, right? Which obviously then is huge derivative of profits as well.

[00:13:23] If I, if I took your gutters, guacamole and you're doing okay, you're making a hundred thousand dollars a year, but you're working 70 hours a week. And I said, Hey, we're going to two, two and a half access for you. Yeah, you're gonna have to hire

[00:13:36] some people, but you go from a million to two, two and a half million dollars a year. Total revenue. Wait, did you just did you just go from because I want to be clear. You did you go from a hundred thousand in revenue or you're

[00:13:48] talking about a hundred thousand in take home? Sorry, 100 if you're take if you're yeah, take home is a hundred thousand dollars a year. All right, so I'm through revenue. You're making basically you're looking at, you know, gutters, guacamole is a 10% net profit, right? Correct. Okay, go ahead.

[00:14:04] Which is pretty average. All right. So I gave you guys my, my average ticket is $3,400 in the gutter industry. The average ticket is about $1,400. Okay. Okay. So there's a big difference. That's kind of large. Yeah, right. There's very large. And that is in mainly because

[00:14:23] people don't know how to advertise yourself. All right. Those are those are like the two biggest obstacles that we run into. They also figure those out, then they don't know how to hire and train fast enough so they can they're limited on how many jobs they can do.

[00:14:36] So we take your existing gutter business that's, you know, doing a million dollars a year at 10% bottom line. And we're two to two and a half X. This has been what we've seen whether we take on a green a quarter million or $300,000 in total sales, $700,000

[00:14:54] whenever that is, they follow the program, they're at two to two and a half X. In what timeframe? Um, about six months. I mean, I've got one wall that's a psycho cat and he did it in three weeks. Got the lesson. Yeah, it's it's ridiculous.

[00:15:08] He just in three weeks bam, he was like, holy cow. Is he rebranding? Is he is he no longer gutters guacamole? Is he taking on your brand to do this? No, no, no, it's not franchise anything like that. Um, it's literally like, here's, here's my, here's my systems.

[00:15:24] You keep your name, you keep your everything. I own nothing of your business and you follow it. It's going to work really, really well. You don't follow it. There's a chance you can still make work, right? Like there's a million ways to make a million box. Okay.

[00:15:37] My way is definitely not the only way, but it's tried and proven and it works. So if you want to go fast, this is the only way to do right. There's nothing else out there like it. So, um, so yeah, his name was Owen.

[00:15:51] He's an upstate in New York and just he changes pricing, changes marketing, changed how he pays his technicians, which resulted in more production. Um, and then all making more money and just everything just to be clear, you helped Owen get going. Owen was a two year old

[00:16:13] better business. So he was two years in business. He did seven hundred thousand dollars here before and he is now pacing for about 2.1. That's incredible. And he did that with a basically a six month turnaround from the point that he started working with you guys.

[00:16:28] He's only been in three months, three months, page months. I told you he's a psychopath on average. It's usually like six months when we really stare. Okay. We got a lot of traction you're doing it's work. So so that's the existing gutter business and now he'll be running

[00:16:45] about 30% bottom line. So no longer 10% right, but up to 30%. So that's what that looks like. And he's completely removed him not complete. He's removed himself from the field in those first three months. He removed himself from sales in those first three months and removed

[00:17:04] himself from admin in most first three. So he's just like taking action doing the fix. Sure. So now he's a strategist and he manages his people and as it continues to grow he's going to be promoting a promoting somebody into into management roles and doing all that.

[00:17:19] So so that's the existing gutter business. And then we have the brand new. Right. So we've got I'll use I'll use one of my clients who name is Kayla. All right. She is down just north of Houston suburbs there knew nothing about Greta whatsoever.

[00:17:37] And her why her husband works in the oil fields. So he's gone for 60 days at a time comes home for a weekend and he's gone for another 60 days. And so her why is I want to I want to get my husband out of the oil fields.

[00:17:49] I want to have a business that he can come work alongside me and we can maintain our lifestyle and then grow the lifestyle. But is she getting up on a ladder and doing gutters is he going to have to get up on a ladder and do gutters. No.

[00:18:02] So that's our that's our biggest thing. I've turned away people before I get a lot of installers who come to me like hey I know how to do the thing I want to start my own business. How can you help me. Here comes the shut up and

[00:18:13] take my money everybody. Here's the wallet. Let's go. Not. Yeah. No. Hey come on. Let's let all of this. If you like I don't want you to install a guy. If you come enjoying gutter launch you need to promise me this is on a record and zoom call.

[00:18:27] You need to promise me you're not going to install for your company. That's what I know how to do really good at it. Like that's all make more money. No. That's how you will be stuck installing that for the rest of your life. Amen.

[00:18:37] That will get you stuck every time when you work in your business and on your business. Exactly. And especially if you're good at it we stay where we're comfortable. And so for me getting out of the sales that was the first step I had to take

[00:18:50] when I was scaling my business because I'm good at it and I loved it. Right. And I have customers we live in the vacation spot in northern Michigan. And so they're here in the summer in there in Florida in the winter. I have customers that would

[00:19:04] literally be like hey comes to my condo bring your family like I'm on I'm on you know Clearwater Beach. Right. Come on down we'll cook dinner for you. It's completely free like you just come hang out with us all as much as you want in the wintertime.

[00:19:18] And like I was really good at sales but I had to remove myself because I recognize that was my comfort zone. So we run into that a lot on the technician side where people just like nobody is ever going to do it as good as me.

[00:19:31] Nobody's going to do it as fast as me. Nobody's going to care like I will. And it just stifles their growth so darn much. So I mean I've had people ready to pay me 10 20 thousand dollars and it's like nope am I going to take it like you

[00:19:45] won't make that promise to me you're not a good fit for better. The goal of gutter launch is not for you to make more money installing gutters. The goal is for you to scale a business so that you can actually your business is just

[00:19:57] a tool to live the life designed by you your spouse and God. That's it. Hey man. Yeah. Yeah. Bring it. It is not if it's just you want to go work 78 hours a week like go do it man. I don't need to show you that

[00:20:10] you can figure that out about yourself. So so let me let me take a step back because the curiosity is killing me. So we have the example of Kayla and Kayla comes in and Kayla starts with nothing whatsoever. No knowledge of of roofing or gutter or anything.

[00:20:27] All right. She pays you whatever the fee is. We'll get to that. She begins the process. How long between the point that she says you know what Colin this is my pen it has ink in it I'm going to sign this piece of paper which

[00:20:43] used to be pulp and that was somebody else's job to make that. And I now want to do this and so how long does it take for her to not only get an income but to actually support herself and grow. Yeah. So with Kayla it took her two

[00:21:01] months to her two months to to make her first five grand. OK. OK so first five grand it's not a massive number but it's also not a horrible thing for a brand of business in two months to be clear everyone because there are people out there who

[00:21:13] probably believe that well this if I if I you know hang a sign in front of my house I'm going to get 10 million dollars in the first six months not realistic whatsoever it can take it takes some businesses years to actually get real true business

[00:21:28] which is why most businesses fail within the first within the first year and significant numbers fail within the first five years. Go go ahead continue. Well I want to say that's that's like her making five thousand dollars. That's not right. So she is clearing five that

[00:21:41] is five thousand take home. That's right. Five grand to square. Right. No not horrible. Now that was slow for her. Now she had some some you know I told you her husband is gone. Right. So she's got kids. She homeschools they'd got sport there in sports like

[00:21:58] she is go go go go go. They should be the first to tell you. Right. I did not give it one 100% my attention. I gave it what I could but not 100% my attention. So we've had other people join. I mean I got a father son

[00:22:13] combo in Denver Colorado I just on board it. They started last Thursday it's Wednesday now they're already running estimates and solid jobs. Right. So you do you limit the amount of clients in a geographical area so that we don't have people fighting against each other under your program.

[00:22:32] I don't and let me tell you why I do. I want to feel why give me a good reason. I'm a little nervous right now I can feel it I'm quaking. Yeah. So reason one is I'm not a franchise. Right. I don't charge you nearly

[00:22:45] enough to own your territory. And then reason number two is I don't believe in scarcity. I believe that you look at any market. I mean I'm in a small town of 8000 people and there's four other gather companies in my small town of 8000. Right.

[00:23:04] You expand to the county and there's you know a dozen more and our county is only 30 thousand people are still really small. And if all of them approach business the way that I do all ships rise and rising tide. Absolutely. For me like our target

[00:23:23] closing rate is 50 to 78% within God. That's a very high close rate. It's it's OK. Like I think that's right. Right. You know most gutter companies they will be closing in that like 30 to 40% or they're chucking a truck. They're too cheap. They're closing every year.

[00:23:40] 50 to 70 is a really good close rate for any business. I mean let's be honest. It doesn't matter what it is you know you've got to you got to kiss a lot of frauds and so many businesses to actually find a prince that's going to actually pay you.

[00:23:51] That's right. So Thomas you think about this if you and I are in this in market serving the same clientele we're both actively marketing like a real business should. We're going to every 10 leads will say we're closing 60% right in the middle. That's six jobs I get.

[00:24:08] That's four more that are probably going to call you because they didn't like how we presented it or they didn't like a price or whatever. Well guess what now you show up we've already Christ conditioned them. We set the bar at premium pricing.

[00:24:20] Now you show up and guess what all you got to do is she was them and while them get them to like you and you come in the prices hopefully very similar and the rest is history. Right. So now you're getting four free leads because of my

[00:24:36] marketing right we'll call them for you not really they still got to probably let's be real they'll probably call off of Google ads or other than Google Maps and cost us money but but you know it's still it's it's a it's a warm lead because we've already priced

[00:24:51] condition in vice versa. So I get four of out of every 10 of your leads because we're number one and two in the area. So what now what if we do that with seven companies in you think of a Charlotte or Chicago or Atlanta.

[00:25:07] Why would I say OK Thomas you get to buy all of it. Not a chance like there's that there's no way in hell that you could possibly maintain all of that. No certainly not. Right. I look at my little area I've got two people I'm

[00:25:22] trying to sell Gator launch to in my area because I want them to be marketing as much as I do because the more awareness we have that's why people start licking their lips when the company like Lee Filter comes to town because they'll spend hundreds

[00:25:34] of thousands of dollars on marketing and guess what their target closing rate is like 20 or 30 percent. I've heard you just said something that is so important and that is the fact that you know and I'm glad you recognize it because a lot of

[00:25:51] a lot of businesses I don't think recognize it and I wasn't necessarily thinking it but since you brought it up now it just totally makes sense which is that top of mind awareness. You don't have to be the one to bring in the top of mind

[00:26:03] awareness as a matter of fact all of your competitors can bring in that top of mind awareness. You've got to be the one who can close to get the money. Right. But as long as the top of mind awareness is there you stand a better chance.

[00:26:16] And so I kind of I you know I love where you're going with this. So I have to ask because the marketing fool in me is just like all right. I'm dying now. Are you willing to give a little bit of how it works. For sure.

[00:26:36] I hope that's all I'll tell you everything. Tell me bring it. I gave it all in all my content right. It's just do people do it right. It's when the other launch it's more hand holding in the content step by step but you know how does it work.

[00:26:51] Right. So how how I explain it is it's like you tell your customers a story. Right. You tell your story starts with your marketing and ends with completing the job. All right. And I call it like a six page story. So your first page is your marketing.

[00:27:07] What story are you telling your customers through that your offers matter. If you're offering I had one client that just made up this offer like $100 off a thousand dollar under project and he wasn't closing for crap. And so a month two months

[00:27:25] in he's like hey man like I'm really struggling. I'm not closing any deals. So we get on a zoom call and he tells me this offer and I was like what's your what's your average job size. He was like four grand. I mean yeah no shit dude

[00:27:40] you're anchoring everybody at $1000. You're the other expecting a thousand dollar thing because that's where your deal happens. And so you're getting poor clients. He's like crap and never thought about that. So how we market matters who we market to the story we tell in the marketing.

[00:27:57] So when we send out a mailer or we put out an ad right coupled with that is some sort of story about what else we do. Right. So we'll say with gutters we'll do like a free house washing with a gutter purchase over $3000. Good over three grand.

[00:28:16] We're already anchoring them that a normal gutter job is at least $3000. So if you're the customer you're like OK my house is a little bit bigger than normal. So maybe it's like 3,504 grand. Well guess what it's going to be 3400 bucks. Right. So it's right in your wheel house.

[00:28:30] You're already anchored. Good book to read on everything that is how the human brain works and how to sell better is predictably irrational. Do you have it read that. Amazing book. But so we anchor with that. But then also on that mailer we're going to talk about the

[00:28:46] different nonprofits that we were that we that we work with or the different things that we've done in the community or we'll tell a story and highlight one of our employees something along those lines that gets them to associate us with more than just the gutter. All right.

[00:29:01] So we start the story with that. And then when they call it's not a you know one way exteriors how can I help you. It's it's a great day at one way exteriors. My name is Colin. How can I serve you. Is it is always a great

[00:29:16] day by the way. So I'm going to stop you there for one for one second because you know for me when I tell you know I coach many many businesses at this point and they business owners who typically don't get things right. And I'm not saying I'm the

[00:29:31] end old be all you know. But I have a clue. I've I've made enough mistakes to know if that's right. I figured a few things out. And you know one thing that that you have to do with any form of marketing is come off differently.

[00:29:44] Be a little bit different. Stand out. I can tell you you know having a roof and gutters actually that were replaced recently. Boy I wish you would have known your guys. But a lot of times you get junk in the mail. We're great because our product is great.

[00:30:04] We're great. And it's like that is so blah right. It hurts. And it's so easy to ignore. It's so simple to just take that card and throw it out or see the junk email come through and hit delete. You know or ignore the call or scroll past the

[00:30:22] the ads. So I want to dig in just a little bit deeper and and just give me the visual for what is it because I mean you're telling a story so that is a little bit different of course. What am I seeing what am I

[00:30:38] feeling how does this thing show up at my door to let me know. I need to look at this just a little bit more before I throw it out. Yeah. Let me give you an example of something we're testing with yard signs now because all

[00:30:50] marketing is just testing stuff. Sure. Sure. Constantly testing. So yard signs we've all seen them. We all know what a yard sign is 18 by 24 wide by 18 tall or sometimes smaller little metal stakes stick in the ground. Well I've we've recognized over the last few months

[00:31:07] a dip in the amount of calls that we're getting off yard signs. So we tried changing what our yard signs look like and I'm a huge proponent for every 200 yard signs I get something different. Right. So but we've even noticed the dip still so we're

[00:31:23] like all right well what if we what if we start putting different offers on the yard sign and make them look different like so what we're doing is we got metal or not metal I'm sorry wooden stakes that are tall enough that we can stack a yard

[00:31:39] sign on top of another yard sign. It just looks different. It's going to get people's attention. It's going to be a pattern interrupt and they're going well what is that in the first one is going to say like I think it says free housewash with gutter.

[00:31:55] And then about everyone says like gutter jobs over $3,000 or something like it's just they have to read them and use them together and it's just a pattern interrupt so you're looking to have a dramatic demonstration essentially you need to you need to stand out differently.

[00:32:14] So those companies that have door hangers right and they go around it's all about us or whatever customers don't give a crap about you. They want to know how you can serve them. So on the front of all of our door hangers we have a section

[00:32:30] for notes right and it's all about complimenting their home or complimenting the bike or the Harley in the driveway or whatever. Right. You compliment those things because it juices them up and they want to do business with people who make them feel a certain way. That's the goal.

[00:32:47] You got to make your customer feel a certain way from point A all the way to point Z. If you make them continue to feel that throughout that's what you're doing. So what do our creatives look like? It looks like how it serves a customer versus how

[00:33:02] it serves us. I love this. OK. So now we're going to advance. All right. We know that you are getting attention a little bit differently. You know you're not doing the work rate because our product is great. We're great which is vomitous if you ask me.

[00:33:18] And so you're being a little bit different. I have to ask because you seem to be driven by KPIs and I love that. What percentage. And maybe you know maybe you don't. Maybe it was just a feeling. I don't know what I'm asking. What percentage drop

[00:33:32] did you see recently? Did you see? What's that? You're talking what did I see on the. Yeah from the yard signs. Yeah. Yeah we used to we used to be able to consistently get like 20 to 30 calls per month. OK. In season off of yard signs right now.

[00:33:47] So we can't put them out in the middle of winter here. But we used to be able to get 20 to 30 calls per month off of yard signs and that dipped to about 10. And so what is that. You know 30 to 50 percent. And yeah. What. Right. And yeah.

[00:34:05] So it's just not working like it used to. OK so you could see it in the form of a number because you track it. Exactly. Again most small businesses just go by feeling OK. So continuing on again I love the meat of this kind of stuff.

[00:34:19] I love it too. This is what people don't do. They feel like they know it and so the difference is you know I talked about making a customer feel a certain way. Your business you don't operate it based on feelings. You can't operate it based on

[00:34:33] how you feel. It's all about our customer feels and then your stuff is driven by data. That's it. You're not acting stuff. You're going to fail. You can pick 10 random businesses in your area if we were driving around. And I guarantee you if we stopped at 10 random

[00:34:49] business hey you know what we're going to stop at this place we both jump out of the car both walk in and ask the numbers like you know about their KPIs if we're just trying to do a test. Zero. Zero. Maybe one of them know what a KPIs.

[00:35:03] Zero. It's I mean you know maybe you're lucky to get one but chances are zero will have a clue and but all that are listening and don't know a KPIs is a key performance indicator right. All it is. Right. So that's from its indicator in this case would

[00:35:22] be you know in your case how many calls do we get from yard signs versus how many calls do we get from door hangers versus how many calls do we get from spam mail you know and so you track those numbers so that way you can manage

[00:35:40] based on those numbers and you know if you need to tweak things you could do it based on numbers and not feelings. All right. Your customers buy on feelings you build on data. On data facts facts don't care about feelings facts don't lie. All right.

[00:35:56] That the facts don't care about feeling the relief Ben Shapiro credit for that one I don't own that one. Oh. All right. So you've got your your marketing in place and you've got your yard signs your door hangers you've got salespeople you've got your way of doing messaging.

[00:36:13] What else are you doing you know within the process to to get people from a I came home from work I had a crappy day at work I ran over a nail on the way home I had to get gas because my idiot light came on

[00:36:28] and I'm walking up to my house and I've just passed my neighbor's house and I completely ignored your sign because it was two things and I wanted to see for and and I get to my door and there's this thing hanging on the door. All right.

[00:36:41] How am I from that point and I go huh the guy likes the color of my door fascinating how are you getting to a close from that point with that guy. Yeah. Um Ke we we we don't bag on getting into somebody's house awful then seeing us one

[00:37:04] time. All right. Our goal is that between times interaction six and 12 is when we actually get to go and give them the magic is right. So in that in that time for so when I walk up to your house if you got a door hanger the reason you

[00:37:23] got a door hanger is because I've also tagged your house in this awesome program called Leeds Gal and I tag that as needing gunners or needing gunner guards or damage gunners or whatever. Well based on how I tag it it starts a 12 mailer sequence to your house.

[00:37:41] Those mailers are cheaper ninety three cents but it's direct mail to your home. Leeds Gal automatically gets me your name so it says your name on it. No current resident or any that crap. It's your name. Most of the time it's right. If you're a new homeowner

[00:37:58] it's probably going to be the prior homeowner's but regardless. So we start that and then also they get the yard sign or I'm sorry they get the door hanger and they get direct mail and then they see in the yard signs hopefully some of your

[00:38:14] neighbors are taking action so they start seeing our car they probably get another door hanger because we're in the area. Right. They see our truck doing work in the area and they get their next mailer. Right. It is just a continuous gate. All right. So we're hoping

[00:38:31] that by the time they see our truck in the neighborhood you're like this company is everywhere. This is where any deepest boom and they're calling us without thinking about calling anybody else and that's because you've won them with top of mind awareness and branding. Up. That's nice.

[00:38:48] We're everywhere. Everywhere. Hopefully you know another thing that we do in there is next door community Facebook groups. So I don't know if you live in a subdivision or not. I don't but subdivisions have nextdoor.com. Clark Road Facebook page or whatever. And so all the neighbors

[00:39:12] can talk crap about each other or complain or whatever and they do. And they do. But you do that and you say I do your job. Hey Thomas can you let's take a picture together or picture of you in front of your household in my yard sign.

[00:39:27] Here's the exact copy I want you to use. Boom. Every job that comes my way I could give you 10% off job. Right. So you do this as I act or I sell you and you're super happy like yeah I'm using Colin at one way exteriors. So great.

[00:39:43] I've loved my experience with them. I know you guys have all gotten his mailers and listen to that and you've seen him walk around town in the cowboy hat or up and down the street. Definitely give this guy a shot. You won't be you won't be

[00:39:56] you won't be unhappy. So boom you give him the copy he posted you post it and now there I had the social proof. And now I was like oh OK this guy's a cool dude. Well guess what then I sell the next customer and it's your neighbor Lisa

[00:40:14] and Lisa's I tell Lisa hey here's the ad copy for you. Hey I'm the second customer in this neighborhood. Callan says if we get 10 he's got to throw us a black party. Right. And we're going to bounce houses and this and that like

[00:40:27] we're going to do a black party here. Do that for like 1500 bucks two grand. Well guess what now the black party equals you getting 10 more customers. Right. Oh you want this stuff and it you look different. You will you make them feel a certain way so that you're

[00:40:44] not just there taking money. Now I have to ask my audience if you're still listening which if you're not that's your fault. Go back and listen to it again. I have to ask my audience is this different than what you would normally see from a

[00:40:57] business yes or no. If it is different then this is exactly who you need to model yourselves after. Being fearless enough to throw a block party for people knowing full well that everyone in that neighborhood is going to appreciate you and if they're ever going to need

[00:41:13] anything at all with their house they're probably going to call you because you threw the block party. Their kids went down the bouncy house. I mean oh my God this is an absolute no brainer. Huge there's so many ways to get created with us.

[00:41:31] I mean we have once a year we do we have like a Luddington block party. Right. So I'm in the small town Luddington Michigan tour response they close down all the streets downtown and it's just like a cool little now there's food trucks there's bounce houses.

[00:41:47] There's all the fun stuff right carnival games and stuff right. Oh like we have a booth there and last year was our 150th anniversary. Well there was three booths selling at old. Yeah. There's three three booths selling t-shirts for 15 to 25 bucks a pop.

[00:42:08] Guess who shows up and gives away t-shirts for free. We gave away 1500 shirts and they don't they don't say us we took the Luddington 150th anniversary logo put it on the front did a cool color that everybody loved. We put our logo on the car.

[00:42:24] I cannot go anywhere in this town. I've done that three or four to four times now. I cannot go to the grocery store to pick a ball of course to the football game to the basket any any of that without seeing somebody wearing one of those shirts.

[00:42:37] I'm sorry. It in right now you have me salivating with the way in which you're doing this stuff. This is fantastic. This is exactly the right way of doing things. So in the interest of moving the show along even though I actually do want to

[00:42:52] dig in further but we only have so much time. Let's let's move to the next step which now it's going to be a little bit bigger than it's actually it's going to be a lot bigger than gutter launch because you're expanding in a completely larger

[00:43:05] direction with the same general concept. So speak to that. Yeah. I guess let me let me make sure I'm following what you're saying. What was the next step in the process after remarkets. Is that what you're asking about. We're going to move along because unfortunately we're

[00:43:19] running out of time. OK. And we might just have to have you on for another episode. I may need to do a weekly show with you for God's sake because this is good stuff. But talk to us about the next part of your project which

[00:43:33] is expanding what you do in helping more people become more successful with less stress. Yes. So we've done we've done over 300 different calls for people who were interested in gutter launch and there's been like the same overarching theme. Everybody needs sales and marketing help. And I'll be honest.

[00:43:54] Gotter launches it's a it's a well it's considered a high ticket right. We've we've missed the bow a little bit by not offering this sooner. So we're releasing a product and we're kind of not rebranding but having a new umbrella got her launch will

[00:44:12] fall under that's going to be called home service giants. This is the big company or the Giants. Now you don't have a website yet right. Yes. Do you have a website yet. Not yet. It's coming out. And let's get it when it comes

[00:44:23] out while we release it in about a week and a half as our is our D day for you. But I don't mean for it though right. Oh yes. OK. What's the main name. No you can't go by and sell it to me for more Thomas or

[00:44:36] nothing over what is the domain name because this is not going to post for another couple of weeks. So it's home service giants dot com home service giants dot com that's home service giants dot com home service Giants dot com. Now continue. OK. So home service giants that

[00:44:51] home service giants is going to be we're going to have all sorts of different tiers that fit you and where you're at in your business. So we'll have an owner operator right level where we're helping you figure out the business. And then we have the sales

[00:45:04] and marketing level. And that is where probably 90 percent of our clients are going to end is at that level. But from there we have order called trade kings. And this is where the programs like got along with the full learning management system with they are done for

[00:45:20] you hiring done for you ads all that will live. But the sales and marketing is what what the people are telling us they need. So it's going to be a full program with all these different offers and ideas and things like like Tom's I talked about today. Right.

[00:45:35] So that's all going to be there in that. And then with that is facilitating groups. So you'll be in a small group of four to six businesses all doing the exact same thing. So think of it kind of like coaching groups but not really. All right.

[00:45:51] We we don't say coaching is facilitating. It's helping you launch your marketing and sales strategies and get premium pricing be able to market properly and really create that brand awareness that you're looking to do so that you can actually scale your business because waiting on

[00:46:07] the phone to ring waiting on you know contractors to send you work waiting on whatever is not is not a business strategy. So we're going to get you in that level gets you in a community there's different rebates we've got it done for you CRM that they actually

[00:46:25] came and approached me reprogrammed a bunch of stuff. So I've been doing this for eight and a half years. I know what I want in the Sierra and they reprogram a bunch of stuff because of our partnership they are they've got the offer being

[00:46:39] tracking the offer a phone system they offer a bunch of cool things. And then there's going to be like fuel rebates CRM rebates all these all these other rebates where I'm sending to a check every quarter is the target. This is this is turn key at its best.

[00:46:55] I mean this is really you're not going to get this from a franchise. Heck no you're not going to get this by just simply doing it on your own with hopes you're not going to get this through going to a sweat lodge course at a local you know

[00:47:10] local or distant hotel conference center where some guys are going to stand on stage and preach at you. You're not going to get this from a lot of ways I mean you've really got this down to where it is a turn key money generating business growth

[00:47:24] tool and not just good advice. I mean yeah it's it's direct way to everything. I mean where to buy your yard signs here's templates for the yard signs where to buy door handers here's templates for door where to buy your swag you probably won't buy combo

[00:47:41] hats so we don't have those regular ball caps where to buy your company shirts like here's all of that here's different marketing things that we've done like the t-shirts this week we're doing we're at an event and we're giving away coffee mugs in beach towels right all

[00:47:57] logoed with our stuff but also with the events alright so people don't want to carry around. If I had those shirts and they were just my logo big nobody would wear them it'd be rags right because they would say Luddington hundred 50th anniversary and my logo is

[00:48:14] just here people wear them all the time alright so you got to think that way. So getting things that people utilize all those different ideas are here right. Here's where we bought those things like trying to make it as smooth and simple as we

[00:48:29] possibly can it still requires work I want to say that as loud as I can you still got to do things this is not a stock market where you give me money and it just makes you more money what. What are we talking about what

[00:48:42] do we do it what does the day look like I'm the owner of a brand new. You know a brand new affiliate of yours right and so we're going to go back to you know holy guacamole gutters and roofing and so holy guacamole gutters and roofing don't ask

[00:49:00] me why I want to walk thing almost you know I just had a burrito so let us so we're holy guacamole very religious gutters and roofing and I just started this as a matter of fact it just opened up last month I'm fulfilling my

[00:49:15] dreams of getting rid of leaves from gutters been my lifelong dream and we're carrying shingles because I love shingles and so I come to you I've started a business right out of the gate I've got zero customers I have I've joined your program we are going to do

[00:49:31] business together we're going to conquer the universe. Yeah I do an every day. Yeah well there's there's a list it depends on how much capital you're coming with. All right so within the Home Service Giants the sales and marketing program right there's a list of zero

[00:49:50] dollar marketing things that just cost more of your time and then there's a list of things that cost money in less of your time all right so it depends on what that looks like but there's over 25 for marketing lepers that we that we're showing so what

[00:50:04] does your what is your let's go with what does your week look like all right so we'll say it starts off with your group call right and you will have specific the like checklist things that you're doing when you first get in and then it becomes

[00:50:18] maintaining and tracking what's working offers or not let's change this offer all of that good stuff so you get in week one it's going to be a lot of phone calls right you haven't had a single customer it's going to be a lot of phone

[00:50:31] calls to your your network plus other business owners in the area all right just let them know who you are what you do and learn about their business so you can build your roll adex over first right so a lot of that and then putting

[00:50:48] on her branding right just getting everywhere that you possibly can through I mean through all the different lovers right door hangers door knocking yard signs Facebook ads Google ads YouTube ads if you want to do them they're a little more pricey but they're great organic content posting

[00:51:08] on your on your own social media posting on Marketplace in the strategy behind posting on Marketplace because you can't sell services but you can sell your product and then the bottom line can be like or we can install it for you just ask us how so there's all

[00:51:23] these different tactics that we will that will walk you through I mean direct copy for the Facebook Marketplace ad all of it like it's just every day there's a checklist of how to build your brand and how to walk your so all right so I'm going to I'm

[00:51:40] going to wrap this up and I'm going to I'm going to put a nice bow on it for my audience was there because if you have been listening to me which obviously you should and you have heard some of my previous guests and now you're

[00:51:54] hearing this you can literally look at this and go wait a minute so we've heard one guest Adam Coffey talking about mergers acquisitions guys with the trucks that fix shit or do shit and and so if you take that model which you're going

[00:52:09] to build you're going to buy and build that way but then you throw on organic growth model like this into that system that you've decided to adopt and now you are building your business by buying other businesses and combining that with extremely efficient profit driven

[00:52:28] systems that are done for you the sky becomes the limit and so what's happening here is yes the the the brain ski unleashed podcast is giving you the ability to see how you can become a millionaire how you can become worth nine ten

[00:52:46] I mean ten figure stretch but certainly eight to nine figures just by doing things differently and of course listening to my show because why wouldn't you want to listen to my show this is what it's all about so with that I want to thank you

[00:52:58] Colin for for joining the program is there anything else you want to plug any last minute wisdom for the folks before we sign off you know what yeah one thing like the overarching theme of everything is you need to do alright don't don't sit back

[00:53:13] and wait don't try to make things perfect before you roll them out you need to get out there and just do stuff that's one of my that's a superpower that I didn't know I had until one of my mentors called it out he was

[00:53:25] calling us do whatever we tell you to do and it works right it works because you just do it nine out of ten people they got to make this thing perfect before they were rolling out the world you find out your wife's pregnant you're telling the world most

[00:53:40] people want to wait until that 12 week time frame right you're like nope we're going we're going to build this baby it's gonna be amazing right and that's what you do in your business alright so get out there take some massive action don't be afraid failure

[00:53:53] is inevitable I call I started six new businesses in the last half of 2023 I closed up two of them it's gonna happen they cost me $300,000 right I lost that's okay because you know what the other four are taking off so you're gonna have failures but

[00:54:10] you gotta get out and do stuff what I learned from those is how not to fail again and how the next ones are going to be 10 times better alright so get out there do the things take the mass of action don't sit back and

[00:54:24] wait for the perfect time or the perfect scenario or any of that crap no get out there I'm gonna just do and test you're gonna test you're gonna win big way a lot of times so that you can get big way I love

[00:54:35] it alright well thank you so much for joining the show once again to my audience we have given you tools throughout the entire run of this program today we've given you tools throughout the entire run of my show since we started if you put these things together

[00:54:50] and I swear just thinking about it between just these two guests Adam coffee in this one I highly encourage you to listen to this program this show with Colin and Adam again listen to the game watch them again on YouTube once again hit the subscribe button

[00:55:06] share these because you put these together not only could you become a millionaire with Colin or could you become a millionaire with Adam but if you put the two of them together you become an unstoppable force and with that you can do amazing things you can give

[00:55:23] bigly and let me just say for the record one of the most rewarding things you can do is give when you have been given and you give you feel better and you get rewarded for it and it's the most rewarding experience way more rewarding than receiving

[00:55:37] so I'm just throwing that out there once again thank you so much for listening I look forward to the next episode and Colin we got to do this again you're fantastic forward to a man thank you you bet