SPEAKER_03 0:03

Next up to me, of course. Okay, Jeremy, I think we've got you back.

SPEAKER_10 0:15

So thank you for joining us. I think we're gonna have a couple more people that will pop in. Um, if you want to just start out with giving a little bit of your background, who you were and kind of what your life looked like before you came into the citywide system, what caused you, prompted you to explore Citywide as an opportunity, and then just kind of tell us a little bit about the business and where we are now.

SPEAKER_08 0:40

Well, David, uh hello everybody. Sorry I am not uh on the video call. Um driving down the road and I had uh somewhere that I've got to be within the next hour, so I apologize for that. Hopefully you can all hear me okay. Um my name's Jeremy Wood, I have a business partner, David Otis. Uh we uh joined the citywide family back in uh 2012. Uh prior to that, my uh uh my background was uh with CentOS, the uniform people. Uh was there for about 15 years. Uh started as a uh 22-year-old young man um in the service department, uh driving a uh a uniform delivery route and uh worked my way up through the uh operations team to a service manager level and uh moved over into the sales department and uh had aspirations the whole time of of uh making enough money until I could start my own business. Uh unfortunately I had no idea what business I would start. I'm not that smart. Um, but uh I learned a lot in corporate America and uh learned how to sell and became a sales manager and um ultimately was uh uh the market area manager for uh Atlanta and um my business partner now he came from CentOS as well. Uh we were looking at the uh citywide franchise uh about three years prior, and he started off in uh Tampa Bay with uh two other gentlemen who came from CentOS, and uh I was a little discouraged because they all left me and um I kept doing my thing and and uh uh about uh I think it's about two and a half years, two and a half, three years later, the um Atlanta market uh came available. Um there's two locations in Atlanta, one on east, one on west. The east came available uh from a uh a franchise, a franchisee who was not having success and uh uh probably was uh not the best fit for the uh for the job. And uh he was ready to move on, and I think the feeling was mutual, so that opened up the opportunity. And uh my business partner David, he uh came from Tampa and joined me up here and we started Atlanta in 2012 and uh carried on through about uh 2021 until the west side of town became up uh for renewal. And Scott uh Schoenberger, who had that side of town, retired, moved off to Caibo, and uh works on a golf course, plays golf all day, and um we were able to uh be awarded the uh West Atlanta franchise, and uh since 2022 uh we've had both franchises in the Atlanta market. So that is uh that's my background, and that's what got us to here. Um personally, married, got three kids. Uh oldest about to get married, uh, middle child is in college, and the baby boy is a freshman in high school, and um uh that's where I spend all of my time away from work.

SPEAKER_10 4:24

Thank you, Jeremy. That was a good background. We're gonna open it up for questions so you guys don't waste your eye. I know I've got a lot of assertive candidates on today, and so you guys just come right off on mute and ask your questions.

SPEAKER_04 4:40

Hey Jeremy, Scott Murphy. Um, I'm also from the CentOS background, and you've been in the you know citywide for a while. How have you been able to exploit, you know, from the CentOS background, national accounts? We you know was our big push there. How you've been able to use them citywide to grow your business?

SPEAKER_08 5:00

Um with the national accounts in particular?

SPEAKER_04 5:04

Yes, please.

SPEAKER_08 5:06

That's a great question. Actually, um we when I first started with Citywide, there there really was no uh national account division. I mean, there were some national accounts. Um that was something that was we were pretty young in the in the franchise world uh in 2012. I think there was about 20, I think we were the 27th location. Um so there wasn't a big uh a huge emphasis uh for national accounts. Um probably mainly because there we couldn't handle a uh uh a wide geography. And um we uh I was always coming from Santas, I was always a a big proponent in the national accounts division um because I I knew ultimately what it would mean for uh the franchise system. Um as we uh and I I do apologize, I'm driving, I'm trying to get to a spot where I can stop. Um as uh as time has progressed over the last 13 years, um the National Account Division has grown along with the uh the franchise system and it has become a uh uh a very it's been a catalyst for a lot of locations to grow extremely quick uh in the early days. Um I wish back in 2012 we would have had the uh benefit of that. Um however we're reaping the benefits of it now, uh, which is very helpful. So I will say the the best part about the franchise model is it compresses time. Um you don't have to figure out the marketing, you don't have to figure out the accounting structure, you don't have to figure out a business model, you don't have to figure out a service model, a sales model. Uh it's all there uh ready to go and uh just compresses time. You add the national account division in with that, and um it just uh it catapults some uh some early growth for new franchises. Hopefully that answers your question.

SPEAKER_04 7:19

Sure, thank you.

SPEAKER_07 7:21

No problem, Scott.

SPEAKER_03 7:34

Mark you can fire off. I think you're still on mute. You're on mute though.

SPEAKER_11 7:43

Can you hear me now?

SPEAKER_04 7:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_11 7:46

Yeah, it's connected to the car. I'm muted on the phone, but I was still muted on the car. Um, so I've been on a bunch of the Z calls, and it sounds like generally um most franchises set up their management structure as they grow uh in a similar way. I know there's a kind of a prescribed um methodology to adding positions based on growth and revenue. How did you find taking over the second uh franchise? Did you kind of become one or do you manage some that that's kind of two and if if so, like did you have some duplication, especially more at your senior management? Was were you able to keep everybody, or was there a little redundancy there?

SPEAKER_08 8:25

Well, it was uh it was kind of a unique situation. We had a um again, the uh the West Atlanta location, which was the second location that we uh we acquired, uh it was one of the original, I don't know, five or six, maybe. Uh Paul, you might can uh find out how accurate I am. Um but they were very early on, and the the the business model was um it was it was a little it was in its infancy stages. So um he treated it more as uh great guy, not speaking ill of him, but he treated it more as uh uh his his the way he wanted to run things. So his staffing levels weren't up to the citywide requirements, and he basically ran slow growth uh and large profit and did everything himself. So after about 15 years, he was uh he was about two two and a half or two seven five three, he may have been a little over three million dollars in total revenue. So when we acquired that uh location, there were uh zero employees. Um so we reallocated uh some of our human resources over to that location, and that gave us some uh quick stability. Um got everything on on board with the uh citywide business model and operation system. And um we do treat it as a completely uh separate location. It's its own, it's its own business. Um we we do share any resources that we can where uh we don't have to hire any, we didn't have to hire any part-time help. So we uh we did uh hire an additional uh accounting person uh to help with the billing and the receivables and the books, and um we shared uh an office manager, we shared a sales manager. Um so we we did as we kind of grew into it, and um we went from right at about three million dollars to I think we'll do about seven and a half million three years later. Um I'm calling now. I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry, I thought somebody said something. We um what now every everything is pretty much established. We've got we have a recruiter that we share for both locations. Uh we've got a uh uh president of the company who uh oversees both general managers, and um everything else is uh pretty much had we have our own personnel for each location.

SPEAKER_11 11:28

So just uh that's that's great information. I'm I'm kind of shocked that he was doing everything himself and there was no other employees. Uh, how was the retention then um of the of the clients? Because obviously he was managing all those relationships himself. Uh and he must have had a good relationship uh for one person. It seems like he was doing a lot of work. So uh was the retention okay? I guess you had to do a lot of hustling yourself to kind of uh uh transfer that relationship over to yourself and your new people, but was the retention kind of good?

SPEAKER_08 11:58

Uh we struggled with it a little bit uh early on. Um we had to uh do some pricing adjustments um where uh once we incorporated the the the true citywide operations model into it where we had an assigned account manager and a night manager and uh doing the rec you know regular visits. Um we had to correct some of the uh some of our uh independent contractor pay. Um so there were some things that we had to do that made business sense that uh hurt us a little bit retention-wise. Um but uh all in all we we we survived pretty well and and kept kept good retention. We've got uh probably 80 percent of the customers that we acquired at the time, uh still to this day.

SPEAKER_03 12:59

That's great. Uh thanks for the info. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_09 13:10

Um yeah, I think you you touched upon it. Can you um talk about a little bit about what does the business look like today in terms of the people and also how's the revenue grown up year over year?

SPEAKER_08 13:26

Yeah, we um I guess the best way to explain our maturation and growth is my business partner and I are both we're both sales guys. So um we took off, we came out of the gates pretty hot. Uh sales was our game, so we had no problem uh adding on uh new customers. Um I think for probably the first uh five to seven years, we were um we were always one of the uh the new business leaders in the organization. Um we we were really good at two things, and I hate to say this, but it's the truth. We we sold more business than most everybody, and we lost more business than most everybody. So we um we were not very operationally sound. Um and that that that caused us um uh around year 10 uh we too were were trying to do a lot of the um operational uh tasks and duties that uh we should have hired for. Uh that caused us a lot of stagnation. Um over about a three-year period. We uh we hired some some folks, we made some bad hires, we made some bad decisions and who we put in place. Uh we did struggle for about two to three years we were relatively flat on our growth. Some of that had to do with the fact that we acquired the other business, and um uh just sharing our resources and moving some people around and uh having to uh take the uh the west side of Atlanta and and and city, you know, bring in the citywide model, it it took a lot of our focus as well. And uh, you know, once once we uh once we leveled out and we made a few good hires and uh really we we weigh heavily on our personality profile. Uh we know what we're looking for now for each of the positions, uh, where we've got uh good operators where they need to be. We've got good integrators where they need to be. Uh we've got the maverick profile for the for the sales side of our business. Um we we made uh we made virtually every mistake uh that that we could have um after about from about year seven to uh to eleven. Uh although we we grew we took over uh a $200,000 annual business. We're running about uh between both locations, we'll do 20 right under 22 million this year, uh, which most of the time you look at and say, hey, that's pretty good. And yet we feel like uh we could have done better had we we made the right um hiring moves for uh our deficient areas, uh, and if we had done that a little bit sooner. So um you know we're we're we're sales guys who uh are hard working and hard charging and thinking that you can uh you can uh you can make things happen uh just just by sheer will and uh didn't recognize for a couple of years that uh we we were not we didn't have the right mindset and the right uh bandwidth and the right strengths uh to to run the operations side of our business. And that that that's really what uh stagnated us. But uh even at that, going from these last 13 years from $200,000 to uh 22 almost 22 million this year, we'll we're uh we're pretty happy with what we did. We could we could have done better, and we know that.

SPEAKER_09 17:56

Thanks. That that's extremely helpful uh and very humble of you, to be honest. Um can you talk to me about a little bit about the the profit margins as well? Like first of all, congratulations on the 22 million. That that's really good.

SPEAKER_08 18:11

Thank you. Um yeah, I think um I will say this too. I mean, my hat's off to the the franchise system. Um you know uh we're about to cross the billion dollar mark as a as a system. Um in the b in the beginning days, we didn't know what we didn't know. And just to be frank and honest, I mean we you know, Citywide knew how to run the citywide business model in uh Kansas City with all the experience that they had. Uh, but there were some things we had to figure out in order to duplicate it across the country. And now, like today, uh talking about profit. I had a meeting with uh one of my general managers today just reviewing the PL. And uh there's the way our income statement is is laid out, um, it's so it's easy even for uh even for a sales guy like me to look at and say, uh where are we where are we doing things well and what are we missing on? And uh uh it's broken apart by you know your gross margins and what your gross margin benchmark is for uh you know 34 percent. So you take your total revenue and then you have your pay for independent contractors, and uh and then you have supplies and what your supply costs are, and we know what those benchmarks should be for our gross margins off of that, which are about 30 uh 34 percent is the benchmark. Uh and when we're missing that, when we've got one of those uh uh categories that we should be running at a uh you know 33-34 percent gross margin, and we're running at uh you know 29, uh then it's it's just an adjustment for what are we charging the customer and what are we paying the contractor. Uh once you've got once you got that figured out, um you you pretty much uh have about if you want to make 10% profit, which I think that is that is our goal, is to make 10% profit. And uh if we can do better than that, 11 or 12 percent uh I think is is about the max, um, at least from my perspective. Um your uh 34% gross margins where it starts, and you've got selling expense, you've got management expense or your operations expense, and you've got your GNA. And if you can keep each of those to um about seven or eight percent, um then you're gonna have 10% fall down to the bottom line or better. Um, so there's been years where we've done uh really well, and there's been years where we've done poorly. Uh we had a good year this year for uh for growing and growing our contract revenue and our net gain is really good. Uh but that came at a at a cost of about three or four points uh to us this year. However, that's gonna pay off uh next year and the year after that. Um so I don't I don't I'm trying to explain it that would be the easiest way to understand it, uh not know only knowing so much about our business uh as you guys may, but hopefully that uh that answers your your question.

SPEAKER_03 21:55

It does. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_07 21:58

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Cyrus, do you want to jump in?

SPEAKER_05 22:05

Yeah, hey, uh thanks for uh making time for this. Um so this is Cyrus from California um looking at some uh potential locations out here. I had some questions on um the uh resale that you uh acquired. I'm wondering how how involved was the uh the the franchisee before uh during that transition and um did that help or hurt uh if he was or she and then also uh was you know how realistic was the paint uh picture of of the business and kind of uh what what did you find surprising kind of taking over?

SPEAKER_08 22:43

Um I I think the um the support that we've got we got from uh the franchise or we have a uh we have a business performance coach. His name is uh Mike Pananther. And Mike was uh he was critical in in gathering information for us, trying to give us some uh some ideas of some resales that had happened in the past. Um gave us some uh uh good uh advice on who to benchmark, who to talk to, who had already been through it, what they were looking for, what went well, what was some of their uh you know struggles and concerns. Um I think we we we got exactly what we needed from uh from that perspective. We also had a little bit of tribal knowledge too, just from the market because we were uh you know, we were neighbors with Scott and his location for um you know almost 10 years. Um so we knew um we knew how he was running the business, we knew uh who some of his customers were, we knew uh that he didn't have any personnel. We we knew what we were getting into. Um were there some surprises along the way? Yeah, there's always a few unknowns that you're gonna run into, but um I think we had uh we had a we had some leniency and we had some better guidance than we did in 2012 when we started because the the system as a whole was so much better. The playbooks were better, the um uh the the head count, the uh the training materials, the citywide university, the um all the things that you guys would have now were so much uh more robust and uh uh advantageous um as we uh as we purchase the second location.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

Thank you.

SPEAKER_07 24:57

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

Hey Jeremy, it's Savannah.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

I I came in a a little late, but I I'm here and I appreciate you being on. And I've heard you talk a little bit about retention and profitability and some things you would say you would do differently if you were gonna do it again. And I'm sure you discussed a little bit about your background, but with you and David both coming from the sentence world. I'm curious about your sales executives and if you touched on that in the 10 minutes before I was not here yet, and um, whether or not your salespeople have similarly come from that world as well, if you've found success in hiring any specific industries, and if so, if you could just share a little bit about where your strong salespeople have come from, and besides being a maverick, what else are you finding in them?

SPEAKER_08 25:52

Yeah, I think um uh for us it it's it's it's probably a little different than than some just because we were salespeople. So we we always found that the new business we could we could turn on and off like a faucet. Um once we uh once we got to the point where we were trying to get up a level and be on the business rather than in the business, um, and started developing hiring and developing salespeople. Um there's a couple of of key indicators that that tell you um if they're a good fit or not. Um the the PI the personality index I think is uh is uh is very good. It tells you exactly who who you're dealing with, it tells you exactly what they uh and it doesn't even mean sometimes that if you couldn't be successful if you didn't have this particular profile. Uh but anytime we strayed from the profile, uh we found that we had higher turnover because um even though they could perform at a high level, uh it wasn't sustainable because it was not what they enjoyed doing, it's not who they really were. So I can't put enough emphasis on the um the personality profile. Um outside of that, um I like young up-and-comers. Um, I like people that we can help hone and develop uh their skill sets, uh, teach them how to sell, you know, teach them everything from you know a raw person with a maverick profile who played sports, uh, did something you know competitive most of their life up to this point. Um they may have not even had a lot of experience. As a matter of fact, one of our best sales reps this year, uh he was uh he was a track athlete at University of Oregon, and uh I think he was a gold medal winner in the pan and games. And those are just qualities and characteristics that show somebody who's going to put in the work, uh, put in the time, you know, in the gym, on the track, whatever, for for their competitive uh uh life, it translates into the the the sales world. They like to be ranked, they like to have their name up on the board and see how they stack up in comparison to uh other salespeople. It's just a competitive nature. Um and uh I think also if uh if you catch them uh on the way up, uh you can eliminate some some bad habits. Uh you can uh keep them focused on the right things. Uh the process that we have now is so good uh with the citywide model, it's it's very uh it's very easy to take a uh a person even with little to to no experience uh and uh say here's the process, here's the process that works. If you'll run the process, the process will work every time. If you if the process does not work for you, you'll be the first person that the process did not work for. If we've done our job in hiring the right profile and uh giving them the tools and the training necessary and keep them focused on the process, um they um they seem to always have success.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

Awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. And you know, we were talking about that in our our meet the team day this week, actually, about how you know giving somebody the ability to grow within their career really allows for a better retention as well, and having them join early on and kind of give that giving them that that footprint of where to go from here gives a really great runway for somebody and it allows them that ability to grow. So I I like that you mentioned getting them in early in their career and teaching them the right ways to do it.

SPEAKER_08 30:11

I also believe that uh the city, you know, citywide is um it's such an attractive place to come and work now. Uh we we tell we tell our own people, we say, look, uh the system is growing, uh the system is uh continually adding new locations. Um the National Account Division is uh so much bigger than it used to be. Uh there's opportunities everywhere. Uh so even though uh David and I own the rights to operate the citywide business model in Atlanta, we encourage our people to perform at a high level, uh, knowing that uh if you outgrow uh if you outgrow us here in Atlanta, uh there's opportunities with citywide within the organization uh outside of our market. Um if you wanted to move uh to a different region or location, eventually I feel like um there could be added opportunities for uh national account division, for you know, regional sales manager, sales support. Um, you know, there's there's unlimited opportunity when you get with a a company that's growing fast. Um you know, we have stability at the local level, we have stability nationally, and because of the growth that we're experiencing across the country, uh it's an exciting place to be. And um, you know, there's there's other opportunities too. Now everybody may not agree with me on that, but uh, you know, we're in the we're in the people business. I mean, we're in a service business, but we're in the people business. We want to take care of our customers, we want to take care of our independent contractors, we want to take care of our people, and if we can um promote them and help them get what they want out of life um career-wise and and financially, uh, and there's opportunity to uh, you know, we talk about create creating the ripple uh in our market and how we uh we have a positive effect on our community and uh you know why not for our own people? And if they have aspirations to do uh to do more or work at a level that would be on a national scale, hey, you have that opportunity here too as well.

SPEAKER_07 32:40

So I think it's a uh a very attractive uh concept for uh people when we're recruiting.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

Absolutely. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 32:58

Hey Jeremy, um I think it would be neat to share with these guys the relationship you guys have with your independent contractors. In particular, what was it, five years ago or so? I went down there and um you guys each got them a I believe it was a Bible and some other stuff for Christmas. Can you go into the relationship part of uh the time you spend with your independent contractors?

SPEAKER_08 33:28

Yeah, absolutely. I think you know we always try to keep into uh the forefront of our mind. Um not only are we providing a service that helps these customers, but um it's such a huge and positive impact that we can have on uh small business owners uh with our independent contractors who you know they they may not have um they may not have the ability to grow their business like they would want. They're some of the most hardworking, humble uh servants that uh that you'll meet. And um we fill a lot of gaps for one another. Uh they have a lot of uh uh of labor and and knowledge for whatever service we're providing, whether it be uh painting or plumbing or HVAC or uh cleaning or uh lawn maintenance. Um they they have uh a strong work ethic, they have a a desire to do well for them, and they're just trying to take care of their families and their employees as well. And that doesn't fall short on us how important that we actually are to helping them achieve the goals that they have uh also. And we get to know them, they become like uh they become like family, you know. You uh you're uh even in the early days when when we were the ones that were selling the accounts and uh managing the accounts and uh not managing the accounts, and uh we spent a lot of time with our independent contractors who we became very close with because uh they were coming to us saying, Hey, I've got a one of my kids going to college, I I need to make some more money, I need more accounts, and you'd be going to them saying, Hey, I've got an issue with a customer and I need to uh I need to get this resolved uh immediately. Would you be interested in taking on another account helping me out? And and you really become reliant on one another um as you grow your businesses together. So it's uh it's it is a relationship. Um and it's a uh it's one that we couldn't do without, and uh I'd like to think they would have a hard time doing it without us as well. So uh we've had relationships with those. We've been to weddings, we've been to funerals, we've been to birthday parties. Um it's a uh integral part of uh all of our success.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Go ahead, Cyrus.

SPEAKER_05 36:26

Yeah, um just a couple of questions uh on the SC follow-up to Savannah. So wondering um, is there a specific comp comp structure that you um that you use and what works best uh with your SCs? And then just a follow-up to that, you know, what do you what do your top SCs do differently day to day that you know the successful ones uh versus maybe the ones that um possibly watch out?

SPEAKER_08 36:55

Yeah, we've uh I mean we've kicked around a couple of different uh comp structures um that uh they've all been very advantageous for a top performing sales rep. Um the the the biggest key factor is the the person that you hire and getting that right profile. Um difference uh the citywide comp structure works well. Um we've toyed around and and manipulated it um ourselves to uh focus on um certain things that we needed to do in our particular market. But um I think the biggest, you know, the biggest difference in the successful sales rep versus the non-successful one is they gotta be grinders. They've gotta they've gotta be able to uh I mean it's a it's a cold call business. Um the first year in sales is the hardest you'll ever work, the least you ever make, and we tell them that. Uh the second year is the second hardest you'll ever work, and the second least you'll ever make. And the third year is the third hardest you'll ever work, and the third least you'll ever make. But if you've done it right the first three years, by the fourth year, you're making really good money and you're enjoying your job. Uh it's it's not that you're not working very hard, but it becomes uh it becomes automatic. You've done you've done a good job with your your funnel. You've you've uh been out and you've lived in your territory and you've made relationships with uh uh key people within each account. You've identified your uh your four buying influences, your you know, your coach, your user buyer, your technical buyer, your economic buyer. Uh, you know who these people are at each one of your prospects. Um, and because of that, and because of the data you've collected and because of the experiences you've had, and you know, most most cases you're going to get said of no's before you get a yes. You know, it's it's keeping them focused on uh you know the grind early on, making sure that they're uh spending the time in the field, uh on the phone and in the field, talking to your prospects, seeing them face to face, uh developing a relationship. And then as you get that tenure and as you get um you get a prospect who says, Wow, I've had Marcus coming in here about every three or four months for the last two years, uh, they they start to build that uh rational and emotional trust with them, and uh over time uh it just becomes easier. Um if you have somebody that's looking to we get a lot of a lot of a lot of people that'll come out and say, yeah, I graduated from the University of Georgia and Perry Business School or Kennesaw State in their sales program, and you know, I should make $150,000 a year, and that's what I'm requesting, and um they have you know no uh competitive uh history in their in their background um with any kind of uh you know sports or athletics or you know, even debate teams and different things like that. And you know, I always question how much adversity have they faced, how much uh um how much grinding have they actually had to do to be successful. Um so those are kind of red flags for me, but if they have a lot of that in their background, um you know the hard work that they put in to reach the levels that they've they've uh reached and achieved the things that they've been able to achieve. And um you can take that men that a person with that kind of mental uh fortitude and know that they're they're gonna grind it out and weather the storm because if it was easy, everybody would be doing it and it wouldn't pay very well. But it's not that easy. It takes some uh intestinal fortitude and a lot of hard work. And um if they can make it through those uh early months and first year or two in the grind, um then they're gonna make a they're gonna make a lot of money and be very successful. My sales manager for uh who was a sales rep on the east side of town, we promoted him to sales manager, and now we hired another sales manager and moved him over to the West Atlanta location. He was a uh he was a wrestler and did some mixed martial arts. And uh when we found him, he was a bartender. And um I think uh his last year he made close to two hundred thousand dollars uh as a sales rep.

SPEAKER_03 41:59

That's great, that's a great story.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

Andrew, I I saw you come off mute. Is there was there a question that you wanted to ask?

SPEAKER_00 42:12

Uh no, I'm just listening in right now. Okay, truth truth be told, I'm uh in your end right now, so I'm multitasking listening in.

SPEAKER_10 42:27

Okay, we'll give everybody uh just about one more minute to conjure up your last question for Jeremy, and then we'll let you get on to the rest of your day.

SPEAKER_11 42:42

Jeremy, just real uh uh quick, you you mentioned during your last response uh different types of buyers, I guess based on their motivating uh drivers. Um I think you mentioned your coaching buyers and your economic buyers. Could you speak a little bit more about that? Um what what you're looking for, and I guess just briefly uh what that what that means and how you tailor, I guess, your uh your presentation for them.

SPEAKER_08 43:10

Yeah, the um I mean that comes straight out of uh strategic selling with uh by Miller Heinmann. Um it's it's a thick, small-worded book with not many pictures, not a very interesting book for a salesperson to read. We like you know, double spacing, big font, lots of pictures because we can't we we can't control our uh our thoughts that long. Um but if you take it in bite-sized chunks, there's gold in there. And uh that's where um uh that's where I learned who all the buying influences are within a prospect. And even for our uh our account managers, you know, we challenge them with uh not just putting the blinders on and going into one of their customers and uh You know, the person that's on the kitchen uh you know uh with them and um I want to get person may not have any influence whatsoever on uh on on the business and uh they're ability to spend more money with us or in the new business uh situation spending any money with us in the in the beginning. So we count your people without being the players or uh within the uh account for the prospect uh because the coach is gonna be somebody who can catch you through the process, and uh the user buyer is the person who is uh the one that we're probably gonna be dealing with on uh uh week to week or every every two-week basis uh because they're directly responsible for what for whatever service that we're providing for them. The the technical buyer is typically somebody in purchasing or somebody that's gonna take all the votes, and they can decide who's gonna get the buddy in the game, you know, who gets the chance at the business. And then the buyer is ultimately the one that can say yes when everybody else says no, or they can say no when everybody else says yes. Um so if we know who's gonna have those influences within a prospect or uh or an account, then we have a better a better rate of success when we uh uh propose a new line of service or or uh new business uh with city web in general. Um if that answers your question or not. That's where I was coming from.

SPEAKER_11 45:49

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_08 45:52

Uh I had to read about a page or two a day for about ten years, and then I finally got through it. There was a lot of gold in there. Um changed a lot, it's uh it's changed the lives of a lot of people around me, you know, my family, um, my employees, my business partner, um independent contractors, uh it has been a common for a lot of positive things in in my life in my community. And uh what is it? We've been able to uh take it back for the greater good.

SPEAKER_06 47:16

And um I'm just one hundred percent, it's any line it's a great opportunity.

SPEAKER_08 47:44

It's uh it's been a lot of training, and uh I'm sorry if I dropped off the way to the bad setting. Uh but it is a uh it is an excellent opportunity, it's it's it's fantastic. The reinvent uh to make the organization strong, to make the system stronger. Uh I couldn't I couldn't imagine it'd be any better uh or or any organization that's gonna reinvent back into um uh to the business the way that uh city wide uh experience and I'll look forward to uh uh the next 13 years. So if you need to talk about contact information from anybody, uh feel free to come in if I answer any questions.

SPEAKER_01 48:28

Thank you so much, Jeremy. We really appreciate you.