.png)
The Small Business Safari
Have you ever sat there and wondered "What am I doing here stuck in the concrete zoo of the corporate world?" Are you itching to get out? Chris Lalomia and his co-host Alan Wyatt traverse the jungle of entrepreneurship. Together they share their stories and help you explore the wild world of SCALING your business. With many years of owning their own small businesses, they love to give insight to the aspiring entrepreneur. So, are you ready to make the jump?
The Small Business Safari
Secrets of Scaling and Customer Service Mastery - Phil Risher Phlash Consulting
The podcast dives into using data analytics and AI in the home service industry, featuring Phil Risher, who shares actionable insights for improving visibility, conversion rates, and retargeting strategies. Listeners discover the importance of personalized customer engagement and learn how to optimize their business processes to drive growth.
• Importance of KPIs for business insights
• Three pillars of growing a home service business: visibility, conversion, and retargeting
• Urgency of timely customer follow-ups and personalized communication
• Strategies for collecting and leveraging customer reviews
• Utilizing automation and AI for lead management
• Training technicians to spot and convert sales opportunities
• Cultivating a culture of success within business teams
From the Zoo to Wild is a book for entrepreneurs passionate about home services, looking to move away from corporate jobs. Chris Lalomia, a former executive, shares his path, discoveries, and tools to succeed as a small business owner in home improvement retail. The book provides the mindset, habits, leadership style, and customer-oriented processes necessary to succeed as a small business owner in home services.
He hit on this so you can do it, but you can't do it, or you can do it. I mean, maybe one of you can right yeah, get your retargeting down, get your callbacks down, get your follow-up callbacks down, layer it with AI. I'm telling you, man, that stuff my mind's been blown yet again.
Speaker 1:My mind's getting blown like every week on AI and how close it's becoming. Welcome to the Small Business Safari, where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountaintop of success. It's a jungle out there and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from hitting your own personal and professional goals. So strap in Adventure Team and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountain top. All right, alan, it is on, believe it or not. It just muted on you because I've got AI taking notes. That's why the recording started.
Speaker 3:The bots are taking over the world. Chris, I don't like it.
Speaker 1:Right. So I botted my way out to Vegas this weekend, baby.
Speaker 3:Yes, you did. You had a big weekend and I am impressed that you even bothered to text me. Thank you, I did. Well, it was a response to my text.
Speaker 1:But I made it, yeah, and I made it. What I mean I made it. I mean I made it. My lions lost, uh, but I'll take the bills. Win, uh, and I came back with uh almost as soon as I had before when I came out back. So, uh, but I didn't lose my ass. Did you break even?
Speaker 3:I did really that's a win in vegas. Oh hell, yeah, dude, that was you. Guys were going big, you could just see in the photos.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was, um, yeah, I had, I didn't have. Like these big dogs had. At one point one of them had five grand and just bets on games. And then during the game and you know, in in between the games they love the craps they put another three out there and play. I'm like, oh my god. And so the little dog over here, just uh, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.
Speaker 3:I got there. Maybe our guests will help you become a big dog that's right and that's what.
Speaker 1:So I'm excited that we've got phil risher, who reached out to me because he had talked with dave mormon. We've been doing this now for a little over three and a half years. Dave was one of our very first guests because I saw Dave out there and I really liked what he was doing, and I think we probably ought to have Dave come back on because I know we're a lot better at what we do now.
Speaker 3:We know what we're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but he is such a great dude and great guy and I've stayed. I mean, I keep up with him on social and every once in a while we ping each other. You know he's got this. He's got a pressure washing business and does pressure washing coaching. I know I've referred him to at least three people. Um yeah, now, whether or not they had, uh, the balls to use it I don't know, but it's, he's worth a great, he's a good conversation man, so it's at least talking to. So dave mormon hooked us up. Phil says hey, I think I'd be cool to come on your website or come on your podcast. And I was like, oh man, I mean, we get. I mean, I get five of these a day. I mean, seriously, right now we're getting this is kind of a big deal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean our podcast. We're in the top 5%, we're doing all right man People kind of. You know. I think we're a big deal, uh. So I said, well, let's see.
Speaker 3:And then he sends me his bio and I'm like, oh, this is a slam dunk. And I'm like you're making way too much out of it.
Speaker 1:We have got to do this. One of the things alan and I have talked about on this podcast is our backgrounds have really formed a lot about who we are and what we do, and one of the things that alan has brought up a lot of times is his enterprise training and just the enterprise culture and how good it was for him is that he actually felt entrepreneurial while he was there at the green, at the what do you guys call it, the green?
Speaker 3:I don't know the green, I don't know, the big green gorilla at one point. Yeah, and so phil says I worked at enterprise too. I'm like all right, see, he gets so excited about it, phil, I mean it's just not that big of a deal, I.
Speaker 2:I mean, we know what it meant, but yeah, you know getting our ties sucked up in vacuums as we clean cars.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, yeah, cleaning a car in a suit with a tie right there.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 3:So, phil. So the best story, alan, that I remember Alan telling me was was it bullet holes in the car and the gun in the car? Well, the uh the county had uh impounded the car that the the sheriff, the guy running for sheriff for dekab county, was gunned down in by his rival. That was one of them, that was pretty good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that that's pretty legendary. Because I told, I told somebody that story. They they fact-checked me. I said, do you know that? I mean, I moved to atlanta after this happened but the sheriff one sheriff gunned down the other sheriff and they're like what kind of podunk town was this? I'm like, no, no, it was right next to downtown atlanta.
Speaker 3:Yeah, look at you know who else was one of my customers I don't know if I ever told you this that prick who, uh, flew the plane into the trade center. He actually rented a car before he did that. Around him he was casing Atlanta. You know, he got the CDC and all that Right, and didn't he?
Speaker 1:take flight lessons here. Yeah, oh my God.
Speaker 3:That's great, get a profile.
Speaker 1:Alan, you can now in our new administration. That's a topic for another day and that's a different podcast. Let's go to True Crimes podcast. Phil, what was the craziest thing that ever happened to you at enterprise, except getting your tie sucked up, which is nothing, that wasn't good yeah, I would say I had two.
Speaker 2:so one of my branches we actually ran the undercover division for a large county like undercover cops about 120 cars out on rent for them and they were all undercover. So we would have lord guns in cars, drugs and cars that they would leave when they would accidentally drop their stuff off. They also would get seen by the people they're trying to trace and they need to come in and swap their cars. That was pretty crazy. At that same branch I actually had my branch literally broken into and the safe broken into and they stole my truck a brand new Dodge Ram 2500 or whatever drove it to a 7-Eleven, hooked up the ATM, dragged it out and then went on a wild police chase with police in one of my cars. So yeah, those are some of the crazy ones, more crazy ones that are out there, but that was probably the two big ones.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's a lot of things that you can use a rental car for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hot boxing. Hot boxing was a really popular one. You get the car, you know you do whatever.
Speaker 3:It's ridiculous, it is amazing how often we pulled guns and drugs out of the cars. Yeah, I'd be like you know. Hey, just, can you not remember that you have guns and drugs in the car before you return it? I mean, that's kind of always blew my mind. Can you not remember that you have guns and drugs on the car before you return it? I mean, that's kind of always blew my mind like, hmm, what do I need to get a car before?
Speaker 1:I turn it back in. Oh, here's another. Are you not a teenager trying to hide shit from your parents at one point in your life? I mean seriously, can't you clean your car? See things you learn at enterprise.
Speaker 2:Here's another one. You know we did these trunk to trunks. When you go out and inspect the car, when someone drops the car back off to you to make sure there's no damage, right, one of the things that we would look at is in the glove compartment. You open it up and in there was like a bunch of sex toys and stuff. And it's like a woman. I have to go back in there and I'm like, did you leave something in the car? And she's like like, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm like how does this even happen? How does this end up in your rental car and you leave it in there. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 3:Chris, I know you take customer service calls from people who aren't very happy, so how would you answer the call where somebody calls up and says my toddler reached under the seat of your rental car and pulled out a Glock?
Speaker 1:and pulled out a Glock. Okay, so that does trump the one I got, because I do rent out my place in the mountains. So obviously, first thing you say no shit, I apologize completely, this is unacceptable. Then it's like is it loaded? Yeah, exactly, oh, my God, I mean.
Speaker 3:Exactly, oh my God, I mean seriously, yeah, stuff like that, that was terrible. So what's ever happened in your cabin?
Speaker 1:Have you ever had ritual sacrifices or anything like that, yes, Well, or a chipmunk got in and died underneath the loft upstairs where the kid was and honestly, it was almost at the level of the Glock. That's the way she reacted. The mom was telling me that her son could have been bitten, could contract rabies from this. This is unacceptable. How do you let this happen in your cabin? I thought you guys had a cleaning protocol. I mean just giving it to me. I'm like, damn baby, you were in the middle of the woods. I mean this is, that's the whole reason why you rent a cabin.
Speaker 3:Yeah, get close to nature and she is just like letting me have it.
Speaker 1:I'm like, okay, you know, I mean, at some point I just finally went, would you get the chipmunk out? Okay, good, I mean seriously at that point. If you here's how, how she should have handled this, though and this is a great customer point if she just would have said hey, I, you know, I know I'm in the mountains, I just want to let you know we got, we had a chipmunk upstairs we take, we took care of it, though I'm like I would have said I so apologize. Can I at least give you an extra night? Can I comp you something? But she was such a b about it that I was like you know, what do you want?
Speaker 3:that goes back to that customer service, uh pod, that we dropped a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you went to went to Ooni and you hit them with great customer service to them. They want to help you, Right. Well, this lady hits you up with that and you're like, I mean I'm going to give you the least I possibly can. I guess I should have said Phil. Well, at least it wasn't a Glock, right? Hey, look at me, all right.
Speaker 3:Phil's like where's this going?
Speaker 1:Why did I come on this podcast? I don't know what the hell I'm going to talk about I might laugh, the reason I'm excited to have you two enterprise guys on me. So, phil, in your background, did you feel like it helped set you up for success as you moved on to the entrepreneurial world? Did you feel like it was a good basis? What do you think?
Speaker 2:Nowadays, like in my company today, we use the same things that I use at Enterprise to track performance, because we got paid off the bottom line of our branches. So it was basically running your own branch and you just you know, get profit distributions. So the same reports that we use now. We actually use them for our clients.
Speaker 2:And my trajectory after Enterprise, I went and worked at a home service business that was doing three million dollars and when I went there I'm like, well, how do you track your year-over-year jobs? How do you track your year-over-year this service versus that service? And there's nothing in there. So I'm like, okay, we need to start tracking this stuff so then we can benchmark performance and help us grow. So that in and of itself, helped me tremendously. The other thing, when it comes to enterprises, since I was running a local business that was a couple million dollars, I learned how to manage 15 people when I'm 25 years old, a $2 million business, whatever. So definitely like that stuff tremendously set me up and I wouldn't be where I'm at now if I didn't have that experience for sure.
Speaker 3:Should we let people know where he's at now?
Speaker 1:So let's get into that Well so, bill, where are you at now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so well. I own a company called Flash Consulting. We work with home service businesses to help them increase their sales, keep their schedules full. When I was in the trades, a lot of times there's these digital marketing frou-frou people that talk about likes and impressions and they never actually use your CRM to grow, and so when I started the company, I actually at that home service business we were crushing it. I crushed it for him for the first year and he referred all of his friends and was like, hey, you need to talk with this guy. And basically it was like you need to go help these people and I'll be your first client. So he kind of pushed me out there and then I started building out this playbook. I know it's crazy.
Speaker 1:So the guy you went to work for said, hey, get the hell out of here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is the crazy part. This is my enterprise. This is really my enterprise at enterprise, you know, like we're just going hard, like we're trying to book deals, sell clothes, stuff, no excuses. Like I was a high performer when I went to work in home service I was pushing the meter. I was like why can't we book more jobs? Why can't we run more routes? Why are we doing this? And the first year he went from 3 million to 4 million in revenue and he's like this guy needs to chill, like he's doing way too much and he's pushing too hard. So he's like I need to get this guy out of here and like go work with other businesses and just do the other stuff for me. So, yeah, he basically fired me because I was a disruptor.
Speaker 1:I love it. So what was it? What was the home service business?
Speaker 2:It was an air duct cleaning company.
Speaker 1:Air duct cleaning. Oh my God, it's $4 million in air duct cleaning and they weren't even tracking their KPIs.
Speaker 3:So get this Chris, Get this the guy used to work in HVAC in the 90s.
Speaker 2:And everyone used to ask him about duct cleaning. It was this new indoor air quality push. So in 1995, he started a duct cleaning company and the way that he got business was partnering with HVAC contractors all over the DC metro area. So when I started working there in 2018, he had 36 Google reviews and he was nowhere to be found and he was doing $3 million just from all these HVAC contractors referring him.
Speaker 1:So he didn't think about marketing advertising. So let's talk about that.
Speaker 3:It's frustrating though I mean, let's just take a second. It's like you bust your ass and I mean and this guy just doesn't care about Google reviews, he's not tracking anything. He's not tracking anything, he's $3 million in business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know where we're at right now. Just so you guys all know. I am at the cusp of 1,000.
Speaker 1:1,000 reviews 1,000 Google reviews and what I've had to build from was I was on a thing called Kudzu which is here in Atlanta. Google came in, took out my 300 reviews because Kudzu went out of business. Here comes Google and I did a really crappy job of asking for reviews and getting my guys to get reviews, because today, what do people do when they go figure out if they want to work with a home service company?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they read reviews.
Speaker 1:Of course, thank you. So. So this guy goes out there and you know what I have to give him kudos because he he networked with the hvac guys. He knew where, where his bread was buttered, but he was doing a lot. That's just. That's personal time and networking, man, uh, that's good holy shit too. Uh, so you grew him from three to four. What were some of the things you just enacted? What were some of the the things you guys did?
Speaker 2:yeah. So with those hv. Well, first he was running 15 routes a day, three jobs a day, so he had a ton of work. So the first thing was like let's come up with a process to get Google reviews with all these jobs. So what we did was we set up a QR code, a little thing, that then all the customers could scan and then each technician would get $10 for every review that they got. So the first thing was like get a bunch of reviews, so now we can get residential clients. The real unlock here was that all of the HVAC contractors that were referring were giving he was giving them a cut for the referral. So he's basically saying like you can do duct cleaning without doing duct cleaning and just refer me and I'll be your duct cleaning partner.
Speaker 1:So he was paying for that.
Speaker 2:Okay. So he did have a marketing cost, whether he thought about it or not. Okay, exactly. So every job that he was doing he was giving them like a hundred dollars off of a $500 job he was given the HVAC contractors. So I'm like, well, why don't we just take all these jobs that we're doing, get reviews, turn them into just COD, residential type customers, and then not have to pay this hundred dollars but do it all organically and that shift right. There was an unlock, because that additional million dollars was another $600,000 in profit, because it was you don't have to pay all this money anymore. It was basically unlocking this stuff. That was just one thing. There's a bunch of other things like online scheduling, estimate calculators, automations, following up on all his invoices that they weren't collecting on.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's always a fun one. So, uh, obviously you took this guy and uh, it's funny he says you know what, phil, you got to go yeah I can't handle this success.
Speaker 3:I can't handle this intensity. You are burning. I just got this country business.
Speaker 1:I have got to get a million dollars and so phil has mentioned he's from maryland, so I'm assuming this guy had a boat and he wanted to get out on a lake. That's a crab.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was in Virginia so I'm like in the DMV DC metro area, but yeah, he had like a mountain house and stuff like that Really good dude. His thing is like he was so good at sales, like he was, you know, he's going out getting all his HVAC contractors. He wasn't an operator, he wasn't making sure his stuff was was tight, so his numbers were all over the place. He just needed someone to come in and put some structure in place, which is what we helped with.
Speaker 3:Hey, phil. So this will go back to enterprise. You remember when we used to do the ESQI, the surveys, and if you weren't completely satisfied somewhat satisfied was a no it counted as a negative score. It had everything to do with your promotion and all that stuff. And in Google review. But we tried very hard to make sure that all the branches did that pure. We wanted to get actual feedback, not just pump ourselves up with a score. In Google Reviews. You're starting to see a lot of hey, if you can't give us a five-star review, tell us. So are you manipulating that or do you have a process to try to get five-star reviews or do you appreciate just the? Let's see where we're at. We just want reviews.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So they would call that review gating, which is basically, you know, don't leave us a five, don't leave us a review. That's not a five-star. So very funny thing.
Speaker 2:At Enterprise, what we talked about a lot is like if the customer doesn't know your name, then they're most likely not going to give you a review. Like, if the customer doesn't know your name, then they're most likely not going to give you a review, but if they remember your name, they're more likely to leave you a review Chris or Phil, you know. Because then they're like hey, phil did such a great job, I'm leaving him a review, not Enterprise or whatever the company is. So what we did first was I turned on automations, which was you know, after the job they get a text message blah, blah, blah. That was okay.
Speaker 2:Then what we did was we turned off the automations and we created the QR code with the postcard and we told all the technicians ask for a review and make sure that they know your name and they leave you a review specifically. And then what we did this was really cool. Where they go to clock in, we created these little like mini cards for each tech. That was like a little truck and we put their name on it and then each review that they got, they moved to the next step and once they got to a hundred points they got a hundred dollar gift card. So 10 points and once they hit that hundred they would get a little like star, you know, like football. You put little stickers on your helmet and stuff.
Speaker 2:They would get a star on their truck and they'd start back from the beginning. So everyone would see their trucks moving and getting all these stars on there and it just created this snowball. So, like the first year, they went from 36 to a thousand reviews. Now they're at like 4,500 or 5,000 and they still run that same playbook to this day.
Speaker 3:Just a simple competition. It's so funny how that works.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the big unlock for me. I was in there for a tech meeting and one of the guys come in doesn't speak any English. I see him taking a picture of it and I'm like, hey, you just like keep a track of my stats here or what's going on. He's like, no, I'm sending it to my wife. She's going to be really proud of me, nice star. So I'm like, okay, we got it, we got it I love it yeah okay.
Speaker 1:So you, uh, I'm typing, I'm typing notes because, uh, I've got to start that with the AI, pick off the things I like. You did something that I think is so key. People ask me, and again we get called. I'm getting ready to go out to Dallas and I'm going to go meet with another handyman who listens to the podcast while I'm out there. Why haven't him come to you? Well, because I'm going out there to move Austin into Waco and then go back to Dallas.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's right.
Speaker 1:So Chris is not going to Austin, he's moving his son, austin, to Waco, then going back to Dallas. I'm very confused but not going to Austin.
Speaker 3:I'm going to have another sip of bourbon.
Speaker 1:I did not know that my son Austin would actually end up in the same the damn Texas area.
Speaker 3:And you think okay, the damn Texas area you just offended, one of our greatest states.
Speaker 1:I know Well, I'm going down there, so come find me. I'd love to duke it out with you. I'm going to give you some cowboy hats and everything. Anyway, back to this Keep digging. Here's what people ask me what's the best thing you've found to get reviews? I said having my guys ask for it, right in front of the person, exactly.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:Like yeah, no, it's not like I know they can't, but when you tell them to do it and then all you have to do is give them one button on your CRM to say, send a text message with the Google link, and the customer gets it and you just stare at them while they do it.
Speaker 2:That's right, and they do it.
Speaker 1:And that pause was not your phone, that was not you driving down there, that was Chris pausing to tell everybody. You just sit there and stare at them when you send it to them. Yeah. But, that's it, though. Because they know your name, phil, you hit that.
Speaker 2:That's right. What we coached them was kind of the enterprise model, which was hey, so my name's Phil. How did we do today? How was the service that you received from me? Oh, it was great. Is there anything I could do better next time or any feedback for me? No, all good here, cool. Well, I have two things for you. First, do you mind leaving me a review here? Let's my boss know I'm doing a great job here you go, Pause and stare at him. Yeah, scan the QR code.
Speaker 1:So that'd be fun to watch this on YouTube, because Phil and I are staring at each other and Ellen's going. This is awkward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then the second part is. Here's your you know invoice or how you're going to pay whatever, but you just make it a part of that ending script. And my name's Phil. How was the service? Blah, blah, blah. It just ties it all together. It's perfect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, our line is and this has been dynamite when they use it. Now they. When I walked up as the owner, I'm like you know. I hope you like what our guys did today I said I'll tell you what it would mean the world to him if you went out there and gave him a good review. But if he didn't earn five stars, you let us know and I'm here to help him and I'll do whatever it takes.
Speaker 3:Review gate right, Phil, he just managed it.
Speaker 1:I did baby. Little review gate, and so, to be fair everybody needs to know this I do have a review gate too. So if we think the service really didn't go well they think that they pulled a Glock when it really was just a chipmunk underneath their thing I send them a link to my website where they can go through there and I can suppress all my four and less, but I can respond to them so they feel like they got their voice heard, because that's the thing that's awesome about these keyboard.
Speaker 3:Wait a minute, you don't you don't let like threes show up.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 3:So on my website, no on.
Speaker 1:Google I can't control that, Right. And then Google let me tell you guys everything. You can't control shit when it comes to Google. You can, and if you ever get one taken away that you fought for guys, you got a gold star and you can send me an email, Chris, at the trusted toolbox, and let me know. I said because I've had legit reviews taken down. Yeah it's bad.
Speaker 2:So I feel you were jumping in. What was that? You can set up an automation so it will send an email and you'll have, like the stars and then you'll say click on the star. If it's five star, when you click on that star, it goes to your Google business profile. If they click on four, if it's five star when you click on that star, it goes to your Google business profile. If they click on four, then it goes to your website where they can fill out a form.
Speaker 3:So that way you're kind of like segmenting them out, but based on the stars, and if it's a two it goes to you.
Speaker 1:No, actually, four and lower goes to all of us. Yeah, no, four, four and lower. We react that, yeah and I. How about this? You're a little off. One, there are two, three and four in there. You could have picked a different one. Was it literally a one?
Speaker 3:I wish we'd go to 10, because I don't review anymore, because to me, like when you go to a restaurant, I mean I'm only going to give five stars. If I had my world rock, four stars is good to me, but now in Google, world four is not that good.
Speaker 1:No, I agree with you. I thought I would be a hard grader too. I thought I would be the Russian grader, maybe the German judge in the Olympics.
Speaker 3:You just dated yourself hard, but I love that reference. That was so big.
Speaker 1:But you're right, it's hard because, man, we're out there and this is how we make our living. And we're out there and this is how we make our living. And you want to get behind your keyboard and, instead of engaging with me and having a conversation, you want to just go out there and slay me and not give me a chance to fix it Again. In home services, phil, you talked about duct cleaning. I know you work with a lot of other home services. We'll get to that, but in my world, drywall.
Speaker 3:I can't tell you how many times people just get absolutely just set off on drywall.
Speaker 1:Nothing pisses me off more than drywall, is that right? Yeah, really. And you're like this is so easy. No, I can fix this. I mean, they make it sound like, your world is weird you know what my world is weird? You want to. You want to buy it it's up for sale? Not yet, baby no, all right, all right, so All right. So back to Phil. Okay, back to. Can we please?
Speaker 3:Hey, Phil, your bio. I'm not going to say you're bragging, but it's pretty confident, Like I'm going to help you just really increase the multiples on your business so you can exit and be a big daddy, like Chris wants to be, and you focus on the home services space. Are you that confident because so many people in the home services space don't use KPIs and don't do these things or I mean, Chris runs a very sophisticated business Can you actually take a business like his with that confidence and know that you can move the needle?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's like three pillars that we look at. There's visibility, so reviews is one part of it where people are going to find you, whether it's SEO, running ads, whatever they need to know about you and find you. That's the one pillar. The second one is conversions, and most companies don't have a lead problem. They have a lead management problem.
Speaker 3:Sorry, we just talked about that before we got on the air with you.
Speaker 2:Okay, so, like the duck cleaning company, they're getting all these leads, the CSRs. Who knows if they're calling them? They're not answering. But what's the process look like for nurturing the leads? That's the second problem is conversions. Most of the times, that's the issue, and they need automations inside of their CRM to help with that.
Speaker 3:Are you saying take the human people part of that out?
Speaker 2:I'm saying layer AI and automation on top of the humans that they can pick up, like if, for example, let's say, you get a lead that comes in and you call them and they don't answer, what happens? Nine times out of 10, nothing. There needs to be an email text message sequence that starts to happen, that when they respond to that, then the CSR picks it up and can communicate back and forth with the client and then the last pillar is retargeting. So all your prospects and customers that come through your database, maybe you close 50 to 60% of them. The other 40% you don't close. They all need to go into an email newsletter text message marketing campaign to cross sell services, to bring them back into your funnel. The reason that I'm so confident is because most people, from a marketing perspective, don't do conversion rate optimization or automations, they don't do retargeting to their past customers and they barely do visibility and they don't even know if it's working because they don't use their CRM halfway.
Speaker 3:So you help implement all these processes, but do you actually teach people how to convert?
Speaker 2:No. So my company is a done for you system where we have the playbooks and processes that are done. If they want the how they can go to our youtube channel and we give it away for free I can promise you what he's just talking about.
Speaker 1:This is the heart. Um, as a business owner, we have a lot of shit going on exactly right and so now I'm going to tie it into what I just said. I can teach you to replace your own toilet, alan, and that way you can flush your own shit. Or after you watch my YouTube channel, you'll let us come change your toilet out. So that's what Phil's saying.
Speaker 1:It's like look come on, you want to do it yourself? Good, here you go, I'm going to give it all to you. Then you got Marcus Sheridan up there. They ask you answer. I'm going to give you all the answers. Now. Do you have the time to do all that? Because I'm writing down those three things and retargeting is a great example, or hey? Uh, ladies, did you call them back? Yeah did they answer?
Speaker 3:no, I just left a message by the way, I liked it a lot better when you wrote on a legal pad I well, I'm, because when you get, when you get on your phone, I don't know if you're like placing a bet?
Speaker 1:No, I'm not placing a bet.
Speaker 3:You can't place a bet here in Georgia, by the way, which is the only reason I'm still acting or contacting somebody out of state to place a bet, or if you're dealing with a customer service issue. I just feel like you're just distracted.
Speaker 1:No, I'm taking notes, but when you have a legal pad and a pen.
Speaker 3:This is why I hate AI.
Speaker 1:But you have a legal patent to pen. Then I know you're engaged because you're excited, you're taking notes. Now I don't know what you're doing. That reminds me of my first boss. I used to come in way back in the day this is way before the internet people and we'd have the newspaper In the dark times, the dark times, and I was a engineer and we did drafting, but I had just moved to a CAD station but I would read the newspaper and he grabbed me and pulled me inside and said Chris, look, he goes. I know you're one of the smartest guys here, he goes. You're a master's in engineering, you're really smart, he said. But reading the paper at your cube is, it's just not a good look. When I learned, right there, I'm like shit, he's right. So I never read the paper at my cube ever again and couldn't go to the internet. But I found other ways. But on my computer I had Solitaire. So, fuck you, I didn't learn a damn thing, but I played Solitaire. I don't know where that story was going. No, you're right.
Speaker 3:So here, no, I'm on my phone, phil, normally just gives me the finger, but today he just absolutely said it.
Speaker 1:I did too, because that one set me off. I did too, because that one set me off.
Speaker 3:That reminds me of that and there he is. He's on his phone again, but I'm trying to break this shit down. Oh, got a parlay with it.
Speaker 1:No, no parlays, although I did win a parlay this weekend, did you really? Oh my God, it was a crazy parlay too. That must have been fun.
Speaker 3:It was Because you just got to keep building and building and building I millions of dollars.
Speaker 1:I made like $81.42.
Speaker 3:But you celebrated like it was 1999. You should have seen me.
Speaker 1:You know what? You've never seen a guy go crazy at a $20 bet than Chris. I can promise you that I can see it, I know it, and so if it's $20 or $2,000, I'm in. But that's the business owner mentality.
Speaker 3:Let's get back to Phil, shall we? I've been with phil the whole time.
Speaker 1:I was just scolding you for just, but I'm paying attention I'm writing his shit down because, uh, he hit on this so you can do it, but you can't do it. Or you can do it, you can. I mean, maybe you want to, you can right. Yeah, get your retargeting down, get your callbacks down, get your follow-up callbacks down, layer it with ai.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you, man, that stuff my mind's been blown yet again my mind's getting blown like every week on ai and how close it's becoming. Tommy mellow, who one of your books up there? Uh, he and I were talking two years ago. No, year and a half ago, no, uh, less than a year ago. He said two years from now, no, but no human will answer the phone and home services. And I said I don't know, I home services. And I said I don't know. I didn't say bullshit, I just said I don't know.
Speaker 1:Man, that seems like a big stretch, bro. I said because my business is just so different. He said well, I can't speak to your business, but I know garage doors. He goes nobody, I'm not going to have a call center, ai is going to answer first. I'm like no, no, no. So I was at a presentation last Thursday by Victor Antonio. Guy's an amazing salesperson. Go look him up, victorantoniocom. You want to learn about sales, you go there and you just go to the temple, my friends, because he is amazing. He said it's coming and it's already here.
Speaker 2:It's already at.
Speaker 1:AI.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so. So Air AI is good, but for the trade specifically, there's like three big players. There's one that's called ZyraTalk. Zyratalk integrates with your service, titan, and basically they can, or that's one of the CRMs for most of the big home service businesses.
Speaker 2:But it integrates with other ones. It answers the call, answers questions, can book it right into your CRM for you right into your CRM for you. Same Day AI is another one does a similar thing, but they're actually turning AI sales agents. So they're going to be doing your rehashing on your estimates, they're going to be calling your spring and fall inspections, blah, blah, blah, that kind of stuff. And then the Jobber I'm pretty big into Jobber with Dave too. Basically, jobber has their own AI answering service that will answer questions and book stuff right onto your calendar all inside of their platform. So it's already pretty much here. It's just about people using it is what it comes down to.
Speaker 3:And I mean it sounds good, it doesn't frustrate you. I mean I still think about, like decision trees, that kind of AI.
Speaker 2:I would say that the cool thing. So same day I interviewed him on my podcast Aaron, he was the founder. He said that his AI has a booking rate of around 90%, and that's again the plumbing industry and other industries like 90% of a booking rate.
Speaker 1:That's insane. Yeah, we have Uzi on Uzi's come on our pod and talked about AI and answering phones for the HVAC overnight and then he sent me an example of one where I couldn't tell it was really good and they had a-.
Speaker 3:I remember him saying that and I just couldn't believe it. But then he told he's the one who told the story about his AI actually refunded a customer when that wasn't part of the program because it just made sense. Yeah, the customer had enough logic.
Speaker 2:We're like the customer had enough logic. We're like okay, I'll give you your money back, some ways that you can use AI and then kind of pick up the CSR side. So this is some of the things that we implement for clients. So like when someone fills out a form on your website there's a study that says that 44% of website forms never even get responded to but basically, when a web form happens, what was that number? 44%.
Speaker 1:I heard that, oh my Lord, I'm going to kick somebody's ass tomorrow.
Speaker 3:So is that 44%? Did you write down or kicking somebody's ass that you wrote?
Speaker 1:44% KOA. 44% KOA.
Speaker 2:Basically, what you want to do is, when someone fills out a web form, you want to send them a text message and an email right away. That, basically what you want to do is when someone fills out a web form, you want to send them a text message and an email right away. That way, you acknowledge and the text message is most important because it gets a 95% open rate. So when you call them and they don't answer, now you have a text message, communication. And another very important thing is with the text, you want to send a follow-up text that says hey, if you have any additional pictures or information, text them over to us. This allows to start the conversation and send you a text right away. Then, when you call them they don't answer, you can put them into an automation sequence that will text and email them and nurture the leads through the funnel. So that's the basic setup, and then AI doesn't have to be responding to the customer. It's just an AI automation that's running them through this nurture sequence.
Speaker 3:And so you actually provide that as well, or do you?
Speaker 2:refer that out. Okay, no, we build that inside you build?
Speaker 3:that, and so you can customize it to whatever company.
Speaker 2:Exactly. It's fully customizable and we build it in their CRM. So if they use Jobber Service, Titan, Housecall Pro, we're basically running stuff in their CRM and outside of it to automate that conversion process.
Speaker 1:So are those the three CRMs you work with right now to automate that conversion process.
Speaker 2:So are those the three CRMs you work with right now? Work is Housecall Pro Jobber Service Titan. That's like most of the ones that home service companies are going to work with.
Speaker 1:Well, I guess I'm not most. I'm on FieldPulse. You're an outlier, fieldpulse, okay, and I'm going to meet them next week.
Speaker 2:Okay. So yeah, we don't work with any clients that use FieldPulse, but I'm sure if they have an API integration it all will work, it's like you're a leper, I just moved to them.
Speaker 3:Maybe Phil can help me get my exit. He won't even work with you because you don't work with FieldPulse.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what. He's going to work with you. They've got an. They're good people. You tell me what to do. Let's go rock this shit. Yeah, I'm actually meeting with the CEO next week. In fact, I'm going to let him know that. I don't know if he knows this, but I'm kind of a big deal, but service-tightened I mean. They're getting ready to go public. That's obviously the big dog you got to play with, especially when you're doing your work. Housecall Pro. I was coming out of the dark ages. I was with a company that hadn't done a lot for me and I've been with them for nine years and I really didn't want to have to change, but I really felt like I needed to. I looked at Workiz. I liked them. I kept calling them Workiz, by the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, either one Workiz, workiz.
Speaker 1:Okay, thank God, I thought maybe they hated me, but I just felt a little bit too more locksmith for me, like duck cleaning locksmiths that look good. My handyman and remodeling company is kind of a hybrid. It's really well, let's just get to it. It's a really hard business but I figured it out and we scaled and then so I'm going actually out to Dallas to see the other company that's as big as us. That's why I'm going out there and to move Austin to Waco, to go back to Dallas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the big, the big thing with the CRM. So when I was at the duck cleaning company was we were working with this digital marketing company and I would ask them like, well, is this actually working with our Google ads or whatever? And they're like, well, you need to look in your CRM. And I'm like, well, you need to look in our CRM. We're paying you to do our marketing stuff Like you need to. That's a big part of what we do is tying everything from a digital perspective into your CRM reporting and data and then making decisions based off real data, and that's why we tie so hard into CRMs and we're big about CRMs wow, this is killing me.
Speaker 1:All right, I love it. This is um. Data is powerful. This is what's I mean. This is the part uh, somebody asked me uh, one of the questions I did get asked from a small handyman guy was uh, do I really need to invest in the crm thing? I'm like, yeah, you really do. I said they they, especially the one-man shops they'll give you something. There's a couple of good ones out there. Market looks pretty good. Um, I can't vouch for them, but you know just, you got to have it though.
Speaker 1:You got to have it for that and I had one from day one and I did not, I mean, and that has been very powerful for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean if it's a couple hundred bucks a month and it helps you run your business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's great, it's so worth it. Yeah, it's great, it's so worth it. Yeah, look, you just hit on a couple things, and one of the things we'll talk about in sales. Your priority is not their priority.
Speaker 1:Especially let's face it duct cleaning is not a necessary, you don't have to. And so here's what I learned last week from Victor Antonio victorantoniocom. So if your close rate is 40%, I'm going to get Victor on, I'm going to make him listen to this sucker just about becoming ricky bobby. Ricky bobby, so, uh, 40. If you close 40, 60 said no right. Exactly a study in 2022 by tether um, using a ton of interactions. I can't even quote the number and attributes of those 40. Those 40, only 20 went to your competitors. The other 40 of those 40%, only 20% went to your competitors. The other 40 of the 40 decided not to do anything.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Because, especially when you're a non-.
Speaker 2:Because why.
Speaker 1:Because of indecision and uncertainty, because you didn't make it a compelling enough case.
Speaker 1:You didn't make it a compelling enough case. You did not bring them down and make them understand what you can do for them and why it's so important to them today and in my world as a handyman, hey, I want to put these doors in my office. Okay, you know, back our COVID doors that we talked about back four years ago. I put a lot of COVID doors in because people started working from home and they had to put the doors in. But what we told them was do you want your kids flying in to the room? Do you guys remember that YouTube video where the guy comes flying in?
Speaker 1:We used to use that as a joke. I can't tell you how many French tours I ended up putting in. Really, I never heard that. Yeah, so we called them COVID doors. So we did a lot of COVID doors and then, whoops, hang on, phil, I'm still here. I just hit something I shouldn't have hit. I'm back. So the other thing you talk about is uncertainty. You've got to be able to get your sales team ready to make it happen right there on the spot. And if you can't do it on the spot, at least bring them up to make that decision when they're ready to.
Speaker 2:That's right and I would say another big one, even for your business. Like, let's say, you go out to do some handyman work but then someone's like yeah, I'm thinking about doing this kitchen remodel, this bathroom remodel. Now you need to turn your technicians that are out there into actual sales people. So we had a company that was an HVAC. They turned their technicians into estimate creators and then we set up an automation sequence, so every single estimate or opportunity that they created on the job site then we ran them into an estimate nurture sequence to help them convert more leads. So a lot of times you get these people in place.
Speaker 2:Like you go out for a handyman job to replace a toilet but you don't see that this is an outdated bathroom and you're like, hey, have you thought about replacing this? Actually we have. You know I haven't really got any quotes. Okay, well, do you mind if I send someone out here to take a look? At it from my company Now you're turning that $200,. At it from my company Now you're turning that $200, $300 job into a $20,000 job. All just by incentivizing the technician to pass leads back and forth for your bigger ticket items.
Speaker 3:So that seems really obvious to me as a sales guy. Back to our enterprise days. But Chris has talked about for over three years that his lone wolves are artisans and they're not salespeople. Lone wolves are artisans and they're not salespeople.
Speaker 2:And he struggles getting them to get over that hump. Okay, so a lot of them know about annuities and residual income, potentially Like hey, do you want to get paid when you're not working and you're sleeping? This is how I go about it. Do you want to get paid while you're sleeping? Yes, here's a way to get paid while you sleep Every single lead that you pass over to the sales team, you're going to get a residual income for work that you didn't have to do. All you have to do is just send me the lead. We're going to pay you 2% of any job that sells that you originate.
Speaker 3:Genius.
Speaker 1:You could be sleeping and you're going to get paid, dude. I am quiet right now because I'm writing that shit down, because I will agree, what's hard is my technicians, my artisans in the field and they truly are artisans they think sales is a bad word. They think if they tell you to do something else, it's kind of like, well, it's up to you, but they're writing the check for the customer and that's one of the things I train the guys on Don't write the check for the customer. I had a guy where we fixed the door because and he thought we were going to have to plane it down and redo it all, and we have a technique in the handyman world of being and you should know this if you put doors in, you know how to line up a door better by just putting in longer screws. You know how to line up a door better by just putting in longer screws. Um, it's actually a pretty easy thing where you can shim out a um, shim out your, your jam or do whatever you're gonna do. We did it.
Speaker 1:He was done an hour and I guess I can't pay him. He goes. Well, uh, why? Why can't you pay me? He said well, your guy told me that he said it wasn't really worth it for what he did. I said, no, man, you owe me 80 bucks because that was an hour of my guy's time. I said it was 15 minutes, but it's.
Speaker 1:It's the training that I put my guys through yeah he goes uh, and actually the guy understood and he said, yeah, I'll pay you guys. I said that's how I pay my guys. He gets a percentage of what he just sold you. He goes, I'll pay him. I'm like, all right. So, because it was a buddy of mine, because he called me and my technician told him your buddy was going to say I'm not paying for the hour.
Speaker 3:The guy was paying. He was joking with me. No, he's being totally joking.
Speaker 1:You need new buddies. You know, what I do need new friends.
Speaker 2:Yeah, another good way, like the scorecards at Enterprise where everyone's up there ranked based off of their stats. It's like, okay, we're going to start ranking people off how many leads they generate when they're out on jobs, maybe they're motivated by, you know, being praised in public or everyone's up here.
Speaker 2:the number of leads Wow, this guy's really crushing it. It's not just about money. Another really good one that we did at Enterprise. We had this thing called Five and Fly. If you sell five full boats on a day, you get to go home early. Full boats is like full coverage, so if you sell five full boats, you get to go home early. It's called five and fly.
Speaker 3:I knew exactly what that was Five, and fly, that is nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so imagine if you submit five, Five and fly. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:If you submit five leads, you get a free day off or you get to leave Friday early, that's outstanding.
Speaker 3:Are you writing that down or I?
Speaker 1:got it down. Five and fly. I'm not doing that. Five and fly. Look at it. All right, it's a little print though, can you see?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Cause a lot of people might not be motivated about money or they think it's a sticky thing, but they might be motivated by getting Fridays off or whatever you know, a soccer game or who knows what.
Speaker 1:That's genius, phil. Man, you're onto something I love this stuff Helping a lot of home service companies, so tell us a little bit more about which companies you're working with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so our bread and butter is 1 to 10 million home service business owners, and the reason that we're really good there is because a lot of times they can't hire a full-on marketing CMO or something and they also need the support that a traditional digital agency is not able to provide, like they need someone to pull the reports, build the automation, strategize, learn about their business. So we kind of fill that gap that most people are feeling, and so that's the companies that we work with HVAC, plumbing, electrical, gutter cleaning, air duct cleaning, custom closets, lawn care a bunch of different types of companies.
Speaker 2:And I see you have your own bobblehead right. Yeah, so funny story about this. We do customer appreciation gifts and we send out bobbleheads to our customers as an appreciation gift when they work with us, but all of our team has them as well.
Speaker 1:It's pretty fun so I have my own bobblehead too. Alan, is it a lala mia bobblehead?
Speaker 3:it is. Yeah, actually I have one of those. One of my guys made a bobble around.
Speaker 1:No, I'm not. You're not even coming near my bobblehead now. You will not be touching my bobblehead, sir. Oh my gosh, that's horrible. All right, guys, this has been awesome. I mean, phil is full of it and filled is filled it up, phil.
Speaker 3:Are you making pH jokes? I'm trying to. I knew you thought it was P-lashed.
Speaker 1:Did I. I'm like, if this dude's going to come on and start talking about extending lashes, we got the wrong podcast dude. No, it's Flash Consulting. That's P-H Lash Consulting. Go look him up. Phil's got a dynamite business going on. Man, if you didn't learn something that's on you, phil, how can everybody find you Come out and talk to you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we up a free meeting there and go from there.
Speaker 1:So that is not for lash extensions, which I was looking for.
Speaker 2:So the guy that fired me that said, go out and do this stuff. He named the company Flash. He said it needs to be called Flash Consulting, phil with a PH like PH. And then my wife's name is Ashley, but I call her Ash, so he's like you could be Flash Consulting.
Speaker 3:So that's where it came from. So you're fired, but I'm going to give you this gift.
Speaker 2:And two referrals, and I'm your first customer.
Speaker 1:Do you still work with him?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so cool story. He went from three to 6 million and then sold a private equity and made a ton of money. And I still work with the company to this day.
Speaker 1:Nice, Well done man. That's awesome. All right, guys go out and check out flash consulting, but I think we've got to go for the four questions. All right, Number one what is the favorite book that you would recommend everybody? Cause you got four sitting up there, so what's your favorite one?
Speaker 2:Yeah, uh, I mean home service millionaire, your favorite one. Yeah, I mean Home Service Millionaire. Tommy Mello is always great book. Building a story brand is really good for people that don't really know how to articulate what they do to the customer. It's really hard for the trades because they think they're the hero but they're not. So building a story brand is really good.
Speaker 1:Donald Miller building a story brand, that is big. Nice, all right, shall, we continue, all right. What's the favorite feature of your home? Because I'm in home services, I love this stuff, I love working in homes. What's the favorite feature of your home?
Speaker 2:yeah, we have a really nice kitchen that we redid when we moved in. Uh, so definitely the kitchen. It's like an open floor plan.
Speaker 1:It's nice all right, what's your favorite feature in that kitchen?
Speaker 2:um, yeah, we have this we have a really nice island and then an extended island that overlooks, like where you eat and stuff. So it's just like very open concept, but it feels nice, do?
Speaker 1:you have a pot filler, uh no, we don't yeah, I don't think. So I don't think I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 3:I I think that's when you've arrived. Is you have a pot filler?
Speaker 2:really you gotta have one you're an italian, you should have a pot filler all right it is pretty cool, like I think it's cool, if I were to do do it again, I'd probably add one.
Speaker 1:I do a lot of cast iron frying, though, and, man, that shit goes everywhere. I got to figure out Somebody can invent a cast iron frying counter. That doesn't. Yeah, oh my God. All right, so that's awesome. All right, phil, one of the things we got a big question for you, because you guys have this enterprise background, but one of the things al and I talk about a lot is that we are customer service freaks. Absolutely. We love this stuff. We talked about it earlier. What is the customer service pet peeve of yours when you're out there and you're the customer?
Speaker 2:yeah, so when I was in the trades, it was literally, you know, support at emails and I'm like we will never have a support at email ever in my company that people email because you need to have a real person that you're actually working with. So that that was my big pet peeve a real name instead of support.
Speaker 1:I like that one All right, so I send out all my emails for Phil.
Speaker 1:Look, we have. Now we have effects of our podcast. God, we've arrived, we're 5% top. Hey, we're five percent top. Hey, we're gonna make whatever, but anyway. Um so, cindy at the trusted toolbox is where you get your emails from now. But I've always been admin at the trusted toolbox, because one of the things I didn't know is, especially in the beginning, when I first started, I didn't know how long they were going to be with me yeah, so I just so, and and the fact is is it doesn't matter I know I should just have rox, everybody, roxanne, yeah, roxanne, I should have been Roxanne, whatever name makes you Roxanne, not Sam, so it can't be Roxanne.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right. Last thing Give us a DIY nightmare story. We love fire, flooding, you know, maybe a little, you know, not, not dismemberment, but maybe you just lost a finger. Just some emergency services, one or three, yeah like me, like me diying stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not, not a contractor story. Okay, covid, I actually built this desk and if you're on youtube you can see how the desk holds up. It's not very good oh, he is rocking.
Speaker 1:It is wiggling a little bit.
Speaker 2:He's out in california and I still keep it just to remind myself that I tried to build this. It looks atrocious like. It looks terrible like I run I run an agency with a bunch of people Like I, should be getting a new desk, but I should humble.
Speaker 1:I love that. That is exactly what you do. You keep that thing forever and then you give it to your kids and you say look, daddy built this.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love it. Oh, my God Phil reaching out to us. Thank you to my enterprise brothers for sharing some enterprise green knowledge. You guys rock. Hey, everybody go out there, make it a great day. We gotta go keep going because it's. I don't want to time date ourselves, but it's really freaking cold out. All right, it's really freaking cold out. This is my slow period. Let's get the shit moving and we gotta go take care of people because we got a great 2025 happening.
Speaker 3:Let's make it happen, cheers everybody.
%20png.png)
