The Mobilization Mindset

Episode 138 | Marketing That Actually Works for Construction Companies with Kai Stone

• Mobilization Funding • Episode 138

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In this episode of The Mobilization Mindset, Scott Peper sits down with Kai Stone, Founder of Stone Systems, to break down what actually drives growth in construction marketing.

Kai shares how contractors can build simple, repeatable marketing systems that generate demand, improve conversion, and create a better customer experience from first contact to final delivery

In this episode, they discuss:

• Why most contractors have a systems problem, not a marketing problem
• How speed, communication, and follow-up win more work than better ads
• Why doing the opposite of industry stigmas helps you stand out
• How to use content to create demand and guide customers to a decision
• How AI and automation are changing marketing and why contractors must adapt

If you want to generate better opportunities, attract the right customers, and build a business that grows with intention, this conversation will challenge how you think about marketing.


Learn more: https://mobilizationfunding.com/

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Kai's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kaistone808/?hl=en

Kai's Website: https://stonesystems.io/

SPEAKER_01

Like people make mistakes, right? But like our best customers have actually come from the times when we've messed up the worst because of how we fix it, right? And if you mess something up and you go above and beyond to fix it, those bad, bad customers can literally become like your best case studies and your best customers because of how you dealt with like messing up, right?

SPEAKER_00

When you make a mistake, the actual cost of that mistake is not fixing it. Because when if you fix it, the same person that's upset, they're gonna talk about how much, how well you did fixing that mistake. And if they don't, they're gonna talk about how bad you screwed up, and you're never gonna know how bad that dispers that communication line disperses across the community. And it's just too easy now with the online presence, Google reviews, and other things like that.

SPEAKER_01

And every single time we've ever gotten a bad review, we like reach out to the person, we do a deep dive into their account, we reach out to them, we're like, dude, why was this not handled? XYZ. And we can usually turn most of it around. Obviously, you know, you can never be perfect, but that's just what I would suggest doing, dude, because you're gonna make mistakes, like you said.

SPEAKER_00

Welcome everybody to the next episode of the mobilization mindset. My name is Scott Pieper, CEO and founder of mobilization funding. And today we're gonna be taking a different approach to marketing. I want to show you guys how scaling your business, your construction business, with the right marketing tactics, the right marketing principles, and how and why you might be able to think about it a little different. And I'm gonna use a special guest today who has done this for a lot of residential contractors and really, really well for those bigger companies that are trying to grow as well. Kai Stone, founder of Stone Systems. How are you doing, man? Yeah, man. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

Uh thank you for having me again for a second time. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00

That's right. Well, we're not gonna tell everybody why you're on the second time, but Kai and I have had this conversation before. And let's just say when you run a podcast, sometimes you forget to hit record. And so we're good. But you know what also is true, Kai, is player B is is pretty nasty. So let's see how player, let's see how player B goes here for everybody. Um, so so dude, tell us a little bit about yourself, man. What you're uh, you know, obviously you got a great background there at your house, uh, where you're at, what you're doing. Tell us a little bit about Stone Systems, and then I'm gonna dive into some questions here for you.

SPEAKER_01

100%, man. Yeah. So we work with uh contractors, obviously. So anything home service, landscaper, electrician, plumber, XYZ. Uh basically we just had them, we have the we helped them with AI and automation. We build out websites and basic marketing systems for them. Um, and then yeah, man, we will basically just help them run their business. I think a lot of contractors, what we realized is they were getting not scammed, but they were being taken advantage of by companies charging$1,500 to$3,000 a month to run their paid ads for them. The problem is like that can work sometimes. The problem is no matter who you are, residential, commercial, what type of contractor, they all need basic AI and automation and systems. So website, instant lead follow-up, uh, a good Google page, like systems to follow up with customers. And a lot of contractors, especially small businesses, we realized didn't have any of that stuff. So their paid ads weren't really working as well as they could because it's kind of like going three, two, one instead of one, two, three. So we realized if we could help contractors go one, two, three as opposed to what they were doing, which is three, two, one, we can make a lot of money and then they would do a lot better as well. Just because they like, and again, these foundational systems are complicated because there's a lot of setup involved. But once we set them up, I mean, it's basically like copy paste to every single business, which is why we're able to, you know, service over a thousand active customers right now, because we're not doing individual things for everyone. It's the same thing, just set up for them, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and the optimization of the system and the process is what the key is, right? It's not the optimization of this, everything has to be their own customized marketing process. It's like plug and play into a system that we know works and then execute.

SPEAKER_01

100%. And just a perfect example is let's say I work with a landscaper over here in Austin, Texas, and then I work with a landscaper from where I'm from, from Hawaii, right? Let's say I build them the exact same website. Why does it matter? The website works, it converts leads, it shows off their work. It could be the exact same thing. They're not in competition with each other. People from Texas are never going to like find the same guy in Hawaii. So it doesn't, it doesn't matter. As long as the system works, it works, right? Which is obviously we do do customizations, but we wouldn't be able to onboard 300 or 200 clients a month if we customized every single website. The point is, as long as the system works, like that's what contractors are looking for, you know, something that works for them.

SPEAKER_00

So let's focus on the system for a second. So most of our clients that or folks that are watching this, some are residential, some are very large-scale residential. They may be working for a large home builder or or they may be doing custom homes too. But the majority are commercial construction contractors working either for the Department of Transportation, or they're working for another government entity, or they're working for large general contractors, private work, business work. And you know what? A lot of them are looking for industrial type service too. So they may want to do the concrete work, the cement, the electrical, the plumbing, the AC, but they might be wanting to do it for the 250-store grocery chain or Home Depot or Walmart, right? So explain the principles behind like why a website will convert, why an ad will convert. What is the person that you're seeking? In this case, for a lot of your customers, it's a residential homeowner. But if you think about it just from a human perspective, what is it a human that's looking to hire someone? What is it that they're looking to do? And what makes them want to engage with one ad or one person versus another in that story?

SPEAKER_01

100%. Um, so before I even answer that question, firstly, any huge company, any successful residential or commercial company, they like we we can't help that like the big dogs because you want to know why the big guys already have all this stuff set up, right? They already have all the systems that we have in place set up because they work and they're important. That's why they are where they are, right? So case in point right there is like if a contractor is looking at like bigger guys who are already successful in the industry, they're all using very similar systems to what we set up, right? So that's number one. Um, number two, I would say as far as conversion, it's it's about Google reviews uh and just like social proof in general, right? If I'm gonna get my roof replaced, I want to make sure I'm seeing like a bunch of really positive experiences with the company. Even better are video testimonials. If we can get our clients to get their clients, our customers to do video testimonials, that's huge as well. Um trust, honestly, online trust is at an all-time low. So the more reviews we can get and the more social proof we can get, the better. And also like a good website. Like people, like when they go to a website, they want to feel like it's sleek, it works well. The buttons, the buttons work. Like when they submit a quote form or a lead capture form, like, do you know how professional it is to like submit something on a roofing website and just instantly get a text message saying, hey Kai, we just got your quote with uh stone roofing. We'll be right with you, just want to let you know that we received it. That's insane, right? And not to bash contractors or home service guys, you know, obviously I'm joking, kind of, but they'll they'll probably all agree. Contractors in general are notorious for getting taking a long time to get back to people, not being the best with communication and missing a lot of phone calls. And that's just the way the industry is, right? I don't think they would disagree with it. So to stand out from the competition that way. And also, contractors, most of them forget to ask for reviews. A lot of them do really, really good work, but they just forget to ask for the review, or they might just ask one time and they don't have an automated reminder be sent out. Because when you don't automate things, things uh slip through the cracks. So I would say social proof number one, and then having a good website with a lot of Google reviews and having all of your social proof present on the website and the Google page, dude, that's like 80% of the battle. But most guys just don't have that stuff set up at all, you know.

SPEAKER_00

So if you're a commercial contractor and you're listening to this right now, what I want you guys to take away from this is just like any other human-to-human experience, if you take the actual stigmas of the industry that you're in and you just negate them by doing the opposite of what that is, you are going to stand out at such a high, high level from every other competitor you have. That's just like the simple barrier to entry. So if you're a commercial contractor and you're bidding the general contractors on a larger scale, right, than a regular residential home looking for John and Mary Smith to be able to do their roof. Well, then who is it at the general contractor's office that is sorting these bids? Who is it that's looking for quotes from you and deliver to them an experience just like Kai's talking about here for the residential person at home that's trying to find the right roofer? And if you can deliver them consistent speed, expertise, information, communication that they can count on, they can trust, and it's in an expeditious manner, it makes their job easier. That's great marketing. And so figuring out these systems around that is the exact parallel. And why I wanted Kai to get on here with you. Because what Kai hasn't talked about today is he built this system and scaled it with thousands of residential construction businesses doing home service work that were already just banging their heads and bringing on hundreds and hundreds of folks. And so these same principles in the systems are ways that you can pull from it and adapt it directly in your business. And so I want to talk about that.

SPEAKER_01

100%, man. I mean, a perfect example of what you said about doing like the the pro, like the what is it, status pro quo, quid quo, whatever it is, the opposite. Yeah, even the reason our company has grown so fast is because if you contractors will be able to relate to this because they've probably all been pitched some kind of advertising service. Marketers are so full of shit, and it's hilarious because contractors are really good at picking up when someone is like full of crap, right? They're they have contractors and and girls specifically, they have a sixth sense for understanding when someone is full of shit. So um, I think what we did is we just like our best performing ads are literally me saying, Hey guys, I'm a marketer, let me do my best to try to stand out from the competition and not scam you like everyone else, right? And then we'll even mention in our ads as well, like, dude, we're not perfect. We have a lot of unhappy customers. We have bad reviews, we don't hit the ball out of the park every single time. But that being said, 90% of the time we can do a great job. And maybe, maybe we have to send a refund or maybe it was a bad fit, whatever it is. But marketers are not known for doing that. Marketers are known to be making these crazy promises and promising these crazy guarantees and saying we're perfect. We've never had a bad customer. We we knock it out of the park for every single customer. So by actually reverse engineering that and literally me coming on the camera saying, like, we're not perfect, we have had customers that we just can't help. That almost creates more trust because for the contractor, they're like, oh my God, this guy's being honest. Like I've had that happen to me. Right. So it's the same exact thing you were just saying. Whatever, whatever your industry uh standard is, like kind of go against the rain or your industry um what's the word for it? Like whatever problems, like stigmatisms. Exactly. Whatever the stigmatisms are, do the opposite and you'll just go super, super far, a thousand percent. I I couldn't agree with that more, man.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and if you own them, like label what the stigmas are. That means that the person listening to it knows that you understand what they might be worried about, and then tell explain to them how you address that differently or how they can experience something differently with you. And what I like that you said a lot is, hey man, when we screw up, this is how I'm gonna fix it. Stand on what your value is, you know?

SPEAKER_01

And so that's that's solid. Really 100%. And dude, we it's true, man. Like again, we talked about this in our last podcast, but we scaled so quickly that our customer service was overloaded and we had to give a lot of refunds and really like fix a lot of situations. And that's just like part of it. Like, I'm not gonna sit here and pretend like we're perfect, just like contractors who do roofs or do driveways or do kitchen remodels. Every one of them will tell you, like, shit, dude, I hit someone's pipe one time and burst and their whole kitchen got messed up, X, Y, Z. Like, people make mistakes, right? But like our best customers have actually come from the time, comes come from the times when we've messed up the worst because of how we fix it, right? And if you mess something up and you go above and beyond to fix it, those bad, bad customers can literally become like your best case studies and your best customers because of how you dealt with like messing up, right? So that's just something to think about.

SPEAKER_00

Well, it's not even something to think about. It's it's literally what you should do. I mean, that's just running great business. And some people might think, well, it's not my fault or it's too expensive. It's it's the difference between chasing what story that person's gonna tell about you and your interaction with you versus just chasing a single transaction dollar. And the you people don't realize the cost of making them, when you make a mistake, the actual cost of that mistake is not fixing it. Because when if you fix it, the same person that's upset, they're gonna talk about how much, how well you did fixing that mistake. And if they don't, they're gonna talk about how bad you screwed up and you're never gonna know how bad that dispers that communication line disperses across the community. And it's just too easy now with the online presence, Google reviews, and other things like that.

SPEAKER_01

Thousand percent. And we we've had our fair share of that, man. And every single time we've ever gotten a bad review, I think we have like 250 reviews or something with like a 4.9. But like whenever we get a bad review, we're like, God, all right. So we like reach out to the person, we do a deep dive into their account, we reach out to them, we're like, dude, why was this not handled? XYZ. And we can usually turn most of it around. Obviously, you know, you can never be perfect, but that's just what I would suggest doing, dude, because you're gonna make mistakes, like you said, 100%.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So let's talk about that. You guys got out, you scaled quick, and and you you failed on the service end, right? You just didn't realize well how much it was gonna take on the back end of service end. So you paused, you shore up your service end, and then you went back out and engaged. But you had to also, like you said, you gave a lot of refunds, you had to put up, you had to make a lot of investments, I would like to call it, in fixing that. Now that you're a little past that, a couple more months down the road, talk about what happened, how you fixed it, and where you're at now. Because it doesn't matter what business you're talking about or what who you focus on. Everybody has customers, everybody has businesses, and then once they screw up, but this principle is of how you went about fixing it, and then the reward on the other side is pertinent, very pertinent.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, it it's we're babies, man. Me and my business partner are babies. We've only been even understanding what business is for two and a half years. So it's super classic mistake, just literally under-hiring and overpromising, under-delivering, and just not realizing that like one of our customer service reps can't handle 200 customers. Like we just did the math wrong, right? Because, you know, when me and him were doing it, we could easily handle 100, 200 people ourselves. But what we realize, and this is another classic first-time founder mistake, is you know, your employees aren't you. Like nobody's gonna be as good as you at the thing because you built it from scratch, right? So classic mistake. Um, and honestly, like we're still, we're still fixing things because we're still like we just keep scaling faster and faster. So like we're still constantly playing catch up. But if there's one thing I could suggest for anyone else, maybe doing something similar, or even even home service guys as well, like you have to just have more, more customer support, as much customer support as humanly possible. And like when you think you like might need another rep, you're you're already behind, right? You're already behind. You have to overhire always. Um, I mean, those are just the small things, dude. It's I I've kind of come to the conclusion that business is just a never-ending slew of problems that you just have to continuously deal with day after day. And uh at this point, like when you know, when when shit hits the fan, like we used to freak out and get really upset. And now, like when we see something bad, it's just like just another day in the office, man. It's just how you deal with it.

SPEAKER_00

Well, dude, I'll tell you two things about that, and this will relate to our conversation. You you're you're you're spot on. You're gonna graduate to just bigger problems to solve. And if you really want to know what's scary, when you walk into your office one day and there's no problems and everything's smooth, and you're just waiting for the next one to pop, that's a very uncomfortable feeling. More so than you can imagine. When you're walking in, you kind of know what your problems are and you're fixing them, they just don't feel good. But when you walk in and you don't know when the next one's gonna come, and you're sort of in between phases of problems, it's uh it's a very uh odd feeling. Um it's uncomfortable. That's uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_01

I I would I would take that feeling right now, but I'm ready for a break.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. You'll get a break, but then the next phase is you just didn't know because you as you grow, different things break that didn't even exist before, you know, so they they couldn't break when they didn't exist. And then so those are the kind of things. But I'll give you a little hint, man. It's always gonna be um, it's always gonna fit into people, process, and culture. One of those three buckets, it's gonna fit into. And though that people has a lot to do with the relationships, whether it's your suppliers, your your people, your outside vendors, of course, your internal employees. So manage those three things, man, and you can tackle them all.

SPEAKER_01

100%. I love it. It's good advice.

SPEAKER_00

Makes sense. So let's talk about attracting the right customer. Like you're trying to deliver a message. One thing I think you do really well, which has of course led to the scaling of your business, is you attracted your specific customer avatar. One, you also delivered them a message they could understand in a clear, concise way that was also entertaining and educational. So let's talk about like how you knew to do that. And then once you lay those pieces out, what's the right way for someone to go about doing it in a way that they can attract their customer base?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, just one word for me, it's just polarization. Uh, that was just on the marketing side. It's just it goes back to what we said earlier. Whatever you see going on, do the opposite. And again, like just to give an example, man, our our best performing ad by far that brings us like so much business is literally me flipping out a camera like this, being like, guys, like I'm I know I look like a douchebag frat boy, and I know I'm a marketer. I'm, you know, you probably think I'm full of shit. Give me five seconds to explain why we're not. That's the hook. Literally, right? So it's like contractors have just never heard something like that before. They're just so used to being bombarded with contractors, we'll get you 20 leads in 20 days, or we're we'll give you your money back and we'll give you our kidney or something, right? It's like just the same ad over and over. So um be polarizing. And again, that's in your marketing, right? If you're talking to someone face to face, obviously be kind, be respectful, like, you know, follow basic principles. But if you're marketing, you have to be bold. Like we've gotten many messages saying, like, we'll never work with your company because of how unprofessional your CEO is. That's me, right? But I know that overall, when you weigh out the scale, it's way better to do it the way that we do it. Because again, it's like I would rather have, you know, uh, I would rather be, what is it, love for who I am than like just kind of like liked for who I'm not or whatever. There's some quote. I don't know what it is. Oh, loved, I would rather be loved or hated. I don't want to just be like, okay, right. And because the contractor market is so huge, when you're loved, right, that's millions and millions and millions of people who are gonna come to us, right? If you're hated, cool, that's millions and millions and millions of people who aren't gonna come to us. But if you're just liked, you have this whole section of people that are just like, uh, I might work with their company, I might work with someone else. But if you're polarizing, especially when you're marketing to a broad market, that's a crap ton of people who are only gonna choose you because of the way that you are, right? Um so yeah, I hope that answers the question.

SPEAKER_00

It does. And you know, like, so let's talk about this a second. So let's I'll give you an example. Let's say you're uh a commercial contractor and you own any kind of major trade. So think HVAC, commercial HVAC, um equipment, I got a good one, concrete, steel, rebar, you know, and you're trying to call on your regional to super regional type of general contractors, people that are either working for, they're building airports, they're building regional airports, they might be building hospitals, schools, um, large-scale commercial, multi-purpose fan units, you know, whether it's family units uh or or commercial on the retail and and residential. So think about that. Like, you know, you're you're they're they're they're in that phase. Pick any trade you want because they're all it all applies the same when you're trying to. How do you market to those GCs in your mind? What would you do?

SPEAKER_01

So again, like I would don't have an exact script in my mind. What I would do is I would get on ChatGPT, I would explain the exact situation. I would say, I want to be polarizing and say some crazy shit and just stand up for my competition. The meta, meta and Google and AI is so unbelievably good now that you can just say a script. You don't have to have any targeting. They know exactly who you are, they know exactly who your ideal avatar is. You can just get on the camera and say exactly what you're looking for, run the ad, and it will target the exact person. Now, that being said, one crazy example I saw the other day, especially this has to do with the Epstein files coming out. And this is like the this talk about polarizing, but there's a there's a video and it's it's for an HVAC company or something, right? Or it's for like some truck repair company. And there's a dude with a camera chasing another dude out of a house and saying she was 15, she's 15, whatever. They get out to the truck, and then only at the truck do they say, You did she like you haven't maintenance this in 15 years, right? They're talking about the truck, but of course your first thing is thinking it's some weird pedophile, right? That ad got me. I was like, oh my God. And then all of a sudden it turns into this is an ad, X, Y, Z. That's an example of something that's crazy polarizing. Like making a joke of like Jeffrey Epstein pedophiles is crazy. That being said, that's an example of what I'm talking about. So you can get on ChatGPT and say, like, yo, I want something this polarizing and this crazier, I want to stand out, whatever. Number one, ChatGPT will give you insane scripts. And number two, uh, again, the AI is so good that you just run whatever you want and the AI will find the best ad and serve it to your ideal avatar. Like every single time. It's it's it is ridiculous how much got how much better it's gotten in the last two to three years. It's wild.

SPEAKER_00

So explain that in a second. For folks that don't understand what you mean by the AI has gotten so good, it'll give you a script and find your avatar. What does that mean? Like break, break that down for a second.

SPEAKER_01

100%. So uh if you're a GC or or any kind of contractor, you you're probably familiar with running Google Ads or running MedAds, which is med ads is running an ad on Facebook, running an ad on Instagram. It used to be that back in the day, you would have to film an ad, you'd have to go target your specific area and say, hey, I'm looking for people who are roughly 20 to 30 years old, male, who are interested in, you know, skateboarding and you know, rock bands, XYZ. You try to find your ideal person who you think wants to buy your product. Right. Now Facebook's algorithm and AI is so good. And by AI, I just mean AI algorithm. Like there, Mark Zuckerberg, like the algorithm is so good that all you have to do, you don't have to do anything else besides film the ad, click run, and it will find the exact person that your ad is for. Right. Like that's how good it is. So the AI is so good, the machine learning is so good that it will find. The exact person that you are looking for for anything. If I'm, if I'm, if I run a carpet cleaning business and I say 50% off all uh all carpet cleaning this month, right? It knows I'm in Austin, Texas. It knows I'm a carpet cleaner. It's going to go look for people in the area who have recently searched carpet cleaners or are somewhat interested in a carpet cleaning service. So my point is you don't have to be a master at meta ads or a master at marketing. You just have to be a little bit creative and the and the algorithm will do the rest. It's all about who is the most creative. And that's that's just it. It's insane. So creative is literally everything. So the creative being what are you putting on the screen for the AI to read? And if you just do a bunch of variations of that, you have unlimited, uh, unlimited shots on goal, literally.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And then be you know, making that content so that it either fits it's educating or it's entertaining or both is a key. You mentioned last time that was really I kind of resonated with me. It's gotta be entertaining. It could be polarizing, but that's a form of entertainment, right? And so, or it could just be humorous about a scenario that's very common or typical.

SPEAKER_01

But but but again, you should have different forms of content. So educational content and then like direct call to action content. So like if I pee if I'm if I'm trying to sell a website, I might uh post a piece of content and say, like, contractors, like you probably don't even know, but your website sucks. If you don't have this, if you don't have this and you don't have this, you're screwed. What you need to do is do this, this, and this. I'm not pitching anything, right? But now I'm they're they're becoming problem aware and they're like, oh, I do have that problem. Okay, well, I'll take note of that. You know, 24 hours later, they see me on another ad saying, contractors, what we do is we help you fix XYZ, all those problems I just listed in that other video, right? So you're making them problem aware with one, you're basically just bringing them into your giant funnel of content, labeling them with a problem, giving them educational content, giving them free value so they can go do it themselves. Nobody ever wants to go do it themselves. And then, hey, guess what? Now I have the solution to your problem. It's the same thing if you run ads for anyone. If you're an HVAC company or you're you're doing roofs, right? It could literally be like, dude, if you're if you're hearing weird sounds on your roof and there's a little bit of a leak, like this is what it could cause. You could be screwed in 24 hours. And then the next video they see from you is, hey, guess what? We're the one who fixes that problem that we just talked about. So if and the algorithm will feed it in the exact order that needs to be fed to the ideal avatar. That's what I mean by AI learning. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it'll give them the it'll give them the problem one first and then show them the solution one second.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. And then social proof third or social, whatever they think that person needs. If that person's a quick buyer or a slow buyer, they'll they'll also, you know, if they need more social proof, they'll they'll kind of space it out a little bit because they have everyone's buying behavior, right? Because they track everything. So it's like, you know, like the way that you look at ads, Scott, might be different than the way I look at ads. I'm an easy sell. They might only need to, you know, show me two or three ads in the algorithm and I'm buying. For you, it might be 20. But regardless, the the machine knows, right?

SPEAKER_00

They just send you the button to hit.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

Instant instant purchase guy's got it.

SPEAKER_01

I'm an easy sell. Exactly. You might be harder. It depends on the person.

SPEAKER_00

That's great.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So what else is there that you think out there? So again, you know, you and I own this commercial subcontracting business. We're we're growing, but we're we're not growing the way we want, or we're not getting the right customers we want. Maybe we're the right size we want, but you know, we've we've banged our head against these customers that we just they're not a great fit. We we get the job done and we get paid, but we don't make as much as we thought. It's slow, it's inefficient. We we're trying to get something different or better. Like, what would you do?

SPEAKER_01

Double your prices. Double your prices. You have to charge more. And and and if you say, like, oh, like I don't want to do that, it's because like your product's not that good. Like, people should be shocked at your price, right? People will pay for a premium. You also deal with better customers, you're gonna deal with less customers, but you're gonna make more profit because you're gonna have better customers and they're gonna pay more, right? So that's that's the first thing I would look at. Um, again, like we've thought about doing that a lot. And business is business, right? Like if you're dealing with that problem, bad customers, low profit, X, Y, Z, like you might need to up your price. That's the first thing that comes to mind. But that being said, like if you can just get good at marketing and you can fill your calendar and fill your schedule with consistent jobs, then all it is from there is hiring, which is why I think like you have to just be, you have to understand marketing. You have to have the systems in place, have the yard signs, have the car stickers, have the truck wraps, all that stuff is like a one-time cost. Have the website, have a basic fit uh a basic foundation in place, and then either up your prices if you're having that problem, or you have to get really, really good with advertising. I mean, those are the two, the two main routes, you know? Uh or you could expand the business.

SPEAKER_00

You you nailed it though with something you can because you can have the greatest ads on earth. But if you don't deliver a great experience to that customer when you're there and you don't perform, you don't do what it is you do, then your mark, your great marketing will actually work against you because you you showed one thing and then delivered much less of a thing, and that negative word of mouth will permeate forever.

SPEAKER_01

A thousand percent. And and we we dealt with that exact problem. And that that is, you're gonna deal with that problem when you scale regardless, but it's just how out of hand you let it get, right? Um, now that being said, it's a lot easier to, you know, re refund someone$297 than completely ruining someone's roof or their pool or something. So I feel contractors, right? Like you got you guys are in the field swinging the hammer, uh, you're face to face with a person, you're in their home, right? So it's it's a lot, a lot more gnarly, but the same principles kind of apply, you know?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, just fix, you know, fix your stuff. That's all.

SPEAKER_01

100%.

SPEAKER_00

They'll get to the long term, fix it once and you'll be good. They'll talk about it.

SPEAKER_01

And sometimes that sucks, dude. Sometimes having to go back and fix something is like the absolute worst feeling. I can't even imagine for contractors who have to, you know, spend all the money on extra materials, go out, hire the rep, get him back in the door, you know, fix up the problem, hope the person doesn't want to kill you, XYZ. You know, it's it's a whole thing it's a whole thing. That's why I stick to online business.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I love it. So let me ask you a question. So you talk about Google ads, and you mentioned um finding ways to get people to either provide video testimonials or Google, what you Google or Google um, not Google ads, but Google reviews.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

What do you suggest is the right way and the right time to either ask for something like that or or present it?

SPEAKER_01

Great question. So you always do it when the customer's at an emotional high. Always. What that means is uh you just did Sally's floor, you just did Sally's roof or whatever, and she comes home and she's like, oh my God, this is freaking amazing. You guys cleaned up after yourself, it's perfect, it's not leaking anymore. Like, this is amazing, right? Right there when they're on that emotional high. A, you ask for the Google review. And if you want, B, be like, Sally, like, I thank you so much. Like, honestly, there's so many guys who do a horrible job. Would you mind me like just taking my camera or you could do it yourself and just filming a quick little video uh and just letting us put it on the website? And when they're in that emotional high, that's when the that's when they're the most likely to do it and you're gonna get the best review. Do not let Sally, do not leave Sally's house and let Sally be like, yeah, I'll send you that review later. Like, yeah, I'm just gonna eat my lunch. No, Sally, listen, love you to death, girl. We're gonna do this shit now, right? In a nice way, but it has to be now. That's the best advice. I swear to God, that is the best, the best way to get testimonials.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you're right, especially when they when you exceeded their expectations. Like, again, you cleaned up the floors, and these are sound like basic things, but again, there's a stigmas that don't happen. You have to realize they might, if they're basic for you, they're not basic for the rest of your competition. So and that's the that's true for a commercial site too.

SPEAKER_01

Anything.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, leaving leaving it better than you've found it is a basic principle that a lot of people don't adapt. And so if you just buy into that alone, you can make a huge difference and be known, be known for something that's important.

SPEAKER_01

That and one tip, and this is so big, is and I see contractors uh specifically miss this all the time. The thing is that let's say they're repairing my floor, right? And I think in my eyes, I don't know, I don't know anything about flooring. So I'm just like, dude, can you just repair the floor? Like that's what I want. If you come and you say to me, Kai, so like we repaired the floor, there was all these extra issues. Um, you know, there was this that was wrong, there was this that was wrong. And it can be real, right? Like you like explain how complicated this was. Explain how much extra you had to do. Because in my eyes, I'm just like, dude, the floor is a floor. Uh a circuit is a circuit, just fix it, right? But explain all the extra shit that you did to make sure that they got the result they're looking for. And that makes them way more appreciative, right? If if you if you sit here and a contractor just goes, yeah, fix your life, fix your floor, dude. I'm like, cool, that's what I wanted. But if it says, Yeah, dude, I fixed your floor, I also did this so it doesn't happen again. I also cleaned up. Also, there was a prom in here. There was mold. I cleaned that out. Um, also, there was a little bit of black mold growing in your bathroom. I just got that out for you as well because I saw it. I'm like, oh my God, dude, that's crazy. You're the boy, right? So explain all the complex shit that you do on top of it because otherwise, it's like, cool, like it's just a transaction. I want I paid you to do my floor, you did my floor. Cool. Now we're now we're here. If you explain all the other stuff, now I'm like, oh my God, this guy went up way above and beyond. And guys will do the extra shit and not even say that they did it, which is just like wasted work, in my opinion. It's nice, but it's waste, you know? Yeah, do it right and then nothing wrong with letting people letting people know exactly what you're doing. I agree. Exactly. Exactly. Agree more. 100%. And then I get that emotional high and then get that review on the spot right there and then 100%. And make them feel good about it too. Being like, oh, like we love doing good work, like we'd love to feature you feature you on the website for a quick story, you know, like people love that.

SPEAKER_00

All right, so pushing back against you on one thing, let's say someone's sitting here themselves going, all right, cool, but you know, my industry is just it's more polished. They don't want me to be way out there like that. How can you still be very entertaining and uh polarizing, but yet professional at the same time?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's that's a great question. So obviously, if I was working with lawyers, I wouldn't be saying the shit that I say, right? So like I would, I would, you have to be kind of a chameleon, right? So if I'm working with contractors and the average and the mean is here, I know I can go way up here with the crazy shit I say. If I'm working with lawyers and the mean is, let's say, down here, I know I might only be able to go here. But guess what? This is still very polarizing if I'm working with lawyers. I just know I can go way more polarizing if I'm working with contractors. So I mean, it comes back to just read the room, bro. Read the room, read, read the read the industry and know who you're working with. I would not be saying the stuff that I say if I worked with lawyers, a dentist office or professionals, but you bet I'd still be saying some crazy shit, but it wouldn't be as crazy as I say now, right? It would just, it would kind of be tapered down a little bit.

SPEAKER_00

And by crazy shit, too, it doesn't mean that you have to be talking about the Epstein files. It could be That's wild. Yeah, I think it could just mean that you're willing to talk about that thing in your industry that no one else likes to really bring up, which means it could be the fact that the like the stigmas. It could literally be the stigmas. Hey, look, man, I know that most people never call back. I know they try to change order the job to death. Most people build it low and then invoice over the top. We don't do that. Like that's polarizing by itself. Just throwing that on the table, like one of those stigmas is polarizing. So don't think you have to don't listen to what Kai's saying right now and think you have to actually explode, be so explosive politically or cross barriers of you know political nature that you just don't want to cross. It could be polarizing in your industry for the things that everyone talks about, but no one wants to talk about out loud. Pull those out first.

SPEAKER_01

That's a fantastic point. I probably should clarify that. This this is this obviously is completely industry, industry specific, right? Like if you're making, let's just use an example. If you're trying to blow up on YouTube and you're making videos about politics, it would be good for you to be crazy polarizing and either go really far left or really far right because that content's going to blow up and you're gonna piss off a lot of left or a lot of right, depending on which way you go. But if you're in that industry and you're trying to do a YouTube channel, that's where I like that is you have to be even crazier because you have to be even more polarizing, right? But if you're just a roofer or a commercial, like again, it goes back to where's the baseline for your industry and just be polarizing compared to that. It could be here, it could be here, it could be here, but always know where that baseline is, right? That's what I mean by by polarizing. And that that can change industry to industry, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and even if you were a lawyer, you know, every lawyer runs around, we everyone sees lawyer ads, right? And they're all the same. We're the best, we go to court, we fight, you know, we're bucket us, blah, blah, blah. But you know what I think would be interesting for a lawyer, and I'll use this as an example of what exactly we're talking about. If a lawyer got on there and said, hey, you know what? Like this industry is brutal. We make all the money, you guys fight forever, the court system takes forever, and then we pay, you have to pay us, and it and it's brutal. Well, let me tell you something. That's true. Okay. Yes, that's gonna happen. But with me, you're gonna, I'm gonna pick up the phone, I'm gonna deliver quick calls, I'm gonna give you an explanation, and I'm gonna win. And here's how I'm gonna win. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Like that, just addressing that feeling that people have where they're gonna hire this attorney at an hourly rate, they're gonna be inefficient, not follow up, is gonna buy get people gonna have so much buy-in to that just because you recognize it, and that would be polarizing. And that's also professional.

SPEAKER_01

100%. And what you just did with that, you just you just had an ad right there. You just, you just, you just called out a problem, and then you you called out like what they're going through, and then you just what you did what's called a unique mechanism, right? The unique mechanism is how you specifically have a unique mechanism to fix the exact issue they're going through. So a hundred percent. And and that's how every ad should be, I mean, there's different ways to structure ads, but it's like the meat of the ad is like what is unique about you. Cool, you called out the problem, but if you just call out a problem, like what's your solution to it, right? So you have to have a little bit of a unique solution. And dude, you can kind of have the same solution as everyone else, just word it in a different way. Like your service delivery could be the exact same as someone else, but just word it in a slightly better way or a more polarizing way, right? It's just it's just that's that's advertising one-on-one, you know?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, or you know, if you're a plumber, everyone, everyone's waiting for the plumber crack, right? So you just like make an ad, like you're not gonna be the plumber crack. Like you won't see a crack, you know, and you know, like there might be a crack in your toilet, but there won't be another crack. You know, everyone will get it. And it's funny and it's knowledgeable. And then you actually have to show up with someone that looks professional with a uniform on and tucked in, and you've now closed the loop on that and you're gonna be talked about nonstop.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. Exactly. That's so that that's an example of being polarizing in that industry, man. 100 and 110%.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I love it. So, Kai, what else should I be talking to you about? Or do you want other folks to know about you, your business, marketing in general, general principles, themes, things, something that we missed.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, nothing specific. I can just tell you if you're a general contractor or you know, you're doing commercial, whatever you're doing. Like, you have to, you either learn this shit yourself, learn AI and marketing yourself, or hire somebody to do it, right? I'm not saying you have to hire us or XYZ, but like find a company or take it in-house. But don't just sit there and close your eyes and your ears and pretend the AI revolution is not coming. Because I've seen it. I I look at thousands of accounts every single day. The contractors specifically that do the best in general are young guys aged 20 to 35. And that's because they know enough about AI to know they need it and to implement in their business. The guys that I see businesses, their businesses fail every single day, 50, 45, 50, 60, and older, because they close their ears, they close their eyes and pretend that they can keep running their business without proper marketing and proper systems in place. That's the best advice I can give, man. Like, don't, don't just shut off the world like a lot of older contract contractor gentlemen, because I see it every single day and almost always they fail.

SPEAKER_00

All right. So let's talk about that for a second. You know, you so now someone hears that and they're like, yeah, that's me. I don't want to, I do want to learn, but I'm so I don't even know what AI means, man. Artificial intelligence. I'm nervous. So he said chat GBT and put an ad in and a transcript. How did how does someone go about learning ChatGBT if they have it? What do you recommend?

SPEAKER_01

So I have I'm just staring at Chat GPT on my computer right now. Open Chat GBT and say, hey, I don't understand what you are or what you do or how you can be helpful in my business. Here's what I do. I need you to explain to me, like I'm a five-year-old, step by step, exactly what you do and how I can use you in my business, because I'm a 60-year-old guy who grew up in the 70s or 60s, whatever, 50s, whatever it is. And I don't know shit about you. So please explain to me. How are you helpful? What can you do for my business? Step by step, talk to me like I'm five years old and just put in that exact prompt and see what it does.

SPEAKER_00

It'll be surprised. It's so true. That's exactly what it does. And then and then ask it to interview you at the same time and re then from that, from it, from the interview questions and your answers to it, it'll refine it more and more and more. Um, it's really for something as complex and intricate to use, it's amazing how easy it is to help.

SPEAKER_01

Uh yeah, my mom can barely my mom can barely turn on a computer and she uses Chat Gebouti every day. But it took her two years for to actually get to the point where she would it took her 10 minutes to learn, and it took her two years to actually uh get past the barrier of opening her phone and learning because I forced her to do it. Right. But it took her two years to get there. So, you know, don't let it take you 10 and then just get left behind, man.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So, dude, last question for you. Um this is the call, the mobilization mindset. So tell me about your mindset as you approach growth, your businesses growing, the problems we talked about earlier, every business, and certainly commercial construction contractors, residential contractors, and any other business that's listening to this, they're all the same. You're fighting problems, people process culture. What's your mindset to knowing that fact, but yet showing up every day and getting the job done?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so this is gonna be dependent on where you're at. So the first two years of business are until you're financially stable, it's just war. It's high stress, it's anxiety, it's not fun. I mean, it is fun because you're building something, but you can't relax, right? So the first two years or three years, even depending on where you're at, if you are financially good, like if you've made enough money with your business to even like where you know what you're doing, you know you're not gonna go bankrupt next year, the only way to really show up is like you have to start having fun with it. And and and like what I mean by that is like when a crazy problem comes across now, because we have good recurring revenue and we have a solid team, we have a solid business, we we know we're not gonna like die tomorrow. Right. So unless it's like an imminent problem, like which very few problems are, most problems are uh, what is it? Fear is a mile wide and an inch deep, right? So most problems really are not as bad as you think. So if you can learn, do not, I don't want to say enjoy the problems, but I think what kills a lot of people is they're just constantly in this state of high stress, high cortisol, because they always think their business is gonna end, right? Now, if one of your sales guys quits, yeah, it's gonna be a shit show. Your business is not gonna go under. So understand it's a problem and relax and just deal with the problem, as opposed to every single problem having like this, you know, insane reaction and feeling like your whole thing is gonna go under. And that's what's really allowed me and Mike to continue at such a high level because when we have an issue, we just get on Zoom like this and we just laugh and we go, dude, this is a nightmare, bro. Like what do we do? You know? Um, and again, the only times we've ever really been stressed, there are only a handful of problems that are business ending problems, right? And if it's one of those business ending problems, I give you full permission to be stressed and go solve the problem. But 95% of the time, you should not be nearly as stressed as you are. And stress creates burnout. So the less you can get stressed, the more you can continue at a high level.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's great advice, man. And you're spot on with that too. Worrying about all the stuff that happened, trying to figure out how you were gonna fix something that already happened, it's not worth it, man. Figure out what's in front of you and what you can do. Don't fixate on the all the what-ifs if you did that different. It's already gone. Just hammer it. I love that.

SPEAKER_01

Thousand percent, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_00

So I'm gonna put all your stuff in the show notes here. People can find it. But if they're here listening to you right now, what's the easiest way to get in touch with you and uh where you where do you like to live on social?

SPEAKER_01

Just go on YouTube and type in Kai Stone or to Kai Stone YouTube, it'll pop up and you can watch me yap about software and uh construction companies.

SPEAKER_00

I love it. I love it.

SPEAKER_01

Cool.

SPEAKER_00

Kai man, I appreciate you. Thanks for giving the advice. Thanks for jumping back on again, a second time. I think this one was uh solid again and and good. We captured it right.

SPEAKER_01

100% dude. Appreciate you, Scott. Have a good one. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00

You too. Well, everybody, I hope you like this episode. Give Kai a follow, check out his YouTube channel. Take these principles and implement it in your business. If you have any questions, you can find us at mobilization funding on our YouTube channel, our website, mobilizationfunding.com. In the meantime, everyone, have a great week and God bless you.