Harmony of Hustle
Jump into the World of Justin Shoemaker aka "The Waterboy" . From Business, to music, this is the inside look of the world of the hyper-driven and their Harmony of Hustle.
Harmony of Hustle
Episode 21: Start-up Savage
Ever faced a seemingly insurmountable business challenge and turned it into your biggest growth opportunity? That's the epic ride we're recounting today, sharing the trenches-to-triumph story of how my team and I navigated a high-pressure period that redefined our company's trajectory. We'll dissect the transformative shift from battling low margins to embracing premium pricing, revealing how it wasn't just our profit margins that soared—customer satisfaction and business health followed suit. It's a tale of strategic pivots, where refusing to play the price-matching game with subpar competitors laid the groundwork for a nourishing business dynamic, ripe with decreased complaints and an uptick in glowing referrals.
Imagine a business world where AI isn't just a buzzword but a game-changing addition to your team. That's precisely the reality we embraced with our AI-powered virtual receptionist, transforming our operations from the ground up. In this candid share, you'll hear how adopting cutting-edge technology catapulted us from hands-on operators to strategic thinkers, with delegation and trust in our team underpinning our stride forward. Listen closely as we unfold the mind-bending shifts necessary to scale effectively, painting a picture of a business strategy that's less about solo sprints and more akin to a collaborative chess match.
And then there's the art of cultivating what I dub the 'savage mindset'—a raw, unyielding approach to business and life that's been my compass since my Navy days. It's about setting audacious goals and embracing physical rigor, carving out a mindset that's virtually indomitable in the business arena. But the journey is not without its share of personal sacrifices—a topic we'll dissect with a dash of raw honesty. If you're hungry for inspiration and ready to redefine your limits, this episode is your call to arms, a testament to the discipline and unrelenting spirit required to achieve true excellence and lead by example.
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What is up everybody? So pretty crazy couple of weeks. We made a post on social media while ago about how sometimes, whenever you're just getting like super burnt out and push to the limits and when it's a really rough week, that tends to be when the biggest growth occurs. And that has been super true for these last few weeks. I know it's funny how, like you grow in business so quickly, kind of like growing at the gym these last year when I went through these seasons of growth, I remember always thinking something was wrong. Like internally, I was like it felt really uncomfortable, systems would break, things would start going wrong and I would be stressing out because I thought the business was failing and at that time I just didn't have the perspective that the business is actually growing. And this time we go into a similar situation which I'm going to dive into. I didn't have those feelings anymore. So it actually felt like a positive reinforcement cycle which was kind of nice. So, even though it sucked and it was stressful and just the grind was nonstop for like literally two weeks, it was actually a very pleasurable experience because I knew that this was going to level up the business. So let's talk about what happened.
Speaker 1:Home Depot relationship was a major proponent of this, and a lot of my guys have just started selling more and more deals, which has been awesome, and what that has ultimately done is stress test our customer communication, our CRM. It has stress tested our inventory management. It has stress tested the amount of work that my plumber bill can do, and you know we had a couple of install issues that happened where we had a customer that had well water and I've done a lot of well water installs and this is the first time when they had such bad iron issues that when we actually put the systems in and started cleaning everything out, the pressure actually just shot iron throughout their entire home. Um, their well pump was getting overworked. So literally the day after we, we, uh, we, we installed the system, their well pump went out. So we had to put them up in a hotel. Uh, we had to go out replace the well pump itself, and then that shot more iron into the systems. Then we had to flush the whole house to get this iron out and then, even after we flushed the house, their aerators got clogged. We had to go replace the aerators and replace faucets, and it was a mess, I think. Overall, though, we were able to handle the situation pretty calmly and we were able to make sure the customer were taken care of. It was obviously not an ideal situation for them, but I do think, and I've always had this belief, that the true testament of a business is how you handle things when things go wrong, and I think we were able to do that.
Speaker 1:One thing that has also really helped us is the margins that we've been selling. We up until, I'd say, february of this year, we were selling deals pretty skinny. I think it came from a bit of a scarcity mindset. I think it also came from not focusing on the right things. I was kind of, coming from my solar background, of just trying to sell as many deals as possible, like the number of deals. That was like my barometer, and there are two schools of thought with this. Especially in water treatment, you know you can sell deals for. You know close to what you source the equipment for, and although you don't make much money on the initial deal, you do get those service calls and then you get that recurring revenue. So there is an argument that if you just throw in a ton of systems, then you can just, you know, build up that recurring revenue and then that becomes like quote unquote your retirement, which I wholeheartedly believe in as well.
Speaker 1:But to be honest, I have found way more value from actually charging our services at a premium and what I have found that that has helped us do is we're making way more per deal. Now this month alone, our first weekend, we've already done 24,000. That's from just one rep. He hit his personal best and hit his personal best selling at higher prices. So that's really what I like to see. It also allows us to actually provide better services because we have more margin in the deal. I can actually comp a lot of things for my clients now. So if I want to do lab testing, if I want to do extra work, water heater replacements, if I want to do extra piping, if there's anything else that I want to do for my clients, I'm actually able to provide a better service because I have a lot more margin in a deal to actually help them at a higher level. And it also allows my business to operate and grow faster, because now every deal that I'm selling which seems common sense I know we are making more money per deal. Which means if I sell two deals at a premium price, then that will account for one extra deal. So two deals turns into three.
Speaker 1:And I learned this from Alex Ramosi actually that if you price and also your service has to match the price, but if you can deliver on a high price system and the system's worth it and the services are worth it, then you will get better customers, happier customers and it's so true I've had less customers. Happier customers, and it's so true I've had less customers call and complain. I have had more customers refer and it's also because I think internally, when I'm able to sell systems at a higher price, I demand a higher level of service from my guys as well. So it puts more pressure on the organization to deliver, because if someone spends good money with you and you don't deliver, then that's not right. So I think it creates a virtual cycle for the clients as well as us.
Speaker 1:And beforehand I always used to try to price match or beat my competition, if I was ever in like a bidding war. But I had to remind myself is I invest way more into the equipment that we have than anyone else in my competition out here, so I shouldn't be matching prices on inferior tanks and we've just been holding that line and it's been working out really well and, ironically, the people that don't go with us, they end up just going for literally like a $1,000 Home Depot system that's going to break in a couple years anyway. So it's really not a big loss and we're able to avoid the headaches of having, you know, problem customers that we didn't even make much money on in the first place and then who, realistically, will probably lose us money in the long term because of just the man hours that's going to be required to, to, to babysit them and, you know, go and reply to issues that aren't really issues. So that's been a big um, a big learning curve and I think that's going to be our mantra moving forward is, you know, continue to have uh, deliver with excellence, but also, you know, charge what we're worth, and I think that is going to make a very virtuous relationship with me and my clients. Moving forward. It's definitely helped the cash flow immensely, which will also help the business grow and help me, you know, sustain.
Speaker 1:One thing I think some people don't even realize is a lot of my competition out here that was selling these systems for basically at cost. They are all out of business now Because, unfortunately, unfortunately it's just not a, it's not something that sustains. So good lesson there. Um, we've made massive improvements into the crm. Uh, with all the influx of sales and leads coming in, we have learned that there were some systems in the serum just weren't working, like our automations going out weren't working. Um, it was too much for my reps to handle. They couldn't keep up with all of the leads coming in. They couldn't disposition them in time because they're running in homes or generating leads. They're doing a lot of outside sales stuff. So that has now shifted us to hiring a virtual assistant. Shout out to Hunter Blue for hooking me up with C4 Solutions. They've been great so far. So if you guys are looking for any type of virtual assistant, they have been great right now. So they're going to be managing our, our CRM, getting that really dialed in, which I'm really excited about. I just took literally five, 10 page of notes on how I want that customer outreach to look and some ways to activate and get more referrals and really get more out of our clients. So that'll be really exciting. Ways to activate and get more referrals and really get more out of our clients. So that'll be really exciting.
Speaker 1:Our virtual I don't know what you call it, but I guess like a receptionist. We had it last year but it really wasn't working. It was it's like an AI hybrid receptionist and it's a real person that talks to it, but it's powered by AI and the only downside of it is it took a lot to dial it in with the APIs of our CRM and, you know, our home advisor and all these systems that we use in the company, and we finally got that dialed in and that, to me, has been the biggest lifesaver of all time, because I'm on the phone all the time. I'm in homes, I'm running around trying to stock up stores, I'm dealing with clients, I'm doing meetings. I'm doing all this stuff to grow the business and a lot of times I miss phone calls or I miss text messages or whatever. And this virtual like receptionist has straight up saved us probably over $80,000 in the last two months, just from you know, lost leads, getting people you know on the schedule, self booking appointments for me. It's really given me back a lot of my time, which it's something I really underestimated.
Speaker 1:And if you're a small business owner and you're doing a lot of the work I got to tell you. I think you're doing a disservice to your business. I, as an operator, I come from operation. I was a frontline Navy guy when I got into sales. I was a top salesperson. When I went into sales, I was a top salesperson. When I went to the solar company, I was the sales director, the vice president, and that's all I did. Right, I operated, I was in the field with the guys, but that's because that's what my mandate was. And when I transferred into being a CEO and an owner, I still kind of have that mindset and it's good to a certain degree because it allows me to push forward and lead by example for my guys. But it can also be your detriment because at the end of the day, your job as the owner is to build the business and push it forward. And what I'm learning as I do this more and more and more is it's less about what you do, it's more about the people you put in place to do the things that you need to get done and making sure you have good, talented people doing those roles.
Speaker 1:And I almost think of it like kind of like a chessboard right? Like if the world of business is chess and the opponent is just the amorphous game, right? Let's say you're playing against the opponent in chess. Your opponent isn't a person, it's just the game. Right? It's success that you're fighting against or failure that you're fighting against, and your job is just to move your pieces in a way that you can checkmate the game. You can checkmate success and you can actually win. That's how I look at this now and before.
Speaker 1:I didn't. You know, before I was the Bishop, the pawn, the queen, the knight. I was playing all the pieces and luckily I mean this last month some of my guys have really stepped up and they've shown me that that's what you really need to foster. You need to grow and trust the team to do a lot of that work, because what allows you to then do is add more pieces to the chessboard, which will allow you to get checkmate easier, right? Like for anyone who plays chess, it's like if all I have is a bishop and a knight, it's going to be a lot harder to checkmate if they have all their pieces still, but if I can eliminate their pieces and then I have 15 queens, it's going to be an easy game, right? And that's just been the frame that I've been looking at and it's literally shot my business through the roof in exponential time. And that's really what I'm focusing on now is just fostering talent, making sure my guys have the vision, making sure they're supported, but also allowing them to run up and get into leadership roles and giving them some agency over themselves.
Speaker 1:And it's been tough because when I was looking at the stats my close rate, I think I ran 47 qualified appointments last year and I closed 44 of them, so it was like a 93% close rate. The next highest person next to me was at 60%, which is still great, but it's not 90%. And I think that's one of the biggest things you have to let go of is if you were to do all the sales like you as the operator if, let's say, you're a sales guy and you're the operator, if you were to do all the sales, you obviously would have a higher close rate. You'd also be the best person to do that right. That's why you probably started the company in the first place. You're really good at a thing and you want to capitalize on that, but the reality is, even though you might be the best at doing that thing, you can't be 50 places at once, working 50 hours a day right. You lose economy of scale doing that and you're also not able to grow the business. So if you can get seven, eight, nine, 10 guys who can generate leads and close at least 50% or higher, well then you, at volume, get all that back and that's something that I knew of.
Speaker 1:But until you actually go through it and apply these lessons, it doesn't really hit home. Everything that I'm even talking about right now I have learned from you know watching YouTube, reading business books. You know watching influencers on social media talk about this stuff, like I've heard it all before. But it's interesting. Until you actually go through it, you don't have that frame to really apply it. And once you actually have something to apply it to and you experience it, it's like the aha light bulb goes out, which is why I think it's so important.
Speaker 1:This is just a little offshoot, sorry, guys, but if you want to start a business, just start the business. If you want to do something, just do it. If you want to get into sales, get better at sales, just go sell. If you're trying to get better at knocking doors, just go knock more doors, because you need to get exposure to the thing before you try to learn how to get better at that thing, because if you just read a book or watch a YouTube video, you'd have no frame of reference on why that thing you're learning works in a way it does. And in business I'm constantly learning and even though I know certain things, it's not until I go through it myself that I'm able to like make those connections. And what ends up happening is I I think I still lose the money and the time a little bit, but because I have learned, I'm able to shorten that timeframe up. But you're still gonna make mistakes, right? That's just part of the game.
Speaker 1:What else I think this month? Guys I'm gonna call it right now on this podcast I think this month is gonna be our first 100K month in the business, which, for being in business for over less than a year or less than two years, it's pretty exciting. I mean, this is only April was technically our first full year, so we'd be a year and one month this month, and I really do think we can hit 100K this month, which would be amazing. We started off this week the best week we've had, um at 23k, so definitely an achievable goal. The guys are pumped up, I'm pumped up. This is going to be a banger month. I can just feel it in my bones. Leads are coming in more, um. We're taking a lot more agency over how these leads come in. Uh, with brm setups, making sure that all the the the leads that we set in home dep Depot are coming to us instead of to our third party. We're bringing a lot of stuff in-house and that is really going to help us long-term. But I really got a feeling this will be a big, big, big, big month for us, as long as we continue to push forward, we continue to set a high standard for ourselves and I think that's been really important.
Speaker 1:One of my buddies and I'm going to end on this has a business and it's in the water treatment space and basically it's not going very well and honestly, it probably won't be around much longer. Just off the way it's going. It could still be successful, but it's not going as well as it should. And I think one thing people misunderstand about being successful in business is really the mindset you have to have to win in the game. It's one thing that the Navy really built into me and I'm super thankful for, but being an elite person, like having an elite mindset is something. It's something different, right, like it's hard to. It's hard to explain what it feels like, but like you think different, you act different, you have like a different. You just have a different frequency in your brain when, when you want to be elite, like the frequency you have to have when you want to be elite, it's you're a psycho, right.
Speaker 1:Like my brain, like I don't give a shit about anything else, right, like I just feel when I wake up in a day like a savage, like I wake up every morning just wanted to absolutely annihilate everything in front of me and there is like an animalistic feeling that I have inside when I get into that zone and I think that's what you need to have if you actually want to be a killer in business or really anything in life. Um, I, to try to put it in perspective, I love dana white, right. His dana white's like mindset, like how he doesn't, like he's perfect, perfect for the UFC. And the way Dana White, straight up, will look at anybody and just say I don't give a shit who you are, I do things my way and just pushes through and make something as amazing as a UFC to me, illustrates what it means to be a fucking savage, and that's the mindset I have built over years and it is something you, I think you need to build.
Speaker 1:I don't think everyone starts off as a savage right, but for me, I wake up in every single day. I want full fucking dominion over this earth. I want to take over everything. I want. Everything is for the taking, everything is mine. That's just the mindset I have.
Speaker 1:And the one thing that has helped me cultivate that mindset is to find things that are difficult, that I have to overcome every single day, and for me it's been the gym. I've set these really heavy goals for myself for the next couple of months. I'm going to get to the 1000 pound club. I'm almost at three plates on my bench and I know there's a lot of people out there who are stronger than me, but I'm finding goals to attack every day that are fucking difficult. And that has literally helped me cultivate this warrior mindset, because when I hit those goals and accomplishment, I feel pride. I feel just this animalistic, like monkey brain savagery and it may and it carries over into the business and it makes it so no one else can stop me and it makes you want to work harder. It allows me to go longer, go faster, because what else is there? I think so many people have gotten so fricking soft and then you get people who just want to go into business. I think it's going to be easy.
Speaker 1:It's a fucking war like, or it can be a game, however you want to, however you want to frame it, but you got to be a savage to win it, and I don't think a lot of people understand what it feels like to have that savage mindset and what it's like to live with it. It is a different freaking feeling. It feels amazing, at least internally, right, you feel like you are just like tuned in, like just ready to go, ready for war, ready to fuck shit up. But the reality is that comes with a price. A lot of people, just to be honest, don't like to be around that.
Speaker 1:Some of the times you're also going to disappoint a lot of people, right, there's a lot of times someone my best friends will hit me up all the time to do things and I have to say no, a lot, because I have a singular mission of dominance that I want to achieve and if I'm not going to dominate, I can't do anything else. All right, I will dominate the water treatment game. I will dominate anything I put my mind to, and until I've reached my goals, nothing else matters. And that is a very, very hard line for people to understand, and the only people who understand that are other savages, which is why you see, these high net worth, high capacity people achieve a lot of things, are around those types of people, because they're the only ones that understand.
Speaker 1:And if you're someone that doesn't have that savage mindset and you don't wake up every day just ready to fricking, annihilate everything, then you need to cultivate it, and the best way to cultivate that, in my opinion, is to do hard things. And the best hard thing that you can do is start going to the gym, start pushing yourself physically, because your mind is going to tell you to stop. Your mind is gonna tell you to quit. It tells me to quit every day. I'm tired.
Speaker 1:I've been working out so hard the last two weeks. I don't want to go to the gym today, but I'm going to. My mind is telling me to take it easy. My mind is telling me to take a rest, but when you can beat your mind into submission, your whole world opens up, and that's what being a savage is is beating your mind and then beating everybody else who ever tries to come across you. And if you can beat everybody else, you can take over the world and you can actually change lives. You can be somebody of worth, you can be somebody that inspires other people and you can be somebody that people look up to. Being average just isn't in the cards. Let's take over.