Mario Lentsch - Taking the Leap: Going from Part-Time Business Owner to Full-Time Business Owner

summary

In this conversation, Branden Sewell and Mario Lentsch discuss the importance of considering the trades as a viable career option and the process of transitioning from working for someone else to starting a business in the trades. They emphasize the need for a strong foundation, including minimal debt, a supportive spouse, and savings, to successfully go full-time in a business. They also highlight the significance of Google My Business (GMB) and getting reviews to improve visibility and credibility on the platform. Mario shares his strategy of using a QR code to make it easier for customers to leave reviews, while Branden recommends using NiceJob to automate the review process. In this conversation, Branden Sewell and Mario Lentsch discuss various strategies for growing a home service business. They cover topics such as the importance of online reviews, the future of Google's platform, the benefits of giving back to the community, and the power of networking. Mario shares his experience of providing free services to nonprofits and the positive impact it has had on his business. They also discuss the goal of hiring more employees and expanding the business. Overall, the conversation emphasizes the importance of customer experience and building strong relationships in order to grow and scale a home service business.

keywords

trades, career, business, transition, debt, support, savings, Google My Business, GMB, reviews, QR code, NiceJob, home service business, online reviews, Google platform, giving back, networking, customer experience, hiring employees, scaling a business

takeaways

• Consider the trades as a viable career option and alternative to college.
• A strong foundation, including minimal debt, a supportive spouse, and savings, is crucial when transitioning from working for someone else to starting a business.
• Google My Business (GMB) and getting reviews are essential for improving visibility and credibility on the platform.
• Using a QR code can make it easier for customers to leave reviews.
• Automating the review process with tools like NiceJob can help ensure consistency and increase the number of reviews. Online reviews are crucial for building trust and credibility with potential customers. It is important to avoid paying for fake reviews and instead focus on providing an authentic and genuine experience for customers.
• Google is shifting its focus towards keeping customers on its platform and may prioritize Google My Business (GMB) over exte

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Transcript

Branden Sewell (00:00.808)
Hi everybody, I am Brandon Sewell. I am the owner of Seal Pro Painting and now also Seal Pro Seal and Wash located in central Florida. I'm also the host of the Off the Ladder podcast where we exist to help home service business owners learn so that they can lead well and ultimately live life.

off of the ladder. Today's guest, I have Mario here and he is the owner and operator of Radiant Striping based out of Tampa, Florida. Thank you so much for being on the show today, Mario. Could you just tell the audience a little bit more about yourself?

Mario Lentsch (00:40.085)
Yeah, thanks Brandon for having me here. So my background, how I even got into this space is back, I enlisted into the Air Force because I had no idea what I wanted to do. And I saw all these people going to school and getting a debt, you know, and I just felt like something about like the trades are just doing something more hands on. And so the military kind of called for me to kind of get that discipline. And so I actually happened

Branden Sewell (01:07.239)
Mm -hmm.

Mario Lentsch (01:09.027)
get a career in the Air Force with engineering technicians. So they teach you like all styles of drafting, like mechanical, electrical, architectural, and stuff like that. so once I got into that space, really, it kind of really solidified the love for like the construction industry as a whole, really, like what I thought I was really gonna enjoy, I ended up really enjoying very

Branden Sewell (01:31.516)
Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. It's funny, the guest that I had on the podcast yesterday, he was in the army for 10 years, and then he worked in the trades in the army and learned his trade. And then from there, he transitioned as a civilian to opening up his own business contracting. And very similar.

to his story. It's like, and I love this because obviously Jobber is promoting Blue Collar Built right now, promoting their Blue Collar trade report and trying to encourage Gen Z to consider the trades as a viable option for a career and a future and not just thinking like college is the only way.

So I love that between yesterday, today, interview with you, there's kind of like this trend of like, hey, there's another option. You don't have to go to college to be successful and make good money. You don't have to take on all of that student loan debt. There's other options, military, the trades, blue collar work. And I think it's work that you can be proud

Right? I think there's certain people out there, absolutely, that like, they're gonna thrive doing a job that requires them to sit behind a desk for the rest of their life. And then there's people who are like, I wanna be outside, I wanna work with my hands, I don't wanna be at the same place every day, I like the change, being in new environments, different customers, different...

Mario Lentsch (03:10.359)
Yep.

Branden Sewell (03:21.656)
You know, whether it's homes or businesses and that provides that change of pace the the Just getting you out of that mundane like every day is the same kind of thing. So it's a great option for people and I think that we disservice ourselves our communities and young people if we don't promote the trades and you

present that to them as an option because that's the route I took. I avoided student loan debt. I don't have any student loan debt, neither does my wife. So we're completely debt -free from student loans and don't have to worry about that or have that as a weight on us. And I work in the trade. So definitely good stuff there.

Let's talk about there's a lot of people who are in the trades. Maybe they've they're working like a full time job. Maybe they have a side gig or maybe they're you know, they're they're in a career and they're thinking about starting a business. Could you just kind of go into the details of how you transition and maybe like some of the things that you did whether it was intentionally or just like, you know,

Maybe by chance that you had things lined up right. Just talk about how you transition. How did you go full time into your business?

Mario Lentsch (04:56.217)
So how I went from full time to, or like basically working for somebody to then going full time in my own business is that it was actually somewhat kind of forced upon me. I've always thought about going into business, but right, but I never actually took the steps to go do it. And the last company I worked for, they just got hit with like a lot of like slowing down of the work and it just became something like,

you're doing great work, but we just can't afford to keep you on. It's just a matter of fact of like, it has nothing to do with you. It's completely out of, you know, our hands. And it was a asphalt paving and seal coating company. And one of the things though, is that they would subcontract their striping out. And so jokingly, I just said, well, what if I went to go learn striping and open up my own business? Would you be willing to help me out with some work?

And so he's like, if you can figure that out, then absolutely. So that's actually kind of how it really started. But for someone else though, in a different position, and what I would recommend probably doing though, slightly differently is for striping and seal coating, it's very unique type of service. So you're always working with business owners versus like homeowners. And so you can very easily do it if you're,

position yourself correctly to being able to transition to that part -time to full -time. Like let's say you wanna just start this as a hobby just to see, get the interest going, right? And so what I would recommend is reaching out to places like churches. So churches are fantastic to getting started in this type of work because they're basically closed all week long. They're only open like once or twice a week.

Branden Sewell (06:20.506)
Mm

Branden Sewell (06:41.542)
Mm

Mario Lentsch (06:42.403)
they're extremely flexible when it comes to scheduling, right? So the big thing is, how do I schedule a project for my part -time business to go full -time in while working a full -time job? So to do that is finding the unique businesses that compliment your work schedule that you already have committed to. So places like churches and banks are really great because banks are closed on weekends. So if you work a nine to five Monday through Friday,

Branden Sewell (07:03.674)
You're

Mario Lentsch (07:12.567)
start reaching out to your banks. so that's actually how I, those are like my first type of clients I actually started working with when I first started getting started because of their open flexibility.

Branden Sewell (07:24.535)
Yeah, I think it's like it just I think when it comes down to it like as an entrepreneur You just have to find a way right and find what's going to work for you and I don't think there's like every situation is going to be The same across the board. I think there's things you can do to like make it easier for yourself but at the end of the day to like get your business going it's going to require hard work and hustle like no matter what and risk and

You know, I'll just throw in there this and I think I've shared it on my show before, but some of the things that helped me go into my business full time, straight off the bat, just when I went all in is a couple things. Like one, I had very minimal debt. So I didn't have a lot of, you know, obligations, you know,

Payments and stuff like that that I had to worry about financially on the personal side I had a very strong marriage and a supporting wife. So like my wife was like Absolutely, I support you 100 % You know, no matter what happens. I'm behind you go after it, know chase this thing and then the the last thing that I'll say is on top of not having

like major debt, we saved money. So we had a little nest egg where if I didn't sell a job for six months or longer, maybe six months to a year, we would be fine. We started our business in central Florida. We actually paid ahead on our rent. like we straight off the bat, we were like, hey, we're gonna pay

X amount of months ahead so that we don't even have to worry about making where we're going to put our head at night, right? So, and that was before we bought our house. And, you know, so that gave us like that freedom and flexibility. And then obviously like my wife worked, so like we had her income to rely on. was a W -2 employee. And so anyway, yeah, so that really set me up to be able to

Mario Lentsch (09:24.878)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (09:48.126)
go all in on my business. Now, what I'll say is not everybody's in that position. you know, obviously those barriers to that are going to be like, okay, well, how much personal debt do you have? How fast can you pay that down to close that gap of like, okay, how much money do I need every month? If I can pay off this debt and I don't have to worry about it, well, then I can take a little bit more risk on myself. And then, you

Obviously making sure you have a really strong marriage and strong foundation there because being a business owner It's gonna put you know your marriage to the test for sure I'm just so thankful for my wife because she's always supported me even when things have been tough You know, I've always I've never questioned that, know, never questioned that support So say definitely being on the same page there work out if you have anything like if your marriage is struggling

Don't start a business, you know, to try and fix it. You know, don't that's like the worst thing you could do, you know. So if your marriage is maybe a little iffy, work on your marriage first. Get your marriage right. Get that foundation really strong. And then you can think about the starting the business. And then, yeah, like I said, save money. Don't live crazy. There's so many things that I wanted like in

early 20s when I started my business that I just I didn't get because you know I was like I have a I'm trying to think longer term you know like my buddies would be like hey you want to go on a surf trip? No. I would love to like obviously I surf grew up surfing would love to but hey I've got different goals you know I want to save that money put it back into my business.

You know, I've wanted a boat for forever because I fish it's like well, I'm not gonna get a boat right now, you know, so it's just putting off like You know things save your money and you know, obviously I'm not saying like don't have like don't enjoy life But you know really think about like what do you really want versus like what do you want in this moment? You know, so so yeah, I think

Mario Lentsch (11:49.017)
Mm.

Mario Lentsch (12:07.51)
Absolutely.

Branden Sewell (12:11.63)
You know, if you can eliminate some of those barriers, it makes it easier to just go full time in your business. I think a lot of guys ask that, you know, I'm a part of some of these forums. I think that's how we connected was in the jobber entrepreneurship forum. And you just, you'll hear people ask that like, Hey, I work this full time job. How do I know when I can, you know, commit full time to my business? And I think those are like three critical factors is, you know, how's your marriage, how your personal finances

Do have some savings and like an emergency fund? Do have anything that you'd add to that

Mario Lentsch (12:43.565)
Definitely. Yeah, that's actually very similar to how my business has been growing, especially in the beginning. So having a solid family system, so having two daughters and my wife working a brand new job where she had a pretty flexible job before, but around the same time, she now has no flexibility whatsoever. And now it's the mixture of supporting her with her new work goals and then me growing a business.

Branden Sewell (13:05.252)
share.

Mario Lentsch (13:13.567)
you have to get creative of how you find like who's gonna watch the kids while I'm now trying to grow a business, you know, full time and having that set up and that support system, right? Like you just said, like this wouldn't be where it's at today if I did not have this family support system that I strongly, you know, integrated and appreciated and make sure everyone's aware of how appreciative, you know, and anytime I can help out, you know, you drop.

drop everything you can that you're able to and you make sure you're taking care of the people who are also taking care of you. And so having that and we also had to, thankfully we were living a little bit below our means, especially while I was working before going full time. So we were somewhat already set up because of that same thing and just wanting just to not have to worry about a lot of different things. And so when.

Branden Sewell (13:57.91)
Mm -hmm.

Mario Lentsch (14:10.797)
you overextend yourself financially, makes it where getting that next job or getting that first job becomes, it's a different mental state of how you're looking at it. And so it doesn't keep that clarity of your mind open to come up with the creative ideas of like, that you wouldn't probably have thought of, because you're so stressed out about like, how am going to pay my new bills for next month? So, you know, we also had a nest egg set up that like, all right, I've got like a good amount of time,

Branden Sewell (14:20.256)
Mm -hmm.

Mario Lentsch (14:40.533)
even if I made zero dollars for this amount of time, like we're good. And so, and I probably have never been finer tuned with my finances ever since starting my own business. It really puts you in a different perspective of trying to grow something from the ground

Branden Sewell (14:45.734)
Mm Yeah. Yeah.

Branden Sewell (14:59.548)
Yeah, for sure. you know, not to get like super preachy or anything, but I'm a person of faith. So I just think that, man, if you can work on yourself, and that's going to set your business up for the greatest success. So, I mean, look, I'm a Christian. I don't necessarily like, not trying to like push that on anybody else. But obviously, like from my faith,

I try to have certain things in order in my life, right? So having a good healthy marriage, being a good father to my kids, being a good financial steward, trying to just to be a well -rounded person, I think really sets you up to be more successful in your business.

Anyway, so I think that's it's I've talked to other people. It's just like having really strong core foundation, right? And when you have a strong foundation to build your business on, you know, that just really helps you in the long term. so for those who are listening, what are some of the like strategies that you've used early on for getting your business off the ground? If somebody is listening in this, they're like, yeah,

You know, just went full time in my business. You know, what things would you recommend them doing to to get that business out

Mario Lentsch (16:30.199)
Well, if you're in a service business, which I'm assuming a lot of your listeners are, right? Whether it's a construction service, like for mine, a business to business style service or a home service. the Google profile page is definitely been the one of the most critical avenues for growing my business and being very aggressive with how I approach trying to get like Google reviews for the business and, finding creative ways to, because

You can do a great job and I've learned this. You can do a fantastic job. They're very happy. But getting that review is such a tricky, tricky thing because it's just trying to break them out of what they're doing and thinking and just trying to get them to leave that five star review. mean, like I said, they could have loved the job and they're just, you just don't get the review sometimes. So I had to find a way to eliminate as many barriers to getting that review.

So one of the things that I did is I generated a QR code that I put on my phone that has a direct link to my Google business page. And so whenever I'm out in the field and I ask them, you know, like how'd you like the job, this and that, and then if they say anything positive, I was like, great, would you be willing to leave a Google review for my business? almost everyone's always said yes at that

Branden Sewell (17:50.84)
Mm.

Mario Lentsch (17:51.019)
And so once I started implementing this, then it became a lot easier and that's how I started getting more more reviews. So then now it's all like, great, I actually have a QR code. You can literally just scan it. It'll bring you right to the page where you leave the review. You don't have to do anything besides maybe sign into your Google page, but that's it. You don't have to search it up. You don't have to go click on five different links. It's literally a scan the QR code on your phone and boom, it's right there. And that has helped tremendously.

Branden Sewell (18:20.458)
Yeah, I think that's huge. I talk about that a lot. I think one of the most important things that you can focus on as a business owner is Google, know, because like what is every, I mean, most people will say like Google's king, know, like how do you find any type of service, you know, in your local community? Most of time it's going to be Google search. So having a really strong GMB, lots of reviews,

GMB is really important. Now, one thing that I will say that we do that's a little bit different than you with getting reviews is we use NiceJob. So I'm not sure if you're familiar with them, but when you think about it from a off the ladder standpoint, so now you have multiple employees in the field, I think when you're that point person and you're out there doing the work, QR code is great.

Because yeah, I mean like the hardest part is asking right and like you just have to ask for it and have a consistent process for that the trouble that I ran into like with once I had employees was like getting my employees consistently across the board to ask for those reviews. So we set it up as an automation. So now with nice job integrated with

jobber when as soon as my guys close out the job and invoice the customer, it automatically triggers nice job to send out a text message and an email to ask for a review. that's, you know, obviously I tell my guys, I train my guys, hey, ask for the review, let them know they're going to get the link, verify it.

Say, hey, when I close out the invoice, you're going to automatically get a text or a email asking you to leave a review. Ask them to leave the review. Ask them, hey, did you get it? Is it on your phone? Verify. And then say, would you mind leaving that right now while we're here? Try to get them to do it on the spot if you can. And so some of my guys are great with that. And then others, they're just like, I'm going to close out the job

Branden Sewell (20:43.879)
They'll get the automated, you know, text or email and if they leave the review, that's fine. Now, nice job. What's great about them is they've done a lot of market research. So I don't claim to be an expert on how to get people to leave more reviews. It's not what I focus on every day and study, but I was in a...

I went to a forum that Nice Job had put on where they talked about this and they kind of went through like how they've done market research, they've done studies and they found that the majority, the highest percentage of customers leave a review after being asked for the fourth time. So it's like the first time, you

No, they might not do it. They're going to get a follow up second time, third time, fourth time, they finally leave the review. Now, I was very like, skeptical of that when I sat in that like forum and I was listening to the speakers and the nice job representatives talk about this. I was like, whatever, it's probably fake data. But I was

I was paying for program that was $250 and Nice Job was less, it was gonna save me money. So was like, whatever, I'm just gonna switch and try it. Like, what do have to lose? I'm gonna save money. Switch to Nice Job. The program I was using before to ask for reviews, I had had it for three years in my location here where I'm at now. And I had only gotten 10 reviews in three years. I signed up for Nice Job.

their scientific data proven approach to getting reviews. I went from 10 reviews to like 60 reviews from March to November. So how many months is that? April, May, June, July, August, like seven or eight months, right? So and we're in a, we're in a like our average job takes us, you know, I would say like four to five days.

Branden Sewell (23:05.07)
So it's not like we're turning out jobs like left and right, like window washing or pressure washing. Like they have thousands of reviews. Cause they service multiple customers a day or like lawn care, whatever. But with us being like doing these bigger projects, we are now after implementing Nice Job in March of last year, we're about to hit 80 reviews. That's

astronomical for us like we like to be able to grow our GMB that much with reviews has been a game changer. So I'm a pretty big like promoter of nice job or something similar to it because it works like I got five reviews last month and that's that's pretty big for us. You know if we do.

Mario Lentsch (23:37.207)
absolutely.

Branden Sewell (23:58.028)
If we do like six to eight jobs in the month and we get five reviews, that's pretty good, you know? And then some of those people that maybe didn't leave a review last month, they'll leave it this month, you know, just because they might be later in the queues that go out. But yeah, by far has been one of the best things that I've done for my business is using NiceJobs. So shameless plug.

If you are interested in using Nice Job, there will be a link in the show notes. do have to say I do get credit if you sign up for Nice Job. So if you're listening to this podcast, you want to increase your reviews for your business. You can take an approach like Mario's, but also if you're interested in Nice Job, that's an option too. So, but either way, reviews, they're important. You've got to have a system.

Mario Lentsch (24:50.669)
Yep.

Branden Sewell (24:50.923)
and an approach a consistent approach to getting them so i love that you shared that i i literally like that's probably one thing that i harp on to people you know more than anything else so that's a really good point so what

Mario Lentsch (25:03.341)
Well, it's just like, it's like you said, though, it's like, what do you when you need a service or you're looking for a restaurant to go to, what's the first thing you do is you look it up. And the number one search engine right now is Google. So it's like, you know, it just. And I've seen so many people actually even in the striping spaces, like they don't even have a Google page, they don't have if they do, they don't

Branden Sewell (25:11.935)
Yeah, exactly.

Branden Sewell (25:29.856)
Mm

Mario Lentsch (25:31.819)
really do anything with it. they'll have like a business has been in, like they've been in business for like eight years, but they have two reviews, maybe, you know, and it's just like the fact that as well, they still do get work, right? So like, I know that they're getting work because once sometimes you just get in with a few clients, they'll kind of become repeat clients, but like, but what would it look like though, if you actually took it very seriously and how fast.

how much faster now could I grow if I actually paid more attention to this because the average person who is gonna look up your service, they may not know the name of the business in their area for that specific service, right? I I didn't know a lot about parking lot striping until I started paying more attention to it and that's me being in this space. So as a property manager or anyone like that who's gonna look it up, the first thing they do is they're gonna Google.

know, Parker not striping near me. And I want to make sure I pop up on that. And so I'm definitely gonna look up on that nice job though, that, you know, anytime I can create even more touch points, you know, I'm a big fan of

Branden Sewell (26:43.429)
Yeah, yeah. And I just wanna throw this out there too is maybe you don't fully understand, maybe as we're talking about Google, you're listening to this and you're like, I don't even understand, how is getting more reviews gonna help me on Google? Well, the reality is, whether you like it or not, Google is tracking everything everybody's doing. So when somebody types

you know search terms, it's putting those search, you know, terms into like a database and you know, it's creating their algorithm, you know, and now I'm not claiming to be like the smartest person when it comes to all of that, but it doesn't take a rocket science to understand just the basics that this it's like you're the more active you are on your GMB, the more reviews you have, the more

you're posting pictures on your GMB, the more you're responding to the reviews, the more you're answering the calls when they come in, the more you're responding to messages that you get through your GMB, the more interactive you are and the more speedy you are to respond and do all of that stuff, Google is going to rank you higher in their search results because the reality is,

is Google has these team of absolutely brilliant people who their whole focus is to use data and analytics to drive more customers to their platform because how does Google thrive and grow? It's obviously to keep people on their platform and using it to be able to generate more ad revenue and all of that stuff,

So they're looking at all this stuff to be able to drive more customers in. Well, in order to keep those customers coming back, they have to keep those customers happy. They have to provide the results that these searchers are looking for. And what are those results? When somebody goes onto Google and they're looking for the best restaurant in Titusville, Florida, well, they want to be able to find

Branden Sewell (29:05.923)
the best ones, they don't want like, you know, the first three or four restaurants that they see to be like two star rated with, you know, like 401 and two star reviews. They want the top results to be the five star, the 4 .8 stars with, you know, 500, 1000 reviews, right? So they don't wanna see the company that comes up and

you know a five star rating but they only have three reviews and they've been in business for 20 years. You know because it's like well okay they have three reviews and they're five stars but they've been open for 20 years like do not very many people go there. Are they not that good so all that to say is like when you focus on your GMB profile you are communicating with Google and you are positioning yourself as the expert.

in your industry, in your profession, and you are saying, hey, I am the solution for your customer who is looking for my services on your platform. And Google is like, OK, let me reward this guy because he's taken all the boxes. He's got reviews consistently. He's responding to the reviews. When the calls come in through his GMB, he's answering the calls. If somebody messages him, he's answering. So it's not

People like myself, Mario, when we talk about using Google and how important it is, it's not like we're just like, it's not just like our own opinion, it's like the reality, it works, right? And it's important for your business.

Mario Lentsch (30:45.751)
Yeah. And I'll say this to go even deeper to reiterate like what you're already kind of saying and that it's not just about the review, right? Like you said, like Google wants to provide the best information to whoever's looking that up. And so that goes into how do I provide the best customer experience that I can?

to the people who are now hiring me to go do this service. So that way when they are leaving that review, they're leaving a very well, sometimes well written review with like, know, explaining their experience, right? And that's kind of somewhat the point of the review is that this person said that they're gonna do what they said they're gonna do. And they did it very, in a way

compelled me to actually leave a review because not everyone leaves review. mean, how many restaurants I've been to that I don't actually sometimes always leave a review, right? So how do you create that experience for the customer? Because you can pay people, right? And they're very cautious of this because of paying for reviews. You definitely don't want them to do that because that will eventually catch up to you.

Branden Sewell (31:56.085)
I literally just took a note to mention that and you said it.

Mario Lentsch (32:01.111)
Yeah, you don't want to do that. So like, that's why I want to like, kind of make a point. Like, it's not about getting all the reviews, right? The deeper principle is how do you create such a very good experience for your customer so that when they do leave review, they're leaving a very well written review for your business. And that's going to reiterate to Google and enforce Google's opinion on your business that you are going to be the solution because they want to provide

the best experience for whatever someone's looking for, right? Like you said, they don't wanna push a two -star review, of people having a bad experience because now that person's having a bad experience with their platform and they don't want

Branden Sewell (32:47.044)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So I wanna also say, so like definitely don't pay for reviews and I'm gonna get into two reasons. One, Google with AI right now is, mean, like I said, whether you like it or not and whether you realize it's happening, Google is tracking everything that you're doing. It's just the reality. They're buying your data. So like when you,

when you text somebody and you're soliciting somebody for a review on your phone, Google's picking that up and they'll actually, they'll take your reviews away. It's happening to people more and more lately. You'll hear these business owners saying like, hey, I had so and so amount of reviews and now they're gone or,

You know, I had this person who I asked for a review through like a text message. They left the review, but it's not showing up on my Google My Business profile. And this person's like screenshotting and showing me like on their phone, like here, see, I left the review, but it's not showing up because Google is trying to crack down on fake reviews. Like if it's not an authentic experience, if Google can can tell or like through their data,

that they're pulling. Like I said, I don't fully understand how they do it, but I know they are doing it. And they're trying to crack down on people who are like paying for fake reviews because it provides a false pretense to the potential customer that that's an authentic experience when it's not. like don't solicit reviews

you know, business partners, referral partners, family members, friends, if they have not used your services. Now, if they've been a paying customer, if they've used your services and they can actually give an authentic response to the service that you provided, 100%, like do that. But don't be out there trying to get people to, don't be out there paying for reviews or,

Branden Sewell (35:09.08)
you know trying to pay like family members or friends to leave your views when they haven't use your services is not and it like i think it also goes back to just having integrity. honesty with your customers it's like you want your customers to have a genuine and authentic experience and part of that is your reviews if you're out there and you have like these fake reviews from people that actually haven't use your services like.

You're like, hey buddy, can you leave me a review? And he's never used your service. He's like, yeah, so and so is amazing. They do amazing tile work. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Leave the review. It's fake. And then you go out and you do a terrible tile job. It's like, anyway, so yeah, don't pay for them. And then the other thing that I wanted to bring up while we're talking about Google is Google is actually making a shift.

Mario Lentsch (35:54.893)
Yep.

Branden Sewell (36:06.402)
And they're talking about this where they want to keep people on Google's platform, right? they don't want to send your customer, like if they come to your GMB, they want your customer to stay on Google to interact with you as a company. They don't want to send that customer, their customer to your website.

hit my cord. They don't want to send that customer to your website. So your website is going to almost, I don't want to say it's going to become obsolete, but it's not going to be as powerful as your GMB in the future. Your GMB is going to be like everything. So if you're pouring a lot of attention and money and investment into your website and you're not working on your GMB, you're really doing a disservice to yourself because when Google really starts to

push that, then GMB is gonna be the people who are winning with their GMB now are gonna be the ones who really are able to capitalize on that when Google is like, hey, you your customers, we're gonna direct your customers not to your booking link on your website, but they have to book through Google and use Google's booking service. Does that make sense?

Mario Lentsch (37:27.019)
Mm -hmm.

Mario Lentsch (37:30.815)
Absolutely, yep.

Branden Sewell (37:32.032)
So I don't know if you're if you know about that, but it's definitely like it's happening. There's been people who have talked about, you know, like customers not being able to like go to their, you know, external booking link. It's like they're trying to get people to stay on Google's platform. So definitely something to to think about. So Google's and it's going to be interesting to to see where Google and AI head.

You know, like, definitely, I would say for business owners be thinking about that. What's the potential that, you know, you know, it's gonna home services or whatnot is gonna go to a place where it's like, hey, Google, you know, I need a painter near me and book it's all voice activated. It's all like, you know, everything becomes like,

Mario Lentsch (38:02.603)
yeah.

Branden Sewell (38:29.764)
just done through like Alexa, you know? So it's a lot of crazy stuff to think about,

Mario Lentsch (38:32.654)
Yep.

Mario Lentsch (38:39.373)
Yeah, and it'd be even interesting to see if it even would develop to the point where, say that you just did what you did, right? You said, hey, Google, find me a, yeah, like a painter near me. And now because the AI system and everything is, and if you're optimized a certain way, what would prevent Google then from like reaching out to like three different companies with your information? And then now,

behind the scenes scheduling ways to get your property or whatever quoted for you. And then now they're presenting, here we go. This is the best coming for you at this best price, basically.

Branden Sewell (39:20.28)
Yeah, yeah. And then you just end up booking the job through Google. It's like, okay, now my roofing job has been literally booked and scheduled just through using Google AI. Who knows? Maybe that's the direction that things are gonna go. I don't think it'll happen fast, but I think these big companies are going to try and do that. And I listened to Tommy Mello's podcast. I don't know if you've ever heard of him, but...

Mario Lentsch (39:24.279)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (39:50.042)
You know, Tommy Mello a couple years ago had talked about that and with Amazon and you know, basically just saying like, know, these big companies like they're they might see like a huge opportunity in the home services industry. And if they can find a way to like the like Amazonification of home services, you know, like who's to say that they

you know, get into the home services space now. That's just, you know, throwing out potentials and hypotheticals. you know, who knows what if Google did that, you know, like they end up becoming like the lead service, you know, they're, you know, they're, they're the, they're getting you your three quotes and then presenting them to you. And then they're just, they're facilitating the job through AI. I don't know. I think it's

Mario Lentsch (40:45.133)
Yeah, Or like becoming like, they established their own accreditation though too, maybe, and work with Home Services, right, to pay to be in their system. And it's like, yeah, Google Guaranteed.

Branden Sewell (40:53.594)
Yeah, Well, I mean, it's like Google guaranteed, know, like we're, yeah. And I think like you see some of that kind of trying to happen, you know, so like with us, we're Google guaranteed and obviously that holds a lot of weight with Google, but it'll just be interesting to see how that's going to change the home services industry over the next, like, let's say five, 10 years.

and how people are going to interact with home services. I think it's going to be interesting to see and I think it's definitely something to pay attention to and be trying to figure out. So I don't know exactly what's going to happen, but I just know like things change, things innovate, things, you know, aren't always going to stay the same. The way that you get business today is not going to be the same way you get business in 10 years. So always be like kind of thinking ahead and

being creative in that sense. All right, so let's kind of transition. So Google, obviously, we've kind of, I think we've worn that out. What else did you do or are you doing early on in your business to grow it and really just generate the business to sustain

Mario Lentsch (42:09.783)
Yeah, so one of the big things I did, and this is part of another reason why I wanted to start my own business, is seeing a bunch of these bigger companies, right? They hold these events, let's say it's a golfing event or some other charity fundraising event. And they donate funds to these nonprofit groups and these other places of donation of their.

financial services and I thought it'd be more interesting of like, well, what would it look like if we're in a service based business? So like I do striping is what if I helped businesses with instead of donating funds for their business, but I just did the service as a donation instead. So like going to nonprofits where their funds are very tight. So I actually recently just did one last week, right? Where

they needed the service, but their financials were tight. And so I just said, I'm just gonna donate my service to you. And then that way you're getting what you need done. And it helps because, you know, for one thing, especially when it comes to like parking lot striping, it's like, it's the welcome mat to your business, right? So it's like the first thing people see. And so I wanna try to create an environment and also encourage maybe other service -based businesses

Branden Sewell (43:13.284)
Mm -hmm.

Branden Sewell (43:25.492)
Mm -hmm. Right.

Mario Lentsch (43:34.765)
giving back to the community in a slightly different way of, you you have that mom at home, right, that just got hit hard with something and then their AC goes out. They've got no way. You were gonna donate that money anyways, but now, like, now let's say you donated your service instead and you can still write it off, find a way to work it into your taxes, and so now you're still giving back to the community, but now you're impacting the community in a slightly different way that can really...

change people the way they were gonna spend the funds before or what they're gonna do now. And so that was one of the big things is starting the business is I would go find places in need of my service and I would just offer to do it as a donation. And it's great if you're just starting out too because now you get to practice fine tuning certain skill sets like selling, finding out who's who, right? So finding out who are

certain decision makers in a different space and getting the skill set of now doing the thing that you're trying to sell.

Branden Sewell (44:34.543)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (44:39.514)
Mm Yeah, that's really good. I think that going into business just to go into business is kind of like a it's an empty pursuit unless you have a good why and you know for us our mission at seal propane is to have a positive impact and doing that and you say by serving one another

with excellence, our customers with excellence in our community. you know, ultimately as a business owner, I want to make a positive impact. So, you know, I can't tell you how many times like we've done, you know, jobs for free for people. You know, just having compassion on people's circumstances can go a long way. And then you can create raving fans, you know, like we had a customer one time.

I went in and I did the bid and she had, I think she had just like found out that her cancer had come back and she was gonna have to have like a major surgery and she was going in for that. you know, I left her house after doing the estimate, sent her the bid and I was just like, I can't charge this lady.

do this project. Just can't. So I reached out to her and I said, hey, I know this might not make sense. I said, but I want to do this job for free for you. And so we did. We did the job for free and she ended up referring us to her entire neighborhood and turned into other jobs.

Mario Lentsch (46:29.72)
Mm -hmm.

Branden Sewell (46:32.41)
But I think if all you see all the time is just like just the dollar signs, you'll kind of disservice yourself. If you can be community driven, that'll serve you. It'll go a long way, you know? So I think community involvement and just giving back can be one of the greatest ways to, you know, serve your business and see it grow. So I love that you have that.

that perspective and that heart to be able to see past the instant gratification and understand like, like, I said this in yesterday's podcast, I'll say it again, but his name just, Zig Ziglar, I don't know if you've ever heard the saying, if you help enough people get what they want, you'll get what you want, right?

Mario Lentsch (47:27.896)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (47:30.714)
Just having that mindset, like, it's bigger than just you, you know? And if you have that perspective, it'll always come back to you, you know? So, let's get stuff.

Mario Lentsch (47:41.377)
I also call it selfishly serving because I am doing a little selfishly because it, like you said, like I've had those moments of like, they just said like, look, Mario, we just don't have it in the budget. You know, they're trying to create like a fire lane for safety. They just got hit with a code violation, this property, and it was a nonprofit and they had to have it done. They just didn't have the funds, right? And they were trying to scramble to find the funds. And I'm like, look.

Branden Sewell (47:44.299)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (48:00.161)
Mm

Mario Lentsch (48:09.357)
I'm just going to come take care of it. Give me like, I'll come out next week, I'll put you on the schedule and we're just going to get this taken care of. Don't worry about the finances. Right. And, like for me, like I said, that feels good though. That fills my soul up, know, doing, being put in a position where I can have the flexibility of being the decision maker to make these types of decisions because I always felt like this would be a very fun thing to kind of do

you know, a service -based business, where like any trade really is given back to the people who could really use it. And then you always find the people who are always willing to pay for your service too. Like that's not going away just because I'm doing donation projects. In fact, some people are now even helping out even more because they know a lot of what I'm gonna do is going back to the community. Because you see like these rundown properties, right? And it just makes it not as appealing to go.

visit, right? You could have like a very great sandwich shop right down the street from you and you wouldn't even know it because you drive by it because their place just looks a little run down because it's a little more difficult for them to sometimes keep up with it, but doesn't take away from their business. So, you know, making the community radiant again, right? That's kind of where the radiant striping comes from is turning faded lots to, you know, glowing parking lots that

Hopefully attract people coming in or just enjoy your experience a little bit better.

Branden Sewell (49:41.234)
Yeah, that's so good. I love that you termed what you're talking about as, you know, selfishly serving and, know, like you can't be, you can't ignore the fact that there is a, you know, there's a benefit to you, right? But being willing to even put yourself out there for the potential that there is no return is like,

you know, there's no guarantee that what you do is gonna, you know, produce something, but you just keep doing it, you know, and what I've learned over time is that it always comes back around, you know, sometimes not in the most expected way, but it always does. And, you know, so definitely don't be that person that

And I will say there you have to use some discernment. Like there's people that will take advantage of you or won't be appreciative or you know, they're just they're just taking advantage. But then there's like situations where like, really, like you could be you could be helpful. I literally just had this happen yesterday. I went we did a bunch of work for these people. I mean, 20 some thousand dollars worth of work and

You know, they loved the work that we did. They were super thrilled with it. But these people have just been through the wringer with their new construction home, like bad contractors. It's taken like their timeline for being able to just get moved in and settled in their home has just been absolutely like drawn out well beyond what it should have.

Mario Lentsch (51:16.323)
Mm -hmm.

Branden Sewell (51:32.452)
because of like bad contractors bad work like tons of issues and so they needed some Mind you they had their house painted that it was awful and they had to have us come in and like fix a ton of stuff and redo like pretty much everything and so they wanted us to do some additional work and they're like You know, I even gave them a break on the price and they're just like my goodness like it's

They're trying to like wrap their heads around the fact that they've they're basically having to paint their house two times, right? And and it's more expensive the second time because we're fixing the issues of another contractor And I could just I could just sense it I could just feel like that weight Right, and I was like, you know what? Don't worry about it. I was like we'll be here next week We'll do the rest of this work. No additional charge you We'll just get it done for you and they were

Really? Like not pay you anything else? Like, yeah, don't worry about it. Like we made enough money on those other projects. Like we're good. Like, you know, our profit margin is going to go down a little bit, but you know, it's not like we're going to be losing money. So we're good. We'll get it done for you. And they like lit up, you know, because here they are. They built their dream home and they've just wanted to get into it. And it's been a nightmare.

Mario Lentsch (52:38.595)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (52:59.041)
You know, so I think, and like I said, that's like where you go from like, you you think about like the short term, like, okay, what money am I going to get out of this? And you think long term of like, well, now I'm creating a raving fan that is going to absolute like share, talk about me to all their friends and share with people their experience. They're going to be super excited. You know, why not? So I think you've got to,

I think people think too much in the here and now and it robs them of like those opportunities, right? And it's opportunity cost. Like, you you're choosing to do one thing but you're missing out on another. So I think that's good stuff. Now, before the show, you talked a little bit about you did some networking too to grow the business and get it off the ground.

Mario Lentsch (53:54.657)
Yeah, like recently I just joined another local chamber of commerce. like just finding places. So like for me, like property managers are very great to connect with for my type of service. So finding complimentary services around your area and then going to their events. So I actually really don't go to a lot of my own type of events. I go to mainly like complimentary or just very

Branden Sewell (54:16.609)
Mm

Mario Lentsch (54:24.173)
Like you wouldn't think that they would be connected to your industry, but if you go down enough rabbit holes, you find out like, actually they'd be a perfect, you know, compliment to like towing companies, right? I've talked to enough towing companies to find out that they, for some reason, they get asked sometimes, do you guys strike parking lots too? Cause they're there, right?

Branden Sewell (54:36.202)
Mm

Branden Sewell (54:47.948)
Yeah.

Mario Lentsch (54:49.293)
Obviously they don't. And so some of them would try to figure it out and then it just becomes like a referral service. So like finding your referral network. like businesses that would compliment your business if you were to need it. like commercial landscaping is fantastic because sometimes they'll like, let's just say they remove a palm tree at a apartment complex in the middle of an island and now they just paved over it. And now, well, now they have to add lines there. And so.

Branden Sewell (54:54.954)
Mm

Mario Lentsch (55:17.783)
that landscaping company now is all of a sudden touching your space or you're working with them. let's just say they just had a plumbing break and you say you know someone that can solve that for them and you cut out a hole in the parking lot to get the patch in and you're working now with your referral plumbing company that you just referred directly to the property. So you just create like all these different referral network. It's basically the way I look at it is

Branden Sewell (55:40.433)
Mm -hmm.

Mario Lentsch (55:46.915)
how do I hire a sales team without actually having to pay somebody? And so the best way I've found for that is just find complimentary services that gain anything from your service that you're not actually competing against. Because now they're more incentivized to refer your business and you're referring their business back.

Branden Sewell (55:50.417)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (56:02.469)
Yeah, that's really

Branden Sewell (56:08.955)
Yeah, that's so good. You're ultimately like what you're saying and I've heard different people in my BNI chapter and referral groups, networking groups talk about this is like that referral group becomes your sales team. You know, they really do. And how you present to them every week or however often you meet and then how you, you know, represent your company is going to give them

equip them to sell for you. So I've got some great referral partners we do a lot of business through. So that's definitely a very like low cost way to get a great return is through networking. you know, people might think like, I'm going to have to invest like thousands of dollars.

you know, just to grow my business or to like get jobs. And it's not the, it's not the truth. It's just, I think a lot of it is just, it's honestly, think a lot of it is just common sense. You know, it's like connect with people, tell them about the service that you offer, do a great job, deliver on the service to those referrals. Those referrals are going to give feedback to your referral partners.

And who doesn't want to refer a great company who it makes them look good. It makes your referral partner look great. And you know, they end up becoming the like there's this lady, her name is Joan. And I she is like, you know, if you need something, you go to Joan. Right. She knows everybody. And why does she know everybody? Why does she have a person for everything? Because one, she's, you know,

She refers people that she knows she likes and she trusts. And then in turn, people come to her and they want to be a part of that, right? They want to know her. They want to network with her. And so she just ends up being like the person that you go to for everything. Like, hey, Joan, do you know this person? Yeah, here, go to this person. So yeah, networking's huge.

Branden Sewell (58:22.187)
You know, and it's just putting your time and your effort in. so I think, you know, with business, I think that's that's half the battle is just being willing to put the time and the energy in and then see it through. So anyway, you know, props to you for putting yourself out there, growing this business. And, you know, I hope that you continue to have that success and and keep growing it. What's your

Mario Lentsch (58:51.181)
Yeah, I appreciate

Branden Sewell (58:52.225)
What's next for you? What's your goal in let's say the next six months to a year where you're trying to go with Radiant?

Mario Lentsch (59:02.485)
Become even more ingrained in the community. Where basically it gets to the point where if you were needing parking lot services in my area, you know exactly who to call. Kind of make it a very clear cut choice. And then also getting to the point of hiring some more people to help me out so I can get out of the field and work more in the business instead of on it. So, because right now it's just me, I'm a solo show. And so it's grown great.

but now I'm hitting those growing pains of where finding that extra help is definitely gonna be critical. That's more long -term, because I've had a couple guys where can come help me as needed type basis, they're just not available to be a full -time type person. And so it's just now getting ready to find some very key people to actually really grow this business.

Branden Sewell (59:52.818)
Yeah, that's good. You know what I would say to that is it's a numbers game and reverse engineer it. You know the the when I think back you know and I was wanting to go from subcontracting to employees. was like man how am I going to do that. I just wrote out what it looked like you know like OK I'm going to pay this employee X amount of dollars so I need to make.

this much money to pay them, know, plus your overhead and labor burden and all of that. And then it's like, okay, well, to keep that person busy, I need to sell X amount of work. Our conversion rate is historically, you know, this number. So if we convert it 47%, how many leads do I need to bring in at this average job size?

to be able to afford these employees. And so it's really like just kind of just breaking that down, you like you start high level and break it down and it's like, okay, in order to do this, I need to be bringing in X amount of leads, closing, you know, this percentage of them at this average job size to bring in X amount of revenue. And if I can accomplish that, you know, I can hire employees, you know, and then just keep them busy. And then it's like,

you just scale that, you know? When you're looking at it, you're like, okay, well, if I wanna add another crew, like, okay, well, that means to keep two crews busy, I need to do da -da -da -da. And, you know, anyway, so it's all numbers, it's all in, you know, it's risky, but you can go about it in a smart way, if that makes sense, in a calculated way.

Mario Lentsch (01:01:47.415)
makes perfect sense.

Branden Sewell (01:01:48.991)
So anyway, man, well, I appreciate your time. I'm going to bring this to a close and I think you brought a lot of value to the listeners. I hope that you enjoyed your time on the show today. Is there anything that you'd like to close out? Something valuable you feel like you would want to leave with the listeners before we close this

Mario Lentsch (01:02:10.377)
For me, what's been helped me the most is just providing that best customer experience. It's not about how to make the dollar. The dollar will kind of make itself, I've learned. And so if you just do right by your customers, things will kind of take care of themselves.

Branden Sewell (01:02:28.407)
Yeah, that's good. Awesome stuff. If somebody wants to connect with you, what would be the best way for them to reach out or get connected?

Mario Lentsch (01:02:37.335)
Yeah, the best way would be probably on my LinkedIn profile. That's where I'm the most active. So that's Mario and last name Lynch. It's L -E -N -T -S -C -H. And you can thank my ancestors for that one. So.

Branden Sewell (01:02:51.833)
Good stuff. Awesome. Well, yeah, if you're if you want to reach out to Mario definitely hit him up And thank you again for connecting if you are watching this episode on YouTube as always, please like comment subscribe Turn on the notification so you can see other great comment or content that will be coming out I have 17 interviews scheduled

over the next couple weeks. So we're gonna have a lot of valuable content coming your way. Share it with somebody. If you're listening on any major podcast platform, please rate the show, leave a review. I'd greatly appreciate it. That'll help reach more people and get this podcast out to more home service business owners just like you who are looking for advice

valuable information to grow and scale their business and like I always say ultimately get off the ladder. Also there are my referral links in the show notes so if you're interested in signing up for jobber, nice job, gusto for payroll, call rail for call tracking and tracking your marketing all of those links are down below. I'd really appreciate it if you check them out. I use my referral links as I said I do get

Credit for you signing up which helps the show and We'll leave it there and we'll see you next time on the next episode of the off -the -ladder podcast