2025 Will be a Year of Change & Opportunity

keywords

business growth, home service, mentorship, goal setting, revenue strategies, community involvement, branding, efficiency, upselling, 2025 planning

summary

In this episode of the Off the Ladder podcast, Branden Sewell reflects on the successes of 2024 and outlines his business strategies for 2025. He emphasizes the importance of setting clear goals, tracking progress, and being involved in the community. Branden discusses the significance of upselling services, leveraging mentorship, and the role of branding in business growth. He encourages listeners to embrace challenges and be willing to try new strategies to achieve success in the coming year.

takeaways

• 2024 was the best year for Seal Pro Painting.
• Community involvement creates networking opportunities.
• Setting clear goals is crucial for business success.
• Tracking progress helps in achieving revenue targets.
• Upselling can significantly increase average ticket size.
• Mentorship is vital for personal and business growth.
• Branding can drive sales with minimal effort.
• Delegating tasks can enhance business efficiency.
• Home shows are a valuable marketing strategy.
• 2025 will be a year of change and opportunity.

titles

Chapters

00:00
Introduction and New Year Reflections

05:44
Business Growth Strategies for 2025

17:05
Increasing Revenue Through Upselling

27:09
Closing Thoughts and Future Outlook

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Transcript

Branden Sewell (00:01.072)
Good morning, everybody. I'm Brandon Sewell. I'm the owner of Seal Pro Painting and also the host of the Off the Ladder podcast. And we exist to help home service business owners learn so that they can lead well and ultimately live life off of the ladder. Welcome to today's episode. This is going to be the first episode of 2025. I took a little bit of a break after the holidays. I ended up

Getting sick while I was on vacation, I had planned on recording while I was away in Tennessee, but just after getting sick and everything going on with the holidays, I was not up for it. So I took a little bit of a break. So again, this is the first one of the new year. So I'm looking forward to What's to Come in 2025 with the Off the Ladder podcast and.

I'm excited for things that myself and partners will be bringing to you. Just a really quick update on my business and some cool things that are going on. You know, so we finished up 2024. It was our best year to date. So that was really great. We ended up beating our goal, our revenue goal for 2024. I can say

that 2024 was the healthiest year that we've ever had in business and most consistent. Just a lot of good things that happened in 2024. So I'm very thankful for that. This year, one of the things that we're kind of pushing for is getting everything branded. So we I got the first car full wrap done.

We're going to be looking at doing two to three more vehicles, hopefully within the first quarter of 2025. And really looking to make a statement with our presence in our market. We also have brought on a sales rep, so that's exciting. We've kind of been able to really expand our opportunities by having two people selling.

Branden Sewell (02:26.32)
And my new sales rep, he's doing really well. Helped us to really close out 2024 really strong. So that was exciting. I don't think we would have hit our goal if it weren't for making that hire. So, you know, that was really good. I learned a lot from the first sales rep that I had ever hired made some mistakes, but

corrected those mistakes and this has been really good so far. So, I'm really excited about the possibilities in 2025 with Blake on the team. And one of the things that we're gonna really start doing more in 2025 with expanding the sales team is doing more local events.

So sponsoring events, being involved more in the community. And that's great from two aspects. One, you're just increasing your involvement and exposure in the community. And it's always great to get involved and to be community driven. And the byproduct of that.

is that it creates more opportunities naturally. You make more connections. It's a great way to network. It's going to create more opportunities for Blake. He'll be able to make connections out there and drive leads and really be able to take everything to another level as far as that goes. we're also going to be doing home shows again. We haven't done home shows.

excuse me, since 2020. So that was a big part of my strategy early on when starting the business. And we had a lot of success with home shows. You know, we'd come away from a show with 30 or 40 leads and, you know, close a good percentage of those 40 to 50 % of those leads. And it was a really big driver for our business. But after 2020, for obvious reasons, we

Branden Sewell (04:46.244)
didn't do them anymore. And I was kind of hesitant to jump back into that. But you know, we're going on five years now. And, you know, now is the time. So we're jumping back into home shows, we'll have our first one this weekend. We'll do a couple in the spring, we'll do some in the fall. But that's going to be a strategy this year, too, for growth. And

Yeah. So I'm excited about all of those things. We're in two local BNI's now. have Blake is covering a North location in our county and I'm covering a South location in our county. So we've got both ends of our county covered as far as BNI goes. So that's going to be another strategy of ours is to really try and drive our presence in both the Northern part of Brevard as well as the South part of Brevard.

Brevard County is a really long county, so there's a lot of service area and a lot of opportunities. So we're trying to make sure that we're building our presence along the entire county. It's just kind of challenging. If you go over to Orlando, there is about three, almost four counties that make up that central Orlando region with Osceola County.

Orange County and then Seminole County, whereas on the coast, Brevard County stretches like all three of those counties along the coast. a pretty long county, I should say. So anyway, that's kind of like what our strategy is for 2025. we've got a new shop.

that's going to be a big part of our strategy this year too. We're really going to be looking to see how we can make things more efficient with the shop, try and keep guys out of the local Sherwin-Williams stores. you know, not to say that they're bad, it's just you can go into the store and the store can become a time suck where they go. They're waiting in line. They're waiting to pick up, waiting for other orders to be filled.

Branden Sewell (07:08.176)
And it can just become a waste of time being in the store. So we're in the process of ordering basically everything that we order regularly for our business. We are going to have stocked at the shop. And then when, you know, our supplies or anything get low at the shop, we'll put orders in and we'll make sure that everything that the guys need will be there at the shop.

We're also going to be working towards, it's been a little tough right now, but as we get more into the rhythm of it, we'll be ordering all of our materials for jobs, paint materials. We'll be ordering those in advance and staging them at the shop for the guys to just basically pull up in the truck or van and pick up their order and then head out. So save a lot of time and make things more efficient in that way. So we're looking forward to that.

Also, another thing that the shop is going to enable us to do is we're going to start doing more cabinets. So one of the reasons why I stopped doing cabinets is I did not like doing cabinets on site at customers homes. We would do it, but it just was not my preference. So with the shop, we'll be able to take the doors, the drawers, all of that off, bring them to the shop.

and get them sprayed in a controlled environment and really offer a great product there. So that's going be part of our strategy in 2025. And I'm looking forward to that and seeing how that grows. one thing that's kind of that I've been exploring and trying to see how we can grow is the division of pavers, pressure washing and paver ceiling. Some of you have listened

for a while and you may know that I purchased my friend's pressure washing and paver sealing company. It was really just a strategy to add to our existing services, but there's a potential that we might create a completely separate business with that, run it completely separate from.

Branden Sewell (09:33.68)
seal propane and rebrand it and it'll just be potentially its own thing. We're kind of I'm kind of up in the air with that on whether I'm going to just keep it as an added service of seal propane or create it separate. There's kind of a there's benefits to both there's pros and cons to both. I'm just trying to figure that out. But anyway, that'll be part of the journey in 2025. So

Anyway, that's a big portion of what my focus is right now with the business. you know, I would just say like, if my focus for this episode was anything, it would be to really drive home how important it is to have, you know, have your goals for the year, you know, write them down and

and then have a strategy and a plan to go after those goals and revisit them and continue to work towards them throughout the year. You know, I can say that having year over year growth, even in the midst of like challenging years, a big part of reaching your goals and achieving them.

is writing them down, and then having a plan to get there. So, you know, the yesterday I, I went into the shop, and we have a whiteboard. And every year I write down, you know, what we accomplished the previous year, what is our goal for the next year? And then how are we going to get there? And then month by month?

I just revisit it. So I'll put, you know, what is our goal for January? Did we hit that goal? And if we were off, how much were we off by and what does that make our goal for February? And, you know, how do we make those up? And it's really powerful when you do that. You know, we met the end of in November, or it might have been, no, it was the end of October. So we had November and December and, you know, Blake and I met and I said, Hey, here's, here's our goal.

Branden Sewell (11:58.448)
for November and December were this far off from our goal for the year. And this is what we have to do. And if we're going to do this, we need to bring in this many leads. We need to close this many of these at this average ticket size. And if we bring in this amount of leads, convert it this rate, and our average ticket is at least this much, then we will hit this goal.

And we didn't only hit the goal, but we surpassed it. you know, it's just it's powerful when you actually break that down. And it's not as you know, it's not as simple as just saying, hey, I want to do X amount of revenue next year. It's like, okay, well, if you want to do that much revenue, what does that really look like? You know, how many leads do you have to bring in? And you've got to know

You got to look at your data. That's why it's so important to to have a way to track your data. You know, we use obviously we use jobber. Many of you know that. But jobber enables us to really go in, run some reports, find out, OK, this is what our average job size is. This is roughly what our, you know, conversion rate is and, you know.

if these averages are true, then what does that mean historically? And what does that look like for the future? you you can sit down and you can say, okay, if I'm, if I got, you know, let's say you've got a pressure washing business, you can say, okay, our average job size is X amount of dollars.

Our goal for this year is X amount of revenue. For average job size is X and how many of those jobs do I have to do to get to Z amount of revenue? So, you know, I don't know, maybe that's 250 jobs. And then you got to ask yourself, okay, well, that's at minimum 250 leads for the year, but we're not going to convert it 100%. So

Branden Sewell (14:22.864)
let's say our conversion rate is like industry standard, let's say it's like 42%. So at 42 % conversion rate, how many leads do I have to bring in and convert 42 % of them to get to X amount of jobs at X, you know, job size to meet my revenue? And so then you kind of start to reverse engineer those numbers and then you find out, okay, well, I've got to bring in

you this isn't going to be an accurate number, but you know, maybe you say I have to bring in 1000 leads. And, you know, I have to convert X amount to get to what I want to for revenue. How many leads is that? You know, per day, how many leads is that per week? How many leaks leads is that per month? How many is that for the year break it down? Have a big picture and a small picture and then

track that okay, how are we doing? How many are we hitting our goal for marketing and bringing in that many leads? If we aren't, what can we do to change that and bring in more leads? If you know, there's also only really to hit your revenue goals is you can either sell more jobs, or you can increase your average ticket. So another thing you can look at is say, you know,

how can we increase our average ticket on jobs? Can we add an additional service? I was just talking to a guy recently and he's got a window cleaning business. said, he was talking about adding on this service that was completely unrelated to window cleaning. And I said, well, what if you really thought about just adding on services that are related to...

you know, your window cleaning that you could just do while you're there. So, you know, you could do window cleaning, you could do house washes, roof washes, you could add on gutter cleaning. You know, those are paver ceiling, those are all things that are kind of all in that exterior cleaning realm.

Branden Sewell (16:34.864)
Where it would make sense to add those on, you know, you're already up on a ladder cleaning windows The gutters are right there clean out the gutters or you're already cleaning the roof. Why not clean out the gutters? but you know, so That's the the two ways that you can grow your business and add to your revenue is increase your job size or sell more jobs So I think you should look and have a strategy for both of those

You should have a plan for upselling when you're going and doing sales. If somebody asks for, like for us, they ask for exterior painting, well, my eyes aren't just thinking about the exterior painting. I'm looking around and I'm saying, do they need their driveway?

pressure washed and do they have pavers that need to be cleaned and sealed? Do they have any interior projects? Is there anything that we can add on? Maybe they asked us to only provide them a quote to paint the walls of their home. I might give options to add on soffits and fascia and gutters and downspouts and add on doors and

All of those things, you know, maybe they have like a big shed in the back They weren't thinking of painting give them an option to add that one Do they have a pool deck or give an option to add on the pool deck? And they may not do those things, but you never know if you don't add or ask so don't just assume that They only need the one service or will only do the one service Give them those options to to add and you can grow your average ticket that way

What's really cool about jobber being on the grow plan is you can put optional line items so you can give them like an option for painting just the house and then you can give them optional upgrades. You can also do options to upgrade material. You know, so there's just a lot that you can do to to grow your revenue besides just, you know, selling more jobs. So.

Branden Sewell (18:57.296)
you know, definitely have a strategy in place for, for this year. you know, and, overall, you know, you've got to get really creative as a business owner. and I think too, you have to be willing to try things and fail. You know, I've been a little nervous to, do home shows again.

Like, you know, is it going to be worth our money? Am I going to spend all of this money? Like we have to buy a new home show, you know, booth display. You know, so I just had to spend a bunch of money on, you know, our backdrop, our table covers, you know, things like that. And, you know, you ask yourself, like, that going to pay off? Is it going to be worth it? Well, you don't know unless you try. So.

got to be willing to try that it's you know, the the vehicle wraps, you know, I've asked myself for a long time, is it worth it? Is it worth the money to spend on doing vehicle wraps? You know, it's a good chunk of money to spend. That's I don't know till I try. So you got to be willing to try, try things, try new things with your business. You're going to make mistakes, you're going to fail. But you've got to get put yourself out there, you've got to try. And the other thing that I

guess I realize is, you know, other people are doing the things that I'm doing. other people are being successful with it. So what makes them any different than me? I don't think there's really huge differences. You know, it's it's doing it, you know, it's it's taking these plans and putting them into action. So

you know, just get after it. Sorry, I'm to take a sip of coffee.

Branden Sewell (20:59.36)
I'll close this episode out by talking about something I saw this morning. I'm gonna pull it up. I thought it was really good. I'm hoping I can find it pretty easily. But it was a video with Ty Lopez, Andy Elliott, and I can't remember the other gentleman's name. He started the school of hard knocks.

You'd probably see his interviews on Instagram or social media, but he interviews, you know, millionaires, billionaires, and talks to them about how they achieve their success and wealth. But I thought this video was really interesting. Ty Lopez is doing this mastermind and he's with Andy Elliott and the founder of school Hard Knocks. And he identifies six levers of wealth. And the first one

He says is other people. So the first lever is You know if you're a business owner and you can figure out how to delegate to other people to get things done So that other people are working Making the business money and you're not having to do what they're doing. So that's the first lever is Delegating to other people The second thing that he talks about is capital

So he says, you know people who have access to capital or funding are able to achieve more So when you have that ability You're gonna take your wealth and your business To another level the third thing he talks about his branding So he basically says like once you get to branding. It's like your brand

Branden Sewell (22:53.872)
can make you money without you having to do anything. So he uses the example of Apple. says, you know, Apple is this huge brand. Everybody knows it. They put out a new phone and they just put the new phone out and people are just going to buy it. And there's not really much anything else they have to do except for just say, hey, we're putting out the new iPhone and people go and buy it. And that branding power is really what's driving the sales there.

He says the fourth thing is media. So it's like once you can get influence through media, social media, you know, things like that, once people can, you know, recognize who you are, that is going to be a driving force in your success because you're you're everywhere. And he kind of talks about some, you know, he talks about

Andy Elliott's success on social media and how many impressions and people he reaches and people know his face and know who he is. And there's, you know, just power in that. And then also with the school of hard knocks, people see that brand. just saw something, I think it was yesterday, he did an interview of himself. They got the founder and he's grown the school of hard knocks to the point where he's making, I think he said $600,000.

a month. And 500,000 of that is profit. And, you know, so he's just, he's become very successful through media. The fifth thing he talks about is AI. And that's kind of like, he was more so saying, like the people who early adopt AI and really start to

train themselves in AI are going to really be able to achieve a whole other level of wealth and success. And the sixth thing he talks about is knowledge. And he says this is the most powerful one and it has to do with mentors. And he says mentors are one of the most powerful things for growing and having success and generating wealth.

Branden Sewell (25:14.832)
612th. That's a new word. But anyway, so he talks about Elon Musk and he talks about how Elon Musk was in a mastermind back in his PayPal days. And he talks about how in that mastermind, out of that mastermind, Elon went on to found Tesla, SpaceX, become the CEO of X, formerly Twitter, and do all of these things.

And another guy in there went on to found LinkedIn, another one went on to found Yelp. And there was another guy in there that ended up building one of the largest venture capitalist firms. you know, so there's just these people who come together and they all end up doing something amazing. And it's and it's the knowledge of all of these

successful people coming together sharing, you know, their ideas and their plans and then executing on that. And, you know, he talks about if you can get around people, mentors, people that are more successful than you, who know what you don't know, then that's going to help you to succeed. you know, I've talked about this before on the podcast, but

I'm a big fan of having a coach or a mentor. So, you know, that's definitely something that you want to do. There's things that I've learned from coaches or mentors that have saved me so much time or helped me to fix mistakes that I've made that I wish I would have known sooner because I wouldn't have made them as mistakes. You know, or I wouldn't have learned things that are helping me now. So,

coaching and mentorship should be definitely a top priority in 2025. Well, that is gonna bring this episode to a close. But thank you guys so much for tuning into the Off the Ladder podcast. I hope that the information shared on the podcast is helpful and helps you to achieve.

Branden Sewell (27:36.688)
what you're after in 2025. You know, it's, it's gonna be an interesting year. To say the least, we got a lot of change that's about to take place change of administration. We're, you know, politically, you know, things are going to be happening. And it's gonna be interesting to see how that affects the economy. And

you know, we'll see, you know, I think pretty early on, um, you know, what that's going to look like in 2025. Um, and I think 2025 is probably going to be a pretty strong indicator of what the next, uh, four years look like. And, um, hopefully, um, hopefully it's all good and hopefully we, uh, have some strong years of business, um, ahead of us and

Hopefully we'll be able to capitalize on more opportunities over the next four years. So fingers crossed for that. Anyway, if you have listened to this episode today and you found value in it, if you're watching on YouTube, I would greatly appreciate if you would subscribe to the channel, turn on the notifications so you don't miss the other content that I'll be putting out and comment, share your feedback.

share the video with somebody else so that they can learn from it. If you're listening on Apple or Spotify or any other major podcast platform, I would greatly appreciate it if you would rate and review the show. That's very much appreciated. That helps the podcast to continue to get out there to more people and let people know about the Off the Ladder podcast.

And you know, there are resources in the show notes. So if you need a CRM for your business, if you need a payroll provider, if you're looking to get more reviews for your business, if you're looking to track your marketing and make smarter marketing decisions, you can use my resources in the show notes. I do get credit if you guys sign up using my affiliate links. So whether that's the jobber, nice job, call rail, gusto,

Branden Sewell (30:00.496)
You know, please sign up, use my link and I would greatly appreciate that. And then if you need any help with any of those platforms or have any questions after signing up, I'm always a resource to help you learn and get acclimated with those platforms to help your business. Thank you so much again for tuning into this episode of the Off the Ladder podcast.

And as always, we'll see you next time on the next episode of the Off the Ladder Podcast.