The LFG Show
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The LFG Show
How Home Improvement Brands Break the $8M Plateau ft. Senja Spellman
Vegas energy aside… the real fireworks come from a candid playbook on taking a home-improvement company from “paid-lead dependent” to “brand-led and unstoppable.” We sit with Senja Spellman 🔥 — operator turned consultant — who’s helped scale household names and now builds growth engines that actually last. The throughline is focus: clean data 📊, strong creative 🎨, offline media that compounds 📺✉️, and a culture that turns every touchpoint into trust 🤝.
We dig into the infamous $8M plateau 💸 and why it smacks companies when they’re renting demand from aggregators. Senja breaks down a practical attribution “tree” 🌳 so you can track every touch — website, vanity numbers, social, outbound, text — and pressure-test exactly where it’s breaking. We hit CTV 📺, direct mail 📬, and why they deliver insane intent when layered with paid social. We even get into platforms like MNTN that retarget entire households 🏠 to give your brand the frequency it needs to finally break through.
She calls out a quiet revolution too 👀: Ring cameras have changed canvassing 🚪📷, SMS is table stakes now 💬, and the companies winning are the ones adapting message + channel to how people actually decide in 2025.
Then we get operational 🔧🔥. Same-day and next-day appointments? Conversion cheat code 🚀. Your set-to-issue rate will expose real fast if you’re scheduling too far out. If capacity blocks speed, hire — marketing should always chase sales, not the other way around 💼➡️💵.
We unpack contact-center culture — the energy you can hear in eight seconds ⚡🎧 — coaching, simple incentives, and the KPIs that separate closers from complainers 😤➡️😎. And we spotlight a massive opportunity: the bath category’s aging-in-place boom 🛁👵👴, where low-step showers mix safety, dignity, and ROI for homeowners.
This is a story about building companies that outlive algorithms 🧱🤖. Keep the stack simple. Measure what matters. Invest where your customers actually live — on screens, in mailboxes, and in the local community 📱📬🏘️. And deliver an in-home experience people rave about 🌟.
If you’re ready to trade fragile clicks for durable growth, hit follow 🔔, share this with a builder who needs it 🔧🏗️, and drop a review telling us which move you’ll implement first 📝🔥.
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SPEAKER_01:Totally.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I cut my teeth in home improvement with Brian Gottlieb at Tundra Land. And if you work in home improvement, you know Tundra Land. It's like the pillar for culture, for how you build a business business. And now obviously Brian Gottlieb is a world's best-selling author, and he's a great motivational speaker.
SPEAKER_00:So you worked directly with him. I did. That's amazing. Wow.
SPEAKER_01:So I was foiled with that culture. I don't think I'll ever find a culture like that again. And after I was with Brian, we actually were a part of that Leaf acquisition. So Leaf Home uh bought Tundra Land as well as some other businesses. And Leaf Home looked at the numbers that Amy, my uh mentor, and I were doing, and they said, we want you guys to do this at all these other acquisitions. So they put us in charge of the seven other home improvement acquisitions that they had. So Storm Tie Windows, Comfort Bath and Shower, Quillin Brothers, some of those to replicate what we were doing. After working with them for a little while, I was like, you know what? I really want full autonomy of more than just the lead generation, which is what we were doing. Because I love contacts and are very passionate about that. So I took a role as a CMO of Bathworks, um, started that company when they were at about 10 million and scaled them to 20, which was great. So 100% growth there. And then I was able to work with the folks at home, Genius Exteriors, an amazing company growing super fast, and um learned a lot from them. But I was getting so many people saying, Hey, Sonya, how would you do this? Hey, Sonia, how would you do that? And I thought to myself, there's a lot of people asking me how to do stuff. I feel like there could be a business here. And so I have so many amazing entrepreneurs that I'm great friends with that I was like, hey guys, should I do this? And they said, if you don't do it now, you're never gonna do it. So hell yeah, go do it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and then yeah, and I as we were talking offline, yeah, your true your story, it it could that's kind of what happened with me. I worked for a lot of companies and call centers and different verticals and the financial services and helped them grow and like crazy stories, like where Apple U at Tundra Land happened me. I've been through pro acquisitions, and then I realized, hey, I could do this on my own. I can create three call centers and legion, and I and I took that leap of faith. Like when did you obviously it's not an easy decision to make, especially when we leave a cushy job with a growing company, make him a good salary? Like, when do how how how was that? And like what was like that aha or LFG moment? They're like, I gotta go do this.
SPEAKER_01:I thought I was gonna be homeless for a good month. I was like, no, that's it. I made the biggest mistake of my entire life. This is it, I'm done for. But again, I was so fortunate I had so many amazing mentors in the space that when I was in the middle of a mental breakdown, calling them, they're like, Sonia, just let it happen, focus on what you do best, focus on perfecting your craft, and it it's all gonna come. And now I'm at the point where I'm actively unfortunately having to turn people down because I don't have the bandwidth to support them. So I think any entrepreneur, when you're getting in the space, of course, there's this moment of what the hell did I just get myself into? But then you get that one win and you're like, wait, I can do this. And you get that second win, you're like, okay, I really can do this. And then when you lean into your power like that, you you think, why did I even question myself to begin with? This is what it's all about.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I love that you said that. It's all about those wins, right? And you're gonna doubt yourself. And you reminded me when I I got in, I did, I went off my own, like, why the hell did I do this so many times? But then you get a win and like, okay, this is why I did it, right? And then you just build upon those with those victories. And I think with home improvement, these companies are so large, right? And they all doesn't mind, and I think sometimes people get intimidated by that. Yeah. Like, oh, they're so large. But they're there's because sometimes when they get up uh so large, there's things they don't know, they don't see. And then someone your experience will come in and you know, collapse time frames and help them grow.
SPEAKER_01:Totally. And they've been doing things the same way all the time. And as we know with technology, there's so many new, better ways to do this. One thing I talked about on stage today is actually knowing who your customer is. These people, they've again been doing it for so long. They're like, oh, the demographic is this age to this age and this household income to this household income. I'm like, when was the last time you guys actually pulled the data and verified that? Because the way that our country is changing and the way that people's income is changing, and the way that the market changes is ever evolving. So if you don't pull that consistently, you have actually no idea and you're just being robotic, doing the same thing again and again. And as marketers, you know, our job is to disrupt. And if you're doing the same thing the same boring way, what kind of disruption are you actually doing?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I love that you said that. And it's true. The the demographics are changing so much. It's it's it's it's incredible how fast things are changing with the technology and the way people communicate. And right now, like the younger generation, I don't even know what generation you call it. They don't want to talk, they'd rather be SMSing and everything, right? So you could you're closing deals through SMS, right? They'd rather do that. So there's so many new evolvements, evolution going on in this game.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I mean, and you even think about just one example that comes to my mind is canvassing. Everyone and their mother has a ring camera now. So that's adding a whole nother layer.
SPEAKER_00:Wow, I didn't think about that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:100%. And not even problems in setting the lead because people can say, you know, get lost, kick rocks, I'm not interested. But also in PR, people are watching you. So if you have canvassers, and we all know how sometimes canvassers can get a little rowdy using some type of language or whatever, that's a representation and another threat to your brand that you have to think about. Yeah. Technology.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And then uh you're you're essentially you're helping grow home improvement companies, right? And then you're you're thinking about their brand, right? How are they positioning their brand? And I I think that's that's true because uh it's so important because a lot of these companies start as a like a chuck in the truck. Maybe they're they're knocking doors and you can grow knocking doors, but then how do you get to the next level? Maybe you get to five to ten million, then you go to ten to fifty and you go to twenty, then it becomes a whole different game. You hit fifty, then you hit a hundred. Like, so what what's your your your your from your perch, like how how you how do you see that?
SPEAKER_01:Well, when I look at the list of top 500 companies, I mean the folks that want to share their revenue, there's pages and pages and pages of people from eight million and under. Because you can grow an eight million dollar business on lead eggs. Easy. You can do it. But if you want longevity and you want a long-standing business and you want to hit that 10 million, exactly like you said, 10 million, 20 million, 50 million, you have to do more than just rely on someone else to generate your leads. You have to generate your own leads, and by that is building your brand. So for me, I'm really passionate about all of the they call it offline channels. So direct mail, billboards, TV. And people get scared of it because they're like, well, I have no way to manage this, no way to actually do attribution. But there is ways, there's plenty of ways to do it, but people just know what they know. And so that kind of pigeons hold them to not be able to elevate.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and we got to talk because obviously my business, we have home direct marketing, we have connection holdings, we've scaled tons of companies, right? We've sold over a hundred million dollars worth of leads. But I have some companies, like companies putting a huge, massive, like billion-dollar companies that they can't attribute my inbound calls. And yeah, so the issue right now is web leads are becoming harder and harder, right? We talked about that, we'll talk about that a bit the the picking up the contact rates are low. So a lot of them want to do inbound calls. But the problem is I can't scale a lot of my inbound call campaigns because we can't attribute the success of the lead, right? So so what's the solution to this? Like how do you help them with that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, how do you know where to put your money if you don't know what's working? Yeah, I mean, any single time that we have any type of lead source, we have an entire tree of the customer journey. What are every single touch points that someone can possibly find our brand? Okay, our website, our social media, our vanity number, us outbound dialing them, and a text message. And from that, every single stem of that tree should be documented and known. And if there's any break in the branch, we should know where that break is and be able to identify it. One of the best ways is test yourself, pressure test yourself. Call in on your call center, see what's coming up on the other side for the call center rep of the label. Yep. Fill out a web form when it hits your CRM. See, does it say where the source is that it's like?
SPEAKER_00:How fast do they call it back? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. So I think that people underestimate how important data is because it's it's literally everything in our business. We, as folks in home improvement, have a perception of what this industry looks like or a demo looks like. Again, I know I keep going back to this, but it really is so prevalent to me. And until we get out of our own way, relying on anecdotal data and actually look at the numbers, we're never gonna be able to scale.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, 100%. And what I what I love too is that we're talking about all these changes as evolution, but also the offline methods, right? And and our our sponsor of the LOG show is Ringba. Ringba's a huge call tracking platform, right? Yeah, and if Adam Young, the owner of the founder of and co-founder Ringba, wrote a book called The Paper Core Revolution. And in that book, you know, he talks a lot about online lead generation, but he talks about uh affiliates and media buyers that are putting up tens of millions, some putting up over$100 million a year in revenue with offline methods like newspaper, billboards, TV. And, you know, I even forget about that sometimes. I'm not tapping into this stuff. I had a client today ask me, are we gonna are we doing any TV? And I felt like it needs to, because we're not, right? But but I gladly you mentioned that, right? So that and I would think those tend to be probably much higher intent kind of leads.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'd agree with that. One thing that that I really like to look at in terms of external industries that that we can have a comparative analysis with is the insurance industry. They're in the same game that we are, they're doing performance marketing, they also need to generate leads. And when you look at, let's say, for example, Liberty Mutual, everyone knows that's stupid.
SPEAKER_00:Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, yes. Exactly. Liberty, liberty, liberty.
SPEAKER_01:It's exactly. And so when you see them on connected TV, you see them on linear TV, you get the the junk mail with the envelope that's kind of nef uh kind of secretive, and you're like, who is this? And they course you to open up, and you're like, damn it, Liberty Mutual got me again. We're in the same type of business. We have the same type of tools in our in our pocketbook, but we just don't have everything to do it because we're so short-sighted in home improvement. We want everything right now. We're very impatient, and we don't ever think of like the longevity in the next step to do things a little differently.
SPEAKER_00:So why do you think that is? Is it just is it is pressure from the top? Or I see that too. And there's a lot of knee-jerk reaction and it trickles down. And as a as a lead vendor, we try to think of ourselves as a partner. We try to become partners rather than lead vendors, but sometimes we then that messes up our campaigns, and we have to change this, and then they're like, oh, we made a mistake, let's go back, and you lose momentum. It's a business we gain momentum, you know. But what why why does it happen so often? And what could be done to change that kind of scarcity mindset.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's scarcity mindset 110%. Every single person that I work with that's too scared to do TV, it's because, well, then what are we missing if we're not spending this money on lead aggregators? We're missing all of this this leads. It's it's the FOMO, it's the fear of missing out in some other revenue channel. Because again, they get that immediate satisfaction, instant gratification with putting money towards paid social, which there's a space for all of that, but there's a balance to it. So I I think it's scarcity mindset in terms of lead generation. They're too scared to spend the money where you don't get that direct response right away and they want something immediate.
SPEAKER_00:And no, it could also be their they're used to being their comfort zone, right? Well, you don't grow unless you get out of your comfort zone, right? At the end of the day. So what what what percentage, in your opinion or your estimate estimation, what opinion or what percentage of home improvement companies are not you utilizing those sources. We're talking about those offline sources. Like what percentage is just, you know, the traditional stuff versus the non-traditional stuff?
SPEAKER_01:I hate to say it, but I think the only people that are really doing it right are the people that hit over 20 million. And they hit over 20 million because they did it. Yeah. All the folks that are underneath that, maybe they're investing in TV, maybe they're doing direct mail, but it's not just about spending the money, it's about having the message. It's about having a strong creative because it still has to be visually appealing and resonate with your customer. So all the people that I see underneath, underneath that 20 million mark, I look at their creative, I look at their output, and I think to myself, uh, this is probably why it's not working. But when you look at the heavy hitters, I'm just gonna name a few, you know, Home Genius, Leaf Home, West Shore, all of those companies are investing very heavily into those channels and into their brand. And that's how they were able to scale the way that they did. So I think I think that that tells you a lot. If you look at any of those folks that are above 20 million, I would challenge anyone to ask them that they're not doing offline marketing. And I I would bet that that's not possible.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And you when you talk about those companies, and I've we worked for a lot of those companies, they were all under 20 million at some point. Yeah. Right. So they made, they made that leap or they got out of their sides, their their comfort zones in order to make that happen, right? So I I think that's I'm glad that you said that. I think there is a number. I don't know if it's 20 million, 15, it's somewhere in that range, which I agree, you know. And uh you gotta be able to step outside and then you gotta come to these shows and talk to people too. I think that's another thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you have to always be learning. Our industry is so fast moving, it's always evolving. And if again, if you're staying stagnant, you're not gonna be able to take opportunities that you might not have, or you might have had if you actually showed up and met the right people. And in our space, I feel like people are so willing to share information. I always say you can give people the recipe to the soup. That doesn't mean that you can make the recipe. Like you have to know when to put in what ingredient when. It's like if you put in cornstarch without the water, it's just gonna be all chunky, you know? So I think that um a lot of us in this space are like, yeah, I'll I'll tell you what I'm doing, but then you have to implement it. And I know that that's the biggest barrier for a lot of people in fact. Yeah, execution. Yeah, execution, exactly.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah, just being here last night, I'm at the chandelier bar and I like God, I got so many good ideas for my clients, like stuff that we can do. Because we've been hitting a little bit of a wall on just on Meta. Meta's become so tough. There are new updates, and they do these updates and just throw things off, right? But I got so many ideas. Even talking to you, like in and I I heard from other people, uh TV, T, you're third person, like, hey, we got a freaking try, right? So I got so many good ideas. This is you gotta talk to people, get out outside the comfort zone, and go travel and get out there and start talking, right?
SPEAKER_01:Well, and they can work symbiotically. So there's a program that I like to use, it's all a manual lift, it's called Mountain M N T N. And they do connected TV, so C T V streaming, but then also they can retarget those folks on the IP in the house with social media ads. So you're getting that frequency. Yeah. So exactly like you mentioned, if they're just seeing one social ad, they're like, well, I don't know who these people are. I'm not gonna be able to trust them with my business. But if they see you on social, then they see you on streaming TV, then they see you on social again, then maybe they see you on direct mail, they're like, okay, well, these people are established enough to invest in these. Maybe they're worthwhile to give a call.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's not only that. I know that you've done in and I don't know if you're doing that now. You probably are in previous endeavors, like charity events, right, local sporting events. I mean, you're just constantly everywhere. It takes multiple repetition in different ways in order to get someone to actually eventually convert, right?
SPEAKER_01:And it doesn't have to be a crazy pro sports sponsorship. I mean, yes, I've I've made in sponsorships like the Milwaukee Brewers, like the Florida Panthers and NHL team, the the Green Bay Packers. And those are great, they're fun, there's a space for that. But there's also spaces for the local Little League. There's spaces for the high school football team. And especially if you don't have a really big service area and you're able to kind of consolidate, why not invest in in those smaller lifts, but have a big impact for the community.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that with little league. And then at the end of the day, these are parents that are homeowners, right? Exactly. And it's a win-win. The kids, like it's it's and you feel good about yourself, right? Yeah, little league. Like, I mean, sports is such an important foundational aspect, I think, to success, right? I mean, I've seen it. There's my my my son's very like all over the place. We got him to jujitsu in soccer. My God, it's helped him so much with discipline, right? So it's something you can feel good about. Like it's really a win with the end of the day, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, totally. And you can even expand on that and tell the story. Like, what if this team is going to regionals and they never have, and you get to be a part of that and telling it the narrative? Like, there's so much more than you can do with it to just say, okay, well, let me cut them a check and slap my name on there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Go above and beyond, think differently, and think how you can tie in what your impact actually does for this group or for the community.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. And I love that you're saying you're talking about this. Is this something, I mean, we've done over a hundred episodes on there, and sometimes we lose sight of that other impact that that business has, right? And I one one thing I love about home improvement, I said this on other episodes, is that there is an issue going on in an American economy right now in terms of wages. There's not wage growth going on, right? People can't afford it. It's become so inflation, all this stuff. But home improvement is one of those verticals or one of those categories where you can get into this as a high school drop with no experience, and you could make six figures, seven figures, eight figures. You can change your damn life, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and it's recession proof.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:People are always gonna need home improvement. Whether the market sucks and they can't sell their house, okay. Well, now they're stuck here longer and they want to fix up their house and have it be beautiful because they're gonna stay. Or whether the market's great and they're ready to sell, okay, well, we need a new roof to be able to sell this house. Let's get it done. There's always gonna be a need for this service. And it is one of those things that's consistently happening. For me, my thing that I, that the vertical that I foresee having a huge growth is the bath space because people are living longer every single year. And the biggest area that people fall or have any fear is the shower. So there's so many more folks wanting to invest in those low-step showers because they're like, well, I want to feel safe and I want to, we call it age in place. I don't want to spend 20K a month to live in a senior living facility. So let me spend that one time and have a beautiful brand new bathroom and stay in my home. So if anyone is looking to get into home improvement, I would say the bath space.
SPEAKER_00:That's yeah, I love you said that. You said that too. It's being proactive, right? You see in the health, uh the health space, people become more aware of what the what they're putting into their body, what you're eating, microplastic, all this stuff. Yeah, but think about that because you're trying to be proactive, right? The bat, you're right. I fell one time when I was like 32 years old, and I'm in good shape, right? But that that sucks. I can't imagine someone that's my mom severally break her hip and then she can't walk again. So you're being proactive by doing that. You know, at the end of the day, it's an investment you're making.
SPEAKER_01:And even before someone experiences a fall, it's our job as home improvement people and marketers to educate them that that is a possibility. And that happens to a lot of people. So then, and even if you want to look at it in the mindset of, okay, yeah, it's called to action and generating, I look at it in the mindset of we're helping people, we're saving people so they're not stuck in that position. I think home improvement, we get so caught up in like, okay, the lead, the lead, the sale, the sale, the close, the clothes. We forget that we actually really help people and we change lives and we make people's lives better. We make their biggest investment that they're ever gonna make in their life more valuable.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So I love that. You know, because this is all there's a good purpose behind it. It's a wooden one at the end of the day. And and is is job, it's the great jobs. They're jobs where you can actually have a good living, where you could have a good life, right? And I think that's one thing with the American economy that you see less of. There's a lot of no, nothing against retail jobs, but they don't pay much, right? And when you get a job in home improvement and you can you know make life-changing money, you know, it's possible. I've seen that happen, I've seen that happen on the solar side, I've improvement side that happens and all of it. So that that's why I'm glad that I love going to these shows and I love to see these stories and hear about people. And like it's only you that you you work, help all these companies grow, and now you're taking all that experience to take it to the nut to the next level, you know?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, some of the companies that I worked with that had either a strong brand or just did a great job with fostering their leads, we had sales guys making more money than neurosurgeons. Not even kidding, but it's true. I mean, when you have uh some companies I know fluctuate with their commission, but eight to twelve percent commission. And you're running jobs that are 15K to 20K. I mean, think about that type of money. It's it's honestly amazing. And exactly like you said, home improvement, I think, is a great spot for people that have the characteristics that you can't coach. They have grit, they have tenacity, they have drive, and they have the LFG mindset of like, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna make it happen. And you don't need to go to college, you don't need to have any type of fancy degree to make that happen for yourself.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So I I love it. I mean, it is great to hear. So talking about grit, Cisu Synergy, right? Yeah. The name of your company. It's a finished word. I think grit is one of the components of it, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's a word actually that has no equal, no equal um uh synonym. So it's a word all on its own. And it basically means anything like tenacity and keep moving forward, and I'm gonna make it done and get it happen and make it happen. My uh grandmother is from Finland, and so any single time when I was younger as a little girl, if I'm crying, she's like, Sisu, senia, sisu. I'm like, okay, I'll do it. But I felt like it was such a great name for my company because what I'm trying to do here really is one of one. I don't want to just be a consultant where I'm like, okay, here's my program, here, give, give me$5,000 and make it happen. I want to be in it with them. I want to be in the grind with them, see their numbers, actually get to know the people, know the culture. One thing that for me that I have as a prerequisite obligation, I won't work with anyone if I can't do this. I want to go to your business for a full day and actually see how you operate. I want to see what your culture is because anything that I'm tying my likeness to has to also reflect values that I believe in. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So Rainbow is the leading inbound call tracking and analytics platform for marketers, brands, and paper call teams. It gives you real-time reporting, intelligent call routing, and fully customizable call flows backed by global telecom access in more than 60 countries. With enterprise-grade reliability, a powerful API, and no contracts or set of fees, Rainbow has become a go-to platform for performance marketers worldwide. To learn more and to sign up, check out the link in the description below. Get golden and let's fucking go. I love that. There's no there's no replacement, but you could talk to a particular client on Zoom, but you don't when you don't get to see the feel the body language, feel that aura, that energy, right? And it's a good thing. You got great energy, by the way, right? I think energy is so underlooked in terms of like when people talk about what it takes to be good in sales or run a business, like the people feed off that energy, right? So I think that's that's probably another reason for your success and why you've done well and being able to grow in these companies.
SPEAKER_01:I appreciate that. I mean, you worked in contact centers. Yeah. So you understand how important energy is. If you have a contact center that has low energy, that doesn't feel motivated, you're not gonna be setting leads. You're gonna be spending all this money on leads that isn't moving forward because people can feel that even through a phone. I feel, I'm sure that you're the same way. Within eight to nine seconds, I can hear a call and say, that's not setting. It's not setting. Because they don't have that connection with the other person. You could hear a smile, you can hear the good energy, and it all starts and stops within the culture of your business. And so that's something that I'm really passionate about. If I'm gonna be working with someone and I go in and the energy's off, or they don't have the drive, I'm like, well, I could generate you leads, I could build your brand, but you're not gonna know what to do with it because you don't have the culture there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I love and I love you that you had that. A lot of people would never step foot in the in the contact center. Oh, they all center. Yeah, they have no idea, it's a whole different animal. So, yeah, so you can build this whole great plan for somebody in terms of branding leads, this and that, but if they don't, that's the one element that's like a big piece of the puzzle. They don't have that, but I feel like you see all those different elements that it encompasses. It's not just one, two, or three things. And I think a lot with, you know, I've worked with different consultants or people like gurus that you were experts in a certain field, but yeah, they weren't well versed in all these different aspects. And I feel like you are from your experience.
SPEAKER_01:It has to be. I mean, I have a really great uh partner, Megan Beattie, who does uh contact center consulting. So if someone really needs a call center thing, I push them to them. But if I'm gonna be working with anyone on a fractional CMO level, of course I'm gonna have involvement in their call center because the leads that I'm generating are gonna go to them. And there's, I think there's this false perception that contact center people are just plug and play, oh, they're not doing good. All right, get rid of them, put someone else in. But I have seen people that maybe set 10 appointments a month go from like 150, 200 appointment setters from just having that type of coaching and care. Like building that that competitive mindset and something fun. Like we had at a company I used to work with, we had the money bags. And if you set a same day, we had a big ass bag of money and you reach your hand in, and whatever you pick out, you pick out. And there's a hundred dollar bill in there, there's fives, there's ones, but like building that that type of culture in more than just your C-suite. It has to start with your people that are customer facing. It has to.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Truly.
SPEAKER_00:You got me excited. She says same days. Yeah. So if you if you're running a if you're in a home improvement or any any appointment setting, you know same days are gold. Oh, yeah. Right? So I that's how I know you know what you're talking about. Uh some people even know what the same day, next day. I mean, those same days, uh, we I I I I built some call centers. Oh, 70% same days. Oh, wow. Well, guess what? That's why the company went from freaking 14 million to 500 million in a couple years.
SPEAKER_01:And all those demo, because everyone's ready to go. You get people where they're at. If they're ready now, why are we waiting three, four, five days? One thing that I always see when I look at funnel metrics, and I'll just explain them so people kind of are on the same page, from set to issue. So from set is we set the appointment, we talk to the people, they said, yeah, Tuesday at three o'clock works for me. Great. Issue is we do the call to confirm, we say, Hey, is that still good? When that number drops, set to issue, I know that they're setting out more than three days because people were ready when they called you. They're ready maybe the next day, maybe the day after. But now four or five days later, well, their kid has a baseball tournament, they have a dental appointment, they're sick now, they can't do it. We have to meet the customer where we're at, or we're absolutely losing the lead.
SPEAKER_00:So just give me an idea. You know what I'm telling my sales team to do? Or when we're when we're before you onboard a client, yeah, what is your save day set percentage? And we're gonna see if they're 20%, or they don't know the answer, there's an issue. Okay, and then don't blame the damn lead, right? But the bottom line is that when we every time we've had a client that that understood that mentality, it it works 90% of the time. You mentioned companies like Home Genius, good, they're running really well, boom, they're whatever. This is why, because they have that, they understand that those KPIs, and then as a as a lead vendor, as a lead partner, you want to work with companies like that because that's gonna make your lead shine better. There's nothing worse than you know your leads are good for 90% of your clients, and then you have that one client that all your leads suck. Okay, well, how fast are you calling them? Or we're calling them like an hour later. Oh, what you're saying the 8% is uh we don't know. Like it's not gonna work, right? But that's why Sanya knows what she's talking about, guys. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01:David, I mean, if you're generating the same leads for the same type of people and nine out of ten folks are saying they rock and one's saying they suck, well, the problem's coming from inside the house, you know? And I always feel like when we're looking at um the contact center and how people are doing in the contact center, it really is one of those things that is such an easy tweak and such an easy thing to fix and it and it fast too. But people just don't even know to look there. And that's the worst part is like they don't realize where they're failing and they're just continuing the behavior. Like, for example, the the next days or same days. People say, Well, what if I can't set same days or next days because my salespeople don't have the capacity? Hire more salespeople. What are you talking about? Marketing should always be chasing sales. We should never have salespeople saying, We can't, we have too many leads, we can't run them. It should always be the opposite, which for us as marketers kind of sucks because we're always under pressure. But if you thrive under pressure, like sales do, then we love it.
SPEAKER_00:Pressure freeze diamonds, right?
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely, exactly. So your capacity for sales should never say we don't have a next day available. Never.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. This is great. I want to I want to ask you something, because kind of we're going off subject a little bit, but it's tied to all to the business world. So you're female, right? And that you got a great how has how has that been from my perspective? You go to these shows, right? Especially in America. I feel like in Europe you see more females at these shows, right? But you see less. I I don't know what the percentage is. Maybe it's one out of ten.
SPEAKER_01:98 to 92 to 8%.
SPEAKER_00:Is it okay? So I was gonna say about 10%. So I wasn't I wasn't that far off. I would think uh that there is an advantage if you know what the hell you're doing. If you're like really sharp and you know the answer, like because you you separate yourself, right? I mean, what what's been your experience uh as a female in this industry? The challenges, the the the positives, all the whole thing both sides.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. I'm so happy you asked that. Thank you for acknowledging that, by the way, because I feel like that's something that people don't even think about. Obviously, men don't even think about it because they don't see it. But um, I feel like I've had a really great experience working with a lot of really amazing men. Obviously, I've had a couple interactions that I'm not too happy about, but at the end of the day, I think exactly like you said, not looking at it as a hindrance, but as your differentiator, it's in it's remarketing. When I first started in home improvement, I'm like, oh God, I have to wear khakis and a polo and I have to like not wear any makeup and be very, you know, rigid. But I'm like, wait, that's not me at all. So I'm going to curl my long blonde hair. I'm gonna wear my high heel obnoxious red bottoms and I'm gonna be myself. And if people like it, they like it. And if they don't, they don't. But every single person that has interacted with me cares about one thing, and that's my effectiveness, that's my knowledge. And when I start talking to them about it and they see that I'm passionate and that I have an answer, they're like, oh shit, okay. Well, she kind of knows what she has going on. And then the concept of me being a woman kind of goes over their head. I have a really amazing mentor, um, Amy Zimmerman, and she was talking to me about when she was younger in this space that she would watch men look at her at the beginning, talking to her because they were trying to hit on her or they were interested in her. And as she was talking about what she does, she could see their faces change from she's attractive to oh, she's freaking smart. And I love that. And I feel like like that's kind of I I experienced that. I wouldn't say a a lot in terms of feeling uncomfortable or anything like that, but it's more so just watching people realize, oh, okay, this person could present themselves a certain way, but they freaking know it and they're dialed in. So yeah, it's great. I I would I would say too that there's a lot of, like you mentioned, a lot of really amazing upcoming women in this space. And one thing that you can't do in home improvement is you can't make enemies. We're all very well connected. We all know each other, we're all best friends. And if you come into this space as a woman and you're like, I want to uplift other women, we're all gonna pick you up with us. Like there is no concept of there's like that that picture where the guys in the hole, two guys in the hole, they put the ladder down, the one guy cla climbs up and pulls it up behind him. It's the exact opposite for home improvement women. We're like, we want to lift all of you up. You come on stage with me, I come on stage with you, I promote you, I, you know, repost your LinkedIn, this and that. And I think it's really great that we have such a strong connection.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I love it. It's about helping each other out. And I know from running call centers too that, man, I've I've run a lot of sales orgs, right? And we it's probably even, I think it was like 95% men, right? And it was hard to find to find females and feet. But when you had a female that knew how to sell, oh my God, it was like lights out.
SPEAKER_01:Our top closer at Tundra Land was a like a woman in her 50s, and she killed it. She was closing over half a million dollars a year. She was amazing. And so I think that there's this perception that certain people should fill certain roles. And if you listen to it at these conferences, you hear when they talk about sales, they say, you're sales guys, you know, you're canvassing guys, which I I don't think that it comes with malice, of course. I think it's just a knee-jerk reaction. But there's a lot of really talented women that can close just about anyone.
SPEAKER_00:So you know, I I mean, I I I've been in sales a long time, 20-something years, right? And I I think we talked about home improvement being great, that you can come in this industry, and if you have the tenacity, the determination, you can make a lot of money. And I feel like I've said it many times, sales is the equalizer in society, right? But I always wonder about with this new generation, with the being on the phones and SMS and then all this AI, is is it a dying art? You know, what do you think about that?
SPEAKER_01:I was talking to someone about that actually, someone at uh Premier home last night, uh, Marcus Ackman, and Premier is is killing it. They're they're growing, I think, to like 180 million this year. So they've had tremendous growth and they've only been around for three years. So they're they're killing it. But I said that to him, I was like, don't you think that as the generation gets a little older that they're not gonna, or excuse me, as the younger generation gets a little older, they're not gonna want to be on the phones. And he's like, Sonia, think about what old, sorry, but think about what older people do all day, especially if they're retired. Nothing. They're just they're hanging out. They they want to talk to people, they want to be on the phone, they wanna communicate. And he's like, I think as we get older too, and he's kind of right because I've noticed this. If I really want to talk to someone, as customer service, or if I'm interested in a service, I'm smashing zero on my phone. I'm like, operator, you know, and and I'm 30 years old, but I still want to talk to people. So I think that um people see AI and see the younger generations as so much different than us. But I think the reason why the younger generation seems so much different is just because they're not there yet. And I think, I think they will be, to be honest. But to your point, I think there definitely has to be the opportunity where we meet customers where they're at. So, yes, we're gonna outbound dial, but we also have to have the availability to schedule online, to schedule via text, because yeah, there's gonna probably be a little bit less of a priority on outbound dials, but it's still gonna be a relevant part of the business.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think so. And I also think it's gonna always create opportunities. And you at the end of the you're gonna be all life is about differentiating yourself, right? And if you're someone that's maybe you're a you're a young person, I don't know, again, I forget the generation, I guess so. I don't know if it's Z, alpha, what the heck it is. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? But the point is that if you're someone that can you really take the initiative and you have the desire and the drive, and you you you pick up a sales where you get a mentor that teaches you, you're gonna separate yourself. You're gonna be someone that can grow rapidly with an organization like you have, and you can start your own business and do that kind of stuff. So I think it gives these the the youth an opportunity to really uh sh shine, yeah, or separate yourself from everyone else.
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Powell My biggest insecurity when I started my business, and probably still is, to be honest, is my age. Because people say, Oh, I thought that, you know, you've been in this industry for almost 20 years of what you're talking about. I'm like, oh my God, I need to touch up my Botox. But I I feel like that in itself is kind of something that people judge.
SPEAKER_00:That's a compliment though, right? Because you you you're wise beyond your year.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's and I need to start taking it that way. But I get a little apprehensive when people say, Well, how long have you been doing this? And I'm like, Well, like seven years. And it's yeah, okay, I've been doing this for seven years, but exactly like you said, I leaned into every single resource that I had to learn. And not only did I learn, but I also asked questions. And I also was curious and I also tested. And I think exactly the reason why this industry can be great for anyone even without a traditional education is the same reason why it can be great for young people because you just have to want to learn and want to try. Yes. It's just the best.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and again, it's not going anywhere. There's holes. People, how many I there was a housing shortage appearing now, they need new construction. I mean, it's not a matter. One thing I was gonna say too, why this is good is because it's not a matter of if it's a matter of when you got to replace your roof, right? Your bathroom's gonna have this H V A C plumbing issue. I like I've talked about it before. Yeah, windows, like it's always something. Plumbing, electrical houses that they become headaches. Yeah. People spend. I don't know. I I used to know the stat. Maybe you notice that, but I don't know if it was a$250,000. There's an average amount of money people spend on a lifetime on their homes. Do you know what that is? I don't know. There's a stat I knew it, it's between$250 and$400,000. I guess it depends where the hell you live, too, but it's a lot of money, right? So there's just it's not a matter if it's a matter of when there's something gonna go wrong in your home. So if you know how to fix these issues, you get with a company that's doing the right thing, you know how to brand, you're gonna freaking grow. It's just crazy.
SPEAKER_01:And as a marketer, one thing that I wish I had more control of that I don't is the customer experience. Because, yeah, of course, we we need to generate the lead, we need to sell the lead, but we need to do right by the customer. Right. And the easiest company for a marketer to market is a company that gives a great customer experience. There is no replication for that, there is no substitute for that. If you give a really amazing customer experience, that's gonna go so much further than any campaign that you could ever generate would do.
SPEAKER_00:Do you consult on that too? How do you do that?
SPEAKER_01:Wish I need I need to. I I do a lot of consulting on um the after effects with after you you close. So, how do we build the relationship? How do we get more referrals? How do we make our customer base, our fan base, and have them feel excited about it? But I think the real area of opportunity is for operations. And I think there's honestly a huge opportunity, and I don't really know anyone in the space, but that could really focus on the customer journey from an ops perspective and how to just have the best experience from the customer from the time that we entered their home to the time we leave, because it's incredibly intimate. We're going into their home, probably their biggest investment. They have pictures of their kids there, they have their dogs' water bowl there. Like we're in their space. So if we can make them feel comfortable and even beyond that, make them feel excited that we were there, that's something that's just unimaginably beneficial.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I feel like I don't know. I've I've I'm I'm I'm 46. I've lived for a long time, right? I've seen so much, I feel like customer service that's gone down and down and down and down, right? So if you can be one of those companies that actually provides a spectacular experience, you can that right there is gonna help you double, triple, quadruple, because the word of mouth, that's that's the exponential growth. You tell this person, you told that person, right? And especially we talked about before, right? You've lived in Peru, right? Yep. My mother's Venezuelan, my wife's Colombian. The Hispanic, they you go's good, they tell freaking 20 people. Their cousins know, their name, everyone knows, right? So, and that's not just Hispanic, but like the other cultures. But the bottom line is that by providing that experience, that's how you set you you separate yourself and you're able to distinguish yourself and just provide something no one else is doing anymore. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And you think about our demo uh in home improvement, a lot of people that need a certain I'm gonna circle it back to baths because I think it's the most um the most relevant vertical. But if you're an older person getting your bathroom done, chances are that you have four, five, six different friends that have the same issue. Exactly. And they're gonna say, Oh, you know, Debbie, I heard that you got your bathroom done. Who did it for you? How was it? And you can generate six leads right there that have a 90% chance of closing. And all you have to do is give a great customer experience.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's true. I love it. You dropped this is great. A lot of lot of good knowledge here. And I'm I'm excited for you because I feel like it reminds me, I I I consulted for uh a company in South Carolina. We worked with big utility companies, right? And these are like I was very intimidated when I first got there. We're talking about I'm on calls, we're talking about smart meters. I mean, these are like 100 billion,$50 billion. I think our smallest client was an$800 million rural company, uh utility company in uh Kentucky, right? But they're talking, I'm on these calls, and I'm like, I'm like, this isn't for me. Like, what am I doing here, right? I feel like a moron, right? But I realized, you know what, I don't even need to know that. I just gotta figure out how to get the contact center to get in the homes and set the appointments and da-da-da-da. But the point was that all these massive companies, even the ones up to 100 billion, they had so many holes in their operations. They didn't understand contact centers. So we were the experts at that. So we came in there and then we looked like heroes, right? So that's what it comes down to. I feel like, you know, you you you're in a great niche in that. I'm excited for you. I feel like you're gonna really help these companies grow, keep providing value to American homeowners and helping create jobs.
SPEAKER_01:If you're gonna stay one thing, I want to just end on this, if I could. Brian Gottlieb, one of my really amazing mentors who started Tundra Land, had a great um quote about this. It's very easy to make businesses complicated. It's very difficult to make it simple. And so when you have these huge companies that have all these different tech stacks and they have all these different ways that they're measuring this and that, it's easy to put in more tech and make it complicated. But to really dial it into the fundamentals is the true challenge.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, 100%. I I I love that you said that because it is true. I think that the bigger a company gets happened with us as we're growing like crazy. We become you complicate things. I don't know why. Like what the hell? You lose sight of what the hell are you doing all this for?
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. And it's like, well, we were able to scale this to 10 million, so why can't we just do the same thing that we're doing but do more of it? It's it's it's funny how we as humans feel like we have to do so much more to to get to where we are when The thing that built it in the first place was so easy.
SPEAKER_00:It's funny.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Any last anything else aside from next?
SPEAKER_01:So appreciative. I mean, I I um have so much respect for what you guys have built. I love that you're looking at all these different folks in in the area. And all I would say is like continue to retain information like this, like knowledge like this. Follow the LFG show, watch all the content, reach out to the guests that are on there to be able to learn from them, reach out to your network and just ask. The worst thing that you can do is sit there on your hands and say, Well, I don't know how to do this, so I'm just accepting it. We're in the age of technology where anything you want to learn, anything you want to do is right there at your fingertips, and it's on you to take advantage of that.
SPEAKER_00:I love that you said that because it's true. We've had we've had some amazing guests on our show. We've got some people with exit for a hundred eight hundred and fifty million dollars, you know. Like these people are accessible. Yeah. A lot of them they want to talk, they want to help, right? So I think sometimes people get intimidated, right? You feel like that where there's that scarcity mindset or whatever you want to call it. But Croster syndrome. Yeah, yeah. But just reach out. What's the worst thing that happens? And you know, it's a numbers game at the end of the yeah. Or you can, if you know me, I can help make facilitate that connection, right? But yeah, I love that you said that. But yeah, super excited. Seniya, how can people find out more about you if they want to reach out to you?
SPEAKER_01:Um, go to my LinkedIn, Senia Spellman, S-E-N-J-A. The J is like a Y. Um, add me on LinkedIn, let's connect. You could also email me at Senia at C Sue S I S U Synergy.com, and I would love to be able to chat. I mean, this is just like you, this is what I live for. I'm so passionate about it. Even if you just want to nerd out and talk marketing, like I'm always down for a 30-minute conversation.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. Great energy. Let's go. Send your senia spellman, hit her up, let's make this stuff happen. Your network is your net worth. We got a fucking crazy network of people. I'm not telling me you're average motherfucker. I'm talking about people doing$300,000,$400,000,$500,000 a day in admin. People that made billions of dollars in sales, people that exit their companies for about a billion dollars. We hit 100 episodes. Guess what? We're about to take shit to the next level. So if you want to be part of it, subscribe right now. Remember, no money, no honey. Let's fucking go.