Building a better Business with Guest Brent Garrett

Building a Better Business with Guest Brent Garrett

Building a successful business isn't just about having a great product or service. It's about building the right relationships, investing in your community, and creating opportunities that last.

In this episode, Jeremy and Nick sit down with Brent Garrett to discuss what it really takes to build a stronger business through community involvement, strategic networking, and long term thinking. They explore why sustainable growth comes from trust, consistency, and showing up instead of chasing quick wins.

They discuss what this means for business owners and leaders:

Building Relationships Over Transactions Why lasting business success comes from earning trust and creating genuine connections instead of chasing immediate sales.

Thinking Long Term How investing time in your local business community can create opportunities that continue to pay off for years.

Making the Most of Networking Why simply joining organizations isn't enough and how active participation creates meaningful business growth.

Using Community as a Growth Strategy How local partnerships, business organizations, and community involvement can strengthen your brand and expand your reach.

Investing in Your Business Why successful business owners view marketing, networking, and community engagement as investments rather than expenses.

Creating More Opportunities How consistently showing up, supporting others, and staying involved opens doors to new partnerships, referrals, and leadership opportunities.

Whether you're launching your first business or growing an established company, this conversation offers practical insights on building a business that thrives through strong relationships, strategic networking, and community engagement.

Discover why the strongest businesses aren't built overnight. They're built through trust, consistency, and the connections you create along the way.

Your Brand, Your Back Yard with Jeremy & Nick

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello, listeners. Thanks for tuning in to Your Brand, Your Backyard Podcast. I'm Jeremy Rentz. And I'm Nick Matheny. This podcast is centered around being a business owner, removing chaos, and replacing it with strategy, vision, and clarity. How to build a business, but more importantly, how to build your brand in your backyard.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

So if you're just starting a business, rebranding or expanding, or if you're a marketing professional, a business major, or all of the above, this podcast is created for you. So let's dive in.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

All right. Welcome back, listeners. Uh, hello, Nick. Hello, Brent. I'm really excited for this episode. Uh shortly, we're going to introduce Brent, our uh our guest for today's show. But Nick, it's great to see you. The beard's getting a little longer, I feel like.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

Yeah, you know, it kind of grows out. Kids start saying, I'm getting ready for Christmas in Santa Claus, and then I'll get a little aggressive and trim it down. And so it just kind of depends on how lazy I feel that week, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

I uh, you know, so for a while I had I had my fake little mustache as as much as I could grow. And finally my wife said, no more. It's not elk hunting season. Shave that off. So so I did. I'm I'm mostly clean shaved. Brent, you're you're a clean, clean cut guy.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Well, I'm kind of a Movember guy. I'm a I'm a I'm a fly fisherman, and and uh I look I look forward to days I don't have to shave. And I can go about four or five days, but then it starts to just get a little itchy and I it's gotta go away.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Yeah. Nick, you're past that itchy point.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Yeah, the funny part is I never never really wore a beard until the last you know year or so. I grew it out, and then my wife's like, I don't know about it. And then so finally I I shaved it off one day, and she was like, No, I think I like the beard better. So I'm like, great. So I'm like, all right, we'll go back to the beard and it's less work. So that's kind of how it works.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

So, Brent, fly fisherman. Um, by the way, Nick, happy father's day. Brent, are you are you a father? I am. I got a 26 and a 29-year-old. So well, happy Father's Day belated to both of you gentlemen. Sunday I woke up, did did a little fishing with my father and my oldest daughter. We had a fantastic morning, caught a couple nice rainbow, rainbow trout out of the uh uh the river up in up in the mountains here in Colorado. So that was that was a blast.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Man, I'm so jealous. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

I gotta spend my day at the lacrosse fields watching uh a bunch of 12 and 13 year olds beat each other around the field.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

So that was nothing like fishing with your dad either. So that's awesome. And your daughter.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

And my daughter, yeah. Best of both worlds. And then you'll appreciate this being from Texas. I smoked some ribs, smoked some salmon. Uh, that was my afternoon. It was it was great, delicious. Turned out well. It was like a great day. Yes. Well, uh, let's uh let's dive in here. I want to uh let me formally introduce Brent. I'm I'm very excited, really great to connect, Brent, and uh, you know, this is gonna be a real treat, both for for Nick and I, but also for our listeners. And I know that you've got uh a ton of experience. Uh so I'm really, really excited to shed uh shed some light here. So Brent Garrett is the president of Sirius Plumbing and Air Conditioning. Uh you're in North Dallas, right? Plano, Plano, Texas. Exactly. You got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great area. Uh air conditioning is pretty important there this time of year, I'm guessing. Especially this time of the year, yeah. It's pretty humid out there. Job security. You're also the founder of the Skilled Trades Coach and the author of 30 Days to a Better Business. Brent brings more than 30 years of experience building and operating skilled trades and home service businesses. After spending decades in the field, Brent learned firsthand what it takes to build a company that can grow beyond the owner. His journey includes overcoming challenges and scaling the business, building stronger systems, developing leaders, and creating a team-driven organization. Today, Brent helps contractors and home service business owners improve their leadership, operations, financial discipline, and business structure so they can build companies that are more valuable, sustainable, and less dependent on them, them being the owner, right? We talk a lot about working on the business or working in the business. Right. So I'm sure you're gonna uh take a deeper dive into that. But my first question, Brent, is beyond what what I just said in terms of the introduction, I want to go back. I want to go back to the beginning. Tell us and tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself and really how you got started in the industry, how you got started, or why you wanted to start your own business, your own company.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, it it by the way, thanks for having me on. Jeremy Nix, great to be with you. I I am a Midwest boy. I grew up in Illinois, and uh, and my father was a plumbing and heating contractor in the Midwest. And uh I've spent most of my adult life in Texas, uh, went to school in Arkansas, but my formal training started at the age of 12 on the end of a shovel working for my dad. So I I learned the plumbing business as a lesson to, as my dad put it, find something else to do. You're gonna go to college and you're not gonna be a plumbing and air conditioning guy. And so I'll get to that in a minute. But education background was marketing and accounting. I'm a I'm a plumber trapped in an accountant's body. I uh I upset and broke my dad's heart when I told him uh my last semester in college that I wanted to start a plumbing and air cuchine business. And so it, my dad was a drill sergeant. He uh he had a full scholarship as a fullback and a punter. I was a quarterback in college, and and uh and so instead of going to college, he was on a boat to Korea halfway through his senior year. So you can kind of feel the emotion that he wanted his kids, we're all first generation graduates. And uh when I told him that I wanted to start my own business, it broke his heart. And uh, and if you know anything about drill sergeants, he quickly got over that and went went real, real, real uh firm and tough and loud on that. So he said, Hey, I'm so upset, I can't even talk to you right now. I'll be back in two weeks. He came back and said, Look, if you're gonna do this, I want you to make me a promise. And I said, What I said, if it'll calm you down, that'll be great. What do I need to do? And and uh he said, You for the next two years, you need to go to work for one of these three companies. He did a little research. It's the best advice I ever got. And he said, You go to work for either Mutual New York, New York Life, or uh Northwestern Mutual, or uh maybe it was uh Mutual New York, can't remember which one in the order, but I chose New York Life. I learned how to sell, and uh and I will tell you that uh it was it was the best advice I ever got. I did start my own business from scratch, had a 50-page business plan, about 5,000 bucks, and and started that from the truck. Five years later, I I sold that to a Fortune 300 company called Service Master and uh did mergers and acquisitions there and got hired away to be the CEO of a multifamily real estate management company in the Southeast. We uh managed about oh, about four, about 40,000 units, and we had 2,500 employees. And then my wife and I came back to Texas. That that business was in Memphis, and I've been here ever since. We started another ground up plumbing and air conditioning company, and we've had that. It's been a lifestyle business, and uh that has been what we've done forever. On the other side of that wall are about 30 hardworking folks doing plumbing and air conditioning in the North Dallas area. And I own a business. I don't work in the business, I coach the coaches and um and do a little bit of coaching with businesses, and that's what I'm gonna do for the next 20 years. So hope that was a quick enough snapshot on the whole resume there.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

That was great. You know, a lot of people don't know this, but I spent several years in the financial industry and started with New York Life. Hey, it's the company you keep, Jeremy. Yeah, I I still have all my policies. Uh my family's protected. I I I joke that I'm worth more dead than I am alive. But, you know, when you have a family, when you have kids, uh mortgage, you know, we've got 10 acres and horses and chickens. You got you got to be covered. They have to be covered.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Yeah, and I had such a great trainer. Uh and and I just I can remember all of those things I learned. You know, Jeremy, we got two problems to solve. We either live too long or die too short. New York life can take care of both those problems. And and I just, it was a great experience. And uh so, and I'm sure you would agree the training was invaluable.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Training was phenomenal, a great company, great structure, longstanding company. So, yeah, 100% I agree. One of the things that you you just mentioned, and I want to go back to this before we move forward, 50-page business plan. You know, through through my experience, I feel like that is a key component that so many new business owners forget or kind of, you know, neglect it or half-ass it, you know, for for lack of a better word. Walk me through your business plan. Is that something that you're redoing every year? Did you just kind of set it and leave it? Or is there moving targets that so walk our listeners through what that process looks like from the 50 paid original plan to how does that change uh, you know, year over year or quarterly or monthly?

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Yeah, I I spend a whole week on business planning in my book. It's uh it's over 30 days. First week is sales, second week is leadership, third week is planning and scaling your business. You know, a lot of my clients, coaching clients, are in obviously the skilled trades lane, but I do work with a lot of small business owners. U.S. Department of Labor statistics say that if you start a business today, 20%, you know, 20 out of 100 will be out of business first year. And after five years, over 50% of those companies will be out of business. And they cite about three or four reasons why they happen. Some they they just fail to plan. They don't have a plan and think through uh the key pieces of business planning. Second is they run out of cash. Um, they don't have enough cash to sustain themselves. The other is is a sales, a defined sales and marketing plan. But business planning allows you to make mistakes on paper and in your mind before you play it out in reality. You know, is there a viable market? What are the market demographics? How are you gonna go to market? What's your culture? What's your brand? What's your branding statement? What are your financials and your budget for the next three to five years? Those are just a couple of things. Now, I will tell you that I'm a much bigger fan now at this age. I'm 61 now. And, you know, when you say over 30 years, I got to be somewhere up there, somewhere. But but I like one-page business plans, but but everything needs to have a sales plan. You got to have financials, you got to have an understand what your funding's gonna be, and then and and then exit strategies. And you go, why do I need an exit strategy when I start? Because you want to begin with what you're begin with what your vision is. And and if I could share anything with your listeners, when I talk to my my clients, one of the things we're continually doing is revising our business planning. But most importantly, what we're doing is when we have an end goal or a vision, and it should be to grow your equity. Your business needs to be worth something when you're done. That means that we're going to own a business, not run a business, not be in a business for a couple of different reasons. We can talk about that later. But when somebody values your business, if you're not key to it, meaning you're not in the day-to-day operations, they're going to pay you more for that business because what you own is a process in your business. So that business plan addresses all those issues. And man, it's interesting how when you set the future, how your mind goes to work on what you need to do today that helps you get there. You you immediately go to work on things that you know are in alignment with what your end goal is.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Yeah. I'm really great. I'm really glad I asked that question because there were some really, really good nuggets there, Brent.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

Yeah, I had a few things I that I want to jump into. And it's interesting when you're talking about that, you know, I just started another business recently, and the whole mindset when I started, I said, this is something I'm going to sell in seven years. And so I when I set out with understanding that was the end goal, it changed how I set up the front end and it fundamentally really shaped the way I run the business. So I think that's really important. I want to go back though to when you talked about, you know, coming out of college, you know, how many people that you know they come out of that stage, and I my oldest son is 23 and coming out of school, I'm like, they have no idea what they want to do. They just want to get a job, right? So so the fact that you wanted to run a business early on, I think is is really important to understand that entrepreneurial mindset, but more importantly, the timing of it, right? So going and working somewhere else for three years. So so much about business in my mind is yes, you have to have a good idea, you have to have the passion for it and willingness to work, you got to have a plan, but you also have the timing has to be right. So can you talk a little bit more about that? How going to work for someone else and learning those sales skills, how that truly set you up then to run your first business?

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Yeah, I it was just I didn't, I didn't fully understand how wise it was for my dad. And I went back to him and I said, Hey, why, why did you, number one, feel so badly about me going and starting a plumbing and air conditioning business? He saw that as a step back. He had an accounting degree. Why would you go start a business? But the second piece, I said, why New York life and why sales? And he said, look, he said, I did some research and I found what companies had the absolute best training for sales. Plus, Brent, you need to experience what it's like to be straight commission because if you own your own business, you only have yourself to rely on. And those two pieces were the best advice he gave me about business. He gave me a lot of a lot of advice about how to live, but but as far as business goes, it would it was the best advice I had. Had I not done that, and in in my first chapter in the book, I say sales covers a multitude of sends. If you read my book, you're gonna hear, and I want you guys to understand, and and the listeners out there, I've had a lot of business success, and I have been inches from bankruptcy. It is, it is, there is an ebb and flow to owning businesses. And there's a story about how I got to that point. But at every business problem we have, most of the answers come from a revenue solution of some sort. And and and I just look, any problem you have, sales can cover a lot of mistakes to make sure that you keep that engine running. So if there was the one piece I think my dad, the other thing he said, he said, if I had learned that he was kind of a two, three truck kind of business. And that's where about 80% of the business, I'm sorry, yeah, about 80% of the businesses in our industry are. It's two or three trucks. Because they just they just can't seem to learn how to get out of what I call that messy middle and get to to owning a business rather than running it. They they, you know, and in my business, I always say they always keep the tool belt off and they never take it off and move toward running a business, not being in it. So that was the one piece that I thought I needed to tool, retool for, and and and learn. It's interesting. I sold that first business, and the reason I sold it, kind of to your point, Nick, was not I I sure enjoyed the money that came with it, and I and that was really cool. But I really sold the business for a different reason. I needed that polish and experience to be able to learn how to lead and manage people, organize, scale. I needed, I needed uh a little more um experience in management. And I got I got that, I was drinking from a fire hose on that.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

Yeah, you guys you can't you can't accelerate relationships, you can't accelerate experience sometimes, right? You just have to go through the mistakes. Can you dig into a little bit more? And sorry, Jeremy, to jump in on this, but the difference that I see a lot of times is people don't understand the difference between being self-employed and being a business owner. You know, self-employed, you can make a great amount of money, you can be very successful, but you are the person doing it. It's the owner-operator model. And, you know, my parents owned a hardware store in a small town and they owned it, and but they were there every day. Versus what you're talking about, speaking being an owner that actually has a system in place and delegates things and still can control the direction of the business, but doesn't have to be involved in the you know, the hands-on and everything. So can you talk a little bit about that where where your mind, you know, as your mind over your career started to shift into that true business ownership and how that changed how you did things?

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Yeah, I had I had the pleasure of reading some really good books. One was Michael Gerber's E Myth. Second one was Stephen Covey's Seven Habits, Highly Affected People. Now I'm really dating myself. But I also I think leaders are readers, and leaders are always looking to improve. And I like to say, and I'm not the first person to say this. I think I actually heard from a guy named Jim Rohn, but you have to work harder on yourself than you do your job. And and your growth, your personal growth, needs to outrun and be out in front of your business growth. And so you're constantly retooling yourself. But if I could, I'd like to share the characteristics and differences between people who own a job. And I want to say this. I've heard a lot of consultants and small business coaches talk about owning a job as it's something undesirable. It's not, it's just not a place where you want to stay forever. Look, owning a job has a lot of benefits over working for somebody. Okay, but it has a lot of traps too. And it and it can it can burn you out, uh, you can go bankrupt, you know, your business can fail on a number of different fronts. But I'll just say in my industry that I'm in, it's a hundred and twenty-five billion dollar industry a year. And eighty percent of the contractors are a million and a half or less, and those folks tend to make somewhere between eighty and a hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year. Fifteen to twenty percent of the contractors are a million and a half or higher. They tend to make somewhere between 350 and a half a million dollars a year on the average. What is it that those 15 to 20 percent folks are doing that the 80%? Number one is they think who not do. They are they are staffing and getting rid of the hats that don't fit real well for them. And that's really a fun coaching point when I'm working with with clients because there's nothing like getting rid of a hat that, first of all, you don't like doing the work, it it drains you, and you find somebody else that you just start to feel liberated. And that's really what the what the process is. The other things, it's five things they think who not do. They spend eight to twelve percent of their revenue on sales and marketing, they make sure that their trucks are stocked or they're able to make a one-stop shop, they're reducing their overheads. They and we can come back to this one, but it's that they understand what Parkinson's law is. And Parkinson's law, Parkinson's law says is that the work is filled in the time allotted. So if I have two jobs to do, it takes me eight hours. If I have five jobs to do today, it takes me eight hours. That's a really important thing to learn. And then they leverage technology, they use software, they use AI, they use things that are available to them to lower their overheads. So I really kind of did a deep dive there, Nick. I hope I answered your question. But there's a real difference. And where I find my clients come to me is when they're in that messy middle and it looks like a swirling drain. Okay. And usually where they are is I say, man, I just keep working harder, but I don't seem to get anywhere. And it looks Like I'm making less money than I did when I was half the revenue. And I've got, and everything that looks like an answer for me is just to work harder. And I just don't have any more time to spend. And they can really feel real desperation in it. It can affect their marriage. It can affect their relationships. It can affect their pride and their ego. And let me tell you what, it's a very lonely conversation in your head when you feel like you're doing that by yourself because you're a winner. You have the ability. It's just a couple different things you have to do that those 15 to 20% folks are doing. And you just got to build a step-by-step plan to work toward that.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

I love that. Go back through and you just quick recap the the five things that you just mentioned.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Yeah. So in my industry, there the five things and and and they're all they all adapt to other small businesses. They're just looking, but but number one is who not do. The second one is they flat rate their work. They rate they they they they do their work by project instead of time and material. And they shoot for the proper gross margin. They know their numbers. They know what they have to charge and they have a grasp of how to price their business for a certain bottom line profit. They have rolling warehouses, meaning that they're stocked and able to improve the client experience, and they hold their trips and excess labor so that they can maximize their profit. Time boxing is we know that we have to do the work in a certain allotted time. And there's a way to visit and talk to our customers so that they understand how that benefits them as well. It's performance driven. Compensation isn't usually by the hour. If it is by the hour, it's a component, not the only component. There's something there that rewards people to be better, faster, cheaper, to remain humble, hungry, and smart. And then the last one is leveraging technology.

SPEAKER_02 24:17

Brent, can you talk a little bit about one of the things that I've seen, especially when you're doing in the contractor space, anything that's uh, you know, in that couple handyman businesses, I think a lot of businesses struggle with asking a higher rate, maybe because they're afraid of hearing no, or they're afraid of, well, I might lose some jobs because I charge more. And that's maybe one of the things that really holds them back is their own mental mindset of I don't want to hear no, or I might lose some customers by charging the higher rates. So can you talk a little bit about that, about the mindset of being able to charge and just say, if this is what the price is, if if if you don't want to do it, it's okay. But this is what we charge and having that that holding that price equity, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Yeah. Typically, the people who start in skilled trades, they're really good at doing things. They do things with their hands, right? And they drive a lot of value from what they provide and what they do. It's a service. The last thing they want to be seen as is a salesperson. And so we just get rid of that and we put a sales process in the client experience. And we give them permission to never be a salesperson again, be the expert. And when when we go to the job, we build rapport, we ask really good questions to understand the customer's problems. We provide solutions through a Harvard business study called Good Better Best, or or what we call must, should, could. And then what we do is we encourage the customer to buy, not be sold. So based on what they said they wanted, which option looks best for their home to keep it healthy, safe, and clean. And I'm here to do the follow-through and provide that service and have and make sure that you get exactly what you said you wanted. So we're not really selling the process, it's just a step-by-step method to where we help the customer guide through the pro, we guide the customer through the process to a solution that they said they wanted. And if that doesn't work with my clients, I say, look, go out there, ask them what they want, and insist that they have it, and then tell them how much it is. You'll never be a salesman ever again. Yeah. And if they don't get it then, I say, look, what if you went into the doctor's office, you had a problem with your ankle, they put you in a room, doctor walks in, they don't take any vitals, they don't look at you, they don't ask you any questions and say, I've got your heart transplant lined up for tomorrow. If you want to sell, that's what it looks like, because the patient or the client has no idea why you're doing what you're doing.

SPEAKER_02 27:09

Yeah, to me, it's really the pull strategy of laying it out and letting the customers pull you in versus the push strategy of, I'm a business owner, I want to make a sale so I make more money. And I think that's what you're describing there. And I think that's spot on.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

And so the way we build that foundation is say three flip three things have to be in place before somebody will buy from you. Value's got to exceed price. They have to want you. Likeability is so important in the sales process. They have to want you for their problems. Then you got to make it affordable. Well, the first half of the call is is all about likability. And that may be at times where if we'd have somebody that's a little more introverted, they love the process because they can cling to something that's a checklist instead of something they have to be outwardly, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

I love that. One of the things that that stood out, and you know, Nick and I, we have a marketing background. We talk a lot about that. I think a lot of businesses fail because of lack of marketing and lack of exposure, right? Community awareness. I mean, this podcast is your brand, your backyard. How do you build a business? But more importantly, how do you build a brand that becomes recognizable and trustworthy? You touched on, you know, 8 to 12% with your sales and marketing. Can you take a deeper dive into some of what you have done and kind of why you set on that 8 to 12% with your marketing budget? Sure. Great question.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

And it's a huge question. And you know it is, Jeremy. So let me say that marketing is a hundred, maybe a thousand things done in unison. But the the first mindset change we have to make is marketing is not an expense, it's an investment over time. The best book I've ever read in my life was actually read to me when I was three to five. And it's The Tortoise and the Hare. Slow and Steady wins the race. I'm a Midwest guy. We want to build one customer at a time because word of mouth um is the most valuable, but I would tell you the most expensive advertising because you have to do a lot of things right the same way every time. So marketing by definition for me is everything that your customers, clients, employees, and vendors see, hear, smell, or touch. Well, that's that's a lot. Okay. And so it starts with, you know, what do they see? Do they see consistent colors? Do they see consistent fonts? Do they see consistent brands that look and they start triggering where, hey, the hat, the name badge, the truck, the website all starts to look the same. People start getting comfortable with that feel. And over time, slow and steady wins the race. A lot of our marketing is Toma, top of mind awareness, because we're in the right now business. They need to be familiar with our brand before, way before they think they have a problem. And so consistency, and I'll get to your 8 to 12% question here, but consistency over time, like you're investing in your own financial plan, is the way marketing should work. It should be really boring, really consistent, really accurate. We don't spend money on SEO for pay-per-click. We spend money on SEO and LSAs with Google so that our existing customers and those who have seen different images of our company were easy to find. On the average, we have spent 4% to 6% of our total revenue and have consistently grown double digits year over year for the last 10, 15 years. And we are just starting to get to a big growth phase where we'll spend 8 to 12%. But the heavy marketing companies that have a different philosophy are spending as much as 25 to 30 percent. You didn't ask me this question, but there are a lot of marketing companies out there that are selling hope and a dream, not a consistent marketing plan. And unfortunately, I see a lot of my clients before they get to us spending excessive amounts of money on hope, not a plan.

SPEAKER_02 31:57

I could couldn't agree with that more. I think there people forget that when somebody's selling advertising, they're typically selling advertising. That's how they make money. And so everybody's gonna say, we're the best, we're the best, we're the best. And and there is no one type of advertising that fits every industry, every company perfectly, right? And so it's ultimately on the business owner to kind of make educated decisions on what works best for them, right? There's nothing inherently good or bad about any type of advertising, it's how you're using that. And I think that's what you're talking about there. You got to figure out what your purpose is, what you're trying to accomplish, and then see what vehicles allow you to do that.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

Yeah. And I want to make I said some marketing companies, guys. I've been with the same SEO expert for our company, and he's been with us for over seven years. It's a it's a partnership. There's some really good marketing companies out there, but I'm just telling you in this small, small, short, brief time on the marketing phase and your question, if you're spending more than 8 to 12% of your total revenue, maybe check yourself, check your marketing company. I'm not saying don't do it, but ask some really, really important questions. You set the amount your marketing company doesn't.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

That's great. We could stop right now. And there were, you know, so many nuggets uh so far through, you know, through this show. Toma, top of mind awareness, consistency. And I feel like those are common mistakes where business owners are not investing enough. They look at it as like I'm spending money, right? I need to cut back, or you know, I need to stop doing this so I can do this. Well, the truth and reality is, is you got to do as much as you can afford, right? You set a budget, you create a marketing plan and a strategy, who is, you know, your targeted audience, and you go right at them all the time, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:59

And and as much as you can do. Could I offer just one more thing on marketing, which is a huge part of our marketing plan, but the fundamental key to our business. What we do, it's plumbing and air conditioning. Why we do it, and I'm, yes, Simon Senek has gone viral on YouTube with this. But why we do what we do is to make lives better. That is a that is a tagline. Taglines can either be cute or they can be to your core in what your culture is. Our culture is to make lives better for our team, our customers, and our vendors. We do it four different ways. We serve each other, we focus on progress, not perfection. We train and develop our team and we grow profitably and we grow profitably so we can reinvest back in our why to make lives better. That is not something that goes on the wall and looks pretty. It's something that we tell our customers and we show our customers, both in in publication and marketing, but we live it every day. And and that is branding as well. It's what they see, hear, feel, or touch. The feel part is often neglected.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

Why is so sticking with the marketing and branding, we know why we have a marketing plan and strategy for customer awareness and and new client acquisition, right? To sales, right? Sales solves a lot. Why is marketing and branding important for the culture, for the team?

SPEAKER_01 35:38

Yeah. So uh the the team part is is that they have to believe and buy in to go on. You can't scale your business if you can't live out your culture. That starts with the leader. I, you know, I mentioned in the book, I keep tying this back to the book. In the leadership part, hey, are you worth following? If you can't live it, they won't live it. Right? If you don't believe it, they won't believe it. You you know, you don't go to McDonald's and ask for a quarter pounder and sat and you're satisfied when they hand you a whopper, right? There's a certain expectation of what somebody's gonna get, right? So in our business, when you scale a business that's a service business, that means you have to develop consistency on what the client experiences is. And so your brand is lived out in your in your service. So when you go to marketing, if your words don't match your actions, people can't follow that and they can't believe in it. And and those are rules for referability. When you show up on time, do what you say you're gonna do, follow through, say please and thank you. People are going to refer you to other people because they can trust you. And that's what that's what branding combined with sales is all about. Can I trust that what you say is actually gonna come true in the physical? Yeah. That's great stuff. Talking about it. It's a great question. Well, you could do a you could do an hour podcast just on marketing. I without a doubt.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Yeah. At least Nick and I, we could probably sit here for five hours and talk about that one topic.

SPEAKER_02 37:29

But again, think about the now the amount of money I've personally spent over the years, and it makes you passionate about it because you're like, wait a minute, I've I've wasted, you know, by making my choices, I've sometimes wasted money on things I should have spent other places, but I've invested at. And you start talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars and and up, and all of a sudden you start becoming like, you know what, I'm gonna kind of understand this market a little more because I've spent a lot of money on this stuff every year. And and so it is easy to get passionate about it when you're actually doing it.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

It's funny, guys. I'm writing, I'm writing my next book, and it's called 48, 48 low-cost things you can do to uh to market your business or advertise. And it's just four actions a month. You can do the math on that, you'll end up to 48. And you do you do it on a calendar year. And they're simple, easy things like going on to your Google Ads page and make sure that you have your operating hours and what you do and how you can be contacted and your website and and those things where people go and look. And that's just that's one of 48. If you do those things and you are scaling your business, it's a great start. And that these things, when I say low cost, some of them don't cost a dime, just your time.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's great. Looking forward to that. I'm I'm I'm all about the that new book. So keep keep us posted on that one. Speaking of book, uh, as we kind of wrap up our time together, Brent, which is which has been amazing, great information. Uh thanks again for being on here. The author of 30 Days to a Better Business, you want to kind of wrap us up and and uh talk talk a little bit more about that?

SPEAKER_01 39:09

Yeah, just real quick 30 30 Days to a Better Business. I've I spent three years writing it. And and it's it is it's meant to be read over a 30-day period or a month, and each week has a theme. The first three weeks are in narrative style between a mentor and a mentee. And people have asked me, hey, are you are you Carl, which is the mentor, or Evan, which is the mentee. I said, well, really, these first three weeks are all the mistakes that I've made and all the things that I would tell my younger self. So I say, well, I'm kind of both of them. But I already covered the first week, is on it's on sales because it covers a multitude of sins. Leadership, because we just talked about it. Part of your brand is you have to you have to develop your culture and you have to be able to communicate what it is you want people to do and follow in your organization. Third one is business planning. We talked a little bit about that. The fourth one, if you make it that far through, I tried to make accounting and KPIs somewhat exciting and easy to read. I certainly talk about gross profit. You have to win at the gross profit level. And then the fifth week is what are the characteristics that great companies have? And there's about five or six things there. And then I really put a lot of time into the appendix because there's a lot of examples, samples, mainly financial, because those are the things that my industry tends to shy away from. And it's really a danger if they don't know their numbers. But the book is really just about me sharing over 30 years many mistakes that I made and what I had to learn or do to fix them and how to scale and grow your business.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

You know, Brent, I I have not read the book yet. I'm really, really excited. You you uh have enticed me, you've caught my interest. It's all the things that I enjoy, that I want to read about, that I want to implement, but also bring to, you know, our listeners, bring to my own staff, my own team, and sharpen my axe a little bit with my businesses. This has been a lot of fun. So, Nick, as we wrap up here, what are a couple of key takeaways?

SPEAKER_02 41:31

Well, I think for me, and I couldn't agree more with the stuff you're covering. I think it's so spot on. I think it's understanding successful businesses don't just happen. They're made. There's a structure, there's a plan, there's a system, and there's a willingness to f for for people to either learn that on their own through the hard knocks or to reach out to others and help them with that. So I think that's number one that I just see consistently. Successful businesses get there because of those actions. Number two is that being an entrepreneur is hard, but it's incredibly satisfying. And so what you're talking about is showing on the backside of, hey, all those things early on. Now you get to live the life of a true business owner and you get to do some passion projects and you get to help other people. So that's really my two biggest takeaways. And I hope our listeners got that as well today.

SPEAKER_00 42:23

Yeah. So, Brent, thank you again for our listeners, Brent Garrett, longstanding entrepreneur and business leader author. It's been a great pleasure. Go out, find his book, 30 Days to a Better Business. If you want to grow, if you want to succeed, and if you don't want to just survive, but you want to thrive. This has been great information, Brent. And thanks again. Until next time, Nick, we'll see you later. Brent, thanks for hopping on. Thanks, guys. Thanks. Have a good day. Thanks for listening to the Your Brand, Your Backyard Podcast. I'm Jeremy Rentz. And I'm Nick Matheny. Be sure to like, follow, and subscribe. And tune into the next episode. More great content coming soon.