The Home Service Expert Podcast - Building A Successful Sales Strategy to Get New and Repeat Customers

Episode Date: May 16, 2019

Ali Mirza is a consultant and sales business strategy. He is the CEO of Rose Garden Consulting, which he started in 2011. He is also the host of a podcast called For the Close. He provides mentorship and guidance to companies in need of assistance in formulating and executing business strategies. In this episode, we talked about sales strategy, business scaling, following up with customers...

Before we get the podcast going, I wanted to let you guys know that the Home Service Millionaire book is available now at homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash success. And it's for free. All you got to do is pay for shipping. It's homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash success. And it's a hardcover copy. And I put a lot of extra things in this book. So please be sure to order your book. And I also made it available on audio. Go to homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash audio and download your own audio book. Thanks. This is the Home Service Expert podcast with Tommy Mello. Let's talk about bringing in some more money for your home service business.

Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week, Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the Home Service Millionaire, Tommy Mello. Hey guys, welcome back to the Home Service Expert. My name is Tommy Mello and today I have a special guest. His name is Ali Mirza and we're going to be focusing on sales strategy. There's a lot of people that say, when you zig, we zag. And there's a lot to be talked about in discovery and the follow-up and how it's done. Let me tell you a little bit about Ali. He

specializes, he's a consultant in sales business strategy, scaling your business. He's the CEO at Rose Garden Consulting. He started that in 2011. He's the host of a podcast called For the Close. And he's a mentor to a propellant lab company. And I can tell you this, I've got the honor to meet with him. He actually took me to dinner about six weeks ago. He's part of my Young Entrepreneur Council, YEC.co. And he just really, he knows what he's doing. He understands how to connect with customers. And he deals a lot with software and higher end customers, but he knows how to lead people and he knows sales. And it was really interesting when we were sitting down, he discussed a lot of things that he does. He was actually took his company to Sedona and had a lot of time to just talk about strategy and how they're going to start out this year and what

they're going to do to become successful and hit the goals that they're reaching for. And I'm really excited to have you on. How are you doing, brother? I'm doing well, brother. How are you doing? I'm great. You know, you were also named the blogger of the year, brother. How are you doing? I'm great. You were also named the Blogger of the Year in 2017. How did that go? It went well. It went well. It's about creating content, pushing it out there. And in all honesty, I never wanted to be a blogger. I'm not big on content like that, or at least I wasn't. It was really just a lot of... You see a lot of stuff, people saying a lot of stuff, and I'm like, nah, that's wrong't. It was really just a lot of... You see a lot of stuff, people saying a lot of stuff, and I'm like, nah, that's wrong. So it was really just me just being a

smartass and trying to put proper information out in the marketplace. And then, hey, some people took notice of it. So that was good. Yeah, I want to dig into that too in a little bit. But I'd love to hear... Well, the first thing I always do on the podcast is to get your story. You've closed over $100 million in sales. You obviously know what you're doing. You know how to get a hold of the key decision makers. I want to hear about how you started in the career, where you're at today to start out with.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So I started my sales career when I was 19. I was the guy that would go door-to-door selling life insurance. And so you want to talk about a tough gig that'll put hair on your chest. I mean, that did it for me. So I did that for a number of years. I eventually got promoted up to sales manager,

had a sales team of about 50 reps. We were the number one team in the country. Lots of really good things. But the truth is never too far around the corner. I said some things to maybe some of the leadership and some of the executives that maybe I shouldn't have. And that's just my personality. And I ended up getting fired.

So I'm just like, okay, what do I do with my life now? And so I just said, I'm a salesman, let me sell. And so originally... So that's actually when we started up Rose Garden Consulting. And originally, we were just like a hired gun. So you had a product service solution to sell, but you don't want to run a sales team. So you brought us in, put us on retainer, paid us a kicker when we actually closed the deal. And it was going really, really great.

We had several clients. And I'd say about two and a half years into it, one of my clients comes up to me and says, Hey, things are going great and all, but you get hit by a bus tomorrow, we're back to square one. I said, well, yeah, you're right about that. And he said, well, why don't you write down what you do for us? I said, well, that's not our original engagement, so why don't you pay me for it?

And he actually said yes. And that's kind of when the light bulb went off in my head and I was like, wait, hang on. This is infinitely more scalable. So that's actually when we pivoted. That was about, I'd say, five years ago. And since then, we've just been working with companies on a project basis, going in there

and really looking at their sales strategies and understanding where the gaps are, all the things that they're doing well, all the things that they're not doing so well, and really a lot of the things that they should be doing that they're not. Then we kind of go in there, we help them, and we scope it all out for them and put them on the right track and point them in the right direction. I love that. You've got this experience with these higher-end clients

and you realize one thing that it's the gift that keeps giving. And how important is it to hold on to a current client and go after that next big, I think, that big shiny star? That's one of the things that I think us as entrepreneurs, we struggle with, right? We're always looking for the next big thing. And one of the things that we have to understand, and then again, there's a few different ways of doing this, but one of the things we have to understand is, it's one thing to go and chase, like you said, the big shiny star and get the stuff that gets our testosterone pumping, gets us our adrenaline jumping.

But at the same time, we made commitments and promises to the people while we were chasing them. And now that they've said yes, we have to fulfill on those commitments. And so for the first few years, I was the lead consultant, but then I was also the main salesperson. So we'd go through these peaks and valleys of, let's say, a quarter in which I was focused on biz dev

and really selling. And then when you sell a couple deals, now we spend a quarter building out, actually doing all the delivery. So we had these peaks and valleys all the time because our pipeline would run dry while I was delivering for clients. And so for us, it really became about specialization. And I'm a firm believer, you can only serve one master at a time. So for me, I'm going to do what I enjoy and what I'm best at, which is working with people at a high level, strategizing, and really being a visionary for the organization. So I stay there. And then I've been fortunate enough to find a few consultants, one of whom we've actually brought in as a partner now.

And they just love getting into the weeds and into the details and really working with clients on a long-term engagement. So with that specialization, that's really allowed us to not only push the company forward, but then also really deliver a much better experience to our clients. So I guess to circle back and answer your question, I mean, for us, it's been about specialization. For other people, that might not be the answer. You've got different answers, but you have to find what works best for you, keeping the client in mind first.

That's so true. And I love what you talked about is finding your niche. I think a lot of people, we go out there in the home service space. I like the idea of taking a customer and doing as many things as we can for them because we've already earned their business. But a lot of times we drop the ball because we're just not good at that other stuff. We didn't focus on what we're great at. But then again, I've seen a lot of HVAC companies that

become plumbing companies and electric companies. So I think it's where you're at in your company. But you start somewhere and you master it before you move on to the next one. Does that make sense? And is that kind of what you agree with? 100%. 100%. I mean, at the end of the day, it's going to turn into a revolving door, right? I mean, you know, whether it's the law, the universe, karma, whatever it is that you believe. I mean, at the end of the day, what goes around comes around. I mean, if you're going to go and make a whole bunch of promises to people and then not fulfill and pull through on it and

not specialize and not figure out what it is that you do, that's not a long-term business model. I call that a hustle. You're here today, you're gone tomorrow. You may make $50, but you're not going to have anything that's worth selling after 20, 30,

40 years or even maybe five years. If you're trying to scale a company, you have to look at every aspect. And yeah, niching down and not only in who you serve, but also what your role within the org is as well. Yeah, I'm a big fan of staying in my own lane now. And as an owner, you still get involved. You're still overseeing. I had the pleasure of going

to a thing this weekend that you know about. It's the YAC getaway in Utah. It's Powder Mountain. And I met a lot of cool people there. And on Monday, I went to this place called Send Out Cars and got to meet the CEO. But he calls himself now the CVO, the Chief Visionary Officer. It's funny because I had Alan Ferguson on. he's a huge successful HVAC company in Australia. And he said, you got to read this book, Rocket Fuel. And while I was at YEC in Utah, the guy said a book that changed his life. And I said, wait a minute, what are you talking about? A VI relationship? I think I know. And he goes, the book's called Rocket Fuel. I said, dude, I love that book. And people called me up and they said, dude, this is you.

You're the visionary. You're not the integrator. And knowing my role was half the battle. And then seeing this huge company that's 50 million, I think they're $100 million sent out cards. And he calls himself the CVO, the Chief Visionary Officer. So I love what you said. You're a visionary. But knowing your role is half the battle. Am I right? Understanding who you are within the company. Totally agree. I mean, I think sometimes we want to be all things to everybody. And let's be honest. I mean, as entrepreneurs, whether we wear it on our sleeve or not, we all have some level of an ego and we want to be the most important person in our company. We set it up that way and we act that way. But the truth is,

the more irrelevant you are in your company, the better your company will be. Meaning, you've got people that can run that thing forward. So I mean, you and I, we're both visionaries, right? We get bored when we get into the details. And that's not the best use of our skill set and our time that the company will suffer and it will only get so big. The example that I give everybody is, for the longest time, Chick-fil-A only had one location because the founder was not a visionary. I think it was like 20-something years. He only had one location until he partnered with somebody else who came in and saw it. He's like, holy smokes, we can take this thing to the next level. And I think within 5-10 years, they were 40x the size that they were for the past 20 years

because they got led with a visionary. So it's not about skirting your obligations. It really is, this is a role that needs to be filled and there are other roles that need to be filled. So don't try to be all things to everybody. Understand your skill sets, operate there, stay in your lane, find other people that are better at other things and let them do that.

That is so true. And I will say this, I was one man in one truck at one point and you fill all these different hats. So what you gotta realize is yes, you don't have the money to hire all these people in the beginning, even like you, Ollie, you were out there busting your butt.

You had to fill that role for a while. So if you're still a small company doing a couple hundred grand, it's okay, but just start to develop what you love. Start to document your day because I was just on the phone before this conversation and my team was like, look, we're hiring a couple of people on Facebook to do this.

I said, okay, show me how you're gonna measure the results. Show me exactly how we're gonna know what they did. And they said, well, we think we're gonna try this. And I said, so you're gonna spend my money and then figure it out after? I said, so you're going to spend my money and then figure it out after? I said, BS. I need to know exactly how we're going to inspect what we expect, number one.

And you know, Walt Disney was, never knew what was in the bank account. He never knew, he was the big picture guy. Then they had Roy on the background doing all the work. So this VI relationship, when we go and think about it, it's so important. But I know even though I'm a visionary, I also need to know where the hell my money's being spent

and I need to know what ads are working and be involved to a certain extent. But I want to go, I also just read this book and I think you're familiar with it. It's called Extreme Ownership. Yes. And I'm reading the book right now and it talks a lot about ego.

It's ultimately, how many times do we say our employees are the problem? They can never do what I could do. Talk to me a little bit about, because this is the Navy SEALs, and when something goes bad, they call it friendly fire, and somebody gets hurt. Who's ultimately responsible at the end of the day when something goes bad at your company, Ali?

It starts at the top. I mean, the one thing that I always remember is every single time you point a finger, there's three pointing back at you. I mean, you know what? At the end of the day, you can thing that I always remember is every single time you point a finger, there's three pointing back at you. I mean, you know what? At the end of the day, you can say that my employee is the problem. This person or this person isn't doing what they're supposed to be doing. But you know what? Did I train them? Did I set up the right systems? Did I hire the right person? If I've got the wrong person in the wrong role and I haven't set them up for success, whose fault is that? That's mine, right? I mean. And Alex, our partner here, he says,

never browbeat a dummy. If someone is not capable of something, you're being unfair to them. But then you're also expecting something that just doesn't make any sense. And so you're really being unfair to your own organization. So now, if I've done my part, I've documented everything. And this is going back to the point that you made earlier, which was in regards to if you're a solopreneur guy in a truck, everything you do, you need to document. Because then when you do hire that integrator and you move to that visionary role, that transition is so much easier. everything. I have trained this person. I have vetted this person and I have brought in the right person. Now, whether you're using a disc assessment, whether you're using whatever, there's a million other tools out there. You know for a fact that this is the right person, the likelihood of them failing is next to zero. So you've done everything you could possibly do. And then from there, if they're not putting in the effort, right? Even then, I'm still not going to blame them because then I'm going to go back and say, well, what did I miss? Am I not incentivizing them

properly? Am I not built the right culture? There's so many other things. Up until if I've exhausted every possibility and I've gotten someone from the outside to look at it because sometimes we get too close to trees, we can't see the forest, we start smelling ourselves a little too much, we blame everybody else. We say, oh, yes, I did this. Oh, yes, I did this. Oh, yes, I did this. Without third-party validation, it means nothing.

And from there, at that point, I can, with a good conscience, either move this person out of that role and put them in a role that is better suited to their skill sets. And it's a hard conversation to have, is just not a good fit for the company and the organization. But the next person, in theory, that I bring on board, the company is not going to suffer the same fate with having the wrong person in the wrong role.

Because people just look at how much money they spent and wasted on a bad hire, bad employee, bad fit. You have no idea what the opportunity cost was, how much money you lost, and potentially you did not capture. I was just at an event. I was called Multipliers. While you were at YC Summit,

I was down in Mexico. I can't do the cold, man. I hated it. I'm a warm-blooded guy. So I was down in Mexico for a mastermind down there. They call it the Multipliers Mastermind. And the whole function behind multipliers is, you're a solopreneur and you want to hire your next person.

It can't be 1 plus 1 equals 2. It needs to be 1 plus 1 equals 11. Your third person needs to be 1 plus 1 plus 1 equals 33. You hire multipliers. And it's just about getting your head around that. So as a solopreneur, if you're documenting your stuff, or even if you've got a 500-person company, look at the next person you hire.

Build the system such that when they come in, they are an accelerant to your growth, not just a simple addition. Definitely not a subtraction either. When we get going on these podcasts, and I love these because it just brings me back to so many things. I was listening to Josh Latimer, who I respect, and I had him on the podcast. And he said, he's got 10,000 emails of home service companies. And the number one thing they always say the biggest problem is employees.

And then when you really look at it, do you have an org chart? Do you have a depth chart? Did you give them a manual? Do they know if they're winning? Because I always say this, you can definitely respect it and know exactly what I'm talking about is, how does that accountant know if he's winning? How does the bookkeeper, how does the right people, they want to keep score. They want to know. They shouldn't have to have their quarterly employee one-on-ones to know they're winning. And I'm trying to build an environment that shows their pay can increase when they're winning. And it decreases if they suck. And it's hard to do. It takes a lot of time. Don't play with people's pay all the time. Really calculate it. Put it onto an Excel sheet. Work it out for two, three months at a time before you roll it out, make sure they agree with it and they see that they can win. And at least you have a couple of people there

that are making a ton more money than they would have the other way, right? I mean, have you ever, I'm sure with the company you have with sales being really important, you reward the right stuff with sales, right? Oh, totally, 100%. I mean, everyone at our organization, whether they're

sales or not, and they're admin, they're marketing, whatever, everyone is paid for performance. So everyone gets a base salary here. Everyone gets compensated well. But there are some serious expectations. I tell everybody, this is not a nine to five. This is not 40 hours a week. Think of yourself like a doctor. You're on call all the time. That's a function of being multipliers. We're attracting the right people. But we compensate them well, not only from a base compensation perspective, but then also from a variable compensation perspective.

So the better they perform, they all have KPIs, they all have goals, they all have targets, and then they have stretch goals as well. So here's the bare minimum you got to do not to get fired. These are your KPIs. Then here's your goals.

So that might be 10% higher, 20% higher, whatever. Whatever makes sense. This is the bare minimum you got to do not to get fired. This is what you got to do to be really impressing me. And there's a really, there's an important distinction between, because how many times do we set KPIs for people? They hit them. And then we're like, yeah, but they're not really trying.

It's just like, well, how does that person know what your expectations are, I mean, to your point, how do they know that they're winning? And then you get those stretch goals. Like, okay, this is not only did you impress me, but okay, you're really gunning for a promotion. You're really gunning for a pay raise. You're really gunning for this, that, and the third. Can you hit it? Like you said, if we've got the right people, we've created the right environment, they want that. They thrive off of that. And the difference that it makes, it's unbelievable. You would be shocked because if they work, let's say even 10% harder and they get a little bit closer to your goal, you have no idea the trickle-down effect it has on your bottom line. It's unbelievable. Now, whether it be from a cost-saving standpoint, whether it be from an efficiency standpoint,

whether it be from a top-line growth that trickles down to the bottom line, it can be measured. It can be measured. It can be figured out. And if you can't figure it out, I think you got to understand your business a little bit deeper. Yeah. And I will add to that is understand indirect costs because you just got to be really careful and understand and have a really good financial department or accounting department when you put these compensation plans together. Because I've made mistakes based on forecasting that it's hard to give social security to people and then pull it away. I like to use that in healthcare just because you can't give people a bunch of stuff and then pull it away. So be very careful. But they got to know up front. They got to see the manual. They need to know what's winning.

And you can't say, I'm going to figure out this role as we go, unless you tell them, look, for 90 days, I'm going to pay you this a little bit more. And then we're going to understand a compensation program where you understand where you could win. But I want to go back to one thing, and then I want to kind of pivot to another subject. But when we talk about extreme ownership, the thing that he emphasizes, you got to understand the mission. Everybody needs to know the ultimate goal and where they fit into this mission. And if you've got a weak link, like you've got a sniper that hasn't hit anything in the, you don't see him showing up in the morning. He doesn't load his gun fast enough. You're putting everybody's life at stake. Look, the whole mission, lives are

at stake. And in this case, the food on people's, on your family's plates is at stake. So as a leader, by keeping somebody that's underqualified, not doing their role, and I don't think you still need to run a mission. You can't just give up and say, I'm gonna restart everybody, but you need to get,

first you need to go after those weak links. But you got another thing important to me as I've done my research on you is, when I was a kid, my dad ran a transmission shop. And I would do anything to be around my dad. I mean, literally, like if I got an extra 10 minutes with him, I mean, we played with my baseball coach, my soccer coach. He went on every field trip. I'd work out with him in the morning.

If I could show up to his shop just to be around him, I would. He was my legend, my role model. And he ran a business, therefore I knew I wanted to be in business. And I mean, when I was in first grade, everybody said, who's your superhero? There was Batman. People said Superman. I said, my dad. And you've got a similar story. And I think a lot of us in the home service space in particular were a plumber because our dad was a plumber. We're a roofer because our dad was a roofer. Talk to me a little bit about you and your dad and your relationship. My father and I, we got a great relationship. I mean, my dad

moved to actually Canada. We moved from Pakistan to Canada as refugees. I saw him, you know, never missed a day of work, never called him sick. He, you know, worked his way from the bottom up. He was a 7-Eleven manager for 20-something years, finally just retired. But the past, I'd say, I don't know, seven years or so, he's been diving into business. And he's been flipping houses, he's been building houses, doing infills and all this other stuff. And so when you have a role model that works hard, I mean, that's all you really know, right? And so from that, from an impact standpoint, I definitely know my work ethic, all of that. From an achievement standpoint,

it definitely came from my father. I mean, no doubt. Okay. So what does that mean to you as far as leaving? A lot of us, we talk so much about business. And we don't talk enough about family and the other things important in our life. Tell me a little bit about how you balance. I find this really hard in my life. I'm obsessed with business. I love doing business. I spend my weekends, my nights with business. And I'm trying to get ahead, but I'm 35. I'm not 25 anymore. And I try to work out. I try to go to church. I try to hang out with my mom and Valentine's Day is coming up here. Tell me a little bit about how you balance everything. Here's what I'll say.

I don't like to look at things from a balance standpoint. I feel like when you're trying to balance, you're always trying to take away and put into pots that just aren't important to you, right? Because I don't believe that there's any thing such as balance, right? It's fictitious, it's made up. What I do believe in, what I subscribe to

is you make time for what's important. And it's a function of getting your priorities straight. It's a function of reflecting on, at the end of the day, what do you want to leave behind? What do you want to accomplish? What does your life mean to you? And for us business owners, the easy answer is always money. Okay, I want X amount in the bank account, this and that. Because frankly, at the end of the day, after just being able to survive and being able to pay for the necessities, money just becomes a way of keeping score.

And so that becomes the easy answer if we're not reflective enough. So for me, I've got a lot of goals. I want to see my boys grow up. I want to spend some time with them. Now, full disclosure, I don't have any kids, but I really do believe that I'm going to have three sons. That's just something that's in the back of my mind. I have a good feeling about that. But for me,

right now, I'm working like a dog because I want to have enough money in the bank where within the next five, seven years, it's not to say I want to go into semi-retirement mode, but I don't want to be a slave to the bottom line or to bills that I got to pay. So for me, money is just a means to an end because I want that time with my family. So I mean, yes, I want to work out. I go to the gym every morning. And one of the little things that I do is I'm very bad at

self-regulation and self-monitor. But what I do is I just schedule everything into my calendar. Every single morning, I got 6.30 gym. So that forces me to wake up and keep it... I love that. That is so powerful to make time on your calendar. Put it on your calendar. Actually abide by your calendar. That's your life. That's your Bible. Exactly. And if there's time on your calendar, I'm looking at my calendar right now, it's up on my screen and I'm like, bing, bang, boom, boom, boom. So many things,

but there's time slotted out in my day. And that's what gets all my attention. That's so powerful. I'm so glad you brought that up. That's the most important thing, right? And I've told my wife a million times, if it's not on my calendar, it doesn't exist. And so now what she does is she actually goes in there and schedules date nights, even though it's Saturday. Because she knows if it's not on there, it's just not going to happen. I hate working Friday afternoons. But because I just give out my calendar link to pretty much everybody and people book in times here, right in there. So what she does is she actually... So she's got it as a recurring event. Two o'clock, pizza night starts. So after two o'clock on a Friday, I've got no availability on my calendar. Same thing on Saturday nights as date night. So that's where I get

family time from a perspective of fitness and mental reprieve. Your body or your mind, all that's connected. So I mean, if you're trying to run a sports car without ever giving it a tune up, I mean, you're just going to run it in the ground. So for me, that's again, 6.30 every single morning. So I know I got to set my alarm to 5.45 because I get up slow, right? But I want to be at the gym by 6.30. So every single morning, I'm up at 5.45. I'm at the gym by 6.30. I work out for a quick hour. I'm not trying to get huge. I ain't no athlete no more. But I'm out 5.45. I'm at the gym by 6.30. I work out for a quick hour. I'm not trying to get huge. I ain't no athlete no more.

But I'm out of the gym and I'm at the office by 8, 8.30. And see, this is the thing that I love. You got to make everything a competition for you. For me, I live here on the East Coast, right? I'm here out of Atlanta. We're on Eastern Time Zone. If I'm in the office by 8, 8.30, I got so many clients on the West Coast,

there is no way in hell any of them are ever going to be able to beat me in the office by 8, 8.30, I got so many clients on the West Coast, there is no way in hell any of them are ever going to be able to beat me to the office. I have no problem staying at the office until like 8, 9, 10 o'clock at night working because I know if someone on the West Coast is working. So you just have to have this killer instinct. Again, this advice is not for everybody.

Not everyone can do this, whether it be family obligations, whatever the case may be, or some people just don't want to. That's fine. But you got to find what works for you. So whether it be take some time, go on a walk and try and craft your perfect life. Right now, we've got three vacancies, three big vacancies that we're trying to fill. I mean, I can't find talent, proper talent if my life depended on it. But I'm trying to fill these three vacancies. One of the questions I ask every single candidate is, describe to me your perfect day, your day-to-day, whether it be at work, at home, describe both to me. What would be a perfect day? And you'd be shocked how many people can't explain to me what a perfect day for them looks like because they've never sat down and actually thought about it. If you don't know what a perfect day looks like, how are you ever going to have a perfect day? How are you ever going to achieve it? How are you ever going to strive for that?

Same thing as business owners. You got to craft your perfect day. And I mean, you know what? Shit, even if you get 75% close to a perfect day, that's better than not knowing what a perfect day is. Yeah, that's the one I want to think about. I've read these morning sunrise or you start out on another five things and I know the five things. The miracle morning? The miracle morning. Yeah, miracle morning is where you meditate. You do self, you got reflection where you tell yourself about you're happy about gratitude.

The gratitude. And then you work out and you read. I'm a strong fan of leaders or readers. And there's this book I have. I just grabbed it off my shelf while you were talking. It's called Off Balance on Purpose. I was at a seminar, and it's by Dan Thurman. And I want to read just the inside cover.

I think it's very powerful. And it's a self-help book, which is all I read. But it says, Stop striving for the unattainable and start thriving through challenges. Every day, we are inundated with messages about importance of finding balance in our lives. How does this make us feel? Overwhelmed, out of touch, and unfulfilled. The problem isn't us, it's the message.

Perfect balance is unachievable and upon closer inspection, undesirable. The perceptual quest for balance ends up at a limited growth, progress, and quality of life. In Off Balance and Purpose, Dan Thurman frees you from the balanced dilemma and empowers you to adopt a new approach to create a happy, fulfilling life, embracing reality, getting aligned with your purpose, lean forward,

and initiate positive changes. These steps will give you the knowledge, strength, and motivation to accept and take advantage of the contradictions in your daily life, integrate the five vital areas of your life, work, relationships, health, spiritual growth, and personal interest into a workable, fluid, sustainable pattern, and adopt a practical, concrete process for orchestrating changes and staying aligned with your purpose. I just thought it's really important because it's exactly what you said. It's not possible. It's not possible to be balanced. It just isn't. You can't have this perfect relationship with everybody. You can't be spiritual. If's not possible to be balanced. It just isn't. You can't have this perfect relation with everybody. You can't be spiritual.

If religion is important to you, have this perfect body, have an amazing work. But what I find is your business is kind of like compound interest. You work hard in the beginning. Yep. You put a lot of time and energy into it

and get things right and build, you know, we're talking about two-aggressor storage solutions. And I sat down and I said, where does it start? It starts with the message we put out there and who our avatar is. And then I worked through everything from our CRM, which is, you know, I talk about service type, but unfortunately, this one's going to be nationwide in every city in North America. And service type just doesn't fit the qualifications for that as far as

the cost per user. So I want to know everything from even after the customer ads, what kind of survey do they get? And being able to do this fundamentally from A to Z. And I mean, I even went further than that is understanding the organizational side of it. So I feel like this applies to our daily lives too, is I went to another company and they studied lead. And this guy said exactly every morning he wakes up and is thankful for 10 of his employees. And he sits there in his car when he's at the office and goes through and messages 10 of his employees. And it's incredible his patterns throughout his day. And what I love about him so much, and a lot of the guys that are successful and gals, is they create these habits. And I think these habits that we form

are what really create our success. And it's habitual. And as human beings, we're habitual. I mean, what can you add out of that as far as building a habit around success? You know, steel sharpens steel, right? So the different people that you hang around yourself with are going to help you create those habits. And once something becomes a habit, right? Once it becomes a habit, it just becomes automatic. And you start doing things. And then what ends up happening is, I go back to what I said, steel sharpens steel.

The better you become, the better everyone else around you will become as well. So can you imagine the effect of that leader texting 10 of his people that he's grateful for? Can you imagine the day that they're going to have? How much harder they're going to try? You talk about compound effect, right? This is indirect compound effect, right? You can spoil the message by making it strictly work-related,

but when you add that element of gratitude and just telling them, hey, I'm grateful for you. Thank you for putting in all the hard work and not really relating it to one particular thing that they did, but just more in general of who they are and what they mean to you, that is something that cannot be described. It is sometimes the difference between you hanging out at home playing basketball in your backyard versus in front of a crowd, whether it be a thousand people,

whether it be a hundred thousand people, it's that adrenaline starts to go. And then you build momentum off of that. And then you can jump just a little bit higher. You can run just a little bit faster. You can dig a little bit deeper. That's what you're doing to that person. You are filling them full of that. So I think that that is a fantastic message. I don't know

if I've got anything to add to that other than just saying that that is an awesome message and people need to start implementing that if they haven't. And without a doubt, I'm going to start that. I love the fact, you know, I always pivot pretty fast in these because we go down and I love going down a rabbit hole, but I'm pretty good at getting out of it because I just think there's so many things that different people like you, successful people that run big companies that treat their employees a certain way. It's good to have different people on this show that come from a different background, but because there's so much more to being successful than just a home service company, it's how we treat our employees. It's how we recruit.

It's how we follow up with customers. And when we talked earlier before we started, you said, Look, I don't necessarily want to talk about following up with customers. I want to talk about the process in which we follow up with customers. And I found that very inspiring in a way because I didn't never think about it that way. Can you talk a little bit about what your thought process behind that was? Absolutely. So I mean, first thing that I want to just clarify, because I don't want anyone to get any misunderstandings. I'm not saying follow-up is bad. Follow-up is important. Okay, great.

Water is wet. Good for you. But how are we following up? What is the strategy behind following up? So again, it could be a function of, let's bring it back to the home services, right? Follow-up is someone buying a tool that automatic sends text messages, right? Or emails or a nurture campaign that's just HTML emails that get sent out and saying, hey, this is what's new in our company

and all this other stuff. And the first question I always ask is, well, what's your CTA? What's your call to action? What are you trying to get out of this? And they're like, oh, well, we've got a coupon at the bottom. It's $10 off your next service or whatever,

or this or that, or X amount percentage off. And it's just like, number one, that's such company-centric messaging. That person, they get it. And there is a reason why most of these promotional campaigns have such an incredibly low ROI and a return rate of people actually opting in and engaging with it.

It's because there's no thought put into it. There's absolutely zero thought put into it. And it's almost just like, let me throw... I don't know how much we can swear on here, but let me just throw enough shit against the wall and something's bound to stick. That's the understanding everyone has of follow-up. Everyone knows it's important, but how to do it, that's a completely separate story. So a couple of things, right?

It's not about you, it's about them. So put yourself in their shoes and try to figure out what it is that might engage that person and actually make them want to talk to you. The thing that is not going to engage them is a sales pitch from you. So just sending them a coupon or anything like that,

that's sterile and has no heart put into it, it's not going to work. So that's the first and foremost. Number two, what is the strategy? Why are you following up? Are you following up with people that raised their hands and said, hey, I'm interested, but they never followed through? They ended up getting serviced by somebody else. They ended up

never doing anything. Or is your follow-up to existing clients and you're now getting them to either go on some sort of a retainer monthly or just simply upselling them things? So you got to have these things put into consideration. Don't just throw everybody into the same bucket. I think that that's important. And more and more people are starting to do studies and tests around nurture campaigns. And we're actually figuring out how incredibly ineffective they are.

I mean, we've all heard the old saying, the fortune is in the follow-up and this and that. And these are things that we've just completely subscribed to and said, oh, yep, yep, you got to follow up. Really, a lot of those nurture campaigns, they only work if you accidentally hit the right person at the right time. Everyone knows the saying, a broken clock is right twice a day. Twice a day.

Well, that's like what? I think it's like 720 times a year. That's still a lot, but that's no different than a blind squirrel finding a nut. Well, what if we could give our squirrel some eyes, right? And I think that that is really what I'm talking about is what is the strategy that we're following up with. So I'll give you a personal example. This morning, every morning I sit down and before I start my day, I go through my list of people

that I need to follow up with. And it's never very much. It's about two or three people. But it takes me over 30 minutes because my follow-ups, they're not canned. They're not templated out. I've got a structure and a format in which I typically want to follow up with because it follows best practices, but they're not. So I'll give you an example. I followed up with a person this morning that sells software within the supply chain industry. And I just sent him one long line. That's it. No, Hey, how are you? No, Hey, Manny, this, I'm just want to follow up. It was, Hey, how are you? Hang on. You know what? Let me, let me pull it up right here. So I, so I read you exactly how I worded it. Cause it took me, took me a little bit of time to figure out how I worded it. It's better to be good. I'm just kidding.

All right. No, no. I'm taking notes, bro. Look, dude, this is gold right here because it's so true. This generic blanket email or voicemail or text message. Can I read this email too? Yeah, that's what I wanted. Yeah. So I'm going to read this email too. So I wrote, does the impending Amazon stock dump by Bezos affect you guys at all? Are you taking advantage of that as a trigger event of some of the stalled deals in your pipe? Sent that. Completely ignoring all typical best practices because I wanted this to look like it was coming off of the cuff. Now again, they sell

in the supply chain industry. Now instantly when he reads this, he's going to be like, what does any of this have to do with anything? But what am I doing? You have to understand the principle that I'm evoking here. This is fear of missing out. This is FOMO at its finest. Because if you think about how people try and usually use FOMO or... I forget what the other way that they call it. But basically, what they'll do is they'll give a time-sensitive offer. 20% off if you book by Thursday.

Right. And it's just like, nobody cares. Nobody cares. They don't believe you. They know that if next week they're going to get another coupon that says 20% off. Right. So it's lost any sort of pattern interrupt that it could possibly have. So what is your strategy? For me, I've skipped seven steps, but he knows I've skipped seven steps of explanation. And he's going to now hit me back and be like, what are you talking about? What do you mean? Right? And then also what I'm going to turn back around and say to him is like, well, Bezos is getting divorced, right? He's going to have to liquidate all of his shares. When he liquidates all of his shares,

why is he doing that? He's doing that because we're about to hit a recession. We're about to hit a recession. What does that mean? That means people are going to have to tighten up. And Amazon being one of the biggest players in the supply chain industry because of all of their shipping all across the world, that's of course going to have an effect and they're going to have to get lean. They might have to start trying to turn a profit. It's that and the third. It's going to affect everybody. So all the people that you're selling to in the supply chain, this could be a trigger event that causes them because they're selling software in there, which actually takes teams of like 30 people and consolidates them into one person, right? So they get a lot of stalled deals because people don't want to fire somebody. Well, all of a sudden, if you got to go lean, all of a sudden his software makes so

much sense, right? So he's going to now hit me back and be like, what are you talking about? I'm going to explain this logic to him. And he's going to say, well, how do we do that? How do we take advantage of that? Bang, I got myself a deal. Right? But I didn't send him a, hey, email me back and I'm going to give you 10% off of our services. Right? Because he's just going to look at that and be like, ah, it's spam. Right? And this is the difference between structured and strategic follow-up versus just sending out spam because everybody else is doing it. And then you get caught in the fray and nobody cares.

Yeah, I love the heartfelt. So how big of... This is something I want to really specify though. How big of a deal is this potential client, let's say, yearly basis? I mean, look, this is... No one knows who this client is, so you can just say the dollar figure.

If we end up closing this guy, it could be about a $300,000 for calendar year 2019. Or sorry, yeah, we're 2019, yeah. So for calendar year 2019, it could be about 300 grand for us. But again, it doesn't matter. You know what? Frankly, the dollar size doesn't matter.

I mean, the fact that we're doing it on a one-to-one, yes, that affects that it's a $300,000 deal. But if it's a $300 a month account to you, you just need to sit down. See, this is why I said, go back to templatizing or go back to bucketizing your campaigns. So this is what I'm going to send to people

that have already bought from us in this neighborhood, in this affluent community where they want their lawns mowed, they want their irrigation systems updated, maintain this, that, and the third, versus I've got these other people in a different community who they can barely afford to feed their mouths, but they have to maintain something. And with them, it's more around reactive. It's not maintenance, but it's reactive. So things

are broken. So you create these buckets and these specific campaigns. So now, every once a week, you might have five campaigns in which you have to create an offer for, but you do it with this strategy. Now you can... One campaign might go out to 10,000 people. One campaign might go out to 1,000 people. But it's going to be way more focused, tailored, and it's actually going to produce you an ROI. And from there, because it's something that's specific to them

and you're actually going to play off of some appropriate behavioral economics principles that were strategic. And again, it's going to have material results for you. Look, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think like, for example, we got about 750 to 1,000 grocery quotes a month. And one of the things I'm working on is a tailored message back to this person,

genuinely showing we care. And a lot of times, a blind squirrel does find a nut. And what I mean by that is I call customers sometimes even personally and say, look, I'm just following up with you. Wanted to see where we're at on this. What is it going to take to earn your business? But what I love is when there's notes in my system that says this person is most concerned

about an energy efficient door or this person really is looking about curb appeal. So when I sit down with you, Ali, I'd sit down with you and I'd say, let's talk about this. What's important to you? How long are you looking for this door to last? Tell me a little bit about what interests you.

So I'm asking questions, but you know what's beautiful about what I'm doing is I'm actually taking notes. What does taking notes do? It shows I genuinely care, right? Yep. And look, you take notes on your clients and you know, look, this guy loves the Dodgers. This guy's daughter's turning 18 in March and I got to remember to send him something. So big clients take a little bit more, but still just those questions, getting the results and a follow-up saying, hey, look, I know we talked about this store. Amar, they're having a monthly special.

That's our manufacturer. And you can look it up online. So it's valid. And it does give you that time-sensitive urgency. And I say, they're the largest graduate company residential in the United States. And this might be a good time for you while we're able to pass this savings out States. And this might be a good time for you while we're able to pass the savings

out to you. It might be a good time. Now, all of a sudden, it's a door they want and you're pushing them into a situation where it makes sense. So I love the concept of it. And I always say with them, what's in it for me when we're negotiating with a customer say, you know, they might not want a discount. I've had people go, even when we deliver financing, if you said to me, if you met me and you said, Tommy, would you like financing? I'd go, does it look like I need financing?

I would pay that. So there's a different way to present it. And the way that we do this stuff is thinking about the other person and their genuine best interest at heart. And you just nailed it on the head, man. I'm so glad you brought that up. And it's so true.

Right on the head, let's talk a little bit you brought that up. And it's so true. Right on the head. Let's talk a little bit. I want to wrap up here the next five minutes and ask you some questions about how people can get ahold of you. But do me a favor and let's go over some discovery. Yep. So for me, discovery,

that's where the sale happens, right? So when you're sitting there asking them, how long do you want this to last? And what are some of the things that are important to you? That's where the sale happens. If you wait till your pitch and you wait to show them, how long do you want this to last? And what are some of the things that are important to you? That's where the sale happens. If you wait till your pitch and you wait to show them, okay, here's the garage door and let me sell you on all the features and benefits as to why, or if you're waiting for that to be the time of when the sale is going to happen. And again, this is across any sale. It doesn't matter if it's a $2 million software sale or if it's a $15 front yard lawnmower. This is universal

principle. I was related back to that movie Dodgeball, right? Where he's just like, if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball. You can dodge traffic, you can dodge a ball. If you can sell, you can sell. The principles are the same. So for me, discovery is by far and away the most important thing. And I really wish people would stop confusing discovery and qualification in one form. Qualification is, can they buy? Do they have a need to buy? Can they afford it? And are we a fit? And what should I really be gearing them towards? That's qualification. Discovery, I would actually reframe it and put it from a function of self-discovery. It's not about you. It's about them, right? People know what they

know. They know what they don't know. And they do not know what they do not know. And if your discovery can take them into that third bucket, teaching them all of the stuff that they had no clue about that they needed to consider. So prime example, if you're selling garage doors and you tell them, are you concerned about... You're out in Arizona. Are you concerned about the sun weathering and fading? If that person never even realized that their garage door might fade, all of a sudden, you open their eyes and they're like, wait, what? If you can have those self-discovery moments for them, if you can initiate that for them, they will buy from you. So you need to tailor your questions.

And you can't just jump right into it. So there's a slow ramp. So you first got to level set and ask them some questions that they're able to answer. Build that momentum. Then from there, ask them some very basic questions that they know that they don't know the answer to. And then you can fill in the blanks for them there and build a little bit.

That's where you're going to build your rapport. That's where you're going to build your trust and credibility. And that lends you now to start asking questions that they hadn't even thought of. Because if you jump right to that third section, they're going to be like,

well, I have no clue what this guy is talking about and they're going to shut down. So you got to slowly ease into it. But again, like I said, it's self-discovery. So if you ask them a bunch of questions that they hadn't even thought to consider, all of a sudden, that's how you become a trusted advisor.

That's how you become an expert. That's how they say, wow, Tommy really knows what he's talking about. He asked me a bunch of things that I didn't even think about. All of a sudden, now you built that trust with them. And then there is this familiarity. There's this reciprocity. There's this desire for them to actually want to work with you. And so by the time you're finished your discovery, they're sitting there thinking, I don't know what he's going to cost. I hope I can afford it. But whatever it is that he recommends to me, that's what I'm going to go with because clearly he knows what he's talking about. And now if you get them there, now they're ready for your

pitch. Now they're ready for your sales, presentation, whatever it is. But if you go there too quick, too early, you have not built the platform or the foundation for which you are going to present the information. And it's all moot and it's pointless. So discovery is where the sale happens. It is absolutely what you have to do because if you don't do it, you skip it or you do it improperly, it becomes a situation of price

and it's a race to the bottom, period. And that's how you're going to lose deals with somebody giving an extra $50 off of a $2,500 job. And you're like, man, 50 bucks? Really? That's what I lost this deal for? If you're losing deals for nickels and dimes here and there, you are not doing proper discovery. And I challenge, I challenge anybody to come to me and tell me, Ali, you don't understand my market. Ali, no, no, no. Somebody says that to me, I will throw something at you. If you think it's about price

and you think you're losing deals over nickels and dimes, you just need to shut it down and just walk away. You are wrong beyond wrong. Dude, you just goosebumps because I hear the same thing all the time and I've got a thousand stories. I call it ref, build rapport. And there's a process and educate the customer. And there's a process behind that.

And it's answering, it's asking the right questions that are leading questions. And then it's follow-up, but it's a follow-up system that actually genuinely cares about what the person wants. And, um, you know, for me, I need to like you, I need to trust you. And I need to feel like I'm getting a good deal. Meaning that not a good deal per se that I'm like getting it cheap. I just need to know that overall, we worked out a bundle because that's how I work. So I don't know the price.

I just- On that, here's what I'll say. People don't care about the price that they pay. They just want to know that whatever it is that they're receiving, they're in the good. So the value outweighs what they pay. So you need to build up the value. And again, I hate saying this because the value is so subjective, but you need to build up the platform of what you're delivering. You need to build that up such that the price, it's anchored by the value and whatever price you present to them looks low.

And then all of a sudden, we equate price to value, right? So when someone comes in and you present something for, let's just say $3,000 and somebody else comes in and presents the same thing for 300 bucks, if you've done the right job,

they're going to look at that other person in a really weird way and be like, I have no clue how you could do it for 300 bucks, but you're cutting corners and there's not a chance in hell. I trust you. That is what you need to walk away doing. If you do that, man, you will have all the money in the world and you will, your, your business will run on the sales side. Flawless. You got to have that, that mentality. Dude, that is straight fire. I'm going to probably show my team that tomorrow. You know, it's incredible how much you just extracted.

You just put it into words so much better than I could have. Let me ask you this, Ali. If everybody here, I just think you have so much to offer, whether it's from consulting or there's a business idea that someone wants to run with you with. I know you specialize in a lot of big products, a lot of SaaS. There's nothing you really can't do. You're an advisor.

What do people do to reach out to you? Hit me up. My personal direct email is ali, A-L-I at rosegardenconsulting.com. Rose, like the flower, rosegardenconsulting.com. Hit me up. I love talking sales. If I can help, man, I love helping. So anyone that wants to shoot me an email, Hit me up. I love talking sales. If I can help, man, I love helping.

So anyone that wants to shoot me an email, hit me up. Our company website is rosegardenconsulting.com. My podcast is For The Close. Hit me up anywhere. I'm always happy to help. All right. Two more questions. Number one is if you wanted to give somebody some good books. I always like if you have three at the top of your mind, and typically they're self-help, but it could be fiction if you want. Yeah. If there's three books that you'd recommend that maybe changed your life,

or they don't have to do with business, but do you have three on the top of your head? Yeah, absolutely. So the book that I always recommend to everybody is 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. Amazing book. The second one is Predatory Thinking by Dave Trott. Another amazing book. It's all about divergent thinking. And then probably, usually I would recommend How to Win

Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. But I mean, that's a given at this point. Everyone's read it. So what I'll replace it with is a book that I recently just read. It's called Win Bigly by Scott Adams. It's kind of like the story of how Trump won the elections and what all the strategies he used. And frankly, like him, love him, hate him, it doesn't matter. The dude is the president. He didn't just accidentally become the president. So if you don't want to read that because you don't like Trump, I mean, you got to be crazy. I mean, it literally gives you an insight as to how he won and what the strategies he used and what he did with the American people.

So beautiful book. Okay. Persuasion in a world where facts don't matter. I just bought it on Audible. All right. So last thing is I like to give everybody that's a guest on the show an opportunity to reach out with one last thought, maybe a last thought of who you are

and just maybe a way that they can help themselves today. Not tomorrow, not next week, but how to get started today. And one final thought for the audience. No plan worked is better than a great plan not worked. Look, I'm a strategist. I'm a guy that's going to build you a plan and tell you all these other things. But it doesn't mean anything if you don't put in the work.

So it's better to learn from your mistakes rather than learning in a bubble. And that's why my boys will never go to school. I'm going to homeschool the hell out of them. There's not a chance in hell I'm sending them to that idiot factory because it just dumbs them down. So no plan worked is better than great plan not worked.

Action, action, action. Just do something. Yeah, we talked about so much today. There's so many gold nuggets. I really had fun with you today, Ali. I had fun. I appreciate it. Yeah, this is great.

You know, we gotta get you back on because before we started this, I was like, man, I wanna make sure we relate to the people that are listening. And I think we related in more ways than 10. So great job. I appreciate you have, or having you on and I'll get you back on soon. All right. I appreciate it, brother. Thanks, man. Hey guys, I really appreciate you tuning into the podcast. I wanted to let you

know that my book is available right now on Amazon. It's called the home service millionaire. That's homeservicemillionaire.com. Just go to the website. It'll show you exactly where and how to buy the book. I poured two years of knowledge into this book, and I had 12 contributors, everybody from the COO at HomeAdvisor to the CEO of Valpak, and of course, Ara, the CEO of Service Titan. It tells you how to have the right mindset and become a millionaire and think like a millionaire.

It goes into exactly how to turn on lead generation. Have those phones ringing off the hook for the customers that you want to be calling where you can make money and get great reviews. It also goes into simple things like how to attract A players. Listen, if you want a great apple pie, you need to buy good apples

and you need to know where to buy those apples. And it also talks about simple things like knowing how to keep the score. You should have your financial check every week. You should know exactly what's coming in and out of your account. You should know when to cut advertising that's not working. And more than anything, you should know how to cut employees that aren't making it for you. Listen, you might have a big heart, but this book is going to show you how to make decisions built on numbers. I hope you pick up the book and I really appreciate everything. I hope you're having a great day. Tune in next week. Thank you.