The Home Service Expert Podcast - Embracing a Systematic Approach to Build a 9-Figure Home Service Business

Episode Date: October 22, 2021

Josh Kelly is the CEO of Clover Marketing and Consulting, as well as the host of the LIP Service For Contractors podcast. He teaches home service business owners how to consistently grow from seven figures all the way up to nine figures. He has helped his own family business, a local heating, cooling and plumbing company in Phoenix, grow from $7M to $175M in just 14 years. He has been featured on major platforms like CBS, Fox and NBC. In this episode, we talked about conversion rates, pricing, marketing...

Marketing is all about efficiency. Forget everything else. Yes, you have to be branded. Yes, you have to tell a compelling story. Yes, you have to have a USP, a unique selling proposition. But above all else, all of those things just lead to efficiency. How much do I have to pay to get a customer? And how much is that customer worth to me? And if I can increase the worth and decrease the cost, that's the best case scenario. That's how you make money. That's how you stand out. That's how you grow and become scalable. 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. All right, ladies and gentlemen, a good buddy of mine. We got Josh Kelly. He is a pro. And welcome back to the Home Service Expert. I missed that piece. We were just talking in the background here. He's an expert in hvac plumbing entrepreneurship reputation management big time knows seo knows all about reviews just knows a lot about a lot of stuff to do with home service he is the clover marketing and consulting ceo from 2007 to present lip lip service for contractors he's the host from 2020 to present

review kangaroo managing member from 2016 to 2019 is that what's going on right now yeah yeah and then he's been involved with parker and sons since 2005 and then really the marketing director for uh 12 years you know he started this thing clover marketing and he's just murdering with it teaching home service guys what to do guys and gals he has consistently grown companies from seven figures to eight figures some all the way up to nine figures he's helped his own family business a local heating cooling and plumbing company and phoenix grow from 7 million over $100 million in just 14 years. Actually, $175 million now.

$175 million. He's been featured on stages with Zig Ziglar Foundation, Dave Yoho, the EGIA, as well as major platforms like CBS, Fox, and NBC. You know, me and you met in Hawaii about six or seven years ago. I just hit it off. We hung out the whole time. Me and you were just attached to the hip. You taught me a lot of stuff. I learned a lot and things are going good for both of us. So glad to have you here. Why don't you tell the listeners, tell everybody what you've been up to and what you're doing these days yeah no so uh i haven't been back to hawaii since tommy but uh we've known each other for years man both in business and professionally and uh personally but yeah last a lot of people know me from parker and

sons i ran the marketing and some of the operations for parker and son screw that business from six and a half million this year year, they'll do $175 million. Helped on the sales process, the operations, marketing across the board. Some of you know me from my software company. One of the leading software companies for reputation management called Review Kangaroo. I sold that right before COVID, which was pretty good timing and a good deal for us too. And then since then, I did work at a company called Pulse. They were trying to Uberize home services. It was a billion-dollar with a B home service business, which was playing a level I never thought I'd play at. But I never thought I'd be part of

a $175 million business either. So it's all relative. And then since then, I've been working on Clover, which is... I've always consulted and... Tommy, you know. I've always helped companies grow and been a big part of marketing and sales operations across the board, helping some of the most successful, largest really in the HVAC and plumbing space mainly. If you were to take the top 50 HVAC companies in the United States size-wise, I've worked with at least half of them, more than half, and helped them grow their business and be a big piece of it.

But yeah, just been grinding and enjoying life and got married. Just got back from Ireland a few days ago with my wife and pregnant when I first kid. All kinds of crap's happening, man. Oh, congratulations. That's great to hear about it. Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, man. That's great to hear about it. Yeah, that's really cool.

Yeah, man. You're going to have to go get cocktails more often. Yeah, well, I'll tell you what, we meet up at the randomest times and it's interesting. Even though we know each other, we keep bumping into each other. Running the same circle, you introduced me to

Dave Carroll just a year and a half two years ago he's always in town we hang out you know i've been getting way more into roofing just because when a roof gets damaged the garage doors get damaged just like the hvac unit gets damaged i'm really into door-to-door speaking of dave yo yo yo that guy's got a lot of energy just really done well in his life so i'd like to just start out with you you know, you guys took over a small business. It was $5 million. It was six and a half million.

You know, I hate to say that small. Cause a lot of the people listening would love to be there, but at the same time, they've been around at the time. Was it the seventies? Parker and sons got started. Yeah.

Uh, Parker and sons, I think was 76. Yeah. That Parker & Sons got started? Yeah. Parker & Sons, I think, was 76. Yeah. There hasn't been a Parker in the business since the 70s, but the business name and entity was started in 76. So you guys took it over and you guys went in there and immediately... There are a lot of people that listen that are between 3 and 10 million. I'm just curious.

What was the first things you guys saw an opportunity to do back in the beginning? Now, number one, I've helped companies go from... I'll be honest. I'm not great at getting you the seven figures. That's just not my skill set. But if you wanted to go from a million to 10 million, I've done that maybe 100 times with companies. And certainly, it changes based off

your size, what you're doing. But you got to also understand, when we got into Parkinson's, when we bought into Parkinson's, my family, it wasn't a super successful driven business. I mean, we barely made payroll at first. It was a struggle. It wasn't a good situation. And we did the same thing. I would recommend doing something that someone that's at 2 million or a million, which was the very first thing you should always do is not pour gasoline on a fire that's out of control. You should start fixing the basic problems, which I think most companies have trouble making the most of the customers they already have. That's your biggest opportunity. So turning one call into two calls,

so cross-selling, selling agreements, setting up systems where consistently going back out to that customer, upselling, selling accessories, replacing for the HPAC. It's all about installation, right? Getting those installs for those older systems where it made sense

and really making the most of those customers because the phone was ringing. Maybe not as much as we would have wanted to, but the phone was ringing. It's hard to make the phone ring. It's expensive. It's much easier to take those customers you're already getting and making a lot more off those ones. And then once you make that more money, by the way, you have more money for marketing and more money for operations. You have more money for everything else. It becomes a snowball effect. So the very first thing I would always recommend is take a look at your pricing, take a look at your upsell process, take a look at your closing percentage, and how can you maximize

the value to customers who have great and amazing experience. It's interesting because one of the biggest things that pulls your numbers down... And when we go through this, we go through the top 15 and the bottom 10. And today was Thursday, so our morning meeting, we got a 5.30 a.m. and a 7 a.m. And the bottom 10 came out and I go, I can guarantee you one thing, and these numbers aren't up here. Each of these guys are under 70% conversion rate overall. Each of these guys have gotten a lot of zeros, which pull their numbers down.

None of these guys have perfected the art of finance. And I want to talk a little bit about conversion rate because I love high tickets, but it's important to me that when you call my company, that we convert that call because I don't want my competitors picking up my leftovers. So I love talking about this because this applies to the chimney sweepers up there. This applies to every single industry. It applies to dentists. You know, someone comes in and they call you out, convert them to a client for life. I don't like to call them customers. Usually I call them clients.

So I want to jump into some KPIs and let's start with conversion rate. Right. So conversion rate, really, there's conversion rates in multiple places, right? You got your conversion rate on your website. On the phone. Yeah. On the phone. You got your conversion rate in your website, on the phone, you got for the service text, and

for us with that big ticket item, there's a big conversion rate there. But the basic stuff on your website, you want to convert 20%. That's a really solid number. If you're above that, you're a badass and I love you. On the phone, some people tell you 70%

to 80%. I think it needs to be 90% because it can be done. I know companies I work with that get 95%. You pay so much money to get that call. You better convert. And here's the key to this too. We used to always have a mantra like never lose one call. And it was the most important thing we do. And the whole thought process was like, for HVAC specifically, right? I don't know how much that call is worth until I go out. That could be a $79 tune-up, or it could be a $10,000 install.

And there's no way of knowing until we go out. So I have to assume every call is a $10,000 install. And when you assume every call is a $10,000 install, you answer the phone a little faster. You treat the customer a little bit differently. So I think it's a good mind experiment. And then for our technicians, we want to close in the 80% range for comfort consultants. During the summer, we want to be in the 70% range. During the offseason, we want to be 55-60. So we talked about a few things here, website.

And there's one thing that I do know, Amazon converts at about 5%. And Amazon is probably the God of everything. But there's branded versus non-branded. You guys have done a great job of branding yourselves. You're on every billboard. You see your trucks everywhere. You've done a great job, TV, radio.

Those are branding plays. And a lot of people, me personally, I used to think outdoor didn't work now you can see that i'm a big fan of it because i didn't understand the conversion there's no direct money associated with it right so it's hard to chase sometimes well it is but the difference is is searching a1 garage george or parker and sons versus garage repair hvac repair in phoenix arizona so what happens is people are starting to search for me and they don't care what the price is anymore. There's a better customer base.

So when we talk about website conversion rates, do you think that you should pull those? And look, we could go into pull analytics apart, apart, apart, apart. And I don't want to confuse people, but if you had to search your website and branch it off to two branded versus non-branded do you have a kpi in your mind as far as conversion rate of what branded would be versus non-branded yeah brand is gonna be 40 on average and then non-branded you're looking at 12 to 15 percent amazon is a terrible example right they are the king of all things converting. But when they use that 5%, it's the one-time conversion. They went to the website and they bought on that moment. Amazon's numbers are tracked by the hour. Whereas ours, if it comes the

next day, that's fine. It doesn't matter to me. For our industry, it's not... For almost all service industries, whether you're a chimney sweep, a roofer, a pest control guy, a garage guy, there's a built-in level of urgency on 99% of your calls. There are exceptions where it's maintenance or whatever. But if you're a chimney sweep, 99% of your calls are because, hey, I just moved into this house. I want to start a fire. And I don't feel safe. There's built-in urgency. So you get a lot higher conversion percentage

at each step of the process. Do you believe that retargeting and pixeling is important if you're going to make the decision on the first spot, what you're saying? Of course it is. Marketing is all about efficiency. Forget everything else. Yes, you have to be branded.

Yes, you have to tell a compelling story. Yes, you have to be branded. Yes, you have to tell a compelling story. Yes, you have to have a USP, a unique selling proposition. But above all else, all of those things just lead to efficiency. How much do I have to pay to get a customer? And how much is that customer worth to me? And if I can increase the worth and decrease the cost, that's the best case scenario. That's how you make money. That's how you stand out. That's how you grow and become scalable. Remarketing is such an inexpensive way to do business. You're never going to drive your entire business by remarketing. And just so everybody's on the same page, remarketing, you put a pixel on your website

and you socially or cyber- stock them for a few days. Everyone's looked up shoes and all of a sudden you see that same shoe you're about to buy everywhere you want. That's retargeting. Now, depending on your industry, how long you retarget makes a difference. In the middle of summer for air conditioning, you don't need to retarget for two weeks. They've made the purchase. But for three days, it's perfectly good. And you're never going to spend... You can't spend $10,000 in retargeting.

You just couldn't do it a month. It's just not possible. No matter... Amazon can. I can't. The largest, most successful HVAC company in the United States and the world can't spend $10,000 a month. It's not physically possible.

So you're going to spend between $500, $1,000 for smaller companies. It might be $100,000 or $200,000. But if you could generate 6, 7, 8 calls spend between $500, $1,000 for smaller companies. It might be $100 or $200. But if you can generate 6, 7, 8 calls off that $200, that's a lot better than buying a new customer in PPC. It's much more efficient. Yeah. Sometimes people are like, this one's blowing cool air. It just depends. I think a lot of people... It still works for sure. So I agree with you there. And on the note of conversory, I got a bunch more questions. Then we'll move to a different KPI.

But I got a guy in town on today's Thursday. So Tuesday, he closed a $69,000 deal. A lot of stuff with custom builders. Just the tenacity of follow-up. Unfortunately, we asked our guys to follow up, but we've been creating systems. And the systems dictate the output. It's great when you get a great guy that does great follow up. But I think it's it's the most critical thing that most companies are leaving out is they do a really crappy job of following up.

What are your thoughts on that? And that increases conversion rate dramatically. Oh, yeah. So, I mean, there's two sides of the follow up is the follow up to get the sale and the follow-up after the sale. And most companies don't do a good job of follow-up before the sale. Almost no one does a great job of the follow-up after the sale, building that fence around the customer. So you don't have to repurchase that customer. So they don't look at other companies. So next time they have an issue, they're coming directly to you. So we can talk about both of those. But the follow-up, whether we're talking about any of the companies I've helped, there are some badass salespeople that will do all their own follow-up and they're great at it. And there are some badass salespeople that will never follow up

on anyone. And I've come to just accept that. That is what it is. If you are selling $5 million, $7 million, $9 million in HVAC equipment, I'm not going to be a jerk about you not following up with customers because even if I am, you're not going to do it anyway. So it's important that you create systems. And by systems, of course, I mean, yes, you should email, you should text message them. If it's a large ticket, we actually send priority mail immediately with the proposal, a bunch of information, a bunch of information, a bunch of details, everything go right out because then it's going to be open. Priority mail is open because it's a special envelope. It's more expensive. I'm talking

about a big ticket. So it's efficient. It still makes sense. And now I'm going to set up a call recovery system. So we have people in almost every company I work with that their whole job is to go through invoices where customers turn down potential options, accessories, repairs, installations, right? And they're going to call and do a happy call. But we all know happy calls, they have ulterior motives sometimes, all the time. And we're going to do a happy call, check in on everything.

And oh, by the way, I noticed that we talked to you about an air scrubber. Your son has asthma, it says here in the notes. Can I ask why you didn't decide not to go with the air scrubber? We're actually running a special right now. And John, the same technician, is going to be out in your neighborhood next week. Why don't we send him out Monday? I'll put the air scrubber in the truck and I can give you that $200 discount.

Now that's a specific example, but the truth is you need to have that sales recovery system. So many companies rely on their salespeople to do it and they just won't. Not the level that you want. I love the priority mail thing too. So tell me

exactly, you guys switched the service titan a couple years ago right like a year and a half ago yeah year and a half ago so success where to service titan yeah what are your triggers i'm just curious because a lot of people would go okay that's great let's pull out an Excel sheet. So do you got a technology API or webhook or anything that really makes this simple? Yeah. So what we're going to do is we're going to pull a hook based off the value of the turndown offer. So anything over $500 drops into our sales recovery system. And it's fully automated. They're going to generate a list for our sales recovery people on the phone, the priority mail. We have someone who's physically doing it, but it's going into

a list and automatically happening. What you don't want to do is chase down a $79 tune-up or a $100 repair. It doesn't financially make sense because you have to spiff and pay the person that you're getting to do those calls. Priority mail costs money. Email and text messages are more or less free, but you don't want to keep sending out and chase a small ticket item. So we have it set at anything over $500 we follow up after.

Okay. So we talked about follow up a little bit and that this, by the way, the listeners out there, we could spend, we could spend a week. We could easily go five hours on this little topic of KPI.

I'm going to go real quick. Like me and Tommy are good friends and we'll meet randomly and we'll end up being a bar and there'll be like a hundred people around us. And me and Tommy will be in the corner, just the two of us having drinks, but like not speaking to another person. We talk about like one topic for like four hours, almost every single time.

We're like antisocial together. It's weird oh yeah well i love the golf i love to play darts i love to bowl frisbee golf those guys are right now my executive team are going to play uh cornhole and i'd love to go but i'd rather be here because i love this the problem is i like this way too much it's it's weird but we talked a little bit about that you know the other day i had tom howard out out here. He's a service and he's got his own HVAC company who actually murders that he has actually has a plumbing company just trying to pest control. He's a little bit more ADD than I am.

Hard to believe. But he was telling me Darius Livers had taught him a little deal about financing. As he said, look, never again, say the word financing. There's four type of buyers. From now on, you say we've got a promotion going on. When you understand if they're a low cost, they want to pay as little as possible. If they don't want to pay same as cash, whatever the four types, we've got this really good promotion going on. Josh, would you like to see if you qualify for it? And I thought, geez,

you know, and actually Darius is up past 70%. And he goes, yeah, it helps your conversion rate. It reduces your discounts, but it also increases your service tickets because it's not only about selling new units. It's also all of a sudden you're selling a capacitor. Then you're selling a new thermostat and you're selling a new blower motor. And then you're crossing over to the other, maybe plumbing or electrical. And I just love the concept because words matter. I mean, words matter so much that contract versus agreement, send here versus okay,

the paperwork. These are the things we talk about every day. So talk to me a little bit about your mentality, your goals when it comes to financing and with conversion rate, how much it increases. Yeah. I think conversion rate is one of the most, especially if you're talking big ticket item, it's basically the most important metric you have. Not that other ones don't matter. They certainly do. But that's the most, especially if you're talking big ticket items, it's basically the most important metric you have. Not that other ones don't matter. They certainly do. But that's the most important one because you have a super high ticket,

but you're not converting any. It means nothing. So yeah, I mean, I agree. You don't use the word finance unless the customer uses the word finance. If they ask for financing, then we talk in the words of finance. Promotion is one of her a lot.

Special, whatever. Whatever you want to call it, it doesn't matter. Stay away from the word financing because it means something. And I'm going to deliver some value outside the context here. So most companies don't offer financing at all. We're on the same page there. And that's certainly a mistake because you're losing a lot of money. Some companies don't like it because they have to pay a financing fee. But I'd rather pay a financing fee and have a job than not. There's still wiggle room if you're priced even remotely correctly. But the ones that do finance effectively still don't do it as effective as it could be done. So if you're talking about a $5,000

repair or $3,000 repair or $10,000 new system. And someone else is talking about financing. So the first company is talking about $10,000 system. Second one's talking about $99 to $110 a month. That's not far enough either because that still feels like financing. You got to take it down to the ridiculous. So at Parker & Sons and other companies I've helped, we actually take it down to a daily value. So here's the difference. They're talking about $10,000 with one company and I'm talking about $2.35 a day. It's an entirely different conversation. It's not comparable. Now, the difference between a low-tier system and a high-tier system is no longer $2,000. It's $0.12.

I'm breaking it down to the absolute ridiculous. How much per second? It's simply a penny per second. Literally. So here's why this is so effective. Number one, our closing percentage jumped about 6% when we enacted this and really got it going. So that's metrics alone and not just with Parker & & Sons, with companies across the United States. But here's how I knew this.

Now, you know, George Brazil was an innovator in our industry, a huge company. At one point, they were by far the biggest. Now they're the second biggest company by far, but they're less than half the size of us, right? They ran a promotion years and years ago where it was like, for $100 a month, you get a brand new system and you never have to worry about a repair replacement again.

It was a pretty good out-of-the-box concept. And Vince, who ran our plumbing department, called my father and I was in the room. And Vince is freaking out. He goes, how the hell are they doing that? For $100, never have to repair, never do anything. And then you start doing the math. Now, Vince, just so we're on the same page, was a big guy in Mr. Reuter. He was one of the largest franchises, super successful, smart business entrepreneur. And he's freaking out for $100. Then we start having this conversation. It's like, well, do you think they're sending

the highest tier, nicest system, or they're going to give you a crappy system? Yeah, they're going to give you the base model, the lowest cost system they can give you. And I say, okay. And then how much do you think repairs on that are? And then obviously they replace. You start doing all the math.

And at the time, this was a system we would sell for $6,500. And you do all the math this was a system we would sell for $6,500. And you do all the math, they just financed this system for $12,000. And it went from this conversation with this super successful smart businessman in about a minute and a half conversation from how the hell are they doing that? That's a fucking ripoff. So if a super smart, a very smart, very driven, business-minded person doesn't do the math, do you think a customer does the math at the difference between what $2.35

and even $99 a month or $10,000? It's basically the same. The concept is mind-blowing. The first time I really got exposed to Darius was at Service Titan. He was on stage and I was like, who's this guy? And all of a sudden it felt like he was floating. He's like, you get the people out there that want different financing and the kids with the nosebleeds. We all started laughing, the kids with the nosebleeds about how you need cleaner air. And I just thought it was awesome. But you're absolutely right. He goes, you know, what's nice about service time is you could toggle.

You could toggle. See, for me, I'm like, okay, I'm glad I got the monthly fee or the daily fee, but what's the total? But here's the deal. You know, we're up 72% on our cost of parts. Inflation is happening. What if we could give you the same as cash? I like the way Dale Steele does it. As he goes, hey, Josh, let me ask you a question. Have you gotten a credit card lately? I don't know if you know this, but 19, 20, 23%, I just got this card. Listen, we've really negotiated because we've got the buying power. We've got a deal less than half. It's 9.99% over 10 years. It's awesome because I can get your monthly payments down to under $300 a month. And you're set. You got the micro cryovial things in the,

I don't even know, man, but compared to a credit card, it is a better deal, right? Of course. Yeah. It's not even comparable.

Right. But here's the thing, like you're an anomaly and some people will push the, know the total number, but a lot smaller percentage than you think. And even when you push the total number, you brace them and set an anchor the opposite direction. So even when the total number comes out,

it's perceived differently. So it's no longer $10,000, it's $2.40 a day. So Mr. Mello, do this with me. Tell me, let's do 11,000, just make up the numbers. Who knows what percentage? Service finance, screen scale, there's all these companies. So you're going to say, Mr. Mello, look, we got a five-ton unit. We're going to replace it. You've got some other things we're going to do, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You introduced it at... Go ahead and do it. So I'm going to introduce it at the daily amount.

So I'm sure you've looked at other estimates and everything. We actually have a really great promotion going on right now. Literally, you'll be able to get... And I do a stack. This, this, this, this, this. You get a five-ton system, a 10-year warranty, no lemons guarantee, no apples to apples guarantee. You're going to get 12 things in a stack. So you can get all of that for the equivalent of $2.35 a day. Less than a cup of coffee. Now, a cup of coffee is a key element there because a cup of coffee is a throwaway cost. You know my boy, dude, in fact, service finance, man. That's so funny. Cup of coffee, like sales work across... A cup of coffee is not my concept. This is sales everywhere. A cup of coffee is a great example because it's not expensive. And in general, I'll go right there to a cup of coffee. I'm not even talking about Starbucks coffee. I'm talking about Dunkin'

Donuts. Yeah. Dunkin' Donuts. This is Denny's. One of the cool things that I've learned about coffee is the Starbucks effect. Coffee was just a lost leader. Coming to my diner was free coffee. Free coffee, free coffee, free coffee, free coffee. Dunkin' Donuts, every donut shop in the world, coffee was free. They gave it away. Then all of a sudden you get the Starbucks. And guess what Starbucks did? The coffee shops all started to get busier and make a ton more money. The diners started charging two bucks for coffee on limited refills. And all of a sudden, this little water that goes through this little nothing cost, you make money on. And I love that because I hope to be the Starbucks effect of garage doors. Because, you know, Josh, it's funny. And I'm going to go off a little off topic here, but you know, I had 15, 20 garage door companies up there

in my, where we do our presentations. And, um, a guy asked me, he goes, you know, Tommy, your prices are quite a bit higher. You know, I got to ask you sometimes, how do you sleep at night? And I said, well, let me ask you this. Do you do PTO? Are your employees all W-2 or are they 1099? Do you provide new trucks, new iPads, the best software? Do you know even the KPIs, what they are? Do you do insurance for your employees? Does your wife work for you? Does she get paid?

Does your son work for you possibly or any of your family members? Do you pay them well? Because here's what I believe. I pay the best in the industry with everything I could possibly give the employees number one number two is i can afford a billboard can you and see you think i'm taking advantage of my customers i think you're fucking your employees over i think you're fucking your family over that's what i think i mean that's an aggressive approach right you're not wrong but i mean here's what i would say right it's never about price it's never ever about price

i've never had loss of sale because of price and i would make the argument that no one ever has it's always about value so if my price is higher and that makes you uncomfortable it's because you're not delivering enough value because i'm going to do things that you can't and won't do and because of that i earn the right to charge a higher price. Now, I'm by Parker and Sons and all the companies I work with and here at Clover, we're by no means the highest price, but we got to charge a price that makes sense. Well, I don't like to be the highest price, but what I like to do is look at my business and say, what's a very good margin? 15% to 20%, I i think 30 you might be taking advantage of people but i like to

say where i want to be and my pricing should be a model of what my overhead is plus the margin i want to make some people say you got to call around and check the industry i say yeah why no that's bullshit well to a point so there's a crossing between this because we all have lost leaders that are price competitive things like for us us to tune up or a diagnostic fee or whatever, right? Or Freon where people shop. For those things, you have to be competitive. It's the McDonald's model, right? You got to be competitive on the cheeseburger.

You don't have to be competitive on the Coke and the fries. No one ever runs an ad as special for Coke and fries because that's where they make all the money. Yeah. So there's something you have to be competitive at and know what your other competitors are making. And there's some that that's where you make your money and you don't have to be as competitive. And you don't want to be taking advantage of people either. But that's a part of it. There's a few mistakes. Don't base your pricing purely off competition. Never base your pricing off your salespeople. That's the worst one. Because then you're always going to be the lowest price. The truth is you got to have a combination

of a few things. I think making a price adjustment purely based off margin is a mistake too. Because there's some things you're overpricing, some things you're underpricing. You're trying to get everything together, then you're doing a bunch things you know i've talked to a lot of guys for my christmas type business for example we decided to double the prices we were brand new we didn't have any really coaching so the next year we doubled it we lost 40 of the clients but we made 100 of the revenue for half the work so what i found is there's some yes people and and here's the difference too is you guys don't such a i think you guys own't such a i think you guys own tell me if i'm wrong roughly around 12 and a half percent of the market

no it's nowhere near that high actually uh it's under 10 i thought ken haynes mentioned it was around 12 12 and a half percent they also not parker and sons but ken and the ranch group also about collins comfort they have a few companies here. Parker & Sons, it's just Parker & Sons is $175 million. And we're probably in that 8.5% to 9% market share. Like I said, this conversation is just going to go. I tell a lot of people, I want to own the garage door industry. And what I really think about is, if I go back in time, I always say I planted seeds in Tucson.

Then I planted seeds in Milwaukee, then Vegas. Because those seeds, it takes time to get the reviews and get the right people and manifest the things that need to happen. And that's called greenfield versus mergers and acquisitions, mostly acquisitions. And you know this stuff. But when it comes to growth, you guys have reached 175 in one market. I think a lot of people are like, dude, they call me up all the time. How do I get to my next market? And I'm like, well, Josh just said 175 at less than 9%.

So my question is to you is, when is it time to grow to a new market? And is that even a wise decision? Depends on your model. Honestly, so we grew to 175. We never acquired a business. That was all organic growth. Now, there's not to be said... I mean, we know lots of people mutually that their whole model is purchasing. And if you purchase really well, that's fine. That's not my skill set. My skill set is growing business naturally by getting more customers in and providing better service. There will be a time where... Maybe not now because we sold to the wrench group and things have changed. But there was a time where we're like, hey, maybe at some point we'll expand to

Tucson. But the truth is, you could do 10 different things or you could do one thing really, really well. When you expand to multiple locations, it comes with more risk, more headaches, and you can't focus on your core business. We've grown Parkinson's like 20% to 30% every single year in the high 20s most years. Since we got it. Even during the recession when everything was crap, we grew like crazy. It was one of our biggest growth years. If we stopped growing, our growth has significantly slowed, then we would have looked for new avenues. But it never happened. That being said, we did add services. We used to be just air conditioning and plumbing. Now we do water treatment. Now we do electrical. Now we do insulation. So we've added some add-on. But adding on to your business is significantly more efficient

and less expensive than, hey, I have to start fresh in another city where I don't have the reviews, where I don't have the infrastructure, where I don't have the infrastructure, where I don't have the name, where I don't have all the advantages that I've worked hard to build. So there's always own the client or own the industry. See what I like. There's two points of view here. And I will agree with you that it's easier in your own backyard when you've got control of your technicians,

when you've got the base, I mean, look, everything goes right. We're going to purchase a company here, you know, just in Phoenix, we'll do about 35 million. So that's in a garage door company. So ultimately you throw in the rest of Arizona, Arizona is the monster, but that just means I got that much work to do another market. But my buying power is so much greater that no one could ever get the discounts I get in garage

doors. You know, the stuff I've worked out with Val pack per zone, the things I've worked out, power is so much greater that no one could ever get the discounts i get in garage doors for sure you know the stuff i've worked out with valpac per zone the things i've worked out so the way that i saw and i like your model actually really a lot is to own the customer and it makes a lot of sense to a lot of people so this is interesting because parker and sons is doing five six seven inches i'm doing one really across many avenues and i know the playbook the exact checklist and what what i love though is one guy goes to a market these guys are doing the same thing it's pretty easy right now we're going to floor coatings and storage solutions i want to own the garage and you know my next best market will do about eight million which is in

garage stories that's unheard of you know residential retrofit we're not doing any commercial we're not doing any new home builds except for custom stuff i don't want that net 90 bullshit from the huge fulton home stuff so i don't know you guys don't get involved in new construction really do you no we've never done new construction i mean we do like commercial that's maybe one percent or i got 23 I was going to go through a lot of KPIs, but you guys don't know this about Josh. Some of you might, but Josh is really... I consider him really great at sales and even better at marketing. So I want to dig into the marketing. When we were in Hawaii, 2014, I think, he said,

Hey, have you ever heard that song? 5, 6, 7, 5, 3, 0, 9. You didn't even get the phone number. It's 8, 6, 7, 5, 3, 0, 9. You didn't even get the phone number. It's 8, 6, 7, 5, 3, 0, 9. 8, 6, 7. 8, 6, 7. Whoops. So anyway, I go, yeah.

He goes, I bought it. And all of a sudden, two years later, I guess he had to do with some rights and some things with the legalities of it. But I hear it on the radio. And it's so funny because we were having so much fun in Hawaii. I mean, we had a blast and I learned a lot from you, but you know, you just got a great marketing brain and you understand how to do media buys and you understand, you know, there's a good book.

And I know, you know, who this guy is on the wizard of Azroy Williams. I mean, he worked in a chain company or did work with them, but he works in a lot of big companies and he tells you to beat the same tune sell the same story and just now you have a foot in the diamond business i almost said the grassroots there's just so much to marketing they changed it's jewelry business now they don't say diamond anymore they're trying to expand well i heard that they got away from roy williams because the company is sold or something. I don't know. Then the sun started to go down and they sucked. But yeah, anyway.

So you know what I heard the other day? You know, Jason, Express Flooring is the best called 800 Express. But now it says something else other than 800 Express. And I'm like, why did they change it? 844 to your door. I don't know. Nice. Yeah. Anyways.

There's a jingle. A jingle could last forever. But we used to have those Melvin campaigns that killed it. At some point, you can't beat that horse to death. But it's hard to transition. When we switched to Melvin, we didn't have a big drop because we were already an animal and we already had the system. And the truth is, we're not nearly as good at marketing. Now, I'm not in Parkinson's day-to-day. I haven't been for a few years. But we're not nearly as good at marketing as we once were. Because we were just so much more

focused on efficiency than we are now. Now, we don't have to be. We play a different game than we used to compare to another air conditioning company, like unlimited resources. We can just buy people out. Not physically buy them out, but our biggest competitor goes on this radio station. We could just hop on, spend twice as much of them, crush them, get rid of them, and then drop our budget to half of what the other guy would spend and we own it.

We couldn't do that when we didn't have money when we first started, right? Like we were as tight as a company that was a million or 2 million. So it's just a... There's things that last forever and there's things you convince yourself you should switch away from. Marketing is ultimately testing and tracking and creative thinking. And I mean, it's a science first, but there is an art to it. I'll go through real quick my take on one thing.

A lot of people spend a lot of money on marketing and lead generation and branding. My big thing is I didn't have any of that stuff in the beginning. I just knew how to take care of customers, get testimonials, get them to tell everybody on social media. That is marketing. Yeah, but I just want to say that what I did was I was really good at sales. I could outsell and I could get the customer to convert. And then I'd be invited for dinner and a beer and shooting him a pool. And I mean, I was out working out in my van every day, all day. And the difference was I see a lot of companies go, I need more marketing, need more marketing. I had a phone call six months ago from one of my markets. He goes, dude, we're not keeping my guys busy. I go, are you fucking kidding me?

If I keep your guys busy, we'll go bankrupt. Look at their ticket average and conversion rate. I said, what I'm doing with my dispatcher now, I said, look, I want the bad guys that just don't know how to convert to have good average tickets, one call a day. The other guys, I want four. Don't split them evenly. The good guy that's doing amazing work,

that's listening, that's on time to all the meetings, give him four. No more than four, three perfect. But the other guy, let's get him for more ride-alongs. Let's get him sent back to Arizona. He needs to go back to training. He needs to believe. I told the guy, I said, if you don't believe in what we got to offer with our trademarks and our patents, then this might not be the right company for you unless you want to work in the call center, which I love those people. They're amazing. But realistically, you go to a new market,

or you're in a small market with a million, $2 million company. They have not, you know, I go and I look and they got 22 reviews. They got one on Yelp. That's it. Their website looks like they built it themselves. They've got no videos, no testimonials. Look, I love the people that are listening. I love you guys. I really do. But this is most of you. Where do you start, Josh? What are the, what are some quick, easy steps? And then what's the next step from there when you hit the 5 to 6 million? So for marketing specifically or overall? Go overall then dive deep into marketing. The thing is, a lot of people know me from Parkinson's, but I've helped companies from across the board. Generally not a million,

but 2 million plus, I could turn you to 10 million within two to three years. And I do that right now. And I do it consistently, without fail, without exception, actually, which is pretty powerful. But overall, the first thing you have to do... 99% of contractors aren't priced properly. So the first thing you have to do is look at your pricing. Second thing you have to do is look at your sales process. Not just your selling process in the home, but over the phone, your follow-up, your text message, your emails, all the easy stuff. All the low-hanging fruit. Get that low-hanging fruit and make some more money off of it. Once you make more money, then you start marketing more effectively. Don't do the same things that everyone else does because you'll get the same results everyone else

does and being different and unique. For the marketing side, if you're a million-dollar company, $2 million, $3 million company, 99.9% of you don't have a USP. The USP is Unique Selling Proposition. It's basically like, why me over someone else? And you can walk into businesses and you could ask that question. It's like, well, because we do great service. It's like, well, everyone says they do great service. Oh, because we have great pricing. Well, everyone says they have great pricing. Those aren't USPs because they're not unique.

So you really have to decide not who you are, but who you want to be and choose a path and then really stick with it. I've helped companies here in Phoenix grow dramatically outside of Parkinson's and it was just, hey, we're a women-owned business. I have a minority-owned business. We're the community company. We treat you like family. And you deep dive and everything you say or do relates back to that. Your emails, the way you answer the phone, the way you go out to the customer, the way your trucks look, the way your uniforms look. It sounds really complicated, but if you just decide, hey, I am the family business, right? We treat you like family. And every decision you make is looked through that lens. It becomes easier, right? A maintenance

agreement plan is now called the family plan because we treat you like family. Your family is our family. So if you share this with your family members, which is a referral, we'll offer the same risk now because any family friend of yours is a family friend of ours. The way we answer the phone, everything, if you just look through that lens, it's not as complicated as you think. And you just can't be generic. You know, I was at a club, a convention years ago, and they gave us this book called The Competitive Advantage. And since then, I've had Janie on the podcast, but she said so many people have the dumbest USP, unique selling proposition. We're open nights and weekends.

We're A plus. That's not USP. We're open. No, no, no. Listen, a dozen of the fake ones. We're open nights and weekends. Same day service. Look, we hire black, white, Cuban, and Asian.

We have females here. All that shit. I'm sorry. sorry i just we're open on holidays they go through and really what she's focused on is she says we need to get exact kpis and here's a really good usb when you're sitting down with a client and you tell them out of the last 9286 install 97% of them were on time. Exactly what we said. There was 3%. 2.5% of those. And you actually have facts

and evidence to support your USB. And really, there are some generic ones. But when you're able to say, this is the checklist we use to make sure. This is how you know you're getting what you're getting. Because when they pulled out the double blind study of everything that matters price was number 10

a lot of people sell on price a lot of us say and here's my biggest problem josh is what i realized is most of my technicians a lot of them and a lot of the employees and this is not the company who i'm becoming because most of them every single one of my employees i want to become a homeowner but if you're like me you know i've taken a of the shortcuts. And now I'm like, I will not take the cheapest price. I don't want the cheapest price. I want to know how you do it, how you ensure the quality, what kind of warranty you offer. Do you guys clean up? I want to know that my family's safe when the person enters my house. You're about to have a kid. You want to make sure that that company has some type of background test and to make sure that they're not letting in a some bad person to the home so i think that's how

homeowners are and our technicians are just not the same they just some of the times they can't sell because they're selling out of their own pocket yeah i mean i forget who it was but it was a vp a rotor once told me that you never get upset for hiring the best. And it's true. Everyone's had that mistake in life where they hired someone that was inexpensive and they drastically regret it. No one regrets hiring someone paying a little more and doing a great job and delivering an amazing service. It just doesn't happen. They need training. They need that constant love. The other day, I've been telling a lot of people this just this last week. About three, four months ago, we had a weight loss contest.

And it was $5,000, 35 first place, or 3,500 and 500, first, second, third. And I posted it. A lot of people entered, put in their first beginning weight. And I'm like, dude, I'm going to be known for the company that just proactive, healthy weight loss. But you know what? That was the last we heard. Then we called out the announcer. The announcement was 90 days later. And I thought to myself the other day, what a shitty leader, what a failure I was. I didn't find a kind of no accountability. I didn't talk about who's your accountability partner. I should have got your wives and husbands involved in your kids. We should have had automatic text messages to say, who's going to win each week, each day, each month,

and called off little winners. Not instead of the grand prize, but I had little prizes all the way up. I should have been more about making a great example of, post a picture of working out. We're going to have another contest on social media. Tell me what you're eating tonight. And got them into a group where they're all with each other. Because if you can't build an environment that's competitive, that pushes people ahead, you don't ever think that you're going to grow. You're always looking for the next

best thing. You're looking for that next employee to come save the day. But it's you as the leader and the owner that, not necessarily the owner, but the management that need to decide, are you going to push your people up? I've seen the shittiest people come out of college ball, right? They're not good. They go to a coach and all of a sudden they're the MVP and they're playing in the Superbowl because the coaches have coached them up. They've challenged them to be the best they could be. Michael Jordan failed the sophomore year of his high school team. He didn't make the basketball team. It's hard to believe Michael Jordan. And I just feel

like, what do you have to say? Because obviously 175 million, you guys have gone through your fair share, I'm sure, of employees and theft and crazy things at that size. But what do you think that the key thing about culture would be? So, I mean, what you're describing is event-based culture. It's an easy trap to fall into. Like, hey, 90 days, you get this big reward. Or even more extreme, I know companies are like, hey, I do a happy hour every Friday so I could treat them like shit Monday through Thursday. That's not a system for great experience. You have to bring excitement and fun into every single day, every single thing you do. Understand that some jobs are stressful and shitty at certain parts of it,

but you can mitigate those pains and you can make the ones that aren't exciting and fun. So public praise and all this stuff, but really it comes down to clear expectations, accountability, because people actually like accountable if they're good, right? And it comes down to excitement and drive. When you hit those numbers,

everybody gets rewarded, gets incentivized, not just locally, which certainly we need to do consistently and unexpectedly, but financially. And if you want to be the best company, if you want to grow, it's really this simple. Get the best people. If you have the best team, you will solve 90% of your problems before they even start. Things will stop making it to you. So in order to have the best team, you have to be the best place to work with. And you have to be the best boss. And you have to be the best personality. And you do have to lead by example. All these things that everybody knows, but they don't do it every day. And you have to make an effort of that. I think one of the biggest things here at Clover, the biggest thing, bar none,

everybody you work with, I don't care who you are, how successful. I've had $100 million businesses come to me like, hey, I want your help. I'm going to pay you a shit ton of money. And if I don't think they're fun or growth-oriented, I won't work with them. Period.

Because that's too high a priority to our culture and to me. I've made money and done pretty well for myself. I'm in a position I get to choose who I work with. So you better be exciting or fun in some way. It doesn't have to be the exact same way as me. And you better be open and willing to grow. Whether that's business wise, personally, it doesn't matter as long as you're growth oriented. And all of our team members are that way. And Parkrun sends the team

members that way. And Pulse, the team members that way. And Review Kangaroo, the team members that way. If you get people who want and need to grow every day and improve, then things become inevitable. I do too. I think you're right. But that could be a culture where they just want it. We play motivational things. I think

I love relating everything to sports because I played a lot of sports. And one of the things I can tell you, Josh, is we practice five times more than we played. And we forget that in business. We say, hey, follow me. Do two ride-alongs and you're on your own. Good luck. And I think that's the biggest failure. I want to go through a speed round because I always have a lot of questions. And with a guy like you, I get so excited. I don't ask any of the questions I'm supposed to ask. Tell me about a contractor catapult. Contractor catapult is a new, exciting approach we're taking to growth and learning from contractors. It's not like a affinity group or a buying group or like a consultant. Essentially, we take the best ideas from the best contractors in the United States.

We take one idea and break it down to extreme levels. And we share that with the group. That's literally how I grew. And we're just sharing that information with a bunch of contractors. It's incredibly powerful. You can actually check out the stuff. We're giving away some stuff. So it's growwithclover.com backslash free gifts.

Real complicated. We're going to have all this. If you guys check out the website of this podcast on Home Service Expert, I'm going to put a lot of Josh's links and insights in there. Tell me a little bit about Dare to Compare the sheet. Dare to Compare is a recruiting tool. I mean, recruiting is one of the most important things you could do. Arguably the most important thing you could do. We talked based on that,

but they don't have systems for recruiting. One of the systems you create is you can make anyone a recruiter. The way you make anyone a recruiter is you create handouts, systems. You don't want your CSR explaining to a technician they saw at a gas station why it's great to be a technician. You have to arm them with everything they need where they don't have to explain it. Dare to Compare is something we put together that was incredibly effective. We send it out to technicians, to the technicians' wives that we're trying to recruit. It's a great tool. Make it simple.

Actually, just hit up my support at growwithclover.com. I'll send you the Dare to Compare. Dare to Compare. Dare to Compare. Got our free gift. Man, it feels like Christmas. A lot of people are saying, man, I'm very scared of the big four. Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Apple. And they're definitely going to be making some big waves here soon.

We know that. We know that's coming. They don't scare me as much because I think they need me more than I need them. I already get leads. I already got skilled technicians. I think what's going to happen is these guys all think it's Uber. That's the problem with these smart guys. They all go, very easy. We just get Uber drivers. No, you need skilled technicians. We got a training school. We've got instructors. We've got recruiters. They need us more than we need them. But what are your thoughts on the technology and the things are

going to change so i'm going to disagree with you and here's the reason i'm a disagree i agree with the fact that you're set up to fully capitalize it that i'm set up to fully capitalize it that a lot of people we know and work with every day are but the average contractor is not i compare this a lot to like p PPC back in the day. I know this guy here in town, Bryce Johnson. He talks about all the time with AC by J. He was one of the very first people to start PPC for air conditioning and plumbing. Or he was just air conditioning at the time. At the time, he could buy essentially a call for under $1 because there was no one else doing it. It was new, exciting,

and he was just ahead of the curve. There will be a time where these companies figure out how to market effectively to our business and take out... By the way, it's not just the Googles and the Amazons of the world. It's also the manufacturers. They're going to sell online. There's too much money and they have too much control not to. It's a matter of time, period. Maybe a year from now, maybe five years from now, maybe 10 years from now, maybe six months from now. But it will happen. And the key to this is set yourself up for success.

No matter what, Google is not going to employ technicians. They're not. They're going to pick people that they can trust, that they can know, that they believe will do solid work because their name's on the line too. It's similar to like, we do a ton of business with Costco and Home Depots across the United States for different companies. They don't want to work with 50 trucks in the trucks. They want to work with five companies that they really know and they really trust and has good systems and are communicative and have the support staff to do it. So start working now to prepare yourself for that. I will say this, this whole

aspect of you could go to any of these places. They already sell online. They could get a five ton unit for two grand. My problem is, do you know how to set it up properly? Do you know how to get a crane? Look, they've talked about commoditization. They've talked about being cashless. They talked about being without checkbooks. And unfortunately, human beings can't keep up with the flow of technology right now. It's going like this. So do I know something's coming? Great. Yes, absolutely. You know, people listen to my podcast, Josh, and I get a couple of phone calls a week. Guess what? I'm getting in the garage or business. I'm like, great, good, because I'm going to be buying you out soon. But at the end of the day, if I lived out of fear, if I'm sharing secrets and giving people

all the information, I said, geez, what's going to happen if I tell everybody all this stuff? Look, I always compare it to a five-gallon bucket going to the ocean. I hope there's enough out there for all of us. What I've learned is I hated the word market cap years ago. Market cap, what if I charge double and have a better, but what if I'm able to sell more? What if I'm able to come up with new inventions like we've done and really do the best for the consumer possible, but still raise market cap? It was a fictitious number and I still think it is oh for sure i mean market tab is a moving target like it's a guess at best right and i agree with you wholeheartedly like there's no limits by the way like i share everything like you know that obviously i do that with you and with everybody

right because ideas are worthless it's implementation that matters right so you need someone like myself or like tommy to actually get you to actually implement to have success. But the truth is, I'm never worried about the solid contractor, the great guy that does great work. That only helps me. I worry about the guy that does shitty work that goes out of business and doesn't take care of his customer that gives all of us a bad name. And the more people I can push out of that into successful, smart business owners that can make a living, that can survive, that does do well, that means it's less room for the shitty guys. And that's better for everybody.

You're not going to convince me. As big as Parker & Sons is, it's a small percentage. There was a time where this business didn't exist. It was so... When I got into the industry, a $20 million business was gigantic. You know what I mean? $100 million never existed. Right? I love it. You know what I love so much about HVAC Plumbing Electrical? I've got all these books and I learned so much about the industry. I think I've got, you name it, the godfathers of Jim Abrams of the world that really pioneered it.

And then you've got the Smith. What's his name? He's really, really old. He's the godfather. It's been a while. Ron Smith. You talking about Ron Smith? Yeah, Ron Smith.

Yeah, there you go. And what I've realized is I'm in the best position ever. Because there's no such thing as a $20 million garage door company. They're few and far between. Garage door is a green market. It's a blue ocean for a marketing term. And a lot of people are getting into it, but I'm calling. I talked to Jim and his people.

We've talked to Terry. We've talked to all these guys that were understanding the model, and it's coming so close with the school, the recruiting, the training. And here's the greatest thing when i talk to guys like you i realize there's so much more to go because there's so many better ways to be doing things i love it when somebody comes in my business and rips you a new asshole the first time i'll leave you walked in he goes are you fucking kidding me he goes this is a joke i almost tripped over your telephone cord bro because why do you have calendars on the wall have you ever heard of google calendar i go yeah i know why do they have together what well i always get sorry you know i make an excuse and he goes where's your work shirt i go well i this is a napkin i got this you know and this was

i was doing 20 million at the time yeah that was a fire show man that was fires al is awesome i love al man i talked talked to him not that long ago, man. Now, he'd be a little extreme sometimes too, right? But he is like a systems above all else guy. Systems above sales, above marketing, above everything. He used to get in his car after he'd

come give us a session. He was a mentor. We sat down in our room, worked on our manuals. He always backed his car up, always freshly cleaned. I mean, he still does. And we talk about him, you know, he backed up and then still in the parking lot, I get a receipt for $22 and 36 cents for his gas bill. I mean, he's so methodical. It was like, he didn't skip a beat. And then we did his garage door. He made a bunch of testimonials and stuff, but he said he poked holes. And the

thing is, is so many people, Josh, they get so defensive. They're like, well, they don't even know. You don't even know. And it's like, I'm like, hell yeah, bring it. Tell me more. The SWAT analysis, give me all the weaknesses. I don't care what you like. Thank you. Appreciate it. Tell everybody else that you like, tell me what we need to work on. And I wish that more people that are listening said, let people destroy you. Let your customers what we need to work on. And I wish that more people that are listening said, let people destroy you. Let your customers answer. Don't defend it. Realize there's holes in your business that you could fix. Because if you defend the status quo, you're never going to grow. Every business... I'll tell... And I'm not going to name a company name. But years ago, I was

brought in to save a company. And I remember I got into there and they were having some... Doesn't matter the issue because you might be able to identify. And I'm sitting there and the phones aren't ringing. And I'm in the call center. And everybody's sitting there waiting. And I'm sitting there and I'm purposely having this conversation with the GM at the time, just sitting in the call center. And he wants to walk back to the office and I'm not letting him walk back to the office. I want to sit in the call center. I sit in this call center for five minutes and no one's been on the fucking phone. I go, hey, can I ask you a question? Why is no one on the phone right now? And he goes, well, the phones aren't ringing. People aren't calling in. I go, yeah, I know that.

But why aren't they calling out? We pay them to sit there. Why don't we make them productive? And it was like this unbelievable... This was like a $30 million business just before. And I was like, it's like, oh my god. Every business has huge holes. And outside perspective is unbelievably powerful. I mean, you can walk into Parker & Sons right now, the largest, most successful, most profitable

HVAC plumbing business in the industry right in the history of the industry and you would be able to poke 50 holes in it within an hour without a doubt and some of them we would say yeah we know we live with and some of them be like oh shit we didn't even know that was there well having that mentality of look you know the difference is is i'm the most critical of myself And I expect big things for myself and my business. And everybody here, I mean, I'm standing on the feet of just monsters, like literally like the shoulders of like the biggest and best. You think about Ron Smith, you think about these guys,

and I've read their books inside and out, and I've literally gone. And, you know, I've learned from you. I've learned from Kent Goodrich, who has a great ability to brand. He's got a whole different concept, going to really crappy, destroyed businesses. I don't want to say brand he's got a whole different concept going to really crappy destroyed businesses i don't want to say every one of them because they're not going to be yeah yeah but you know i tell people all the time like ken is probably the best acquisition guy i've ever met and definitely in our industry but potentially ever met he is unbelievably good acquisition uh growth through acquisition, he's unbelievable.

I think that there's an art to really understanding Greenfield and then understanding... See, when I got my master's degree, I took all these finance classes and I guess I was not paying attention because I can't do half the shit they taught me. But when you get with the right financiers and you understand Greenfield and you can plot it out on a table and look at the directions and understand your pricing model you know my brother my brother-in-law is a cio at g he manages about 1100 people and the models that they're able to build at g and the things that they're able to do to understand and be exact and build projections are unlike anything i've ever seen in a lot of of us, and me included, I mean, we've got the right people. We're really getting this dialed in.

But it's like the blind leading the blind. It's literally going, well, what's the goal? What's your projections? How are you going to hit those? What needs to happen? And what shifts are you doing? Where are you making the changes? And the crazy thing is, is this scares a lot of people.

To me, it gets me excited. It's like, holy crap, we're at the next dimension. When you, you know, we're on pace, we're not quite going to hit a hundred million, but the things are starting to change. We're like, never thought of that. Need to do this, need to do this. And what got you here won't get you here. The same people that get you here can't get you here a lot of the time. I mean, what do you tell somebody that goes to a $5 million company or a $10 million company and they go, this guy gave his blood, sweat, and tears, but then I realized that he's a firefighter and we don't need any more firefighters. We need fire preventers.

Then you hit a hundred million and you're like, man, what's the next level? And I'm not saying a lot of the people are the same people. They just got to grow with you. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you try to grow. I mean, you know, recruiting retention is the most important thing you do, right? And part of that is training right you need to heavily invest in training and making your people better make them grow but some people we'll talk about real quick but i think it's one of the most brilliant growth strategies ever is rotator back in the day right they had a saying it's not the land it's the man. And their whole growth model... At one point, Roto-Rooter was by far the largest plumbing company in the world. They probably still are,

but they dominated, dominated, dominated. And their whole growth strategy was like, every location grew only to the comfort level of the person running it. There was no other factors. That was it. So if this business owner was a $5 million business owner or GM or whatever, he would grow to $5 million and then things would start taping off. And if you took that one location and all of a sudden you took it Phoenix and you divide it to Phoenix East and Phoenix West, you put a new GM in front of Phoenix West and the old GM is Phoenix East. And it's now a $2.5 million business. But he's used to growing five. He'll get to five almost right away.

And this new one has its own limit, right? And the whole model was basically like you grow to the comfort level of the person in charge. There's no other factors involved. And if you just keep cutting that business manager or that GM or whatever you want to call it, depending on the position he was, it was all GMs, but business owner, right? You will keep growing. And you have to do that with team members too, right? The same team member that was with you at 4 million or 5 million or 10 million, it's probably not the same position or type of position or level at 100 million now he may have grown to something different or you may have had to cut that responsibilities to his comfort level

or sometimes you have to let someone go because ego gets in the way right either direction sometimes but your ego should never affect it right i? I'm not a big ego, obviously. I don't believe in a big ego. Sometimes I do it accidentally. Yeah. You outgrow people and it's your responsibility to put them in positions to be successful. And sometimes that means not as high a position as they would like. And sometimes that means training.

And sometimes that means we're not the best fit. And you're giving them the opportunity to be successful somewhere else. Yeah. Well, Joe Crisara says, he approaches people and says, you don't want me talking behind your back to other people about ways to get rid of you. So let's figure out a way to make you excited. I was on a call earlier with my guys, all my lead techs in every market. There was like 17 of them.

I think we're in 19 states so there was more and they were like they're talking and they were like yeah yeah the great stuff that i was like man i'm like but you guys are gonna put me to sleep i'm like seriously do you have any passion any conviction i'm like when you talk could you be like man i believe in this i'm like if you got to take an energy drink, I'll buy it for you. Can you guys get excited? You guys, come on, pump me up. Get me motivated. Check in on me day to day. Make sure I'm doing good. And I said, here's a little secret. You guys spend 90% of your time with the bottom 10%. Imagine if you spent 90% of your time with the top. Imagine taking a guy from 800,000 to 2 million. You think that that 1.2 million is better than bringing a guy from 400,000 to 500,000? Because that's what happens. I say i say look send it back to phoenix i'll worry with the guys that

aren't performing you take your top guys that have a will and a way that believe and work with those guys way more i don't know it's like i don't necessarily agree with that i'm gonna push back and here's the reason why because your top guys you can only move so far too. Your real growth potential is the middle, the upper middle. Because if you could push those upper middle guys, it's easier to make that adjustment. And by pushing those upper middle guys, you automatically push your upper guys because they're used to and enjoy being at the top. When I was able to teach my top guy that door sales were better than service. So service to sales and become... Instead of comfort advisors, we were able to do a product specialist. When I was able to take him and teach him financing, you know what the top really is when you take a million dollar producer

and turn them into a $2.5 million producer. But a million dollar producer is not a high producer. A what? A million dollar producer is not a high producer. It all depends on niche. You look at a plumber, Aaron Gaynor is one of my good buddies. 40% margins just in Ohio and Columbus, going to do $32 million this year. His average truck is $400,000. So when you look at service... That's a low average truck though. I mean, you got...

What I'm saying is, that's all relative. Tell the chimney guy $500,000 sucks. Tell the landscaping guy. I agree with that. But we're talking about your specific industry, right? So for garage doors, a million-dollar salesman is a good salesman. It's not a high-level salesman. No, no, no.

Salesman is different than a tech. I'm talking about technicians. Yeah, but the techs sell for you, right? So like a selling tech. That's similar to a selling tech. If you look at the industry... You have selling techs that sell... For Parker & Sons, if you don't sell 4 million,

you're not going to have a job. The average in our industry, though, you've got five guys that won't do a million dollars. That means that you're making less than 200,000 per tech. Look at the average. Don't look at the top three companies. But do you want to be below the average?

I don't know. I'm making history. I want to change the industry. And I would say a tech that doesn't, like $200,000 is well below average. The average for the industry, just on the same page, is right around $350,000, $400,000

for an AC tech. For a plumber, it's right around half a million. That's the average. That's good to know. I like that. And it all depends on the plumbing that get into piping and go, they run the pipe to your house. That's an average. There's going to be higher and lower based off of service types and where they're located, but that's the average. See, I love this stuff. And you know what I love the most is I have a tendency to just spit out

stuff and sometimes I don't check the facts because I know my industry and I know my company so well. But I don't know. I've never taken a, believe it or not, most statistics are made up and then they take these, these double blind studies and half the time I'm like, really? But then I go talk to companies and they're like, yeah, I did 2 million this year. I'm like, you got 12 guys working for you? Like 12 techs. Yeah. I'm like, can I buy your company? Because if you got 12 guys that are only making $2 million,

we've got issues to talk about, but Josh, I want to do a round two of this and I'm serious about doing a round two here in the next month. If you can make the time, we'll do it on your schedule, but I want to ask you some closing questions, but seriously,

I mean, I always say round two, but I'm ready to go. I think there was so much value delivered here that people are going to want more. And I've got a million questions from the listeners. So if you could get on the page of Home Service Expert on Facebook, you might be able to answer some of these.

But I'm too greedy. I needed to know the answers for myself. So if somebody wants to get a hold of you, get involved with Clover, get involved with growing the business, how do they do that? So you can reach out to me. You can go growwithclover.com. We're actually, I didn't even think about this, but we're doing a big webinar next Thursday. I think it's... Let me write it down. At 2pm PST, so 5pm Eastern Time,

we're doing a big webinar and just helping people solve problems and talking about our journey from 6.5 to 175 now and all the tools and tricks we use and just a bunch of actionable stuff. So if you want to join that, it's growwithclover.com backslash webinar. Super difficult name, I know. And then you can always just email us. You can email me directly if you want help or have questions.

It's just josh at growwithclover.com. I'll be honest, I'm not as responsive as my team though. So if you want something quick, they will pester me for answers, I promise you. Just support my team though. So if you want something quick, they will pester me for answers. I promise you just support at growwithclover.com. Super easy stuff, man. You got any books? I always ask the three books. You got anything you've read that you recommend that must read? I mean, that's one of my secrets to life, right? I've read a business book every month since I was 15. I read books all the time. My favorite book is the first book I ever read,

How to Win Friends and Influence People. Love that book. I think Lean Startup, I think for a contracting business, is a brilliant book. Super fans. It's a newer book. It's a great book. There's all kinds of amazing books out there, man.

I know. It's just what happens in this world of ours is we just get bombarded and everybody's like, we got to read. And, you know, the good news is it's all about growth, man. It's the most important thing I could do. You know, I decided that I want to be the biggest influencer in the home service niche last week. And what does that mean? You need to get the podcast to 150,000 downloads a month.

Working on that. I want to be several million on Instagram. And why? Because, you know, I just decided. And what I decided as I'm talking to the people on my team, I said, two doesn't cut it. And they said, well, top 10 would do a lot. And I said, I know, but I, that's not, I don't play a game to come in 10th place. So we need to start thinking, what does that look like? What are the top? Let's put a cadence together of everybody and identify who we have to be. Because if you don't know, they're not the enemy.

They're actually going to be our friends. We're going to all be friends and work together and compliment each other. But I want to know where they're at because we need to understand where we need to grow to. So we talked about a lot of stuff, Josh. I mean, look, I respect you a lot. I think you're a great, great person. And, you know, I love your wife. I'm really excited, I respect you a lot. I think you're a great, great person. And I, you know, I love your wife. I'm really excited for you to have a kid. I want to do part two. I'll join your

webinar. I hope everybody does. I hope that they get involved and they want to grow their business. Look, I've got a mission. Social media for me, the podcast has helped me grow 10 times faster. It's actually been an incubator for A1. The way I look at it is the bigger that this podcast, the bigger that I'm able to get, the larger A1 grows, the faster it grows. So this is for everybody in the business. I just want to clarify, I tell people don't do 80 things at once. The podcast is a direct correlation with the growth of A1. The notes I took on this is going to grow A1. So we talked about a lot of things, Josh. If you wanted to leave with one thing, one takeaway, one gold nugget, anything you want, I know we probably didn't hit everything we should have, but I'll let you kind of close us out with a really good final thought.

No pressure, just out of nowhere, final thought, no context. Okay, yeah. I mean, here's what I would say. Me and Tommy are very similar. He's playing the social media game. I don't play the social media game. I mean, here's what I would say. Me and Tommy are very similar. He's playing the social media game. I don't play the social media game. I'm terrible at it. It's just not something I'm interested in. But he understands the value to it and he sets a goal when he goes. The biggest difference in this industry between the haves and the have-everything and the have-nots, it's not a pricing strategy. It's not a sales strategy. Overwhelmingly,

it's mindset. It's being willing to strategy. Overwhelmingly, it's mindset. It's being willing to do things other people aren't willing to do, making the effort to grow personally and businessly, setting goals. If you can do that yourself, most people can't. Then that's awesome. I mean, I do it myself. And Tommy, you do it yourself. We have mentors. We always have mentors. But I learned skills and personality. I don't do it to grow. But most people need an accountability system. So if you need that, reach out to someone like myself or like Tommy, or like Joe or 100 other people. Find someone you want to be like, and someone you resonate with and force them to hold you accountable.

And if you set these goals and you have to take action and you have someone to hold you accountable to make sure that action is actually happening, you'll do well. Does that help? Jeez, that was genius. Mindset, mindset, you know, hey, Josh, you killed it. I want to tell everybody one thing real quick when it comes to mindset. You know, I Josh, you killed it. I want to tell everybody one thing real quick, when it comes to mindset, you know, I take a lot of notes, I'm working on a new book. So every time I get a thought I'm writing down a million notes. And I got to tell you guys,

one of the coolest quotes I just heard by Abraham Lincoln was the best way to predict the future is to create it. And the way that you create your own future is through your mindset. This morning on my meeting, I talked about Marty McFly when he goes, Doc, he goes, look at this. He goes, it's all erased. And Doc looks at him and he goes, Marty, the future is what you make of it. It's not made yet. It's everything that we make it. And Josh, I love what you just said. It's all about having that, the winning mentality and the mindset. So I you coming on i think this was absolutely terrific i got a ton out of it i think you dropped the bombs and everybody's here learning and taking notes and hopefully implementing everything you said with a positive mindset yeah before we go i want to do one thing you're the garage king

you know i just renovated my garage right no i'm actually in my garage right now. This is my office. I'm going to swing it around real quick. Garage door. Did a fucking full workout. Got a little fridge over there. You can't see my fucking computer. Look at that. Beautiful. We got a studio and the whole kit and caboodle, man. Where were you?

You look good, man. I'll tell you what. I just got a house in PV. It's a big house and I decided it's too big. I'll tell you what. I just got a house in PV. It's a big house, and I decided it's too big. I'm selling it. How does the Tommy move? It is. I got lost one day.

I couldn't see anything, and it was dark. And I'm like, this is ridiculous. I could make good money by selling it. So moving back into the apartments for a short period of time. But I love everything. What's it called? It's called like nesting or something like that when you stay in one of love everything. What's it called? Nesting or something like that when you stay in one of the apartments. What's the real estate term?

I think I know what you're talking about, but I don't know the term. All I know is that where I live, if I can get from point A to point B and I've got a nice bed and a place to relax with my girlfriend and my puppy, I'm good and I'm happy. Me and you, buddy, we've got to make sure that we go off. We'll do this again within the next month and then puppy, I'm good. And I'm happy. So me and you, buddy,

we got to make sure that we go. We'll do this again within the next month. And then you owe me a cocktail. Sounds good, brother. Appreciate you. All right. We'll see you later. Hey guys, I just wanted to thank you real quick for listening to the podcast from the bottom of my heart means a lot to me. And I hope you're getting as much as I am out of this podcast. Our goal is to enrich your lives and enrich your businesses and your internal customers, which is your staff. And if you get a chance, please, please, please subscribe. You're going to find out all the new podcasts. You're going to be able to ask me questions to ask the next guest coming on. And do me a quick favor, leave a quick review. It

really helps us out when you like the podcast and you leave a review, make it four or five sentences, tell us how we're doing. And I just wanted to mention real quick, we started a membership. It's homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash club. You get a ton of inside look at what we're going to do to become a billion dollar company. And we're just, we're telling everybody our secrets basically. And people say, why do you give your secrets away all the time? And I'm like, you know, the hardest part about giving away my secrets is actually trying to get people to do them. So we also create a lot of accountability within this program. So check it out. It's homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash club. It's cheap. It's a monthly payment. I'm not making any money on it to be completely

frank with you guys, but I think it will enrich your lives even further. So thank you once again for listening to the podcast. I really appreciate it.