The Home Service Expert Podcast - The First KPI Every Home Service Owner Should Track (Not Revenue) |

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

🚀 FREEDOM 2026 Get your Tickets Today! https://freedomevent.com Derek Cornish got laid off, answered a job ad, and became the top salesman at a window company. Then he and his partner Lakota Tidd built Top Home Improvements from a garage to $20 million a year across three Michigan locations on door knocking and 300 events a year. In this episode Derek breaks down the sales system behind it: why close percentage is the first KPI to track, why his Detroit manager did more revenue with fewer reps, the month they raised prices 30% and had their biggest month ever, sweat questions, same day next day, first in last in, the scariest room in the company, and how to fix commission breath before it costs you the sale. If you run a home service or home improvement sales team, this is the playbook. Follow Derek Cornish and Top Home Improvements: https://tophomeimprove.com | [e-mail] -- 🕐 TIMESTAMPS 🕐 -- 00:00 - Introduction 00:51 - Laid off, then top salesman 07:35 - Selling to people not looking 09:25 - Why 3 out of 10 wins 10:43 - Bottom line beats top line 14:37 - Never scared of price 16:41 - From texts to a KPI system 18:37 - Fewer reps, more revenue 26:30 - Commitments and accountability 29:45 - The scariest room 33:01 - The first KPI to track 34:26 - Same day, next day 37:27 - Beating the big brand 39:58 - When they ask for a discount 45:46 - Selling out of your own pocket 54:31 - Go for the no 55:37 - Commission breath 59:39 - A million behind, a million ahead 1:03:04 - Pancakes and the Top Home cult 1:09:01 - Raised prices 30%, biggest month 1:11:54 - Fractional CFO and accrual 1:13:14 - Role play, role play, role play 1:21:26 - Predictable Success 🚀 FREEDOM 2026 Get your Tickets Today! https://freedomevent.com Check Out My Social Media: Tiktok ⟶ https://www.tiktok.com/@officialtommymello Instagram ⟶ https://www.instagram.com/officialtommymello/ Facebook ⟶ https://www.facebook.com/thomasmello/

We raised our prices 30% in one month. Most people would have been like, you're crazy. And we were a little crazy. And we ended up having the biggest month the next month. Then we ever had it, did nothing. And when I say 30%, it was legit 30%. We went 10 and then 20. And it wasn't the issue, though.

It was all the internal stuff of no SOPs. Yeah. It was none of that. Well, you can't price yourself out of bad KPIs. All right, guys, welcome back to the home service expert. Today I got Derek Cornish here. He built the same. sales organization at top home improvements from the ground up.

He started knocking doors, became a closer, and then built the entire sales operation that now runs across three locations with a dedicated sales manager and a high-level call center. Today, he's going to break down how he went from zero KPIs to a full sales management system, the specific techniques that turn are not interested into a closed deal of what a sales organization needs to look like at every stage of growth. Derek, how the hell are you? Doing good, Thomas. Glad you made it out.

So you've built the entire sales organization at Top Home Improvements from the Groundup. Before we get into the systems, take us back to the beginning. How did you get into home service? And what were those early days like? So actually, I was working at a company, screen printing, sport apparel. And they were kind of going down, lost my job, and went home, was bummed out, and just got online and saw this ad for company vehicle and 100K,000. And so I jumped on, ended up getting the job.

Actually brought me in for an interview for canvassing and call center. I was like, well, I really want to be in sales. So they brought in for an interview, got that job. And from there, took off. At first, started off slow. And then our sales manager, he's like, you need to grow a pair and started asking for the order and assuming the sale.

So once I started doing that, ended up being the top salesman there. And then my partner and I, went golfing one day and we kept trying to do different businesses business ideas and we're like, why don't we just do what we know? He's like, I know how to knock a door and do events and you know how to sell. So that's what we did.

And we went from zero to we're on track to do over $20 million this year. And you guys you guys are so he was a good setter and you'd walk in and close. Right. Yep. So it's a set closed model on the canvas side. And then you take the best

canvassers and you throw them in events And that's kind of like they're like, hey, this is almost like a promotion to get to the event team. Correct. Especially in Michigan when it's cold outside. They really had the event schedule. Yeah, I was telling you, I grew up there. It's near and dear. I'm happy I'm from the Midwest, the best people in the world.

I was raised with a lot of culture, a lot of seasons. But I'll never go back. I go back there all the time. I got a lot of family there, but I enjoy the sunshine, even though it's hot. here in the summer. That's why I did the Idaho House. I've been here since Thursday. What do you think? And I love it. I told Kate back at home, I was like, we might have to move out to Arizona. You know what, man? It's hot, but it's nice. I can bring you, I can show you the hole. I can show you everything from like ASU, Tempe, the Scottsdale, Old Town all the way.

There's so much, you go to downtown Phoenix. It's like, that's just a different call. Like, everywhere you go, you get whatever you want. There's so many great events. It's just, right now it just became home of the most millionaires in the United States. Yeah, Scott Stale. And I live right there in Paradise Valley. And I'm telling you, like, I just love this place. It's all on a grid. Traffic's not bad, depending on what freeway you're on.

But everything's easy to get to. And it's just a great place. I just, this will always be home. Yeah. You started knocking doors yourself. What's the difference between being great at sales and being great at building a sales team? And when did this shift happen for you? So when we started, Lakota did most of the knock.

Right. So he would set that for me. But as far as going in there, one thing we teach our salespeople is how to be a leader as well. How to help each other out, how to, you know, we're all in competition. We always want to be the top sales guy. But how can we help the other guys out so we have a winning team? So for example, I use this story. Our two top window guys, one of them is now running a location.

One of them said in the meeting one day, he goes, I'm the best window guy. And the other guy goes, no way, I'm beating you this month. but they would be the first person to answer the phone call. And they were like $1,000 off, one sale off from each other. And, but they would be the first one to help each other out. Yeah. So it's, to be a good salesperson, one, you have to not be scared. You got to be able to go in there.

And I learned that from a sales manager I had at the other company we were at. Guy could go in and say anything and get away with it. But it was how he said it. You know, it depends who you're going to say it and how you're going to say it. And he would go in and he would say things and he wasn't scared. You know, one thing I preach at our office is, look, when I'm sitting at a table with you and I'm pitching you, eventually you're going to become my friend because we're good at building rapport. I want to know about you and your family. I'm going to let you know about our company and our products, but you have to ask for the order at the end.

And a lot of people would get timid at the table because I wouldn't spend $20,000. Now I'm about to ask my friend to spend $20,000 on windows. Or you flip the mindset and say, look, actually, it is your friend, so help them out before someone, you're going to spend. doesn't do a good job for them. It's a good paradigm shift, you know. One of my good buddies, Joe Chrysaro wrote a book, What Should We Do? And at the end of the sale, he says,

in order to get the sale, you've got to ask the question, all right, we're here. I got all the options for you. What should we do? Yep. And then you shut up. Don't talk. And I always say, here's what we need to do.

Here's what we should do. And if you were my mom, here's what I'd be telling my mom. I love my mom. She worked three jobs when I was a kid. I grew up on 17 and Ryan Road. And I love my mom. And here's what I be telling my mom.

Based on the fact you're selling the house in three years, here's what I be telling mom to do. So I try to bring in their situation. I mean, if you got a noisy garage and you're waking up little Tommy Jr. Every time you go to work, here's the option I would pick to keep little Tommy sleeping through when dad goes to work.

Yeah. And if you could do that and be sincere, make eye contact, and actually play with the dog can give a shit, that's half the battle. And you almost got to find, I'd rather find people that don't mind smiling that are good talkers and tell a great story that are sincere than try to teach somebody to trade. Like, I'd rather teach those guys the trade than teach a person how to sell.

Because really it's about being a good human. And just, yes, sir, absolutely, sir. I really appreciate that. They want to give you a nice tea. Absolutely, I love one. Thank you. Yeah. Always got to take the tea.

Always take the tea. It's funny because when we started this company, I saw on one of your things about your mom or no it was at top 500 yeah about your mom was on the phone yeah you know you just open with the cause there coffee you want and she drank coffee and my why I have two kids now so my why hasn't shifted I still my why is for where I got as my mom as well you know my parents divorced that when I was like one both great parents but my mom didn't have much but she'd make sure I had everything if I needed cleats or whatever it was so my why when I sat in that garage coming up with top was was was her

you know and how would you treat your mom yeah what would you want for her how would you want someone to come in here and it's people forget how that we're all human and we all got to be taken care of and treat people like you would your mom yeah it's tough man i don't know how you guys do it i'm always envis to the home sir home improvement space much bigger tickets see when i get a phone call it's like i need you to be here right away i my garage door is broken yeah You go and build a man when people aren't necessarily looking for it. So I wouldn't consider those the hottest leads. I mean, they're not even looking.

You're knocking on their door. I don't even know how that looks. So walk me through, you know, you got Lakota out there knocking on a door. What's, how does that even work? Like, no one's even looking for anything. And all of a sudden, we're talking about windows and kitchen room. Like, what exactly, what are all the things that we sell? So I was talking to Phil about this too, is it's every lead is different that you go into.

So the Canvas lead, we go there and a week sales team is going to say, get to the door and they're like, you know, your guy just knocked on my door, I don't even know why you're here. Hey, no problem. I'll let the office know. That's interesting. But yeah, we shouldn't be here if you don't know why we're here. Or a good sales team is going to be like, hey, no problem. It sounds like you set an appointment today with Dan. What made you choose windows out of the things that we do?

Well, my kitchen window was causing some problems. There's some fog between the pain. Okay. Well, I'm already here. Let me just come in and take a peek at it. See if it's something we can do, and I at least leave you with a quote. So when you're planning your budget and you can have that.

So you just kind of angle everything different. Because, yeah, a lot of times we do show up and they're like, I don't know. Your guy just showed up and I just set the appointment because you do a giveaway. So that's how you guys do it, a giveaway? A giveaway. Yeah. Is it like a giveaway for a cruise?

$15,000 giveaway. So every year we'll do it. a project for somebody. Okay. So we do a $15,000 giveaway and then we do about four bathrooms a year for veterans. And four bathrooms? Yeah, one day, so a shower. Bathroom showers. Yeah. And let me ask you, so these people sometimes are just trying to get into the giveaway, I'm guessing. Yeah. So, and a lot of times that will sway. a reps mindset, right? They just wanted a $15,000 giveaway.

But I always say, treat every customer and do what you're trained in the things that you learn, 100% of the time, to get 30% results. I'm not asking you to get 100%. So that's the goal is three out of 10 to get actually a purchase order. That's what we like. And that includes all, that's no shows, that's one leg. That's every lead that you got that month, you should close three out of 10. for base, like average.

What is good, what does good look like? We have guys doing over 40%, so selling a little over four out of 10. That is incredible. That's incredible for those size. What's the average sale? 175. 175.

Yeah. And so you guys, you know, when I talked to Lakota a couple weeks ago, he said, you guys are finally starting to look at other lead sources, like getting very serious about Google and some of these other places. whether it's lead eggs, but if you can make that kind of money with events and door knocking, sky's the limit.

Yeah. And for the first five and a half, six years, we did nothing else, but 300 events a year or more and knock doors. One thing I'll tell you to be really, really focused on is the bottom line. Make sure, because younger owners, younger in the business, not younger age, they tend to say, we're putting it all back in to grow. When they don't got a good CFO, they don't got a good bookkeeper. And you're spending more and not focus.

We're going to talk about KPIs. But a healthy bottom line is much better than a healthy top line. And you start walking into rooms. And the right rooms, no one's going to ask you about revenue. They're going to say, what's the even of margin? What's the profitability of the company? That's what you get paid on. That's how you build a company.

That's how everybody grows. That's how you change your family's life. So eventually the situation needs to switch from how much revenue. Revenue is great because theoretically there should be a percentage of that revenue that you're taking home typically a good company's doing 15%. But there are ways to get to 30%. Yeah. So we grew the barbaric way. So we thought more revenue means more money.

Yep. That's farthest from the truth. Yeah. We thought more sales was great. You know, whatever it might have been. As we've grown and put ourselves in the right rooms, La Cota Redd Brian Gottlieb's book. Yeah, the hammer. And a message on Facebook, got connected with him. And that's when our entire company changed. Last year, we probably changed 1,000 and 10 things.

Selling process, KPI, how we track leads. And for a while, some of our vet reps that were selling roofs, and those are higher tickets. The average ticket on those is probably 35,000. he's like, why are we going based off close percentage? I'm doing 200 grand. Okay, you've sold three ruffs, big metal ruffs out of 40 leads. Yeah.

So now you've ran all those other leads that cost money, that now that's taken off the bottom line of the three that you sold. Right. So if you're going to run 40 leads, you have to close, you know, 12. 10 to 15, 15 leads. Yeah. That's another thing too is I do have a problem with young entrepreneurs. And by the way, I was one of them.

I've been in this 20 years. And before that, at a landscaping company. But saying yes to too much revenue. Because how do you get good buy structures? You know, I'm servicing 25,000 homes a month. So who's buying better than me? I'm spending $100 million with my manufacturers. How do you make great technicians?

How do you make great salespeople? How do you get the custom truck set up? up for that particular trade. I think what happens is when you say yes to too many things, you're a jack of all trades, a master of none. And if you're going to grow and scale, you can't say yes to everything. In the beginning, you have to because you need the money. And you figure things out as you go. But eventually you're like, I'm going to focus on these two things or this one thing. And this is where masters of closing this. This has got the highest EBIT of contribution. This is where we can negotiate best with our vendors. This is where we can buy the best

leads. I try to find something that's an open book, like big tickets, big conversion rates, unlimited leads, and just unsus sophistication. I think rooping's great. I think those guys are a little bit, I've met guys doing $30 million that don't know what a KPI is.

They don't know what a Mission Vision core value is. They don't know what an SOP is. And I'm like, you guys got the $30 million. And they're taking a fair amount home. They're taking home $3.5, $5, $6 million. Yeah. And I'm like, man, If you put some sophistication around that, it's $100 million taking 20% home.

Yeah. And that business of $20 million of EBTA is probably worth, you know, if I had a guess, $200, $300 million. Yeah. And that's how it is. It's a multiple of EBDA. Yeah. I mean, that was us to start off.

We, the thing that saved us was a company we worked for before is they were already the highest price company. in our area, minus, you know, like RBA, Windows, and some of those other ones. But outside of that, we were the highest. So when we did ours, we didn't go as high as them, but we didn't go down low because we knew how to sell the higher tickets. Right. So that, I believe, saved us in the early years because we weren't scared of price. But a lot of companies are scared to raise prices. I mean, you go to somebody's events and they're talking about just raise the price.

Because I'd rather do, our thing is, is I can do it. go sell an asphalt roof at a price where a lot of these people are doing, and make 10% or 5% or and do 100 more jobs a month. Or I can go do 50 less jobs, make the same, if not more, by having a higher price. And I have to do less services if there was any less. That's exactly right. I was just with Ken Goodrich, Gettle. And I said, what's that one thing?

He goes, dude, I buy companies and I just get them priced, right? Because if you get the companies the price right, where every company is different when you've got to look at your infrastructure, but to have a great infrastructure and be able to grow, you need to charge the right prices. And most people will get that wrong, but you still, I want to talk a little bit about KPS because you went from having none at all to texting updates back and forth to build a full tracking system across three locations. I mean, pricing, Alan Rora says wherever you're at double your prices. That's what she says. And every price increase I've ever done has never affected conversion rate. It just, it doesn't. I mean, if you're good, you're good.

So, I mean, there's a way to price yourself completely out of the market to be ridiculous. But that's when you've got to think differently and say, what can we package together that nobody else is that doesn't cost as much? So people are getting far more for their dollar. Talk us through kind of the evolution of KPIs and how you look at it more of a system now. Well, I always say that too, is because you go to a lot. lot of these events and people say price doesn't matter price doesn't matter and I do agree with that however to your point at some point price does matter yeah right but just can't be scared of it and you got to be able to deliver it to the

sales team the correct way that's the biggest thing one month we thought it was our price and it was all internal yeah and and our first mentor that we had Bob Quillan out of Ohio owned a smaller eight million dollar window company but when he sold he was at 27% bottom line. So he was making more than some people at 20, 30 million. But the, so we didn't track anything. And then we went into Brian Gottlieb. Got the KPI's.

We weren't in EOS and then we, but we were doing small things. We'll do leadership meeting every Monday. We're doing our own things there. And then he goes, well you got to track. everything. You know, I couldn't even tell you our clothes rate, we would only go off demos. Well, the other leads still cost money. Yeah. So in a one leg, how am I supposed to know my sales rep? Didn't go into that lead and say, oh, the wife wasn't there. Right. Or the husband wasn't there and just make it up because they didn't feel like pitching that day. Right. Well,

now I'm going to count it against them. Yeah. And they're going to do whatever they take. And if they don't, they're not going to hit numbers. Right. So now we track literally everything. So we started off where we would just text, what was your close that day? How many leads did you run? And what was the revenue? We implemented that. Now we have Excel spreadsheet that has everything. So we do how many leads we were supposed to have that day?

How many that we issued? How many we demoed? How many we closed and the revenue? The average. And the average ticket. And so it became a math case. Like our new sales manager over in Detroit right now, his thing was, I need more reps,

I need more reps. I'm like, you don't need more reps. You need the reps that you have closing jobs. Right. And today I talked to him and he's like, you know, I have less reps now and we're closing. And we're actually doing more revenue this month than we have. We just started the last two months with less reps. Yeah.

So it takes that mindset change of like, no, you don't need more. You just need to convert the ones that you have. Yeah, that's usually. the answer for every single person on the grid of the org chart is I need more people. I need more people. I need more people. And it's like, then you go through this time exercise of seeing, what do you do in a day? And how do we make you more productive?

Especially there's like, there's income generators and then there's income assistance of revenue assistance. Like your recruiter is definitely not putting dollars on the board. But they need to bring you guys great people and get more GourDockers and get more leads. So there's this guy, he's like the private equity master. His name is Sandy Ogg, I believe. And when you look at an org chart, there's pieces of the equation, like your recruiter, your marketing person, the person doing the pricing,

like all these things make a big difference, even the way you handle fulfillment. How can you save money? Well, the guy out there negotiating to get leads cheaper, the guy out there negotiating and get trucks cheaper, the guy out there negotiating to potentially get better deals with your, there's so much opportunity throughout the organization to actually unlock profit. And it's up to you guys to figure out where those are. I'm writing a book, it's done.

It's going to be released this year, but it's all about how to use what's called an equity incentive program. And it's how to build a company where you have multiple. There's a way to earn and invest ownership. And the right people, if they're a plus, employees, it's the best thing you could ever do. And by the way, it's vested over time. So it's not like, and there's no tax ramifications of it. So it's called, it's an EIP program. And it's genius when you reach a certain size. It's when you start making serious profits when you

want to put it in place. I saw one of your videos the guy said, I could have two A players that I pay $200,000 a piece, $400,000. Or I can have six B and C players that I pay $100,000 to. Yep. that my, these two A will perform better. And I'm actually saving money there. They'll make more money. They're not going anywhere. They're paid like they're supposed to be paid.

The biggest problem with a company that grows too fast is they allow B players to stay. C players get fired. A player is where you've got to build a mode around and keep them. We've kept a lot of people in our day for too long. Just because one of our guys that we had, he was a problem. It came to a point we're like, hey, we just. won't have them in our meetings on our sales meeting. Right. Because he was performing. He was selling a lot, but he was the culture, he was

terrible for the culture. He was cancer. And our culture is everything. That's our foundation. That's what holds us up. If that's not there, the company is not there. So we held on to him for the longest time. And when we're doing things where we're not following numbers, we're not looking at inventory, we're not looking at this, you get burnt. I mean, we've, we had one of our project managers at the beginning, stealing money from customers. And then we're getting calls saying, hey, I'll do a landscaping job for you. You know, we're not, we weren't following anything. Yeah.

So the KPI's, now in SOPs, I mean, we have everything. We're still working. It's a work in progress. But I mean, down to the recruiting, they have a KPI and a bonus structure of how many people they brought in for interviews. How many people accepted the job? And how many people are there for 90 days? And they'll get a bonus on all that.

So how do you incentivize? those people too, to do their job and perform at a high level. Anytime you could apply performance structures and they're the right structures, you're going to see people go the extra mile. Like if I go home to my fiancé and tell her, I'm going to be working probably a couple weekends. I'm going to be working a little bit late. If she goes, why, I mean, I'm going to work hard no matter what I do.

But when I could say it's going to mean an extra $50,000 for our family, I think there's a lot of reason why. Here's another secret is bring in the significant others to groups, whether that's a bowling event or you guys go play Frisbee golf or whatever you guys do. The significant other, if they understand how the pay structure works, they're going to be pushing that person to go further. That's their confidant. Yeah, we learned another one from Brian BG was the president's club.

So for the sales team. I do a pinnacle club. Yeah. So we'll have a sales team. If your quarter was at, say, 600 grand, we'll take you out to a nice dinner, give them shoutouts right in front of the wife, whoever made it.

They'll bring their significant others, and then get them a hotel, downtown grandapps, wherever location they're at, and let them have a weekend with their wife or girlfriend. And what that does, it gets them to buy in. It's super important. Brian Gottlieb is an absolutely phenomenal speaker.

He's so good at what he does. He definitely cares. Yeah. I've worked directly with him. I had them coaching our team up. There's always something to learn. You now manage sales managers instead of managing reps directly. How did you develop them into high-level operators,

and what does that management structure look like? So it took a little while. So back when you said, you know, built the sales team, Dakota and I, when we started this company, right away we got two really good people at the, the time to be there because I always say it's not about what you can do it's about what you can get people to do for you and take care of them you know the people that you surround yourself with are going to help you build and we got a great call center guy I think he's one of the best on the

phones right away we couldn't even have space for him we're like we have no choice you just left his job we got to figure it out and he's a rock star and we also got another guy that was a sales manager another company and brought him in and he's no longer with us but you know as you grow there's people are going to be there from zero to 10 people at 10 to 20 and and so we had a lot of great help there and he taught me how to be stronger because he was more of a C so he was a tough one yeah very analytical and tough always had something to say so I learned a lot from how to manage people and how to communicate because it wasn't like an easy one it's like oh yeah I'll I'll do that I'll go do that for you he taught me the hard stuff so after he left it taught

me how to lead these guys and then let them know hey we're not going to run it this way anymore this is how it's going to be and created them and to tell you the truth they went from being at night the code and I up at night talking like we didn't make any sales today and worrying and stress now to now this KPI the transformation from not having any numbers to now your pay structure depends on a minimum of 25% close to get your first bonus. Now they're talking to each other. They're the ones trying to hustle and go out in the field. They're the ones that want to get that bonus for their family.

So they're pushing extra hard. So to lead them, I think that KPI and metrics really helped them create the want and not get, not get lazy or not like, I don't. Just going to sit at home, but I do back-end work. Yeah, so we've created this idea of accountability partners and then put your goals for your month. So I would say this, Derek, you're a man of your word, aren't you? You're going to keep your commitments?

So we're going to go through what your commitments are. And I'm going to remind you what you're committed to. And you're going to tell your wife your commitments. You're going to tell your mom your commitments. You're going to put it on social media. What you're committed to do. And I'm going to hold you accountable out. Listen, let's not shoot for a home run.

let's just try to get a double. What are you committed to? So here's how many you're going to show up to. And then I'm going to remind you every day that this is what we're both accountable for. I'm accountable for this. You're accountable for this. It's just a reminder that you are a person of integrity that says what you're going to do. There's an idea.

It's a psychology. It's Robert Chardini of commitment. Like if you tell everybody you're going to quit smoking and you tell everybody that you're committed to quitting versus just telling yourself because we can tell ourselves, whatever we want. They say, oh, well, you know, I'm drinking today. It's a holiday. I'm going to have a cigarette. Like everybody says, well, I just, I'll start next week. I'll start. But if you tell everybody your commitment and everybody tells the whole team their commitment and you remind them their commitment, you say put, you get it their commitments. You laminate a sheet. Say put this in

your shower, put this in your truck. Put this everywhere. I just read it out loud every day. This is your commitment. Look in the mirror and tell yourself you're committed. Because that monthly or weekly even commitment, I mean, our guy's accountability and commitment is everything. So, you know, when we talked about this, Derek, you told me how you were going to do it. You said you were committed. What went wrong? You know, when you say your commitments for now on, can we believe them? Because you said you were committed to doing this. And I'm just, am I failing you? Am I not a good enough leader? Do you need more help to? We need to do more ride-alongs? But that commitment should be the lifeblood of the company is getting people to make a commitment.

Own it. Yeah. We, with the KPIs, we also, one of the changes is report cards. Yeah. So on there, we, if they're not hit numbers, this is what I'm going to do for you. Okay, I'm going to commit three days this week where I'm only with you. But in return, when I'm not with you or you're at home, what are you going to do? Because we create a Google Drive that has all the presentations, the sales scripts on there, everything for them to do, listen to you on the way to appointments, everything. And that's going to dictate whether you are going to be successful or not successful. So we put it out there kind of like that as well so they can own it. And then when we go into our meetings, we usually, we used to do just victory stories

to start off, do a few. That's great. But now what we do is we have the people that aren't hitting numbers. Say, hey, I know you're not hitting numbers this week. Give us a victory, but also let's let the team know what you're going to do different this week or what you're working on or what you need help from the team to make sure by next meeting you are hitting numbers. So now they're owning that. It's like a red seat. Yeah. So they're owning it. And it's one of those things that at first I was a little hesitant just because you're

putting someone and someone can take it the wrong way. But at the end of the day, we're here to win. We're here to be successful. And I want this for you and your family. And in order to do that, that sales room is the scariest room because everyone in there knows what you're supposed to be doing, when you're supposed to be saying it and how you're supposed to be saying it. If you screw up, everyone knows. It's where you're going to get the best. So we got to role play. We got to get better. And you got to own why you're under. You know, there's a guy named Jeremy Minor. You ever heard of him? Jeremy Minor, great sales guy, probably one of the top sales guys in the world. They teach you this thing called NPQ. And what he asks is, you know, how am I supposed to do that

to clients? It's like, what do you want me to cut? But one of the other things is like, you know, Derek, based on this, what would you do if you were me? I mean, these leads cost a lot of money. You made some commitments. You know, we're pouring into you. What should I do? Because we need to get you up or potentially the last thing I want to do is get you out. So how am I supposed to handle this?

I always like to ask questions. Yeah. How am I supposed to, what am I supposed to do here? And you're leaving me between a rock and a hard spot. So how do we get this better? That was the salesman driving Grand Rapids. We started asking that. And people that were under that we were like, we got to let these people go.

So we would bring them in and we would say those exact, what would you do if you were me? If you were in my spot and I just gave you last two weeks, you went, oh for 20, I've just spent $10,000 to $20,000 on leads for you. What would you do? And I always ask people, because sales reps, they don't know. We try to make sure, like our KPI's, they see it all the time. They know exactly where our sales managers are at, what they need to do and it takes time,

but eventually they celebrate that success with the sales manager, even though it's the overall of the whole team and they may be hitting their number, how can you get the whole team to celebrate that their location as a total is hitting that? So we share all that stuff with them. And I always say, hey, what if I said I was going to give you 20 leads this week and you had to bring in this much? you go out there and you might skip a few, you might get, well, I just sold this one. I made a couple grand. I'm going to take a little break on this next one. Okay, now let's reverse it.

I'm going to tell you, hey, before you go out this week, I need $15,000. And then you're going to have those leads. You're going to do one extra thing. You're going to ask one more sweat question. You got to ask sweat questions. If you're not asking sweat questions, that's going to make you sweat and the customer sweat, you're not going to get the roadmap. But you can't be scared of that. those questions. You've got to ask. There's nothing more important than sales and marketing and that's like the light blood of the company. When you get this financial person to get from cash accounting to accrual and you understand how to get the best terms like 2.4% in your credit cards and you start understanding how to get better vendor deals and how to buy better trucks, all of a sudden you go

from 10, 12, 14% to the bottom to 22, 24%. I think your team will eventually need a very good CFO. And And the next thing is technology. I'm going to take you after this. I'm going to show you some of our technology in the other room of where you guys, where the North Star should be. And I think you'll really dig it. I'm glad you're here in person. For someone that's listening, that's still running their sales team by gut fill with no

real tracking, what's the first KPI they should start measuring this week? Close percentage. Conversion rate, absolutely. That's the most important. Because like I said, and it's a great answer, dude, because that's the right answer. Because it doesn't matter. The result's going to be the revenue. Who cares about the end of the month?

Because if you're closing at what you need to close that and bringing in enough leads for that, you're going to get your revenue. Right. Because it's just a math equation. That's one thing we didn't know anything about when we started. But close percentage, because if you have a guy that goes before he leads,

sells three, but it's roofing, so it's high ticket. You still are paying for those, the profit on that off of all those other leads at you that you didn't close. I mean, eventually there's this group that could come in under the CFO. It's called FP&A, financial planning and analytics, where they could actually look at the job unit and understand when you sell certain things on this job, it delivers more to the bottom line. And that's when you start identifying things that guys need to push for. Like the best roofer's I know, especially the insurance roovers, they're going in on an insurance job.

They're seeing the insurance is covering this, but let's get you into this. They're going to cover 22,000. This extra 18 will give you this. and they get it every single time. So you run a high-level call center that handles leads coming in from Facebook ads and other channels. Walk us through how that operates,

their operation works, and what happens when a lead comes in? The big thing that Lakota always preaches on that side is once that lead comes in, you don't wait, you don't say, I'll get to that one, I'm in this batch, you call it right away.

Because if you don't get to that lead, there's another company that's already that's already there and by the time you get there, five other I've called and they're already burned out. So be that first person. Our thing that we changed to, we would set out seven days a week or seven days out, 15 days out, 30 days out, we changed it to same day next day. So that's the model that our marketing team runs on is same day next day. It has changed a lot of paradigms that we thought we'd be worried about not get enough leads, not having enough for the reps, whatever it might be, it actually did the opposite.

Now we're getting into homes a lot quicker. And then in return on that is we created this during home show season this year, as we call it Feeley, first and last in. We want to be the first in and we want to be the last in. So how can we be great at our job, know our process to be the first one, especially home show season, or if it's someone that's getting five bids, how can you be the last one in? And it's role playing, it's knowing your stuff,

it's being able to step outside of the box, Storytale. Yep. You know, I was Bill is one of, was Brian Gottlieb's VP of sales and he's at one in fun now. He told me what they would do is with the first and last in is they would get there and the way that the sales process was set up is they would make it to be where they just, that's what they wanted. You got to create that need. You got to create that want and the urgency and that's the company and that's the product. And how can you do that? that there's different different closed things that you can do to finalize the deal yeah I think you know first of all presenting in a way that's affordable using the right finance options

getting them through that process and having the right finance partners when you're talking anything over five thousand dollars it's really about making it an affordable picking the right plan there's three types of clients no interest low interest and low payment and each person in the world falls into those three categories even the smartest people in the world will go no interest and if you present with the right tools you could actually include those you pay a dollar amount it's called a dealer's fee to get those finance options available you could roll that into the price if you got the right tools yeah and um you know it's funny I just was thinking about my buddy uh that works with me his name Sean McGrath his dad owned Anderson's renewal in Detroit

love Sean you know Sean love Sean isn't he great he's great guy so Anderson is like man, I see them everywhere. I mean, I see them in the mail. They leave a slip on my window. They're at the events. They're literally like they're following you around. They're all over on TV. I mean, they're all over social media.

So like they must make your job easier because they're kind of high end. They're high. Yeah. But that was the mindset that a lot of our reps has, hey, I want to be in after Anderson. Yeah. Because then I know I'm going to beat them in price. Right. Okay.

but how do you get in before Anderson knowing that they're going to have Anderson out, which has that 150-year name to get it to where they're going to buy without even have Anderson out? Because they liked you and wanted your product. Oh, yeah. People all the time, they said, we're getting three estimates. I'm like, why would you want to waste that kind of time? Let's just figure out how I could be your garage road guy for life. I mean, I know it's smart to get three estimates, but what are you looking for? With price not being in consideration, what do you care about?

And you're probably going to tell me quality. I want somebody I can trust out here to do the job right. I want to make sure the warranty is great. Claupay did a study on the top 10 most important things to homeowners when it comes to getting the job done right. Price was number nine. Because literally price, what could is a good price if you never get it started or never get it finished or if you disappear with the money or if you got somebody dangerous in your house? You got a crew that doesn't clean up after them. There's all these things that go into it.

And if you're not going to be around it for years when I need you. We always say, when do you know you choose the right person? Do you know when we're sitting at the table right now? Or do you know after it's installed? Well, you're going to know after the company does the work. Yeah. So you might get a cheaper price, but how about when there's an issue? Or how about when it comes to actually just install in the project?

So you don't ever, so getting three estimates, you don't even know. the outcome until you get it installed. So really you're just wasting time if we have the company you want, the product that you want, and it's affordable. Yeah, with everything being said here, why do you think they're doing it for cheaper? Do you think it's the product or the quality?

You think they're undercutting on the product? Or do you think they're undercutting on the people doing the work? Because that's the only way that they could be winning. And then the next one is time. I mean, I've got some stuff getting done at my house and it's already gone six months over. Yeah.

And it's, by the way, you get a guy showing up here and there because the company gets too busy and you get put, like you already paid and they kind of disappear. So what's important to you? Because here's my job. This is my name on the line. I want to get it done on time, on budget, no change orders,

with quality products, with people that you could trust that could do the work the right way. And that's what we stand for. Yeah. So I saw this video the other day and the guy said, And his customers be like, well, I want a discount. I want more money off. And a lot of, like a rep that's new or whatever is not training.

He goes, well, how much do you want off? Or where do you want to be or this, that? Well, he changed my mindset and said, okay, bring that guard down right when they say, hey, I want a discount. I need it cheaper. Hey, no problem. I can definitely work with you on price. What is it on the window that you or the company or the quality that you'd want to take

out of it to have a cheaper? Yeah, what can we do? That's why giving options is better than ultimatums. Yeah. No problem. Let's just give you another option that makes sense. But you should never be giving discounts on the same quality, the same thing. You should say, we're going to pick a less tier.

So the perfect number of Stanford studies is six options. Now, three is the minimum. And you never know, you never do good, better, best. You do best, better, good. You could always come down and you anchor it up here and say, no problem. We got other options. Let's just figure out something that's good for you and your family to make everything work properly and safe

and end up doing everything that you need. Yeah. I love this stuff. I can talk about this all day. You talked about re-approaching people who initially said they're not interested. That's a moment where most people give up. I mean, when people say I'm not interested,

you talked a little bit about it. So like, let me get in, let me do the demo. Let me just walk through this. But how do you handle some of these objections where people are like, obviously you get to know them but when most people give up what are some of your best tips?

Don't. Don't give up. The big thing is know your stuff inside now. That bill guy said this sales trainer said asked a guy goes, hey do you think all your reps are on process? And he goes, well I hope so

or your top reps are on process. He says, well, I hope so. And he goes, no, they are. But to a naked eye or a new rep, they don't look like they're on process. because you gotta know the fundamentals, like the back of your hand, to be able to get yourself in situations

like I'm not interested. How are you gonna do it? You gotta go one extra step. So the biggest advice there is know your fundamentals and know the stuff to step out of boundaries when someone is telling you they're not interested. Know the questions to ask. And if you don't know those questions,

get online, Google, AI, or get with someone at your office, and ask those questions. I've been doing it for a while. How do you get in? We use a program that records. We don't use it to micromanage. We use it to train other people.

Zero. Zero, yeah. We use it to train other people. So you can go listen to our top rep. What did he do different in that situation that you just got kicked out on? And try that. Yeah.

Like I said, everyone wants the... The perfect client, the laydown. The laydown. And those aren't the fun ones. I like the ones I got to work for. Oh, that's, so when I used to train in 2011, 2012, I'm like, hook me up with the worst schedule. I tell my mom, I'm like, let's find all the people that wanted the cheapest price to get the phone call booked. Let's go.

And those are the funest. Those are the ones that I'm like, now watch this. They're always going to say no, no, no, no. And I go, I just love getting over the no. I'm like, nah, I'm not going to do that. And I'm like, I'd go to the worst neighborhoods. I mean, there's no, like, really bad. It's not like the ghetto of Detroit, but there's really neighborhoods that just are very, very lower income housing.

And I'd go there and I'd be like, dude, who cares? Yeah, the landscape's overgrown. You know, maybe they don't even speak English as a first language. It's just totally fine. And I'd go in there and just bam, bam, bam. Yeah. And they're like, dude, you just got three grand cash. And I'm like, three grand cash for a garage repairer in 2011 was a lot of money.

Yeah. I freaking love this stuff. No, we have reps that will say that. Like our Detroit location has thrown, so every market that you go on, and I'm sure, obviously you know this, but it's different. The cultures are different,

the people are different, the buying habits are different. So our Grand Rapids operates one way. What are the differences between Traverse City and Grand Rapids? Trevor City, you're up in the boonies. It's seasonal, but when you're up there, people are a little more laid back. There's not a lot of competition up there.

They're willing to have you come in and talk. Grand Rapids gets a little more sticklers. They're a little more harder, but not quite like Detroit. So when we open that up, you've got to get straight to the point sometimes because they're so, hey, price, give me price. I need price. Before you waste my time today, how much is this going to cost? Yeah.

That's kind of like, and I'm a high deed person, like, D.I. Yeah. And I'm like, dude, I don't need to see this dog and pony show. Like, I like you. Let's just get down to the grid. Like, what is this going to cost? And what do you do when somebody says, listen, you just say, look, let me go out there, let me measure it up. You know, you ever heard of Rodney Webb?

Yeah. Yeah, so he's going to give you a demo with his GoPro and show you everything and the differences of how the quality is going to be. So what do you say? Like, hey, dude, screw this. I sat with you for 10 minutes. I like you. Let's just get down. What is it going to cost? Hey, no problem. We'll definitely get to that. I don't even know if we can do the job. I haven't even looked at it yet. Real quick, just got a few more questions for you. So I can make sure I'm not wasting your time and spending on things that you don't care about or don't need. So I'll just finish this up, ask these quick questions, and we'll go take a look and make sure I can even do the project.

And if I can, I'll let you know, and I will leave you that quote down to the penny. So when you are planning budgeting, you have that. And if I can't, I'll help lead you to someone that can do that job with some people we referred in the past that I know do good work for you. So that being said, and on to the next question. Yeah, one of my guys always says, is it me or the price? Because listen, if you want me to get another guy out, I mean, I don't want to offend you.

But they're very, very, they believe. The number one thing is belief that we're worth it. And most people, the problem is with most sales reps, and this is a good strategy, is they sell out of their own pocket. They go, I don't have the money. I can never. They live in an apartment. They drive a used car. The thing that they don't understand is the house, the home is like where most people's wealth is tied up.

And I just think that most people are so afraid of sales. They don't consider themselves a salesperson. I just be a good person. But if you don't have the belief and what we do in the pricing model and you don't think we're worth it. And I think there's got to be an activity that you do to say, look, these leads cost money. But so does the people on the phones. So does the fulfillment team. So does this. And you got to build it to where we run software. That cuts. A lot of people just see, here's what it costs. We know what the cost is. Here's what we paid the fulfillment team. Here's what they paid me.

The rest is all profit. And if they think that, then they're going to go, oh, man, these guys are getting rich. I had a guy tell me this on a podcast years and years ago. He's like literally bought he brought out 20 pennies. And he's like on every sale, every dollar we make, how many pennies do you think I take? And they all push like all the pennies and they're like you probably make at least 20%. And he's like, I make six pennies on everything because I got to pay everything else. I got to pay workers, I've got to pay all these things. And it's still got to be money left over. By the way, most small businesses are not paying their taxes correctly. They're not paying their people correctly. They're not paying workers' comp correctly. And then one day,

six years comes down the road, IRS has a light audit. BAM, they're screwed. They're out of business. The IRS will not put you out of business, but they'll put a lien on your business so that the next three years of work go to them. So make sure you're paying stuff right. In the door-to-door model, obviously, if someone calls you up and says, I'm interested in the Taj Mahal, give me the best windows, what does that look like versus someone that may not necessarily? necessarily be shopping today as far as pricing? You're saying as as someone that comes out and wants you in there and they want the best of the best. I mean do you have different pricing models so so that's to your to your comment earlier about having three options six is the Stanford way

yeah we actually price one window which is a little different but we price one window we do have a drop but we won't use that drop unless if we have someone at the end that is like I want to use you guys. I want to have this company do it. I just don't think I need that the Cadillac of Windows. So here's what happens. Alex Jemosi says come up with an option that's triple. Right?

Come up with, because some people will say yes. You'll get the 20% of people that say, I want that. You should always have this like not, it's like the Rolls Royce. That's the premium, premium, premium option. And guess what? You'll sell it. People will buy that one. So, by the way, I'm not telling you how to do your job.

You're obviously successful. But what's the one thing that you could win on no matter what if you're good is speed? It's like, we're going to be in and out. And that's the one thing I'd really focus on, too, is say, we're faster. We're not going to disrupt your family as much. We're going to be in and out quicker. We've got the, this is like the premier option. We call this the signature series.

And then we've got our five-star. all the way down to one star. And when they say, listen, that's just a lot more. Rather than giving a discount, so let's just go to the three star then. That makes sense. It gets you where you want to be. Here's what I can do. I can throw that extra strut in.

I got to call it. What we'll do is we'll call the product specialist. We'll say, hey, could we get them an extra strut? Can we give them this? Well, the way that it costs for me is that those things cost like 10, 20 bucks. So to get that in, rather than discounting $200, I'll throw in things that are of value to the client that don't cost me a lot of money. Yeah, we having the three options, where we came from, we did that.

We've talked about bringing that back. But what we do with the drop is get them committed. And when they say, yep, I want to use you just out of my price point. So if I was in your price point, you want to be at 15 and we're at 20, 22. If you were at 15, is this a no-brainer? Well, yeah. Okay. Well, for people like you, we do have, and then you break it down and go down to the next

option but I know there's a lot of people out there in our industry that have the three options right away show them the top show them the bottom and you want to obviously you lay in the middle if you build the middle with the most profitability and most people will go that you anchor it at the top and so like if you ask me how much is a new garage drawer Tommy I said listen the founder of Tommy Mello I mean if you want to be in every catalog and the home magazines and everything he got it at price now he's got it a nice home with three garage doors he wanted a faux wood door they're called canyon ridges at cost he spent 60,000 dollars on his doors but we got good doors all the way down to 5,000 so in your

mind when I give you 7,000 you go you think you get the lottery because you're like wait a minute the owner founder spent 60,000 dollars on his doors it got them at cost and that's that's true it's not a lie Well, that's a, I always say, we're not going to lie to people. We're going to tell stories. If you heard a story before, you may have not been part of that story. Like if I was selling garage doors, and I didn't know that. I would go use that story. I wasn't part of it, but I know that story that happened somewhere.

We do it with entry doors. I tell a story about out on the peninsula, Traverse City, this guy was building the mansion. Brought in on a crane, it was a $90,000 door. Massive door. brought it in, crane broke, door fell. Didn't have insurance on that. I had to buy another $90,000 door. Now, that door has a lot of the same qualities as our door and features.

The only difference is it was just a much bigger door because it was about two doors. Well, now I'm price conditioning them, let them know how expensive doors can get. Because if people want Home Depot, I can go buy a door for $250. Well, do you know what's in that door? Are you looking for longevity? Are you looking for quality?

Are you looking to have the same issues you have now in two? years, you might as well just keep what you have and not spend the money. And also that door is 250, but that doesn't include someone coming out and putting it in. And ruining your stucco or ruining the drywall, there's all kinds of issues that come into that. And then the other thing that I was thinking about is when you were mentioning that, hold on here. You know, I don't do entry doors right now. It's something we've been looking at, but ultimately, you sell the company first. And one of the, this is what I was going to tell you is one of the things I tell all my technicians to do is if you had a hard, hard client, like the ones that just

wouldn't do it. Your guys should be going back out after the install. And what's the client? Get the old people, get the young people that just had a kid, get the hard customers, could be anything, could be a military person, try to get a few of these and say, listen, Mr. Jones, right here, this guy was not going to do these windows. But I just want to show you a video. And of course, you want a good interview. You want them to say, listen, these guys, I was on the fence. and I'm telling you, the install ended up perfect. These guys, they kept their word. Now, to hear that from a client, a true client, that was really on the edge,

and if you could show that to a customer that's like them, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, a video of a client that was on the fence that's extremely happy as worth. And then if you talk to Cameron Harold, he sold a lot of stuff, and what they say is, all I ask is at the end of this, that you write me a letter. Just a quick letter about our experience. When we knock it out of the park, give you 10 out of 10.

Can you write a letter for me? And then you use that and say, let me show. And you show the before and afters, and you got a picture of the client by that. And then if you can get those videos, and then you open up and say, here's the last 100 clients. By the way, I'm going to ask you for a letter to when we finish this job. Because that's social proof. And if you got a binder full of every happy client, and then you can show a heat map. We've got a software that shows a heat map of all the neighbors we've done.

It zooms out when we're small in that area. It zooms in when we've got a lot of clients in that area. Social proof is a big deal. What separates a closer who converts at 30% from one who converts at 50%? When you look at your top performers versus the average one, I mean, obviously you said fear is a big thing and practicing and buying into the process. There's a couple of things. One, I actually read or listened to, Go for No.

Go for No, yeah. I watched on that thing and I had our whole sales team. We got the book for all of them and had them listen to it or read it. And the ones that are scared to get a no. I have one of our top reps that's over 40% just about every month started off. But whoever he's at the table with, he can be that person. If you're outgoing, talking, he'll be that person. He'll relate with you.

If you're the opposite, he's going to make sure he tries to bring it out of you, but he'll relate with you too. But he's not scared of a no. He doesn't care. He'll go get the no because he knows the yes is coming. And his mindset is, look, you can tell me no today. That's okay because the next person's going to tell me yes. Yeah.

So I'll just honor the next. Like people are using us because they love the quality and love the products. So I don't care if I get a no. Now the ones that are not getting as many sales or not closing are the ones that are scared of that no, scared to ask for the order or have commission breath. where they haven't made any money. So now they're desperate. And when you're desperate, people know.

So I would say the biggest thing is, and when I got in this industry, I think I was going to tell a story earlier and lost it, but my old sales manager could go in the house. He would, if they said, hey, we're not going, you're not coming in today. We would do a walk around, and by the end of it, we'd be in that house.

And the one that didn't want us in the house and the one that was okay with it, it would flip. The one that didn't want us to house now wants to buy. And then this one panics and leaves. So it's about being able to go in there, not care, ask the right questions, and go and get that no and move on to the next. And know your fundamentals.

If you don't know the fundamentals of the job because you're not putting in the work, you know, I always say Kobe Bryant didn't just show up to games. He practiced his ass up. I play a video about that. He took a thousand shots a day. Yeah. There's two stories I love of him. and I share us with our sales team all the time is the one that Shack said.

He came up and says, hey, Kobe, the guys want you to pass the ball. And the guys go to Shack and say, hey, can you ask Kobe to pass the ball? Like, we're wide open. He's taking all the shots. He goes over to Kobe and he says, hey, if they're in the gym,

shooting with me, I'll give him the ball. But until then, tell him to get the rebound. Because he knows that they're going to win, they have a better chance of winning the game if the ball's in his hand. Right. because they're not putting an extra work. Right.

So this isn't a job where you just go... I like that story. Go through the training. Training's a way of life. Yeah, but you have to be doing this every day. It's what you do. It's what your craft is. Who else do you think trained the most?

You think Tom Brady trained the most? Absolutely. You think Wayne Groskey trained the most? Triple. You think Tiger Woods hit more golf balls than anybody? Absolutely. Their work ethic was better. You think John Daly wasn't a better golfer than Tiger was back in the day.

He was. He was naturally gifted. But he doesn't care. Tiger played more. Yeah. I mean, that's just the facts, is if you take, by the way, like Larry Fitzgerald talks about how many passes he missed at practice and how many great shots he caught.

He's like most passes. Like, he goes, I was the most talented guy in the field. But you know what happened? Is one day the quarterback, Kurt Warner comes up to him and says, hey, I'm not throwing you the ball anymore. He goes, you're not running my plays. He goes, it says 20 yards break. You run 16.

because you're the most talented guy, but listen, I can't trust you. I can't trust you because you're not running the exact plays that we call. And he said, if Kurt Warner hadn't had that conversation in the locker room about trust and running the right play, I wouldn't be where I'm at today. He goes, because I am talented. I got long arms, I could catch anything. But if I don't make every play correct for the rest of the team to open up that hole and shoot, then I'm not doing it to the team any favors.

And that's the way you've got to look at it. Yeah. Tom Brady, yeah. Tom Brady gets pissed off. He's like, look, these guys treat game day like it's the only day you got to play. I watched a video of him and he said, and I use this with our sales team,

because I ask, who likes to fish? People raise their hands. I say, all right, great. When you go fishing, you just jump in a boat and hope that a fish jumps into your boat. No, you're going to have the gear. You're going to have the fish pool, and then you've got to cast the fishing pool

and you've got to catch the fish. So what tackle, bait and tackle are you going to have in your boat to be able to catch that fish because they're not just going to jump in. There's very few laydowns that you're going to get that anyone could have sold. How are you going to go catch the biggest fish?

It's going to be with your bait and tackle. So know your stuff. Know your fundamentals. Know your sales process. Ask questions. Be there. Be present. And not just when you're out in the field.

Don't just learn there. When Brian Gatlebe kind of came to you guys, you guys reached out. you guys were a million dollars behind budget. You finished up a million dollars above budget. Other than tracking, what were some of the other, you know, obviously, President's Club acknowledgement, what were some of the key insights that he provided?

It's hard to go away from the KPI, because I really feel like that's what turned it around. But the close percentage, which turned into everyone just dialed into what their job was. And then on top of that, SOPs. You know, at one point, you know, we didn't have an org chart. We didn't have anything. So, you know, this person's doing this. Our front end of operations is also doing the back end of operations, which is doing this. And so then when you come to them and say, hey, these windows were

mismeasured, where did it go wrong? Well, I think so-and-so handled that one, so we'll have to check with her. Well, no, so everyone's pointing fingers because there's no direct role. Yeah. Yeah. So I think changing that so people have their exact role, what are you responsible for? What do you have to do every day? And as long as that job's done, I don't care what you do. Yeah. As long as the windows come in and they're not mismeasured, that's okay. You're doing your job. Don't care. But when you don't have an org chart and you don't have an SOP and you don't have any of this stuff. That's your next level. Yeah.

Is success guides. I'm going to give you that book there. It's called the Seven Power Contractor. manuals and standard operating procedures. So what happens is a lot, is a guy allowed to grow a beard that looks like Moses? Is he allowed to get a tattoo on the side of his face? What happens if his car breaks down? What happens if he needs to call him sick? How does he get PTO?

Like around the holidays coming up? How do they ask for PTO? How do they win? What does a good job look like? So, like, where are all the answers? If you know all the answers and they don't, the people, then that's the problem. And my manual for my technicians is 70 pages.

And you should know exactly what winning looks like and you should have policies in there. And you should know exactly what's expected and the core values and how do you exemplify that. And it's a recipe for success. And most people don't even, they don't like the word manuals, call it a success guide. But am I allowed to get FUCK on the front of my knuckles? A guy walked in with that on his knuckles and he got fired. Yeah. No, our culture was driven by Lakota and I.

And we grew super fast. We went from zero first year, 2.5 to over 5 to 8.1 to 10 upwards. And we're holding on to that culture. Well, we saw the culture coming down because it gets hard to be the only one. Yeah. And so we stopped and realized that that's our biggest thing on our team and our foundation is our culture. So how do we do that? So we have a culture manager now that also trains our sales reps.

who's been with us from the beginning, runs events, does the things, and keeps that culture, so now that's not just us. Everyone's held accountable for their job, and we're doing, and if you hit your numbers and you do those things, we're going to do fun things. We're going to take a party bus to the Tigers game. We're going to go on a Samming fishing trip

or whatever it might be or whatever it is. It doesn't have to be a big thing like that either. Even if you're a smaller company and don't want to spend that kind of money, hey, if you hit this number this month, you're going to get some apparel. Yeah, yeah, like a swag store. Yeah.

We just built a really cool one. One of the things that I say, I say, I can't do all the fun stuff, man. I don't have the money. I said, do you have money for Biscuit? You go to Costco and just make pancakes for the guys a couple mornings? Like, just make pancakes. Just make, I know how much eggs and bacon and sausage cost

and pouring some orange juice for the guys. So I got an apron. Usually I'm the guy pouring in the orange juice, but like, are you cooking for the guys in the morning? That goes a long way. I say they care. And are the leaders doing that? How much does it cost you not to do those things?

That's what people don't understand is like, they're like, man, I don't have a time. I'm like, you got 168 hours in a week, 168 hours. You could work 70. You could sleep 50. You still got 50 hours. You still got a time enough to take your wife on a date each week to be a good dad to work out.

It's just where are those hours going? And people don't do a time study and they say, I'm just busy. And I'm like, man, in 170 hours, how could you be too busy to do the most important things? What's the first four letters of culture? What's that? What's the first four letters of culture? C-U-L-R, yeah, C-U-L-T.

What does that spell? Cult. So how do you create, and it's a bad word, but how do you create almost a cult within your business where they're living and breathing and all about you? It's funny that you say that. We brought, I think you had Senya on. So Senya comes, she's like a marketing person.

We brought her on last year, too, to help out. And she called it the top home cult. Yeah. Because that's what we've created. We've created this culture that people just want to be a part of. And where sometimes they actually lose their mind when they have to be fired. Or have to go because they don't or they'll stay there and not make any money if we allow them to, to just be a part of the culture.

Well, the other thing is like when you got the bus, it's all about getting those people that believe in the culture. is sometimes there's a lateral move, sometimes it's going to the call center, sometimes there's something still valid. Sometimes they get prep work for the warehouse. So it's not always, if they're believers, and they just don't got the talent to be people, you know, face-to-face people persons,

then find a role for them if they're believers. And that's one thing I'd highly suggest for you is that, listen, if they're 10 out of 10, they're bought in, they show up to meetings, they're early, but they're not great at that role. Maybe they're just not on the right seat on the bus that Jim Collins would say. We try to do that when we can.

We moved a girl she was in our canvassing at events. Wasn't good out there. She was setting a few leads here and there, but she loved the company, love the culture, and was good at talking to people. We moved her to our call center, and she's our top call center.

Yep. But people, a lot of times, just want to get the next person in. Well, you already paid for the training. I already have all the expense. If she can do another role or he can do another role, give it a shot. what do you have to lose? It might not work out. But then, yeah, at least you tried the two options. I love the fact that you guys are going out and getting the answers. Because just like you're not

afraid to talk to a client, you should be able to reach out to somebody. Go to the events. And your goal should not be just go to the event. It should be who am I going to talk to this event? I talked to a guy named Matt Esler at the top remodel of it. Matt Esser does $1.5 million a year. Or $1.5 billion a year and he's the biggest Anderson renewal guy and like I was like here's what I do and he's like shot the shit with me for 45 minutes I didn't like look I didn't know who I was going to be the top of model I'm not a home improvement guy although garageers kind of fit in the home improvement we're mostly home service but yeah this idea of just do not be afraid to reach out to people worst case scenario they say no that's case you know they say yes I asked Brian Gottlieb to speak

he's like dude he's like I can't charge you I'm like name of price name He's like, let me come. Let me just, let me just do it for you. And he's just, that's who he is. He's just a great person. That's the thing. It's, it's just like selling. If you don't ask for the order, there was a chance of a yes, but you're definitely getting in now. So reaching out, I mean, that's been the first five years. We didn't even know anyone else existed, you know, as in wanted to help where we came from. He had closed doors. He had all the magic. thinks that it's when everyone's doing the 10-step selling process. It was one of those things that we just figured that was the way to do it.

Like don't talk to people. So we did it on our own, not knowing anything about anything besides sales and marketing. How to get a lead and how to sell lead. Look, if you got sales and marketing and get it, figure out how to make more people, it's a winning success. The next thing is getting financial planning. It's literally knowing your budget before you start the year. And guess what? The budget doesn't confine you.

When I was younger and I was great of sales and marketing, I thought, man, nobody puts me in a box. The box is supposed to be a representation of here's how many leads come in. There's so many leads we need to hit this budget this month based on this conversion rate, this booking rate, this conversion rate, this average ticket. And all of a sudden, like, and we don't set an easy, easy budget. We set a hard one. But if you get predictive with your business model and you could actually hit budget or beat it a little bit, but you're not killing it. Like you get good at predictive modeling. Man, it's like the business is on steroids.

That's kind of where we're going. And our whole philosophy when we started, we don't want to create a new wheel. We just want to make the wheel spin faster. So how do you do that? You figure out someone that made that wheel spin faster or went through those mistakes and learned from them and figure it out. And the biggest thing that was people go to these events

and learn all this stuff and want to do it. They never apply. But they never do. You have to be able to implement and you can't be scared what people at the company are going to think because you have to create it in a way and present it in a way that everyone's going to win here but this is how we got to do it

to get to the next level and we get to the next, paint the picture for them. I was going to say earlier and it slipped my mind but when I thought our price was our issue and I'm like, I don't understand how because we are some of the higher priced things so I don't understand. We raised our prices 30% in one month

and most people would have been like, you're crazy. And we were a little crazy. But we were willing to implement that and take a hit on the front end to be able to survive long term. And we ended up having the biggest month the next month than we ever had. It did nothing. And when I say 30%, it was legit 30%. We went 10 and then 20. And it wasn't the issue, though.

It was all the internal stuff of no SOPs. Yeah. You can't price yourself out of bad KPIs. Like some people think they can. There's a buddy I know that always says raise your price. I'm like, don't raise your price unless you raise your service and work on conversion rate, work on getting the five-star review and selling a membership. Like I was part of this Christmas light business called Stay Off Your Roof.

Great guys. Still two of my best friends. And I was involved heavily. And I looked at the numbers at the end of the year. I said, we've got to double our pricing, 100% increase. They looked at me and they're like, you're effing crazy. I said, guys, I don't even want to be part of this company if we don't double the price. And it took me a couple weeks and they finally doubled the prices.

We lost 40% of all the clients. So we made 120% of the revenue. We were only running 60% of the jobs now, but we made 120% all of a sudden it created a massive opportunity for profit. They thought we were going to lose everybody. We did lose 40%. But we're collecting 120% and it raised the bottom line. It created us. We did a better job for the clients that wanted a better job.

Yeah. That's what we would always want every job. To your point earlier, I would never forget. This roughly took a Muskegon. Our installer said, you got to walk away from this job. And this is like a year two. I said, we already have the money. We're not walking away from this job.

We're going to do it. We're already a month in it. We're going to do this job because we just wanted that revenue. We ended up losing like $5 to $10,000 on that job. why just to say we did that job. When we first started, we were like, we're doing $10 million, we're doing $12 million. Who cares? Yeah.

Because if I talked about our bottom line then, that's what matters. Providence or vanity profits. Yeah, 100%. And so now we've worked hard. Our bottom line now, we went from, you know, 8 to 10 to 12. Now we're averaging. The first two months this year, we kind of went down just because we outsold our production. Yeah.

But we doubled in sales. So last year, in January and February, we did 700. This past year we did 1.5 in each of those, but we only installed like 800 grand. But outside of that, you know, we're 15 to 20, 22% now on average. So you need to start thinking about eventually even a fractional CFO. The reason why I like a fractional CFO for companies probably around your size is they're going to cost 500 grand a year. But they're only working on you one fifth of the time. So you're paying them $100,000 to bring you half a million.

$100, like, highest paid people. And they're going to put it these systems in place versus going on getting a $65,000 bookkeeper or an $80,000 or $100,000 bookkeeper. You're getting $100,000 person putting into systems to give you what you need to run the business. So when we got with Brian Gottlieb, that was actually a change. So Todd is one of his guys from his renewal company. Yeah.

And he does that for us, fractional CFO. That's perfect. And we change over to accrual accounting. Good. That's a big deal. They made a huge, huge difference. Yeah, and if you want a line of credit eventually to grow, you need to be on accrual and you need to eventually get to at least reviewed financials and then potentially get audited financials because then you could use other people's money. And the bank alone, you had a good rate, especially because you guys got those years underneath you.

But they're going to look for it to use have a budget. Do you hit budget? And are you on accrual accounting? So you guys have built from scratch now doing $20 million across three locations. What's one piece of advice to give to every sales leader in home service home improvement? As a sales leader, to get to that level, role play, role play, role play. Put people in uncomfortable situations, make them know their scripts, and make them know the extras that are going to get that sale.

We started when we were- So they call sweat. Sweat. When we were growing, we were, that guy I was telling you that took us, that was with us from zero to ten, he was more of a lecture. up there lecturing the entire time. Our top rep was having bad numbers. He knows the process.

We brought them in. We do a yellow and red training. So if you're under numbers, you bring you in in the morning before you can have another lead that day and make sure you're on process. And our top rep was it two years in a row, knows the process.

He's just having a down few months. He's still going to come in. We're going to figure it out. But he sat him in the back corner and said, I want you to write your scripts out. That's not going to get, he already knows the scripts. Yeah.

Roll play. Figure out what he's doing. You got to put him in the uncomfortable spot, and a lot of people don't want to roll play and have fun with it. We'll bring in a golf putting mat, and if you make a putt, and it's like a pro-expert beginner.

And depending on which one you hit, or if you miss, if you miss out of it, you're going to roll play, and we're going to choose in front of that. And then if you make expert or whatever, you get to choose somebody to roll play, and you get to be the customer.

Okay. So have fun with it. Don't just, all right guys today we're going to roll play this and just sit there no make it fun throw bean bags if you make it yeah we even played uh water pong so we've brought in that beer pong yeah and uh but make it fun and and one thing i learned from bill from brian gotleap is have your meetings structured don't just go in there on a whim and just and just think you you are going to uh throw something out because you're going to lose track you're not going to do the right things you're

going to be over here when you need to be here. Not everyone's struggling with this. Every week we have a rotating for six weeks. It rotates on what we're going to practice on the script that week. Week one is something two, and then once it gets to six, we rotate back to the beginning. What that does is it keeps consistency with that rep and they're always working on something and they know, okay, week two we're going to work on pre-close or whatever it might be. So guess what they're going to do before that meeting to make sure they don't screw up in front of our they're going to work on pre-close. And before you get into that, have someone role play what you worked on the week before.

And if they don't get it and they mess it up, give them one more chance and say, hey, guys, if the next person doesn't, and it's going to be my choice, who I choose, doesn't hit it, we're going to work on that again. Because clearly it needs help. So it keeps it structured. It keeps that people moving and it keeps them on their toes of what you're going to do. And it's not just, I wonder what we're going to work on and then work on nothing outside of work. They know what's coming and they know what they need to do and they know they're going to

get called on because everyone's going to do it. This is genius. What would you tell yourself? So going back to the beginning, you meet your younger self with knowing what you know now. What does that conversation look like? That conversation, it's funny you say that. I always, I tell this story is when I was like 12 years old, I've always had this entrepreneur mind, but I was a man of a million ideas. We should do this. I should do this. And I knew nothing about any of it.

But I just thought it would be a good idea because I saw a gravel truck. Yeah. Or saw this and I was sick on the couch. And back then, remote, you couldn't change the channel under the blanket. You had to reach out. I was like, what if you just had a blanket

that had arms in it? And you could change the channel and be warm. And then I heard my dad's the old school mindset back in the day, put on a sweatshirt. shirt. I'm like, oh, that's a dumb idea. And then they came out. That was a gag, by the way. It was. It wasn't meant to go viral. Yeah. So I would look back and I would say, you're on your way because I've always had that dream. My neighbor, I would always go to his

house. He ended up starting his own company. I just always wanted that. It was nonstop in my head. I just didn't know what I was going to do. I created an app. I had an app idea. Had a buddy create it. Knew nothing about technology. Went nowhere. but always was trying to create different things. Created off of like paper towel to sell to like big companies to use in their bathrooms and different cleaning supplies. Tried that. You're going to get a lot of knows.

Edison failed more than anybody to create the light bulb. One book I'd highly recommend is Gary Keller. It's called The One Thing. On the back of the book, he's got a little thing that goes over your door handle. And it says, please don't interrupt. I'm busy working on the one thing. And I look at my business now is there are certain things in the business that I've learned from Dan Martel, buyback your time, is what are the things that I could be doing that make the most impact on the business,

their impact areas, and where do I need to focus? And if you were to look at the next five years' growth, what are those things that are going to grow the business the fastest? Do I have the right people in those right seats? Because now I'm more of a facilitator, the orchestrator of things. And I got to get out of the way. Most owners don't get out of the way, but you've got to be super focused and say, This is the biggest revenue driver. What if we just took this and got into 10 markets?

But at the same time, don't grow too fast. Make sure you're taking owner. What I care about is private equity, if I'm looking at your company, is did you take market share? Did you grow too fast and not create strong market share in that market? Then you've got a bunch of markets that are hot dog stands, not making much money. You're still back to the Grand Rapids and Howl of the world, right?

So I love that. What's next for you? So where are you headed from here? What's the plan? Company wise, you're saying? So on our mission board, when we started this company, it was to get to 50 million. Wanted to get to 50 million at the time.

Sitting in the garage didn't know how we were gonna do it. We just knew we were gonna set leads and sell. We had a whiteboard that had, that we wrote down what we needed, get apparel, get an iPad, come up with a business name, set leads, getting events. I mean, it was the most generic whiteboard. So we thought of 50 million, but now as we're getting bigger and as the processes are

coming into place, I think that number goes to over $100, $200 million now that we can see that it can get there. We just didn't have the right things in spot. We thought that, or in place, we thought it was impossible, but we were going to figure out how to get there now. Yeah, so throw out a B-Hag, big hair it is just goal, throw $200 million, and then reverse engineer that, put month one, because it's not one day, it's day one, and then say, here's where we're at.

What does it look like to get to $200 million? How many reps, how many leads, how much is their conversion rate, what's the average ticket needed to be, and then work backwards, and it should look like a curve like this. It's kind of a hockey stick. And you're right in here, headed into here, and what needs to happen and probably put it in like four years to be reasonable and say, okay, this needs to happen today the next three months. We're going to need a training facility, whatever that looks like. Derek, I really enjoyed the hell out of this.

What is the best way to find you if people want to reach out? Facebook, Instagram. See, the old people say LinkedIn. The young guys say. I love it. Where do they find more about top home improvements? Tophomeproof.com. We've got our website there.

Do you have an email? We got an email. Derek at Top Home Improve, I-M-P-R-O-V-E.com. And I want to give you an opportunity to close us out or anything on your mind. Just anything you want to tell the audience for last thoughts. Oh, actually, tell me one good book that really helped you. I mean, you mentioned a couple. Predictable success.

Predictable success. So when we got with Brian Gottlieve, there's a guy, Michael Hoy, that's on the board that works with us. And he said, I want you guys to go read predictable success, Reddit, and pretty much what that book states as business, you're in the fun stage in the beginning, where you're selling, you're doing this, you think you're making a ton of money,

and then you get into the white water. It's wavy, you're trying to figure it out, and how do you get from the fun stage? A lot of people will just move back to the fun stage. Say you went from $2 million to $10 million, but you didn't have the right processes in place, and you're like, well, screw this, I was making more money back here.

Yeah. Or let's fix here. Get yourself over the treadmill and get to the next level because on the other side is a lot better than going back down to the fun stage. Yeah. But you have to be able to do that and fight through it. And most people will die in the white water because they'll just revert back to the fun stage where they were just getting by.

There was a monster book that opened my eyes to what we had going on. I mean, the only thing that I truly, like I said, saved us was we didn't just come in to get jobs and price our stuff super low. We went off what we're used to selling and just priced a little bit lower. You know, in the E-Mith revisited by Michael Gerber, it tells this story about a guy that goes to this hotel. And he's like, this is crazy. They had the Wall Street Journal that slipped under the door.

They had the exact flowers he likes on his bed. They had the exact coffee delivered that he loves, exactly with two creamers and two packs of sugar. and they had everything perfect. And so he goes and finds the manager and says, how the hell did you guys get everything right? And the manager says, oh, well, when you booked your stay here, we asked you a few questions.

And then we've got different color coordinations to make sure everything happens correctly. And there's checks and balances in place. And he's like, it's all a system. It's a business framework. It's a system to make sure everything goes right. And there's, like I said, checks and balances. You inspect what you expect. you could do that correctly, you're going to scale the hell out of this business.

So close us out with whatever's on your mind, Derek. I would just close us out with just saying, don't be scared with the reps, role play, make sure they know their stuff, go out there, go for the no, and build a winning culture, and move it forward. Raise prices, man. And raise prices. I love it. Don't be scared of price.

Derek, you're a genius, man. I'm really excited. I actually motivated to be around a guy like you because I see where you guys are at and I know where you're going. Appreciate it. Yeah, I appreciate you having me on.