The Home Service Expert Podcast - Using The 64/4 Rule To Explode Your Marketing Results

Episode Date: February 7, 2020

Allan Dib is the bestselling author of “The 1-Page Marketing Plan.” Throughout the course of his professional career, he has established, run, and successfully ended numerous businesses, including one that made it to Business Review Weekly’s coveted Fast 100 list. He reaches out and works with people across the globe as a business coach and consultant, applying years of experience in his mission to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses with technology and strategic action.  In this episode, we talked about marketing, performance tracking, automation...

messaging should not be about you. It should be about your client and your prospect. It should be about how can you help them? How can you make their life better? What should they do next to engage with you? So, a lot of people say, we do this and we do this. And my grandfather started it in 1976. And we've been in this area for this long. And we won this award and all of that. And nobody cares about any of those things. The front page of your website above the fold should have three things. It should be, what do you do? How do you make my life better? What should I do next to engage with you? And it should be very much about them. So problem, solution, proof. And that's really the way to go about it. 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. Welcome back to the Home Service Expert. My name is Tommy Mello, and today I have Ellen Dibb. Ellen Dibb is the author of the One Page Marketing Plan. Get new customers, make new money, and stand out from the crowd. He specializes in telecommunication, marketing, IT. He's SuccessFly's founder from 2016 to now and one of the Forbes coach council to 2019 to now.

This is a very, very good podcast. You're going to learn how being very narrow focused is good. He resides in Australia and he's an amazing guy. Listen, this interview went amazing. We talk about the 80-20 rule. We talk about the exchange of value, reflection, the five low languages, talk about a lot of good books. If you haven't read this book, The One-Page Marketing Plan, you need to read the book. It's absolutely phenomenal. I read it before we had the interview and there's just so many gold nuggets in this podcast. Can't wait for you guys to check it out. So Alan, super excited to have you here. You're in Australia, a lot of stuff

going on out there right now. You wrote the book, The One Page Marketing Plan, and I'm a big fan. I own the book. Tell me a little bit about the history of where you got started and just how you learned all this stuff and what caused you to write the book? Yeah, look, I learned marketing out of necessity, really, because I was a dead broke IT geek. I knew a lot about IT, a lot about the technical stuff of what I was doing, but I just didn't know how to get customers in the door.

And so that took me on a decades-long journey to really learn marketing and understand what it really is and how to do it effectively. And it was really out of a need for myself in my first business to get clients in the door. I ended up growing that business to be a national business. I exited it for more money than I'd ever seen in my life. After that, I started another technology business and we grew from zero to four years later, exiting again and being one of the top 100 fastest growing companies in Australia. And yeah, so now I'm really helping people develop their own marketing capability. So marketing is like everything. I feel like, you know, I talked to a guy earlier and he's probably going to listen to this podcast, but he told me, he goes, just so you know, my industry, we don't really do much

marketing. What would be your response to that? My response would be, that's awesome. That's a massive opportunity. If you're doing marketing and very few of your competitors are, then you've got a massive advantage there. And so that would be my response. You know, I'm going to talk on stage next week to this group, 700 people. And of course, I always talk about marketing because when you meet your wife or your husband, you know, or your significant other, everything you do in life is kind of marketing. Am I right? I mean, what is your stance on that? Yeah, look, whenever you're trying to influence somebody, that could be your wife, your child, your friend, your relative, a prospect or a client or whoever it is,

very much use the elements of influence and marketing to do that. So I guess whenever you're trying to bend someone to your will, that's part of getting your message out there and being effective when it comes to influence and marketing. Yeah, it's super important to understand that marketing is how you grow. But there's a good book I read, No BS, about marketing to the affluence. I've read your book. I read all these things, Piranha Marketing with Joe Polish. I read all these marketing books all the time. And I just feel like, what is it about business owners, especially

we're talking to the home service group here. Why do they hate marketing so much? What is it about them? Maybe because they had the experience of just getting too many mailers and not thinking it works? Or what is it about home service business owners that they just despise spending money to get in front of customers' eyes? Yeah, look, it's interesting you say that. I was talking to someone in a home service business just quite recently, and he said he stopped using HomeAdvisor because it cost him $50 per lead. And I said, well, it's not what it costs you per lead. It's really what makes you.

So if you're getting a lot of crappy leads, then that's fine. That's too expensive to acquire a customer. But if you're getting decent leads and a decent conversion rate, then you need to look at your cost of customer acquisition. So a lot of times people see that marketing is a cost when it really should be thought of as a profit center. The other thing is a lot of people just don't have time and they don't know what to do. That's the most common thing. They're like, there's so many, you know, the SEO guy says, hey, you need SEO. The pay-per-click guy says you need pay-per-click. The website guy says you need

a new website. And so it gets very, very confusing. And so that's one of the reasons that I wrote the book because I wrote the book that I wish I had when I was first learning marketing because I was confused by all of these things as well. You ask 100 marketing people what you should do and you'll get 100 different answers. And I just wanted to understand the fundamentals and get clarity on what should I do from a marketing perspective. Can I tell you one thing? I'm going to do this, then I want you to do it. And you can't copy me. Okay. So I have $10,000. I'm starting a new business. I don't care if it's HVAC, plumbing, roofing. I have $10,000 and I'm starting a business, which is not near enough money to start a business. But I got a good why. I got a good why I want to take care of my family. I've got a couple good employees lined up. I know a little bit about business. I'm not just a technician that

hates my boss to quit and go start a business. So here's what I would do with the money. And I'm, not just a technician trying to that hates my boss to quit and go start a business. So Here's what I would do with the money and I I'm so excited to hear your answer, but I don't want to copy you. So i'll go first. So the first thing I do is I'd write down 100 people That I know like and trust neighbors family acquaintances Relationships i'd use social media and i'd say let me come give you a tune-up I'll give you half off of everything, but i'm going to ask you for five reviews. I'd use social media and I'd say, let me come give you a tune up. I'll give you half off of everything, but I'm going to ask you for five reviews. I want next door. I want Facebook.

I want Google. I want Yelp and I want Angeles or better business bureau. And I can keep going if I do a good job. So at first I'd build, that's all organic. That costs me nothing. So I'd make sure, then I'd get on home, home advisor, which is pay per lead. So I'd make sure, then I'd get on HomeAdvisor, which is pay per lead. Then I'd get on, I love Yelp deals. I love Angela's deals. I love Groupon and Living Social because you only pay if you get the job.

So there's a lot of, you know what you're going to spend there. Then what I would do is I would get my GMB up, my Google My Business page, make sure that I'm killing it on there. I put all the pictures, videos, everything they allow me to do, keyword density. And then I'd probably put the money into whatever I choose. It'd all be Google.

Pay-per-click is direct response. And then I'd work on organic. But the one thing I know I would do is I'd give it a chance. I think most marketers, they make mistakes. They say, hey, I tried the newspaper for two weeks. It didn't work. Hey, I tried the radio. I got on country. I got on politics. I got on religion. None of them work. Well, how are you measuring it? So first of all, I build up measurements on everything, call tracking. I build up separate landing pages, squeeze pages. With $10,000, I think I could actually do from day one a 10 times multiplier easy. I love the 10%. But that's me. I try to go after organic, low-hanging fruit, don't have a lot of money.

But I'm more excited to hear your answer. Well, look, there's a lot that you can do with $10,000. I would start with really starting to get, and this won't cost you anything, starting to get really good clarity around who your best client is. So too many people in home services kind of say, hey, I'm a roofer. I can help everybody who's got a roof or, hey, I'm a doofer. I can help everybody who's got a roof or, hey, I'm a, I'm do concrete repair. I can help anyone who's got concrete repair issues or whatever. So I would start about with a plan and that's kind of like the blueprint. So if you're building a house, you don't just start laying bricks. You work with the architect, you put together a blueprint, you figure out where does the pool go, where does the house go, all of those sorts of things. And then you start building after that. So I would spend a bit of

time around thinking, who is my ideal client? So who's fun to work with, who's profitable to work with, and who's really going to value what I do? Because even if you're in home services, let's say you're an electrician, you may want to work with people who need a total rewire. So you might decide, hey, I need to work in neighborhoods where they've got really old houses and then we can do like a full house rewire or whatever else. Or maybe I want to work with builders who are building brand new developments and things like that. So figure out who your ideal customer is.

That would be step one for sure. And then you would test small. So you would take maybe $1,000 and say, right, I'm going to test a small campaign. And like you said, choosing a platform or a communication medium that's appropriate to the clients that you decided are ideal for you. So if you decided people who've got long established houses in an old neighborhood. So probably Snapchat's not going to be the right medium for you to use, right? So you might be using things like direct mail or postcards or things like that. And like you said, you do want to give it a bit of time and you want to have that cumulative effect. But really the key to me is rather than being hung up on the

tactics that you use is being hung up around who your ideal client is because too many people don't know who that is. Does that make sense? It does. But I got to tell you this, I hear this all the time. Who's your avatar? Who's the perfect client? Before you start business, you don't know that number one. Number two is, I was just talking to this people, you know, a couple hundred people. And I said, look, I have a guy that spent $900,000 with me this year. So what did I do? I profiled the shit out of this guy. I know his income. I mean, I got his credit score. I know everything about this guy. I studied him. I have 67,000 customers that we service last year. So what we're doing now is we're actually looking at the ticket size and I'm pulling in 20 factors,

the age of the customer, male or female. I'm pulling in income, credit score, square foot of the house, move-in date, age of home, how much does the house cost? All these things matter. How many garage doors do they have? Because I'm in the garage door industry. So I want you to dig deep into this because when people say figure out your customer, to me, 10 years ago, I've heard this every year and every day. I know what it means now. I think I've actually got this figured out. But to just say, figure out who your audience is, where do they hang out? It didn't mean anything to me. So can we dig deeper into that? Yeah, yeah, for sure. So you'll have some idea. I mean, if you've been in business at any amount of time, I mean, unless you're a brand new business starting today, you'll have some idea around, wow, that was a really good customer to work with or,

oh man, I really don't want to work with this kind of customer. They were just, you know, they're complaining about price. They were difficult to work with, just not ideal. So, you'll have an idea of who was ideal. Now, what I'm talking about here is really being purposeful around who you're going to be targeting and who you're going to be working with because too many people just are way too generic. Now, I think there's nothing like testing and measuring. So, when I look at my own business, we reinvent ourselves pretty much every year and we reinvent who we work with, the products that we do, how we engage with people. And that changes every year and it gets better year to year because we're working from experience. So I think there's nothing like past experience to kind of help you drive that.

The problem is a lot of people just don't learn from past experience and they don't let it drive their business. They think, I'm in this type of business, so this is just the kind of customer I've got and that's life kind of thing. Whereas that's really, really not true. So you need to be able to allow the experience with the customer to help you drive your product development and you decide, look, I only want to work with builders or I only want to work with residential clients or I only want to work with people who are in this area of Houston or whatever it is. So there's really no substitute for testing and measuring.

You can do all sorts of research and data, but a short time amount in business, and you're going to know which client you love working with, which client is profitable, which client really values what you do. I agree. And it took me years to figure that out. I got to tell you, Alan, when people put money in my face, I say yes. But that's the biggest problem we have as entrepreneurs is we say, yes, but I don't specialize in that. I'm not very good at it, but you're going to give me a paycheck even though I got to pay my guys differently. I'm not sure how I'm going to do this. I'm net 90 now. My truck's different. So I think one of the things in the book you said is focus. Narrow is good. Narrow,

focus on what you do. And I can't tell people enough. I hope they're listening and I hope they're going to make a change to say, look, if you're a commercial stick to commercial, if you're residential, stick to residential. If you do Home Depot, be the best at Home Depot, but don't take all three, four, five, six, don't take everything that comes your way. I mean, when I look at it, people say I made $2,000 on this job. And I say it was a $20,000 job. You made 10%. You know what I mean? You got to look at it in a racer you got to let the numbers dictate your decisions and i think you hit the nail on the head is you got to basically you got to monitor what you're doing i talked to a guy yesterday you'll like to sell him and he's a big listener

too i'm not going to go into too much detail but but I said, what's your call booking rate? He goes, well, it's not very good because we get a lot of spam calls. I said, no, but per opportunity, what's your call booking rate? He goes, well, I don't know that. I said, so how do you know if it's broken? What's your conversion rate? He goes, what is conversion rate? I said, when you get to the house, how much do you convert to a sale? And I consider a sale over $70 because it's less than a service call. And I said, what's your average ticket? He said, well, you know, that's a mix of, and I said, no, no, no, this is, this is numbers we need to have. How much do you pay for a lead per marketing source? And how much is your average delivery? What percentage of that? And it's like, I know I'm talking gibberish to

them and they're like, dude, what, why are you asking me these questions? But a lot of us start out as technicians and we think we know how to run a business because we're good at doing the work. Yes. But enlighten me because I feel like you've told me two numbers that you've exited and they're crazy numbers. I've got crazy numbers too that I want to exit with. But tell me a little bit about your perspective with these technicians that I was, and we just go into it. The numbers should dictate the output, right? Very much so. And a lot of the time, the problem with technicians is like, hey, I'll just take this job or whatever. And I understand what it's like when you're starting up and you are desperate to make as much as

possible. You've got to put food on the table. And quite possibly in the beginning, you do have to take some optimal jobs, but that's fine as long as it's a strategy to something bigger. So it's not something that you're going to do for the long term. The other thing is, it's okay to take on jobs that maybe are not your ideal or whatever. But what we're talking about here is from a marketing perspective. So what are we going to do? What are we going to actively pursue? So we don't want to be actively pursuing suboptimal jobs. So sure, maybe suboptimal jobs come our way and maybe we've got a bit of spare capacity and we need some cash flow, so we take those on. But what are the things that you're going to actively pursue in your marketing,

in your pay-per-click, in all of that sort of activity? And so that's what you want to be super clear on. You want to be very, very clear about who you deal with. Now, one of the things that I've found is many small business owners will spend time to save money, whereas the difference between great entrepreneurs and people who believe in leverage and are rich, people will spend money to save time. So because you can always get more money, but you can never get more time. So that's a very, very important distinction. And so understanding that marketing is very important, you've only got a limited amount of time. So it's highly likely that you need someone on your team to help you with the marketing process.

It's highly likely you need someone who wakes up in the morning and thinks about, right, how are we going to market this business? What are we going to do on a daily, weekly, monthly basis from a marketing perspective? And that doesn't have to be somebody who's full-time. That doesn't have to be somebody who's full-time. That doesn't have to be somebody who's very, very experienced and expensive. We could get someone in maybe half a day a week or two days a week to come and do those routine operational things. I can talk a bit more about that, but that's some of the distinctions that I see from people

who are really entrepreneurs to people who are just self-employed. It's the nail on the head. I want to tell you a quick story that happened earlier today is I've got an amazing group of people that handle my searches and optimization. Couldn't be happier, but we're in a transitional mode where we're redoing the site and there's 301 redirects. There's 5,000 pages of content. We're building out a whole new, very, very amazing, but it's complicated website. And we're talking about hosting. We're talking,

I mean, we're talking about tools that I never even heard of. I've, we've got all these guys on the call and, um, not to go into too much detail, but the guy on the call was the number one guy in the world at SEO. So he came in, he pulled out a bunch of things and perspectives. And I think by being on this call with him, we do about $1.1 million a month and just straight SEO, not Google my business, not PPC, not Google Guaranteed,

none of that stuff, just straight up the organic site. I find a company that went out of business 10 years ago. I create a page and I rank number one. I find businesses that went out of business, I rank for those services. People got to think outside of the box. I think I do well at that, but I don't have enough time, energy, or focus to be able to just go into straight SEO. I'm not the expert. So we called in some experts. We had a bunch of amazing people on the call. And I think we figured out a way to triple the conversion rate and the clicks we get in the time on page. And you know a lot about SEO, so you understand. So me, I'm pretty far along, you know,

40 million, do huge numbers. And that's not huge to some people, but it's huge in the home service space. I'm not bragging. I'm just saying, even I got a lesson today and I'm always looking, I'm stacking the deck. I'm going out of my way to figure out conversion rate. I might have a site that gets a ton of traffic, but who cares if the time on page and the conversion rate sucks?

You know what I mean? I think you're an expert at this because I heard you talk about, you said PPC, then you said SEO, then you said website. You said three things earlier. And so you're like me. You think Google and Bing and online is important and reputation management. So there's a lot of people that start out on radio and I go, radio is great if you rank

number one and they see you, they'll pick on you because they've heard of you. But out of sight, out of mind. And by the way, all my questions that were on here after I read your book, they're just different now. So I'll get to some of these questions. But I love this. I'm getting a lesson from you right now. Excellent, excellent. Yeah, so all of those things, like, well, I'll back up a bit.

So first of all, you want to give people what they want, but you also have to give them what they need, right? So a lot of times, someone will start coaching with me and say, right, let's run some marketing campaigns. And then we look at some of their marketing infrastructure. So we look at their website, we look at their CRM. Sometimes they don't even have a CRM. And frankly, they're not ready for running a marketing campaign. Even if we sent a ton of traffic to their website, it would just be lost. It would be a waste of time, waste of money, because we don't have a high converting lead generating website. So, a lot of the time we've got to spend on fixing some of the infrastructure, getting some of the

systems in place, technical systems, business systems, marketing systems, and then we can start working on running campaigns. And sometimes it's even getting the right people in place or upskilling existing people. So, all of those things make a massive, massive difference. So a lot of the times what you think you need is actually not what you need. So a lot of people think, hey, I just need more traffic. I just need more people coming to the website. I need more people calling the phone number. Whereas a lot of the time, you actually just need the right people and you need to fix some of your underlying infrastructure. Once again, nail on the head.

I just love your insight on this because I think the number one people that make it in business are the best marketers. When you first started out, a lot of us, we don't know about marketing. You learned through mistakes, trial and error. Tell me a little bit about the journey through marketing and just the misconception and some of your mistakes and more importantly, some of your triumphs. Yeah. So, I mean, I've made every mistake in the book. I remember I spent probably about $20,000 on a rebrand

and a new logo and everything like that at a time that I really, really couldn't afford that. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with having a nice logo and nice branding and all of that sort of stuff, but that was not the priority at the time. Whereas I thought, hey, that's going to make the difference. And so really understanding that having a very, very clear message is super, super important. That's one of the reasons why I think the one-page marketing plan has been so successful because it really forces you to clarify your message. It forces you to clarify who your audience is, what the message is, what the media is going to be. And I spend a lot of time both in the book and in my coaching

working with people on their messaging. So what is it that you actually do, right? And a lot of the times, particularly when someone's in a trade, they'll be talking about the technical thing that they do. They'll be talking about, you know, insider industry terms, whereas really you want to be talking about it from a consumer perspective. And so for me, really understanding that clarity around what you do and who you do it for is super, super important. As marketers, we can talk about SEO, pay-per-click, all of that sort of stuff. That's gibberish to someone who's just a business owner who just wants more clients in the door. And so, having that one-liner of where you very,

very clearly articulate what you do, that can make a massive difference because that'll filter through to everything that you do, whether it's SEO and all of those other things. And I can go into specific SEO tactics that I've used and specific traffic tactics and how to get people in the door. But really, I think I like to think about fundamentals and fundamentals are things that are not going to go out of fashion or out of style in a year, in two years, in 10 years, in a hundred years, right? So in a hundred years, it's still going to be important for someone to clearly understand what you do, right? Well, it's strategy versus tactics. And I'm looking at my How to Win Friends and Influence People. I have 20,000 of those books on the shelf.

And I can tell you this, the stuff in Australia, if I could go back five years in Google, it still works in Australia, still works in England, Ireland. I coach people on this stuff. It's crazy. Google's algorithm, they don't update it the same that they do. The United States is by far leading the way

and you know it's coming. So when I go to a market like that, Google my business, the links that used to count, like the algorithms are not updated. You know, they're building a system, $60 billion. And it's, it's going to know what you want. It'll tell you what you want. I mean, they're collecting data on all of us. It doesn't bother me because if you can make my life better and give me what I want then I'm happy you know I'm looking at your book right now because I had it on my shelf and it's funny because you talked about picking the right customer will your chapter one is selecting your target market chapter two crafting your

message chapter three reaching prospects with advertising media. Chapter four, capturing leads, nurturing leads, sales conversion, delivering a world-class experience, increasing customer lifetime value, and orchestrating and stimulating referrals. I think you hit all nine of them. So out of all those, I just think it's important that people read this book. It's just the one page marketing plan. It's the most important thing in your business. If you don't understand how to market,

you can be the best hardwood floor re-coater in the world. You can be the best roofer. But if no one knows about you. But one day I got this question and I remember this day vividly. They said, who is the biggest HVAC company in your city? And I told them who it was. And they said, who's the most expensive? And guess what? Because I know this. Same company. But guess what they do? They run a business. Guess what happens when the owner is out of town, Alan? Do you think the company still runs itself? Of course. Of course it does.

So how important is it to charge the right prices? Yes. Very, very important. Super important. So out of these, you got nine chapters in your book, then you got the conclusion, and then about the author. You said figuring out the target market, that chapter one is the most important, but let me hear a little bit more about crafting the message. Well, that dovetails well with what you just said. So you've got the nine chapters, then you've got the conclusion, then you've got the about the author.

Where's about the author? Right at the end. To the end. Right? Because no one cares about me, about my dog, about where I live, what I do, all of that. Because a lot of authors put that right up the front, right? About the author that, you know, I'm really awesome and all of this. And that dovetails really well in with messaging, right?

Messaging should not be about you. It should be about your client and your prospect. It should be about how can you help them? How can you make their life better? What should they do next to engage with you? So a lot of people say, we do this and we do this. And my grandfather started it in 1976. And we've been in this area for this long. And we won this award and all of that. And nobody cares about any of those things. The front page of your website above the fold should have three things. It should be, what do you do? How do you make my life better? What should I do next to engage with you? And it should be very much about them. So,

problem, solution, proof. And that's really the way to go about it. Too many people talk about themselves. And there is a place for that. But like I said, I try to lead by example, where about the author page is right down the end where after you've read the book and then maybe after you've read the book, you've gotten some value and then you might skip that or you might flick through it. But either way, it's inconsequential. So I start the book off strong, talking about you and your problems and how we can get to a solution. And I think that's really a key part of good messaging. I love that. And I got your book open to running out of oxygen really sucks. Zig Ziglar famously said, money isn't everything, but it ranks right up there with oxygen. Yep. Nothing kills a business faster than the lack of oxygen, a.k.a. money. I love that.

You start the book. This is the introduction. So I had to go back when you said, I don't talk about me. I had to check. Yeah. And I love that because when I listen to it, it's completely different than't talk about me I had a check yeah and I love that because when I listen to it it's completely different than reading it you know what I mean so because when I'm when I'm listening to it I'm making mental notes and I'm actually in audible

I hit the bookmark button but it's it's few and far between when I'm reading it you just see me highlight a page it's crazy but. But we need money. Money's not a bad word, is it? No, no. And people have more hangups about money than they do about sex. And it's just one of those things. And I think it's just the way that we get brought up. Sometimes we inherit our parents' or our family's money hang-ups. They say things like, am I made of money or money doesn't grow on trees or we don't talk about money in this family and all of this sort of stuff. And so people get a lot of hang-ups and feel like money is a dirty thing. And some people even say money is the root of all evil and all that when the quote is really the love of money is the root of all evil and all that, when the quote is really the love of money is the root of all evil. So really understanding the role of money. And what I've found is that money is

really just an amplifier. So if you're someone who's generous, you'll be even more generous when you have money. If you're someone who's greedy or selfish, you'll be even more selfish when you have a lot more money. So it's really just an amplifier for who and what you are currently. And so I think that scares some people. So you don't have to have a lot of money to be generous, to be helpful to people. And, you know, some of the wealthiest people, some of the best people I know, I'm not saying being wealthy makes you a good person, but in terms of character, I've seen many, many greedy poor people and I've seen many, many very generous rich people. And I think one self-examination is in order because that's going to affect the way that you run your business and the way that

you run even your personal finances. Yeah. I don't do this, Alan, but I'm going to go ahead and do it for the first time ever. So don't get mad at me but i'm very into politics and you know what i'm a big fan of uh capitalism and survival of the fittest i'm darwinism i think that the best companies in the world had the most philanthropy i don't believe that the government and i'm sorry to go into this but i i feel like i have to right now because you gave me the perfect time. I don't believe that people that run for a city that never made it in life, that never did anything good. Why should I give more taxes for them to spend my money when I know what I did? You know what I did this week? My sister called me. There was a kid. He's five years old. He has cancer.

She called me up and she said, hey, Tommy, I have a friend of mine. Her son's got cancer. Could he come stay at your apartment for free? I said, absolutely. I said, I'm not giving to Haiti. I'm not giving to these other countries. I'm giving to a kid that's got cancer. That's the best I could do.

You know, I think I spend my money wisely. I think I give back a lot. And I'm not bragging about that. I'm just saying this. I'm saying I know how to make money. I know how to tithe to God. You know, if that's what you believe in. And I'm not saying that everybody does, but that's what I do.

I'm saying that at the end of the day, why wouldn't we want somebody that learns how to make money and contribute to society, be a better spender of everybody else's money than somebody that has no idea what the hell they're doing. You know what I hate the most, Ellen, and I'm not going to go deep into this, but I just had to real quick, is if you don't spend your budget, you don't get it back the next year. How stupid is that? And why could I have a lifetime career in politics? Why not do it like the president for years? Why not give term limits unless you had a certain key performance indicator? The problem is politics, they don't know what KPI even means. I'm sorry to go there. I just... No, no, I understand. And I mean,

large business and government often operate in a totally different world in their own vacuum and their own rules, isn't it? It's completely different. And I just believe that businesses that get involved with government do well. I wouldn't go into teaching until I've done it real. And I go into teaching because I want to teach other people. If I make it and I'm good, which I plan on, I want to become a PhD teacher. I really do. I want to go teach people. I want to say, look, this is real life scenarios. I remember this time this vendor came in and I really do. I want to go teach people. I want to say, look, this is real life scenarios. I remember this time this vendor came in and I did this. I want to say, I've made it in the real world. So there I'm capable of teaching you. But so many people have taught me. I've got

a master's, which is nothing. And it doesn't matter to me. It really doesn't. But I want to tell you that I could teach that class way better now through my experiences. Like there's a certain teacher that stood out and he said, dude, I made it in the real world. I retired. He showed me his mansion. I looked at it and I said, dude, I respect you so much. And he said, when he said something, it had clout. It actually mattered. You know what I mean? And I went off topic, but I think at the end of the day, if you learn how to market,

if you inspect what you expect, tell me your take. How do you track marketing? Because I think a lot of people, most people, they understand what marketing is, but they don't understand how to track it. So give me all your best tips on

what we got to do to really get numbers to dictate the decisions. Look, at the end of the day, the simple way to track marketing is, did it make me more money than it cost me? That's the most simple measure. Of course, we do get more detailed. So we track metrics. And I think when it comes to metrics, there's two things you need to consider. You need to consider lead metrics and lag metrics. So lag metrics are things that are primarily historical, which is what most people think of metrics like, you know, how many sales did we make? How much revenue did we make?

All of those sorts of things. They're historical. There's nothing we can do about last month's revenue, last month's sales or anything like that. That's already done. But then there are lead metrics. So things that predictive of future revenue. So that could be, depending on your business, that could be number of unique visitors to your website. It could be number of opt-ins. It could be number of calls. It could be number of proposals that you do, those kinds of things. So they would be lead metrics and they would predict future revenue. And I think that it's valuable to have a mix of both lead and lag metrics in your business.

But ultimately, all of these metrics really mean nothing unless your marketing is making you more money than it's costing you. So do you believe in the 80-20 rule? Very much so. And I believe even more in the 64-4 rule, which is the 80-20 rule applied to itself. So if we take 80% of 80 and 20% of 20, it gives us the 64-4 rule. Yeah, 4%. I just read that the other day. So when I was doing the research for the book, one of the things I knew about the 80-20 rule, and a lot of people do, but then I heard from one of the things I noticed, like I knew about the 80-20 rule and a lot of people do, but then I heard from one of my mentors about the 64-4 rule and I thought, that can't be real. And I started looking at the stats. So if we look at the 80-20 rule applied to itself,

it still holds true. And what it is, it tells us that just like the 80-20 rule, 80% of our result is from 20% of our effort. The 64-4 rule is the same. 64% of our result is from 4% of our effort. And it holds true across wealth. It holds true across software. It holds true across nature and all of that. So when we look at our society, 64% of the wealth is held by 4% of the people. That's no accident. This is a rule of nature. If you have a look at your revenue, it's likely that

64% of your revenue comes from about 4% of your client base. I mean, this is not a hard and fast rule, but in general, on average. And so when you look at wealth distribution, when you look at things in nature, this thing holds true. And so to me look at wealth distribution, when you look at things in nature, this thing holds true. And so to me, what was exciting is, wow, such a small amount of my effort actually results in such a big amount of results. So that means essentially 96% of the stuff I'm doing, comparatively speaking, is a waste of time. So if I concentrate more on the 4% stuff, then that can have a massive leveraging effect on my business. I love that answer. And I'm going to dig deeper.

I think a lot of us have a hard time identifying it. I think a lot of us, we go, we live, breathe, and die by our business. And how do you self-examine? How do you really go to that level of understanding the 4%? You know most business owners like I do, Alan. I'm lucky. I have a great CRM. It tells me everything. It tells me my decisions.

It literally says, Tommy, wake up right now. I mean, but what do you do to identify those and how do you create the magnitude of that 4%? So to me, it's really doing a little bit of backwards analysis. And now we're kind of at the start of a new year, really examining in 2019, in 2018, what were the biggest impacting things that happened? So first of all, having a look at what were the products that sold best? What were the services that sold best? What were the biggest impact that we were able to make? And you'll find a lot of those things come from very small things. So if I was to look at the 64-4 in my own business,

my book is probably that 4% because my book has led to speaking opportunities, to creating a course, to engaging with people. Well, me. Yeah, being a guest on this podcast and many other podcasts, it's led to opportunities that come my way literally every day. I open my inbox and someone wants to either do a joint venture, someone wants coaching, someone wants to buy the course, someone wants to join our certification program. And so, a lot of this stuff has come from the book. Now, not 100% of my

business is from the book, but it's opened up many, many doors that wouldn't have been open had it not been there. So, I can go back and I can see. And now what a lot of authors do is they spend five years writing a book and then they spend one or two months promoting it and then they move on to the next project. Now with us, four years later after the book initially came out and now it's in its second edition, we spend more time and energy and resource promoting the book than we did on day one. Why? Because it's part of that 4% that makes the biggest difference.

So I know that if I get the book in more hands, then that's going to create a bigger impact both on the world because it's going to get the message out further and also on our own business. It's going to drive coaching. It's going to drive courses. It's going to drive certification. It's going to drive all of those kind of services. And it makes a big impact both on us and on the world. And so that's one of the things that we really focus on. How can we get the book into more hands? And

that's part of the reason why I agree to appear on podcasts on a regular basis, because I know that's something that does help more people learn about the book and get the message out there and helps impact more people in a positive way. Well, I missed you on the first time. I was like, dude, we got to get this guy on. We got to get Alan on because I think he's going to impact people a lot. And you're in business, you're doing this for a profit. Is that fair to say? That is very fair to say. And you're taking care of team members too, right? You're bringing them along. Of course. Yeah, I think there's this misconception. When I fix, you know what I used to do? I used to fix everybody's garage door for free and say, hey, I know you do the same thing for me. That's Robert

Cialdini. It's more of the, you owe you owe me one type thing. Yeah. But you know what I realized is there's a cost for me to be there. Unless it's a Christmas present. I'm sorry, but I did pay the gas. I did pay the auto bill to get my old change. I do pay a company all this, this, this, this, this. I don't think you're doing anybody favors by not charging them. You know what? My dad used to work at a transmission shop. I'll say one thing. I know you have a comment. I'm sorry.

But his company was called American Transmissions. Then he ran Amco. And it's a huge transmission shop. And the owner would come in and he told my dad, if that's my buddy, charge him double. And my dad would say, what do you mean? It's your buddy. No, no, no. You don't understand, Tom. My dad's name is the same as mine. He said, if that breaks down,

my phone will not stop ringing. If we don't do it, you don't understand. If there's a stain on the carpet, we are screwed. And it changed my perspective. And I'm very fortunate to have a dad that was involved in business to watch his footsteps. But do you agree? I mean, what are your thoughts on that? Again, it comes kind of to the discussion around money. And one of my mentors really clarified this for me many, many years ago,

that it's got to be an exchange of value. Like if value is flowing only one way, then it's not going to be appreciated. And I. Like if value is flowing only one way, then it's not going to be appreciated. And I've learned this the hard way. You know, from time to time, you know, I've taken on people, you know, as a love job or something like that.

And almost every time without fail, it doesn't work out because people's attention go where their money goes. So if you help someone for free, I'm not saying don't ever help anyone for free. Of course, use your judgment with that, but it's not going to be appreciated as much as if someone paid for it. So if you offer coaching, my mentor used to say, if people don't pay, they won't pay attention. So people's attention goes where their money goes. And it's got to be an exchange of value. Like I said, if value is flowing only in one direction, that rarely ever works. And so, just like you,

I've got causes that I support, but I'm very clear about the difference between business and charity. So, charity is one thing. I give selflessly with that and I really help out the charities that I believe in, but I'm very clear about the distinction between charity and business. In my business, I'm there to make a profit. When I'm donating to charity, I'm just there to give and to help. I can appreciate that. And I'm going to tell you something a little bit differently than most people think is a lot of people give to charity because when you fill out, you filled out these things to be the best of Australia. They ask you, how much are you a philanthropist?

They're like, what do you give back? You know what I believe? I believe there's a gal here today with flat tires that showed up here to work because she's got a job. She's got three kids. She's away from her kids. Is my money best spent to give her new tires and look at my own people? Or is it best to give back to people I've never met?

I mean, I think out of anything I'm going to say on this is you should at least look in your own home before you look to others. You should at least look and say, is everybody going to have a Thanksgiving dinner? Does all the kids have presents at Christmas? I hate the people that give it just for an award. They give out to these other countries or whatever. And trust me, I am a big fan of giving to people. They live, I couldn't even imagine. But why would we turn around on our own people that are with us?

You know what I think it is? I think a lot of people say, what is this going to do to me? How can I use this to my advantage? And I understand that. And look, everybody, we're all selfish. In my book, I call it creative justification. But I don't know what to say about that. Alan, you're fresh of breath there because I could talk to you about everything.

And I just feel like my personality is coming out a lot more in this podcast. I've been doing this a long time. I'm on my, I think you're well over 100. And I used to suck at this stuff. But now I just, I ask you the questions I like. And it's fun. You know, I want to talk to you a little bit right now about technology because I think analytics and technology are everything. They're the way that I run my business. There's

no such thing anymore. And my brother-in-law told me this. He works at General Electric. He said, the COO is going away. It's now a CTO. The technology will give you the operational output that you're looking for. So tell me what you think about technology and how we could start to automate some of our businesses. Yeah. So marketing in particular has gotten a lot more technical lately. And the way I think of technology is as leverage.

Like there's two extremes that I see. There's people who are like, nah, they're kind of wishing for the good old days when we didn't have all of this stuff, the SEO. Remember the good old days where you would put an ad in the yellow pages, pay them a truckload of money, and your marketing for the year was done, right? There was no Google, no SEO, no Facebook, and all of that, right? And a lot of people are still wishing for those days days and those days are never coming back, unfortunately. Fortunately or unfortunately.

No, it is fortunate. It means survival of the fittest. It means Darwinism. It means that we have a choice now who we use. Exactly, exactly. Because then we're all grandfathered in. That's it, that's it. And so that's one extreme.

People who are just like, you know, I remember the good old days. I don't get all this technology. I don't want it. Then at the other end of the spectrum, there are people like, wow, they can see what the CRMs do and all of this sort of stuff, marketing automation. And then like, cool, wow, how do I just automate everything, right? How do I automate all my sales and everything like that? And here's the way that I see it. I see it like, I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Iron Man, right? So you've got Tony Stark. He's a normal, average, geeky sort of guy. But when he puts that Iron Man suit, when he uses that technology, it creates massive leverage. He

can fly, he can shoot lasers, he can do whatever. And that's the way that I see technology. It's like your Iron Man suit that's going to give you that leverage, that's going to help you do things that you couldn't do before it. And so, it's not there to replace you. It's not there to replace that human interaction because a lot of people say, I'm in B2B, I'm in B2C. Does this work in consumer? Does this work in business and all of that? And I talk about H2H, which is human-to-human marketing because a lot of people get way too over the top with the technology. Some get way under with the technology. I believe technology is there to help facilitate that human-to-human interaction and do that at scale. And that's where technology does that best. So

whether it be like a help desk system, a CRM system, a chat system, those kinds of things can really facilitate a human-to-human interaction from a marketing perspective. I agree with you wholeheartedly, but I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I believe that what's going on right now is they're collecting data. Right now, I've got five machines in front of me that are listening to me that aren't even on. They know my voice patterns. They know what I like. They know what I search.

It's funny when I talk on my phone and Facebook offers it the next day. Listen, if you don't believe that Amazon, Facebook and Google are taking over right now, collecting data on you to understand what's going on and you're buying patterns and offering you the right thing at the right time. And it's sad to say this, but our brains are all wired differently. But when you collect the data, we all are habitual, right? Do you agree with that? Yeah, I do agree with that. I guarantee you wake up around the same time on Monday through Friday. I guarantee you probably watch the same channel or same show sometimes. There's certain things that happen over time. We all think we're much more unique than we really are. But we were unique. We were unique when we were kids, but then we were taught. You've heard of nature versus nurture, right? Yes. Yes, indeed. We're nurtured into a certain degree and the nature gives us a certain capacity to be there. See, I get really deep sometimes and you're one of the few people I've done this with,

but I love it. I love it because look, business is fun. I love making money. I mean, money is huge to me because it gives me options. I can do what I want, when I want, with who I want. Remember those three things, what I want to do, with who I want to do it with, when the hell I want to do it. You're on my timetable. We're going to fly in a perfect world. I could take a jet plane to go visit you tomorrow. We could do this real life. I just don't have that capacity yet, but I'll tell you one thing.

As Einstein said it the best, compound interest is the strongest thing in life. When money is working for you, when money truly works for you, you know what? We're going to do good things. Do you agree? I do agree. Interest rate's a bit low at the moment for pure interest. You'll probably get eaten up by inflation faster than you will on compound interest. But the idea is sound, of course, being- I don't know. Don't invest. What are you investing in? Bonds? See, you know what I invest? My average return in the last few years has been 23%.

You want to know why? Why? Because I got good people. I hire the best. They charge a lot more than the 10 percenters. Yes. They're going to make

two extra, three extra percent. Yep. Guess what? They give me way better return. So this is a great example. Why in the hell would you pay somebody a certain amount of money for 10% when the market's doing way better? So I pay the best and they deserve it. I had my buddy come out, he fixed my AC unit. And then two weeks later, he fixed it again. Two weeks later, he fixed it again. The last time I said,

dude, don't do me any favors. Don't give me a discount. Just make sure my house is cold when I come in here. It's 110 degrees today. I don't like this. I don't want it to shut off in the middle of the night because you're giving me a deal. I don't want my leaky roof to happen when it rains. I want to know you're going to show up on time. I want to know you're going to live up my time schedule. You're going to do a great job. You're going to give me a great warranty. And you're going to give me somebody that I can trust.

Like I don't want a rapist for me, you know? Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And that's what it's about. Like you said, it's about giving you options. I mean, part of what I do, why I do is because, you know, like I said,

I want to work with people who are fun to work with, who I want to do projects that I'm excited about. I want to live where I want to live. You know, I'm literally looking over the bay right now and the ship's passing by and it's where I want to live. You know, it's where people come to holiday. That's where I live. And it's just a much more fun way to live life. And if you can get some of the money hangups out of the way, then things can be a much more fun way to live life. And if you can get some of the money hangups out of the way, then things can be a lot more fun. The last thing I want to tell you is you talked about money. We talked about money a lot.

We did. And I remember I used to stand on the toilet in my mom and dad's house and listen in their room. I put my head against the wall and they would argue about money. And that's when I decided that money will never, ever, ever be an influence in my life. You know, there's so many other things. There's drugs, there's affairs, there's all kinds of bad stuff that happens. But when I was a kid, I just remember they were arguing about bills all the time. And I got so upset. I was four years old and I'm not, trust me, I'm not a kid, I just remember they were arguing about bills all the time.

And I got so upset. I was four years old. And trust me, I'm not a victim. I'm doing great. I love my life. I love everything that I became. They forced me into this. And it was amazing what they did.

But money does do a lot. Most divorces happen because of money. Most arguments happen because we couldn't go there because you were working. Well, what does it ultimately mean? It means you were working to pay bills, so you didn't have the time. So it's money. And when we talk about most problems, isn't it money? Yes.

Yes, very much so. Very much so. And the ability to order from the left side of the menu, to be able to not worry about all of those sort of things. If family get into trouble or whatever, to say, no problem here, just lean on me. Tell me that. Tell me what that feels like because I feel the same way right now. I'm not as big as you.

I didn't have a bunch of exits. But isn't it, tell me what it feels like. Look, it feels amazing. To not look at the tab. I remember when I looked at the tab and made sure I had enough on my account to pay it. Yes. I remember when I wrote a check and not trying to bounce it. You know those days. Tell everybody right now because you need to aspire to be like this. Don't you agree?

Well, most of the time, I don't even know what the meal cost me or whatever. I just swipe the credit card without even looking at it. I don't even have a clue. I never look at bills anymore. 20%, 22% sometimes. How does that feel? Tell me how that feels for you. I don't know. Look, I'm a man, obviously. I'm not a woman. But as a man, I think it's built in all of us that we want to be a hero to our families. That's what I believe part of being a man and being masculine is all about. And I know we're getting off topic. No, go off topic. Look, we're the people.

Go off topic. Go off topic as much as you can. But I love the feeling of just being a hero to my family. And like my wife the other day, we went to the dentist and she needed some work done and it came up to $10,000. And, you know, it wasn't even a discussion whether should we do it or, you know, can we afford it or anything. It's like, all right, cool. When do we book it in or whatever, right? So, you know, that's very, very different to how I grew up.

I didn't grow up with money at all. That would have been like a disaster when I was growing up. It was like, where are we going to find the money? Should we do it? Can we do it cheaper? How do we? So, I love the feeling of just being a hero to my family. I love it when I go out to lunch with a friend or friends or whatever. I just assume I'm the one picking up the tab. I don't even ask or worry about splitting the bill or whatever it is. And I like that. I like that feeling. I think we're cut from the same cloth. I think there's something to be said about me and you are not the norm.

And me and you are different. And I'm not bragging about us because there's other people out there. And I just assume people are like us. I assume that I'm a human being. We're all human beings. And what I found out was, is we're not. We're not all the same. Actually, there's a huge degree of difference. And certain people assume they're like you and I, not because they can pick up the tab,

because that's a bad example. We're very short. I guarantee you this. We wanted our way sometimes. I've taken so many personality profiles that I labeled myself. You know, I love the newest one is predictive indexing. I got to tell you this. You click a lot of bubbles and you just tell you, what do people think about you?

And what do you think about yourself? And I saw 20 people that work for my company and i said oh my god spot on oh my this is crazy but it's our own subconscious you understand that we operate at ninety percent subconscious and five percent conscious, you know, the big thing for me about podcasting is I get to talk to people like you. And I get to meet new people. And when I go to Australia for Melbourne, right? Yeah, Melbourne. That's it.

Well, how do you say it in Australian? Melbourne? We say Melbourne, yes. Melbourne, Melbourne. I don't want to keep you all night. You're looking at the ocean and all these ships. I always end it with this. Give me three of your best books. Three of my best books.

I like Influence by Robert Cialdini. Cialdini, by the way. Oh, sorry. Cialdini. Yeah. He's an ASU professor. He's right next to me. Oh, is he? Wow. Okay. He's awesome. I like

lately the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. That was a really, really good one. And I like a lot of the work by Dan Kennedy. So he's been a big influence, as you know. Any of his No BS series are quite good as well. I've actually read the book, all of his books. No BS series are quite good as well. I've actually read the book, all of his books. No BS about direct marketing. I love it because he's a marketer. You're a marketer.

He is. So, you know, we talk about a lot of stuff and I know I go sideways. I didn't ask you a lot of the questions on the sheet. But what I love to end with is I love people that listen and take action. So can you give me a story, anything you want to finish this all off for the people to listen to? And I might come after you. I'm not going to say you're going to end it, but really something deep, something that they could do today, something that's going to influence their business and really give them value. Yeah, look, I'll finish off with this story. So when I was first struggling in my first

business, I had a mentor and I was lucky to have him because he was one of the really, really good marketers in Australia. And I was telling him, you know, like we've got this product and service and it's better than all of our competitors and our competitors are doing much better than we are. And in fact, a lot of our competitors at the time, they were hiring us to train them on the latest technology. And, you know, I was so frustrated because we were really good at what we did, but we were struggling financially. And he said, well, when does someone find out that you've got a really good product or service? And I said, well, obviously when they buy from us. And he said, well, when does someone find out that you've got a really good product or service? And I said, well, obviously when they buy from us.

And he said, well, before they buy from you, they only know how good your marketing is. So you've got to be a better marketer because the best marketer wins every time. And so that's what I want to leave everyone with. It's not the best product or service that wins every time. I wish that was the case, that the best products and services automatically rose to the top. The best marketers win every time. And so you've got to resolve to be the best marketer in your niche or your industry or your area, your geographic area, your demographic area. So you've got to think of yourself as the guy who markets garage doors or the guy who markets roofing services or the guy who markets plumbing services rather than thinking of yourself as the plumber or the technician or the roofer or the

garage door guy. So that would be what I'd leave you with is the best marketer wins every time. So you really need to become a really good marketer. And I'll add to that, like I said, it would one page marketing plan, get new customers, make more money, and stand out from the crowd by Alan Dibbs. Listen, guys, this is the real deal. This guy, you read this book. I'm a marketer by trade. He's got an Audible. It's an amazing book.

I'm not making any money. Alan, am I making any? I should make money. You should give me a few bucks per book. Am I making any money on this? No, not at all. No, I didn't set that up. I should have, but no, I should make money. You should give me like two bucks per book, but am I making any money on this? No, not at all. No, I didn't set that up. I should have, but no, I don't do that.

Too late now. But I really do appreciate this. I think that you guys got to read the book. You guys got to understand. I want to end with this. You started out with Google, then websites, PPC, SEO. You understand that Google's God and I love that. So if you're listening out there, this is everything I've been preaching and understand this guy's the best at what he does. Read the book and you'll understand.

Appreciate you guys. See you next time. Hey, I just wanted to take a quick minute and thank you for listening to the podcast. You know, most people don't understand this, but the way that the podcast has grown is when people subscribe and they leave a review. So if you would please, please, please, why it's top of mind, take a quick minute to subscribe and leave a quick review. It'll help me out so much. If you just took a little bit of time right now, I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate the listeners and the feedback. And also when you subscribe, what I'm going to do is let you know the next guest coming on the podcast. And I'll let you email me anything you want me to ask that next person coming on. All the pros I have on here.

I want your feedback. I want you to subscribe so you can start giving me the questions you want me to ask and help us grow together. Also, I'm giving away my book for free now. All you got to do is go to homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash podcast. You got to cover the shipping and handling, but I'm giving the material out for free. It's 200 pages. It's a hardcover book. Homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash podcast.

I appreciate each and every one of the listeners and thank you for making this Home Service Expert podcast a success. I hope you're having a great day and thanks again.