The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner - Part 2/2: Home Service Masterclass – How to Find Customers⏐Ep. #127

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

This is part 2 of a two-part conversation with Daniel. Be sure to listen to part 1 (aired Jan 27, 2025, Ep. #123) to hear how he got started, found the right niche, and set up the systems to grow and succeed.I sat down with Daniel Cronauer (LinkedIn), to continue our conversation about his entrepreneurial journey. In this episode, Daniel shares his unique strategies for acquiring customers, using rock flyers and yard signs. Daniel also talks about how he expanded his business with Christmas lights, and discusses his experience building his own gym from the ground up. He also touches on his experience with permanent light installations and their drawbacks as a business. Timestamps below. Enjoy!---Watch this on YouTube instead here: tkopod.co/p-ytAsk me a question on or off the show here: http://tkopod.co/p-askLearn more about me: http://tkopod.co/p-cjkLearn about my company: http://tkopod.co/p-cofFollow me on Twitter here: http://tkopod.co/p-xFree weekly business ideas newsletter: http://tkopod.co/p-nlShare this podcast: http://tkopod.co/p-allScrape small business data: http://tkopod.co/p-os---00:00 Introduction: Acquiring Customers01:06 The Power of Yard Signs01:35 Handling Complaints and Mental Toughness01:49 Success Stories and Testimonials02:51 Rock Flyers: A Unique Marketing Strategy03:54 Operation Carpet Bomb: Aggressive Marketing05:33 The Importance of Visibility and Branding11:27 Networking and Personal Connections16:23 Gym Anecdotes and Personal Stories18:50 Vigilante for Good: Sneaking into Gyms19:48 Building a Gym from Scratch20:06 Entrepreneurial Lessons and Challenges23:46 Navigating Competition in the Gym Business30:15 Expanding to Multiple Locations33:33 Permanent Light Business Insights36:00 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

I got into commercial power washing. They advocate everyone to do this. That came out about $1,800 of stop. We probably do between 400, 500, 600 maybe of coil cleaning. It's 600 grand? Yeah. Dang. Next year we'll do $450,000 of Christi lights.

Get a yard sign. The yard sign is the single best thing you could have. I've done millions of dollars based on that yard sign. He takes a couple rock fliers and goes and throws them in the driveway. That is how to market residential service. I sold the service before I had it. I service all the time. Sell it before you have it.

Okay, we're picking up where we left off last week with Daniel. If you missed the episode a week ago today, go back and listen to that. Otherwise, just keep listening to this one. You're going to love it. We're going to get super specific about how to find customers, how to start home service businesses that are fun and profitable. Enjoy. What's the best way to acquire customers in that line of business?

I would use what's called a rock flyer. I call rock flyer. It's a flyer with a bag of rock. Or the number one, which if you're in the service industry and you're listening to this podcast, get a yard sign. The amount of people who don't have a yard sign. That's stupid. It's stupid.

You're idiots. Like the yard sign is the single best thing you could have. You put in the yard, they talk to their neighbor and they ask them about it, whatever it might be. They drive past. It costs, I don't care if it costs $10. It's $10. And they're like $3, aren't they?

Yeah, whatever. Yeah. Do you ask permission? No. You just put it in there. And how many have complained? Do not ask permission. How many have complained?

I don't care. But like, I'm trying to make the point of like it's negligible. People don't complain. A, they don't complain. B, I want to talk about that because too many people care that people complain. I want you to be so mentally strong that you don't even care that they complain.

Yeah. I love it. I love it. My business, I've done hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars, actually, based on that yard side. I want to one up your complaint comment. So you asked me, do people complain? I have a lady who says, hey, the township, like, bust our chops about.

you know, this yard sign. I'm like, I'll pay the fine. I don't care. Sure. Next time we're back in the area, we'll pick it up for you, right? I had that lady, yes. And you know what?

We put a sign in their house every year. Even then. Even then, it's Christmas lights. Because guess what? I probably do 14 of the 20 houses in that neighborhood. Yeah. There's 20 houses they write, 14 of them of Christmas lights.

But I want to one up your, your comment about do they complain? I had a lady call me and say, yo, they forgot to put their yard sign out. she wants that sign she wants everyone know she paid cring lights and cring lights the best and that's who did my lights so that's amazing i make sure tell do you by guys know they do not get in that truck unless it's full yard signs like doesn't i don't care if you forget lights because you can still drive the house put a sign out and we're coming back but you do not forget a yard sign

how we got on that topic i was that's how you acquire customers the yard sign with the rock flyer they know you put the yard sign out and then while one guy's packing the truck up, usually Chris likes a three-man crew, the lowest total pull guy, he takes a couple rock fliers and goes and throws them in the driveway of like the adjacent four or five houses. That is how to market residential service. I don't care who you're. I don't care if it's, you name it. It doesn't matter.

And that's why I'm confident. Throw it in the driveway. If you want to put the mailbox, go ahead. Like my opinion is like you want to cause a ruckus. Like you want people. I've had people literally call me and complain about the rock fire. Yes, that was a scary one. Like, you know, think your letter in.

They're going to call this on you blah, blah, blah. I'm like, go ahead, dude. I would love a nice newspaper article. We got fined, right? I literally had someone say, you threw these flyers in a neighborhood, but some of my neighbors need you. I'm sorry. I'm like, are we complaining? Oh, you want us, what do you want to do here, you know?

Some people just like to complain. And the best thing you can do, just let. Okay, here's my advice. And we call carbon bombing. I will literally call it Operation Carpet Bomb. Beginning in the springtime, my residential guy knows for power washing, you go out there and you hammer. Like, you just go out there and throw every neighborhood that has this on it that needs a roof cleaned or house washed or whatever. And then you don't answer the phone for the next day.

Or like three hours later because you know like three hours after you send these out, you're going to get about 20 calls. People are just going to, you know, the timing of it is key. The time is key. Yeah. Just don't answer the phone for like three hours. And then the next day, it's going to be the, no one calls the next day to complain. They called and they pick it up right there. Yep.

They're walking back to house. Like, I hate these guys. They throw this trash in my yard. And then guess what? The next week, they see us across the street at the neighbor's house who called me. We go watch their house. That's just how it works. That's so good.

No, the best is the person who asked for the sign. That was my favorite. Give me a rough guesstimate. How many rock flyers have you thrown and how many complaints have you gotten? Like, I know it's almost impossible, but like. It's almost impossible. Yeah, I mean, I've definitely, because we've been doing it for 12 years and every season, we throw lock flyers. We always do the Christmas lights too.

So the best thing you do there, have either a younger sibling or like a high school kid. They make the flyers in the basement. People have their own kids make these flyers up. I can have my kids, you do it. It's flyer, bag, rock, staple. That's it. On repeat. 20, 30, 40,000 flyers, you know, maybe more.

I mean, I've ordered 20,000 in one year before. Yeah, but I might still have some of those, you know. And at first time I said, my manager, I said, dude, no one sees this flyer if it's in our basement. Get it out. Watch it. You know, toss that thing. And so that's like really important to me is like making sure like people to know who we are. Right.

My dad used to say, you can't catch a fish if your hooks out of the water. Because every five minutes, let's try this lure. Let's try that lure. Let's, yep. Nope. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I get the lure in the water. And that's a really good analogy.

So I actually just talked to a friend before our call here. I was on the phone and he's like starting a new business. I said, best advice I give you is that no one knows who you are. So look at yourself in the mirror because the only person who knows right now, you're starting a business. And you need to be everybody. Yeah.

And the more people will know, the better you're going to be. I mean, that's really like on a daily basis. Like that's what I do is make sure people know who are coil cleaning business. Because it's my favorite thing to do is our best margins. I just make more and more people know this will we offer. But yeah,

Chris's light is great. I really added that on to the employees to be able to have a, something to do for like, from November to. Yeah, it's kind of like, it's kind of like a home builder, like always needing something for his contractors to do. Like, yeah, we'll take this car this carpet job. Yeah, we'll do this drywall job.

It keeps my guys busy. It's kind of that equivalent. Well, exactly. But then it actually turned into a really great business. And we're like, oh, wow. Like, you know, I'll put 90 grand in my pocket at the end of the Crystal Lights. He's my brother. He's my partner in Crystalites.

He puts 90 grand in his pocket. And like we kind of know it's like guaranteed after, you know, from we were working like three quarter days from September, October 1st until about. December 10th, 12th, because the calls die off and then we go take them down. But you could put up like three or four houses, five houses in a day. Like if your crew is skilled, we can take it down about 15 in a day. Great. 500 to pop.

How much per job? Yeah. No, our minimum is $800. Oh, we won't go. I'm a lot cheaper than your customers. I pay five. I beat them up with a price. We won't.

That's a perfect example of like, hey, that's great. You pay five because there's someone else. wants to pay eight and we tell them like look we only have an eight week window like if you want to be on our schedule like this is it we're full yeah we don't see later we don't need you and that's like the best sales pitch ever is like we don't care if we're fine don't care all all right a hundred fine yeah I am and you know we we have a couple people who've like switched from previous from other companies now they're like yeah we just that guy just rubs us the wrong way you don't we'll we'll pay him to not come back right you know what you guys so we don't deal with him you know it's hilarious

about all this I'm bragging about paying 500 and 10 feet away from me outside, my lights are still up because my cheap guy has still not taken them down. And it's January 23rd right now. See, that you're getting, you're getting. That's exactly. And we had people who like switch to us because like he didn't put my lights up until like December 10th. I'm like, well, if you were our customer, like we'd have you ready to go in October, November, or wherever you want to plug them in, just to fire him up.

So yeah, like you, there's, there's, you can pay for some professionalism there. But our most expensive, $5, $6,000 lights jobs that people do. That's amazing. What kind of bags do you use for your rock fliers? Like Ziploc? I had a company of Orlando. They make this fly. They make this plastic bag that fits my flyer well.

And it's like branded? No, the flyers are the brand. Okay. It's just nice and neat. Yeah. Just like clear plastic. Yeah, clear plastic bag. You know, thin.

It just keeps it from getting wet and, you know, stable at the top. But yeah, I had it specced out. Okay. Where do you get the rocks from? Like a bag at Home Depot. By Home Depot is fine. The driveway. Whatever, you know, whatever a rock.

you want you want to be a good weight you're throwing that thing you don't want to be like too heavy where blows out you don't want to be too light where flies into the yard like kind of want the ideal okay I recommend giving a few tosses to see how many rocks you want yeah okay that's actually funny your phone call people like what do with this rock yeah whatever you want I don't care throw with a rock you need you need more to do if you think the rocks like help them to clean their house oh all right so you use you use rock flyers to find any home service job residential anyone yes and a yard sign those two combinations of those things the third secret there's you have a wrap vehicle but yes so like

you have a yard sign you the initial contact right like what is the initial contact is it a google click is it a postcard is it a rock flyer like what is the initial contact like you know for your customer and then there's other forms of contact where the initial one is that that rock flyer the second contact is they, you know, see your wrap truck. The third contact is that yard sign in the yard, right? There's all those things go into your next customer. What would you say roughly your conversion rate is on these rock flyers? You get two customers, three? Is there a hundred? So it's probably between five and ten, I would say. Oh, yeah. Crazy. Once again, it's highly targeted. It's the customer. Because you're choosing the customer, right? Like, you know the house you're

throwing it to, right? Yeah. I'm not throwing these in the center of city, Wookspair, Scrant, right? I'm throwing them to the outskirts where I'm thrown into a golf course community, right? Where the people have somebody. I'm selecting it.

That's why I honestly hate AdWords and that stuff because it's such a blanket coverage that it's just picking so much garbage. You know, and just trash customers who are not my customer. And I've done such a good job of identifying my customer, which I think a lot of people have to do that. Like, who is your customer? And knowing that leads to,

a lot more success. Yeah, dude, I've said this quote like a dozen times over the last month, sometimes on this podcast because I'm obsessed with it. And it's the harder way is usually the better way. AdWords are easy. Facebook ads are easy. Right. You just, oh, I just want to sit in my office and put up some AdWords and do it. But it's not as effective. Actually stuffing these bags with rocks, stapling them, getting in the truck, driving around, maybe it's hot, maybe it's cold, maybe it's raining, going to the strategic neighborhoods, throwing them. It's just, it's so much more fruitful. Going to the networking meetings where you, where you find the guy that has a $12,000 water tower contract. Like, you're not finding him with AdWords.

You're just not. You got to get outside of your house. Yeah, it was a wrestling pizza party. I coach my kid's wrestling. Dude, I'm a wrestler. I'm not good, but I wrestle. Yeah. I coached as well.

I was standing next to, yes, my daughter, she's seven and I have a son who's five. And I was at their two years ago at their wrestling party. And the dude next thing was wearing a shirt that said, you have one of the companies I was trying get into. I'm like, yo, what's with this? He's like, I do that. I'm like, oh, I've coached with you, which is kind of how I was, I was taught that. Like, I never asked people what they do. It was just funny how we knew each other all year from wrestling. He was the other coach, but we never talked about what we did. And I'm like, well, I can do this for you. And he's like, great. Send me some prices. So we, that's amazing. It's close to 100 grand worth of water towers.

Jeez. All right. So wrap truck, rock flyers, yard signs. That's the recipe for finding customers in any home service niche. Residential, that is the way to go. And I don't care who you are. I will battle you to the death on that one. I mean, it doesn't matter. Like, yes. Specifically yard signs after you do a job at that house or like yard signs anywhere,

like neighborhood entrances. I would use them for both actually. Yeah, I like a yard sign at the neighborhood entrance as well. If you're not getting yelled at by like zoning or somebody, you're not putting enough out. That's also factual. But if the guy is showing up, I don't care if it's plumbing, right? It's very simple math.

If I'm going to your house, the house next to you is probably built the exact same time. So if your water here is going bad, guess who's water here is going bad next? Everyone around you. So the plumber, even though mine is a little easier because it's outside, like you can see the house being cleaned, right? Blacktop asphalt, you can see the asphalt being done. You want that yard sign. No, never ask. As soon as the guys get out of the truck, I want the yard sign out before the job is done.

I want out like the first minute. Why would my guys know? Like, as soon as the point, one guy gets out of the truck goes hook of water, next thing I can tell the truck to put a yard sign out. It's a very simple recipe for success for residential business, to matter which business it is. It's, it's, that's say to it. Do you do anything specific with your copywriting?

Like with the signage, like, because when I put out yard signs, I want it to be as obvious as possible. The letters need to be as big as possible. If the logo doesn't add value, there's no logo, phone number, name like what do you do on your copywriting on both your flyers and your yard signs that has proven to be effective so flyers are different so and one of the things someone said to me which i thought i was a really great idea is like always get them to the website right like because i could give you like this much information on a flyer but i can give you this much information

like massive amounts of information on a website so you always want to get them to a website ideally well through a postcard or for your flyer but on a flyer um for you're a flyer um for Christmas lights, we break down like the process of like, hey, we're going to design it. We're going to install it. We're going to maintain it. We're going to take it down. Right. Like those, those are four bull points right on the flyers.

So they know what they're getting. And then a picture of a house that's done with a yard sign. It is company name because people, I think, make the mistakes so much. They don't put their company anymore. Like, yeah, gutter cleaning. It's like, well, who, who clean others? It drives me a wall. That tells me that it's chuck in a truck.

Yes. Right. Yes. Yep. So you want, first thing I do is put our name on top, right? It's Kringlelights who did it. It's Apex Softwash who did it. That's number one.

And then the second thing would be the service done, right? And their phone number. So like what was, what do we do? I actually, it's funny. I don't even think Kringelites has a service because like it's kind of self-applied. But for Apex Softwash, you know, roof cleaning or house wash. Like that, like that's the main, the biggest ticket item that got done I would have on the yard side. But let's say it's a plumber and you can't put it on there.

Then just put the name. of the business and the phone number. That's it. Because they're going to talk to a neighbor. They're going to find out what was done. You were a. So video is cool, but you know what's better? Longform audio via podcast and my newsletter.

TKOPod.com. Go there to subscribe for free to my newsletter. It's one email a week, very tactical. And then go to my audio podcast. Three episodes a week, stuff like this. You're going to love it. All free. No sleazy sales bitch.

TKO pod.com. If I did a bad job, how long you're going to leave that yard side of the yard for? Yeah. You're ripped out in three seconds. That's the implied message. Right. Applied message is that like this person was a trusted person who came to my house.

They did good. They didn't rob me. You know, didn't assault my wife or dog or whoever's in the house. Like this is, they're a reputable. Yeah. And the same principles, you know, if you sell a house, you got a yard sign out there for the realtor. Why do you leave the sign out there and put sold on it? The house is already sold.

Like you, you're doing the realtor assault. They did a good job. Right. If they did a crap job, they wouldn't leave it up. Yeah, exactly. So that's it. That's a. to me there's not even a topic or discussion to be had that is just yes and move on to next which is

whatever as far as my my journey goes i thought i never have enough i'm definitely personally i'm always like trying to i'm always hungry for for more but i like to work out so this is kind of a funny story my my brother and i or actually probably just me in the beginning there's a local college king's college actually a lot of people from utah end up coming to king's college because of their pa program we had no gym so hometown had no gym and he really really drove me nuts i drive downtown i live on top of a mountain so like a physical barrier called the mountain that bad weather just in general like no one wants to drive down the mountain it adds an extra five minutes to your trip that you don't want to do how many people live up on this mountain

probably like 12 to 15 000 now yeah maybe oh wow okay quite a bit yeah so yeah certainly enough to have a gym certainly enough to have a gym so i would drive downtown and i'm probably 25 at the time And so I'm actually sneaking into this college gym. I know I'm in college. Look like I'm in college, but don't go to college. I just like to work out. And it just happens to be the better gym in the area to work out.

Or I just liked this one. And it was freak because I was sneaking in. So at first I had someone's ID and just scan out the door and go work out. And then you do my thing and leave. And then that person graduated. So I didn't have their ID anymore. But definitely it was a security guard. every day just from walking in.

I was there more than any student in King's College history. I didn't go there. So you just waited a security guard and then I had time it where like it was a glass door when someone was walking out of the gym. I was just kind of hang in the parking lot. Yep. Hang right there. Or like if no one was at the glass door,

always go to the bathroom or waterfowling, right, to help your timing out. Yep. And then you're walking out. I'm walking in. I'd go use the gym. So now it's like, I don't know, like year five. Like I just for a while. I mean like every like I would go five times a week and and use the gym.

So now I'm in there working out and this one kid like leaves his weights like all over the floor. Like there's a complete disarray. And he leaves. He's like out on the street. And the way is you could see an all glass windows like which way this kid went. So I walk out of the gym. I open the door. I yell like, yo buddy.

You don't with your weights? He's like, yeah. I'm like, come clean them up. Right. And security guards made fun of me for like the next year after that. The gym police making sure. You're like that viral TikToker that like he takes zip ties to the shopping carts. And if someone leaves them out there, he ties them to the car.

So I like you're a, you're a vigilante for good. I am. And that's exactly right. So I ended up doing this for probably six years, seven years. I don't know. I actually like was designing. It was good ideas for the gym I wanted to build. And like it worked out that the one time I was in there.

Like it was all the call students are on break. Right. And I'm not sure if they thought I was now like professor. because I've been there for so long. I'm working out. Then I have my, it was great. You can bring your own speaker, play your own music. It was awesome.

And security guard walks in. I'm like, oh, no. Like, I'm lost it. Like, I'm the only person here. I have no idea. Like, I'm not. And so before he says something to me, I said, what song you want to hear? And you'll put his song on.

He's started working out with me. That's amazing. Yeah, it was great. So, but it gave me the, the knowledge. And I understood, we built a 24-hour gym. and because I knew how to sneak into a gym, I knew how to prevent people from sneaking into our own gym. And so it was cool.

So we built a gym and how did you build up from scratch? Like that's, I can't get that out of my head. Like, what did you do? So something we didn't talk about, but it's like the next level of business is taxes. And we ended up power washing business

started in my childhood tree fort. And I had a needed place to go because we were growing. So bought a old carpet building. My dad was able to put his, office in the middle floor. Me and my wife moved into the top floor and the basement area, outside area was our shop for an apex for the power team business. And with it, though, came like two acres or three acres of land right on our main thoroughfare in our hometown. So at Mountain I was talking about, you have to drive past this gym to leave Mountain Top.

And so we had the land. And actually in my wedding, I believe my dad was talking to someone, a family member who knew how to build stuff. And we're like, all right, well, we have some like able-bodied men. And we don't know what we're doing, but like, let's do it. So he was using it as like a showpiece to build this like special building. And we were using it as like a cheaper cost. You know, like you were able to build this thing for 600 grand when our quote was for like 1.2 million to do it. So I understand why now.

It took us three years to do it. So far, my favorite quote from you so far has been we don't know what we're doing. So let's do it. Like that's entrepreneurship. That's entrepreneurship. Yeah. I mean, my favorite compliment I've ever gotten in my entire life was from this guy who I was building a layout of the gym. And I had no idea what I was doing for a layout.

I was just only going to the gym that was built previously in my hometown and go after that. And he said to me, he's like, you don't know what you don't know. And you're like, okay, admitting that. And I looked at him like, I don't know what that means. He's like, exactly. And what he meant was, like, you're, I have zero fear to tell you, I don't know what I'm doing. And one of my biggest complaints is with these people who like pretend to know what they're doing and they don't. And like that drives me up a wall.

I do. Like, is it your ego? Like, why are you putting up this front to, to, to know when like eventually it gets exposed that you don't know. And I will be the first to admit when I don't know something. and that has really been beneficial to me because he looked at me. He's like, you don't know what you're doing. I'm like, no, I don't know what I'm doing. He's like, you want to let your gym out this way.

I'm like, great. You sell fitness equipment. Like, you know way more gyms than I do. Like, yeah, okay, what you just said to me, as long as it makes sense, I'll trust it. If what you say to me doesn't make sense and I can't figure it out, then it's probably either you're lying to me or you don't know. I have a pretty good intuition. I'm sure you can relate to that.

So this guy, like, gave me the layout. I wanted for the gym and how we should have it. And I'm like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And then just using like modern day psychology, like where the first thing you walk in is our treadmill. And why is it the treadmill? Because it's the easiest, most comfortable, most recognizable piece of equipment in the gym. And so when anyone walks in that gym, like, that's a treadmill. Perfect.

I know how to use that. I'm now coming. Yeah. I'm not overwhelmed. I want to stay here. And you want to stay here. The most intricate or like, you know, most skillful piece of equipment is going to be squat rack and it's all in the back corner and you know you you keep these high skill people

away from the low skill people and that's that's by design right and it's the same as planet fitnesses model right like they want it to be approachable to everyone approachable everybody and yeah inviting environment having all that's really important and i think it's like you're six now five now yeah yeah somewhere i i never really keep track of that stuff i don't it doesn't really bother me like when we started or not i don't i always have this like a philosophy of like i can go to is tomorrow. I don't know. Something can happen and like we're done. So like, does it really matter? I've been here 10 years? Like, no, because like the next year might be our last year. And how's the gym doing? Is it the only gym in town still? So no. We had a competitor.

I happened to your point. I was at a networking event. This guy did a really great topic. He talked about. It was really interesting. I was really invested in his conversation. I was participating in it and I went up to him afterwards. I said, hey, like, I'm in Mountain Top 2. I'm a actually, you know, building a gym. And he took like two steps back from me. So you just told him that you owned a gym and that's when he was standoff? Yeah, he owned, he owned two buildings and a manufacturing plant, like in the same hometown as I did.

And so we were talking about stuff. And I'm like, oh, hey, I'm in Mountain Top. I'm going to actually do this. And he took those two steps back. He's like, I have to tell you something. He's like, I just like emailed a guy at least to sign where my warehouse space is to put a gym in. And he's like, and you were about to open or you'd already open?

I'm about to start building. Like I have the land. Like I have the land ready. Like a permit just got approved. The guy's like, I don't know what to do here because I just met you and you're cool, but I just signed the sleeves with this guy. Like, so I'm telling you both like what's going on. And I said to the guy, I said, look, he just signed.

He's like in the process of signing a lease. Like you might save him some money, you know, by telling him don't do it. And I don't know if that's seen as like cocky from my standpoint. But I was like, yo, we just spent 100 grand engineering. Like we're doing. Yeah, yeah. And the guy's like, your location is better than not mine is. I was just going to say that.

You have a killer location. Our location is fantastic. He's like an industrial park back. Like, still. I've not on purpose. I've never driven past this guy's place just because of where it is. Whereas like he has to drive past my place to get to his place. And so the guy, he emailed me.

So, hey, he's going to move forward. He's going to do it. And this is actually kind of funny. I do like the, not that I'm purposely competitive, but I'm definitely, I enjoy the game. And he built his gym. He was open first. It took us longer because he was just renting a space out. We were building it from scratch.

Our first month, we added a thousand members. So went from zero thousand, like maybe a month and a half, you know, but. That's a tenth of the town. Yeah, yeah, which is funny because if you look up the numbers, like that's how many members, like the person we're doing the business plan, doing the math, you have about 10% of people who own gym memberships like in the United States. So like, that was the goal. Tenth of the town.

We're saturated. We're done. Yeah. Which is part of a problem I'm having now is that we are at the ceiling. It's like, well, what are you hit a ceiling, right? I can't do any more. So I spend very little time on the gym because raise prices. Not that you want to, but that guy, he was only open, wasn't open on Sundays, right?

So one of the first things we did was show your ID Sunday. So if you were a member of any other gym in the area, you could show your ID on Sundays and work out our gym for free. So after like two months, the guy's like, well, I guess I got to open on Sunday. because all my people are like leaving to go here and so you sorry you let them work out for free if it was on a Sunday anyone even if they weren't a member yeah brilliant show your ID Sunday so show your ID and then you come into our place and check it out and use it and get familiar with it were you able to track how many you converted from that I don't I'm not a big track convert guy which like my one friend hates that yeah I'm like dude I just know it works yeah like I'm not going

to waste my time like tracking if I already know it's good to go well like you're familiar with the midwit meme right like the distribution curve on one end it's like it just works and then in the middle it's like oh no we got to track this we got a conversion rate what are the attribution metrics we're using utm parameters yet and then on the other end it's like it just works it just works right you graduate past all that tracking yeah i don't think it's that important as long as like you have a pulse on right i was at the gym i could see faces i didn't recognize i'm like yeah okay i know what's going on here and and and i knew he had a couple hundred members that may even want to work out on Sundays.

It was closed. So why not do it? And so it worked out well. And enough for, in like four months, he closed up shop, went out of business. And so I felt kind of bad. But the same time, like, I don't feel bad. I'm like, dude, you didn't try. He had the luxury of being warned and he ignored it.

How often do people get that? Yeah. Not that like, I mean, if it were you, would you have ignored him, right? In his defense? I didn't warn him. I did the right thing. I'm saying you probably would have opened two anyway, if the rolls were reversed, right? based on my location i don't know like it's really hard to beat our our stuff but to your point maybe

because someone just the confidence someone moved into his space who already had due gym to the area i'm not sure how well they're doing but so we do have another gym now in the hometown and you know so there's some competition there but you know we're still doing well and and i honestly think we're at that that ceiling we're like yeah like you said you could raise prices but then you're changing your model from you know high value to like higher costs so what's your monthly cost and How many members do you have today? So we started at 25 and during COVID we raised it like cost of everything kind of went up and cleaning chemicals went up.

We changed it to 29. I actually wanted to kind of change it early before like inflation kind of hit. I was more so raising prices just on kind of your principle of like cutting some people out, but also we had more costs with COVID. So charging 29 and we're about 1,200 members. Nice. We were at 1,500 before COVID and COVID literally like killed people or. some people had never came back to the gym who are afraid of COVID.

So crazy. Like still battling back from that COVID times, which I say if you survived COVID, you can survive like anything ever in the gym business, especially. What did you do to get those first thousand customers so quickly? Brand new just opening. Yeah,

like there was that other gym that. Supply, you know it. They didn't know the other gym existed. So like it was, yeah, we bought land. Yeah,

I spent 200 grand of land. And like that was, I told me that was my marketing. Yeah. land like you can't so much pent up demand no supply right place right time yeah which is why you open that was your whole thesis that was my thesis and like it's funny because you talk to people and like I usually don't say anything to anybody when it comes to like business I'm like a very like shut up until it's done right type guy because like you know there's people who like talk right

like oh I'm gonna do this I'm gonna have five locations I'm like shut up like yeah do it right so I remember being it like you're getting like you know for ice cream and and someone overheard it Like, wait a minute. You're putting a gym in the mountup? Yeah. He's like, oh, my God, it's amazing. Right. So everybody kind of had the same thing.

It was like, that's a home run. Like, that's all you heard. It's a home run. Like, you'll do well. But if you didn't have the right business, you can definitely screw it up. But we did well. And then my brother, his girlfriend, he met was from an area like, about half hour north. And he's like, you know, they have no gym.

Let's put one there. So we end up renting a space and put one there. Oh, two gyms. Yes, we have two gyms now. And the hardest part is trying to find that real estate for another one. So you kind of have to have a good spot. And a lot of good places are gone. Yeah.

But so we have two gyms and that one does around the same thing, has around 1,200 members. And it's good. Yeah, they're actually, one of my favorite things is going to work out at that one because no one knows who I am. Yeah. Yeah. Get an incognito workout. And it's great.

I play a little bit of like the undercover boss. Yeah. Secret shopper. Yeah. Secret shop. It's fun. Oh. It's good.

I give you a good review. Yeah. I could talk to you all day. I literally have a head. which is always a good sign from these podcasts because I'm just like invested in everything you're saying, which means it'll be a good, a good one. So good. Thank you for your time. Yeah, no, I feel the same way. So whatever, you know, round two or we'll discuss more. Yeah. All good. Pindred spirits. I mean, it started off right with Diablo too. So you logging in

or what? You get, you logging on? Dude, I haven't played Diablo in years. I haven't. Yeah. You still play two? I fired it up during COVID. And unfortunately, it sucked. It's crazy. and all the stuff that we liked about it. There's so many bots. Like the bots ruin the game. So like these guys play and have like their bots follow them. So like they're going. Yeah.

They're going to chaos run and like they would automatically have a buff from the barbarian. They'd just have their. It was like stupid almost. And everyone doing how to play the game would be the best at it. So like you're supposed to be too easy. Like I used to love the struggle. Like like. Yeah.

Yeah. Trying to go kill a boss like by ourselves. like was such a hard thing to do. The only other thing I wanted to say to you and we'll hop off and try whatever is I was at my friend's bachelor party in Pittsburgh. And I was like, yo, actually this dude on Twitter that just hired this guy from India or Pakistan to teach his kid math or physics where there was. And across the table is dude who I don't know who he is.

Chase stands up. He's like, that's one of my best friends. I was like what Oh Chase Green Yeah So That's amazing

Yeah it was wild dude That's how I found you on Twitter Yeah Exactly Yeah Chase just standing up at a random steakhouse in Pittsburgh I've never mentioned before either Yeah

So it was like one of the first thing I said And I were best friends in high school That's so funny It was wild There was like six degrees of separation Like dude he Do you I just saw him tweeted

Which I want to ask, how's piano lessons going? Oh, it's fine. We actually have an in-person tutor now, believe it. Oh, so no, it's not fine then. Because the- Well, no, it was fine. I just, I upgraded. I upgraded in person.

I went up both. You're saying it was an upgrade. So that's a feedback I'm looking for it. Okay. Yeah. It worked, but it wasn't as good as in person. But it is much, much cheaper. Oh, okay.

All right, good to know. Yeah. I have piano and my kid is kind of interested in one of the, there's a teacher down the street, so I just got to take it. Okay. Dude, I forgot to ask you one thing, and I know we're out of time, but which quick, real quick. We can always recap whenever you want to. I'm good.

I'm flexible. What's the quick and dirty on the permanent light business? Do you like it? Don't like it? The permanent light business from a business standpoint sucks. From a user standpoint, it's great. An indie guy. I'm saying he's indie, people are very smart with their money.

He came out, I gave him a quote. I usually don't go to people's houses, but it's permanent. So I come to the guy's house. You typically do everything online. I send some Instagram or some Twitter fame for just a Microsoft paint. I bring this guy, I go this guy's house and he's like, how much for seasonal?

$3,000. See how much for permanent? $4,500. He's like, okay, permanent, done. I'm like, all right. He's like, why wouldn't everyone do permanent? I said, because some people don't do math. And the guy's like, if I'm going to do this for three, four years,

it's paid off. It's an investment. Yeah. I've had people pay me $20,000 over the course of the last seven years to do their seasonal lights. And guys, like, it's a no-brainer. It sucks as a business because I got a message today, like, hey, like, what's with this, right? And this lady can't, she's 70 years old. She can't upload her schedule.

And what am I supposed to do about it? I can't train her any better. You're not getting any more money out of her. I'm not getting any more money out of it. So I hate them. Okay. That's the down dirties. I hate them.

But it could be a good like quote down sell. If you don't get the recurring sale, it could be like a throwaway sale. Yes, but there's there's unfortunately. Okay. The seasonal after January 5th or December 25th, I never hear from the rest of the year. And guess what? To come back next year. I've done almost $100,000 worth of permanent lights.

And it's a new thing. the problem is I have now 25 or 20 liabilities out there. Yeah. Because if something goes wrong and these are permanent, like they're expecting it to be. Literally a liability and your seasonal stuff is literally an asset. Yep. Period.

That's it. So from a standpoint, I actually hate them. I mean, yes, I can make like a $3,000 profit in days where the work. But I just has that underlying like loose sleep over it. Like if I did.

If I had a million, if I had, let's say, a thousand of these jobs out there, I would have to have a full-time guy who just, like, handles stuff that goes wrong. Yeah. It's just a different business altogether. It is. Yeah. Cool, man. Well, thank you. I'm starving.

I got to go eat a late lunch. Okay. Me too. Sounds good. I appreciate your time. I appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah.

You too. See it. All right. All right. Thanks for listening to the Kernner office. Please share with a friend. We'll see you next time.