The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner - The Smart Way to Start Small and Still Win Big ⏐ Ep. #195

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

Check out my newsletter at TKOPOD.com and join my new community at TKOwners.comI sat down with Daniel Cronauer again and we talked all things service & local business. We got into how he’s opening his third gym right next to competitors and stealing their customers with simple tactics that actually work. We also talked about finding marketing shortcuts that cost almost nothing but drive real leads, how to use Facebook groups the smart way, and why most home service businesses never scale past two trucks. We even got into personal stuff like gratitude, childhood money trauma, and how those shape your mindset as a business owner.If you've ever gotten a newsletter from me, it was powered by Beehiiv. Built by the team behind Morning Brew, it's the only platform I’ve found that actually moves the needle. Go to beehiiv.com/chris and use code chris30 to get 30% off your first three months.You can find Daniel on Twitter at x.com/DanielCronauer and on LinkedIn.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 Turning Ideas into Cash Flow03:03 Optimism and Market Strategy05:53 Marketing Tactics and Community Engagement09:06 The Importance of Action and Research12:01 Building a Business with Intent14:49 Curiosity and Gratitude as Business Drivers18:05 Navigating Business Challenges20:52 Franchises vs. Entrepreneurship24:06 The Future of Business in a Competitive Market32:00 Brahms vs. Coldstone: The Cost of Vertical Integration34:22 Franchising: The Good, The Bad, and The Fit36:45 Scaling Home Service Businesses: The Key to Growth39:40 The Importance of Systems and Employee Empowerment41:33 Mission Statements: Purpose in Business43:28 The Employee-Employer Dynamic: Who Works for Whom?45:21 Creating a Positive Work Environment46:45 The Psychology of Business: Understanding Employee Needs48:40 Avoiding Time and Money Wasters in Business50:38 Investing in Real Estate: A Personal Journey52:54 Defining Success: Time vs. Money54:48 Diversification: The Value of Multiple Ventures56:15 The Launch Playbook: From Truck to Cash Flow

Business is relatively easy if you use common sense. What's your playbook for turning a truck and a phone into a sellable asset that's just cash flowing nicely? By roofing company, like, we don't have a truck. We only have the phone because we're just marketing. And you sub out all your work? Yeah, set out the work. That's what we do. You don't even need the truck.

I've always went and sold it first without having the product. Go sell it first. Having fake Facebook accounts is a very valuable thing. I agree. Like insanely valuable. I had a company that did $9.8 million in its first 90 days. And it was 100% through organic Facebook marketplace post. Business for me was a cure of my anxiety because there is always something to work on.

If you had to start from zero tomorrow, what business would you start? I'm very optimistic. I'm probably one of the most optimistic people that you'll meet. But I'm not optimistically stupid. And what that means is like the reality is I don't know. And I don't know. So because I don't know, I'm going to take precautions. And it's like jumping into a pool of water.

We don't know if it's three feet deep or if it's 33 feet deep. So I'm confident I can jump into water, but I'm not confident of the depth of the water. Oh, what a good analogy. Just to get all the listeners cut up to speed, I asked a question right before I hit record. He has two gyms. He's opening his third. And I said, do you think it's going to do better? Your third one will do better than the other two.

So, yeah, I mean, I'm confident I can build a gym. And I'm confident the area is very good. So to try to answer your question best, the area affluence, wise, you know, they had definitely more money, good market, good people, yes, we'll do better. There, however, are two other gyms in that area. I'm very confident that we are better than both those gyms because I've been to them. I've got the feedback from the community. Those gyms suck.

Yes, we will do better than them. So maybe in the short term, we won't be as successful because I have to put those other two out of business first. But once we do, then I think they, actually should be more successful than the other two. I want to get back to like four different things you just said. But before I do, is there anything strategic you do when opening a gym to like specifically steal customers for your competitors?

Or do you just build a great product and service and wait for them to come? So funny, because I feel like there is so much we have to talk about and two ADD people are bad together. This is bad. We need a media. Look, I always say business is relatively easy if you use common sense. and one of our competitors in our hometown, our first gym opened up, they were closed on Sundays. And I'm like, that's absolutely stupid.

You know, like, okay, easy. We had show your ID Sundays. So if you showed your ID from any other gym in the area on a Sunday, you could work at our gym for free. Yeah. And within a month, that guy was out of business. It made no sense. You know, so these people who wanted to work on Sunday had no place to go, listen to your market. They want to work out on Sunday.

Or guess what? You're going to be done. And so, yeah, that was an easy way to steal them. As far as going into, we always kind of, I was very selective on where we went. I'm not kind of on the topic of like, you know, diving in the head first into water. I don't know. I'm not going to go like sit next to a planet fitness. Like I don't know if we're that good yet.

Yeah. Yeah. I would just stay away from like an angry dog. I don't know what they're going to do. So I like to go to these markets where I know the gym's already there. and I know that we could beat them. So there was a anytime fitness down the road from our second location. The war on the street was this gym was just poorly run, not update on equipment.

So we just go there and war gets out real fast. Actually, you'll like this one. This is funny. Work gets out real fast in today's day and age. So as long as you put out a good product, I don't think there's any reason that you've doing anything special. People will talk, especially in like gym communities. Like they talk to friends who go to other gyms and they'll eventually, you know, pull

their way in the years. I interviewed a guy episode 58 that opens laundromats, and he will only open at an intersection that already has two to four other laundromats, assuming that they're garbage and old school and just run down, which they almost always are, because he knows that the local community is already in the behavior of getting their laundry down at that intersection. And he always, always steals the majority of the market. I love it. Yeah, that's a great idea. But the key words are he picks a run-down laundromat, right? He's not going against someone like himself because that would be a problem there. Going against a planet fitness is not going against a rundown laundromat.

Yeah. There's a big difference there. But this is funny. I know you love marketing too. So this was my recent marketing ploy. I have some land next to the first gym that just kind of making land. We could develop it for whatever. We have not figured out what we want to do with it yet.

I usually like to travel around like to different cities and stuff like that to see like what they have and then bring them back to our area. There's a joke that like if the world ended today, it would take two years to end in northeast of Pennsylvania. Because like, if an asteroid hits Texas, we wouldn't know it for a while. Yeah. Because that's just how things are, which it makes it. That's nice, actually. You see, is it nice, right?

So there's this dynamic. And I always, the optimism in me always plays to your side of it, which is, oh, my God, it's great. So if someone did something else, I'll just bring it to this area, you know? And you could just keep doing that over and over and over. I call it entrepreneurial's playground here. Like, A, everything is cheap. And B, no one is skilled. So if you have any skills whatsoever and you can go out and see something happen in another

part of the country, you can just bring it back here and it usually works. Now, will bird scooters work? No. We don't have enough population for that to happen. So as far as marketing, the topic I wanted to, or just, sorry, I want to tell you quickly, I just land next to the gym, just vacant. When I go to Utah next, bring back an idea what to build there. So I was trying to get some juices flowing with like attracting a good tenant or whatever

but I could go there. But I have my construction trailer that there's been raining, so we're not working. So I have it, like just sitting out back. So what I did was I took a, I bought some gravel. I had a Corey drop off some gravel, made it a little driveway and then dropped the construction trailer right on this lot. And then I had my buddy go into our local Facebook group and say, what's going next to 10X Fitness?

It brought attention to, 10x Fitness. It also brought attention to our construction company because our trailer is parked out there. And now everyone's like, oh, what is Bluefield Builders building? Like they, they, they, just asking questions of getting taxing. Hey, what's going on here? So it costs like $1,200 bucks in like stones, but it was a really nice marketing, you know, boy. That's so good.

Yeah. You're like, you've got like an audience plant in the Facebook group. Oh yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Which is like something that it should be talked about because it's, I don't know if I have a moral like compass that tells me like, don't do it.

But having fake Facebook accounts is a very valuable thing. Like, like insanely valuable. I mean, I've had a lot of fake Facebook accounts shut down. See? Yeah. I'm like, maybe I'm behind the April.

I should have had these 10 years ago. But it goes on like that power of like human trust of like trusting other people's recommendations. And I almost had a guy from, you know, Nigeria ripped me off. I was trying to buy like a sweet gun. And he's like, oh, ask this guy. And this guy's Facebook was completely fake. But he like recommended this guy.

So I like, oh, he recommended him. Like I trusted this person. In my experience, the best. use case for multiple Facebook accounts is specifically Facebook Marketplace when you find an offer that just crushes on Facebook Marketplace. I saw this tweet the other day. What do you about that? Yeah. Well, I'll get there. So I saw this tweet. This woman said, I just hired a fencing company to put up a new fence. I assume how big is businesses. Two and a half million dollars a year, double digit margins. He gets 100% of his business from Facebook Marketplace.

Organic, like not boosting posts, just posting like once a week. And so, So I had a company that did $9.8 million its first 90 days selling Bitcoin miners. And it was 100% through organic Facebook Marketplace posts. And so we had multiple accounts just because Facebook doesn't want you to post the same thing at a time. Sure. Right. And there's hundreds of different makes and models of miners. And so we created multiple accounts out of necessity and funneled all the leads back to one place.

There are just certain niches, whether products or services that just crush on Facebook marketplace. If you find that, it's really helpful to have multiple accounts. You can post multiple times? I know. Can you almost like hire somebody? Is there a company that does that? Like, you know, is trustworthy? There needs to be.

There needs to be an agency because I thought about that. It's actually, it's a good idea. Or, you know, I have, you know, we always see the groups, oh, recommend a power washing company, recommend this company, recommend this. And then like, you know, there's 85 responses in there. But if you have eight people recommend the same company, it's like, wow, that really built trust and build value. But I think you said, morally is that messed up?

Right. Because that's kind of a different ballgame in a sense, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You're just having more leads out there. Right. I'm like playing on the human psychology of trust.

Yeah. And I'm like, well, if I'm not doing it, somebody else is probably doing it. You know what I mean? Right. If I don't sell this guy crack, someone else is. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I'm a libertarian. You can't win that one on me.

Like I said to you earlier before we jumped on was I had a great response from your clients, your listeners, you know, ask you, I actually wish I had some questions from the first episode that people had, or I'm not sure if you have any. I have questions for it. Okay, but yeah, people did reach out to me and say they liked it and I thought that was pretty cool. Yeah. So I'm ready to dive into any service related stuff, but I don't think I ever answered the haters. I hate those people who are just overly optimistic. Oh, yeah, yeah. That have this, I'm not going to say their name because I, you know, to each, I don't believe in bad mouth in people, but I never have built a business at zero and said like, oh, we're doing $100 million.

Yeah. And I'm like, maybe it won't, you know, like, I mean, yeah, I would like to do $100 million. But like the reality is I don't know. I just don't, I don't agree with that mindset of that mentality of like, you're going to do 100 million because like that focuses on like the end number. And I think it's more important to focus on like the system and the processes that like can get you to the end number or that are more under your control or they are more under your control that's fine too yeah well yeah the system in processes are totally under my control

you it's like instead you should be like i'm so excited to launch this because i'm going to cold call a hundred people a day over the next hundred days that's fine yeah no matter what i'd fully support that person because a very actual versus i'm going to hit the hundred million i was debating with some people who just for some reason had it in their heads they were going to be a five million dollar power washing company. I'm like, I've been doing for 13 years. I'm like five million for power washing is really, really difficult. You know, like how. Yeah. How many cruises that? It's, you're probably doing like three crews gets you to a million. So, what three, five, you know, 15 crews? That's a lot of group. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and then of course, you're having some

scale in there. So it might be more than that. But let's just focus on getting the first 100 grand, you know, I don't know. I was always, I was always like a, you know, go smaller guy and then, you know, go from there. you said like, I know how to dive. I'm great at diving, but I don't know if that pool is three or 30 feet deep. Like that analogy just rings true to me immediately. Like you, I'm opening something very similar to a gym. I'm opening a pickleball club in my backyard.

Okay. I have a metal shop 2,100 square feet and it's going to cost 30 to 40 grand to build it out. I've got to out a bathroom. I've got to fix the septic. There's a few things. I'm extremely confident that this business will work. I only need one to 200 members until I'm at full capacity because I can only fit. at one core, right? And so it depends on how frequently people play. Do they play doubles or singles?

$150 to $150 a month, 100 to 200 members at max capacity. So basically, at where it stands today, I can rent the thing out for $2,500 to a home service business. If I do all this, spend $30 to $40,000, do marketing, put in a key fob, cameras and all that, I could make $20,000 a month from it, almost 10 times as much. With no employees, cleaning service, insurance, right, there will be some customer support that I'll have to take care of. But that's the whole play. And so I was about to get started in launching it. I called a septic company. I got some quotes. And then I was like, Chris, you're breaking your own rule here. Like, let's do the research. Because on paper, there's about 10,000 people within 10 miles of me that play pickleball weekly. Okay. I need one to two percent of

them. But I've gotten in trouble so many times when I play that 1%. I just get 1% of this market. Like stop. Probably going to be 0.1%. Right. And so I've gotten in trouble. And so what I did two days ago is I put up a bunch of Facebook ads. I did three types. I did instant forms. I did messenger ads. And then I did just a link to a type form.

This is here's the address of the pickleball court. Here's what it will cost. Here's our features. Fill out this type form. Tell me your shirt size. How often you play? Do you do singles doubles? What time of day do you play?

Are you okay with a hundred bucks? Do you have other friends you could bring? All this stuff. And I'm converting leads at under $2 each. Like very high intent. They know the price. They want to buy under $2 each. How many leads here?

Yeah. Well, I just started this two days ago and I've got like 20 something leads. And so it's going to cost me like 20 to 100 bucks to convert a $1,000 customer or $2,000 customer, which is amazing. And so like that's just a good example of doing the research on how deep the pool is. Like actually how deep? Because maybe people want to play on the megacorts that have 12 other courts for the energy. and for their friends, maybe they don't want to play in a single court.

And my thesis is wrong, right? Actually, this is a really important time. What we're saying is I'm like, I hate these people who focus on, you know, that end number of like, oh, I'm going to do $2 million in pickleball. And like you're not focusing on the $2 million number. You're saying, hey, like, can I judge the depth of this water? Do I have a sonar machine, right? Is there something that allows me to figure out the depth of this water?

I can then eventually do whatever, $2 million. That's great. You know, I've never gotten that advanced into the testing of the market. I've always went and sold it first without having the product. I always recommend people that too. I'm like, go sell it first. I'm doing that as well. Like, I'm going to collect three orders.

Yeah, you mean, essentially, even by advertising it right now and getting your leads, you're selling it. So I'm like, hey, sell it now. And if you have, like, you had 20 increase in two days. Okay, there is a demand for it. Before buying a hot water power washer, I'm like, go, go sell it. I mean, I was bringing the community when we opened our first gym up, I was bringing the community in to help name it. I don't have any good names.

Oh, my God. Do people love giving their opinions. They're like, oh, yeah, name it this, name it that, name it. Do I had, I mean, I applied 200 responses of people who want to name. And then they feel invested. Oh, yeah. Support it. 99 of those.

It's not 200. You're not going to choose. But they all feel invested in the process, which makes them all more likely to become customers. 100%. I mean, that's a great, like, you should throw it out there. You need a name for your pickleball club. You know, whatever.

But it costs me nothing, right? And it gets them engaged. They feel invested. Yeah, those are all great, like very small, but I don't know. How do you know how to do that? I was never taught that skill. Yeah, it's just to me is a natural. Well, let's talk about that because I've been in the habit this last week of asking people

like me, like you, like us, how does one build or develop a bias for action? How can you teach that? And I won't accept the answer. It's nature, not nurture. you can't, you just got to be born at that. I won't accept that. How can you flex that muscle, build the muscle to have a bias for action? I think it's a traumatic life event.

I was probably middle school, 12, 13 years old. My dad quit his job and she went from a two-income household to a one-income household. And like we, I felt the lifestyle shrink. So like I knew what it was to have extra money and, you know, nice vacation. And then all of a sudden we're like, whoa, whoa. Like, we're going to go borrow clothes for our friends. Uh-huh. My mom would like, she knew a lady who had a restaurant and like catering business and the lady would just give us food to have and like we would eat this food.

I want to say it was called the brass buckle. That's not the name of those. But it's golden palace, the golden palace. So I had golden palace mashed potatoes for like months straight. It was awful. And but I remember that pain and like seeing like my mom and dad both stressed out about finances and like what we were doing. My dad actually, it was like doubly bad. He quit his job to then start trading stocks and he was bad at it.

So he started losing money, trading stocks. So we were like really losing money. You know, we got from like going cut down income and then losing. So I saw that. And for me, like that was always been like, you know, you got going to work. Like, you know, my mom's response was like, I'm going to go get another job and I'll get another job. So like she had three jobs at one point.

Like that was her action was going to get another job. And I definitely saw that, paid attention to it. So when it comes to like, for me, like being able to sit and watch a movie, like, it's really hard. Like I have a tough time sitting and just watching a movie because I have this anxiety in the back of my head of like, should probably go cold call 100 people, you know, or probably go improve the business somehow, which I always said that business for me was a cure of my anxiety because like there is always something to work on. Like there's always, there is. There's legitimately the word, I hate the phrase always something because people use it in a negative connotation.

There's always something in the business. You could go down your website again and improve it. You can edit, you take off product that you don't sell anymore or you can improve product that you do sell better. There's just always a piece of business that you can work on a system or whatever to improve, which allows me to always have action to take. I don't like not having anything to do. So to me, my, I don't know if I have a bias towards action. I just have an automated response to action. I just do it.

Yeah. So you've probably heard me talk about Beehive before. And if you've ever received a newsletter from me, it was powered by Beehive. I've been using Beehive for the last year and a half. Their three founders left Morning Brew and built the platform so the rest of us could use the same tools that turn Morning Brew into a multi-million dollar operation. That's why Beehive doesn't feel like every other newsletter platform because it's not. It was built by people who scaled a newsletter empire.

Now you know that I only recommend stuff that actually moves the needle for me. This moves the needle. So go to beehive.com slash Chris. Use the code Chris 30 to get 30% off your first three months. So if you're just like you're doing something around the house and you're thinking and you get a new business idea or a new marketing idea for your current business and you get excited about it and you're curious about it. What are your next steps? Do you sit on it? Do you write it down?

Do you go do something about it right then? I want to know. So this is a leveled question, meaning like when I first got started, if I had a business idea, I would probably go try it or go do it. And now since I've had multiple businesses and I now have different goals in mind, like to me, if it can't, if I can't see on paper making me two million a year, I'm not even entertaining it. Like I don't care. I don't like throw it out. You know, it just, it's gone. Or like getting me towards that.

So like building a third gym isn't going to make me two million a year. but it's already plug it in. I have the systems in place. I have the people. Like that's just bolting on something else. That's different than a new business. New business venture has to make me too many in the year. Otherwise, I don't even, I don't care to even entertain it.

So it's been easy to take ideas like you're saying and they're like, yep, does it make that? Nope. Okay. See you later. It's gone. As far as a marketing idea towards business, I'm a big, like, checklist guy. Like I, I'm holding up a piece of paper with a checklist on it because not everyone watches this, but I always have a checklist 365 days a year next to my desk that I

just write down because I can't keep in my head. I'll forget it, it'll lose it. So I'll just write down my checklist and then eventually if it's a good marketing thing, I'll turn around and start, you know, going after it. If it's something that's not as important, you know, since there for a couple days and then, like I just had to get a trailer wrap. Like that's a marketing thing that, like, you know, drop the trailer off to get that pretty rock and roll, which by the way, I love trailer wraps. Great return investment there. How would you compare a trailer wrap to a truck wrap? Equally valuable? Oh, yeah. Equally valuable. Yeah. Dude, I'd buy 10 of them. My trailers, you can buy 10 trailers for, what, one truck, you know? So trailers are easy to get and easy to wrap.

I see no reason not to have, like, yeah, if you can. Like, at both, well, at the one gym location, where the entrance is, we took the, once again, steal a plan fitness model. They have a trailer out front, the $10, whatever. So we took it, we got a trailer, wrapped it, brand new trailer, it wrapped it threw it out front if that was a truck it's 40 grand you know trailer it was like five maybe less you know so so what if someone they want to have a bias for action they want to just do things but they're not i feel like you have to be a naturally curious person as like a like a prerequisite to have a bias for action what if you're not naturally curious any tips on becoming more curious your tips for becoming you're curious i don't know if you can like change a person you're like

Like, can you change who a person is? I don't know. Like, I'm not artistic whatsoever. And, like, sure, I probably could take some classes and become artistic, but, like, I'm not. Like, it's just not me. Like, so, like, don't try to make me artistic because I'm not artistic. If you're not a curious person, don't be a curious person. Find something else that like to do.

If I was to practice it, it would be through gratitude. And what I mean by that is, like, at night, our circle here, we're dividing, I'm not religious at all. So I will have my kids. We'll go around the table asking three things that they are grateful for. because I always thought like praying was stupid like didn't make any sense to pray but it's not as actionable

like praying is just like a thought in your head right but like gratitude and like watching you know I want you to do it tonight ask your kids what they're grateful for you know three things are grateful and like you'll see when they get to their their third one because the first one's really easy

second one you know whatever the third one they're like they sit there and like what we're doing now ask him was he grateful for yeah What are you grateful for? One other thing that's not obvious. Video games? All right.

Good answer. Tell me what to answer. Those are great answers. I'm so glad that happened because I was worried that was going to happen to be. Actually, I was like, I thought why kids I walk in there. I think gratitude is the antidote to depression, right? Like gratitude makes us happy. Yes.

Yeah, yeah. No. Gratitude is, but it also, what I mean by that, which I want to tie into your question of curiosity is, which I'm sure you've done it. Dude, I just get my mind blown in the middle of the day because I'm so grateful. Like, because of my gratitude is so high, but my gratitude is actually like linked to my curiosity where I'll be doing something. And I'm like, wow. Like those who can't visually see, I have like two very red eyes.

I got pink eye by from both my kids. I've done pink eye from my kids. I'm in recovery. I can actually see today. But what I meant by that is laying in my bed sick, I was like, man, how did it? Indians like in TPs survive sicknesses like that like my mind I was genuinely curious yeah that also allowed me be so grateful for modern day by hot water like the simplest things if you could be grateful for the simplest things like you're unbeatable and I firmly I believe that with all my

heart and I've yet to be proven wrong on that but to a person who's genuinely not curious I'm like find more gratitude. Because if you could find more gratitude, you could be outrageously curious. How did they do it? I never would have thought to tie those things together. Oh my God, why not? How do Indians do it? How did the Indians survive?

Like, like, I do. I was so cold. They do right? They just died. I guess. But I mean, they eventually, some survived. You know, not all of them died. The fever and chills.

I was so cold Sunday night. I had to call my wife like, I had a baby in the shower. I'm like, can you please come get the baby? It was afraid to like touch outside of the shower door because I was so cold. And I'm like, what would have I have done if this was like 1840? Yeah. Up until 50 years ago, no one had ever experienced a hot shower. And now it's, that's all we have.

50 years ago, that's mind blowing. Hey, Les, I guess. Yeah. We got our kinds of guests. I knew it was going to happen to me. I told you. So, but gratitude through curiosity. Yeah.

Okay. I like it. I've never tied those together, but I will now for the rest of my life. We talked to them about gratitude, but not as intentionally as you do, as not as intentionally as we should. When you ask them, I'm telling you, it gets that third thing. So you see how fast he was like, dad, mom, right? Like that's cool. That's fine.

But like if you ask them every day, right, it's not dad, mom. Like, they'll change things. They'll see the different things in their day that happen. But the reality is like they'll get to that third one. Sometimes they don't, like, they can write them off real fast. Sometimes like they think about that one. Or when you think about that third one, in my opinion, you're like, you're opening the pathways of like to see. to see things.

And that's what you want. That's like the. That's why there's three because it's mom and dad. It reminds me of they say that the like the bottom third of a resume is the best part. It's like where I went to school, what I did for work, what results I had? But they're like, what do you love to do? What are you obsessed with? What are like those things that would not overlap with very many people?

That's the most important part of the resume. Yeah, that's a great. That's a great example. Yeah. I'm going to ask you some hot take questions. In your experience, I look at you as like the home service guru. Okay. So what is the most overrated or it could be multiple home service business right now, in your opinion?

I'm in the field. So saying power washing feels like a cop out, but I have to say it. Yeah, it's just flat out is by far the most overrated. And I'm saying that is because of TikTok videos. Like people think they can, they saw these TikTok videos of people power washing and gone this trend. and everyone with $300 can go to Home Depot, buy a PowerWasher, and start one, it has to be by far the most overrated. I'm trying to think of, like, my second one will probably have to be a landscaping business

because it's like really not a very niche, you know, type market. Like, you cut grass, it grows. People are just looking for the cheapest price. They don't really care. You're competing with Jose. You're competing with everybody. I mean, I had a landscape business when I was 16 who didn't, you know? Yeah.

I just took my dad's tractor down the street and sold jobs. You're anything that low barrier to entry is, in my opinion, wildly overrated. What if you had to start from zero tomorrow? You couldn't start anything that you've already done. What business would you start? I'm not sure if I would start a business. I'd probably buy one. That's first because I think that's really important to see like track.

A lot of people fail in their first startup. If it was going to be a service business, you would probably have to be, HVAC and heat like you just need those two things there's skill involved they have there's training and that have to be my number one it's a necessity like like they yeah there's no we're starting roof roofing business I thought roofs were a necessity and I realize like they're not like people have leaking roofs they put a bucket underneath it and they're like yeah whatever I'm selling the house or tarp over tarp over yeah yeah it's not as necessary as like when your hot water stops working Or like when you have no heat, like you don't care.

You're calling the next person. Yeah, you're burning your furniture. You burn your furniture, exactly. And probably because I've had a business like power she's more of a leads problem. Like we don't have enough leads. Like we have work, we don't have leads. HVAC has so many leads that aren't enough work. So I wouldn't mind having the opposite problem.

Yeah. Yeah. So that would be a perfect business to buy then because of all the like the licensing and regulatory stuff you'd have to go through. Yeah. I wouldn't, I would still buy an ancient business. I, even though I'm not a certain. It's actually kind of funny this happened to us. We had a one of our trucks got DOT, we have 550s, and the guy who's driving it was,

he was kind of borrowing it to do a touch-up job. He normally doesn't drive it, but he got stopped by DOT, and the DOT's like, hey, you don't have a medical card to, you can't drive this, which, by the way, is completely ridiculous. My sister-in-law went to the U-Haul that was 26,000 pounds, and she drove it from Vermont, you know, this weekend, but my guy can't drive 10 minutes on the road without a medical card. It makes no sense. However, he got pulled over by the police and he called me and said, hey, I got pulled over. Like, you got to come pick this, you know, truck up. I'm like, I don't have my

medical card. You know, so I wouldn't necessarily go get my medical card. I wouldn't get my H-track license. I would just buy someone who has it. Yeah. Yeah. You go that role. What business model is a scam that no one's saying out loud? It doesn't have to be home services, any business model or industry. There are certain franchises that are scams. And I've met a few of these guys who they, I think they take advantage of military veterans, who they know how they have some money. And they're like, hey, you'd be perfect for this, you know, fit. And they're like giving them no support. They give them like a logo and an email.

And they're like, okay, like, here you go. Like, go off on your own. I'm like, dude. Good luck. Yeah. Like, you got to make a bunch of money to pay back those, that deal. I don't like the way that works. So I think there are certain franchises that are scams.

I'm not a big franchise guy. I don't know if I have just a heavy bias towards entrepreneurship and like starting your own. Like I don't know if I bought a franchise, I don't even call that entrepreneurship. Like you're just, I don't know. What do you feel about that? I think there's a time and a place for franchises. But it's not for everyone. Like entrepreneurship is not for everyone.

I think some people want the middle ground between having a job with a boss and some support versus being an entrepreneur. And franchise can fill that gap pretty well. That's in some. Like, most franchises out there are probably a waste of money, the majority of them, I would say. Okay, so you agree with me. Like, my scam comment, I think certain franchises could be on the side. Like, I don't want to pick on anybody because it's not what this podcast is about, you know. But I can sell, I would have no problem selling a franchise of power washing to somebody.

But, like, I know what it takes to build it. And, like, there's this huge, like, headwind that you're going right into. which is like the TikTok generation of power washers. You know, there are so many more power washers. I mean, I wish you're a data guy. I wish you'd pull that up, like registered power washing businesses like, you know, from 10 years ago to today. I mean, it might be astronomical.

Like that might be just straight hockey stick, you know, level up, you know? And I'm like, well, like, hey, like, you're in that mix of like competing against those people. So like, yeah, you're a franchise. Well, guess what? That entire hockey stick of new businesses that are registered soft washing and power washing, like that's a uphill battle me personally like the way I do business I don't want to fight that just like you go back to full circle like I'm not going next to a planet fit is for a gym I'll go next to a crappy gym sure but I'm not going to go I'm not diving head person into a three foot pool that's a good point I'm making a video about this but have you heard of Brahms like the ice cream place it's they're based out of Oklahoma they have like I don't know 100 200 locations it's like it's really random it's a fast food restaurant restaurant, mostly an ice cream place, and then a grocery store, like a very, very small footprint grocery store. And it's kind of like In-N-Out. In-N-Out is unique because they're

only regional and they distribute only fresh ingredients. They're vertically integrated. There's no franchisees. They're all corporate-owned. You know, they won't even open on the East Coast because they want everything fresh and nearby. Roms is kind of like the ice cream store version of In-N-Out in that they own farms. They own everything. They have their own dairy, their own cows for the cheese burgers and I don't know how but they've somehow like resisted inflation right you've got insulin resistance and then you've got inflation resistance and I can still go to Brahms and get like a bag of cheeseburgers there's like 10 cheeseburgers in there for 20 bucks today or you get an ice cream cone for like dollar 39 okay like a like a little ice cream not soft serve and you can get like a big

fancy like four scoops with like nuts and toppings in a bowl and like a waffle bowl for like $3.50 at Broms. And then if you go right down the road and you go to Coldstone and you get the exact same thing, three scoops, toppings, waffle bowl, it's literally like $11, okay, for the same thing. And Broms has better ingredients. Like they have their own dairy cows. A consumer at Coldstone has to go through how many layers of costs, how many vendors to get to the source, right? You've got to pay like 8% franchise fee, two to three percent market. They have the expensive rent, you know, probably $30 a square foot rent. And then like the vendors, there's kickbacks.

And then they got to pay like a hundred grand up. They got to build out a $500,000 stir. Whereas Brahms, the vertical integration gets passed down to the consumer. And so it's cheap, right? Yeah. And so in my opinion, when I think of franchise versus not franchise, I think of Brahms first coldstone. And like the end result to the consumer in this case is 70% cheaper product and the

same quality. if not better. And how are Coldstone's doing across the nation? They're not doing great. No. They're not doing great. So I actually, it's funny. You asked that tough question of like, which one's a scam?

I'm very sassified. My hands are a franchise? Okay. Okay. Because sure, are there some good? You honestly said it best. Like, those who want to be their own boss, I've met these people. And I'm sure you have two.

They're like, hey, I want to be my own boss. I've never used that phrase. Like, I just have you have it. No, I'm like, I'm just going to be me. I don't know what it's like to have a boss, honestly. Not me either, actually. But my point is, like, I, you've never said the words, yeah, I don't want to be boss, because you never had a boss.

But my point is, I am doing entrepreneurship because, like, that's what I want to do, not because I don't want to have something. Yeah, you're running towards something, not away from something. Yeah, exactly. And the people who are running away from the boss, I think the franchise might be the good fit that you're referring to for them versus, like, your eye are like, I don't know, I just have to jump off the bridge. Like, I just, what I got, you know.

I would think, if I were to think of a persona of a perfect franchisee, that would actually be successful, it's someone that's 30 to 60 years old, someone making six figures, call it 150 to 500 a year, someone that has six to seven figures in savings, maybe home equity, something. They've got a safety net. They are completely dissatisfied and burnt out by the workforce. They hate it. They think they're better than it. They think that they could do what their job or their boss does and better. Maybe they've tasted entrepreneurship. I've talked to guys that had a landscaping business in college and then they got a job and they've never done anything since.

Like that guy who like does really well within systems that can fall into a system, he's not creative, but he's hardworking. He's smart and he'll follow a script. That could be the perfect franchisee. UI would be the nightmare franchisee because we want to do a thing on our own timeline, own way. Like, and that just doesn't work. To a crumble franchisee training. Oh, gosh. Yeah, I mean, like those franchises kill me.

Like those cookies like that. They told him, they said, this is not the place to be creative. If you're creative, just walk out the door. You're going to follow a script to a T. We know what works. We promise it works. We know how to market it. We know how to sell it.

We know what to say. We know the ingredients. Just follow the script and you'll be successful. If you don't, you're not a fit here. And that's any franchisee. Yeah, which I respect that because they're like, hey, we did it. We tested it. We know what we want.

what? This is what we are. And if you don't ask me, because I don't know the answer, if you ask me a question of like, hey, what's a successful franchise? You know, I don't know. Like, that's a startup business guy. You know, I don't know enough about franchises and that type of thing. I just know I'd be very weary to dive into the pool. Yeah. Yeah. Why do you think most home service businesses, I mean, 80, 90%, never scale past one to two trucks. And how can they get over that? Do they have enough leads. That's question one, right? Like, if we have the leads for multiple trucks, then like, let's go. If we don't have the leads for multiple trucks, then yeah, you're stuck at one or two. So I'd make sure that like our system's in place, I had a conversation with my, the guy runs our

residential this morning. And one of the employees wasn't putting the yard sign out at the job and was told about it and like happened again. And in our opinion, me and the managers, it's grounds for firing. Like that yard sign is that freaking important like that if you don't put it out, you will get fired. And the reason that is, because that's leads. Okay, we need our leads. You're hurting our business by not doing that. That 30 second task. The 30 second task. Yep. And $11, so you are seven dollars, whatever they are. Like you are hurting our business. You're hurting everybody in the company not having that yard sign out. So, okay, if our leads are accounted for, the next part of that would be looking in the mirror and saying like your employees will mess up

and I think that most people are afraid of the mess up and like it's just acceptance of like I all remember as clear as the day I remember like being behind one of our trucks and they left the tailgate down and like a bottle like a five gallon bucket of soap went right down the highway like just like they're behind your own truck was behind our own truck yeah and that must have been a great conversation. Five gallon bucket of soap just flying down the road. I was like, you know, I put my head down. I said like, hey, nobody got hurt.

It's a good time to learn. Right. That's okay. Maybe they did that because they were just rushing to get to the next job. Like they were trying to do a good job. Exactly. So it's not grounds for, you know, you know, yell at someone under fire and somebody but like mistakes happen and that's why you have insurance for mistakes like that. But my point is I had to understand mistakes are going to happen. and then to accept the mistakes you're going to happen.

And once you do those two things, then you can start getting past the one two truck thing because you can understand, hey, there's going to be problems. That's okay. You know, we're learning. We're growing. We have to do that together. And then we can get past the one truck thing. But with the one truck, they always have control.

And you have to give up a little bit of control to get through there. And then the next part is systems. Yeah. I call the 70% rule. Like almost never will any. employee do any more than 70% as well as you do? Disagree. I have a manager of our second gym location who does things so much better than I do.

Well, that's amazing. Dude, she is a animal. I'm actually doing her a disservice. She's going to help us launch the third gym and eventually be our regional manager because she's so freaking good. Like, I don't think I could give enough credit to an employee as I could give this lady. So anyone who has employees or hear of the mouth is unreal. You can find that.

Yeah. Like she, oh, yeah, dude, she's so, dude, I suck at like, I'm so good at the action box. I'm so good at startup and like launching an idea and getting into, to, I can take clay and make it into object. But like, let's say we had to decorate that object or like, you'll paint the object. Like, that is not me whatsoever. Well, keep that object alive for three years.

Yeah, I know I'm good at that. Yeah, that, because business has been, I've, every business I've had has made longer. three years, but I'm great at that part of it. But however, I'm not going to, like, the mundane small tasks, like reviewing a waiver form. I'm terrible at that. Like, my employee will do that 100% better than I would. I guess, like, I'm trying to make an analogy of, like, the average employee will do 70% as

well as you do at, like, really caring about running and knowing the business. That just means if you have two employees to replace yourself, then you've grown 40%. Right? 70 plus 70. Yes. Yes. And most people are afraid of that unknown. It's a big unknown.

I always was a critic of like mission statements and like, you know, those things in business. I'm like, who needs that stuff? But like I understand it now. Shout out to John Wilson. Went to John Wilson's conference last year. He did a great job. The conference was awesome about scaling your service business to $5 million. And you all throughout his offices, it was all about like those team building higher level

characteristics and I was like, wow, like, I was so wrong about that. Like, I was like, who needs mission statements? I roll. Oh, like, totally I rolled. I rolled for years. And I came and I left John Wilson's event. I was like, wow, like, as manager or as owner, you go further away from like the customer. Like, you really do need those mission statements.

And like, the mission statement for the power washing business would be like, hey, we want our customers to be wowed. Like, we want them to have a special experience with AP. and that is why they choose us. And if you don't understand that, then you shouldn't work here. And like, that's the, that might need to be said every three months or every six months. And I hope people are eye rolling me at home and, you know, watching this. And then six months down on the road, they're like, damn, that guy actually was right. You know, like he knew what he was talking about.

Because I've done it too. And sit at the gym. Like, hey, what's our mission statement for the gym? It better be we want a comfortable environment where these people can come in and work out 24 hours a day, seven days a week, whenever they need the gym to be there for them. And that's our mission statement. I just made them up. But my point is, like, the employees should know, like, the message they need to convey is that to the customer.

And if you could do those things, like, then if the customer or your employee starts to understand those things, then you can grow to get further away as owner or as manager. It ties back to what we said about family and gratitude. Like I feel like those things are important, those kind of intangible mission statement, purpose things because people that work for us want to feel like they have purpose. Like there is a purpose. Call that like, and in our lives, that would be our family, a higher power, our kids. You know, a shared like we all need and want purpose.

So we're not just floating out there in the ether, you know, with no plan. You said the words work for us and it triggered something in my brain that, but you also said higher power. So I want to go off both of those two things. higher power and work for us. I will never say an employee works for me. I say the employee works for the company. So my employees work for APEC softwash. I work for Apex Softwash.

Why I'm bringing it up is because it does. It rubs me such a wrong way, like these pompous Sons of Bees who like just like, oh, those are my employees. They work for me. I just want to punch. I absolutely, I can't stand that. attitude. I hate it. Like who that person thinks they are the higher power?

And what I want anyone listening to this to understand is that like the business is the higher power. Like and what I mean by that is you have your own higher powers religious wise. I have my higher power of the business and the business is all things. Like, hey, the business is doing well. It's because the people inside it are doing well. Like that is. Without those people, there is no, there is no, there is no higher power.

There's no business. It doesn't exist. And some of these owners tend to put themselves above the business. And I don't. I'm not sure where you put yourself. I've never thought about it like that. I've never really thought strategically about it. But I'm with you now that I think about it.

Like there's a hierarchy. And like especially like if we're, I'm like on the type of already like I don't even be there. Right. Like so like I want to take myself over here. So if I take myself off the table, the business. business is still on the table. The business is still the top of the pyramid, whether I'm in there or not,

especially on like brag, if tits the gram, you know, you see like garbage like this all a time where like, you know, people are just flaunting or just showboating their stuff. And I really, I just can't. It just like actually makes me go the exact opposite. Like my wife will yell at me for wearing like clothes that I look like a bum. And I'm like, I don't want to make someone feel uncomfortable. I've dressed too nice, you know. I don't like to do that.

It's not my vibe. One of my favorite business books of all time is three signs of a miserable job. Have you ever read that? I have not. No. You've got to read it. Okay. It's not about having a job.

It's about entrepreneurship. And the author says that employees need one of three things to have a miserable job. And so as a business owner, you need to make sure that they don't have those three things. Number one is irrelevance. If an employee feels irrelevant, unseen, like they're not serving a higher purpose, right? Their job is irrelevant. Right. Number two is inmeasurability. There are no metrics tied. There's nothing measurable tied to a person's job or role. They're just kind of doing things. And so in his book, he takes over a restaurant and they have a drive-thru. And he didn't really know how to measure that because the guy in the drive-thru, collecting orders, wasn't in charge of sales. He had no, he couldn't move the needle on sales. He wasn't cooking the food. And so his like metric became after he took over this failing business was what percentage of, people in the drive-through, do you make smile?

Right? And keep track of that. Write it down. That's so good. It's so good. And it made his job more enjoyable, which made him a better employee, which served the higher purpose, the business in this case, better. The third was anonymity, like employees that are just anonymous to the owner or to their

manager. The manager doesn't ask about their kids, about the soccer game, about what they're into. They're just one, like at Amazon, they're just literally a number, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So it's a great book. That sounds amazing. I definitely would read a book like that because I, like, that's the side of business I love.

Because if I wasn't an entrepreneur and if I wasn't in business, my second calling to life is psychology. Me too, dude. Me too. That was, I was going to major in that before I, like, even thought of my business. Because it is business. Like, psychology. And what you just described me was all psychology. Yeah.

First principles. I don't know if business. books teach or business you know classes teach anything that stuff but like everything you just have was psychology and i love it you know because that's like that's really neat i went to a conference about 10 years ago now and this guy who was speaking he like converted the whole the whole business to run on the five star review and he would like have if the job if they didn't leave a five star review like the people didn't get paid like he he basically had everything based on the five star review and like that was the whole mission for the company

was to get a five-star review. And it was unbelievable. Like their pay, everything was based on the five-star review. And it was really, really cool because it was like such a tangible metric. They're like, did you get a five-star review?

Yes or no. Do you remember what industry? Because I bet it was like a highly competitive industry in that area. It was like window cleaning power washing. Yeah. Because I mean, what's more valuable than a five-star review when it comes to ranking in your Google business profile?

Like, it makes sense. This was before even like that. Like he would actually send like post-cote. He would give the people post- postcards and like with prepaid like posts basically say hey hey well if you're not going to give us an email five-star review then at least give us this and like send it back and he would use everything off that review it's really cool yeah oh that's good all right i got another one what do most

operators business operators waste time and money on that doesn't actually move the needle my first thing would be accounting if you are doing any type of bookkeeping or accounting like stuff like that should instantly be gone. Like if the owner is in the weeds of accounting, you're saying? Yeah, yeah. And I'm trying to think of like stuff that I've like delegated off my plate before because I would just go down that list. And the first thing I did was get rid of accounting.

I was like, okay, I don't want like, okay, you're going to get my bank statement. So you're going to do all that. Perfect, great, because I don't ever want to see it ever again. I think that's a huge waste of, I mean, to be honest, if you're not selling any jobs, then you're not moving the needle. Unless you're like one of these people who like, actually, let's talk about that because I'm not good at it. When I called you a little bit out before about the employee doing it better, my manager, she's so good at saving money. And I'm a horrible saver.

Like when it comes to saving money, I'm like, screw it. I'd rather just throw it out. I can make more. I always go make more. Yeah, I'd rather go sell a $10,000 job than worry about $50. She's so good at saving the $50. So it's a great, you know, wants to get counterpart to me. So the reason I brought that up is because you can say, oh, well, I'm going to look at numbers and save money.

I disagree with that. So anything that's not increasing sales, in my opinion, which is like, to me, number one for entrepreneurship is like, that's it. It's just sales is going to be a waste of time. So the next one would have to be anything related to the mail. So first thing, the second thing I did was have an assistant who got all the mail, junk mail, all the mail. Like I don't get my mail anymore. I have assistant, grab the mail. If it's important, they'll scan it in and upload it, otherwise they throw it out.

Getting the mail is a giant waste for operators. It's time it doesn't need to be done. The third thing I list would be invoicing. I see no reason why, like, someone can't come in. And like every week, I have a virtual assistant come through on Friday, look at the jobs, send them out and have those done. I see no reason why someone's still sending invoices as an owner or operator. You could have someone trained to do that very quickly. Okay.

I love it. What are you working towards personally? I am in the process of closing on a small strip mall. So we have the, I'll eventually take a picture and post it because it's a little easier to understand. I have our office space, which we bought. And then that came with some land. We built the gym. And then next to that is that land I was actually telling you about.

I put the trailer billboard on. And then next to that is a strip mall. This is actually a pretty cool little story. Old guy, he's 90-something years old. He owned it. He managed it and he was a big Philoff Eagles fan. So me and him would talk back and forth. We got into a little dispute because he was an old timer and he was like,

give me a hard time with doing his snow plowing. And he like wanted to pick and choose when he wanted to do his snow plowing. And this is an important lesson because people do this way too fast. Instead of writing the guy off, I just said, hey, I'm not your plow guy. No worries. So didn't really talk to him much after that. but I wrote him a letter saying, hey, I own the properties next door. If you're ever in the point where you want to sell this thing, like, keep this letter in your file and like, call me.

And go birds because I knew he's a big Eagles fan. So the Eagles won the Super Bowl this past year. And sure enough, I get a phone call from one of his daughters, the guy had passed away. They say, hey, we have this letter here. My dad said to keep it, you know, we'll sell it to you. So it worked out great. So I'm able to, my wife and I're going to buy this strip mall. And it actually so connects all of our.

properties. It's really cool. That's amazing. Yeah. Is it a good price that you're buying it for? Yeah, it's a good price. So I had some, a friend of mine already offered to just add 50 grand to the contract to buy it. So I'm like, okay, that makes me feel better. It's always good when you get one of those. No, thank you, but thank you. Yeah. Yeah. No, thank you, but thank you. Exactly. What is your end goal? Like, do you have a number? Do you have, I mean, I know you, you love what you do, but what's the big, like, goal or number in your mind? Pick picture. I'm more of a time guy You know, I will actually tell you

There's definitely people who wake way more money than I do I don't know if you can find anyone who has the time I do Which I value that a lot So definitely working on my golf game You're trying to improve that Like that's something that I would be working on And it's funny That's an honest answer

Like broad picture I'm like I'm pretty good You know money wise And less than something that could really move the needle Right I'm not I don't care about 10 grand You know

It doesn't move the needle Or I even tell people like, if you sold something for a million dollars, like, unfortunately, a million is, if a million, if you think a million is a lot of money, then like you need to listen to some more podcast because it's like it's not enough. You know, maybe if you're 80, yeah, sure, a million sounds great if you're 80. But like, you need to have a bunch more money or I'm a big cash flow guys. So, yeah, as long as the cash flow is really strong, then you could do a bunch of fun stuff and like still have time to do things. So I've always focused on making sure my cash flow was good. So I can go play golf tomorrow morning and work on that. But as far as I hate to say that too,

am I getting complacent? Like I've built a pretty good life. And I definitely do. I had my times where I was like power washing 20 of 24 hours a day. You know, I would work all day doing sales and then like go power wash a Walmart at midnight because we're learning how to do Walmarts, you know. So I've done it. And I'm not sure if like, as you know,

of kids. He gets this point, like, man, have a good time hang on my kids. So I really want to, there's always like a give or take. Like, adding something to your play is taking away from someone else's, you know, time. And I'm not sure if I'm at the dad level. I'm like, you know what? I have it pretty good. Like, don't mess it up. Yeah. I like that. Would you rather own one company doing five million bucks at a 25% margin or five companies doing a million bucks at a 40% margin? I don't even really know if I heard the margins part of it, but I'd really have five companies that goes back to these guys who are like, oh, I'm doing five million next year. I'm like, do you don't do one million this year?

But my point in saying that is I am the type of person like I don't hold on to anything. Like there could be any given moment where one of my gyms could get put out of business or my power washing business could go out of business. I don't know. I just like operate like things are so fragile. I rather have five businesses so that like if a TikTok wave of power washers comes up, all good. I put roofs on, you know, or like I have gyms. So, yeah, one business, actually my friend, he was looking to buy a business. This is actually a really cool story for those who are looking to buy businesses.

He was going to buy a business that helped with servicing passports for Italy. And this, man, this company looks so good on paper. Like, I was like, wow. Like, you're talking like, the price to profit ratio was awesome. He ends up, it doesn't work out. He didn't get it. He got something else. But six months later, big and,

announcement, Italian government, stopping the passports. They knew something that he didn't know. Yeah, they do something they do. So they were unloading this thing because someone in the Italian government was like, yo, there is a bill coming, something's changing, and dude, their numbers got crushed. So yeah, that's one business that was doing outrageous margins that you were just talking about. And guess what? They might not be a business next year.

That was unreal. Like, that's a true live story. happened in the past six months. That's such a good story. It reminds me at Breaking Bad when Walter White wanted to buy that car wash. So he like he got the EPA on the owner and had them send like a warning that they were leaching chemicals. And then he went in to buy the to buy the car wash. That's yeah. That's a great move. But reality is like that stuff happens. And so yeah, to answer your question, no brain or five companies. All right. Last question. I want to be respectful of your time. What's your playbook for turning?

a truck and a phone into a sellable asset that's just cash flowing nicely. What's the 80-20 of using a truck and a phone in the home service business is nothing else to just cash flow 10 grand a month. Free cash flow. You're saying

identify a service? No, no, just a playbook, like a launch playbook. Oh, launch playbook, launch playbook. Okay, oh, oh, any service. Any service, yeah. Like the rocks, like the rocks in the bags, stuff like that. This is my specialty. And before, I forget, because I will forget, forgetting three things.

We're going to talk about our religious comment later on. But I want to make sure that anyone who listens to that, I'm not sure, do you have a Q&A? Yeah. Oh, we can do a Q&A. I do Q&As every Friday, actually. So let's do it. You're welcome to one. If anyone has any questions, it'd be cool to like, or if anyone has any of this, you know, goes out.

The playbook is actually stolen. I'm not sure if we talked about this last time. I thought we did is I literally took Cutco's book and opened it up. tell you about this? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. So you sold for Cutco, right? I sold for Cutco. And the playbook is steal the playbook. Like look at what they're doing like on that playbook and then model after that playbook. So that's number one. Number two is we have to market. So we have to have a website, steal whatever you can, then go to marketing because I think that's the number one most important thing. It's very easy to do the service you're doing. That's why you chose it because

you are skilled at it or you know what you're doing. No problem. But you probably suck at marketing. We have a professionally designed logo and name. Like someone, I mentioned, I blew up names on Twitter and then someone sent me the funniest video ever. That was like a skit where everyone's just like bashing the most generic names you can think of. You would love this video. It was hilarious. They're like, oh, do you do quality work? The guy's like, yeah.

He's like, okay, we're saying your company quality. Yeah, like that was how like. Tell AmeriCorps. So funny. So get rid of. Quality innovations. Get rid of, we have a good name. I'm not.

I want your initials. You know, I don't want Joe. I want a good thought-out name and then a logo. And then as far as marketing, yeah, I always said, I'm a cheap guy. I should say that. I'm smart with my money, guys. So, like, I have no problem spending money on my family and friends and doing stuff like that.

That's okay. I'm not cheap at all the goods that. I'm cheap when it comes to marketing. Like, I personally hate Facebook ads. Google ads, waste of money. Facebook ads, waste of money. They're way too expensive for your dollar. you want to get a rock flyer you have bag rock card put it in there because you know exactly who

your customer is and then this is also i'm gonna i have to bake a noodle quickly here this one threw me off i always thought you had to throw the flyer to the dirty houses like for power washing like oh that's a dirty house they need our service it's actually not true at all like the clean house gets power washed more often than the dirty house does yep that's why it's clean yeah that's why it's clean on camera i have such bad like memory terms of like if we talked about or not did we talk about the for breeze no we talked about targeting neighborhoods with the rock flyers but not nothing about for for brees it's the power of habit i believe charles do ike is the book okay if you've never read it the oh my god this literally like we're talking it might be the most important thing i've ever

read my life in the power of habit they study for breeze and the they were calling for Frize, the billion-dollar bust. They spent a billion dollars making Fribes. It was the best product ever made. They've had nothing like it ever. And people at a private gamble. They gave it to this lady who was like a wildlife rescue lady. So she's like, I can't go on any dates.

I stink all the time. And they're like, perfect. They gave her Fibreze. She sprayed the Fabrease, you know, over her house, clothes, whatever. She said, oh, my God, like, this is amazing. They come back a month later. Guess what? She's got the entire bottle.

there, never used it. And these people are like, whoa, like, what's going on here? Like, we just answered your problem. Like, you stink. Here's for Breeze. Problem solved. Doesn't use it. They have a garbage ban. Same thing. Stinks. You know, no big deal. Hey, we got you solved. Give this lady. They get this garbage band a bottle. Come back a month later, full bottle. And now they're like, we're in trouble. Like, these people are like, they're not using our product. So they give it to a house lady you're cleaning you know just a almost say type a type person and within like two weeks of bottles empty and they're like oh my god like that our customer is the person who stinks our customer is the person who wants fresh and dude like it when i realized like that i'm like that blew my

mind because that's power washing like your your customer is not the dirtiest house on the street your customer is the cleanest house on the street and that's a perfect segue into the answer of your question is like you need to identify your customer like it is your job like not i don't care what you want i would care what your customer wants yeah it's funny because i i feel like i've heard that story and i feel like there's another part to it on how they marketed febrize like isn't there like another part of that story where in the beginning they were like it makes yourself smell good and then they kind of changed how they described it does that sound familiar I need to ask Chad JPM.

I'm 90% sure it's power of habit and Charles Zuhay, but I definitely go to the Fabriz story and I just, or I took an iTunes U course on Yale, the guys like, human memory is so bad we forget everything, like, don't believe anything I say. And it was unbelievable. It's true. It was amazing. The end of the course, the professor, like after like 12 weeks was like, don't believe me.

I might be wrong too. It was really cool. Okay. So I found it. It's, they used to pitch. Fabriz by saying get rid of tough odors. You think about how people work too. Like if you have a cat lady house, it doesn't smell bad to you. You live in it. If a stranger walks in, they're like, holy crap, that's just how our bodies work, right? Yep. So when they change it from get rid of tough

odors, because people didn't think they had smelly houses. They thought their house was fine. They changed it to finish your clean with Fabriz, which goes into what you said. They had they tied it into a habit loop, right? Which is more human psychology. To build a habit, we need to tie it to something else. yeah that was in the book the lady was she made her bed and she just gave it like a sprits yeah that's what they that's what they said in the book like that was the person who used for braised like crazy loved it yeah it was amazing yeah it was a really that that's a really good dude i i read that i was like that's so good because it makes you think about marketing in in a certain way too like who your customer is and if you want to be successful with a truck and

a phone i don't care about the truck technically yeah i have to go at one level my roofing company I mean, like, we don't have a truck, you know, like we only have the phone because we're just marketing, right? And if you know how to mark you, you could do anything. And you sub about all your work in the roofing of them? Yeah, sub about the work, yeah. So you don't even need the truck, just, but you know marketing. So if you want to be good at business, no marketing, which goes back to no psychology. This is so good, Daniel, you don't disappoint.

Where can people find you? Yeah, Twitter's at Daniel Kronauer on Twitter. And then LinkedIn is also as great. Yeah, both are good there. All right, what did you think? Please share it with a friend and we'll see you next time on the Kerner office.