← Fullerton Unfiltered
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Yeah, it's true. Brian's got a discount code for just about everything you need to run your business smarter and save serious money. Use promo code Brian's10 with our trusted partners like LeanScaper, CycleCPA, iotsotunes, Cujo Equipment, Defender, Proven Locks, Ballard Industries, and many more. Check the podcast description for the full list of partners and links and use Brian's 10 to start saving today.
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You're now listening to the Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast. Straightforward, no nonsense business advice, completely on filtered. Grow your business, grow your life. Now here's your host, Brian Fullerton. Hey, what's going on, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast. It's your host, Brian Fullerton here hanging with you guys. I got the cough. Good morning. Today's podcast episode. I wanted to keep it fun and light hearted and just kind of wind down the week with maybe a quick 10 or 15 minute show. This one, I'm gonna do my best to deliver a fun message here and hopefully it comes out and comes across sincere and not hypercritical or too humorous in nature where I'm poking fun and maybe ruffling feathers. I wanted to talk about corporate America, Corporate America speak and maybe maybe just talk for a couple of quick minutes about how to get proposals and quotes and messages and conversations over the finish line for folks that work in corporate America. The reason I want to talk about this for a little bit is think about it like this. We're out there in the field, we're blue collar, we're cutting grass, we're plowing snow. And all we see sometimes is all we see. All we see is all we know. All we know is all we see. And for us, that's doing the work. As you guys have continued to grow a bigger business, there is, there is a whole other element. There's a whole nother world, right, that exists. It's corporate America. It's white collar, it's the corporate bureaucracy. And what I would encourage you to do is to learn how that game is played as well. Not just how to do the work and the skill set and, you know, sales and leadership, hiring and firing and getting things done. But there's a, an entirely synonymous or an entirely adjacent conversation that also needs to happen along the way about how to learn and communicate with corporate America. Now, one thing, I'll just say, I, I don't have it all figured out. In fact, the, the more I grow into this mindset and skill set and dip my toes into that world, the more I Want to literally shoot myself in the fricking head. I'm not, not gonna lie. It's. It's ridiculous. Things like, hey, I'm so great that you brought that up. Let's circle back and we'll regroup and we'll, you know, double down and focus on that new one, you know, for that conversation. Right. Like, the memes lately have been really, really funny. It's like, hey, working my whole life a way to improve shareholder equity or shareholder value. Right? Or, you know, we're really about to. We're excited about this product launch, and we're. We can't wait to launch in Q1. And if we don't launch in Q1, we'll have to, you know, expand our bandwidth to launch in Q2. There's. There's guys and gals that make meme pages about this all day. One of the guys is the. The private equity guy. I don't know if you guys have ever seen the guy. I'm trying to think of his name. I. I saw his page earlier. I wrote it down. Let me see if I can bring it up. It might be Johnny Partridge, if that's right. The. The PE Guy. If you've never watched the PE Guy, shout out to the PE Guy. Johnny Free. Shout out. The fully unfiltered podcast. But he's freaking hilarious. His page is huge. He's always, like, got a polo on and, like, this, like, weird, like, you know, face that he makes and goes, oh, yeah, yeah, no, like, my. My family and I were going to the Hamptons, obviously. It's our. It's our third home. And, yeah, of course we're gonna go. I'll play polo. And. Yeah, no, we're bringing the nanny, and we're bringing the maid in the house. House help, of course, you know, because, you know, we're not. We're not broke, you know, or whatever. Like, dude, his skits are so funny. Because it's such a real, like, meme or playoff of, like, what corporate America really freaking is behind the scenes now. Why is this relevant? Why is this important? Like, why. Why would I do a podcast episode on this? Well, whether you like it or not, in many cases, these are the people making the decision on your contract. Right. It's not necessarily me and, you know, the decision maker or you and the decision maker exclusively. Right. Usually that's getting run up the chain of command, and there's somebody that's very entrenched in the corporate bureaucracy in corporate America that's going to be making those decisions. About whether or not to go with your contract. And as funny as it is, and again, and I don't mean any disrespect, I'm not, you know, pitting one side against the other, right? But there, there is a language to the side of corporate America and I don't have a playbook or a script for you to follow other than utilize Claude or chat GPT or Lana or whoever, whatever you're using to polish up the language that you use in your emails and eventually in your phone calls to those contacts to be able to communicate better with those folks to get the end goal, the end result. Assigned frickin deal, right? Assigned contract, winning a bid. And although it's like super funny and super comical and you're like, dude, I just got out of corporate America. Some of you guys listen to the show. You're like, I'm looking to start a lawn care business. I don't want to deal with that world ever again. Look, I'm with you. I 100% respect that. It's so weird. Like I was in restaurants at Little Caesars and I was on Front Line dude. Like I was baking pizzas and you know, rolling breadsticks and doing the deal. Then I became a store manager and every other week I had to go to the Fox theater building down in Detroit. And I was around suits and ties, I was around sport co khaki pant folks. I'm in there with like, you know, my khaki pants at the, you know, the store level that all had grease stains and dough rolling stains on them and my black and orange, you know, T shirt that was made out of literally burlap. Right? And all of that was what I was wearing there. But as you are walking by, oh hey, that's an illage or that's an illich family. That's a niece and nephew, cousin, somebody in the six degrees of separation, family circle, family circle of trust. And it was just weird. And so I'm in this meeting and they're like talking to all these P Ls and net profit, gross margin. I'm like, I don't even know how to spell pizza, let alone what's an ebitda. But I was there and dude, it was a different language. I worked at trugreen. I'm in the field, I'm nuking weeds, I'm nuking lawns. I'm nuking lawns and weeds at the same time because I'm efficient. Just kidding. Sorta. But while I'm there, they're doing Training and they're like revenue production and gross margin and you know, customer satisfaction and net promoter score. And I'm like, dude, I don't know what the hell you guys are talking about. And then as again, I continue to do social media, you know, out there cutting grass, doing snow, doing the deal, right? Just like you guys, running a little rinky dink business, just trying to make my little slice of it happen in, in the world. And on the back end, you know, I'm talking to brands and sponsorships and affiliate deals and they're like, hey, so what's your conversion ratio? What's, what's your click through rate? What's your, what's your. And I'm like, dude, I, I don't even know what you're talking about. I don't even know what you mean. And although it sounds like you don't want to participate in that world and you don't want to become the thing that you're leaving or, you know, like Batman Begins or whatever with two face, right? Like you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain. Like my wife and I was literally on a phone call the other day inking a deal. I closed a $10,000 deal. And then I had another great big conversation that I was having. And my wife goes, she goes, you're too good at that. And I go, at what? And she's like laughing. She goes, being corporate America. I go, I know, dude, I've come, I've become the thing I swore to destroy and not destroy corporate America. But like this rigid corporate pantsuit court, you know, khaki suit, you know, khaki pant, corporate suit wearing dude. But here's the deal. I'm not saying you're here to schmooze. I'm not here to say you're trying to be a chameleon or anything like that, or, you know, you're trying to get one over anybody. Nothing from nothing, farthest from the truth. What I'm saying is you have to figure out how to connect with folks like this because they have the purse strings, right? And when you're talking to a customer and you're like, hey, hey, Jamie, just checking in. Any chance you wanted to give us the approval for the contract? You're like, what's wrong with that? There's, you know, like, that's, that's just me checking in. You said, hey, Jamie wanted to check in. Did you guys, you know, want to give us the long contract and you don't get the contract a day A week, you know, a month later, and you go, well, I don't know what the heck is going on. Like, why, why or how could that be? Instead, if you said to Jamie, hey, Jamie, you just said Jamie, comma, checking in with with you and the team. Hope everybody is doing well. Wanted to circle back to see if you guys had came to a decision about the lawn care contract. Our team is going to be mobilizing and deploying next week. We're finalizing our routes and we didn't want to let your site fall through the cracks. Let me know if you're interested in giving us an approval and if so, we can get you added to the route immediately. And there's a subtle, like, authority, the subtle urgency, right? There's a big difference with the way corporate America thinks and speaks versus the way that we do in the field. The whole like, hey, just checking in or hey, Jamie, or hey, Tommy, they don't say that. They go, bill, comma project is complete. Looking forward to our Zoom at 2. And it's just an info pass. It's like, suck the soul audio. And you're too kind and you're too friendly, right? And a lot of this, you just learn along the way. This doesn't. There's no class at this for 16 years old, 18 years old. You don't learn this in middle school, high school. You barely learn this in college. In college, you learn to write resumes and your resume goes in the trash can. Nobody cares about your stupid resume. 90% of the jobs you're going to get are going to be because of a personal contact, somebody opening the door and building that relationship and letting you in. And by the way, same thing with your long care business, with a lot of your relationship building, with a lot of the contracts you're going to earn. It's from relationship building and networking. Yes, you can walk in and cold call and do the deal, but then you have to learn how to build immediate rapport, how to be known. People do business with, business with people that they know like and trust. That's a skill set that is a going from a complete stranger off the street to being a trusted partner that they can rely on is a giant skill set. You know, one thing I had written down here, they're subconsciously thinking when you're walking in or emailing them, right? We're like, oh, we're excited about cutting the grass, we're excited about plowing the snow. And what they're looking at, what they're gauging, what they're measuring and they're testing for is, will this guy make me look good or make me look bad? Like, is he organized? Can I trust him without babysitting? Does he understand the expectations that we have for our site and for our property? Right. You're selling confidence. You're not selling cutting grass. Does that make sense? And so you have to like, bridge the gap between contractor talk and corporate America talk. You can't just say, hey, I'll take care of the lawn and I'm going to go cut the lawn and we're going to be here for you. You can say, hey, we provide consistent site management to maintain curb appeal and reduce tenant complaints. Hey, you know, your email and your contact and you're like, what's different? You know, what happened to the last guy? Well, the reason we're different is because we show up every week. You. You show up every week. Instead say, hey, we operate on a schedule and a service program with documented visits and quality control checks. You're like Fullerton. There's no way there's that much nuance in what we're doing, what we're saying that's going to, you know, eventually get this over the finish line. I'm telling you. I'm telling you. When people like, I can't get commercial sites or I'm closing 1 in 5, 1 in 10, 1 in 20, it's not because you don't cut grass well. It's not because you don't plow snow well. It's because the way you're talking and communicating doesn't exude or breed confidence. Right? You sound like amateur hour. You sound like a rookie. And I did for a long time as well. Just so we're hyper clear. But you don't have to these days when you can use AI chat. Claude, Pick your AI of choice and have it sound more polished, more robust, even. Even more callous, even more cold. Right? You can still build a great friendship and relationship via email, but the whole, like, excite, too excited kind of, you know, feeling vibe, that's a turn off when you're emailing somebody in corporate America, in my humble opinion, saying, we do snow plowing. So what? Like, everybody does snow plowing. We provide risk managed snow and ice services to reduce slip and fall exposure. When you're in a meeting with somebody and it's nervous, it's intimidating, maybe in person or on the phone, you don't know how to sound this way. So here's a quick tip and here's a quick crutch. Stop talking to these people over the phone. If you're 19 and you don't know how to talk to your dad or your dad's friends, right, his peer group of 45 to 55 year olds that are making 80 to a $200,000 that are decision makers in whatever way, shape or form for properties, real estate, you know, facilities, industrial plants, then do your best to communicate all this via email. It's the same conversation. Like, I don't know how to bid in person and like get a price right. And I always end up lowballing myself or forgetting something. Then don't bid in person. Just say, hey, look, there's a lot going on here. I want to make sure I get you an accurate price. Let me circle back within 48 hours and I'll have something on your desk by Thursday morning at 9am and we can follow up from there and see where the conversation goes. Fair enough. Fair enough versus, I don't know, 60 bucks, what do you think? They go 60, I was thinking 45, you go, yeah, no, that's cool. I'll just do it for 45, right? So if that's how you are at 16, 19, 20, 25, 28 years old, folks, trust me, I get it, totally fine. Just don't do it. Give yourself an out and stiff arm. Use the phone, use the email if you have to. Eventually you do need to master that skill, but don't feel like you have to do it on day one. Again, there's a big difference between translating contractor talk to talking and convincing and communicating the corporate America talk, right? You're not just looking for work, lawn or snow, you're looking to offer solutions to problems. Does that make sense? And so it's kind of funny. The funniest way to really talk about it is to go watch some of these folks that mimic or meme corporate America speak. Hey, we need to take the. I sent. There's actually a couple of buddies of mine in corporate America at some of the companies I get to work with and I'll send them some of these videos because they're just funny because when you're having a conversation in corporate America, they're like, hey, why don't we take this offline? That's code for I'm really glad that you brought that up. I'm going to MDK you and we need to stop talking about this because you're embarrassing me. Right? We need to circle back and follow up, right? All this kind of stuff, there's just a different language out there. And so I Send it to a lot of friends and a lot of people, go figure, send this stuff to me. Because folks, it's like when you're, when you're talking to a one friend group or peer group and that income level or that thought process level is one tier, you're not talking, you know, Chinese to American and American to Chinese, right? American to American, Spanish to Spanish, Chinese to Chinese, right? In that different environment, like, kind, like so. And again, how I talk to my guys in the field day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute, isn't how I'm communicating via email to a corporate contact and a lady who's 47 years old who's got an MBA and she's looking to be the decision maker on $30,000 worth of lawn and snow service for their plant. Does that make sense? You don't say things like, bro, you don't say things like, you know what I'm saying? There's a different level of speak that goes into it. I'll just tell you, like all the parody videos, they're so true and they're so real. But I'll just tell you, like, there is such an opportunity here as well. Like, here's the upside, here's the last thing I'll say. Just a funny, different kind of a show that I wanted to leave you guys with today. Some food for thought is the person who communicates most effectively is going to win long term. I will assure you. It's not because you mow better exclusively. It's not because you do snow better exclusively. It's because of that relationship you're going to build. And the better. You can talk via email or on the phone or in person and exude confidence and have that person have confidence in you to get the job done. You will open up so many doors and so many opportunities, it's not even funny. And by the way, corporate America commercial accounts is one conversation. High end residential design build. Totally different language, totally different dialect, right? Than the way you're going to talk to corporate America. If you say circle back, follow up at a residential customer for somebody doing a $8,000 patio, they're going to be like, dude, what are you talking about? This guy is so highbrow. But if you go and do a $300,000 backyard landscape design, build, install project and you don't communicate because that person's probably too high net worth income. You know, individuals both making, you know, six figures plus and they're going to drop, you know, multi six figures in their backyard. That is how they Talk, that is what they say and you do need to mirror that. And again, I don't care if you're 18 or 38, if you communicate the best that way to those folks, you have that much better of a chance of signing the deal and getting the job on your schedule. Right? Again, think about it. Let me just zoom out and give you the best last analogy I can give you here. If you're walking in and you're, you know, 19 year old kid bro and Jason Crowley walks in and he's 46 and he can sell the high net worth clients, he is a high net worth individual and he's got a tucked in polo, he's wearing Lacoste, he's wearing, you know, whatever nice shoes he's wearing. Some know a white belt, you know, from the golf course, some Travis Matthew. And you're walking in there with your brunt boots, your khaki pants and sling back, you know, T shirt, you know, high viz T shirt. Because you just got off the job site. Like, do you see the, the, the polarization here? And so the way you look, the way you dress, the way you speak, all of this weighs in. And a lot of you guys know this. I'm not here to tell you anything you don't know. I'm just here to bring it to the forefront of your mind and just have a different conversation with you guys and a lighthearted conversation with you guys as we tail, go into the tail end of the week and wrap things up. I just thought it was funny. It's been a podcast topic on my mind. I wanna, I'm trying to pull some podcast topics and thoughts that are wildly different than everything that we're talking about week after week and everybody else is talking about week after week. You got to grow, you got to scale, you got to get an element, you got to get on cycle, you got to go to Leanscaper, you got to, you got to think big. No shit, dude. Like it's the same fricking podcast every week for the last 30 episodes for every show on planet Earth. Okay? So that being said, let's talk about Monday show. Monday show is a lot really good. Like the price of always being on today's topic a little bit different. Like let's have fun, let's lighten up, let's start out talk corporate America. My wife again, just the funny last thing I'll say. A couple days ago my wife goes, you're just so good at it now. Like you're just, dude, you're, you're like one of them, like, who are you anymore? I'm like, dude, I'm just selling, bro. Like I know how these people think. I know how they work. I'm not schmoozing, I'm not over promising and under delivering none of the above. I just know like I have to deliver, I have to perform. It's very high performance. It's very critical, the work that we're doing and the conversations that we're having. But it's funny because it's just like a different language out there, right? When you go to a dinner after party with different folks and different brands and different companies, they just act a different way than if you and me went to hang out with our guys or our bros or your brother or your cousins. You know what I mean? There's just a different way that people act and talked. And so you're not going to learn this at 16, 18, 19 years old. Do your best utilize, chat, utilize the phone, right? You will have to learn this through your 20s and in your 30s. And by the way, for some of you guys that are 35, leaving corporate America, dude, you're like, I'm leaving that environment. Flush it, burn it to the ground, burn the system down, dude, I'm with you. Except, except let's just not lose that skill set that you learned about living in corporate America land for 15 years. Because the next person that you're going to shoot an email off to is going to be a property manager that is doing the role or the job that you just left or in the same organization, right? Corporate America, bureaucracy. And that's how those people communicate. So don't just throw the baby out with the bathwater and say, man, Look, I wasted 15 years in corporate America. All these kids, they have it all figured out, okay? They have a little bit of a leg up. Maybe they have some different work ethic and some different exposure and experience, but they don't know how to talk corporate America. Like you that just left there as a 12 year long, you know, veteran engineer, mechanical engineer, working at Bosch. And now you want to start a landscaping company and you know, double, triple your salary in 48 to 60 months, which you absolutely will and can do. Like those conversations are just is relevant. So don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Take what you learned. Take the organization, take the supply chain, take all the spreadsheet, conversation and mindset, dump that into your business and grow a real business. And I'm telling you, that is going to be the, the pixie dust and the Secret sauce. It's going to allow you to absolutely exponentially grow your lot of landscaping business. All right, that's what I got for you on today's show. We're going to taper the week with that. It's a fun conversation. Please go find the private equity guy, type in PE guy on Facebook or Instagram, let him know Brian's Law Maintenance. And yeah, he's probably got like 3 million followers or something now. I don't even know Johnny Hilbrandt Partridge, if that's the, the right name. But I love watching this stuff because by the way, like, I, I learned literally like what the hell else is out there? He's like, oh, we were in the Hamptons in St. Barth. And I'm like googling Saint bars. Oh, well, you went to, you know, the Hamptons in here and. Oh yeah, no, we went to, you know, Victor's Victor Steakhouse. And I'm like, googling Victor's Steakhouse. I'm like, dude, I'm getting like cultured by this dude name dropping things and places and brands and clothes and cars and watches and things that I've never even heard of. Little Midwest blue collar Brian's on maintenance that grew up on a dirt road, Peters Road in Milford, Michigan. You know, at a 500 square foot apartment and then a double wide trailer with a single mom and three kids. I've never even heard of these places, seen these places. I don't even know where they're at, on a map, let alone what country, let alone what time zone they're in, you know what I mean? And so I, I love eating that stuff up. I don't know why. It's not like I'm trying to get to the other side of the tracks, if you know what I'm saying. But it is funny being a chameleon, being able to participate in both sides. I can sit in first class and hang with my and, and hang and hold my own. And I can sit and row 46F with my three screaming kids as we go down to Disney and relate to other parents that are just sucking wind, doing it for the memories. To go to, you know, Disney and to go see Mickey freaking Mouse. You know what I'm saying? I can sit in first class and go, oh, yes, this is a Bell and Ross. No, I didn't buy this. This was gifted to me by one of my business associates because we made a bet. Give me some Miss Vicky's chips, you bastard. And my free coke. Just kidding. But anyway, if you can network with the front of the plane, and you can make friends and network with the back of the plane. I'll tell you what, you can write your own paycheck as you sail through this thing called life. All right, Fullerton's losing it. It's the end of the week, man. Uh, it's been a busy week. Pencils down. The guys mowed everything. Every job is done. Everything is complete. So proud of the team. First week roll out. Only 27 more weeks to go. Is it snowing yet? We ready for snow? I'm just kidding. No, no, we're not ready for snow. All right, that's what I got for you guys. Last but not least, SOP Bundle launched yesterday. If you got it, there's a bunch of you that have it. Check it out. 70 freaking videos and documents now. 70 videos. Like another 50 documents. An endless supply of stuff for you to burn your brain out over the next couple of days and weeks to give to your team and give to your va. Telling you what, folks, it's here, it's there, it's awesome. And we're so excited to launch that big news. Big exciting conversation. Check it out. SOP bundle. Entrepreneur academy.com. 999 bucks. No discounts, no codes. We're not raising the rate on this thing. Like, folks, check it out. It is awesome. And if you're looking to grow and scale, that's where it's at. Check it out. Launchpreneuracademy.com store and that's what I got for you guys today. All right, over and out, guys. Have a great Friday. Have a great weekend. We'll be back here on Monday. Can't wait to see you then. And we'll catch up with you guys here on the next one.
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Thanks for taking the time to listen to the Fullerton Unfiltered podcast with Bryan Fullerton. We hope you enjoyed this production. If so, please consider leaving us a five star review for the show. While the techniques and ideas presented here are designed to help you grow a more successful and profitable business, no one can guarantee these results for you. We want to emphasize that entrepreneurship is not easy, and the ideas presented here are just the opinions of Brian Fullerton and his respective guests. No one can guarantee success for you. That being said, we hope the ideas presented here help you and motivate you to go on out there and crush it with your own business.
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Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast.
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Thanks for listening and we hope to see you on the next episode.
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This has been a Bryan Fullerton and Mr. Producer Production.