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HVAC Masters of the Hustle
Episode #298- Andrew Palosi- Data Cube
00:42:39
HVAC Masters Of The Hustle would like to welcome Andrew Palosi into the Hot Seat on episode 298. Jdub Does alot of onsites and one of the coolest Technologies that i see at companies being used is called Data Cube. Andrew has created a software that...
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This is H Vac Masters of the Hustle with your host, Jacob Moneymaker.
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Looking at the city like I already own it.
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Is up. You are listening to H Vac Masters of the Hustle podcast. And here's your host, Jada Moneymaker. And welcome to episode 298. And man, let me tell you, I am so excited for the new year, new opportunity. January, baby. I'm ready for the quarter. I'm ready for the ventures. I am ready for the obstacles, the challenges, whatever is in my in 2025. Y'all better watch out. And I'm excited because this podcast is also brought to you by Nuva Thermostat, which is the thermostat made by the contractor for the contractor. You talk about personal branding, retaining your customer client base. So who doesn't take them? That's right. Your competitors don't take them. If y'all want to sign up for a Nuva call, you could reach out to myself, you could reach out to the nuva team at jdub@h vac masters of the hustle.com and man, I got a great episode for you all. I am pumped. I am fired up for this one because as I've been traveling and training all across the nation, from California to New York, I get the opportunity to go into hundreds and thousands of companies in the last six years. And one thing that I find really unique at some of the companies that I go to is they have a software that they use, which we'll talk about, and I think it's game changer in the company. So y'all want to make sure you share this episode? Smash the share button and let's welcome our guests on two ep or on episode 298, Mr. Andrew Policy. Let's go ahead and give him a big hand. So, Andrew, real quick, for all my listeners that don't know what you've done, you created a software called Data Cube, which we'll talk about in a second. Before we get into all the good, exciting stuff, tell the listeners a little bit about yourself. Because first off, you've helped make a big splash in the trades of H Vac, or just the trades in general.
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Try to.
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Right.
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I think that I have a background initially in radio sales. Born and raised in Texas, moved out to Southern California to chase a girl that was now my wife of 21 years and so out of Southern California now, but have always loved to create.
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Right.
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Like that's it's above my desk. And advertising gives you the ability to create something tomorrow that doesn't exist today. So was in radio sales and management for a few years and then started the agency ad leverage about 17 years ago and then just continue to progress with the times. And Data Cube was a product that we built out of real necessity for one of our enterprise level clients that couldn't find a way to get it done and needed something that was going to help their business that was growing at an, at a crazy pace. I think a record breaking pace. Something the industry had never really seen before over at NextGen. And they needed to keep a pulse on, you know, which technicians were performing and which weren't and which salespeople were performing and which weren't and which CSRs were performing and which weren't. And each of those positions have different KPIs that are going to essentially tell you how they're doing.
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Right.
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And so we developed it to be able to be tracked in real time and for it to all be automated and for it to not be a crazy lift from the business owner and just to give them the data that they need from several different platforms to know who's working out and who's making the company money or costing the company money is what it came down to. So luckily we had some really smart people on the team that when we heard the problem were able to come together and not only make it extremely functional in that regard, Jay, but they were able to make it beautiful, which was so much pride in brand that you see these days and so much money being spent on brands. We were really proud of the fact that not only does it give you data that would take you hours or weeks to be able to put together, but that it also looks beautiful and it's something that you're proud to have in the showroom.
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Yeah, you know, one of the showrooms that, that really impressed me when we're talking about Data Cube is Jay's heating in there in North Carolina, I believe is where they're located. And I mean you walk into their training facility and they got a 12 foot wall maybe even bigger and it's just lined up with just mirror or just, I mean the whole walls. TVs. Right. And each TV is designed for tracking installers, tracking service, tracking the KPIs when it comes to your dispatchers and everything. And you know, I was just mind blown when I saw this product because it's, it's not just an amazing product, but it's a live product. Right. So as your technicians in the field or your comfort advisors in the field, it's live data that's coming in. Can you explain how that works?
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Yeah. So look, that's what we set out to do, right? Nobody wants to watch yesterday's news or read yesterday's paper. And so we knew at the onset that to have a product, it needed to be kept in real time.
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Right.
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And first off, big shout out to Jay's, I love those people. Awesome. Longtime client of Ad Leverage and Data Cube. So great people over there that run an awesome operation. But going back to your question, Jay, it's one of those things where to be able to make good decisions, you need timely data, timely information. And by the time you realize that depending on the size of the organization, it could be one person, it could be 20% of an overall department that aren't pulling their weight, man, every job is costing you money when you don't, and who's not, right? And so we definitely had to structure it in a way that we kept it in real time at the palm of your fingertips. At the palm of your, you know, in the palm of your hand rather, or the data at your fingertips. And whether you have big screen TVs or an iPhone, we wanted you to be able to have the data that's most meaningful to running a good operation in real time. So you can make those decisions on a day to day basis to pull somebody out of the field, get them the training they need, partner them with the right person, get them with the right team member. That's crushing it with your metrics that matter most to you, and be able to do those things before a little problem becomes a big problem. Because especially our high growth clients, man, little problems do become big problems. Really.
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You know, one thing that I like that, that you're hitting on is this allows you to get the data and information for those that are having challenges and struggles, right. To get them trained up. And people are employees that see that their company acknowledges stuff like that creates for me, I think, great culture within a company. So not only is this a great tool for your company, but it's also a great culture building tool as well.
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Yeah, absolutely, man. Look, there are clients of ours that tell us legitimately, people coming in on their days off to see how they finish the month against their, against their colleagues.
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Right.
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And so it's a healthy level of not only competition, but accountability for everybody.
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Right.
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Like, look, you know, we've had a lot of instances where, you know, somebody that is absolutely crushing it from a percentage of reviews tied to their job perspective.
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Right?
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That's a big one. We know that from A marketing perspective, and from an overall business perspective, reviews are like gold. And so if you've got one technician or one salesperson that's getting reviews on 80% of his jobs and another one on 23% of their jobs, hey, that guy that's getting on 80%. Stand up and teach us today.
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Exactly.
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Stand up and show us how you're doing it. Show us how you're doing what you're doing to be, you know, three or four times higher percentage of review on every job than your colleague.
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Right.
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So I think, you know, for those reasons, it really is something that just has a natural measure of accountability built in.
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One thing that I want to talk about is kind of go back a little bit. We were talking about dashboards and either putting them on screens or on your data on your phone. Right. And regardless, however you all want to roll it, what I like about it is it shows everybody. And when you talk about showing everybody's numbers and now everything's open again. Like you said, it creates competition, which is amazing. But also no one wants to be last.
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Damn right.
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Right.
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And so we have a contesting elements built in as well. So a lot of our clients are running contests consistently too.
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Right.
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And so that's a component of it. But there is absolutely a level of shame that can come with the bottom third of the pile, so to speak.
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Right.
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And so look, I think that creating a culture where that is taken as a teachable moment opposed to a shameful moment is what it's all about.
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Right.
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And so I think that is on, you know, all of us that, you know, are running, you know, sales focused or sales based organizations, which is about every business I know is looking to generate sales more effectively and efficiently. But look, calling out the guys that are doing it the right way or doing a great job with it and helping them coach up those that need it. This is all about progress over perfection.
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Right?
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That's a big saying around here. And so that's how we developed, you know, the Data Cube system. And that's what we take a lot of pride in trying to showcase day in, day out.
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One thing that I wanted to also talk about is you're talking about adding, adding Data Cube to the company, but let's say that they have different platforms because there's a lot of CRM platforms out there. Right. There's breezy, there's service tie, and there's housecall pros. I mean, I could just list more on do you work or does it integrate to all CRM programs or Is it just limited to just certain ones?
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B
Well, look, I would say that there's a new one. It feels like all the time I'm seeing something pop up and somebody asking in a group, hey, has anybody heard of this? I heard this one's great. And is anybody on it?
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Right.
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So I can't make a blanket statement that it works on all of them, but I would say that we integrate with the vast majority of the names that we know and trust.
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Right?
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So it was originally built as an enterprise level Service Titan integrated system, but we've evolved way beyond that and really tried to make the product and the platform work for operators of all sizes on all platforms. And so whether you're keeping something in the most buttoned up instance of Service Titan or you're working from Google Sheets and Excel, we're trying to show you what you need to know in real time and make it a real viable tool for your business that's customizable irrespective of where you are as a business or the tools that you're using created.
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Or when the creation of Data Cube was done, what was the biggest challenges and obstacles and hurdles, man, I would.
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Say early on it's can this be automated?
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Right.
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Thankfully, we had some brilliant people on the team at Ad Leverage that were able to figure that part of it out. And then it's how does this not look like a massive Excel spreadsheet on a big screen?
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Right?
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Because as great as that data might be to be able to house your pacing sheets or budget sheets or three day call board that looks like an Excel spreadsheet, people want more, right? People pay tens of thousands of dollars to establish new branding. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in a lot of instances to ensure it's on all of their trucks and shirts and hats and you name it, right? So it's what are we going to do to have that form meet function?
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Right?
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And so we were blessed as a team here to have very capable designers that also then once we had the kind of infrastructural backbone of the technology built, said, all right, now how are we going to customize this to make it look like something somebody wants in the showroom instead of something that's an eyesore. And so we collaborated a tremendous amount. It's literally thousands of hours between programming and design that it took to put it together. But that was the biggest thing. It's one, can we automate this to where this isn't an unbelievably cumbersome thing that takes a team to Maintain. Because that's what we see. Right? We see, like the companies that are extremely well established, some of the best known companies in the country, they may have a team of data scientists that are working on reporting and, you know, keeping these numbers as close to real time as they can, but typically, you know, a week or two out, so to speak.
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Right.
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But most people don't have that. Most contractors don't have a data science team or data analysts that are working on, you know, their data and reporting infrastructure. So how do we build something that is going to give them everything they need to run a better business without them having to worry about the data side, the data processing side, and something that they want to look at because it's a damn good representation of their brand? So that was legitimately thousands of hours in the making. But that's what we set out to do, and we're pretty proud of where the platform is and where it's going.
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Yeah, and I like the platform and I like it because it brings. You know, we watch sports all the time, and there's a big thing in sports where people have trading cards and trading cards, they have all the information, all the data, all the rankings. Right. Of this player and all the stats. And this is what we're doing, is you created a professional stat card for technicians, installers, dispatchers, sales professionals.
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Yeah. No, look, I love it. I think any. Any sports analogy I'm on board with. Right. Because, like, there's a level of healthy competition that comes along with that conversation. But look, I think at the end of the day, our feelings are just that as business owners, and I'm in the trenches every day, man. I'm, you know, working with my team and I love working with clients on how we can do better and be better. And this is what it's all about. But the data doesn't lie, and it's in real time. And you can slice it up to where, you know, somebody can shake off a bad day, but when that bad day becomes a bad week becomes a bad month, it's a different conversation. And so being able to look at it different ways, you know, and give the team the benefit of the doubt that, you know, they're humans, too, and they may have a rough day on the sales front, but their week is going to crush or their month is going to crush, sometimes you need to see that bad day as just that and say, all right, cool. Hey, it is what it is, man. We had a rough day yesterday, but yesterday doesn't define today and doesn't Define tomorrow. Short term memory, here's where. Absolutely, man. You got to have, you got to have the memory of a goldfish, right?
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Yeah, right.
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It's like, hey, let's go. It is what it is. But that's gone now. What are we going to do to take this bad day and turn it into a great week? What do we have to do step by step to take this rough moment and not let it turn into a state that's continued of a negative slide. And so a lot of it is just, it's in real time. So it is truly that teachable.
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Let me ask you a question, Andrew. What is your goals and ambition and mission with data cube for 2025?
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My brother, you and I right here talking about what it can do when given the opportunity is a really big one, right. I think that if you were to tell me that we would be able to build Data Cube as quickly and efficiently as we can today, when we set out on this project many years ago now, I would have thought that that was a dream, right? So I think that when we started Data Cube, it was an enterprise solution. It had an enterprise price tag. It was built for big companies only on Service Titan because that was the origin of the product. But we've worked really hard to be able to take the technology and bring it to the masses in a way that's affordable in a timeline that is, you know, way more aggressive than I ever would have thought possible when we first started building it.
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Right.
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I equate it to like Steve Jobs, you know, when they start, when they set out on their mission, he was like, I'm going to take everything that takes, you know, a room to do now and put it in a box this big and we're going to be able to sell it for, you know, under $1,000 or $2,000 or whatever it was at the time. And the team is like, that's impossible. Like, how is that ever going to happen? And I think that on the journey that we've been on, we've really pushed to be able to make this a solution that is within reach for the 99% opposed to the 1%. So I would say continuing to find ways to make the best practices more available to everybody that joins and make the price point and the timeline, you know, extremely desirable for those that are interested. That's a never ending process.
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Yeah, absolutely. And you know, something that I'm excited about out here in Sacramento with Royalty, Heat and Air is we get to start the onboarding process. You know, I'm So excited to be able to have this beautiful dashboard that's going to be able to give me lifetime data and information of my technicians and my royalty employees. And I guess the next question would be if a company wants to start up on Data Cube, right? What's kind of the, the outline of what that looks like for them?
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Yeah, look, I would say quite simply go to Data Cube AI. We always want to ensure that, you know, you book a demo right there on the website. We always want to make sure that we understand the ins and outs of the business. So we do a live, you know, human driven, you know, demo of the product and we want to talk about the business problems you're facing. And we do so much custom work with DataQ because everybody runs their business slightly differently, right? Or most do. So look, we've got 50 location businesses and roll ups that become the enterprise view for top management. And then we have single location, eight person total. You know, eight eight person companies that want to see, hey, our two CSRs and our one install crew and our two technicians and our one comfort advisor, how are they all doing on one screen?
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Right?
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And so it's everything from the multi location roll up view that can drill into how each location is performing but give you the top 10 KPIs for the enterprise look down to the single location, you know, six, eight, 10 person teams. And so that's a lot of the work that we've put into this point, but it starts with a demo and we want to talk to you about your business, get to know your business better, get to know your needs better and then get to know what your ideal vision would be for what would be like your dream to keep in real time. And most people, we say look, dream big, right? If they're using five or six different either platforms or the data is in three or four or five different locations between QuickBooks and Excel and Google Sheets and Service Titan or House Call Pro, whatever it is. It's like, all right, what's it take to bring all of the key components of how you know you're either performing or you're not bring them together. We build cross computations in the cloud between these platforms and then give you the data that your business needs to know you're making better decisions?
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Right.
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So I would say that it starts with a demo where we're going to dig into the business problems. Understand your ideal world of either you know, what you want to see from an individual platform or the calculation you want to see between platforms to know how efficient you're operating, we can, you know, build all of it and then, you know, build that understanding of what it would take to get it done. And then we give you a timeline and we're off to the races.
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A
Awesome. So now that we're got a good understanding of data cube and everything, the other thing that I want to roll into is something that you do very well, which is ad leverage. Can you talk about how you started ad leverage and kind of the growth of it and what you do?
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Yeah, Right on. So, you know, ad leverage. I've always had a love for helping people grow their business.
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C
Right.
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Like, it's my passion. I live it, breathe it, you know, too many hours a day. Started out of a bedroom after being a manager of a radio station here in Los Angeles at 26 years old. And it was just something that I loved helping my clients and got the bright idea to talk to them about helping them. With all media opposed to selling one station, it was a hell of a lot more appealing. And so I had that conversation with a few clients that I've been working with for a long time. I said, hey, I'm thinking about making this jump. And they said, okay, great. If you do it, we're with you. So took that leap of faith with the support of my wife and an empty bedroom in the house or a playroom at the time for the kiddos in the house, and. And that's where it started. And then, you know, as. As we, you know, were fortunate enough to grow, I think there were probably five or six of us working out of the house. And my wife said, you guys need to get the hell out of the house. Good news. I found you some office space. And this is, I don't know, 13, 14 years ago now. And then we just, you know, expanded and expanded and brought production in house and. And then all things digital slowly but surely in house as the time and the media landscapes continue to evolve. And so now it's everything from creative execution, creative ideation and execution. So we've got our own studios here and creative department here. So the initial concept of creative that we think is going to really represent the brand well, but be sticky and drive phone calls and lead opportunities at the end of the day. So it starts with the creative conversation, but then it's how does that creative flow through every single platform and every single stream?
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Right.
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So I've got a history and grew up in radio and tv, and so utilizing radio and TV very strategically still works for a lot of our clients. But the big question is at what percentage of the media mix?
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C
Right.
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It's definitely not the percentage that it used to be, but when you use them strategically and understand the purpose that they serve, they can be very effective.
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C
Right.
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So where we really shine at this stage of the game, J Dub, is what percentage of media should be going to tv and then now it's OTT and programmatic and radio and PPC and you know, paid social and SEO.
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Right.
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I don't want to spend a dollar more than necessary on any of those platforms. We really look at ourselves as an extension of our clients brand and an extension of their marketing department. Way more than a tactic agency.
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Right.
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Like we're talking big picture strategy. We're talking about creative concepts that'll flow through every single screen, flow through every single media type seamlessly. And we enable our clients to have one conversation with a group of 10 or 12 people on our side that are only focused and specialized in one platform.
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Right.
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We're not trying to be a jack of all trades, master of none. We have individualized department run by thought leaders in their space, whether it be SEO or ppc. Each department is run by a director with, you know, 10, 15, 20 years experience, depending, and that is all that department does. But when we come together to build the plan, it's what percentage should go to what platform based on the goals of the client and where the business is and the market that they're in. And no two plans, no two companies are the same. And so every single plan for us is built from scratch to be able to meet the business needs and the climate of the market they're in.
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A
Now, I know that you've done a lot of work with NextGen and everything, and a lot of people see NextGen and their massive growth across the nation. Were you able to help strategically set up that marketing plan with them to help their growth? And can you kind of explain that process?
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B
Yeah. So, you know, it's really funny, I think, you know, Ishmael initially came to us for a jingle, then started learning, you know, that we were way more than that. We're introduced through an industry colleague and we love the creative piece of it.
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C
Right?
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B
Like we have, we love to have fun and write and produce jingles. You know, I love the creative side of the business. It's a lot of fun and I love working with business owners to come up with concepts that they love for their business. And this was no different. But his struggle initially, and this is going back, you know, a lot of years, but his struggle initially was people thought it Was next gen with a T. Right. And so it's all right, well, what are we going to do for people to understand as a new business at the time? This is, this is going back to when it was relatively unknown. What are we going to do for people to understand that when they go into Google, the business that they see or hear or whatever it is on traditional media, that it is next gen, not next gen.
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C
Right.
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So, you know, the jingle was NexGen, call 8333-NEXT-GEN.
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C
Right.
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So we started with the problem and came up with a solution, a creative solution. But then it's all right, great. Now what do we do to efficiently put this everywhere? I want this thing everywhere because it's a big problem. He had enormous growth goals.
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C
Right.
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And so it's. What is the right percentage? When we started talking bigger picture goals and growth goals over years of time, you know, look, when we started Talking about doing $100 million in revenue, we're like, yeah, right, man, you're in this amount of time. That's crazy. Right. But you know, very, very quickly you understand.
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Yeah.
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That he is a very real, very serious guy as it comes to running an awesome operation and scaling the operation. A lot of people talk about it. I got all the respect in the world for Ishmael because he did it.
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A
Yeah, right.
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And he and I and the team here, I can't take credit for any of it. The team here grinded on every single media decision, digital marketing decision, brand decision, right alongside Ishmael, running an amazing operation and doing what he had to, to scale. Because without both sides, it doesn't happen.
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C
Right.
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B
So you got to have that vision, you got to have those goals. But it's tough for media to keep up. It's tough for marketing to keep up with goals like that. To go from 18 million to over 100 million in five and a half years is what we were able to do. And your media mix at 5 million or 10 million looks nothing like it needs to look to go past 20 and 50 and 100.
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C
Right.
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B
The level of diversity in media that you have to have to hit $100 million, irrespective of the amount of time you've been in business. But to do so on this fast of a track, you better be making the right decisions more often than not. You better understand where those media dollars need to be placed, the percentages that need to be on each and every platform. And then what's your expectation from these platforms?
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C
Right?
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Like that's so much of what we see that is Destined for failure from the beginning, J Dub. It's like, dude, this plan didn't stand a chance. You're way too heavy on this platform or this platform or this platform. You spent way past the efficiency on that platform.
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C
Right?
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B
So it's what are we going to do when we need to take those next steps and putting jobs on the board, those next steps of growth? What are the platforms that we need to bring into play? When do we need to bring them into play? And what does a good test look like? Right, you always have to be tested if you're going to break through and find those efficiencies at scale. And so people look at testing, it's like, oh, well, I don't want to. I don't want you to be testing with my money. And it's like, man, we're making some really educated decisions on where we should go and why. There's a lot of data behind it. But testing gets a bad rap. But it's absolutely essential, man, if you want to keep taking those next steps in growth, you better have a percentage of your budget that is always going to something new. Be smart about it. Have your good base of 80% or 85% of your well for you.
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C
Right?
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Have that good base. But over time, dude, this is a constant process of trimming the fat. Constant process.
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C
Right.
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B
It's absolutely. Dude, it is, it is. You better be paying attention. Day to day, week, month to month, we have real time capacity feeding into our slack channels. So for us, we're monitoring our clients capacity on a daily basis and we're talking about what we're going to do to effect that change every single day, how we're going to shuffle money between platforms. What's coming next based on the results that we're seeing. That's what it takes to scale. And what we see is most companies or a lot of, you know, media partners out there may not be set up for that kind of day to day, week to week attention that it takes to trim the fat really quickly and not let something that may be a bad $10,000 turn into a bad hundred thousand dollars.
- [30:34]
A
Let me ask you a question, Andrew. What is a better decision? Radio, advertisement or billboard? And the reason, the reason why I ask is because royalty, right. We started June, we're doing really well, and now it's to the point where it'd be cool to either hear my jingle on the radio or to drive past the Galleria Mall and see my billboard right there all lit up.
- [31:01]
B
Yeah, look, I think that we caution business Owners. JW said it yourself, right? Like, I'd love to hear my ad. I'd love to see my billboard. And let me guess, you want to hear it on this station because that's the station you listen to and you're a fan, right? Like, yeah, yeah. Look, we try to, you know, ask our clients not to spin with their heart, right? Because you know, what you like may not be what's best and most efficient to acquire new customers. And so I would say that I'm an old school radio guy, right? I write a ton because I love it. I voice a lot of stuff because I love it. I'll randomly sing jingles because the idea comes to me and I think it'd be awesome for a brand. So I'll just sing a jingle and send it to brands that I just think are doing cool shit because I think it'd be great for them to have it, right? So I love the radio conversation, but you can't do radio like you used to do. Radio is what it comes down to. Our clients that are doing Radio 1, it depends on the market. Every single market has a different traditional media climate, different efficiencies, different consumption. So there is not a blanket statement about radio or billboards that I will make because we go into every single market across the country locally, we have brands in the vast majority of markets across the country, right? All over the place. And when we go in and start negotiating a radio component of a buy, we're focusing in on who is that most credible AM drive jockey in the market that people still have an affinity for, that is still allowed to talk and not just introduce songs and play music, has a good local following and credibility in the market. Because what you can do, J Dub, somebody like royalty that is a newcomer to the market, you go in and partner with the right person, you steal that credibility immediately, right? Like, you become credible as royalty. Because the person that has your name in their mouth, that has their local following because they built it over decades, has immediate credibility with the audience. But now it comes down to, I'm not just running spots. J Dub, you're in the studio with that AM Drive host doing a live interview about why a tune up is necessary, why maintenance is necessary, how dangerous it is to start your system in the winter without a proper inspection. The safety components of these things. To educate the audience, that morning drive personality J Dub needs to be in that person's house walking them through the royalty tune up, the 28 point inspection, live on Facebook, live on IG, live on, on TikTok and they are a social media brand ambassador for you at this point and a community brand ambassador for you at this point. Way more than you just running some spots on a radio station. Those days are gone. If you want real results and using radio and the credibility of radio to get it. So it's a different game.
- [33:58]
A
I got another qu. I, I guess, see, now I'm gonna pick your brain with Royalty now because I have, you know, I'm not smart. I like to surround myself with smarter people than me. So being royalty, right. One thing that Sacramento has is the Sacramento Kings basketball. And so one of the play by play announcers that also has a big radio show here in Sacramento reaches out to me weekly pretty much about wanting to do a sponsorship with Royalty where we could tag Royalty and the Sacramento Kings and be on the, the radio, be like the number one for it. But that's my, that's my question to you is it's not cheap. They're asking for a significant amount of money. But my question to you is, I guess as a startup, the credibility that I would get from that, is it worth it in your eyes?
- [34:55]
B
I would say that the premium you will pay to be in sports programming with where you are as a business would not be worth it.
- [35:03]
A
Okay.
- [35:04]
C
Right.
- [35:04]
B
So look, as much as I want my clients associated with premium brands and we've done NFL deals, NBA deals, college football deals, you name it, we've worked with the biggest names in sports in the country. And so when it's the right time for the brand, I love those types of partnerships. But these aren't things that happen overnight. These need to be very strategic percentages of the overall media mix. And we need to get to a place where it's a percentage that can be dedicated to branding, that you're okay going to branding and not seeing a response for.
- [35:37]
C
Right.
- [35:38]
B
And I'd be willing to bet with the price tag that they're asking, it's probably not something that you wouldn't care about if it did nothing for you immediately.
- [35:46]
C
Right.
- [35:46]
B
Look, all brand building is good brand building, but there's a time and a place and a maturity level of the business that can afford to create these types of partnerships. And we've done a lot of them, but we don't do them until we're in a place where we're on every broadcast station in town that we want to be on that is hitting the right audience for us at a level of efficiency and cost per acquisition that makes sense for us. We've maxed out our, you know, we're running a phenomenal digital footprint that is putting the jobs we need on the board on a daily and weekly and monthly basis to where it's, hey, what are we going to do next? What is, you know, what does that look like for the brand to continue to evolve? And then we start talking about those, those sponsorships and those opportunities. You do it too early, man. It'll drive you broke, you know, and even how you execute on those partnerships and on those sponsorships makes a world of difference in what you get from it.
- [36:42]
C
Right?
- [36:42]
B
So just a broadcast environment where people would be listening to these games on the radio, man, these numbers start dwindling and dwindling and dwindling. Then you start coupling the fact that they're listening to it in a sports environment where they're engaged to the sport and what's happening in the game, not necessarily to the read that's going on in that game. Right? So there's just a time and a place for those types of things. And unless money and a thing, then those aren't recommendations that we make early on in the business's maturity.
- [37:12]
A
Well, I love the information and I mean, you're just dropping absolute gold, especially for me being a startup at Royalty, because that was something that I was contemplating. I'm like, hey, do I do it or not? But I mean, right here, I'm going to listen to the guy that's very smart with this, Mr. Andrew. And so one thing I got to ask is we talked about Data Cube, but if anyone wants to reach out for ad leverage and get signed in on that, what can they do to do a demo?
- [37:44]
B
Look, adleverage.com right? Like that's a different animal. We want to talk about where the business is. We have a platform that is called Insight that ingests all of your data, that all of the platforms that you're utilizing from a marketing perspective connect to to show you the real deal on the data within your business. And what I mean by that is we want to talk about how your platforms, your digital marketing platforms, what is actually coming from where. What is actually coming from new customer and existing customer. And so when we connect to your CRM and we take a look at how things are campaigned, we're going to audit all of that and really reverse engineer a media plan based on the goals of the business.
- [38:33]
C
Right?
- [38:34]
B
So these are things, there is no one size fits all. These are things that are, that are done with just, you know, a human interaction and conversation where we're talking about your goals and based on how your business is actually performing and what your cost per new customer acquisition actually is or what we think it should be based on, you know, the data that we're looking at. We're going to talk to you about the dollars it's going to take for you to hit your goal, right? Based on the cost to acquire a new customer, what we can expect from your existing customer base, we're gonna break all that down. Because if you fail to start there and you don't know what's coming from existing customer versus new customer and you don't know what your actual cost to acquire is on every platform that you're running on, what your actual return on ad spend, let's say in just Google, right, your branded ad spend versus your non brand ad spend, right? Like what is it costing you to get a new customer? A lot of what we see is a bunch of blended bullshit because it's super convenient for the person doing PPC to blend it all and take credit for your existing customers or, you know, whatever. It is a hodgepodge of data and that doesn't work to scale. And so, you know, we load everything into our system and we show you the real deal on your data and on your performance and we show you very methodically and strategically. Here's what we see it taking to hit the goals you're trying to hit. Because here's what it's going to cost you to get a new customer and here's what you're getting from that new customer. And so if we can't have that very aligned conversation, then we're not starting off on the right foot. So that's always where it begins.
- [40:07]
A
Andrew, I got listeners all across the nation from business owners, dispatchers, technicians, sales professionals, installers. What would you like for them to get out of this episode of H VAC Masters of the Hustle?
- [40:20]
B
I would say from my little corner of the world, personally, you know, I would say that do the right thing for us, right? Like on our side, it's we spend it like it's our money. Everybody that we interact with, it's how can we be better for you? And I think that, you know, depending on where you're trying to go with that question, Jay, I'm not sure we'll go a couple different directions with it. We have a mantra of being a student every day around here. So how can I be better? How can I serve better? How can I know more? How can I be more informed to have a better conversation tomorrow than I'M having today. And sometimes you got to have some difficult conversations and look in the mirror and take all of the responsibility for everything that is going wrong. And excuses are your absolute enemy. Excuses are death and hinder so much progress. So I take, you know, accountability and responsibility for everything that's going wrong in my life and within the organization. And it's just, how can I be better for my people and my clients and my family? How can we be better tomorrow than we were today? And then what can we do? And what can we build on the agency side, you know, and how can we be the partner that brings that accountability and brings that alignment at a fundamental level to what actually drives a business forward, is what matters to us around here and what we've spent a tremendous amount of time trying to develop, you know, both on the data cube side and the ad leverage side. How do we bring real transparency to what matters? How do we align on the things that matter to our clients? We take it very personally because we know that their families relying on them and their families are relying on them to be right more often than they're wrong. So what can we do? Who can we be? What can we build to be better for our people?
- [42:11]
A
Absolutely love it, y'all. Until next time, Andrew Absolutely dropped bombs and knowledge. Until next time, y'all. Take care.
- [42:19]
C
Late.