From Foreclosures to Fortune: Chris Yano’s No-BS Guide to Scaling a Home Services Empire #161

Summary

Podcast Summary: "From Foreclosures to Fortune: Chris Yano’s No-BS Guide to Scaling a Home Services Empire" (#161)
On The Homefront with Jeff Dudan
Release Date: March 25, 2025

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Introduction

In episode #161 of On The Homefront with Jeff Dudan, host Jeff Duden sits down with Chris Yano, the dynamic force behind Rhino Strategic Solutions. This episode delves deep into Chris’s transformative journey from overcoming financial setbacks to building a thriving home services marketing empire. Throughout their conversation, Chris shares invaluable insights on business resilience, effective marketing strategies, the importance of branding, community involvement, and maintaining strong family values.

Chris Yano’s Background and Journey

Chris Yano's story is one of relentless perseverance and strategic pivots. Growing up in a small Indiana town, Chris experienced significant hardships, including foreclosures and repossessions. These early challenges instilled in him a tenacious spirit and a deep understanding of the importance of resilience in business.

Notable Quote:
Chris reflects on his struggles, stating, “It was just part of the journey, you know, and I'm grateful that I went through all those things and had to feel those feelings.” ([05:22])

Lessons from Early Career

Chris’s early career involved selling for YellowPages.com, where he quickly learned the intricacies of lead generation and the pitfalls of relying solely on traditional marketing channels. His experience with Yellow Pages highlighted the necessity of adaptability, especially as the marketing landscape shifted from print to digital.

Notable Quote:
Discussing his tenure at YellowPages, Chris mentions, “What I learned was search engine optimization, SEO in 2004, which is like forever ago. And we started learning paid ads and all this stuff early on.” ([20:53])

Pivoting to Build Rhino Strategic Solutions

Frustrated with the declining effectiveness of print advertising and driven by his sales prowess, Chris decided to establish his own business. This pivot was fueled by his realization that he could control both the sales and execution aspects, ensuring better accountability and results.

Notable Quote:
Chris elaborates on his decision to pivot: “If I can figure out that model, I can justify either doing more or, hey, you got a booking problem.” ([20:53])

Marketing Strategies and Insights

A significant portion of the conversation centers around effective marketing strategies tailored for the home services industry. Chris emphasizes the importance of direct response marketing, lead attribution, and leveraging data to drive decisions.

Lead Attribution:
Chris explains how early adoption of lead attribution allowed his company to differentiate between legitimate leads and those that were not converting, enabling more efficient allocation of marketing resources.

Notable Quote:
“They were literally taking money off of small business owners and running some sort of big deer through the belly of the snake thing.” ([20:53])

Branding and Overcoming Challenges

Chris underscores the critical role of branding in sustaining long-term business success. He argues that while direct response marketing can drive immediate results, a strong brand foundation ensures ongoing credibility and customer loyalty.

Six P's of Marketing:
Chris introduces his comprehensive framework—the Six P's of Marketing—covering Product, Place, Price, Promotion, People (Psychology), and Personality. This model serves as a guideline for businesses to evaluate and enhance their marketing efforts across various dimensions.

Notable Quote:
“Don't make the people guess because people aren't wanting more time. They want less time to find out exactly what you do before they move on to the next person.” ([48:57])

Community Involvement and Corporate Responsibility

Both Jeff and Chris advocate for active community involvement as a means to build brand equity and foster strong team dynamics. Chris shares how Rhino Strategic Solutions engages in regular community service, which not only benefits society but also strengthens internal team bonds, reducing turnover and enhancing productivity.

Notable Quote:
Chris highlights the dual benefits of community service: “When people go and do community service together, the bond that your team creates is so strong that you minimize turnover in your business.” ([58:17])

Balancing Business and Family Values

A recurring theme in the discussion is the balance between business ambitions and family life. Chris emphasizes the importance of honesty and accountability within the family, ensuring that his children understand the value of hard work and perseverance.

Notable Quote:
“Always tell them the truth, man. Because once you lose the locker room with your kids and they know you lie to them, they will never tell you the truth again.” ([38:09])

Future of Marketing and AI

The conversation touches upon the evolving landscape of digital marketing, particularly the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Chris shares his proactive approach to integrating AI into his marketing strategies, enhancing efficiency without replacing the human element essential for maintaining client relationships.

Notable Quote:
Chris asserts, “We use AI to enhance. How can I do more with more tools to be able to move faster for my clients?” ([62:28])

Closing Thoughts and Key Takeaways

As the episode concludes, Jeff challenges Chris with hypothetical scenarios and prompts him to reflect on his core motivations. Chris shares his guiding principle inspired by Joshua 1:9, encapsulating strength, courage, and unwavering faith—qualities that have underpinned his success.

Notable Quote:
Chris’s personal mantra: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” ([69:24])

Final Insights

Chris Yano’s journey from adversity to success offers valuable lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs and business owners. His emphasis on resilience, strategic marketing, proactive adaptation to technological advancements, and maintaining strong ethical and family values provides a comprehensive blueprint for building and sustaining a successful business in the home services industry.

Notable Quotes Summary

1. Chris Yano on Reputation:
   “If you suck or if you have enough black eyes, you tarnish your reputation and you're only in this one vertical. It's game over.” ([00:03])

2. Chris Yano on Business Resilience:
   “I always pretty much just bet on myself.” ([03:35])

3. Jeff Duden on Personal Struggles:
   “When I bought out my last partner in 2004, I was $4 million in debt.” ([05:22])

4. Chris Yano on Marketing Accountability:
   “The worst thing you can do is always blame your marketing company.” ([41:52])

5. Chris Yano on Community Service and Team Bonding:
   “When people go and do community service together, the bond that your team creates is so strong that you minimize turnover in your business.” ([58:17])

6. Chris Yano’s Guiding Principle:
   “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” ([69:24])

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This episode serves as a testament to the power of resilience, strategic pivoting, and the unwavering commitment to both personal and professional growth. Listeners are left inspired by Chris Yano’s no-nonsense approach to building a successful business empire in the competitive landscape of home services.

Transcript

[Jeff Duden]

I almost got in a fistfight with a yellow page rap.

[Chris Yano]

If you suck or if you have enough black eyes, you tarnish your reputation and you're only in this one vertical. It's game over.

[Jeff Duden]

The first pivot that people make drastically is immediately precedes the second pivot when they go out of business. So when you look at the yellow pages, they had to pivot online and they're not going to go whole hog into the online strategy because they don't want to cannibalize their existing business and any faster than they have to. Hey everybody. Welcome to the home front. I'm Jeff Duden and if you grew up in a town of 313 people on a farm detasseling corn and baling hay, have been a wrestler, soccer player, a professional bull rider and an Indy car driver. If you started the business only to have two homes foreclosed upon and cars repossessed, and if you persevered through all of that and along with your wife Anna, built an industry leading marketing agency with over 180 employees, did a deal and joined the ranks of the ultra wealthy, your name can only possibly be the one, the only Crisiana. Welcome.

[Chris Yano]

That was a heck of an interest, man. Of all the intros I've ever had. That's right up there.

[Jeff Duden]

Ah, good. Well, what, you know, I take a little artistic, artistic license with it. Although before we get going, I mean, you know, before we. I want to help you out here and I'm not a marketing genius or a branding expert or anything like that, but I did notice that on your website you spelled Rhino wrong. So you might want to talk to people about that.

[Chris Yano]

It was just about attention to detail. Right. We wanted to see who's paying attention. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's not like a, you know, my last name is Yano Y A N O. When we were trying to think of creative names for the business, we kind of knew we wanted a mascot in the business and, and we went with Rhino. And I thought, well, it's boring to spell it R H I N O. So why don't we just use part of our last name and make it R Y N O, you know, so it's close to our last name. And that's really the thought that went into it. Jeff was hey, rhino's a cool animal. It's, it's tough. You know, it's a, the unicorn of the jungle, if you will. Yes. Has thick skin, you know, but always moves forward. Rhinos don't go backwards.

[Jeff Duden]

Oh.

[Chris Yano]

So right so anyway, that's kind of where it came from. That's about the, the gist of the story. And we live the orange life around here. Everything is orange. Orange feels good. And, and these guys are believers in here.

[Jeff Duden]

Everybody look tight is right four letters. If you can get a four letter domain back in the day, then they're worth a lot of money now. So in Rhino Strategic Solutions is the name of the company. I appreciate you being on Chris and incredible background. I just gave a couple of highlights, but maybe that's where we start. And your journey had is. Is such a great testimony to business ownership because failure is part of all of our journeys. And any successful person by sheer number probably has more failures in their past than the one or two or three things that actually were. Home runs. If you look at a private equity portfolio, you know, if they get three home runs, two or three home runs, they get, they get one loser and then everything else pushes. That's, that's a pretty successful portfolio. So I think that there's a story of persistence in, in your, in your history and in your journey and we'd love to hear a little bit about it.

[Chris Yano]

Yeah, I mean honestly, I'd never. You crammed a lot of my entire life like I was having flashbacks as you're going through it.

[Jeff Duden]

Sorry, you need a minute?

[Chris Yano]

And I mean, honestly, it kind of gave me goosebumps a little bit. I was just having a conversation yesterday with my buddy Chad Bierman, who you got to meet, my business partner. And we're just kind of talking about our come up and how different we. We are. Even though we come from the same state, we grew up completely different and both successful businesses, two different paths. But yeah, I mean, I think that the conversation we had was pretty much what's driven me my entire life is that I, I kind of lived this life wearing blinders, like for better or for worse. And I don't see all the things that can go wrong. I only see what I think believe can go right and, and I leave the worrying for somebody else, you know, so I've always pretty much just bet on myself. And as you're talking through it, if you think about the things I've done. Wrestling, team sport, but you're very much an individual on the mat. You know, soccer is a team sport. Right. So. But bull riding, it's just you and the bull race car driving, it's you and the car. Yes, you have your pit crew, but these are a lot of things that rely on me, betting on me, you know, and And I know the effort I was willing to put in. And the problem is I didn't have business sense, right? So I was willing to do all the things. And so you talked about, like, the, like, it, it still kind of stinks to hear, to hear somebody talk about foreclosures and repossessions. Like, there's the pride part, but it's so much a part of the journey. Like, they taught me some really good lessons and it really sucked in the moment, but it was setting me up for the success that I have today. It was just part of the journey, you know, And I'm grateful that I went through all those things and had to feel those feelings. And when you say it, I felt it again. And I'll never have that feeling again.

[Jeff Duden]

When I was building the business, I mean, when I bought out my Last partner in 2004, I was $4 million in debt. And we had a. I bought a shell of a franchise company with no franchisees. There was some real estate. There was a real estate holding company tied up in that, that had some properties. So I'm like, okay, we've got some assets in there. We had a couple million dollars in receivables that were being heavily contested by insurance companies. And I had about a million or a million and a half in payables and, you know, but at the end of the day, like, you know, in the, in coming out of a hurricane, three hurricanes crossing Florida and us spinning up all this work, my partner had, for lack of a better term, kind of a depression. And he needed, like, he, he looked bad, he felt bad, and I had to get him out. And he was interesting. We, we hired an advisor to negotiate with us. And he said, I've never been part of a negotiation where the buyer was trying to give the seller more and the seller was saying, no, it's not worth that much. I mean, we just, we loved each other and we, you know, which tells you what kind of a negotiator I'm not. But, you know, so don't use that against me in our future dealings. But, I mean, at the end of the day, I always, you know, when I was building the business, I would go to a certain level and what I really wanted to protect was my home, where my kids were. I mean, we had a little five acre mini farm. And I always knew I started with less than zero, so I knew that I could always go back. And we were in our house, right? I built it, we bought the land and. But like, you know, I, that was the One. That was one of the things that I said. I'm. I'm. I'll go as far into debt as I can, but if I, I have to have assets to cover it so that I can get to zero and, and whatever. And you know, you went past that. I mean, and you know, somebody, you know, put no putting the padlocks on the home and, and I can't even imagine how difficult that must have been for you. Now you grew up, grew up in Indiana.

[Chris Yano]

That's right. I'm a Hoosier.

[Jeff Duden]

You're a Hoosier. I grew up on a huge farm. And you know, how does, how does somebody growing up there, other than maybe David Letterman, you know, come from that, that you know, that town and then find their self all and putting on an event like Rhino X that you were very kind and generous to invite me to as a guest with 50 of the top hundreds of millions of dollar companies. I mean, just like the average company had to be $150 million in the room. We had Vanilla Ice, we had. Who else was. I mean, it was, it was a party for 50. Yeah, I mean, Kenny, you know, it was just, it was, it was, it was one of the greatest parties I've been to in terms of a very small setting and you know, pretty, pretty high flying, man. So what do you think it was for you that helped you get out of your, you know, where you grew up and ended up where you are today?

[Chris Yano]

Yeah, you know, I think that one. Thanks for, for the kind words on the, on the event. You can tell how much I was trying to explain it to you versus you experiencing it. You see why it's difficult. It is different and we've all been to a bunch of events, but it is kind of cool what to hear you say. I mean, we had. Of the 50 people, we had over $2 billion worth of revenue sitting in that room. That's a pretty good group to be in. And a lot of it kind of stems all the way back to how I grew up. You know, growing up in the, in the Midwest and you know, a farming community with farming family, you kind of learn, you know, to be a gentleman, you know, and, and pride and your word means everything. And I always love being around people. I've always been social. One of the gifts I, one of the gifts I was given was, you know, I'm an extrovert, you know, but I legit care about human beings. Like I'm, I'm the dude that, like, if you were telling me a story and you started getting teary eyed because you were proud of something. It would make me teary eyed because I'm proud that you're proud type of a guy, you know, and, and maybe it's because I grew up with, you know, sisters and my mom raised me or, you know, and I've got girls, you know, now and one son and like, it's just that I always cared about people and I always loved to be the party. So especially when I got to college, I was a better partier than a better, better student. But it's the same thing as I, you know, I've always been willing to put in, put in the work. I've been learned how to be patient. I mean, when you detassel corn for those that are listening, you don't know what detasseling is. Like, it's an extra level of suck that you've never even heard of. It is you think about a cornfield. There's lots of stalks of corn in a cornfield. And what detasseling is, is you walk down every row and you pull the top tassel off of each corn stalk all the way through that entire field so that it repollinates the land. You get more ears of corn. Like it is a awful job. So you talk about learning patience, right? You have to. And then hard work. But at the end of the day, it was, you know, a means to an end for us, you know, and as a part of our family. And it's just you did what you did and then when it was done, you celebrated like because you got through all these fields. So I learned some patience, you know, I learned some work ethic, you know, and I learned to be grateful, you know, for even as difficult as it was. But, but you heard me say this, Jeff. You know, when I was presenting is, I believe the gifts that I've been giving is connecting people. I have a lot of friends because over all these years, you know, 17 years of doing now, I mean in my professional business of doing digital marketing for home services, home improvements businesses, I have a lot of friends like you, Jeff, you know, where we. I have genuine relationships with people and I think that goes a long way. I like to give without expectation. I think that served me well over all the years. And when as we've built the business, I never focused on the actual dollar amount. I focused on the human beings that are running this business and I focused on the customers, right. And if I just focused on that like I've done since I was a kid on trying to make sure I'm kind to people, I connect people. I just take those same things and apply my work ethic, you know, and I let it ride. Now, I told you, you hear about the losses I had, that's because I didn't know business. You know, I didn't understand how to run a business. I understood the people, but not the business. I learned that hard lesson, but then once I figured that out and I could still piece both of them together, like, that's the gift I was given. And along the way, I built a really great. A really great business with some really great people.

[Jeff Duden]

We're very similar in that regard. And the world is coming back to us because it used to be, send your kids to college to code, send them to do computer programming, send them to do computer science and all of that. But now, and I've seen it, more than one place is. So many of those things can be done with AI if you just ask the right prompt. So the people that coded their way to their tech companies, they're like, yeah, I still keep my hands in it just because I know how to do it and I like to do it. But all the code can be written for me because I know the questions to ask and the skill set that is going to determine success more than anything else going forward is people that can do the people piece well.

[Chris Yano]

Yeah. Yeah. And actually, you bring up a good point when you talk about AI. You know, one thing that I. I feel like I've always been blessed with and talk about having blinders on is I always wanted to win. Like, I wanted to compete, I wanted to win, and I was willing to do whatever it took to. To win, meaning, like, effort. I was willing to put in whatever effort it took. And I remember my wrestling coach one time told me, luck is when preparation meets opportunity, which is the first time I'd ever heard that. And I was like, okay, I don't understand what the hell that means, but I'm going to be prepared when an opportunity comes up, and if that means I'm lucky, then I think I get it, Coach. And so I was that guy that said, you know, everybody's home for Christmas break. I'm still going to go out and run or I'm going to go out and do these things. So I thought, in my mind, I know I'm doing more than the person I'm probably going to wrestle the next time. And so technically, I should beat them because I'm putting in more work is the way I have my mindset. It was. But that thing has carried me all the way through this business. And you talk about AI the thing that I, that I felt so good about over all these years is I knew the biggest companies like the Ken Goodriches that you met who, you know, sold ghetto for half a billion dollars at H Vac and Plumbing company. The reason I have relationships with these guys is because we got to do business together. And they trust me. They know I'm the guy who's willing to be innovative and try all the things out of the gate and do all the testing for these guys to be able to rely on, to know what to do with their businesses. So when you paired together, the work ethic, you know, the skill of doing the same thing every single day and the will to try all the new things and be innovative, especially in a crazy market like right now with AI, you can win. And it's, you know, I kind of had, you know, one of my guys roll out at Rhino X. What we're doing with AI is I've always tried to chase down how do I solve as many problems as I possibly can for you, Jeff, and all of the different brands and all the different, I mean, because that's the, that's the job I signed up for, so. And I enjoy it. So it's pretty easy gig whenever you enjoy. I'm not saying it's not hard. There's plenty of days where it's really, really hard. Because now you said 180 employees, now we have almost close to 400. You know, two years po, you know, two years later we're sitting, you know, almost double wow. So, yeah, that gets a little more challenging. But like, hey, I like being able to save the day. I like to be. I like I'm the man for the job.

[Jeff Duden]

You had early success selling for YellowPages.com and that was immediately preceding you starting your company, I believe. What did you learn there? What did you like and what did you hate? And what, what did you, what, what motivated you from that experience to start your own business?

[Chris Yano]

I think what it did was it gave me confidence, Jeff, that I, that I was good at what I did and I was making way too much money that a, you know, young 20 year old kid should make. And I was spinning as fast as I was making it, you know, and because I come from nothing, I needed to show everybody, like, look what I'm doing now. I went through that whole phase of life and it was a very humbling moment when you have a foreclosure, can only hide so many of that Stuff. But here's. Here's what ended up sending me into doing my own thing. This will kind of bring it full circle is I. I was able to validate that I was really good at sales, and I was able to prove that I could do it consistently. And. And I did the right thing. So I wasn't just selling to sell. I was. I learned how to listen. You know, I learned how to listen to understand versus listen to, you know, to respond, which was very important. I learned the businesses I was working with. I, like, I end up. When I was selling yellow pay stuff, I really focused on home services because it's blue collar, and it was easy for me, you know, and I could relate. And I also learned that what I was selling at one point in time, the corporation was no longer delivering what I was selling. Right. So there's no results. And that does not feel good, especially because I'm the face of that to the customer, and I have to look at them in the. And so that never felt good. And once it became an issue, I said, I told my wife, Anna, which, now that you've met her and talked to her, you understand why I went this route. It is. I said, we can do this, like, and we trust ourselves, right? I know how to sell it. We can figure out the build it part, and let's just go do our own thing. Like, maybe I'm being naive, but there's the blinders, right? And. But I could trust myself. So if I'm gonna go and sell this, it was. I can do it. So. So the good that came from it was it really gave me all the confidence to know, like, I can go and sell this. Which is half the battle sometimes, is just figuring out how to go and sell it. But execution, that's a whole other game. And thank God my wife, you know, is very strong in all the things that I'm bad at, you know, so we complimented one another.

[Jeff Duden]

Yeah. YellowPages.com was a pivot, like reach local and all of these other ones that when. Because we used to. When I started in business, we were investing in the Yellow Pages, and then here comes the Internet. And I had a. I almost got in a fistfight with Yellow Page rep. He was so upset. And. And part of it had to do was I. I figured out a way to get attribution to the $400,000 in yellow page double trucks that we were running in in two markets. And he was getting 20% commission on that, and it was probably a third of his income. And I showed him the attribution. And he's like, yeah, but you're getting. You're getting $400,000 in business. I said, yeah, but that, that we're only going to profit X percent on that. I said, I said, if I cancel your account right now, I can send all my kids through college with what I save from giving you this money in just one year. And, you know, and he had. He brought us, his bosses were in for the meeting because he didn't want to lose this account. He thought he was going to talk us into it. I'm like, no, dude, we've attributed this. And, you know, I mean, people weren't. There's reasons for that. But then, you know, here's my experience with pivots, right? The first pivot that people make drastically is immediately precedes the second pivot when they go out of business. So when you look at the Yellow Pages, they had to pivot online, and they're not going to go whole hog into the online strategy because they don't want to cannibalize their existing business any faster than they have to. So now they're going to get disrupted and, you know, with search, and they did. Boy, did they. Right. So I think you can buy yellow page.com for 8 cents right now if you want it. But I'm sure it's still out there. You know, am I going to get sued for that? We'll bleep that out. But. But anyway, I'm sure they're doing wonderfully. But, you know, so, you know, there's that pivot there, and people that are willing to not. No matter what your sunk cost is, you, You. When technology is moving as it does like it. Technology is like a lazy river, right? Like, sometimes it rushes for a year or two, and then it kind of settles out and it kind of meanders along for a little bit, and it lets everybody catch up. And then next thing you know, it rushes forward again and everybody's. Everybody's got to move and everybody's got to adapt or you get lost behind so that, you know, I really. I like that part of your story because at the end of the day, a lot of those companies that were similar to that, I felt like they would take your money, they would give you leads for a little bit, and then they would take the next person's money and give you leads. And at the end of the day, like clockwork, after some certain number of months, it would just stop working, and there was nothing you could do to get it moving again. So they were literally taking money off of small business owners and running some sort of a, you know, big deer through the belly of the snake thing and paying for, you know, when you get started with the people that had paid recently and it was just kind of a, I hate to say the word Ponzi scheme, but like that, that was my experience with it over, you know, trying to figure out over four or five years.

[Chris Yano]

Well, you, you bring up a good point. The transition from print to online is I went into print and I didn't like selling print yellow pages and I didn't love. Taught me a lot about a lot of different businesses, but I didn't love it because of. There's an analytical part to my brain that I do love and perfect example. What makes a good wrestler a good wrestler is they think through three moves, right? Like you've got, you have some chain wrestling thought process and that's how you win matches. You watch your opponents and you see what they do and you adjust your strategy to learn how to wrestle against them. When you're in racing, they all about data analysis. How can I go, you know, a tenth faster? Do I break later into this turn, Can I look? Can I roll off the throat or roll on the throttle faster in the middle of the turn, in turn four, it's all data analysis to learn how to go faster. Bull riding, you wouldn't think there's analytics and bull riding. There's a ton of analytics in bull riding. You study the bulls and they're in the bulls patterns, kind of like wrestling and that way you learned. Okay, do I, as soon as the gate opens, is it going to spin to the right? If it does, I know I'm going to shift to my right butt cheek, I'm going to reach back behind me and it's going to spin and I should be able. And so there's a lot of data in the phone books. I, I always struggled with the, add the colors. The double and triple trucks were insane pricing and, and you could throw call tracking numbers in there. But the tracking wasn't nowhere near what we've got today. But as soon as it introduced online and you could track all the data, that's when I got really comfortable with because I could believe it. And, and if I could believe it, then I, I could go back to my customer and say, oh, well, you had 72 phone calls. You know what came from it. At least I had something that I felt was legit that I could go back to it and feel good about. So I learned search engine optimization, SEO in 2004, which is, like, forever ago. And we started learning paid ads and all this stuff early on. But everything I did was lead attribution. And then when Anna and I started the business, the missing piece was, hey, we had 72 phone calls. Well, I know that all those were new customers. So we said, let's just start listening to every single phone call for our customers, because they're not listening to them. And let's figure out of those 72 calls, how many were legit new customers, what was the lead quality, and did they book it and did they sell it? If I can figure out that model, I can justify either doing more or, hey, you got a booking problem. Or. So I'm talking like, way back in 2010, we're doing this to. Whereas today, I can do that, you know, using AI real time. I can do it real time to catch those things so I can capture it from. Soon as somebody clicks the entire sales process all the way through booking. And if you have the right CRM, I could even track the close the revenue attached to it. So we know cost per acquisition, like real time. Boom. That's the game. You know, I love to be able to apply data to it because it keeps us all honest.

[Jeff Duden]

Yeah, the. What we did was we. I had a call center, and when we were going through this transition, and we just made sure that we were diligent about going back and back and back and saying, yeah, I understand you got our number from the yellow pages, but who told you to go to the yellow pages? Oh, it was my plumber. Okay, so that's not a yellow page lead. That's a plumber lead. Okay. Oh, it was my. It was my realtor. Oh, I've. I've used you guys before. I'm a repeat customer. So everybody just defaults and says yellow Pages because they're lazy. But when I actually went and I just had them go back and back and back again to just attribute out this, you know, $4 million or $5 million of business, man, it wasn't there. And I was like. Because I was trying to make that hard decision. We were paying 13 grand a month for a double truck. I mean, that's for water damage, right? And you're in your stacked up with four others. So it was pretty insane. Well, so. So. So you. You pivoted or you didn't pivot? You. You decided to start your business. It was originally called the Brick, I think brickyard, because you started in Indianapolis or you started in Indiana, and it was it was local familiarity to that ultimately you rebranded to Rhino. But how did you get into this home service space and become such an expert in home services that you have today?

[Chris Yano]

Yeah, I mean, honestly, it was like. I mean, I'm. It certainly wasn't the plan. It was because, you know, when you first start a business, you're just kind of looking to get business wherever you can get it to keep things going. And in Indianapolis, we had a big H Vac and plumbing contractor come on board as a client. And we spent. They would be. They were actually my largest customer at that point. So we gave them so much focus and the, you know, we were tracking because they were two trades. You know, we were trying to track everything we could. And thankfully, the owner of that business was so thoughtful and giving me feedback. And it was. Every other week we would meet and go over leads, which is a lot of accountability. And definitely the. Some. Some were tough, especially in spring and fall for H Vac clients. But it was. We had a lot of success with that guy. And he. And he carried a lot of clout. He was a big player at the time. You know, $40 million in 2010 is a pretty decent, you know, home services h vac plumbing company. But he taught me the business. He taught me how to go get install business. He taught me how to get repair business. He taught me to get drain cleaning business. Like, so he just taught me the playbook. And so I went to Anna and I said, we're really good at this, like, and we have a really good advocate for us. Maybe we should just focus on this. Like, let's just focus on this H Vac business and let's. And if we do this every day, we'll be the best at it. That was literally my thought. And thankfully he had some because he was a big. In Indianapolis, Indiana, the headquarters for Carrier Corporation, which is a manufacturer of, you know, furnaces and air conditioning units. He was one of their biggest players. And so he was on there. He was like one of the dealer advocates that said they go to him and say, hey, you had so much growth. What did you do differently? So it was great because he was on a dealer advisory board and he told us, you want to do more business than H Vac, this is your opportunity. I'll get you in with this manufacturer. And that's exactly what happened. And once we went down that path and the manufacturer started pushing us across the US Brickyard marketing no longer made sense. And that's what set us down the path. And. And it was so it was heavy H VAC right out of the gate, which, if you think about it in today's terms, you know, Chad and I own a roofing business. We literally run the exact same playbook for H vac that we do for roofing, repair, installation, and with a lot more data. But. But the playbook has been the same. And once we learned the playbook, you could plug and play plumbing, you could plug and play restoration, you can plug and play electric, you can plug and play with some tweaks. Some tweaks. But you. But the playbook worked. And so, yeah, I just decided I'm gonna. I'm gonna be the best at home services. I'm gonna build that reputation. And we did. We did it by doing a great job for years, because you figure the opposite is, if you suck or if you have enough black eyes, you tarnish your reputation. And you're only in this one vertical. It's game over. Like, your business is game over. So it was. It was a risk, but it was a risk that ended up paying off. So that's how I ended up in this space, is I kind of got a little bit lucky. But like my coach taught me, I was prepared, you know, when that happened, you know, to take advantage of it. And. And that's where we are, you know, all these years later.

[Jeff Duden]

Well, like you said, maybe you were a little bit naive. You said, I know how to sell, but we. We're going to have to build the systems. And, yeah, I think Anna's an operator and. And you're a salesperson, so you got a great complimentary life and business partner in. In Anna. But, you know, I've always said, like, you know, people ask, did you. Did you ever think that you would get to where you've gotten to? And I just tell them I was too stupid to fail. Like, you know, one of the problems with the Internet is that you can look anything up and it will tell you all the reasons why you can't do it. It'll tell you how much competition there is, and you're doing your research at the same time, but, like, at some point you got to start, and you might end up doing something slightly different than you original thought, but you just have to have the courage to start. And nothing, nothing happens until you take an action. And, you know, based on limited experience, limited resources, it's probably not going to be exactly the right action, but it's an action nonetheless. Now. Now you're. Now you're swimming, right? You're in the. You're in the deep end of the pool and you're swimming and sometimes you go under for a couple of seconds here and there along the way, but.

[Chris Yano]

You jump and then you throw the.

[Jeff Duden]

Yeah, 100%. You know, I mean, like, you know, and I think part of the, one of the challenges I see, and I see it in my kids and I see it in other kids. I mean, there's a couple of things. Well, number one, when it's my equivalent to your 6am starting walking behind a hay baler knowing that you're going to go till dark, it's like I have 14 hours of throwing hay bales in front of me, right. Maybe with a, with a, with a mayonnaise and tomato sandwich for lunch and, you know, but that's it, right? It's, it's like you don't have, you don't have a Walkman. You don't have. I, you don't have ear airpods in like, just. Yeah. So, like, my thing was I did concrete, right. So I would go into a basement at 6am and at 6:15, here would come the concrete shoot. And then they would put a pile of, of concrete, you know, 20ft wide, 4ft high, and you'd have to shovel it to every corner of that basement and dig a sump pit. And then you go out and you do the, you do, you pour the garage and then you go down the, the sidewalk and you're breaking the forms and you're forming for the next day, and you just, you keep moving down the neighborhood and it's, it's all day long. None of it's easy. Nobody's thanking you. And, and so, you know, when you grow up having jobs like that, it's not that big of a deal to say, well, I know this is going to take 12, 14 hours a day, but I'm willing to do it. Yeah. And then the other thing is kids growing up in structured environments. I don't know what your philosophies on raising your kids are and your family, but the structure that kids have today doesn't necessarily always lend itself to risk. And they may or may not. There'll be, you know, they're going to try to figure it all out and. Right. There's a lot of, like, a lot of them are smart, right. And they're, they're, they're good at finding shortcuts to make money, particularly online. But, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't know that there's a lot of these young people are starting some of These trades, businesses that are going to be wildly successful. I mean, as we go forward. I mean, the opportunity in home and property services, B2B, B2C services. Right now, I mean, I see it so clearly. The supply and demand curve is in our favor. Less young people are doing this now. We're gonna have 150 million more people in this country probably by 2050. That's about an average estimate. Some are a little higher, some are a little lower. But we have a housing shortage. Houses don't last as long as they used to. Like you just go right down. I like to say that you'll, you'll never find a home front brands nestled comfortably between a Blockbuster Video and a Curves fitness franchise because there's no obsolescence with property services. So if you're willing to put your nose to the grindstone and you put your shoulder to it, you can, you can build a great business over time. And that's where people come to people like you and say, okay, Chris, how do we, how do we get people to our front door? And you know, today the front door of a business is your website. And then you gotta, you gotta welcome them in. You got, got to have a conversation in the foyer. What are you looking for? What do you want to do? What do you know? What do you, what do you need? You know, why, you know, would you consider us coming out to do it? And then you go have a conversation at the real front door and get it done. So yeah, I, I think, I think you're in exactly the right spot. I think Homefront Brands is in the right spot. And you know, I'm excited about what we're going to be able to do together to, to really build across our platform with Rhino.

[Chris Yano]

Yeah, me too. And it's always fun when you get to do it with people you enjoy doing it with. And that's kind of the phase of life that I'm in is, you know, I like to, it's a lot more, I mean, listen, it doesn't mean we have to be friends to be a client of ours. I'm not saying that, but it's certainly more enjoyable because like business is hard enough and it is fun, you know, and I built a lot of, a lot of those people that you met are people who I've, you know, worked with for a lot of years and have had very successful exits. And you know, and they were there because, know, I helped them and we built a friendship like that to me is very cool. You know, Goodrich is a perfect example of A guy who, you know, calls me on Thursday last week or. Yeah, Thursday last week, said I'm flying down to, flying down to Cabo on Saturday. I'm going to pick you up in Phoenix, you know, and then over in Scottsdale and we're going to head down. And I was like, oh, like, doesn't ask me, just tells me. And I'm like, well, you know, I have four kids, so it doesn't quite work that way. So I asked Anna and she's like, we can't make it happen. But the fact that he says, I'm gonna come pick you up, we're gonna go to Cabo for the week. You know, he flies private everywhere. He's got his own jet and so is Cool. Like we built that relationship over the last decade, you know. But my philosophy on, like real quick on, on kids is I have four kids. I have a 24 year old about to be 25. I have a 14, excuse me, 18 year old. These, my oldest two are daughters. My son is 13, about to be 14, and then my youngest daughter is 10. They've all seen us at different phases of our business, right? They've all experienced it. Our youngest is by far the scariest right now because she's seen us, you know, at our prime. My son got to see a little bit of both. But all of them, we don't hide from them when it's hard. We talk about when the business is hard together. So that way they see what we have is not a, it is a privilege, but we earned that, that privilege. And we work through hard times and everything that we have is something we fought hard for and we try to do the same thing with them, whether they're in sports or choir or school, like, and we don't give them things, they gotta earn it. Like they have to work for stuff. No different. Like they know where I come from, you know, they've seen it, they're not impressed by it, you know, but they've seen it. You know, they're, they think that the farm is cool for about a day and then they want to leave. Yeah, but, but that's my philosophy. And I think that like those are the people that will win the day. Those are people that will win the day because they're going to go into a market against a much softer opponent and they've got some structure, right? But there's, but there's also a lot of really great talent in the young staff. You just got to learn how to get the talent out of them and then what to teach them how to be better. And, you know, it's just part of understanding. It's like personality test. You just have to understand that they're just. They. They come up a little bit different, and how do I get the best of them and find their talent? So, you know, some people will say, oh, these young kids don't know how to work. And sometimes that is true, but they do have some good nuggets in there. You just gotta be willing to find it.

[Jeff Duden]

There's so many great kids out there. So we're partnered with Ben and Candy Carson and Carson Scholars Fund, and we build reading rooms in schools, and we'll find a school. It's about 20 grand. And we'll find a school, and they'll allocate a space to us and. And we'll fill it up with furniture and decorations and books and all of that. And we just had a dedication last week. It's on my. It's on my Instagram.

[Chris Yano]

I saw it.

[Jeff Duden]

Oh, did you?

[Chris Yano]

I'm glad you brought that up. I saw it. I was so, like, this is one of the things I love about Jeff. Like, you have a. You have a big heart, and like, those are people I like to be able to work with. Because giving back is half the. What was it say right here?

[Jeff Duden]

Gives back.

[Chris Yano]

Like, that's a big thing for us is, you know, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. So you got to make sure we continue to bless others.

[Jeff Duden]

These kids were great. I mean, they were amazing. They were so thankful. They were smiling. They were. You could tell that they had been well led. They sang us a little song or read us a poem. And then, you know, and I. We sat down and I, you know, of course it's. I did crowd work, right? I'm like, okay. You know, I sat down at a little table with him, like, all right, who. What. What do you all want to do when you. When you get older? You know, and it just. They're all just going bananas about all these different things. You know, they want to be president, they want to be this, they want to be that. And there's so much like. And the. Upon the shoulders of those children is our future. And, you know, and there's so many good kids out there. And. And. But has. Has truth ever been more at. At issue and has truth ever been more important?

[Chris Yano]

Well, I.

[Jeff Duden]

Because one of the things. One of the things I say with Kit, and it was a horrible question for you to fill that space, but so, like, one of the things that when people ask me about parenting, you know, it's like a couple simple rules. I'm like, always tell them the truth, man. Like, if I, the cat didn't run away, Daddy accidentally ran over it, or you didn't make the team. And it's not like, you know, they're not going to have the team and I'm going to hide you from it. It's. You didn't make it. If it's important to you, I can help you figure out how to try to make it next time. But these are your options. Because once you lose the locker room with your kids and they. They know you lie to them, whether it's to protect them or you think it's in their best interest, like, they will never tell you the truth again. They'll never listen. They'll just manipulate you because they can't trust you. And I was too stupid to know better than to just tell my kids the truth. But in hindsight, I look back at it and we developed a. Like, if they want the skinny man, like, they come to me because they know I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I'm going to. I'm going to give it to them. And they also know I won't rescue their little butts.

[Chris Yano]

I. I got that right on the second half of the kids, not the first. I learned the lessons from the first two.

[Jeff Duden]

Yeah.

[Chris Yano]

And it's not. It's what? It's. It's not. I mean, we want. We want what's best. We're trying to do what we think is best. So it's nothing negative. It's just. It's just the wrong tactic. And it took some learning. And like, my Jeff, my oldest. My oldest daughter, I was just in Monterey, um, and she just. She graduated from college with a mathematics degree, which is.

[Jeff Duden]

Congratulations.

[Chris Yano]

Thank you. And then she went to the Air Force, and she just graduated from, like, the most prestigious language school in the. In the entire world to go into intelligence.

[Jeff Duden]

Amazing.

[Chris Yano]

So she wants to be an intelligence. So, like, talk about a prad. Proud dad moment. And that's the one I got the most wrong on. Wow. Right? Was her. Because she was, you know, she was with us through those times when we had the repossession. Like, she was the one that felt it all and seen it all. So I was able to course correct with that one, you know, but, you know, that was a perfect example. Somebody who, you know, it was just. She knew once she got old enough to understand what I was trying to do. But in a lot of Ways too. I think that some of the ways that we push them, you know, is, you know, you kind of bank on you, like, hope I'm doing it right when she's old enough to understand, you.

[Jeff Duden]

Know, and it's not an exact science. And they're all, they're all different. And you got to know what your values are. You got to know how you make important decisions. We have a set of family values, man, it's been up on the frit like. And you would be surprised how the things that you say come back to you some years later when you didn't even know that they were listening. Like, and it's like, okay, well, you know, we stuck with it. They acted like they didn't hear it, but like, ultimately they heard it. And then it's your actions. It's like, what do you do? They, they watch you. If you're sitting on the couch and you're, you know, you know, whatever, whatever it is you do, like, that's their, their, their patterning off of that. But. Well, this is awesome. But I do have a couple marketing things to get to. We talk about family and kids all day, man. I really, I really could. But I do have a couple of marketing things I had written down. So what are some of the things that. If I'm a small business owner today, and I'm listening, what are some of the things from a marketing perspective that get in the way for you? You get a client, you guys take a look at it and you're like, this is going to be a problem for us to have success with you. And one of the things that comes to mind is branding. Can good direct response marketing overcome bad branding?

[Chris Yano]

I think having a good brand is always a great foundation because it ultimately makes the overall success better because it drops. You know, you obviously the lowest lead you can get to branded lead, right? Because you built brand reputation. But a lot of businesses aren't, aren't in that position. Which is why some people also go the franchise route, right? Because now you have brand and you have a playbook. But can you run a good. A perfect example is I have a garage door guy reached out to me who's green fielding. He's starting from scratch in a few markets and we have no brand, right? So I have to run a lead generation campaign. This is where a company like mine, who has the skill doesn't have to guess on what ads to run, can maximize the opportunity. So you can. But, but what I would caution for anybody who's new or small is you with, with, there's a layer of accountability that you, the owner, are responsible for too. And it's not. The worst thing you can do is always blame your marketing company if you don't know for a fact that it's your marketing company. Massive mistake that a lot of companies make. And it comes down to a lack of knowledge or pride, which I understand both. But if you just track everything, and by the way, even if you're a small company, you can afford a call tracking number. Okay, you can afford a call tracking number. They're super cheap. And that way you least have every call that came through that, you know, Internet, that Internet marketing campaign. If you ran that or social media campaign, and if you have that, that's step one. All right, this is the accountability piece. And you'll be able to determine from that what was actually a legit new customer that came in. Whether you sold it or not is not the marketing deal. Right? Like that's on you to sell it. But as long as it's a legit opportunity, then you need to give credit for that. Ultimately, you need to sell it to have cash flow to run the business. But at least if you know, okay, I paid this company 5,000 bucks a month, $1,000 a month, whatever it is, and it produced X and leads for me. So my average cost per lead is 80 bucks. But my booking rate, you know, to close it was 30%. Well, I need to work on my booking rate. Like, that's a blessing for you to have that information. And if you can let go of your pride, you'll know, okay, it's not a marketing issue, it's a me issue, vice versa. If it is a marketing issue, then you'll know that too. And so when you are, when you go back to your marketing company, you can say, hey, of that, you know, this is a bunch of junk. And the reason a lot of these leads came in is because you put free xyz. Well, then you can call it out and be confident with.

[Jeff Duden]

Right?

[Chris Yano]

So many people, Jeff, make mistakes on assuming and not taking accountability themselves that I see these things go south and they jump from vendor to vendor to vendor to vendor. It's the same. You know, it's. What is that, the definition of insanity? It's the same cycle. So the simplest thing, if nothing else, give an hour every other week, 30 minutes every other week to legit, check that tracking information, see what legit came through that. And if you have a good marketing company, like I'm going to brag on Rhino, what I've learned, Jeff, all these years is it's just easier to do it for them. If I just do it for them, then they don't have an excuse to not look at the information. So if I know exactly all that information I just shared and I did it for them, all they can do is look at it. They don't even need 30 minutes, they need three. Three minutes to take.

[Jeff Duden]

Yeah. And you could probably tell them what it means more than they can.

[Chris Yano]

Absolutely. And what to do next.

[Jeff Duden]

Yeah. So. So in my simple brain, uh, when I, when I think about marketing opportunities today, I kind of organize it into, into like a, a pyramid of, with three distinct le levels in it. So the first level for me is foundational marketing. And it's kind of the thing that everybody needs to have competency in. So it's your websites, it's your search, it's your map pack, you know, it's your Google, it's all your Google stuff. It's. And any third party lead generators like Angie's or Thumbtack, it's your SEO strategy on page and off page. Right. And it's your PPC partners. Right. So at the foundation, like there's that. Okay. And that's. It has to be. You've got to have a converting website. You've got to show up in search the way that you need to show up in search chats coming on other. There's other. There's some interesting things going on in those regards and some of that's gotten a little bit more complicated. And you know, any. It's been frothy with AI to try to figure out like what to do and what's in and what's out. But that's your fundamentals, right. That's your front door and basically your invite, your general invitation for people to walk to your front door. The second part of the pyramid is what I call conversional. Okay. These are all the extra things that you can do from the time, from the time that somebody sees you to get them to, you know, and gets to your front door. But to get them to convert to a booking, right, you got to get them booked. So there's all kinds of new tools that are in that conversional thing. And I think the people that rush to those first are people that really, you know, that leveraged those types of opportunities because many of these tools weren't available three and four years ago that are available today. And I learned a lot about this when I built a fitness brand because I mean we had an attrition rate that Every month was problematic, and we were in a hyper, hyper competitive space and everybody's looking for. So, like, we would have new offers, we had seasonal offers and campaigns, and then we had special offers and things. And then, you know, so somebody comes in and does an inquiry, you know, they're getting a text back with a picture of the trainer saying, showing up for your booked appointment, you know, and, and this. And we're constantly hitting them and saying, you're going to be there at noon tomorrow, right? Make sure you bring your water bottle and your this, that and the other thing and get there 10 minutes early. Because we want to go through the. It was a boxing concept, right? We want to go through the stuff with you. So there was all these different, all these different ways to engage people to make sure that you were increasing your booking rate. And then at the top of the house is campaigns. So now that you know you can convert, now that you know you're fundamentally strong in all the ways that you need to be strong. Where are pockets of people that, that somebody that's curious and thoughtful and knows the business needs to say, hey, we're a fencing business. Maybe we should run a national campaign to every pool contractor that exists, right? So now you're. And then you're, you're, you're. You're layering them into the conversion tools, which are then, you know, kind of engaged and incorporated into your. Into your front door and your assets there. So know, I, in my simple brain, like, that's the way I think about it, because that's kind of the way it's evolved. And now I know when I talk to professional marketers like you, you kind of, you run up and down the pyramid kind of interchangeably. But, but I think that, you know, there's enough. Anyway, that's, that's kind of the way I look at it.

[Chris Yano]

I have, I have this presentation, Jeff, I've given probably about a million times. I could do it in my sleep, but it still rings true today. And it's perfect in the franchise world because we have brand guidelines. The. It's called the six P's of marketing. And it's what I've learned over all these years of what if even no matter what size of company you are, guarantee there's a p in this six Ps that you're missing or you're not executing well on. And a lot of you said conversion, which is like the favorite word in Rhino is conversion, because that's really the tool that we pay the most attention to, is what's converting and at what rate and at what cost. 6ps now the number first P product. Why do we make it difficult for people to understand exactly what you do? Like let's not assume that they know what you do. If you're in restoration, how much restaurant like what are you doing? If you're in roofing, is it residential as a commercial? If your home services. Well, what home services, you know, if it's your pool repair, are you also doing installation, design, Whatever it is, don't make the people guess because people aren't, you know, wanting more time. They want less time to find out exactly what you do before they move on to the next person. So first P is product. Make it super easy to for everybody understand exactly what you do without even having to scroll on your website. Second piece, place. Just because you've been there forever doesn't mean everybody knows who you are. So. And you might say, oh I work in Indianapolis or I might work in Charlotte. Well, let's. Where else? Let's talk about the suburbs too. Because people who live in the suburbs want somebody who's going to be in proximity close to them. So. So make sure it's clear where all you serve. So you got product and you got place. The third one's always controversial and we don't have time. That's a whole other podcast, Jeff. But it's price. You know, price is a starting from price is how I love to use it. But you certainly have to have a sales process around it if you're going to feature price on your site. But it's one that works well for some. The fourth is promotion. And promotion doesn't always need to be a financial offer. But think about it. People want you to get there fast and safe, see what they can save. And so if you have some sort of promotion that you can financing, if it's a financing promotion, if it's your. The insurance process that you're handling for whatever it is, you can have a promotion. And some of it could just be online booking. Right. How can I get them to book an appointment fast? So we've got, you know, product, place, price and promotion. We've tackled four. Those are four main P's that usually there's some work that can be done in there fit these people. Here's what I mean in my business and in you. You've learned some of this too, Jeff, just from being in your business is we have to be psychologists. That's probably a seventh P. I could add it now I think about it. We have to know the people. So, meaning I have to understand how the customer receives the information. I need to understand the buying patterns of the consumer. So I have to become a psychologist. I gotta understand the human, the human cycles that they're going through to get the clients for our clients. Then I gotta understand how my CL receive that information and then how to tell them what to do with the information. Like it is a non stop learning cycle. But once you learn that, just like a good therapist, they know how to work with the right people who have the right issues, but those same issues, because they've learned how to walk them through those paths. And the last one is my physique.

[Jeff Duden]

Is it, is it, is it pterodactyle?

[Chris Yano]

It's not pterodactyl. Right?

[Jeff Duden]

Just trying to guess.

[Chris Yano]

I, I had to think about that. I had to think about that. It is, it is. And this is a perfect example, Jeff. It's personality. It is not be afraid to give your business a person. Thankfully, the Z's can go out and give their local personality. You know, using the brand guidelines, like if you do restoration, if you're doing pool cleaning, if you're doing roofing, if you're doing whatever, there's a lot of people do the exact same thing as you. So why not give your business support? People want to be entertained. We're all in the entertainment business, like it or not. Like, we have to get their attention. What better way than to show your personality? So you have to be funny. It could also be like you're super involved in the community, like you do your giving back. So those six Ps, I guarantee you anybody who's listening to this goes and looks at their own business and just looks at those six Ps and judges of what they're currently doing. I bet you they find some wiggle room in there to do something and didn't cost anything extra than a little sweat.

[Jeff Duden]

Yeah, that's, that's, that's good stuff. I know the, the first four more are kind of traditional marketing ones, you know, timeless, timeless ones. I learned those in business school. But then, you know, the, the people and the personality look at more and more personal brand matters. I mean, look, we both have a podcast because customers want to know who they're dealing with. Franchisees want to know, like, okay, who am I signing up with? Do I like this person? Like, if somebody gets on here and they don't like me or hate me or don't, don't. They're not aligned with us. I'd rather Know that now that you know they're. Because look, not everybody's right for everybody's tribe and you know, we, I'd rather, I'd rather get a no early and you know, and look for the types of people that are going to be up to something, going somewhere and excited about who we are and what we stand for and you know, want to build a reading room in their school and you know, want to build a multi generational business and want to, want to really compete and win in property services. Like okay, let's go. That's, that's what we're about. Yeah. And then, and then the person, like it's, it's personal brand like you've gotta, you, you gotta let people know who you are because at the end of the day if they don't know you, they can't buy from you. And if they don't like you, they're not gonna.

[Chris Yano]

Yeah, that's really good. And you, you've heard this forever. I've heard this forever. You know, people don't remember what you say, they remember how you feel. Yeah, and, and your personality can be that way. Now I'm not saying go out and be someone you're not. I'm not saying that because if you're not genuine about it, I think that comes across too. But if you're somebody who likes doing community service, you know, or something like that, and you're afraid. I don't want to film, I don't want to post it because it's bragging. It's not bragging. What you're doing is you're being able to show and feature these other companies, these other, you know, non profits that need help and you went and helped them and you're proud of that and that's okay. I've done that for years. We've done a community service day every month for the last 15 years, 16 years. And we post it because of what it does for that person that we're serving that company.

[Jeff Duden]

That's what I tell friend. You got to get over it. Sorry. Whatever face you got, that's what you're going with. Radio might be better for you, but we don't have to worry about that, Chris. Not us.

[Chris Yano]

No, not us.

[Jeff Duden]

Look, so quick, do you have a rule of thumb for awareness type activities like the community service thing you just talked about about and then like direct response? I mean, on one hand, the longer you're in business, the higher percentage of your business is going to come from referrals. If you do a good Job, especially in H vac with memberships and things like that, you're, you're looking to capture customers that you don't have to buy again. And then, you know, but there's this aspect of saying, you know, doing the community service stuff, doing, you know, doing branding and promotion type things. But should you just spend all of those dollars on pay per click? What's, what's your rule of thumb there?

[Chris Yano]

Yeah, the answer is no.

[Jeff Duden]

To which, which of the four questions?

[Chris Yano]

Here's to the just money on pay per click. The. Here's my, here's my thought on community service in particular. You get to go and do what you love to do. Give, give back. I do. Anyway, I guess I'll talk for myself, speak for myself. And then I asked them, hey, can I get a. I'm gonna write a beautiful article, promote you guys, you know, and then I would love it if you could give us a link back from your website. Because if it's a dot org, a dot edu a dot gov, those are really powerful backlinks that you can get coming back to your own website, which helps your ranking. And the better the ranking. Listen, though it's not written anywhere in black and white, I can tell you with a hundred percent belief that the better your ranking, the better the cost per click that Google charges you when you're running paid advertising. So the better the ranking, the lower the cost per click.

[Jeff Duden]

Works together.

[Chris Yano]

It works together. It's not black and white, Jeff, but I'm telling you, I know, I've seen it 100%. That's the way it is. Same thing with your local service ads and your Google business profile. So ask for that and they'll give it to you. You're going and serving with them. And if you write the article for them or even have somebody, you know ghostwrite it for you, that costs you 50 bucks. It's worth it just to get that link back because of the value of it and helps your website rank better in your local community. That's a win. And you're doing good for getting it. So it's not. Don't be afraid to ask.

[Jeff Duden]

A reading room that we built, we posted that on all of our home front brands, LinkedIn pages and social medias and all of that kind of stuff. What, what would you do with that? Like how would you, how would you advise us to leverage it? Would you do a press release? Would you send it out to industry things? Would you make sure that Carson Scholars, you know, like what, what would be your top three Things that make sure you're doing these three things with that piece of content.

[Chris Yano]

Yeah. And I think one thing before I get there, Jeff too, is I'll tell you what else it does for your team. Who gets to participate in that? Like for us, you know, if you can imagine me going to a private equity partner and saying, oh yeah, by the way, we pay everybody's salaries for four hours, you know, every one Friday, every single month to do nothing but community service, that's a, that's a big ask. But the value is turnover. Like when people go and do community service together, the bond that your team creates is so strong that you minimize turnover in your business, which, you know, turnover costs money. So you minimize turnover in your business. People want to work harder for one another, which ultimately ends up being a better result for your clients. I am a big believer in that process. So what can you do? Listen, I love video, especially today. Think about short form video for all of our stuff. And people love feel good stories, Jeff. I still watch the soldiers coming home and seeing their kids and I still get all well up and greeted.

[Jeff Duden]

Oh, it's the best.

[Chris Yano]

And it catches me. Right. So when you're doing good, I think a lot of people in this world love to see the feel good stories. And so video is a big deal and short form video is an even bigger deal right now. So you should promote those things and then think about what the perception that that shows because you know, perception is reality. But think about what people who aren't even looking for you see that this is what your business is about. So when it is time to make that decision and they can associate you back to this feel good piece member people remember how to make them feel not what we say. There is a connection there. This is the psychology of the business. It's not a, it's not a short term gain, it's a long term gain. But once the ball's rolling, the ball's rolling. But people connect this, this good right back to the business, which then ups the close ratio, ups the revenue attached to it because the belief and the trust in your business is already there. You created that as part of your brand equity.

[Jeff Duden]

Yeah, 100%. We do so much of that type of stuff. And I mean joining a franchise, if you're coming out of corporate America, there's a certain obstacle and mindset that you, you've got to get to a certain place to be able to do it. Many of our franchise owners are very sophisticated, high net worth existing business owners that, you know, they Understand that businesses are high class assets. They don't want to start another one, but they want to do another one. And like we're, we're a portfolio company and you know, Homefront Brands is like a monopoly board. You know, we have very high quality businesses. You can get inside of it and you can start with, you know, a house on Baltic. And I always tell them, you win the next opportunity in life by succeeding in the one that you're currently in. So build this business, be top 10% in the network, be engaged, be a good citizen, do all of these things. And then you have an opportunity, if you want to, to stack on another one of our businesses or expand your footprint or whatever. I mean, my gosh, there's success story after success story in franchising, whether it's Jerry Richardson who founded the Panthers, but you know, started with one Hardy's when he quit the NFL and ended up with 400. I mean, so it's, you know, it's a, it's a wealth creation business model that people can get into it. We've developed a particular playground for people that want to build generational wealth and know, create economic freedom and financial security for families on Main street usa. That's a big part of our. Why in addition to the children and.

[Chris Yano]

Veterans and you know, one thing that bet you, all those guys, even the people you just mentioned, I, this is what I found is a common trait amongst all of them is no matter what status, no matter what money you've made, no matter what you've accomplished, is that I bet you they're all still students, always trying to learn, understand Most successful people I know, these guys are my closest friends who have no reason to have to work anymore ever. Still are constantly trying to learn and be students and implement new things. That's part of their game is to always give. Jeff, I called you or text you because I was trying to figure out a model that could work for me to buy another roofing company in a different location because I'm like, well, he's got the franchise game figured out. I feel like this could be close to it whether I'm right or wrong. But I'm, I feel like I've fallen that bucket where I'm constantly curious of what else can I do.

[Jeff Duden]

Yeah, yeah, 100 and, and if you have an abundance mindset, there's more than enough for everybody.

[Chris Yano]

I agree.

[Jeff Duden]

More than enough. I got one little question and then I'm gonna, I've gotta, then I've got a curveball and a fastball. For you.

[Chris Yano]

Let's go.

[Jeff Duden]

You bet. You bat right or left?

[Chris Yano]

I'm an ambidextrous man. I can go both. I'm switching.

[Jeff Duden]

All right, well, I'll throw you the curveball from the left side of the plate, the fastball from the right. But I do have a question. Any, any little. Do you have any visibility or just quick opinions without giving away anything that you think would be, you know, proprietary or confidential? But on search, like, I've been hearing incredible things about search chat becoming a bigger search engine. You know, AI content, non AI content. I mean grok people using Reddit to create some SEO stuff. I mean there's just, there's lots of micro strategies out there and then there's some big movements. Are we ever going to get out from underneath the thumb of just, you know, being. I mean, I feel powerless in a way to search because we're playing a game that it is not by our own definition and all they have to do is break it and then we all start throwing money at it. Even Facebook, right?

[Chris Yano]

Welcome to my everyday is chasing, chasing on this hamster wheel trying to figure things out. I think you mentioned Reddit. I think Reddit is great. More people are using it. I think you see how Alexa has grown. People are using Alexa, Chad GPT. Like we, we ended up just hiring, bringing somebody in house here whose only job was to figure out how to utilize AI, not to replace, to enhance. So if an agency uses AI to replace, companies like mine will smash them because we use them to enhance. How can I do more with more tools to be. To move faster for my clients? Right, because it's not a replacement tool. But you think about, I mean I use ChatGPT a lot, a lot more than even like sometimes even Google right now. But if you go on and Google best home services, digital marketing companies guarantee I know what number one is. And did I do work to make sure that Rhino came up number one? You bet your butt I did. Because that's part of the game is figuring out on behalf of our clients if I can win that game too. That's the game of SEO. It's not like you, you get a set number of boxes and you check them all. Like you have to just keep thinking what are the boxes that don't exist that I need to go after to try and max the opportunity. There's no shortcuts in search engine optimization. None.

[Jeff Duden]

Right.

[Chris Yano]

There's 40 people on my team, 42 people on my SEO team and Nice. And they're busy. So yeah, I mean as many places as you can get your name the better. Especially today because it is starting to spread out the thought around like Google Ads, which is always I think typically the thorn in most people's side because you know, we do feel handcuffed to spend money there. I will say the sleeper is Bing. It's not as much volume but the sleeper is Bing. We've started focusing more attention on it because we're seeing some nice nuggets there that kind of goes back to micro Microsoft sales. Right. So because you know if you have some of these computers where Safari is the browser that's on that computer and Bing is the main search engine, there's some people that just leave Bing and then they search on Bing. So Google's still by far the most dominant player on the ar. That's where having a good company who knows the fifth the people is important because we know how to go and attract those customers and not have to spend a fortune for it. And you got to know what ads to your point Jeff is how to run the right ads that say the right things to get someone to convert and click on them to get into the site. That's part of you know, having an agency that understands that fifth P. But there's, we're chained to it. I think the biggest thing we should be paying attention to is how Gemini, which is, you know, Google's AI search is going to react to chat GPT and, and how they're gonna, if they're gonna overcorrect. But it's still, you know, think about it, it's what you see when you do a search right? It shows you right up front. The Gemini search gives you an answer. And here's what I think's gonna happen again. This is me dealing with Google came to US back in 2014 when they very first launched what was LSA today was called Google Home Services and it was the, it was the now green check. But so we beta tested that for them before they ever rolled it out and I saw the progression of it happening, exactly what I thought was going to happen, happen and I think, I believe that there's going to end up being a paid portion of chat GPT and Gemini of course I think that's exactly where it's going to go to and then we're going to see more happen. But those two right now have the, have the share and so that's the stuff I like to chase down man. Like that's, that's the stuff I like to pay attention to and this is what. When it's a blessing because I have to worry about all these other industries I'm not involved in. I just got to worry about my home services, home improvements world and focus on what's next.

[Jeff Duden]

I had a dream the other night that Grok ended up the winner in search and he gave it to us for free.

[Chris Yano]

That was a dream. That's a good dream. But that's a dream.

[Jeff Duden]

Wouldn't that be nice?

[Chris Yano]

That would be amazing. That's a dream.

[Jeff Duden]

Well, all right. We can. We can hope. All right, here's the curveball to you, Chris. Experienced business builder life liver on many different levels. If you gun to your head 90 days. Okay, you've got to build a business that you're not currently in. And you had to pick it right now. What would you build?

[Chris Yano]

What would I build? A roof? Well, I guess I'm already in it, so I can't build that one. I would say probably a garage door business.

[Jeff Duden]

Okay.

[Chris Yano]

It's similar. And I have and I think about what are the connections I have that could help me build that business. Yeah, I have the knowledge to be able to handle the digital marketing side. I understand how important video production is and I'm not afraid to pull the trigger and try things. But I would rely on my resources that I have who've done it, and then I would go ahead and build a business that way. And even though I've not owned one, I understand the playbook of how to build the business now. And so that would give me confidence. It's in my wheelhouse of things that I could do. Maybe I will. Jeff, let's go build a garage door business.

[Jeff Duden]

Well, there you go.

[Chris Yano]

There you go. I know the buyer.

[Jeff Duden]

We know the buyer. That's right. And he'd probably be. And knowing him, he'd be fine with it. Yeah, he's an abundant. He's an abundance guy. Very generous. All right, last question. If you had one sentence that to use that you where you wanted to make an impact in somebody's life, what would that be?

[Chris Yano]

I would say, no, I don't know that it's a sentence. I think that I just shared this yesterday. I use Bible verses to kind of help me through different phases of my life, but I've always had one that's always seem to be fitting in every phase of life that I've ever been in. So I'm going to share that. That's okay with you.

[Jeff Duden]

Yes.

[Chris Yano]

And it's tattooed on my body. It's called. It says Joshua 1:9 and it says, be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. So it gives me three critical things in that sentence that has carried me through, and it's took on different meanings at different phases of my life. I'm talking. I got this verse. Verse back in, like 2010 when I didn't understand it. And it is be strong and be courageous. I have courage and I'm willing to put in all the work. I'm strong, I've got will. And this says wherever you go, which means no matter where I'm at on my path, whatever I'm at in my journey, I have both of these things that I can rely on no matter where I am. And that's given me so much confidence in anything. I mean, Jeff, I'd use that in my life. I just gave this same verse to a guy who's going through a rough time already. And I said, hey, a guy like me who's running a $93 million company today sat at a boardroom table last year and I felt like I had imposter syndrome. Me. And then I sat there and I was like, wait a second, I know what I'm doing. Private equity doesn't know how to run these businesses. I know how to run this business. But I still had imposter syndrome. I had to revert right back to myself and say, what's this verse? Yeah, I belong, so I still go through it. So I give myself that stuff every day. But I gave that piece of advice, and anybody that's listening, even if you're. No matter what your religion or faith is, you understand the message in that. And the message is self belief and perseverance and will and man, like I've told you from the beginning of my journey, the are the things when I came from nothing, like you, Jeff, we came from nothing and built something. I built it on the back of those things. Perseverance. Perseverance, the will to win and this. The blinders on, you know, focusing on what I can do and not what I can't do.

[Jeff Duden]

Perfectly said. Thank you.

[Chris Yano]

You're welcome.

[Jeff Duden]

All right, we're going to leave it there. Chris, how can people get in touch with you or get in touch with Rhino?

[Chris Yano]

Yeah. I pretty much live my life on the record, so you can find me just about any social media platform. There's not a whole lot of Chris Yano's out there.

[Jeff Duden]

Yeah.

[Chris Yano]

So you can find me on social media. We also have a podcast. Jeff will be on which I'm excited for that. Called to the Point Home Services podcast that we do weekly that my old partner, Gary Vaynerchuk got me involved in. Little name drop. But, yeah, you can pretty much find me anywhere on social media. I'm not hard to find. You can Google my name and you'll find me pretty easily. And if you reach out to me, I promise you I will respond.

[Jeff Duden]

Awesome. Well, fantastic, Chris, thanks for being on, Jeff.

[Chris Yano]

I appreciate you having me on. It's always good to be able to connect with you, brother. This was great.

[Jeff Duden]

Yeah, this was fun. This was great. So the unflappable Cris Yano here with Jeff Duden, and we have been on the home front. Thanks for listening.