$170M in 2 Years: Premier Home Pros’ Playbook for Scaling Without Debt

Summary

Owned and Operated – Episode Summary

Episode: "$170M in 2 Years: Premier Home Pros’ Playbook for Scaling Without Debt"

Date: October 30, 2025
Host: John Wilson
Guests: AJ and Noah, Premier Home Pros

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Episode Overview

This episode of Owned and Operated features AJ and Noah from Premier Home Pros, who discuss their rapid journey scaling a home services business—specializing in plumbing, electrical, and HVAC—from $0 to a projected $170 million in under two years, all without taking on debt. The conversation dives deep into the granular tactical playbook that fueled their expansion: hiring, organizational restructuring, lead generation, sales management, and the crucial lessons learned along the way. Listeners will gain insight into the practical and strategic aspects of hyper-growth in home services, retaining culture, and building scalable processes for both people and systems.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Early Market Strategies & Marketing Spend (00:44-06:51)

• Initial Expansion: Premier Home Pros began in Cleveland, quickly launching Philadelphia just two months later, leveraging personal roots and networks.

  • “Cleveland and Philly were the first two markets...Pittsburgh was third.” – AJ (01:11)
  • Chose markets where leadership had direct connections.

• Lead Generation Tactics:

  • Early reliance on established marketing partners (Angie’s List, Modernize, HomeAdvisor, Facebook Ads).
  • Used sample sizes for new vendors: “Give me 100 leads. Let me see what we do with 100 leads.” – AJ (02:00)

• Marketing Spend Discipline:

  • Kept initial marketing costs under 15% of revenue—a critical benchmark. (04:06)
  • Monitored closely due to tight new-business error margins.

• Growth through Diversification:

  • As results justified spending, gradually brought on more partners and diversified channels.
  • Example: Philly grew from a $4.7MM office in ‘23 to $21MM in ‘24, driven by increased partnerships, budget, and focus on conversion. (06:12-06:51)

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2. Field Operations – Events, Canvassing & Payback (07:45-11:14)

• Events & Canvassing:

  • Events such as home/garden shows worked well, especially Q1. (07:45)
  • Year-round results outside big events are less fruitful.
  • Canvassing yielded a strong 8.5x ROAS for their business. (08:55)

• Payback Periods:

  • First office found payback period longer than the later goal of 46 days, due to “betting on us personally” and limited initial operational ‘army.' (10:29-11:14)

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3. Systematizing Multi-location Growth (11:43-15:12)

• Scaling Pains:

  • “It didn't feel easier until our 10th location.” – Noah (11:43)
  • Earlier offices stressed existing teams and infrastructure.
  • Recipe for easier expansion was determined through org chart reimagination and heavy investment in regional senior sales leaders.

• Org Restructuring:

  • Cut top-heavy roles (e.g., VP Sales). Split sales management among more and better-proven mid-level leaders.
  • “If you have good people, spend the money...it's worth it.” – Noah (15:34)

• Notable Quote:
  “We noticed the difference on the bottom line immediately between having good people or not.” – Noah (15:34)

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4. Culture & Talent: Recruiting, Training, and Stagnation (15:47-23:34)

• Constant Talent Influx:

  • Never stop hiring to push up the middle and replace the bottom.
    “Never stop bringing in new talent to replace the bottom...and help push up the middle.” – Noah (00:14, 24:29)

• Sales Training Evolution:

  • Heavy in-person training legacy; COVID and scale led them to shift to multi-day Zoom trainings.
  • Results: Faster fielding of new talent, boosts in field performance, reduction of sales stagnation. (18:40–19:55)

• Performance Dynamics:

  • Most sales reps peak in first 30-40 days; ongoing training and competitive new hires keep culture dynamic.
  • “Our peak performers are often in their first 30 days.” – AJ (21:46)

• Notable Quote:
  “It's a win or learn mentality. If we lose, we learn and turn it into a win quickly.” – AJ (16:59)

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5. Sales Management Playbook & Compensation (25:29–43:59)

• Sales Leadership Structure:

  • National sales trainer runs bi-weekly Zoom classes for new hires.
  • Regionals cover 2-3 branches and are responsible for ongoing development, weekly KPI-based reviews, and targeted uptraining.

• Ideal Location Manager Profile (28:41–30:45):

  • Strong sales performer, master of the “Premier way,” recruiting and developing sales talent, and executing a strict daily process.

• Sales System:

  • Leads categorized (gold/silver/bronze) for optimal allocation.
  • Morning routines focus on scrubbing sales, tracking down payments, identifying training opportunities.

• Farm System for Leadership:

  • New assistant sales manager roles to groom top reps into future GMs and regionals.
  • “At some point, companies gain strength when they can promote from within.” – AJ (34:24)

• Compensation and Incentives:

  • Uncapped, laddered commission system with aggressive monthly and sales bonuses—including double bonus months to drive volume.
    • “...with [commissions and bonuses] we've got reps making five, six, $7,000 a week every single week.” – Noah (39:21)
    • “If I can make an extra $50K a year just by doing my job well...I'm chasing it.” – AJ (41:07)
  • Spiffs and Sunday sales incentives keep motivation high.

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6. Leadership and Day-to-Day (44:03-46:19)

• Three-core Leadership Division:

  • Noah: Call center, sales center, internal ops, and troubleshooting.
  • Vince: Marketing, tech, automation, IT.
  • AJ: Field ops, sales, installation.

• Approach:

  • “We're in the business to the waist up,” maintaining hands-on, open-door management style and close employee relationships.

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7. Biggest Challenges and “Do-or-Die” Moments (46:19–49:49)

• Major Bottleneck: Supply chain

  • "There were times where it was really bad...we better hope this stuff arrives quickly." – AJ (47:07)
  • Overhead and growth outpaced supply, risking fulfillment and stability.

• Resilience and Adaptation:

  • Plugging holes, rapid-fire troubleshooting, “death by a thousand blunt force traumas.”
  • Emphasis on long-term planning (“chess not checkers”), backup plans, and continual process/playbook refinement.
  • “Show up every day and don't quit.” – Noah (49:26)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Talent:
  “I like people that hate to lose more than they like to win. Let those people drive the boat.” – Noah (00:00, 33:08)
• On Growing Pains:
  “It didn't feel easier until our 10th location.” – Noah (11:43)
• On Organization:
  “We got rid of top end leadership that was really expensive and made some changes that fit the business model.” – AJ (16:59)
• On the Sales System:
  “Our sales system is elite. I'd say it's the best in the country.” – AJ (18:09)
• On New Business:
  “Never stop bringing in new hungry talent. It's the worst thing you can ever do.” – Noah (24:36)
• On Resilience:
  “Just show up every day and don't quit.” – Noah (49:26)
• On Playbooks:
  “At this point, it's just repeating the playbook and nurturing good people so that you can expand the footprint.” – AJ (50:37)
• On Promotions and Growth:
  “At some point, companies gain strength when they can promote from within. That's a reason to be here.” – AJ (34:24)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:00 – Finding the right people, mindset on talent
• 01:11 – Market selection: Cleveland, Philly, Pittsburgh
• 04:06 – Marketing partner selection & <15% cost discipline
• 06:12 – Philly’s office revenue jump as case study
• 10:29 – Discussion on payback periods for new offices
• 11:43 – When did it get easier? “10th location” insight
• 13:55 – Recipe for success; marketing and install lag
• 17:20 – People-centric leadership & org changes
• 18:55 – Zoom sales training pivot
• 21:46 – Salespeople peak in first 30-40 days
• 24:36 – Never stop hiring advice for sales managers
• 28:41 – Ideal profile for a location manager
• 34:24 – Farm system: growth path from rep to leadership
• 39:21 – Weekly earnings potential for top reps
• 41:07 – Bonus structure as motivation lever
• 47:07 – Worst friction: Supply chain breakdown
• **49:26 – How to keep going: “Show up every day and don’t quit.”
• 50:37 – “Repeating the playbook” as the focus for scale

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Final Takeaways

Premier Home Pros' incredible two-year growth curve is driven by relentless people focus, systemized sales and hiring processes, continuously refreshed talent, and tactical discipline in marketing and expansion. The episode gives listeners a playbook for aggressive but thoughtful scaling in the home services space—emphasizing that building and empowering the right teams, continually developing new leaders, and maintaining flexibility and resilience is key to long-term, debt-free hypergrowth.

Contact:

• AJ & Noah best reached via LinkedIn for questions and connections.

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For more actionable advice and new episodes:
Visit ownedandoperated.com

Transcript

[Noah]

You need to find the right people. Don't negotiate on what you will or won't accept. I like people that they hate to lose more than they like to win. Let those people kind of drive the boat. Like, you need to empower them.

[AJ]

Really what we realize is we were the visionaries, and we were just telling an extra person to do what we could just tell them to do on our own.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Noah]

If there's any sales managers, listen to me right now. I'm going to give you the best advice of your life. Never stop bringing in new talent to replace the bottom of your organization and help push up the middle.

[Podcast Host]

At what point, like, maybe number of locations did it start to feel like, easier?

[Noah]

I literally don't feel like it got easier until.

[Podcast Host]

Welcome back to owned and operated. Today I have AJ And Noah again from Premier Home Pros. Welcome back.

[AJ]

Thanks for having us.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, this is going to be fun. It's going to be a continuation. What I'm looking forward to, hopefully deep diving into is like, hey, we set the platform. We talked about the history. I want to understand the scale and the. And the path to scale. Like, six Greenfield locations in a year is a lot. How are we thinking about launch? How are we thinking about zip? You know, we're talking about zip codes. We, like, in our next 30 markets. So I feel like there's a lot to unpack there. Like, first two markets, it was Pittsburgh and Cleveland.

[AJ]

Yes, Cleveland and Phil. Cleveland and Philly were the first two markets.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, Cleveland.

[AJ]

Pittsburgh was third.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, interesting. Okay. Okay. And like your current one, do you consider that Cleveland or is headquarters, like, its own thing?

[Noah]

Headquarters is its own thing.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Noah]

And then we have a Cleveland service, Cleveland market within.

[Podcast Host]

Cleveland's going to cover Canton.

[AJ]

That's really in North Canton. The office.

[Noah]

Yeah, Youngstown.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, really?

[AJ]

But it covers northeast Ohio.

[Podcast Host]

Okay. Okay, interesting. Okay. So first couple. First couple markets, like, what did that look like? How did we start driving leads? How did we nail down marketing strategy? You guys are figuring this out and you don't have Vince yet, who's driving leads?

[AJ]

Me and Noah Nano.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Like, smacking Home Advisor.

[AJ]

That amongst other ones. Yeah. We had, I think, you know, there's about five partners.

[Podcast Host]

Like, marketing partners.

[AJ]

Correct. You're in the industry long enough. You know, like I said, I was been in the industry since 2009. He was in it since 18. You start to see the same marketing partner start to pop up on lead sheets. Like, you get an idea that this company amongst everyone else is going to the same companies for leads. So that's where we started. Like, we just started with, hey, these are the companies that we know for sure. And then we started fielding calls to our other companies that we started finding online and just saying, hey, do you guys do bathrooms? Hey, you do bathrooms? What's your set percentage average? You know what, what's your cost of marketing across all your partners? On average. And from there we started kind of vetting that all out and just started buying leads and setting budgets for each lead provider and, and then just monitored them really closely because your, your room for error and margin is so small when you're, when you're new. Like, yeah, you can't afford to spend $50,000 on a marketing partner and not get nothing back. So. So everything's in sample sizes, right? Give me 100 leads. Let me see what we do with 100 leads. From there, if we see a return on 100 leads, we'll up that. And that's exactly what we did. We made like very small, gradual changes and increases in budgets. And then from there we started adding more partners.

[Podcast Host]

And you know, there's five now.

[AJ]

Oh, now there's, oh, 2020 marketing.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, cuz five. I was like, wow, okay, yeah. But for one ship over there.

[AJ]

Yeah, yeah. No, you. Year one was like five.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

You know, to get us to 15 million. So. And like I said, it was just.

[Podcast Host]

And that's gonna like, just to reiterate, that's like an Angie's List. That's maybe a modernized.

[AJ]

A modernized.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, okay.

[AJ]

Home advisor.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah.

[AJ]

You know, a social partner for Facebook. Advertise targeting, retargeting banner ads, things of those. Things of those nature.

[Podcast Host]

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[AJ]

Yeah, it was like five partners. We monitored it closely. We landed at under 15% in year one for marketing.

[Podcast Host]

Cost is 15. Yeah, you've said that. 15%. That like that's industry.

[AJ]

That is, that is like your golden handcuff right there. Like that's where you want to be, right?

[Podcast Host]

15.

[AJ]

You're sub 15 doing unbelievable. Yeah, but when you climb 15 like, and it all depends on what your, what your margins are and what your cogs are in every industry. Right.

[Podcast Host]

What, what is gross margin? I didn't ask that last.

[Noah]

We try to aim for about 55, 60%.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[AJ]

But you know, that depends on your mark. It depends on your product that you're, you know, like Leaf was. Their cost of marketing was up into the high 20s at 30.

[Podcast Host]

Really?

[AJ]

Because their cogs are so small so they could afford. You can afford to do that. But bathrooms are a little tighter.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

Same with roofing and windows and kitchens and all those things because your cost per lead increases based on your product category. So you just got to be mindful of those things. And, you know, that's what we did. We, me and him monitor really tight and you know, we scaled a business to 15 million and kept the marketing costs at 15 under 15. And we're like, hey, like, it's time to add more partners. But like, we don't really know.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

How to add more partners. Like, we want to get into like, you know, you know, paid ads and we want to get into, you know, different avenues that we weren't really, you know, inclined to do. So that's where Vince. That's where Vince came in.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. And first location was Cleveland. Second was Philly. How far after?

[AJ]

Oh, within like two months really. We had Philadelphia open.

[Podcast Host]

And why Philadelphia?

[AJ]

I was rooted in Philly. That's where I worked at my previous job.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[AJ]

So I had a huge network of people in Philly.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Noah]

And it's a massive market, man.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah, it's.

[AJ]

So I knew the market well.

[Podcast Host]

That's actually, I think where Horizon is based out of. So that, that think that's their headquarters. 850 million before we got it was like in the other building. But they have a, it's 850 million, 34 locations along the East Coast. And they have a one day bath that they've deployed into a few of the locations. But I don't, I don't know how many.

[AJ]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

But I think they're based out of Philly.

[AJ]

Yeah, we're actually like right outside of Philly and New Jersey. South Jersey. We cover all greater Philly and, and, and all the South Jersey and top of Delaware. But you know, looking at that in 20 and 24, you know, let's say, let's say 23 and 23, Philly was a 4.7 million dollar office. In 24, it was a 21 million dollar office.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[AJ]

So that's, that's what marketing, hyper growth that office location just by adding more partners, more lead flow, better conversion. Yeah, those things. So, yeah, we've seen considerable increases in markets since. Since 2023-24.

[Podcast Host]

But yeah. So like same store sales. Yeah.

[AJ]

I mean, just diversifying your portfolio of partners.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Noah]

Right.

[AJ]

And scaling with more budget and getting.

[Noah]

Better at what you're doing also.

[AJ]

Correct.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah. So we start off with five. We add Philly pretty quick. Sounds like we drew talent from our network.

[AJ]

Most of this business came from that.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And that got us to 15. And what. What's 15? Is that $2 million? First year's budget was $2 million revenue. Does that sound right for marketing?

[AJ]

Oh, yeah, probably. Probably close 15%.

[Podcast Host]

All of it leads.

[AJ]

All of it buying leads.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

Buying. Yeah. At that point, yes.

[Podcast Host]

Yes. Okay.

[Noah]

You're not, You're. You're gonna go out of business if you do it otherwise the way we.

[AJ]

Try to do it.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Yeah. Were you guys doing door knocking or events or anything like that yet here in Cleveland?

[Noah]

Did some events.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. How great.

[Noah]

Garden show. Great.

[AJ]

Q1's amazing.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Noah]

And the rest of the year is just a battle.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Losing battle in events.

[Noah]

Yeah. It's you. You go from being at a great big home and garden show and Cleveland home show and all this good stuff. High intent homeowners that are buying a $15 ticket for the husband and wife and they've been in their house for 30 years and it's time to get that bathroom done. They have a cash set aside. They're going to buy. It's a matter of who to then go into rib fests in July.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Noah]

People that are there to see a concert or monster fairs, county fairs. And you're trying to. To draw up people to take it in home message.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. So. And are you guys doing that?

[Noah]

We are. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Noah]

Just harder team continuity for when it's time to make hay in the. In Q1, obviously, is a big thing. And then, you know, just try to diversify your. Your lead flow as well.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah, we did. We have an events and canvassing team. And this was our. We started last April. This was our first like full Q1 with it. And we're. We've been messing with it to hopefully, you know, drive into new markets.

[AJ]

But how's your canvassing going?

[Podcast Host]

Canvassing's good. Like it's a eight and a half times roas.

[Noah]

Okay.

[Podcast Host]

Which like, that feel for me. I'm like, that feels good. That feels really good.

[AJ]

And you guys do like proximity marketing where you're like from a job that you did, do you just canvas a, you know, three Mile radio?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, they're doing proximity and they're doing.

[Noah]

Like Target and that being on interiors isn't a concern for you guys. Like, you're still able to make it happen.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this biggest, biggest months were events. Right. Like, and so like the great big show was a really. That was a, that was a great, big help.

[AJ]

Sure.

[Noah]

It's a great start.

[AJ]

It's a great.

[Noah]

You shut it down from that point. It's like the greatest program of all time. Right.

[Podcast Host]

It was awesome. I mean, it was great. But like we, we broke even on like return in December.

[Noah]

Sure.

[Podcast Host]

And then now it's 10% of revenue comes from that team.

[AJ]

What's your, what's a good month in canvassing for you in terms of revenue?

[Podcast Host]

200 now.

[AJ]

That's good.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

And what's your team account? How many canvassers?

[Podcast Host]

Eight. Seven. Well, we just got up to eight. Oh, hourly or variable based or hourly with us with a spiff on top.

[AJ]

And then they're all required to do street sheets and stuff like that.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, well, for us it's just like there's no plumber out there. Door knocking.

[Noah]

Sure.

[Podcast Host]

So.

[AJ]

Oh, no.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. So it's sort of like carving out the market there. Yeah, it's different and it works. Even events were kind of big and helpful. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so two locations did you have dialed in like the 46 day pavement? What did payback look like in Philly? Second location. It couldn't have been as fast.

[Noah]

Listen, it was harder at that time to get a, get another location going because you just don't have the army that you have now. And you're asking people, like when he said something earlier, he said, you know, you're asking people to kind of take a bet on you. And in the beginning days of this, asking people to take a bet on us was a ridiculous proposition. It was a ridiculous ask. Like we didn't have anything. They're betting on us personally that will make it happen. So, you know, open that office. It's a lot of trial and error and I don't know what our payback period was at that time, but I'll say It wasn't probably 46 days because you got to get a sale, so you got to get leads going.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you're, you're figuring it out.

[AJ]

Budgets were a lot less, though.

[Noah]

They were a lot less. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Like what you needed, what we spent.

[AJ]

Per market on each budget.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

You Know, like I said, Philly did 4.7 and 23. They did 21 million last year.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

So he spent a lot of money there. Yeah, I would agree with. No, it was a lot. It was a lot tougher.

[Noah]

Impossible. Yeah, it was impossible.

[Podcast Host]

What, at what point, like maybe number of locations did it start to feel like easier. We got this.

[Noah]

I literally don't feel like it got easier until our 10th location.

[Podcast Host]

Really?

[Noah]

I didn't notice it. I noticed every other location before that. Yeah, stressed out infrastructure, stressed out of too much to people's plates and conversions from the very beginning aren't what. And this, this most recent one In Dayton, the 10th, I think we opened at the beginning of March.

[Podcast Host]

Is that right?

[AJ]

Or was it February? February 13th.

[Noah]

Yep. It's a. We marry Cincinnati Columbus market together. And that's been rather smooth. And then we just opened North Jersey last week and unbelievable first week. Smoothest smooth can get. And it's literally because we did a business deed deep dive at the end of 2024 and kind of did an org chart reimagination where we decided to go really heavy with senior sales leaders running regions. People that are like just proven motivated, experienced problem solvers, high level achievers would pay them a little bit more and divide them a few less offices each and hire more of them and let them manage the managers in those offices. And our conversion rates and our problem solving is just gone up. And it was, it was a monetary bet, but it was one that made sense. So for me, it wasn't until this year that I felt like it's starting to autopilot.

[Podcast Host]

He's out. Yeah. Aj, why do you think. Why did you think five, like what was. What turned for you?

[AJ]

Well, we were in a position to keep. We opened all, you know, we went from January and 24. We opened Detroit and then, and then February, we opened Atlanta and then March. We opened at the end of. End of March, early April, we opened Chicago and then it kind of just continued to go. So it's like the business. Yeah, it felt the pressure of like needing support in those markets, but we continue to just keep opening. So I would say we figured out the recipe at that point. We knew what to do, how to do it. But where the lag is is in two areas. We never had lag in sales. We'll go to any. We'll go to Alaska and sell people bathrooms. Right. It's getting the marketing dialed into where we're not returning these high reject ratings because we're buying leads that are not high. Intent or affluent people that can afford the product. Right.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

Filtering that out and getting the data back to be able to make the decisions and kind of refine the process and dial it in with the right partners to get the. The market going the right direction and then getting the time for installation to get their feet under them and installing the business cleanly. Because you got to assume when installers are new, they're going to make some mistakes. There's going to be some service and callbacks. So it's like. And then do they have the temperature to stay when they're knowing they have to go back and fix their own problems? People just want to worry about the next dollar. They don't want to go back and fix the ones they got paid on. So that. That's part of it. But I would say that we definitely figure out the recipe in 24. Just my opinion, as far as a profitability standpoint and a smooth transition, we reorganize the org structure dramatically. We got rid of.

[Podcast Host]

Walk me through.

[AJ]

No more VP of Sales.

[Noah]

Go.

[Podcast Host]

Gone. Yeah. Because you. And you're. You are now VP of sales.

[AJ]

I'm. I mean I'm a CEO, but I just run our sales team. Right, right.

[Podcast Host]

But as in like you took that seat.

[AJ]

I've always been the guy that they went to.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[AJ]

But I had a guy that I thought could run the team and there was just too many holes in the below him to. To be able to get things done at the pace that we need to get things done. So I said why are we spending this money on this crazy expensive person that we didn't feel like was bringing back the value?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Yeah.

[AJ]

And why don't we just take that money and let's get a bunch of people that we know can do the job very well, put them in regional roles and just give them one or two markets and then we build from there. And we. I mean our net volume personally went up 800 hours.

[Noah]

Yeah.

[AJ]

In one month of putting that team in.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

It's increase $800.

[Podcast Host]

That's interesting.

[Noah]

I said earlier that like people. You better have good people.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Noah]

We notice the difference on the bottom line immediately between having good people or not having good people and spending the money in that on. On those people is. Is worth it in my opinion, if you have it.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. We just transitioned our director, like our head of sales. Like we went from one to another. This was his first 30 days like April and like absolute blowout. Like crazy. Like we 20 over budget and 55 year over year. Like Crazy. So, yeah, like, yeah, I totally get it because we're looking at the results now as we're like prepping for this. We're like, holy shit.

[Noah]

Yeah, I'm sure you've seen this too. It's like, you know, the thing that a lot of business owners don't want to talk about, but it's the absolute truth. And I've heard a few, like Mark Cuban and some people have been very successful talking about it is you need to be able to identify very quickly who is and is not a fit.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Noah]

You know, hire over a little bit longer term and fire quickly. Don't ever become a wood chipper because that's your culture and you protect your culture. Right. You don't want to be known as a wood chipper. But yeah, like, don't negotiate on the type of people and, and, and the pace that they will push within your organization. Like you need to find the right people. Don't negotiate on what you will or won't accept and let those people kind of drive the boat. Like you need to empower them. So it's, it's really all about people for us.

[AJ]

Yeah, it's, it's a win or learn mentality. It's not a win or lose mentality for us. It's like if we lose, we learn from it. And that, that loss is so short span because we're going to turn into a win in the calm really quickly by taking those mistakes we made, rectifying it, putting a better process in place and fixing it. That's what we did. We got rid of top end leadership that was really, really expensive and made some changes that, that fit the business model. It fit the business model. We were like, man, the values in the people of the doers. Right. It's the people that's in the field doing it. It's not the finger pointers saying get this done, get this done, get this done.

[Noah]

Right.

[AJ]

That, that's great to have that visionary mindset. But like, really what we realized is we were the visionaries and we were just telling an extra person to do, to do what we could just tell them to do on our own.

[Noah]

Right. Telephone.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

And the doers are the value. Like let's get these people out here that are doing the business and like making the changes and executing the dream like that. That's what we were looking for. So we've seen. And then Noah came up with a great idea this beginning of this year with sales training because our struggle was we, our sales system is elite. I'd say it's the best sales system in the country. And I would. I would put my money against it.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[AJ]

We spend a crazy amount of time on sales development.

[Podcast Host]

It's.

[AJ]

It's just what we believe in. Like, I'm to the core. That's, that's, that's my thing. Right?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

But what we've realized is that to get these people into training and spend eight consistent days in training.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

Develop them, get them in the field, have the leaders cultivate them, build the mentality proper, and then get them on the streets themselves to do their own job is a long turn, Right?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

And we were realizing that at most we were getting 10 people a month, new employees, sales reps, into the field a month company wide was like, let's think about maybe doing a zoom. I'm like, dude, zoom. Like the amount of.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, you just vibes.

[AJ]

Just the amount of detail that goes into our training, it was just. There's no way. So I'm like, I'm going to try it. Like, I'm going to try. We're going to try this. I'm going to run our first sales training class. Zoom. We put 15 people in it. Out of 15, 10 of them are here. We did the next one. We had another 17 in it. Out of those 17, 13 are here. In a month's time. In the month of February, we put 22 new representatives into our business that are in the field. That has immediately spiked this new sales talent.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

And the change of mentality of someone being fresh, motivated, ready to run our net volume p lead has went through the roof. Our talent in each office has went through the roof. All those new people, they raised the floor.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

So now all of a sudden, these people that are been in these office locations that are stagnant now all of a sudden, they're really at the bottom because these new people have climbed to the top.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

Yeah, yeah. So it's just changed the culture in the business. And it was just off of a crazy idea of me and him sitting there and he's like, why don't we just try it? Zoom.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

And I'm like, it's easy for you to say. You don't got to do it. And he's like, just try. Let's try it. Let's see. Let's see if we can do it. And it was awesome. It worked.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

And it's working. We're doing two zoom trainings a month.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Noah]

Right now.

[AJ]

Two classes a month.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Noah]

Yeah. You. You battle stagnation of mindset. With, with employees and, and sorry just.

[Podcast Host]

To re hit this. Two classes a month. Like that's the onboarding or that's like I'm going to do a refresher.

[AJ]

No, no, no. New, new hires.

[Podcast Host]

New hires. Okay. Every twice a month, cohorts a month.

[AJ]

Two massive company wide classes.

[Noah]

Training sales training classes for new sales reps.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[AJ]

So if you wanted to come into the business, I'd say hey, I got a class on May 8th for you. You're going to be in that class for eight days. You amongst maybe another 12 people across the country.

[Podcast Host]

Yep.

[AJ]

And then they go back to the respective locations and then they run with their managers for the, you know.

[Podcast Host]

Understood.

[Noah]

It's helped us battle the stagnation of talent in the company. It's. You can bring talent into your organization but six months from now are they going to be pushing hard and it's really about what you're doing to push them.

[Podcast Host]

Right. And how does this help push? I don't know that I understand that.

[Noah]

You bring new, new, new talent in that's hungry.

[AJ]

And.

[Noah]

It makes your existing talent base realize somebody's coming for them if that makes sense for their opportunities. Essentially, like I've got to perform because there's somebody coming right behind me that's a killer that's going to push me to be my absolute best. So it's a lot of the same thing with, with football when, when you draft a, a player on the, you know, it's like, you know, next year's class is better. You know, we just drafted a guy in this first, second round and he's my position. I, I've got to pick it up like yeah, it's the same thing. Same exact thing.

[Podcast Host]

Understood. So but I mean with how new you guys are, it's hard to imagine stagnation.

[AJ]

And let me tell you what happens. We've realized that the peak of most people's career in sales is in their first 30 to 40 days. Their peak.

[Noah]

Why?

[AJ]

They learn the premier process. They don't know any other way at that point. They know the premier process. They're fresh. They go out and execute the X's and O's that we've taught them our 12 step selling system. They go out and execute it and they see the success.

[Noah]

Right.

[AJ]

But then when they get past the 30 day mark, they realize they go to appointment, the customer's tempo's fast, they don't have a lot of time to sit. They cut out a couple steps and they still get a sale.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[AJ]

And they go oh, that worked like, I didn't have to do, I didn't have to go through as much of a needs assessment in the inspection. So then they do it again and then the next customer, they, they get rushed again and they cut some of their product demo down. Before you know it, they've, they've morphed this sales system of their own with the foundation that we had. But it's, it's their own sales system. They're missing the tie downs, they're missing the gradual steps, they're missing the closing time. So now they're in this rut in day 45 and they're like, I'm doing everything I'm supposed to be doing. We get a field trainer in the, in the field with them and they're like, you're not hitting any of the tie downs. You're not spending the amount of time on your warmup. Your agenda is not proper. So it's like redirecting them back on the right road.

[Noah]

Right.

[AJ]

So this new talent coming in constantly, these people are fresh, these people are breathing the sales system and they are out knocking out of the park. Three weeks in a row. We celebrate rep of the week every week. We, we have a conference call Mondays, we celebrate all the wins for offices, individuals. Three weeks in a row. The top three reps in a company were brand new reps in their first 30 days. I have 25 new sales reps this month that are going to do over a quarter million dollars in revenue and their first month. Yeah, it's unbelievable.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, that is interesting. So do you think the, it sounds like you're ramping new talent. What do you do about re engaging the old talent?

[Noah]

It. That has a habit of helping so.

[Podcast Host]

Just bringing in the new talent reengage.

[Noah]

It's the, you know, because we ran some of the most successful sales teams for LE Filter and, and he brought me in Window Nation. I ran leads for him at Window Nation. And you essentially, at the end of the day like you have your 20% or maybe 10% of top performers that are always going to be your top performers and then you have your 10 to 20% of low performers that are never going to make it. And then you have your 80% or 70% in the middle that you can push up or eventually they can live in the middle and be happy being a C, C B minus player, make a solid amount of money and be a contributor and never really go up or they can flame out in the end and go down your job as a sales leader or a Sales manager. If there's any sales managers listening to me right now, I'm going to give you the best advice of your life. Never stop bringing in new talent to help take out the bottom of your to replace the bottom of your organization and help push up the middle. The very worst thing that can happen is they push up the middle to be better. The best thing that they can happen is they push the middle down because they jump them and they, when they push the middle down, the bottom leaves and at the end of the day you're left with a couple better players than you had before. Never stop bringing in new hungry talent. It's the worst thing you can ever do.

[AJ]

Coach up or coach out. That's the mentality, right? It's we either take people, we cannot pull them to the next level. The average performance become elite or average performance don't be. They don't, they don't stay long because the new floor is raised. Right? It just continues to raise. Speaking to what you were saying, with the existing talent, we do a lot more development training.

[Podcast Host]

Now everybody knows that leads are tough to come by, but what if they weren't service scalers? Is the no BS marketing team just for home service contractors. They run SEO, ppc, LSA and GMB campaigns that actually bring in customers and not just clicks. They've delivered me tons of leads tied to real revenue and they can do the same for you. If you sign a 12 month contract, your first month is free. Click the link below to get started. Yeah, what's that team look like? Sounds like there's one.

[AJ]

So we have, there's gotta be a lot. We have a national sales trainer that does zoom trainings twice a month. Then each regional now is doing in their region. They're doing once a week, they're doing a progressive development training, they're taking the KPIs and they're saying here's the bottom performers in each of my regions markets and they're required to be on training for you know, 30 minutes to an hour. And we'll basically go through our lead audit sheets and we'll say what is the, what is the common denominator here of what's the reason? And all these people are failing. And we'll find that it's maybe, maybe it's sit no sale, other estimates or it's no snap decision or no urgency. Customer wasn't ready to buy. And we dial that down with all these struggling reps and we realize that here's the main objection that we're struggling with Right. Then we don't just say, how do we conquer the objection. What stems the objection? Where's the objection coming from? What either comes from lack of rapport. We didn't move, want to need. They just wanted the bathroom. They didn't need it. We didn't make them need it in the inspection. We didn't price condition the homeowner enough to understand what the cost of the services in the industry. They had no idea when we got to the close, like they should have, what the cost of the product or service was, and they were shocked. And at that time, we spent all that time trying to build it, and we didn't do enough of it. So the clothes got rushed, the tempo of the clothes got rushed, and the customer didn't spend the appropriate amount of time to have those tough conversations to walk them into a sale. So we have to deal with all those things in this progressive development training that we do weekly. And we continue to give different. Different viewpoints. We'll also bring in some of our top performers and say, tell the team what you're doing that's working. Because what's better than a person that says, hey, Noah's in the field every day. He wrote $420,000 last month. Let's listen to what this guy's saying.

[Podcast Host]

Right?

[AJ]

This guy does. He's our trainer. He's great. He's. That's why he's our trainer. But he's not run. He's not doing 420,000amonth. What's this guy doing? So we've got a lot more out of that, too.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

Is like. Don't give me the vanilla response. Well, I'm just talking to customers and spend.

[Podcast Host]

No.

[AJ]

What are you doing?

[Podcast Host]

What are you doing?

[AJ]

You're doing something right.

[Podcast Host]

Are you guys using, like, any of the AI software?

[AJ]

We're not using the Rilla and all that stuff. We feel like for our sales team that the cost, the return is not there.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah.

[Noah]

I mean, it's like we're already so high performing as it is. What we've had to almost engineer our closing percentage down over time because you just have too many jobs. So it's like, what?

[Podcast Host]

And that's why I like price increases. Or.

[AJ]

Yeah.

[Noah]

I mean. And then also, you know, the thing that we can do to best support our sales team, we've decided instead of, you know, you buying a rilla and hoping our closing percentage goes up is instead on the business that we are writing, how can we help our sales team understand how to do it more Profitably so they can make more money, support them on their existing books of business that they're writing.

[Podcast Host]

So the, there's a director of training. Was that the title?

[AJ]

He's the national sales trainer.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, sorry, national sales trainer. And then all the regionals, you guys have talked about that a lot. They, they have two branches each and.

[AJ]

Then they, some have three, but two.

[Podcast Host]

To three branches each and they're really like driving the bus with the location sales leaders.

[AJ]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Okay. Okay. And then are there. Who's doing like ride alongs or you know.

[AJ]

So ops managers do two to three ride alongs a week.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

And then every region regional that's in the market, whatever market they're in, they'll. They'll get on ride alongs every week.

[Podcast Host]

Can you describe the ideal location manager? Like the sales operations leader? Like who?

[AJ]

There's, there's a few facets that they have to have.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

Okay. One, they have to be a steward of the system. Like they have to be able to perform.

[Podcast Host]

They have to believe in it.

[AJ]

They have to be able to perform the sales system at an elite level. Okay. So they need to be.

[Podcast Host]

Are these former salespeople?

[AJ]

Typically, most of them are all a salesperson at one point in time for premiere. Some of them are. Some of them. Other people have been leaders at other organizations that I've worked at or that we've worked at together and we've brought them over.

[Noah]

Okay.

[AJ]

And then we taught them the premier way. So you need to be able to hire, train, motivate and recruit. And then they gotta be able to develop leaders or develop sales talent.

[Podcast Host]

We hire, train, motivate and recruit.

[AJ]

Yep. And develop. So those are the five facets we look for. Right. Most of those people are alpha mentality people. They're eight, They're A plus personality people. They just are.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[AJ]

We have some people in, in our organization that are not as dominant personalities as others. But we find that the people that can Command the room and 100 designate that they are the leader are the ones that, to get the best out of their team. Right. Those facets are non negotiables. They got to be able to do those things. We, we, we give them a strict process of what we want them to do. What does a morning routine look like? Well, get in the office by 8am what do you do then? Look at your book of business. What did you sell yesterday? Okay. Go over all your sales, Take those sales, go through the contracts, scrub those contracts. Is there everything filled out properly? Is anything missing? Yes, yes, yes.

[Podcast Host]

No.

[AJ]

No, no. Track down the down payments on every one of those jobs. Do they get ran through financing for the down payment or they go check or credit card? Track down those down payments. From that point, visit all your sito sales, the leads that you did not sell.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[AJ]

Look at the notes. Make sure the notes match the report from your call center leader. They sent out a report the end of the night. And then go through those reports and start writing down on the lead audit sheet the common denominator of what the misses are.

[Podcast Host]

And they have that information because the sales rep did like a debrief.

[AJ]

It's in our CRM.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[AJ]

It just tells you every note.

[Noah]

So what when they resolve it.

[AJ]

So, so at that point we start following trends. We're creating a playbook of what training is going to be later in the week. And then from there, at that point they're going to go and they're going to spend some time with. They're going to first put all their leads that they have today on their board and they're going to say, where is my availability for same days and did I put the right leads in the right person's hands? There's an art to that. It's not just issue lead to issue name. It's we have leads categorized as what's a gold lead, what's a silver lead, what's a bronze lead, what are those categorized by home value, debt to income, poverty percentage, credit, FICA score, all those things. So gold leads go to gold reps, silver leads go to silver reps, and then bronze leads are fill ins.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[AJ]

So then we look at it. Where's the same day capabilities if Noah's call center gets the same day in Philadelphia, who can take it? And does it hurt the office by having to give this person the same day because he's in that area? Or do I need to revert the leads to make sure that the best person's taken the same day?

[Noah]

Right.

[AJ]

So that's the first part, mapping it out. And we go and we spend some time with our project manager. We go over all yesterday's sales. Hey, I went through the deals. These are clean. No problem to go ahead and push through ordering. And then I say, what does your schedule look like that you have installed this week? Is there any jobs that you're not able to get a hold of that you need me to try to call to get on this schedule this week? Let's go over the whole business. Jobs are in a stagnant position. Customer holder, management hold. Customer hold means the Customer is not allowing us to install for a particular reason. Management holders, we're holding it for our own reasons.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[AJ]

Clear those up daily from that point on. The next hour for a sales manager is to spend time on recruiting. He was telling you, never be stagnant. They're constantly taking those interviews that they have and they're spending time in that time slot of fielding interviews for recruiting. And then the back half of their day is an hour of development training, bringing people into the office to train and then be in a field a couple times a day. By 2 o', clock, their day's open. Now they're taking phone calls, fielding any drop call that they need to take. Reps in a house, can't close it. Phone line goes to, to the sales manager. Sales manager's talking to the customer, trying to walk them into a deal. So that's the process, you know, and that process we don't want to deviate from. That's what creates a process to open time in their day to be a manager.

[Noah]

And then when it comes to, to the sales reps themselves kind of people that we want those alpha leaders to bring in, we really, we really kind of look for like three main things. You got to be competitive. I like people that want to, they hate to lose more than they like to win because they will just refuse to lose. Right. You have to be charismatic. You got to be able to talk to people, make a friend, make people like you, be, be magnetic.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Noah]

And then you got to be hungry. Gotta be perpetually hungry. You gotta be driven. Not big on motivation. Motivation is fleeting. Driven is, is kind of the engine that takes you every single day. You don't have to.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Noah]

You know, get started to go somewhere and then it dies. So we really look for those three things and from there we can work with those types of people. And very often we will find that our best performers are people from kind of outside the industry who are just desperate for an opportunity to make a lot of money.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Noah]

And not, you know, somebody that, I hate to use the term old dog, because we've, we've taken many veterans and been successful with them. We're thankful for them. But maybe not somebody that hasn't worked out at several other places. They, they've sold bathrooms for 20 years. I can't win with you. You have, you have your way of doing it. I, I'm not necessarily asking to do it my way, but I'm asking to do it the premier way because that's how we can kind of recruit, hire, train Develop people, duplicate, have a culture. Yeah, that makes sense.

[AJ]

And then me and him have been, you know, we've officially put this into motion. This is something new for Premier is we've looked at this landscape of like all these new greenfield markets. We still have dc, we're opening this year, we still have Minnesota, we're opening this year and we're still open in Boston. That's three more markets, right. And then next year probably ends up being like 6 to 8 more markets depending on how fast we keep implementing the process. So we're looking at this and we're like, there is going to be a point in time with this biggest. Premier is at this point that we can't continue to pick from the vine and go into a network that I've had and just keep taking a sales leader from somewhere and hoping that they become a Premier person. Like we need to develop that person. Right. Because at some point companies gain strength when they can promote from within. That's a reason to be here. It's a crew, it's a way to create buy in it's good culture.

[Podcast Host]

And we're just getting to that point now and it's been a really big.

[AJ]

Win for us, so.

[Noah]

Massive win.

[AJ]

So what we're going to do is we are going to create assistant sales managers in every market and that's getting rolled out now as we speak where a great sales performer, maybe not the best rep in an office, not the top generating sales rep, but maybe the one that is above average or really good, but does it to a T. He does our sales system to a te and that person's going to be responsible for field rides every day with a, with a new rep, a struggling rep, they get paid extra to do that. They get an office bonus. You know, there's, there's a lot of different things that we're doing comp wise to make it worth the time. And then that person all of a sudden gets some of the backend work from the GM and we start cultivating this person, getting groomed and ready. So when the next market opens, I go, hey, you know, Pittsburgh's assistant manager. I got an, I got an opportunity in Buffalo. You want to go. An opportunity to make 3, $400,000. Are you relocatable?

[Podcast Host]

Yes.

[AJ]

Plug and play now, right? You're creating this farm system and now there's a vacancy in the assistant sales manager position in Pittsburgh. And now another person has a path to grow in the company. So that's what the model is, is going towards for us. That's the next big jump.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah. Like emerging leader. Do you think? Like, how does training look like, aside from being attached to that person's hip? Are they bouncing between locations? Is there as much as a sales manager? Right.

[AJ]

They'll be stuck in if Cleveland's manager will only be a Cleveland assistant manager.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[AJ]

He'll be working hand in hand with his gm. He'll know his reps. He is literally, if I'm the GM and he's my assistant, he is my ears to the field. Because when a rep is out in the car with that person every day.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

They're way more liable to tell him what's going on inside the. Inside their. Their ears than what they're going to tell the GM that's an actual boss.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

That person then can relay information to the gm. We can get a temperature on everybody, and we can just continue to build on all the deficiencies that every person has and start grooming and making them stronger. Those new reps, they're not so hungry to make money now. We have someone out there helping them make money, developing them, letting them let them develop at a proper pace. So we see a huge upside to that. That's. That's really an eerie model. Erie did that from the existence. And they're strong at that. They build seasoned leaders by doing that. And when you come in it, most people that are ambitious, they go, what's my path to grow? I don't know. You're just a sales rep. I don't want to just be a sales rep. Well, what else can I be? I don't know. You'd have to wait for another market. No, you can be an assistant sales manager. You can grow to a gm. Your GM might go to be a regional. There's. There's pathway for growth. Right. And I think that's huge for culture.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Yeah, I agree with you. Are they still running active leads while being an assistant manager sounds like they.

[AJ]

Every day.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

So.

[Podcast Host]

So it's like an override in addition to their own.

[AJ]

So our reps get paid. No. Implemented a new bonus program for them to make it more. Make it more advantageous.

[Podcast Host]

Go ahead and talk about it. Yeah, I want to hear about it.

[Noah]

Yeah. So basically it's a ladder system where the more revenue, revenue. Net revenue that they do in a month, they'll get increasingly more compensation. And it keeps them fighting for all the deals. And I say people that hate to lose, it helps them not ever want to lose and write a deal wherever they can write it within parameters. If that makes sense and helps helps reps stay around and keep chasing. Kind of chasing the carrot every single month. So we've got reps making money. My goodness. With, with, with bonuses and with commissions. We've. We've got reps making 5, 6, $7,000 a week every single week. And, you know, it's a sliding scale based on where you sell. You can make as little as $250 for a job you shouldn't have sold because it didn't come into parameters. And then 5% all the way up to 12% with kickers on top of that. And then we pay extra for Sunday sales. And so we, We've kind of created an environment where there's all these different kickers left and right, where reps can really just stack and stack and stack. And they're. They're starting to make some, some really insane money. And then when we throw training on top of that, when I was talking earlier about showing them how to take the deals that they're currently writing and then make more money on top of that. Yeah, they're just, they're starting to see. They're starting to see some, some serious gains. And then to the point where our last three manager placements, I believe, are. Yeah, that's, that's insane.

[AJ]

So we doubled the bonus this month.

[Noah]

So double the bonus this month. We just basically said beginning of April. Hey, we're going to, we're going to.

[Podcast Host]

Do a push for your sales managers.

[Noah]

For sales reps reps. So whatever you would make this month a normal sales bonus, we're going to double it.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Noah]

And so we've got. Oh, my gosh. One, two.

[Podcast Host]

That's a good idea.

[Noah]

One, two, three, four.

[AJ]

And.

[Noah]

And we're going to set a monthly record. This month. We're going to do over 12 and a half million in sales. 1, 2, 3.

[Podcast Host]

How does the cost structure absorb that?

[AJ]

It's all variable. It's all variable.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

There's. We have no fix over it on a sales rep. 0.

[Podcast Host]

So would will your.

[Noah]

We got 20, 24 reps doing over 100,000 in net volume this month so far across the company.

[Podcast Host]

And good, like what's good for something that's pretty. So 100. 100 is good.

[AJ]

That's okay.

[Noah]

That's fine.

[Podcast Host]

Deals. Six deals.

[Noah]

What's that?

[Podcast Host]

That's six deals.

[Noah]

Net deals.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Noah]

So, you know, really for us, it's. The bonus starts at 150,000 in that revenue and then goes up to 200,000 is the next marker. 250 is the next marker. So, yeah, your great Reps are doing 250. You're really good reps are doing 200. And your solid reps are doing 150.

[AJ]

Plus top rep did 4.7 million last year.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. So that gives perspective. Yeah.

[AJ]

But you know, me and Noah were talking. We're like, we want the sales position to be like, very advantageous of. Some people just have the vision that they don't. They don't want the problems of being a manager. Just want to make a great living being a sales performer, be a lead at that job, go home to their family every day and shut off.

[Noah]

Right.

[AJ]

And we wanted to create a carve out that that bonus was enough to be like, I have to hit bonus this month. Like it's, it's an extra 2 to 4,000amonth for me. I got to hit it. Like I'm. If I can make an extra 50 grand a year just by doing my job well, that I already do. I'm chasing it. Right.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Yeah.

[AJ]

So we, we doubled it and we've seen that the, that, that.

[Podcast Host]

Is that permanent.

[AJ]

So we're probably. That was a.

[Podcast Host]

So it's nice. Is it? And it's only if you hit a certain threshold.

[Noah]

Sure. And you ask where the extra margin comes from. It. Well, it's almost, you know, our marketing budget per month is fixed on a dollars basis. Like this is what we're going to spend this month. And you get really close to it. So what's the worst thing that happens? You sell more, and then your net cost of marketing is lower because you sold more. You paid more in commission. But it came almost directly from your net cost of marketing at end of the month. So it just balances out because you're capitalizing on more sales that maybe you wouldn't have capitalized on last month.

[AJ]

And there's a balance there because here's what you realize with reps, they do one of two things. You have represented. You have representatives that don't care as much. Now you're going to say this is s. Sounds crazy, but I'm just being honest. You have reps that don't care as much about what their commission percentage is versus getting the win because they're fighting for the bonus.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, yeah, yeah, we have that. Like, guys are just like, yeah, I'll take the two. I. I just need this to close, even if it's 200 bucks, because I'm.

[AJ]

Fighting for my bonus at the end of the month. Right. And then you have other people that say, I'm fighting For every single ounce of commission on every deal. And I want to make the most amount of money working the least. And what we find is that even the people that chase the volume and not the commission percent as much, they end up making great money at the end of the month because they get the bonus. So that's the kind of. We don't want to promote people to sell jobs at the floor, but we want to also reward people for taking the effort of saying it's either walk the deal or get to get contract signed. Yeah, yeah, let's get the contract signed. Right?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

So, so there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a common ground there.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. What, what is the threshold for the double?

[AJ]

This is all.

[Noah]

Anybody who makes bonus is getting double what they normally.

[Podcast Host]

And bonus is like a threshold is.

[Noah]

A minimum of $150,000.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, okay, okay, okay. So if it was $2,000, if I hit 150, it's four.

[Noah]

Correct.

[Podcast Host]

All right. Yeah, I'm super into that. That's a good idea.

[Noah]

And we've seen that our net volume per lead has exploded.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Noah]

So, yeah, we have metrics. I think we have as good of, if not better analytics on the back end than anybody I've ever seen. And we have metrics that'll dial down for a given time period how, what's the average commission percentage or, and, or discount percentage that a sales rep will sell at. And we can, we can dial it down and kind of, kind of tailor what we're looking to do based on what the reps are doing recently based on this promotion. So after today, which is the last day a month, we'll do a, we'll do a deep dive and kind of go back and see how effective it was month over month. I think it's going to be pretty, pretty darn effective.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. What do you guys day to days look like individually?

[AJ]

Yeah, we're in the business to the waist up. It's, I mean there's never, never really a dull moment we get in there. I mean all of us are probably in there by the latest at 9:00am I'd say nine, 9:30. And you know, us three are all, we all have kids.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

And wives. Right. And all our kids are fairly young.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

Vince has two daughters that are under.

[Noah]

Four, under three, two and five, I.

[AJ]

Think two and five. And, and Noah's got a third one on the way and, and, and two, three boys now. And, and they're young. And, and I got, of the three I had the oldest children 13 and 10. So we're like heavily involved in family, you know. But we get in there, we get in there in the mornings and no, no dealing with the call center and the internal inside center. So like that's a task in itself. Like he's wrapped up in that and then he's bridging the liaison between sales and inside call center on issues and kinks that we're working on, conference calls and those things. Vince is really wrapped up into marketing, tech, automation, it heavily. And then I'm running the field. I'm running sales, installation, all those things, you know, so we're, we're busy. We're busy for sure. You know, if we're not on calls.

[Noah]

We'Re just talking to employees constantly.

[AJ]

Constantly.

[Noah]

Here's always to the ground.

[AJ]

It's like where do you wait? You like, you look up, you're looking for friction. You're dieting.

[Podcast Host]

Lunch.

[AJ]

I guess it's 4 o'.

[Noah]

Clock. What happened to lunch? Find us, they find us.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

So yeah, there's not really a closed door.

[Noah]

It's not really structured because it can't be. I don't think we'd be doing the business to a service if we made our days fully structured and everything. It's kind of just get in there and get your hands dirty. And because of that I think we have elite relationships with our, with our teammates. And because it's not just structured and bland, it's like we're in there helping and fighting and figuring things out.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. So yeah. What was the. Just sort of rounding this out. We've gone from zero to, you know, this year. 170, 184 is what we're tracking. 174. That's, that's pace. All right. Yeah. Yeah.

[Noah]

Based on our gross plan. Growth plan.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Like, what was the biggest friction point? Like what was the, like the moment where like, hey, this is, this is, this might, this might be it.

[Noah]

Like this might work or might not work?

[Podcast Host]

Might not work.

[Noah]

Oh, goodness gracious. Huh.

[AJ]

I, I would venture to say supply chain.

[Podcast Host]

You just couldn't get it.

[Noah]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Because who's gonna whip that out?

[AJ]

It was a, it was a matter of both sides not communicating the way that a high level business should communicate and forecasting.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[AJ]

We didn't think we were going to sell that much and they weren't ready for us to sell that much. So it's a process of balancing that. But we've, we've struggled at times with supply chain and getting the product at a Timely fashion and having enough of it and being able to install to our full capacity. That's been a challenge.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

And that's. There was times where it was really bad. I would say where we were like who. We better hope that this stuff arrives quickly. When you, when you agree just because.

[Podcast Host]

Canceled jobs like you start like losing orders just.

[AJ]

I mean you need to. When you start building a business of this size, your overheads.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[AJ]

Outrageous.

[Noah]

You know, try to keep it as low as possible.

[AJ]

But it's still. You're spending.

[Podcast Host]

It's a lot.

[AJ]

Million and a half dollars a month of marketing and.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[AJ]

And your overhead and your literal like you need to install jobs.

[Noah]

So I don't know if there was ever a moment where we were like this isn't going to work out. I think there was, there were moments where we were going to have to make some hard decisions if things didn't happen.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, right.

[Noah]

And that always typically revolves around people or employees. Right. But I don't think there's ever like a do or or die. Like one moment it was. That doesn't mean that we haven't gone absolutely clinically insane dozens of times during this process. Like 9:00pm, 11:00pm calls this person, this issue, this problem and like you're not going to believe. Call me all the time. I call him. You're not gonna wait till you hear this. What? Here we go. Right. And that. It's a lot of the totality of that of just like death by a thousand blunt force traumas.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah.

[AJ]

But I'm familiar with this as you get what.

[Noah]

And listen. And the fact that my wife has dealt with it. My wife is like, is, is. I try to, you know, shield her from the details and stuff because, because it just kind of is what it is. But you just keep showing up, you keep solving problems. You keep trying to create self fulfilling systems and processes and let things start to run and trust your people and find talent. Don't negotiate on, on what people are going to do for you and, and you know, push your people hard because you care not because you're just there to push them and just show up every day, don't quit. And then you, you end up stacking months and looking back and go holy crap, we're going to do 13, almost $13 million this month. And yeah, that's great. Install more than ever. And then it's. I don't know if we really have goals, we have benchmarks we need to hit to be a profitable business. We don't necessarily say we Want to do this amount, to do this amount. The 174 isn't some chalk goal or sharpie goal that we want to hit for an ego purposes. It's basically what can, what do we think the business can do? And let's see if we can't hit it. But just show up every day and don't quit.

[AJ]

You gotta play chess, not checkers. And you gotta see things way ahead of the curve. Whether that's people, whether that's economic issues, whatever it may be. You better see it way ahead of the curve and you better have a game plan and a footprint of how you're gonna handle it when it gets there. Because people are going to fail you. People you never think will leave, will leave family, friends, you just never know. You know. And you better have a backup plan. You better have things in place so you're not call your pants down. Because every business owner has been there. Yeah, we've all been there. Like, oh, I wasn't expecting that. Now what? You know, yeah, the pivot moments where you're like in crazy stress levels, you're like, what do we do now? It's like, okay, let's get together. Three great mind. It's the benefit of having 300. Let's get in this room, let's close the door and let's figure these things out. Let's get ahead of it. So we've done a good job this year of getting ahead of things. Yeah, really ahead of things. So, you know, we got the year modeled out and we know where we're going to land mathematically, give or take, plus or minus a little bit. But we have, we have the playbook set. I would say at this point now it's just repeating the playbook and continue to bring and nurture good people into the organization so that you can expand the footprint. That's, that's what it was.

[Podcast Host]

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[AJ]

Absolutely.

[Podcast Host]

If people want to contact you. Sounds like LinkedIn's probably the best way to get a hold of you.

[Noah]

Yeah, send me a message.

[AJ]

Absolutely. Anytime.

[Podcast Host]

Awesome.

[AJ]

But yeah, you know, still a lot of, a lot of year left. Yeah, I be, I'm, I'm, I want to be able to look at this, this, this podcast and we'll do a six month.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, we'll do a six month experience. That's some of the funnest. That is some of the funnest ones is I actually, I have a friend flying in because we did one over Zoom. He's in Chicago and he did one six months ago. He texted me the other day, he's like, hey, dude, I gotta get back on. Like the last six months a lot changed. And I'm like, yeah, dude, fly on out. So he's coming out here later, later in May. But yeah, like six months a year. Yeah, it's crazy. Especially in like a high velocity business. Like, hey, this is what we were dealing with at this point, dude. Like, here's, here's what happened or here's what happened.

[Noah]

I can't remember what happened six months ago. Like, what was that, like November?

[Podcast Host]

Dude, I, I'm, I'm right there with you.

[Noah]

Couldn't tell you what headache I was having that day. Yeah. Now this has been a blessing, but you know, you can never put your feet up.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Yeah, you're definitely the ops guy. If you like what you heard, make sure you check out owned and operated dot com. Sign up for the newsletter, check out the YouTube. It is booming. Thank you, thank you.