#177 - HVAC and Plumbing Lead Generation: Outbound Campaigns That Fill The Board

Summary

Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast
Episode #177: HVAC and Plumbing Lead Generation: Outbound Campaigns That Fill The Board
Release Date: March 13, 2025
Hosts: John Wilson & Jack Carr

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Introduction

In Episode #177 of Owned and Operated, hosts John Wilson and Jack Carr delve deep into effective lead generation strategies tailored for HVAC and Plumbing businesses. The conversation primarily focuses on outbound campaigns that ensure a consistently filled service board, fostering sustainable business growth.

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Taking Ownership of Lead Generation

John kicks off the discussion by emphasizing the importance of ownership in business growth. He states, "People just don't do whatever it takes because they haven't fully taken on the ownership of. This is my problem." (00:00)

Jack echoes this sentiment, highlighting the owner's responsibility in maintaining a busy schedule for their team: "Ensuring that your team is filled up every day. As an owner, that is one of the main responsibilities." (00:08)

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Implementing Outbound Campaigns

A significant portion of the episode centers on the implementation of outbound campaigns. John shares their journey with Hatch, a software solution that has revolutionized their outreach efforts:

"With Hatch you get automated multi touch outreach across text, voicemail, drop email and a ton more. So every single lead that you have gets worked. Every invoice that you leave gets retouched and rehashed and it's freaking awesome." (00:14)

This automated approach has allowed John and Jack to scale their efforts efficiently, adding three to four automations each month.

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Managing the Service Board: Proactive Planning

The hosts discuss their proactive approach to managing the service board to avoid slow periods, especially during traditionally slower months like February, March, and April.

Jack shares his strategy for March: "Not to fail. And by that I mean exactly how that sounds is I will go out there and knock doors to fill up schedule if I have to because we're not going to fail." (01:15)

John elaborates on their financial strategies, mentioning "code Icy Blue" as the point where they become net profitable each month, usually aiming to surpass this by the 15th working day.

By starting the month with a full board, they ensure sustained momentum, emphasizing the importance of selling everything that moves and being willing to take gross margin concessions to continue pushing leads.

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Diversifying Lead Generation Channels

The conversation shifts to the effectiveness of various lead generation channels:

1. Outbound Calls and Door Hangers:

   • John recounts a successful instance where a door hanger led to the sale of a tankless water heater: "... the first day we did door hangers ... we sold a tankless water heater off a freaking door hanger." (16:35)
   • Jack emphasizes the personal touch and immediate impact of such traditional methods compared to saturated online channels.

2. Social Media Advertising:

   • Both hosts critique the oversaturation and diminishing returns of platforms like Facebook for HVAC and Plumbing advertising. John advises, "Don't always go for the easy thing, because everyone's already doing the easy thing." (15:04)
   • They advocate for creative and outlandish approaches to stand out, such as John's unorthodox bathroom billboard ads for local baseball teams.

3. Mailers and Traditional Advertising:

   • Jack expresses skepticism about the effectiveness of mailers, stating, "I always have trouble with mailers... they're all having to send mailers because they have no more channels that they can lean on." (23:07)
   • John shares mixed experiences, noting both successes and eventual budget cuts in favor of TV advertising.

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Building and Maintaining Lead Lists

A critical aspect of their strategy involves building robust lead lists:

• Jack outlines their categorization of leads into members, warms, colds, and ice colds, allowing tailored outreach strategies for each segment.
• Emphasis is placed on the importance of having phone numbers for direct outreach, including calls, texts, and emails, ensuring every lead is engaged effectively.

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Philosophy of Ownership and Accountability

A recurring theme is the philosophy that an empty service board is solely the owner's responsibility. John firmly states, "if it is not full, it is our fault. And that's it." (10:53)

This mindset drives them to implement rigorous processes and maintain accountability across their teams. They manage their service board three days in advance, allowing proactive adjustments to ensure no day goes without leads.

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Cross-Selling and Team Motivation

Jack highlights the importance of cross-selling within their teams, fostering a competitive and motivated workforce:

"We have our warm leads, which are ... now they're starting to see and they haven't gotten a ton of stuff from us before. ... it's plumbing ... cross sales ... friendly competitions ... assure reps are actively searching." (09:30)

Incentives like awarding gift cards for the most cross-sells encourage team members to actively seek additional opportunities, enhancing overall revenue.

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Overcoming Common Challenges in Lead Generation

John and Jack address prevalent issues businesses face, such as over-reliance on agencies that fail to deliver sustainable leads. They urge owners to take proactive measures rather than placing blame on external factors:

"... we're like, this is our problem, we need to solve it ... don't fully take on ownership of this is my problem." (11:06)

They advocate for hands-on approaches, including door knocking, outbound calling, and leveraging multiple outreach methods to ensure a steady flow of leads.

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Effective Use of Advertising and Partnerships

Exploring beyond traditional online ads, the hosts discuss innovative advertising methods and strategic partnerships:

• John's partnership with a local baseball team for bathroom billboard ads exemplifies their creative approach to branding.
• Jack mentions plans for engaging community events, such as racing teams during halftime shows, to collect phone numbers and enhance brand recall.

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Process Implementation and Team Culture

A significant takeaway is the establishment of standardized processes and fostering a culture of proactive lead generation:

• John describes maintaining a 26-point checklist for lead generation, ensuring comprehensive coverage of multiple strategies.
• They utilize tools like Nexar's three-day call board to manage and forecast lead availability, reducing crisis management scenarios.
• Jack emphasizes the need for a team culture where outbound calling and active lead engagement are integral responsibilities, not optional tasks.

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

In wrapping up, John and Jack reinforce the necessity of extreme ownership in lead generation. They caution against easy but ineffective methods, urging businesses to invest in diverse and proactive strategies. The hosts emphasize that building a full service board requires dedication, creativity, and a relentless pursuit of leads through both traditional and innovative channels.

John concludes with a call to action, encouraging listeners to attend their upcoming workshop and engage with their community: "We've got our workshop coming up in April. Make sure you check out Owned and operated dot com." (40:34)

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Notable Quotes

• John Wilson: "What you need to do is figure out how to actually run a fucking business and drive demand." (00:14)
• Jack Carr: "Outbounding is the fastest possible way to fill your board. Just calling people, you will fill the board." (32:43)
• John Wilson: "if it is not full, it is our fault. And that's it." (10:53)
• Jack Carr: "Outbound calling ... there's a lot of rejection. A lot of it can be rough." (33:03)

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Key Takeaways

1. Ownership is Crucial: Business owners must take full responsibility for lead generation and maintaining a full service board.
2. Diversify Lead Generation Channels: Relying solely on saturated platforms like Facebook is ineffective. Blend traditional methods like door hangers with innovative advertising.
3. Proactive Planning: Managing leads three days in advance prevents slow periods and ensures consistent business flow.
4. Team Culture and Accountability: Foster a team environment where outbound calling and proactive lead engagement are standard practices.
5. Creative Advertising: Stand out with unique advertising methods and strategic partnerships to enhance brand recognition and lead collection.

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For more insights and actionable strategies, visit www.ownedandoperated.com.

Transcript

[John]

People just don't do whatever it takes because they haven't fully taken on the ownership of. This is my problem.

[Jack]

Ensuring that your team is filled up every day. As an owner, that is one of the main responsibilities.

[John]

What you need to do is figure out how to actually run a fucking business and drive demand. Pick up your phone, call people. Earlier this year we started an outbounding campaign and we really didn't know where to begin. So we were using dialing on the phones, we were sending text messages, we were trying emails, tried a couple different softwares and ultimately we ended up with Hatch. Hatch has been an awesome partner for us. We started with them about five or six months ago and we've just continued to ramp. Every month we add three or four more automations and my personal favorite thing about working with Hatch is Hatch comes out of the box ready to go. With Hatch you get automated multi touch outreach across text, voicemail, drop email and a ton more. So every single lead that you have gets worked. Every invoice that you leave gets retouched and rehashed and it's freaking awesome. Check out use hatchapp.com OAO welcome back. Welcome back.

[Jack]

We're here.

[John]

Yeah. All right, so we're early on in March. What is your plan for March?

[Jack]

Not to fail. And by that I mean exactly how that sounds is I will go out there and knock doors to fill up schedule if I have to because we're not going to fail. And as you and everybody else have heard, my ships are burned. So we're not going to fail. Is that a good strategy?

[John]

I guess that's a good strategy.

[Jack]

Don't suck in March.

[John]

We started off this month, you know, last time we talked a lot about our inside sales strategy. So we started off this month like usually we enter code Icy Blue which means that we broke our break even for the month and we're officially net profitable. We usually try to cross that on the 15th working day of the month but. 15th working day, okay.

[Jack]

Okay. So really more like the 20th.

[John]

So yeah, usually the last week we start ripping anyway. So this month we started ripping just, just like from the get go. Day one, March 1st, we are in code Icy Blue. And what that means sell everything that moves basically. And so because of that we've been, well we're only three days in but good momentum for the start of the month. We've sold yeah roughly the budget every day. We'll sell the budget this day. So that's our plan for March is off the rig discounts take. Yeah, take a Gross margin concession basically in order to continue pushing. As long as gross margin doesn't go below, you know, too low.

[Jack]

Yeah, I mean I just after the last episode, I just sent my HR person a notification to post for strongly worded email. We need to strongly worded inside sales ASAP. Get the post up on LinkedIn now. So we'll see how that goes. That's definitely part of the plan. I think that you're right though. The plan is we send out. We also followed up by sending out a starting off March follow up. What do they call it? The service titan has the estimate follow up email thing that they send out.

[John]

Sure, yeah.

[Jack]

And then we have just been slamming down outbounds to do maintenances. Any maintenance we can get on the board right now is a win. Yeah, so we, we did pretty good today. We've sold, it's 2 o'clock here and we've sold two duck cleanings already. No units unfortunately, and some bunch of plumbing. So we're really, really excited because those duct cleanings, they're not like the best thing in the world but they keep installers busy and they, you know, all we're paying is labor. So it's not like they're really high margin.

[John]

Yeah, I think a good use of today, you know, what we spent the last episode on was what to do when install is slow and like controlling costs and how to prepare your installers for the slow season. We've spent a ton of time over the lifetime of this show talking about how to keep your service guys busy. But I think it's worth another chat.

[Jack]

Ready? Let's do it.

[John]

Yeah. One of the things that was kind of shocking to me over the past week or so, like it's March, 60 degrees in H vac now in, in all of our trades, we tend to get slow in February, March, April. And historically we have done some type of layoff. Even as recently as last year we laid off seven people, six people in electric and maybe one or two in plumbing. So we've almost always been a layoff once a year type of company. This is the first year we haven't even thought about it very much. But I also think we're, we are like much more developed in our, our approach to filling the board and but one of the things that was shocking about like I logged into LinkedIn yesterday or today or something and just like, man, there's a lot, there's a lot of big companies that are just like not putting anything on the board. Like we've got guys starting to Come in. I, I don't remember being in a moment in my career where we had a bunch of walk in applicants and we've had a lot of walk in applicants.

[Jack]

Like people just showing up and like, hey, you guys have anything?

[John]

Yes. Like, yeah, like, hey, I went to my, I went to my place today. They had nothing for me. They haven't had anything for a week. Are you guys hiring?

[Jack]

Ouch.

[John]

Like five last week.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

Crazy.

[Jack]

That is wild.

[John]

Totally crazy. So we're seeing a lot of H Vac installers. We're seeing some H vac service guys, saw some plumbers the other day, a couple people in excavation. Yeah, really interesting. But yeah, what we're finding is like a lot of these companies, they are just like, they've been sitting their service guys for like two weeks, which is a long time.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

Like, we get our service guys get a little bit antsy if we sit them for like an hour. You know, if they're going home an hour or two early, they're like, man, what the heck? And like these guys are sitting for two weeks.

[Jack]

That would kill me. I take that so personally. Like, not having the board filled is my personal. Like, yeah, well go to.

[John]

And that was the message on LinkedIn too. In, in these companies, defense is they're like, dude, I'm really. Like, these people trust me. And like, we're not doing it right now. Yeah. So I, I think what would be helpful is a. Here's what to do in shoulder season. Some of it you can do now and some of it you should have done six months ago.

[Jack]

Yeah, I mean, I'll start because mine's a little less sophisticated than you. So in our shoulder season, the main thing we start doing is outbounding. It is a heavy outbound, two people full time. And our six months ago, like you mentioned, and like I mentioned before, that's all we do the rest of the week or rest of the year is collect phone numbers. Collect phone numbers. On every instance we can at every place, every tick tock lead that comes in, every thumbtack lead, we have their phone number, we save their phone number and then we reach out to them again. We have our members who we reach out to for their service until we knock all those, those membership maintenances out on both sides. We have our warm leads, which are, hey, you know that they are. They use us, but maybe not for all services or they use us, but not all the time. And then we have our cold leads and our ice cold leads. And so that's how we go down the list, we just hit members first. Warms, colds, ice colds and the script changes, but not very much honestly. And that, that's our number one driver. I mean really, we, we pull a lot off that and it's just because. Right. Especially off like the warm leads that aren't our customers. They haven't gotten a ton of stuff from us before. So now they're starting to see and they haven't gotten a ton of stuff from us before a. Because we're a young company. So if you sir got service from us three years ago, we didn't have any of this. It was like me and one other dude running services. I'm just going changing your capacitor. But now it's like there's a sales process that they're getting and they're, they're, they get to feel some of that and a lot of that drives new business that we've never seen previously or they didn't know. We do plumbing and so that's been our main one as well as we turn on all of our marketing channels. That being said, we try not to over ramp up our marketing channels just because my belief is that in March there's only so many amount of those calls that are going to come in and you could throw a million dollars at TikTok and you're not going to get more than the amount of leads that you are going to get anyway at a thousand dollars. That's just because it's, it's 60 degrees out. So also the big one I think that people don't do is change your perspective on what you're trying to get. We want foots and doors. That's it. Feet in people's houses to look for opportunity. We're not going always for the home run. Right. It's not always water heater change outs. We'd rather get you know, 100 water heater maintenances because those will inevitably turn into change outs.

[John]

I mean. Yeah, I think, I think that's good.

[Jack]

Last one is. We also focus on Cross Sale. I know on the last episode I asked you about Cross Sale. We, we just run internal.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

You know, competitions. Hey, whoever gets the most Cross Sale wins X, Y or Z gets a hundred dollar Amazon gift card just because. Right. We want them searching. The H Vac guys are under the house. They see the plumbing, say something like don't leave your, your friends hanging.

[John]

When one of the things that has been kind of interesting as I've started paying more attention has been first off, I'm going To give a philosophy. And then I'm going to tie into this our. Our philosophy on the service board and install board is if it is not full, it is our fault. And that's it. Like, I think that we have been able to grow in a way that a lot of companies have not been able to grow over the past couple years. Because our philosophy is like, weather doesn't matter if the board's empty. It's our problem and we have to go do something about it. Whereas I talk to a lot of people and they just, they know there's a problem. They know leads are a problem. I'm in a bunch of peer groups and it's consistently coming up like we just can't get the leads. I got less calls than last year. I just don't know what to do. And it's like, well, what are you doing? And they're just like, ah, like nothing like yelling at my agency or something like that.

[Jack]

And which goes back to like the fact that you can't spend to buy those leads all the time. So, you know, it might not be the agency, it might just be. There's no calls.

[John]

Sure.

[Jack]

So you have to find them in other places.

[John]

But then like, but then what do you do? And I think a lot of people, and I know this was what we used to do four years ago, five years ago was like, oh man, we'd call up Scorpion and be like, wtf, you know, like, where's all our leads? Like, we're slow. And they would do something a week later and it would have no impact. So Scorpion sucks. So, yeah, I think people just don't know what to do. But they also don't take it like fully into their heart that like, hey, this is actually my problem, I need to solve it. And the reason I know that is because if they truly did, if they actually were like, hey, this is completely my problem, they would physically walk out the door and start knocking on doors to get service jobs. Like they would do something in order to drive leads. And I feel like people just don't do whatever it takes because they haven't fully taken on the ownership of. This is my problem.

[Jack]

Well, I mean that's a lot of the. The reason that people go out and hire agencies and hire stuff is because they don't want to deal with it too. Don't get me wrong, a lot of it's very difficult.

[John]

Deliver me the lead. Yeah, I'll plummet. Yeah.

[Jack]

And at the end of the day though, I think like, as an owner, that is one of the main responsibilities that you have, that is probably one of the most important responsibilities you have is ensuring that your team is filled up every day. And if it's not, it should be stressing you out because you promised families. I mean, we had our. Chris, I think I told the story. We had our Christmas party this year, and, man, that was a rock on my back. It was a rock this year versus last year. Last year was, like, three people with their wives, and it was like, you know, a few people didn't make it, and it was. It was a nice little one table get together. This year was like, 17 people with. And then their families and their kids. And it's like, man, I'm responsible for all of this, and I can't imagine how you feel. There's so many more people that you have that you are responsible for their livelihood, that if. If I fail, they all fail in the same way that I want, you know, I give them that responsibility. Like, hey, if I drive you these leads, these are your responsibilities so that you don't fail. For me, yeah, it's an extreme ownership thing. At the end of the day, I think it comes back on my area that I can really drive. Is that lead generation 100.

[John]

So I think own it. It's. It's your problem. That's, like, our philosophy.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

I think the other thing that's kind of interesting, people seem to stop at, like, what's the easy thing? And I'm gonna give. I'm gonna give a very crystal clear example. We were. I was, like, scrolling Facebook the other day, which does not happen very often. So this was, like, news to me. So I. I showed people on my team. I was like, oh, my God, can you believe all this? And they're like, yeah, that's how it always is. I'm like, well, pardon me for getting on Facebook once every year. So. So, like, I was just, like, scrolling. And I got served up so many ads from other H VAC contractors. And I mean, it was like a. It was well over a dozen. And I had no idea. I mean, literally no concept that people were driving this much paid to Facebook. And frankly, it was all terrible. It was all like, I don't. They must not scroll Facebook and see what everyone else is doing, because they're doing exactly what everyone else is doing. And I think my lesson here is, one, don't always go for the easy thing, because everyone's already doing the easy thing. That's how LSA became what it was. And two, if, like, look. Look where other People are and try to be where they're not. And if you're going to compete for the same eyeballs, you got to be interesting. Like, I can't see the same 10 contractors advertise the same promotion. Like, you're not interesting. It's all the same thing. You just got to do something.

[Jack]

Definitely. Yeah. I mean, that's why we got off Facebook. The key right there is, a, we weren't driving any traffic, but B, it's all the same, and it's overcrowded because it. At one point there, it was great. But, like, how many times have you. Have you think, personally, have you received a door hanger? And for me, very few in our area. So if I'm going to look at increasing leads, I'm gonna go hang door hangers, maybe even.

[John]

Yeah. So something that was interesting.

[Jack]

We.

[John]

We had. We. I had some, like, high school kid or, like, college kid or something. Door hang. Like, put a hanger on my door at home, and I was blown away. Like, I. I caught myself. But I'm like, I'm reading the store hanger, and I'm like, okay, yeah, I think I will actually try something here. And. And because it solved a bunch of questions for me. Okay. Is he going to be. Is he going to take care of me? Yeah. He worked hard enough to put this freaking door hanger on my door. Does he serve my area? 100%. Like, he literally walked up to my door. He serves this area. And then there was a little bit of a, you know, little thing. And like, a few. A few seconds in, I'm like, oh, my God, that totally worked. Like, that. That actually worked. And then we started doing door hangers. And I think the first day we did door hangers, literally the first day, I remember it, because this was such a win. We sold a tankless water heater off a freaking door hanger. And it was crazy. And again, nobody else was there. Nobody else was doing it. But everyone's on Facebook.

[Jack]

And so it brings up that bigger question, too, of. Especially with the social media and online ads, it's there for me. There's two options. A, you go big. You go big. Straight. Like, who's the Austin group? Radiant. Radiant, Radiant.

[John]

So that. That's what we've done. Have you seen any of our.

[Jack]

I saw your videos. They're. They're great. And that's. That's the.

[John]

They're outlandish. Yeah. The unhinged is the vibe we're going for.

[Jack]

You have to. Because you have to get people to stop. What they're doing and recognize brand and recognize you and recognize.

[John]

They have to be entertained and they.

[Jack]

Have to be entertained and informed. But you're not going to, to stop them if you're not entertaining. And then they're not going to move forward if you don't inform. So you either do that on social media or you get off social media and go, go do it in person. Go figure out like.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

So our slogan at Rapid Response, which we're planning next year to do is like, nobody's faster. So we, we sponsor the high school team and what we're going to do and we've already got it cleared. We're, we have the person, we have everything ready. We have the forms, the sign offs. We're going to race on at the halftime show at homecoming next year.

[John]

Oh, that's fun.

[Jack]

And if you beat us, you get a free furnace because nobody's faster. So if, if you're faster, you get one. And so we're going to line up a bunch of people and race our, our fastest tech. And you know, it's one of those things where a. I don't think anybody's going to beat our fastest tech because he used to be wide receiver at lsu, so he's very fast, hopefully still and, but like something like that, so outlandish and gets people and guess what? On the back end, it collects a ton of phone numbers that we can sell to later and people remember the experience. So that's the goal for us at least is like, hey, how do we go outlandish online? But also how do we create cool experiences offline?

[John]

We're going to hit back on driving leads because I know a bunch of people have like ended up on Facebook and Ishmael sort of said it when we had him on the show maybe two months ago, I was like, hey, you know, social is the new advertising, I think. I agree. I think people are just doing it wrong. But then also what, you know, what are all the other ways you can spend, like, are you hooked up to a modernize, Are you getting leads? Like how, like what lead aggregators are using, are using mailers, Are you knocking on doors? Are you outbounding? And it's, I think the industry, which like still is crazy to me because this is two years ago now. Like we've been having LSA problems for two years and this industry still has not figured out like how to adjust from Google, which I'm pretty sure everyone should have figured out in like 2023. Yeah, like, hey, LSA is broke. Great Figure out how to do something.

[Jack]

And in terms of, like, direct leads, the optionality has almost gone away. It's gone so much less as well. Like, you have aggregators now. You still have lsa. Not as great. You have some LSA strategy you could do that, can double or triple it, but still not the. The boom town it was before. And so where do you go? Branding.

[John]

LSA is still such a big winner for us.

[Jack]

Yeah, I mean, it's. I think it's our second behind thumbtack now. But, like, I've never imagined that an aggregator would beat out lsa.

[John]

We had. We had Angie beat out for, like, roi, but, like, quantity of leads. LSA is still second to none.

[Jack]

Which. Which tells you, though, at the same time, like, don't sleep on it. You still keep it running. Especially since there's really no downside to running lsa. But, man, I just. I'm telling you, I keep coming back to, like, with. I was talking to somebody about from Quick with through Quick staffers, and I was on their website and, like, for the. For Valentine's Day, that billboards, and they have people submit, like, I love you, Tracy to the. To their site, and they run it on a. On their billboard because it's electronic billboard, and they just cycle through all these. And I mean, how cool is that? And their branding is so good. It's neon pink and neon green. Like, that's their colors of their.

[John]

Who is it?

[Jack]

It's Half Moon Plumbing.

[John]

Half Moon Plumbing. Thanks for letting me Google you, Owasso. Oh, yeah, that is good.

[Jack]

And so.

[John]

All right, cool. Humble brag with the building. Jesus Christ. That's a nice building.

[Jack]

Right?

[John]

They must have built that thing like, a day ago. But point being is, yeah, those trucks are definitely unique.

[Jack]

Everything is unique. Everything's eye catching. And if you're gonna go branding, you're gonna go Facebook, which is what I consider somewhat branding. It's like a. It's not a direct lead generation. It's more of a passive lead generation. Like, go big, man. Don't. Don't sleep on it. Go big. Even door hangers or mailers go big. Because I get so many mailers, I just toss them. I tossed three this morning when I took out the trash.

[John]

Yeah, mailers are tough. I mean, we've had success off and on. We ended up cutting it this year out of the budget. I know. It works like, we've had it work. I think it really is, like, nailing down the message and design and, like, what's the QR code? What's the whatever. But we ended up, we ended up cutting. We were spending about 22 grand a month on mailers and we just put it all into tv. But tv, there's no immediate legion. Yeah, but like, we don't, we're. We're blessed because we don't need a ton of immediate legion. And I would say that we don't need a ton of immediately gen because all the different things that we've like, talked about so far, we do literally every single day. Like, we actively manage our board, we run LSAs, we run PBC, we run some social, but we do it well. We outbound like crazy. We text like crazy, we email like crazy. Like, we don't. We. We miss occasionally, but it is rare.

[Chris]

Recently we've been experimenting with lead aggregators. And one of the ones I'm most excited about is a company called Modernize. So what Modernize does is they do direct inbound calls for home improvement. So it's a direct phone call booking, which is way easier to book and has a much higher book rate than an Angie's List or something like that, where you have to sort of recontact them and try to find that, that customer. Modernize has a direct connection to our call center. So that's been a huge win.

[John]

It also has some of the services.

[Chris]

That we've really struggled to get good leads for. Water heater replacements, H vac units, and water damage restoration and water quality. Those ones have been challenging for us to get leads and Modernize has been a really great partner for us. So make sure you check out modernize.com.

[Jack]

What did your. I'm genuinely curious, what did your mailers look like? Because the ones I always get that I just like scream at is It'll say new H vac unit, 32% off or whatever. 33% off. And I go, that's the worst messaging. If you just have a percentage off. I don't. If I'm Betsy White, who is a housewife out in mid middle America, I don't know how much an H VAC unit costs. I just see 25% off. That doesn't mean anything to me. There's no number there.

[John]

Right.

[Jack]

I don't know what, what I'm actually getting off. So I always look at that and go, ah, someone needs to tell them. But maybe I'm wrong because it's never worked for me.

[John]

We've tried, we've tried both. I, I don't remember off the top of my head which one worked better, but we basically ran like 14 months of campaigns on mailers. Some were wins, some weren't.

[Jack]

Yeah, I don't know, man. I just, I always have trouble with mailers. Just. And everyone else has to understand that my market is so saturated by the hundred million dollar companies that they're all having to send mailers because they have no more channels that they can, they can lean on. So they send them just because they have marketing money to spend and they have nowhere else to spend it.

[John]

Sounds nice.

[Jack]

Yeah, exactly. So we get a lot.

[John]

We have like, we keep trying to like almost every week we're like having this, it's like, hey, I want to add this other thing. We, we, we probably have another million to a million and a half that we could spend inside our market without like going too wild. Like, we'd have to go a little bit wild, but we'd have to go too wild. I think that's probably the fun part about growth in general. Like, we were thinking, we've, we've thought about this a lot. Like this is our first year doing like TV and mass advertising, like in a big way. And like this is our first year. Like we're in our, we're in our 20s, right?

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

Like we're going to hit 30s this year. And this is our first year touching mass media in a big way. So it's like there's a lot of levers still to pull, which is I, I think is like pretty exciting of like. Oh my God. Yeah, we're actually just getting started. This is crazy.

[Jack]

Have you ever done. What are those like the, the ads right behind the, the toilet spaces or the urinal spaces? No, see, that's what I'm talking about. That gets wild. If you could, that would be fun.

[John]

If you could create a. Oh, no, sorry. No, we are doing that. We partnered with. Yeah, we partnered with a local baseball.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

And we. So our partnership is the bathrooms. So we get behind. It's 11 bathrooms, I think, and they're like 40 foot walls. So we have a 40 foot sticker going into this bathroom and dude, it's going to be unhinged. They said as long as it wasn't straight up profane, we could put it on the walls.

[Jack]

See, so that's the crazy stuff.

[John]

We got right up to it. Yeah, we got right up to profane.

[Jack]

What. Speaking of partnerships, that was my next question is like, how do you view partnerships in that, that way? Like I, I always hear about different people partnering. Hey, I put, I think one of our friends did pizzas. Every pizza you sell Put this flyer on and we'll pay for the box or something. And so they get a free box and you get a free flyer with every pizza. Like, have you ever done anything like that?

[John]

No.

[Jack]

Yeah, we haven't either, but I think there's a huge opportunity there.

[John]

Yeah, I. I think there is. I think, like, if I was starving for leads, it's all sort of like, what's easy and what's not. So right now, we haven't capped our channels. Like, if anything, like, I should have hired probably a while ago. I haven't felt pressure. And it's quarter one. And I sort of woke up thinking about that this morning, about how I got weak. I got weak. John. John, a year ago, would have hired five people last month, but I'm weaker than him. So. So, like, we. We actually. Our lsas don't run for a pretty large portion of the day now because we're just, like, full all the time. So we, like. I should have hired more plumbers, but if. If we were, like, really running dry on service leads, I would absolutely do something like that. Restaurant partnerships. I would be knocking on doors. Yeah, I think there's a bunch of different levers you can pull, and I'm going to give people, like, a rough idea of, like, the quantity. And I don't even think we're doing that much. If our board is empty on service tomorrow, we have. I think it's like, 26. I could be off by one or two, but 26 different things that we do to fill the board. And it's a literal checklist. It's a. At this point, it's just a standard operating procedure. Like one of our. One of our. Like, it's so dialed in that one of our marketing coordinators in the Philippines manages it for us because we're just locked in on this thing. But that's 26. And that's not even including pizza store promotions or anything like that. So we have that many different levers. So, like, if you add even more out of the box stuff, you'll probably be at 50. So when. Whenever. Whenever we've been in, like, pickles for leads, that's usually how we started, is like, okay, I walk in today and there's nothing on the board. What are the 10 things I can do? What are the 20 things I can do to make an impact on today or tomorrow? And we started building that list, like, over a year ago, and we just add onto it every time we have a new idea. Okay, I'm gonna. Now we have lead Aggregators, which we never used until October. Great. That's a whole brand new tool for us. We added PPC like a year ago. A year and a half ago.

[Jack]

Well, can you walk? Do you mind walking us through some of that? Because I think that's what everybody's yelling at their car stereo right now is like, okay, John, we get it. You have 26. You have 10 levers.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

What are the first five you walk in? The board's dead empty. There ain't nothing. No electrical, no plumbing, no age back.

[John]

So you gotta roll through. And I will give examples, but you got to give philosophy first. What will make an impact today versus what will make an impact tomorrow? Because those are two totally different things. And so that's why we really. We manage our board three days out. And I think that that's. That's not a John Wilson thing. That's a nexar lesson. And we're super grateful that we got that from them. But we manage it three days out. So tomorrow be 75 full. Two days from now, it should be 50 full. Three days from now, 25 full. If you are trying to fill today, when it's today, that's hard because there are only a few things you can do. But if you manage three days out at all times, which we've been managing three days out for like a year and a half now, you can get on top of it. Because then you're like, today it's Wednesday. I'm thinking about Friday. I'm thinking about Saturday in order to get our leads. And today, tomorrow is probably going to be taken care of because we've been proactive.

[Jack]

Yeah, you're helping out your tomorrow self, which makes sense because you. Right. The answer part of the.

[John]

You can get ahead as you can get ahead of this.

[Jack]

You can't walk in with 15 employees in an empty board and fill that entire board. It'd be very, very, very difficult.

[John]

It's challenging.

[Jack]

But if you.

[John]

Now, sometimes we do miss and we do walk in on a day where H Vacs got half of what it should. So sometimes that happens. Not very often anymore, but sometimes it does. So what we did is we made this list. Again, I'm going to give examples. We're trying to cover philosophy. We made a list of like, here are the things that I can. That I can make an impact in less than 24 hours. And here are the things that I can make an impact from 24 to 48 hours, 48 to 72 and 72 and beyond. And the reason that that's important is because if I, if my board's empty, I can't go launch a Facebook ad at 9am and expect results by noon. Now I could expect results in two days, but not by noon. So that's why you got to separate it out by like level of urgency. So we have it code red, yellow, green. So green is like we have multiple days to worry about this. Red is I am totally empty. So for red we turn on or up all the LSA budgets. That one's pretty easy. We turn on or up all the budgets for all of our lead aggregators. Angie's thumbtack. Modernize all that stuff. We outbound. Outbound really is number one because outbound is the fastest possible way to fill your board. Just calling people, you will fill the board. So when we have we, we actually don't consider anymore. We don't consider day of board filling to be marketing's problem. We fully consider that to be call center's problem because they can fill it the fastest with just calling. Yeah, texting out. And the reason that's different is because often with, with depending on your software provider. We used to have a software provider where I could, if I created a text, it wouldn't send until the next day. So you had to have a 24 hour log, which was really painful for us because like, hey, the board's empty today. I don't need calls tomorrow, I need calls today. I did need them tomorrow too, but that's not the point. Literally knocking on doors. We had H Vac tech sitting last spring and we ordered door hangers at 8:30 in the morning, picked them up at 9:00 and he was walking doors at 10. And that's the day we sold a tankless water heater. So those are immediate impacts. Rehash calling your old quotes. That's something you can get on the board today. Sell service jobs. So those are probably the most important, highly tactical, very high touch. And I think that's the reason people don't do it is they take a ton of energy. Like none of those that I just described are like, go put an ad on Facebook and spend $5 a day. Like, no, you have to go do something.

[Jack]

And it's something uncomfortable in most spaces too. Like calling some. Like posting an ad on Facebook. Not uncomfortable. You post, you don't know if you even got anything.

[John]

Everybody does it. You take a picture. Yeah, you, you put some words, hey, we got some stuff. And then oh, you and everybody and their brothers doing the same thing. But who's knocking on doors. Who's outbound calling?

[Jack]

Yeah, because thatbound calling, there's a lot of rejection. A lot of it can be rough.

[John]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and. And even more importantly is like, you have to build a culture in your company. The outbound calling is like, no, this is what we do. This is just like a part of what we do. And that is hard because if your CSRs are not used to outbounding, they probably just won't. Like, they might call 10 people a day when they should be calling 100.

[Jack]

Defin. Yeah. So completely understand.

[John]

Outbounding is so that's like the first. Hey, I need to fill it today. It is very high touch, high energy. This is going to be a lift to get this off the ground marketing effort. It's guerilla marketing. Like, it's hard, but it is how you make an impact today.

[Jack]

I have. I have a question for you, John. So there. There's a few people who I talk to throughout, through the podcast and everything, and they bought a company. Million dollar company. $2 million company. No list. Ouch. Day one.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

No list because the owner had it all in his phone or some other dumb thing that they did. Lost all the numbers. Have you ever bought a list?

[John]

Sure. Hell, yeah. We've done it. We did this last October through December.

[Jack]

Did it work?

[John]

Hell yeah.

[Jack]

I love it.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

Oh, I'm gonna go do that.

[John]

Just pick up your phone, call people.

[Jack]

Just call.

[John]

It's just so aggravating. It's so aggravating when people complain about leads. Because I'm like, yo, everybody's got this issue, dog.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

And like, we're like, we're figuring out. I. I don't think I'm anything special here. Like, it takes a ton of work. Like, this takes a lot of work. Like, hard freaking work. But board's full.

[Jack]

People, people are working. I mean, the, the backside, which we, we. We've talked about before, too, though, is like, do you put the cart before the horse, in your opinion? Because if you have a bunch of leads, you're going out. Or you'd have no leads, you're going out there, you're hustling. And your guys aren't sales trained. They don't have the right processes in place. And then you feel like you're spinning your wheels, getting calls on the board. You're paying for calls, and they're not closing. No. Closes.

[John]

No. Yeah. Yeah.

[Jack]

I think it's a different.

[John]

But you can't optimize. It's like you can't you can't fix the close until your guys have reps. Mm. You got to have something to close. You got something to improve on.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

So like we see, we see fixing the close and closing rate as a downstream of our marketing and call center teams are effective enough to fill that board every day. And because we trust them to do that, we can coach that.

[Jack]

That was my. You answered the question. That was what I was looking for. So it was downstream or upstream and I mean somewhat simultaneous. But yeah, that, yeah, because I know that was a big question when I, when I started and it was, hey, I'm just feel like I'm wasting these dang calls, man. We're giving them the calls. Nothing's happening. Nothing's happening. Now I'm spending money to have them running around all day wasting gas and not, not selling anything. But you're right. Like you can't fix that if they don't have an opportunity to be, have that experience and to be teachable.

[John]

So service boards are fully your problem. It sucks. And fixing it takes a ton of work. But you build a process. You list out all the different things, ideally by like time frame. I can do this and it will make it. If I started at 8am I could put a call on the board today. If I start at 8am today, I can put calls on tomorrow. And If I started 8am I can put calls on the board two, two days from now. So you list it out and you make it a process. Hey, if we're empty today, here's what happens. The three day call board from Nexar has been an awesome tool for us. Again, that's just like we manage three days at a time. Tomorrow is going to be 75% full. Day after that's 50% full. Day after, that's 25% full. And that, that reduces the crises that you face because we're always looking two or three days out. And then what we've also done is we've created accountability behind that. I don't think we said that, but like our marketing team posts and in the whole, whole company channels like, hey, here's the call board for the day. And we do that three times a day. So they're like, here's the results we produced. We kept you guys busy or we didn't. And it'll just say what code run. Hey, we're in code red for electrical service. Here's what we're doing to fix that. So we make them report to the whole company.

[Jack]

Man, that is something. I'm jealous. But at the same time, I know how long it took to build that muscle. Because that's what it is, man. It's a muscle. If you go. And here's the part that we didn't speak about. What is something that people do when their call board's not full and they feel guilty and so what do they do, John?

[John]

Oh, my God. They do something else people do. Shop work.

[Jack]

Shop work. That's one of them. Shop works terrible.

[John]

Waste money drives me nuts.

[Jack]

You're not working that muscle.

[John]

Drives me nuts.

[Jack]

The other one.

[John]

Well, you're not. You're not actually figuring out how to build a business. It's like the easiest, stupidest button in the world. And I'm. I know that I'm being harsh, but, like, you people need this reality check. This is a dumb idea. What you need to do is figure out how to actually run a fucking business and drive demand.

[Jack]

And then the second I'm off my soapbox, the second I knew I was.

[John]

Going to get you, they better not edit the fucking out of there.

[Jack]

The second one, which will also might get you ralph up, is don't. I'm not going to say don't. I'm just going to say be careful when you start working different muscles. And that muscle being, oh, I don't have any service work. I'm a service company. But hey, look at that shiny new construction over there.

[John]

New construction.

[Jack]

It's March and there's some new construction that we could do.

[John]

Oh, God, it makes me squirm. Yeah, that's like me being like, hey, I'm a Ford dealer and I didn't sell enough cars this month. So instead I'm going to build a plant and start manufacturing Ford vehicles instead. Like, that's the level of stupid that I see.

[Jack]

That comment as if, if John's hurting your feelings right now, it's okay, because I'm right.

[John]

I'm right. I don't care.

[Jack]

Have also done this. I have said, oh, look at. And my team is all coming to me, Jack. We have. We can go get new construction contracts. Let's go do it. I know somebody. And I said, okay, sure, but you're managing it. You know who ended up managing it? Me. You know who end up didn't get paid.

[John]

You know who ended up losing all the money?

[Jack]

You know who lost money? Me. And so I learned my lesson very quickly that John is correct in this. As much as it hurts my heart that unless you have the infrastructure to run new construction business, it's not a shiny object. Don't do it, don't do it.

[John]

Yeah, it's a totally different thing.

[Jack]

See what happens.

[John]

Yeah. My. My best analogy really is the. Are you a Ford manufacturer or are you the Ford dealer? Like, I'm Bob's auto repair service. I'm not Ford, so just pick your lane here. I'm not going to build the thing, but I will fix it.

[Jack]

Unless you're Tesla and, like, that was from the beginning. Hey, you know, you did both.

[John]

But that would be. But none of us are publicly traded plumbing companies.

[Jack]

Awesome. Well, this is great. I think I'm leaving with some. Some. Some ideas, some tidbits. Tidbits.

[John]

Nice.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

Cool.

[Jack]

Good.

[John]

We've got our workshop coming up in April. Make sure you check out Owned and operated dot com. Click on the workshop button. We also have Owned and Operated Pro, which is coming out, which should be fun. It's like a peer group, so that should be cool. I think that button's also on the website. And then, yeah, if you like what you heard, give us five stars. Wherever it is that you listen to, to podcasts.

[Jack]

Sweet. Thanks, everyone.

[John]

Sweet.