How Door-to-Door Marketing Is Driving Millions in Home Service Revenue

Summary

---

Episode Overview

Podcast: Owned and Operated – A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast
Episode: How Door-to-Door Marketing Is Driving Millions in Home Service Revenue
Hosts: John Wilson & Guest Host (B)
Date: May 5, 2026

Theme:
This episode dives deep into the resurgence and scalability of door-to-door (“canvassing”) marketing for home service businesses. Host John Wilson details how field marketing, particularly door-to-door, has become a leading driver of millions in revenue, presenting compelling arguments for why analog, non-digital channels are crucial for risk mitigation, growth, and launching new branches—especially in a world where reliance on digital algorithms can be risky.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Power and Scale of Door-to-Door Marketing

• Revenue Impact:
  • Door-to-door (D2D) marketing/field marketing grew from 10% of the company’s revenue last year to 15-20% this year, representing “millions of dollars” ([00:10–17:00]).
  • “No, this is millions of dollars. Like, why do I need Google at all?” – John Wilson ([00:12])
• Growth Through Acquisition & Integration:
  • Wilson’s company grew from ~$29 million to an expected $43 million budget through four acquisitions, with significant revenue boosts post-integration ([02:00–05:00], [11:45]).
  • Fast, effective integration of new branches—ability to boost margins from 10-15% to 35-45% in 60 days through operational playbooks ([05:45–09:16]).
• Strategic Advantage:
  • Door-to-door allows for quick scaling; “I could drop six people in Toledo tomorrow and have a $4 million branch, like, year one.” – John Wilson ([31:57])

2. The Mechanics and Models of Canvassing

• What is Canvassing?
  • Analog, personal lead generation with no reliance on digital algorithms ([00:26], [29:29–30:25]).
  • Field marketing includes door knocking, events, and retail partnerships (Home Depot, Lowe’s, Costco) ([18:06]).
• Examples and Industry Suitability:
  • Successful in trades like roofing, fencing, landscaping, windows, and especially high-ticket, exterior services. Plumbing, HVAC, and electric also show strong ROI ([18:06–20:23], [22:23]).
  • Plumbing was the “easiest and best” use case for canvassing at Wilson, especially when focusing the script/team on high-ticket items like sewer replacements ([26:47–28:25]).

3. Operational Models and Team Structure

• Canvassing Org Chart Example:
  • Window company in Canada: ~100 canvassers, 100 sales/production, clear org structure (director → regionals → team leads → team of 6 in a minivan) ([21:45–24:27]).
• Team Dynamics and Training:
  • Canvassing teams function as sales teams: require strong leadership, active training, and have high turnover ([35:04]).
  • Managers/leaders critical to success; “Who runs the program for you is really important.” – John Wilson ([15:27–16:56]).
  • Pay structure: $17–22/hour + bonuses per lead (that “sits”/books), offering attractive earning potential and incentivizing high-quality leads ([35:04–36:48]).

4. Risk Mitigation and Channel Diversification

• Why Go Analog?
  • Heavy reliance on a single digital channel (Google, Meta) is risky—algorithm changes can decimate lead flow overnight ([00:12], [29:29–30:25]).
  • Field marketing is immune to digital shifts; “That’s canvassing, man. No algorithm. Analog as hell.” – John Wilson ([40:29])

5. How and When to Launch a Canvassing Program

• When Is It Appropriate?
  • Best suited for companies with some scale, resources, and management bandwidth ([32:46]).
  • Starting small is possible, but effectiveness increases with a true team and program—one person won’t cut it ([33:46–34:21]).
• Cost-Effectiveness and Job Type
  • Works best for businesses with high average tickets ($2,500–3,000+), ensuring that the wage/commission is justifiable ([38:45–39:12]).
• Can This Launch a Branch?
  • Yes; canvassing is seen as “the craziest hack of all time” for launching into new markets ([40:55]).
  • “You can get a lead on the day you want to lead, you can go get that lead.” – John Wilson ([40:55])

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Risk of Digital-Dependence:
  • “[If] you have one channel driving too much of your revenue, I think you’re in a risky spot.” – John Wilson ([29:29])
• On the Uniqueness of Canvassing:
  • “That’s canvassing, man. No algorithm. Analog as hell.” – John Wilson ([00:26])
  • “I think that canvassing is the secret superpower for launching a new branch.” – John Wilson ([30:25])
• On Implementation:
  • “Who runs the program for you is really important.” – John Wilson ([15:27])
  • “The canvassers are salespeople. They get trained once a week. They’re working on scripts, objections, close rate, sit rates… you are building a sales organization inside your business with canvassing.” ([35:04])
• On the Mindset Shift:
  • “I would have never in my life thought that I would have, like, done this, but now that we do it… any business I ever get involved in, we’re going to drive canvases because this is awesome.” – John Wilson ([42:52])
• On ROI:
  • “Plumbing has consistently been like our best booker, highest revenue, highest ROI channel out of field marketing.” – John Wilson ([26:54])
  • “It is crazy how well that worked. It blew us away to be honest, because we had expectations and we far surpassed them.” ([11:45])

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:00–01:38] – Opening thoughts on D2D and its growing revenue contribution.
• [02:00–05:00] – Company revenue growth via acquisitions and initial results.
• [11:45–13:55] – Integration playbook and surprising growth in acquired companies.
• [15:27–16:56] – The critical role of leadership in D2D/field marketing success.
• [18:06–20:23] – Canvassing in various trades; event marketing; big box partnerships.
• [21:45–24:27] – Canadian window company’s canvassing org chart and operational lessons.
• [26:47–28:25] – Pivoting the D2D team to focus on high-ticket plumbing (e.g., sewers).
• [29:29–30:25] – Rationale for diversifying away from digital-only marketing.
• [31:57–34:21] – When and how to launch a canvassing program; size and structure.
• [35:04–36:48] – Canvassers as a sales team, pay structure, and need for programmatic approach.
• [38:45–39:12] – Which business/job types are good for canvassing.
• [40:29–42:19] – “Analog as hell” and canvassing as the growth launch hack.

---

Final Thoughts

• D2D/field marketing is massively scaling in modern home services beyond digital alternatives.
• For high-ticket home service businesses, a robust, well-led canvassing program can drive explosive and de-risked growth—even launching successful new branches from scratch.
• Success hinges on leadership, team focus, and treating canvassing as a disciplined sales org, not a rogue experiment.

“No algorithm. Analog as hell. Knocking doors.” — John Wilson ([40:29])

---

Transcript

[A]

What are the ways you can get leads off the Internet that you can still scale? Today we're talking door to door marketing for 2025. Like 10% of revenue came from field marketing. Like, It'll probably be 15 to 20 this year.

[B]

Not a small piece of the puzzle.

[A]

No, this is millions of dollars. Like, why do I need Google at all? I know Companies that drive 50% of their revenue through Meta. What happens if that changes? Like you are.

[B]

If you find yourself in a position where that is the only thing you had, you are really in a bad situation.

[A]

That's canvassing, man. No algorithm. Analog as hell.

[B]

Mind blown.

[A]

I think that is the secret superpower for. Welcome back to Owned and operated, a top 200 business and entrepreneurship podcast where we dive into the home service industry. I'm your host, John Wilson, and for fun, I run this podcast where we talk about the home service industry. And professionally, I'm the CEO of Wilson, which is a home service business, plumbing, H VAC and electric in Ohio, Indiana, and Tennessee. If you're in Kentucky or Michigan, we'd love to talk to you. We're actively looking in those in those areas. Today. We're continuing our series with my good friend Sam Preston, the CEO of Service Killers. And our. This series is called Clicks to Calls, where we dive into a different segment of marketing for home service. We've talked about next door and Google Ads and LSA and a bunch of stuff. Today we're talking door to door marketing, which is kind of weird, kind of awesome, depending on the team or depending on the trade. So, Sam, welcome back. Welcome back.

[B]

Thanks, man. I feel like it's been a minute since we've recorded something. So excited to be back. And I saw a tweet by you saying that you basically skipped the 30 millions and just went straight over to 40 million. Is that true? And was that done by Door to Door Marketing?

[A]

Last year we finished a hair under 30 million bucks and the goal was 30 million last year. And this year it's. What is it, April 20th? It's April 21st. We've done three acquisitions, and then we're prepping for our fourth one that'll close at the end of May. But yeah, we have those three put us at like 39 budget.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And the. This fourth one puts us at like 43. So we have. We have essentially skipped. Yeah, the. The entire 30.

[B]

Just like.

[A]

All right.

[B]

You know, I'm tired of this.

[A]

Pretty.

[B]

Pretty long.

[A]

Pretty much. Oh, my God. Yeah. Pretty. Pretty crazy. But yeah.

[B]

So I know you have the breaking five I can't wait for the skip 10 million conference.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the 30s were boring. You know, I didn't. We didn't. Well, I said the same thing about the 20s, which was kind of funny. I'm sure I could find this on a podcast like, a year ago, but I didn't find the 20 millions very interesting, which is, like, probably a ridiculous thing to say or hear, but I just didn't find it very interesting.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so

[B]

she's.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Are you a Love is Blind fan? Because I was watching an episode last night, night with the wife, and this guy just, like, kept saying, I don't want somebody to love me because I'm rich, but then just kept talking about how rich it was.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah. So, like, is this one of those moments where, like, you're saying, like, I found it boring because you find it so exciting?

[A]

I just. I felt like it was. It was boring. So, like, the 20s depends on how you do it. But for me, the 20 millions were. We were running one big branch. And, like, it was cool because we figured out a lot. Like, we figured out how to run a $20 million business, which was awesome. Like, that was an aspirational number for me at one point. But. Yeah, so. But it wasn't. Like, I always had the itch to drive real scale. I mean, that's half the reason we do the show. Like, my stated goal is build a million dollar 100 million dollar business plus. Yeah. And it's. That's not going to happen in one location. So for me, 20, the 20s were like. They just genuinely were not that interesting because I didn't feel like my brain was being stretched in the way that I wanted to. I wanted to figure out real scale. I wanted to figure out new markets. I wanted to. I wanted to do the stuff I'm doing today. So. Yeah, so, yeah, so in. But last year I was like, yeah, let's. We're gonna try to just only have one year in the 20s. We just, like. Because I did like, 22 or something in. In 2024, I was like, let's just go straight for 30 and let, like, one year in the 20s. That's enough for me. Like, I'm ready for whatever comes next. Yeah, so we. We didn't hit that. We hit like 28 or something. And so I was like, okay, all right, a second year in the 20s. Fine. And then. And yeah, so. So it was sort of funny. We just sort of skipped over. Yeah, I think it. I think it's around a 50% growth year for us. A lot of it through acquisition. But a lot of those acquisitions have grown substantially since we've taken them over. Like, which is insane. Yeah, yeah. I mean, two of them have doubled and then one of them will probably be 75% higher than last year. So, yeah, we acquired a ton of revenue. But then those things are growing like absolutely nuts.

[B]

And then when you're buying these, and I'm sure it's all over the board but like, is this founder led? So you buy into a company where the founder stays and they necessarily. They're running a double the size company or are you buying people out? Like, how's this work? How's that working?

[A]

Have you ever bought enterprise level software and realized that managing it really just became a full time job? Well, that's pretty much exactly why my restoration business switched over to fieldpulse. We were tired of software that promised efficiency, but came with endless training sessions, onboarding and frustrated techs and using it began to feel like it was a job all on its own. Fieldpulse was built for owner operators who don't want more dashboards. They need scheduling, invoicing and job tracking. And they need it all to live in one place without the chaos or the learning curve. FieldPulse is simple to roll out. It's easy for your team to actually use, and it was 75% cheaper than the other titans of software we were using. Right now. If you book a demo with FieldPulse, you'll get an exclusive partner offer. It's 20% off an eligible annual subscription and 50% off premium support for your first year. If your software upgrade has turned into a time suck, it might be time to make the move. Book a demo with Field Pulse and see if it's a better fit. Yeah, both. So like we had my Jack, my really good friend Jack Carr, we partnered and that was less of a buyout and that was more of like we merged. Yeah. And he stayed on and he's running with, he's running Nashville with our GM Jeremy down there. They're doing an incredible job. Like they're, they're just absolutely exploding it. It's, it makes me look really smart but like really like the team is just killing it and doing an awesome job and I happen to like step in at the right moment. So I look brilliant. But yeah, yeah, but no, they're doing an awesome job. So yeah, that's sometimes the case. Most of the time the seller steps back. So the two other. And the third one, we're about to do the seller step back from all of them. And then we sort of built a machine around our ability to do this, which I have been told is unusual. And I don't know because this is the first time I've ever done it. But we've basically built a strategy to be able to take over somewhere between a 2 and $8 million branch. And we can take it over in about a week. Like, doesn't take very long. It takes us roughly 20 to 30 days to close. Like, you know, from the closing date is like three to four weeks. And then our integration playbook is in total around 60 days. But most of the heavy lifting happens in those first two weeks. And we can take a business that is doing 10, 15% margins and we can drive 35 to 45% depending on the trades. Like is it plumbing or H vac? If it's H vac, it's lower. If it's plumbing, it's higher out of that branch. So yeah, so that, that has been shocking because that was our thesis that we could do this the way that we thought about automation and AI and our, our offshore team and our in house team. But yeah, I mean, honestly, we blew it out of the park. It. It's. We had a spreadsheet that we're like, I'm pretty sure we can do this, but this feels optimistic. We beat that. Like, it was crazy. Yeah, it was, it. Yeah, it's been really crazy. So, yeah, we're having a lot. We're having a lot of fun. We're having a lot of fun. Like we. Our goal was to do two or three acquisitions this year, but the first few went so well. We'll probably do six.

[B]

And what's, what's stopping you from doing eight? Like, is it just like finding the right, like, money?

[A]

Like, dude, I'm like a broke boy. Like, who's gonna pay for this? I unfortunately do not have a rich uncle, so I'm just sort of like running around doing my thing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Well, honestly, like, like capitals will become the constraint. I think once we get to probably, I don't know, five to seven locations, cash and capital won't be the constraint. Like, it. Execution is going to be really hard. Leadership's going to be really hard. But we were able to sort of go from one to four locations in like 90 days. And it didn't feel that challenging because we had been. We built up the disciplines to just sort of springboard into it really fast. But like, that's not a forever thing. Like, we're Going to struggle a lot. I think after five branches just because we don't. We're, we're going to run out of leaders to deploy to these new, these new branches.

[B]

Well, I mean then is it more beneficial if you're like leaders is part of it. I'm thinking from a market like if I'm going to go buy a marketing agency, I generally want founder led agency. Like somebody that wants to stay in and wants to grow but just wants to leverage, you know, what we know and how we can come in and how we can make them more profitable. Makes it easier and stuff like that.

[A]

Yeah, it makes it easier. Like we're talking to a couple companies that are like that, but we're also talking to full buyouts. But yeah, I mean having the owner stays staying on can make it easier. We're looking really hard at Michigan and we're looking really hard at Dayton right now. So like Detroit area and Dayton are like big areas of focus for us and Kentucky. There's, there's a. But there's just not that many deals there unfortunately. So yeah, we have one closing in a few weeks, but that's an add on to our Indiana branch. So that one, like it doesn't really like, you know, change. Change a ton.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But yeah, Michigan and Kentucky would be new. Dayton would be new. So we'll have to figure, we'll have to figure that out.

[B]

Well, man, congrats on going from 29 to 43, accidentally skipped in the 30s. That's insane and incredible. Yeah, that's an accomplishment. So you should be proud of yourself. And I'm excited to hear about these next couple deals. You gotta keep us up to date.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think the integration playbook is doing a lot of work. It's really, it's, it is crazy how well that worked. Like it blew us away to be honest, because we had expectations and then we far surpassed them. So we're really excited to see what this looks like at, at true scale, which I think we're starting to enter that zone of real scale.

[B]

I feel like we should do like an episode maybe in like six months from now where we just do a six month look back and then a 12 month look back of here's the business we bought. This is in order of like how much they were, the capital we invested, the marketing we did and which one had the best results and why. Yeah, I feel like that'd be a really interesting episode.

[A]

Well, I think so too. And I think, I mean, you know, we're talking about door to door. But I think it's kind of interesting because all these businesses have the same problem. Like, it's all the same problem. Like, you, you walk into a. You walk into a business between 2 and 5 million of revenue, and they all have the same issue. So if you know the answer to those issues, and if not, even if you know the answer but like, if it's quickly deployable, like, hey, I know how to get you leads. I know how to upgrade your sales process. I know how to help you hire better. It is a very fast change, like a shocking speed. I, I think we shared this, but the company we bought in in January, like, doubled in the, in the first month. It just doubled. And it, and it wasn't hard because it was like. Which sounds ridiculous, but it. And that's not me being an. It's just like I was, I was surprised at how not hard it was.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But like, we have the tech stack. We have the. And when you think about it, it's like, okay, well, of course it wasn't hard. Like, we have all the vendors. We, we know the way. We, we literally teach a. Every six months, we teach a program on how to do this. So, like, if I, if I didn't know how to do this, it would be very embarrassing. Yeah, it would be very embarrassing if I couldn't, you know. Yeah. I'm on my sixth Breaking5 workshop, but

[B]

I'm really struggling to break5.

[A]

But to me, I think it's kind of exciting because I've, I've looked at these. You. There's a clear path. There's a really clear path. This will be one of the most interesting breaking fives, because what we're probably just going to crack the book open on the four deals we would have done by that time. And then, like, here's what we did. Here's exactly what we did. Here's the P. Ls, here's the service titan. Like, here's what happened because I think when I, when I look at that, like, anybody could do it. Like, yes, some of it was me and like what we had from pricing power and all that stuff. But the biggest wins were we turned on more marketing, we added a speed to lead software, we raised their pricing, and we hired more techs. And like, that was the playbook.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So, yeah. Yeah, if you're, if you're at the breaking five, in a couple weeks, we will be doing a deep dive on all the acquisitions. You're. I'm sure it'll help you break five Quickly.

[B]

I was hoping to be there, but unfortunately or fortunately, I'll be having my third child and there's no way my wife will let me will be there or I got to see a guy about a, you know, about a doubling my business. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

It's funny.

[B]

So no, no, yeah, I've got a third one coming in, so I will not be there. But yeah, definitely the next one.

[A]

I'm going to start this off with a little bit of a shout out to our, our field marketing leader. His name's Solomon Salomon is incredible. And Salomon's done an amazing job. And I think that that is an important thing to note because as we talk about this strategy for your business, who the. Who the leader is driving the bus on door to door is what makes this work or not work. Like, Solomon's incredible. He didn't. He's doing an incredible job. Every day. He's. And so one, there's a shout out, but two, who runs the program for you is really important. And the. We've been doing door to door. I think we just hit two years. I think we just hit two years. Yeah. Because it's not three years, but yeah, we just hit two years. Took. Took a while to get, get our feet underneath us, but we hit our stride at the end of that first 12 months and now it's a, it's a real part of what we do. It is like, I think it was 15 or 16% of revenue in March. Like it's a significant and growing share. Like last year it was 10 total for 20. For 20, 25. Like 10 of revenue came from field marketing. And like It'll probably be 15 to 20 this year.

[B]

Geez. Okay, so this is not, not, not a small piece of the puzzle.

[A]

No, this is millions of dollars. Yeah. Millions of dollars a year. Yeah.

[B]

Like that. Yeah, I like that.

[A]

So I think the way people call it door to door, they call it canvassing and there's a few other things that like you can kind of add in there, like home shows or retail partnerships like Home Depot, Lowe's, Menards, I'm Walmart, maybe. I, I know Costco's got a program and that's like you can buy your H VAC system, water heater, generator, whatever, through like a big box store. So people often throw that into the same team. So the core concept of door to door marketing is there is a. There, there is an individual that is generating a lead. Same as like Google generates a lead or Facebook generates a lead or whatever. So someone out there is personally generating a lead. I think it depends a lot on what industry you're in. Like, do you have any clients that are like door to dooring,

[B]

roofing clients? We get a lot of that. Same with fencing. Like, fencing feels really natural to do that. So, yeah, we get. We get quite a few. I haven't heard that in H Vac, although I have. I've heard H vac in, like, department stores.

[A]

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it really depends on the trade for H vac. It's very, like. It's. Frankly, it's kind of weird. Like, people don't really do it depending on the state. I think it's actually illegal in some states. Like, someone told me it was illegal in California. I don't know why. So, like, check your legislation for Ohio. You just have to pull permits like, where you are. But, yeah, it. It's. It's interesting and it's kind of fun because as you start opening the can of worms, it can take you so many different ways. Like, as an example, there's those three archetypes. You've got home shows or, like, shows in general. Like, you could do neighborhood events. You could do farmers markets. You could do, like. And we have done all of them like you. So you could just run an events team where you're at every event in your community, which I feel like is an awesome way to, like, be a part of the community. So we do that. I. I think we did 20 or 30 events last year. We'll probably do around the same this year. So, like, that's an important part of the team. So that's one way to take it. The other is, like, just knocking doors, which. There's a ton of different ways to handle that. And then the third is big box store relationships, which are harder to get into. And, like, there's some good and bad with big box store.

[B]

Well, I mean, I know, like, I feel like knocking doors gets a bad rap as kind of like this annoying thing, but I had someone knock our door and said, hey, there's a hailstorm that came through and we just checked your neighbor's roof. Can we just check yours and I'll just show you what happened. Knock yourself out. Go for it. And got on there, found some hail damage, and then was basically said, hey, we will deal with the insurance company and we'll let you know when this is approved. And so they went and dealt with the insurance company, came back to me and said, hey, if you want this done, it's five grand. Yeah, yeah, go change my roof for five grand right now so I don't have to pay 20 later. Yeah. And it was easy. And honestly, it felt convenient for them to just handle everything to that point.

[A]

I think roofing makes total sense. And anything exterior makes total sense. Yeah. Roofing, fencing. I think garage door, landscaping, concrete leveling, asphalt ceiling. Like, we've talked about a lot of these different opportunities. Like, anything that's easy to, like, look and point at is very, very easy. Windows, doors, porches. Yeah, it's a really natural. It's a really natural part of the process. Personally, I love door knocking. I think it's freaking awesome. And I love, like, having that team. It's been. One of the most important strategic resources that we've built over the past two years is our ability to drive that team. So I want to, like, explain that. So first off, there's, like, there's a bunch of industries that it just makes sense for. It also makes sense for plumbing, H vac, electric. So depending on where you are, like, it can just make sense. It could make sense for carpet cleaning. It could make sense for whatever. It's not complicated. It's just hard. Yeah. Like, it's just tough. Like. Yeah, you're. Someone's walking around knocking on doors. The way to think about it. Well, I talked to a guy I met a guy I don't know five, six months ago, and he came into the office and he was running a really big window company in, I think, Canada. I don't remember which side of Canada. At 11 locations. Each location was like 3 to 4 million bucks. So, like, I. I want to say 35 to 40 million total. So big, big window business. And what they did was they had two org charts, basically. And he came in and like, it was. It was me just trying to understand canvassing at scale because it's just like it. It hadn't clicked yet. So he had, I don't know, 200 team members, I want to say, and 110 of them were on the sales and production side of the business. So they're going to go out and they're going to sell jobs and install those jobs. Like how you would think of a window business. Window installation business. The other half of the business was canvassing. Two, like 200, so 100 people total was canvassing. And he laid out this org chart for us, and it was beautiful. So he's got this, like, director of canvassing under the director. He's got regional managers of canvassing under the regional managers. There's team leads, and under Each team lead, there's six canvassers or five caners. Cuz each team is six because that's how many people you can fit inside a minivan. So each team gets a minivan. You go park in a neighborhood and so you build a team of six and that's your team. Yeah. And then the team lead drives. So yeah. Kind of funny. Easy to figure out. So every team is six. Every field manager manages like two or three teams, maybe four teams. Then they report up to like a training manager and then the director on top. It was a hundred some people and that was a lot of only that was their only marketing channel which when I first heard that I was like well that's, I mean that's crazy. But like the deeper we dove into it it was like holy. I mean this is kind of beautiful. Like Google has like Google's algorithm doesn't matter. Yeah. Like this is your spend and it was, I mean it was 12 to 13% of revenue. So. And that, sorry, I don't know if we said that that's the way to think about canvassing. Is it is it is marketing budget. So these are wages that are marketing budget. So when I give our marketing spend of I want to say it was like 7% ish in March, that is inclusive of the 40 some thousand dollars that we spent on our field marketing team. So that 40,000 is inside. That makes sense. Yeah, it's a lead. It's like same as matter, it's spend, you know, spend to get a lead.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But yeah, it was really interesting to watch that like cascade out. So what he does now and I'm kind of obsessed with this idea and we, when we were thinking about greenfielding instead of acquiring like this was our plan. So we were going to go like hey let's go to Columbus, pop up a branch, knock on a bunch of doors and stand up a plumbing company next to it. So that's what these guys were doing. This was their go to market strategy for new window branches is they're going to go launch a branch an hour away and they launch with three canvassers and two salespeople and that's the new branch. And then they install from whatever the branch is that they just left. And so it was really interesting. They ran essentially two organizations in tandem. This at skill canvassing team and the you know, sales and fulfillment side of the business. But it was incredible. I'm, I'm sure and I'm sure that's similar to what roofing looks like. Maybe like a roofing business is like 30 canvassers and 5 salespeople and 10 installers or something like that. But it was. It was wild. It got our juices flowing on canvassing. When I first started growing Wilson, I was obsessed with the numbers, books, podcasts, and checking the bank account pretty much non stop. But as the business grew, I had less and less time to obsess and I lost clarity. That's a exactly what CFO made easy solves. Tyler works directly with home service owners, doing a few million a year and helps you understand your numbers in a way that actually drives decisions. Things like pricing, hiring, equipment purchases, all of it. I know what you're thinking. This is just another consultant. But Tyler is different. He built and exited a $25 million home service business himself. So you know that this isn't just fluff. His clients routinely improve profit by 5 to 10% just by tightening up their pricing, labor and overhead and finally getting that oh so juicy control over cash flow. If you've got a bookkeeper and a CPA but no real financial partner, this is what you're missing. Go book a free 20 minute strategy call at CFO made easy.com owned and get the financial clarity that you've been craving all along. And do me a favor, let Tyler know that OAO sent you.

[B]

Yeah. And it was like, what is the. What's the script like when you're getting on there? Like for plumbing is. Plumbing is what I'm trying to like wrap my head around because normally you're not calling a plumber on unless there's.

[A]

So plumbing has surprisingly been the easiest and best.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So like, just like everything, we track channel roi, we track cost per lead. So we've got the metrics on this. And plumbing has consistently been like our best booker, highest revenue, highest ROI channel out of field marketing. So what we actually ended up doing is we pivoted the whole team in field because they were like, they would go to the door and the script was like, hey, we're Wilson. We're here in the neighborhood. Yeah, to. And. And that would just be like the way we'd. Neighborhood select is like old neighborhood that we want to do more work in. Not. Not complicated. And we would say plumbing H vac electric. We sort of go through like a suite of options and we did a good job. Like that's what we did last year and it was 10% of revenue. What we did this year was we started saying like, hey, let's just focus on sewer replacements or sewer lining. Let's pivot the entire team to focus on this one thing, and let's see if we can deliver this one thing better. And that has been humongous. We're about 45 to 60 days into it, and, I mean, it's been huge. The average ticket's much higher and our closing rates higher. We have. We've actually. We're hiring two additional sewer salespeople right now to keep up with it because we've, like, it's been too many leads from, like, knocking on doors. Yeah, they're doing an awesome job. Yeah. Solomon and Don Run. Don's the canvassing manager, and they're. They're doing an incredible job.

[B]

Man, my mind's blown right now. I'm sitting here, like, thinking of the implications.

[A]

Well, we. We got into it a couple years ago because, you know, LSA was being weird. So the idea was like, hey, do we need. Like, why do I need Google at all? Like, there has to be a better way. Which I think is actually similar to, you know, our. Our conversation we were going to talk about next was like, email, sms, and a few weeks ago, we talked about direct mail. And I think there's this idea that, like, I don't want to be beholden to Google to grow my business. And I think that a lot of businesses got in trouble because they. They are or were completely dictated by one channel. It doesn't have to be Google. Like, I know Companies that drive 50 of their revenue through meta. Okay, well, what happens if that changes? Like, you are so, like, if you have one channel driving too much of your revenue, I think you're in a risky spot. So for us, we had. LSA was driving almost all of our revenue in, I don't know, 2023, 2024. And we started focusing really hard on diversifying channels and ideally diversifying off. Off Internet channels because we wanted to be able to control just if there was a weird algorithm, I didn't want to be dead in the water.

[B]

Yeah. Which. The algorithm's changing so often now. Like, it used to be like once or twice a year. Now it's like once or twice a month.

[A]

Yeah, it feels. It feels like it's daily. I'm sure it's not, but it's just like, this is crazy.

[B]

Yeah, no, yeah, we're always making adjustments now. And you should. You 100%. Like, obviously I'm a big fan of Google, but, like, Google's only as good as it returns, and as soon as it doesn't return or it becomes a problem or they change something, you know, you kill that and you move on to something else. Yeah. Now, if you find yourself in a position where that is the only thing you had, you are really in a bad situation. So you need to be trying to get other marketing initiatives going as soon as possible.

[A]

So. Yeah, so we got into it for a derass, we got into it for a de risk, and it turned into a real channel for us, like a really big channel. And, like, strategically, it's about to become one of our most important channels because we now have a few branches, and we have four branches now, and we're starting to prepare to launch field marketing in those other branches to keep driving. That's fascinating. Yeah. And I. I think for, like, my personal take, you know what? One of the. I think that canvassing is the secret superpower for launching a new branch. Like, I think that's probably the most valuable thing you could do, because if I was launching a new branch tomorrow, like, the. The problem is leads. Like, you just need leads. And, hey, I've got a GMB with no reviews and nobody knows me in the neighborhood, so, like, PPC might not work as well because I'm, like, unrecognized Meta, maybe. You know, so it feels like a lot of your channels get kind of weird, so you need to have, like, a very diversified set of channels digitally. Like, hey, do you have Angie set up? Do you have modernized set up? Like, do you have all your lead aggregators, like, set to pump? Is LSA going to drip you some leads? Do you have something going on with PPC and Meta? Like, what are all the ways you can get leads on the Internet? And then maybe most importantly, what are the ways you can get leads off the Internet that you can still scale because you can run us. You know, I could drop six people in Toledo tomorrow and have a $4 million branch, like, year one.

[B]

Okay, so what size? Like, I mean, I'm trying to think of, like, the. The. The applications here. Like, my. My instinct is like, oh, well, then let's go. Like, everybody, what are you doing? You got to have your LSA and you got to have your. Your door knockers. But, like, I'm assuming it doesn't make sense until you are a certain size company. And I'm assuming also that it doesn't make sense unless you have. Not Solomon, because no one's going to replace Solomon, but, like, someone that.

[A]

I should have changed his name for the show. I wanted to make him sure that he heard it. But it's Charles.

[B]

It's. Yeah, Charles. Why'd you mess that up. So yeah, no one's going to find their own Charles. So like, are you thinking if you're going to go about this, are you going to go hire the Charles and Solomons of the world or are you going to start smaller from there?

[A]

Well, yeah, I think to be honest, I don't know the. I don't know the answer to this. Like I should have asked the guy with windows, how did he start doing it because he actually moved from a primarily digital lead source, lead channels to this at like 10 million. He switched. So I'm sure. Well, you know, Cole Simpson, maybe we need to have Monda talk about this because I think he sold his roofing business, but when he first launched it, canvassing was like the entire channel that they were driving energy through. And I think they had like 15 guys. So like I. Apparently you can start with it right off the rip. I want to say that you can start with it off the rip. I also totally acknowledge that that's a lot of money and like if I was like a one man show launching my plumbing company, like I wouldn't do it. Like it, it's too budget, you know, it's people and yeah, it's hard.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But that said, I'm sure there are people that have done it really, like Cole. Like people that have done it really successfully. And Cole, I think in his first 12 months did like 6 or 7 million of revenue. Like he was the fastest growing franchise in that space. And I think a big part of it was they just hit the freaking pavement.

[B]

That's awesome.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, you should have Cole in here. That'd be great. He's awesome.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay. And I'm assuming it's not, I mean, do you, if you wanted like dip your toe in it, it's not just hiring one guy to canvas. You are. You probably need to go ahead and invest like for an entire team of six or something like that.

[A]

What do you think?

[B]

1.

[A]

So I have seen a lot of people attempt to replicate our success with this because we've been doing this for two years. Maybe I need to be quieter about it. I just think it's like crazy. Yeah. But most people like who you bring in to launch the team is, is really important. It's a tough job. So the like the canvassers themselves, it has relatively high turnover for better or worse. So you need like a strong team leader, you need a strong manager. We were really blessed to get some really awesome people off the rip and like that's what made the program work. And now it's one of our most important marketing channels.

[B]

And how are you paying the canvassers?

[A]

I could be off slightly, but I can give like a general idea. I believe it's 17, 18 to 21, 22 an hour, plus a bonus per lead that sits. So lead that sits means like, I got a lead and we use someone ran that lead. It encourages us to set. Set up high quality leads. Yeah. So the earning potential is pretty good. Like on a successful day, you could book like two to five. Yeah. It's an important part of what we're doing. So right now we're prepping probably over the summer. We're hoping to like, go launch canvassing in a new market. I kind of want to experiment with a green field, but that's probably a terrible idea versus, like, you know, into somewhere that we already are. But. But yeah, I'm, I'm. It's. It's been awesome. But we've seen a few people try to do this and they just go straight for the canvasser and they don't understand, like, hey, this has a lot of turnover. Like you need to. It's not just like a per a person. Like, this is a program. Like you have to develop a program. It's. This is the same as building a team of technicians or a team of salespeople. Like our canvassers are salespeople. This is a team of salespeople. They get trained once a week. They're working on scripts, they're working on objections, they're working on close rate, they're working on their sit rates. Like you are building a sales organization inside your business with canvassing. Ours are canvassing like field marketing team. Now, I want to say is 15 people all in. And it's. And we're about to launch a new team, which means it's going to jump up into the. Into the 20s.

[B]

That's awesome. And it's something AI is not about to replace. So.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Well. And that was the thing with. Yeah, it. It's not like you can. You are just immune to all of those is. Now granted, it brings a lot of other issues. It's not like it's free and easy, but like, yeah, it. It's analog.

[B]

Yeah. My impression of this is this is the. This is a hard road, but it's hard.

[A]

The results are worth it. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I think it's the same with, you know, Isaac. Isaac was talking about. And we've had him on the show, but for direct mail, like, he's like, hey, everyone's Chasing digital and he's getting a 10 times return on his ad spend on direct mail right now. And it's, it's not like small, it's like a hundred thousand dollars a month. Like he's getting a lot from like the most old school analog shit out there. Yeah, it's kind, it's kind of interesting. It's kind of interesting. Old school, man.

[B]

Old school. Door to door canvassing. Knock them, get them. Let's go.

[A]

Yeah, let's go. Yeah, it's kind of wild.

[B]

Is there something that like this is a terrible idea for like just business

[A]

cannot work, I don't think. I don't know.

[B]

I don't know. Somebody like remodels houses. Like the chances of somebody else in that neighborhood also wanting to remodel.

[A]

Honestly, I think it would probably work. So it tends to be easier the bigger the ticket is.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So like maybe appliance repair would be tough because appliance repair, like might be only like a couple hundred bucks as a one time job, but like, you know, landscaping, if you secure a landscaping contract, maybe that's $5,000 over the course of a summer. Five grand. Like because you have to be able to afford the wage and the commission.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So like asphalt ceiling is three grand, six or whatever. Roofing is obvious that, you know, five grand, 20 grand, like somewhere in there, like roofing makes sense. Windows is a lot of money. Doors is a lot of money. So yeah, if your service is like a couple hundred bucks, it probably makes less sense. I'm trying to think of another example besides appliance. Like duct cleaning might not work very well.

[B]

I mean I spent three grand get my ducks clean, so.

[A]

Did you?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, maybe it would work. Wife was having, you know, allergy issues. We like ripped out the carpet and we were having a bunch of issues. And so we got two different quotes and one was very affordable and one was three grand. And let's just say we wanted to make sure it was done right.

[A]

That's funny.

[B]

So we agreed to spend more and you know, got the full thing.

[A]

No, that makes sense. We. Yeah. I mean, so maybe duck cleaning, if you're like high ticket duct cleaning. Yeah, I think there's a lot, there's a lot of different things you could do. But like I, I would say as a benchmark, if your job, three grand is probably a great benchmark. If your average job is in the 2500 to 3 grand mark, you are good to go. If it is not, then you're less good to go. And that's another part of the reason we started focusing on like sewer replacements too. Like, the program's easier to pay for if the Average tour replacement's 14 grand.

[B]

Well, I mean, that's, that's just another home service problem. Right? Like, you don't focus on leads. If you don't, if you have a sales problem and then you don't focus on. So it should be fix your sales problem, fix your appointment problem, then go to leads. Yeah. And so let's get your average ticket up and your close rate up, appointments rate up, and then go figure out where else you get leads because otherwise you're not going to. It's not gonna work anyways.

[A]

Yeah, that's canvassing, man. No algorithm, mind blown, analog as hell, knocking doors. The other thing that blew our mind was that roofing guy in Canada. I was like, hey, you're in Canada, it's cold. When do you not canvas? He's like, it has to be below five degrees, bro. Otherwise five and a half degrees and up, dude.

[B]

He's built different.

[A]

They're built different. I mean, and that was the thing is like, this is the business, they're canvassing business. It was pretty inspiring. That's insane. And I mean, for us, the best in like, the best part of that is I think this is the craziest hack of all time to launch a new branch. Like, you can, you can just do it day one where like, for better or worse, a lot of digital services take a couple weeks or a month to get like queued up and functioning. This, you can get a lead on the, on the day you want to lead, you can go get that lead. You're not losing jobs because you're bad. You're losing them because you're busy. It only takes one missed call, one delayed text, one forgotten follow up and that job and customer is gone. And that's exactly what quo fixes. Quo brings in every customer conversation, like calls, texts, voicemails into one shared thread your entire team can see. So whoever jumps in next has the full context right away. There's no scrambling, there's no crossed wires, nothing slipping through the cracks anymore. It keeps your team aligned, speeds up your response time, and makes your customer experience feel dialed in every time. If you want tighter communication and fewer lost leads, check out [e-mail] owned. You'll get a seven day free trial plus 20% off your first six months.

[B]

Yeah, it makes sense. And specifically for someone like you, who you already have the director. Like, you already have the mastermind in place. Yeah, you just have to deploy a

[A]

leader, deploy a team.

[B]

16 members.

[A]

Now I want to, now I want to do this in, like, Columbus or something like that.

[B]

Instead of buying that sixth business, just

[A]

start one from scratch and find out. Ohio.

[B]

Yeah. Like, can I, can I build an entire company just off of canvassing?

[A]

I think you can. I think canvassing is, like, the most hilarious thing ever. I think it's incredible.

[B]

I support.

[A]

I would have never in my life thought that I would have, like, done this, but now that we do it, I'm like, yeah, like any business I ever get involved in, we're going to drive canvases because this is awesome.

[B]

I love it.

[A]

Well, if you like what you heard and you want to go knock some doors, like and Sub man, thanks for tuning in to clicks calls.