The Future of Marketing for Home Service Businesses

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Service Business Mastery — The Future of Marketing for Home Service Businesses

Podcast: Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Hosts: Tersh Blissett (with Josh Crouch absent)
Guest: Justin Riley, Founder of Upfrog
Episode Date: March 11, 2026
Main Theme:
Exploring how AI, automation, compliance, and advanced marketing strategies are transforming the home service industry (HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, garage ops). Special focus on the challenges and opportunities ahead in marketing, especially with AI, private equity, and compliance.

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1. Overview & Key Episode Purpose

This episode dives deep into the rapidly changing landscape of home service marketing, focusing on:

• The rise of automation and AI (such as voice agents and swarm chatbots)
• Compliance and legal challenges in AI/automation-driven marketing
• The pitfalls and massive opportunities with lead and demand generation
• Navigating private equity’s growing role in the skilled trades
• The necessity for better customer experience, trust building, and adaptation to new platforms

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2. Major Discussion Points & Insights

A. AI Voice, Automation, and the Compliance Revolution

• AI Voice as both Weapon and Risk: Justin introduces “Opti,” software designed to sync Do Not Call lists across Service Titan, Go High Level, and other platforms, ensuring contractors don't fall foul of state/federal/tcpa/class action lawsuits—with automated lawsuits and “litigator lists” being a real, growing risk.
  • Quote: “Nobody thinks that they're going to get a class lawsuit of six people that could take down your business because you accidentally texted the wrong person...but it's happening.” (00:46:00)
• Compliance is Not Optional:
  • AI outbound calls and SMS have new, explicit opt-in requirements, especially for B2C.
  • Laws are evolving rapidly (new requirements in April 2026), making up-to-date privacy policies, opt-in records, and cross-system DNC syncing essential.
  • Advice: “If you haven't got a demand letter or been sued...just be prepared that it’s coming if you send text messages or outbounding.” (00:37:59)

B. The Facebook/Meta Andromeda Update & Shift in Social Media Marketing

• Organic & Paid Content Are Now Linked: The “Lattice” part of Facebook’s update means strong organic content boosts paid campaign results. Companies can't rely solely on paid or only organic—the best results come from both.
  • “Companies that engage in really good organic content are feeding their paid ad structure now, because it's all being blended.” (00:09:20)
• Consumer Behavior On Social: Far more “voyeurs” than you think—people engage by watching, not clicking or sharing.
  • “There’s way more voyeurs than anything...now ads reach people who just watch, not just the ones who click.” (00:11:14)

C. Marketing: Demand Generation vs. Lead Generation

• Lead Gen = Focusing on Ready-to-Buy, Demand Gen = Creating Buyers
  • Contractors need to market before the point of failure—nurture relationships, plant your brand early.
  • Quote: “90% of home service marketing is geared toward the point of failure. The biggest winners are the ones who build a relationship with customers before then.” (00:12:38)
  • Reluctance to show pricing (“tire kickers never convert” attitude) is self-defeating—transparency builds trust and wins customers in the long run.
• Demand Generation Tactics:
  • Online pricing tools to spark curiosity and early relationships—the data shows these “planners” close at higher average job tickets.
  • Local giveaways and community partnerships for positive exposure and leads.
  • “Give the customer a way to experience your business before they actually purchase from you.” (00:50:09)
• Tune-ups: Whether “loss leader” or not, getting techs physically into homes provides revenue opportunities and relationship building. Data contradicts fears that cheaper offers bring useless leads.
  • “The cost per acquisition is sometimes 600 times higher for a tune-up over $49 than $19.” (00:54:13)

D. Private Equity (PE) and Industry Change

• Why PE is Here, and the Industry’s Mistakes:
  • “PE only got in because the industry was inconsistent with customer experience. It was low hanging fruit.” (00:19:14)
  • Private equity is propelling expectation shifts; higher profit margins and more structured, tech-driven operations are now possible.
  • “If you want to beat private equity in your market, learn how to expose your market with organic content and your company’s heart—PE can’t do that.” (00:22:57)
• PE vs. Private Companies:
  • PE operates for efficiency and rapid scaling, but often loses personal brand storytelling and emotional connection.
  • Locally-owned can still win by being personal, but must improve reliability, responsiveness, and structure to compete.

E. The Role of AI Voice and Pitfalls

• AI Voice Use Cases: Inbound AI voice is mostly succeeding on overflow/night calls, but outbound is a legal minefield.
  • Most current AI answering isn't up to par for customer experience.
• Key Risk: “Compliance” is the word of the year—distinction between consent for human vs. AI contact.
• Upcoming Laws: Starting April 2026, opt-out from one channel (e.g. text) means no AI calls or other contacts—new “all channel” opt-out requirements.

F. Marketing ROI, Spend and Growth

• Marketing Spend Benchmarks:
  • Spend ~10% of job value acquiring new customers, which blends down with existing customer referrals as the business matures.
  • Rapid growth means higher percentage investment (sometimes up to 25%), but big, mature businesses with legacy client bases can get by on far less.

G. Workforce, Culture, Delegation, and Personal Life

• Delegation is Non-negotiable for Scalability:
  • “80% done by someone else is good enough.”
  • Owners chronically delay delegation due to trust issues—yet real freedom and growth require giving up control.
• Personal Reflection: Both Tersh and Justin reflect on the challenges of balancing family with business, the evolution of their goals from business-centric to family-centric, and the hard-won respect for those who balance both.

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3. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Compliance:
  “One negative review on Google can impact your business, like for rankings on SEO, for future business. And it just, it kills you.” (00:34:56 — Justin)
• On Demand Generation:
  “Lead generation is in the past. I want to challenge people to start thinking about demand generation.” (00:45:05 — Justin)
• Practical Data:
  “The data doesn't lie. People who plan and budget for replacement spend more money, not less.” (00:48:50 — Justin)
• Delegation:
  “What I say, 80% is good enough. 80% not done by me is good enough.” (01:15:37 — Justin)
• On AI Risks:
  “AI calling is going to be extremely intrusive...done by robots, so if somebody opts out, there’s no human to put it back on the list.” (00:39:59 — Justin)
• On Market Waves:
  “What’s so fascinating is if we have a week that’s really good, everybody in the country does...it’s like this orchestrated dance.” (01:06:31 — Justin)

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4. Timestamps for Important Segments

• AI, Compliance & New Product (Opti): 00:00, 00:31:00, 00:37:59, 00:46:00
• Reflection on Work-Life Balance: 00:04:52–00:08:52
• Facebook Algorithm and Social Changes: 00:09:18–00:12:09
• Lead vs. Demand Generation: 00:45:01, 00:46:41, 00:54:13
• Private Equity Evolution: 00:18:53–00:24:19
• Practical Marketing Tips & Tune-Ups Data: 00:48:50–00:54:13
• Operational Benchmarks & ROI: 01:00:00–01:01:54
• Delegation and Team Building: 01:14:05–01:15:37

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5. Action Items & Final Takeaways

• Audit Your Compliance: Update all website/biz forms for AI and SMS consent, sync Do Not Call lists across platforms, and keep precise opt-in logs.
• Embrace Organic Branding: Use both organic content and paid campaigns—let your team and brand be visible, relatable, and community-engaged.
• Shift Mindset to Demand Generation: Nurture relationships before breakdowns occur. Transparent pricing, community events, and curiosity-building content are key.
• Don’t Fear “Cheap” Tune-Ups: Data says acquisition is cheaper, and close rates/task values aren't lower versus high-priced tune-ups.
• Delegate to Scale: Trust your team; owners who insist on doing it all hit growth ceilings.
• Stay Laser Focused on Experience: Consistency and safety win customer trust—and ultimately, business longevity.

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For more info on the Opti compliance tool or Upfrog’s strategies: Contact Justin Riley on Facebook or LinkedIn.

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This summary captures the episode’s spirit—dynamic, conversational, and loaded with actionable tips for home service business owners aiming to stay relevant and resilient in a rapidly shifting landscape.

Transcript

[Justin Riley]

AI Voice is going to be this huge new thing. We actually came up with a software and we have a product launching actually this week. It's called Opti and what it does is it takes your Service Titan links it with whether you're in Go High Level or any other external messaging platform. If somebody says stop in the external messaging platform, it updates Go High Level or Service Titan and then it updates Service Titan with Go High Level. So you're syncing your do not calls. Right? The other thing we do is we run all the contacts for through a Do not call list registry for the state and federal. We run it through a known litigator list of these people that are constantly suing people so they'll actually engage with your business on purpose. We have a list of known people and numbers that they use so we can stop them before it actually happens. We believe we've done a really good job of creating that. We're going to have many, many integrations as time goes on. It's really truly a boring software that serves a great purpose for contractors to keep it organized. Because everybody thinks about the big dangers in business. Oh, you burned someone's house down or this or that. Nobody thinks that they're going to get a class lawsuit of six people that could take down your business because you accidentally texted the wrong person. It's one of those tools that indirectly is going to save a lot of people and protect a lot of people for an upcoming danger. Especially with the new AI expansion coming.

[Tersh Blissett]

This episode is brought to you by one of our show partners, upfrog.

[Podcast Announcer]

Upfrog is the OG when it comes to pricing transparency online. They find system replacement leads through paid ads and have developed an entire system to drive those hard to find system replacement opportunities. Nurture the leads and book them into sold systems before your team arrives to

[Tersh Blissett]

help you grow your business. I want to give a huge shout out to Market Storm for sponsoring today's episode.

[Podcast Announcer]

You've heard of Google Ads, Facebook ads and SEO, but did you know that there's an entire ecosystem like 80% of the Internet that ads can be served on that you've barely heard about?

[Tersh Blissett]

That's where marketstorm operates.

[Podcast Announcer]

They leverage data science and AI to build customer profiles for your ideal customers and get your ads in front of prospects before they are ready to hire a pro. Planting your brand in their minds early and often.

[Tersh Blissett]

To chat with a team about how they can help you grow your business, visit marketstorm AI hello everyone out there in podcast world. Hope you're having a wonderful day. You're listening to or watching the Service Business Mastery podcast. I am one of your hosts, Tersh Blissett, and I have privilege, privilege, privilege of having my good buddy Justin Riley from Upfrog on the show today. Unfortunately, Josh isn't with us. If you are the praying type, keep him in your prayers. His. His oldest dog is. He's taken him to the emergency vet or her. I'm sorry. And they, they just can't. Can't keep food down or something. I'm not sure 100%, but I hate to hear that because he just had some. His other puppy dog passed away. So. Yeah. So keep him in your thoughts and prayers. I'm happy because I get to have Justin all to myself today. It's been a long time since we've had Justin on the podcast and we were just talking about this. It's been like, like a year ago. And, and normally, like, we try to commit to having all our, all of our partners on the podcast, like, you know, once a quarter, at least once every other quarter. And it's been like a year. And it's. Yeah, well, I mean, for me it's like, I feel like we just talked yesterday, but it's just the time flies by so freaking fast. But I'm excited to talk to you today because you also have a new program out that is something that's, that's needed, it was needed a long time ago and it's, it's going to be a. Something to help out with class action lawsuits to protect you from those lawsuits as a contractor. We're gonna talk a little bit about AI and a little bit about how things are going even with Uprog. Upfrog. And so with that being said, how are you, buddy?

[Justin Riley]

Man, you know, thanks for having me again. And I am, I'm missing Josh. You know, I, I saw you had this, this, this post he did the other day about a check that he got for speaking engagement. And I don't know whether you wanted to tell everybody, but I thought it was for the AARP conference. I thought that where he was at today, you know, but it's good to be back, you know, and, and, and I feel bad. Like, you know, I talked to Josh earlier and I was like, man, like, that's the worst. That's like a child, you know, and, and that that dog's been with them years. So if anybody can relate to that, that's a very, very difficult thing to go through. But it's been, it has been almost a year since, since we've been on it. And I love our conversations. They always go longer than we anticipate, and I always enjoy them. And I can tell you from my perspective, I've kind of been watching the background of you and. And Josh go around and. And really, like, really help this industry on. On learning this new stuff with AI and all these speaking things and all that. I gotta be honest, I'm kind of jealous. You know, you get to go out and meet everybody and, and do all these things and travel and, you know, it does. It's been good. You know, I am almost two years as a father now, so, um, that's exciting. Yeah. I'm telling you, it is the greatest and hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life. It is.

[Tersh Blissett]

And it's so rewarding, though. Like, it. Like those. Those sleepless nights there. There are so many times where I'm like, back then, I remember. So Julie was a night shift nurse. And my youngest daughter, or my youngest child is our only daughter. And every night she had this witching hour, and it was from 7 to 8pm well, Julie went one hour. It was, it was. But it was the most brutal hour of my life. But it was every single day, like a time clock for about a year, almost a year. And so she would just scream and

[Justin Riley]

just scream, you know, I have the most amazing wife who's like this amazing mother. And the hardest thing is, like, not taking it personally. You know, he's not too. Like, he doesn't understand. Like, his brain's like. I saw a Facebook post, it was like his brain processes things. Like, like, he's just like going through life and like, he doesn't. But like, it's like, as a parent, you know, you're trying to do like, the best you can and like, and it's just like, what am I doing wrong? And it's like sometimes it's nothing. Sometimes it's just, you're not doing anything wrong.

[Tersh Blissett]

Well, that's how I felt because Julie would go to work and she would work like three days a week, um, be a night shift nurse. And she would go to work, and as soon as she would have to go to work, then Addie was screaming at top of the lungs. I'm like, I don't know what to do. Like our fourth child too. So, like, we've. I've experienced little ones, but I never experienced one that had a witching hour like that. And. But now she's our. She's the most chill kid out there.

[Justin Riley]

But I have earned so much respect. Like, before like, growing a business like a startup is. Is, like, what I love to do. I. I really enjoy it. I didn't have kids when I started up Frog, and. And it was easy. And, like, I would hear these people, like, talk about this work, life, balance with family and this and that. I was like, oh, yeah. And then, like, I realized, like, how hard it really is. Like, and. And when we just run a marketing business, like home service businesses that require you, like, to physically be in another location or serving customers while raising a child, like. Like, my dad did that with us, and. And I never quite understood or really, you know, Grass.

[Tersh Blissett]

Do you remember us sitting at a round table in Las Vegas?

[Justin Riley]

Yeah.

[Tersh Blissett]

Four years ago, five years ago. And we were just talking about this, and you're talking about your dad, and you're like, I just don't understand that. And I was. I was like, julian, I looked at each other like, yep, one day. One day he's gonna learn. Yeah.

[Justin Riley]

And, man, I tell you, you know, a lot of lessons and a lot of respect, you know, and.

[Tersh Blissett]

But it's really so rewarding, though. It is.

[Justin Riley]

Before. Before I had children, like, my goal was to be, you know, the best successful business owner. Right. Like, now it's like, I just want to be the best dad. And sometimes you have to sacrifice, at least for me, a lot of the traveling, a lot of things, just because I know how important these first couple years are, and I just want to get it right. You know, I had such a great upbringing, and I just want to make sure we do that for him. And. And. And really, it's a team thing. Like, I don't want to let my wife down.

[Tersh Blissett]

Sure.

[Justin Riley]

You know what I mean? Like, it's. It's hard. Like, you go on the road and you hear, like, him in the background or this or that. It's like, that killed me. Yeah.

[Tersh Blissett]

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's. That's a rough one there. And then whenever you have the. Your. Your child with you and you try and take a client's call, like, I have emergency that comes through, and you're like, oh, I don't know, dude. Don't sweat it, because we all got kids. Like, we've all been there. We've all experienced it.

[Justin Riley]

One thing I do like about this administration in the White House, this have brought kids to the forefront of, like. Like, there's been kids in the Oval Office. There was kids at the inauguration. Like, I think that's really, really cool. And I see other business owners that have kids in the offices and stuff. And, and it's like, I think that's cool. Like, I really do. Like, like all they want to do is be included and, and you know, and yeah, they kind of slow us down. Yeah. But maybe we're supposed to be in certain parts of our life, you know.

[Tersh Blissett]

That is true. That is so true.

[Justin Riley]

So, yeah, you know, business has been. Been wonderful. You know, we're growing. We're deep in the. In the roofing verticals now and garage door verticals and H vac, as always. And that's going really, really well. I think that, you know, we were lucky. I was telling you earlier, we're lucky at upfrog because we weren't as googly invested. Like, we're a paid media company for growing and we're mostly in social media. And what was that.

[Tersh Blissett]

What was that update that happened recently on Facebook?

[Justin Riley]

Andromeda was like this big. You know, it actually happened over the last, like, year and a half. They've rolled this out in sequences. And I think October last year was like one of the big abrupt ones. And then there was a latest one here in, in. In January last month. Basically it's three different parts, right? You have this Andromeda part, and then you have this thing called Lattice, and you have this thing called gm. Okay? And it's really what AI did to social media. And what it did is it allowed people to create videos and images at scale. So basically the number of posts and videos, whether it be ads or organic, just exploded. Right? So really, Andromeda, when people talk about that, is. Is the algorithm that picks and, and, and, and picks different, you know, videos of what to put on the feed, right? The instant auction per person. And then you have this thing called Lattice, and then you have this thing called gem and, and Lattice is the. Really the, the most interesting one to us right now because it's basically the way that the ad structure and algorithm used to work is that everything was based upon like, engagement of your past ads, right? Like, okay, how long did they watch this video? Who engaged with it? Right? Did they like, share comment? There's sorts of things, right? Like that was really important, but that was the only data they have. Now Lattice, Lattice is like, like Lattice of the fence. You know, you got all these connections and all it does is it bridges the organic as well as the paid ad structure. So what we're seeing is that the companies that engage in really good organic content.

[Tersh Blissett]

Well, see, a lot of times we all witness. Well, we all left away from organic because we weren't getting an Engagement on organic content.

[Justin Riley]

Yeah. Well, now, okay, I can tell you that engagement is different than seed audience. So there's a lot of what I call, like, creeper Facebook people. They don't like those. They don't share posts, but they love to watch them.

[Tersh Blissett]

Oh, yeah, right.

[Justin Riley]

And I would say that, yeah, like. Like, you know, and then everybody's got those people, right? Everybody knows a sharer, right? Like, you go on your feed, like, they share everything, right? And you got your clickers and you got your, you know, commenters, and then you got your voyeurs, and there's way more voyeurs than anything. So now what they've done, instead of the people that just engaged with your content as far as clicks, shares, things like that, using that as an audience pool, now they're able to really watch the. The reels and the viewership and. And create these personal Personas, if you will, of different people. And. And media buying has really gotten much more sophisticated than it was in the beginning. It used to be, like, harder. Run a coupon ad, and you could probably get some leads, right? And. And now it's more about, like, the Personas of the individuals and stuff, which is really the stuff that interests us at upro, because it's really cool to. To figure that stuff out.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah, that's.

[Podcast Announcer]

This.

[Tersh Blissett]

That's the thing that's, like, I have refused to dive into because I knew if I did my add, like, it's. It's a superpower, but it's a hindrance also, because if I start to dive into that rabbit hole, I'm gonna fully immerse myself and like it. I can't imagine. And so, like, I've. I've. I've literally, on purpose, stayed away from learning the information.

[Justin Riley]

It's a rabbit hole, man. Like, you know, you keep pulling strings, and then. And then they change it on you, you know, and then. Then they change it, and then, you know, I think the. The most interesting thing that we have seen and what has made us kind of stand out and been really successful lately is, is recognizing that, you know, things we knew along that. That customers that have old systems know they have an old system way before. Way before they actually do the repair or the replacement, right? And I would say 90% of all H vac marketing or home services in general is geared towards the point of failure. And the biggest winners that we have seen are people that are able to market and brand in a successful way to get customers to do an action, whether that be, engage with your company, fill out A contact form, do things or get a price online, right. As an example and, and build a relationship before, before the point of failure. And I think that's so important because if you're always marketing towards the broken unit or the broken whatever it is or the repair, that's really expensive nowadays, right? Like it's just, you know, you try and compete on Google AdWords and things like that or LSAs or any of that contextual stuff is just so expensive to do. And really you're only going after maybe 5% of the market and everybody's fighting for that 5%. You know, so you know, the ability to go and, and to build a relationship with customers before the point of failure, whether that's through, you know, it starts with you know, a well branded company, you know, the ran wraps, the, the exposure, the, the local grassroots things, but really have them. That's what's made online pricing so effective is like everybody always has this assumptions about selling online units and it's not like nothing gets sold online. The idea of online pricing is to create curiosity to get a consumer to engage with your company to find out what the price would be if they were to replace and then to kind of give them a sample of what your business is like communicate with them, help them out, maybe do a tune up for them so that when the point of failure comes, they're not going to their phone on Google, they're just simply calling the same person they just interacted with.

[Tersh Blissett]

And think about that though, if, if you treated the tuneup like it's a nuisance, like oh here we go, this tune up. But, but in reality, even if it's subliminal, like even if they don't realize it, it's, it's ultimately a test of do I want to trust this company whenever I spend.

[Justin Riley]

Here's one that's gonna, that it's gonna ruffle some feathers, right? The people that call in and ask for a price, okay for so long and many, many people think that oh my God, that's not a customer of mine. We just don't do business with them. If they're gonna ask for the price upfront, we just won't do business with them. Well, I can tell you that, you know, you are really shooting yourself in the foot, right? And, and whether they choose to your prices or not is, is, you know, the reason why they're asking. That's the only metric they can kind of measure things on until they experience your business. So why not humor them a little bit and try and earn that. Right. Because at the end of the day, it's, it's really about who am I going to trust to do my home services. Right. Like the brands that make, make it safe for a consumer to do business with are the ones that are going to win. And whether that means, you know, because if they don't feel safe, then price becomes an objection instantly. Well, I don't think, you know, they, they want 100% kind of guarantee that everything's going to work out like you say it's going to. And if, if, if, if they start to see chinks in the armor, then they're going to bring up things like price and all those things. So build a brand, but build a safe brand for consumers. Like, and make the consumer feel safe. Because the mind, like that, that's, if you do that, they don't care what the price is. They really don't because they feel like it's safe. They're getting good value, they're going to get what they pay for, and it's an equal. And so many people try to send those customers away because I think a lot of times is because the techs in the field can't close them or have a heart run closing them. So they don't even want to see them. So it's like head in the sand, just we won't even talk to those people then. Well, I think that's a really big problem coming into this because with transparency expanding, I think you're gonna have to figure out how to do business with those people.

[Tersh Blissett]

How do you change things like that? I mean, because on one hand, we have very young technicians potentially, or when I say young, less experienced technician, there's a generation there that gets intimidated. The first time you ask them a question, they assume it as a roadblock. And in reality, it's just inquisitive. Like you're just inquisitive.

[Justin Riley]

It's, it, it's a reaction that I don't care if Your price is 5,000, 10,000, 20 or 30. No one ever likes the price.

[Tersh Blissett]

No.

[Justin Riley]

Okay. It just is what it is. Right? Like nobody ever likes it. And it's a natural customer reaction. I think that looking at the sales process, not in, in a section of just the tech in the home, but as an entire experience with your business, and the better you can make it. Sometimes our sales guys are just set up to fail. Maybe they didn't get dispatched at the time they wanted. Maybe they didn't, didn't, didn't, didn't get the, you know, or the guy shows up late or you know, or the, they didn't sound qualified when they took the call. Like that's a big one. Like that's what I'm excited about. Your, your, your phone tap is, is like if you're able to look at the whole process from the, from the initial journey, like if somebody feels unsafe in the beginning, as in unconfident, okay. That's going to set your sales rep up for a lot more scrutiny and questions because they're, they're. The confidence isn't there. So when I talk about the whole experience, that's really it. It's from the initial touch to when the salesman gets there to make their thing, whatever it is, and that process in between, we tend to forget and just blame it on the sales guy 100%.

[Tersh Blissett]

And they were set up for failure from the get go. I, I'm right there with you. So with that being said and the, the training and we, so we naturally heard some negative feedback on PE and B, what changed recently? Like where, where, where do you see the direction of that going?

[Justin Riley]

I know that's, man, it's, it was out there for a while. There wasn't a whole lot of PE action, if you will, you know, that was going on I think yesterday. Blackstone, they're closing on the, the champions group, which is a huge transaction which I think will really kind of accelerate, you know, more of that action to happen in 26.

[Tersh Blissett]

Do you say that he would have

[Justin Riley]

never had the opportunity to come into our business? And this is the honest truth, in my opinion, PE would have never had the opportunity to come in if we as an industry were doing a better job of experience for inconsistency with customers.

[Tersh Blissett]

Do you see it as our industry as low hanging fruit? Because we are behind on times.

[Justin Riley]

It always has been. This isn't the first time it happened in the 90s again, you know, I mean, and it's. We're so resistant to change and there's

[Tersh Blissett]

1800 field technicians that are getting, being purchased in this acquisition. Yeah, tab flows.

[Justin Riley]

It's crazy and it just tells you how big the market really is. And I think it's really interesting to see that what it's done to the industry. I think it's done good and bad. Like I don't think it's all bad. I think it's put a lot of awareness. I think it's caused us to up our game definitely, you know, in the experience wise in, in technology. You know, our industry has always kind of been the last one to move, especially when it comes to technology. Like, you know, we're so resistant to the new thing and. And this and that until it's forced upon us.

[Tersh Blissett]

Does Petey move forward faster or slower than the privately owned?

[Justin Riley]

What are you seeing as far as, like, technology? I think they test everything. I think that if it makes dollars and cents, they test it. I think that they don't take into account the employees as much into the decision making. If that's good or bad. That can be good or bad. Right? Like. Like, you know, I mean, I can tell you when we went to surface titan in 2016, when we onboarded, it was like. Like we had just ruin everybody. Like, all the techs hated it. I'm not using it. I think we had three people quit. We had, you know, rejections, this and that, and it's like. And that was a very tough transition for us, and now it's become kind of the industry standard, you know, where everybody likes it. You know, like, there's technicians that will

[Tersh Blissett]

quit if you aren't on Service Titan. They're like, I'm so used to Service Titan. Like, they go in a dashboard, they're

[Justin Riley]

going to track their metrics. Right. And if it's not the same as the way the other company was, you know, then. Then it's a big deal. I think that it's been this way the entire time. You know, it was like, oh, we went from time material to flat rate, right? That was like, oh, I'm not using this. This is. This is ripping the customer off this and that.

[Tersh Blissett]

You know, talk to people that say that.

[Justin Riley]

And it. And it's. Sometimes there needs to be a chief, and sometimes there needs to be an Indian. And whether that's right or wrong. Right. You know, and. And where the decision gets made. But, you know, PE is. It just. Just operates differently. Right. They expect more out of the business. Like, I think the one thing that really is. Was a good thing is it showed operators that you can make 10 to 20, even 30% net earnings in a service business. Yeah. But growing up at 2 to 5% was like the average. Like, that's what people made. And that was okay. You made, you know, a nice little salary a year, a little bit of profit, and had a boat, went on vacation, and had a great family. Now it's like, wow, you can actually make this like an enterprise. And I think that's some of the good stuff, that if you put your ego aside for a second and realize that, you know, maybe they did it better than us in Some things right. And structured in that. And I'm not saying doing it better as in taking advantage of customers because there's this mentality that PE takes advantage of customers. And maybe some do. I know some, some regular owners do as well. You know, I think there's a mix around. I think that they're more structured businesses and the more structured your business is, the faster and better can grow with more profits.

[Tersh Blissett]

How does the private privately owned companies, how do they benefit from this?

[Justin Riley]

How do they benefit? I. I know how they can win. So one thing that a weakness that private equity has, okay, is the. In my opinion, and maybe some are different, some are not. But because they're such a tightly wound, structured organization, they can't be themselves and they can't have this identity that plays really well on social media. So if you really want to beat private equity in your market, okay, learn how to, to expose your market with organic content, with social media of your heart, your emotions and who your brand is. And that's something that you know is sometimes edgy or too edgy that certain people won't do.

[Tersh Blissett]

I lose? You. I think I lost.

[Justin Riley]

Yeah, we got you back. That was the equity people. They were like, all right.

[Tersh Blissett]

The last thing that I heard was on PR on your social media, right?

[Justin Riley]

It's. It's Blackstone cutting the cord. You know, they're like, no, we can't have this. But really it's to put your heart on social media and your brand and, and people still want to do business with, with local people that you know that know your story that you know there's still a percentage of people that can. That they will choose you over them. Here's the most important thing though, is you got to show up when you say you're going to. And you got to be structured if you're going to compete, right. You can't just take off Saturday and Sundays and not answer any phone calls and expect to be a service business.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah, yeah.

[Justin Riley]

Like, that's the biggest thing. It's like you can't just turn your phone off at 5. Like people expect you to be a service business. Right?

[Tersh Blissett]

So that is, that's a good point too, because they're. Especially if somebody's experienced it, I would say they can't have all bad experiences because they wouldn't be in business anymore. Like they have to be providing a good experience to the client. And once they've experienced that, they're only going to be so patient with a locally owned company just because they're locally owned.

[Justin Riley]

And here's where it's really become competitive. And that's why I'm kind of on this, this, this mission to tell people like, stop focusing only on the emergency because private equity is going to win on the emergency customers. Okay? They have much deeper pockets than you. Okay. They're going to be able to bid you out. They're going to have, they're going to have people that answer the phone all the time. In an instant. They're going to cycle through. Like that's a very competitive space to compete with. So if you want to compete with, in this nature, right, you have to go and build a relationship with your community and your brand and, and start building these relationships before the point of failure so they never get to there. And that's really the, the, the, the ground that, that everybody should focus on. But we're so tied as an industry. Even our sales training, everything in our sales training tells us how to, how to sell a customer units and options. When it's broken. Well, what if it's not broken? Why not have a conversation about preventative maintenances for, for HMAC and preventative replacements? Why now in, in the off season is a better time to replace than in the future?

[Tersh Blissett]

Do you feel like we still, we need to, we still need to be doing two visits a year?

[Justin Riley]

I think it depends on the market you're in. I think the seasonality and things like that. I like two visits a year because I know that, you know, anytime my tech goes into the home is when I can possibly generate revenue. And if he doesn't go in the home, I don't have a chance to. So I, I like to give my guys the chance to, to go in there and, and do it. You know, if, if you're continually losing money for every call, if the excuses. Well, why, why not one instead of two? Because it costs more in overhead. Right. Is that, is that your basis of the argument?

[Tersh Blissett]

That's the, the argument that's presented.

[Justin Riley]

Well then you're not doing a good job of explaining to consumers why now is better than the future and why preventative is better than a breakdown.

[Tersh Blissett]

We went through a, a spell of where we prematurely changed out systems.

[Justin Riley]

Oh, there's pull through. Yeah.

[Tersh Blissett]

During, during COVID Like we're feeling those now or do you think that's already gone past?

[Justin Riley]

It kind of started in late 23, went through 24 and 25. Honestly, I think everybody's trying to make excuses up for. No. And I'm, I'm just being serious. There is, there is a Part of that, I think the bigger aspect is 20 to 30, sometimes 35% of the housing. The, the units that we replace is the housing market. Units that aren't happening because of home sales, not happening. And I think that's a bigger chunk than a pull through. Okay. I think that's an easier in my mind to justify the equipment sales down is. Well, most, you know, some markets, 20, 30, 35% of all H Vac boxes sold in residential replacement add ons is because a transaction of a home. Okay. And we don't have that like it's, it's virtually gone. Okay. So there's your hole in, in my opinion, like, I think that's a much bigger hole than this pull through, Matt.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah, that makes sense. What's your thoughts on the PE buying houses?

[Justin Riley]

I would blame it on that. And, and you know, like Las Vegas. Las Vegas, extremely competitive, very difficult market. I think imitation home owns 54% of single families in, in Vegas. Right. I didn't know the large, one of the largest percentages in, in aggregate, huge amount of single family homes there. Recently found out Phoenix is like their number two. But we have extreme success in Phoenix and not in Vegas. And I'm not saying we don't have success. It's just not as easy of a market. I think the competition with the number of PEs are there. It's just a different dynamics of the market. I think there's, you know, each market is a little different. I don't see a big problem as far as the replacement add ons. Like, I don't know who's doing all that work though, you know, and, and maybe somebody knows. I'm sure there's somebody out there that's got that contract to do it. But how well are they paying? Right in, in this and that, there's still a ton of homes. There's still an opportunity for anybody to create a service business if you do good work and grow it. The one thing PE was really good at was accelerating growth. Okay. If you just take the normal track of 10 to 30% year over year growth and grow a nice little business and a lifestyle business, you still have the same opportunities you did before. Where PE comes in is they accelerate the growth patterns year over year so they can get an exit. Right? That's really what they want to do, is they want to come in, grow an organization, grow the EBITDA margin, whether that through acquisitions or organic growth, through it fast. So then in three to seven years they can turn around and sell it for a higher Multiple than what they bought it. And I think that you'll see some of those happen again. And I just think there was an opportunity for them to come in and we should really think twice about and sh up our base to make sure it doesn't happen again or where else are these companies going to retire and sell to? Like, there's this argument that, like, we hate pe, but, like, okay, so you have no sons or family that want to take care of this, this business, or they don't want to because they saw your life of how busy and hard it was and like, well, who are you going to sell it to? You just going to close the shop and have. What are you going to do with your business? So they.

[Tersh Blissett]

And they brought in some generational wealth as well.

[Justin Riley]

They did. And it's not all bad. Right?

[Tersh Blissett]

Right. No, I agree.

[Justin Riley]

A lot of it is ego and somebody doing it better than them. People get offended.

[Tersh Blissett]

Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. 100%. Okay, so let's transition a little bit. I mean, it's. It's not much of a transition because we're going to talk a little bit about AI and AI Voice. So. I love AI Voice. I. I also see its downfall, its restraints. I see it abused already. Like, I knew it was coming. I knew it was going to come. It's already being abused. I have not. I don't know where my name got added to a database, but I have not applied for $150,000 loan. But I get 12 calls a day from AI bots saying, we're in our loan processing underwriting stage of your loan application. Click 2 to accept or whatever. And I'm on a do not call registry. I sign up to for you to call me. I have not made an. I have not applied for that loan. Like, it was a different thing a month ago or two months ago, and now it's this loan thing that they're doing against the law. If I, and I've told these people this, too, if I was in the market to get a loan for $150,000, I sure as hell wouldn't get it from you.

[Justin Riley]

Like, at this point in my life,

[Tersh Blissett]

I will never get it from you.

[Justin Riley]

Like, I think that it's wise to break down AI calling as. As two things, right? There's inbound and there's outbound. Right? Like, there's answering and there's outbound and. And, you know, I am. I. I claim to be no expert in AI voice by any stretch of the means. I have kind of avoided it. I've dabbled in it here and there. I hear the most success I hear with AI voice is in the answering of overflows and overnight things like that. I have not seen a answering service myself personally or listened or used or interacted with one that I found would make me proud of having behind my business personally. Now maybe I just haven't gotten out and heard enough and like, you know, I know there's one, there's a big company out in the Midwest that's promoting one this and that. I, I called around to their branches to kind of test it because I always try and see like I don't want to make an assumption without testing it. And I can tell you I was not impressed with it, you know, and, and it's, it's, it's, it's advancing so fast. I think that the promise is there. I think that AI, you know, answering is probably going to be better than outbounding to begin with. I think that the big thing that we've got to talk about is compliance when it comes to AI because just because somebody opted into your business doesn't mean they opted in to give you consent to reach them through AI outbounding. Okay?

[Tersh Blissett]

There's no which ones can and can't

[Justin Riley]

do that if you haven't updated your compliance on either your, your, you know, whether it be your service tickets with contracts or your website or any of that, your privacy policy, any of that. Like they haven't accepted those terms. And there's a separate explicit consent that's required to be, you know, to call through AI devices. It's very explicit. Right. And you know, and in the B2B sense they're legal because then they can pretty much. The B2B space is pretty wild. You know, you're allowed to call anybody without express risk and consent because it's business. But B2C, oh my gosh, you're going to, you get sued all the time. I know tons of people that just SMS violations get, you know, the $1,500 per incident demand letters to be paid off or it goes to a class action suit. And there's been multiple class action suits for people I know of and have heard of everybody because they violate these terms and SPAN act came in and then the texting guys got out there and then they start ruining it and then the AI voice is going to be this huge new thing and it's very intrusive. So we actually came up with a software and we have a product launching actually this week. It's called Opti and what it does is it takes your service titan and links it with whether you're in Go High Level or any other external messaging platform. And if somebody says stop in the external messaging platform, it updates Go High Level or Service Titan. And then it updates Service titan with Go High Level. So you're syncing your do not calls. Right. So the other thing we do is we run all the contacts through a do not call list registry for the state and federal. We run it through a known litigator list of these people that are constantly suing people so they'll actually engage with your business on purpose. Okay. And we have a list of known people and numbers that they use so we can stop them before it actually happens. That's crazy. But the biggest career is we see companies that text people after they said they've stopped. Like they just hit their marketing list every time, you know, they send up last text. When we see the reviews pop up in Google, like one negative review on Google can impact your business, like for rankings on SEO, for, for future business. And it just, it kills you. So we've created this software. It's, it's, it's really, really, it's, it's really cool. And, and we'll talk about it more as time goes on. But if you're on service tight and you use any external things like messaging, whether that be Go High level or any other platforms, like, like definitely, you know, message me on Facebook if you want to see it. Because I can tell you that it also integrates with creating the contacts inside service titans. You don't have to manually do it. Like it's a full API integration between the two. And I think in, in the coming in April, there's another law that's coming out that says if somebody opts out of text messages, that means you can't call them or anything else. Right. It's, it's opt out of all channels. So there's some more compliance stuff that's coming down the pike that we really believe that this will be really helpful for because you really don't want to be wasting your time either dialing through outbounding or dialing throughoutbounding. Somebody who says, don't engage with me for business, it's a waste of time and reputation.

[Tersh Blissett]

So, you know, that's like I said about that the, the mortgage company that's calling me.

[Justin Riley]

Yeah, I'd never use that company.

[Tersh Blissett]

I'd never, I would never use that company. And it would be the same way for the consumer, I'm sure. I'm sure the consumers feel that way about a home service company.

[Justin Riley]

Like 100. Sure. Like I see the people that do it. And you know, and, and the reason why this really came about was like we saw it, we saw it happening to our clients. We saw it, you know, that clients would use, you know, three or four different messaging softwares and they'd message people or, or the outbound calling. Like it works really well if you have a call center and you make lists of people to call. Well, number one, you want to make sure it's not a reassigned phone number. Right? You want to make sure that it's, it's not on the state or the federal. Do not call us because you can get fined for that and you're not going to have much success wasting the time to outbound call somebody who's on those lists. You're going to get an angry homeowner who's going to answer that phone. I'm going to do that. Call us, blah, blah, blah, or they're not going to answer. So it's about efficiency there. So instead of taking your list importing into some bulk thing and waiting for it to come back, then importing it here and checking all these different things and then re importing it back in, this is a software that kind of lives in the background. It's a middleware piece that every new lead that comes in, it cleans and every old lead you had cleans and then it organizes everything and sanitizes your data. So at any time you can pick a list and you know, the list that you're grabbing is clean, compliant and can, you know, have the most effectiveness.

[Tersh Blissett]

And, and I'm, I'm curious if there's a way to search all of your numbers like, like as a business and because so like it's, contractors do it all the time, I've done it myself. Where you sign up for one platform and your phone number's listed there with a different phone number and you have like a, like a certain phone number here or you change VoIP systems and you have these phone numbers over here and then. Oh, but this voip system over here still does some random text messages that you've forgotten about that you automation that you set up and then left that platform but still have like, it just, it just happens. Is there a way for you to find those phone numbers or you just, you really need to be doing your due diligence.

[Justin Riley]

I, I think the number one thing is, you know, you know, if you haven't got a demand letter, you haven't been sued. And you send text messages and outbounding. Like, just be prepared that it's coming. Okay. Because we're seeing it like the intensity of it is happening. The more you do and the longer you do it, it will happen. You're. You're going to hit somebody and piss somebody off and they're going to do it. Now if you hit somebody and they say, please don't contact me again, they're not going to sue you, typically. But if you continue to do that two or three times after, that's when the suits come or the demand letters or this or that or the bad reviews that come from it. So, you know, compliance regulation, tcpa, you're supposed to keep a list of when they opted in. Okay. How they opted in and what that timestamp is. And because if you don't have an actual running list of when they opted in or this or that. Okay. And you do get, you know, odd. You know, TCPA does, does come after you. You have no defense, right? Like none. You're supposed to be keeping a compliance log of your records. And email was sort of intrusive. Text messing was really intrusive. AI calling is going to be extremely intrusive. And here's the thing, it's done by robots, right? So there's no human managing it. So what if somebody opts out of AI here? There is no human to put it back on the list in server site and say, hey, don't call that number again. Right. There needs to be this, this piece in between. So we believe we've done a really good job of creating that. We believe that we're going to have many, many integrations as time goes on. And it's really, truly a boring software that serves a great purpose for contractors to keep it organized. Because, you know, everybody thinks about the big dangers in business. Oh, you burned someone's house down or this or that. Nobody thinks that they're going to get a class action lawsuit of six people that could take down your business because you accidentally texted the wrong person.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah.

[Justin Riley]

Nobody thinks that's the way they're going down. But like the reality, it's happened.

[Tersh Blissett]

Like, we're worried about the technicians driving the jeweler out.

[Justin Riley]

Right. The jewelry store, they almost got down. Like there's real estate companies. Berkshire Hathaway almost got taken down by TCPA class suits. Yeah.

[Tersh Blissett]

That's crazy. And this. And were those over AI or was that pre.

[Justin Riley]

No, that was just straight texting. That was just texting and calling. They were also outbound Calling people that were on the register do not call us. So, you know, compliance is a big area that we feel is a, is a needed thing. Because look, why is this so new?

[Tersh Blissett]

Like why, why, why, why are you just like why is

[Justin Riley]

we kind of created this product because we're seeing it happening. Like as more and more volume goes out and we deal with larger amounts of people and as business gets more sophisticated and people understand that these laws are out here. You know, a 2P DLC 10 just came out a few years ago. It took these lawyers a little bit. If you look at the fastest expanding legal vertical, it's ATP DLC 10 like those laws.

[Tersh Blissett]

I don't know how you keep saying that because I can't even say.

[Justin Riley]

We actually have at upfront we actually have an ATP DLC 10 lawyer and team, right? We have an actual compliance team that helps us because we deal with, you know, I mean, hundreds of thousands of contact information of customers. Right? And our clients do. So we have to be advised on what you know, the best ways to handle these things.

[Tersh Blissett]

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[Podcast Announcer]

Today's episode is powered by Cirrus Systems.

[Tersh Blissett]

Sarah is all about removing the clutter and unnecessary touch points to run your home service business profitably.

[Podcast Announcer]

They use AI dispatching to get the right tech to the right call automatically and job time efficiency to ensure your entire team runs like a profit generating machine.

[Tersh Blissett]

Get a tech upgrade for your business at Get Dot. SARAH Tech board slash service business mastery. Well, I got a message from one one of you guys. It's probably been like six months ago or something. And they're like, you gotta update this part on your website. And I was like what? And you're like, yeah, you're gonna get sued if you don't.

[Justin Riley]

I was like, oh yeah, okay, well, never mind.

[Tersh Blissett]

Whatever you want me to do. Make sure.

[Justin Riley]

You know, and, and the biggest ashamed thing like I've gotta say is like as we're bringing these clients up to speed and, and making them compliant, it takes editing their website in two form submissions. I just want to talk to all the web companies that are out there for the lack of enthusiasm on helping us change these things. I would appreciate it if we take the 5, 10 minutes it would take to change a few bit of languages to protect our clients from possible lawsuits. Because maybe it's a little difficult for you to change some text on a website. Like I would just ask for a little bit of appreciation not only from us, but anybody that's trying to help a client stay compliant. So let that for whatever it is. Like some people are really great to work with. Some I'm telling you, it takes really two to three weeks to get. Sometimes they're just non, they're just combative. They say we can't do that.

[Tersh Blissett]

Why, why would they do that? They're like, they're setting themselves over failure with that. That company goes bankrupt, they're gonna lose that as a client.

[Justin Riley]

Look, I, I get it. It's just, you know, you would be shocked at how much of a hurdle we have, you know, and it's like we don't want your website client, like just want to make them compliant so you know, they don't get sued. Right. And, and it's not us that sets. I think they think sometimes it's upfrog that sets these rules. It's like, no, this is the carriers in Twilio that set the rules. Really. And you know, we kind of have to follow this guidance from the FTC to make sure things happen. And you know, trust me, we don't want it either. Stuff's annoying.

[Tersh Blissett]

Oh yeah.

[Justin Riley]

I'm the last guy that ever thought he would own a compliance business, ever.

[Tersh Blissett]

I, I knew something was serious when Josh was educating me on it and I was like, why are you learning about this? And he's like, it's a big deal dude. I was like, oh it's, it's.

[Justin Riley]

And, and trust me, like I can promise you 99.9 of the people don't have any valid defense for themselves if they were to get sued. Right. Like they don't have any case. Like, like you can.

[Tersh Blissett]

You never hear anybody talking about it.

[Justin Riley]

Like other than everybody keeps it, they just pay it off. Just do some search and you'll find them. There's, there's hundreds of them on the dockets all over the place.

[Tersh Blissett]

I believe it.

[Justin Riley]

I Just, I mean it's, it's like

[Tersh Blissett]

you talk, hey, I need more leads or like how do I get social media marketing up and going? Like that's the stuff you hear people talk about.

[Justin Riley]

Yeah.

[Tersh Blissett]

You don't really hear like let's get compliant and.

[Justin Riley]

Yeah, I know. And it's boring and it sucks. I know guys, but like in gals. But it's, it's like it's something we got to do to protect ourselves. And, and you just said a word that I really want to hint on and you said lead generation. And lead generation is kind of this mindset. I, I want to, I want to challenge people to put it in the past. Oh yeah. I want to challenge people to start thinking about demand generation. Okay. Lead generation is basically saying you are gathering the lead of somebody who is in the need of a service right then and there. Okay. Very, very end of funnel, very narrowly focused lead generation. Right. Demand generation is creating something that wasn't there but is going to be there. Right. Demand generation. I want people to start thinking about that like why do you do a cars and coffee and stand out handing out things? It's to generate demand generation versus lead generation. Right. Like website and, and Google is very lead generation focused. Social media is more demand generated focused. You know, YouTube could be demand generated focus as well. But I really want to challenge people to think because that this is the key to really scaling and growing your business. Because there's only so many leads you can get in a day. There's only so many people. You know what they say, 5 to 7% of the market replaces their air conditioner year. So there's only so many leads you can get. Right. But how many can you generate? How many can you demand? How many can. Can you, you, you growth and, and, and build and, and not manufacture but

[Tersh Blissett]

develop a relationship with them without realizing.

[Justin Riley]

I really want to challenge people this year to think about. Right. Because there's this huge ocean of customers that have units that are X amount of years or older. Okay. Maybe they're not going to replace it today or tomorrow. Right. But, but how can I get my business in front of them to motivate them or to, to energize them to, to try my services or to generate this demand. And it's not artificial. The reality is they're gonna have to replace it sometime. So then make sure they're comfortable and safe with your business so that when it does come that maybe you could do it now. Right. Why now is better than the future or plant the seed for when it does happen, you're the only choice. And they never go anywhere else.

[Tersh Blissett]

So how, how do you have, how do you create some engaging content?

[Justin Riley]

Okay, so number one thing, you know, you put it right in a wheelhouse. Upfrog's really good at this. Pricing is probably easiest way to do this, right? Developing curiosity for how much my system would cost in the future. Right? They're so expensive now. People have to plan and budget. We know that planning budget customers about 13 to 14% higher average job ticket than emergency customers. Everybody thinks online pricing is lower ticket. It's not. I can prove it to you with data. Thousands and thousands of installs, okay? When people are prepared to buy something and they plan and budget for it, they spend more money, period. End of story. Okay? Especially in today's economy where people are tighter on money, if it's an emergency, they have less disposable income. Okay? Come at me with the argument. I can, you know, it is what it is. The data doesn't lie. So pricing works really, really well, okay? Because you're able to capture contact information of a prospective homeowner that has a interest. And nobody has interest in H vac pricing unless they have an old system. Like 85% of the people that put it through are 10 years or older. Okay, that's a really good one. Another one. Giveaways. Really good way, right? Giveaways are really good. To get interest, you need a way of branding that makes the customer do something, do it right. You gotta. Gotta do an action, right? Just watching that commercial or the video or the billboard isn't enough anymore, right? Make it engaging. Make you the giveaway. Make it a contest, make it pricing, make it.

[Tersh Blissett]

What's our best giveaway?

[Justin Riley]

You've seen, man, I've seen a couple really good ones. Depends what scale, right? Like on small local scale. I have seen people go to local restaurants and they have, they have done a giveaway, okay? And they do it a joint, joint thing. So they either bring in, they say, look, you need to grow your lunchtime people. So why don't you give away a $10 or $20 lunch gift card for your business? I'll promote it on my ads and we'll do kind of a joint partnership where everybody enters, gets a giveaway thing and one winner at the end gets a. A new unit, right? You get the distributor, give the unit. And now you've got the added benefit of winning of that. Plus you're getting a free $10 lunch thing where somebody's going to spend $50 in the guy's local restaurant. So double bang for your buck, double exposure. Like, you know, you can share the

[Tersh Blissett]

audiences with each other.

[Justin Riley]

And to win the unit, right, you get massive amounts of contact information. You're building local brand authority, you know, so there's, there's those things you can make it really simple.

[Tersh Blissett]

You know, I seen one time Billy gave away plungers at a, at a fair.

[Justin Riley]

He started his business, I believe. Now I don't know for sure. I think I listened to him one time and he talked about it and that like jump started his list, right?

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah.

[Justin Riley]

Give the customers a way to experience your business before they actually purchase from you. Yeah. By talking to them on the phone, texting them, calling them, talking to them. Do a tune up, do those things. Right.

[Tersh Blissett]

But it takes effort. Like it's, it's not something you can just automate. You're talking to the automation guy.

[Justin Riley]

Here's the problem, okay? A lot of business owners do not have faith in their employees that they will convert. They're the same people that say, I've got to charge 129 for a tune up. The reason why they do that is because they do not believe that their employees will pay for themselves going in for a low cost tune up.

[Tersh Blissett]

You're saying that in your opinion they should be going in with a loss

[Justin Riley]

leader and then I wouldn't even say it's a loss leader because if they generate the revenue off of it, then it's not a lost leader.

[Tersh Blissett]

I call it a loss leader, but I get it.

[Justin Riley]

But you know, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, and I'm not saying be manipulative. Like there's some people that say, oh, those free tune ups are, you know, just a way to, you know, strong arm people and lie to them and this and that. Sure, probably there's people that do that, okay? But most of the time what happens is they come in, they do an extremely thorough tune up, they bring the finance to the homeowner and say, look, here's the reality, okay? Your unit is X numbers of years old. Here's what a new one would cost. Now. Here's what they cost two years ago. Look at the price increase, okay? Electricity isn't getting any cheaper. This and that, okay? We've got our best installing crew that can do the job on Saturday, whenever. Make it convenient, right? And explain to them why now is better than the future. Defer financing for 18 months. That's working really well right now, you know, and, and really engaging that conversation.

[Tersh Blissett]

Okay? So let me Play devil's advocate there. What about people who argue that the having a $49 tune up, it brings in people who are not going to convert. They're not going to do anything because they, they don't have anything other than $49 and they just looked up and found you.

[Justin Riley]

I'm gonna try and be as, as friendly as possible here. Most of the people that have, if you, if, if you have that situation.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yes.

[Justin Riley]

And you're booked out for two and a half weeks straight with jobs, no problem.

[Tersh Blissett]

Right, right, right.

[Justin Riley]

But it's, it's, it's. Yeah.

[Tersh Blissett]

Calls on the board.

[Justin Riley]

If you ain't got calls on the board. I'm sorry, guys. Like, I love my employees and, and the only way I know my employees can generate revenue is getting you into a home. Sure. You're going to have some cheapskates and some good ones and some bad ones. Okay. That's just the name of numbers. Okay.

[Tersh Blissett]

Just diving into this rabbit hole just for a second. Do you, do you recommend or have you ever done an analysis on specific clients? Like say when we run this spectral, this client always picks us and never converts.

[Justin Riley]

Okay. All right. So I did a study on this like a year or two ago with, with I don't know, 10,000 jobs we took of this one particular company. And we did it, it was a tune up study. We did complimentary 19, 29, 49, 89 and 129. Okay. For the replacement rate of that customer. So the numbers of units per tune ups that they sold, okay. One in four it. And it didn't matter whether it was free or $129. Okay. Now where the difference comes in, okay. The replacement ratio of calls per replacement, because that's one thing we look at how many calls they got to run before they get a replacement out of it. Now where we notice the big difference, and this is the big argument, because a lot of people, some people don't market tune ups. Right. They just do tune ups to their existing base. And that's great. Now I can understand the 129, this and that. I get that whole model. But if you are going out to acquire new customers and you think that it's going to be cheaper to acquire new customers at 129 a pop versus $19 a pop, you are sadly mistaken because the cost per acquisition is sometimes 600 times higher for a tune up that's over $49.

[Tersh Blissett]

Really?

[Justin Riley]

Yes. And the average job ticket doesn't vary between the two. Okay. Because it's not A deal.

[Tersh Blissett]

Okay.

[Justin Riley]

And rich people like deal. Two guys, like again, it's like, like everybody's trying to, you know, get a deal, right?

[Tersh Blissett]

Like, okay, so let me, let me hold, hold it. Let me, let me ask about this. What, what's your thoughts on like a no charge consultation fee or diagnostic?

[Justin Riley]

A diagnostic. I don't think there should be any card personally.

[Tersh Blissett]

So a zero dollar diagnosis, I mean

[Justin Riley]

this is just what I've seen work in the market, right? Like, yeah, like I know that, you know, $99 diagnostic. Oh, you're outside our travel area. You got to send more. No, no, because you ain't getting rich on $99 guys.

[Tersh Blissett]

Well, there's some technicians and I've experienced,

[Justin Riley]

they think that it's going to refine their call. Okay. That's the other big problem that we have in our industry right now. And there's these. And I'm going to try and be as polite as possible because there's this group, right, and they try and highly over qualify a call before they even get there. Okay. So we only want, okay, a customer that lives in this zip code, that drives three cars, that has this, that has two dogs, a blue house, a orange thing. Like, no, okay, like, like you guys are, you guys are missing it, right? Like, like it's about how many new customers can you do business with in your market? And here's what you need. I'm going to be very frank here. You need $100,000 household income and you need a 650 to 680 credit score. That's all you need. And you can finance anything for $15,000. Okay? That's all you need, guys. Like everybody says, you got to go to the high dollar areas, this and that. No, no you don't. That's where all the competition is. You just need $100,000 annual income in the house and a 680 credit score and you can sell every home service that's out there.

[Tersh Blissett]

No, I agree with you.

[Justin Riley]

No, people just, they want, they want to, they want to feel good about an 80% close, but they can only grow at 10% a year. They can't figure it out. Right? Like, and it's like, well, sometimes the best growth model is a 35% close rate. Maybe you shouldn't close at 50%. Maybe that's not the most efficient, you know, because you're trying to outthink the system, I guess. I think every call that has a 10 year old unit is good. And I believe in the ability, in good text because I have seen it happen. Now some people that haven't experienced or watched a company that, that can convert customers ethically, okay. At a high rate of cold traffic in, in, in that maybe you haven't seen that or maybe, maybe you're just not used to it or, or maybe you're just used to selling to your existing customers and that's great too. Whatever business model floats your boat. But if you really want hyper growth, you just need a couple things, right? You need, you need as many leads as you can, okay? New of new customers, okay. You need to lower the burden to get into the door. You need to make it easy for them to do business with you and you need to make it pleasant when they're there and you make it feel as safe as possible and then give them payment options and it's really that simple.

[Tersh Blissett]

But because you see this nationwide, do you feel like this would work in every area? Like because I, I have a friend of mine that's in like south Florida and he, and he's like man, you ain't getting nothing. These guys are doing change outs for a case of beer.

[Justin Riley]

South Florida is an interesting one. You know, it's the problem with Florida and the south Florida market is the average job ticket for replacements is, is historically low. Okay. Not like northern Florida. Northern Florida does much better mostly because they have more single family homes I believe than, than the condos and things like that in the southern end.

[Tersh Blissett]

I haven't talked to him in a while but like a couple years ago he was like if you're over 3, $500. I was like what? Like that's the cost of equipment.

[Justin Riley]

Like yeah, it's sad down there, but I can tell you I've got contractors that are running in Florida right now and their average job tickets 12, 13,000 which is phenomenal. So it can be done right? Like.

[Tersh Blissett]

Oh yeah, yeah. No, I agree.

[Justin Riley]

I think that Florida is a, is a really interesting market. I think the home warranty companies have a very, very deep entrenchment there. Oh yeah, in there. So you have to be careful sometimes with, with that it, it did really going to depend. Like there's certain areas that I would just can't be done in. Right.

[Tersh Blissett]

Have you, have you ever pursued or tried to make money working for home warranty companies?

[Justin Riley]

I know I have some friends that grew some really big businesses or I've known some acquaintances. I know Paris Services, a couple of people in northern Virginia that they built their customer base off of those, those types of, of models they large already

[Tersh Blissett]

to get started, like.

[Justin Riley]

No, it was, it was a start from the ground off. They did really, really well. These are guys that, they just needed a, a lead source.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah, yeah. And as long as you treat it, they weren't choosy.

[Justin Riley]

Yeah, you're basically running free service calls. I think they got paid $6 or something to go to them. Okay.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah.

[Justin Riley]

We needed to build a customer base and they knew that, you know, there was volume because volume negates luck.

[Tersh Blissett]

Well also, if you think about it this way, like, like if you're paying 200, $300 for customer acquisition and that's cheap these days. Well, yeah, I'm just saying. And, or you could do a home warranty call for free, but they don't charge you anything for the lead. The only thing is, is when those people keep renewing everything.

[Justin Riley]

And it worked great. You know, in 2001, my father got us involved with Home Depot's at Home Services. You know, we had 14 different stores in the mid Atlantic. We were great. There was a six and a half percent royalty that, that we paid to them and that was lower than any acquisition cost to acquire a new company. And it was great. The program grew phenomenally over the years. That program has changed. I don't know what it is currently, but when we left it was a 12 to 15% plus you had to put lead generators in the store, which ended up being a 17 to 22% cost per acquisition of a customer. Now that's really expensive. Right? Like, like, you know, ideally you want to spend 10% of top line revenue on new generation of customers. If 50% of your business comes from existing and 50% are new customers and that's going to give you a 5% marketing at the end of the month. So if really, you know, people always ask like, what should I spend in marketing? Well, number one, how much money did you do last month? Right. And how many of those customers did you do business with were existing? What's your blend? If it's 70, 30. Right. New to existing. Right. The more, the younger your business is, the more you have to spend in marketing if you want to grow it fast or the more you have to spend in effort. Right. Whether that's, you know, community engagement, whether it's, you know, you have to do something and the more active you are and more efficient, the better it is. But you know, typically you want to spend 10% of the job value in marketing. And if you have a current job

[Tersh Blissett]

value or the job or the number.

[Justin Riley]

Yeah, let's make it real simple. Like if your job averages is, let's say $15,000 for an H Vac install, you can spend $1500 to acquire as many installs as you want. Okay. And that's 10% of that job value. But if 50% of your jobs in your business come from your existing customer base where there is no marketing involved in getting that customer, it just comes from you. Right. They're going to blend down on your P. Ls to a 5% overall marketing.

[Tersh Blissett]

Okay.

[Justin Riley]

Okay. So really cheap. Now you see all these people while they spend 2.5percent on marketing. Yeah, because your granddaddy started the business back in 1905. Okay. Like there's, there's like there's certain advantages that a customer base has. Right. So if you're, you know, first five years in business, boy, it's about grinding, man. I know people that spend 25% to grow a base. Right. Like. Like there is.

[Tersh Blissett]

Oh yeah.

[Justin Riley]

There's no easy and cheap way around it. Right. It just isn't right. Especially in today's environment. You either pay the piper through a relationship where you don't own the customer, like insurances. And I don't have a bunch of experience there. Right.

[Tersh Blissett]

I don't know a ton of people who do. I know a couple of people who have some success with it.

[Justin Riley]

I know some people that, that have grown. They're five, six, seven million dollars now and just started a year or two ago that are doing well.

[Tersh Blissett]

Right.

[Justin Riley]

There's definitely a system, but they're not doing.

[Tersh Blissett]

They're not only doing home warranty stuff like that. They used warranty to get the customer

[Justin Riley]

in that as like a supplemental.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was, there was one that I seen, I met several years ago and they're doing. They were doing 1.4 million a year in. That's what they got paid from the home warranty company. You must be.

[Justin Riley]

You know, my hesitancy has been. This is. I don't know anybody or a situation where a customer was happy with the experience of a home warranty after a failure. And then now I do know that Iron gloves have the worst reviews online.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah. I was going to say they're the ones that get the. They get the brunt of it is the contractor. Even though it's. I had one, this is a long time ago with TriStar and it wasn't a home warranty company issue. It was a rental property issue. And the owner of the home would not approve for the property management company to pay to have a water heater replaced. And Then they gave me a one star review because I didn't change the water here. I was like, I didn't have any control over that.

[Justin Riley]

Like, that's amazing.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah.

[Justin Riley]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Tersh Blissett]

It was two other people before me,

[Justin Riley]

you know, and, and, and you think that home warranties would be something of the past, you know, but they just, they keep popping up in new.

[Tersh Blissett]

Well, people should know. But I think they, they pay off realtors or something.

[Justin Riley]

The only way I've gotten one is I bought a house and the real estate agent gave me one one time and I never, never even thought I had it. Like, like he did that one time.

[Tersh Blissett]

We, we did that and we were like, you know what, let's try it and see.

[Justin Riley]

How was it?

[Tersh Blissett]

Horrible. Like the worst. Like exactly what you would imagine is exactly what it was. It was a three week delay on this guy to come out to look at. I don't even remember what it was. Washing machine. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, nah, bro, like I'm too mechanically inclined.

[Justin Riley]

Like, yeah, actually I would just go buy a new washer and dryer for that, you know, I mean, it might

[Tersh Blissett]

not have been a washer, but it was something. Dishwasher. That's what it was. It was a dishwasher. And, and I was like, I don't feel like getting underneath the sink. I don't feel like doing all this other stuff and I don't wash dishes, so I don't really care.

[Justin Riley]

And.

[Tersh Blissett]

But yeah, we, we dealt with that and it was just, it was horrendous. And then they're like, yeah, unfortunately we have to go back and get approval to get this part. I was like, bro, just leave it unscrewed. I'll sort it out and I'll put the part on there. I think that's what I end up doing.

[Justin Riley]

Looking at it this year, you know, I have been pleasantly surprised actually the last six months or so with the volume of work still going on. You know, I always have these, these thoughts for a day or two that like, is the economy just going to collapse or this or that? Like, I'm still seeing a hell of a lot of revenue flowing through, whether it be roofing, garage doors, like we see it. And I think that a lot of times industries have up and down weeks. And what's so freaking fascinating to me is if, if we have a week that's really, really good, everybody in the country does. It's so fascinating how these cycles like flood it. Why is that? It's. I have no, I can't explain it. Like, I don't know, like there's these like waves where it's like, we'll see it and then like, wow, everybody sold this week. And then like it, then you'll see it kind of dip for a week and then, you know, and then every, it's like this, this dance. It's like, it's like orchestrated for some reason. Like, I, I can't quite put my finger on it yet, but I am, I have been pleasantly surprised at the resilience of the economy. Okay. I think that it's been the stabilization of like inflation kind of holding steady now for two years, you know, and, and it's starting to cap out a little bit. I just thought more doom and gloom was coming. Like, I had a feeling maybe, maybe it would get really, really bad. Especially last fall. It looked, it looked bad, man. Like it was not looking really strong. But I'm seeing some really good numbers, you know, for February and first quarter that, that I haven't seen. And maybe it's not everywhere, but if

[Tersh Blissett]

we could get the interest rate to drop way down, that'd be great.

[Justin Riley]

I don't, I don't see that happening any, you know, maybe one, maybe two. But you know, I, I, I don't. Unless some really big surprise happens, I, I don't see that happening. I think that I, it's a shelf.

[Tersh Blissett]

A selfish reason for me. I want to build a shop next door and I just want this interest rate to drop because it's gonna be a massive shop. Oh, it'll be a massive shop. It'll be.

[Justin Riley]

They're never big enough, right? My dad built like 40 and like six months in there after a dime, you're like, damn, we should have put an 80 up.

[Tersh Blissett]

What size is yours?

[Justin Riley]

I think it's his. Is that my father's is a 60 by 40 and yeah. And I want to do. Big enough. We just filled it up and in the attic and space upstairs, everything's filled. It's like, oh my gosh.

[Tersh Blissett]

So mine that I have laid out already is 60 wide by 120 long and two stories. So that way I can put a car lift in it. I got a limo that's jacked up like I have a limo on 53 inch mud tires. So.

[Justin Riley]

Tough problems to have, man.

[Tersh Blissett]

Oh yeah, yeah. First world problem.

[Justin Riley]

Do you, what's, what's your thoughts on 26? Like, do. Are, are you kind of bullish? Are you kind of like, what are your thoughts really?

[Tersh Blissett]

Honestly, I don't know. Like, I, I Hate to be reactive. Yeah. But every time I thought something was going to go one way, I ended up like, I was never like super doom and gloom, but I, I, I thought that it wasn't going to get where, where it got. But at the same time, as soon as I'm like, all right, this things are kind of wild. Like it sucks. And then all of a sudden we just pop up and money. And I'm like, whoa, what's going on here? And so like I don't know, honestly. And not only that, my head has been in the sand so much because of building out phone tap and working on that and, and it's been a really exciting process. Like it sucked because we spent so much money and then had to scrap the project halfway through. Like, like halfway through last year we had to scrap it because the, our developers were just building garbage.

[Justin Riley]

It takes way longer than you thought and costs way more money than you thought.

[Tersh Blissett]

Way more. Way more. Yeah. So now what, what we thought was going to be able to be at least on the market, like to beta users in six months. Been 18 months now.

[Justin Riley]

Wow.

[Tersh Blissett]

We now have beta users on it, so.

[Justin Riley]

Well, I gotta with you, I definitely want to see what that's all about. You know, I'm, I'm excited, I'm excited

[Tersh Blissett]

to share it because like every time like, like we meet at least, I mean we meet all day, every day via text message. But we have, we have like a founders, a co founders meeting every Friday and every Friday it's like, oh man. Like it's like all of our forces have joined together on Friday and we're like, oh, that's cool, that's cool. Like what Bill's been doing is cool. What Josh been doing is cool. And so it's pretty fun. And we're actually moving at very fast pace at the moment. And the thing about this is, AI is so crazy. Like it's on one hand I really think AI should be regulated better or at a hole and on the other hand I don't want it to because right now I can make products super fast. I can do things. I can, it's, it's crazy wild. But at the same time, man, like I generated this was last year, like last year, the beginning of last year, I generated Josh's voice and shared it on social media, on Facebook. Like it was an audio clip of him talking about how amazing of a person I am. Like, literally it's like I don't know where I would be if I'd never met Tersh. Like I I would just be lost. And like, I just, it's. I just went on and on and on. It was probably like a, a solid five minute audio recording and it was all done on 11 labs. And he said, did.

[Justin Riley]

Did you.

[Tersh Blissett]

You pieced all that together? I was like, heck no. You give me way too much, period. I took a 30 second snippet of your voice from. And I made sure it was not a high quality with a sure microphone. I made sure that it was a grainy recording from a video off of social media that I scraped it off of there because I wanted to prove a point. It. It caught all of his inferences, like, like where he takes his breath, things like that. Oh, yeah. And then I just. Oh, terrifying, dude. Terrifying. Like, can you imagine? Like, so for me, like every now and then my, my grandma picks up my kids from school and like she drives a vehicle that's a bubble. Like you can see inside of it. No tinted windows or anything like that. But you can imagine if she was driving like a vehicle like mine, which is pitch black. You can't see anything inside of it. And she's, she is pulled or she pulled. Somebody pulls up there and she calls them and says, hey, I'm in this black car over here that you can't see in the windows. And the kids are like, oh, I don't know, Grandma, that's not your car. And they're like, yeah, but I had to borrow it from a friend, so come get my car.

[Justin Riley]

Isn't that wild?

[Tersh Blissett]

The kids get in the car with you. That's why, dude, I've been talking about this for two years now. You got to have a safe word for the family. Like, if you're something goofy like you, you're like, I don't know, this conversation is kind of weird. Like you're on a phone call with a family member. You're like, hey, what's the safe word by. By the way? And obviously if they're not inside the family, they shouldn't know it.

[Justin Riley]

And yeah, it's pretty scary. Like, like there's, there's really no guard rails.

[Tersh Blissett]

Like, it's not really other than AI voice outbounding, apparently.

[Justin Riley]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Tersh Blissett]

No, yeah.

[Justin Riley]

I just, I hope everybody just, just really, you know, if, if my words of encouragement would be. If, if you're running out of. Like, if you're looking for what's next or what's new, like, think about the concept of, of, of demand generation. Like, how can I, how can I?

[Tersh Blissett]

I love that.

[Justin Riley]

Yeah, don't, don't don't wait for the leads to come to you, like, through your traditional sources, things like that. Like, what can I do to generate my own demand? And, and that. And I think people who are, who

[Tersh Blissett]

are like, oh, they listen to this and they're like, oh, man, I'm hard busy as is. Now I, now I need to go develop.

[Justin Riley]

You know, if you're already busy as you are, like, kudos to you. Just do more of it or make

[Tersh Blissett]

it more efficient or hire more people necessarily making money. Right now, I'm just busy. You know what I mean?

[Justin Riley]

Like, not necessarily good. Yeah, man. You know that there's so much to unpack with just that one statement. Like, Like a lot of people, you know, it depends on what stage you are. A lot of people are in that stage where, like, they're trying to make the leap from doing everything to delegating to some people and, and to get to that next level. And I can tell you it's a delegation by incredibly hard, challenging, like, like personal thing to do. Right? Like, as a business owner, I always do it best.

[Tersh Blissett]

Right.

[Justin Riley]

Nobody does it like me. And letting go of that, who oftentimes, because you're handling customers that are your friends, families, people like that, you know, that you know, personally sit next to in church. Is this person that I don't know that I just hired, is he going to be the guy that's going to take care of Aunt Betty down the street that we've known for five years and our kids played and this and that. Like, like having the confidence to do that.

[Tersh Blissett]

But here's the thing. They may do a way better job

[Justin Riley]

than you because where that humility comes

[Tersh Blissett]

in perfect is the podcast. Like, I had my hands in it for years and years, and then we brought on our team and they do an amazing job. They do way better than me. And like, that's one of those things

[Justin Riley]

that unless you experience it, you can't explain it.

[Tersh Blissett]

I know, I know.

[Justin Riley]

You know what I mean? Like, and I've gone through them myself. Like, I really, I've gone through, like, with Upfrog and all the other businesses. Like, you know, it's, it's, it's hard. You know, you let it go and then sometimes you just have to bite your lip and just watch it. And, you know, I allow people to. What I say, 80% is good enough. 80% not done by me is good enough. Right?

[Tersh Blissett]

Like, okay, I mean, that's Dan Martel's.

[Justin Riley]

It is. You know, and, and it's true. You know, I think you know, humility, you know, and, and really, you know, what do you want? Right? What do you, what do you want out of your business? Do you want to be busy all the time or, or do you want freedom or, or do you want like, do you like. It really depends on. Yeah. If you want to be rich, then, you know, you ain't going to do it by just yourself. You know, you need other people to

[Tersh Blissett]

do work for you, otherwise you got a fancy job and.

[Justin Riley]

Yeah, exactly.

[Tersh Blissett]

Honestly, we could talk for hours, but I do need to wrap it up.

[Justin Riley]

All right, man, well, it's always great to chat with you and I wish Josh was here. I, I truly hope that his, his doggo, you know, whatever,

[Tersh Blissett]

few minutes ago and said that they're still doing test on her, so.

[Justin Riley]

Man.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah, that sucks. But if people, if anybody wants to

[Justin Riley]

know about Opti, because we're not really publicly out with it, this is like the first public statement we've actually met. I didn't even tell Josh about it until about an hour or two ago. You know, simply message me on Facebook, LinkedIn, anything like that, you know, and I'll send you over some info, things like that, and it'll be up on our profile and we'll have a website, we'll have announcement and all that stuff coming. But really, at the end of the day, right Upfrog has never worked better than what it is right now, right. For garage doors, roofing and H vac. The update that Facebook did is just it's where to be in paid media right now. And then Opti is just simply an integration between service titan and go high level right now that syncs everything, customers, everything as well as do not call list, cleans your phone lists, organizes it, we even take if your office entered in the phone number and put it in landline instead of cell number. We even organize that for you because we can tell what type of phone number it is. Like even little stuff which hurts your texting because now you're trying to text landline so you get an error and then you can hurt your reputation score. So there's tons of things and there'll be more about it coming in the future. But it's one of those tools that indirectly is going to save a lot of people and protect a lot of people for an upcoming danger. Especially with the new AI expansion coming. Is it a big thing to have a good, clean, prepared list ready to roll?

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah, 100% cool, buddy. I appreciate you. I appreciate you.

[Justin Riley]

Check.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and for those who are still with us. I appreciate everybody hanging out with us. If you if you found value in this, please share it. Share it with your friends and and family. And if you if, if you enjoy this conversation, give us a five star review. I don't ever. I don't ask for that very. I haven't haven't done that in a hot minute. But yeah, I appreciate it. And and and for those who don't realize this, the this podcast wouldn't be possible without without Justin and his team because Upfrog is has they've been there from day one with us and and help partner with the podcast. But again buddy, I appreciate you always

[Justin Riley]

great to talk with you you. Thank thanks Tersh.

[Tersh Blissett]

All right dude. See you.

[Podcast Announcer]

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