← The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner
The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner
Make $1K Per Job While Outsourcing the Hard Work⏐Ep. #240
00:27:18
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- [00:00]
A
What's the best job you ever did?
- [00:02]
B
The smaller jobs of fixing a sidewalk, that's $2,000. Those are super easy. They take a couple hours. I looked at my life revenue. Yeah. I was like, babe, this is too easy. I'm doing something wrong. What is going on?
- [00:13]
A
It's not unreasonable to say that someone with a full time job could run this business. In five hours of quoting per week, they can make 10,000amonth of profit.
- [00:21]
B
Yeah, for sure.
- [00:22]
A
What if I told you that concrete leveling is a very big business? Not just that, but you can make $2,500 per job without owning any equipment, without having any employees, and without having to quit your job. I sit down with Jeff today of Houston, Texas. He owns a concrete leveling business that is very profitable. He's only been doing it for three months and he is set to make $100,000 of profit his first year. So we're going to ask him exactly how do you do it? How do you find customers? How do you fulfill the service? How do you talk about this stuff when you don't even kind of know what you're talking about? We're going to cover all of it today, so let's go. All right. So how long did you start this business?
- [01:01]
B
I'm. I'm a newbie. I've been doing this for a solid 90 days so far.
- [01:06]
A
Okay, beautiful.
- [01:07]
B
Basically an expert.
- [01:08]
A
Yeah. What is your total revenue been so far?
- [01:11]
B
We are just shy of $20,000 and majority of that has come in the past 60 days.
- [01:16]
A
Okay, wow. And how much of that is profit, give or take?
- [01:20]
B
We're seeing anywhere from 30 to 40% gross margin on each job.
- [01:24]
A
Okay. What do you think your net profit will end up being once you're more at scale?
- [01:29]
B
Once I end up at scale? Well, we'll try to continue scaling. My goal this year Is to finish 250,000 top line revenue before the end of the year. And if we can do 50 to $100,000 gross dollars as margin, then that would be an outstanding success plan for next year. Is 1 million top line revenue.
- [01:49]
A
Okay.
- [01:49]
B
And you know, anywhere from 20 to 40% margin, I'd be extremely happy with.
- [01:54]
A
Wow.
- [01:54]
B
So.
- [01:55]
A
So you're saying brand new to the industry, you didn't work in this industry before. Right. In the first six months you expect to do 100,000 of profit?
- [02:03]
B
I hope to, yeah.
- [02:05]
A
And you're on track?
- [02:06]
B
We need to win a couple bigger jobs, but we've seen some really good encouragement right out of the gate. And so the market is relatively saturated in the sense that there's a lot of providers. But. But we have found a good way to differentiate ourselves relative to a lot of the noise. And so my peers are typically solopreneurs who own their own trailer, work for themselves, and once they hit a certain threshold of either revenue or margin, they just like to coast. And nothing's wrong with that at all. And that's your opportunity. Yeah. So everything after that is just gravy for them. What I want to do is create a process that is repeatable and can be copy and pasted across mid tier, smaller tier markets across the Texas coast and along the border of Mexico in order to own markets where there is no providers currently operating. So Houston has a couple million people living there. I want to target port a Brownsville, Corpus Christi, et cetera, where there's no established providers, population of 200 to $300,000 and. Or. Yeah. Excuse me. Yeah, 200 to 300,000 people. Thank you. And little to no competition. Yeah.
- [03:20]
A
Okay. So you kind of go find the solo provider who reached one $200,000 in revenue, and he's cool. And you come in there and say, hey, I can get you the next level without you having to do any additional work. So any additional jobs you want above that revenue mark, I'll send your way. I'm going to work in my margin and we can work together.
- [03:38]
B
Correct. Okay. And so what that means is we win fewer jobs that we're bidding on because we're not competing on price. But there's such a high demand for this service in the state of Texas that oftentimes it's really only one of the considerations that are factored into a owner's or business's decision on the topic.
- [03:57]
A
Do you have a harder time finding good subcontractors or customers?
- [04:01]
B
I have not. You know, it's been a huge blessing. I've been so fortunate to work with the people that I have, and I am lucky on finding those folks. And everybody I've worked with so far has been honest and straightforward. And I look for some common denominators. Hmi, who's the manufacturer of these trailers, typically, and the main producer of the raw materials we looked at earlier have a soft spot in their heart for veterans. And so typically you see a lot of veterans that are owning their own trailers that I found are so easy to work with.
- [04:35]
A
Okay, so what about customer acquisition? How has that gone so far?
- [04:40]
B
We have a number of channels open, so I. I sold my first job June 2025, and it was a lead that I found through a Facebook lead. My cost per lead was, you know, $4.60 or something. And I found that lead within an hour or two of the campaign being approved and launched.
- [05:02]
A
Now, this is a Facebook ad campaign, not marketplace or groups.
- [05:04]
B
Facebook ad campaign.
- [05:06]
A
Yeah. So within two hours of launch, you had your first $5 lead, which turned into a you first customer.
- [05:11]
B
Correct. So you're like a customer with revenue.
- [05:14]
A
This is so easy.
- [05:14]
B
I looked at my wife.
- [05:15]
A
Revenue.
- [05:16]
B
Yeah. I was like, babe, this is too easy. I'm doing something wrong. What is going on? But obviously there's some lessons learned along the way. And I didn't make any margin on that job because it was an hour outside of town and I needed to factor in the team's time of. Of driving to the job into the overall cost. And so I then forgot to turn the ads off for a month. And so I paid, you know, $80 more, whatever it was over time. And so just stumping my stub in my toe things that seem obvious, but I got stubborn.
- [05:51]
A
Your toe on $2,500?
- [05:52]
B
Yeah. Yeah. So worst things to stub your toe on.
- [05:56]
A
So Facebook ads, has that been like the daily driver for your customer acquisition?
- [06:00]
B
I turn those on and off. We've seen next door work well.
- [06:04]
A
Next door ads or organic stuff next door organic.
- [06:08]
B
We have not done any ads. We've seen Google search organic. We've had folks refer us. We've had inbound leads just on the website and through our chat bots asking about inquiries. And then I've taken a page out of your own playbook and done some outbound texting campaigns to think HOA managers, property managers, et cetera, that are overseeing multiple properties. Yeah. And so by staying in front of them, that's generated a slow trickle of volume as well.
- [06:43]
A
Nice. And a lot of times you have to, like, play the long game on that. And it's a little depressing for the first month, but then they start to come back, especially as you follow up. Right.
- [06:50]
B
Yeah. And they're, you know, they're on a straightforward, you know, salt of the earth type folks. Typically, that's who I have seen on average, operate small businesses and. Or solopreneurs operate that way. And so you have to build that relationship. And that's early to. That's. That's a key to invest in early on.
- [07:09]
A
Yeah.
- [07:09]
B
But if you're just transparent from the get go, then there's no reason that two folks who are selling two different things can't complement each other.
- [07:16]
A
How much effort or time did you put into your website or your Google business profile?
- [07:20]
B
I didn't spend too much time. I invested $0. I built it all in replit. And so my goal is to just have easy, clean landing page. As I've started seeing a little bit more volume come through then I've been playing with the idea of having a professional build out the website, but right now it captures 95% of people that are coming to my website if they actually are interested, whether it's through forms, chatbots, or other items that I've set up.
- [07:47]
A
Okay, what other kind of clever, creative hacks are you doing to. To find subcontractors or to find customers? Something that might be outside of the norm.
- [07:54]
B
Yeah, so I try to differentiate a few ways. I mentioned the quality of our services and the communication. And another thing I do for residential jobs is I throw in a free power wash on the area. And so I have it structurally written in a way that, hey, you level your your driveway with us, we'll power wash your driveway for free. My cost for that is typically $100 or $150, and it covers the entire property. And so that comes two, three days after the leveling is done.
- [08:24]
A
Okay.
- [08:25]
B
And so then I text the owner, especially if they've had a good experience. I say, hey, our power washing guy's going to be there to do the driveway. I told him to throw on your sidewalks as well for free while he's there if you want him to. Do you know your backyard? That'd only be $100. So it's a small upsell to potentially cover the cost. It's already baked into what my, my top line quote is.
- [08:45]
A
So you just sub that out and eat the cost. You basically work it into the quote and then find another pressure washing company to do that.
- [08:51]
B
Y. I want people to see effort and joy in every job that we're doing. And a way that we can very easily deliver on that is by leaving something cleaner than the way that we found it. Yeah, and there's a bunch of power washing folks that will do it for less than $100. As we get more volume, then I can maybe get better about tightening that up.
- [09:11]
A
That's really smart. Where did you learn that from? Like, where did that idea come from?
- [09:15]
B
That came from Jeff, the CEO of HMI Afforder, after I badgered him for three plus hours up in Wisconsin and kept asking him the same question. How do I differentiate? How do I differentiate? And then finally, at the end of the second day, he's like, you know, we have seen success with this one thing that not many people are doing. I'm like, yes, thank you. Thank you, Jeff.
- [09:37]
A
That's good. People watching this. Won't need to spend three hours with Jeff.
- [09:40]
B
Yeah.
- [09:40]
A
To get that.
- [09:41]
B
Great guy, though. I'm sure he's great guy.
- [09:42]
A
We love Joe.
- [09:43]
B
Yeah.
- [09:44]
A
So, like me, you're a multipreneur, is what I call it. Of all the things you could have started, of all the opportunities you saw out there, why did you pick this one?
- [09:54]
B
So one thing that excites me about what we're doing is that if concrete were a crop, then Houston would be the largest farm in North America. If concrete were a standalone entity or country, it would be the third highest carbon emitter globally. Texas alone accounts for roughly 20% of new concrete being poured in the United States. And the two leading markets are Houston and dfw. And so, in a effort to not recreate the wheel, choose a service or a line of work that has already been validated for centuries. That was something that I wanted to bring a new threat, new and fresh look, too. The industry as a whole is a laggard to technology, I think it was. McKinsey had them tagged as the least technological forward industry.
- [10:51]
A
Concrete in general.
- [10:52]
B
Concrete in general. And so there just seems to be some synergies and an opportunity to disrupt with either a new look on marketing, a new look on software, a new look or approach on delivering the same value that everybody wants to buy, but in a more efficient way with more modern tools.
- [11:13]
A
Well, in Houston and Dallas, we're not geographically constrained. We grow out right, not up. They're massive, sprawling metroplexes. What did you first see that kind of gave you the idea to even start to look into this industry before you knew how big of a market it was?
- [11:28]
B
Yeah. I had somebody quote my house a year prior to. And they quoted me $2,200. And I was like, oh, my gosh, $2,200 to fix 12, you know, feet of a walkway leading from the street to my house. It's like, that's outrageous.
- [11:46]
A
And why did you want to fix. Were you selling it?
- [11:48]
B
I'm not selling. There's about an inch dip There still is. I'm. I'm embarrassed to say, but there is an inch still tripping hazard.
- [11:55]
A
Okay.
- [11:55]
B
That my younger son had stubbed his toe a couple times. Okay. And so typically, from a residential side, you're trying to remove tripping hazards or a liability standpoint, there's aesthetics or vanity. You want your house to look good or your neighbor just got a new driveway and you don't want to pay 30 grand for a new driveway, so you'll pay 3 grand to level your current driveway. And those are typical buying levers to pull.
- [12:20]
A
Yeah.
- [12:20]
B
But the opportunity screened when that same company I had come out to quote me level Concrete, they were just acquired by kkr, which is one of the large this quarter, one of the larger private equity groups in the world in terms of asset funded management.
- [12:39]
A
Crazy. So let's talk about job size then. What is your average job size in with regards to revenue?
- [12:44]
B
$2,500.
- [12:46]
A
And what's your average profit margin on that?
- [12:48]
B
A thousand thousand bucks.
- [12:50]
A
All right, so 30, 35, 40% profit.
- [12:53]
B
Okay.
- [12:53]
A
And do you quote all the jobs yourself?
- [12:56]
B
Yeah. So one thing that I try to be different about, everybody I'm competing against will roll a truck to go to look at a job site. And there is benefit from building relationships with your potential buyer. But my hypothesis on doing everything remotely and virtually is that I can crank out five or 10 quotes in, you know, the time it takes me to drive an hour outside of town, spend an hour with the homeowner, then drive an hour back. And so in those three hours, maybe you have a 50 or 60% chance of winning that job. I'm okay calling it all virtually over the phone. By collecting enough photographs, maybe my win rate goes down to 25%. But if I'm doing 10 in the same time that I'm winning more gross revenue over time.
- [13:40]
A
Well, if customer acquisition is in the bottleneck, then that works perfectly. You just keep things efficient and you're okay to lose customers. That would have said no if you were there in person. And you're just paying for route density and more volume.
- [13:51]
B
Yeah. So one thing that's dropping Today's the 20th is 23rd. By the time this airs, we will have a tool on our website as well that lets folks quote themselves. It's called the level estimate, trademark pending. But one thing that I saw happen in solar, and I have seen it happen in other areas, is like quote yourself tooling so that you create more transparency around what the pricing for different jobs are. And so we ask a number of qualifying questions. It takes less than three minutes. But what's the scope of the work being done? Is it a driveway? Is it a sidewalk, Is it a patio for a pool? How much square footage is sinking? And then how big are those gaps between the slabs or materials that you're trying to raise it up to? And that goes into our Advanced calculation engine and it spits out a price. And so what I want to do is help enable a self service type model over the longer term. Starting out just residentially so that we can have even more throughput than just virtual bidding. Because right now talk to the homeowner, we talk on the phone, I ask for as many pictures, they text them to me, I review them and then I provide a quote.
- [15:08]
A
You quote all the jobs yourself, correct?
- [15:10]
B
Yeah.
- [15:10]
A
Do you have any issues when the subcontractor rolls up in a different branded vehicle or is that a non issue?
- [15:15]
B
So the stat that I've read, I don't know if this is true for me or not, but the stat that I Read says that 60 to 70% of homeowners are not going to be home when the job is being performed. Interesting.
- [15:28]
A
Okay. Huh. I didn't know that.
- [15:31]
B
And so I don't know if that. So this, this is hmi, I'm quoting. And they are industry leader in all the materials and equipment. And so you know, don't quote me on it if I'm wrong, but if I'm right then you can just take out this port.
- [15:48]
A
Well, if it's. If only 30% of people are home, then that's much fewer people that would have an issue with a different brand. Right. And in my experience with the tree trimming business, people don't care. It's a non issue.
- [15:58]
B
Yep.
- [15:59]
A
What else are you doing in the industry that's kind of progressive? Like how are you trying to change things in this industry?
- [16:04]
B
Yeah. So one thing I'm really excited about, I'm still wrapping my head around it, but I want to provide concrete leveling as a service. So the go to market is going to be commercially focused or industrial focused to property managers, folks who own new homebuilders, maybe folks that own retail properties around town. Multiple retail properties around town. And I want to be an insurance like product that gives them unlimited to or up to a certain amount of concrete leveling at each of their properties on an annualized basis. Or maybe you get one free job per property per month or something like that. And I want to sell it as a higher ticket item that's in the six figures that would have to be, you know, budgeted for on an annualized basis for these bigger companies. But that way I can create more predictability to my top line and I also will have higher utilization and justification to own more assets. If I know that I can cover my entire fixed cost based on just this one contract, then that creates a lot More upward mobility for growth. And since real estate and these other folks are going to be prominent and in most cities you go to, that type of thing can be a pathway if they own equipment in multiple cities, to expand geographies very quickly or to easily target which areas you want to go to next based on relationships that you've been able to build.
- [17:37]
A
I think you'd have an even better, easier time selling that if you really played up the liability side of it and if you got some industry facts, talking about trip and fall lawsuits and how much it could cost them and it's prevention is better than the cure, et cetera, et cetera, you play into the fear side of it as opposed to, like, the aesthetic side of it. I think you could have some success there.
- [17:55]
B
Yeah. What's your saying then?
- [17:58]
A
The disease sell the cure.
- [17:59]
B
Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
- [18:02]
A
All right. So you're a father of two.
- [18:03]
B
Yep.
- [18:04]
A
You have a W2 job.
- [18:05]
B
Yeah.
- [18:06]
A
You have this business and other business.
- [18:07]
B
Yes.
- [18:08]
A
Is someone able to run the business like this while doing all these other.
- [18:11]
B
Things, or are you just like a superhero? Freaking nature. I don't know about that. A lot of credit goes to my wife. She gets the wife of the year award for sure. I've just been so blessed to have the ability to manage my time in a way that I need to based on whatever's happening. Yeah. And so by no. By no means is this a. Jeff is incredible. But I've just been fortunate to work with great people, to be surrounded with a supporting and loving wife and have two incredible boys that are not a headache, but just a joy to be around.
- [18:42]
A
Okay, so if someone wanted to make 10,000amonth of net profit in this business.
- [18:47]
B
Yeah.
- [18:48]
A
How many hours a week? Ongoing? Like, of course, in the beginning there's going to be more, but over time. How many hours a week do you think that would require?
- [18:54]
B
Yeah. So our. My biggest week was $10,000 top line revenue, and that took three jobs, and I sold three jobs in two days. And so that was just a bit of luck and fortune. And then seeing those through to fulfillment is something that I'm not personally involved in a whole lot. Yeah. And so what I require with my sales is that we never book jobs the same week. And so we'll take 50% down payment immediately once the sale is done, and then the remainder is due after the job is completed. And so I hold the subs to a higher. Not a higher standard, but just to a. Hey, we're going to be there at 10 o' clock on Tuesday and they have to send pictures and check ins in order to do that. Okay.
- [19:43]
A
So if your average job is 2,500, you said let's say 800 of profit per job, give or take. You got to do about 12 jobs a month to make $10,000.
- [19:53]
B
Yeah.
- [19:54]
A
So call it three a week, give or take. Yeah. What's your close rate on quotes?
- [20:00]
B
On quotes. So in the past 30 days I've done four jobs out of my pipeline has about 30 or 35 of those 35, only like 12 are qualified. Okay. And so I'd say about a third.
- [20:16]
A
A third?
- [20:17]
B
Yeah. Rolling. Rolling average of a 33%.
- [20:21]
A
Would you consider yourself a killer salesman or no?
- [20:24]
B
I. It's an area that I need to be.
- [20:25]
A
Okay.
- [20:26]
B
Better at.
- [20:26]
A
Well, that's good. Most people are probably average as well. So let's say 33% close rate. You need to do 12 jobs. That means you need to quote 36 jobs.
- [20:34]
B
Yeah. You just easily. Yeah. You work backwards.
- [20:36]
A
So you need 36 leads a month.
- [20:38]
B
Yeah.
- [20:38]
A
Do $10,000 a month.
- [20:41]
B
Yeah.
- [20:41]
A
How many hours do you think that would take to quote? Well, let's call it like 10 quotes.
- [20:46]
B
A week, give or take a quote if you're asking the right questions. Only takes an hour. And so from the time that the lead comes in to qualifying it, I try to have no downtime. So Chris calls in. I want to talk to Chris immediately. I want to see what he's trying to solve. I want to understand like what's the pain that he wants to get rid of and help him just come to a decision of this is something I might want to do or not. Yeah. So I'm trying less to sell you and convince you to do this. I just want to understand the pain that you're trying to avoid. And once you understand that pain, then you can help that person make an educated guess. Okay, so it's not reasonable assumption. Yeah.
- [21:26]
A
It's not unreasonable to say that someone with a full time job could run this business if they acquired enough leads. Call it 35, 40 leads a month. In five hours of quoting per week, they can make 10,000amonth of profit.
- [21:39]
B
Yeah, if you have the systems in place for sure.
- [21:41]
A
What speaking of systems, what. What is like your tech stack.
- [21:45]
B
So custom software. Plus my CRM is high level.
- [21:49]
A
Okay, high level is your CRM. You built your website with replit. Any other tools like calendar, widgets or apps that you use?
- [21:57]
B
No, I found it just I do a lot of texting. Yeah, I see a lot great benefit in Texting the prospects. And so High Level has a good text chat, AI bot or whatever it is. You can kind of create guardrails around it. And so the, the ease of a lead coming in and then setting up automations to reach out to that person is pretty low hanging fruit and it goes a long way. If you get a text right after you complete a form and then ask if they're free to connect and then call them regardless of what they say, they can't talk. They'll tell you.
- [22:30]
A
Yeah. What are your ongoing costs in this business and how do you manage insurance?
- [22:37]
B
Yeah. So each sub has to have at least a million dollars of insurance, one to two million dollars. And then the CRM plus Replit is less than $500 a month. Okay. So I have multiple. I forget what tier it is in High Level. But you have like unlimited sub accounts.
- [22:55]
A
Yeah.
- [22:55]
B
So I pay for that one. And that replit is probably incremental. $100 based on whatever I'm trying to build something.
- [23:03]
A
Yeah. So five, six hundred bucks a month. You don't pay for insurance because your subs do. Right. And that's it. And it's remote. Yeah. What's the best job you ever did?
- [23:13]
B
The most profitable job I ever did. That's a great question.
- [23:16]
A
How did you find that customer?
- [23:18]
B
Yeah, I mean the smaller jobs of fixing a sidewalk, that's $2,000, those are super easy. They take a couple hours. If you're fishing in the right neighborhood, those are easy folks enjoy and appreciate that their sidewalk looks better. I have a big quote out pending right now with an estate way out of town up near it's Chapelwood, Texas or almost in over in Brenham. And that would be a sixty thousand dollar job. And so that would be 50% margin based on where it's quoted at delivery and things always go wrong. But just having the flexibility to handle.
- [23:53]
A
That is baked in 30,000 of profit on one job potentially.
- [23:57]
B
So that beat everything I did in the past 90 days.
- [24:02]
A
That's what's cool about. We're talking about averages here. But then when you're an entrepreneur, like I like to use the baseball analogy, like everyone else is sitting in the dugout the whole game. But when you're an entrepreneur, you go up to back and you're going to strike out, Strikeout, strikeout. But then you'll have a grand slam that will make up for all the strikeouts times 10, right?
- [24:18]
B
Yeah.
- [24:18]
A
That's what I love about this.
- [24:19]
B
Yeah, I love that. And so if you have a good understanding of what you're trying to fix and you can target low complex jobs, think big parking lot for a commercial building, then those are six figure revenue opportunities that require little to no complexity. And then you just need to plan it out. Yeah. And so one thing I'm investing time in researching is how do I create more efficient bids and more attractive bids for the city of Houston and other municipalities. But I'd see it as a big win five years from now if I had the Texas Department of Transportation, city of Houston, and you know, Harris county potentially as, as past customers for either one or multiple jobs.
- [25:02]
A
Do you think people should even consider getting their own trailer and doing it all themselves or is subbing it out just the way to go?
- [25:08]
B
Really depends on what you want. I think over time I'd love for this to be a full time gig and currently there's no need for me in Houston to get my own trailer. Over time. My vision is to expand into some of the smaller markets in Texas where there are no competitors or providers and that at that time it makes sense to, to buy the equipment but your entry cost just for a van. So, you know, I think the van this size or half the size of the trailer that we were in earlier is probably about 60, $70,000. And so it's not nothing which creates and prevents some folks from entering into the market.
- [25:45]
A
Yeah.
- [25:46]
B
But there's a lot of opportunity on this tail of, you know, smaller cities relative to maybe DFW or Houston that I'm really excited about.
- [25:54]
A
Well, Jeff, thank you for your time today.
- [25:56]
B
Yeah, thank you. This has been an absolute treat. I've enjoyed it. Been a long time follower, first time seeing you in person or taller than I.
- [26:04]
A
First time being in a video.
- [26:04]
B
I get that a lot and so thank you. I think what you're doing is so cool. You're inspiring to not only myself, but other folks that were within your network. And I want to, for whatever it's worth, tell you you're doing a great job and really appreciate the voice that you have in Texas and, and outside of that, this great state.
- [26:23]
A
Absolutely. Thank you for the kind words. Where should people find you if they want to learn more or connect with you?
- [26:29]
B
Yeah. Website is texaslabguys.com and love to connect. If you're in Texas, if you are within the commercial real estate world, I'd love to pick your brain and figure out how we can better penetrate this industry. And if you're in concrete leveling too, I love to just meet more folks either within concrete or concrete leveling It's a relatively small world. And the more folks I can meet either in Texas or outside, I'd love to sharpen my own understanding of the market as well.
- [26:58]
A
Or if you're on the coast of Texas or in greater Houston and you need some concrete level.
- [27:03]
B
Yes. Texaslab guys.com yeah. Port Aransas, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, just to name a few. If you're just looking for names just to cut out, potentially later. Yeah. Galveston. Yeah. So, Chris, thank you so much. I really appreciate it, man.
- [27:18]
A
Absolutely.