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Welcome to the Deep End with Eric Triplett, the pond digger. This is the show for contractors, tradesmen and entrepreneurs who want more from their business and from themselves. Eric brings decades of experience as a seven figure contractor with expertise in leadership, sales systems and the discipline it takes to build something real. Shaped by years in the aquatics world, his insights are rooted in precision, craftsmanship and performance. If you're done skimming the surface and ready to go deeper, it's time to dive in. Welcome to the Deep End. It's Triplet here. This is where we don't just talk about building better businesses, we talk about building mindset as well. How can you build a bigger, better business without having a good mindset? The truth is most people aren't stuck because of their market or their team or their opportunities. They're stuck because of how they think. It's all in their mindset. And today's episode. This one might hit a nerve, and not just because while I was on the call, I was like on a pot of coffee and talking like 100 miles an hour. But this one might hit a nerve because we're gonna go straight at something that sounds responsible, sounds logical, and sounds safe, but that might actually be the thing that's holding you back the most, and that's being realistic. Yes, we're going to challenge that. We're going to break down how your belief system shapes your vision, how your vision drives your actions, and how most people are living way too small, way smaller than they're capable of, and not because they can't do more, but because they don't believe that they can. So if you're ready to stretch the way you think about yourself, about your business, and what's actually possible for your life, let's get into it. Welcome to Weekly Compass 205. We're going to be talking about being realistic versus unrealistic. And I think, I think we've all been indoctrinated to lean into the, you know, like, don't try too hard. Let's just be realistic. I think our parents teach it to us, you know, because their parents taught that to them, because the society taught that to them and as well. And so it just becomes like this ongoing thing where, hey, just be realistic. But I'm here to tell you that I think that when we start thinking unrealistically, bigger things happen. Like big amazing things happen. And I have some things that I'm going to, I'm going to share with you why this is top of mind to me right now, because it's it's more than just like one little thing. It's like all these things coming together at the same time. But Brandon Dawson calls it the belief lid, right? Different people, different, you know, guys call it different things. Andy Frisella and, you know, Ed Mylett and all these things, they have different names for it. But these high performance, top building people have these massive belief systems, belief lids, like their ceiling is gone, right? So today what I want to talk about is getting you guys to believe in bigger things. And I got a couple of things that I'm working with currently that are helping me, like have bigger visions and believe in more and be more unrealistic in the way we think, the way we look at things in life. Okay? So I think what's quietly holding us back as humans, as business owners, as intrapreneurs, for someone like Austin, who works for me, I want him to be an entrepreneur. I want him to be thinking about that entrepreneur mindset underneath the curtain or underneath the umbrella of a big business, so I can help support him in getting those big things happening. But handling all that bullshit that takes so long to get done with the taxes and the administration and all this stuff, just take all that stuff away so they can, you know, dream bigger and keep going, right? So your belief system is not about skill set. Although I do believe there's some skill in the way this works, I do believe that you have to have some skill to have a really good belief system and a visualization piece, right? So it's not your opportunity, it's not where you live, it's not. It can't be the people that you hang around, right? But it's not your market. It's literally the way you think and your belief system. Because what I've realized this week, and I think this might go into last week a little bit, I know I've talked about it, at least on one of our sales trainings that we've done, but what I'm really is realizing this week is your belief system controls your visualization. So, you know, there's a visualization technique where you visualize what you want in life and where you're going to go. But if you don't have a good belief system, you can't even visualize that good, right? You're not going to be that good at it because your belief controls your visualization. Your visualization controls your actions. Because when you believe things, you start to act to help make those things happen, right? And those actions become your reality. So if your belief system is small, then Everything downstream stays small. It never gets bigger. Okay, so remember, it's belief, then vision, then action. Those three things will get you the results. That's the loop right there. And then you go back to your belief, you go back to visualization, you go back to more action and you get more out of life. So remember, belief is what you think is possible for you. And I think a lot of, lot of contractors, you know, see someone else winning and they're like, oh, they got lucky. Or they have this circumstance that helped them. And so your mind starts to go into the belief system, like, what do I believe about this person who's getting everything they want out of life? And that I can't get that as well. And so when you start to ask yourself those questions, your brain starts to answer the questions. Why? Well, there got lucky. Well, their mom gave them the money, they came into something, they won the lottery. I don't care what it is, you know, that is, that's the, that's your belief system going in your head. So your real belief is what you think is possible for you. Okay? Then your vision is what you allow yourself to imagine is possible. If you believe anything's possible. Then you figure out what you love, what you want, and you start to vision, have the vision of how you, you know what, what you want. And then from that becomes the actions. Because what's cool about this is the actions start to happen neuro linguistically. And I know this sounds like a terrible, terrible word right here. It's a big one, right? Joe Butler's probably like, oh, don't use the neuro linguistic word. But literally your brain starts to work to solve those, like, solve the gap of how to get those things right. And I got some stats and everything to prove it to you and show you, right? But so belief, then vision, the vision of what you want, the actions start to take place through your brain. Even when you're sleeping. You start to dream about it when you're driving down the road. And like, you ever drive, you're driving and then all of a sudden you're in your driveway and like you weren't on your phone texting, you were actually thinking and you had the song playing. And just like you turn left and you turn right and you do all your stuff, suddenly your driveway and you're like, wow, I got here already. You didn't remember making that left hand turn on Main street? Because your body just knows how to do it now. And you start to think about other things, right? So that's your, that's your, that's your brain working for you, right? So if you don't believe something's possible, you can't even visualize it. If you can't even visualize it, you will never act upon it. Your brain will never start working towards it, right? Which means you will never, ever, ever get it. So me personally, my struggle in, in business is a lot about, I don't know what I don't know. Like I told you, I'm trying to break that 3 million mark, right? So I started studying with Brandon and Natalie Dawson. They helped me expand my belief lid but they also shared, shared with me some things that I didn't know and now it, it just blew up my belief system. Like I believe things are more possible now because some of the things that they shared with me and so they open the ceiling of the way I believe about things and way Brandon calls it is the belief lid. So again, I believe most of us, you, me, we're stuck where we're at and we're all at stuck at different points in our life. But I believe that we're all stuck exactly where we're at because of the way we think. You know, we're not, we're not failing because we're stuck and we are dumb. We're failing because we don't believe that we can get more out of life that we do because we've indoctrinated, we've been indoctrinated, right? So a lot of contractors believe that if they do 500,000 and they have all that, all that struggle and all that problems and all that you think of like, you start thinking like, who's that, what's his name? Freaking Big, Big, Biggie or whatever, Biggie Smalls, whatever. Like more money, more problems, right? So you think I got, I got, I want to go from 500,000 to a million. I'm going to have twice the problems I have now and I just want to jump off a cliff. I want to get to 3 million. I got all these problems. You know, I'm going to have three, four, five times as much struggle. I don't want to do it. But that's not really what happens because what we don't know, we don't know. But it's really the way we believe in things. Are you a contractor looking for growth, training and to level up your contracting business? If so, join the TWT Contractor Circle. It's our free Facebook group where like minded professionals go to share insights of success, strategies for growth and a place to find some Accountability. In fact, we have a powerful accountability call every Friday with a live Q and A session at the end. And whether you're seeking advice, collaboration, or just a supportive community, this is a place for you request to join today and start building a valuable connection with me as well as our amazing network of contractors. Tango Whiskey Tango. That's TWT Contractor Circle on Facebook. I'll see you on the inside. Now back to the show. We have to break the ceiling and think way, way, way beyond that, right? Unrealistic. I want everyone at the end of this call to believe unrealistically in things that they can accomplish. And I don't care if you're 65 or if you're 16 on the call or listening to the podcast, you will not rise to your goals if you don't have the right belief system in place. Right? This is what's. This is what put this all on the map for me today. Okay? This week, Yay is like, whether you love him or hate him, yay just did, like, the most ultimate comeback imaginable. Like, I think he's uncancellable. He did the most crazy thing, right? So it was only a few years ago during, you know, 2021 to 2024, something happened. And he, you know, Hollywood. He's pushing back on Hollywood, and Hollywood's holding him down. He was a billionaire. $6 billion. He lost, you know, he lost all kinds of shit. He lost all his, like, sponsors and his business partners and his dealings, and he, like, lost. He's not a billionaire anymore, right? It hit him really hard. And so he just kind of disappeared. And then out of nowhere, yay comes back. He just sold out Sofi Stadium in Los Angeles, did two shows for $33 million. It's unheard of. It's unspeakable how much he did. It's like Taylor Swift status stuff, okay? And one of the shows alone did $19 million. And these were the first two shows that he's. That he's done. He still has to tour the country with this new world tour that he has. And what got me crazy thinking about my belief system. And remember, I was just at 10x360 with Brandon Dawson, Grant Car, Natalie Dawson, the whole crew, all that stuff. And they helped me understand my belief lid. I started thinking about Kanye west, and so I'm. I'm studying him a little bit. When he was like, a teenager, he literally believed he would be an iconic, iconic person, not only in music, but in business, in, like, music production, as a singer. All that stuff. He's got 26 Grammys. Like, he believed it before he ever achieved it. Okay? He knew he would be a global icon as a teenager. And I've heard. I've heard these different scenarios where he did an interview, like when he was a young, young man. Like, he's. He just turns 50 this year, but, like, in his early 20s, they do an interview with him and they think he's crazy, he's ahead of his time, he's being clowned on by his peers, by the industry, all this stuff. But he. He didn't let it hold him back. He didn't give a what people thought about him. He just kept pushing forward in his beliefs, right? And so today, when people watch these old interviews on YouTube or whatever, when they watch these old interviews, they tell, yay. They're like, dude, that interview was so amazing what you did. I can't believe the way you forecasted and you believed in this and that. And yay will tell you, when I did that interview, people thought I was crazy. People thought I was ridiculous. People thought I was unrealistic. But now here it is, decades later, and they go, like, he was. He's like a savant, right? So he envisioned it before it ever happened. People confuse delusion or unrealistic stuff. They confuse that stuff with, like, just vision until it actually works. When it works, then people go, oh, he's a genius, right? But it's just because I think each of us have a little bit of genius in us. It's just that our society is keeping us from dreaming and believing we can get bigger than we already are. And this stems straight to Andy Frisella. I'm going to go straight with there. If you know him, you know him. I've been following him for probably eight years now. I really enjoy his stuff quite a lot. And when he was in high school, remember, this goes back to teenagers. The younger we are, the more we can believe in ourselves until we get into the real world, we get our ass kicked. And everyone says, be realistic. You know, when you're a kid, they're like, you can be anything you want. You know, you're eight years old and you're playing soccer, and your mom and dad's like, you can be a star one day if you want. Until you get into high school, you start getting older, they start to tell you, let's just unrealistic. Let's think realistically. You're going to get a job, you're going to buy a house, you're going to pay it off. You're going to have kids and you're going to get a job and you're going to spend money in the 401k and all those big dreams get put on a shelf. What happened to Andy Frisello? When he was in high school, he went in to see his counselor and the counselor's like, hey, what do you want to do? Where are you going to be going? He's like, hey, I want to play football. I want to go to XYZ College. And that's my. I want to, I want to end up there. That's what I want to do. And Andy was a pretty good, you know, in athletics, right? He was pretty good at it. And so he, he, he believed that he could do that. He believed he could play on such and such team. And the counselor literally told him, hey, that college is, it's outside your league. That college is only for elite people. It's not for you. You need to be realistic. I've heard him tell this story three or four times over the years on all different podcasts and stuff, but that moment sank in with him right now. It fucking pissed me him off. And it triggered him to be so aggressively towards being successful. Now, he didn't end up playing football for that team, but he is the, you know, high elite. He's like one of the highest paid speakers in the world. And even though this counselor tried to push his belief system down and indoctrinate him to think that he could just get into the system and pay off a 401k and maybe retire one day, now he's one of the most elite people on the planet, right? So the lesson is like, some people can get offended and shrink back when someone pushes their belief system down. And others can get pissed and use it as fuel and get offended and expand it and move upon it. So who are you? Who are you? You first have to realize it before you can even make a move on it. But this extends to Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, like Kobe Bryant, literally. I'm reading the Mamba mentality right now. The book is so awesome. I just love it. But literally when he was, he was 17 years old and he was going out for the NBA, I think he was even. He was 17, 18, 19 years old and he was already in the NBA. Everyone wanted him to go to college, but they said, hey, you got to go into the NBA now because this is your chance. And when he came into the NBA, his mindset was, I literally want to be the best basketball player who ever won. Put shoes on the court. And he was. Michael Jordan was still playing at the end of, you know, the end of Michael Jordan's career. So he already had this massive benchmark to get past. But as a teenager he already believed it was possible and he put in the work to make it happen. Obsessive visualization obsession at practicing scenarios before they ever even happened. Shot after shot after shot doing it. He believed that it was possible. Okay. And while I still believe Michael Jordan is a goat, Kobe is like right there with him, like in, in God status in my book. Right? He didn't hope to win, he expected to win. It's in his belief and his visualization. And if you follow MMA, Conor McGregor, I don't know what fight it was. Austin could probably tell me. But one of his biggest fights, he literally, he, he, he was visualizing how he would knock his opponent out. It was a move, it was an uppercut, it was a over. I don't know what it was, but I've, I've seen the, I've seen the podcast, I've seen the video where he, he talks about visualizing the exact knockout before it happened, you know, during his practices and literally inside his room before he went into the cage. Okay, so he goes into the octagon, already visualized knocking the guy out. He knocks him out exactly how he planned. Okay, so this is the belief, number one, he's the best in the business. His visualization of seeing it happening over and over and then his actualization doing it. Hey, it's Triplett here. Listen. In a world where quality is often overlooked, Helix Life Support stands proud bringing you American made experts excellence for your koi ponds and water gardens. And I want you to know I worked in the field for over 15 years and had professionally built nearly a thousand ponds before I designed my own proprietary filtration equipment. So trust and believe when I say that. Helix Life Support is a product line that was crafted for those who demand durability, advanced technology and a deep commitment to fish friendly designs. Now at the heart of the product line is our patented award winning Helix pond skimmer. Built with the safety for your koi and other fish as our top priority. No sharp edges, no unnecessary risks, just an innovative fish friendly skimmer you can trust. And every piece of Helix equipment that's made is with high quality materials so you can get a filtration system that's as tough and reliable as, as it is efficient. Whether you're a first time pond builder or professional contractor looking to elevate your game, my team and I are ready to help you realize that vision for personalized pond design assistance or to get your hands on Helix Life Support filtration equipment. Give us a call today at 800-522-5043. That's 800-522-5043. Support American craftsmanship and choose Helix Life support for your pond. Built for koi. Built for life. Built for you. People are 42% more likely to achieve goals when they are written down. And that's why some of my mentors, like Grant Cardone, for example, he says, I want you to write your goals down in the morning and in the night. Every single day. Your brain waves are differently in the morning than they are in the night and you do it at night. You're getting ready to go to bed and you're going to. Brain waves are going to work differently when you're sleeping and when you're on a waking hour, your brain waves are different there as well. So if you write them down not once a day, two times a day, I mean, when's the last time? Most people don't even write their goals down to begin with. Most people don't even have goals to even have to write down. And yet some of the people that are performing at the highest, highest levels are not only visualizing big goals, they're writing their goals down and then they write them down multiple times a day. That's just like Kobe Bryant. He didn't do two a days, he did four a days, you know, three, four in the morning. He's already hitting his first practice while people are still asleep. So remember, visualization is what activates the thing in your brain that creates those pathways to make this really come through in your life. Okay. I've talked about the reticulator activated system through Ed Mylett. I learned it, but he learned it through probably Tony Robbins who learned it through, you know, Roan and on and on. It's just like these, all these high level people are performing these same tasks in the way they believe things. Okay, so I'm not going to talk more about the RAS system. If you want to listen to one of our other podcasts, we talk deeply about it or you can hit me up, we can talk more about that. Because I want to get to a couple of things that I want to share with you that I hope that will get you to believe a little bit more about this. Okay, so I want you to stop being, saying, I'm being realistic. I want you to stop. You might tell people, hey, just be realistic. I don't want to hear that shit. You know, you need to take that stuff out of your life. Stop being safe in the way you believe in yourself. It's different when, like, you're out and your personality types, okay, I got to be safe the way I'm going out here and I'm attacking the world. I way I'm, you know, risking money and things like that, right? And I don't want you to just go out there and be reckless, but I want you to be unrealistic in the way you think, okay? Because there's. There's. You don't have a whole lot to lose right there, right? You have a lot to lose if you cash out your 401k to do something crazy. This may be unrealistic, but you can be unrealistic in the way you dream and the way you think and the way you put things on paper. Okay? So let me get something here. I have some notes here I want to go over with. Oh, before I do that, I want to talk to you. I've talked deeply about this book right here. This is teamwork. This book has been. Has been my jam for a couple of months. I mean, I'm trying to implement, like, this is like a textbook to me, okay? I read this book, I don't know, 18 months ago. Most of it. I didn't finish it. 18 months ago, I started working on things, and I heard something called the daily all team meeting. And it's in this book, the Daily all team meeting. It was about, basically, you meet your team every day and you share the wins. 15 minutes. And like, we think about meetings like, oh, meetings suck. We don't know what to do. But I didn't have the format, I didn't have the layout until I really dove into this, right? We implemented daily team meetings about a week and a half, two weeks ago. Okay? And even though we have a. We have good meeting culture, we do a meeting every. Every Tuesday. We do our payroll. We talk about things that are going on. I try and get everyone psyched up and pumped up about business in the day. And then we go about our day, right? We talk about problems in the business that we can solve. What do you need to do business? That's not what the teamwork daily all team meeting is about. It's only about winning. It's only about winning. Department one, like, what. What are you. Where are you winning? I made this many calls. I made this many sales. I got this many quotes out. Cool. My numbers are up. You know, the sales division. Hey, on on construction, what does that look like? On maintenance, what does that look like? Service and repair, what are these sales looking like in those areas? I sent out this many quotes, I signed this many deals on and on. Even the accounting department, the accounting department says, hey, we gotta win today. We just signed up with a new vendor. We anywhere in the country you're driving around, you can go into Firestone, you can use our account, you can make sure your, your tires are taken care of. Or if you have an oil change that's necessary, here's the information you have to give to them. And you can go in anywhere. So you can, you know, we can be winning on the road. Okay, so, and then we do it. Marketing. Which events are we doing? What, how much? What's our ratio of if we send out emails, how many are getting open? What's our open rate? What's our click through rate? All we do on this 15 minute call and it's exactly 15 minutes. Like the phone gets hung up in 15 minutes. Okay? It's only about wins. If someone deviates and says, hey, I got this new marketing idea, cool, take it to the marketing meeting. This is only about winning. What this is doing, it's cool because I've been doing this a long time. I've been running with guys, I got guys on the call right now that have been me with me for, you know, five, six years. And we don't talk about winning as much as we do. It's just assumed. He knows we're winning, I got a new truck, you know, he assumes he knows we're winning. He just got a raise, we're winning, right? Like, no, this is every single day. And what happens is these guys have to report what their wins are for the day. How is the company moving forward? And when the company moves forward, everyone in the business wins. And when you have that culture built into that through this book, teamwork, then what happens is I think about winning all day long and if, and if I, if I don't, I don't have a win to share. I'm like, what do I have to do today to generate a win worthy enough of bringing it up on the phone call tomorrow? What do I have to do that becomes a culture? And that becomes, you know, not only my culture, but the entire team, from accounting to the ranch hand, everyone's thinking about winning. And this is how your belief system starts to open up as well, right? So it's something that we've implemented recently and it's just crazy what has happened. The focus on Wins. What's happening? You know, the whole team is like, gets excited to get on the call. You know, we're on a zoom call. So I can see the guys that are in Joshua Tree. I can see the guys that are in Lake Arrowhead. I can see the guys that are in Temecula on the call. I can see their faces. We got music playing. Boom. We go in hard and we talk about wins, and it creates an amazing culture. I highly recommend that you think about doing it. And if you want to get on one of our calls one morning, hit me up and I'll get you in on the zoom. I'm not going to leave it to everyone, but if you hit me up and go, like, I want to know more about these meetings. How do I get involved? What do they look like? How do you schedule them if you can't figure out how to do it? In reading the book Teamwork, you can jump on one of my calls right here. So let me give you a punch list, and then we're going to wrap this up. Here's my punch list for you. I want you to raise your targets. I want you to stop saying, I'll be happy when I pay my house off. I'll be happy when I get the new vehicle or when I. When I hit this benchmark in my business, I'll be happy. Then I want you to stop saying that, because as soon as you get close to that target, you're going to make another target. But wherever your target is right now, hope to God you have one. Raise it, make it taller. I want you to start doing a little bit of daily visualization. I know it can be incredibly hard. You're going to say, I got adhd and I start thinking about it. And then I go over here, it's just like yoga and meditation, you know? You know, like, if you're doing yoga, your mind's racing about work, but you have to really work at it. But daily visualization is important. Start with something fun, like your truck, your team, the bigger vision for your. Your. Your crew, and the way your vehicles look and the way you sell jobs. And, like, you know, the more you think about that visualization, the more your body starts to try and make it happen. The next thing I want you to do is I really want you to track your wins. I've done this over the past, but sometimes it's once a week, hey, what's your win? I'm on a coaching call. They're like, what are your wins for the week? And it seems it's got to be a daily culture. You got to be tracking your wins all the time. Force your brain to see the progress that you're working at to get towards your big, big dreams. All right? And don't let anyone hold you back from that, because when you start building this daily, it starts to stack up and it becomes part of who you are. Get away from anyone who thinks small. If someone says to tell you, be realistic, tell them to shut the up. I. I'm not real. I'm not being realistic. I want more out of life than you want. Right? You just got to stop thinking hanging out with the people that think too small. I said make your target bigger. Write bigger goals. Make sure you write them down. And sometimes we just have to act before we feel ready because Yay. Did it when he was 16. Okay. Kobe did it when he was 17. He. You act before you feel ready. You just gotta show up and get it done, okay? And then when you're doing all this, you'll end up building an environment around you and the people around you that will reinforce those beliefs. Okay? So I want to leave you with this. If you're stuck, I don't want you to think it's the market. Don't blame the market. Stop blaming the market. It's a conspiracy. You created that yourself, okay? Stop thinking that you're stuck because of your team, because you built that team. Maybe you built it wrong, okay? Don't let your team hold you back in. What I've done right now, I'm gonna share this publicly with you right now. I shared it with. With a couple people privately. I'll do it right here on the podcast in front of everyone here right now. When I went to 10x360, before I went to 10x360, one of the things that was holding me back from going to that was I knew that I would be given a list of things to do, and some of those things to do would be to, like, really lay down heavy on your team. And when I got back, just as predicted, I laid down the law. I laid down, you know, the new visions, the new standards, the new, you know, standard operating procedures, all that stuff. I laid down the new vision. And exactly like Brandon Dawson said, someone would leave me because they wouldn't align with the new vision. Someone with me was almost a decade was with me, was not aligned with this new vision. And they left. And I believed Brandon was true. When that would happen, I believed that he was probably right. I mean, that's what he does for A living. Right. But I didn't. I didn't want to con. I didn't want to confront that in my own life. He also told me I would have to chop the head off of one of my long term employees. That maybe made me a lot of money because they weren't aligning, even though they were still there. They were here with us and not. And. And he just told me I would probably have to cut someone off. And just like he told me I would. Just like I was afraid that would happen. He. I. It's exactly what's happening. I will tell you though, however, I do have incredible clarity. I have a much bigger vision. I have a roadmap. I feel really good about where I'm at, even though it was very painful to do those things. Okay, so if you're stuck, it's not the market, it's not your team, you built it. It's not your circumstances. Okay? If you're stuck, it's because of what you believe is possible for yourself. You have to believe in yourself more. And even though you might say, hey, I do believe in myself. That's where I am, where I'm at today. Well, if you want to get to where you're going, you have to believe different than you are right now. Okay? Everything starts with that one move inside your brain. The real question I'm going to leave you with is what would your life look like if you actually believed you could have it all? Contractors. If you're sick and tired of not making enough money, you might suck at sales and you don't even know know it or worse, you suck at sales and you actually think you're good. Before you get upset with me, I sucked at sales too. And for a long time. Here's the difference. I pulled my head out of the sand and I forced the change. That's why I know what you're up against and how you too can turn things around for you and your family. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I got really uncomfortable. I trained hard. I studied books and podcasts, videos, courses, role playing. And I took guidance from mentors and coaches while spending thousands of dollars. But trust me, it was all worth it. I mean, I turned my struggling company into a profitable seven figure construction business. I put together a list of the critical sales techniques that I use to flip my business from surviving to thriving. And I call it my contractor sales secrets. I want to share the list of with you with no, no expense, just to get you moving in the right direction. It's my way of contributing and giving back to my community and the construction industry that I know and I love. The list is available to you@contractorsalesecrets.com I promise you, with these sales secrets, some grit and discipline, I know you can dramatically change your life. So stop what you're doing right now and go to contractor sales secrets dot com. That's contractorsalesecrets dot com.
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B
Hey. Hey. It's been a while.
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A
What's up, Erica? I see that pink over there.
- [34:29]
B
Oh, yeah. Representing. Yeah. When you say, like, if you had it all, what would your life look like? This was a question my friend asked me. She's like, what does your perfect day look like? Perfect Tuesday. This was three years ago. She asked me, and I'm still. I'm crafting my life with a perfect day. And so I. I always thought, like, is it a perfect work day? Is it a perfect chill day? Like, I was trying. I was trying to overthink it too much, and I was like, no, it's a perfect day would be. I want to go book a trip anywhere. I don't have to look at my bank account to see if I have the money. Book it. Let's go. The church needs a renovation with the carpet, and they're trying to save up $30,000, and it takes a year and a half. Well, if I wanted to donate $30,000 to the church, because I got it like that, just make a donation because I have the money to do it. So that's what I'm kind of working towards, to be able to have the money to just do and be as I want. And Charles and Charles Nelson was talking about, like, what's your why? And I remember he was like, I don't have a why. It's. Why not. Why not? So that's literally how I've been living my life since October. Why not?
- [35:47]
A
And you've been off the radar. You're doing good, though, right?
- [35:50]
B
Yeah, I had to. I came back from LCR Summit, and I was like, you have to put your head down. You have to go silent because you have to do what you have to do to grow your business to get it back to where it was. So I cut out the social media. I pretty much cut out everything and everybody to put my head down, to be able to learn the things that you were talking about, like KPIs, the goals, the sales, know the numbers, all of it. And it's been, what, six months? I think.
- [36:17]
A
Well, but can. Can I honestly, can I. Can I throw this out there I'm gonna, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but since you went to LCR Summit, is it safe to say that in six months you doubled your business?
- [36:29]
B
Yeah, we're gonna do, we're gonna do a half a million this year.
- [36:31]
A
Come on, Naylor, what's up? Come on.
- [36:37]
B
Yeah, I, I've been. Okay. I don't want to be ungrateful for having a business that does a quarter of a million. It's amazing. But I had been stuck at a quarter million a year for almost four years. And I like, you know, your churn happens. I'm like, I just can't break this. Like, stuff happens. And I'm just like, I feel like I was a dog paddling. And I was like, okay, what's broken? What are we going to do? What are we going to actually work on? And came home from LCR Summit, put my head down, got as much money as I possibly could because my husband and I, we got rid of all of our debt and we shared a car and I dropped him off at work and we just saved the money so I could put money in advertising and just blew it up.
- [37:28]
A
Amazing. There's one thing you didn't listen up to, though. But it's, I understand. You probably had to, but you better, you better pay attention to social. You're so good at it, and that's going to be. You're not gonna, you can't ignore social forever.
- [37:43]
B
Yes.
- [37:43]
A
I, I, I'll sit Nailer on you right now if you, you better be careful.
- [37:48]
B
I, I had. And here's the thing, right? So I create content about a business, and I can't fake it, Right. I can't just go out and be like, okay, I'm gonna go scoop a couple yards and, like, fake it for social media. My business was falling apart. Like, my monthly revenue dropped down to $8,000 a month, and that just wasn't sustainable for the overhead that I had.
- [38:12]
A
Yeah.
- [38:13]
B
So I had to build my business back up so I could come back to social media strong because I'm a very much so authentic creator. And I was like, if there's no business, there's no content. So when you said, you got to get back to your content, I actually just bought Ray Bans before this call.
- [38:33]
A
Let's go. Nice.
- [38:35]
B
We're getting back to it. Like, we're back.
- [38:39]
A
Perfect. I can't wait to see it.
- [38:42]
B
But I just wanted to share that story with you because we all, like, as business owners, right? And I don't know for the people that have been in business for a long time. It's almost when you start to kind of go back and you fail. You're like, I've been doing this for so long. Like, what's wrong with me? Why am I not learning? It's okay to be like, okay, I'm gonna humble myself. Obviously, there's things that I don't know when I'm doing something wrong. What can I do to fix it? Who can I get around to fix it? And then just put your head down and just hit it and make the changes. Because you can turn things around if you're in a similar situation like me.
- [39:19]
A
Hey, make the comeback. Just like, hey, come back strong. Let's go.
- [39:24]
C
Sometimes it's just getting out of your own way. That's my biggest thing, is getting out of my own way.
- [39:29]
B
Like, what? If you don't mind, sorry, now I'm taking over Eric. Well, how do you get in your own way?
- [39:36]
C
I just get into my head about things and, you know, I just feel I have to do everything. And rather than delegate and let other people do it and handle the bigger stuff, it's just like, no, I'm going to go deal with that.
- [39:48]
B
You know, I have found I did that as well because it was easier for me to do it than slow down and explain somebody to do it and then re. Explain it as I'm teaching them because they're not going to get it right away the first time. That's what I'm going through right now is just the teaching portion.
- [40:09]
C
Yeah, no, I had it this week. I had a tank that was leaking, and it was just a matter of throwing in a threaded plug into a bulkhead to close it off. And rather than send somebody who, like, I knew I'd never done it before, I was just like, I just need to go over there. Even though it was completely an hour out of my way each way just to go there to do it. And I know that it cost me more money for me to go over to do it when that person was in that area. And I could have just sent them to Home Depot to buy some Teflon tape and walked him through how to do it. And it was just like, I. I just didn't want to deal with, you know, hey, I. I put the Teflon tape on and it's still dripping. And it's like, okay, take it out again. And, you know, go through that whole process. Because I knew if I went there, it would take me ten minutes.
- [40:51]
A
No, it'd take you Two hours and ten minutes.
- [40:56]
C
Yeah, pretty much. But when it raised my blood pressure, right? And even right now, like, I probably should have just rather than drive an hour out of my way to go because one of the employees had a flat tire. So I had extra wheels and tires at the house. Like, I drove an hour this morning to go to come over here to change the employees tires, wheels and tires. Just so that I was like, I should just had a tow truck take the car to the local tire shop.
- [41:25]
A
Amen.
- [41:26]
C
And get on with my day rather than sitting here wasting time swapping tires.
- [41:31]
A
That's brutal. Well, you know what to do. You're just. You told us you know what to do.
- [41:36]
C
Told you. I just get in my own way. I get in my head, I'm like, ah, like I. I have a jack. I have, I have all this, like this, like, you know, I have these wheels and tires. Why am I gonna go spend a hundred bucks a tire and have my employees sitting for an hour and a half at a tire shop? Like, I'll just drive over there and swap it myself.
- [41:52]
A
And this time last week, Nathan was like, in the real world. Jurassic park in the jungles, in the sun and this, in this water slides. Now he's back in the grind.
- [42:03]
C
Yeah, I was still work. I had three kids to watch.
- [42:07]
A
No kidding.
- [42:10]
C
Work.
- [42:11]
B
Nathan, do you have a job description for yourself?
- [42:15]
C
No, not really.
- [42:16]
B
That's something I did is I sat down and I wrote down where I'm at in business now, what is my job description? And I wrote down all the things that I do. And I'm like, that's not my job anymore. That's not my job. I can't, I can't do that anymore. And then I started figuring out a way to delegate all of those things out. And it's helped a lot, like maintenance and stuff. They. They take the vehicles to the shop and they get the things done that they, they need to. With the American Express card.
- [42:45]
C
Yeah, see, I'll take, I'll take, I'll take a Sunday off of. I'll just take like a day off and I'll swap breaks and do all that myself on my day off. Like, I'll just be like, oh, your van needs breaks. Just bring it to the house and give me like two hours. I'll have the brakes swapped.
- [43:01]
B
Do you want to do that?
- [43:02]
A
I'm not about to do that.
- [43:04]
C
I mean, I enjoy doing it even though I don't have the time to do it. That's the problem is, like, it's something I want to do, but at the same time, it's like, no, I need to take a day off.
- [43:14]
A
Get out of yourself. Get out of your way, bro. Get out of your way.
- [43:19]
C
So it's definitely a problem because then things fall behind. Like, I have nine quotes to write today. Like, that I've been pushing off for over a week.
- [43:32]
A
I got a lot of quotes to get to today, too, but I was
- [43:36]
C
on vacation, and I used that as an excuse. I'm like, I'm not writing these quotes like, I'm on vacation. I'm not sitting down here for an hour and two hours sitting here, like, calling suppliers, getting pricing and all that. I'm on vacation.
- [43:49]
A
Who wants the floor? Who else is up? I will say I do. Like that Erica asked Nathan if he had, like, a job description for himself. Because, you know, you've been making us work on that this week, Eric. That's pretty cool to hear somebody else talking about it. I was just thinking like, hey, I was supposed to get that from you already. Am I getting that by end of day? Yeah, I have it. Okay, cool. You have Israel and Jacobs. No, I don't. They have theirs on their own. Chat GPT. All right? Yes, sir. Did you say. Did. Did Israel get chatgpt on his phone? He says he has it. He was the one telling me to use it. So. Okay. Yeah. Okay, cool. So, Erica, I had everyone on my team, even the guy that's been here for six weeks. I said, tell me what your job description is. Just talking to Chat GPT. Tell them everything that you do, everything that you're. You think you're supposed to do, everything that you think you should do, but you don't. Everything that you know, you feel is part of your position, just. Just speak it into Chat cpt. Give it to me, and then I'll do the same on my end and I'll put them together and I'll see what it looks like. Because I'm already too far gone. Like, I already got 13 people. I'm like, holy crap. So I thought it would be a fun exercise to get inside their brain to find out what they think they're supposed to be doing.
- [45:15]
B
That that's interesting, because I. I have been gone for a while, so I don't know what you're talking about. But I like the Chat GPT idea because I asked my VA for her to send me over her job description and the scripts that she runs through when she answers a phone call, quotes the person, and then sends them over to the scheduler, which is me. Because there's some holes that are, there's steps that are being missed and I'm getting very, very frustrated. And I said, I know we talked about this, I know we did. So can you please send me over what you're looking at and what your flow is? And I'm still waiting on that because yesterday I was like, my eyeball was twitching. I'm like, where's the disconnect? Like, where did I, where did I go wrong? Where did I fail you? Right? Because that's, I essentially, if she's not doing it properly, I feel like I'm failing her. But it's good, it's good to have the job description for yourself because we just do far too much. And as you start to realize that, you're like, okay, what is my hourly rate? Right? So if, if I'm driving somewhere for two hours, what is, what is that actually costing as the business owner type deal? And this kind of all came together when Charles Nelson was like, well, how much do you pay yourself? And I said, well, actually, I'm not paying myself right now. I took myself off check because I can't afford it. I can't afford to pay myself regularly. He's like, absolutely. No, you can't. So when I put my cell find check, I said, oh, okay, now I really need to have a job description. Like, I really need to know what it is that I'm doing. Because if I'm doing all this other stuff that's nonsense and I'm not bringing money in. Like, my most important job is sales. I have to be bringing money in because that's the only way it's going to fuel everything else.
- [47:07]
A
Hey, it's Triplett here. Let's be real. In a world of reels, swipes and virtual trends, it's easy to forget what really moves the needle on Trade magazine isn't chasing and clicks. It's preserving the craft of water features, arguably the last stronghold of long form education in our industry. Where real pond builders, koi pros and innovators share their knowledge unfiltered and unrushed, you won't find gimmicks or clickbait in pond trade. You'll find depth, detail, strategy story from advanced filtration systems and according to aquatic plant care to retail strategies and contractor spotlights. Pond trade is where the best in the business speak freely and where the next generation of pond builders learn what it really takes. If you build ponds for a living, maintain them, design them, or dream about doing it all better, this is Your magazine delivered free. Written by professionals, respected by the entire industry. This isn't just content for the algorithm, it's content for legacy. Subscribe now@pond trademag.com stay connected to the heart of the pond world. Now back to the show. All right, I'm going to close it up. I'm going to tell you this, though. I highly recommend teamwork. Whether you have one person or 10 people or whatever, you got Teamwork by Natalie Dawson. It's a great book. And then one thing that helped me with my belief system and my belief lid is the. The Nine Figure Entrepreneur. Yeah, the Nine figure. The Nine Figure Mindset. The Nine Figure Mindsets by Brandon Dawson. And then this is the next book I'm going to be reading. It's called Beyond Positive Thinking. So I think. I think people that think positively have bigger dreams. You know, if you're negative thinking, you don't think things are possible. So this was. This was recommended specifically by Brandon Dawson, Beyond Positive Thinking. So if you're driving two hours a day to go fix a bulkhead, maybe this is a good, good read for here to start thinking about things differently. So, Naylor, you got any final words before I close it up?
- [49:14]
D
Yeah, this is a. This is a great call, man. Can you hear me?
- [49:17]
A
Yep.
- [49:19]
D
Awesome. Yeah, this is a great call. And this is like in my wheelhouse, right? You probably knew that already. Yeah, but I just. I just wanted to say that there's a quote that I have in my office, the office that I didn't have, my home office in 2016. You know, little lawn care guy just starting to dabble on social media. My wife had a decent job at the time, too. We got a house and a brand new house that we had never had before, like built from scratch, that we'd never do that, but we did it anyway. And my wife doesn't take no for an answer. She got put together a yes team. Every time someone said, no, you can't do that, she was like, okay, I'll move on to the next one. And she put together a yes team to make her vision a reality of getting a house, even though, you know, on paper it doesn't look like a little old lawn care guy and all that. I say that a little old, but because we don't always get the credit that we deserve as contractors, we got the house. And I also decided to take ownership and leadership of a little meetup that we had back in 2015 in Louisville, Kentucky with like 40 people. And since then it's grown to over 600 people in a short amount of time. I mean, it's been a decade, but it grew fast that way. So all of those things happened in 2016. I note that because it's literally like one of the best years of my life and my family's life and my kids remember it clearly because I found a little like plaque that had a quote on it and it sums everything up. And it's my mantra, and that's saying, here goes nothing can be the start of everything. And that's just been my mantra for the last decade. Just give it a shot. Just do it.
- [50:59]
A
Say it again.
- [51:00]
D
Here go. Saying here goes nothing can be the start of everything.
- [51:05]
A
Here goes nothing. Okay.
- [51:07]
D
Yeah. And my kids loved it because they could see that develop as I started growing on social media and leadership and all the events that I was doing and my lawn care business and all of that, you know, all the vacations in our house and just contributing to their life, not just my life. So. But it all starts from what's the worst that can happen? It doesn't work. Oh, well, move on to the next thing. But not having. Not having anything handed to me in my life also was my secret advantage, which I know there's a lot of people in that case, but I just always have to fight for everything. So I'm like, well, why not? Let's give this a try. Let's see what happens. And it's been the story of the last decade. As you know, you've been a part of all that triplet, so I appreciate you too.
- [51:49]
A
All right, cool. Well, let's mic drop it there. I appreciate all you guys time today and I'll catch you next week. Hope to see happy guys on the sales training on Tuesday night. I'll see you guys next Friday. All right. If this episode hit you the way I hope it did, if it challenged you, if it pissed you off just a little bit, then good. That means we're getting somewhere. It actually means we're getting somewhere. Look, this isn't a one time conversation. This is something that you have to work at all the time. This is something that we're constantly working out. This is something that you have to build into your daily ritual. If you want to do more of this with us, if you want to sharpen your thinking, if you want to surround yourself with people who are done playing small. If you want to join me live, we do it every Friday morning inside the TWT contractor circle on Facebook. The link's in the show notes. You can jump on over there. Ask to join the group, get involved with our community on Facebook. And we go live every Friday, and we do these calls or accountability calls, something that gets you pumped up. Do we do some Q and A at the end? That's where we go deeper. That's where we have those real conversations and where growth actually starts to happen, because we're challenging each other. And one more thing. Listen, if you know someone in your world, a contractor, a friend, family member, a business owner, someone who's thinking too small, send this episode to them. Because sometimes people don't need more information. They just need a perspective shift. They need a little bit of pressure, and this might be the one that does it. I appreciate you guys for being here. I really, really do. I'll see you next time. In the deep.
- [53:36]
B
Ra.