S2-EP17: Contractor Triage: Where Your Business Is Really Bleeding

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Deep End with Eric Triplett

Episode: S2-EP17: Contractor Triage — Where Your Business Is Really Bleeding
Date: February 16, 2026
Host: Eric Triplett ("The Pond Digger")

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Episode Overview

In this powerful, candid episode, Eric Triplett dives deep into the concept of “contractor triage”: an honest, no-BS assessment of where contracting businesses are actually “bleeding”—where their biggest problems and opportunities for growth really lie. Drawing on his decades of experience, Eric explores five core "bleed zones" (numbers, leadership, money mindset, communication, and identity) that can make or break a contractor’s success. Real stories from his live Weekly Compass peer coaching sessions underscore how contractors often misdiagnose their main struggles, and how community and vulnerability are the real prescriptions for growth and survival.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Contractor Triage Concept

[00:46] – [06:55]

• Eric frames business growth as a battlefield where most contractors mistakenly address surface issues but fail to spot deeper “bleeds.”
• “Sometimes you're not broken, you're just bleeding from somewhere you can't see.” (Eric, 02:00)

Key Insight:
Contractors often show up thinking they have one primary issue (like sales), but through honest group discussion, deeper problems—often invisible to the business owner—are revealed.

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2. Why Peer Communities Matter

[05:00] – [07:20]

• Coaches who simply “Google it with you” (e.g., via ChatGPT) don't provide the hands-on triage a business owner needs. The power of peer groups lies in their ability to spot what you can't see.
• Metaphor: Like being in shock and not realizing you’re bleeding, peer contractors can spot what you’ve normalized or missed.
• “Sometimes we're so close and we're bleeding...someone right next to you goes, bro, your finger's hanging off.” (Eric, 07:42)

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3. The Five Triage Zones

[11:08] – [34:08] Eric identifies five main “bleed zones” contractors face:

a) Numbers Bleed

[14:13]

• Many contractors don’t truly understand their daily or monthly financial requirements.
• “If you don't know what it costs you to keep your lights on daily...you cannot run a stable business that way.” (Eric, 16:45)
• Real example: Contractors focus on hiring but lack financial clarity, making it impossible to hire or retain top talent.

b) Leadership Bleed

[20:31]

• Being great at your trade doesn’t automatically make you a good leader.
• “How can you be like one of the best in the business...but nobody wants to work for you?...It's a leadership wound.” (Eric, 22:55)
• The “no one wants to work anymore” line is called out as a self-serving conspiracy—usually, it's a leadership issue, not a generational one.

c) Money Mindset Bleed

[25:44]

• No amount of sales training can fix a contractor who chronically undervalues themselves due to a scarcity mindset.
• “If your conversations are always, ‘we can’t afford it,’ that’s how you sell too…tactics can’t fix psychology.” (Eric, 28:05)
• High-level sales coaches will first check your mindset, not just teach closing lines.

d) Communication Bleed

[30:07]

• Misunderstanding personality styles (e.g., DISC, Enneagram) sabotages sales, teamwork, and home life.
• “Sales problems are often personality expressions that turn into problems.” (Eric, 32:10)
• Communication and self-awareness are “superpowers” severely underrated in the contracting world.

e) Identity Bleed

[33:17]

• The transition from top technician/artist to operator/CEO is essential—and the hardest bleed to address.
• “You can only be a technician for so long...you’ll reach a breaking point in your body, in your lifestyle, in your business.” (Eric, 34:45)

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4. Triage In Action: Live Peer Coaching

Starting [41:10]

Eric invites contractors on the call to honestly share their current “bleed points.” The live group exchange showcases how complex and personal these wounds can be.

Contractor Shares & Notable Moments:

• Jordan: Realizes he’s “bleeding out on hourly rates” and finally starts facing his numbers, not just getting by on “wondering why nothing's working.”

  • “I was more just like, realizing that I'm just not doing a great job and just trying to get the basic building blocks in place and getting used to just knowing my numbers.” (Jordan, 42:18)

• Joe: Owns up to a mindset bleed—fixating on new knowledge to the point of rejecting other perspectives. Appreciates the urgency and value of Eric’s triage metaphor:

  • “This triage deal… is pretty badass…this is the one that...just hit me hard.” (Joe, 44:33)
  • Eric expands on Joe’s “pendulum”—moving from self-focused technician to client-focused operator, cautioning not to lose oneself in over-giving.

• Austin: Identifies a technician mindset bleed—focusing on perfection in tasks while neglecting training his crew.

  • “Trying to be the best technician and not really focusing on training my guys how I should.” (Austin, 47:30)

• Nathan: Reflects on being “spread so thin” that overwhelm leads him to avoid problems and “bury myself in a project,” rather than facing issues head-on. (50:00)

• Dominic: Finds that taking on too much (personally and professionally) requires learning better delegation and building a stronger team, leading to better operations and personal well-being. (52:20 - 55:39)

Eric’s Live Sales Script Example [56:01]

• Outlines the difference between “How are you?” cold calls (high friction) and a clear, relational, third-party approach.
  • “Hey, this is Susan from the Pond Digger. Eric asked me to give you a call because we’ve had a really warm winter and it’s affecting our ponds… Is that something you’d be interested in?” (Eric, 57:08)

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5. Key Takeaways & Final Reflections

[59:27] – [64:55]

• Tactics alone can’t fix underlying “bleeds”—mindset, self-awareness, and community are the real levers.
• Vulnerability is required: “You need to be more vulnerable…we need to be self-aware enough to look at all five triage points and work with each other like that.” (Eric, 62:00)
• Pure sales tactics without “stabilizing the operator”—the business owner—won’t stick.

“Sales training with an unstable mindset of a contractor is like stitching up a wound while the patient’s still internally bleeding. You could stitch it all up, and now it’s all swelling. You gotta stop the bleeding.”
(Eric, 35:05)

• The importance of daily (not sporadic) community-based triage: "We can triage each other day in and day out, not once a quarter, not once a year, but all the time, daily." (Eric, 36:20)

• Final challenge: Be vulnerable in your community, call out your own wounds, support each other, and address all five triage points, not just the surface-level stuff.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We're fucking in a battlefield. Being a contractor, being an entrepreneur, taking the risks, hiring the people—we are at war.” (Eric, 09:44)
• “High performers are not going to follow chaos.” (Eric, 18:45)
• “If nobody wants to work for you, it’s not because people suck. What if…it’s a leadership wound?” (Eric, 23:10)
• “You can't out-workout a bad diet…and you can’t outsell a bad money mindset.” (Eric, 13:15 & 28:22)
• “Tactics can't fix psychology.” (Eric, 28:17)
• “Sales problems are often personality expressions that turn into problems.” (Eric, 32:10)
• “No contractor wins alone. We're clear on that.” (Eric, 39:30)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:46 — Introduction of the triage concept and peer format
• 11:08 — Identification of the five triage zones
• 14:13 — Deep dive on “Numbers Bleed”
• 20:31 — Leadership Bleed and its generational myth-busting
• 25:44 — Money Mindset Bleed
• 30:07 — Communication Bleed and personality types
• 33:17 — Identity Bleed: technician vs. operator
• 41:10 — Group coaching: contractors share their bleed points
• 56:01 — Sales call script example: how to remove friction
• 62:00 — Final thoughts: the power of vulnerability and ongoing triage

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Practical Takeaways

• Know your daily/weekly/monthly numbers—financial clarity is non-negotiable.
• Building a team? Start with your own leadership and company culture.
• Check your money mindset: are your inner beliefs capping your business?
• Master your communication style—and recognize how personality affects sales and company culture.
• Accept that shifting to ‘operator’ mode is a must for business longevity.
• Join and actively participate in peer communities—iron sharpens iron.
• Be honest with yourself about your wounds. Triage, then treat.

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Closing Thought

If you think you’re only bleeding from one problem, you’re likely missing deeper wounds. Join a real community, be vulnerable, be challenged, and triage your business—because on this battlefield, survival and success are team sports.

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[End of summary.]

Transcript

[Eric Triplett]

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.

[Jordan]

All right.

[Eric Triplett]

Hey, welcome back. It's Triplett here. Before we get into today's session, I want to set the stage so you have an idea what's going on. Every Friday morning, I sit down live with a room full of contractors, and they're from all over the country, even, even from Europe. We have some guests that come in. And what we do every Friday is we call it the Weekly Compass Call. And this isn't theory. It's not some just motivational bullshit off the cuff. It's really thoughtful. We really get into it. They're real contractors that run real businesses, taking real risks, real problems in real time. That's what we do every Friday. So it's part of our community. We talk about sales problems, leadership problems, hiring struggles, money stre, communication breakdowns and philosophies, and sometimes all in one episode, sometimes specific to an episode. But we really dig into these because these are the struggles that most contractors are hitting in their business. And what's interesting is most of the time, contractors show up thinking they have one problem. But, you know, through conversation and triage, we discover some things that are completely different, that could be wrong. That's where the idea of contractor triage came from. From. Because sometimes you're not broken, you're just bleeding from somewhere you can't see. And we're at war out there as a contractors with all the risks that we take. It's daily, daily battles. So sometimes you're broken one day and you get repaired, and next week it's something different. And that's why the triage is important. And if you're a stabilized communicator and operator, then your business can start to stabilize too. And so many contractors are running around with, you know, these open wounds and they don't know how to fix them. So, like in this episode, we unpack that concept live and in real time in the group. And again, it's contractor to contractor because none of us figured this out alone. None of us. Weekly Compass 197 I'm pretty ramped up here. I was, I've been thinking a lot about triage lately and you know, I started thinking about how I could wrap this into like a coaching call or how to grow my business or how to become a better version of myself and so forth. And I started thinking about, you know, we did the sales pathology conversation a week or two ago and I really loved the, I really loved that one. I loved how it went. I feel like I want to create a whole webinar. I want to do a speak from stage on sales pathology because it's the, what we're saying, you know, like a speech pathologist. And then all of a sudden triage hits me and I'm like, oh, contractor triage, sales triage. Like what do we do? Because when we do role playing, I feel like at the end of the role play when we're giving our feedback, it's like triage, we're trying to figure out where you're bleeding, where, you know, what's, what's going wrong with you, right? We're trying to figure this out so we can make adjustments and get you healthy again. And I feel like, I feel like sales triage is too small because if I can fix something in your sales process, but you have a money mindset problem, I'll never be able to fix it. It's like I can't go to the gym and get jacked if I'm drinking beer every night because I can't out work out a bad diet. And so I feel the same way about sales triage. So it's really like contractor triage. I think the, the thought of sales triage is too small without addressing the full thing. Because, you know, if I, if, if you have a sales problem or, or I think you have a sales problem or you think you have a sales problem, there's really a stability problem on the other side. And without fixing that, you can't do it. So until we stabilize that one section, nothing is really going to stick. So I'm not a doctor, right? I'm not a speech pathologist, I'm not a doctor that's going to perform, you know, surgery or some kind of stitching you up. But I do feel like I can see problems going on in your businesses that you can't. So in a peer to peer group environment, you know, social media nowadays, you can fix so many things with ChatGPT. You know, like, it's funny when you're talking to a coach, someone told me they had a coach and they were like having a conversation. They're like, well, I don't know, let me go to ChatGPT and we'll figure it out together. It's like, bro, I could have done that myself. The more ChatGPT and AI becomes available and people it becomes mainstream for us to use ChatGPT, the coaches just that just say hey, let's look at it together. Like that's not really going to work, right? Especially if you're paying them high value, high number to have them be your coach. Now I can see it in some cases that might work, but not as a mainstay. So contractor communities are so critically important today in this AI technology. That's why I think our peer group is so powerful and strong inside the contractor power circle. So this is how we help each other stop bleeding. Because sometimes there's people in our peer groups that are further along than us and then they can help us through but sometimes we're like at the same level, but we're experiencing different problems along the way and, and sometimes you're so close to the problem that you're bleeding from and you know, like imagine like if, if you were in an accident, you get in shock, you're completely in shock. Like, you know, you don't even know you're bleeding yet, right? Like listen, my sister in law literally cut her finger off. It was like hanging by a thread and she didn't even feel the pain from it because like the body is so incredible. Like somehow the, you know, the adrenaline took the pain away and the pain didn't come till much later. So sometimes we're so close and we're bleeding and we're suffering and there's trauma in whatever we're doing and someone right next to you goes, bro, your finger's hanging off. What are you. Okay, let's clean this blood up and let's get you fixed up. Like right, can I sew this finger back on or are we just going to cut it off and get rid of it and just go on without it? Right? So this is part of the triage factor. So when a contractor jumps into a coaching environment or a role play or even just a conversation with another contractor, you know, it's not always just about talking about tactics. Like for me I'm running triage when I'm talking to someone because when I first started this group 197 weeks ago, I was like, let's, we're just going to train sales. And it wasn't long before I realized that I can't even help this person with sales until I help them understand their numbers, right? I can't even help them. You know, they might know their numbers, but now they have a really poor mindset wrapped around money. Until I can fix that, they're selling from their own pocket. You know, they grew up so poor and it grew their mindset that, you know, they're selling from their own pocket when they're talking to someone who doesn't have that same mindset. And so they don't want to buy from your pocket, they want to buy from their, their pocket, where they might have an abundance mindset, where you might have a scarcity mindset. So this is where the triage is so critically, critically important. So when I'm talking to a contractor nowadays, I'm constantly running triage. Like, where's, how can I help them in sales? You know, are they even, are they even available to receive that help in sales? Right? So, you know, I'm no trauma doctor. So like, just imagine in war, like, right, you, you can't give someone blood. Like, hey, we need to give blood to this person. They lost so much blood. You can't even really give them blood if the wound is still open and blood is just squirting on the floor. And let's face it, we're fucking in a battlefield. Being a contractor, being an entrepreneur, taking the risks, hiring the people, we are at war. Like, that's when I meet my contractor circle. This is funny. I have the contractor circle, I have the power circle, but I have my winner's circle. Every morning that we do, we circle up, we have a meeting every single morning with my team and it's the winner's circle, you know, and then I'm like, okay, you know, and I might have an argument with one of my guys that comes in. If they show up, like, barely on time and they're really hard or they just got to the winner's circle at six o', clock, I'm in. I'm not happy, bro. I am not happy. I'm like, bro, I'm going to war today and I don't want you coming in all sleepy and tired. You didn't have breakfast, you didn't. You got mustard sand on your shirt. I'm not going to war with you. I don't want you going to war with me today if you can't show up, you know, bright eyed, bushy tail, ready to go, thug it out with me. Let's go. Right? Did you have some caffeine yet? Are you prepared for the day? You know, that's why in 300 that, that one person that Wanted to be the. You know, he wanted to be on the team so bad, but he couldn't hold his. He couldn't hold his thing at the hunchback dude, right? He couldn't hold the sword up, and he would create a. A chink in the armor, and there's a weakness. And so when I'm in that winter circle, I want people that are there. And so running triage in everything that I'm do. Where are we bleeding? And back to that one point, I want to get real clear on this. If there's an exit wound and blood's pouring out in the war, you can't just, oh, they need blood. You got to stop the bleeding. So there's so many different aspects of it. Because one contractor might be suffering from a mindset issue. One contractor might be suffering because he doesn't know his numbers. Another contractor is having leadership issues, and they can't hire the right people. And yet they're, you know, they're asking around how to hire good people. Was your culture, right? You know, do you. Do people actually want to work for you? So these are the questions we have to do. So, like, I can't just tell you how to hire good people if nobody wants to work for you. You got to work on the culture. It's triage. Okay, where are we bleeding? Is this is a surface wound? Is that a leadership wound? Is it mindset?

[Jordan]

Is.

[Eric Triplett]

Is it communications? Is it personality? Is it identity? Is it your numbers? Each contractor is going to have different wounds, and some contractors might be bleeding from all these fricking orifices, all these fricking spots they're bleeding from. Like, which one do you take care of first? That's part of triage. That's part of triage, right? So. Because if the operator is not stable, if the contractor entrepreneur is not stable, then your business is never going to be stable. So you have to fix those things first. So I want to run through what I consider five triage zones, okay? So this is. This is when I. When I look at them, I'm checking these things off, and that's what. That's what I'm. No nurses in the. In the wars would do. They have triage. Like, are they bleeding? Are they missing any things? Are they missing any limbs? Are they conscious? Are they. Like, they have the list of things that they triage for, all right? Because in war, and remember, this is a fucking battlefield, 97% of all contractors are not going to make it. 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. You're not going to make it. And in that battlefield, on the battlefield, when someone comes in and they have, you know, only so many nurses and all these injuries and all these soldiers that are going down, I got goosebumps. This is so crazy to me, the way I'm thinking about this, but you know, they have to like go, hey, this is a lost cause. You know, they lost too much blood, they lost too many limbs. We can't stop the bleeding. And they're not going to sit there and work on that person and try and resuscitate them and fix it. If they're past gone, if they know that they don't have the resources to make it happen, it's lost and they have to give up on that patient and they have to go in and triage more and go, like, who can we save? Because if we spend too much time on this person that is a lost cause, then we're not going to be able to save the rest of the people that are coming in. And this is a very difficult decision that, you know, a triage nurse or doctor has to make in the fucking battlefield, right? So the first triage piece of the puzzle is the numbers bleed. The numbers bleed. Okay? I talked to a contractor last night, been working at it for 20 years. We were just going through some stuff. I'm like, hey, what's, what are you suffering the most? What's. What, what's frustrating you the most? What do you think's your biggest hurdle? We're going through things like this. And he went, oh, it's over here. This is, this is my problem over here. And so I was like, okay, let me think about that. And so I, I asked a couple of qualifying questions to like figure out where he's at, but come to find out that's the wrong problem. He thinks he needs to add blood when he's got a massive open wound. It's just gushing out the side, I don't care. You could have 55 gallon drum full of blood pumping into your body, but if the wound out the other side, the blood is just pouring out, you're not going to make it. The numbers bleed. He's been in business 25 years. He does not know his daily nut. He does not know his monthly burn. He doesn't know the revenues necessary and required to bring in each day to keep lights on in the business. But somehow he's just making it through. It's okay. You know, I did a half a million at the end of the year and it sounds really big now. It's like a mindset thing, okay? It's not that much money for how many men you have working. Your revenue per employee is not mathing out, bro. It's not a good math equation. Okay? But, you know, if you got a happy family and you know, customers really love you and like, you think that's okay, but it's not. And I don't want to write it off as lost cause because in this position, me trying to help contractors, sometimes it takes months, even years to break through to someone. Sometimes a contractor doesn't. Hasn't experienced enough pain and in the gutter long enough to realize that they need to. They need help or something to that effect. Right? But look, while half a million sounds like a lot of money to a lot of people, it's, you know, it's not a lot of money when you, when you do the math, mapped out against how many employees you have. So half a million dollars in gross revenue and you have five employees, that, that's an equation that you can, I mean, if you're on the call with me right now and you're doing half a million, feel like you're doing okay and you got five employees. It's not, it's not a good number, bro. It's not a good number. You're in shock and you're, you're bleeding out, okay? So the numbers bleed if you don't know what it costs you to keep your lights on daily. And there's another scenario. Someone hit me up in the past seven days. It was like, hey, I was thinking about charging this much money for two guys per hour. Does that sound cool to you? And I'm like, no, not, not to me. It doesn't, you know, but how much is it? And I asked him, I'm like, how much money do you need to make every day? He's like, well, I don't really know. Well, then how the, how how can I, how can I, as a responsible coach tell you that that number is acceptable when I don't even know what your number is? You don't even know what your number is. We need to work that part out again. 55 gallon drum pumping blood into someone's body at the right temperature, the right, oh, negative, whatever. All that stuff does not matter if the wound is so big, it just keeps pouring out the other side. You cannot run a stable business that way. So, I mean, he wasn't prepared to sit down and go over the numbers with me, but I said, hey, this is what I do and this is why I do it. Your overheads substantially less than mine. So I would say if you were in this range, it's probably a safer bet than the one you were going to do. But the one you were going to do, I guarantee is too low because you'll never, never get out of the hole with that kind of number. So at least set it here. And as soon as you get a chance, we should sit down and figure out what it's going to take for us to run your numbers so we can create this accurate number where you can have this confidence and trust and bravado. When you give the number knowing that you're not guessing. How can you run a stable business on a guess? Okay. And the, the really important thing about numbers bleed. The numbers bleed. I saw in, in one of my coaching, not my coaching, one of my community peer groups, someone was like, hey, I'm gonna, I'm trying to hire some good people. You know, should I look for, should I go for, you know, should I head hunt one of my competitors, lead guys or, you know, should I go on? Indeed. What should I do? Like this. And like they're really working on bringing more people into the business, which I think is, you know, look at every contractor out there. Their number one problem is people. I mean, I almost guarantee that 99% of the time, talk to any contractor. People is their biggest problem. Okay. And moving from there, like, how do we attract those people? Like, you cannot attract killers on your team. You cannot attract team members that are want to kill it with you. If there's no clarity and if you don't even know how much it costs to run the lights in your business every day, how can you attract killers on your team? Because high performers are not going to follow chaos. They're not going to perform, they're not going to follow chaos. So the second piece of the puzzle, I think, and these are in no particular order, I think is leadership bleed. And that goes on exactly to where the gentleman, I told you, he's, he's looking for people to come onto his team. How can I get people that come in and they want to, to do a good job, they want to do good work? Well, what are you doing to attract those people? Right? And it's a leadership bleed. So while most of the contractors that I speak to in, in the groups that I hang in, at least I don't hang in just any jackass group, right? But the groups that I'm putting some work into and putting some effort into to be involved in, most of the contractors in there, they're, they're pretty badass. They're great technicians, they're excellent at their craft, and it's almost to a fault because no one's as good as them and that kind of stuff, right? So that, that actually affects the leadership bleed. So how can you be like one of the best in the business and so good at your craft, but nobody wants to work for you? You can't find good help and that leads to conspiracies, right? You're like, oh, I'm a gen X and you know, the gen Z, they don't want to do it. Gen Alpha is going to be even worse, you know, because, you know, like, so you're creating these own, you know, conspiracies within your head to justify the fact that nobody wants to work with you. It couldn't possibly be that, you know, nobody wants to work for you because of you contractors. If you're sick and tired of not making enough money, you might suck at sales and you don't even 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 for 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 [e-mail] 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 contractorsalesecrets.com. that's contractorsalesecrets.com if nobody wants to work for you, it's not because people suck. What if could it be because you as a leader are unstable and you're inconsistent with your expectations, with your standards, Poor communications, emotional reactions, no vision. No vision big enough to get people to jump in and go, like, let's do this vision. This is cool. Maybe it's that. So while contractors are reaching out to their homies in their peer group, how do I get a good person on the team? And everyone's like, put an ad on. Indeed. And everyone's like, you should do this. You should tell people that you're looking for people that aren't bitches and they want to work hard and they want to work long hours and they want to come and work for me and treat my business like it's yours. Yeah, that'll work. That's not going to work because you haven't created culture yet. That's the triage. And sometimes contractors cannot even see it because they're too close. And the conspiracy start. No one wants to work anymore. Listen, it's not a labor problem. It's not a generational problem. It's a leadership wound that has you bleeding and you're in shock. You don't even realize it. Let's get to the money mindset bleed, because I see this all the time. I mean, I'm talking to contractors that have all of these wounds pouring out, pouring out blood and chunks of flesh like stitches. Can't fix it. You know what I mean? Like, it takes a lot of time. The money mindset bleed is crazy because this one can kill your sales training. You can take, like, the highest level training. You could pay the highest level coaches. And unless they take you through the mindset aspect of it and fix your money mindset, then, you know, I don't care how hard you train, you're just never going to overcome your money mindset bleed. You're never going to overcome the amount of sales you need to do. Okay? You can learn every closing line in every Andy Elliott, Grant Cardone, Matt Eastman. You could study with all of These guys, you can watch all their videos and learn their closes. But if you really wanted, if you got into coach with Andy Elliott, Grant Cardone, Jeremy Minor, any of those high level guys, when you get into their coaching group, they're gonna freaking attack your brain. First you're gonna go, how do I close? When they say I need to think about it, they're not going to start with word tracks to teach you how to do it. They're going to go, hey, is your mind okay? First, let's check your body. Let's do the triage work. Let's make sure you're not bleeding before I start to pump you with blood. Because if I can fix the fact when your nervous system, you start to panic when you talk about money, if I could fix that part of it, you know, then, then there might be a chance, but I can't do that without fixing your mindset behind money. I mean, if, if you tell your kids all the time, we can't afford it, if your wife says, I can't afford it. I mean, if, if I can't afford it, it's like really a big part of, like, the way you talk and communicate. Then you, you have a scarcity mindset. And I'm not saying it's bad because, you know, I mean, let's be realistic. We want to manage our risk and not just go out and spend money like crazy. I get that. But like, instead of saying, I can't afford to be like, hey, this is just outside my reach at the moment. What do I do to get that? How can I, how can I get it? Like, we need to move our mindset in that. Instead of just saying, nope, can't afford it. Nope, can't afford it. That's too much money. You know, if you think that way, then you probably sell that way. And I don't care how many closing lines I teach you, if I can't get you past that, then we're not gonna, we're not gonna fix anything, okay? Because tactics can't fix psychology. And literally, if I knew I had to learn this much about psychology, I probably wouldn't not be a coach right now, because it's fucking hard. It's hard. And when you talk to a contractor who's, who's like on the verge, they're like, at the breaking point, they're suicidal. That is a big burden that I did not expect that I would have to take. But I'm still here. I'm a thug it out. I'm gonna thug it out. Tupac Style, whatever it takes, right? Okay, let's get to communication bleed. That's the fourth piece. The communication bleed is like really understanding your personality. It's profiling. I talk about it all the time. Some people probably like, oh, God, we're gonna talk about personalities again. Geez. But this is so important because, like, this is a really. A part that you can bleed on. You know, you can just be bleeding. Right? This is where the profiling really makes sense. Because some of you over talk, some of you over talk, you know, introvert versus extrovert. You respond differently, you know, and then, like, if you're in the room with an one extrovert to another, you'll be like, oh, cool, we vibe. But what happens if you have to sell to an. An introvert? How do you react? How do you respond? You might be overwhelming that person. And without having some self awareness and even a beginning understanding of it bleeding, you bulldoze through things. Some of you avoid conflict. Some of you are people pleasers, some of you are dominant. And not because you're bad, but it's because the DNA, that's the way you're wired. Is it your disc? Is it your enneagram? Like, what is your communication pattern? And I don't care. Like, I listen to disc and enneagram as I understand it very well, and I know there's Briggs and Myers and probably all these other ones that are going on, but, like, I don't care which one you go for, but you need to understand it, and it's really important. If you're talking within a peer group, like my peer group, we all talk disc and enneagram because that's our peer group, and that's what I've trained on. It's what I can communicate clearly on and help you understand. And so, you know, if you're in another group and Briggs and Briggs and Stratton or Briggs and Myers or whatever the heck that one is, if you're in that group, you should probably speak that language. Just like the love language. One of the gifts that I always give a new. A newlywed, you know, couple, I always give them a love language book. If I'm going to a wedding, you can guarantee I'm walking in there with the love language book because I think it's that powerful to understand. Understand that. I mean, I went for a long time in my life without understanding what my love language is. And when you read it and you understand it, you become so clear. It's so crystal clear how we communicate and talk to people. Some person, it's a touch. Some person's an active service to take out the trash. And, like, it's a gift. Like, there's this is, this is really powerful in the way contractors are working. It's so powerful that I think it's a superpower. And I've only heard in my coaching over the past seven years. And like, me being coached, and I continue to be coached even though I'm a coach. Right. But in all of that, I've heard people dive into it a little bit, but not as deep as I think is important. So if you're, like, in my group, you probably won't go a week without me talking about a personality type and who you are and how you respond. And then I'm going to be like, a little creepy. I'm going to ask, what's your wife's personality type? Because I want to make sure you guys connect and click. Because when I can get you guys connected and clicking at home, that's another part of the triage. Like, if you have a really shitty life at home because you're so jacked up, I want to try and fix all those things because that's another bleeding point. It's another wound. So your disc and your enneagram, your communication pattern is, is how you talk to people and how you take the communication and the feedback from the people you're talking to. So if you don't have that calibrated, you know, it's. It's a really big problem because sales problems are often personality expressions that turn into problems. Like, right, it's. It's the way we express ourselves. And so let me get to the fifth one. It's your identity bleed. Most of you guys come in as a, as an entrepreneur because you're a badass technician and you probably worked for a contractor who was bleeding out all these fricking orifices. They didn't have good leadership. They didn't know their numbers. They, you know, but they sure built some cool stuff. And I built cool stuff, and now I'm better at building cool stuff than that person. And so I'm going to go start my own business because my, my boss, my contractor who's doing this that employs me doesn't know what the fuck they're doing. And they don't have a big enough vision for me to kick ass and take names under him. If I can't fit my big vision under his vision, I'm going to go work someone else. This is part of the identity bleed. Are you a technician? Or are you an operator? Because I see faces on this call right now that are probably the baddest technicians that I've ever met, the most creative artists I've ever met. But they're in a position now where they have to give up some of that technical aspect in that creative and artistry, and become an operator. I've experienced this in my career, and it's a hard thing to give up. And some contractors will never, ever, ever get past that. That's why 97% of contractors will fail. Hey, rockstars, it's triplet here. Let me be straight with you. Most contractors are losing money. They don't even know they're losing I. And not because they're lazy, not because they're dumb, not because they don't care, but because their brain is rigged against them. You hesitate. You make assumptions. You soften your language around difficult conversations and money. You avoid the hard questions because your subconscious is trying to protect you. And that's exactly why you're stuck under the same revenue ceiling year after year. So Every Thursday at 4pm Pacific, I host the Contractor Conspiracy Webinar, a free live session where we expose the psychological traps that keep contractors broke and frustrated. And we give you the exact framework to break through the ceiling and win back control. Only the live attendees will get the bonuses. Only the live attendees will get the Q and A on the topic. And the replay does not exist. You have to catch it live with us. If you're serious about leveling up, hit the link in the show notes and register. I'll see you on Thursday. This is probably the biggest shift because if you're a badass technician and you leave someone to start your own thing. I've been confided to on people right on this call. They've looked at me dead in the face on a coaching call and said that. And now they left their person. So now they're afraid to hire people because they don't want those people to learn from them and then. Then leave them. Fuck. How fucked up is this? This is a fucking battlefield, gentlemen. We're at war with our brains. You can only be a technician. So for so long as a contractor, because you will be. You will reach a breaking point in your body. You'll reach a breaking point in. In your lifestyle. You'll reach a breaking point because you can train someone up.

[Jordan]

And.

[Eric Triplett]

And if you don't become a good operator and grow your business, then. Then the delta between you making more money and you paying more money to your people will break you and they're going to leave or you'll go out of business and you'll have to start all over. That's the breaking point. So there's a, there will be a line in the sand where you have to become the operator and give up some of that technician in you. Whether you like it or not. You made the choice, okay? You're an operator now. You need to know your numbers, you need to be a great leader, you need to lead people, need to manage your energy, need to make decisions often and you need to communicate your vision big enough to where people are excited about doing it. So if, if you're still identifying as the baddest artist, the best waterfall builder, the best technician, the best, you know, whatever you do, if you're still identifying as the best there is on the tools, then you'll resist the move that stabilizes your business and gives you that long term stability.

[Jordan]

Right?

[Eric Triplett]

So I want to just, I want to bring it back to sales because that's why I started this whole thing to begin with. And I want to be clear on my vision and my goals for anyone that works with me. My goal when I started this 197weeks ago was to help contractors, you know, make more profit in less time. That's as simplistic as I can say it. I want you to make more money and still have time. I want you to make more money and have time for your family, your friends, your hobbies, your health, your well being, all that stuff. That's my true goal behind this and that's that I thought that would happen through just helping contractors, you know, in the, in the, in a sales pathology fashion to where. Teach them when to be quiet, teach them when to fix their cadence, teach them all that stuff again, I had no idea I'd have to be a freaking psychologist. I should just go get my doctorate. I, maybe I'll, maybe I can help more contractors, I don't know, but they'll probably make me not cuss as much. And so I don't, just don't know if I can, I just don't know if I can deal with that. But if you do not know your numbers, if you fear money, if you can't lead, if you're afraid of having those hard conversations than asking open ended questions using silence mirrors and labels. If I teach you all that, it's not going to land, it's not going to fix your problem again. I, I, you, you can't, you can't out drink, you can't out work out a A drinking or an eating problem, you can't do it. So if you fear money, you fear the conversations, you can't lead all that stuff. I can teach you all this stuff about sales, but nothing's going to land. It's not going to fix you. Okay, so sales training with an unstable mindset of a contractor is like stitching up a wound while the patient's still internally bleeding. You could stitch it all up, and now it's all swelling. You got to stop the bleeding. And that's where I want to focus. That's why triage is so important and you guys, as peers, when you're talking to a friend and you're listening, like a friend contractor, when you're talking to them, and I think these wounds, like, we're in a battlefield, like, what I'm bleeding from today, I might get it fixed, and I go out to the battle tomorrow, and I'm going to be bleeding from somewhere else. So we have to constantly be on top of each other like Spartans to try and figure out how we can help each other and get to the next level. Because I can't just diagnose you with. From this moment, from this podcast, from this stage, from this zoom call, this is how we work as a peer group. And that's why I think the community is so important and that we need to stick with our communities because we can triage each other day in and day out, not once a quarter, not once a year, but all the time, daily. We can call things out. I want to be able to call things out and go, bro, you're bleeding from here. You must be in shock. You don't even know you're bleeding from there. And then sometimes the contractor goes, I'm not bleeding from there. I'll be like, yeah, you are, bro. But see, the problem is the bleed is not visual. You're not standing in a pool of blood, but you are bleeding. And if you're in shock and you don't know that you're bleeding, it takes a powerful peer in your life to help you call it out and support you. And whether you need a specialist to get closer to me and my coaching community or if you need a specialist in a different coaching community, I. You know, I think each and every one of us needs someone special in our life to help do that.

[Jordan]

Right?

[Eric Triplett]

And some of you are lucky enough to have really, you know, powerful people in your life, and maybe you don't have to pay for it, but trust me, there's levels to this if you want to get to this level, to that level, to the next level. If you want to level up so big, you at some point you're probably gonna have to pay for professional assistance. Because no contractor wins low. No contractor wins alone. We're clear on that. Because you just being the baddest artist and building ponds until your body breaks apart, that's not true winning. So let me ask you this right now. Where are you bleeding from right now? Where do you think your problem is? And I think I found in the past couple of weeks where some contractors know they, they're bleeding in a certain area, but they don't. They don't even put a band aid on it. I'll give you one example, and I want to get back to you guys. You know those people who talk too much, right? Say yes or no. You know those people that talk too

[Jordan]

much

[Eric Triplett]

and some of them know they talk too much? Oh, yeah, I talk too much. Yeah, I know it. But they don't try and work on it. And that is part of their bleed, their communication bleed when they're trying to sell jobs and so forth. But why is it if they know they talk too much, they're not going to try and work on it? Do they not see that then they probably have a mindset problem that they don't think just because they talk too much is keeping them from their money. You see how these wounds are just compounding, right? So let me ask you this question. Some of you know where you're bleeding from right now and some of you don't, because if you think you're bleeding from one spot, it might be a deeper seated wound that you need to tackle. So who's willing to go first and share where they're bleeding from? I'll go bring it. Jordan.

[Jordan]

I was the guy asking about the hourly rates, but I've been bleeding out on hour rates, obviously, and playing my numbers. But the last two weeks, I probably, I try to spend 30, 30 hours each week at night just getting feedback from other contractors by industry about, like what, how to explain to the customer what a basic repair is or a more involved repair, what they, what they may charge. I still got a really long ways to go, but just meeting the staffing room, probably after thinking that probably a little bit deeper cut and knowing basic service call rates and being able to make a menu of people.

[Joe]

Again.

[Eric Triplett]

Thanks for sharing that. I mean, I know it's not easy. I guess what I do want to ask you though, is the information I gave you, while it wasn't direct, it was still Higher than you were going to land. Right? I mean, so I don't know that that's enough that you need, but I know it's more than you were going to ask for. So. Was that helpful?

[Jordan]

No, it was super helpful. I was more just, like, realizing that I'm just not doing a great job and just trying to get the basic building blocks in place and getting used to just knowing my numbers rather than just running around and wondering why nothing's working.

[Eric Triplett]

Thanks for sharing, Jordan.

[Joe]

I'll go, Eric. So I would say that my wound is a mindset, that it's very dangerous for me to acquire knowledge in a certain area that, like, feels true. Like, that gives me goosebumps, that makes my heart flutter, like, oh, wow. I just learned this, like, being in the power circle and learning it's about the client, it's not about me and how badass I am and what I could design for them. And then, like, getting that knowledge and then being so hard and judgmental on anything else, I'm resistant to in how I share with other contractors, like, oh, you need to do this because it's all about them. And then something can come along that's like, no, it's. So it's okay to discuss money up front or it's okay for this or it's okay. No, no, no, no. So that's a mindset thing. I believe, from listening to what you said, that I need to work on that. Just because one truth makes me feel good and I accept it as, hey, that's real, it doesn't exclude other things could be real as well. And that. And that's what I got for myself. And I just want to say that this triage deal that you said today, the whole thing is pretty badass. It kind of reminds me of the urgency and importance thing you were going over last month or whatever. But I really feel that this is way more powerful than the glass floor, the hourglass, all that other stuff. This. This is. This is the one that I'm a. I'm a very, like, feely, touchy, lovey person. And this just hit me hard. So I just want to let you know that.

[Eric Triplett]

Thank you for that, Joe. And I, I have something that I think will could be really powerful for you to learn from right now if I can share it with everyone. I've been knowing Joe for 35, 38 years. Long time. And what I want you to guys to know is Joe is in this really amazing spot in his life, and so he's. He's so focused on taking care of the client, which I think is amazing. But what I don't want him to forget is we need to take care of ourselves first. If you're on a plane and something goes wrong, you lose, you know, pressure, cabin pressure. You got to put your own mask on first before you can help other people. And so I think Joe is working so hard at taking care of other people, and he doesn't have his oxygen mask on, okay? And while he's still alive and everything's okay, but, like, the Joe that I knew 38 years ago, his. He's. He's like. Imagine a pendulum, okay? So the pendulum swing is over here. It's, like, all about Joe. It's all about me. And, like, can it go any higher? It's all about me. It's all about me. It's. It's. It's like almost doing a 360 in the air, but it hits the top, and now the swing is so fast and so hard. And five years ago, six, seven years ago, I begged Joe to be in a coaching community with me, into a training with me, and he was like, nope, it's about me. I don't care. I'm still. The pendulum is so swinging high now. I finally convinced him to get in and train with me. It was, like, three years ago, and he's transformed. He's a completely different person. But see what happened, Joe, along the way, that pendulum started to swing down and hit the middle, and you were, like, taking care of them, taking care of you, taking care of them, taking care of you. And what's happening now is the pendulum is swung so far the other way, and all you care about is the client. I think you're losing yourself, okay? And I don't want you to do that. I want you to take care of your clients at the absolute highest level, and I want you to win at the absolute highest level. There is a balance in between those two. And you, as you've developed and you've become so good at coaching on role plays, I worry that you. You know, that pendulum is too far. And I want you to be able to have the vision to see on both sides of it, right? Your. Your pendulum is so far, and you're like, you're starting to train towards that pendulum, and I want you to help others train in both sides. You know, a lot of these contractors that are looking up to you, and they're asking for help, and you're pouring yourself into them. They need the oxygen mask on, bro. They need their oxygen mask on. And you have to help them find that balance. And, and I think that's the next level of where Joe's headed right now.

[Jordan]

Eric. I would say my open wound in a technician mindset is trying to be the best technician and, like, not really focusing on training my guys how I should. Good.

[Eric Triplett]

That's very good. Austin's my crew chief on my, on my team, on my construction division. And I get on him a lot because. And he's thick skinned. He can handle this. But I get on him a lot because he'll pin his ears back on something and he'll be really focused on something. And if I give too many men for him to work with, if he has one apprentice, then things are working really good. Hey, give me this. Bring me that. I want to build a waterfall. Bring me this, you know, and that one apprentice works really good. I give him two apprentices, he starts to lose it a little bit. Give him three apprentices, it's over. Like, he, like, can just focus on him own self and himself and his current task at hand, and he might lose it a little bit. This. It's a tough balance, Austin. I mean, I think you're, you're, you're handling it well. And the, the important thing is that when I lean into you and you're not thinking like, Eric's always razzing on me. Eric's always yelling at me. Right. Do you think Tim Grover was easy on Michael Jordan? You think Tim Grover didn't yell at fucking Kobe every day, all day long? That's his job. And, and what happened was because Tim Grover was constantly ripping on Jordan and he was constantly ripping on Kobe, they become the greatest of all time. Right? And, and one thing that I'm going to bring up in my next company meeting, and I have a couple people on the call right now that are on my team, but if you watch the Last Stand, most of I have goosebumps thinking about this right now. Most of Michael Jordan's team members, they hated him because he set the standards so high and he held everyone accountable. And if you didn't show up and work as hard as you wanted you to, you heard about it. They hated Michael Jordan until they won. Until they won. So there's gonna be times when you hate me, Austin, but when you're winning, you're gonna go, Eric did me. Proper triplet. Knew what's up? Anyone else bleeding? Yeah, I'll go. For me, I think it's just everywhere. I think that I have myself pulled in so many different directions that I'M not giving any one thing enough attention to really excel at any of those areas where I should be. And I tend to have a tendency when I get to the point where I'm overwhelmed, I'll just bury myself in a project and ignore the problems to the self awareness. The beginning, I mean, that's, that's the beginning because I feel like sometimes if I, if I'm pointing you out and I feel like sometimes you might begin to hate me. I'm like, I hope Nathan shows up next week. He says he has thick skin, but hopefully he shows up. Because I feel like sometimes if I'm trying to press you in a direction, this self defense mechanism kind of comes up because that's what we do. I mean, we're humans, like, we want to protect ourselves and we get into the self, self defense kind of mode. And you're like, well, that's just kind of the way I am. I would work really well under chaos. And all I can do is say, okay, you know what I mean? Like, does that make sense? I, I, I want to help you so bad. I want you to win more than you want to win. And so sometimes when I see you struggling in spots, I can do is just chip away at it. Dude, I can, I'm just trying to sculpt you. So then I run that, run that, that chisel on you a little bit more and hope that you don't break along the way and hate me. I don't break. I don't break. That's a good one. That's, that's a, that's a quote for the day. I don't break contractors.

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Dominic, let's roll.

[Jordan]

Yeah, so I'll back up what the guy just said. You know, I kind of. Lately I've spread myself thin and I realized that a couple weeks ago, I'm like, I'm doing everything too many, too many things between personal life, kids, search and rescue, and my business. So I'm just trying to delegate things to my. My team, trying to build the team stronger and better so they can take on some of these things and release some of the stress off of me, which then will allow me to focus on the things that I think need to be done. Quality advertising, finance, all that fun stuff. So it's a reality check and it's good to think about it and get your button gear.

[Eric Triplett]

Is it a delegation thing, you think, or is it a mindset? What do you think?

[Jordan]

Yeah, it's a little bit of everything. You know, like for a while, I didn't have the people in place. Like, I just hired a marketing person to handle all my marketing. And I straight up told her, like, I don't want to make the decisions. I want you to tell me what needs to be marketed and how. These are the areas that I want to market. You tell me how to do it and you present to me the plan. And that's what she's working on right now. So before I was coming up with the flyers or the information or the blog posts.

[Eric Triplett]

And that's good.

[Jordan]

That doesn't work. You know, you can't do it all yourself, so don't do it. Go ahead.

[Eric Triplett]

Can we, can we triage with you a little bit? A little bit like.

[Jordan]

Sure.

[Eric Triplett]

Okay. I'm going to put hands on you. Do I have permission to touch you?

[Jordan]

Sure.

[Eric Triplett]

Have you seen those, those, have seen those hairdressing memes on. Can I have permission to touch you?

[Jordan]

Oh, yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

Okay, so is this an in house person or is a subcontractor in house. In house sick? That's amazing. And so she's running marketing. So let's say that was a wound that you weren't doing marketing for years or you barely touched it. You know, whatever wasn't being done, well, you hired someone to run that division. So in a perfect world, you need to be clear enough of what you want to touch. Like, gary Vaynerchuk's a 1080, 10 guy. He sets the vision. 10% lets someone run 80% of it and then touches the final 10. Right. So you've done it long enough and not well enough to know, like, I know how to get the 10. I need someone to do the 80 and I'll come in and kiss it. Right. Okay. With that being said, so what's the next piece of the puzzle? Like, you have to figure out where else you need help. But like, do you think your sales are right on track? You think your sales are dialed in? Cause if she gets those phones to ring and you don't have your sales process figured out, if you wing those phone calls, hey, where are you located? What's going on? Like, if you don't have a process set in place, then doesn't matter how fast she turns on that faucet, you know, if she turns it on a little too much, you might fall apart in that sales division and you'll be bleeding out in that spot. And if you can't get your roi, if you can't make enough money to support that person, then that's where it falls apart. So my question is, do you have your sales process dialed?

[Jordan]

I think the sales is pretty good. It could always be improved. But when we get the right client and the right project that we want to take on, we're pretty successful at getting that and nailing it pretty good. So matter of making the phone ring and getting, you know, more names in the hat kind of thing. So that's.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah, okay, fair.

[Jordan]

And like I said, there's, there's, I can always improve on that stuff, but I think for the most part we're pretty good at that. I do have someone that helps with estimates and running the jobs, so that avenue is kind of taken care of. I just need to make the phone ring and give us more projects.

[Eric Triplett]

Okay, let me give you an example. And this is totally unrelated to you, but it relates exactly to you at the same time.

[Jordan]

Okay.

[Eric Triplett]

So I, I was doing some high level role playing with, with another community. And it's like cold call. Like a lot of you guys are like, I don't want to train in cold calls. You know what I mean? Like, that's, I don't cold call. I don't want to train that. Right. But what can we learn from it? So I'm in a high level community, role playing, right? And they're doing cold calls. And the coach flunks the guy like immediately because he said, hey, it's Dominic, how you doing? Flunk, you know, like, how you doing? That doesn't matter if you're doing a cold call right now. I'm talking to my staff right now. I have a girl that's answered. She's doing cold calls. Because I built a pond for this person seven years ago. So you might think that they're warm, but they're actually cold call. I haven't talked to them and you know, two, three years since they, they called me for a clean out. I have her doing cold calls. She's not allowed to say, how are you doing? Because we don't have enough relationship with that person at this time. So I'll give you a really, really clean example. When she picks up the phone, they say, hello, right? She says, hey, this is Susan from the Pond Digger. Eric asked me to give you a call because we've had a really warm winter and it's affecting our ponds, you know, this year early. Is that something you'd be interested in? And they go, oh yeah. So it's who I am, why I called. And she's going third party. Eric asked me to call you. I'm not calling you randomly. So that's very, very specific the way that cold call is being design. So she's like, hey, this is Susan, how are you? Who the fuck is Susan? I don't know Susan. No, Susan is. This lady named Susan's calling me, right? So already the person wants to hang up. They're already got their sales defenses in the air. We want to reduce the friction in the sales process. So when she says, hey, it's Susan from the Pond Digger. Now there's a connection. I have a pond. Pond Digger did it. Hey, Eric asked me to give you a call. Oh, I remember Eric. He designed my pond. All the pieces are connecting. And hey, he asked me to give you a call because we've had a really warm winter and it's affecting our ponds, you know, and we have a lot of calls coming. Is this something you'd like to talk to me about? Boom. That's the question. And now we have a reason to be talking to this person because I don't know who Susan is. Why is she asking me how I am? I don't even need to talk to her about that. Why? You know what I mean? So, like it's that one thing that, that's the friction comes up and you lose the, even the ability to find out if the person's the right customer for you. So, so these, this is the level of, of commitment and training and things that we need to think about. And now it's probably a lot for you to take on right now, but when you pick up those calls, dude, when that phone starts to ring from this girl, I hope she crushes for you, bro. When that phone starts to ring, you better be super self aware. And like, write down notes so you can figure that stuff out. Because sometimes it's how you doing, right. And you lose everything for that. It sucks. You know, I don't want you to lose anything. I want you to spend all that time with those baby girls.

[Jordan]

Yep.

[Eric Triplett]

You got two girl, two girls, right?

[Jordan]

Yes, sir.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah.

[Jordan]

10 and 13, man. You remember when the first one was born? So that's 13 years ago.

[Eric Triplett]

Gosh.

[Jordan]

Crazy.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah, it's insane. Congratulations. Congratulations on your new hire. I hope she crushes for you.

[Jordan]

Thank you.

[Eric Triplett]

Jordan, we're not. You don't need to know how to role play cold calls yet. Let's just, let's. Let's start with the warm calls. I'll get to you. I need more time with you, Jordan. Let's fix the other wounds. We'll fix the other wounds first. Well, I just. I just kind of demonstrated that, right? I just kind of demonstrated that, you know, so. So I'm. I'll build on that. I'll build on that. Jordan. Hey, this is Susan from the Pond Digger. Hey, Eric asked me to. Is this. Is this Dominic? Yeah, this is Dominic because now she knows the Pond Digger. I have some kind of touch to that. Hey, the reason for my call is Eric asked me to call you because of this. Is that something that would be helpful to you? It's a quick question. It's. And so now I get the customer engaged again to talk. To Talk to us again. Right? So the customer says, oh, yeah, I actually noticed it was 80 degrees last week here in California. Yeah, it's never this warm in February. Oh, gosh. You know, now they're. They're connecting dots. Maybe this will be helpful. And then they say, yeah, that would be good. Hey, is this a bad time to talk to you? I have a few questions just to ask you. No, no, this is a good time. Or if they say, yeah, this is not a great time. Hey, well, when can I get you on the call? Maybe later today or with sometime this week. Now I'm directing exactly where I want this person to land with me, not just like randomly going to call them back. I want to line that up. And so now I have a dedicated call to this person. Right. Set up and ready. And if they do say, yeah, this is a good time to talk about it, Even though I asked them, is this a bad time to talk about it? Very specific, the way I did that. And they say, what problems are you experiencing with your pawn currently? Now I'm going to go into a direct buying motive. I want to Know what their motive is for wanting to talk to me even more? I have algae or, you know, the plants started coming back, and then it got cold, and then they died again. And, like, it's been really frustrating to me. And so now I have some kind of pain or interest or. Or pleasure, whatever it is that I'm dealing with. So I can talk to them about now I have a reason to talk to them, and I can. I can build a service around what their needs are, not just like, we're doing cleanouts early. You know, I want to be like, oh, well, how often are you doing that? Would it be helpful if we just took over a monthly service and then we start, you know, we do a deep cleaning in. In March or April. Would that be helpful to you, Jordan? And now I can specifically dial in on what their needs might be, see how that works. So that. That's how you build out a cold call. And look at. If I was just going to start calling, you know, you know, convalescent homes and wanted to get their aquarium service or maybe have them build a pond, I would have a different approach because they don't know who Eric is. But my, you know, the thousand customers that I have that I can. Built ponds for over the past many, many years, I can. I can use. Eric asked me to call. So look, each one is very specific and different. Hope that was helpful. Okay, we're at an hour. You guys want to wrap it up or you guys want to hit something? All right, I think I'm going to close it out. I kind of want to. I feel like these calls, a lot of times we jump off and maybe don't leave. I don't. I don't want to assign homework. I'm not. I'm not your teacher. I'm not your boss. You know what I mean? I just. But I want to leave a challenge or an angle or final consideration, because sometimes in a long conversation like this now we're talking about cold calls. And how would we do that for a pond business? For those of you don't know, Jordan's a pond guy, right? Not. Not everyone in here's a pond person. So we apply those different things to different people. But I just. I think I want to leave it with the triage. You guys, as peers, you need to be more vulnerable. I saw it in the chat. You need to be vulnerable where you maybe feel like you got a bruise, and sometimes I can't see where you're beat up. And as contractors were very strong and ego, like, I don't I don't want to show like, I'm an eight personality. Like, I do not want to show you where I'm vulnerable. You know, you guys close to me, I show you my vulnerabilities because it's something I'm working on and getting better with. But in a community where, like, if you don't know your innate personality, you are not going to want to show where you're vulnerable. So, you know, when you're talking to your peers, you have to say, hey, I'm hurting here, I'm hurting there. And we need to be self aware enough to, like, look at this big picture, look at all five, you know, triage points and work with each other like that, Right? So when contractors say they need more leads and more marketing, that that fixes one problem, but it exposes us to another problem. You know, do we have the right scripts, do we have the right nomenclature and, and do we say the right things to our customers that. That get us to keep the conversation going or do we flunk right away? Right? So sometimes it's true, we just maybe need better scripts. But most of the time you need triage, you need to stabilize the operator and then the business follows behind that. Okay, that's contractor triage. And I hope you guys learned a lot from it today because I did have a good one.

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All right, thank you so much for your ears and attention. Listen, if you're a contractor out there and you're still trying to duct tape your business together alone, that's a choice. And I can say that with respect, it's cool with that. But every contractor hits a moment in their career where they're either gonna keep grinding in isolation or they're gonna get in a Room with people who are actually building something and working hard to become a better version of themselves. So if you're ready for that second option, that's the contractor triage. That's what it's for. So if you're not plugged into a room where people are having these conversations in real time, you need to come and join us. The weekly Compass calls happen every Friday morning live, peer to peer, no bullshit. You heard it today, right? And for the record, we have this. It's free. You can jump into the, the TWT Contractor circle that the list is in the show notes. You can hit the link and you can join that group and we stream it live in there every single Friday. If you want to go deeper, if you want to jump right into it and you're tired of, you know, wasting time and you want to collapse time and get faster, long, we do have a paid community that's the TWT Contractor power circle that as well as located in the show notes. So if that would be helpful, you can go to both of those and you can get involved in that weekly Friday call, right? Because on Fridays I go live in a zoom room with my power circle, with my members that are close to me. And then we're still live in the free group. So you can get the content live and in charge, like right there when it's happening. It's also in a Facebook group so you can jump on and talk to other peers that are in that group and you can do questions and it becomes a thread and it's something that we can build upon so we can, can all get better together. And if you want to go even deeper with the contractor conspiracy part that we talked about, I'm live every single Thursday at 4:00pm Pacific and I'm running that contract conspiracy webinar, like religiously, like we are getting after it, trying to help contractors break through. A lot of it's the mindset stuff and that's free as well. So if just, just a real look at what's happening to cold contractors back, that's what we talk about. And then how to take control of your business again, right? Some, some of you guys started your business and never gained control of it. Some of you had control for a while and you lost it. But this is how to get it back. So you do not have to stay stuck. You don't have to figure this out alone. Join the community, whichever one makes the most sense with you. Get in the room, let's stabilize the operator and let's build the business that you actually

[Jordan]

Sam. Ra.