Chris (0:01)

This is to the Point a Rhino experience, voted one of the top home services, marketing and operations podcasts. Cutting through the and getting to the Point. Merry Christmas. I know you thought that was Santa Claus, but it wasn't. It was me. It's your boy Chris, the host of to the Point Home Services podcast. And I know it's going to shock you, but on this episode, Chad yet again is not joining us. But to be fair, I didn't invite him, so. So he's got that going for him. It is Christmas Eve Eve, so hopefully you're on the nice list and you're not gonna get coal in your stocking here in the next couple of days. I'm always excited to do this episode. It's fun because I kind of get to reflect on the episodes throughout the year. But before I go into some of these clips, I just want to call out a couple different things. And that is, you know, one thing that I'm. That I'm grateful for this year is that, you know, we brought on Chad as our co host. And I just want to call this out real quick because I think it's worth calling out. I think it's kind of falls in line with how the, the seasons went so far or the. The episodes have went so far this year with Chad as a part of them. We introduced Chad as our co host in, in April. Chad's one of my good, good friends. So, like, this gives me great joy to go to, to share this next part with you. You know, he's a real believer in commitment and, you know, in honoring his commitments. So, you know, of the 26 total episodes that we've had since introducing Chad as our co host, he's made 12 of them. So he's actually only been on it for about 45% of the episodes that we've done since we've invited him to be a co host. So Chad, do better because I ain't that smart, but I know that's a failing grade. So let's not. Let's. You're ending the year with an F. Okay? We're gonna do better next year. That's his commitment. I'm sure of it. But I am grateful for when he does make it. Cause he had asked thoughtful questions. The part that really annoys me is, though I bust his chops, mercifully, I know that he really doesn't care. So there's no real impact. I don't get any benefit from it other than you, the listeners, getting to enjoy it with me. So in this episode, we're going to recap some of the episodes throughout the year. And we noticed a couple of themes that really showed throughout this year. And one being that, and I think a lot of you can experience this, whether you're having success or not, that the market has been incredibly tough this year. And again, I believe that that next year is going to look similar except for, and hopefully this podcast gave you some of these things as I think you have some new tools to be competitive and be successful in a tough market. So we will share some of those stories. We're also going to talk a little bit about, you know, there a lot of culture stuff came up this year, but we're also going to talk about AI and technology in the trades. There's quite a bit of conversation around that. And then also we're going to talk about this a little bit of the new era of digital marketing that we've talked about and just things that you can look out for going into next year or implement into your business for next year. And if you missed some of these episodes, well, then this is perfect because this is a recap of some of the standout episodes that we have around those three, four topics. So what I'll do is I'll jump into the very first one and I feel like this makes sense to just kick it off. And this was just a duo episode with Chad and myself and it was around finding your purpose because, you know, maybe that's what you're trying to do right now is just redefine what's the purpose of your business, what's the why behind your business. And sometimes you gotta have a really strong why or purpose to be able to make you do the things you have to do, even when you don't wanna do them, to keep forging on in the business and moving ahead and scaling. So this is clip number one with my man Chatty P. I don't, I don't want anybody listening to think it's it's bad, bad to become your business. I'm using air quotes to become your business. But you got to learn how to shut it off too. Like, and find some time to make sure you're present, be where your feet are. Yeah, absolutely. I mean it's, it's, and it's, I think what you said there is extremely important is it's not a bad thing. It's natural to want to throw yourself into whatever it is at 100%. It's just, I think again, resetting sometimes understanding what that purpose is and, and where you're needed where you can be impactful. You know, sometimes it's, it's easier to be impactful at work because people listen. My 5 and 2 year old don't listen all the time. And so that, that I struggle with that sometimes. But, but no, I, I think this is all great stuff to. Again, you know, as a business owner, there's a lot of things thrown at you. There's a lot of pressure that you either take on yourself or that is thrown upon you. And I think when we can get back down to why am I truly doing this? Like why am I truly doing this? Then for me at least, you know, just reflecting on that sometimes is time to kind of recalibrate and, and I think that that's easy to do. You know, I think also in this business and in this, and you talked about environment earlier. You know. Yeah, the business has been a lot tougher over the last eight, nine months than it has been, you know, over the last previous two, three years. And so you've got to adapt to that. And I think, you know, kind of understanding, you know, where your passions lie, what your true purpose is, is, is a natural thing to do. And I think it's totally okay. There's nothing to be ashamed of. If you lose sight of it or you get off track, I, I get off track, guess what? I'm destined to get off track here very soon. And then you just gotta pull yourself back. I mean, it's just part of it. Thanks, Chad. Okay, so I'm gonna roll right into the next one. The next one is an episode I did with my boys, the LSD crew. And this one was around the, the conversation on budgeting, like how to budget, how these guys budget. I mean these are guys, these are all successful business owners. And so it was interesting to hear their different perspectives and debates back and forth on, on what these guys do to set, to set budget and how you can also adjust your, your budget. You know, once you've got one set and you go into the next year, maybe the plans aren't going the way that you thought you need to make adjustments. Well, that's okay. And actually it's, it might be more normal than you think. So this is the episode where we talked about that and, and I really love how my, my good friend Aaron Gaynor kicks this thing off with his brilliant step one. What's the most important first step for these companies when preparing next year's budget? Like, what's the number one thing you gotta do in preparation for budgeting? Go number one. Thing, schedule a day with your team. At least a day. At least. We have, we have like five or six days with the main people. So I book it out, put it on the schedule. I guess I know we're about to. You want to probably go like what, what KPI to start with and build your budget up. But I think it's like build a budget, build a plan and build an agenda and be very clear about what that is day by day to facilitate this conversation with your team. And you do have people do it a little bit different in different settings. But you know, sometimes we, we come a little bit with some preset numbers and budget for them. So we, we do some Pre work with GMs and Mike and I do some pre work stuff and then we bring it to the team and try to get them engaged. But I think the first thing is like how many days do you need? Do you have the right information doing the work, not just getting people and saying here's a budget. So setting the day, setting multiple days and giving your team enough time to collaborate on the budget and the ideas. Right. And it's not just all numbers, but you know, I'll say that first thing is get it on the calendar, own it, have a clear agenda, get the right people in the room. Right. Start there. I think that one of the things that popped into my head with that, Chris too, is the first thing you need to do well before you create a new budget. I think you got to look at last year's budget and see if you hit it and how you did with that budget. And then if you didn't hit it or whether you did or didn't reflect on like what went well and what needs addressing because like what I'm going to do, and we're just talking about this actually in the nuve call is, you know, one of the biggest and most powerful things I learned from budgeting is that it made bonusing my management team really easy because all of a sudden they knew, you know, they had the roadmap to their, to their bonus. And so if they didn't hit their bonuses last year, well, we gotta figure out why and how we can change that this year. And so I think I'm gonna review, you know, even before I get in my, in a meeting with a management team and start building a new budget, reflect on how we did last year and bring some, some solutions to the table or some, some improvements to the table. In either case, I think GAAP, Accounting Data accuracy, KPI accuracy, Accrual accounting Audited financials all play into this. When I, we lead sometimes. Tom Howard is there, Alan Rohr, when we lead these, these audited financials and this whole idea of a budget, most people don't use it. It should be your North Star. It should be everything, your whole bonus structure. It should be everything that guides the business, minus greenfield, minus acquisitions. Greenfield, you add in later because you know you're going to be dumping a lot more money and you cannot plan for certain an acquisition. So I think most of the people I know that budget, unlike the people on this call, they live, die and breathe it. This is like, we've got to hit this budget. And by the way, I stay uninvolved. It's not my job. Because you guys know me and I know you. We're hunters and we're going to go, this is, there's no way we could double this. We could increase our booking rate, increase our conversion rate. We got the trainers, we'll recruit better. And so if it's my idea, unfortunately, I don't think we've ever hit the Tommy budget. Never. So we have a budget we can hit and then we have helped push them to beat the budget that was set because of the big ideas and pushing people out. Right. I think, I do think, Tommy, to your point, there is a. Budgeting is the opportunity to create vision, right? And without vision, the people perish in your business, right? They just do. So if you don't have vision, people perish. And vision also creates hope in the organization, meaningful hope. That seems achievable too, right? These budgets. Probably your point there. Sometimes we all come in, we want to set high stuff. We've all done it. I do it. I just did it again, just in this budget cycle, right? I'm like, I do this, we could do that. What are you talking about? But I think the idea is like your budgeting is more if you really go into the budgeting, not just all about numbers and all these things, and you really think about it from a vision setting standpoint, collaborating that, creating buy in from the organization and the people that your budget is the foundation of starting to build some of that outside of like your core values and, you know, why you're in business and the meaningful things. But this does give people a purpose and a vision to get up and go, try to achieve something, right? And, and they, they get a line, they get bought in and they get excited about it. So I think budgeting is very much a very important part of vision that you have to go into it that way not just being like hey here's all these KPIs is combined just bombard people with numbers which they need to understand. But the only thing I disagree is that you know the cortech our partner agreed with me is what do we know for certain? We know we need to book the phone calls so we drive it by cost per lead and we've got that number. We've got attribution, we've got a blended cost per cpl. Next thing we know is our booking, right. Next thing we know is our conversion rate. Next thing we know is our average ticket. That alone. That alone. Of course you got cancellations and a lot of other numbers but if you leave it simple, that alone you can figure out a very, very foundational budget. You know what each department needs to do now. There's of course different add backs and all kinds of other that you could bring into it. How much cost savings can you renegotiate your pricing? One of the biggest things we took away. What's the easiest way to affect budget? What's the one thing that you could affect budget the quickest that, that we talked a lot about with our partner. What's the very simple thing you can do? Raise prices, right? Yeah, of course. But that's not always the best thing to do. Well, we know for a fact that if the, if, if the marketplace won't handle it that we know if nothing else changes and we can keep those KPIs the same of course and they're little subtle increases that we always get from our vendors. We can, we can do that. And what we did is we looked at the average cost per, I mean LSA is up 40% this year. So what we did is we talked to Goldman, we talked to Morgan Stanley, we talked to a lot of people about economic outlook. Are people going to be working on homes? What's the home starts looking like next year? On all accounts, Goldman Sachs went down from a 27% chance of recession to 13%. Obviously there's a lot of things that go into it politics. We don't really say is Trump or Kamala going to get in but if it's a good economic outlook and everybody that I've talked to says there's going to be a lot of deals happen, a lot of money going to be invested in service industry. We're a little bit bullish I will say but we'll because, because it's everybody's, it's everybody's bonuses. I want a number that they could hit by the way. If we don't hit our budget, our partner's got to go talk to their LPs. The next possible investor that comes in says, you guys are known for not hitting your budget. That's the last thing you want to do. You want to set a goal. You know, you could certainly hit in. You could have a BHAG budget, but your main budget you turn into the auditors should be one that you could predictively hit for sure. Thanks, Tommy, for bringing it home. Listen, like, you gotta go back and listen to that episode if you've done anything with budgeting. But I love the way that Tommy closed out that particular clip, but he had a lot of really great nuggets in that episode. So this next one is with my boy Ishmael. And it was around the conversation of, you know, when you're in a tough market, something else that you can focus on is just making sure that the existing customers, existing memberships, the maintenance agreements, customers that you have stick and that you maximize the opportunity with those existing customers. So if it's a hard, if it's, if it's costing a lot or you're having a hard time bringing in new customers, let's focus on the things you can control. So not only customer satisfaction, but just making sure that, you know, you have some opportunity in house to do some harvesting too. So check out this episode. My man Ishmael around how to make your customers more sticky. Icky. Sorry for the interruption to the point listeners. Have you heard of rilla? Are you using Rilla yet? If not, are you Farilla? Shoot, I did there. Rilla is the leading speech analytics software for the trades. It is on a mission to bring physical ride alongs to an end. You can coach your reps with virtual ride alongs now that are a hundred times better, faster, and much more efficient than the physical ones. All you got to do is use the Killa Rilla. That's R I L L A the. You know, you said a couple of things. One, yeah, you got to make sure that your organization is on point, your leadership's on point, your marketing's on point. Like, all the things are in place. And then, you know, some of the podcasts I've been doing is around. Are you adding anything different to your. To your service line? Are you just trying to like, focus on blocking and tackling? Are you like, what are you doing differently or what are you doing to make your customers more sticky? Your. Your memberships stickier, right? Like there's things. And this is where the, the new day Conversation, I think is an easy segue because it certainly helps with that. It's dude. And I'm not trying to say because I came up with the product or you know, because I've been working on it for two years. Nuve is going to be hands down the highest retention for memberships, retention for client a period that, that, this, that, that our sector in the H Vac industry will ever see. Like it literally mimics the alarm model. Like when you go buy get an alarm, what happens? You got to redo the whole software for them, you got to buy new panels, new sensors. And their sensors only communicate with their panels which is their screen on the wall, right? Like you have to go with them, right? Same thing with the idea behind the thermostat is making sure that people know who serviced it, who installed it. The first place that people go for their air conditioning when it's not working or when they need something. Guess what? It's a thermostat. You know how many thermostats have been installed this year or last year, whatever. In a 12 month cycle, millions and millions of thermostats are installed and all they say is Honeywell, Nest, Echobe, whatever on it. But nobody knows who installed it, nobody knows who serviced it. They go back on Google, right? So you're repaying for that marketing, right? Like you understand what I'm about to tell you? Ready? I go to a customer's house and I replace their induced draft life motor or their sensor igniter, whatever. And five months later something goes wrong, they're gonna go back on Google and Google Next gen click on an ad that, that I'm, that I'm paying for to be able to contact me back. Like bro, you're paying again for that leave that's already, that's already been purchased. Now imagine if you could go to the thermostat, you touch the button and it dispatches a technician or something goes wrong. The names right then and there, right? Like or on their app. Now they don't have to Google you. Now your marketing dollars are not going to be spent on your same clients. They could go on their app, dispatch a tech from their app on the app. It's all, it's all color coded and Lego in their logos everywhere of next gen, Morris Jenkins, whatever company you're Bob's heating in there, it's on your app and it's on the wall. The marketing impact that it's going to have is going to be insane. And the cool part, nobody can work on that unit. But you, because you're going to get an alert of saying, hey, somebody's trying to get into your unit. Can you imagine knowing, you know, how many, how many systems we've installed at NexGen? 40,50,000 Thermo. I mean, systems. You don't, you don't think I know that? There's other people working on those systems that, you know, they might have called somebody else because we couldn't get out there fast enough, or they might have called somebody else because, you know, we pissed them off or whatever it is, but I don't know that because they already called somebody else. Now you're going to be able to know and be able to save that client. Hey, we notice you're trying to get into your settings menu. Is there anything we could help you with? Like that's mind boggling to me, how we installed millions and millions of thermostats and nobody knows who fucking installed them. Like, nobody ever thought about connecting the CRM back to the thermostat. Like, that's dope, right? This next clip was with our at Rhino X 2024. And by the way, congratulations to those guys. It's just a couple weeks ago they rolled out the ipo. I saw them on the NASDAQ ringing the bell with their parents. How cool is that that Ara and Bahe had their parents ring the opening bell for Service Titan to be on the ipo. Ttan. That was really cool. But Ara came in and we were talking about just how AI will impact contractors, not only from his perspective, but also from what he hears from his massive customer base at Service Titan. So I thought it was a great, he put on a great display of proving the value of why AI is an absolute must as a contractor to embrace. One thing that you and I were talking about was how important it is for the contractors to actually embrace using AI. And if you don't know, like asking, you know, getting with the right people to help you really understand what it is and how to use it. But do you feel like that you have to use AI to stay a leader or to be a leader or to be progressive and win in the market, in the industry, you have to have AI integrated at some level. This is, I think, the most important question. So if we think back to the good old days, like just two, three years ago, you know, everybody was growing, revenue was increasing. Even if you had. And this is not just in the trades, this isn't across businesses in every industry. Even if you had sloppy execution, you were still growing, right? And there's the saying in sales, sales solves all problems, or revenue growth solves all problems. When you see revenue growth growing, you're willing to not inspect as deeply. You're willing to overlook problems in the business because you're still enjoying growth. And ultimately what we care about is the increase in profits, right? But when revenue is growing, as long as your EBITDA percentage doesn't change, your profitability will continue to grow. And then what we saw in the past couple of years is that the macroeconomic conditions changed as a result of inflation, as a result of interest rates, et cetera, et cetera. And now it's just simply a much tougher climate. And a tougher climate, you know, revenue growth gets impacted. And in order to continue growing revenue, like all the processes you had, your marketing process to generate leads, your call booking process to convert those leads into book deployments, your process in the field for close rates, for average tickets, for those to produce greater results, like, your processes have to be perfect. They got to be dialed in. In the past, where we were over, over overwhelmed by search volume and lead volume, your marketing could be inefficient and you'd still get a lot of leads. Your conversion rate on your website could be suboptimal, you'd still get a bunch of leads, your call booking rate may have been suboptimal, you'd still get a lot of business, and so on and so forth. Now, with search volume down, with lead volume down, like your conversion rate optimization has to be dialed in, your call booking rate has to be perfect. You're your selling process in the field has to be perfect to continue to grow revenue. And I believe that the only way to get to a perfect process is if you automate it. If you figure out the right recipe for success and you automate it, you are guaranteed that it will be applied perfectly on every single customer, every single job, every single sale. When it has to be done manually is when it is open to variability. And it depends on the person's mood and if they're busy with something else, and so on and so forth. So to maintain revenue growth, I think it's important to automate. And then the second benefit, of course, is if you automate anything, it's typically achieved faster and more cheaply. And so not only does your revenue grow, but your profit margins increase. And so you win on both sides. Revenue growth, profit margin increase. That's when you really get a lot more profitability in the business. So that would be probably one of the most important pieces of it. Right. Profit margin growth. What are some other examples of how the AI will benefit the contractors? Or what are some real life examples that they could use to benefit them? So let's take every function in the business from scheduling, dispatching, managing inventory, payroll, selling in the field, customer service, etc. Every single function will be impacted by AI for the better. Okay, thanks, Ara, and congrats again to those guys for taking Service Titan public just like they said they were going to do. It's pretty cool. This next clip is with one of the OGs of the trade, one of the Legends. Been to many Rhino X, been on the podcast a couple of times now, and that's Mr. Ken Haynes, who's the CEO of Wrench Group, which is arguably a group of some of the baddest contractors. And they got so many leaders in that CEO or in the Wrench Group family. And Ken being the CEO of all of them, I love having him on. I always love listening to his perspective. And while Ara was giving his perspective in that previous clip, from the software side of it, from his point of view, Ken shares it from his role, you know, as a contractor and a leader of many large contractors in the area or and also an early adopter of AI. So this clip is Ken talking about the role of AI for contractors. One thing that you have to do in your position that might be a diff was a different view than maybe some listening right now just based on where you're at in the mountain and the climb and the, you know, and where your businesses are at. Like, you know, when, when. One of the common questions when we would do Q and A on the Legends panel that they would ask you guys is, hey man, like, you know, what, would you, would you have sold your businesses sooner if you knew now what you knew then everybody's answer was yes. But you don't like, because you, you then learn another level of how you can grow and scale something that you didn't know before or maybe just didn't have the right leadership or know how to scale a business. Perfect example. I didn't know until I started hanging around with you guys a lot more and like the different groups. So I'm like, wait, I can scale this thing even bigger with help. Like, wow. By bringing on a partner. Great. Like, because I. But I didn't know what I didn't know. So. But you know, part of what you have to do as leaders is be thinking ahead. Like, not just a couple steps ahead, but like down the road, like, what's coming. So are there Any trends or anything that you guys are focused on or paying close attention to in the market, in the home services market, anything that you guys are paying attention to that's kind of forward thinking or just trying to keep an eye on that you'd be willing to share. I mean, I think, you know, from a, from just from an operation standpoint, just running the business and trends around, I mean, I think, you know, there's a lot coming down the pike. I mean I think we focus a lot around customer experience. How do we figure out how to provide a best, better customer experience? And a lot around marketing technology. I think there's opportunities. You know, this industry has always been slow to change and adopt technology. Right. I think service titans has helped a lot with, with what they offer today, but it's just been, it's been slow. You know, AI, there's things that, that are coming that I think will help our businesses provide a better customer experience as well as provide operators, you know, more insights to the business. And that's something that we've been working on around a digital transformation for years. Feels like it never, we never get there. Right. But, but it's just a lot, it's a lot too and it's painful. But so I think, you know, AI is going to be interesting as to how far along AI comes and impacts our space. I, I think there's definitely some opportunities around AI not only to, to impact and affect the customer experience and help us, you know, provide a better experience with leads to more sales and, and maybe sticky relationship, but also, you know, back office admin. You know, what can we, what, you know, what, what roles can we automate? Right? How do we, how do we get a little, a little skinnier, if you will, in terms of admin? Right. You know, today there's a lot of manual administration done in our businesses and so, and in this, in the space in general. So how do we, how do we automate, digitize more and automate things And I think AI will definitely play a role in some and training as well. You've got, you've got real on your screen, right? And so, you know, it's, you know, I think that's all. I think we're still a ways away for it really is, is indoctrinated but it, but it's coming. Thanks for that, Kenny. And we will see him again at Rhino X 2025. The next clip is. Oh man, this is one of my favorite episodes because I actually get to talk about digital marketing, which is what I do. So it's a lot of fun to be able to talk about it every once in a while on the podcast, even. And it's even more fun when I get to talk about it with great friends who. Who share the same passion for me of trying to get to the market early. And so this One is Heather McLeod, who was originally the CMO of Authority Brands and then transitioned into. Into the Chief Growth Officer. But I mean, we're talking like 17 massive brands, one hour, Ben Franklin, Mr. Sparky, a bunch of other brands where she has to be the one responsible for leading the marketing efforts for all the franchisees, all brands. That's a big, heavy task to, to take on. And. And her and I have known each other for almost a decade, and we get to have a lot of these offline conversations just around, hey, what's coming? What are you doing? What are you playing with? What should we be paying attention to? So it worked out well because I wanted to talk about what I believed was the new era of digital marketing, which is a lot of what we talked about on this episode with her and from her perspective. So enjoy this episode with my girl, Heather McLeod. I have a. I have a question I was going to ask a little bit later, but it kind of works now. A couple of things, yes, we bonded over the phone calls. I think the respect of being in charge of marketing. For me, being in charge of marketing, but also in charge of sales. And at Rhino pre acquisition, you pay attention to both those things, right? Like my marketing efforts, only as good as the sales process and the bookings and those things. And they're only as good as the opportunity that we're bringing into them. So there is that balance. And when you get put in a CMO role, which is the role I am in now, I'm grateful I know that whole process so I can, like, find out who's bullshitting me and who's not to make sure my marketing effort is or is not good, you know, based on like, yes, these are coming in. You're not booking them. Is it really a me problem or is it. Is it a booking problem or is it a sales problem? You know, so at least we can identify those things. I think that's being a really good. That's probably really why what the cheap growth officer role really is is, you know, managing that whole process in addition to finding opportunity and ways to, you know, to. To do new things for the different brands. But. But I want to ask this question, actually. This is going to be. This is going to be a two Parter. Okay. I wrote it and I wrote it down so I didn't look at you. Literally gonna read it right off of my paper. So I don't forget it. But I believe, like, I'm completely convicted that there's a new era of digital marketing that's happening right now. Like, a whole new era of it. I've been through like a couple, you know, in my, what, 17 years of working, doing digital marketing for the trades. Like, I've seen a few swings and like, and watched how things have progressed or changed. But would you agree that, like, right now there's a new, like, let's start there. Do you think that what I just said is true? There is a new era of digital marketing right now? I think that more than I've ever seen in 15 years. There used to just be an advantage to spending on digital, right? Like, there were plenty of people who weren't for a very long time. Now, between demand, cycle issues, cost issues, all of that, it is much more challenging, it's much more expensive, and you have more people at the table with a fork trying to eat. So it's definitely a different dynamic than I've seen in the past. Got it. So. And it's more competitive. There's more like you got to pay attention to, you know, things like Google changes. You know, the Google changes, you know, have been happening and it's like. Which is not really. It's the part of the normal process of being in digital marketing. It's just different. It's different right now. And so the second piece of this is where what I've been chasing. So if you disagree, then we are disconnected. But I don't think you're gonna disagree with this one. I love the setup. Right? Like, I don't think you're gonna get. But if you do. Okay. I think I know you well enough to know your answer to this because we are kind of in the same boat. I'm just the out in case you want the out. But would you also agree or disagree that the traditional marketing company can no longer just offer lead generation? Like, you can't just stop with lead generation if you want to be an elite agency. Dang. Yes. I mean, you, you can, but I don't think you're going to be at the top of the pack. Right. So I, I think more than ever, you have awareness from contractors, small business owners, large business owners, right, who are spending on marketing, who have started to realize. Right. And you've always had people who get this, but more, more than ever, right? That leads are an inflatable number that doesn't necessarily directly correlate to revenue. And unless you're paying attention to revenue, I don't think you're an elite agency, period. I don't think you're an elite marketer. And I would say that for my giant team, too, right? Like our job is to do the things that drive revenue. If that means leads go up or down, that's just a diagno. That's a diagnostic tool, right? That's to help me figure out and help the team figure out what we're doing that's working and not working. All those KPIs in between are just a way to understand what's happening. If, you know the most simplistic example, right, is if you start spending somewhere, does the pie get bigger or does it stay the same and the slices look different? I don't really care if, you know, that's the thing. That's always the biggest frustration point for me is the attribution fight. Like, oh, you're spending on digital and you're spending on, you know, this other channel, you know, direct mail or whatever it might be. And the, the pie stayed the same, but now you've got somebody taking a bigger claim to a bigger slice. Like, that's useless to me. Like, the pie needs to get bigger, right? Like, that's the most basic kind of thing to be looking at. So I would say if you're not tying directly to revenue, if you can't prove your driving revenue, you're never going to be elite. Thanks, Heather. I agree. You gotta tie every marketing channel back to revenue so that way you can see, did you sell something? Did you not sell something? If you did, how much? If you proposed it, how much did you propose it for? That hasn't closed yet. And really what this all boils down to is accountability, not only on your end as the contractor, but on your marketing company's end as your marketing partner. So listen, you have too many, too many tools now to not be able to automatically tie that stuff back for you. So you got no excuse. So hopefully, maybe going into next year, you find a marketing partner that's able to track everything for you back to every single lead source. So you can without question know exactly if you're making the right decision or the wrong decision. Next episode is with another one of the podcast OGS, and that is with Mr. Ken Goodrich, but also in tandem with Landon Brewer. And this thing, the whole episode was around goal systems and, and, and interesting enough, it was talking about How Ken would position the company, no matter even if it was, you know, they're having a hard time making payroll, he was always making sure that the, the employees had what they needed. They had, you know, they, they had all the right tools that they felt, you know, really special. Like he really paid close attention. No matter how maybe financially strapped that they were, that the company was, that his employees didn't go without really encouraging them. There's a, there's a, a term that I've heard throughout the years is you, you look good, you feel good, you perform good. And KG kind of drives it home in this clip. You know, back in like 1990, I was struggling, had a little business, I don't know, maybe eight, ten guys and you know, fundamentally bankrupt. You know, just hand to mouth like, like some, like now you are sometimes at that size, we're hand them out. And at that point I realized, look, in that game, when you're playing that game, cash flow is number one, right? You. I don't have any, I don't have any cash reserves. I don't have a line of credit. I have to bring in cash every single day to take care of my, some of my past obligations and my current obligations and keep the machine going until I figure it out. And so I created this thing called the goal system. And I brought the team together and I said, and we were all younger, you know, young at that time. You know, I was in my early 30s and everybody else was usually younger than me. And I said, look, I said we're going to create this goal system. We're going to track these things every single day. And really what our goal here is to keep the business growing and thriving. I need to have this much cash come in and, and at that time, I think we're doing some commercial work. The had to build people and all that. So it was really important that we got to the business that brought in the cash flow. And so I said, if we hit this number, I'm going to, I'm going to take everybody out. We're going to go to a first class, first class dinner, smoke some cigars, do whatever, have some drinks and really celebrate our wins. And everyone's going to wear a suit. You got to wear a suit to this. So the first month we hit it, we go out to like Morton's or something like that, get a private room, everyone's in a suit, you know, our cheap suits. And you know, I wanted them to experience what great customer service was about, right? So you go to these high end Restaurants, most of those guys had never been any place like that. So just to see what first class service is like. And as they were doing it, I would try to talk to the guys about like, so look, see how they do this and, and see how you feel and, and how can we incorporate some of this stuff in our business? And then during the course of the meal, I would make sure, I would pick out, I'd start talking about one guy and I'd say, you know, you know, you know, what Chris did for us this year, for this month, you know, he really defined, you know, what the service agreement conversion should be. You know, he hit 42%, you know, 42% of every client he went to, bought a club membership. And, you know, he's really a champion for the brand. And watch what he does. And I'd pat him on the back, right? And I'd go around the room to each guy and give him some sort of personal touch like that. So. And everybody loved that. They loved that, getting together with that, that group and yucking it up. But really, I think what they came away with is that personal touch really meant something to them. So the next month we hit it. The next month we hit it. The next month we hit it. We hit it. 39 months in a row that I had to take these guys, and this is, we're spending five grand back in the 90s for dinner. And on the 39th time, they're like our wives and girlfriends like this anymore. Could we do something different? Right? Because we kept on doing, we kept on winning because of that formula. And, you know, even though we were technically bankrupt, meaning my, my liabilities are greater than my assets, I was keeping the cash flow run to keep the machine up and going to see if I could make up the difference. I promoted us as the best of the best. I got them the new cool uniforms and I said, we are the best in this industry. We're the most technically competent, we're the best service providers. We know the business better than anybody else. We provide solutions. Nobody else provides all this stuff. I took these guys and made them believe that they were the best of the best and that the prices that we were charging are appropriate because we're the best and the best and that we get rewarded because we're the best of the best. They have a future here. I can see all of you in these positions in the future. I really promoted this thing and we put ourselves as the top company and sold that business for six times what my goal was through that process, right So I don't know where I was going with this, but. But that's how we established the culture and we did that all while I was like sweating payroll every day. This next clip is with Scott, man, a badass Green Beret man. We did a dual episode with him and if you missed it, you got to go back and listen to it. It's all around turning struggles. Have you had any of those this year? Have you had any of these in the past years? Do you think you might hit some this year? Turning struggles into powerful leadership. Two critical pieces to running a successful business or scaling a business is, you know, you're going to go through struggles. How do you handle them, how do you learn from them and then implement the things I'm gonna share one quick story before we jump into this. So we. I just went through my son's very first wrestling match a couple weeks ago. And you talk about you have to learn from your struggle. Like I told him, you've been practicing for three weeks, man, like the odds of you winning. I didn't tell him this beforehand, told him this afterwards, but the odds of winning weren't good, like, because he just hasn't have the skill. He has all the will and he's scrappy, but he didn't have the skill. And skill matters. So he goes and wrestles. This first match, he makes it to the third period, he actually gets the kid on his back at one point. Kid's clearly a skilled wrestler. Came the kid, the opponent he wrestled. But you could just tell by the way that, that my son was walking over to the scorers table to check in and then how he, he got to the mat and, and how he lined up like he appeared confident. The other kid was clearly confident. And as soon as the whistle blew, you could tell that there was immediate skill difference just in, you know, in some of the body language of the both of them. Now it was a good match for my son having a whole lot of skill. Other kid wins, pins him in the third period. So my son walks off the mat. I'm paying close attention to see his body language and how he walks off the mat and what he does next to see if he's defeated, you know, if he's pissed, that's okay. But how's he handling this defeat? Because that moment and the next match can be defining for him. So I'm paying close attention to how he acts. But afterwards I tell him, son, the odds of you winning that match were really, really low. But there's also the percentage of People that are willing to go and do that is also really, really low. So you should be proud of yourself for going out there and competing and not giving up and being, even when you're in tough positions, you know, he's, he, you know, he still got after it, but in that moment he's got a struggle with, man, do I, like, maybe this isn't my sport, you know, maybe I'm not good enough at this thing. Like, I don't know if he was thinking those things or not, but at least he came and asked me about it. So we reviewed his video and we walked through where he could have got better. That is how you step up and perform again. Because the struggles, the losses are part of the journey. They're going to happen. You're going to have them in your business. You've already had them. So you talk about a guy like Scott Mann, who was a Green Beret, who did multiple tours in the worst, in the worst war zones, trying to create relationships with people who, you know, have a language barrier and a cultural barrier. And how he applies that to his business. Trainings that he's done with many great successful business leaders here in the States was a pretty cool episode. And I've, and Chad and I got to spend some time with him in Cabo at a smart AC event that we attended. And I just, we really liked his story. So enjoy this clip with Scott where again, he's talking about, man, how can you turn some of these struggles or some of these pain points into powerful leadership and powerful leadership lessons in home services Speed to lead is everything. Church stands out. By transforming your communication services strategy with Chirp, accelerate your lead response time with instant sms, text messaging, email and ringless voicemail automation. Chirp's cutting edge technology ensures you're the first and the most persistent, helping you close more deals than ever. But that's not all. Say goodbye to missed opportunities with Chirp's incredible follow up system. Keep your leads engaged and moving smoothly through your sales funnel without lifting a finger. And with your deep integrations with top CRMs like Service Titan, Housecall Pro and Jobber, you can launch laser targeted campaigns to connect with the exact right leads at the exact right time. Automation creates efficiency. Efficiency unlocks scalability. With Chirp, you can automate speed to lead, estimate follow ups, rehash abandoned call follow ups, cancel job follow ups, review requests outbounding to your list, annual reminders, membership expiration follow ups and so much more. So stop chasing leads, capture them, connect faster and close more deals with Chirp, contact chirp today, and elevate your communication game. I think Sebastian Younger, in his book Tribe said it best. He said veterans, when they come home, are more than willing to die for their country, but they have no idea how they're supposed to live for it, because it's hard to know how to live for a country that's tearing itself apart along every imaginable line from race to socioeconomics to religion. And that's what all of that was like. Oh, my God, I've given up my entire life and lost all these friends, 23 friends in combat, and the churn is as bad here or worse than it was in Afghanistan, you know, and that, for me, just put me in a spiral, man. And within 18 months of retirement. And I did not talk about this in Cabo. It's not like my favorite thing to talk about, but I was standing in a closet holding a pistol, you know, and. And I was a. I was a wreck. I was a complete wreck. I had lost everything that I thought I knew about the world. And. And, you know, I hadn't. Hadn't shaved in days. I'd showered. And. And my kids. If I walked in a room, my boys would. Would walk out of the other room. They would walk out of the room because they didn't know what version of dad they were going to get, you know? And. And. And so when I walked into that closet that day, had my son not come home from school when he did it, we wouldn't be having this conversation. And. And. And so I would love to sit here and tell you that I had it all together and I transitioned perfectly. It was a. It was a crap show. It was in that moment when I heard my son come home that I. I cleared my weapon, put it up, didn't tell anybody for years that that had happened. And. And it was that grace of God that I came across a civilian mentor named Bo, who was a former NFL football player voted the dirtiest free safety in the NFL. They said when this guy hit you, he'd hit you so hard you smell smoke. And he had become an actor and a storyteller. He saved me. He. Him and my wife saved my life. They saved my life. My wife picked me up off the floor more times than I can count and kept me going. And Bo kept telling me that I had a story to tell and that there was a way to take all this churn at home and be relevant within it the same way I had over there. And somehow, some way. And you mentioned kind of that Body of work in the beginning. I mean, that was just my attempt to stay one step in front of the guilt and the pts, man, and just to try to find a way to be relevant. And so if I were to bring that back to the people, listening to this is, you know, taking care of people all the time is hard. And I know a lot of your people listening and watching this, that's what they do. They're always taking care of people. And, you know, there's a cost to that, man. There's a transaction to that, and people don't see it. They don't understand, you know, but. But when you're doing that all the time, it can get dark and it can get hard and it can get really, really troublesome. And I've been down that road, you know, I've been down that road, and I came about as close as you can get to, you know, ending my life. And if I could say anything to your question, because I know there's all kinds of ways to take that, but that's where that came from for me. So when I talk about human connection and storytelling and, you know, yes, I learned it in the, in the, in the, in the badlands of Afghanistan, but it saved my life here, and it gave me a new direction and a new purpose, could bridge across gaps when it really matters. And it. And it saved my life, man. And so I am convinced that in the darkest of places and in the roughest ground, it's where our greatest opportunities lie. Well, I. Look, I had. Yeah, and I had lost nine friends to suicide at that point. And these weren't, you know, these weren't slackers. These were high performing. These were Delta seals, you know, guys that had played at the highest level that took their lives. And my point there is that when we. When you're a high performer and you play at a higher level, there's a cost, there is a transaction that must be paid. And it manifests in different ways. Right? It manifests in different ways. But you asked how I dealt with that and seeing friends die and not well in the beginning. You know why? Because I tried to carry it all, tried to push it down so I could stay in the game. And it ultimately reared its head in a way that was completely inappropriate for my life, and it nearly killed me. And so I am a huge advocate of talking about this stuff. And I did. My last TED talk was about this. It's called the Generosity of Scars. And the play, the play was actually born from this mental health challenge and my desire to Repurpose that struggle of pts and survivor's guilt into a story that would help civilians understand the cost of war and veterans know that it mattered. Right. And my point here is that doesn't matter what your journey is, what your industry is, the stuff that scuffs us up, the stuff that knocks us down, the stuff that is the hardest stuff in our life is actually the greatest attribute and asset for leadership that we have in our kit bag. And if we can learn how to harness it into narratives and stories, there's no ceiling for what we can do. Yeah, we thought it was worth sharing a couple of those clips from Scott. Lost nine friends to suicide like seals. Super strong, mentally tough guys. And so I want to take this opportunity just real quick to give a shout out. You know, it was. It seemed a little bit, you know, dark. I thought it was important to just talk about those. Some of those clips were very powerful. But. But suicide's a real thing. There's a suicide hotline. You just got down 988. If you ever have any issues or if you know someone's having issues, please reach out to them. Like, I've been through this a couple different times with people very close to me, so it's something I'm super passionate about. And if that person needs to be me, you want to reach out to, like, no judgment. I've listened to everybody's so many different people's issues and I'm a vulnerable. But I certainly will be here for you if you, if you want to reach out to me and talk to me about it. I feel like I'm a pretty good listener. But if nothing else, you know, the suicide hotline is 988 and there's all kinds of opportunities for you or for someone to go get help that you can share with them. Please don't be afraid to step up and help someone if you know or think that maybe they're having problems. But hopefully you enjoyed that episode with Scott. Man, I can. I can't say enough. Go back and listen to that two part episode with him. It was really, really good. And you can even reach out to him directly. Directly for any particular leadership trainings and stuff like that. It's a different perspective that I think can really be helpful for some businesses. Okay, this is the last clip and we saved the best for last because this was one of those moments this year that I was so like, these are the moments when I kind of have to pinch myself and think like, wow, I'm really glad that I've always Persevered and pushed myself to do the things I wanted to do and found ways to get it done. Something like creating a Rhino X. And to have our fourth Rhino X earlier this year. And to have Coach Saban, Coach Nick Saban, previously the coach of Alabama at Rhino X, was awesome, because I've watched some of his clips. You know, you watch him as a coach, and the guy doesn't lose. Like, this is arguably the best, most successful football coach of all time. And bringing him in to talk about how he coaches and how he leads teams and just, I mean, it's. It's applicable to everyone. It's in some capacity in your business. But he talked about, you know, the process and what the process means to him. For those who aren't watching and just listening, I'll use air quotes. The process. So I'll follow up after this, after this clip with a few extra thoughts to close this thing out. But listen to the best coach of all time in this clip, Coach Nick Saban. So, coach, anytime, anytime, you know, anybody says the words Coach Saban, it is impossible not to hear the words process right after the process, right? And your athletes, they talk about the process. And even athletes who didn't coach with you, they talk about the process, and they do it very emotionally and angry. And your wife, Ms. Terry, talks about the process. And you yourself took your process from the football field and brought it into one of the most successful car dealerships in the country that you're running today. So, Coach, tell us about this legendary process. What is the process? Yeah, well, the process is a definition of what you have to do to be successful and accomplish the goals that you have. It's as simple as that. You know, I think you all probably have a vision, just like we had a vision of what we wanted to accomplish and what we wanted to do to win a championship in football. And now you got to say, okay, let's define what that entails. What does that entail? Just like every player on our team, when I meet with a player on our team, I ask them, what do you want to accomplish while you're here at the University of Alabama? What's your goals? What's your aspirations? What do you want to accomplish? Guy says, I want to graduate and I want to play in the NFL someday. My next question is, do you know what that entails? And most guys can't answer that. So the process is simply the answer to that question. Here is what you have to do to graduate from college or accomplish any vision that you have. Here's what you have to do to play in the NFL now. But once you establish this, you have to have the discipline to execute it every day. And I think this is what people probably struggle with the most, is, you know, people talk about discipline all the time. What does discipline do? What you're supposed to do, when you're supposed to do it the way it's supposed to get done. Do the right thing, the right way, the right time, all the time. Great definitions of discipline. But self discipline, I'm talking about self discipline. Comes down to two questions that you ask yourself. We all ask ourselves 100 times a day. Here's something I know I'm supposed to do that I really don't want to do. Can you make yourself do it? Then over here, there's something you know you're not supposed to do, but you want to do it. Can you keep yourself from it? So if you can have that self discipline, once we define what it takes, what does it take to accomplish these goals? This vision that we have now we have the discipline to execute it every day. It's simple. You know, let's just say I wanted to lose ten pounds. That's my goal, that's my vision. Slim fast defines the process of what I can do to do that. So how am I going to fail in three days? I'm eating pie and ice cream again. So. But I made a choice and decision to do that. So how many times do you here, people in your organization, people on your team, or even you, yourself or your kids, your children, say, I don't feel like studying, I don't feel like going to work today. So we're trying to accomplish the bridge between feeling versus choice. Okay? We have this vision, all right? You're going to focus on circumstances and how you feel. Are you going to be able to focus on what you need to do to accomplish and make the choices and decisions to accomplish the goals that you have? So if you can cross that bridge, you have a much better chance to be successful. And you know, you can self assess every day and just say to yourself, if I do this, what's going to happen? If I don't do this, what's going. What's going to happen? That's the answer to the question right there. Are you doing the things you need to do in terms of being able to self assess? But you have to define the vision and you have to define what do I have to do to accomplish what I've set out to do? That's the process. See what I mean? Like you can listen to this guy all day long. And by the way, if you want to check him out more than you're not, you got to go to college games game day, because he's fantastic on college game day with Pat McAfee, which by the way, is an ex Rhino customer back when he used to be punting for the Colts and he had his foundation, we were a big part of that. So I got to know Pat pretty well during that time. But, man, listening to Coach Saban talk is always motivating, like he knows the right things to say. You know, he's taking kids, you know, 18, 19, 20 years old who have all this opportunity, all this fame, all this notoriety, and trying to keep them in check, to get the best out of them, you know, when they have all this distraction coming at them and it's incredible. You know, he talks about setting the goal, creating the process to hit the goal, and then you have to have the discipline to execute every single day on that goal. And this is something we'll talk about on a goal setting episode that will, we typically will throw out. But goal setting is half the battle. Probably the easiest part is setting the goal, but you got to work backwards to create the process and the check ins. And what are you going to do every month? What are you going to do every week? What are you going to do every day? And you got to have the self discipline to execute, which is 100% in your control. And Coach Saban has perfected this. And I love that he talks about his two questions, the two questions that we have to ask ourselves. And that's the, you know, here's something I'm supposed to do, but don't want to. Can you do it? Can you do it day in and day out? And the second question is something you're not supposed to do, but you want to. And can you keep yourself from it? Can you keep yourself from doing it? And that's hard. That's, you know, this is business too. A lot of shiny objects get thrown at us, A lot of problems get thrown at us. But you still have to execute every single day on your plan. You may have to pivot, you may have to try something new, you may have to ask for help, but you got to stick to your plan and execute every single day. And you again, regardless of what size you are, if you're a human being listening to this podcast, then you have all the power and all everything that you need to be able to execute every single day and hold yourself accountable with discipline. I would Think that discipline is one of those key words that can impact you positively or negatively in anything that you do, whether it be business or personal. So hopefully from this episode you got some good stuff from some of these clips. I mean, we had so many. It's so hard to dial this thing, you know, back into, you know, a small group of clips when there's so many different, you know, great things. But we tried to find, you know, some of the themes again kind of around the, you know, the market being tough because we do believe that next year will be another tough market. But you should be better prepared, you know, if it's focusing on the culture of your business and how can you restructure that? Like, again, all these, most, all the most successful guys keep bringing everything back to culture. So there's gotta be something true about it. You know, how to utilize AI and technology in your, in your business, you know, finding the, maybe not trying to try 10 at once, try maybe one at once, you know, one at a time and execute on that one. But, but do not ignore AI because it, it is a. Will help you be successful in your business and it can set you apart. Make sure that you're holding your marketing agencies accountable next year. Again, you know, these things are getting tougher. So the more information, the clear information that these marketing companies can give you to that, to, to where you know for a fact that one lead source is working like definitively. You know that because it's tied rapid right back into your service titan. And you can see I spent X, I got Y in return. So you know, those things, all the, all, all the, all the software is there now to do it for you. So you got no excuse, right? And then again, going into this next year, yes, you're probably going to run into some other, you know, issues or problems or struggles or whatever. But like Scott was talking about, man, it's like you learn through these situations and you grow from them. You got to be vulnerable enough to admit when, when you messed up. You got to be vulnerable enough to admit when maybe you're doing something the wrong way and be open to changing those things. And if you don't have the answer, you reach out and ask somebody. But there's a lot of growth to be learned in, in those hard situations and that allow you to be an even better leader. People see you admitting your mistakes and they see you changing it and finding the correct course of action and that's respectful. And Dan, you know, with Coach saying, you know, you, you, you just gotta create what your goal is, hopefully by now you've got your budgeting in place, it's done, you've got a goal, or you're getting close to getting that stuff done. And then you just gotta execute. And you gotta make sure, like we, like Mike Tyson said on a couple years ago in one of the podcasts we did with him from Rhino X, that you gotta wake up every day, you know, to do the things you do, even when you don't want to do them. Like, you absolutely love it, because that's what will set you apart. So I hope all of you have a very merry Christmas in East and a. And a Happy New Year. And if you haven't got your Christmas list done yet, you might want to get on it. Okay, you might want to get on it. But I am grateful for all of you listening to the podcast and listen again. I can't be more. I can't be, you know, I just. If you, if you have anybody, because definitely during the holiday season, a lot of depression sets in for some people. Step up if you feel like someone's in a bad spot. And make sure you get in touch with them and check on them. Or if nothing else, make sure they have that suicide hotline at 988-and-M here, too, so I'm happy to chat with anybody. You don't got to do everything, but you got to do something. No. Zero days.