Serve, Automate, Scale: Ryan Fenn on Building Chiirp and Transforming Contractor Sales

Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Welcome to Close it now, thepodcast that's revolutionizing the
H Vac and home improvementtrades industries.
Get ready to dive deep intothe world of heating, ventilation
and air conditioning.
We're turning up the heat onindustry standards and cooling down
misconceptions.
And we're not just talkingabout fixing vents and adjusting

(00:21):
thermostats.
It's about the transformativemovement that's reshaping the very
foundation of H VAC and home improvement.
We're the driving force,inspiring top performers who crave
excellence not only in theirprofessional endeavors, but also
in fitness, nutrition,relationships, and personal growth,
proving that we can indeedhave it all.

(00:44):
This is Close it now, whereexcellence meets excitement.
Let's get to work now.
Your host, Sam Wakefield.
Well, all right.
Welcome back to Close It Now.
Sam Wakefield here, and I amso excited to have this guest on

(01:06):
you.
You know the company and ifyou don't, you will know the company.
And we had the privilege tomeet each other back in January up
in Minneapolis at the H Vacsummit event that Tim Brown put on
at Hook Agency.
So we.
I heard this gentleman speak and.

(01:26):
And it was so cool to get toknow Ryan and his brother Blake.
So this is Ryan Finn with Chirp.
That's with two I's, C H I I RP. And he is our guest today.
This is Ryan.
He is the CEO and founder of Chirp.
And so we're excited to haveyou in as the guest on the show today,

(01:48):
man.
Welcome.
Bam.
Thanks so much for having meexcited for the conversation.
Heck yeah, man.
Well, we always like to startthis when I have guests on.
We always like to start with alittle bit of.
So it's a two part question.
Give us a little bit ofhighlight reel.
How did you, you know, how didyou get here?
What, you know, what was yourbig turning point?

(02:08):
Why did you start the companyand give us some of your journey?
But also interweave.
The big part of the questionis, what is a, like a driving force?
What is your.
More importantly, what is amission or vision statement for you?
What is really your true heartin the way that you do the things

(02:29):
you do?
Because it's more than.
Let's close it now.
It's more than just the stuff.
It's what is the heart behind it?
What is our mission?
We're starting a movement hereand to uplevel the trades in a lot
of different ways.
So I'd love to hear yourvision for how this is really helping
people differently than justsell more stuff.

(02:50):
Sell more stuff is cool.
But what's the big mission here?
Yeah, Cool.
Well, yeah, I'll.
I'll share a bit of my storyas far as how Chirp came to be.
I've.
I've always been entrepreneurial.
Even as a kid, I was.
I was the kid selling gumballsour gumballs to the kids.
You know, I was alwayshustling, trying to make a dollar,

(03:14):
and I. I didn't finish high school.
I just wanted to get out.
And I don't know, there wassomething about school that made
me just go, you know what?
I want to go out and figurethis out on my own.
And there was, like, a chip onmy shoulder, maybe.

(03:34):
I was like.
I was like, if I go to collegeand I'm successful, they will attribute
that to me going to college.
Like, I was like, I don't.
I don't.
I want it to be because of me.
I don't want.
It was.
I don't know.
It's a weird.
It's a weird thing, but I justdidn't want that.
I wanted to show that I coulddo without it.
So.
Sure.
So here I am.
But I.

(03:54):
In my 20s, I kind of bouncedaround, you know, figuring stuff
out.
I'm now 42, but in my 20s, youknow, figuring things out, trying
to, you know, work atdifferent sales jobs and different
things.
And when my first son was bornin my later 20s, that's when things,
you know, got serious, right?
Because it was like, okay, nowyou have a wife and a kid to feed.

(04:16):
It's no longer about you.
And I started my first.
What I would consider my firstsuccessful business.
I fixed windshield.
So windshield chip repair.
I actually saw somebody doingit at a car wash.
I worked for him for a littlewhile, and I found out that he was

(04:37):
doing fraudulent insurance claims.
And so I had to.
Had to quit working for him.
I wasn't gonna work for a guythat was dishonest.
And so I had saved up enoughto buy a kit, like a windshield repair
kit, and I started going doorto door selling windshield repair.
And.
And I was able to feed myfamily that way.

(04:57):
And then.
And then one day I saw someguys doing it out of a gas station.
And I thought, man, a lot ofcars go into a gas station every
day.
I'll bet that's a good lead source.
And so what I did is I kind ofhad the idea of bringing back, like,
that old school.
If you remember, like in theold movies, like when somebody pulls
into a car washer or servicestation, like, the people come running

(05:18):
out, and, like, they Fill upthe tires and then wash the windshield.
Yeah, full service station.
Yeah, full service stations.
Yeah.
So I tried to kind of bringthat back where I wasn't doing all
that stuff, but I would washthe windshields.
So they'd come in and I'd say,thanks for coming in today.
As a courtesy, we're washing windshields.
And we'd wash the windshield.
And then of course, while I'mwashing the windshield, I'm looking
for chips in the glass.

(05:41):
And if I can find a chip, I'mgoing to say, hey, that's going to
spread.
You're going to have toreplace the whole windshield.
If you take 10 minutes rightnow, I can fix it for you and you
won't have to replace thewhole windshield.
And that is.
That was like, that littlepitch right there was like the ultimate,
you know, that was the.
That's what really started meoff on a successful path because.

(06:02):
Yeah, sounds like we were able to.
Gold conversion conversation.
Yeah, we were able to get.
There were days we do $1,000out of a gas station, you know, and
we were then in multiple gas stations.
Then we got into somedealerships, some dealerships saw
what we were doing, and theysaid, hey, why don't you come do
it out of our service drive?

(06:24):
So.
So as people are coming in foroil changes, that kind of stuff,
and then next thing you know.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
That's exactly right.
Hey, you're getting your oilchanged, Wallet's getting changed.
We'll fix your windshield.
We got to like nine locations.
And it was going really great.
And I had the idea.
I always liked the idea ofdigital marketing.

(06:46):
I always messed around withdigital marketing.
I wanted to scale bigger.
I wanted to, you know, everystep of the way, it's like, what
can I do that's bigger?
What can I do?
Bigger and bigger.
Yeah, there's a flaw.
It's a flaw and a curse at times.
There's times where I'm like,now, today, I'm still like, okay,
we're not there yet.
And it's like, geez, when arewe ever gonna get there?
But anyways, so I had thisidea to create a course.

(07:09):
Because that's like, if you.
If you Remember back in 2014,2015, this is when Russell Brunson
was starting to get popular.
Courses were becoming kind ofa thing.
And I was like, you know, Icould teach people how to start their
own windshield repair business.
I could teach them how to geta gas station, how to make, you know,
how to do the insurance claimshonestly and ethically.
And all this stuff.
One Funnel Away challenge.

(07:30):
Yeah, exactly.
And this was actually beforethe One Funnel Away.
It was just when things werejust starting to heat up on online
courses.
And so I built a funnel, Ibuilt a Facebook, I did a Facebook
ad and I started getting leadsto come in.
And then as the leads wouldcome in, I would text them and I'd
say, hey, thanks for checking out.

(07:50):
It was called Glasspoint.
Thanks for checking out Glasspoint.
Here's a video that I did thatexplains the opportunity.
And what I did is I did a 45minute pitch basically explaining
the opportunity and I put thaton a video and I would send that
to the, the lead the momentthat they submitted their information.

(08:10):
That one 45 minute video andme sending it through text message
made me like $2 millionselling that course.
So I did a 40.
So I have 45 minute pitch.
I used it over and over andover and over again to sell my product.
And that was awesome.
And what I would do is if theleads didn't convert right away,

(08:31):
I would follow up with text messages.
Sure.
And I'd say, hey, you know,like, would you like to learn more
here?
I'd send out testimonialvideos and different things.
And I was piecing togetherdifferent softwares to make this
kind of, this flow, Post lead flow.
Right.
And so I could generate the lead.
But the conversion was the,was a hard, really hard part of it.

(08:51):
How do I convert these leadsinto deals?
And I found that if I, if Icontacted the leads very quickly
and I followed upconsistently, I would be profitable.
And so I made a whole bunch ofmoney selling that course.
And then that's when I waslike, well, if this works for me,
naturally, let's go to the bigger.
Let's go bigger, bigger, bigger.
And that's when I got the ideafor Chirp.

(09:12):
You know, how to start andgrow or that's windshield repair
business.
And then it took that andautomated follow up for businesses
and I put together Chirp.
I got a partner involved who'san engineer to build the software.
I'm not a software, I'm not asoftware, I'm not an engineer.
Yeah, I just had a vision ofwhat it needed to be.

(09:33):
And then he did theprogramming in the background and
we built this software and wewould sell this to anybody and everybody
that sold something.
Right.
It was like real estateagents, even restaurants, food trucks,
insurance agents, MLM people,home service business.
Like all these differentpeople were buying it.

(09:56):
But I wasn't getting traction.
It was like two or three Yearsof like, trying to figure out who
would benefit the most fromthis and who would stick around the
longest.
Because, you know, inbusinesses, you know, software and
automation, it's kind of, it'slike if you're not ready for it,
it's not going to do much foryou until you're, until you're getting

(10:17):
enough leads and enough flowthat it's actually, you can't do
it manually.
So it wasn't until wediscovered home services and we had
some home service guys usingit that it really took off.
So we were, we were hoveringthat like 20 to 30 thousand dollars
a month recurring revenue range.

(10:40):
And then, you know, homeservices come along and they go,
hey, what if you integratedwith Service Titan?
What if you integrated withHouse Call Pro?
What if you integrated with Jobber?
And we started to look atthese various functionalities and
it was like, dang, okay,there's an opportunity here.
And we built these reallygreat automations, these really great
integrations.
And that's when we really took off.
Went from 20,000amonth toabout a hundred thousand a month

(11:02):
on my own.
I was selling it during COVIDthrough my bed, in my bedroom, selling
it, you know, and, and then,then I.
Go, anywhere else, you mightas well be doing this.
Right, right.
And I hired, you know, theright people and got people to replace
me in the business.
And, and now we're, you know,pushing 10 million a year.
And it's been a wild, wild ride.

(11:28):
So.
But that's, that's, that's thekind of the journey from my late
20s till now.
It's the last, I'd say thelast 15 years I just covered.
Um, obviously there's a lotmore to it, but that's, those are
the highlights.
Um, your other question was,what drives me, right?
What, what are the core?

(11:48):
What's a, a guiding your North Star?
What's the, the really the bigdriving factor for you outside of
business?
What's the inspiration?
It's a really good question.
And it's, it's, it's somethingI've had to discover over the last,
I would say 20 years, becauseinitially I knew I wanted to be a

(12:13):
successful entrepreneur.
And my immature mind went to.
Because I want, I like fast cars.
I like, I want to be rich, youknow, and that was, it was almost
like I was responding to aninternal like, drive.

(12:35):
So the drive was there be an entrepreneur.
And I was almost responding,going, because I want to be rich.
And over the last 20 years,that has largely transformed into
much, something much deeper.
Where you know, I've alwaysbeen a religious person.
I'm a. I love God and I seeGod as the ultimate creator.

(13:02):
And I believe that as childrenof God, if it makes sense that we
are his children, then like Ilook at my kids, I have four kids
and I want to raise them up tobe really good members of society,
really good people, you know,But I, most importantly, I want them

(13:23):
to find success and notsuccess monetarily, success in what
drives them and what makesthem happy.
And I believe that that is aninnate thing, that we are meant to
be creators as children of theultimate creator.
And so in order for me toattempt to glorify God, I want to

(13:48):
do my best to take the timethat I have here to create things
that make people's lives better.
Yeah.
That make humanity better ormake, you know, anything that I can
do to use the brain that wasgiven me that says, hey, you're creative,
you can do these things, create.
Because I find that if I'm notcreating and it kind of, kind of

(14:09):
scary sometimes thinking about.
Because sometimes you kind offeel like there's no end in sight
where you're just like, hey,cool, I've, I've created this great
business.
It's doing really well.
Can I just be done on the beach?
Can I just go to the beach andlike, chill out?
And it's like, no, becauseyou'll do that for like a week and
you'll be like, okay, what's next?

(14:30):
You know?
And so, so yeah, that thedeepest, the deeper core, like drive,
motivator is I want to takethe time that I have here to be to,
to create and to do the mostthat I can with the brain that I've
been given and the, in the, Isay brain and heart as one, you know,

(14:53):
thing.
So I love it, man.
Great.
Thanks for opening up andsharing some of that.
You know, it's, it's reallypowerful to.
When we understand, especiallywhen, you know, when we would grow.
So lots of.
Of course there's a hugecommunity that listen to the show,
you know, lots of people thatdon't have kids yet that plan to.
Plenty of, you know, plenty offamily, mothers and fathers listening.

(15:18):
And that's a huge driver.
You know, I did a series, fourpart series recently called Roots
and Wings, which is how toraise antifragile kids, which was
a really powerful, you know,group of episodes.
And so I totally get that wecan make a bigger impact and use
our, you know, our kids.
The biggest success forparents is when your kids do better

(15:40):
Than you.
Right.
Start on the shoulders ofgiants and let me help you and show
you.
So man, I love that.
That's great.
Let's rewind back a little bitbecause I'm curious to know.
There's some foundationalstuff that follow up and that type
of thing we've recognized asthe biggest low, especially in home

(16:01):
services.
You step out of home servicesand follow up is a missing piece.
But there's a lot of, youknow, it's a common, common understanding
that.
And there's plenty of sequencefor follow up in other industries.
But you get services andpeople just for the most part don't
follow up.
Everybody knows we should, butwe don't have a path to do it.

(16:24):
We don't have a means to do it.
We don't have a nice simpleway to automate it.
So I'd love to hear yourperspective on just the importance
of follow up to start withbefore we, you know, of course we
want to cover, you know, whatCHIRP does and some of the more details
of that.
But let's start with somefoundations here.
You know, well talk aboutsome, you know, maybe some statistics

(16:47):
or just some of the reasonsand some of the follow up concepts
that should be covered andunderstood before we even talk about
doing it.
Why is it important?
So as with all things worthanything, they don't come easy.
Follow up is, we've all heardit a million times.

(17:08):
The fortune is in the followup, right?
And the reason that thefortune is there is because it's
difficult.
Like there's no, like gold inthe ground is hard to get out of
the ground.
And that's why it's valuable.
The reason that that follow upis valuable is because it is difficult

(17:28):
to do.
And if everybody did it, thenit would be, it would become less
valuable and then we'd have tomove on to the next thing.
Because everything separatesthe best, the good from the, the
good from the bad, right?
Or like the, the.
The most driven are the onesthat are always going to be the ones
that rise above, right?
So, so follow up is the reasonit's so it's so difficult for a company.

(17:56):
We all know it, we got to do it.
But it's difficult becauseit's a natural.
It's naturally goes againstwhat sales guys are good at.
So sales guys, Sales guys,person good sales guys love action.
They love being.
They're outgoing.
They want.
They need to haveconversations every day and they

(18:18):
need to close deals now.
Close it now.
Right?
And, and if they go a certainamount of Time without closing deals,
they.
You.
You start.
I mean, these are emotionally.
A lot of times, emotionallyunstable people that if they're not
getting fed.
Right, they become hangry.

(18:39):
Right.
Was it Zig Ziglar used to say,the mark of a poor salesman is skinny
kids?
Yeah, exactly.
There you go.
So follow up is naturallyreally boring for salespeople because
it's not.
It's mundane, it's monotonous,and it's.

(19:00):
Generally doing it manuallydoesn't produce the level you need
on the front end to closeenough to make your business successful,
because it takes a lot ofmanpower to do it successfully.
And so you get a sales guywho's just like, no, just give me
the hot leads.
Give me the good leads.

(19:21):
I want to close deals.
And you take your best salesguys and you feed them those hot
leads, and you close deals andyou're profitable.
But all these leads that don'tclose right away are just going into.
They're just being wastedbecause they're just not.
We're just not reaching back out.
And there are so many peoplewho are willing to buy, just not

(19:43):
right now, just not today.
And it could be for a milliondifferent reasons.
The thing we have to alwaysremember as salespeople is our job
is sales.
And so that's what's on ourmind all day, every day.
If you're a H Vac guy, H Vaccloth, that's all you're thinking
about is H Vac, right?

(20:03):
But if you're a mom whose airconditioner isn't working perfectly
right now, that's one of amillion things that you're dealing
with, right?
You're dealing with your kidsbeing crazy.
You're dealing with, you know,something else in the house that's
broken.
You're dealing with your car.
You know, you just broke yourwindshield or whatever.
You have a million things, andyou're thinking about H Vac for two

(20:24):
seconds right out of the day.
And so you got this reallyanxious, crazy, driven sales guy
trying to close you.
And she's going, dude, I like,yeah, I need to do it, but I've got
taxes I gotta do.
I got all this stuff.
And had you just consistentlyfollowed up, you would have caught
her at the right time, whenshe's in the right frame of mind,

(20:46):
and you go, cool, we can getthis done and close the deal, right?
And so all these leads arejust falling through the cracks because
you're on the front end making.
You're making enough money on the.
On the hot leads that youdon't bother with these.
And now here's the problem isas more and more people get into

(21:06):
home services, more and morepeople get into Google Ads on stuff.
People with a lot of money, alot of firepower can spend a lot
more money on a lead becausethey have systems in place to convert
at the highest level.
And you've, you've heard GaryVaynerchuk say, he who can spend
the most to get a customer wins.
Right?
Because if I can spend 100bucks to get a lead but you can only

(21:30):
afford 50, who do you thinkGoogle is going to favor?
Right, of course, yeah,they're going to take the bigger
amount.
Exactly, exactly.
And so the only way you havetwo options.
You can say, okay, I can spendmore on marketing and just get more
leads that way, or I canrefine my follow up and convert at
the highest level.

(21:50):
And if I can convert at thehighest level, I can spend the most,
therefore get the most leads,therefore scale my business.
And so follow up.
It'll, it'll shock you if youdon't know.
But it's an average.
There's different studies withdifferent answers.
But let's say all the studiessay anywhere between eight and 18

(22:13):
follow ups to close at thehighest level.
And this doesn't mean that youpick up the phone and call 18 times.
This is 18 touch points.
Whether that's different modalities.
Different modalities.
You've heard the term multimedia.
You, they saw you on Facebook,they submitted their information.
Okay, you started the customer journey.

(22:34):
They don't close.
You send them a text message,they don't close.
They see your billboard.
Now your mind's, that's atouch point, right?
They get an email, they getanother text message, they get a
voicemail, they get a neighborsaying, oh, I use them.
And it's these various touchpoints that eventually drive conversion.

(22:55):
And so people will say thisall the time.
They'll be like, oh, I triedthat, I tried Facebook leads, or
I tried Angie leads.
They suck.
And you go, yeah, but thatcompany over there, they don't think
they suck.
They're closing all kinds of deals.
And you go, what are theydoing different?
And you go, oh, it's theirconversion process.
It's not the lead that sucks.

(23:16):
It's actually you that sucks.
And so you've got, you've gotsomebody raising their hand saying,
hey, I need services.
What, what's keeping you frombeing able to close that deal?
And it's usually effectivefollow up.
I love this.
You know, there's a conceptthat, that I Trained that I learned

(23:37):
quite several years ago,actually, over in the solar world
for a while.
And it's the, it's theawareness curve.
This is one of the things thatI've always talked about, is if you
don't follow up, then whatyou've done is you've effectively
educated your homeowners tothe point where they're ready to
make a decision, but you justweren't there to catch it.
And somebody else comes in.

(23:57):
And that's why a lot of timeswe get once it closes, not because
we did such a good job on ourappointment, it's because somebody
else did and set them up for us.
So this curve is like theearly adopter to late adopter curve.
That's a spectrum.
You've got this tiny group ofpeople that, you know, they, they
see a couple pieces ofinformation and they're ready to

(24:18):
buy.
And the other end of thespectrum is these homeowners or people
who they need to see, youknow, read five books, watch an entire
miniseries, and read 25testimonies before they're ready
to buy.
And so we have to educate,like, where is their place in that

(24:39):
spectrum?
And then the second week pastthat point of no return, now they're
ready.
And at that point, it doesn'tnecessarily matter who it is.
Somebody's gonna capture that.
It's the same reason thatmarketing and sales within an organization
often butt heads.
Cause the sales guy will belike, I'm closing all these deals.

(25:00):
I'm the best closer.
I'm the baddest dude, youknow, and the marketer's going, dude,
I'm teeing up the hottest,best leads.
I'm getting them right to thefinish line.
And you're just putting it,you're just an order take, or you're
just taking them over thatlast line.
Same reason.
And it's like, it's like that,that, that can cause, that can cause
other issues.
But the, the, I did a videorecently, at the end of the video

(25:23):
says, your leads are going toconvert whether it's with you or
somebody else, whether it'swith you or your competition.
So it's like, dude, yourleads, they're going to buy.
At some point, you need tomake sure that you're the one.
And if you are top of mind,like, think about it.
If, if they submit theirinformation, let's use Angie as an

(25:45):
example.
They submit their information,that lead goes to five contractors.
And so it's like there are,there are literally leads that we'll
see that they'll Say I'm onlygoing to do business with the guy
that follows up with me.
Like, there are guys that havethat mentality.
They want to see that you'rehungry for the business, you do the
work.
And so, so you submit thatinformation and you have five people.

(26:08):
You got the guy that followsup consistently for five days, he
goes, that's the guy that'sobviously hungry for my business.
I'm gonna go with him.
And so obviously noteverybody's gonna be like that.
But those there, those are people.
That's an example of peoplethat are out there that are like
that.
And you have.
So it's like if I want, if Iwant to get him, I have to follow
up.
So, so yeah, the, the.

(26:30):
And it still goes back to thatwhole, it goes back to that whole,
man, I just don't want to do that.
And that's where, that's wherethe automation comes in.
It's like I say to people, Isay, look, you can, you can fight
with your sales guys all daylong and say, follow up more, follow
up more, follow up more,follow more.
And they're never really goingto do it that well.
They'll do it, they'll do itwell for a while just to get you

(26:51):
to shut up.
But they'll always revert backto, I just want the hot leads.
I just want to close deals.
So what I say is I Gary leads,give me the Glengarry leads.
Yeah.
I say, why don't, instead ofyou fighting with your sales guys
constantly, why don't you justpull that part off their plate?
Let's, let's treat, let's givethem the hot leads, let's make sure
that they are happy.

(27:12):
And then let's, let'ssystematize the follow up so, you
know, it's getting done.
You bought the leads, you'rethe owner of the business, you're
paying for the marketing.
Don't leave it up to them.
Stop.
What is it was the expression,stop letting the inmates run the
asylum?
Yeah, exactly.
Yep, yep.
Take it off their plate.
You make sure it's happeningand then tee up those hot leads.

(27:34):
And then, yeah, they're gonnabe a cocky and they're gonna be,
they're gonna be, you know,but who cares?
You're, you're building a goodbusiness that's making a lot of money.
Yeah, I love it.
Let's, let's dive into this alittle bit because one of the things
that I, that I love about whatyou've done with Chirp in the automation,
especially now that theavailability to incorporate AI and

(27:58):
learn better processes and rhythms.
One of the things that's soimportant and I'd love for you to
talk about the rhythm and thetempo of what a good follow up campaign
should look like becausethere's lots of concepts on this
and clearly you guys aremastering this in real time as we

(28:19):
go along with this.
But what should a goodsequence look like?
Because that's always thebiggest one, why people are there.
I think one of the things isthere's a lot of people that would
do follow up, they just don'tknow how.
And nobody is really trainingwhat that should look like, what
does it need to be, how manytimes and how often, et cetera, et

(28:40):
cetera.
Yeah, so this is an importantthing and this, the concept I'll
kind of lay out here is reallyimportant to understand your market
because everybody, everymarket is a little bit different.
What may work in California,may not work in Florida.

(29:02):
What may work, you know, andwhat may work for, you know, an older,
an older client base versus ayounger client base, depending on,
you know, so you have to knowyour market.
We have all kinds of pre built campaigns.
It's really hard to say whatworks best because again, it could
work really well here and notwork well here.

(29:23):
Yeah, so we do have rural townin middle America.
Could be totally differentthan New York City or la.
Slower pace, you know, less competition.
Yeah, they might get annoyedmuch easier with more aggressive
follow up.
I mean, I see the same thingon the, on the front end.
You know, I've had thisconversation with lots of people.
I get asked a lot, and howlong should a sales appointment go?

(29:44):
I'm like, well, the answer isit depends.
You know, when I was sellingin a town of 13,000 people out in
the country, you could clockit dead on.
It was a two hour appointment,two hour 15 if we filled out financing
paperwork, move to Austin,it's a 45 minute appointment, an
hour dead on.
If we fill out financingpaperwork, we didn't change anything

(30:06):
other than the pace was different.
And so it's kind of an exampleof, to bring it home for everybody
of the differences.
And there's no wrong answer.
Again, it depends on whoyou're talking to and understanding
buyer psychology.
So we do know on the front endthe first few days are critical.

(30:28):
The first minute is extremely critical.
So if somebody submitsinformation, we have a minute to
get to them.
Why is that important?
Break that down for us.
Talk to me like I'm in akindergarten here with this stuff.
So Salesforce did a study overthousands of form fills, and this

(30:48):
is actually a few.
This is years ago, so I knowit's worse than it was when they
did this study.
Our attention spans havegotten worse with the introduction
of social media, especiallynow reels.
All of our entertainment hasto be condensed and much shorter.
Everything is.
Our attention spans are terrible.
If I fill out a form and Idon't hear back from you in that

(31:10):
first minute, my chance ofconverting drops in half by minute
two by minute three, I'm a fourth.
And then between three and 30 minutes.
I call that the danger zone.
Because you can still makemoney in that zone and you can be
comfortable and comfort kills businesses.
Right?
Because we can be in there, wecan be going, okay, cool, we're good.

(31:31):
While somebody else is quietlyworking in the background to be better
than you and comes in andstarts crushing you.
And that's when you getcrushed out.
And so you look at it and yougo, okay.
Instead of.
Instead of, you know, justlike I said earlier, spending more
money.
Let's see if I can shrink mytime to contact these leads and increase
my conversion rate.
And maybe I go from converting1 and 4 leads to converting 1 and

(31:52):
2 or whatever the number is.
And now I'm paying half asmuch for a deal than I was before,
and now I can spend more moneyon marketing.
So that first minute is keybecause you think about it, I'm on.
I'm on my phone.
And especially, especially in,like, high, high demand or like,

(32:17):
you think of things like, youknow, H Vac is a big one.
Your air conditioner breaks InPhoenix, it's 120 degrees outside.
It's like that.
That lead's going to convert, right?
Oh, yeah.
It's going with somebody in areal short amount of time.
Yep.
So I'm on.
I'm on Google.

(32:38):
I submit my information on aform, or I call that lead, or I call
the number, whatever it is,and for whatever reason, the company's
not able to answer the phoneright away or I do submit the information,
I.
If I don't hear from you, I'm there.
It's only a thumbs.
It's only a movement of mythumb to get to the next guy, right?

(32:58):
Just a slight scroll to seethe next guy.
And so I. I've.
We've seen it with abandoned calls.
This is a big deal.
You call a number, they don't answer.
Okay, cool.
Who's the next guy?
I'm gonna look.
I have that time between thetime they hung up the phone to where
they click the next one to gettheir attention, to try to keep them

(33:19):
from clicking.
That's a very short amount of time.
And so if you automate that,we miss the call.
A text can go out in the next20 to 30 seconds.
Hey, I'm sorry we missed your call.
We'd love to get you on theschedule to fix your air conditioner.
Click here to book.
That is enough to keep themfrom going to that next.

(33:41):
That next guy, right?
They go, oh, okay, okay, okay.
He's there, he's just busy.
And really, they don't reallywant to talk on the phone anyways.
So if they can just book.
Sure.
They can just click and book.
Okay, cool.
So that's why it has such anopposition to speaking directly on
the phone at this point.

(34:02):
I mean, we do the same thing.
How many times our best friendcall us and we'll wait till the phone
stops ringing, text them back,hey, what's up?
Oh, dude.
Yeah.
If it can be resolved in atext message, do not call me.
You called me without texting first.
What's wrong with you?
Right, right.
Yeah.
And.
And it's only getting worseas, as younger, the younger generations

(34:24):
who are just loaded withanxiety, they're loaded with social
anxiety.
They say that, you know,introvert, this, this word introvert,
if you remember when we werekids, like the word introvert, it
was like, nobody was, nobodysaid that.
It was like a, it was like amental illness that you, like, heard
about here and there.
And now everybody's like, oh,I'm just introverted.
I'm introverted.

(34:44):
You're like, yeah, everybody'scool with negative thing now.
They were really negative.
Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's a.
Exactly.
You're like, so all thesepeople are now becoming homeowners.
And so we have to adjust if wewant to get their business.
And so a lot of these guys,they just want to text, they want
to get it done.
They don't want to have totalk to somebody on the phone, get
all nervous, feel like they'regetting sold something.

(35:05):
And so that first minute,super crucial.
And then of course, follow upfor the next couple of days, multiple
times that first day, and thena couple times over the next two
days.
So three days total is apretty crucial time frame.
And then you can decide afterthat if you want it to be more aggressive

(35:26):
or less aggressive over like a14 day period.
We have a guy, he's like, my,my protocol in my business is we
either reach them or we get arestraining order.
Those Are the two outcomes,like we're either going to get them
on the phone or they're goingto get a restraint.
Like he's extremely aggressive.
So we're still talking abouton the front end when a lead comes

(35:47):
in before the appointment toget it booked.
We haven't even booked the job yet.
Right.
A lot of people will fill outforms and you never can get a hold
of them.
100%.
Oh yeah, I used to buy leadsall the time for things and oh my
gosh, the number of times andfrequency you have to call them just
to get the first contact.
Yep, yep.

(36:08):
So let's say, let's say youget 100 leads and I'm going to use.
These are totally just likenumbers I'm just pulling.
Yeah, let's just use 100.
So let's say out of 100 leadsyou're able to book 30 of those leads
on that first call.
Right now you've got 70% ofyour leads that could or could not

(36:29):
convert over time.
And so if you're just doingthe 30%, that's all you'll ever do.
You'll never close more thanthat because you're only doing those
30%.
If you just put in sequencesto follow up, a simple follow up
could bump that.
You go, okay, I found that onthe next day, If I text 10% more

(36:50):
of those leads will actuallybook an appointment.
Now I went from 30 to 40%.
Now I notice that if I gothree days, another 5% will book.
And now I'm just incrementallybumping my conversion rate from 30
to 50, 60, 70% because I'mdoing these follow up things and
then even all the way outsince it doesn't cost you anything

(37:12):
or any time to follow up.
Three, six, 12 months later,hey, you reached out six months ago.
I know you, you had neededsome air conditioner work, but you
know, just wanted to shoot it,shoot it out there and just see if
you're, oh, you know what Idid, you know what, I, I do need
to get that done.
Or maybe it's something newor, you know, it's like we have guys
that'll, they'll say, man, asix month text message will go out

(37:35):
and I'll get a deal because I,you know, and that's, that's a lead
that would have justdisappeared and gone forever had
you not done that little extra step.
Here's a fun testimony story.
I don't know if you even heard this.
Probably not.
So a couple weeks ago inBoston, I had I held my event.
There was the three day eventup there and there's a gentleman

(37:58):
in the, in the audience,Jonathan Neaves up at Green Energy
Mechanical.
Who they.
They're a CHIRP client.
And I was talking about follow up.
We had a gentleman speak, DougC. Brown.
And he really went a 90 minutedeep dive session into some of the
importance of this and how itincreases revenue for companies,
et cetera.
After that session Ichallenged everybody.

(38:19):
I was like, all right, howmany deals can you close while we're
at this event, strictlythrough follow up.
And so what he did, heactually sorted last year so that
we're sitting in 2025.
For everybody that'slistening, you're here in the.
This date of recording is May29, 2025.
So he sorted 2024's data andsent a.

(38:41):
Just popped one messagethrough his CHIRP account and sorted
just May through August, sentone message to every unsold appointment.
Four people immediatelyresponded back.
The very next day he closed.
I've never seen this.
I don't do this.
Yeah, the very next day theyclose that.
One of those converted andclosed at.
I think it was 22,000.

(39:02):
$22,000 just sitting there.
Yeah.
And it took him less than aminute to send the message.
And the rest of those are now engaged.
Re engaged.
And they're havingconversations with several more out
of that one one minute exercise.
That he did that I've never.

(39:22):
I didn't know about this Ireally want to see.
That's really, really cool.
But I look at your databaseand these leads that you're purchasing
as gold mines and you justneed the tools to mine.
Right.
And if you know how to minethem, you can find the gold.
And it's just sitting thereand it doesn't take much.
These are people that haveexpressed interest.

(39:43):
That's like the, that's likethe most valuable thing, right?
And so, yeah, and it's assimple as using some automation to
reach out and say, hey, youknow, you requested information,
do you.
Are you still interested?
And then go from there.
So that's really one.
There's.
Oh, I love it.
So that was a fun, fun successstory for you that I think you probably

(40:03):
heard.
One of the things I want totalk about here is mindset.
Because on the front end, youknow, salespeople traditionally,
you know, we have this.
Stories we tell ourselves arealways the limiting factors here.
And one of the.
And I used to get caught inthis trap all the time until I really
discovered the truth is wehave this preconceived idea that

(40:26):
we go to an appointment and ifthey don't buy from us, they bought
from somebody else.
Right.
And so we think that, well,they already went with somebody else,
so there's no reason to followup, et cetera, et cetera.
But what we don't realize,it's such a small percentage of people
that actually bought fromanybody that we, what happens is,

(40:48):
and I totally want to get yourperspective on this because you probably
know some better statisticsaround it, but at least what I've
always said and thought isthey get into decision overload,
they get into analysisparalysis and don't do anything for
the most part.
And so other than the onesthat say, you know, I specifically
say no, I went with this othercompany, the, for the, the lion's

(41:13):
share of the rest of them.
They haven't done anything.
So what's your, do you havedata around that?
Do you have, I want to getyour opinion on this.
Not specific numbers, but the,the sentiment, the idea, the mindset
is huge.
You're, you're basingdecisions in your company on feelings
and that's going to screw youover big time.

(41:36):
Because basing your actions inyour business on assumptions, assuming,
oh, they, they don't, if theywanted it, they'd call me back.
Or you're, you're not a datadriven company and you're never going
to scale your business.
You'll always be stuck atwhere you're at because you can only

(41:56):
do so much with the energy,the specific energy that you have
on your own doing it that way.
And so you'll, you're always,you'll always think, why have we
plateaued?
Why are we stuck here?
You're likely making decisionsbased on emotion and not data.
And how do you get that data?
You follow up until they say,no, I have gone with somebody else.

(42:19):
That's the only way to getthat data.
It's the only way to actuallyknow if they did go with somebody
else.
They're not going to call youand say, hey, guess what?
I went with somebody else.
They're never going to do that.
No.
Out of the blue.
What?
Yeah.
So you have to follow up untilthey either say, yes, let's do it,
or no, I went with somebody else.

(42:40):
Then you can say, okay, theywent with somebody else.
And by then you've alreadyincreased your conversion rate because
you're getting a bunch ofdeals on the people that didn't go
with somebody else.
But making.
And I've learned, I've had tolearn this.
I've had to learn this andrelearn this at least a thousand
times in my entrepreneurial journey.
Emotionally based decisionsdestroy companies.
They keep you from being ableto scale, they keep you from able

(43:00):
to grow.
If you make things based onhow you feel that day, you are going
to never.
You, like I said, you'llalways just kind of operate within
that little bubble where somepeople, they're really good at it
and they can make like decentlivings and they go, I don't need
to make any changes.
I like how things are andthat's fine.
They're always just grinding.
They're just going to grindaway for the rest of their life.
Good is the enemy of great, right?

(43:22):
Good is the enemy of great.
Exactly.
To be great though, you haveto make data driven decisions.
And in sales, the only way toget that data is to ask for it by
following up.
And you'll see, and you'll seethat your assumptions have been totally
wrong.
Just like you said, there area ton of people who don't convert

(43:43):
at that point.
They're going to converteventually, but they may have just
gone, you know what, let'shold off on that.
Perfect example.
I was going to buy flooringfor my house.
I was going to redo the carpet.
And then I got a quote andthen the guy, I was like ready to

(44:04):
go and I was waiting for himto get back to me because I was super
busy, whatever.
And three weeks passed by andI realized I was like, wait a second,
that guy never called me.
But at that point we haddecided to move.
We're not actually not goingto do the floor.
We're going to move, we'reselling the house.

(44:24):
And so, and so.
But had he followed up when Iwas in the right frame of mind, he
could have totally changed my trajectory.
And I would have said, yeah,let's do it, because I was ready
to go.
But I just kept, I was, had somany things going on that it never,
you know, so, so he missed atotal lay down sale just because

(44:45):
I was too busy to do it.
And had he just followed up, Iwould have said, oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, we do, yeah, we want todo this, we want to do it.
Yes, yes, yes.
And then I would have got, youknow, he would have got the deal.
And then three weeks goes by,he recently reached out and I'm like,
oh yeah, we're not going to doit, we're going to move.
And it's like he could havechanged the whole trajectory of my
future.
I could have been like, Icould have been like, you know what,

(45:06):
since we're doing the floor,we're staying here, we're not moving.
You know, who knows what couldhave happened, but you just never
know until you get that data.
Yeah, no doubt.
I love this conversationbecause I think this is.
We could talk about someverbiage and stuff here in a minute
as well.
But I think one of the reasonstoo, and I have so many ideas and

(45:31):
questions that I love bouncingthem off of experts like you.
A lot of the things that I'vecome up with over the years is partly
intuition, and a lot of it isdata from my own experience.
But I think a lot of times thereason and what Doug C. Brown was
saying at the event, he waslike, people, they've done studies,
people expect a certain numberof follow ups from us, including

(45:55):
they want to hear a certainnumber of different, want to be phone
calls, they want it to be textmessages, they want it to be these
things.
And we have these ideas andnotions where, just like your experience,
I've done the same thing andbeen ready to buy and then didn't
over time.
So the priority dropped.

(46:17):
And so what happens is we buya certain way, but when we get into
the sales position and turnaround and we're looking at it from
the other's perspective, allof a sudden we think those same rules
don't apply.
And then we wonder why nobodyconverts when we don't treat our
buyers the same way we buy.

(46:39):
And so it's like these weirdunwritten rules.
And of course, one of mymission statements is like, I'm here
to tell you that are no rules.
As long as things legally,morally and ethically sound, everything
else is literally on the table.
And so want to hear your kindof some thoughts around that.
Yeah, let me, let me gather that.

(47:00):
I was thinking about the floor situation.
So we, when we're consumers,we want to make sure that the people
are working for our money.
And then when we're on theother end, we want to put in the
least amount of effort to makethe money.

(47:21):
It's this contrast, right?
You're gonna, not everybody'sgonna be like this, but there are
gonna be people, a lot ofpeople that are gonna go, that's
a 22, 000 deal.
I'm gonna make this guy earn it.
You know what I mean?
I'm gonna make him work for this.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna.
How many times have you sentout an invoice and it doesn't get

(47:42):
paid for like three days?
Yep.
Because that guy's going, I'mgonna make him sweat a little because
I want him to feel it, youknow, I want him to feel the importance
of what I'm doing here.
Yeah, no doubt.
So you have to try to putyourself in the shoes of the buyer
versus the seller.
Well, we talked about it earlier.
You're only thinking about H Vac.

(48:02):
They're not thinking about HVac at all.
And so there's this.
There's this battle that'shappening between two human beings,
and it's like this kind oflike push and pull, right?
Until they finally go, okay,and they're going to make you work
for it.
They want you to work for it.
They want to feel.
They.
They worked hard for that money.
They worked hard for that $22,000.

(48:23):
They don't want to just giveit away.
They want to make sure, youknow, and they want to.
You know, it's like when yougo to buy a car, it's the same thing.
You're like the sales guy thatputs in, like, goes the extra mile.
You go, okay, cool.
But if you walk up with acigarette in your mouth, flick it,
you know, and like, okay,let's talk about, you know, a car.
It's like, dude, you're notgetting my money.
Yeah.
What do we need to do to getyou in the car today?

(48:43):
Right.
Yeah, exactly.
Right.
So.
So you have to put yourself inthe shoes of the consumer.
You don't want to.
The best thing you can do is become.
Make it seem like you're ontheir side guiding them through the
transaction rather than thesales guy trying to get them to do
something.
So if you.

(49:04):
If you change your verbiagefrom, hey, I'm following up, that's
just sales guy trying to closea deal.
That's what that sounds like.
Right.
But if you switch over to,hey, I know you wanted to get that
fence done.
I know it's a big deal for you.
I want to help you throughthis process.
Let's get you going today.

(49:24):
I want to show you some cool stuff.
Let's get on a quick call.
You're guiding them nowthrough the process and kind of holding
their hand because people.
People want to be told bypeople they trust what to do.
Right.
I'm getting a fence done at myhouse right now, and I don't want.
I don't want to learn about fences.

(49:46):
I don't want to know anythingabout them.
I want a pro to say, this iswhat you need.
I'm going to guide you through it.
I'M going to make sure you getthe best deal.
Let me take over from here andguide them through.
So instead of sales guy tosales, sales guy to customer, and
this push, pull, push, pull,push, pull, move into.

(50:07):
Hey, I'm gonna.
Let me take this off your plate.
I'm gonna get this done for you.
Kind of take that, like, youknow, guide approach.
You've all heard the guidehero story.
Make them the hero of the story.
Oh, you're gonna love this new fence.
Your neighbors are gonnaabsolutely love it.
Your kids are going to be great.
Your kids are going to love it.
I'm going to take you throughand make sure.
Make sure you get the bestdeal possible.

(50:29):
Now you're.
You're making them the hero ofthe story.
Oh, just imagine how goodyou're going to feel when you have
this fence finally up, youknow, so.
Yeah, I love it.
I love it.
So.
So we've talked about beforethe, before the appointment, that,
that booking.
Let's dive into a little bitof after, you know, say we, you know,

(50:50):
of course, you know, I train Aone sit close.
You know, most trainers trainA one sit close.
But also, we know we have toalmost be bipolar.
We have to expect it everytime, but also not be surprised if
it doesn't happen, becauseplenty of people have a million reasons
why right now is not the righttime to buy.

(51:11):
And there's an expression Iheard, in fact, I'm going to start
a whole series on timing.
But there's an expression Iheard a long, long time ago is the
right thing at the wrong timeis still the wrong thing.
Right.
And so let's talk about timingand that rhythm after the appointment
a little bit.
So we've given them an invoiceat this point or an estimate.

(51:31):
Yep.
And they didn't close.
They didn't sign up.
And so you can.
You can either do one.
You can do one of two things.
You can say, well, if theywant it, they'll call me back.
Mm, you're gonna lose a ton of deals.
Or you can follow up.
And now you have to shift from.
From.
Remember, you're closing atthe highest.

(51:53):
Everything you're doing,you're closing at the highest possible
level of that stage of thecustomer journey.
If we talk about digitalmarketing, let's.
I'm comparing this to digital marketing.
So you can see when I, When Ido an ad on Facebook, the first goal
of the ad is to get them tosubmit their email address or phone
number.

(52:13):
That's.
That's closing at the highest level.
Right.
I'm not.
I'm not putting an ad outthere that says, hey, buy my thing
for.
For $10,000.
Yeah.
They're not clicking buy now.
Right?
When it's offered like that.
I'm closing at the highestlevel, which is, hey, the information
I have for you is at leastgood enough for you to give me my
phone.
Give me your phone number.

(52:34):
Okay, cool.
Now I got the phone number.
What's the next thing?
Okay, now I gotta send themthe video that explains it.
And that video, the goal ofthe video is to get them to book
an appointment.
So I'm not trying to sellanything other than trying to get
them to book an appointment.
So if we look at the nextstep, we're closing at the highest
level.
So if you're looking at thisjourney and you go, okay, the first

(52:57):
goal is just get my foot inthe door, get in, and give them an
estimate.
Right.
I closed at the highest level.
The next start is to get themto respond to the estimate and say,
yes.
And this is.
At this point, we are tryingto close the deal.
But you have to remember thatat this point, it's.
They've probably had somesticker shock.
They are now, you know, like,holy cow, I didn't think it was going

(53:21):
to be this much money.
Shoot.
I've got to, like, considerall these different things, you know?
And so now you're in a different.
You're in a different mindset.
They're.
They're before.
They're like, yeah, heck yeah,I want to get my fence done.
I want to get my airconditioner fixed or whatever.
And then reality hits.
Hey, it's going to be $20,000.
Oh, shoot.
And now it's like, okay, nowyou have to deal with husband, wife,

(53:45):
need to sit down and have a conversation.
Are we doing this?
Do we need to do this?
Yes, of course.
They gotta talk about priorities.
They gotta find the money.
They've gotta.
Do we do this versus something else.
So you need to be sensitive tothat situation.
Because it could be that thedude's like, yeah, heck yeah, let's
do it.
And the wife's like, nofreaking way.

(54:06):
Yeah.
She's like, there goes my new bathroom.
Yeah, exactly right.
And so you have to empathize.
You can't just come in and belike, it's just 20 grand.
It's like, dude, that's like, that's.
That could mean a lot to a lotof people.
And so you have to shift yourmindset now and you move to again,
back to that guide situation.

(54:27):
Showing them how they're goingto feel when this is done.
Because the key is we all makedecisions based on our feelings.
That's it.
It all comes down to feeling.
I feel really crappy aboutspending $20,000.
Yeah, that sucks.
Imagine how you'll feel whenyour house is perfectly comfortable.

(54:48):
You know, every second of theday it's perfectly comfortable and
you don't have to think aboutit ever again.
Imagine how you'll feel.
Obviously you're not usingthose words but that's the goal is
to get them to feel whatthey're going to feel when they're
done.
So I love it.
Yeah, this is, this isbeautiful, man.
So let's talk, let's get alittle more granular.

(55:08):
Let's give some a bit more of what.
Because you know, a lot ofpeople have that listen and you know
Chirp is growing like crazyand a lot more people are using it.
However, it's still a, youknow, a tiny fraction of the number
of actual home servicecompanies that are using Chirp right

(55:28):
now.
You know, itty bitty teeny,tiny fraction.
So there's a lot of peoplelistening that you know, they've
heard, maybe heard the nameChirp and if you haven't, now's your
time but tell us a bit moreabout, you know, truly what Chirp
does with and we.
You've made a really awesome video.
So for everybody that'slistening, I'm going to link the.

(55:48):
There's a really cool littleminute and 55 second or minute and
50 second basically it'salmost TV commercial style that Ryan
just made that explains thisin super great detail in a real short
amount of time.
So I'll put that link in theshow notes here so you can go watch
it for yourself everybody.
But give us a.
Take us through what thattalks about.

(56:10):
Talk about what Chirp actuallyis and how it's boots to the ground
for the companies with the automations.
So we talked about goldmining, right?
And so I sell shovels so thatyou can go out and mine, right.
You still have to do the workbut I'm going to give you the tools

(56:32):
that'll make it a lot easierto mine that gold.
So this is not a shortcut forhaving a crappy company everybody.
Yeah, this is all of these tool.
All the tools we have on here.
They're not an excuse to notdo something else.
Yeah, I can tee up, I can teeup a good conversation for you.
If you can't, if you can'tclose a deal, I can't really, I can't

(56:53):
really help you.
But the idea is from themoment that a lead becomes a lead
all the way through thecustomer journey, we are making sure
that we are plugging everyhole where a lead could escape the
funnel.
Okay, so we don't, we don't do marketing.
We're not on the marketing side.
We're not generating leads foryou, but we are helping you convert

(57:16):
leads at a higher level.
So we start at the beginning,speed to lead, right.
Anywhere that a lead couldfill out their information.
Abandoned calls, anythingwhere, you know, short of somebody
calling and you answering thephone, that's the best situation.
Somebody calls, you answer the phone.
Sure, that's the best situation.
Short of that, everything elseneeds, needs speed to lead.

(57:38):
So we've got all our forms,we've got abandoned calls, people
requesting information.
We make sure that we contactthem within that first minute with
a text message, email, orringless voicemail.
Obviously text being thehighest converting.
So, so we say start with textand we use AI at that point you can
choose between the two.
You can say, I just want thatfirst text to go out to start the

(58:00):
conversation, then I'll finish it.
Or you can use AI to actuallyhave the conversation with the lead.
And they do it.
AI does a great job of.
You'd just be blown away.
How good AI can answerquestions and guide them to book
an appointment.
And so imagine somebody calls,you miss the call because everybody's

(58:23):
busy, everybody's on a phonecall, nobody can answer it.
Boom, they hang up, text goes out.
Hey, so sorry I missed your call.
I'd love to get you booked.
Here's a link.
You can book right here or doyou have a specific question?
If they book, great.
If they have a question, AIcan then guide them through and then
invite them to book again.

(58:44):
Then from there, if they don'tbook, we're then triggering a follow
up campaign.
Text messages, emails,voicemails to follow up consistently
to get them to convert.
And if they convert to anestimate, we then are following up
on the estimate.
If they don't close, we'refollowing up.
If the estimate remains open,we're following up.
And what's cool is this is allbeing triggered from your CRM.

(59:07):
So whether you house call, projob or service titan, any of these
various, you know, CRMs,you're not having to change what
you're doing.
It's automatically happening.
And so like if an estimategoes out and they don't close, Chirp
recognizes that and we'llstart following up.
If they Close, it'll stopfollowing up, which is actually every
bit as important as startingfollow up.
Yeah, because if I, if I havea 10 day sequence and they convert

(59:29):
it day four, I don't want tokeep following up.
Yeah, they're like, I alreadydid this.
What does the company not knowwhat they're doing?
Especially if you offer like aprogressive discount where it's like
you closed them on day four.
I've had, I had guys that werelike, hey, I was using this other
system and I had a discount atday five that was 10% off.
And on day four, I close thedeal and if I forgot to turn it off

(59:51):
manually, they'd get that textmessage that offers 10% off.
And now I have toretroactively give them a 10% discount
because I offered it to them.
So.
So we follow up throughout thecustomer journey.
We make sure that we are, youknow, any, any chance that they can
escape this funnel.
We're reaching out.
You know, like I said,abandoned calls.

(01:00:12):
We also have like financingpre approval.
When somebody books, it'slike, hey, you know, thank you so
much for booking with us.
By the way, if you feel, feelyou might need financing, here's
some really great options.
And they can get pre approvedfor financing before you even get
in the door, which is amazing.
I mean that's like order takenat that point you show up, they're
already pre approved.

(01:00:32):
It's like, boom.
We have a really greatcampaign called the Owner Handshake.
This is where.
Yeah, you mentioned that inyour, in your video.
So.
Yeah, yeah, it was it, itsparked my interest.
I was like, what in the worldis this?
This sounds cool.
Yeah, this is so OwnerHandshake to me is, is something
kind of near and dear to my heart.
I love authentic business.

(01:00:54):
And as an owner, as a smallowner, it's much easier to be authentic
with your customers becauseyou're able to communicate with all
of your customers.
But as you scale, it becomes impossible.
I can't communicate with allof the people that use Chirp.
You can't communicate witheverybody that you know in your H
Vac business or whatever.
You can't, as you scale, youcan't be that.
You can't be the guy you know?

(01:01:16):
You know, and the customer'slike, oh, I have my guy.
That's my H Vac guy.
Once you get past a certainlevel, you're now too busy.
And so the, the way that, theway that I thought of this was the
45 minute video that I used tosend out to sell My, my program,
I thought, man, what if youdid a short, like one minute video
that introduced you as theowner of your company and when somebody

(01:01:39):
books you, send that to thembecause it'd be great if you could
pick up the phone and call andsay, hey, I'm the owner of Wasatch
Heating and Air.
Just wanted to say thank youso much for booking with us.
It means a lot to me.
I'm a family owned business,you know, I fully expect that my
technician will give you fivestar service.
If not, please reach out to me directly.
That'd be great if you couldcall everyone.

(01:02:01):
But what's the next best thing?
A text message with a video ofyou saying the exact same thing.
Thank you so much for booking.
Now I'm the owner, shakingyour hand, basically saying, thank
you so much for booking with us.
Really appreciate it.
Looking forward to workingwith you.
And it just allows you toscale your authenticity as you grow
your business.
So that's one, one of many campaigns.

(01:02:22):
We help you increase reviewsby following up consistently with
reviews, not just a randomtext message.
Thank you so much for doingbusiness with Wasachiating and Air.
Please click here to leave a review.
We've started the process atthe beginning, kind of seeding the
idea of a review and then atthe end texting from the same number,

(01:02:42):
same conversation.
Thank you so much for lettingour technicians come out today.
We'd really appreciate if youleave us a review and then actually
following up a couple of timesto make sure that they actually do
leave review.
Because a lot of people go, ohyeah, yeah, I'll leave a review.
And then they get distracted,they get busy.
And then of course, post job,follow up, help you maintain relationships

(01:03:06):
with your customers throughoutthe year.
You know, filter change,reminders, occasional texts for,
hey, it's, it's fall.
You may want to do this, youmay want, you know, little tips and
tricks.
Hey, fever season's coming.
Have you ever considered.
Yep.
Turning your house into asanctuary away from that?
That's.
Yep.
Not always, not always tryingto sell them something, just staying

(01:03:28):
top of mind.
So yeah, it's, it's, it'sbasically the idea is that what you
would be able to do as a oneman, as a one man shop with one customer.
How would you treat that one customer?
You'd be regularlycommunicating all this stuff.
Now we can do it at scale withthousands of customers.
Love this.

(01:03:48):
So it sounds like then if I'mhearing you right, we can truly build
a campaign around just aboutanything if we want to have it after
the.
I'm going to walk through ahandful of scenarios and correct
me if I'm wrong here, but say we.
So of course on the front end,we've got all got that going on for
conversion.
But then after an appointment,you've got the campaigns for the

(01:04:11):
ones that didn't sell tofollow up to close, you've got the
campaign for the ones that do sell.
Here's what to expect betweennow and your installation.
100% then.
Okay, so perfect.
So now what happens is, youknow, we've got our, the review campaigns

(01:04:32):
going out.
We've got the.
As the seasons change, we canreach into our data say just their
existing database.
Hey, the season's changing.
Are you ready?
So we can talk about maybe ourcomfort club or some sort of maintenance
plan for plumbing orelectrical or garage doors.
I know Tommy Mello is one ofthe largest users garage doors.

(01:04:53):
There's huge opportunity there.
So we can do that.
We can run campaigns aroundmaybe our company works with this
nonprofit and we're rallyingour community to support this better.
So a complete non sales typeof a thing.
It's like, hey, join with usfor this event we've got coming up.
Let's help support thecommunity we really crafted around

(01:05:14):
anything.
Is that right?
A hundred percent.
That's a really good pointbecause it's hard to get all of the
information.
I could, I could say the topcampaigns, but like customers come
up with new ways to use it allthe time.
And so I only have, I usuallyonly have a short amount of time
to explain it.

(01:05:35):
And they go, oh, okay, so itdoes this, this and this.
I say yes, but it also does athousand other things.
Whatever you can think of, wecan trigger things.
Like here's a, here's anexample of one.
You could say, all right, ifsomebody buys from me something greater
than $10,000, like you can,there's all these filters you can

(01:05:56):
use, right?
To say, all right, anytimesomebody buys something greater than
$10,000 from me, trigger acampaign that first sends a text
message saying thank you forone, but then also tells.
Triggers a zapier trigger totell this company that sends out
gifts like you know, acharcuterie board or you know, some

(01:06:21):
to automatically send out acharcuterie board with a thank you
note to my customer.
You know, there's a milliondifferent ways that once we have
the filter, the trigger, wecan tell it to do whatever we want
it to do.
And so you can come up with amillion different ideas.
When you hear me talking, Itell the top one, speed to lead,

(01:06:43):
estimate, follow ups,financing, pre approval reviews.
Those are like the big moneymakers, but there's a million other
ones.
And then we have our broadcastfunction, which is what you explained
earlier.
The guy that went back to hisdatabase and sent out messages.
This is where you're, you haveall your automation set up and everything's
working great.

(01:07:04):
But if you go, hey, shoot,Thursday is a little bit light, I
don't have anything on theboard, I need to fill it up.
I'm going to, I'm just goingto pull up a list like this guy did,
right.
And I'm going to shoot out amessage to a hundred people and it's
going to send out that message.
So you can shoot from the hip.
You have all the automationsset up and they're running and they're
always just working for you.
But you can also shoot fromthe hip and say, hey shoot, Thursday's

(01:07:26):
a little light.
I got to fill up the board.
I'm going to send out some messages.
No doubt.
I mean, I'm thinking of amillion different ways that this
could work.
I mean, for example, there wasjust a couple of days ago this massive
hailstorm blasted the areahere in central Texas.
And so perfect a roofer couldabsolutely crush.

(01:07:46):
Can you imagine?
Go crush the database.
Everybody in a certain zipcode, pull up everybody in a certain
zip code and go, hey, we knowthat a lot of our customers were
affected by this hail storm.
We want to make sure you'retaking care of.
Can we shoot out and take aquick look at your roof to make sure
that you didn't, you know, getany damage?
Yeah.
Click here.
Get scheduled for your freeinspection, boom.
You know, and it's like, dude,that alone, you just use it for that.

(01:08:10):
And it's like boom.
You just paid for chirp.
For the next 10 years you getlike three roofs off of that.
It's like boom, $150,000 orwhatever it.
Is, you know, So I love it.
Efficiency, efficiency andleverage in our, especially in our
society right now is everything.
Right?
Right.
So, so here's the, here's theinteresting question.
I'm gonna throw a little bitof a.
Because I think I have a feelfor what the answer is going to be.

(01:08:32):
It's probably, yeah,absolutely, we can do that.
But I'm, I've been in theprocess for a good while.
And so for everybodylistening, we've got some partners
now for some door knockingcoaching programs.
So door knocking is one I seeas a huge opportunity because you
know, when you're doorknocking, you can knock, for example,

(01:08:52):
and the numbers hold true forEverybody listening.
Every 500 doors you knock,you're gonna ride $100,000 a business,
right?
Period.
That's just the statistics.
So if a door knocking campaignhappens and people are entering their
data from the doors.
Well, door knocking has a lotof no shows and those types of things,

(01:09:13):
so.
Sounds like the same thing.
It's just another lead source.
We enter into some campaigns,we can warm them up before the app,
more likely to make theappointments, and then have the campaigns
afterwards as well.
So it doesn't really matterwhere the lead comes from, does it?
I try to beat this in the.
Into people's heads becausedoor knockers are.

(01:09:36):
Door knockers are funny.
When we talked about salesguys being, you know, one.
They want the hot.
The action.
You know, the door knockersare the worst of that.
They're the.
They're the.
And I don't want to say worstin a negative.
That's not.
They're really goodsalespeople, but they're the worst
of wanting to follow up.

(01:09:57):
Right?
They're the.
They're the.
They're the guys that arelike, nope, I'll just go get.
I'll just knock anotherthousand more doors on this street.
I'm just gonna go, this is there.
And I say, imagine if you're.
You're.
I've knocked doors.
I did pest control.
We've all done.
We've all done our.
Our stints in the, in thefield, right?
And imagine if you're knockingthe door and the wife answers and

(01:10:21):
she goes, oh, you know what?
Yeah, but my husband's not home.
Yeah, we are interested, right?
How many times does that guyjust go, I'm moving on to the next
guy 100%.
What if on his phone he has aform and I have.
This is built into Chirp,where you can build a form that just
shows up on your phone withname, phone number, email, notes,

(01:10:43):
whatever, whatever data.
You could put as many fieldsas you want to collect, and the sales
guy could have that on hisphone and he could just go, oh, you
know what?
No problem.
Why don't I just follow upwith you later?
And she goes, okay, cool.
Let me.
He.
Let me just get your phone number.
Okay, that's great.
But the sales guy would havenever followed up because he's gonna

(01:11:04):
just knock on doors.
But now you have a lead that.
That's in the system, and itwill get followed up.
And then once that leadresponds, said, yes, you could then
ping Back your sales guy andsay, hey, you have a hot lead here.
And then take it back over and.
You get the ability to sendthose awesome videos.
The owner's handshake and allof the warm up videos create that

(01:11:26):
living room effect betweenthat moment and when they actually
show up to get that awarenessmeter higher on the scale.
Yep, yep.
So I know it for, I know likewe haven't penetrated the, the door
knocking community as well aswe'd like just because we've been
so deep into H vac, plumbing,electrical, garage doors.

(01:11:48):
Those, those, those aren'ttraditionally door knockers.
But I can make you some introductions.
We'll, we'll fix that.
So powerful.
Because it's like, dude,you're out there getting people,
you're talking to people, justget them in and then start following
up, you know, And I thinkabout it, I go, shoot, If I knock
10 doors and I have twoconversations that get me a lead,
like an appointment, okay,what if there's probably two that

(01:12:11):
I could have got their phonenumber, you know, and maybe out of
those they turn into another sale.
So now I got three dealsinstead of two from my, from my efforts.
I love this so much, man.
We're gonna have to talkoffline because I'm working on some
cool projects, but so this isso cool, man.
So give everybody a one.

(01:12:32):
How do they get ahold of you?
Because I know there's a lotof people listening that are, that
want to get in.
Just like when we'reconsidering ourselves, I know there's
thousands of people listeningthat say, you know what?
I've been meaning to reach outto them because I've been hearing
good stuff about Chirp.
And then it gets.
Life happens and fires happenin their business and it gets set
aside.

(01:12:53):
How do they get a hold of you?
Well, the best thing you cando is book a demo with us.
That would be the first, thefirst thing.
But you know, obviously youcan go to the website C H I I R P
dot com.
We have a bunch of information there.
You can book a demo, you cantext us, you can call us.
What we're going to do iswe're going to get on a demo with

(01:13:14):
you to walk you through allthe different strategies that we
can help you use to startmaking money.
Our goal is that you have someserious ROI that first month.
So you can look and say, yes,this has been worth getting involved
because we're going to.
We're not a traditionalsoftware company.
We're not backed by SiliconValley investors where we're just

(01:13:37):
like get you in a contract andthen disappear.
I'm sure if you've ever dealtwith software that you've dealt with
that we're very much a servicebased, relationship based company.
We want you to succeed withChirp and we work with you closely
because this is not simple.
Automation is not simple.
We are experts at this.

(01:13:58):
You're experts at whatever you do.
We don't expect you to beexperts at what we do, right?
And so we say, hey look, let'slook at some campaigns that will
work for your business right now.
We will set them up, we'll getthem going and we walk you through
it, we hold your hand throughthe whole process.
And so we're basically like aconsultative approach of like, hey,

(01:14:19):
let's figure out what yourbusiness needs, let's set up the
campaigns.
And then you get a customersuccess rep who then is incentivized
for you to be successfulbecause he gets busted if you cancel,
you know, and he getsincentivized if you, if you stick
around and you use.
So he's, he's going, hey,here's some other ways you can use
it.
Here's a cool thing to implement.

(01:14:39):
Here's this and that.
And he's always there.
You can reach out and say,hey, I had this cool idea to do this.
Just like you said with thedoor knocking thing or the charcuterie
board or whatever, you go,hey, I have this cool idea, can this.
And he goes, yep, let's figureit out.
And then he figures out how toset that campaign up for you.
And then, and then you're offto the races with that.
So you have somebody.
We don't just say, here's yoursoftware, good luck.

(01:15:00):
Yeah, so book your demo.
Not to throw anybody under thebus, but some of the CRMs you mentioned,
they're notorious for that.
I mean I've all of the CRMawful stories of people converting
to these well known CRMs thattake over a year to get onboarded
because their customer serviceis hideous.
And there's entire companiesthat are built around helping people

(01:15:22):
learn how to use thesespecific products.
I'm like, talk about anopportunity here.
Yeah, well that.
And that comes down to the model.
Like I said, the SiliconValley model is you have hundreds
of millions of dollars infunding, but you.
What comes with that is why Ihate Silicon Valley model is the
success of a software companyis how much money they've raised,

(01:15:44):
where they're like, oh, weraised $100 million.
It's like, did you make Ahundred million dollars?
No, we, we raised it like theybelieved in us enough to do that.
And it's like, to me, thatjust like screams like, hey, you
owe that now.
You owe that person $100 million.
And so you're going to beunder major pressure to get more

(01:16:04):
contracts, get more people inthe door, focus 100% on sell, sell,
sell, sell, sell.
And what ends up happening isyou're not able to create as good
of an experience becauseyou're under so much pressure to
sell at a certain rate.
Yeah, the bathtub's leakingfaster than you can fill it at that
point.
Exactly.
That's perfect.

(01:16:25):
Exactly.
And so we didn't take that approach.
I've bootstrapped this companyfrom, from the ground up.
I don't have to answer to anyventure capitalist or anything.
And so we've built it andwe're scaling at a pace that allows
us to offer really goodcustomer support.
I love it.
I think that's one of thereasons why I, I really resonated

(01:16:48):
with you when we met andtalked before at you and Blake and
really have been lookingforward to this, this conversation
for a while because we, youknow, I don't bring just everybody
on the show, only people thatI know that one have a quality product
that do great work.
So it's nice to, it's nice toconnect to people.
And you're right.
Relationship is everything.

(01:17:10):
Relationship.
B2B as well as B2C is just as important.
So chirp.com, c h I I r p.combook a demo is really the best thing
to, for people to reach out,to be able to get in touch and see
what it's all about.
Yeah.
And if you want to connectwith me directly, I'm.

(01:17:31):
I spend most of my time in.
In on Facebook.
That's where I, that's whereI, you know, my.
I don't go on many socialplatforms, just Facebook.
So look me up, Ryan Fenn, andthen, and then you can email me@ryanirp.com
and so, yeah, reach out.
Like, if you don't want to bea Chirp customer, that's fine, but

(01:17:51):
we should connect anyways.
I, you know, I'm here to servethe home service industry, so one
way or another, connect withme, you get value from.
Hopefully get value from theposts I make.
We have a lot ofrelationships, a lot of different
companies, a lot of differentways that we're helping the industry,
you know, create bettersystems and processes, not just Chirp.
So, yeah, for sure.
So two, two Other things Iwant to cover before we go real quick.

(01:18:14):
One is, I would love for youto talk a little bit about your podcast
that I was on recently.
You guys are doing somethingreally cool that is in direct alignment
with what we believe here atClose It Now.
So, yeah, you came on the podcast.
It's called Win youn Mind, Winyoun Market.
We are deep believers infocusing on the human before the

(01:18:40):
business.
You can.
I can teach you tactics orstrategies or somebody.
You can listen to podcasts andlearn how to do things, but it's
the same.
This will relate back to thedoor knocker, where you might have
one door knocker who'scrushing it, right?
He's getting 10 pest controldeals a day.

(01:19:01):
A day.
And then you have another guywho's zero and their pitch is exactly
the same, and you're going,what the heck?
This guy's.
This guy is getting zero deals.
This guy's getting 15.
What is going on?
I'm saying the same words.
At the end of the day, what itreally comes down to is this guy's
vibrating at a higher level.

(01:19:23):
People immediately that.
That when they open the door,they connect with that guy before
he even opens his mouth.
And it's because he's.
He's vibrating at a higher level.
His mindset is in a.
Is in a grateful, positive,authentic place, whereas this guy's
in a fearful, scared, negative space.

(01:19:44):
And before the door is even,before a word is even uttered, the
deal is crushed because hecan't get past that negative thing.
And the person goes, Icouldn't really tell.
It was just bad vibes.
Bad vibes.
And so the key to all of this,any of this.
I say this with chirp.
Won't work.
Nothing is going to work ifthe person's mind is not in the right

(01:20:06):
place.
And so on the podcast, we talkabout that.
How do we increase ourvibration in a positive way?
How do we get people to know,like, and trust us before we even
open our mouths?
And this is all through beingauthentic, real people.
You can't fake it.

(01:20:27):
You're never going to be ableto fake it.
Some people are good atmanipulating and lying and getting
to a point to where they canmake some good money.
But it always catches up to them.
It will always.
They'll always fail.
Eventually they're gonna hit.
But if you create a business,you're gonna hit a wall.
But if you create a business,if you.
If you create your.
If you win your mind first,you become an authentic, good person.

(01:20:52):
People will want to doBusiness with you and everything
else will just be bonus like Chirp.
All these different tools onstuff, it'll just add to what you're
doing.
I love it.
So, so one more time, name of.
The show when your mind winyour market.
And this will, will make surewe have the link in, in the show
notes as well, everybody,because I highly recommend that podcast

(01:21:15):
it.
It's very much in alignmentwith what.
With, with what we believe here.
And last question for you.
What is next?
What is Ryan Finn reallyexcited about?
What are you obsessing overright now?
I'm gonna sell Chirp and endup on the beach.
Yeah.
No, just kidding.

(01:21:37):
That's the immature mindspeaking, right?
The, the one that thoughtthat's how.
You started the, the episode.
Right?
Yeah, exactly.
Right.
So there's no, there's no,there's no end to the entrepreneurial
journey.
Chirp is becoming more andmore deeply ingrained in AI and so

(01:21:58):
who knows where that's goingto take us as far as, you know, what
more we can do.
We're always just trying tofigure out what's the next thing
to implement.
We weren't an AI company fiveyears ago, right?
We were company and now we're,you know, and so, so whatever comes
along, whatever technology wecan build on and, and continue to
progress there eventually.

(01:22:20):
I do want to.
Eventually the goal will be topartially exit from Chirp and then
focus on a higher purpose of.
Edu.
Of.
Of educational.
I do want to.
Eventually.
This is a dream of mine, but Ihave the company in the domain serviceuniversity.com

(01:22:42):
and I would like to.
Eventually.
I, I see this big shift wherepeople are starting to see college
as not the right thing fortheir kid and they, they need an
alternative that istrustworthy and actually provides
good foundation.
And so I'd like to eventuallyget to a point where I can teach.

(01:23:04):
Feel comfortable enough takingthe responsibility of teaching somebody
young that wants to be an entrepreneur.
I think it's a really big deal.
I think it's a really bigcalling where it's like, I don't,
I'm not, I don't know that I'mquite ready for it.
But I want to make sure thatwhen I do that, I'm, I take that
as a sacred responsibilitythat I'm going to take a young person

(01:23:25):
and mold them.
And so I'd like to create areally great environment because
I look at, I look at startingthe windshield repair business, and
even though that wasn't thebusiness I'm currently in, it created
A foundation for where I'm at now.
And it's like, had I not donethat, I wouldn't be here.
And so I see that as my education.

(01:23:46):
And like I said, I didn't goto college, I didn't finish high
school, but I see that ascreating the foundation.
And so if within this, youknow, service university, they can
come and maybe start abusiness that isn't necessarily a
home run but is a base hit,you know, where they.
They gain a foundation for howto run a business.

(01:24:08):
Yeah, you know, it's like, oh, cool.
Windshield repair or somethinglike this.
That's like a good starterentrepreneurial opportunity that,
hey, maybe.
Maybe you do blow it up, butmaybe it's not what you're doing
in five years, but at leastyou're, you know, progressing.
Yeah.
Get to flex thatentrepreneurial muscle, so to speak.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah.
I love it, man.

(01:24:29):
That's.
That's an awesome vision.
I'm glad I asked because it'salways cool to know the, you know,
the true heart of the gueststhat I have on.
It's like, what are yourpassion projects?
What really, you know, thosethings that spark those moments of
true transformation for youand others.
And so thanks for sharing.
That's really, reallyencouraging to know that, you know,

(01:24:51):
there are people like you inthe world that, you know, have this
vision for our society.
It's cool to align with.
So, man, thanks for being aguest on Today.
For everybody listening, Iencourage you.
Go check out chirp.com.
the links will be in the show notes.
Go listen to the podcast.
It's a great one.

(01:25:13):
Start with the episode I was on.
Of course it was a good one.
Or if you're tired of hearingme talk from this show, Ryan has
had some incredible,incredible guests on every single
one.
I love the focus.
It's working harder onyourself than you do on your business,
and your business will follow.
Your business can never growbigger than where your mindset is

(01:25:34):
and where your belief is.
That's right.
Love it, man.
Well, thanks for being on.
Any parting words foreverybody before we land this plane?
Parting words would be, you'rea child of God.
Make the most of your time.
Don't waste it.
And use that as confidence tosay, hey, I don't need anything else

(01:25:57):
other than that to just say,hey, if I'm a child of God, then
what can't I do?
Yeah, if anyone can do it,anyone can do it.
Yep, that's right.
Love it, man.
Well, awesome.
Well, thanks for being on the show.
Everybody listening.
Check out the liner notes orthe show notes?
Liner notes.
I've been in music land withmy brain lately.
Liner notes.
It's like, oh, open up the CDcase and let's read the liner notes.

(01:26:21):
Check out the show notes.
All these links will be there.
And until next time,everybody, you know how we end this?
You go be someone worth buying from.
You've been listening to theClose it now podcast.
Our passion is to diveheadfirst into the transformative
movement that's reshaping thevery foundation of H Vac and home

(01:26:43):
improvement and at the sametime covering fitness, nutrition,
relationships and personalgrowth, proving that we can indeed
have it all.
We hope you enjoyed the show.
If you did, make sure to like,rate and review.
We'll be back soon but in themeantime, find the website@CloseItNow.net

(01:27:04):
find us on Instagramherealcloseitnow and on Facebook
@CloseItNow.
See you next time.
SA.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Serve, Automate, Scale: Ryan Fenn on Building Chiirp and Transforming Contractor Sales