May 15, 2025 • 45 mins
Starting a business and finding yourself surrounded by competitors? That’s not a problem—it’s validation. In this episode, Chris and Dennis dive into what competition really means for a new or growing business and how to navigate it without panicking, discounting, or losing sight of your value.
From naming and branding to customer service and quality control, the conversation highlights what it takes to stand out—especially in saturated markets. Real-world stories from the Cape Cod Gutter Monkeys show how the right approach to differentiation can help you grow a loyal customer base and even earn the respect of your competitors.
They also explore how consistency in marketing, a strong brand identity, and clear communication help build long-term customer relationships. Whether you're launching a new venture or looking to take your small business to the next level, this episode is packed with insight on how to win smart—not cheap.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello everyone, welcome to episode 14, Dealing
with the Competition, starting anew business and realizing
you've got competition.
Good, that means there's demand.
In this episode, dennis and Ibreak down how to approach
competition the smart way,without spiraling into panic or
paranoia.
We talk about why beingdifferent beats being first, how
delivering real value keepscustomers coming back, why the
(00:23):
name on your truck might justmatter more than you think, and
we share a few tales from thegutter about outservicing the
so-called pros.
So let's get into it.
Grab a cup of coffee, sit back,relax and welcome to Monkey
Business Radio.
Hello Dennis, chris, how areyou doing today?
(00:44):
Good, I'm doing really well,that's good.
I just can't help but notice, inthe 13 episodes we've done,
you've always had your GutterMonkey shirt on, and today you
do not have your Gutter Monkeyshirt on.
What's going?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
on with that.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
You're going to distract all of our viewers.
You're commenting on my attire.
Yeah, you're distracting ourviewers.
What day is today?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
What day is today?
What day is it Wednesday?
We do the podcast on Thursday.
Oh, I'm sorry, today is notThursday, it's Wednesday.
Didn't you get the memo?
No, I didn't get the memo.
Wednesday is casual dress.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Wednesday.
It's casual Wednesday.
You're out of uniform today.
Okay Well, sorry about that.
We always go out to dinner onWednesday.
I came for the free food today.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
All right, that's the reason for the attire change.
Every Wednesday is CasualWednesday here at Gutter Monkey
headquarters.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
It's kind of strange because most places casual, you
dress down, but for a guttercompany you guys work in
t-shirts anyway.
So I guess this is your versionof dressing up, dressing down.
I guess, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Casual.
It's up to interpretation.
However, you view that I'mcoming from a corporate world.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
My head is all spun around by this whole thing.
Okay, what are we doing today?
What are we talking about?
We're talking about competition.
Competition Kind of came around.
We've been talking about someideas the last couple of weeks
and this is one came up fairlyrecently.
I work with a lot of ourfranchisees, or potential
franchisees, and a lot of them.
This is the first question thatcomes up.
Okay, you want me to invest ina gutter company in Worcester?
(02:06):
Worcester has 25 gutter peoplerunning around town.
Why would I do that in thatspace?
Then also in my past, I waslooking at doing a couple of
small businesses.
This is an issue I actuallystruggled with as well, because
I was interested in actuallydoing the concrete, decorative,
concrete block for patios andstuff like that, maybe opening a
(02:28):
business to sell that material.
And I went around town andthere was practically one on
every corner.
So that was kind of a passion Ihad.
But I was kind of scared off bythe potential competition there
.
How would I differentiatemyself?
So I guess you know, comingfrom it from both points of view
, you know where would I startwith this whole thing.
You know where do I startevaluating competition?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
There's like 10 things that every startup is
afraid of right Funding, hiringemployees, creating the name
competition.
There's so many things that canpop up on the screen and every
one is another reason to scareyou off.
Yeah, that's the constant themein any level of business.
(03:05):
Whether I'm talking to myclients, whether I'm talking to
a franchisee, it always comes up.
Oh, this guy undercut me, he'sa cheaper price.
Business is all aboutcompetition.
I think you had commented atone time that if there's a lot
of competition, one way to lookat it is there's a market for it
out there.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
It's a good sign actually.
Yeah, People actually want thatservice.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
So Well, also, when you're starting out, you have to
have a game plan.
You have to have a businessplan if you really want to be
dynamic.
And one of those questions youwant to ask yourself is how are
you going to compete?
Are you going to compete onprice versus value?
You got a product, you got aservice and you got price.
If a company claims to have thebest product, the highest level
(03:49):
of service and the cheapestprice, they're lying to you.
One of those things is not true.
You can't have the mostexpensive product and the
highest level of service and thecheapest price, Right, If you
have the first two you got tothrow out two of the third at
least.
Well, what we say is pick two ofthose and then throw one of
(04:10):
them out, because you're notgoing to.
The only thing that we do hereis premium quality.
We are a high priced productbut in our world we have
extremely high-quality employeesdoing our installs.
Our process is significantlybetter than what my competition
is, and nothing against mycompetition.
(04:31):
I have many competitors here inmy field on the Cape that I
have lunch with.
I've had my competitors over tomy house for swimming and
cannonballs and playinghorseshoes in the yard.
Nothing wrong with competition.
But when you're looking atwhat's going to separate you
from your competitor, start withthat Product, service and price
(04:55):
and value yeah, that's one ofthe places you want to start.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I'm seeing that kind of demonstrated here, kind of
looking over your shoulder thelast couple of months.
Things like you have a 10-pointinspection free thing for going
up on the roofs and checking,flashing and all for gutter
cleaning.
Yeah, we do a 10 point topsideinspection.
You always paint behind thegutters before you put them up
and things like that.
You know these other littlethings that other companies
don't do.
They make a big difference,because that's your, that's your
(05:19):
value differentiator, I guess.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I had a call today.
I happen to be in the officeand my office manager, molly.
She's due with her second babyin about two weeks, so the whole
office staff other than me.
They planned a shower, so allthe girls were in here in the
main room and I was in theoffice.
Right and I was in the officealone and the phone rang.
(05:42):
So I'm manning the phonesduring this and a lady called,
and she lives here on the Cape.
So I'm manning the phonesduring this and a lady called,
and she lives here on the Cape,and she asked about gutter
cleaning for her home.
I went online and I pulled upall her info and I said here's
the process.
And we clean your gutters, weclean and we flush out the
gutters and the downspouts.
Gutters come loose, we tightenthem, we adjust and tighten
(06:03):
downspouts because they comeloose too.
If you're missing hangers orstraps or elbows, we put them in
Full cleaning, full tune-up Xis what it will cost.
And she said what if you justclean the leaves out of the
gutters and don't do any of thetune-up?
And I said we don't do that.
And she said well, if you did,how much would it cost?
I said we don't do that.
If you're looking for someoneto stand on a ladder and blow
(06:26):
the leaves out of your gutterwith a leaf blower, call someone
else, because that's not whatwe do.
And she said OK, thank you verymuch.
I hope that we can afford to dothe service and maybe we'll get
back to you, but that's thetruth of the matter is we don't
just go in and clean yourgutters.
Yeah, we don't just go in andclean your gutters, because I
told her, if you haven't hadyour gutters cleaned in a long
time, you know, whatever fiveyears, they're going to be loose
(06:48):
and we just can't overlook that.
This is what we do.
That's our differentiator.
We don't do a commodity-levelservice.
We are a high-level service andthat's what separates us from
our competitors.
Do you have a company that youuse that?
I don't know it's a pizza place, or you know where you get your
haircut or something.
(07:08):
Is there any company that youpersonally use, chris?
That it's a commodity.
You can go anywhere, but youuse that guy and only that guy.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, I pretty much do.
I have two of them.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Tell me why.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
My haircut guy.
Oh, you go to the same.
Why do you go there?
I've been going to Ned.
My kids' first haircuts wereall at Ned.
Now they're my grandkids hair.
Why do you go to Ned?
Well, first it went to Ned isbecause basically he was my age.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
He understood the sort of haircut that I wanted
Most of the guys in my area werekind of old, old men, you know,
and I guess it's 30, 40 yearsago.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Yeah, he was a young guy in that space, he was just
starting out, which I reallyliked.
I kind of could relate to him,but he did really good work and
he would spend you know mostplaces you go in the 15-minute
haircut things.
He would spend you know 45minutes, you know, working on my
hair.
He did a really good job.
So he took the time and he'sbeen my barber for 30 years.
So that's number one.
And the other one is my carguys.
(08:01):
And kind of the same thing withthose car guys you know I went
in the original.
One guy was named fuzzy car.
That's actually my first guywas.
Fuzzy car was his name.
My current guy is David Bolt,if you can imagine that, but
fuzzy car.
And I went in and told him youknow, I'll y'all be your
customer forever, just give mefair prices.
And he said no problem.
And I went in there and youcould eat off the floors of his
(08:22):
garage, which I really liked.
I immediately that meantquality.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
So what's the differentiator?
You go to Fuzzy.
Because of what?
Quality?
Quality.
Okay, you went to the guy thatcuts your Ned, because of he.
Just he knew me.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
He knew who I was and what kind of haircut I was
interested in.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
I have a similar situation.
I go to Charlie the barber downhere on the Cape and Danielle
cuts my hair.
Every time she does a good job.
The price doesn't matter.
Right, the price doesn't matterand I'm a good tipper, so she's
getting the base price plus atip.
I only get my hair cut at what?
Every six to eight weeks, yeah,so I don't care what the price
is $20, $30, $35.
(08:59):
It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah, for my haircut guy.
Actually, we've never discussedprice after the first time I
went in there and every once ina while I have to tell him
what's your price now?
Oh, you know it's up to.
Oh okay, so I have to keep upwith that.
He never discusses price withme.
I don't even care anymore, butyeah.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
I go to Falmouth Toyota.
Down here in the kitchen Ithink we have 12 Tacomas out in
the parking lot here.
We lot here.
We don't go anywhere else.
I go to them because they'refair.
A Toyota Tacoma, a brand new2025 Toyota Tacoma is the same,
no matter where you buy it.
I go to them because I likethem.
Great service.
They give us free service onall the trucks for like two
(09:36):
years.
Treat us really well, it'sservice.
I go to Rockland Trust, my bank.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, we mention it all the time here.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
I love Rockland Trust .
I can't say enough things.
I will not consider going toanother bank.
I get special deals and offersfrom other banks.
I don't even look at them.
I want to talk about a localmicro brew Knockabout.
They make the best IPA I'veever had.
I stop in there about once amonth and I grab a couple of
four packs I like to have.
If I'm going to have a beer, Iwant to have a.
I don't drink a 12-pack of Budanymore.
I don't.
I'm not a 24-pack of MillerLite and watch the football game
(10:09):
.
But you're in the betterbusiness?
I don't think so.
You're talking about painters.
What are two things that everypainter has at all times?
Paint bucket and a brush, Drugaddiction and an ex-girlfriend.
(10:30):
Anyway, no, I go to theknockabout because they make a
great beer.
I don't care what the price is.
I only drink one or two beers aweek anyway.
But if I'm watching the ballgame and I sit down after dinner
, I want a great beer and Idon't care what the price is.
So what was the beer that hadthat.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
What was the?
If you're only going to haveone beer, it's the beer to have.
What was that?
Schaefer?
Yeah, that's the one beer tohave when you're having more
than one.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Okay, there you go, but you know, there are a lot of
companies right here in myneighborhood on Cape Cod where I
use a specific company.
I don't even consider usinganybody else.
I'm a lifer, I am theircustomer for life and it's
quality of personnel, quality ofproduct, quality service that's
(11:11):
their differentiator.
And in my business I want to bethat guy.
I want to be the one that putsout a better service, better
product.
We are a premium price but wedo a better job and we believe
that the little bit more you'regoing to pay to have us come out
, it's worth it.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Plus wraps around too .
Because you wouldn't servicethat woman's gutter, because you
couldn't tune it up, knowingthat, even if you gave her a
great price, you blew the leavesout and now the gutters are
leaking, she would call you upand be upset with you and
probably give you a bad review.
Right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
And that question comes up.
I have people say well, what ifyou don't seal, scrape and
paint the fascia boards?
You're going to take my oldgutters down, you're going to
put the new ones up?
How much would it cost if youdon't inspect the trim boards
for rot and seal, scrape andpaint?
I said then we don't do it,we're just we're not doing it,
and you can always find acheaper price.
If that's, go find a guy with acheaper price, that's okay.
(12:09):
My partner, andy.
He always says one of hismantras is I don't pay attention
to my competition, I don't knowwhat they're doing, I don't
care what they're doing, I onlyknow what we do.
And that's a good attitude tohave.
Occasionally we look out there.
We see what the competitors aredoing, but for the most part we
have our model.
We stick to what we do.
We want to be like Charlie'sBarber, like Knockabout Brewery,
(12:32):
rockland Trust, falmouth, dota.
Those are the people in mycircle down here and I use their
product and service and I wantthem to use my product and
service and I want to provide abetter product, a better service
and a better experience for mycustomers.
That's my differentiator.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah, let them chase your innovation instead of the
other way around.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
That's how we deal with our competition.
Now we also.
We believe we have a bettername.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah, naming is a big thing.
We've always talked aboutnaming here.
How important it is, huge, hugeMakes me think I was driving
down again.
Always drive down here, down495.
And I'm always kind of lookingat the box trucks as they go by.
Sure, check out the competitorsor whatever.
And again I saw one today.
Again it was a painting company, big, huge box truck.
I only know it's a paintingtruck.
They probably had a 12 bysomething, 12 by 12 little sign
(13:19):
on the side and I couldn't tellyou what the name of the company
was Right.
But I was actually looking tosee.
You know what is the name ofthis company Right?
We've talked about this beforeand already it slipped my mind.
Not that I'm kind of a problemI'm having at this age anyway,
but I can't remember what thename of the company is.
What a shame.
You know I drove by this guy.
Well, you're never going toforget.
(13:39):
I memorable it wasn't a bigsign, the box truck was
completely empty, no advertisingon it.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
You're never going to forget.
1-800-got-junk yeah, that's agreat one, right?
Yeah, we talked about that.
Webuyuglyhousescom, the placecalled the Fish Bowl, tropical
fish, good name, seafood Sam'sdown here in the Cape.
There's some names that arememorable, and having a great
name, having a name that isbetter than all your competitors
already gives you a little bitof an advantage, even if you
(14:07):
don't market it.
But if you have a great nameand you spend some money
marketing, it's like putting onsteroids and then gas on the
fire and that thing really takesoff, Even like Giant Glass.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
That was the one I was always thinking of too,
because Giant really isn't thatdescriptive about glass or
anything.
It's not really catchy oranything, but they've got that
1-800-GIANT-GLASS over.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah, I mean you know names are important.
Don't overlook it, I can't.
I know all my competitors.
I mean down here on the Cape.
I know most of my competitorsin our other areas South Shore,
south Coast, southeast WesternMass.
I don't know all thecompetitors kind of I don't
physically live there but I knowa lot of them, the really good
(14:50):
ones.
Have a good name, have a greatname, gives you a huge advantage
right out of the blocks.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
You don't want to be Brad's drink.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah, Brad's drink.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah, I remember Brad's drink Became Pepsi-Cola,
which is a good move, but yeah,okay.
So.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
So if we're going to, if you're talking about
separating yourselves from yourcompetitors, you know we might
want to look at product service,price and value and naming the
company and as we start to growinto a small business.
The next thing is marketing.
Are you going to differentiateyourself, your company, via
marketing?
It's a good way to start.
(15:25):
Some people don't market A lotof people, especially in the
trades.
You know, we talked about theyoung guy that starts out
turning a wrench with his dadwhen he's 10 and maybe he goes
into the trade school and whenhe gets out he goes to work for
the big car dealership and at 25, 26 years old he's going to
open up his own shop, his owngarage.
He's not scanning the landscapeto determine market trends.
(15:49):
No, he is a mechanic.
He's been turning a wrenchsince he was a kid and he's been
doing very well in the industry.
He's 25, 30 years old Now he'sgoing to do it for himself.
He's going to open his own shop.
And what can be hisdifferentiator?
You know, he can start with agreat name but he's not looking
(16:11):
into the horizon to see wherethe auto industry is going to be
five years, 10 years, 12 years.
No, no, he's in the autoindustry for life.
He's a mechanic.
He's been turning wrench sincehe could walk.
This is what he does.
He's just going to open hisshop.
So, initially, the things thatare important for that guy is
location, parking.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Oh yeah, then name your company, then your hours of
service, the quality of service, I mean, that's when just it's
all about integrity.
After that, what kind ofservice do you provide?
Are you open at seven o'clockin the morning, are you open at
six o'clock in the morning, ordo you open up at nine o'clock?
You know what kind of service,what level of service, are you
going to provide?
That's just all about theintegrity and the passion of the
(16:55):
owner and what he wants to do,what he wants to provide, but
marketing is key.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Marketing can be scary because this is again way
outside a lot of people'ssandbox.
You know they know they're agood mechanic and everything
like this, but marketing I meanthat's there's so many it's kind
of a little bit scary, sort oflike the like I was talking
about before.
What do I know about marketing?
How do I even prove that mymarketing is working?
There's so many things to it.
We touched a little bit aboutthis.
(17:23):
You use a marketing company inparticular to help you out with
this.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
I use a consultant Consultant, yes, I think right
now, company-wide, we'reprobably on 25 radio stations.
So a radio station is amarketing company, right?
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yeah, that's what they do, that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, virtually all of their revenue stream is
through radio advertising, forexample.
So yeah, every radio station islike a small marketing company,
yeah, and you're using them inyour process.
So yeah, marketing it's goingto increase sales, it'll
increase the brand awareness.
It can dynamically improve yourbusiness if done properly.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
You talk about living rent-free inside people's
brains.
I guess Branding, branding andyou know marketing, you know.
Again it goes back to that1-800-GIANT-GLASS or got junk or
whatever.
I mean it's just livingrent-free in my brain.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
It really is.
I was having coffee thismorning with a potential client.
She's just an upstart in herfield and she's real good at
what she does.
We really didn't get intobranding or anything like that
or even naming the company yet.
We're kind of gettingacquainted with one another and
what we all do.
But it's interesting when youmeet with a young person, or
(18:37):
even just not necessarilychronologically a young person,
but somebody new in a business,and we start talking about
things.
One of the things that I talk tomy son a lot because he owns a
marketing and public relationscompany outside of Washington DC
.
He overuses the word brand alot Brand this and brand this
and my brand, and to me it takesyears to create a brand.
(19:01):
A brand is, let's say, ll Beanthat's a brand.
Or Coca-Cola McDonald's, that'sa brand.
Coca-cola McDonald's that's abrand.
Brand meaning it's the name ofthe company, but the brand the
cowboys used to brand the cattle.
They would take a hot brand andpress it on the hip of the cow
(19:24):
and that brand is nowpermanently scarred into the hip
of the cow, so the farmeralways knows that that's his cow
.
Okay, that's what we want to dowith our advertising.
We want to go into somebody'sbrain and we want to establish
our logo on their brain.
We want to brand that and so,as you just said, we're living
(19:46):
in their head, rent-free, sevendays a week, 24 hours a day.
That's branding, and when yourcompany gets to that point, one
of my models that I studiedthere were two of them in
particular.
Before I started this Cape Codgutter monkey, which was our
original venture into thisgutter world, I studied Elliott
(20:09):
and Barry Jordan's Furniture.
They went from a singlelocation that they took over
from their parents back in the70s to a massive conglomerate
here in the Northeast that waspurchased a few years ago by
Warren Buffett.
Jordan's is a brand.
The other company that Istudied quite a bit was a
company that my brother-in-lawwas working for.
It's the Duck Boats up inBoston.
(20:31):
The duck boats are part of ourculture here in Boston and these
are two companies that Istudied before I started the
gutter monkeys.
I wanted to see what they'redoing, how they're doing it.
Let's go to the website.
Let me backtrack 20, 30 yearsand see where this all began.
You can learn so much todaywith what we have available to
(20:52):
us on the internet, and whenyou're talking about branding.
You're talking about arecognizable name by your entire
target market.
That's what you're looking for.
So, chris, if you start a pizzaplace and three weeks into your
venture you're talking to meabout your brand.
You don't have a brand yet.
(21:12):
It takes a long time, and Iwant the upstart business owner
to know that you don't get abrand right away, because if
it's that simple, then everyonehas one.
And how would that differentiateyou from me, who I've been in
my current business for 11 years?
I have probably close to amillion or more than a million
(21:33):
dollars invested in marketingover the last 11 years to I have
probably close to a million ormore than a million dollars
invested in marketing over thelast 11 years to create my brand
, and I would say about three orfour years in that's when I
said all right, we have a smallbrand Now we can use that term
in-house.
And I say that because of whatpeople say to me.
If I'm in the supermarket and Ihappen to have, it's not let's
say, it's not casual Wednesdayand I'm dressed like a gutter
(21:56):
monkey, sure, you go into thesupermarket and I got one of my
hoodies on and a lot of peoplecomment.
They will say to me no monkeyswere harmed in the making of
this commercial.
They say that because that'sthat's our, that's our tagline
at the end of every commercial.
People heckle us when we'redriving down the road in one of
our trucks and we hit a stopsign and they roll the window
(22:17):
down and they yell that at us.
Okay, that's really a humblingexperience.
It lets me know that peopleknow who we are.
My attempt at branding isworking.
Branding is huge.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
It's just huge In terms of competition too.
Once you're in there, whensomeone's brain now the
competition has to come in anddislodge you somehow, and that's
going to be very difficult todo how do you dislodge?
How do you dislodge1-800-GIANT-GLASS?
I mean, it's just verydifficult.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
It's so difficult.
You see these upstart companiesthat would compete with
1-800-GOT-JUNK.
There's two men in a truckthat's a new brand out there.
They've been around for alittle while.
They started elsewhere, but Ioccasionally see one of those
trucks out there College hunksmoving junk, they do moving,
they do junk removal, some ofthat other stuff.
(23:05):
But how do you crack that shellthat 1-800-GOT-JUNK has created?
It's so difficult because theirname is their phone number, it
is their domain name and ittells you what they do all in
one.
You know, when we started theCape Cod Gutter Monkeys, a
couple of things that I likedabout it is that it tells you
(23:26):
where we are and it tells youwhat we do, and it's
alliterative.
Cape Cod and Gutter Monkeysit's two alliterative terms
wrapped into one, and we haveSouth Shore gutter monkeys and
we have South Coast guttermonkeys and we move on with that
All the same colors,everything's all the same
Branding is all the same.
It's hard for Pete and Dave'sgutter services to rise above.
(23:48):
It's hard to brand that nameand it's discouraging.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
They don't want to come into this area.
Now.
It's like why do I even go intothat area?
That guy who's thinking aboutgoing into gutters first thing
he's hit with is Cape Cod gutter, monkeys and all the ads.
Why would he go into the gutterbusiness in this area?
Speaker 2 (24:04):
well, he may choose that because he knows there's a
well-established market for itdown here.
One of the reasons that Andyand I chose well, I lived on
Cape Cod.
But one of the reasons we chosethe gutter services is I was in
the roofing business my wholelife and I hit 50 years old.
Damn, that's a young man's game, that roofing thing.
And even though I had severalcrews and I wasn't always on the
(24:25):
roof every day I was onsomebody's roof, whether I'm
measuring it, assessing it,addressing a leaking issue,
every day I'm up and downladders and I'm on roofs.
And at about 50 years old Isaid, okay, I'm going to step
away from this.
And it was a natural transitionover to gutters Because you're
dealing with water issues and inmy life I'd also built a few
(24:48):
dozen houses.
I understand roofing guttersand how they all work in concert
with one another.
So for me it was an easytransition.
So the next level is what do wecall the company?
You know one of my the name ofmy previous construction company
was on time construction.
Some people would call me andsay you know, I went with you
(25:08):
because I want to see if youactually show up on time.
And then they said the namealone was a challenge.
It piqued my interest.
Let me call the guy and see ifhe shows up on time, and I
always do.
I have a sort of an attitudethat if you're not early then
you're late, and I always try tobe 10 or 15 minutes early.
Everywhere I go on timeconstruction and oftentimes I
(25:29):
would converse with customersand other people and I say, look
, I'm always on time because Idon't lie.
I'm not going to tell you I cancomplete this job by the 4th of
July, when I know I can'tfinish it till the 20th of July.
I'll be honest with you.
I will get this job done by thesecond or third week of July,
but it won't be done by the 4thof July.
(25:49):
If you need it done by the 4thof July, I just can't do it.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Yeah, if I was hit with that, my first impression
would be this guy has identifiedthe number one concern I have
with a construction job iswhat's the number one thing that
always goes?
Speaker 2 (26:01):
wrong.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Yeah, you always hear it.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Missing deadlines.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Missing deadlines.
It was supposed to be atwo-month job and now it's four
months.
Someone told me the other daythey had a fence done.
The guy came, took down thefence, put a port-a-potty in his
driveway and went away forthree months.
I've heard of this, I've heardof this, and so that's the
number one thing.
So, but the fact that you namedyour company On Time
Construction, you're sayingright up front I know, this is
(26:27):
your number one concern and I'mgoing to address it.
That's why I did it.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
I actually I kind of commandeered the name from the
on-time ferry over on Martha'sVineyard.
Oh yeah, do you know that?
Oh sure it was in Jaws.
Yeah Right, that little ferrythat they're riding across.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Well, that's the on-time ferry.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
That's the on-time ferry and I always liked Jaws.
It's one of my favorite movies.
I was a kid when when they weremaking it and you know it's got
that whole New England and CapeCod thing going, but that was
called the on-time ferry, thatwas a good one and for most of
my young life I thought that's agreat name for something else
too.
Yeah, so at the time I was inthe roofing business when I
(27:05):
started the new company this isback in 1995, I called it
on-time construction and itstuck.
People seem to get it, theyseem to like it instantly and it
worked.
And it didn't take long beforewe established a reputation of
being on time, showing up ontime, to give you the quote.
And I would, let's say in thatthose days I would say we're
(27:28):
going to do your job the firstweek or two of July and this is
in March I'm going to scheduleyou for July, I'll call you the
end of June, and the end of JuneI've got 14 roofs to do in July
.
I would call everybody and getthem on the schedule and there's
always a weather permitting andthat type of thing.
But back in those days I had abunch of young, rugged kids
working for me and if it rainedon Tuesday we'd make it up on
(27:50):
Saturday.
So it didn't really throw usoff.
But we earned a greatreputation for being on time and
that was our differentiatorprice wasn't because I was
always a premium price, becausewe would tarp the house, we
would protect the shrubs with aplywood covers, tarp the yard.
We took extra, extra good careof the property and then when
(28:12):
we're done with the strippingand the messy part, we pull the
tarps back, we do a cleanup, werun magnets through the yard.
I mean we really take good careof the customer's property and
that again kind of flirts withthis strategy of under-promise,
over-deliver.
Right, but that was our brand OnTime Construction.
It worked great, served me verywell for 15 years, and that was
(28:34):
when we moved to Cape Cod andwe became monkeys.
But branding is nothing like it.
I think it's the highest formof marketing, where you just
create some creative form ofmarketing, advertising and brand
awareness all rolled into one,to where people don't even need
to know your phone number, theyjust know your name and they'll
(28:55):
say okay, I'm just going toGoogle the gutter monkeys and
get them over here to whatever Ineed.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Yeah, by its nature, though, because of the kind of
the long, soak time it takessometimes for some of this
branding that you you can'tstart too early when you're
starting your business, right, Imean, it's something you're
going to kind of think aboutfrom the start and think what
image do you have of yourbusiness and where you want to
be?
But it takes a while to developthis branding, as you say, you
know, it's not going to happenovernight.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Well, some people too often ask about the timing of
your branding.
My busiest season is November,december, because it's when the
leaves are falling, busy as heck.
But those people call in in,like August, to schedule us.
So people say, well, do youadvertise more in November,
december or less, and more inAugust?
(29:41):
When they're calling, I don't,because I'm not advertising to
make the phone ring, I'madvertising to brand my name in
your head.
So my marketing budget staysthe same all year long, month
after month.
It's exactly the same.
We have contracts with all ofour radio stations and other
places that we advertise.
(30:01):
So the monthly budget isidentical every month.
Because we're not advertising,we're branding.
And if you can wrap your mindaround that, this is a big piece
of the puzzle as to whatseparates me from my competitors
.
The first thing is I do.
I spend an awful lot of moneyadvertising, and advertising and
(30:23):
marketing equals branding, andwhen you put that whole package
together, we put a lot of time,a lot of effort, a lot of money
into that and I believe that isthe first and most significant
differentiator between me and mycompetition.
And the second thing is wechoose quality of product and
quality of service.
(30:43):
I can't beat you on price.
You can use a lower gaugealuminum and you don't do the
same level of foundation workthat we do.
I can't compete with you onprice.
I can only let the customerknow that this is what we do.
I don't know what the other guysdo, but here's what we do we
remove those old gutters, weinspect your fascia boards and
(31:07):
if we find rot, we remove it andwe replace it.
That's part of the contract.
And then we scrape and we sealand we paint.
So that's my next level ofdifferentiator is we do the
highest quality level of workthat we know how to do.
And another key piece of thepuzzle is my office staff.
These girls are great.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
The fact you pick up the phone when people call I
mean people, most guys, like I'mlearning in this business is
that they're running around witha phone in a truck and you know
, maybe they'll answer your call, maybe they won't, maybe
they'll get back to you in theevening or something like that.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
But when you call in here.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Someone picks up the phone and you have a quote for
your gutter cleaning in a fewminutes.
Yeah, yeah, that's huge.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
So oftentimes when I talk with a real, true startup
which I haven't in a littlewhile, I have a client Now.
They weren't even a truestartup, but one of my clients
down in Virginia, the top dogauto detailing.
They had a different name andit was her husband's initials
and his best friend's initialsand their other best friend from
childhood, and it was just fiveor six or seven, you know, a, b
(32:12):
, c, d, e, auto detailing.
I go boy, that's a tough one toremember Now.
Over time I met them.
I did a seminar down thereabout five years ago or it was
quite some time ago, and she satdown with me, valerie, after
the seminar and we got talking.
Then I talked to her husband onthe phone, because at the time
he was a full-time firefighterand part-time auto detailer, and
(32:35):
right away everything I said tothem made sense.
So right away they changedtheir name and we were.
We were doing some phoneconferences in the beginning and
I said, well, write down 10names, and I'll write down 10
names and let's see what we comeup with.
And they came up with top dogauto detail and I really like it
.
They have a dog, they snap somephotos and I think the dog is
(32:56):
in the logo and I mean they'redoing well, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
They've really dogs.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
So so and then, yeah, people love people, love dogs,
People love monkeys, People likecritters, you know, and um,
they have a cool name goodbusiness model.
They're doing really well.
They've made a lot of changesand they used to be originally
they were one of maybe five orsix local auto detail companies
(33:21):
that are designed to travel toyour location.
Sure, yeah, I was not awarethat that was a big thing, but
down there it is.
Yeah, yeah, Maybe it'sspreading around a little bit,
but but that's what they did.
And then they did some otherthings.
They began adding additionalmarketing, because prior to that
they were only on Facebook.
They added some radio, they didsome different things and they
(33:41):
started to outgrow that littlegroup of five companies and the
other four were kind of leftbehind in their little Facebook
world and these guys wereoutgrowing that and that
combination of things was thedifferentiator for them.
It was fun to watch.
Yeah yeah, and I still talk tothose guys.
I mean, we email many times ayear.
We'll still talk on the phoneand we chat once in a while.
(34:03):
I'll be heading down thereprobably in May or June to see
my son and his family and we'llprobably get together with them.
But yeah, they've done reallywell.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
And they continue to innovate.
They don't just stop.
They came out.
They're probably maybe one ofthe first guys to show up at
your house and do your car inthe driveway as other people
started offering that service.
You know they continue toinnovate out of that, you know,
out of that space, sort of.
There's a great story aboutNetflix.
Remember when Netflix firstcame out, they used to mail you
DVDs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And those guys were veryinnovative because they realized
(34:33):
they own that market.
But they realized that digitalmedia is coming down the pike.
They completely switched thatwhole model out.
And if they hadn't done that, ithadn't looked forward and
continue to innovate.
It didn't matter how well theydid on the first round there
sending out the CDs, they wouldhave been out of business.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Well, when you look at the mobile auto detailing
down in Northern Virginia, thereused to be about five or six of
these local owner-operatedcompanies that Valerie and
Anthony Top Dog Auto Detailingbelong to and they were all on
Facebook and they all banterback and forth and there was
sort of like a little bit ofsort of friendly camaraderie and
(35:11):
competition going on here.
And Valerie was in touch withme a lot back at the beginning
and she told me they changed hername.
It's going really well, thingsare looking good.
They then began to expandthrough radio advertising
Because one of the things theysaid is it sounds like you're
still stuck in that littleculture, that small local
culture.
You've got to break that ceiling.
(35:32):
If you do that too long, thatbecomes your norm and it's hard
to break out of your comfortzone.
And they did.
They grew bigger than theircompetition and as they grow,
I'm suspecting there are bigger,bigger fish in that pond that
are now their competitors.
So as you grow, as you dothings, your landscape changes,
the view changes.
You're going to look around andsay, okay, wow, we're now.
(35:55):
We broke out of the big fish inthe small pond, but now we are
the small fish in the biggerpond and so there are more
mountains to climb.
That's part of dealing withcompetition is looking around at
any given time and seeing whoyour competition is and
potentially what's coming next.
Who are your next level ofcompetitors if you grow, if and
(36:18):
when you choose to grow ordecide to grow as a company.
And there's a phrase that Ireally like.
I've got it here in front of meEvery once in a while, someone
comes along and shocks anestablished market with a new
innovation to a tired industry.
Elon Musk did it.
Elon Musk did something that noone else did.
He went from zero to 60 andwent right past Chevy and Ford
(36:42):
and GMC and everybody else withhis electric car, and he did it
in the blink of an eye almost.
And the reason he did it is hecan't be bribed, he can't be
bought.
I had a client years ago, like35 years ago.
He and his dad had invented anew carburetor and a process
that it would probably allowcars to get 70 miles to the
(37:04):
gallon back in the 80s, and Fordbought it from them.
They either offered them a bigprice up front, with no royalty,
or a small price, and then witha lifetime royalty.
So they took the small price100 grand and a royalty for the
rest of their lives and Fordbought it I believe it was Ford
(37:25):
and put it in the back closetand never used it.
And the reasoning is I hadheard whispers and I've read
different things over the yearsthe big auto manufacturers will
buy up these innovations forshort money and then just table
them.
A lot of history, right.
It goes on a lot, and it's notjust in the auto industry.
But Elon Musk can't be bought.
He's got too much money and toomuch integrity.
(37:47):
He can't be bought.
And he changed the industry.
He created electric cars andnow they're all chasing him.
He's lapping the field and theydon't know it.
He's so far ahead.
It's impressive what he didbecause he shocked the
establishment.
He brought a new innovation toa tired industry.
At the end of Moneyball, themovie Billy Bean, who's the
(38:11):
manager of the Oakland A's, isvisiting John Henry, the owner
of Boston Red Sox, and JohnHenry says really what is
threatening is their livelihood,their jobs.
It's threatening the way theydo things.
And John Henry goes on to sayevery time that happens, whether
it's the government, a way ofdoing business, whatever the
people who are holding the reins, they have their hands on the
(38:31):
switch, they go batshit crazy,and that's so true.
You see it on a small, a mediumand a large level when someone
comes in with a new idea.
Right, and the Cape Cod timesdid an article on our company,
oh, I don't know about twomonths ago, and my son picked it
up before it even hit the press.
(38:53):
I knew it was coming becausethe um, the Cape Cod times had
kind of shot me an email andsaid, hey, that article is
coming out this Sunday.
It was about a month ago andbut it was also online.
And then came the haters.
Then came the haters and theywrote a bunch of nasty stuff and
I know who they are and itdoesn't, but they hate that
(39:13):
stuff.
We got some free action, freepress, so they're writing about
their own companies.
Well, if you had calledso-and-so, then we could have
done that job cheaper, andthat's what it was, that's what
we always see.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
We always see there's a great poster.
It was one of them.
You have a picture of a guy's.
You got four guys up on aladder and I think it's about a
40 foot, probably a 40 footgutter.
It looks like the front of acolonial house or whatever
Pretty good size house, and allthe haters were on there saying,
oh, I could do that with oneguy.
I could do that too.
I do that myself and I do itevery day and I'm like, yeah,
the whole reason why you havefour guys up there is because
(39:46):
they do it right.
It's going to be leveledcorrectly.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
I've been building houses, I've been doing roofs,
I've been hanging gutters mywhole life.
I could take my best guy, Icrew, two of us cannot properly
hang a 40 foot.
We could hang it, the homeownerwon't notice, but it's not
going to be pitched right.
I've seen it a thousand times,I would say twice a month.
We get a call and we go out andwe remove brand new gutters
(40:14):
that are not functioning and weget there and we look and go oh
my gosh, it's pitched wrong,it's mispitched, it's hung wrong
, it's hung too low, water'srunning behind it.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
I've heard those guys .
I had one of those Right in themiddle.
It was all kind of droopingdown.
So when?
Speaker 2 (40:27):
the water, all settled in there.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
then it would flow back into the house and there
was a porch right there.
It went into the porch ceiling,rotted out the whole porch
ceiling all the way to the house.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Two guys cannot properly hang a 40 foot gutter.
I've seen two guys hang 60 footgutters and I just look and go.
I know that's not going up,right?
No, sometimes we'll see we havea big gutter coming up like a
300 footer.
It's on a school and every oncein a while we replaced a long
gutter.
One day and the general managersaid it's an 80 foot gutter and
(40:57):
it was put up in three piecesand seam was leaking, as they
will, because these gutters aredesigned to expand and contract
a little bit with the changingtemperatures.
They always break at the seams,hence the term seamless gutters
.
You want seamless gutters?
Well, you probably got a gooddeal, though, right?
Well, the general manager saidwhy did they do this?
Why did they install it inthree pieces?
(41:19):
I said because it was probablya two-man crew and they could
handle a 30-foot gutter.
So two men climb up, hang a30-foot gutter, then they make
another one, they hang another30-footer, and this is how they
do it, and then they create twoseams and the seams leak.
I believe you get what you payfor, but I don't worry about my
competition.
I just know that we always tryto do the best job we can do.
(41:43):
I used to be in the food serviceindustry.
You know.
We just tried to put out whenwe owned the inn, I tried to put
out the best experience, thebest vacation experience that I
can.
I'm not a gourmet chef, I'mjust a good cook, you know.
We just provided a differentexperience and people would come
back year after year after yearfor the experience.
They're not coming here for thefood.
(42:04):
My food was good, not great.
They could go anywhere.
We're in between CannonMountain and Bretton Woods ski
area.
There's a hundred places theycan stay.
Why are they coming to my place?
We had to create thatdifferentiator and that's what
we want to do.
No matter what we do inbusiness is create the
differentiator so that oursegment of the market comes to
(42:25):
us just like Charlie the barberor Ned is your barber.
Yep, you want to be Ned thebarber or Charlie the barber.
You want your competition.
You want your customers to cometo you, not go to your
competition.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Check out Ned Marlboro.
Okay, well, we're kind ofwrapping it up here in our time
limit here.
Final thoughts, final thoughts.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
I don't dislike my competition.
I actually am usually friendlywith my competitors.
One of my competitors he's agentleman I've known long before
I was in the gutter businessand he was and he said as you
guys started your marketing, youstarted growing this company in
this industry.
He said we all knew what youwere doing.
You're doing a higher qualityand you're charging more money.
(43:05):
And what Christian told me washe said ever since you started
that I can charge more money.
Yeah, he goes.
I love what you guys are doing.
I'm actually making more moneybecause of you.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
And what a great compliment Number one Rising
tide lifts all boats, it does,and he told me that.
He told me that he's told methat a number of times, that he
appreciates it.
Christian's a friend of mine.
He said dinner at my house.
Stuart is another competitor ofmine.
He runs a small two-personoutfit Again another great guy.
I've drank beer and sharedburgers with him.
(43:37):
I like my competition.
I don't have to dislike them orhate them.
We're competitors in the field.
It doesn't mean we can't befriends.
So you know my philosophy oncompetitors is I think
competition is good.
It keeps us honest, keeps usclean, it gives our target
market a choice.
Right, and if I know they haveto have a choice, I know I got
(43:58):
to do a better job.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
So keeps everybody on your toes, you on your toes, it
does, chris.
Alright, good time.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, that was interesting, soI guess we're going to wrap it
up here.
We'll catch you guys next time.
And no monkeys were harmed inthe making of this podcast,
that's right.
catch you later.
Thank you for tuning in toMonkey Business Radio.
If you enjoyed today's episode,please make sure to subscribe,
(44:22):
like and follow us wherever youget your podcasts.
It really helps us reach moreaspiring entrepreneurs like you,
and if you've got a question ortopic you'd like us to cover,
leave a comment or reach out tous on social media.
We'd love to hear your thoughtsand keep the conversation going
.
Don't forget to leave us afive-star review if you found
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(44:43):
We'll see you next time.
This podcast is produced byAmerican Gutter Monkeys LLC.
Build real wealth throughbusiness ownership.
For details, visit us atAmericanGutterMonkeyscom.
Hello everyone, welcome to episode 14, Dealing
with the Competition, starting anew business and realizing
you've got competition.
Good, that means there's demand.
In this episode, dennis and Ibreak down how to approach
competition the smart way,without spiraling into panic or
paranoia.
We talk about why beingdifferent beats being first, how
delivering real value keepscustomers coming back, why the
(00:23):
name on your truck might justmatter more than you think, and
we share a few tales from thegutter about outservicing the
so-called pros.
So let's get into it.
Grab a cup of coffee, sit back,relax and welcome to Monkey
Business Radio.
Hello Dennis, chris, how areyou doing today?
(00:44):
Good, I'm doing really well,that's good.
I just can't help but notice, inthe 13 episodes we've done,
you've always had your GutterMonkey shirt on, and today you
do not have your Gutter Monkeyshirt on.
What's going?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
on with that.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
You're going to distract all of our viewers.
You're commenting on my attire.
Yeah, you're distracting ourviewers.
What day is today?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
What day is today?
What day is it Wednesday?
We do the podcast on Thursday.
Oh, I'm sorry, today is notThursday, it's Wednesday.
Didn't you get the memo?
No, I didn't get the memo.
Wednesday is casual dress.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Wednesday.
It's casual Wednesday.
You're out of uniform today.
Okay Well, sorry about that.
We always go out to dinner onWednesday.
I came for the free food today.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
All right, that's the reason for the attire change.
Every Wednesday is CasualWednesday here at Gutter Monkey
headquarters.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
It's kind of strange because most places casual, you
dress down, but for a guttercompany you guys work in
t-shirts anyway.
So I guess this is your versionof dressing up, dressing down.
I guess, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Casual.
It's up to interpretation.
However, you view that I'mcoming from a corporate world.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
My head is all spun around by this whole thing.
Okay, what are we doing today?
What are we talking about?
We're talking about competition.
Competition Kind of came around.
We've been talking about someideas the last couple of weeks
and this is one came up fairlyrecently.
I work with a lot of ourfranchisees, or potential
franchisees, and a lot of them.
This is the first question thatcomes up.
Okay, you want me to invest ina gutter company in Worcester?
(02:06):
Worcester has 25 gutter peoplerunning around town.
Why would I do that in thatspace?
Then also in my past, I waslooking at doing a couple of
small businesses.
This is an issue I actuallystruggled with as well, because
I was interested in actuallydoing the concrete, decorative,
concrete block for patios andstuff like that, maybe opening a
(02:28):
business to sell that material.
And I went around town andthere was practically one on
every corner.
So that was kind of a passion Ihad.
But I was kind of scared off bythe potential competition there
.
How would I differentiatemyself?
So I guess you know, comingfrom it from both points of view
, you know where would I startwith this whole thing.
You know where do I startevaluating competition?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
There's like 10 things that every startup is
afraid of right Funding, hiringemployees, creating the name
competition.
There's so many things that canpop up on the screen and every
one is another reason to scareyou off.
Yeah, that's the constant themein any level of business.
(03:05):
Whether I'm talking to myclients, whether I'm talking to
a franchisee, it always comes up.
Oh, this guy undercut me, he'sa cheaper price.
Business is all aboutcompetition.
I think you had commented atone time that if there's a lot
of competition, one way to lookat it is there's a market for it
out there.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
It's a good sign actually.
Yeah, People actually want thatservice.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
So Well, also, when you're starting out, you have to
have a game plan.
You have to have a businessplan if you really want to be
dynamic.
And one of those questions youwant to ask yourself is how are
you going to compete?
Are you going to compete onprice versus value?
You got a product, you got aservice and you got price.
If a company claims to have thebest product, the highest level
(03:49):
of service and the cheapestprice, they're lying to you.
One of those things is not true.
You can't have the mostexpensive product and the
highest level of service and thecheapest price, Right, If you
have the first two you got tothrow out two of the third at
least.
Well, what we say is pick two ofthose and then throw one of
(04:10):
them out, because you're notgoing to.
The only thing that we do hereis premium quality.
We are a high priced productbut in our world we have
extremely high-quality employeesdoing our installs.
Our process is significantlybetter than what my competition
is, and nothing against mycompetition.
(04:31):
I have many competitors here inmy field on the Cape that I
have lunch with.
I've had my competitors over tomy house for swimming and
cannonballs and playinghorseshoes in the yard.
Nothing wrong with competition.
But when you're looking atwhat's going to separate you
from your competitor, start withthat Product, service and price
(04:55):
and value yeah, that's one ofthe places you want to start.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I'm seeing that kind of demonstrated here, kind of
looking over your shoulder thelast couple of months.
Things like you have a 10-pointinspection free thing for going
up on the roofs and checking,flashing and all for gutter
cleaning.
Yeah, we do a 10 point topsideinspection.
You always paint behind thegutters before you put them up
and things like that.
You know these other littlethings that other companies
don't do.
They make a big difference,because that's your, that's your
(05:19):
value differentiator, I guess.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I had a call today.
I happen to be in the officeand my office manager, molly.
She's due with her second babyin about two weeks, so the whole
office staff other than me.
They planned a shower, so allthe girls were in here in the
main room and I was in theoffice.
Right and I was in the officealone and the phone rang.
(05:42):
So I'm manning the phonesduring this and a lady called,
and she lives here on the Cape.
So I'm manning the phonesduring this and a lady called,
and she lives here on the Cape,and she asked about gutter
cleaning for her home.
I went online and I pulled upall her info and I said here's
the process.
And we clean your gutters, weclean and we flush out the
gutters and the downspouts.
Gutters come loose, we tightenthem, we adjust and tighten
(06:03):
downspouts because they comeloose too.
If you're missing hangers orstraps or elbows, we put them in
Full cleaning, full tune-up Xis what it will cost.
And she said what if you justclean the leaves out of the
gutters and don't do any of thetune-up?
And I said we don't do that.
And she said well, if you did,how much would it cost?
I said we don't do that.
If you're looking for someoneto stand on a ladder and blow
(06:26):
the leaves out of your gutterwith a leaf blower, call someone
else, because that's not whatwe do.
And she said OK, thank you verymuch.
I hope that we can afford to dothe service and maybe we'll get
back to you, but that's thetruth of the matter is we don't
just go in and clean yourgutters.
Yeah, we don't just go in andclean your gutters, because I
told her, if you haven't hadyour gutters cleaned in a long
time, you know, whatever fiveyears, they're going to be loose
(06:48):
and we just can't overlook that.
This is what we do.
That's our differentiator.
We don't do a commodity-levelservice.
We are a high-level service andthat's what separates us from
our competitors.
Do you have a company that youuse that?
I don't know it's a pizza place, or you know where you get your
haircut or something.
(07:08):
Is there any company that youpersonally use, chris?
That it's a commodity.
You can go anywhere, but youuse that guy and only that guy.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, I pretty much do.
I have two of them.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Tell me why.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
My haircut guy.
Oh, you go to the same.
Why do you go there?
I've been going to Ned.
My kids' first haircuts wereall at Ned.
Now they're my grandkids hair.
Why do you go to Ned?
Well, first it went to Ned isbecause basically he was my age.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
He understood the sort of haircut that I wanted
Most of the guys in my area werekind of old, old men, you know,
and I guess it's 30, 40 yearsago.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Yeah, he was a young guy in that space, he was just
starting out, which I reallyliked.
I kind of could relate to him,but he did really good work and
he would spend you know mostplaces you go in the 15-minute
haircut things.
He would spend you know 45minutes, you know, working on my
hair.
He did a really good job.
So he took the time and he'sbeen my barber for 30 years.
So that's number one.
And the other one is my carguys.
(08:01):
And kind of the same thing withthose car guys you know I went
in the original.
One guy was named fuzzy car.
That's actually my first guywas.
Fuzzy car was his name.
My current guy is David Bolt,if you can imagine that, but
fuzzy car.
And I went in and told him youknow, I'll y'all be your
customer forever, just give mefair prices.
And he said no problem.
And I went in there and youcould eat off the floors of his
(08:22):
garage, which I really liked.
I immediately that meantquality.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
So what's the differentiator?
You go to Fuzzy.
Because of what?
Quality?
Quality.
Okay, you went to the guy thatcuts your Ned, because of he.
Just he knew me.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
He knew who I was and what kind of haircut I was
interested in.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
I have a similar situation.
I go to Charlie the barber downhere on the Cape and Danielle
cuts my hair.
Every time she does a good job.
The price doesn't matter.
Right, the price doesn't matterand I'm a good tipper, so she's
getting the base price plus atip.
I only get my hair cut at what?
Every six to eight weeks, yeah,so I don't care what the price
is $20, $30, $35.
(08:59):
It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah, for my haircut guy.
Actually, we've never discussedprice after the first time I
went in there and every once ina while I have to tell him
what's your price now?
Oh, you know it's up to.
Oh okay, so I have to keep upwith that.
He never discusses price withme.
I don't even care anymore, butyeah.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
I go to Falmouth Toyota.
Down here in the kitchen Ithink we have 12 Tacomas out in
the parking lot here.
We lot here.
We don't go anywhere else.
I go to them because they'refair.
A Toyota Tacoma, a brand new2025 Toyota Tacoma is the same,
no matter where you buy it.
I go to them because I likethem.
Great service.
They give us free service onall the trucks for like two
(09:36):
years.
Treat us really well, it'sservice.
I go to Rockland Trust, my bank.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, we mention it all the time here.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
I love Rockland Trust .
I can't say enough things.
I will not consider going toanother bank.
I get special deals and offersfrom other banks.
I don't even look at them.
I want to talk about a localmicro brew Knockabout.
They make the best IPA I'veever had.
I stop in there about once amonth and I grab a couple of
four packs I like to have.
If I'm going to have a beer, Iwant to have a.
I don't drink a 12-pack of Budanymore.
I don't.
I'm not a 24-pack of MillerLite and watch the football game
(10:09):
.
But you're in the betterbusiness?
I don't think so.
You're talking about painters.
What are two things that everypainter has at all times?
Paint bucket and a brush, Drugaddiction and an ex-girlfriend.
(10:30):
Anyway, no, I go to theknockabout because they make a
great beer.
I don't care what the price is.
I only drink one or two beers aweek anyway.
But if I'm watching the ballgame and I sit down after dinner
, I want a great beer and Idon't care what the price is.
So what was the beer that hadthat.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
What was the?
If you're only going to haveone beer, it's the beer to have.
What was that?
Schaefer?
Yeah, that's the one beer tohave when you're having more
than one.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Okay, there you go, but you know, there are a lot of
companies right here in myneighborhood on Cape Cod where I
use a specific company.
I don't even consider usinganybody else.
I'm a lifer, I am theircustomer for life and it's
quality of personnel, quality ofproduct, quality service that's
(11:11):
their differentiator.
And in my business I want to bethat guy.
I want to be the one that putsout a better service, better
product.
We are a premium price but wedo a better job and we believe
that the little bit more you'regoing to pay to have us come out
, it's worth it.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Plus wraps around too .
Because you wouldn't servicethat woman's gutter, because you
couldn't tune it up, knowingthat, even if you gave her a
great price, you blew the leavesout and now the gutters are
leaking, she would call you upand be upset with you and
probably give you a bad review.
Right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
And that question comes up.
I have people say well, what ifyou don't seal, scrape and
paint the fascia boards?
You're going to take my oldgutters down, you're going to
put the new ones up?
How much would it cost if youdon't inspect the trim boards
for rot and seal, scrape andpaint?
I said then we don't do it,we're just we're not doing it,
and you can always find acheaper price.
If that's, go find a guy with acheaper price, that's okay.
(12:09):
My partner, andy.
He always says one of hismantras is I don't pay attention
to my competition, I don't knowwhat they're doing, I don't
care what they're doing, I onlyknow what we do.
And that's a good attitude tohave.
Occasionally we look out there.
We see what the competitors aredoing, but for the most part we
have our model.
We stick to what we do.
We want to be like Charlie'sBarber, like Knockabout Brewery,
(12:32):
rockland Trust, falmouth, dota.
Those are the people in mycircle down here and I use their
product and service and I wantthem to use my product and
service and I want to provide abetter product, a better service
and a better experience for mycustomers.
That's my differentiator.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah, let them chase your innovation instead of the
other way around.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
That's how we deal with our competition.
Now we also.
We believe we have a bettername.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah, naming is a big thing.
We've always talked aboutnaming here.
How important it is, huge, hugeMakes me think I was driving
down again.
Always drive down here, down495.
And I'm always kind of lookingat the box trucks as they go by.
Sure, check out the competitorsor whatever.
And again I saw one today.
Again it was a painting company, big, huge box truck.
I only know it's a paintingtruck.
They probably had a 12 bysomething, 12 by 12 little sign
(13:19):
on the side and I couldn't tellyou what the name of the company
was Right.
But I was actually looking tosee.
You know what is the name ofthis company Right?
We've talked about this beforeand already it slipped my mind.
Not that I'm kind of a problemI'm having at this age anyway,
but I can't remember what thename of the company is.
What a shame.
You know I drove by this guy.
Well, you're never going toforget.
(13:39):
I memorable it wasn't a bigsign, the box truck was
completely empty, no advertisingon it.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
You're never going to forget.
1-800-got-junk yeah, that's agreat one, right?
Yeah, we talked about that.
Webuyuglyhousescom, the placecalled the Fish Bowl, tropical
fish, good name, seafood Sam'sdown here in the Cape.
There's some names that arememorable, and having a great
name, having a name that isbetter than all your competitors
already gives you a little bitof an advantage, even if you
(14:07):
don't market it.
But if you have a great nameand you spend some money
marketing, it's like putting onsteroids and then gas on the
fire and that thing really takesoff, Even like Giant Glass.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
That was the one I was always thinking of too,
because Giant really isn't thatdescriptive about glass or
anything.
It's not really catchy oranything, but they've got that
1-800-GIANT-GLASS over.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah, I mean you know names are important.
Don't overlook it, I can't.
I know all my competitors.
I mean down here on the Cape.
I know most of my competitorsin our other areas South Shore,
south Coast, southeast WesternMass.
I don't know all thecompetitors kind of I don't
physically live there but I knowa lot of them, the really good
(14:50):
ones.
Have a good name, have a greatname, gives you a huge advantage
right out of the blocks.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
You don't want to be Brad's drink.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah, Brad's drink.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah, I remember Brad's drink Became Pepsi-Cola,
which is a good move, but yeah,okay.
So.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
So if we're going to, if you're talking about
separating yourselves from yourcompetitors, you know we might
want to look at product service,price and value and naming the
company and as we start to growinto a small business.
The next thing is marketing.
Are you going to differentiateyourself, your company, via
marketing?
It's a good way to start.
(15:25):
Some people don't market A lotof people, especially in the
trades.
You know, we talked about theyoung guy that starts out
turning a wrench with his dadwhen he's 10 and maybe he goes
into the trade school and whenhe gets out he goes to work for
the big car dealership and at 25, 26 years old he's going to
open up his own shop, his owngarage.
He's not scanning the landscapeto determine market trends.
(15:49):
No, he is a mechanic.
He's been turning a wrenchsince he was a kid and he's been
doing very well in the industry.
He's 25, 30 years old Now he'sgoing to do it for himself.
He's going to open his own shop.
And what can be hisdifferentiator?
You know, he can start with agreat name but he's not looking
(16:11):
into the horizon to see wherethe auto industry is going to be
five years, 10 years, 12 years.
No, no, he's in the autoindustry for life.
He's a mechanic.
He's been turning wrench sincehe could walk.
This is what he does.
He's just going to open hisshop.
So, initially, the things thatare important for that guy is
location, parking.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Oh yeah, then name your company, then your hours of
service, the quality of service, I mean, that's when just it's
all about integrity.
After that, what kind ofservice do you provide?
Are you open at seven o'clockin the morning, are you open at
six o'clock in the morning, ordo you open up at nine o'clock?
You know what kind of service,what level of service, are you
going to provide?
That's just all about theintegrity and the passion of the
(16:55):
owner and what he wants to do,what he wants to provide, but
marketing is key.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Marketing can be scary because this is again way
outside a lot of people'ssandbox.
You know they know they're agood mechanic and everything
like this, but marketing I meanthat's there's so many it's kind
of a little bit scary, sort oflike the like I was talking
about before.
What do I know about marketing?
How do I even prove that mymarketing is working?
There's so many things to it.
We touched a little bit aboutthis.
(17:23):
You use a marketing company inparticular to help you out with
this.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
I use a consultant Consultant, yes, I think right
now, company-wide, we'reprobably on 25 radio stations.
So a radio station is amarketing company, right?
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yeah, that's what they do, that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, virtually all of their revenue stream is
through radio advertising, forexample.
So yeah, every radio station islike a small marketing company,
yeah, and you're using them inyour process.
So yeah, marketing it's goingto increase sales, it'll
increase the brand awareness.
It can dynamically improve yourbusiness if done properly.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
You talk about living rent-free inside people's
brains.
I guess Branding, branding andyou know marketing, you know.
Again it goes back to that1-800-GIANT-GLASS or got junk or
whatever.
I mean it's just livingrent-free in my brain.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
It really is.
I was having coffee thismorning with a potential client.
She's just an upstart in herfield and she's real good at
what she does.
We really didn't get intobranding or anything like that
or even naming the company yet.
We're kind of gettingacquainted with one another and
what we all do.
But it's interesting when youmeet with a young person, or
(18:37):
even just not necessarilychronologically a young person,
but somebody new in a business,and we start talking about
things.
One of the things that I talk tomy son a lot because he owns a
marketing and public relationscompany outside of Washington DC
.
He overuses the word brand alot Brand this and brand this
and my brand, and to me it takesyears to create a brand.
(19:01):
A brand is, let's say, ll Beanthat's a brand.
Or Coca-Cola McDonald's, that'sa brand.
Coca-cola McDonald's that's abrand.
Brand meaning it's the name ofthe company, but the brand the
cowboys used to brand the cattle.
They would take a hot brand andpress it on the hip of the cow
(19:24):
and that brand is nowpermanently scarred into the hip
of the cow, so the farmeralways knows that that's his cow
.
Okay, that's what we want to dowith our advertising.
We want to go into somebody'sbrain and we want to establish
our logo on their brain.
We want to brand that and so,as you just said, we're living
(19:46):
in their head, rent-free, sevendays a week, 24 hours a day.
That's branding, and when yourcompany gets to that point, one
of my models that I studiedthere were two of them in
particular.
Before I started this Cape Codgutter monkey, which was our
original venture into thisgutter world, I studied Elliott
(20:09):
and Barry Jordan's Furniture.
They went from a singlelocation that they took over
from their parents back in the70s to a massive conglomerate
here in the Northeast that waspurchased a few years ago by
Warren Buffett.
Jordan's is a brand.
The other company that Istudied quite a bit was a
company that my brother-in-lawwas working for.
It's the Duck Boats up inBoston.
(20:31):
The duck boats are part of ourculture here in Boston and these
are two companies that Istudied before I started the
gutter monkeys.
I wanted to see what they'redoing, how they're doing it.
Let's go to the website.
Let me backtrack 20, 30 yearsand see where this all began.
You can learn so much todaywith what we have available to
(20:52):
us on the internet, and whenyou're talking about branding.
You're talking about arecognizable name by your entire
target market.
That's what you're looking for.
So, chris, if you start a pizzaplace and three weeks into your
venture you're talking to meabout your brand.
You don't have a brand yet.
(21:12):
It takes a long time, and Iwant the upstart business owner
to know that you don't get abrand right away, because if
it's that simple, then everyonehas one.
And how would that differentiateyou from me, who I've been in
my current business for 11 years?
I have probably close to amillion or more than a million
(21:33):
dollars invested in marketingover the last 11 years to I have
probably close to a million ormore than a million dollars
invested in marketing over thelast 11 years to create my brand
, and I would say about three orfour years in that's when I
said all right, we have a smallbrand Now we can use that term
in-house.
And I say that because of whatpeople say to me.
If I'm in the supermarket and Ihappen to have, it's not let's
say, it's not casual Wednesdayand I'm dressed like a gutter
(21:56):
monkey, sure, you go into thesupermarket and I got one of my
hoodies on and a lot of peoplecomment.
They will say to me no monkeyswere harmed in the making of
this commercial.
They say that because that'sthat's our, that's our tagline
at the end of every commercial.
People heckle us when we'redriving down the road in one of
our trucks and we hit a stopsign and they roll the window
(22:17):
down and they yell that at us.
Okay, that's really a humblingexperience.
It lets me know that peopleknow who we are.
My attempt at branding isworking.
Branding is huge.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
It's just huge In terms of competition too.
Once you're in there, whensomeone's brain now the
competition has to come in anddislodge you somehow, and that's
going to be very difficult todo how do you dislodge?
How do you dislodge1-800-GIANT-GLASS?
I mean, it's just verydifficult.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
It's so difficult.
You see these upstart companiesthat would compete with
1-800-GOT-JUNK.
There's two men in a truckthat's a new brand out there.
They've been around for alittle while.
They started elsewhere, but Ioccasionally see one of those
trucks out there College hunksmoving junk, they do moving,
they do junk removal, some ofthat other stuff.
(23:05):
But how do you crack that shellthat 1-800-GOT-JUNK has created?
It's so difficult because theirname is their phone number, it
is their domain name and ittells you what they do all in
one.
You know, when we started theCape Cod Gutter Monkeys, a
couple of things that I likedabout it is that it tells you
(23:26):
where we are and it tells youwhat we do, and it's
alliterative.
Cape Cod and Gutter Monkeysit's two alliterative terms
wrapped into one, and we haveSouth Shore gutter monkeys and
we have South Coast guttermonkeys and we move on with that
All the same colors,everything's all the same
Branding is all the same.
It's hard for Pete and Dave'sgutter services to rise above.
(23:48):
It's hard to brand that nameand it's discouraging.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
They don't want to come into this area.
Now.
It's like why do I even go intothat area?
That guy who's thinking aboutgoing into gutters first thing
he's hit with is Cape Cod gutter, monkeys and all the ads.
Why would he go into the gutterbusiness in this area?
Speaker 2 (24:04):
well, he may choose that because he knows there's a
well-established market for itdown here.
One of the reasons that Andyand I chose well, I lived on
Cape Cod.
But one of the reasons we chosethe gutter services is I was in
the roofing business my wholelife and I hit 50 years old.
Damn, that's a young man's game, that roofing thing.
And even though I had severalcrews and I wasn't always on the
(24:25):
roof every day I was onsomebody's roof, whether I'm
measuring it, assessing it,addressing a leaking issue,
every day I'm up and downladders and I'm on roofs.
And at about 50 years old Isaid, okay, I'm going to step
away from this.
And it was a natural transitionover to gutters Because you're
dealing with water issues and inmy life I'd also built a few
(24:48):
dozen houses.
I understand roofing guttersand how they all work in concert
with one another.
So for me it was an easytransition.
So the next level is what do wecall the company?
You know one of my the name ofmy previous construction company
was on time construction.
Some people would call me andsay you know, I went with you
(25:08):
because I want to see if youactually show up on time.
And then they said the namealone was a challenge.
It piqued my interest.
Let me call the guy and see ifhe shows up on time, and I
always do.
I have a sort of an attitudethat if you're not early then
you're late, and I always try tobe 10 or 15 minutes early.
Everywhere I go on timeconstruction and oftentimes I
(25:29):
would converse with customersand other people and I say, look
, I'm always on time because Idon't lie.
I'm not going to tell you I cancomplete this job by the 4th of
July, when I know I can'tfinish it till the 20th of July.
I'll be honest with you.
I will get this job done by thesecond or third week of July,
but it won't be done by the 4thof July.
(25:49):
If you need it done by the 4thof July, I just can't do it.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Yeah, if I was hit with that, my first impression
would be this guy has identifiedthe number one concern I have
with a construction job iswhat's the number one thing that
always goes?
Speaker 2 (26:01):
wrong.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Yeah, you always hear it.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Missing deadlines.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Missing deadlines.
It was supposed to be atwo-month job and now it's four
months.
Someone told me the other daythey had a fence done.
The guy came, took down thefence, put a port-a-potty in his
driveway and went away forthree months.
I've heard of this, I've heardof this, and so that's the
number one thing.
So, but the fact that you namedyour company On Time
Construction, you're sayingright up front I know, this is
(26:27):
your number one concern and I'mgoing to address it.
That's why I did it.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
I actually I kind of commandeered the name from the
on-time ferry over on Martha'sVineyard.
Oh yeah, do you know that?
Oh sure it was in Jaws.
Yeah Right, that little ferrythat they're riding across.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Well, that's the on-time ferry.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
That's the on-time ferry and I always liked Jaws.
It's one of my favorite movies.
I was a kid when when they weremaking it and you know it's got
that whole New England and CapeCod thing going, but that was
called the on-time ferry, thatwas a good one and for most of
my young life I thought that's agreat name for something else
too.
Yeah, so at the time I was inthe roofing business when I
(27:05):
started the new company this isback in 1995, I called it
on-time construction and itstuck.
People seem to get it, theyseem to like it instantly and it
worked.
And it didn't take long beforewe established a reputation of
being on time, showing up ontime, to give you the quote.
And I would, let's say in thatthose days I would say we're
(27:28):
going to do your job the firstweek or two of July and this is
in March I'm going to scheduleyou for July, I'll call you the
end of June, and the end of JuneI've got 14 roofs to do in July
.
I would call everybody and getthem on the schedule and there's
always a weather permitting andthat type of thing.
But back in those days I had abunch of young, rugged kids
working for me and if it rainedon Tuesday we'd make it up on
(27:50):
Saturday.
So it didn't really throw usoff.
But we earned a greatreputation for being on time and
that was our differentiatorprice wasn't because I was
always a premium price, becausewe would tarp the house, we
would protect the shrubs with aplywood covers, tarp the yard.
We took extra, extra good careof the property and then when
(28:12):
we're done with the strippingand the messy part, we pull the
tarps back, we do a cleanup, werun magnets through the yard.
I mean we really take good careof the customer's property and
that again kind of flirts withthis strategy of under-promise,
over-deliver.
Right, but that was our brand OnTime Construction.
It worked great, served me verywell for 15 years, and that was
(28:34):
when we moved to Cape Cod andwe became monkeys.
But branding is nothing like it.
I think it's the highest formof marketing, where you just
create some creative form ofmarketing, advertising and brand
awareness all rolled into one,to where people don't even need
to know your phone number, theyjust know your name and they'll
(28:55):
say okay, I'm just going toGoogle the gutter monkeys and
get them over here to whatever Ineed.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Yeah, by its nature, though, because of the kind of
the long, soak time it takessometimes for some of this
branding that you you can'tstart too early when you're
starting your business, right, Imean, it's something you're
going to kind of think aboutfrom the start and think what
image do you have of yourbusiness and where you want to
be?
But it takes a while to developthis branding, as you say, you
know, it's not going to happenovernight.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Well, some people too often ask about the timing of
your branding.
My busiest season is November,december, because it's when the
leaves are falling, busy as heck.
But those people call in in,like August, to schedule us.
So people say, well, do youadvertise more in November,
december or less, and more inAugust?
(29:41):
When they're calling, I don't,because I'm not advertising to
make the phone ring, I'madvertising to brand my name in
your head.
So my marketing budget staysthe same all year long, month
after month.
It's exactly the same.
We have contracts with all ofour radio stations and other
places that we advertise.
(30:01):
So the monthly budget isidentical every month.
Because we're not advertising,we're branding.
And if you can wrap your mindaround that, this is a big piece
of the puzzle as to whatseparates me from my competitors
.
The first thing is I do.
I spend an awful lot of moneyadvertising, and advertising and
(30:23):
marketing equals branding, andwhen you put that whole package
together, we put a lot of time,a lot of effort, a lot of money
into that and I believe that isthe first and most significant
differentiator between me and mycompetition.
And the second thing is wechoose quality of product and
quality of service.
(30:43):
I can't beat you on price.
You can use a lower gaugealuminum and you don't do the
same level of foundation workthat we do.
I can't compete with you onprice.
I can only let the customerknow that this is what we do.
I don't know what the other guysdo, but here's what we do we
remove those old gutters, weinspect your fascia boards and
(31:07):
if we find rot, we remove it andwe replace it.
That's part of the contract.
And then we scrape and we sealand we paint.
So that's my next level ofdifferentiator is we do the
highest quality level of workthat we know how to do.
And another key piece of thepuzzle is my office staff.
These girls are great.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
The fact you pick up the phone when people call I
mean people, most guys, like I'mlearning in this business is
that they're running around witha phone in a truck and you know
, maybe they'll answer your call, maybe they won't, maybe
they'll get back to you in theevening or something like that.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
But when you call in here.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Someone picks up the phone and you have a quote for
your gutter cleaning in a fewminutes.
Yeah, yeah, that's huge.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
So oftentimes when I talk with a real, true startup
which I haven't in a littlewhile, I have a client Now.
They weren't even a truestartup, but one of my clients
down in Virginia, the top dogauto detailing.
They had a different name andit was her husband's initials
and his best friend's initialsand their other best friend from
childhood, and it was just fiveor six or seven, you know, a, b
(32:12):
, c, d, e, auto detailing.
I go boy, that's a tough one toremember Now.
Over time I met them.
I did a seminar down thereabout five years ago or it was
quite some time ago, and she satdown with me, valerie, after
the seminar and we got talking.
Then I talked to her husband onthe phone, because at the time
he was a full-time firefighterand part-time auto detailer, and
(32:35):
right away everything I said tothem made sense.
So right away they changedtheir name and we were.
We were doing some phoneconferences in the beginning and
I said, well, write down 10names, and I'll write down 10
names and let's see what we comeup with.
And they came up with top dogauto detail and I really like it
.
They have a dog, they snap somephotos and I think the dog is
(32:56):
in the logo and I mean they'redoing well, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
They've really dogs.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
So so and then, yeah, people love people, love dogs,
People love monkeys, People likecritters, you know, and um,
they have a cool name goodbusiness model.
They're doing really well.
They've made a lot of changesand they used to be originally
they were one of maybe five orsix local auto detail companies
(33:21):
that are designed to travel toyour location.
Sure, yeah, I was not awarethat that was a big thing, but
down there it is.
Yeah, yeah, Maybe it'sspreading around a little bit,
but but that's what they did.
And then they did some otherthings.
They began adding additionalmarketing, because prior to that
they were only on Facebook.
They added some radio, they didsome different things and they
(33:41):
started to outgrow that littlegroup of five companies and the
other four were kind of leftbehind in their little Facebook
world and these guys wereoutgrowing that and that
combination of things was thedifferentiator for them.
It was fun to watch.
Yeah yeah, and I still talk tothose guys.
I mean, we email many times ayear.
We'll still talk on the phoneand we chat once in a while.
(34:03):
I'll be heading down thereprobably in May or June to see
my son and his family and we'llprobably get together with them.
But yeah, they've done reallywell.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
And they continue to innovate.
They don't just stop.
They came out.
They're probably maybe one ofthe first guys to show up at
your house and do your car inthe driveway as other people
started offering that service.
You know they continue toinnovate out of that, you know,
out of that space, sort of.
There's a great story aboutNetflix.
Remember when Netflix firstcame out, they used to mail you
DVDs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And those guys were veryinnovative because they realized
(34:33):
they own that market.
But they realized that digitalmedia is coming down the pike.
They completely switched thatwhole model out.
And if they hadn't done that, ithadn't looked forward and
continue to innovate.
It didn't matter how well theydid on the first round there
sending out the CDs, they wouldhave been out of business.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Well, when you look at the mobile auto detailing
down in Northern Virginia, thereused to be about five or six of
these local owner-operatedcompanies that Valerie and
Anthony Top Dog Auto Detailingbelong to and they were all on
Facebook and they all banterback and forth and there was
sort of like a little bit ofsort of friendly camaraderie and
(35:11):
competition going on here.
And Valerie was in touch withme a lot back at the beginning
and she told me they changed hername.
It's going really well, thingsare looking good.
They then began to expandthrough radio advertising
Because one of the things theysaid is it sounds like you're
still stuck in that littleculture, that small local
culture.
You've got to break that ceiling.
(35:32):
If you do that too long, thatbecomes your norm and it's hard
to break out of your comfortzone.
And they did.
They grew bigger than theircompetition and as they grow,
I'm suspecting there are bigger,bigger fish in that pond that
are now their competitors.
So as you grow, as you dothings, your landscape changes,
the view changes.
You're going to look around andsay, okay, wow, we're now.
(35:55):
We broke out of the big fish inthe small pond, but now we are
the small fish in the biggerpond and so there are more
mountains to climb.
That's part of dealing withcompetition is looking around at
any given time and seeing whoyour competition is and
potentially what's coming next.
Who are your next level ofcompetitors if you grow, if and
(36:18):
when you choose to grow ordecide to grow as a company.
And there's a phrase that Ireally like.
I've got it here in front of meEvery once in a while, someone
comes along and shocks anestablished market with a new
innovation to a tired industry.
Elon Musk did it.
Elon Musk did something that noone else did.
He went from zero to 60 andwent right past Chevy and Ford
(36:42):
and GMC and everybody else withhis electric car, and he did it
in the blink of an eye almost.
And the reason he did it is hecan't be bribed, he can't be
bought.
I had a client years ago, like35 years ago.
He and his dad had invented anew carburetor and a process
that it would probably allowcars to get 70 miles to the
(37:04):
gallon back in the 80s, and Fordbought it from them.
They either offered them a bigprice up front, with no royalty,
or a small price, and then witha lifetime royalty.
So they took the small price100 grand and a royalty for the
rest of their lives and Fordbought it I believe it was Ford
(37:25):
and put it in the back closetand never used it.
And the reasoning is I hadheard whispers and I've read
different things over the yearsthe big auto manufacturers will
buy up these innovations forshort money and then just table
them.
A lot of history, right.
It goes on a lot, and it's notjust in the auto industry.
But Elon Musk can't be bought.
He's got too much money and toomuch integrity.
(37:47):
He can't be bought.
And he changed the industry.
He created electric cars andnow they're all chasing him.
He's lapping the field and theydon't know it.
He's so far ahead.
It's impressive what he didbecause he shocked the
establishment.
He brought a new innovation toa tired industry.
At the end of Moneyball, themovie Billy Bean, who's the
(38:11):
manager of the Oakland A's, isvisiting John Henry, the owner
of Boston Red Sox, and JohnHenry says really what is
threatening is their livelihood,their jobs.
It's threatening the way theydo things.
And John Henry goes on to sayevery time that happens, whether
it's the government, a way ofdoing business, whatever the
people who are holding the reins, they have their hands on the
(38:31):
switch, they go batshit crazy,and that's so true.
You see it on a small, a mediumand a large level when someone
comes in with a new idea.
Right, and the Cape Cod timesdid an article on our company,
oh, I don't know about twomonths ago, and my son picked it
up before it even hit the press.
(38:53):
I knew it was coming becausethe um, the Cape Cod times had
kind of shot me an email andsaid, hey, that article is
coming out this Sunday.
It was about a month ago andbut it was also online.
And then came the haters.
Then came the haters and theywrote a bunch of nasty stuff and
I know who they are and itdoesn't, but they hate that
(39:13):
stuff.
We got some free action, freepress, so they're writing about
their own companies.
Well, if you had calledso-and-so, then we could have
done that job cheaper, andthat's what it was, that's what
we always see.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
We always see there's a great poster.
It was one of them.
You have a picture of a guy's.
You got four guys up on aladder and I think it's about a
40 foot, probably a 40 footgutter.
It looks like the front of acolonial house or whatever
Pretty good size house, and allthe haters were on there saying,
oh, I could do that with oneguy.
I could do that too.
I do that myself and I do itevery day and I'm like, yeah,
the whole reason why you havefour guys up there is because
(39:46):
they do it right.
It's going to be leveledcorrectly.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
I've been building houses, I've been doing roofs,
I've been hanging gutters mywhole life.
I could take my best guy, Icrew, two of us cannot properly
hang a 40 foot.
We could hang it, the homeownerwon't notice, but it's not
going to be pitched right.
I've seen it a thousand times,I would say twice a month.
We get a call and we go out andwe remove brand new gutters
(40:14):
that are not functioning and weget there and we look and go oh
my gosh, it's pitched wrong,it's mispitched, it's hung wrong
, it's hung too low, water'srunning behind it.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
I've heard those guys .
I had one of those Right in themiddle.
It was all kind of droopingdown.
So when?
Speaker 2 (40:27):
the water, all settled in there.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
then it would flow back into the house and there
was a porch right there.
It went into the porch ceiling,rotted out the whole porch
ceiling all the way to the house.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Two guys cannot properly hang a 40 foot gutter.
I've seen two guys hang 60 footgutters and I just look and go.
I know that's not going up,right?
No, sometimes we'll see we havea big gutter coming up like a
300 footer.
It's on a school and every oncein a while we replaced a long
gutter.
One day and the general managersaid it's an 80 foot gutter and
(40:57):
it was put up in three piecesand seam was leaking, as they
will, because these gutters aredesigned to expand and contract
a little bit with the changingtemperatures.
They always break at the seams,hence the term seamless gutters
.
You want seamless gutters?
Well, you probably got a gooddeal, though, right?
Well, the general manager saidwhy did they do this?
Why did they install it inthree pieces?
(41:19):
I said because it was probablya two-man crew and they could
handle a 30-foot gutter.
So two men climb up, hang a30-foot gutter, then they make
another one, they hang another30-footer, and this is how they
do it, and then they create twoseams and the seams leak.
I believe you get what you payfor, but I don't worry about my
competition.
I just know that we always tryto do the best job we can do.
(41:43):
I used to be in the food serviceindustry.
You know.
We just tried to put out whenwe owned the inn, I tried to put
out the best experience, thebest vacation experience that I
can.
I'm not a gourmet chef, I'mjust a good cook, you know.
We just provided a differentexperience and people would come
back year after year after yearfor the experience.
They're not coming here for thefood.
(42:04):
My food was good, not great.
They could go anywhere.
We're in between CannonMountain and Bretton Woods ski
area.
There's a hundred places theycan stay.
Why are they coming to my place?
We had to create thatdifferentiator and that's what
we want to do.
No matter what we do inbusiness is create the
differentiator so that oursegment of the market comes to
(42:25):
us just like Charlie the barberor Ned is your barber.
Yep, you want to be Ned thebarber or Charlie the barber.
You want your competition.
You want your customers to cometo you, not go to your
competition.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Check out Ned Marlboro.
Okay, well, we're kind ofwrapping it up here in our time
limit here.
Final thoughts, final thoughts.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
I don't dislike my competition.
I actually am usually friendlywith my competitors.
One of my competitors he's agentleman I've known long before
I was in the gutter businessand he was and he said as you
guys started your marketing, youstarted growing this company in
this industry.
He said we all knew what youwere doing.
You're doing a higher qualityand you're charging more money.
(43:05):
And what Christian told me washe said ever since you started
that I can charge more money.
Yeah, he goes.
I love what you guys are doing.
I'm actually making more moneybecause of you.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
And what a great compliment Number one Rising
tide lifts all boats, it does,and he told me that.
He told me that he's told methat a number of times, that he
appreciates it.
Christian's a friend of mine.
He said dinner at my house.
Stuart is another competitor ofmine.
He runs a small two-personoutfit Again another great guy.
I've drank beer and sharedburgers with him.
(43:37):
I like my competition.
I don't have to dislike them orhate them.
We're competitors in the field.
It doesn't mean we can't befriends.
So you know my philosophy oncompetitors is I think
competition is good.
It keeps us honest, keeps usclean, it gives our target
market a choice.
Right, and if I know they haveto have a choice, I know I got
(43:58):
to do a better job.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
So keeps everybody on your toes, you on your toes, it
does, chris.
Alright, good time.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, that was interesting, soI guess we're going to wrap it
up here.
We'll catch you guys next time.
And no monkeys were harmed inthe making of this podcast,
that's right.
catch you later.
Thank you for tuning in toMonkey Business Radio.
If you enjoyed today's episode,please make sure to subscribe,
(44:22):
like and follow us wherever youget your podcasts.
It really helps us reach moreaspiring entrepreneurs like you,
and if you've got a question ortopic you'd like us to cover,
leave a comment or reach out tous on social media.
We'd love to hear your thoughtsand keep the conversation going
.
Don't forget to leave us afive-star review if you found
the episode valuable, and makesure to share it with anyone who
might benefit from our tips andstories.
(44:43):
We'll see you next time.
This podcast is produced byAmerican Gutter Monkeys LLC.
Build real wealth throughbusiness ownership.
For details, visit us atAmericanGutterMonkeyscom.
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