July 16, 2025 • 36 mins
In this episode, we’re joined by Scott Berman, veteran home improvement leader and the founder of HeavySet Forms. Scott shares how his 30+ years in the industry — and the challenges he faced at Florida Window & Door — inspired him to create a powerful lead automation tool.
HeavySet Forms helps contractors automate appointment scheduling, follow-up, and confirmation using AI — converting more web leads (even after hours) without relying solely on call centers. You’ll hear real data on how it reduces cancellation rates, increases close rates, and helps your marketing budget go further. This conversation is a must-listen if you’re serious about streamlining your sales process and getting more out of every lead.
🔗 Learn more at www.heavyset.tech
Want to find out how we can create a custom digital marketing game plan for your contractor business? Schedule a call with us at fatcatstrategies.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 00 (00:00):
Welcome to Digital Marketing for Contractors, a
podcast for home improvementcontractors to help you crush
your lead goals and take yourbusiness to the next level.
Join us each episode as we giveyou powerful insights and
(00:22):
practical tips on the bestdigital marketing strategies to
help you grow your homeimprovement business.
Let's get started.
Caitlyn (00:32):
Welcome back to Digital Marketing for Contractors.
I'm Janet.
And I'm Caitlin.
Today we're talking aboutsomething that contractors care
all about, converting more leadsinto booked appointments
without having to chase themdown by the phone every single
day.
Janet (00:45):
Yeah, and today we're joined by somebody who has lived
that pain and solved it.
So we're really excited to haveScott Berman here with us
today.
He is the creator of HeavysetForms, and that is a new tool
that automates lead responsesand scheduling using AI.
Caitlyn (01:02):
Yes, Scott, we are so excited to have you.
But before we dive intoHeavyset, tell us a little bit
about your journey into the homeimprovement world.
Scott (01:11):
Pleasure to be here.
I've been in the homeimprovement space for around 30
years.
Janet (01:16):
Wow.
Scott (01:17):
I currently own a company called Florida Window and Door
in addition to Heavyset.
And Florida Window and Door isthe 14th largest, I believe,
home remodeling company in thecountry.
Janet (01:28):
Congratulations.
Scott (01:30):
Thank you.
And we really just do windowsand doors in the state of
Florida.
And so, you know, I'm prettyextensively involved in the home
improvement space through bothorganizations and whatever else
is out there.
But I get to see the good newsis I get to see what our
(01:51):
marketing department goesthrough every day in regard to
lead generation and thedifficulty of lead generation.
and then try to find solutionsthat work for us.
And then ultimately what turnsout to work for us really ended
up with a heavy set beingcreated.
So, you know, we're on thefront lines every day.
(02:14):
We understand what it takes togenerate leads.
We obviously generate a lot ofthem and it's critical that we
do it in the most economical waypossible.
And with the least amount offriction, between the customer
and the company.
And I think that's really theadvantage of Heavyset.
Janet (02:33):
So tell us a little bit about, so you're a window and
door guy.
You're running a homeimprovement company.
What made you decide there wasa gap in the market when it came
to web form submissions and howthey're handled?
Scott (02:51):
Well, I think it's twofold.
The first thing was we noticedthat we were getting a lot of
leads after hours.
And typically in the homeimprovement space, what most of
us do is we stop advertisingafter your call center is
closed.
Caitlyn (03:08):
Right.
Scott (03:08):
So what we really recognized was there's a
tremendous opportunity to get itto market and after hours.
But it was also very difficultto get in touch with the people
who created those inquiriesafter hours.
So it could have been a factoryworker or somebody working the
night shift.
You were never going to reachthat.
(03:29):
Additionally, as you were usinglead aggregators, you know,
they always talk about speed tolead.
Well, that gives you theopportunity to really be the
fastest all the time.
Yes.
So conceptually, the idea wasborn from there.
the other thing i would pointout like you know as an example
and i'm not picking on my wifeper se you know like when we're
(03:53):
driving in the car going todinner and i see her shopping on
amazon or whatever um it reallydawned on us like why can't we
create a home improvementexperience that you're able to
shop 24 hours a day or set anappointment 24 hours a day
regardless of when the callcenter is open ah really that's
(04:13):
how This whole thing wasdeveloped, and since then, it's
just pretty much taken on a lifeof its own.
Janet (04:22):
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't want to put wordsin your mouth, but it's almost
like the inspiration was tocreate more of an e-commerce
experience that we're all soused to with a brick-and-mortar
company.
Scott (04:34):
That's effectively what it is.
And so we've been using it forfour years.
We've developed it andredeveloped it initially two or
three times, and we continue toimprove it now.
But effectively, you know, Inever really anticipated
starting a company in thisspace.
(04:54):
I mean, it was not, you know,on my radar screen, I have other
interests, etc.
But I showed it to a couple ofmy friends.
I'm like, we're working on thisthing and it's really working
for us.
Can you give me your insight?
They're like, can we use it?
I'm like, yeah, I guess so.
I think now we have 55 to 60customers and they range
(05:16):
anywhere between a $2 millioncompany to a $250 million
company, not including floor towindow and door.
And really, what we found, andthis is what's I think somewhat
interesting, is that we're areally data-driven organization,
and I understand most people ora lot of other companies are
(05:37):
not.
But I think just some realbasic numbers is that our
cancellation rate went down onissued leads using Heavisat
compared to an operator-basedappointment.
by somewhere around 30%.
Wow.
Sale went up 20%.
(05:58):
Wow.
And the closing rate was, Ithink, up 7% to 10%.
And so what it tells you reallyat the end of the day is the
consumer would much rather setan appointment at their
convenience.
Correct.
As opposed to having to speakto an operator.
And if you take a step back,and I never really thought about
(06:19):
it this way, But if you take astep back and let's say the
average customer shops, threecompanies, most of us are using
roughly the same script.
They're both people home, youknow, are you the homeowner?
How many windows do you need?
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I think, you know, theeducated consumer and the more
educated they're getting everyyear, they're sick of it.
(06:42):
And they're like, look, I wantto do this on my own time.
So where Heavyset really comesin is number one, it actually
gives you the actual time ofavailability of the salesperson.
So it's not like a bot where itsays, oh yeah, we'll schedule
you what time and you say what,and then they call you back the
next morning and say, oh, weonly have a 10 or a 12.
Janet (07:03):
Which then still forces the customer to speak to an
Scott (07:06):
operator.
Correct, correct.
So Heavyset downloads theavailability of your calendar
every 30 seconds.
And so it's real time.
The customer fills out theinformation on when they want
the appointment.
And let's say it's 10 o'clock.
(07:26):
And then they get aconfirmation text from Heaviset
saying you scheduled yourappointment at 10 o'clock.
If it's at a home show, you cando it at a home show with
Heaviset.
You just type in the customername and it populates their
calendar right there.
And then the other thing itdoes is it confirms the
appointment using AI.
So tell us about that.
(07:48):
Pardon me?
Tell us about that.
Like the confirmation.
So let's say you set anappointment today and it's for
Wednesday.
Well, tomorrow's Wednesday.
Let's say it's for Thursday ofthis week.
Today's Tuesday.
So tomorrow, 24 hours beforethe appointment, you can set it
any way you want.
It will give you a reminder byemail and it will also send you
(08:12):
a confirmation text saying,Caitlin, hi, it's, you know,
whatever from floor to windowand door.
We have an appointment tomorrowat 10 o'clock.
I just want to confirm this,this, and this.
And it will confirm as manyquestions as you want.
And it will respond using AI aswell.
And it's learning as it goes.
So to give you an idea, and wepublish, we have a significant,
(08:37):
a large call center.
And so to give you an idea, wepost the appointments and the
confirmation rates of both thecall center as well as Heaviset.
And so our confirmation rate onHeaviset is about 94% to issued
leads.
Wow.
And I mean, it's staggering.
(08:58):
And our call center isaveraging, you know, low 90s, 89
to 91.
So it tells you that theconsumer is much more acceptable
accepting of this technologyand really likes the customer
experience.
The other thing is if it's alead aggregator, typically with
(09:21):
a lead aggregator, the minutethe lead hits your system, we
send a text out with a link toHeaviset and it allows the
homeowner to schedule theappointment by text using the
same mentality.
Caitlyn (09:35):
So you don't even have
Scott (09:35):
to use the
Caitlyn (09:36):
forms.
You can just bypass the formsaltogether and just use
Scott (09:39):
it.
There's no form.
It's basically an email andyour address.
And if the email, if your emailis already existing in your
CRM, Heaviset will populate theform for the customer.
So let's say they saw you at ashow and, and they happen to
respond to an aggregator leadand they have your email,
Heaviset will immediately fillit out and say, here's your
(09:59):
name, your address, your phonenumber.
And so the customer's like, myGod, how did you even know who I
was?
The other cool thing that whatit will do is it will, if let's
say you're short in a particularmarket or zip code, because we
have multiple markets, You cantake Heavyset and send text to
all the customer, all theinquiries who never set leads in
(10:22):
that market to fill yourschedule for that particular
day.
Caitlyn (10:27):
That's pretty
Scott (10:27):
cool.
It's very robust.
I'm probably doing a verycrappy job of explaining it
because I'm trying to make it assimple as possible.
But it's a powerful tool.
And what we're finding is thecompanies that are using it, are
all having exceptional successwith it and continue to build
(10:50):
out their marketing campaignsusing Heavyset because it really
allows you to set a lot ofleads that you otherwise would
never get to.
And the last point I'll make,because I don't mean to just
continue to talk.
The last point I would make toyou is like in our case, going
back to the marketing dollars,if you're able to spend money
(11:11):
after hours, and let's sayGoogle as an example, your
competitors are not there.
So effectively, you're gettingleads at a lower cost.
Janet (11:22):
Right.
Scott (11:23):
And during the day, you're getting leads as well,
but your competitors are there.
But when they shut down, you'restill working.
So it's not uncommon for us tocome in in the morning and have
50 to 60 leads set by heavysetfrom the night before, in our
markets that have already beenconfirmed and ready to go to be
(11:43):
issued by our call center thatjust were 24 hours before were
not even people we knew.
Right.
Janet (11:52):
So let me ask kind of maybe an elephant in the room
question.
And this is not meant to beloaded.
I'm genuinely curious.
Why still have a call center?
Scott (12:06):
Well, okay, so that's a great question.
I'll get to the technicalnature of it.
Eventually, we probably won'thave a call center.
We'll have a scaled down callcenter.
Heavyset is about to introducevoice technology where you can
set leads by AI.
(12:27):
We're testing it at FloridaWindow and Door first, which is,
again, the advantage ofallowing us to do to really
build this is you're getting thebenefit of a larger company so
if you're a smaller companyyou're getting the technology
and the experience of a largercompany with heavyset um and
we're we're fighting through allof the learning curves as we do
(12:48):
it because again right we'reanticipated selling it so as a
result of that i certainly don'twant any enemies in the
industry so um it will go voiceone of the challenges you have
with ai and and what most peopledon't understand how it works
is that typically the ai agentand i'm not speaking of heavyset
(13:10):
in this case but if you'vedealt with ai the ai agent if
you were to set a lead there's adelay right and delay is
effectively the ai agent workingback into your crm looking for
that record and when it finds itit then gives the information
back to the ai With heavyset,what we're able to do is we're
(13:31):
able to cue that information ina queue.
And so AI is going directly toheavyset.
So effectively the heavyset isloading into the AI before the
AI ever reacts.
So there's no delay.
So as a result of that, thetransition between that AI and
the data will make the homeownerbelieve they're speaking to an
(13:55):
actual person with very little,if any delay whatsoever.
That's amazing.
Janet (14:00):
That is crazy and also kind of creepy with where
Caitlyn (14:04):
we are right now with AI.
I mean, I'm obsessed with thistool.
The clients that we have thatuse it, to your point,
absolutely support the stats.
I mean, it makes our jobseasier in terms of marketers
generating those leads.
We know those leads are goingto set faster.
Right.
Scott (14:19):
You can look at it another way and a pure numbers
perspective.
Marketing, as an example, ourexpenditure in the call center,
not including benefits and rentin the building, et cetera, et
cetera, is about $2 millionannually.
So if you took $2 million andput that into your marketing
(14:42):
budget, it would be worth about$12 to $15 million in revenue.
So if you would argue, well,okay, 10% or 20% of your
customers don't like AI, thereality of it is those customers
are going to be replaced by the$2 million that you've saved in
the call center.
The other argument, which Ican't quantify, but soon I will
(15:05):
be able to, is that I look at AIor a company looks at AI like
McDonald's.
And basically, if you go to aMcDonald's, you're getting the
same fries every McDonald's yougo to.
AI is the same thing.
And I'm not saying every agentin a call center, but some
agents in a call center are notgoing to be as good as others.
(15:27):
So there's a loss of...
Janet (15:29):
One agent could vary from day to day.
So
Scott (15:34):
there's a loss of...
leads that you're able to setbecause the operator can't
overcome the homeowner'sobjections.
So even if you were 30% moreefficient on that front, and
still 20% of the people didn'tlike AI, I would still suggest
to you that most of them wouldset an appointment with AI
(15:56):
because ultimately it is abetter customer experience.
And it's our job, at least Ilook at our job, it's our job to
provide the best possiblecustomer experience.
And it's sad eventually thatsome of these people may lose
their jobs, but on the otherhand, you know, we as people in
our industry specifically arespending a ton of money in
(16:20):
advertising.
We have a responsibility toreturn that money to, you know,
to our balance sheet.
And so this is just a nature,this is no different than email,
from the fax machine.
It's the same thing.
But we believe it's going to bea better experience.
And I think Heavyset hasdemonstrated that it is a better
(16:42):
experience and we're not losingcustomers.
We're actually gainingcustomers as a result of it.
And it's not only what FloridaWindow at Door is seeing, it's
the other 50 to 60 companiesthat are using Heavyset as they
get more comfortable andengrossed in it, they're like,
oh my God, this is exceptionallypowerful.
Yes.
So...
Caitlyn (17:03):
How hard is it to
Scott (17:04):
set up?
It takes literally about 48hours to set up.
And basically what you get isyou get a box of check marks
that it goes through when itsets up in your campaign and
your link into your CRM.
(17:24):
And it's just like 10 or 10check marks that go green.
And candidly, the biggestchallenge we have with setup is
people putting it correctly ontheir website.
If I can get past the personputting it on the website, we're
in good shape.
We'll take care of the rest.
So it's very easy.
(17:45):
We typically have people up andrunning within five to seven
days, depending on how busy ourtech department is.
And it's really simple.
Janet (17:58):
What CRMs, is it any CRM that has an open API that you
can connect to?
Scott (18:03):
At this point, we're connected to almost everyone.
We have Improve It, Salesforce,Lead Perfection, Builder Prime,
MarketSharp.
We have almost everyone that'sin the home improvement space.
I think we have a few more thatI'm not familiar with.
But most of the major CRMs weare in line with, and we can
(18:26):
certainly write an API if we'renot.
The biggest challenge withHeavisat is that you have to
market.
I mean, if you're notmarketing, it's not going to
work for you.
But if you're marketing, Iwould say roughly the perfect
customer has a minimum ofprobably $3 to $5 million in
sales.
on the smallest side, because Ithink anybody behind that is
(18:50):
really not doing it, thatthey're going to get the
efficiencies.
Right.
You know, if you're doing homeshows and you're doing
grassroots marketing, all that,like there's forums that are,
that Heavyset fills out, thatyou can be online, offline, so
you can take away all the paper.
It's all TCPA compliant, so ittakes care of all your legal
(19:14):
issues.
You know, it's pretty powerful.
Caitlyn (19:19):
Absolutely.
That is awesome.
I mean, we could ask you abunch of questions.
You're answering all of ourquestions.
Yeah, I mean, when I'm glancing
Janet (19:26):
at the questions, I'm like, wow, I'm wondering what's
left to ask
Caitlyn (19:29):
here.
Setup sounds super easy as longas you've got, you know,
somebody on the website who canset your script up, which we've
done that, and it is not thatdifficult.
So that's a positive.
It's not.
Scott (19:44):
The other thing I would say to you is a lot of the
companies, I don't want to say alot, but some of the companies
that we deal with or have dealtwith, the smaller companies are
using like third party websitedesigners.
And some of the websitedesigners are like, well, if you
use Heavyset, you're not goingto get attribution to the
website designer.
(20:04):
We can do that.
We can provide the propersolution for both.
But we get pushback from, Idon't really prefer not to
mention the name, but we getpushback from some of the
smaller web designers becausethey feel like we're impeding on
their success.
And the reality of it is we canset it up so that they not only
(20:28):
get attribution, but Heavysetimproves their attribution.
So it's incumbent upon themarketing director or the owner
or whomever is dealing withtheir marketing team, outsourced
or internally, that they pushit because that's really where
you're losing opportunity.
Caitlyn (20:47):
And to that note, I mean, we've been on that side of
the conversation.
Absolutely.
And your team has provided ourteam with the support to connect
to what converts or to callrail or to whatever we may need
to make sure we have that phonecall and that form submission
attribution.
So it's possible.
I mean, it is.
Scott (21:07):
And, you know, again, we're coming at it from the
perspective of we've been wheremost people have been.
Yeah.
We weren't always this big,huge company.
We know how important leadsare.
Exactly.
We're all about, we're notthere to be, you know, going
back to the call center.
We're not saying we're going toreplace it totally.
It's in addition to, not inlieu of.
(21:28):
Right.
And, you know, it may get to apoint where it isn't.
in lieu of, but as of rightnow, we're not recommending it
being instead of, but we dobelieve that you will, it will
pay for itself if you understandthe value of a lead and if you
understand that you need moreleads and it's really a no
brainer.
And one other thing I'll sayis, is also we're only focused
(21:52):
on the interaction of the newlead.
It doesn't go into any of youroperations.
It's not meant at this point togo anything but lead generation
and to make your marketingdollars more efficient.
Janet (22:06):
I wanted to circle back to something you said a little
earlier when you were talkingabout if there's a geographic
area that you really wanted tohit and you had some contacts in
your CRM that had never set anappointment, you could do a text
campaign to just that segment.
Did I hear that correctly?
That's correct.
(22:27):
Wow.
So I think I'm just going to bevulnerable and admit that I
kind of had categorized Heavysetin my mind as a form tool, but
it's so much more than that.
It's a texting tool.
It's an appointment settingtool.
It's really like making themost out of that lead that
(22:49):
you're capturing.
Scott (22:51):
Yeah, it's basically allowing a customer to set an
appointment with you using aform and not having to speak to
any operator.
But as an example, a perfectexample, let's say a customer
comes to your website fills outtheir email address and doesn't
(23:12):
fill out the rest of the form.
Historically, you would losethat information.
And by the way, nobody everknows how many people do that
because they never think of it.
They're like, oh.
So Heavyset has the ability totrack that information so that
you can remarket to all thosepeople that you lost by sending
an email saying, hey, you onlypartially finished the form.
(23:35):
Would you mind filling out therest to get an appointment?
Janet (23:38):
I've literally never heard, I've never heard of any
other tool that can capture apartial form fill.
Scott (23:44):
That's because there isn't.
Janet (23:48):
Okay.
Going back to the text thing,it is so much more than a form
tool.
What you're describing isbasically a rehash campaign.
You're not rehashing it andcancel, but like it's a nurture
campaign for someone who hadpreviously expressed interest
through an inquiry, but you werenever able to like convert them
into an appointment.
So it's very targeted.
Scott (24:08):
Correct.
And the objective, again, is todrive your read costs up.
Caitlyn (24:12):
Exactly.
Right.
Janet (24:14):
This is fantastic.
Caitlyn (24:15):
No, I'm absolutely obsessed with this tool.
Janet (24:17):
Where and how can listeners find out more?
And do you have a demo?
Like, explain what the processis for someone who's interested.
Scott (24:25):
All you have to do is go to www.heavyset.tech, T-E-C-H,
and you can fill out an inquiryform.
Unknown (24:35):
Mm-hmm.
Scott (24:35):
And they will contact you to schedule it.
You can schedule a demo rightthere,
Caitlyn (24:40):
actually.
Okay.
And we'll put that informationin the show notes.
Heavyset.tech.
Scott (24:45):
Correct.
Caitlyn (24:46):
Okay.
You've built a huge company anda very powerful tool.
What advice do you have forcontractors who are feeling
overwhelmed by lead volume, butthey're stuck in these old
processes?
I mean, you've broken throughthat.
Scott (25:01):
I mean, I love this question.
It's like there's no real goodanswer to it.
The one thing I would tell youis that you got to grind.
I mean, one of the things thatI'm famous for saying is break
the glass.
No matter how good we are,we're always looking at the
negative, which is depressing inone sense, but it's really made
(25:24):
us better.
I think at the end of the day,These are businesses that are
really, if you have a goodprocess and you have a model,
you can't, you know, when I wassmall and maybe not as
successful, you know, if somethings were going bad or good,
we would just change things forthe sake of changing things.
(25:46):
I think at the end of the day,like two days ago, we had a
terrible sales day and I'm alldepressed.
And, you know, it was like itwas when I first started, like,
oh, here we go.
The luck's run out.
And then the next day we comeback and have like a huge sales
day.
And I just think it's importantthat you understand that you
don't go from bad to good in aday and you don't go from good
(26:09):
to bad in a day.
There's a lot of things thatare externally challenging,
especially in these environmentswhere you want to make changes,
but there's really no goodreason to make that change.
And I think it's consistencyand you have to have process and
you have to have procedure andyou have to follow those.
And if you follow those and youhave good people, you'll be
(26:32):
able to scale.
And the second analogy I wouldgive you is, you can have a
clock and I can go, let's sayyou're on my management team and
I'm gonna go clockwise to mydecision and you're gonna go
counterclockwise to yourdecision, but you still end up
at six o'clock in this case.
It doesn't matter how we getthere, it's still six o'clock.
(26:54):
And so, you know, I see so manypeople like not giving, you
know, not giving discretion totheir managers to manage and
micromanaging and standing inthe way of so many good ideas.
And, you know, I can use anexample of like, I'll talk to a
guy who's doing $3 million andhe has a great idea.
(27:16):
And I can take that idea andscale it, whereas he's stuck at
$3 million.
So I think all of these thingsare important.
Podcasts, events, networking,all of those things.
I hear so many people go to ashow and they're like, show is a
disaster.
And I'm like, yeah, it wasn'tgreat, but I got one good idea.
(27:37):
If I can get one good idea outof a show or a podcast, I'm like
loving life.
I'm like, oh my God, it'samazing.
So that would be my advice.
The last thing I would say isyou just can't give up.
You know, you got to dust offyour jeans and start over again.
You know, I went bankrupt.
(27:58):
I don't know if you know mystory.
Share it, please.
We don't have time for it.
We do.
Janet (28:02):
We've
Scott (28:03):
got time.
Okay.
Well, I mean, like 10 yearsago.
Well, now it's been longer.
15 years ago, I was bankrupt.
I had no money.
Janet (28:12):
Wow.
Scott (28:13):
I bought this company out of bankruptcy.
I started it, closed it.
And then basically bought theassets out of bankruptcy with my
last $10,000.
Wow.
Literally fixed everything thatwe did wrong in the first
company.
I had a bad partner, you know,the typical story, bad decisions
and bankrupted the company,went personally bankrupt, lost
(28:36):
my house, lost everything, andthen built this company doing it
myself.
Went on every leave.
set installation, set measures,did the advertising, paid the
bills, did the accounting.
So, you know, when people sayto me, well, you just don't
understand.
I'm like, I get it.
(28:57):
Trust me.
It wasn't always like this.
But the one thing I didn't dowas I never gave up.
And then I realized now, yearslater, that when I speak to
people in our industry,specifically people who I would
have been intimidated to talk to10 or 15 years ago.
I realize how nice these peopleare.
(29:19):
Well, now they're a lot of mygood friends.
But I realize how nice they areand how willing they are to
help you because they don't wantto see you make the same
mistake that they made.
And I think our industry is sounique because it's small.
A lot of us know each other.
And if you don't know eachother, you know somebody who
knows somebody who knows thatperson.
(29:39):
And inevitably, you're passedacross multiple times.
And so, you know, when you goto these shows and you see these
people who you think are big,like, let's say me,
hypothetically, which I hate tosay that.
And you don't go up to somebodylike, hey, introduce yourself.
I'm like, do you need anything?
Call me.
Here's my cell phone.
(30:00):
Here's my email.
Anytime you want to call me,call me.
And they do.
And it's like, okay, I got aproblem.
I'm not hiring enough people.
I don't know how to hiresalespeople.
I don't know how to hire amanager.
And when you talk to some ofthese people, they have the same
problem year after year afteryear, which tells me it's a
problem with them, not a problemwith what they're doing.
And I just think that overtime, You know, there's so many
(30:25):
resources that are available.
There's great podcasts now inthis.
You guys are doing this.
You know, great podcasts.
And you can sit there, and Ilisten to them on Saturday when
I'm walking or doing whatever.
And it's like, oh, my God, whata phenomenal idea.
And
Janet (30:40):
like you said, if you just get one idea, it's worth
the 30 minutes you invested.
Scott (30:44):
One idea.
And normally, like, when I goto a show, I just went to– Fast
500 I was speaking there and andI was sitting in the audience
and I'm listening and you knowI'm writing all these notes down
and I come back to my officeand I take my management team
I'm like here's what I learnedlet's implement and we're really
(31:05):
good at implementation and youknow I think we've we've set the
standard for like speed we'requick and it may not it may not
be perfect in the beginning Butwe will massage it to get it
perfect as we go on.
The hardest thing, as you guysknow, is to get started.
It's got to be perfect.
I got one guy who I'm helpingin Michigan.
(31:25):
He's been building a salesmodel for, I think, eight
months.
I would have had that thingdone in six days.
May not have been right, but Iwould have had it done in six
days.
Janet (31:35):
Yeah, what we found is, like, if you, what is it,
fire-ready aim?
If you go ahead and put it outthere, the market will help you
shape it.
Scott (31:43):
100%.
100%.
And I think that's, you know,when I look at the challenges
that this industry faces,there's two issues that stand
out in my mind.
The first one is everybodywants the perfect rollout, which
doesn't exist.
And the second thing is thatpeople's pricing and their gross
(32:06):
margins are just factuallyincorrect in the ability to make
money and do business.
And they don't understand, youknow, they quote a job and they
assume everything in a job isgoing to go perfect.
No customer credit, nomis-measure.
And then they're like, yeah,we're making 60%.
And then when you look at theirstatements, they're like making
(32:26):
10 or 20 and it's dramatic andit's terrible.
And you know, you're like, yougot to raise price.
Well, if I raise price, I'mgoing to lose X amount of
business.
Well, if you don't lose, if youdon't raise price, you won't be
in
Caitlyn (32:37):
business.
Scott (32:38):
And so I think those are just the things that over time
you learn.
I hate to pontificate, but Iguess I am.
I mean, one of the thingsthat's amazing is if you walk
into a conference at the end orbeginning of the year, you ask
somebody, how are you going toincrease business?
(32:59):
And the first answer they giveyou is, I need more leads.
Unknown (33:02):
Yep.
Scott (33:03):
They never look at cancellation rates and leads
they have, cancellation ratesand deals they have, sales
training, the cost of marketing.
The first thing is I need moreleads.
Well, I gotta be honest, if youcan't deal with the leads you
have in an efficient manner,what makes you think you can do
it in a second location orgetting more leads?
Everybody wants to be big, butnobody really understands how to
(33:27):
get there and the systems andprocesses and procedures you
need to have in place in orderto be successful.
And it's, well, I'm just goingto grow.
Well, you're not making moneyin store one.
How are you going to make it instore two?
Well, if I have store two, I'llmake more money.
It's a lot.
I mean, it's a total distortionof reality.
Janet (33:45):
It's a little bit laughable.
You'll make it up in volume.
Scott (33:48):
Love that.
Love that.
And when I used to makewindows, I remember I would...
we would go up in an elevatorand everybody would be like, how
many windows did you make lastyear?
How many windows?
Nobody ever said, how muchmoney do you make?
And even in the conferences,it's like, how much volume do
you do?
Nobody says, how much money doyou make?
It's like, that's a terriblething to talk about.
Let's talk about volume.
(34:09):
I can tell you, I've looked ata lot of companies where they
have a lot of volume and theydon't make a lot of
Janet (34:13):
money.
Scott (34:15):
That's right.
Janet (34:16):
This has been fantastic.
One of the things I love aboutthis industry is kind of what
you've shown today is that theguys who have scaled bigger than
some of the smaller guys,they're always willing to share.
And we've been in this, we'vebeen serving this industry for,
we've been in business for 22years.
(34:38):
We've been serving thisindustry at least 10.
And we've found the owners,especially the successful
owners, to be so generous withtheir time and their experience
and open about the mistakes thatthey've made and being able to
hand that on to somebody elseand to pass it on to somebody
else.
And you are absolutely themodel of that.
(34:59):
Yeah.
Scott (35:00):
I appreciate that.
It's very nice.
Thank you.
Caitlyn (35:03):
So thank you for your time, Scott.
I know you're so busy.
Scott (35:06):
Thank you.
I'm not that busy.
I don't even know how to turnon my computer.
So there you go.
Janet (35:11):
Hey, I would take that as a success.
You've won.
You're the delegating king.
Scott (35:17):
That I am.
I'm good at that.
Caitlyn (35:20):
Y'all, if you're listening and you're tired of
chasing down leads and ready toautomate your growth, definitely
check out Heavyset Forms.
That's at heavyset.tech.
Janet (35:30):
And
Caitlyn (35:30):
you
Janet (35:30):
want to bring it out?
I'll bring us on home.
Don't forget to subscribe,share this episode, tell your
friends about it, rate it, andreach out to us and let us know
what other topics you'd like usto cover.
If you could give us 30minutes, we are going to try to
give you tips to help you growyour business.
Thanks again for listening.
Speaker 00 (35:47):
Digital marketing for contractors is created by
Fat Cat Strategies.
For more information, visitfatcatstrategies.com.
Welcome to Digital Marketing for Contractors, a
podcast for home improvementcontractors to help you crush
your lead goals and take yourbusiness to the next level.
Join us each episode as we giveyou powerful insights and
(00:22):
practical tips on the bestdigital marketing strategies to
help you grow your homeimprovement business.
Let's get started.
Caitlyn (00:32):
Welcome back to Digital Marketing for Contractors.
I'm Janet.
And I'm Caitlin.
Today we're talking aboutsomething that contractors care
all about, converting more leadsinto booked appointments
without having to chase themdown by the phone every single
day.
Janet (00:45):
Yeah, and today we're joined by somebody who has lived
that pain and solved it.
So we're really excited to haveScott Berman here with us
today.
He is the creator of HeavysetForms, and that is a new tool
that automates lead responsesand scheduling using AI.
Caitlyn (01:02):
Yes, Scott, we are so excited to have you.
But before we dive intoHeavyset, tell us a little bit
about your journey into the homeimprovement world.
Scott (01:11):
Pleasure to be here.
I've been in the homeimprovement space for around 30
years.
Janet (01:16):
Wow.
Scott (01:17):
I currently own a company called Florida Window and Door
in addition to Heavyset.
And Florida Window and Door isthe 14th largest, I believe,
home remodeling company in thecountry.
Janet (01:28):
Congratulations.
Scott (01:30):
Thank you.
And we really just do windowsand doors in the state of
Florida.
And so, you know, I'm prettyextensively involved in the home
improvement space through bothorganizations and whatever else
is out there.
But I get to see the good newsis I get to see what our
(01:51):
marketing department goesthrough every day in regard to
lead generation and thedifficulty of lead generation.
and then try to find solutionsthat work for us.
And then ultimately what turnsout to work for us really ended
up with a heavy set beingcreated.
So, you know, we're on thefront lines every day.
(02:14):
We understand what it takes togenerate leads.
We obviously generate a lot ofthem and it's critical that we
do it in the most economical waypossible.
And with the least amount offriction, between the customer
and the company.
And I think that's really theadvantage of Heavyset.
Janet (02:33):
So tell us a little bit about, so you're a window and
door guy.
You're running a homeimprovement company.
What made you decide there wasa gap in the market when it came
to web form submissions and howthey're handled?
Scott (02:51):
Well, I think it's twofold.
The first thing was we noticedthat we were getting a lot of
leads after hours.
And typically in the homeimprovement space, what most of
us do is we stop advertisingafter your call center is
closed.
Caitlyn (03:08):
Right.
Scott (03:08):
So what we really recognized was there's a
tremendous opportunity to get itto market and after hours.
But it was also very difficultto get in touch with the people
who created those inquiriesafter hours.
So it could have been a factoryworker or somebody working the
night shift.
You were never going to reachthat.
(03:29):
Additionally, as you were usinglead aggregators, you know,
they always talk about speed tolead.
Well, that gives you theopportunity to really be the
fastest all the time.
Yes.
So conceptually, the idea wasborn from there.
the other thing i would pointout like you know as an example
and i'm not picking on my wifeper se you know like when we're
(03:53):
driving in the car going todinner and i see her shopping on
amazon or whatever um it reallydawned on us like why can't we
create a home improvementexperience that you're able to
shop 24 hours a day or set anappointment 24 hours a day
regardless of when the callcenter is open ah really that's
(04:13):
how This whole thing wasdeveloped, and since then, it's
just pretty much taken on a lifeof its own.
Janet (04:22):
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't want to put wordsin your mouth, but it's almost
like the inspiration was tocreate more of an e-commerce
experience that we're all soused to with a brick-and-mortar
company.
Scott (04:34):
That's effectively what it is.
And so we've been using it forfour years.
We've developed it andredeveloped it initially two or
three times, and we continue toimprove it now.
But effectively, you know, Inever really anticipated
starting a company in thisspace.
(04:54):
I mean, it was not, you know,on my radar screen, I have other
interests, etc.
But I showed it to a couple ofmy friends.
I'm like, we're working on thisthing and it's really working
for us.
Can you give me your insight?
They're like, can we use it?
I'm like, yeah, I guess so.
I think now we have 55 to 60customers and they range
(05:16):
anywhere between a $2 millioncompany to a $250 million
company, not including floor towindow and door.
And really, what we found, andthis is what's I think somewhat
interesting, is that we're areally data-driven organization,
and I understand most people ora lot of other companies are
(05:37):
not.
But I think just some realbasic numbers is that our
cancellation rate went down onissued leads using Heavisat
compared to an operator-basedappointment.
by somewhere around 30%.
Wow.
Sale went up 20%.
(05:58):
Wow.
And the closing rate was, Ithink, up 7% to 10%.
And so what it tells you reallyat the end of the day is the
consumer would much rather setan appointment at their
convenience.
Correct.
As opposed to having to speakto an operator.
And if you take a step back,and I never really thought about
(06:19):
it this way, But if you take astep back and let's say the
average customer shops, threecompanies, most of us are using
roughly the same script.
They're both people home, youknow, are you the homeowner?
How many windows do you need?
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I think, you know, theeducated consumer and the more
educated they're getting everyyear, they're sick of it.
(06:42):
And they're like, look, I wantto do this on my own time.
So where Heavyset really comesin is number one, it actually
gives you the actual time ofavailability of the salesperson.
So it's not like a bot where itsays, oh yeah, we'll schedule
you what time and you say what,and then they call you back the
next morning and say, oh, weonly have a 10 or a 12.
Janet (07:03):
Which then still forces the customer to speak to an
Scott (07:06):
operator.
Correct, correct.
So Heavyset downloads theavailability of your calendar
every 30 seconds.
And so it's real time.
The customer fills out theinformation on when they want
the appointment.
And let's say it's 10 o'clock.
(07:26):
And then they get aconfirmation text from Heaviset
saying you scheduled yourappointment at 10 o'clock.
If it's at a home show, you cando it at a home show with
Heaviset.
You just type in the customername and it populates their
calendar right there.
And then the other thing itdoes is it confirms the
appointment using AI.
So tell us about that.
(07:48):
Pardon me?
Tell us about that.
Like the confirmation.
So let's say you set anappointment today and it's for
Wednesday.
Well, tomorrow's Wednesday.
Let's say it's for Thursday ofthis week.
Today's Tuesday.
So tomorrow, 24 hours beforethe appointment, you can set it
any way you want.
It will give you a reminder byemail and it will also send you
(08:12):
a confirmation text saying,Caitlin, hi, it's, you know,
whatever from floor to windowand door.
We have an appointment tomorrowat 10 o'clock.
I just want to confirm this,this, and this.
And it will confirm as manyquestions as you want.
And it will respond using AI aswell.
And it's learning as it goes.
So to give you an idea, and wepublish, we have a significant,
(08:37):
a large call center.
And so to give you an idea, wepost the appointments and the
confirmation rates of both thecall center as well as Heaviset.
And so our confirmation rate onHeaviset is about 94% to issued
leads.
Wow.
And I mean, it's staggering.
(08:58):
And our call center isaveraging, you know, low 90s, 89
to 91.
So it tells you that theconsumer is much more acceptable
accepting of this technologyand really likes the customer
experience.
The other thing is if it's alead aggregator, typically with
(09:21):
a lead aggregator, the minutethe lead hits your system, we
send a text out with a link toHeaviset and it allows the
homeowner to schedule theappointment by text using the
same mentality.
Caitlyn (09:35):
So you don't even have
Scott (09:35):
to use the
Caitlyn (09:36):
forms.
You can just bypass the formsaltogether and just use
Scott (09:39):
it.
There's no form.
It's basically an email andyour address.
And if the email, if your emailis already existing in your
CRM, Heaviset will populate theform for the customer.
So let's say they saw you at ashow and, and they happen to
respond to an aggregator leadand they have your email,
Heaviset will immediately fillit out and say, here's your
(09:59):
name, your address, your phonenumber.
And so the customer's like, myGod, how did you even know who I
was?
The other cool thing that whatit will do is it will, if let's
say you're short in a particularmarket or zip code, because we
have multiple markets, You cantake Heavyset and send text to
all the customer, all theinquiries who never set leads in
(10:22):
that market to fill yourschedule for that particular
day.
Caitlyn (10:27):
That's pretty
Scott (10:27):
cool.
It's very robust.
I'm probably doing a verycrappy job of explaining it
because I'm trying to make it assimple as possible.
But it's a powerful tool.
And what we're finding is thecompanies that are using it, are
all having exceptional successwith it and continue to build
(10:50):
out their marketing campaignsusing Heavyset because it really
allows you to set a lot ofleads that you otherwise would
never get to.
And the last point I'll make,because I don't mean to just
continue to talk.
The last point I would make toyou is like in our case, going
back to the marketing dollars,if you're able to spend money
(11:11):
after hours, and let's sayGoogle as an example, your
competitors are not there.
So effectively, you're gettingleads at a lower cost.
Janet (11:22):
Right.
Scott (11:23):
And during the day, you're getting leads as well,
but your competitors are there.
But when they shut down, you'restill working.
So it's not uncommon for us tocome in in the morning and have
50 to 60 leads set by heavysetfrom the night before, in our
markets that have already beenconfirmed and ready to go to be
(11:43):
issued by our call center thatjust were 24 hours before were
not even people we knew.
Right.
Janet (11:52):
So let me ask kind of maybe an elephant in the room
question.
And this is not meant to beloaded.
I'm genuinely curious.
Why still have a call center?
Scott (12:06):
Well, okay, so that's a great question.
I'll get to the technicalnature of it.
Eventually, we probably won'thave a call center.
We'll have a scaled down callcenter.
Heavyset is about to introducevoice technology where you can
set leads by AI.
(12:27):
We're testing it at FloridaWindow and Door first, which is,
again, the advantage ofallowing us to do to really
build this is you're getting thebenefit of a larger company so
if you're a smaller companyyou're getting the technology
and the experience of a largercompany with heavyset um and
we're we're fighting through allof the learning curves as we do
(12:48):
it because again right we'reanticipated selling it so as a
result of that i certainly don'twant any enemies in the
industry so um it will go voiceone of the challenges you have
with ai and and what most peopledon't understand how it works
is that typically the ai agentand i'm not speaking of heavyset
(13:10):
in this case but if you'vedealt with ai the ai agent if
you were to set a lead there's adelay right and delay is
effectively the ai agent workingback into your crm looking for
that record and when it finds itit then gives the information
back to the ai With heavyset,what we're able to do is we're
(13:31):
able to cue that information ina queue.
And so AI is going directly toheavyset.
So effectively the heavyset isloading into the AI before the
AI ever reacts.
So there's no delay.
So as a result of that, thetransition between that AI and
the data will make the homeownerbelieve they're speaking to an
(13:55):
actual person with very little,if any delay whatsoever.
That's amazing.
Janet (14:00):
That is crazy and also kind of creepy with where
Caitlyn (14:04):
we are right now with AI.
I mean, I'm obsessed with thistool.
The clients that we have thatuse it, to your point,
absolutely support the stats.
I mean, it makes our jobseasier in terms of marketers
generating those leads.
We know those leads are goingto set faster.
Right.
Scott (14:19):
You can look at it another way and a pure numbers
perspective.
Marketing, as an example, ourexpenditure in the call center,
not including benefits and rentin the building, et cetera, et
cetera, is about $2 millionannually.
So if you took $2 million andput that into your marketing
(14:42):
budget, it would be worth about$12 to $15 million in revenue.
So if you would argue, well,okay, 10% or 20% of your
customers don't like AI, thereality of it is those customers
are going to be replaced by the$2 million that you've saved in
the call center.
The other argument, which Ican't quantify, but soon I will
(15:05):
be able to, is that I look at AIor a company looks at AI like
McDonald's.
And basically, if you go to aMcDonald's, you're getting the
same fries every McDonald's yougo to.
AI is the same thing.
And I'm not saying every agentin a call center, but some
agents in a call center are notgoing to be as good as others.
(15:27):
So there's a loss of...
Janet (15:29):
One agent could vary from day to day.
So
Scott (15:34):
there's a loss of...
leads that you're able to setbecause the operator can't
overcome the homeowner'sobjections.
So even if you were 30% moreefficient on that front, and
still 20% of the people didn'tlike AI, I would still suggest
to you that most of them wouldset an appointment with AI
(15:56):
because ultimately it is abetter customer experience.
And it's our job, at least Ilook at our job, it's our job to
provide the best possiblecustomer experience.
And it's sad eventually thatsome of these people may lose
their jobs, but on the otherhand, you know, we as people in
our industry specifically arespending a ton of money in
(16:20):
advertising.
We have a responsibility toreturn that money to, you know,
to our balance sheet.
And so this is just a nature,this is no different than email,
from the fax machine.
It's the same thing.
But we believe it's going to bea better experience.
And I think Heavyset hasdemonstrated that it is a better
(16:42):
experience and we're not losingcustomers.
We're actually gainingcustomers as a result of it.
And it's not only what FloridaWindow at Door is seeing, it's
the other 50 to 60 companiesthat are using Heavyset as they
get more comfortable andengrossed in it, they're like,
oh my God, this is exceptionallypowerful.
Yes.
So...
Caitlyn (17:03):
How hard is it to
Scott (17:04):
set up?
It takes literally about 48hours to set up.
And basically what you get isyou get a box of check marks
that it goes through when itsets up in your campaign and
your link into your CRM.
(17:24):
And it's just like 10 or 10check marks that go green.
And candidly, the biggestchallenge we have with setup is
people putting it correctly ontheir website.
If I can get past the personputting it on the website, we're
in good shape.
We'll take care of the rest.
So it's very easy.
(17:45):
We typically have people up andrunning within five to seven
days, depending on how busy ourtech department is.
And it's really simple.
Janet (17:58):
What CRMs, is it any CRM that has an open API that you
can connect to?
Scott (18:03):
At this point, we're connected to almost everyone.
We have Improve It, Salesforce,Lead Perfection, Builder Prime,
MarketSharp.
We have almost everyone that'sin the home improvement space.
I think we have a few more thatI'm not familiar with.
But most of the major CRMs weare in line with, and we can
(18:26):
certainly write an API if we'renot.
The biggest challenge withHeavisat is that you have to
market.
I mean, if you're notmarketing, it's not going to
work for you.
But if you're marketing, Iwould say roughly the perfect
customer has a minimum ofprobably $3 to $5 million in
sales.
on the smallest side, because Ithink anybody behind that is
(18:50):
really not doing it, thatthey're going to get the
efficiencies.
Right.
You know, if you're doing homeshows and you're doing
grassroots marketing, all that,like there's forums that are,
that Heavyset fills out, thatyou can be online, offline, so
you can take away all the paper.
It's all TCPA compliant, so ittakes care of all your legal
(19:14):
issues.
You know, it's pretty powerful.
Caitlyn (19:19):
Absolutely.
That is awesome.
I mean, we could ask you abunch of questions.
You're answering all of ourquestions.
Yeah, I mean, when I'm glancing
Janet (19:26):
at the questions, I'm like, wow, I'm wondering what's
left to ask
Caitlyn (19:29):
here.
Setup sounds super easy as longas you've got, you know,
somebody on the website who canset your script up, which we've
done that, and it is not thatdifficult.
So that's a positive.
It's not.
Scott (19:44):
The other thing I would say to you is a lot of the
companies, I don't want to say alot, but some of the companies
that we deal with or have dealtwith, the smaller companies are
using like third party websitedesigners.
And some of the websitedesigners are like, well, if you
use Heavyset, you're not goingto get attribution to the
website designer.
(20:04):
We can do that.
We can provide the propersolution for both.
But we get pushback from, Idon't really prefer not to
mention the name, but we getpushback from some of the
smaller web designers becausethey feel like we're impeding on
their success.
And the reality of it is we canset it up so that they not only
(20:28):
get attribution, but Heavysetimproves their attribution.
So it's incumbent upon themarketing director or the owner
or whomever is dealing withtheir marketing team, outsourced
or internally, that they pushit because that's really where
you're losing opportunity.
Caitlyn (20:47):
And to that note, I mean, we've been on that side of
the conversation.
Absolutely.
And your team has provided ourteam with the support to connect
to what converts or to callrail or to whatever we may need
to make sure we have that phonecall and that form submission
attribution.
So it's possible.
I mean, it is.
Scott (21:07):
And, you know, again, we're coming at it from the
perspective of we've been wheremost people have been.
Yeah.
We weren't always this big,huge company.
We know how important leadsare.
Exactly.
We're all about, we're notthere to be, you know, going
back to the call center.
We're not saying we're going toreplace it totally.
It's in addition to, not inlieu of.
(21:28):
Right.
And, you know, it may get to apoint where it isn't.
in lieu of, but as of rightnow, we're not recommending it
being instead of, but we dobelieve that you will, it will
pay for itself if you understandthe value of a lead and if you
understand that you need moreleads and it's really a no
brainer.
And one other thing I'll sayis, is also we're only focused
(21:52):
on the interaction of the newlead.
It doesn't go into any of youroperations.
It's not meant at this point togo anything but lead generation
and to make your marketingdollars more efficient.
Janet (22:06):
I wanted to circle back to something you said a little
earlier when you were talkingabout if there's a geographic
area that you really wanted tohit and you had some contacts in
your CRM that had never set anappointment, you could do a text
campaign to just that segment.
Did I hear that correctly?
That's correct.
(22:27):
Wow.
So I think I'm just going to bevulnerable and admit that I
kind of had categorized Heavysetin my mind as a form tool, but
it's so much more than that.
It's a texting tool.
It's an appointment settingtool.
It's really like making themost out of that lead that
(22:49):
you're capturing.
Scott (22:51):
Yeah, it's basically allowing a customer to set an
appointment with you using aform and not having to speak to
any operator.
But as an example, a perfectexample, let's say a customer
comes to your website fills outtheir email address and doesn't
(23:12):
fill out the rest of the form.
Historically, you would losethat information.
And by the way, nobody everknows how many people do that
because they never think of it.
They're like, oh.
So Heavyset has the ability totrack that information so that
you can remarket to all thosepeople that you lost by sending
an email saying, hey, you onlypartially finished the form.
(23:35):
Would you mind filling out therest to get an appointment?
Janet (23:38):
I've literally never heard, I've never heard of any
other tool that can capture apartial form fill.
Scott (23:44):
That's because there isn't.
Janet (23:48):
Okay.
Going back to the text thing,it is so much more than a form
tool.
What you're describing isbasically a rehash campaign.
You're not rehashing it andcancel, but like it's a nurture
campaign for someone who hadpreviously expressed interest
through an inquiry, but you werenever able to like convert them
into an appointment.
So it's very targeted.
Scott (24:08):
Correct.
And the objective, again, is todrive your read costs up.
Caitlyn (24:12):
Exactly.
Right.
Janet (24:14):
This is fantastic.
Caitlyn (24:15):
No, I'm absolutely obsessed with this tool.
Janet (24:17):
Where and how can listeners find out more?
And do you have a demo?
Like, explain what the processis for someone who's interested.
Scott (24:25):
All you have to do is go to www.heavyset.tech, T-E-C-H,
and you can fill out an inquiryform.
Unknown (24:35):
Mm-hmm.
Scott (24:35):
And they will contact you to schedule it.
You can schedule a demo rightthere,
Caitlyn (24:40):
actually.
Okay.
And we'll put that informationin the show notes.
Heavyset.tech.
Scott (24:45):
Correct.
Caitlyn (24:46):
Okay.
You've built a huge company anda very powerful tool.
What advice do you have forcontractors who are feeling
overwhelmed by lead volume, butthey're stuck in these old
processes?
I mean, you've broken throughthat.
Scott (25:01):
I mean, I love this question.
It's like there's no real goodanswer to it.
The one thing I would tell youis that you got to grind.
I mean, one of the things thatI'm famous for saying is break
the glass.
No matter how good we are,we're always looking at the
negative, which is depressing inone sense, but it's really made
(25:24):
us better.
I think at the end of the day,These are businesses that are
really, if you have a goodprocess and you have a model,
you can't, you know, when I wassmall and maybe not as
successful, you know, if somethings were going bad or good,
we would just change things forthe sake of changing things.
(25:46):
I think at the end of the day,like two days ago, we had a
terrible sales day and I'm alldepressed.
And, you know, it was like itwas when I first started, like,
oh, here we go.
The luck's run out.
And then the next day we comeback and have like a huge sales
day.
And I just think it's importantthat you understand that you
don't go from bad to good in aday and you don't go from good
(26:09):
to bad in a day.
There's a lot of things thatare externally challenging,
especially in these environmentswhere you want to make changes,
but there's really no goodreason to make that change.
And I think it's consistencyand you have to have process and
you have to have procedure andyou have to follow those.
And if you follow those and youhave good people, you'll be
(26:32):
able to scale.
And the second analogy I wouldgive you is, you can have a
clock and I can go, let's sayyou're on my management team and
I'm gonna go clockwise to mydecision and you're gonna go
counterclockwise to yourdecision, but you still end up
at six o'clock in this case.
It doesn't matter how we getthere, it's still six o'clock.
(26:54):
And so, you know, I see so manypeople like not giving, you
know, not giving discretion totheir managers to manage and
micromanaging and standing inthe way of so many good ideas.
And, you know, I can use anexample of like, I'll talk to a
guy who's doing $3 million andhe has a great idea.
(27:16):
And I can take that idea andscale it, whereas he's stuck at
$3 million.
So I think all of these thingsare important.
Podcasts, events, networking,all of those things.
I hear so many people go to ashow and they're like, show is a
disaster.
And I'm like, yeah, it wasn'tgreat, but I got one good idea.
(27:37):
If I can get one good idea outof a show or a podcast, I'm like
loving life.
I'm like, oh my God, it'samazing.
So that would be my advice.
The last thing I would say isyou just can't give up.
You know, you got to dust offyour jeans and start over again.
You know, I went bankrupt.
(27:58):
I don't know if you know mystory.
Share it, please.
We don't have time for it.
We do.
Janet (28:02):
We've
Scott (28:03):
got time.
Okay.
Well, I mean, like 10 yearsago.
Well, now it's been longer.
15 years ago, I was bankrupt.
I had no money.
Janet (28:12):
Wow.
Scott (28:13):
I bought this company out of bankruptcy.
I started it, closed it.
And then basically bought theassets out of bankruptcy with my
last $10,000.
Wow.
Literally fixed everything thatwe did wrong in the first
company.
I had a bad partner, you know,the typical story, bad decisions
and bankrupted the company,went personally bankrupt, lost
(28:36):
my house, lost everything, andthen built this company doing it
myself.
Went on every leave.
set installation, set measures,did the advertising, paid the
bills, did the accounting.
So, you know, when people sayto me, well, you just don't
understand.
I'm like, I get it.
(28:57):
Trust me.
It wasn't always like this.
But the one thing I didn't dowas I never gave up.
And then I realized now, yearslater, that when I speak to
people in our industry,specifically people who I would
have been intimidated to talk to10 or 15 years ago.
I realize how nice these peopleare.
(29:19):
Well, now they're a lot of mygood friends.
But I realize how nice they areand how willing they are to
help you because they don't wantto see you make the same
mistake that they made.
And I think our industry is sounique because it's small.
A lot of us know each other.
And if you don't know eachother, you know somebody who
knows somebody who knows thatperson.
(29:39):
And inevitably, you're passedacross multiple times.
And so, you know, when you goto these shows and you see these
people who you think are big,like, let's say me,
hypothetically, which I hate tosay that.
And you don't go up to somebodylike, hey, introduce yourself.
I'm like, do you need anything?
Call me.
Here's my cell phone.
(30:00):
Here's my email.
Anytime you want to call me,call me.
And they do.
And it's like, okay, I got aproblem.
I'm not hiring enough people.
I don't know how to hiresalespeople.
I don't know how to hire amanager.
And when you talk to some ofthese people, they have the same
problem year after year afteryear, which tells me it's a
problem with them, not a problemwith what they're doing.
And I just think that overtime, You know, there's so many
(30:25):
resources that are available.
There's great podcasts now inthis.
You guys are doing this.
You know, great podcasts.
And you can sit there, and Ilisten to them on Saturday when
I'm walking or doing whatever.
And it's like, oh, my God, whata phenomenal idea.
And
Janet (30:40):
like you said, if you just get one idea, it's worth
the 30 minutes you invested.
Scott (30:44):
One idea.
And normally, like, when I goto a show, I just went to– Fast
500 I was speaking there and andI was sitting in the audience
and I'm listening and you knowI'm writing all these notes down
and I come back to my officeand I take my management team
I'm like here's what I learnedlet's implement and we're really
(31:05):
good at implementation and youknow I think we've we've set the
standard for like speed we'requick and it may not it may not
be perfect in the beginning Butwe will massage it to get it
perfect as we go on.
The hardest thing, as you guysknow, is to get started.
It's got to be perfect.
I got one guy who I'm helpingin Michigan.
(31:25):
He's been building a salesmodel for, I think, eight
months.
I would have had that thingdone in six days.
May not have been right, but Iwould have had it done in six
days.
Janet (31:35):
Yeah, what we found is, like, if you, what is it,
fire-ready aim?
If you go ahead and put it outthere, the market will help you
shape it.
Scott (31:43):
100%.
100%.
And I think that's, you know,when I look at the challenges
that this industry faces,there's two issues that stand
out in my mind.
The first one is everybodywants the perfect rollout, which
doesn't exist.
And the second thing is thatpeople's pricing and their gross
(32:06):
margins are just factuallyincorrect in the ability to make
money and do business.
And they don't understand, youknow, they quote a job and they
assume everything in a job isgoing to go perfect.
No customer credit, nomis-measure.
And then they're like, yeah,we're making 60%.
And then when you look at theirstatements, they're like making
(32:26):
10 or 20 and it's dramatic andit's terrible.
And you know, you're like, yougot to raise price.
Well, if I raise price, I'mgoing to lose X amount of
business.
Well, if you don't lose, if youdon't raise price, you won't be
in
Caitlyn (32:37):
business.
Scott (32:38):
And so I think those are just the things that over time
you learn.
I hate to pontificate, but Iguess I am.
I mean, one of the thingsthat's amazing is if you walk
into a conference at the end orbeginning of the year, you ask
somebody, how are you going toincrease business?
(32:59):
And the first answer they giveyou is, I need more leads.
Unknown (33:02):
Yep.
Scott (33:03):
They never look at cancellation rates and leads
they have, cancellation ratesand deals they have, sales
training, the cost of marketing.
The first thing is I need moreleads.
Well, I gotta be honest, if youcan't deal with the leads you
have in an efficient manner,what makes you think you can do
it in a second location orgetting more leads?
Everybody wants to be big, butnobody really understands how to
(33:27):
get there and the systems andprocesses and procedures you
need to have in place in orderto be successful.
And it's, well, I'm just goingto grow.
Well, you're not making moneyin store one.
How are you going to make it instore two?
Well, if I have store two, I'llmake more money.
It's a lot.
I mean, it's a total distortionof reality.
Janet (33:45):
It's a little bit laughable.
You'll make it up in volume.
Scott (33:48):
Love that.
Love that.
And when I used to makewindows, I remember I would...
we would go up in an elevatorand everybody would be like, how
many windows did you make lastyear?
How many windows?
Nobody ever said, how muchmoney do you make?
And even in the conferences,it's like, how much volume do
you do?
Nobody says, how much money doyou make?
It's like, that's a terriblething to talk about.
Let's talk about volume.
(34:09):
I can tell you, I've looked ata lot of companies where they
have a lot of volume and theydon't make a lot of
Janet (34:13):
money.
Scott (34:15):
That's right.
Janet (34:16):
This has been fantastic.
One of the things I love aboutthis industry is kind of what
you've shown today is that theguys who have scaled bigger than
some of the smaller guys,they're always willing to share.
And we've been in this, we'vebeen serving this industry for,
we've been in business for 22years.
(34:38):
We've been serving thisindustry at least 10.
And we've found the owners,especially the successful
owners, to be so generous withtheir time and their experience
and open about the mistakes thatthey've made and being able to
hand that on to somebody elseand to pass it on to somebody
else.
And you are absolutely themodel of that.
(34:59):
Yeah.
Scott (35:00):
I appreciate that.
It's very nice.
Thank you.
Caitlyn (35:03):
So thank you for your time, Scott.
I know you're so busy.
Scott (35:06):
Thank you.
I'm not that busy.
I don't even know how to turnon my computer.
So there you go.
Janet (35:11):
Hey, I would take that as a success.
You've won.
You're the delegating king.
Scott (35:17):
That I am.
I'm good at that.
Caitlyn (35:20):
Y'all, if you're listening and you're tired of
chasing down leads and ready toautomate your growth, definitely
check out Heavyset Forms.
That's at heavyset.tech.
Janet (35:30):
And
Caitlyn (35:30):
you
Janet (35:30):
want to bring it out?
I'll bring us on home.
Don't forget to subscribe,share this episode, tell your
friends about it, rate it, andreach out to us and let us know
what other topics you'd like usto cover.
If you could give us 30minutes, we are going to try to
give you tips to help you growyour business.
Thanks again for listening.
Speaker 00 (35:47):
Digital marketing for contractors is created by
Fat Cat Strategies.
For more information, visitfatcatstrategies.com.
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