February 11, 2025 • 51 mins
What if you could unlock the secrets of skyrocketing your business revenue for 2025? Get ready to uncover Lemon Seed's specialized quarterly training that centers on operational efficiencies, competitive pricing, and effective marketing. We dive into the nitty-gritty of tracking average ticket values and maximizing lifetime customer value, essential tactics for propelling your business towards success. Despite some technical hiccups with Go Time Success Group, the anticipation for their insights remains high as we navigate these critical strategies together.
Strategic planning and training are the backbone of any thriving business, and this episode highlights why having a long-term vision is non-negotiable. By aligning decision-makers with your company’s core philosophy, as demonstrated by our experiences with McWilliams and Son, you can transform your enterprise into a wealth-generating powerhouse. We also delve into the importance of not just technical skills but also character and soft skills in training, ensuring your team isn’t just skilled, but also well-rounded and motivated. Striking the right balance in training approaches is crucial to avoid the traps of over-saturation or neglect.
Marketing blunders and operational missteps can be costly, and we address these head-on, especially for contractors. From calculating lead requirements accurately to fostering a supportive organizational structure, these elements are pivotal for sustained growth. We unpack the significance of cohesive teams and well-set KPIs to maintain profitability, especially in competitive arenas like Dallas-Fort Worth. Building a high-value, winning team involves more than skill—it requires nurturing a positive environment with recognition and appreciation. Listen as we explore how cohesive marketing efforts, paired with robust internal dynamics, drive success and ensure your company thrives.
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From the Yellow Chair is powered by Lemon Seed, a marketing strategy and branding company for the trades. Lemon Seed specializes in rebrands, creating unique, comprehensive, organized marketing plans, social media, and graphic design. Learn more at www.LemonSeedMarketing.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up, lemonheads ?
This is Kennedie and I am thepodcast editor here at From the
Yellow Chair.
This episode we're going togive you a special
behind-the-scenes look at whatour clients get to experience
every quarter here at Lemon Seed.
Each quarter, we put together aspecialized training for
specific seasonality and trendsthat are going on at that time.
(00:22):
Four times a year that you getspecial content that no one else
gets to see.
This quarterly session was inQ4 of 2024, so you get to know
the seasonality of what we'retalking about.
This quarterly session we werejoined by Ben from Go Time
Success Group.
Are you ready?
Because it's time to sip somelemonade eliminate.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Hello, hello, welcome to our Q4 training.
Due to some weather, we'rehaving a little bit of issue
getting the GoTime team on thewebinar, but they're working on
it, so I know that they will behere shortly.
They're very, very close and soI wanted to jump in here and
talk to you guys a little bitabout what today's webinar is
going to talk about.
We are going to be talking verymuch about what are some things
that we need to be very carefulof going into 2025.
So, as we are planning for 2025, most of you hopefully already
(01:20):
have your budgets done,hopefully already have some
semblance of what your revenuegoals are going to be and how
you're going to reach thosethings.
And Limit Seed has three waysthat we always encourage clients
to look at your plans for 2025.
There are three ways, as acompany, that we can make more
money and we can control whatour business is doing.
So one of those is operationalefficiencies, right?
(01:42):
So are you making sure thatyour clients are successful?
No, you can make sure that youguys are hitting your average
tickets every single day, everyweek, every month.
You're watching those averageticket numbers to make sure that
you are operationally doingeverything that you can Lemon
Seed.
I do say this a lot from LemonSeed.
(02:04):
Marketing is one of thosethings.
It never gets the credit, butit'll always take the fault.
So when things aren't workingwell in business, a lot of times
people are like oh, it's mymarketing, it's my website
company, it's this, it's that,and most of the time I try to
tell you you're exactly right inthe sense of something's not
working.
But I will say that businessesthat I see be most successful,
(02:26):
whether they're using Lemon Seedor not, normally are very, very
strong on the operational sideof business, and so
operationally is where I thinkyou win and lose ballgames.
As I say, your strategy, yourimplementation and how you just
modify things and pivot when youneed to.
And, guys, I'm telling you thatis where I see the biggest
(02:52):
difference is the differencebetween good operators and just
good business.
People like good techniciansthat are running businesses is
definitely in the operationsside.
So that's one way that you canmake more money next year is
just holding your teamaccountable for hitting average
tickets on install, averageticket on service, average
ticket on repair and replacement, all of those average tickets,
and then the best one that I'mreally going to start tracking
for all of our clients in 2025is the lifetime value of the
(03:15):
customer, being able to watch,once you got the customer, how
much money are you making fromthat customer base as you
continue on more and more andmore, and so I really think that
that lifetime value number isgoing to become more and more
important as your market getsmore and more concentrated and
(03:35):
more and more busy.
Operationally efficiency is oneof the big things.
The second one that we can dois our own pricing.
So your own pricing for yourequipment and for your services
is another way that you can.
With a simple percentage changein your price book, just
modifying that slightlyautomatically will increase your
(03:56):
revenue brought into yourcompany, and so operational
efficiency is number one.
Number two would be just beingpriced competitively and
honestly.
Remember, we live in this lifeevery single day.
So we do heating and airconditioning, cooling every
single day, plumbers, roofing.
We live in that headspace.
Our consumers do not.
(04:17):
Our consumers live only whenthey need this service, and so
many times what happens is theyare focused on.
They don't really go.
Oh my gosh, he went up ahundred dollars on this
equipment, or he.
They don't know really.
So I encourage you like, don'tget caught in the outliers when
you're talking about pricing.
Really focus on what you needto be priced at to be
(04:39):
competitive, and it's like twohours of hard work for a year of
more revenue generated.
And the third leg of that stoolwhich Ben is who taught me the
three-legged stool approach thethird leg of that stool is
marketing.
So marketing is another pieceof the puzzle here that helps
generate more leads and morerevenue.
(05:00):
So, as I tell you, when you'relooking at ways that your
company can make more money inthe next year, those are the
three ways.
Operationally, are you managingaverage ticket and having clear
expectations for your team?
Are you priced competitively?
Are you priced fairly and areyou paying attention to pricing
on a consistent basis?
And then, last but not least,is definitely going to be your
(05:21):
marketing strategies for 2025.
Lemon Seed has a bucket styleapproach, if you've ever, like,
talked with Lemon Seed.
So what are you doing forbranding, what are you doing for
calls to action and what areyou doing for cultivation?
And when you look at thosethree buckets, some of you may
have more things in more buckets.
I know that this, on this call,is mostly all of our Lemon Seed
clients.
(05:41):
So we're always pushing you tobalance out your buckets to make
sure that you're not just goingto your existing database or
just doing branding pieces orjust doing call to action.
It's really about hitting yoursecret sauce in your market of
where you can be the mostsuccessful.
I am so thankful to have beenhere, guys, and I knew if y'all
(06:02):
saw GoTime's name I thought thiswill be the most attended
webinar because y'all love theGoTime people, and I knew I knew
if y'all saw GoTime's name, Ithought this will be the most
attended webinar when y'allbecause y'all love the GoTime
people and I love them too, soI'm so excited to have you.
So, ben, I know you were tryingto get logged on to the call.
Some of the things that I wasjust talking about is the things
that my brother taught me arethree ways that businesses can
can prepare themselves to makemoney next year is operational
(06:22):
efficiencies managing averagetickets, managing just
expectations with your team.
Pricing, making sure thatpeople are priced correctly and
that you're priced competitively, yet fairly, and not overthink,
like even your margins onequipment and things like that.
And then, last but not least,marketing is another way that we
drive lead count, but alsotaking care of people.
(06:43):
So I'm gonna just turn it overto you for you to start talking,
like what are some don't makesome of these mistakes and some
best practices for really havinga great kickoff to a year in
2025.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Right.
Well, I think you know there's alot of different things.
There's a.
I think you know your yourannual planning is is a is kind
of the, the vision that youbuild for the company.
You know, whether you be theowner, the general manager, it's
how you structure where youwant to be, not just a year from
(07:15):
now, but 10 years from now.
It's kind of like you know yourbranding plan.
When you're talking aboutmarketing, it's up to you to
draw the whole scope for yourbusiness.
So, really, you know, when youthink about how long it took
them like all the smartestscientists in the world and all
the people that are trying toget us to the moon from 1960, it
(07:36):
was like a 10-year process.
Well, I think you know you gotto also take your annual
planning like a 10-year processtoo.
It's not something that you'rebuilding short term, you're
building long term and I thinkyou know the key to it is, you
know, creating your vision,which is an in-depth build into
(07:56):
what you're trying to do withyour company and how you're
trying to grow it out, trying togrow it out.
And then you got to, you know,with your mission statement.
You know, which is also anotherreal key factor to it is, you
know, your short, brief messageto the public.
So in the marketing aspect ofit, those are two big things
(08:17):
that you've got to look at.
That's how you're going toportray where you're going to be
this time next year and 10years from now on down the line.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
So those are my, always my biggest focuses on how
I start out in my annualplanning and starting to build
that picture out.
So I remember when McWilliamsand Son was first getting going,
we had Chris Hunter actuallycome out and do one and I know
that Trey looks up to you guys alot because we realized so my
dad kind of did annual planningbefore annual planning was a
thing for any air conditioningcompanies.
(08:54):
We would kind of meet up and see, kind of you know, what was
going on or where we were, wherewe could do some stuff.
And I learned that in thoseannual plans it wasn't
necessarily that we solved allof our issues, it was more that
we started as a groupcollaboratively identifying
things and diligently workingtowards those.
And I will tell to me it was agame changer when we doing that
(09:17):
in 20, I think, 2012, 2013,something like that, and it
really was.
You can tell the difference andI know at GoTime you guys see
probably lots and lots, hundreds, if not thousands of companies
and I think it really is a cleardefined, like a clear defined
definition piece of who's goingto be more successful in the
next year as people that areparticipating in those annual
(09:39):
plans.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yeah, and the annual planning is you know, for us
there's always you know your topgroup of people, you know your
key decision makers in yourcompany, because I think they
need to have a good input inwhat it does, because you know
when they believe in it and theybuy into it, it's something
(10:00):
that's going to happen for themand you can show them a way that
they're going to be successfulin that annual planning.
And I think that just thedevelopment of your core
philosophy of your business.
You need to know what type ofbusiness you're in.
Are you a wealth machine?
Are you a money machine?
(10:21):
Wealth machine is somethingthat you build on every year and
becomes better.
A money machine is kind of liketake the money and run as quick
as you can.
It's not a lot of customer care,which, with wealth building
machine, you're building longterm customers and you got to
instill that in your people,especially when you bring them
(10:41):
on.
So you got to find them, yougot to hire them, you got to
onboard them.
After you onboard them, thenyou start how do you want to
train these people and what'syour?
For instance, how do you want aservice technician built?
Or how do you want an installerbuilt.
You've got to develop thesepeople because initially we're
(11:01):
just kind of labor brokers, sowhat our product is is how good
we can do with the people thatwe have surrounding ourselves.
I think one of the key thingsabout training especially like
what we?
Our philosophy with GoTime isthat you know, we want to build
character in people so that itinstills and makes our company
(11:21):
as a whole, the group of peoplethat work there, all do better
because of the type of people wehave in it.
One of the things that makesmarketing easier when you're
building your marketing plan islike what you guys do.
You do a philosophy on whetheryou're in a large metro area,
which is a certain kind ofmarketing, or if you're a rural
(11:42):
area, which you guys areprobably the most successful
I've ever.
If you're a rural area, whichyou guys are probably the most
successful I've ever seenanybody in a rural area because
of the way you market, youspider web through your people
and you make all of your peoplean initial touch point for other
people that they spread out to.
So I think that's a greatphilosophy.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Thank you, thank you, and I see that too.
So some of the mistakes that I'mtaking away from what you're
saying is, like you know, lackof having an annual planning
session, right.
So even if you're like veryunfamiliar, it's just about
sitting down and writing outyour goals and objectives and
how you're going to get therewith everything from you know,
like I mentioned earlier, howoperationally marketing all
(12:22):
those things.
And then training you know weundervalue training a lot.
So I actually have two sets ofclients, like I have sets of
clients that really valuetraining.
So I almost feel like theyinundate their team with like
every new product that's outthere.
They're trying to get it outand about.
And then I have clients that Ithink are very intentional, like
they train on just overallbasic technical training.
(12:45):
And then one thing I think wemight miss out on sometimes is
people that don't focus at allon the soft skill side of
training.
So training, I do know, hasbeen a big mistake that people
make, either really getting likeoversaturating their team or
not saturating them enough onthe right things.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Right.
Well, for instance, like whatyou're saying is you know for
you to be to to sell yourproduct, you know you've got to
have the best people that do it.
So you've got to.
You have to have specializedtraining for your salespeople
you have to have specializedtraining for your phone taker,
your call takers.
(13:24):
You have to have specializedtraining for your phone taker,
your call takers.
You have to have specializedtraining for how you do an
install, what separates you fromyour competition, so that you
have the selling edge and youknow to grow your company.
I think those are real keythings to consider in your
annual planning is how do youstructure the mindset of where
you want these to develop andhow you build them so you're
(13:45):
attracting both customers andpeople to work for you into your
organization?
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yeah, you know we talk a lot, so that unique
selling position doesn't have tomean reinventing your whole
entire company.
It's more about justidentifying.
So I remember when Mcwilliams,you know we sat in a room, um,
and literally we just startedthrowing out ideas like and I'm
a big idea person, so I throwout ideas that make the whole
team like shaking their bootslike we will never be able.
(14:15):
But I feel like that was my jobwas to push us to think.
So one day I threw out and saidwhat if we guaranteed same day
install?
Yeah well, of course theinstall coordinator was like
absolutely not, we can never dothat.
How would we ever do that?
And then I was like well, so ifeveryone else is two and three
days out with install, if wecan't do it same day, what about
if we guaranteed next dayinstall?
(14:35):
Yeah so, but we had to thinkthrough it together, um, and be
respectful of each other'sdepartments, and so another
thing and I'm really not on atray kick today, but it seems
like I am he told me there'sgoing to be creators in your
business and there's going to bedoers in your business, and the
creators will keep creating,but the doers will never create
(14:55):
more than they think they can do.
And so I'm like, if I keepasking the people that do it,
how do you feel, do you feelgood?
They're always going to feellike you're pushing them too
hard.
They're never going to say youknow what?
I'm actually very fine, justsend me 10 more installs, you
know?
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Well, that's a philosophy thing, you know.
You've got to measure it right.
You've got to be realisticabout what your production
people can do, especially on theinstall time, and time are
limited, but it doesn't meanthat you can't manage your labor
better and send more people toa job, get a job done in a day,
(15:33):
even if it's a big job.
So I think there's a lot ofways to handle that.
But it's also how are youthinking about how you're going
to design this business to makeit work like what your
guarantees are guaranteeing?
And maybe you know a guaranteethat gets you a job may be a
100% satisfaction guarantee toearn your money back for two
(15:56):
full years, which is what weextended.
It set us out of the realmbecause most contractors that I
competed with felt they couldn'toffer that.
But we could because we knew itwas a numbers game.
It was a matter of how manytimes is this going to sneak up
and get you, and you got to beprepared to make sure that you
(16:19):
can handle it, just like yourguarantees.
What's realistic to guarantee,what's not realistic to
guarantee, and that's all donein the annual planning, in the
setup of how you do things.
Another thing that comes.
A big factor in annual planningis your manpower.
You know, if you don't have thecorrect manpower to take care
(16:42):
of the guarantees or the wantsand needs of your employees,
you're going to have a challenge.
So you better make sure thatyour January staff, you know,
might not fit what your Junestaff needs to be versus your
September staff.
So you better make sure thatwhen you do make changes in your
(17:02):
company, you can either shift aguy from one department to
another or sometimes you got toget rid of the bottom 10 percent
to be.
You know that's not a nicething to do but you know
sometimes guys are not going tostay with you and you got to
assess and evaluate youremployees at all time.
So you're making the correctmove for the company.
(17:25):
The entity that you're managingis what everybody in the
company is working for.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yes, I love this because you know we Lemon Seed,
like even Lemon Seed we alreadyhad, like our pre.
So I'm an annual plan freak now.
So I figured out, emily and Ifigured out together like we
needed to start, so we had apre-meeting to our annual plan.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Because you realize the power behind that and we
were working through this samemanpower thing as well Like,
okay, if we are, you know, if wewant to get this many new
customers, then we're going toneed this many.
This, and I'm telling you, itjust gives you to be able to say
, well, it doesn't look like Ineed to hire a new technician
(18:10):
until March to be prepared forJuly.
It feels really good and ithelps you alleviate some of
those sleepless nights of oh mygosh, how am I going to keep all
these people busy?
And I really just there's somuch power in that annual
planning.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Plus the fact of manpower also.
Really, we budgeted a wholepercentage factor that we put in
for training for our employees.
So if we needed some of ourservice technicians to step up
to be maybe commercialtechnicians or whatever, we
would bring in maintenance guysbecause they're easy to train,
easy to put in the trucks,maintenance guys because they're
easy to train, easy to put intotrucks.
And then we'd figure outtraining programs to get our
other techs up a level so theycould take on more of the
(18:51):
workload that they weren't usedto being as a maintenance tech.
So you got to think about, youknow, manpower is real key in,
in my opinion, because that'swhat we are again everything.
We don't produce products, weinstall and fix products.
So our you know really what weare is labor people and we've
(19:12):
got to make sure that our laboris better than our competition
or our competition is going toovertake our competition, what
we are, so that that's those arereal key.
And then you know, you get to.
There's a lot of things in theannual planning.
I know we don't have a lot oftime to talk about all this
stuff, but you know.
Then you got to.
You know, in your marketingbudget I mean, we got, I think
(19:34):
we put generally, you know, 8 to16 hours in our market planning
.
So when you're doing the annualplanning, you also got to kind
of make sure that you're gettingthe key points in each one of
these steps and you got to allowthe time it takes to plan for
them as well.
So sometimes marketing,sometimes the annual plan, takes
(19:56):
three or four days, sometimesit takes two weeks.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, that's very, that's a good point.
So that's why I would say, likethat pre-planning side, like
Emily, her job at Limit Seed isto gather all of our budget
numbers.
She created a budget, my job isto be the creative side too,
and then she, then we supporteach other in those steps.
It's the same thing in acompany.
You know, I remember Trey usedto come to our board to our
planning retreats, and we mostlydid all of ours offsite for
(20:22):
this same purpose, so that wecould focus, mostly did all of
ours offsite for this samepurpose, so that we could focus.
And we had, you know, the largenotepads and we had whiteboards,
because it was truly a time ofbrainstorming and trying to
solve those problems, and wewould normally have to do two
and three days of cleaning,because to really tackle, you
know, the things that you needto tackle whether it's retention
(20:43):
of employees or recruitment ofemployees it's a new marketing
strategy, whether it's justcalls to action or is it
refocusing your whole brand.
And every year was differentwhere our focus went.
Every year was very different,and so when you talk about
spending time on the marketingside, I'm assuming like with
with.
I think the biggest mistakethat contractors make is not
(21:05):
really knowing how many leadsthey need to generate, based off
their booking rate and thenbased off their average tickets,
to really know if theirmarketing is really, really
working.
They just really go by the, thetracking number.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
You know the tracking number, you know and I think
you know well, along with allthis stuff is is if you're not
in your annual planning at theend and end of it all, if you're
not putting it in a book thateverybody, all your managers,
can follow and you bring it upin every weekly meeting that you
have.
I mean, you know you've got tosee if you're on track of what
(21:43):
your annual plan says.
You know in your annualplanning you'll do.
You know the attaboys, you knowand the oh shucks you know,
what worked real good for uslast year.
You know what didn't work verygood for us last year and you
need to decipher those thingsand change your plan annually to
(22:03):
make sure that your growth isbeing successful.
You don't keep on making thesame mistakes twice.
You know, and when you makegood decisions, how do you
expand and accelerate thatdecision?
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Absolutely.
And you know one of the thingsagain, you know these are just
mistakes that we, you know, thatBen and I see contractors make
you know a lot of times.
I think, in marketingspecifically, you know these are
, these are just mistakes thatwe, you know, that Ben and I see
contractors make you know a lotof times.
I think, in marketingspecifically, you know, we tend
to get real scared of theoutliers, the three or four
people that might, that mightreach out and and and hold your
feet to the fire.
That really wasn't a fire youintended to start, you know.
(22:39):
Um, so when McWilliams went to777, so we went to a guaranteed
next day install, which,honestly, we were pretty much
hitting that anyway.
Now we just promoted it thatway.
But we also went to 7 am to 7pm, seven days a week, with no
overtime charges.
So we took that unique sellingposition and we had to figure
(23:00):
out how it affected everyone inour team.
So the marketing team can'tjust create things and go buck
wild when there's no, thestructure's not ready.
So as we talked through thosethings, we had to go back and
restructure, like our workschedule for our technicians to
make a 777 structure work.
We had to go back and figureout how we were going to be
(23:22):
stocking trucks to get ready forguaranteed next day install
again without working our teamto death, you know, and so we
really had to think through howthese marketing they all sounded
great, but how did it impactthe entire team?
And that's where that timereally came into play.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Yes, definitely.
Well, you know, you got to alsobuild an organizational chart
along with your.
In your planning you got tomake sure that you have people
in the right positions.
So you know, I always, you knowwe, as you grow a company, one
year you stay the same, you know, and it fits.
But we almost always rebuiltour egg org charts every year
(24:11):
because of the fact that weneeded to continue always to be
focused on developing people.
How do you get the next guy up?
What if you?
What if a guy has a heartattack?
Unfortunately, sometimes thingslike that happen or gets hurt or
is in an accident, you alwayshave to be thinking, and even
the supervisory which is kind ofbetween management and the
(24:51):
field sometimes if you're a bigenough company, which is a lot
of times what we had to dealwith.
So the planning and thedevelopment of people Again I
can't say enough of importanceabout how we depend upon what
they do, what they feel, howstrongly their connection is
(25:12):
with other people in the team.
So another great thing that Isee that y'all have done over
the years we emulated a lot ofthat was just the building of
intertwining team and familyinto the company as well.
And then you've got people thathave a lot more longevity and
you build upon that and I thinkthat's just real key for keeping
(25:37):
the drastic between one yearand the next year.
A lot of difference, becausethe steadier your employees are,
the more stable they are withyour company, the routines build
in better, and then it's easyto always adjust your routines
by saying, well, we're going togo with this method of doing
(25:59):
something, and people accept ita lot better when they're
working with each other ratherthan for the boss.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Oh yeah, and I did a presentation on this for a group
at Service Titan the other dayin Savannah, the day that
Service Titan announced or wentat NASDAQ and all that good
stuff.
But one of the things I saidthere was you know when you are
building a company.
There was you know, when youare building a company, you have
(26:28):
which we all should beconsistently building our
companies for.
Whatever our end goal that wehave in mind, whether it's
selling or family wealth orwhatever you're building it for,
we have to keep in mind theimportance of our team and their
buy-in to what we're doing.
So a whole nother part of ourannual plan was okay, these
sound great, these areaggressive goals.
Like we were about to come backto our team and say, hey, we
(26:49):
think we can, you know, almostdouble our revenue and not add a
lot more people.
Well, all of a sudden, they'regoing to be like there's no way.
I'm already so.
You know.
I feel like I work all the timeas it is, and so you have to
combat that with things thatmost contractors are not super
successful at, which is a lot.
I call it shaking hands andkissing babies.
Right, we have to do a lot ofjust and I hate to use this word
(27:13):
because it has negativeconnotations, but we have to
coddle a little bit, like youguys are doing great Like thank
you, here's lunch on us, here'sa new jacket, here's a new hat,
here's a party.
All of those things are donespecifically to motivate and to
encourage.
And the day that they wake upand we spoil their wives for the
(27:34):
specific reason of the day,they get up and their wives are
mad that they're on call thatweekend and they're like you
should just quit, you should gowork somewhere that doesn't make
you be on call.
Well, you know what I wanted tosay?
Well, not at the expense ofthat Christmas bonus and our
holiday party.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
I agree with that too , but I think also in your
training mechanism, when youinvest into people.
We have what we call the fourtoolboxes of success.
You know your physical toolbox.
How do you build your toolboxand learn how to use all the
tools in your toolbox?
And you think about it for aminute, that everybody has a
(28:14):
toolbox.
A CSR uses software, a salesmanuses a briefcase with
third-party articles and tapemeasure and all this other stuff
.
Technician has their tools, buttools are what helps you get
through a job quicker and moreefficient, right.
The next thing you've got tofocus.
(28:34):
Our second toolbox is theknowledge toolbox.
That's our training programs.
How do you build a person'sidentity and help them to think
about what their job really isand focus on doing that job
better, whether it be a manager,whether it be a CSR, whether it
be a field technician?
(28:55):
The third toolbox is yourcommunication toolbox, and it's.
You know you have all thistechnical stuff in your mind,
but how do you get it out ofyour technical brain and through
your mouth so that everybodycomprehends the layman's terms
of it?
So you got to think about yourcommunication skills and grow
that on every employee.
(29:15):
And you have those threetoolboxes, but none of them are
any good if you don't have themindset.
And the mindset is, you know,is the glass half full or half
empty.
So we really teach that everytime a guy goes to class or gets
trained on something, or evenjust raw field experience,
they're enhancing their value tothe industry, so that it's like
(29:41):
you know I've got all this.
Now you know baggage with methat how can I use it to best
benefit me?
Then they become more, a higherasset to the entire industry,
whether they decide to stay as aservice technician or they want
to move to a manager or asalesperson.
Because I can tell you onething for sure is I think of
(30:04):
myself as a service technicianfirst and foremost, but I've
also been trained in sales.
I spent five years in sales, Ispent two or three years as a
manager and I've spent 35 yearsnow as a business owner.
So I know that my value hasincreased each time I've done
(30:24):
things, know that my value hasincreased each time I've done
things.
So training is trying to getthose people that are your team
members.
How do you instill what theirtotal value is to not just
themselves but their family andto the company and their
teammates?
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
So that's, I think, a real important aspect of the
whole employee philosophy is howdo you build people to be
better assets in the industry?
Then you've got a winning team,and then you've got people that
do take on extra workloads sothat the whole team benefits
(31:06):
rather than just the individualbenefits.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
I love that.
Yeah, I love it.
One of the things too that youjust said, the mindset side.
You know, I've learned too likeand this is terrible to say
because it makes me kind of feelbad but I will get clients or
potential clients and from theremy initial interview I'm like
their mindset is wrong.
So now I'm going to be watchingthem like infiltrate that
(31:30):
mindset down to technicians andso, like they'll start like
we'll still start a call and oreven when we were helping other
companies do their their annualplan, you'll sit down and talk
with them and you'll say, okay,that'll never work, or my team
is just lazy, or they're nevergonna agree to do tune-ups, or
they're never gonna worry aboutaverage tickets.
And finally, I just wanna saysometimes like, well, it has to
(31:53):
start at the top.
We have to care about our ownmindset and our own structure
and our own ability to do things.
So if you are very disengagedwith your company, then they are
going to be very disengaged andit really is a matter of
setting the precedent yourself.
And I have learned a lot.
I seek out contractors, likewhen I will talk to contractors
(32:16):
if they act like, if they canshow me like some vision and
some I will help.
I'm glad to help on themarketing side all along there.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Well, you know, one of the things that we do here
also is Dave Rothkir does theleadership.
You send all your peoplethrough our leadership class.
You don't believe howincredible that effect is,
because it teaches a person notjust to walk by.
You know, be involved, be partof it, because it's all human
(32:49):
relationships that our companiesare about.
How do you get into?
How does a business owner likeme the first five years of my
business I was not an involvedbusiness owner.
I was a guy that walked by himand went to my office and
started working on somethingwhere my job is more than
(33:10):
anything else.
How do I extend my gratitudeand my lend of my knowledge to
these other people to help thembe able to do their job better?
Then you build something ofvalue.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Yes, yes, absolutely.
Well, what are a couple of whatare maybe a few more mistakes
that you see contractors making?
Is it not tracking the rightKPIs?
You know what do you think?
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Yeah, I think, I think KPIs are real, are real
key and I think you know withyou know, key performance
indicators are things that youbriefly look at.
Key performance indicators arethings that you briefly look at
on at least a monthly basis.
But some people look at KPI ona daily basis and I think the
more often you look at it, oneof the secrets to success, in my
(33:58):
opinion, is never to go througha month less than break even.
I mean, I focused on that formany years.
It took me several years to getto a point where I didn't have
a loss of a year, but once I gotthere we went almost, I think,
over 48 months without having asingle month with a below
(34:21):
average.
And the way we did that wasshifting our jobs, so that we
knew that.
You know, in the marketing area,you know August 15th it was
going to drop off because kidswere going back to school.
So we started 45 days ahead ofthat and in, you know, in middle
of June, thinking about how arewe going to keep that drop off
(34:44):
from happening.
So we developed programs thatwere out of our normal realm,
like it could be.
You know we're HVAC, but youcould be adding plumbing, or you
could be adding atticinsulation, attic systems and
things like that to keep thatrevenue flowing.
So you're at least at breakeven blowing.
(35:07):
So you're at least at breakeven.
I think break even is so keybecause you got to think when
you drop below break even everymonth, you got to make up that
much more monies before you evenhit the next month.
You know profit goals.
I think focusing on those KPIsof profitability, making sure
your labor is in check.
You know our labor was below20% for service techs, below 10%
(35:28):
for install department labor, afew things like that Salesman
closure rate.
It must equal.
You know it started off at 35%or better but it got eventually.
Our KPI changed where we were.
We wanted 50% closing ratio orbetter, but it got.
Originally our kpi changedwhere we were, we wanted 50
closing ratio or better.
So your kpi changed every time.
(35:51):
You, you know, focus andrefocus on things so you build
the kpi that fits your company.
You know like what percentageyou invest in marketing.
That's another important KPI.
How many maintenance agreementsyou add to your base each day
or each week or whatever, isvery, very important to your KPI
(36:14):
.
So your physical KPIs,numbers-wise, are real key that
you take into consideration whenyou're doing your annual
planning so that your budgetsmeet up.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yes, I wanted to ask something like on if you were to
make recommendations and we mayhave a different.
I think this would be a goodconversation if we are a little
different here on the marketingside.
So you know, I always tellcontractors like we're going to
focus on the residential,because commercial side of your
business requires a differentstrategy than the residential
side of your business, and so Iencourage contractors that are
(36:48):
in growth mode, meaning they'reaggressively trying to grow by
30 40 percent year over year.
I encourage them to be at 10percent of their marketing goal
for the next year.
Now, those people that live inmarkets like East Texas we may
not have to be at 10 percentbecause we just don't have the
competition, but those that arewhat you came from a Dallas
market.
So you have lots, lots ofcompetition, right, and so what
(37:11):
is?
What advice do you give aroundmarketing percentages and
thoughts around that as well?
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Marketing percentages are real key, I think, when
you're in a, when you're a youngoff, with probably around 12,
up to probably 25%, maybe evensometimes to grow that company
that first year.
Then it quickly adjusted downto where it was livable.
So I think livable is probablysomewhere north of 6% and below
(37:51):
10%.
I think those are pretty goodnumbers.
But I've seen some very, verybig, successful companies
running at 2% or 3% marketingbudget and I really applaud
those people because that meansthat their internal or natural
growth in that company is verysuccessful and generically they
(38:15):
grow by themselves and that's agood sign of a company that has
a following in the community,then you can have those low
numbers.
But when you have a place likeDallas-Fort Worth area, you're
always going to be faced withalways having to market to a new
(38:36):
customer because it's justthere's so much company.
You know we've got three.
I think at one time we had3,500 licensed contractors in
the Dallas-Fort Worth areapeople that held a license just
in the Dallas-Fort Worth areaand your competition is not that
big.
But when you got that manypeople working in the area you
(38:58):
got a lot of competition.
So your marketing budget isgoing to have to be higher.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, and I will say this too.
So when we started, my brotherand sister and I started a pest
control company that my sisterand brother-in-law run.
What we started off off we'reprobably hitting 20 in marketing
right now um, but we hadfinancially prepared our company
the company for that, uh, treywas very intentional about
having the, the money behind thescenes to fund 20 marketing go
(39:26):
out of the, out of the gate, youknow, um, and so some of the
things like behind that I justlook and say you know there's
nothing wrong with being grittyand you know literally clawing
your way if you don't have a lotof, you know, extra cash to
help your marketing spend.
And I've seen it.
I've seen some franchises likereally build these new companies
(39:47):
through lead aggregators likeANG or home advisor or whatever.
It's just a strategy.
You just have to have anintentional strategy of how you
are going the thing about thoseare the.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
the challenge to those type of that type of
marketing is that you're very,very price driven to success, so
it's going to be low-end andthen you can't afford the budget
to step into high-end marketing.
When you do high-end marketing,of course you've got to realize
(40:21):
and know and understand thatit's got to go in your gross
margin.
When you spend more onmarketing, you've got to put,
you've got to operate at ahigher gross margin.
When you spend more inmarketing, you've got to have
operating at a higher grossmargin and if you don't, you're
going to fail or be non-profitsituation.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
No, I 100% agree, and I take clients a lot of times
and I'll say, okay, let's talkabout why we're not branding,
and again, it's just a harp onthis.
But I would love to seecontractors get a little more
aggressive with their brandingand their and their marketing
strategy all the way around,because the more branded we can
(40:59):
be in a market, the more peopleare seeing.
So, yeah, wrapped trucks isgreat, that's great.
It's only a piece, though.
We have to keep adding onthings, whether it's billboards
or being on tv screens, being incinemas, doing all of those
things.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
We have to just be noticeable, because people don't
make it manageable too, becausewhen you, when you spend a lot
like on a jingle or somethinglike that, you got to learn how
to use that jingle to youradvantage.
You know we had one where itwas just a five second jingle on
a TV ad that just reminded us,at you know weather time
(41:39):
whenever the news weather cameon, that that was supported by
our company.
So things like that, justmanaging it is real key to
success and having you know amarketing person either in your
company or you work side by sidewith one, like you guys, you
(42:00):
know, just keep in mind of whatthose things get the best
traction when you're out thereusing them yeah, you know, just,
are you?
Speaker 2 (42:12):
are you prepared so you mentioned this earlier like
you can run with a 20 marketingbudget and then you won't have
the staff if you don't prepareto have the staff to keep your
team from, you know, fallingapart on on those things.
Um, I want to jump back to oneof those, the physical toolbox
that you talked about.
You know, how do you, like whenyou're in your own business,
how are you, um, working throughtechnicians?
Like in your own business, howare you working through
technicians?
I know several of my clientswill mention to me like they
(42:34):
just can't quite get buy-in fromtheir technicians on things.
Like you know I'll recommendlet's do an $89, you know,
tune-up offer, $109 tune-upoffer, and they struggle to get
their own team on board withthose things.
Do you have any advice orthoughts behind that?
Speaker 3 (42:50):
I think, again, it's team effort.
It's how well, I mean, ifyou've got 15 guys that go in
all their own directions, oryou've got, you know, three
teams of five people, you know,and with a leader in each team,
so then you've got a middleperson.
That both is kind of liaisonfrom their team to the service
(43:13):
manager or the department head,whatever it may be.
So I think you know, sometimesyou've got to break these groups
down a little bit, see whichteam fits best with which, and
then you've got closer, tightercommunications that help a lot
of people, you know, withgetting through these issues.
Because, yeah, like you'reright, you get guys that call in
(43:36):
and you know it's 430 on Friday, it's I want to get off, you
know, and well, sometimes that'sjust not doable.
So you've got to think aheadabout how do you plan in your
meeting that week.
It's going to be 95 degreesFriday and you guys got to keep
(43:58):
in mind we got to keep pushingthis, because this is when we
make our money.
Think about all the times wedid spend a lot of extra money
to help carry you through theslow times.
Well, there's a little bit ofpayback.
So this is a team effort.
Sometimes the business ownerneeds to walk in those meetings
and explain a little bit of howoverhead is allocated and how
(44:19):
important it is for you guys tostep up a little bit, because I
took this out of my pocket a fewmonths ago to make sure that
you guys didn't starve thiswinter by doing something, this
or that around the shop.
Remember that.
Well, this is a little bit ofpayback.
We're going to push you here alittle bit extra, but when you
give them that payback,sometimes in the wintertime,
(44:40):
when it's slow, make sure youtalk to them about hey, I'm
giving a little bit here.
You got to remember to be ableto give us a little bit when we,
when the need is calling foryour high demand of service.
So it's a team effort, it's awork back and forth, it's
communication, it's getting guysmindset right where we're here
(45:01):
for the team, we're not justhere for me, and I think you
actually build that relationshipa lot stronger and people are a
lot less apt to oh, the grassis greener, and leave you when
the times get hard.
Because I'll promise you onething if you've got a good team
and you've got good managementand you've got good ownership
(45:22):
that train people and work onpeople, they're going to hop
ship and go over somebody andthey're going to quickly see
that the grass is not greener.
Because this is only about fivepercent of the people out there
that do planning and do actualyou know, keep in mind of
training and building a company.
The rest of them arefly-by-nighters or they don't
(45:44):
really care and they're notreally focused on growth and
what's good for the team ratherthan just the individual.
An individual does include theowner too.
You don't want to be one sideand you want to share.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
I love that thought that you just said of the owner
coming in and speaking onoverhead and things like that.
There is power in educatingyour technicians on why you do
some of the things you do.
I even preached that on themarketing side.
Like we'll do a gift withpurchase, like buy a new system
(46:18):
from us and get a Traeger grill,a TV, whatever.
And a lot of contractors willgo, ah, my team's not all about
that stuff.
And I'm like, well, you need totell your team it's really not
about what they like, it's aboutwhat the market likes and how
can it help them sell moreequipment.
And so it's again that wordbuy-in figuring out how you can
get your team buy-in.
Many of them maybe they justwant to understand why you're
(46:42):
offering what you're offering.
So I love what you said there.
Like owners and there's a lot ofseveral owners on this call,
you know I encourage you to likestep in, speak into the lives
of your team about, you know,overhead, they they've never a
lot of them have never run theirown business.
They don't understand why youdon't just do whatever the heck
you want to do, you know.
(47:02):
So I do know that there ispower in educating to an extent,
and being transparent to anextent that protects the team,
protects them and educates themat the same time.
So I just kind of love thatconcept there.
So we're about to wrap thingsup here.
(47:22):
I have the chat section open ifanybody wants to throw any
questions in there.
But also, ben, I wanted you tochat a little bit about what is
GoTime Success Group, for thoseon here that don't maybe know
exactly what you guys offer.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
Well, we do a lot of technical training.
We do sales training.
We have a team of I think sixor seven certified service titan
trainers.
So we actually do the physicaltraining of a lot of Service
Titan software building andimplement of inventory and price
(48:00):
books and things like thatGreat team there.
All of our trainers they're allfield people, so they've
actually lived.
They're all field people, sothey've actually lived.
All of our technical trainersprobably have over 10 years in
the field and over 10 years intraining as well.
So you know we've got a lot ofexperts on how to take a brain
(48:23):
guy that's just coming intoindustry, how do we get him to
be a service technician or agood, solid maintenance
technician in two weeks?
We have the programs to dothings like that so very well
built in.
That you know.
A couple of things I'll touchon is make sure on your annual
planning you have a wish list ofwhat you want in your
departments and when are yougoing to implement parts of that
(48:48):
wish list A breakdown ofprofits and bonus structure
plans and an action plan.
How are you going to achievewhat you planned?
And that again goes intobuilding a little book share
with all your managers and themanagers bringing it into a
meeting every week anddiscussing where are we at this
(49:10):
time, right now, how is it goingwith our plan?
Are we on track or we didn'tneed to do?
We need to make up or are weahead of track?
Speaker 2 (49:19):
so keep those things like that in mind and a wish
list is important, especiallythose of you that are large
enough to have managers overdepartments.
You know, allowing them to sayI wish I had this equipment, I
wish I had this team member Iwas, you know, allowing them to
say, I wish I had this equipment, I wish I had this team member.
I wish you know building outthat wishlist and then
actionable things like don'tjust write out this action plan
and then go back to life asnormal, actually start
implementing, like with thistimeline and action plan.
(49:40):
Well, I love this.
I really appreciate your timetoday.
It looks like we answeredalmost all of the questions that
we had or thoughts that theyhad in here.
So, ben, thank you so much forjoining us.
If there's anything that we canever do for the Go Time team,
please reach out and let us know.
Speaker 3 (49:57):
Apologize for being late.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
Oh no, no, it was technically on Lemon Seed's side
, so we apologize, but we willdefinitely get this live
recording or this recording liveand sent out to everybody in
our database.
Lupita was able to put the linkto GoTime's website.
All of my leadership teamactually goes through Dave
Rothacker's leadership trainings.
We catch them every time theycome out.
(50:20):
It's a great way to I hate tosay force, but put it on your
calendar to make you participatein leadership, to grow you guys
, because there's so manyleaders on this call.
I encourage you to not don'tsleep on self-education, and
Dave does a great job throughGoTime of making sure you are.
He's very philosophical.
The work like he really makesyou think about things, and so
(50:41):
we're doing a John Maxwell bookright now.
It's been great.
I referred one of our clients,perfect Climate, over as they
were onboarding withServiceTitan and wanted some
guidance.
That's been a great partnershipand so lots of great things
over at GoTime.
And, of course, my favoritepeople before LemonSeed was even
a thing was Ben and Chris, andso I'm really excited for the
success they're having forGoTime.
(51:01):
So thank you all so much forjoining us.
We appreciate it and we'll seeyou next quarter.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
Thank you for having us.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
Thank you.
What's up, lemonheads ?
This is Kennedie and I am thepodcast editor here at From the
Yellow Chair.
This episode we're going togive you a special
behind-the-scenes look at whatour clients get to experience
every quarter here at Lemon Seed.
Each quarter, we put together aspecialized training for
specific seasonality and trendsthat are going on at that time.
(00:22):
Four times a year that you getspecial content that no one else
gets to see.
This quarterly session was inQ4 of 2024, so you get to know
the seasonality of what we'retalking about.
This quarterly session we werejoined by Ben from Go Time
Success Group.
Are you ready?
Because it's time to sip somelemonade eliminate.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Hello, hello, welcome to our Q4 training.
Due to some weather, we'rehaving a little bit of issue
getting the GoTime team on thewebinar, but they're working on
it, so I know that they will behere shortly.
They're very, very close and soI wanted to jump in here and
talk to you guys a little bitabout what today's webinar is
going to talk about.
We are going to be talking verymuch about what are some things
that we need to be very carefulof going into 2025.
So, as we are planning for 2025, most of you hopefully already
(01:20):
have your budgets done,hopefully already have some
semblance of what your revenuegoals are going to be and how
you're going to reach thosethings.
And Limit Seed has three waysthat we always encourage clients
to look at your plans for 2025.
There are three ways, as acompany, that we can make more
money and we can control whatour business is doing.
So one of those is operationalefficiencies, right?
(01:42):
So are you making sure thatyour clients are successful?
No, you can make sure that youguys are hitting your average
tickets every single day, everyweek, every month.
You're watching those averageticket numbers to make sure that
you are operationally doingeverything that you can Lemon
Seed.
I do say this a lot from LemonSeed.
(02:04):
Marketing is one of thosethings.
It never gets the credit, butit'll always take the fault.
So when things aren't workingwell in business, a lot of times
people are like oh, it's mymarketing, it's my website
company, it's this, it's that,and most of the time I try to
tell you you're exactly right inthe sense of something's not
working.
But I will say that businessesthat I see be most successful,
(02:26):
whether they're using Lemon Seedor not, normally are very, very
strong on the operational sideof business, and so
operationally is where I thinkyou win and lose ballgames.
As I say, your strategy, yourimplementation and how you just
modify things and pivot when youneed to.
And, guys, I'm telling you thatis where I see the biggest
(02:52):
difference is the differencebetween good operators and just
good business.
People like good techniciansthat are running businesses is
definitely in the operationsside.
So that's one way that you canmake more money next year is
just holding your teamaccountable for hitting average
tickets on install, averageticket on service, average
ticket on repair and replacement, all of those average tickets,
and then the best one that I'mreally going to start tracking
for all of our clients in 2025is the lifetime value of the
(03:15):
customer, being able to watch,once you got the customer, how
much money are you making fromthat customer base as you
continue on more and more andmore, and so I really think that
that lifetime value number isgoing to become more and more
important as your market getsmore and more concentrated and
(03:35):
more and more busy.
Operationally efficiency is oneof the big things.
The second one that we can dois our own pricing.
So your own pricing for yourequipment and for your services
is another way that you can.
With a simple percentage changein your price book, just
modifying that slightlyautomatically will increase your
(03:56):
revenue brought into yourcompany, and so operational
efficiency is number one.
Number two would be just beingpriced competitively and
honestly.
Remember, we live in this lifeevery single day.
So we do heating and airconditioning, cooling every
single day, plumbers, roofing.
We live in that headspace.
Our consumers do not.
(04:17):
Our consumers live only whenthey need this service, and so
many times what happens is theyare focused on.
They don't really go.
Oh my gosh, he went up ahundred dollars on this
equipment, or he.
They don't know really.
So I encourage you like, don'tget caught in the outliers when
you're talking about pricing.
Really focus on what you needto be priced at to be
(04:39):
competitive, and it's like twohours of hard work for a year of
more revenue generated.
And the third leg of that stoolwhich Ben is who taught me the
three-legged stool approach thethird leg of that stool is
marketing.
So marketing is another pieceof the puzzle here that helps
generate more leads and morerevenue.
(05:00):
So, as I tell you, when you'relooking at ways that your
company can make more money inthe next year, those are the
three ways.
Operationally, are you managingaverage ticket and having clear
expectations for your team?
Are you priced competitively?
Are you priced fairly and areyou paying attention to pricing
on a consistent basis?
And then, last but not least,is definitely going to be your
(05:21):
marketing strategies for 2025.
Lemon Seed has a bucket styleapproach, if you've ever, like,
talked with Lemon Seed.
So what are you doing forbranding, what are you doing for
calls to action and what areyou doing for cultivation?
And when you look at thosethree buckets, some of you may
have more things in more buckets.
I know that this, on this call,is mostly all of our Lemon Seed
clients.
(05:41):
So we're always pushing you tobalance out your buckets to make
sure that you're not just goingto your existing database or
just doing branding pieces orjust doing call to action.
It's really about hitting yoursecret sauce in your market of
where you can be the mostsuccessful.
I am so thankful to have beenhere, guys, and I knew if y'all
(06:02):
saw GoTime's name I thought thiswill be the most attended
webinar because y'all love theGoTime people, and I knew I knew
if y'all saw GoTime's name, Ithought this will be the most
attended webinar when y'allbecause y'all love the GoTime
people and I love them too, soI'm so excited to have you.
So, ben, I know you were tryingto get logged on to the call.
Some of the things that I wasjust talking about is the things
that my brother taught me arethree ways that businesses can
can prepare themselves to makemoney next year is operational
(06:22):
efficiencies managing averagetickets, managing just
expectations with your team.
Pricing, making sure thatpeople are priced correctly and
that you're priced competitively, yet fairly, and not overthink,
like even your margins onequipment and things like that.
And then, last but not least,marketing is another way that we
drive lead count, but alsotaking care of people.
(06:43):
So I'm gonna just turn it overto you for you to start talking,
like what are some don't makesome of these mistakes and some
best practices for really havinga great kickoff to a year in
2025.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Right.
Well, I think you know there's alot of different things.
There's a.
I think you know your yourannual planning is is a is kind
of the, the vision that youbuild for the company.
You know, whether you be theowner, the general manager, it's
how you structure where youwant to be, not just a year from
(07:15):
now, but 10 years from now.
It's kind of like you know yourbranding plan.
When you're talking aboutmarketing, it's up to you to
draw the whole scope for yourbusiness.
So, really, you know, when youthink about how long it took
them like all the smartestscientists in the world and all
the people that are trying toget us to the moon from 1960, it
(07:36):
was like a 10-year process.
Well, I think you know you gotto also take your annual
planning like a 10-year processtoo.
It's not something that you'rebuilding short term, you're
building long term and I thinkyou know the key to it is, you
know, creating your vision,which is an in-depth build into
(07:56):
what you're trying to do withyour company and how you're
trying to grow it out, trying togrow it out.
And then you got to, you know,with your mission statement.
You know, which is also anotherreal key factor to it is, you
know, your short, brief messageto the public.
So in the marketing aspect ofit, those are two big things
(08:17):
that you've got to look at.
That's how you're going toportray where you're going to be
this time next year and 10years from now on down the line.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
So those are my, always my biggest focuses on how
I start out in my annualplanning and starting to build
that picture out.
So I remember when McWilliamsand Son was first getting going,
we had Chris Hunter actuallycome out and do one and I know
that Trey looks up to you guys alot because we realized so my
dad kind of did annual planningbefore annual planning was a
thing for any air conditioningcompanies.
(08:54):
We would kind of meet up and see, kind of you know, what was
going on or where we were, wherewe could do some stuff.
And I learned that in thoseannual plans it wasn't
necessarily that we solved allof our issues, it was more that
we started as a groupcollaboratively identifying
things and diligently workingtowards those.
And I will tell to me it was agame changer when we doing that
(09:17):
in 20, I think, 2012, 2013,something like that, and it
really was.
You can tell the difference andI know at GoTime you guys see
probably lots and lots, hundreds, if not thousands of companies
and I think it really is a cleardefined, like a clear defined
definition piece of who's goingto be more successful in the
next year as people that areparticipating in those annual
(09:39):
plans.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yeah, and the annual planning is you know, for us
there's always you know your topgroup of people, you know your
key decision makers in yourcompany, because I think they
need to have a good input inwhat it does, because you know
when they believe in it and theybuy into it, it's something
(10:00):
that's going to happen for themand you can show them a way that
they're going to be successfulin that annual planning.
And I think that just thedevelopment of your core
philosophy of your business.
You need to know what type ofbusiness you're in.
Are you a wealth machine?
Are you a money machine?
(10:21):
Wealth machine is somethingthat you build on every year and
becomes better.
A money machine is kind of liketake the money and run as quick
as you can.
It's not a lot of customer care,which, with wealth building
machine, you're building longterm customers and you got to
instill that in your people,especially when you bring them
(10:41):
on.
So you got to find them, yougot to hire them, you got to
onboard them.
After you onboard them, thenyou start how do you want to
train these people and what'syour?
For instance, how do you want aservice technician built?
Or how do you want an installerbuilt.
You've got to develop thesepeople because initially we're
(11:01):
just kind of labor brokers, sowhat our product is is how good
we can do with the people thatwe have surrounding ourselves.
I think one of the key thingsabout training especially like
what we?
Our philosophy with GoTime isthat you know, we want to build
character in people so that itinstills and makes our company
(11:21):
as a whole, the group of peoplethat work there, all do better
because of the type of people wehave in it.
One of the things that makesmarketing easier when you're
building your marketing plan islike what you guys do.
You do a philosophy on whetheryou're in a large metro area,
which is a certain kind ofmarketing, or if you're a rural
(11:42):
area, which you guys areprobably the most successful
I've ever.
If you're a rural area, whichyou guys are probably the most
successful I've ever seenanybody in a rural area because
of the way you market, youspider web through your people
and you make all of your peoplean initial touch point for other
people that they spread out to.
So I think that's a greatphilosophy.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Thank you, thank you, and I see that too.
So some of the mistakes that I'mtaking away from what you're
saying is, like you know, lackof having an annual planning
session, right.
So even if you're like veryunfamiliar, it's just about
sitting down and writing outyour goals and objectives and
how you're going to get therewith everything from you know,
like I mentioned earlier, howoperationally marketing all
(12:22):
those things.
And then training you know weundervalue training a lot.
So I actually have two sets ofclients, like I have sets of
clients that really valuetraining.
So I almost feel like theyinundate their team with like
every new product that's outthere.
They're trying to get it outand about.
And then I have clients that Ithink are very intentional, like
they train on just overallbasic technical training.
(12:45):
And then one thing I think wemight miss out on sometimes is
people that don't focus at allon the soft skill side of
training.
So training, I do know, hasbeen a big mistake that people
make, either really getting likeoversaturating their team or
not saturating them enough onthe right things.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Right.
Well, for instance, like whatyou're saying is you know for
you to be to to sell yourproduct, you know you've got to
have the best people that do it.
So you've got to.
You have to have specializedtraining for your salespeople
you have to have specializedtraining for your phone taker,
your call takers.
(13:24):
You have to have specializedtraining for your phone taker,
your call takers.
You have to have specializedtraining for how you do an
install, what separates you fromyour competition, so that you
have the selling edge and youknow to grow your company.
I think those are real keythings to consider in your
annual planning is how do youstructure the mindset of where
you want these to develop andhow you build them so you're
(13:45):
attracting both customers andpeople to work for you into your
organization?
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yeah, you know we talk a lot, so that unique
selling position doesn't have tomean reinventing your whole
entire company.
It's more about justidentifying.
So I remember when Mcwilliams,you know we sat in a room, um,
and literally we just startedthrowing out ideas like and I'm
a big idea person, so I throwout ideas that make the whole
team like shaking their bootslike we will never be able.
(14:15):
But I feel like that was my jobwas to push us to think.
So one day I threw out and saidwhat if we guaranteed same day
install?
Yeah well, of course theinstall coordinator was like
absolutely not, we can never dothat.
How would we ever do that?
And then I was like well, so ifeveryone else is two and three
days out with install, if wecan't do it same day, what about
if we guaranteed next dayinstall?
(14:35):
Yeah so, but we had to thinkthrough it together, um, and be
respectful of each other'sdepartments, and so another
thing and I'm really not on atray kick today, but it seems
like I am he told me there'sgoing to be creators in your
business and there's going to bedoers in your business, and the
creators will keep creating,but the doers will never create
(14:55):
more than they think they can do.
And so I'm like, if I keepasking the people that do it,
how do you feel, do you feelgood?
They're always going to feellike you're pushing them too
hard.
They're never going to say youknow what?
I'm actually very fine, justsend me 10 more installs, you
know?
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Well, that's a philosophy thing, you know.
You've got to measure it right.
You've got to be realisticabout what your production
people can do, especially on theinstall time, and time are
limited, but it doesn't meanthat you can't manage your labor
better and send more people toa job, get a job done in a day,
(15:33):
even if it's a big job.
So I think there's a lot ofways to handle that.
But it's also how are youthinking about how you're going
to design this business to makeit work like what your
guarantees are guaranteeing?
And maybe you know a guaranteethat gets you a job may be a
100% satisfaction guarantee toearn your money back for two
(15:56):
full years, which is what weextended.
It set us out of the realmbecause most contractors that I
competed with felt they couldn'toffer that.
But we could because we knew itwas a numbers game.
It was a matter of how manytimes is this going to sneak up
and get you, and you got to beprepared to make sure that you
(16:19):
can handle it, just like yourguarantees.
What's realistic to guarantee,what's not realistic to
guarantee, and that's all donein the annual planning, in the
setup of how you do things.
Another thing that comes.
A big factor in annual planningis your manpower.
You know, if you don't have thecorrect manpower to take care
(16:42):
of the guarantees or the wantsand needs of your employees,
you're going to have a challenge.
So you better make sure thatyour January staff, you know,
might not fit what your Junestaff needs to be versus your
September staff.
So you better make sure thatwhen you do make changes in your
(17:02):
company, you can either shift aguy from one department to
another or sometimes you got toget rid of the bottom 10 percent
to be.
You know that's not a nicething to do but you know
sometimes guys are not going tostay with you and you got to
assess and evaluate youremployees at all time.
So you're making the correctmove for the company.
(17:25):
The entity that you're managingis what everybody in the
company is working for.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yes, I love this because you know we Lemon Seed,
like even Lemon Seed we alreadyhad, like our pre.
So I'm an annual plan freak now.
So I figured out, emily and Ifigured out together like we
needed to start, so we had apre-meeting to our annual plan.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Because you realize the power behind that and we
were working through this samemanpower thing as well Like,
okay, if we are, you know, if wewant to get this many new
customers, then we're going toneed this many.
This, and I'm telling you, itjust gives you to be able to say
, well, it doesn't look like Ineed to hire a new technician
(18:10):
until March to be prepared forJuly.
It feels really good and ithelps you alleviate some of
those sleepless nights of oh mygosh, how am I going to keep all
these people busy?
And I really just there's somuch power in that annual
planning.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Plus the fact of manpower also.
Really, we budgeted a wholepercentage factor that we put in
for training for our employees.
So if we needed some of ourservice technicians to step up
to be maybe commercialtechnicians or whatever, we
would bring in maintenance guysbecause they're easy to train,
easy to put in the trucks,maintenance guys because they're
easy to train, easy to put intotrucks.
And then we'd figure outtraining programs to get our
other techs up a level so theycould take on more of the
(18:51):
workload that they weren't usedto being as a maintenance tech.
So you got to think about, youknow, manpower is real key in,
in my opinion, because that'swhat we are again everything.
We don't produce products, weinstall and fix products.
So our you know really what weare is labor people and we've
(19:12):
got to make sure that our laboris better than our competition
or our competition is going toovertake our competition, what
we are, so that that's those arereal key.
And then you know, you get to.
There's a lot of things in theannual planning.
I know we don't have a lot oftime to talk about all this
stuff, but you know.
Then you got to.
You know, in your marketingbudget I mean, we got, I think
(19:34):
we put generally, you know, 8 to16 hours in our market planning
.
So when you're doing the annualplanning, you also got to kind
of make sure that you're gettingthe key points in each one of
these steps and you got to allowthe time it takes to plan for
them as well.
So sometimes marketing,sometimes the annual plan, takes
(19:56):
three or four days, sometimesit takes two weeks.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, that's very, that's a good point.
So that's why I would say, likethat pre-planning side, like
Emily, her job at Limit Seed isto gather all of our budget
numbers.
She created a budget, my job isto be the creative side too,
and then she, then we supporteach other in those steps.
It's the same thing in acompany.
You know, I remember Trey usedto come to our board to our
planning retreats, and we mostlydid all of ours offsite for
(20:22):
this same purpose, so that wecould focus, mostly did all of
ours offsite for this samepurpose, so that we could focus.
And we had, you know, the largenotepads and we had whiteboards,
because it was truly a time ofbrainstorming and trying to
solve those problems, and wewould normally have to do two
and three days of cleaning,because to really tackle, you
know, the things that you needto tackle whether it's retention
(20:43):
of employees or recruitment ofemployees it's a new marketing
strategy, whether it's justcalls to action or is it
refocusing your whole brand.
And every year was differentwhere our focus went.
Every year was very different,and so when you talk about
spending time on the marketingside, I'm assuming like with
with.
I think the biggest mistakethat contractors make is not
(21:05):
really knowing how many leadsthey need to generate, based off
their booking rate and thenbased off their average tickets,
to really know if theirmarketing is really, really
working.
They just really go by the, thetracking number.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
You know the tracking number, you know and I think
you know well, along with allthis stuff is is if you're not
in your annual planning at theend and end of it all, if you're
not putting it in a book thateverybody, all your managers,
can follow and you bring it upin every weekly meeting that you
have.
I mean, you know you've got tosee if you're on track of what
(21:43):
your annual plan says.
You know in your annualplanning you'll do.
You know the attaboys, you knowand the oh shucks you know,
what worked real good for uslast year.
You know what didn't work verygood for us last year and you
need to decipher those thingsand change your plan annually to
(22:03):
make sure that your growth isbeing successful.
You don't keep on making thesame mistakes twice.
You know, and when you makegood decisions, how do you
expand and accelerate thatdecision?
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Absolutely.
And you know one of the thingsagain, you know these are just
mistakes that we, you know, thatBen and I see contractors make
you know a lot of times.
I think, in marketingspecifically, you know these are
, these are just mistakes thatwe, you know, that Ben and I see
contractors make you know a lotof times.
I think, in marketingspecifically, you know, we tend
to get real scared of theoutliers, the three or four
people that might, that mightreach out and and and hold your
feet to the fire.
That really wasn't a fire youintended to start, you know.
(22:39):
Um, so when McWilliams went to777, so we went to a guaranteed
next day install, which,honestly, we were pretty much
hitting that anyway.
Now we just promoted it thatway.
But we also went to 7 am to 7pm, seven days a week, with no
overtime charges.
So we took that unique sellingposition and we had to figure
(23:00):
out how it affected everyone inour team.
So the marketing team can'tjust create things and go buck
wild when there's no, thestructure's not ready.
So as we talked through thosethings, we had to go back and
restructure, like our workschedule for our technicians to
make a 777 structure work.
We had to go back and figureout how we were going to be
(23:22):
stocking trucks to get ready forguaranteed next day install
again without working our teamto death, you know, and so we
really had to think through howthese marketing they all sounded
great, but how did it impactthe entire team?
And that's where that timereally came into play.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Yes, definitely.
Well, you know, you got to alsobuild an organizational chart
along with your.
In your planning you got tomake sure that you have people
in the right positions.
So you know, I always, you knowwe, as you grow a company, one
year you stay the same, you know, and it fits.
But we almost always rebuiltour egg org charts every year
(24:11):
because of the fact that weneeded to continue always to be
focused on developing people.
How do you get the next guy up?
What if you?
What if a guy has a heartattack?
Unfortunately, sometimes thingslike that happen or gets hurt or
is in an accident, you alwayshave to be thinking, and even
the supervisory which is kind ofbetween management and the
(24:51):
field sometimes if you're a bigenough company, which is a lot
of times what we had to dealwith.
So the planning and thedevelopment of people Again I
can't say enough of importanceabout how we depend upon what
they do, what they feel, howstrongly their connection is
(25:12):
with other people in the team.
So another great thing that Isee that y'all have done over
the years we emulated a lot ofthat was just the building of
intertwining team and familyinto the company as well.
And then you've got people thathave a lot more longevity and
you build upon that and I thinkthat's just real key for keeping
(25:37):
the drastic between one yearand the next year.
A lot of difference, becausethe steadier your employees are,
the more stable they are withyour company, the routines build
in better, and then it's easyto always adjust your routines
by saying, well, we're going togo with this method of doing
(25:59):
something, and people accept ita lot better when they're
working with each other ratherthan for the boss.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Oh yeah, and I did a presentation on this for a group
at Service Titan the other dayin Savannah, the day that
Service Titan announced or wentat NASDAQ and all that good
stuff.
But one of the things I saidthere was you know when you are
building a company.
There was you know, when youare building a company, you have
(26:28):
which we all should beconsistently building our
companies for.
Whatever our end goal that wehave in mind, whether it's
selling or family wealth orwhatever you're building it for,
we have to keep in mind theimportance of our team and their
buy-in to what we're doing.
So a whole nother part of ourannual plan was okay, these
sound great, these areaggressive goals.
Like we were about to come backto our team and say, hey, we
(26:49):
think we can, you know, almostdouble our revenue and not add a
lot more people.
Well, all of a sudden, they'regoing to be like there's no way.
I'm already so.
You know.
I feel like I work all the timeas it is, and so you have to
combat that with things thatmost contractors are not super
successful at, which is a lot.
I call it shaking hands andkissing babies.
Right, we have to do a lot ofjust and I hate to use this word
(27:13):
because it has negativeconnotations, but we have to
coddle a little bit, like youguys are doing great Like thank
you, here's lunch on us, here'sa new jacket, here's a new hat,
here's a party.
All of those things are donespecifically to motivate and to
encourage.
And the day that they wake upand we spoil their wives for the
(27:34):
specific reason of the day,they get up and their wives are
mad that they're on call thatweekend and they're like you
should just quit, you should gowork somewhere that doesn't make
you be on call.
Well, you know what I wanted tosay?
Well, not at the expense ofthat Christmas bonus and our
holiday party.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
I agree with that too , but I think also in your
training mechanism, when youinvest into people.
We have what we call the fourtoolboxes of success.
You know your physical toolbox.
How do you build your toolboxand learn how to use all the
tools in your toolbox?
And you think about it for aminute, that everybody has a
(28:14):
toolbox.
A CSR uses software, a salesmanuses a briefcase with
third-party articles and tapemeasure and all this other stuff
.
Technician has their tools, buttools are what helps you get
through a job quicker and moreefficient, right.
The next thing you've got tofocus.
(28:34):
Our second toolbox is theknowledge toolbox.
That's our training programs.
How do you build a person'sidentity and help them to think
about what their job really isand focus on doing that job
better, whether it be a manager,whether it be a CSR, whether it
be a field technician?
(28:55):
The third toolbox is yourcommunication toolbox, and it's.
You know you have all thistechnical stuff in your mind,
but how do you get it out ofyour technical brain and through
your mouth so that everybodycomprehends the layman's terms
of it?
So you got to think about yourcommunication skills and grow
that on every employee.
(29:15):
And you have those threetoolboxes, but none of them are
any good if you don't have themindset.
And the mindset is, you know,is the glass half full or half
empty.
So we really teach that everytime a guy goes to class or gets
trained on something, or evenjust raw field experience,
they're enhancing their value tothe industry, so that it's like
(29:41):
you know I've got all this.
Now you know baggage with methat how can I use it to best
benefit me?
Then they become more, a higherasset to the entire industry,
whether they decide to stay as aservice technician or they want
to move to a manager or asalesperson.
Because I can tell you onething for sure is I think of
(30:04):
myself as a service technicianfirst and foremost, but I've
also been trained in sales.
I spent five years in sales, Ispent two or three years as a
manager and I've spent 35 yearsnow as a business owner.
So I know that my value hasincreased each time I've done
(30:24):
things, know that my value hasincreased each time I've done
things.
So training is trying to getthose people that are your team
members.
How do you instill what theirtotal value is to not just
themselves but their family andto the company and their
teammates?
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
So that's, I think, a real important aspect of the
whole employee philosophy is howdo you build people to be
better assets in the industry?
Then you've got a winning team,and then you've got people that
do take on extra workloads sothat the whole team benefits
(31:06):
rather than just the individualbenefits.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
I love that.
Yeah, I love it.
One of the things too that youjust said, the mindset side.
You know, I've learned too likeand this is terrible to say
because it makes me kind of feelbad but I will get clients or
potential clients and from theremy initial interview I'm like
their mindset is wrong.
So now I'm going to be watchingthem like infiltrate that
(31:30):
mindset down to technicians andso, like they'll start like
we'll still start a call and oreven when we were helping other
companies do their their annualplan, you'll sit down and talk
with them and you'll say, okay,that'll never work, or my team
is just lazy, or they're nevergonna agree to do tune-ups, or
they're never gonna worry aboutaverage tickets.
And finally, I just wanna saysometimes like, well, it has to
(31:53):
start at the top.
We have to care about our ownmindset and our own structure
and our own ability to do things.
So if you are very disengagedwith your company, then they are
going to be very disengaged andit really is a matter of
setting the precedent yourself.
And I have learned a lot.
I seek out contractors, likewhen I will talk to contractors
(32:16):
if they act like, if they canshow me like some vision and
some I will help.
I'm glad to help on themarketing side all along there.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Well, you know, one of the things that we do here
also is Dave Rothkir does theleadership.
You send all your peoplethrough our leadership class.
You don't believe howincredible that effect is,
because it teaches a person notjust to walk by.
You know, be involved, be partof it, because it's all human
(32:49):
relationships that our companiesare about.
How do you get into?
How does a business owner likeme the first five years of my
business I was not an involvedbusiness owner.
I was a guy that walked by himand went to my office and
started working on somethingwhere my job is more than
(33:10):
anything else.
How do I extend my gratitudeand my lend of my knowledge to
these other people to help thembe able to do their job better?
Then you build something ofvalue.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Yes, yes, absolutely.
Well, what are a couple of whatare maybe a few more mistakes
that you see contractors making?
Is it not tracking the rightKPIs?
You know what do you think?
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Yeah, I think, I think KPIs are real, are real
key and I think you know withyou know, key performance
indicators are things that youbriefly look at.
Key performance indicators arethings that you briefly look at
on at least a monthly basis.
But some people look at KPI ona daily basis and I think the
more often you look at it, oneof the secrets to success, in my
(33:58):
opinion, is never to go througha month less than break even.
I mean, I focused on that formany years.
It took me several years to getto a point where I didn't have
a loss of a year, but once I gotthere we went almost, I think,
over 48 months without having asingle month with a below
(34:21):
average.
And the way we did that wasshifting our jobs, so that we
knew that.
You know, in the marketing area,you know August 15th it was
going to drop off because kidswere going back to school.
So we started 45 days ahead ofthat and in, you know, in middle
of June, thinking about how arewe going to keep that drop off
(34:44):
from happening.
So we developed programs thatwere out of our normal realm,
like it could be.
You know we're HVAC, but youcould be adding plumbing, or you
could be adding atticinsulation, attic systems and
things like that to keep thatrevenue flowing.
So you're at least at breakeven blowing.
(35:07):
So you're at least at breakeven.
I think break even is so keybecause you got to think when
you drop below break even everymonth, you got to make up that
much more monies before you evenhit the next month.
You know profit goals.
I think focusing on those KPIsof profitability, making sure
your labor is in check.
You know our labor was below20% for service techs, below 10%
(35:28):
for install department labor, afew things like that Salesman
closure rate.
It must equal.
You know it started off at 35%or better but it got eventually.
Our KPI changed where we were.
We wanted 50% closing ratio orbetter, but it got.
Originally our kpi changedwhere we were, we wanted 50
closing ratio or better.
So your kpi changed every time.
(35:51):
You, you know, focus andrefocus on things so you build
the kpi that fits your company.
You know like what percentageyou invest in marketing.
That's another important KPI.
How many maintenance agreementsyou add to your base each day
or each week or whatever, isvery, very important to your KPI
(36:14):
.
So your physical KPIs,numbers-wise, are real key that
you take into consideration whenyou're doing your annual
planning so that your budgetsmeet up.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yes, I wanted to ask something like on if you were to
make recommendations and we mayhave a different.
I think this would be a goodconversation if we are a little
different here on the marketingside.
So you know, I always tellcontractors like we're going to
focus on the residential,because commercial side of your
business requires a differentstrategy than the residential
side of your business, and so Iencourage contractors that are
(36:48):
in growth mode, meaning they'reaggressively trying to grow by
30 40 percent year over year.
I encourage them to be at 10percent of their marketing goal
for the next year.
Now, those people that live inmarkets like East Texas we may
not have to be at 10 percentbecause we just don't have the
competition, but those that arewhat you came from a Dallas
market.
So you have lots, lots ofcompetition, right, and so what
(37:11):
is?
What advice do you give aroundmarketing percentages and
thoughts around that as well?
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Marketing percentages are real key, I think, when
you're in a, when you're a youngoff, with probably around 12,
up to probably 25%, maybe evensometimes to grow that company
that first year.
Then it quickly adjusted downto where it was livable.
So I think livable is probablysomewhere north of 6% and below
(37:51):
10%.
I think those are pretty goodnumbers.
But I've seen some very, verybig, successful companies
running at 2% or 3% marketingbudget and I really applaud
those people because that meansthat their internal or natural
growth in that company is verysuccessful and generically they
(38:15):
grow by themselves and that's agood sign of a company that has
a following in the community,then you can have those low
numbers.
But when you have a place likeDallas-Fort Worth area, you're
always going to be faced withalways having to market to a new
(38:36):
customer because it's justthere's so much company.
You know we've got three.
I think at one time we had3,500 licensed contractors in
the Dallas-Fort Worth areapeople that held a license just
in the Dallas-Fort Worth areaand your competition is not that
big.
But when you got that manypeople working in the area you
(38:58):
got a lot of competition.
So your marketing budget isgoing to have to be higher.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, and I will say this too.
So when we started, my brotherand sister and I started a pest
control company that my sisterand brother-in-law run.
What we started off off we'reprobably hitting 20 in marketing
right now um, but we hadfinancially prepared our company
the company for that, uh, treywas very intentional about
having the, the money behind thescenes to fund 20 marketing go
(39:26):
out of the, out of the gate, youknow, um, and so some of the
things like behind that I justlook and say you know there's
nothing wrong with being grittyand you know literally clawing
your way if you don't have a lotof, you know, extra cash to
help your marketing spend.
And I've seen it.
I've seen some franchises likereally build these new companies
(39:47):
through lead aggregators likeANG or home advisor or whatever.
It's just a strategy.
You just have to have anintentional strategy of how you
are going the thing about thoseare the.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
the challenge to those type of that type of
marketing is that you're very,very price driven to success, so
it's going to be low-end andthen you can't afford the budget
to step into high-end marketing.
When you do high-end marketing,of course you've got to realize
(40:21):
and know and understand thatit's got to go in your gross
margin.
When you spend more onmarketing, you've got to put,
you've got to operate at ahigher gross margin.
When you spend more inmarketing, you've got to have
operating at a higher grossmargin and if you don't, you're
going to fail or be non-profitsituation.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
No, I 100% agree, and I take clients a lot of times
and I'll say, okay, let's talkabout why we're not branding,
and again, it's just a harp onthis.
But I would love to seecontractors get a little more
aggressive with their brandingand their and their marketing
strategy all the way around,because the more branded we can
(40:59):
be in a market, the more peopleare seeing.
So, yeah, wrapped trucks isgreat, that's great.
It's only a piece, though.
We have to keep adding onthings, whether it's billboards
or being on tv screens, being incinemas, doing all of those
things.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
We have to just be noticeable, because people don't
make it manageable too, becausewhen you, when you spend a lot
like on a jingle or somethinglike that, you got to learn how
to use that jingle to youradvantage.
You know we had one where itwas just a five second jingle on
a TV ad that just reminded us,at you know weather time
(41:39):
whenever the news weather cameon, that that was supported by
our company.
So things like that, justmanaging it is real key to
success and having you know amarketing person either in your
company or you work side by sidewith one, like you guys, you
(42:00):
know, just keep in mind of whatthose things get the best
traction when you're out thereusing them yeah, you know, just,
are you?
Speaker 2 (42:12):
are you prepared so you mentioned this earlier like
you can run with a 20 marketingbudget and then you won't have
the staff if you don't prepareto have the staff to keep your
team from, you know, fallingapart on on those things.
Um, I want to jump back to oneof those, the physical toolbox
that you talked about.
You know, how do you, like whenyou're in your own business,
how are you, um, working throughtechnicians?
Like in your own business, howare you working through
technicians?
I know several of my clientswill mention to me like they
(42:34):
just can't quite get buy-in fromtheir technicians on things.
Like you know I'll recommendlet's do an $89, you know,
tune-up offer, $109 tune-upoffer, and they struggle to get
their own team on board withthose things.
Do you have any advice orthoughts behind that?
Speaker 3 (42:50):
I think, again, it's team effort.
It's how well, I mean, ifyou've got 15 guys that go in
all their own directions, oryou've got, you know, three
teams of five people, you know,and with a leader in each team,
so then you've got a middleperson.
That both is kind of liaisonfrom their team to the service
(43:13):
manager or the department head,whatever it may be.
So I think you know, sometimesyou've got to break these groups
down a little bit, see whichteam fits best with which, and
then you've got closer, tightercommunications that help a lot
of people, you know, withgetting through these issues.
Because, yeah, like you'reright, you get guys that call in
(43:36):
and you know it's 430 on Friday, it's I want to get off, you
know, and well, sometimes that'sjust not doable.
So you've got to think aheadabout how do you plan in your
meeting that week.
It's going to be 95 degreesFriday and you guys got to keep
(43:58):
in mind we got to keep pushingthis, because this is when we
make our money.
Think about all the times wedid spend a lot of extra money
to help carry you through theslow times.
Well, there's a little bit ofpayback.
So this is a team effort.
Sometimes the business ownerneeds to walk in those meetings
and explain a little bit of howoverhead is allocated and how
(44:19):
important it is for you guys tostep up a little bit, because I
took this out of my pocket a fewmonths ago to make sure that
you guys didn't starve thiswinter by doing something, this
or that around the shop.
Remember that.
Well, this is a little bit ofpayback.
We're going to push you here alittle bit extra, but when you
give them that payback,sometimes in the wintertime,
(44:40):
when it's slow, make sure youtalk to them about hey, I'm
giving a little bit here.
You got to remember to be ableto give us a little bit when we,
when the need is calling foryour high demand of service.
So it's a team effort, it's awork back and forth, it's
communication, it's getting guysmindset right where we're here
(45:01):
for the team, we're not justhere for me, and I think you
actually build that relationshipa lot stronger and people are a
lot less apt to oh, the grassis greener, and leave you when
the times get hard.
Because I'll promise you onething if you've got a good team
and you've got good managementand you've got good ownership
(45:22):
that train people and work onpeople, they're going to hop
ship and go over somebody andthey're going to quickly see
that the grass is not greener.
Because this is only about fivepercent of the people out there
that do planning and do actualyou know, keep in mind of
training and building a company.
The rest of them arefly-by-nighters or they don't
(45:44):
really care and they're notreally focused on growth and
what's good for the team ratherthan just the individual.
An individual does include theowner too.
You don't want to be one sideand you want to share.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
I love that thought that you just said of the owner
coming in and speaking onoverhead and things like that.
There is power in educatingyour technicians on why you do
some of the things you do.
I even preached that on themarketing side.
Like we'll do a gift withpurchase, like buy a new system
(46:18):
from us and get a Traeger grill,a TV, whatever.
And a lot of contractors willgo, ah, my team's not all about
that stuff.
And I'm like, well, you need totell your team it's really not
about what they like, it's aboutwhat the market likes and how
can it help them sell moreequipment.
And so it's again that wordbuy-in figuring out how you can
get your team buy-in.
Many of them maybe they justwant to understand why you're
(46:42):
offering what you're offering.
So I love what you said there.
Like owners and there's a lot ofseveral owners on this call,
you know I encourage you to likestep in, speak into the lives
of your team about, you know,overhead, they they've never a
lot of them have never run theirown business.
They don't understand why youdon't just do whatever the heck
you want to do, you know.
(47:02):
So I do know that there ispower in educating to an extent,
and being transparent to anextent that protects the team,
protects them and educates themat the same time.
So I just kind of love thatconcept there.
So we're about to wrap thingsup here.
(47:22):
I have the chat section open ifanybody wants to throw any
questions in there.
But also, ben, I wanted you tochat a little bit about what is
GoTime Success Group, for thoseon here that don't maybe know
exactly what you guys offer.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
Well, we do a lot of technical training.
We do sales training.
We have a team of I think sixor seven certified service titan
trainers.
So we actually do the physicaltraining of a lot of Service
Titan software building andimplement of inventory and price
(48:00):
books and things like thatGreat team there.
All of our trainers they're allfield people, so they've
actually lived.
They're all field people, sothey've actually lived.
All of our technical trainersprobably have over 10 years in
the field and over 10 years intraining as well.
So you know we've got a lot ofexperts on how to take a brain
(48:23):
guy that's just coming intoindustry, how do we get him to
be a service technician or agood, solid maintenance
technician in two weeks?
We have the programs to dothings like that so very well
built in.
That you know.
A couple of things I'll touchon is make sure on your annual
planning you have a wish list ofwhat you want in your
departments and when are yougoing to implement parts of that
(48:48):
wish list A breakdown ofprofits and bonus structure
plans and an action plan.
How are you going to achievewhat you planned?
And that again goes intobuilding a little book share
with all your managers and themanagers bringing it into a
meeting every week anddiscussing where are we at this
(49:10):
time, right now, how is it goingwith our plan?
Are we on track or we didn'tneed to do?
We need to make up or are weahead of track?
Speaker 2 (49:19):
so keep those things like that in mind and a wish
list is important, especiallythose of you that are large
enough to have managers overdepartments.
You know, allowing them to sayI wish I had this equipment, I
wish I had this team member Iwas, you know, allowing them to
say, I wish I had this equipment, I wish I had this team member.
I wish you know building outthat wishlist and then
actionable things like don'tjust write out this action plan
and then go back to life asnormal, actually start
implementing, like with thistimeline and action plan.
(49:40):
Well, I love this.
I really appreciate your timetoday.
It looks like we answeredalmost all of the questions that
we had or thoughts that theyhad in here.
So, ben, thank you so much forjoining us.
If there's anything that we canever do for the Go Time team,
please reach out and let us know.
Speaker 3 (49:57):
Apologize for being late.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
Oh no, no, it was technically on Lemon Seed's side
, so we apologize, but we willdefinitely get this live
recording or this recording liveand sent out to everybody in
our database.
Lupita was able to put the linkto GoTime's website.
All of my leadership teamactually goes through Dave
Rothacker's leadership trainings.
We catch them every time theycome out.
(50:20):
It's a great way to I hate tosay force, but put it on your
calendar to make you participatein leadership, to grow you guys
, because there's so manyleaders on this call.
I encourage you to not don'tsleep on self-education, and
Dave does a great job throughGoTime of making sure you are.
He's very philosophical.
The work like he really makesyou think about things, and so
(50:41):
we're doing a John Maxwell bookright now.
It's been great.
I referred one of our clients,perfect Climate, over as they
were onboarding withServiceTitan and wanted some
guidance.
That's been a great partnershipand so lots of great things
over at GoTime.
And, of course, my favoritepeople before LemonSeed was even
a thing was Ben and Chris, andso I'm really excited for the
success they're having forGoTime.
(51:01):
So thank you all so much forjoining us.
We appreciate it and we'll seeyou next quarter.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
Thank you for having us.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
Thank you.
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