October 14, 2025 • 31 mins
What would it take to double your revenue this year? On this episode of Masters of Home Service, Daniel Dixon, CEO of SendJim, joins host Adam Sylvester to unpack the 3 growth tactics that helped him do exactly that in just 12 months. From follow-ups that actually convert to a fresh approach to pricing and systems, you’ll get a clear look at what moved the needle—and how to make it work for you.
New to Jobber? Masters of Home Service listeners can claim an exclusive discount for Jobber at http://bit.ly/4kAzgm0
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
When my business slows down, Ican't afford marketing, right? Yes.
But it's the opposite is true thatthat's a death spiral is what I call it,
right?
Because your business is slowing downso you decrease the one thing that can
increase your business,and it's like, well,
what do you think the resultof that's going to be? Right?
If your business is going down,
the number one thing you needto do is bring in more leads and
(00:20):
market.
Welcome to Masters of Home Service,
the best podcast for home service proslike us. I'm your host, Adam Sylvester,
and I want you to crush it in business.Have you ever said something like, man,
if I could just get more leads,
then we could double in revenue or manat the economy was just better than I
would just explode in growth or man,
if my clients just reallyunderstood the value that we bring.
(00:44):
Those are all things that I've said,
I think we've all said atsome point in our journey,
and those aren't the real things holdingyou back from big explosive growth.
And my guess today is DanielDixon. He's the CEO of Send Jim,
and he's going to tell us what'sreally holding us back from big,
explosive growth, the revenue andthe profits that we really want,
but we've never really quite gotten.
(01:06):
And so Daniel is going to give us a gameplan for really exploding our business
and getting the resultsthat we kind deserve.
We worked too hard for mediocre results.So Daniel, I'm glad you're here.
Thanks for being here.You work for SendJim,
why don't you tell us whoyou are and what you do?
Yeah, thanks for havingme on the CEO at SendJim.
We're a marketing automation platform,and we help home service businesses grow.
(01:26):
I also own a home service business,so just so you think, well,
he doesn't know how to growa home service business.
He only grows a softwarebusiness. I also own one of those.
I've sat in your seat,
so I'm excited to be here. (Adam) You'vesat in our seats and you sit in our
seats now. Yes, I see.Sat in your seat. Yeah.
You're a Jobber user.(Daniel)I'm a Jobber user, absolutely.
Since day one and will be forever.
(01:46):
Yeah, that's great. So here's the thing.
A lot of our listeners have beengrasping and clawing and trying to
get this big growth happening,
and the increments they're makingare just smaller than they want.
We've all been there.
What is the real thing holding themback from this explosive growth,
these big numbers from your perspective?
Yeah, absolutely. So I've been there too,
(02:09):
and recently we've had really explosivegrowth at SendJim and in my home service
business,
we grew so fast for the first fouryears and we're at a bit of a plateau,
and I can see it in myself now aswe're about to talk about this,
but I think growth is really limitedby fear. What I mean by that,
it's fear to hire the nextperson because they're expensive
(02:32):
or we've hired thetechnicians, we've done that,
but have we hired the next big person?And it's like, oh, that's a lot of money.
Or is it fear to delegate somethingthat you feel is really important?
But until you delegate that, it doesn'tfree you up to work on the next thing.
So if you're still doing salesthat's so important to your business,
are you free to look at the next servicethat you can offer in your business or
(02:54):
things like that?
Is it fear to lease the next space thatyou need or buy the next vehicle because
of the cost? So most of the time whenyou ask questions, like you said,
we've all been there. When youreally look at the root of it,
it's oftentimes fear-based.
Yeah, I a hundred percent agree withthat. And I think that for me personally,
there was a time where we were,we've had not hockey stick growth,
(03:17):
but we've always been growing since mygutter business has always been growing.
And we went through a time not too longago that we got really close to having
no work. It got to the pointwhere on a morning we're like,
what are we doing today?
It got that bad and thankfully it turnedaround pretty quick. But on that day,
I hired two people. I had beenhiring, interviewing these people.
We've been looking for people formonths. And so I had decision to make.
(03:37):
It was like, man, on paper,this is a bad decision.
This is not a good time tohire people. But thankfully,
because of people around meand the support that I have,
I hired those people anyways because Ididn't want the fear of expanding our
capacity while our production has reduced.
I didn't want that fear to hold meback from the long-term growth of our
(03:58):
business, and I've letthat fear get me before.
And so from a delegation perspective,
what are some of the things that peoplefear the most and how can we overcome
that?
Yeah, that's a good question.
And I'm also glad you brought upthe fear of keeping people busy.
That was one of my personal biggestfears. If I hire this person,
I'm scared that I'm not going tohave the work to keep them busy.
(04:20):
And it wasn't even a cost thing,it was they're relying on me,
they have a family.
How do I make sure I don't have tolay them off and can I keep them busy?
So I'm glad you brought that one upbecause it's probably my biggest fear.
Well, if someone's out there rightnow, let's hang on here for a while.
So someone's out there and they're inthe same boat that we're talking about.
They've got this greathire, but they're like,
(04:41):
I just don't know if I can keep 'em busy.
And they feel the weight of beingthe employer is on their shoulders.
Any way to encourage them or givethem some advice on how to tackle that
emotion? It's strong.
So I think really good employeesand really good people,
depending on the position,
obviously will find ways toadd value to your business.
And it might not be in ways that you thinkright now they might have a different
(05:03):
skill or they might bring something elseto the table that can add value to your
business outside of what you'rethinking. So have an open mind there.
And I think a really big thing isto a mindset shift as this is an
investment in my business and not a cost.
And that can go for a lot of things,but when you first start your business,
(05:23):
for example, marketing sounds expensive.
You and I were talking before the showabout how you do marketing on television
for your business, and itsounds like a really big cost,
but you look at it as an investmentbecause you see the return.
And so thinking about itthat way is much different.
So if I invest $5 into mybusiness to get a lead,
(05:46):
it's much less scary, but I'm alsoonly going to return maybe 10,
but if I invest a hundredthousand dollars on this employee,
what if I got back 300,000? So the biggerthe investment and we all understand
these principles, the biggerthe return that you can get.
And so I would just encourage peopleto think about it in a different way
to think about it as an investmentversus a cost. The other reason.
(06:10):
That I felt so compelled to hire thosetwo people is because I had numbers over
several years that were indicatorsthat it was going to change very soon.
mid-April is always a littlebit slow. May is always crazy,
and then the whole summer isnuts. What am I going to do?
Just make this decision based on the lastthree weeks or the last five years of
(06:30):
data that I have?
And so I think knowing your numbersand having historical data makes a huge
difference.
Absolutely. And that's a perfectexample of an investment.
So we have the same thing.We're slow in the wintertime,
and we actually in the firstyear didn't realize this,
but we got freaked out just like you did.
And the first year we laid off a coupleof people and it was the worst thing
that we did, not only becauseit was hard to do personally,
(06:52):
but it was also as the springtimeand it came super busy.
We didn't have the capacity to do thework that we needed. And so if I know,
okay, I'm going to investin this person today,
even though I don't need 'em today,
but I know in two months from nowor if at worst case, three months,
I need them. If they're the rightfirst person for your business,
you might spend an extra$5,000 or $10,000 to have them.
(07:15):
But then having them in the busytime might make you 30, 40, $50,000.
And so that's why youdid that and just, yeah,
you got to shift your mindset about that.
Yeah. I do feel compelled to share this.
I think that in this examplethat we're talking about hiring,
I think there is a difference betweenhiring someone who already has a job and
hiring someone who doesn't. Yes,
there's less risk and less responsibilityif you hire somebody who isn't
(07:38):
currently working. You didn'tpull 'em away from anything else,
but if you're going to recruitsomebody from a job they like,
then the stakes are a lot higher.So if you're in this position,
it is a little bit more freeing if you'rehiring someone who doesn't have a job
because if you do, Godforbid, have to lay them off,
then they're right back where theystarted and not any worse off,
but they did make somemoney in the meanwhile.
Absolutely. And thenalong those situations, do everything you can to test it.
(08:03):
And so what we do in our business,
before we hire extra capacityor technicians to do the work,
let's sell the work first.
Can we go from being normally booked outa month to six weeks consistently or to
two months booked out? And then you'relike, okay, I know that I need them,
right, or I know I can keep them.
So we do this in otherbusinesses in other ways too,
but can we do some kind of test ora short period where we can prove to
(08:27):
ourselves that yes, this is needed orthat it will return on its investment.
If you want your car to go faster,
then you might need to putmore gas to the engine.
Let's talk about marketing for a second.Should marketing ever be reduced?
Let's just start that most basic question.
I think sometimes people get scared ortheir mindset's so limited that they
don't really open the full throttle onmarketing. What do you think about that?
(08:50):
Yeah, so from an absolute value, sowhen I talk about absolute value,
I'm saying a thousand dollars todayshould probably never go down.
Maybe it's a thousand dollars amonth. We don't ever go backwards.
When I started my home service business,I was investing 20% of my revenue. Oh,
that's high into marketing.And that's how we grew so fast.
(09:10):
And now we've been fortunate enoughto get big enough and we get so many
referrals and we havecommercial partnerships and things like that to where I
can only invest 13, 12%. Andso the percentage went down,
but I've never ever decreased the absolutevalue. I've actually increased it.
So maybe we started with $1,500 amonth and now maybe it's 10,000,
$20,000 a month in marketing,
(09:32):
but the percentage may drop asa percentage of your revenue,
but you should always haveyour foot on the Gas, right?
Yeah, back in summer 2022,it was a long time ago,
but it was a very monumental time inour company because a lot of things
happened, a lot of bad things happened.
And I just remember I sent outvideo to my team and said, Hey guys,
I know there's been a lot of tough weirdthings happening in the last few weeks,
(09:53):
but we are not. And it was also,economy was a little, I forget,
but the economy wasn't that strong orsomething like that. And I said, guys,
we are not going to participate inwhatever downturn they are forecasting.
We're going to put our pedal to the metal,we're going to press it to the floor,
and we're going to investmore into marketing.
We're going to invest more in all theseinfrastructures while everyone else is
(10:14):
laying their foot off the gas,we're going to blow by 'em.
And that was a very inspiring messagetoo, but it was true. I was like,
we're going to spend more onmarketing. If we want to grow,
then we have to grow. We can't stop.
Then the natural reaction isto when my business slows down,
I can't afford marketing, right? Yes.
But the opposite is true that that's adeath spiral is what I call it, right?
(10:36):
Because your business is slowing down,
so you decrease the one thing that canincrease your business, and it's like,
well, what do you think theresult of that's going to be?
If your business is going down,
the number one thing you need to dois bring in more leads and market.
The other thing you can dois market to your customers,
which we can talk about too. But yes,
you have to make sureyou're marketing enough.
I think marketing is, yeah,
(10:56):
I don't want our listeners to ever letoff their foot their gas on marketing,
talking about marketing,let's talk about sales.
So one of the ways that you can reallyleverage your business and start
increasing is having salespeoplehaving more than one person.
You making sales, right?
Yeah, absolutely. And really it'ssomebody that can focus on sales.
If the business owner, let's behonest, if you're doing sales,
(11:19):
you're also doing payroll and you'realso doing 9 million other things,
responding to the fire potentially inthe company and trying to negotiate your
next thing with the vendor anddealing with the crazy customer.
And so you're not really focused on sales.
If you have a salesperson thateats and takes home the bread
(11:39):
to his family because he has to sell,
that's a different levelof focus than sales.
And what I found is that after about18 months of having a salesperson in my
business,
they do a much better job than I coulddo today because they've perfected the
craft and they're focused on it.
Yeah, totally. I want to talk about,
because marketing is such abig piece of the puzzle here,
(12:02):
it's one of the biggest levers, I wouldsay, in really growing your company.
How do you know which strategies work?
Which marketing channels areworking for your business?
Where are most of our clients coming from?
Let's talk about having astrategy around marketing,
so it actually is effective going forward.
Yeah, that's a really good pointbecause again, when we go back to fear,
fear-based thinking, instead ofinvestment based thinking, people think,
(12:25):
what if I try this and it doesn'twork? I just threw $3,000 away.
What if I make a baddecision? But the thing is,
is that you should alwayshave the marketing that works.
If you're an existing businessand you have a marketing channel,
keep doing it market more andmore and more until you can't.
That channel breaks,
but you should also be testing a newchannel at the same time. In my business,
(12:49):
I say I have this philosophy thatI'll try any marketing lever one time,
and not one time I'm going to send onepostcard or run one commercial or do
one month in a magazine, but I'm goingto try it for three or four months,
see how it works, and thenI'm going to say, okay,
maybe I didn't get asgood return as I wanted,
but can I tweak it and let'stry another three months.
(13:12):
And maybe the first three months isso bad that we throw it all away,
but I don't look at that as Ilost money or I had an unnecessary
cost in my business.
It was the cost of learning, And Ilearned something from that and I learned,
okay, that's a channel that we shouldn'tpursue, or I learned that, hey,
we can pursue that, but we haveto do it in a different way.
(13:32):
And so do you look at going tocollege as a waste of money or do
you look at taking this course onlinefor how to a sales and marketing course
for our industry?
Is that a waste of money or is it a wasteof your time to pay or waste of money
to buy a coach?
None of those things are wastetheir investments in your business,
and we got to learn from those.
(13:54):
A hundred percent. Daniel,this is a great conversation.
I'm going to stop for a minute and talkabout Jobber. And here's the thing.
You're a big technology guy. Yourun SendGym, you use Jobber for,
you're a home service business.You're a big tech guy. I am too.
How important is it for our listenersto have a CRM like Jobber to run their
business?
If we didn't have the technologythat we have in our business,
I'd probably shut it down.It would be so much work.
(14:17):
And I think oftentimes people think aboutit again as a cost in their business
instead of an investment.
And looking at it from that stateof mind that we talked about,
what has to be true.
And so if you're looking at the cheapestplan versus the next plan versus the
third or most expensiveplan or whatever it is,
look at those featuredifferences. And you say,
(14:39):
if I could follow up withquotes on an automatic way,
what has to be true for meto pay for that highest plan?
It might be a hundred dollarsextra a month, I don't know,
but if I could close more job,would that be 500 extra dollars?
And all of a sudden that'san investment, not a cost.
Yeah. Yeah.
I think I talked to a lot of people aboutthis when they're choosing their plan
(15:00):
for Jobber and they're like the price,
you're focusing on the wrong thatyou're focusing on the thing of the top,
which is the number, the price,focus on everything under the price,
all the features that you get. And itmight not just be the cheapest plan.
You might need to have a bigger tier,a better tier. And here's the thing,
Daniel, and you'll totally relateto this is now is the time.
Don't wait until you're big to get a CRM.
(15:22):
Don't wait until you're bigger forJobber. Start now. Let it grow with you.
That is the best way to do it.
You don't want to open a bank accountuntil you get a million dollars.
You open a bank account when youhave $10 and then it grows with you.
Jobber is the same way.
Yeah, it's going to cost you a fortuneto try to implement or switch CRMs in the
future. Start with the one that isgoing to make sense to grow with you,
(15:44):
like you said, Adam, andinvest in other technology too.
So in technology like SendJim that canintegrate with Jobber, by having Jobber,
you're going to be able to take advantageof other technologies that add value
to your business in other ways. Also.
Listen, if you're not using Jobber andyou think, oh, I'll get that later,
or I'm not big enough, that's not true.
You need to start with using Jobbertoday because it's going to grow with you
(16:05):
and make sure you get the righttier. We just get cheap stuff.
Make sure you get the right tiered planthat actually fits the features that you
need to run your business effectively.So go to Jobber.com/podcast deal,
get the exclusive discount and startbuilding your business on Jobber.
I think testing is so key. AndI also think different things.
(16:25):
This is so obvious. I thinkpeople need to hear this,
different things work for differentbusinesses. I had a lot of people tell me,
oh man, because I do tv, a lot of peopletell me, oh, radio's great. I was like,
yeah, I can see that. Lemme try radio.And I tried radio for six months,
and I really gave it the collegetry. I did not go at it lightly,
and it totally flopped. But then I tried,
(16:48):
and I thought Valpak wasgoing to be a complete flop,
and Valpak gave me one of the bestreturns on investment I've ever had in
marketing. I'm not telling listeners thatValpak works and radio doesn't. What,
I'm telling you is what I tested. AndI discovered that for my business.
My customers responded onValpak and they didn't on radio.
And so you have to shoot some BBs tofind out what you hit and what works,
(17:09):
and then once you find it,
shoot a cannonball and just blast thatthing and pour money into it and just
make money come out of the ground.
Yeah, it's also reallyimportant to know your numbers.
We get a lot of businesses that say, oh,well that didn't work for me. I'm like,
well, show me the number. Howdo you know it didn't work?
And they don't have numbers.It's just a gut feeling.
And so having numbers enables youto be less fearful because you
(17:32):
understand, what can Ispend to acquire a customer?
What does working andnot working look like?
What do I have to get from number ofcalls or leads from this to how many of
those are going to convert tojobs to can I break even on this?
And so it becomes much less scary ifyou understand the math behind that.
So I think that's really important.
(17:53):
And then I also think we haven't talkedabout marketing to your own customers
and there's so much they can do there.
Yeah, so let's go into that becauseI think if you're stalled out,
if you're trying to grow and you'rejust constantly leaving the cave killing
something and dragging it home everyday, it does. It takes a lot of leads.
It takes a lot of justchurning through leads.
(18:13):
And if you're sold out and you're notremarketing to your existing clients,
then that's what you'remissing. That is the difference.
So let's talk about that.
Yeah. So if you go to sell your business,a lot of people are surprised by this,
but they're not buying thecool equipment you have.
They're not buying anything like that.They're buying your customer list.
And why are they buying the customer list?
Because that's the most valuableasset you have as a business.
(18:36):
And people have this valuableasset and they don't utilize it.
It's like having the best equipmentbranding and leaving it on the sideline,
not using it. It's really crazy.
And I think we get thatway because when we start
businesses, when we found them,
the only way to generate revenueis to find the next customer.
(18:58):
And that could be true forthree, four or five years.
But all of a sudden there becomes a pointin your business where it's difficult
to acquire the next customer atthe same rate or a higher rate than
you're losing customers.So you might acquire 10 customers a week,
but your customer list, if you lose1% because they pass away, they move,
(19:19):
they whatever happens, that 1%could be 10 customers or more.
Totally.
And so your business plateaus no matterhow much you market and how hard you try
to grow.
But what you didn't realize is thatyou've built this really strong customer
acquisition muscle and skillset,and then that's all you've done.
There's this other muscle in the bodythat's really powerful that you've never
(19:40):
used. It's like the people that go tothe gym and they only do arms, right?
It's like, well, what about your legs?
They're the most powerful musclein your body or that type of thing.
And so we have to grow that muscle andunderstand that we can market to our
existing customers.
A lot of people don't understand thatonce they understand that there's tons of
different ways to do that.There's the automated follow up.
(20:00):
When you've completed a job,are we following up with them at the next interval?
That's important.
So is it every three months I canmessage this person about the next thing?
Is it every year are we marketing ourother services to them? So a lot of
people, they sell one service,
but they have a whole bunch of otherservices that they don't know exist.
Their customer doesn't know they exist.And if you ask their customer today,
(20:21):
if you went to any one of your customers,even your best customer, and you said,
Hey, Adam, I know you'reone of my good customers.
Can you tell me all theservices that I offer?
None of your customers can answer that,But you think they can because it's on
the side of your van. And don't getmad at them. It's a you problem, right?
And so let's tell 'em like, Hey,did you also know we do this?
Do you also know we dothat? And so really,
(20:41):
we could be marketing to them throughoutthe entire year if they're going to be
in the market for that service,
they want to buy it fromyou because they know you,
they like you and they trust you. Solet's make sure they know we do it.
There's a story I have atmy carpet cleaning business.
It was like one of the most crazy momentsis such an epiphany because we showed
(21:02):
up to clean the carpet andthere was another carpet cleaner there cleaning their
furniture. And when weshowed up, we said, wait,
did you schedule thewrong going or what? Yeah,
you made a mistake. And she's like,no, they're cleaning the furniture.
You're going to clean the carpet. Andwe're like, we cleaned furniture too.
And she's like, I had no idea. Andthen it was just like, oh my gosh,
(21:24):
we never told people we cleaned furniture.
That's crazy. And we're in theindustry, so we're like, oh,
every carpet cleaner does that.
Yeah, shame on both of you guys. The guydoes clean up furniture. And for you,
I think that if our listeners havefear and they're just not sure,
I think there's no better way to overcomethat fear than to market to people
who've already bought from you.
And so the first thing you can do isstart calling people who've literally paid
(21:46):
you money. That's the first segment.
And could even if youdon't have time for this,
maybe you're out inthe field or something,
you could hire someone to do this eitheroverseas or in your town, whatever.
If you're older, your daughter,your son could do this for you,
but call through every singleperson who's ever bought from you.
If you're tree service, Hey, it'sbeen 12 months since we did anything.
Trees has anything come down the ground.
And you'll be amazed what comesfrom that. So that's phase one.
(22:07):
And then phase two is calling peoplewho haven't ever paid you money.
That's a gold mine too.
And so just those two things there canget you going in a completely different
mindset and get you excited again,get you pumped up again. Be like, wow,
momentum's gaining. I'm movingin the right direction again,
I'm not stalled out anymore.
Marketing to your existing client listis one of the biggest gold mines that no
(22:28):
one's tapping into.
A hundred percent. And it'snot the sexy thing, right?
Because it's like I'm not acquiring newcustomers, I'm not growing fast enough,
and then they don't realize that theycan actually grow faster and much more
efficiently through that. So Adam,
what's the cost of a customer in yourbusiness? Nighty dollars Nighty dollars.
So Adam can pay $90 to get acustomer or for just a few dollars,
(22:49):
he can generate another jobout of the same customer.
And it's literally that comparison,right? It's $90 versus a few dollars.
And oftentimes your existing customer isgoing to be a much easier sale because
they already know I can trust you.They're going to be less price sensitive.
They're going to be things like you don'thave to go out and give another quote.
(23:11):
So it becomes astronomically moreefficient and profitable to market to your
existing customers.Yeah, I totally agree.
Let's talk about five starreviews and referrals.
And Go ahead. One more thing on that. Oh,yeah. Before we leave. So all of this,
we talked about the timeand how you can do it,
and it sounds like it's daunting.
All of this can be automated with Jobberand SendJim integration. So they can do
(23:33):
this automatically. We canset this up to where, hey,
after the job in three months,
we're going to tell 'em about thisservice we offer in September.
We're going to tell 'em that we hangChristmas lights and 12 months from the
job, we're going toautomatically tell 'em this,
and we can go through allthe people and say, Hey,
tell me all the people in Jobberthat I haven't sold this service to,
and we can send them atext message or a postcard.
(23:55):
And so all of that can be verysimple through technology today,
like Jobber and SendJim. That'sfreaking awesome. It is awesome.
Someone listening to that whohasn't been in business very long,
they might be like, oh, that's cool. Andthey have no idea how powerful that is.
That is so powerful.
One of my favorite things with Syngenis that you can send postcards to
neighbors of your clients. So you cansend one postcard or 50 postcards,
(24:17):
you can choose however many,
but you'll mail postcards to the neighboror to the neighbors of the job that
you just did. And so they geta postcard that says, Hey,
we just serviced your neighbor nextdoor last week. That's really powerful.
And it's all automated?(Daniel) All automated through Jobber.
It's triggered based on when you completea job in Jobber or when you schedule a
job or invoice. And sothat can all be automated.
(24:39):
And so it's one less marketingthing that you have to think about,
and you're getting supertargeted with your marketing.
The person that's most likely your goodcustomer is their next door neighbor.
They're most likely to have asimilar income, similar type of home,
similar demographic, all that stuff.I don't have to get into that,
but it can be automated to the pointof it doesn't have to be another job or
someone has to go do something.Yeah, yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent.
(25:02):
I love that. Thank you for saying that.
So let's encourage ourlisteners to take the next step.
Let's get them getting fivestar reviews and referrals.
Do you have any plan for our listenersto go out and get 20 referrals right off
the bat or 25 star reviews off the bat?
Yeah, that's a good question. So I'mgoing to share a ninja trick here.
I don't like to share thisbecause I think it's...
Come on give us the best.
(25:22):
It's the secret, right? It's a secret.
But especially when you're startingor you need those first 20 reviews or
referrals, what I like to do isI like to go out and say, Hey,
Mrs. Smith, hey, if I took$20 off your service today,
would you leave me anhonest review at the end?
Our goal is just tomake sure you're happy.
And one of the most important thingsfor us is to have reviews to show other
(25:45):
people. Would you do that forus? And the answer is like,
$20 is going to take me five seconds.Of course. And so you can do that.
And the same thing with gettingpeople to post in neighborhoods.
That's so valuable.
Can you post in the neighborhood for me?Here's a picture, even took it for you,
and I'll text it to you. If I took $50off today, would you do that? Of course.
(26:05):
And guess what? Thosereviews live forever.
And that's the best marketing dollarsever. If someone said, Hey, Daniel,
would you pay $50 for someone to gopost on the neighborhood Facebook or the
next door, or leave you a fivestar Google review with an image?
A hundred percent, yes,I would. Yeah, totally.
So that's something thatis really, really powerful.
Have you ever had a client dig up an oldemail from two years ago and reply to
(26:29):
it and say, Hey, I need your services.We've had that happen before.
And the same thing happens with thoseFacebook posts or those social media
posts. People find these things justout of obscurity, and you're like,
so what did you see? Oh,
a post you made three years ago with oneof your technicians spotlighting them.
It was so sweet. And he has a dog. Ihave a dog too. So I called you guys.
It's like, cool.
I searched it, right? Isearched on my Nextdoor page,
(26:50):
and you guys came upmore than anyone else.
Exactly. So Daniel,
the way I view it is if a listener goesout and does everything we've outlined,
then what they're going to do isthey're going to start gaining momentum.
And when they start getting momentum,they're going to be more confident,
they're going to feel better,they're going to start giving,
everything is going tobe a little bit better,
which means that they canstart commanding higher prices.
They can raise their pricebecause they're in higher demand,
(27:12):
they're not as desperate anymore, andthey figure out the whole business thing,
and they're offering a better service.
And so everything's getting alittle bit better as they go,
which means they can increase theirprice, which means they make more money.
And it becomes this flywheel of momentum.
And so I think that if you do one ofthese things, great, but the more you do,
the more fuel you're pour on the fire,
(27:33):
which then increases your pricesand just keeps coming, right?
And with that increasedprice, you can market more.
You can be more confident in marketingand testing things because you're not
relying on that dollarto pay your technician.
For people that come to me and say,well, I can't afford to market,
you're not charging enough.
And that's a whole nother probablyepisode that we could talk about.
But absolutely,
you have to be marketingand you have to not be so
(27:57):
mentally concerned with the cost.And think about it as an investment.
And one of my businessmentors told me in this way,
and I thought it was really powerful,
was ask the question what would haveto be true? And what I mean by that is,
okay, well, if I spend $3,000on this type of advertising,
what would have to be true for me tosay that was worth it or for me to
(28:20):
get my money back? And if I start thinkingframing it that way, I can say, well,
I only need to get five jobs fromthat. Is that possible? Okay, well,
what would have to be true forme to get five jobs from that?
I need seven phone calls andI need to do X, Y, and Z,
or I need a job of this value.
And it can start framing the questionin your mind of not just, I don't know,
(28:40):
$3,000 is a lot versus, okay, well,
what has to be true for thisto be a good investment?
And that could even be what hasto be true. Could even be, well,
I'm going to learn a whole lotabout how this marketing works.
Is that worth $3,000? Itmight be in your business?
And so think about it that way.
I love that because it reminds me of thestory of the kid who's going to bed and
(29:02):
he thinks there's a monster in the closet,
and the monster in the closetis the $3,000, the monsters.
It's just so big in his mind, hisimagination slimy. It's got three horns,
it's got 10 eyes, it's an nasty and awful.
And then when you finally open the doorand he sees it's just a little kitty
cat, what you just described is,Hey, it sounds like 3000 is a lot.
But once you open the doorand you realize, okay, well it's seven phone calls,
(29:25):
it's three jobs. It's average jobsize it, you actually have a plan,
suddenly it's not this big monsteranymore, and it's attainable,
and you don't have to because yourimagination will just run wild.
But once you take the imagination out ofit and just give it numbers and give it
specifics, suddenly it'slike, oh, that's not so hard.
And then if it's like, well, I neededthree jobs, but I only got two,
(29:45):
well then I only lost athousand of the 3000, right?
And so it's like worst case is probablynot even as worse as we're making it in
our head, to your point.
And maybe we can make the marketingmessage better and actually get four jobs
next time, improve and tweak andimprove, right? Daniel, this is great.
I think there's a lot ofactionable steps here.
I love talking about this marketingstuff and growing businesses.
(30:07):
I think these are the threebiggest takeaways for me.
Number one is never stop marketing.
If you have fear about the economyor leads, you just got to press on,
and you have to keep your foot onthe gas when it comes to marketing.
Never reduce marketing,just keep pressing on.
Number two is mine, your customerlist. There's gold in that list.
(30:29):
People who have bought from you beforeand never bought, there's gold in both.
Email, text, call them,
do whatever it takes to make sure theyknow what other services you offer and
that you're still in business andthat you want to serve them today.
And number three is hire a salesperson.We talked about this earlier.
You're busy. If you're the mainsalesperson for your business,
(30:50):
you're distracted. You're doingthousand different things,
and you can't focus on sales. Hiresomeone who can. And one caveat,
if you can't quite hire a salesperson,
maybe you set aside two days aweek where all you do is sell.
That will make a big differenceas well. Daniel, that was great.
Thanks for being here.Really appreciate it.
Yeah, thank you, Adam.I appreciate it too.
If people want to find outmore about you and send Jim,
then how should they go about doing that?
(31:11):
Yeah, go to sendjim.com.
That's S-E-N-D-J-I-M.com.Open to chat on our website.
We'd love to talk to you aboutmarketing. Sweet. (Adam) Yeah,
I'm a big SendJim fan, so I secondthat. Thanks for being here, Daniel.
And thank you for listening.
I hope that you heard something you didthat will help you grow your business
and get the results that you're lookingfor. I'm your host, Adam Sylvester.
(31:32):
You can find me at adamsylvester.com.
Your team and your clients andyour family deserve your very best.
So go give it to 'em.
When my business slows down, Ican't afford marketing, right? Yes.
But it's the opposite is true thatthat's a death spiral is what I call it,
right?
Because your business is slowing downso you decrease the one thing that can
increase your business,and it's like, well,
what do you think the resultof that's going to be? Right?
If your business is going down,
the number one thing you needto do is bring in more leads and
(00:20):
market.
Welcome to Masters of Home Service,
the best podcast for home service proslike us. I'm your host, Adam Sylvester,
and I want you to crush it in business.Have you ever said something like, man,
if I could just get more leads,
then we could double in revenue or manat the economy was just better than I
would just explode in growth or man,
if my clients just reallyunderstood the value that we bring.
(00:44):
Those are all things that I've said,
I think we've all said atsome point in our journey,
and those aren't the real things holdingyou back from big explosive growth.
And my guess today is DanielDixon. He's the CEO of Send Jim,
and he's going to tell us what'sreally holding us back from big,
explosive growth, the revenue andthe profits that we really want,
but we've never really quite gotten.
(01:06):
And so Daniel is going to give us a gameplan for really exploding our business
and getting the resultsthat we kind deserve.
We worked too hard for mediocre results.So Daniel, I'm glad you're here.
Thanks for being here.You work for SendJim,
why don't you tell us whoyou are and what you do?
Yeah, thanks for havingme on the CEO at SendJim.
We're a marketing automation platform,and we help home service businesses grow.
(01:26):
I also own a home service business,so just so you think, well,
he doesn't know how to growa home service business.
He only grows a softwarebusiness. I also own one of those.
I've sat in your seat,
so I'm excited to be here. (Adam) You'vesat in our seats and you sit in our
seats now. Yes, I see.Sat in your seat. Yeah.
You're a Jobber user.(Daniel)I'm a Jobber user, absolutely.
Since day one and will be forever.
(01:46):
Yeah, that's great. So here's the thing.
A lot of our listeners have beengrasping and clawing and trying to
get this big growth happening,
and the increments they're makingare just smaller than they want.
We've all been there.
What is the real thing holding themback from this explosive growth,
these big numbers from your perspective?
Yeah, absolutely. So I've been there too,
(02:09):
and recently we've had really explosivegrowth at SendJim and in my home service
business,
we grew so fast for the first fouryears and we're at a bit of a plateau,
and I can see it in myself now aswe're about to talk about this,
but I think growth is really limitedby fear. What I mean by that,
it's fear to hire the nextperson because they're expensive
(02:32):
or we've hired thetechnicians, we've done that,
but have we hired the next big person?And it's like, oh, that's a lot of money.
Or is it fear to delegate somethingthat you feel is really important?
But until you delegate that, it doesn'tfree you up to work on the next thing.
So if you're still doing salesthat's so important to your business,
are you free to look at the next servicethat you can offer in your business or
(02:54):
things like that?
Is it fear to lease the next space thatyou need or buy the next vehicle because
of the cost? So most of the time whenyou ask questions, like you said,
we've all been there. When youreally look at the root of it,
it's oftentimes fear-based.
Yeah, I a hundred percent agree withthat. And I think that for me personally,
there was a time where we were,we've had not hockey stick growth,
(03:17):
but we've always been growing since mygutter business has always been growing.
And we went through a time not too longago that we got really close to having
no work. It got to the pointwhere on a morning we're like,
what are we doing today?
It got that bad and thankfully it turnedaround pretty quick. But on that day,
I hired two people. I had beenhiring, interviewing these people.
We've been looking for people formonths. And so I had decision to make.
(03:37):
It was like, man, on paper,this is a bad decision.
This is not a good time tohire people. But thankfully,
because of people around meand the support that I have,
I hired those people anyways because Ididn't want the fear of expanding our
capacity while our production has reduced.
I didn't want that fear to hold meback from the long-term growth of our
(03:58):
business, and I've letthat fear get me before.
And so from a delegation perspective,
what are some of the things that peoplefear the most and how can we overcome
that?
Yeah, that's a good question.
And I'm also glad you brought upthe fear of keeping people busy.
That was one of my personal biggestfears. If I hire this person,
I'm scared that I'm not going tohave the work to keep them busy.
(04:20):
And it wasn't even a cost thing,it was they're relying on me,
they have a family.
How do I make sure I don't have tolay them off and can I keep them busy?
So I'm glad you brought that one upbecause it's probably my biggest fear.
Well, if someone's out there rightnow, let's hang on here for a while.
So someone's out there and they're inthe same boat that we're talking about.
They've got this greathire, but they're like,
(04:41):
I just don't know if I can keep 'em busy.
And they feel the weight of beingthe employer is on their shoulders.
Any way to encourage them or givethem some advice on how to tackle that
emotion? It's strong.
So I think really good employeesand really good people,
depending on the position,
obviously will find ways toadd value to your business.
And it might not be in ways that you thinkright now they might have a different
(05:03):
skill or they might bring something elseto the table that can add value to your
business outside of what you'rethinking. So have an open mind there.
And I think a really big thing isto a mindset shift as this is an
investment in my business and not a cost.
And that can go for a lot of things,but when you first start your business,
(05:23):
for example, marketing sounds expensive.
You and I were talking before the showabout how you do marketing on television
for your business, and itsounds like a really big cost,
but you look at it as an investmentbecause you see the return.
And so thinking about itthat way is much different.
So if I invest $5 into mybusiness to get a lead,
(05:46):
it's much less scary, but I'm alsoonly going to return maybe 10,
but if I invest a hundredthousand dollars on this employee,
what if I got back 300,000? So the biggerthe investment and we all understand
these principles, the biggerthe return that you can get.
And so I would just encourage peopleto think about it in a different way
to think about it as an investmentversus a cost. The other reason.
(06:10):
That I felt so compelled to hire thosetwo people is because I had numbers over
several years that were indicatorsthat it was going to change very soon.
mid-April is always a littlebit slow. May is always crazy,
and then the whole summer isnuts. What am I going to do?
Just make this decision based on the lastthree weeks or the last five years of
(06:30):
data that I have?
And so I think knowing your numbersand having historical data makes a huge
difference.
Absolutely. And that's a perfectexample of an investment.
So we have the same thing.We're slow in the wintertime,
and we actually in the firstyear didn't realize this,
but we got freaked out just like you did.
And the first year we laid off a coupleof people and it was the worst thing
that we did, not only becauseit was hard to do personally,
(06:52):
but it was also as the springtimeand it came super busy.
We didn't have the capacity to do thework that we needed. And so if I know,
okay, I'm going to investin this person today,
even though I don't need 'em today,
but I know in two months from nowor if at worst case, three months,
I need them. If they're the rightfirst person for your business,
you might spend an extra$5,000 or $10,000 to have them.
(07:15):
But then having them in the busytime might make you 30, 40, $50,000.
And so that's why youdid that and just, yeah,
you got to shift your mindset about that.
Yeah. I do feel compelled to share this.
I think that in this examplethat we're talking about hiring,
I think there is a difference betweenhiring someone who already has a job and
hiring someone who doesn't. Yes,
there's less risk and less responsibilityif you hire somebody who isn't
(07:38):
currently working. You didn'tpull 'em away from anything else,
but if you're going to recruitsomebody from a job they like,
then the stakes are a lot higher.So if you're in this position,
it is a little bit more freeing if you'rehiring someone who doesn't have a job
because if you do, Godforbid, have to lay them off,
then they're right back where theystarted and not any worse off,
but they did make somemoney in the meanwhile.
Absolutely. And thenalong those situations, do everything you can to test it.
(08:03):
And so what we do in our business,
before we hire extra capacityor technicians to do the work,
let's sell the work first.
Can we go from being normally booked outa month to six weeks consistently or to
two months booked out? And then you'relike, okay, I know that I need them,
right, or I know I can keep them.
So we do this in otherbusinesses in other ways too,
but can we do some kind of test ora short period where we can prove to
(08:27):
ourselves that yes, this is needed orthat it will return on its investment.
If you want your car to go faster,
then you might need to putmore gas to the engine.
Let's talk about marketing for a second.Should marketing ever be reduced?
Let's just start that most basic question.
I think sometimes people get scared ortheir mindset's so limited that they
don't really open the full throttle onmarketing. What do you think about that?
(08:50):
Yeah, so from an absolute value, sowhen I talk about absolute value,
I'm saying a thousand dollars todayshould probably never go down.
Maybe it's a thousand dollars amonth. We don't ever go backwards.
When I started my home service business,I was investing 20% of my revenue. Oh,
that's high into marketing.And that's how we grew so fast.
(09:10):
And now we've been fortunate enoughto get big enough and we get so many
referrals and we havecommercial partnerships and things like that to where I
can only invest 13, 12%. Andso the percentage went down,
but I've never ever decreased the absolutevalue. I've actually increased it.
So maybe we started with $1,500 amonth and now maybe it's 10,000,
$20,000 a month in marketing,
(09:32):
but the percentage may drop asa percentage of your revenue,
but you should always haveyour foot on the Gas, right?
Yeah, back in summer 2022,it was a long time ago,
but it was a very monumental time inour company because a lot of things
happened, a lot of bad things happened.
And I just remember I sent outvideo to my team and said, Hey guys,
I know there's been a lot of tough weirdthings happening in the last few weeks,
(09:53):
but we are not. And it was also,economy was a little, I forget,
but the economy wasn't that strong orsomething like that. And I said, guys,
we are not going to participate inwhatever downturn they are forecasting.
We're going to put our pedal to the metal,we're going to press it to the floor,
and we're going to investmore into marketing.
We're going to invest more in all theseinfrastructures while everyone else is
(10:14):
laying their foot off the gas,we're going to blow by 'em.
And that was a very inspiring messagetoo, but it was true. I was like,
we're going to spend more onmarketing. If we want to grow,
then we have to grow. We can't stop.
Then the natural reaction isto when my business slows down,
I can't afford marketing, right? Yes.
But the opposite is true that that's adeath spiral is what I call it, right?
(10:36):
Because your business is slowing down,
so you decrease the one thing that canincrease your business, and it's like,
well, what do you think theresult of that's going to be?
If your business is going down,
the number one thing you need to dois bring in more leads and market.
The other thing you can dois market to your customers,
which we can talk about too. But yes,
you have to make sureyou're marketing enough.
I think marketing is, yeah,
(10:56):
I don't want our listeners to ever letoff their foot their gas on marketing,
talking about marketing,let's talk about sales.
So one of the ways that you can reallyleverage your business and start
increasing is having salespeoplehaving more than one person.
You making sales, right?
Yeah, absolutely. And really it'ssomebody that can focus on sales.
If the business owner, let's behonest, if you're doing sales,
(11:19):
you're also doing payroll and you'realso doing 9 million other things,
responding to the fire potentially inthe company and trying to negotiate your
next thing with the vendor anddealing with the crazy customer.
And so you're not really focused on sales.
If you have a salesperson thateats and takes home the bread
(11:39):
to his family because he has to sell,
that's a different levelof focus than sales.
And what I found is that after about18 months of having a salesperson in my
business,
they do a much better job than I coulddo today because they've perfected the
craft and they're focused on it.
Yeah, totally. I want to talk about,
because marketing is such abig piece of the puzzle here,
(12:02):
it's one of the biggest levers, I wouldsay, in really growing your company.
How do you know which strategies work?
Which marketing channels areworking for your business?
Where are most of our clients coming from?
Let's talk about having astrategy around marketing,
so it actually is effective going forward.
Yeah, that's a really good pointbecause again, when we go back to fear,
fear-based thinking, instead ofinvestment based thinking, people think,
(12:25):
what if I try this and it doesn'twork? I just threw $3,000 away.
What if I make a baddecision? But the thing is,
is that you should alwayshave the marketing that works.
If you're an existing businessand you have a marketing channel,
keep doing it market more andmore and more until you can't.
That channel breaks,
but you should also be testing a newchannel at the same time. In my business,
(12:49):
I say I have this philosophy thatI'll try any marketing lever one time,
and not one time I'm going to send onepostcard or run one commercial or do
one month in a magazine, but I'm goingto try it for three or four months,
see how it works, and thenI'm going to say, okay,
maybe I didn't get asgood return as I wanted,
but can I tweak it and let'stry another three months.
(13:12):
And maybe the first three months isso bad that we throw it all away,
but I don't look at that as Ilost money or I had an unnecessary
cost in my business.
It was the cost of learning, And Ilearned something from that and I learned,
okay, that's a channel that we shouldn'tpursue, or I learned that, hey,
we can pursue that, but we haveto do it in a different way.
(13:32):
And so do you look at going tocollege as a waste of money or do
you look at taking this course onlinefor how to a sales and marketing course
for our industry?
Is that a waste of money or is it a wasteof your time to pay or waste of money
to buy a coach?
None of those things are wastetheir investments in your business,
and we got to learn from those.
(13:54):
A hundred percent. Daniel,this is a great conversation.
I'm going to stop for a minute and talkabout Jobber. And here's the thing.
You're a big technology guy. Yourun SendGym, you use Jobber for,
you're a home service business.You're a big tech guy. I am too.
How important is it for our listenersto have a CRM like Jobber to run their
business?
If we didn't have the technologythat we have in our business,
I'd probably shut it down.It would be so much work.
(14:17):
And I think oftentimes people think aboutit again as a cost in their business
instead of an investment.
And looking at it from that stateof mind that we talked about,
what has to be true.
And so if you're looking at the cheapestplan versus the next plan versus the
third or most expensiveplan or whatever it is,
look at those featuredifferences. And you say,
(14:39):
if I could follow up withquotes on an automatic way,
what has to be true for meto pay for that highest plan?
It might be a hundred dollarsextra a month, I don't know,
but if I could close more job,would that be 500 extra dollars?
And all of a sudden that'san investment, not a cost.
Yeah. Yeah.
I think I talked to a lot of people aboutthis when they're choosing their plan
(15:00):
for Jobber and they're like the price,
you're focusing on the wrong thatyou're focusing on the thing of the top,
which is the number, the price,focus on everything under the price,
all the features that you get. And itmight not just be the cheapest plan.
You might need to have a bigger tier,a better tier. And here's the thing,
Daniel, and you'll totally relateto this is now is the time.
Don't wait until you're big to get a CRM.
(15:22):
Don't wait until you're bigger forJobber. Start now. Let it grow with you.
That is the best way to do it.
You don't want to open a bank accountuntil you get a million dollars.
You open a bank account when youhave $10 and then it grows with you.
Jobber is the same way.
Yeah, it's going to cost you a fortuneto try to implement or switch CRMs in the
future. Start with the one that isgoing to make sense to grow with you,
(15:44):
like you said, Adam, andinvest in other technology too.
So in technology like SendJim that canintegrate with Jobber, by having Jobber,
you're going to be able to take advantageof other technologies that add value
to your business in other ways. Also.
Listen, if you're not using Jobber andyou think, oh, I'll get that later,
or I'm not big enough, that's not true.
You need to start with using Jobbertoday because it's going to grow with you
(16:05):
and make sure you get the righttier. We just get cheap stuff.
Make sure you get the right tiered planthat actually fits the features that you
need to run your business effectively.So go to Jobber.com/podcast deal,
get the exclusive discount and startbuilding your business on Jobber.
I think testing is so key. AndI also think different things.
(16:25):
This is so obvious. I thinkpeople need to hear this,
different things work for differentbusinesses. I had a lot of people tell me,
oh man, because I do tv, a lot of peopletell me, oh, radio's great. I was like,
yeah, I can see that. Lemme try radio.And I tried radio for six months,
and I really gave it the collegetry. I did not go at it lightly,
and it totally flopped. But then I tried,
(16:48):
and I thought Valpak wasgoing to be a complete flop,
and Valpak gave me one of the bestreturns on investment I've ever had in
marketing. I'm not telling listeners thatValpak works and radio doesn't. What,
I'm telling you is what I tested. AndI discovered that for my business.
My customers responded onValpak and they didn't on radio.
And so you have to shoot some BBs tofind out what you hit and what works,
(17:09):
and then once you find it,
shoot a cannonball and just blast thatthing and pour money into it and just
make money come out of the ground.
Yeah, it's also reallyimportant to know your numbers.
We get a lot of businesses that say, oh,well that didn't work for me. I'm like,
well, show me the number. Howdo you know it didn't work?
And they don't have numbers.It's just a gut feeling.
And so having numbers enables youto be less fearful because you
(17:32):
understand, what can Ispend to acquire a customer?
What does working andnot working look like?
What do I have to get from number ofcalls or leads from this to how many of
those are going to convert tojobs to can I break even on this?
And so it becomes much less scary ifyou understand the math behind that.
So I think that's really important.
(17:53):
And then I also think we haven't talkedabout marketing to your own customers
and there's so much they can do there.
Yeah, so let's go into that becauseI think if you're stalled out,
if you're trying to grow and you'rejust constantly leaving the cave killing
something and dragging it home everyday, it does. It takes a lot of leads.
It takes a lot of justchurning through leads.
(18:13):
And if you're sold out and you're notremarketing to your existing clients,
then that's what you'remissing. That is the difference.
So let's talk about that.
Yeah. So if you go to sell your business,a lot of people are surprised by this,
but they're not buying thecool equipment you have.
They're not buying anything like that.They're buying your customer list.
And why are they buying the customer list?
Because that's the most valuableasset you have as a business.
(18:36):
And people have this valuableasset and they don't utilize it.
It's like having the best equipmentbranding and leaving it on the sideline,
not using it. It's really crazy.
And I think we get thatway because when we start
businesses, when we found them,
the only way to generate revenueis to find the next customer.
(18:58):
And that could be true forthree, four or five years.
But all of a sudden there becomes a pointin your business where it's difficult
to acquire the next customer atthe same rate or a higher rate than
you're losing customers.So you might acquire 10 customers a week,
but your customer list, if you lose1% because they pass away, they move,
(19:19):
they whatever happens, that 1%could be 10 customers or more.
Totally.
And so your business plateaus no matterhow much you market and how hard you try
to grow.
But what you didn't realize is thatyou've built this really strong customer
acquisition muscle and skillset,and then that's all you've done.
There's this other muscle in the bodythat's really powerful that you've never
(19:40):
used. It's like the people that go tothe gym and they only do arms, right?
It's like, well, what about your legs?
They're the most powerful musclein your body or that type of thing.
And so we have to grow that muscle andunderstand that we can market to our
existing customers.
A lot of people don't understand thatonce they understand that there's tons of
different ways to do that.There's the automated follow up.
(20:00):
When you've completed a job,are we following up with them at the next interval?
That's important.
So is it every three months I canmessage this person about the next thing?
Is it every year are we marketing ourother services to them? So a lot of
people, they sell one service,
but they have a whole bunch of otherservices that they don't know exist.
Their customer doesn't know they exist.And if you ask their customer today,
(20:21):
if you went to any one of your customers,even your best customer, and you said,
Hey, Adam, I know you'reone of my good customers.
Can you tell me all theservices that I offer?
None of your customers can answer that,But you think they can because it's on
the side of your van. And don't getmad at them. It's a you problem, right?
And so let's tell 'em like, Hey,did you also know we do this?
Do you also know we dothat? And so really,
(20:41):
we could be marketing to them throughoutthe entire year if they're going to be
in the market for that service,
they want to buy it fromyou because they know you,
they like you and they trust you. Solet's make sure they know we do it.
There's a story I have atmy carpet cleaning business.
It was like one of the most crazy momentsis such an epiphany because we showed
(21:02):
up to clean the carpet andthere was another carpet cleaner there cleaning their
furniture. And when weshowed up, we said, wait,
did you schedule thewrong going or what? Yeah,
you made a mistake. And she's like,no, they're cleaning the furniture.
You're going to clean the carpet. Andwe're like, we cleaned furniture too.
And she's like, I had no idea. Andthen it was just like, oh my gosh,
(21:24):
we never told people we cleaned furniture.
That's crazy. And we're in theindustry, so we're like, oh,
every carpet cleaner does that.
Yeah, shame on both of you guys. The guydoes clean up furniture. And for you,
I think that if our listeners havefear and they're just not sure,
I think there's no better way to overcomethat fear than to market to people
who've already bought from you.
And so the first thing you can do isstart calling people who've literally paid
(21:46):
you money. That's the first segment.
And could even if youdon't have time for this,
maybe you're out inthe field or something,
you could hire someone to do this eitheroverseas or in your town, whatever.
If you're older, your daughter,your son could do this for you,
but call through every singleperson who's ever bought from you.
If you're tree service, Hey, it'sbeen 12 months since we did anything.
Trees has anything come down the ground.
And you'll be amazed what comesfrom that. So that's phase one.
(22:07):
And then phase two is calling peoplewho haven't ever paid you money.
That's a gold mine too.
And so just those two things there canget you going in a completely different
mindset and get you excited again,get you pumped up again. Be like, wow,
momentum's gaining. I'm movingin the right direction again,
I'm not stalled out anymore.
Marketing to your existing client listis one of the biggest gold mines that no
(22:28):
one's tapping into.
A hundred percent. And it'snot the sexy thing, right?
Because it's like I'm not acquiring newcustomers, I'm not growing fast enough,
and then they don't realize that theycan actually grow faster and much more
efficiently through that. So Adam,
what's the cost of a customer in yourbusiness? Nighty dollars Nighty dollars.
So Adam can pay $90 to get acustomer or for just a few dollars,
(22:49):
he can generate another jobout of the same customer.
And it's literally that comparison,right? It's $90 versus a few dollars.
And oftentimes your existing customer isgoing to be a much easier sale because
they already know I can trust you.They're going to be less price sensitive.
They're going to be things like you don'thave to go out and give another quote.
(23:11):
So it becomes astronomically moreefficient and profitable to market to your
existing customers.Yeah, I totally agree.
Let's talk about five starreviews and referrals.
And Go ahead. One more thing on that. Oh,yeah. Before we leave. So all of this,
we talked about the timeand how you can do it,
and it sounds like it's daunting.
All of this can be automated with Jobberand SendJim integration. So they can do
(23:33):
this automatically. We canset this up to where, hey,
after the job in three months,
we're going to tell 'em about thisservice we offer in September.
We're going to tell 'em that we hangChristmas lights and 12 months from the
job, we're going toautomatically tell 'em this,
and we can go through allthe people and say, Hey,
tell me all the people in Jobberthat I haven't sold this service to,
and we can send them atext message or a postcard.
(23:55):
And so all of that can be verysimple through technology today,
like Jobber and SendJim. That'sfreaking awesome. It is awesome.
Someone listening to that whohasn't been in business very long,
they might be like, oh, that's cool. Andthey have no idea how powerful that is.
That is so powerful.
One of my favorite things with Syngenis that you can send postcards to
neighbors of your clients. So you cansend one postcard or 50 postcards,
(24:17):
you can choose however many,
but you'll mail postcards to the neighboror to the neighbors of the job that
you just did. And so they geta postcard that says, Hey,
we just serviced your neighbor nextdoor last week. That's really powerful.
And it's all automated?(Daniel) All automated through Jobber.
It's triggered based on when you completea job in Jobber or when you schedule a
job or invoice. And sothat can all be automated.
(24:39):
And so it's one less marketingthing that you have to think about,
and you're getting supertargeted with your marketing.
The person that's most likely your goodcustomer is their next door neighbor.
They're most likely to have asimilar income, similar type of home,
similar demographic, all that stuff.I don't have to get into that,
but it can be automated to the pointof it doesn't have to be another job or
someone has to go do something.Yeah, yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent.
(25:02):
I love that. Thank you for saying that.
So let's encourage ourlisteners to take the next step.
Let's get them getting fivestar reviews and referrals.
Do you have any plan for our listenersto go out and get 20 referrals right off
the bat or 25 star reviews off the bat?
Yeah, that's a good question. So I'mgoing to share a ninja trick here.
I don't like to share thisbecause I think it's...
Come on give us the best.
(25:22):
It's the secret, right? It's a secret.
But especially when you're startingor you need those first 20 reviews or
referrals, what I like to do isI like to go out and say, Hey,
Mrs. Smith, hey, if I took$20 off your service today,
would you leave me anhonest review at the end?
Our goal is just tomake sure you're happy.
And one of the most important thingsfor us is to have reviews to show other
(25:45):
people. Would you do that forus? And the answer is like,
$20 is going to take me five seconds.Of course. And so you can do that.
And the same thing with gettingpeople to post in neighborhoods.
That's so valuable.
Can you post in the neighborhood for me?Here's a picture, even took it for you,
and I'll text it to you. If I took $50off today, would you do that? Of course.
(26:05):
And guess what? Thosereviews live forever.
And that's the best marketing dollarsever. If someone said, Hey, Daniel,
would you pay $50 for someone to gopost on the neighborhood Facebook or the
next door, or leave you a fivestar Google review with an image?
A hundred percent, yes,I would. Yeah, totally.
So that's something thatis really, really powerful.
Have you ever had a client dig up an oldemail from two years ago and reply to
(26:29):
it and say, Hey, I need your services.We've had that happen before.
And the same thing happens with thoseFacebook posts or those social media
posts. People find these things justout of obscurity, and you're like,
so what did you see? Oh,
a post you made three years ago with oneof your technicians spotlighting them.
It was so sweet. And he has a dog. Ihave a dog too. So I called you guys.
It's like, cool.
I searched it, right? Isearched on my Nextdoor page,
(26:50):
and you guys came upmore than anyone else.
Exactly. So Daniel,
the way I view it is if a listener goesout and does everything we've outlined,
then what they're going to do isthey're going to start gaining momentum.
And when they start getting momentum,they're going to be more confident,
they're going to feel better,they're going to start giving,
everything is going tobe a little bit better,
which means that they canstart commanding higher prices.
They can raise their pricebecause they're in higher demand,
(27:12):
they're not as desperate anymore, andthey figure out the whole business thing,
and they're offering a better service.
And so everything's getting alittle bit better as they go,
which means they can increase theirprice, which means they make more money.
And it becomes this flywheel of momentum.
And so I think that if you do one ofthese things, great, but the more you do,
the more fuel you're pour on the fire,
(27:33):
which then increases your pricesand just keeps coming, right?
And with that increasedprice, you can market more.
You can be more confident in marketingand testing things because you're not
relying on that dollarto pay your technician.
For people that come to me and say,well, I can't afford to market,
you're not charging enough.
And that's a whole nother probablyepisode that we could talk about.
But absolutely,
you have to be marketingand you have to not be so
(27:57):
mentally concerned with the cost.And think about it as an investment.
And one of my businessmentors told me in this way,
and I thought it was really powerful,
was ask the question what would haveto be true? And what I mean by that is,
okay, well, if I spend $3,000on this type of advertising,
what would have to be true for me tosay that was worth it or for me to
(28:20):
get my money back? And if I start thinkingframing it that way, I can say, well,
I only need to get five jobs fromthat. Is that possible? Okay, well,
what would have to be true forme to get five jobs from that?
I need seven phone calls andI need to do X, Y, and Z,
or I need a job of this value.
And it can start framing the questionin your mind of not just, I don't know,
(28:40):
$3,000 is a lot versus, okay, well,
what has to be true for thisto be a good investment?
And that could even be what hasto be true. Could even be, well,
I'm going to learn a whole lotabout how this marketing works.
Is that worth $3,000? Itmight be in your business?
And so think about it that way.
I love that because it reminds me of thestory of the kid who's going to bed and
(29:02):
he thinks there's a monster in the closet,
and the monster in the closetis the $3,000, the monsters.
It's just so big in his mind, hisimagination slimy. It's got three horns,
it's got 10 eyes, it's an nasty and awful.
And then when you finally open the doorand he sees it's just a little kitty
cat, what you just described is,Hey, it sounds like 3000 is a lot.
But once you open the doorand you realize, okay, well it's seven phone calls,
(29:25):
it's three jobs. It's average jobsize it, you actually have a plan,
suddenly it's not this big monsteranymore, and it's attainable,
and you don't have to because yourimagination will just run wild.
But once you take the imagination out ofit and just give it numbers and give it
specifics, suddenly it'slike, oh, that's not so hard.
And then if it's like, well, I neededthree jobs, but I only got two,
(29:45):
well then I only lost athousand of the 3000, right?
And so it's like worst case is probablynot even as worse as we're making it in
our head, to your point.
And maybe we can make the marketingmessage better and actually get four jobs
next time, improve and tweak andimprove, right? Daniel, this is great.
I think there's a lot ofactionable steps here.
I love talking about this marketingstuff and growing businesses.
(30:07):
I think these are the threebiggest takeaways for me.
Number one is never stop marketing.
If you have fear about the economyor leads, you just got to press on,
and you have to keep your foot onthe gas when it comes to marketing.
Never reduce marketing,just keep pressing on.
Number two is mine, your customerlist. There's gold in that list.
(30:29):
People who have bought from you beforeand never bought, there's gold in both.
Email, text, call them,
do whatever it takes to make sure theyknow what other services you offer and
that you're still in business andthat you want to serve them today.
And number three is hire a salesperson.We talked about this earlier.
You're busy. If you're the mainsalesperson for your business,
(30:50):
you're distracted. You're doingthousand different things,
and you can't focus on sales. Hiresomeone who can. And one caveat,
if you can't quite hire a salesperson,
maybe you set aside two days aweek where all you do is sell.
That will make a big differenceas well. Daniel, that was great.
Thanks for being here.Really appreciate it.
Yeah, thank you, Adam.I appreciate it too.
If people want to find outmore about you and send Jim,
then how should they go about doing that?
(31:11):
Yeah, go to sendjim.com.
That's S-E-N-D-J-I-M.com.Open to chat on our website.
We'd love to talk to you aboutmarketing. Sweet. (Adam) Yeah,
I'm a big SendJim fan, so I secondthat. Thanks for being here, Daniel.
And thank you for listening.
I hope that you heard something you didthat will help you grow your business
and get the results that you're lookingfor. I'm your host, Adam Sylvester.
(31:32):
You can find me at adamsylvester.com.
Your team and your clients andyour family deserve your very best.
So go give it to 'em.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Two Guys, Five Rings: Matt, Bowen & The Olympics
Two Guys (Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers). Five Rings (you know, from the Olympics logo). One essential podcast for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Bowen Yang (SNL, Wicked) and Matt Rogers (Palm Royale, No Good Deed) of Las Culturistas are back for a second season of Two Guys, Five Rings, a collaboration with NBC Sports and iHeartRadio. In this 15-episode event, Bowen and Matt discuss the top storylines, obsess over Italian culture, and find out what really goes on in the Olympic Village.