Unlock the potential of your painting business with game-changing insights from John Jacob, a tech guru who turned his family's home services company into a powerhouse. We dissect the transformative role of technology in the trades, offering a wealth of knowledge that no painter should miss. From personalized financial guidance to operational overhauls, this episode is a treasure trove that promises to map your route to success in the often-overlooked world of skilled painting services.
Ever wondered how to sift through leads efficiently to ensure every minute counts? Say goodbye to time-wasters and hello to a streamlined sales system, as we share the secrets to pre-qualifying prospects with precision. We'll take you through the art of asking the right questions, leveraging forms, and software tools to keep the serious clients flowing in. Our discussion is packed with actionable strategies, all designed to optimize your time and elevate the customer experience, ensuring your painting business not only survives but thrives.
Prepare to be wowed by Hoist, the revolutionary app changing the face of remote sales and bidding in the painting industry. John walks you through how this app can slash your workload, offering data-driven estimates without the need for site visits, and dive into how small jobs can now yield big profits thanks to data automation. Embrace the efficiency and join the ranks of savvy painters who are reshaping their businesses for a more profitable future. Don't just listen—transform your operation with the insights from this episode.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the profitable painter podcast.
The mission of this podcast issimple To help you navigate the
financial and tax aspects ofstarting, running and scaling a
professional painting business,from the brushes and ladders to
the spreadsheets and balancesheets.
We've got you covered.
But before we dive in, a quickword of caution.
While we strive to provideaccurate and up-to-date
financial and tax information,nothing you hear on this podcast
(00:22):
should be considered asfinancial advice specifically
for you or your business.
We're here to share generalknowledge and experiences, not
to replace the tailored adviceyou get from a professional
financial advisor or taxconsultant.
We strongly recommend youseeking individualized advice
before making any significantfinancial decisions.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
This is Daniel, the founder of Bookkeeping for
Painters, and today I'm herewith John, Jacob, john and Grew
and sold his third generationhome services company.
From there, he started buildingtechnology for home services.
He's the founder of Hoist, asales app that lets painters win
more jobs in less time.
How's it going, John?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
It's going great.
Happy to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, I'm super excited to have you.
Can you tell me the story ofyour journey with the third
generation home services companyand what led you to sell it?
Can you kind of yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
I grew up in home services.
Like I said, my grandpa starteda company back in the early 60s
.
Actually, my dad ran it foryears.
I remember every summer workingin the office with my parents
and even running in the fieldwith my dad very involved in the
family business.
But I was always kind of thecoder kid, the kid up in his
room on his computer, not reallygoing to be in the family
business, Always my big brotherwho's going to take it over?
(01:35):
But he took it over and herealized how much they sorely
needed some technology solutions.
There were still pen and paper,everything, the entire company
running six routes, runningroute sheets back and forth.
It was just crazy.
They didn't accept credit cards, there was no website and more
Around 2013, my brother Iremember this text I got he's
like, hey, you want to help mewith the family business, Like
let's really do this thing.
(01:56):
And it was awesome because Icame in and worked with my
brother and within two years wemore than doubled the business.
We took it from six routes to10 routes in the LA area.
It was in pest control at thetime and it was just amazing.
That experience was sotransformative for me of just
realizing how much opportunitythere is in home services with
just some good technology put inplace, and it was just an
awesome experience growing thatfamily business.
(02:17):
It was a whirlwind selling thatbusiness and my parents got a
great retirement out of it.
And then from there I was ableto leverage that experience and
that passion and knowledge andraise some money in venture
capital and start buildingsoftware for home services and
then stumbled into painting aswell.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, I think a lot of people poo-poo the idea of
the trades.
Everyone listening probablyknows that the trades there's
riches there, for sure.
People make millions in thetrades and I think a lot of
people don't realize that.
I think we're starting torealize that as a society where
all these kids went to collegeand got liberal arts degrees and
(02:58):
they now don't have any jobs,they don't have anything.
Now they're maybe trying to geta job as a painter or something
, but if you're so we've kind ofSociety kind of forgot.
Oh yeah, you could actuallyhave Go to trade school, you
should go to trade school,actually get your hands dirty
and actually work for a living.
(03:19):
But I think that's starting tocome back around and realize
people are realizing oh, I canactually make some money at this
and so that's awesome.
So you guys basically went intoyour parents' company and
installed some technology andsystematized it and doubled it
in one year.
(03:39):
Is that what you said?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah, In the course of two years we doubled that
basis and sold it yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Okay Nice.
Was that the goal starting outlike hey, we want to build it to
sell, or did that just kind ofnaturally happen?
Speaker 3 (03:51):
You know it wasn't the goal.
In fact my brother and I werelike let's kind of do this
forever.
But to be totally honest, theongoing tension of running a
family business, kind of the oldguard versus the new guard, was
not something we thought wouldkeep our families' Thanksgiving
still tasting good and be ableto really push that business as
far as it needed to go.
And so we kind of all sat downthe table like what's the best
course of action here, given thedifferences of just running a
(04:12):
family business?
There's difficulty and we sawthat growth curve that we had
built and saw a greatopportunity to sell and we took
advantage of it.
We're glad we did.
In hindsight I think it was agood move for that business Cool
.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
So what were the?
You were helping installtechnology in processes.
What processes did you reallyhelp install in that business to
kind of get it to that level?
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Yeah.
So when I came in I didn't havea ton of experience directly in
the field.
So I had all the technology,marketing kind of sales
experience more coming to thetable or to corporate job, and
so we immediately broke up thebusiness.
It's like, okay, I'm going tobe office manager, you be field
manager.
Like that's anything thathappens out there you handle
that, anything that happens inthe office I'll handle.
Of course there's some overlapand so immediately right, they
had a computer system that theyweren't fully utilizing.
(04:58):
They had redundancies oneverything, which is pretty
common trend.
I hear some older businessesstill running, right, they're
like, oh well, we do the bitwhen voices online, but we make
sure to print everything andfile it as well.
It's like, okay, let's reducethese redundancies.
We have a computer system,let's actually use it.
But there was, you know, theobvious ones of overnight,
pretty much after I came in, wefound a field service management
(05:18):
software that allowed all ofour field reps to have iPads.
So we're no longer usingphysical route sheets, right?
So I was like number one let'sget everybody away from physical
route sheets, get one real-timedispatch using iPads out in the
field.
Like it's such a no-brainer andsuch huge efficiencies there.
Number two was just literallyan online presence.
There was kind of a website butno real SEO strategy, no real
(05:38):
approach there.
And in 2015, which actually2013 when I was there, but 2013
to 2015, there was so muchopportunity in SEO by just
taking it a little bit seriouslyin SEO.
I think more people have comearound to that.
But man did that do wonders forus, just making sure we had a
website with consistent contenton it.
We had some authority built.
It just went so long.
I think obviously we did a lotaround.
(05:59):
Where I put a lot of work in isaround our sales processes.
So when I came on there was noreal commercial division to
speak of and I was able to standup the sales processes for
commercial and close theWestfield malls in Southern
California, which was hugecustomers for us, punching way
above our weight for afamily-owned business like us
had some real commercial clientscome in, which was huge.
But I think the other piece wasaround and this is really part
(06:20):
of what the insights was thatled to Hoist is we just came up
with standardized price sheetsfor most of our services on the
residential side and for us,when we had been doing only
in-home estimates for everythingwe did when we actually had the
opportunity to sell over thephone.
It was exponential in terms ofour growth and just overall
efficiency.
So on a busy week we'd struggleto get reps out there to do
(06:41):
estimates.
So customers were waiting two,three days.
Often it was frustrating forfield reps trying to do their
other stuff when they couldn'tget that in.
Worse the close rate was like30%.
So we'd spend nearly two hourspricing a lead just to get told
we're too expensive or it wasn'ta fit.
It was constant frustrationfrom homeowners, us all the
sides.
So I sat down with my brother,forced ourselves like okay,
we're literally going to, kindof Steve Jobs style, draw a grid
(07:02):
here.
What are the nine products wesell for residential and how do
we make sure to fit into thatand come up with a pricing model
that works?
So we really hit the books anddid that.
But committing to that pricesheet for us, which was ended up
being more than nine grid Ithink you had like 16 boxes on
it that kind of fell into.
But committing to thatstandardized pricing for us did
wonders in terms of the overallsales efficiencies, close rates
(07:22):
and more and just shifting theprimary sales method to phone
sales for that business, whichwe were in pest control, by the
way.
I don't know if I mentionedthat, but shifting that primary
sales method to phone sales forour pest control business,
that's really what unlocked ourgrowth more than anything else,
and just overall efficiencies.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah, that's something I've started to see a
little bit more as folksactually trying out remote sales
for their painting business.
Eric, he runs a marketingcompany, pathfinder, but he also
has a painting business.
That's something that he's beentesting and publicly sharing on
social media, so it seemspretty interesting.
(08:01):
I think there's more interestin that now and then people are
realizing oh, this can actuallybe.
An effective strategy is to,like you said, not go out and
spend two hours on someone whowas just tire kicking, where you
could have just saved yourselfthat two hours and called them
(08:21):
from the office or from wherever, or hopped on Zoom.
I think Eric is doing Zoomcalls.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, he's doing Zoom calls.
Eric has great stuff, by theway.
I attended his PCA breakoutsession on remote sales.
It was awesome and he's got allkinds of good stuff.
I was going to make sure toshout him out, because he's
really pushing this space reallyfar.
Some great thoughts on it aswell.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah, so what are some of the things that you've
learned either from what makesan effective sales process or
lead qualification, what are thekey components that you think
that some folks are missing orwhat you found has really worked
?
Speaker 3 (08:58):
I think that's really the right question because it's
not about are we sellingremotely and what that is.
That's kind of a whole topic initself.
But if you zoom out for asecond, it's about having a
really strong pricing systemthat's consistent, repeatable
and a strong sales process.
So what is that sales processfor you and your business?
And maybe that includes someremote stuff, but maybe it's
just better qualification.
So I think, first and foremost,let's make sure to use our time
(09:21):
efficiently.
For most people listening tothis show, the time constraint
is going to be the mainbottleneck, not necessarily lead
volume.
You can go buy more leads.
You can spend more money andget more leads in the door.
There's possibilities to dothat, but oftentimes it's the
time constraint of thatsalesperson, the owner, most
times going out and selling.
That's going to be.
So let's work backwards in thatbottleneck and use the time
efficiently.
(09:42):
So I think, first and foremost,a good sales system should
include a really goodqualification system, and this
isn't about being like, well, Iwant to make sure it's worth my
time.
There is that element, that'strue, but I don't think it's in
a dismissive way.
I think it's a disservice tothe homeowner and yourself to
take that time if there's reallyno chance of ever working
together?
I mean, fundamentally, I talkwith a lot of painters who don't
(10:05):
think enough aboutqualification You'll hear me
talk about this a lot becausethey end up literally at
someone's home, having drivenout there taking the time to do
it, realizing like, oh actually,this job is way too small, like
literally just too small.
Or they're asking for thingsthat are beyond our scope, like
we don't do pool coatingsbecause the default workflow for
many painters even they haveappointment centers that do it.
(10:27):
It's just like get theappointment boat, get in the
appointment schedule as soon aspossible, but I think that does
us a disservice.
You might have a higherqualification rate and more
estimate appointments, butthat's going to drag on your
close rate and, obviously, yourtime.
And so I think the first thing Iwant to talk about is how are
you qualifying your leads?
Let's take that seriously andthink about what are the
qualifying questions that arereally important to you.
(10:47):
Obviously, one's service area,the services they're asking for.
There's some other morecreative ones, which is like do
you have your own paint?
Are you looking to paintyourself?
Because that will weed out alot of people who are really
looking for someone reallyreally cheap, right?
So some of these classicqualification questions.
But a lot of painters are notasking these questions
consistently.
But I think, next fromqualification, you have this
idea of like okay, we have thatbasic information, what is the
(11:10):
process by which I get that foreither an in-home estimate or
producing an estimate from thatpoint and I think that's
oftentimes where things aremissed as well let's say it's a
husband wife duo, the wife'sbook and those appointments get
them scheduled on the calendar.
So many times there's notreally information passed along
from one party to the next.
You show up, you're asking allthe same questions.
I mean, I talk with painterswho do their own scheduling, and
(11:32):
even for themselves, right,they get the inbound call
driving from one job to the next.
They're trying to qualify thatlead.
They add them to the Googlecalendar while driving.
They don't really add anydetails.
They show up like okay, whatdid you need done?
That's a really poor salesexperience from the perspective
of the homeowners, right?
Talk with a lot of homeownersand that's a really common
frustration which is, like, Itold you everything I needed
done.
I even texted it.
I filled out the form on yourwebsite you show up, you have no
(11:53):
idea what I need done and we'respending half of our time of
the estimate just like walkingaround the house figuring out
what I need done.
So it's that process youcapture the customer's needs
Like.
Think about this in terms ofthe buying experience and the
customer experience, not justyour goals as a painter and your
time, like there's so much, butI think it does come back to
that bottleneck of the painter'stime.
So the two main things I'vetouched on so far is what is the
(12:14):
qualification and what is thelike?
Information flow from thatqualification to the point at
which you're in front of thecustomer trying to sell them.
Let's make sure we're notasking stupid questions.
I see the same question overand over or things they don't
know or language they don'tunderstand.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, yeah, the first one, so qualifying.
Do you recommend like a like Ihave it just a form when they're
going to schedule on thewebsite, where they ask those
questions like what's yourbudget or is this a partial
project?
Or do you advocate like theyshould actually call everyone
(12:49):
who schedules, or make sure youget on the phone with them and
then, like, go through a list ofquestions and talk to them, or
either way you don't care, aslong as they're doing some sort
of qualification.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
I think either way, I don't care as long as you're
doing some sort of qualification.
I think it depends on yourmarket and your business and
your tolerance of what your dropoff is going to look like, on
what you want to adopt.
I would advocate for formqualifications.
Using forms Like our softwarehas an incredible way to do
qualification.
It's very deep but even likedrip jobs has the appointment
booking screen that asks you andyou can kind of customize those
(13:19):
, and there's a lot of othersoftware that have that, whether
it's in your Squarespace siteor your WordPress Like.
Think about those questionsbecause they can do a lot for
you to filter out whethersomeone's going to be wasting
your time.
I would say I don't think it'sa good idea to have a raw
calendar or a QT schedule onyour website.
There's going to be peoplebooking further out than it's
probably ideal, going to bepeople who maybe aren't serious
(13:40):
about the project.
I don't think that's a greatidea.
I think there's good to haveanother step between that so
that you can really verify thatclient and make sure that
they're serious and that it's afit.
Fundamentally, you're notwasting each other's time.
I feel like it's Carl Utter whowrote a great book on painting
sales.
He always talks about like look, there's kind of these third
buckets overall, one third ofpeople you get in front of just
have no chance of closing.
You shouldn't be in front ofthem.
(14:00):
There's a third that are justkind of going to close.
Like even a mediocre salesperson is going to close 30%.
There's this last 30%.
That's up to you and I think ifyou have better qualification
you can weed out that firstbucket.
That's like shouldn't you be infront of them?
And that to me is just a wasteof everybody's time is to drag
on the overall industry.
That's what I really want totry to avoid for all parties
involved.
(14:21):
Okay.
But I think if you think aboutlike qualification, then hand
off and we think about that flowlike an order.
I think the next thing isproducing a price.
So there's a stat that floatsaround that if you're not
providing a bit on the spot,it's you are significantly less
likely to close.
Right, it drags your clothesdown, right, but like a full
five or six percentage points onaverage, which makes a huge
(14:41):
difference on a painter's bottomline.
But I think producing a bit onthe spot is difficult.
It's difficult if you don'thave the experience and if you
don't have a software thatsupports you.
Well, if you lean on softwareto produce it.
But it makes all the differencein the world and I found too if
you have the confidence to nothave to go out to the truck and
spend that 15 minutes to producethat bid and come back but you
can actually do it as part ofthe qualification education
process.
It's huge and the number one wayI've seen people do that really
(15:03):
well is that before they driveto their estimate they're doing
pre-work if they're using kindof traditional estimation
software.
So if you're using a drip jobsor paint scout or any of the
great software out there, right,spend the night before hopping
on Zillow or the morning beforehopping on Zillow assessing that
home.
Start the bid, get it 80% done.
You have a lot of theinformation you need.
You got the basic job breakdown.
That way you're not trying to goout to the truck copying and
(15:25):
pasting that information.
You're there, you already havekind of a ballpark in mind and
you could produce that bid andjust the couple rounding out
those last little details.
So I think really think aboutthe process by which you produce
a price and make sure that'srepeatable.
Like you know, for our pestcontrol business we could boil
it down to a price sheet.
Obviously, painting is not thatsimple.
There's more nuance in pricinga painting job and I think
(15:47):
that's important to capture thatnuance preparation more Like
there's so much nuance in it.
But I think having a strongestimation process is huge a
part of a good sales process.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah, absolutely, and I like your point about doing
the pre-work.
Doing the pre-work, obviouslyyou want to try to close on the
spot.
I think that's conventionalwisdom, even though a lot of
folks don't try to still closeon the spot, but I think most
folks are moving in thatdirection.
Yeah, I'm trying to close onthe spot, but I like the point
you made it doing the pre-workand then, so you don't have to
(16:19):
like leave and go out to the carand then, you know, spend a
bunch of time outside the homeand maybe even try to do the
quote in the home with.
And that's something that Jasonfrom Contractor Freedom, that's
something he has his sales teamdo.
He does like he has a hugesales team.
They do like 10 or 15 millionin revenue per year and so he
(16:43):
trains a sales team to actuallydo the estimate in the home.
Because then you'll have moreof those interactions with the
homeowner and their family andthey're often offered like, oh,
would you like some cookies?
Or you're kind of at thekitchen table developing that
estimate and they're kind ofhosting you almost and there's
(17:05):
just more opportunities to buildrapport and feel like you're
part of the home, sort of thing.
So I think doing that pre-work,like you said, can can allow
you to to to have more face timewith the homeowner, so you're
not like going off by yourselfand then it's weird coming back
(17:26):
in, you know, do you have toknock on the door or do you just
go right in, and so those areawkward moments there.
So I like that idea.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
And there is this huge burden off the salesperson.
Like I can speak in experience.
If you walk in with a ballparkprice in mind, you understand
their scope of work.
Like you've done that pre-work,you're going to perform better
in the actual sale.
Like the confidence, therapport building, you don't have
to focus quite as much oncounting and calculating, right,
You're just making sure whatyou're seeing is aligning with
your expectations and adjustingaccordingly and there's just a
(17:58):
world of difference when you goin with that kind of preparation
ready, ready for that close,you can focus on that
relationship instead of countingand calculating.
It goes a long way and for manycompanies I've seen the really
smart ones they have the adminside to do that pre-work of
building that bid out, right.
So when the admin is doing thatbooking, they then hop into
PaintScout or whatever they'reusing and they go build that and
(18:19):
scaffold out that bid based ona little bit of information they
have, and you'd be surprisedhow much that saves you so much
time when you're out in thefield, right?
The average estimateappointment doesn't necessarily
need to be 45 minutes an hour.
You can get it down to 20, 30minutes, still have a great
close rate and still effectivelybe closing those jobs.
And I think obviously the otherpiece, right Qualification,
handoff, that qualification, theestimation, and then obviously,
(18:40):
last but not least, is followup right.
How are you asking for the sale?
A lot of painters are kind oflike, well, this is the price.
They don't even ask, like, canwe paint your house, We'd love
to paint your house Like that'shuge ask for the sale, right.
That's more like sales tacticsI want to talk more about, like
the sales process.
But follow up right.
There's a huge percentage offollow ups that, if you stay
consistent, it's amazing howmany times those bids will
(19:01):
actually close.
You think they booked withsomeone else but then that fell
through when you actually,because of your follow up, are
able to close.
And there's a ton of ways toaccomplish that.
But I think more than anything,it's have a system, have a
playbook, who's doing it, what'sthe cadence, what's the follow
up messaging?
And something I've learned morerecently which is huge is like,
do your best to have a reason tobe following up right, Not just
like, hey, just checking in,just following up.
(19:21):
It's such a weak positioningand like there's no urgency at
all to create.
But if you can, as much aspossible create a reason to be
following up.
So it's like hey, our scheduleis filling up for March.
I know you wanted this projectdone before the end of March.
Hit me back, let's get this onthe schedule for you, Otherwise
we won't get the job in, as Iknow you need it done.
Or a more ideal one would be hey, did you ever get in touch with
Jimmy, who's the electrician onyour project?
(19:44):
You know I referred him.
Were you able to get touch withhim?
How did that work out?
Right, you have a reason tokind of connect and reconnect
with them.
Another one that I think isgreat is hey, I noticed
something on your bid.
Give me a ring and they're likeoh, what did he notice?
And it's like there's a lot ofthings you can come up with to
have noticed to be able tocreate some urgency around that
conversation.
So they're wondering is theprice still valid?
Is it going down?
Is it going up?
Like what does he need to tellme?
(20:04):
And it really has worked reallywell for me in terms of follow
up.
So think about not only thecadence, the system, who's doing
it, what's?
The content of those follow upsis really huge as well.
So I think, when I think aboutthe fundamentals of a good sales
process, those are really keypieces of that.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, and I've noticed some folks will also say
the estimate is only valid for30 or 60 days and then their
follow up campaign willbasically count down.
Like hey, just wanted to checkin with you and let you know
that you only have two weeksleft on the bid On this pricing.
Yeah, yeah.
(20:39):
So I just wanted to get youscheduled so we can move forward
or whatever.
Do you have any strong feelingsabout how long you should
follow up?
You know, especially if youhave, like some sort of
automation, like if you're usingdrip jobs or go.
Yeah, that's a great way to doit.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Hi, lillia.
There's a lot of other options.
I don't have strong ones.
I think it's good that,obviously, like, the closer to
the bid the more, and then thefrequency ramps down over time,
right, but in my opinion, Ithink about 90 days they're dead
.
If you don't have any kind ofrecurring email marketing going
on or there's not a specializedreason, the homeowner is telling
you it's scheduled for futuredate, then obviously you know, I
think about 90 days is what Iwould call dead, and I think a
(21:18):
touch point of like give or takeevery 72 hours after you send
that bid is probably about right.
If you're not doing that, it'sprobably not quite enough.
So you want to be hitting thatfor quite some time.
You know a few weeks and it'sit's.
It's funny because I thoughtthat I'd be spamming homeowners
and selling like this, but mosttimes they're very thankful,
like oh, yeah, I've been meaningto get back to this project.
I'm glad you've been bugging me.
Yeah, you got fresh on top ofmy mind, like I'm ready to move
(21:40):
forward now, right.
I do think there's also thisidea of really listening to your
customers needs through yourprocess and tailoring your
process to the customer's need.
So if their thing is.
I want to do this when my kidleaves for college in April 15th
.
You don't really have a reasonto follow up until after.
Maybe you?
Speaker 2 (21:56):
check in on.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
April 5th and it's like hey, I know that that's
coming up on the 15th.
I'll ping you back then.
Just know you're on my mind,thinking about you.
I'm eager to paint your house.
Be excited to take on theirproject.
People want to work with peoplewho are excited to take on your
project.
Right.
The phrase I love more thananything is like this job is
perfect for me and my crew.
We would love to do thisproject and homeowners like, oh
really, my house is perfect.
There's something about thatexcitement and genuine
(22:17):
enthusiasm that goes a long wayfor people realizing OK, this
guy's not just in it for themoney, there's something here
that's a good fit, and I meanthat genuinely Like.
I love doing that work andseeing the results on those
projects.
But again back to follow ups andyour sales process, tailored to
customers, needs Schedule.
The next time you're checkingin OK, great, you really need to
get another bid, no problem,when's that scheduled?
(22:38):
Great Schedule on Friday, can Icall you after they come by,
and then we can make sure tocompare apples to apples, right?
And then I think, obviously,throughout your whole sales
process, there is like thinkingabout the clothes and really
building the clothes.
That gets more into salesprocess stuff, which is a lot of
people will write great stuffthere, whether it's Hermosi or
the Carlutter guy.
There's lots of great peopleand it's like just pick that
system, though I think more thananything, the lack of a system
(22:59):
is what leads to so much bleedand marketing dollars and wasted
hours.
It's just unfortunate in theindustry.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
No, that's, that's great stuff.
So qualify, make sure yourinformation handoff is occurring
, from the capturing lead to gointo the estimate, producing a
price on the spot and also in aefficient manner, and so you're
actually prepared going in.
(23:27):
And then the last one is makingsure you're following up.
So I think that's, I thinkthose are really great pieces of
advice.
Going back to the remoteestimating process, one of the
things that I'm reallyinterested in talking to you
about is hoist and its abilityto facilitate that, because one
(23:50):
of the you know, I was in one ofEric's.
It wasn't the one at PCA, itwas one he did before that, but
he presented on to have hissales process and also the
remote piece to it.
Even though the sales processreally doesn't change when
you're doing it remotely.
It's just the technology thatyou're using is a little bit
(24:11):
different, but the core of theprocess is the same.
Like with the things that youjust mentioned, it would all be
the same, but there are somedifferences.
Obviously, you're not therephysically, so one of the
concerns that people had of theremote sales process was like
how am I going to know how bigthe surface is that I need to
(24:34):
paint so I can do my productionrates to generate the price and
I think hoist might be able tohelp with that situation.
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Yeah, absolutely.
So we built a specialized toolspecifically for remote sales
and painting.
I mean, the biggest thing andhow I stumbled on this is I've
been working for painters forover four years now, exclusively
building technology, and forabout two years we did marketing
and appointment setting forpainters all over the country.
So we worked for over a hundredpainters doing their marketing,
appointment setting for them,and we had a full in-house call
(25:06):
center marketing team so we'd beplacing those leads and
scheduling those in-homeappointments.
But we found so many times themain bottleneck was the
painter's time, like we couldget more painters, more leads,
but we couldn't get theirappointments to get them in home
.
So that was a big part of it.
But I met a couple painters inthat time who were selling over
the phone and they were doingway higher volume, like bananas
(25:27):
volume, and that's what led meto like, oh my gosh, this is so
much similar to where I was inthe pest control business back
then.
That price sheet and sellingover the phone and getting that
exponential growth and seeingthat breakthrough, not having
that bottleneck, having a betterconsumer experience it was huge
.
And so that's really what weset out to build and the main
thing is, in the paintingindustry there's a lot of great
software.
We've mentioned of a couple ofthem today and there's a ton of
(25:48):
ways to get leads.
At this point it's almostcommoditized.
That's why we got out of thatbusiness specifically right.
Tons of ways to get leads andthere's a lot of ways to even
produce a bid pretty well and alot of ways to drip jobs like
follow up on bid process, do jobcosting and more, like great
production tools, huge tools outthere, and there's CRMs.
They do exist right For thefollow ups and more.
But there's this really messyslice.
(26:09):
And the messy slice forpainters is I have a lead, I
need to gather the needs fromthat customer, build rapport and
get them to a point where I canproduce a price and get enough
information from that customerthat I can accurately produce a
price.
And the way that I solve thatproblem right now, as the
average painter is I drive, Ischedule time with the customer,
which customer doesn't want todo.
They don't want to meet withyou for the vast majority of the
(26:30):
time.
They just want to get to aprice right.
You're one of many vendorsthey're just trying to get a
price.
So I have to schedule with ahomeowner, which takes its own
heavy lifting to do, and I loseleads because I can't get on the
schedule with some people.
Then I need to drive to theirhouse, which is going to take 30
to 45 minutes, maybe longer,depending on if you're a spread
out area.
Then I walk around eyeballingthe rooms and I have either the
(26:51):
notes in my phone is most commonwhat people use or a pen and
paper and I'm kind of jottingdown right, they got two small
bedrooms, they want repainted,they got a big kitchen and a
breakfast nook, right.
Oftentimes I'm not evenmeasuring, I'm eyeballing, maybe
chicken scratching a couple ofsquare footages down, and then
from there I take that stuff andeither we'll go out to my truck
, read that, hop in thosenumbers, ballpark the square
(27:12):
footage and produce as many comeback.
So that slice, though, ofdriving to the home just to
gather with the home that weneed two things we need the
information about the home,right.
What's the makeup of this home?
What's the condition of thehome Like?
When was it last painted?
What are the surfaces look like?
And then, obviously, what workdoes the homeowner need?
Done that I provide?
So sure they need new floorsand they need all this other
(27:32):
stuff.
But what can I actually provideas a company?
I can do the paint and I can dothis couple drywall repairs.
They've got going on right andso, if you think about it like,
that's actually the only twopieces of information I need.
Now there's other bigger issuesof sales process that need to be
solved for that.
We talked about Qualification,handoff, their sales, even
tactics around rapportabilityand more that are essential.
I'm not saying those need to goaway, but that specific piece
(27:54):
of just gathering the needs fromthe homeowner and data about
the home.
That's what we solve for andthat's where we fit and that's
what this tool is.
So we do that in a couple ways.
First and foremost, we haveincredible data like no one else
, about the interior of homes.
So we have room by room squarefootage and room makeup for
every home in America.
So our algorithms and data setsget you 90% accuracy.
(28:15):
You give me a home, you give mean address and I'll tell you
that kitchen square footage willbe X.
We have that within 90%accuracy.
So that one data point alone ishuge right.
And we combine that with ourqualification process, which we
use these lead forms to qualifycustomers.
You know it's similar to likeyou would have a Calendly
booking on your website.
You put it on your website.
You can also share individually, text it to them if you get an
(28:37):
inbound Lots of different waysyou can share it.
But it's basically a dynamic setof questions that starts at
their address, augments a bunchof data against it and then ask
some really smart questions thatare tailored to what they need
done.
So, for example, they entertheir address at auto completes
for the Google right and then itpulls in.
It's a three bedroom, twobathroom house.
(28:57):
It's 2200 square feet.
It was built in this year.
It pulls that stuff downautomatically.
Then it asks is it a fullrepaint, partial repaint,
exterior cabinetry?
What are you looking to havedone at your house?
And then, depending on the datawe get and the answers of the
homeowner, this is a dynamicqualification form and so for
them it takes maybe two minutes.
They don't have to measureanything At the end of that
(29:18):
process.
They have completely builttheir estimate for you.
It's done.
They don't see that priceinstantly.
Your phone then pops up and Hoysays hey, you have a new
customer who wants a bid.
Here's the price based on yourlabor rates and labor standards
based on the geometry.
We know the home.
Here's the actual price thatyou could ship it out and here's
why we're confident in thatprice and what the information
is.
Now obviously it's not going tobe for every single home and
(29:40):
every single project.
I would not recommend,especially where the industry is
at right now, that everybodysells remote overnight.
The way Eric is Awesome.
I have so much respect.
He's really pushing thefrontier forward.
It's incredible.
But I feel like overnightthere's no reason you should be
driving to any job below $3,000.
That's if you think about yourtime you're investing and how
much drag that is in your salesprocess.
(30:00):
It doesn't make sense Closethat job remotely.
Focus on the really heavyhitter job.
Spend more time in person withthose customers.
Let's make sure your windshieldtime really makes sense and
then if you actually unlock thisremote sales process that we
have in Hoist, you have thisopportunity to run small jobs
really profitably because you'renot sinking six hours.
When you think about the twohours on average to deliver
(30:21):
price with around a 35% closerate, that's like six hours to
win one job.
Are you really going to spendsix hours to win a $1,200
repaint?
No, but if you can win thatwithout investing any of that
upfront time 10, 15 minutesreviewing a bid and sending it
over that could make a ton ofsense for your business
economically.
So that's what we built, how itworks in practice and some of
our technology.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Now that's really, that's game changing.
I think the good.
Because when I'm looking atfinancials I'm looking for folks
that have an average job sizeof 5,000 to 10,000.
And if they have a lower jobsize I'm like, okay, well,
that's not good, you're probablyundercharging or you're just
going after too many small jobsand you're spending too much
(31:02):
time closing it and deal withthe production and their margins
are usually bad.
But with this, if you can just,like you said, send them a form,
they fill it out and you didn'thave to really do any work, you
get the bid back and you say,okay, well, it's only a $2,000
(31:25):
job, I'm not gonna go out and dothe full sales process.
You know, maybe have a phonecall or some abbreviated process
and but I'm gonna give them thebid still and that's gonna cut,
you know, save me a few hoursof work and so you could, like
you said, still produce thatprofitably.
But then if you get a larger,if they fill out that form, you
(31:46):
know, okay, this is a fivethousand, six thousand, ten
thousand dollar job.
Okay, definitely gonna do thefull sales process with them and
do the walk around and and bethere in person and spend that
extra time.
So I think that's that's areally powerful tool that you
can.
You can serve that underservedmarket of you know, the folks
(32:07):
wanting, you know just a partialpaint Of their home or whatever
it is.
It's also we found like you.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Like you said it, we found it super underserved
because of that dynamic you'retalking about and there's
actually opportunity for someincredible margins on some of
these tiny jobs.
Right, like really incrediblemargins, because Oftentimes
they're not even getting secondbids because painters just turn
them down.
Now your property to roomrepaint, just turn them down
where we're able to sell thoseremotely at a huge profit margin
(32:34):
.
They're actually turn outpretty, pretty incredible for us
.
Now, I don't get too hung up onthe small job component because
that's only one piece.
I think for most paintersthey'll want to actually avoid
those jobs, maybe not even sellthem remotely, which is fine.
I think what I'm advocatingmore than anything is really
good qualification and salesprocesses that take the busy
work out of everything and makesure you know before you go if
(32:54):
this makes sense right, like,for example, the way that we're
running it.
I sell paint work right.
Obviously the way we're runningit is I come through, leads
Come through.
We just explain.
We want to make this as quickand painless for you as possible
.
I'm gonna shoot you a linktakes two minutes for you to
complete and after that for mostbids we might not have to do an
in-home estimate, 90% ofinbound leads fill out that form
(33:14):
.
For our company 90%, and so wehave huge uptake and there is.
There is a drop-off, though Ithink it's important to call out
.
And so for those 10% who don'twant to fill it out, we can
still run our standard estimateprocess.
It doesn't like mean the leadsgone and if they balkers with
great, no problem, we can getover there.
We still do our similarqualification process, but we
don't get that same advantage.
But obviously that's a choiceyou can make in terms of intent.
(33:36):
But from there, right, there'sthat piece of.
We see that lead come in and wesee that house is built in the
20s, it's in that historicregion, it's got a ton of
decorative work to done.
All right, this is an in-personestimate.
Right, we follow up.
Maybe we give a soft range.
No, we're thinking this isgonna be like an 18,000 dollar
job.
This is a huge house, historichome.
I want to make sure to do thisright and, before we even drive
out, right, we have thatinformation.
(33:57):
And so I think, more thananything, regardless of my
software built, which is prettyawesome I think I'm really
advocating for really goodqualification and sales process,
regardless of whether you're,you know, dabbling in remote or
whether that's in person.
I think there's just hugeopportunity there we're leaving
on the table.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Yeah, no, that's.
This is awesome.
That's really good.
And, how you know, we talkedabout data handoff.
Does hoist do anything to helpwith that, that data handoff
between softwares if you'reusing CRM or whatever?
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Yeah, so we're still we're pretty early in our
journey, so we haven't built anyintegrations yet, but we're
talking with our first userslike okay, what are the
integrations we really need?
What does that look like interms of handoff?
But if you use hoist in avacuum, just in itself it's
incredible handoff for the pieceof the sales process we're
talking about.
So the qualified lead comes in,you walk up to the house and
you have all the information onthat home.
(34:47):
You know every single room,room size and what needs to be
done in every single room, andyou know the price already, like
you're ready to go and sharethat proposal straight out of
hoist.
So in terms of that handoff,it's incredibly tight and clean.
Now we probably have work to doto think about.
You know we have a zapperintegration for getting leads
into hoist, so if you're gettingleads from anywhere, you can
just have them automaticallydump into hoist, which is huge.
(35:08):
So even if you kind of use itas a sales copilot for any of
your lead sources, you nevereven had your homeowners fill
out those leads.
You're getting all that dataaugmented about every home
before you even go.
So it helps you kind of do thatprep work that we discussed
automatically.
You don't have to sit on Zillowand think about it and write it
down, it just all puts it allin one place.
So I forgot the originalquestion.
(35:28):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Dina handoff.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
Yeah, that's that we designed it front to back to
really solve the handoff betweeninbound lead all the way to the
one estimate.
Now I think there's more workwe could do for like okay, Do we
then trigger back to the CRMafter the estimates one?
How do we kick that off intosomething like drip jobs or
paint scouts to handleproduction and jobs gossing?
We haven't gotten there yet,but we're eager to explore that
as well.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Cool.
No, but that's good that theyou have Zapier integration.
So if Angie, if you have anAngie Lee, come in, it can go
plug that information into intohoist.
It sounds like and to talk.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Exactly a lot of our painters do that and to talk
about that example for a secondThumbtack is a use case.
That's really crazy.
Same with Angie's, where, ifyou're the homeowner, think
about it for a second.
You Google Paint my house andyou see an ad that says cost to
paint your house.
You click on it, you fill outthe Angie thing and all of a
sudden your phone is ringingwith people who want to get in
person.
Actually, what I wanted was aprice, and if you're the one
(36:23):
painter reaching out that says,hey, you know what, instead of
scheduling in home, just taketwo minutes, I can get you a
price.
The qualification rates ifyou're on these paid aggregators
like this are way higher usingthis approach, because that's
really that customer isdigitally native.
They're looking for a price.
They're more trying to drop byfrom that perspective, and the
number one way you build trustwith someone there is Starting
(36:44):
the conversation with a price assoon as possible.
That's that kind of consumer is.
What they're looking for is aprice.
It doesn't mean it has to bethe lowest price either.
I want to be clear just sellingthat price and beginning that
process doesn't remove yourquality and differentiator.
As a painter, it's reallyimportant to talk about the
overall sales process and whatthat fits into and how the idea
(37:04):
of a price builds trust right.
Tesla isn't selling the cheapestcars by any margin, but they
just put that price in thewebsite.
That has not created a race tothe bottom for them and just
this inevitability is coming.
Like homeowners more and morewant this.
Like Since Amazon hit itsstride 10 years ago, things we
never imagined being sold onlineor sold online car insurance.
I remember when I was in highschool I literally went to the
(37:25):
guy's office and we sat down.
I gave him my report card toget my car insurance mattresses
70% last year was sold online by65 year old dad bought his
mattress online like a Amattress and like that is the
trend.
That's where it's going andhomeowners are changing quick
and I think that's a while tillit really trickles down to home
services.
But it will go there and Ithink it's important we get
(37:47):
ahead of that in a way that'sreally sustainable and that we
as painters own ourselves,instead of a large company
coming in and taking this allfrom us.
In some sense, I I thinkthere's a really unique
opportunity in window forpainters to evolve with
homeowner needs, serve thembetter, really optimize our time
and just make the industry somuch better.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Yeah, no, that's excellent.
I'm excited.
Where do I sign up?
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Yeah, happy to.
So it's with hoist comm toanswer your question.
W I T H O I S T comm.
You can email me at John J Whnat with hoist comm to.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Okay, cool.
So if you are interested instreamlining your lead
qualification process andPotentially dabbling in remote
sales or not, but just lookingto streamline your, your
qualification process and yourestimating process To get those,
those online leads, convertedto sales, definitely check out
with voice comm.
(38:40):
I appreciate your time today,john.
Any last words or words ofadvice or anything else you want
to ask of the audience?
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Not at all.
Thanks so much for your timeand thank you for all the work
you do to help push thisindustry forward.
It's amazing to be on the show.
Thanks everyone, yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Alright, thanks, john , and with that, we'll see you
next week.
Welcome to the profitable painter podcast.
The mission of this podcast issimple To help you navigate the
financial and tax aspects ofstarting, running and scaling a
professional painting business,from the brushes and ladders to
the spreadsheets and balancesheets.
We've got you covered.
But before we dive in, a quickword of caution.
While we strive to provideaccurate and up-to-date
financial and tax information,nothing you hear on this podcast
(00:22):
should be considered asfinancial advice specifically
for you or your business.
We're here to share generalknowledge and experiences, not
to replace the tailored adviceyou get from a professional
financial advisor or taxconsultant.
We strongly recommend youseeking individualized advice
before making any significantfinancial decisions.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
This is Daniel, the founder of Bookkeeping for
Painters, and today I'm herewith John, Jacob, john and Grew
and sold his third generationhome services company.
From there, he started buildingtechnology for home services.
He's the founder of Hoist, asales app that lets painters win
more jobs in less time.
How's it going, John?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
It's going great.
Happy to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, I'm super excited to have you.
Can you tell me the story ofyour journey with the third
generation home services companyand what led you to sell it?
Can you kind of yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
I grew up in home services.
Like I said, my grandpa starteda company back in the early 60s
.
Actually, my dad ran it foryears.
I remember every summer workingin the office with my parents
and even running in the fieldwith my dad very involved in the
family business.
But I was always kind of thecoder kid, the kid up in his
room on his computer, not reallygoing to be in the family
business, Always my big brotherwho's going to take it over?
(01:35):
But he took it over and herealized how much they sorely
needed some technology solutions.
There were still pen and paper,everything, the entire company
running six routes, runningroute sheets back and forth.
It was just crazy.
They didn't accept credit cards, there was no website and more
Around 2013, my brother Iremember this text I got he's
like, hey, you want to help mewith the family business, Like
let's really do this thing.
(01:56):
And it was awesome because Icame in and worked with my
brother and within two years wemore than doubled the business.
We took it from six routes to10 routes in the LA area.
It was in pest control at thetime and it was just amazing.
That experience was sotransformative for me of just
realizing how much opportunitythere is in home services with
just some good technology put inplace, and it was just an
awesome experience growing thatfamily business.
(02:17):
It was a whirlwind selling thatbusiness and my parents got a
great retirement out of it.
And then from there I was ableto leverage that experience and
that passion and knowledge andraise some money in venture
capital and start buildingsoftware for home services and
then stumbled into painting aswell.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, I think a lot of people poo-poo the idea of
the trades.
Everyone listening probablyknows that the trades there's
riches there, for sure.
People make millions in thetrades and I think a lot of
people don't realize that.
I think we're starting torealize that as a society where
all these kids went to collegeand got liberal arts degrees and
(02:58):
they now don't have any jobs,they don't have anything.
Now they're maybe trying to geta job as a painter or something
, but if you're so we've kind ofSociety kind of forgot.
Oh yeah, you could actuallyhave Go to trade school, you
should go to trade school,actually get your hands dirty
and actually work for a living.
(03:19):
But I think that's starting tocome back around and realize
people are realizing oh, I canactually make some money at this
and so that's awesome.
So you guys basically went intoyour parents' company and
installed some technology andsystematized it and doubled it
in one year.
(03:39):
Is that what you said?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah, In the course of two years we doubled that
basis and sold it yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Okay Nice.
Was that the goal starting outlike hey, we want to build it to
sell, or did that just kind ofnaturally happen?
Speaker 3 (03:51):
You know it wasn't the goal.
In fact my brother and I werelike let's kind of do this
forever.
But to be totally honest, theongoing tension of running a
family business, kind of the oldguard versus the new guard, was
not something we thought wouldkeep our families' Thanksgiving
still tasting good and be ableto really push that business as
far as it needed to go.
And so we kind of all sat downthe table like what's the best
course of action here, given thedifferences of just running a
(04:12):
family business?
There's difficulty and we sawthat growth curve that we had
built and saw a greatopportunity to sell and we took
advantage of it.
We're glad we did.
In hindsight I think it was agood move for that business Cool
.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
So what were the?
You were helping installtechnology in processes.
What processes did you reallyhelp install in that business to
kind of get it to that level?
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Yeah.
So when I came in I didn't havea ton of experience directly in
the field.
So I had all the technology,marketing kind of sales
experience more coming to thetable or to corporate job, and
so we immediately broke up thebusiness.
It's like, okay, I'm going tobe office manager, you be field
manager.
Like that's anything thathappens out there you handle
that, anything that happens inthe office I'll handle.
Of course there's some overlapand so immediately right, they
had a computer system that theyweren't fully utilizing.
(04:58):
They had redundancies oneverything, which is pretty
common trend.
I hear some older businessesstill running, right, they're
like, oh well, we do the bitwhen voices online, but we make
sure to print everything andfile it as well.
It's like, okay, let's reducethese redundancies.
We have a computer system,let's actually use it.
But there was, you know, theobvious ones of overnight,
pretty much after I came in, wefound a field service management
(05:18):
software that allowed all ofour field reps to have iPads.
So we're no longer usingphysical route sheets, right?
So I was like number one let'sget everybody away from physical
route sheets, get one real-timedispatch using iPads out in the
field.
Like it's such a no-brainer andsuch huge efficiencies there.
Number two was just literallyan online presence.
There was kind of a website butno real SEO strategy, no real
(05:38):
approach there.
And in 2015, which actually2013 when I was there, but 2013
to 2015, there was so muchopportunity in SEO by just
taking it a little bit seriouslyin SEO.
I think more people have comearound to that.
But man did that do wonders forus, just making sure we had a
website with consistent contenton it.
We had some authority built.
It just went so long.
I think obviously we did a lotaround.
(05:59):
Where I put a lot of work in isaround our sales processes.
So when I came on there was noreal commercial division to
speak of and I was able to standup the sales processes for
commercial and close theWestfield malls in Southern
California, which was hugecustomers for us, punching way
above our weight for afamily-owned business like us
had some real commercial clientscome in, which was huge.
But I think the other piece wasaround and this is really part
(06:20):
of what the insights was thatled to Hoist is we just came up
with standardized price sheetsfor most of our services on the
residential side and for us,when we had been doing only
in-home estimates for everythingwe did when we actually had the
opportunity to sell over thephone.
It was exponential in terms ofour growth and just overall
efficiency.
So on a busy week we'd struggleto get reps out there to do
(06:41):
estimates.
So customers were waiting two,three days.
Often it was frustrating forfield reps trying to do their
other stuff when they couldn'tget that in.
Worse the close rate was like30%.
So we'd spend nearly two hourspricing a lead just to get told
we're too expensive or it wasn'ta fit.
It was constant frustrationfrom homeowners, us all the
sides.
So I sat down with my brother,forced ourselves like okay,
we're literally going to, kindof Steve Jobs style, draw a grid
(07:02):
here.
What are the nine products wesell for residential and how do
we make sure to fit into thatand come up with a pricing model
that works?
So we really hit the books anddid that.
But committing to that pricesheet for us, which was ended up
being more than nine grid Ithink you had like 16 boxes on
it that kind of fell into.
But committing to thatstandardized pricing for us did
wonders in terms of the overallsales efficiencies, close rates
(07:22):
and more and just shifting theprimary sales method to phone
sales for that business, whichwe were in pest control, by the
way.
I don't know if I mentionedthat, but shifting that primary
sales method to phone sales forour pest control business,
that's really what unlocked ourgrowth more than anything else,
and just overall efficiencies.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah, that's something I've started to see a
little bit more as folksactually trying out remote sales
for their painting business.
Eric, he runs a marketingcompany, pathfinder, but he also
has a painting business.
That's something that he's beentesting and publicly sharing on
social media, so it seemspretty interesting.
(08:01):
I think there's more interestin that now and then people are
realizing oh, this can actuallybe.
An effective strategy is to,like you said, not go out and
spend two hours on someone whowas just tire kicking, where you
could have just saved yourselfthat two hours and called them
(08:21):
from the office or from wherever, or hopped on Zoom.
I think Eric is doing Zoomcalls.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, he's doing Zoom calls.
Eric has great stuff, by theway.
I attended his PCA breakoutsession on remote sales.
It was awesome and he's got allkinds of good stuff.
I was going to make sure toshout him out, because he's
really pushing this space reallyfar.
Some great thoughts on it aswell.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah, so what are some of the things that you've
learned either from what makesan effective sales process or
lead qualification, what are thekey components that you think
that some folks are missing orwhat you found has really worked
?
Speaker 3 (08:58):
I think that's really the right question because it's
not about are we sellingremotely and what that is.
That's kind of a whole topic initself.
But if you zoom out for asecond, it's about having a
really strong pricing systemthat's consistent, repeatable
and a strong sales process.
So what is that sales processfor you and your business?
And maybe that includes someremote stuff, but maybe it's
just better qualification.
So I think, first and foremost,let's make sure to use our time
(09:21):
efficiently.
For most people listening tothis show, the time constraint
is going to be the mainbottleneck, not necessarily lead
volume.
You can go buy more leads.
You can spend more money andget more leads in the door.
There's possibilities to dothat, but oftentimes it's the
time constraint of thatsalesperson, the owner, most
times going out and selling.
That's going to be.
So let's work backwards in thatbottleneck and use the time
efficiently.
(09:42):
So I think, first and foremost,a good sales system should
include a really goodqualification system, and this
isn't about being like, well, Iwant to make sure it's worth my
time.
There is that element, that'strue, but I don't think it's in
a dismissive way.
I think it's a disservice tothe homeowner and yourself to
take that time if there's reallyno chance of ever working
together?
I mean, fundamentally, I talkwith a lot of painters who don't
(10:05):
think enough aboutqualification You'll hear me
talk about this a lot becausethey end up literally at
someone's home, having drivenout there taking the time to do
it, realizing like, oh actually,this job is way too small, like
literally just too small.
Or they're asking for thingsthat are beyond our scope, like
we don't do pool coatingsbecause the default workflow for
many painters even they haveappointment centers that do it.
(10:27):
It's just like get theappointment boat, get in the
appointment schedule as soon aspossible, but I think that does
us a disservice.
You might have a higherqualification rate and more
estimate appointments, butthat's going to drag on your
close rate and, obviously, yourtime.
And so I think the first thing Iwant to talk about is how are
you qualifying your leads?
Let's take that seriously andthink about what are the
qualifying questions that arereally important to you.
(10:47):
Obviously, one's service area,the services they're asking for.
There's some other morecreative ones, which is like do
you have your own paint?
Are you looking to paintyourself?
Because that will weed out alot of people who are really
looking for someone reallyreally cheap, right?
So some of these classicqualification questions.
But a lot of painters are notasking these questions
consistently.
But I think, next fromqualification, you have this
idea of like okay, we have thatbasic information, what is the
(11:10):
process by which I get that foreither an in-home estimate or
producing an estimate from thatpoint and I think that's
oftentimes where things aremissed as well let's say it's a
husband wife duo, the wife'sbook and those appointments get
them scheduled on the calendar.
So many times there's notreally information passed along
from one party to the next.
You show up, you're asking allthe same questions.
I mean, I talk with painterswho do their own scheduling, and
(11:32):
even for themselves, right,they get the inbound call
driving from one job to the next.
They're trying to qualify thatlead.
They add them to the Googlecalendar while driving.
They don't really add anydetails.
They show up like okay, whatdid you need done?
That's a really poor salesexperience from the perspective
of the homeowners, right?
Talk with a lot of homeownersand that's a really common
frustration which is, like, Itold you everything I needed
done.
I even texted it.
I filled out the form on yourwebsite you show up, you have no
(11:53):
idea what I need done and we'respending half of our time of
the estimate just like walkingaround the house figuring out
what I need done.
So it's that process youcapture the customer's needs
Like.
Think about this in terms ofthe buying experience and the
customer experience, not justyour goals as a painter and your
time, like there's so much, butI think it does come back to
that bottleneck of the painter'stime.
So the two main things I'vetouched on so far is what is the
(12:14):
qualification and what is thelike?
Information flow from thatqualification to the point at
which you're in front of thecustomer trying to sell them.
Let's make sure we're notasking stupid questions.
I see the same question overand over or things they don't
know or language they don'tunderstand.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, yeah, the first one, so qualifying.
Do you recommend like a like Ihave it just a form when they're
going to schedule on thewebsite, where they ask those
questions like what's yourbudget or is this a partial
project?
Or do you advocate like theyshould actually call everyone
(12:49):
who schedules, or make sure youget on the phone with them and
then, like, go through a list ofquestions and talk to them, or
either way you don't care, aslong as they're doing some sort
of qualification.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
I think either way, I don't care as long as you're
doing some sort of qualification.
I think it depends on yourmarket and your business and
your tolerance of what your dropoff is going to look like, on
what you want to adopt.
I would advocate for formqualifications.
Using forms Like our softwarehas an incredible way to do
qualification.
It's very deep but even likedrip jobs has the appointment
booking screen that asks you andyou can kind of customize those
(13:19):
, and there's a lot of othersoftware that have that, whether
it's in your Squarespace siteor your WordPress Like.
Think about those questionsbecause they can do a lot for
you to filter out whethersomeone's going to be wasting
your time.
I would say I don't think it'sa good idea to have a raw
calendar or a QT schedule onyour website.
There's going to be peoplebooking further out than it's
probably ideal, going to bepeople who maybe aren't serious
(13:40):
about the project.
I don't think that's a greatidea.
I think there's good to haveanother step between that so
that you can really verify thatclient and make sure that
they're serious and that it's afit.
Fundamentally, you're notwasting each other's time.
I feel like it's Carl Utter whowrote a great book on painting
sales.
He always talks about like look, there's kind of these third
buckets overall, one third ofpeople you get in front of just
have no chance of closing.
You shouldn't be in front ofthem.
(14:00):
There's a third that are justkind of going to close.
Like even a mediocre salesperson is going to close 30%.
There's this last 30%.
That's up to you and I think ifyou have better qualification
you can weed out that firstbucket.
That's like shouldn't you be infront of them?
And that to me is just a wasteof everybody's time is to drag
on the overall industry.
That's what I really want totry to avoid for all parties
involved.
(14:21):
Okay.
But I think if you think aboutlike qualification, then hand
off and we think about that flowlike an order.
I think the next thing isproducing a price.
So there's a stat that floatsaround that if you're not
providing a bit on the spot,it's you are significantly less
likely to close.
Right, it drags your clothesdown, right, but like a full
five or six percentage points onaverage, which makes a huge
(14:41):
difference on a painter's bottomline.
But I think producing a bit onthe spot is difficult.
It's difficult if you don'thave the experience and if you
don't have a software thatsupports you.
Well, if you lean on softwareto produce it.
But it makes all the differencein the world and I found too if
you have the confidence to nothave to go out to the truck and
spend that 15 minutes to producethat bid and come back but you
can actually do it as part ofthe qualification education
process.
It's huge and the number one wayI've seen people do that really
(15:03):
well is that before they driveto their estimate they're doing
pre-work if they're using kindof traditional estimation
software.
So if you're using a drip jobsor paint scout or any of the
great software out there, right,spend the night before hopping
on Zillow or the morning beforehopping on Zillow assessing that
home.
Start the bid, get it 80% done.
You have a lot of theinformation you need.
You got the basic job breakdown.
That way you're not trying to goout to the truck copying and
(15:25):
pasting that information.
You're there, you already havekind of a ballpark in mind and
you could produce that bid andjust the couple rounding out
those last little details.
So I think really think aboutthe process by which you produce
a price and make sure that'srepeatable.
Like you know, for our pestcontrol business we could boil
it down to a price sheet.
Obviously, painting is not thatsimple.
There's more nuance in pricinga painting job and I think
(15:47):
that's important to capture thatnuance preparation more Like
there's so much nuance in it.
But I think having a strongestimation process is huge a
part of a good sales process.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah, absolutely, and I like your point about doing
the pre-work.
Doing the pre-work, obviouslyyou want to try to close on the
spot.
I think that's conventionalwisdom, even though a lot of
folks don't try to still closeon the spot, but I think most
folks are moving in thatdirection.
Yeah, I'm trying to close onthe spot, but I like the point
you made it doing the pre-workand then, so you don't have to
(16:19):
like leave and go out to the carand then, you know, spend a
bunch of time outside the homeand maybe even try to do the
quote in the home with.
And that's something that Jasonfrom Contractor Freedom, that's
something he has his sales teamdo.
He does like he has a hugesales team.
They do like 10 or 15 millionin revenue per year and so he
(16:43):
trains a sales team to actuallydo the estimate in the home.
Because then you'll have moreof those interactions with the
homeowner and their family andthey're often offered like, oh,
would you like some cookies?
Or you're kind of at thekitchen table developing that
estimate and they're kind ofhosting you almost and there's
(17:05):
just more opportunities to buildrapport and feel like you're
part of the home, sort of thing.
So I think doing that pre-work,like you said, can can allow
you to to to have more face timewith the homeowner, so you're
not like going off by yourselfand then it's weird coming back
(17:26):
in, you know, do you have toknock on the door or do you just
go right in, and so those areawkward moments there.
So I like that idea.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
And there is this huge burden off the salesperson.
Like I can speak in experience.
If you walk in with a ballparkprice in mind, you understand
their scope of work.
Like you've done that pre-work,you're going to perform better
in the actual sale.
Like the confidence, therapport building, you don't have
to focus quite as much oncounting and calculating, right,
You're just making sure whatyou're seeing is aligning with
your expectations and adjustingaccordingly and there's just a
(17:58):
world of difference when you goin with that kind of preparation
ready, ready for that close,you can focus on that
relationship instead of countingand calculating.
It goes a long way and for manycompanies I've seen the really
smart ones they have the adminside to do that pre-work of
building that bid out, right.
So when the admin is doing thatbooking, they then hop into
PaintScout or whatever they'reusing and they go build that and
(18:19):
scaffold out that bid based ona little bit of information they
have, and you'd be surprisedhow much that saves you so much
time when you're out in thefield, right?
The average estimateappointment doesn't necessarily
need to be 45 minutes an hour.
You can get it down to 20, 30minutes, still have a great
close rate and still effectivelybe closing those jobs.
And I think obviously the otherpiece, right Qualification,
handoff, that qualification, theestimation, and then obviously,
(18:40):
last but not least, is followup right.
How are you asking for the sale?
A lot of painters are kind oflike, well, this is the price.
They don't even ask, like, canwe paint your house, We'd love
to paint your house Like that'shuge ask for the sale, right.
That's more like sales tacticsI want to talk more about, like
the sales process.
But follow up right.
There's a huge percentage offollow ups that, if you stay
consistent, it's amazing howmany times those bids will
(19:01):
actually close.
You think they booked withsomeone else but then that fell
through when you actually,because of your follow up, are
able to close.
And there's a ton of ways toaccomplish that.
But I think more than anything,it's have a system, have a
playbook, who's doing it, what'sthe cadence, what's the follow
up messaging?
And something I've learned morerecently which is huge is like,
do your best to have a reason tobe following up right, Not just
like, hey, just checking in,just following up.
(19:21):
It's such a weak positioningand like there's no urgency at
all to create.
But if you can, as much aspossible create a reason to be
following up.
So it's like hey, our scheduleis filling up for March.
I know you wanted this projectdone before the end of March.
Hit me back, let's get this onthe schedule for you, Otherwise
we won't get the job in, as Iknow you need it done.
Or a more ideal one would be hey, did you ever get in touch with
Jimmy, who's the electrician onyour project?
(19:44):
You know I referred him.
Were you able to get touch withhim?
How did that work out?
Right, you have a reason tokind of connect and reconnect
with them.
Another one that I think isgreat is hey, I noticed
something on your bid.
Give me a ring and they're likeoh, what did he notice?
And it's like there's a lot ofthings you can come up with to
have noticed to be able tocreate some urgency around that
conversation.
So they're wondering is theprice still valid?
Is it going down?
Is it going up?
Like what does he need to tellme?
(20:04):
And it really has worked reallywell for me in terms of follow
up.
So think about not only thecadence, the system, who's doing
it, what's?
The content of those follow upsis really huge as well.
So I think, when I think aboutthe fundamentals of a good sales
process, those are really keypieces of that.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, and I've noticed some folks will also say
the estimate is only valid for30 or 60 days and then their
follow up campaign willbasically count down.
Like hey, just wanted to checkin with you and let you know
that you only have two weeksleft on the bid On this pricing.
Yeah, yeah.
(20:39):
So I just wanted to get youscheduled so we can move forward
or whatever.
Do you have any strong feelingsabout how long you should
follow up?
You know, especially if youhave, like some sort of
automation, like if you're usingdrip jobs or go.
Yeah, that's a great way to doit.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Hi, lillia.
There's a lot of other options.
I don't have strong ones.
I think it's good that,obviously, like, the closer to
the bid the more, and then thefrequency ramps down over time,
right, but in my opinion, Ithink about 90 days they're dead
.
If you don't have any kind ofrecurring email marketing going
on or there's not a specializedreason, the homeowner is telling
you it's scheduled for futuredate, then obviously you know, I
think about 90 days is what Iwould call dead, and I think a
(21:18):
touch point of like give or takeevery 72 hours after you send
that bid is probably about right.
If you're not doing that, it'sprobably not quite enough.
So you want to be hitting thatfor quite some time.
You know a few weeks and it'sit's.
It's funny because I thoughtthat I'd be spamming homeowners
and selling like this, but mosttimes they're very thankful,
like oh, yeah, I've been meaningto get back to this project.
I'm glad you've been bugging me.
Yeah, you got fresh on top ofmy mind, like I'm ready to move
(21:40):
forward now, right.
I do think there's also thisidea of really listening to your
customers needs through yourprocess and tailoring your
process to the customer's need.
So if their thing is.
I want to do this when my kidleaves for college in April 15th
.
You don't really have a reasonto follow up until after.
Maybe you?
Speaker 2 (21:56):
check in on.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
April 5th and it's like hey, I know that that's
coming up on the 15th.
I'll ping you back then.
Just know you're on my mind,thinking about you.
I'm eager to paint your house.
Be excited to take on theirproject.
People want to work with peoplewho are excited to take on your
project.
Right.
The phrase I love more thananything is like this job is
perfect for me and my crew.
We would love to do thisproject and homeowners like, oh
really, my house is perfect.
There's something about thatexcitement and genuine
(22:17):
enthusiasm that goes a long wayfor people realizing OK, this
guy's not just in it for themoney, there's something here
that's a good fit, and I meanthat genuinely Like.
I love doing that work andseeing the results on those
projects.
But again back to follow ups andyour sales process, tailored to
customers, needs Schedule.
The next time you're checkingin OK, great, you really need to
get another bid, no problem,when's that scheduled?
(22:38):
Great Schedule on Friday, can Icall you after they come by,
and then we can make sure tocompare apples to apples, right?
And then I think, obviously,throughout your whole sales
process, there is like thinkingabout the clothes and really
building the clothes.
That gets more into salesprocess stuff, which is a lot of
people will write great stuffthere, whether it's Hermosi or
the Carlutter guy.
There's lots of great peopleand it's like just pick that
system, though I think more thananything, the lack of a system
(22:59):
is what leads to so much bleedand marketing dollars and wasted
hours.
It's just unfortunate in theindustry.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
No, that's, that's great stuff.
So qualify, make sure yourinformation handoff is occurring
, from the capturing lead to gointo the estimate, producing a
price on the spot and also in aefficient manner, and so you're
actually prepared going in.
(23:27):
And then the last one is makingsure you're following up.
So I think that's, I thinkthose are really great pieces of
advice.
Going back to the remoteestimating process, one of the
things that I'm reallyinterested in talking to you
about is hoist and its abilityto facilitate that, because one
(23:50):
of the you know, I was in one ofEric's.
It wasn't the one at PCA, itwas one he did before that, but
he presented on to have hissales process and also the
remote piece to it.
Even though the sales processreally doesn't change when
you're doing it remotely.
It's just the technology thatyou're using is a little bit
(24:11):
different, but the core of theprocess is the same.
Like with the things that youjust mentioned, it would all be
the same, but there are somedifferences.
Obviously, you're not therephysically, so one of the
concerns that people had of theremote sales process was like
how am I going to know how bigthe surface is that I need to
(24:34):
paint so I can do my productionrates to generate the price and
I think hoist might be able tohelp with that situation.
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Yeah, absolutely.
So we built a specialized toolspecifically for remote sales
and painting.
I mean, the biggest thing andhow I stumbled on this is I've
been working for painters forover four years now, exclusively
building technology, and forabout two years we did marketing
and appointment setting forpainters all over the country.
So we worked for over a hundredpainters doing their marketing,
appointment setting for them,and we had a full in-house call
(25:06):
center marketing team so we'd beplacing those leads and
scheduling those in-homeappointments.
But we found so many times themain bottleneck was the
painter's time, like we couldget more painters, more leads,
but we couldn't get theirappointments to get them in home
.
So that was a big part of it.
But I met a couple painters inthat time who were selling over
the phone and they were doingway higher volume, like bananas
(25:27):
volume, and that's what led meto like, oh my gosh, this is so
much similar to where I was inthe pest control business back
then.
That price sheet and sellingover the phone and getting that
exponential growth and seeingthat breakthrough, not having
that bottleneck, having a betterconsumer experience it was huge
.
And so that's really what weset out to build and the main
thing is, in the paintingindustry there's a lot of great
software.
We've mentioned of a couple ofthem today and there's a ton of
(25:48):
ways to get leads.
At this point it's almostcommoditized.
That's why we got out of thatbusiness specifically right.
Tons of ways to get leads andthere's a lot of ways to even
produce a bid pretty well and alot of ways to drip jobs like
follow up on bid process, do jobcosting and more, like great
production tools, huge tools outthere, and there's CRMs.
They do exist right For thefollow ups and more.
But there's this really messyslice.
(26:09):
And the messy slice forpainters is I have a lead, I
need to gather the needs fromthat customer, build rapport and
get them to a point where I canproduce a price and get enough
information from that customerthat I can accurately produce a
price.
And the way that I solve thatproblem right now, as the
average painter is I drive, Ischedule time with the customer,
which customer doesn't want todo.
They don't want to meet withyou for the vast majority of the
(26:30):
time.
They just want to get to aprice right.
You're one of many vendorsthey're just trying to get a
price.
So I have to schedule with ahomeowner, which takes its own
heavy lifting to do, and I loseleads because I can't get on the
schedule with some people.
Then I need to drive to theirhouse, which is going to take 30
to 45 minutes, maybe longer,depending on if you're a spread
out area.
Then I walk around eyeballingthe rooms and I have either the
(26:51):
notes in my phone is most commonwhat people use or a pen and
paper and I'm kind of jottingdown right, they got two small
bedrooms, they want repainted,they got a big kitchen and a
breakfast nook, right.
Oftentimes I'm not evenmeasuring, I'm eyeballing, maybe
chicken scratching a couple ofsquare footages down, and then
from there I take that stuff andeither we'll go out to my truck
, read that, hop in thosenumbers, ballpark the square
(27:12):
footage and produce as many comeback.
So that slice, though, ofdriving to the home just to
gather with the home that weneed two things we need the
information about the home,right.
What's the makeup of this home?
What's the condition of thehome Like?
When was it last painted?
What are the surfaces look like?
And then, obviously, what workdoes the homeowner need?
Done that I provide?
So sure they need new floorsand they need all this other
(27:32):
stuff.
But what can I actually provideas a company?
I can do the paint and I can dothis couple drywall repairs.
They've got going on right andso, if you think about it like,
that's actually the only twopieces of information I need.
Now there's other bigger issuesof sales process that need to be
solved for that.
We talked about Qualification,handoff, their sales, even
tactics around rapportabilityand more that are essential.
I'm not saying those need to goaway, but that specific piece
(27:54):
of just gathering the needs fromthe homeowner and data about
the home.
That's what we solve for andthat's where we fit and that's
what this tool is.
So we do that in a couple ways.
First and foremost, we haveincredible data like no one else
, about the interior of homes.
So we have room by room squarefootage and room makeup for
every home in America.
So our algorithms and data setsget you 90% accuracy.
(28:15):
You give me a home, you give mean address and I'll tell you
that kitchen square footage willbe X.
We have that within 90%accuracy.
So that one data point alone ishuge right.
And we combine that with ourqualification process, which we
use these lead forms to qualifycustomers.
You know it's similar to likeyou would have a Calendly
booking on your website.
You put it on your website.
You can also share individually, text it to them if you get an
(28:37):
inbound Lots of different waysyou can share it.
But it's basically a dynamic setof questions that starts at
their address, augments a bunchof data against it and then ask
some really smart questions thatare tailored to what they need
done.
So, for example, they entertheir address at auto completes
for the Google right and then itpulls in.
It's a three bedroom, twobathroom house.
(28:57):
It's 2200 square feet.
It was built in this year.
It pulls that stuff downautomatically.
Then it asks is it a fullrepaint, partial repaint,
exterior cabinetry?
What are you looking to havedone at your house?
And then, depending on the datawe get and the answers of the
homeowner, this is a dynamicqualification form and so for
them it takes maybe two minutes.
They don't have to measureanything At the end of that
(29:18):
process.
They have completely builttheir estimate for you.
It's done.
They don't see that priceinstantly.
Your phone then pops up and Hoysays hey, you have a new
customer who wants a bid.
Here's the price based on yourlabor rates and labor standards
based on the geometry.
We know the home.
Here's the actual price thatyou could ship it out and here's
why we're confident in thatprice and what the information
is.
Now obviously it's not going tobe for every single home and
(29:40):
every single project.
I would not recommend,especially where the industry is
at right now, that everybodysells remote overnight.
The way Eric is Awesome.
I have so much respect.
He's really pushing thefrontier forward.
It's incredible.
But I feel like overnightthere's no reason you should be
driving to any job below $3,000.
That's if you think about yourtime you're investing and how
much drag that is in your salesprocess.
(30:00):
It doesn't make sense Closethat job remotely.
Focus on the really heavyhitter job.
Spend more time in person withthose customers.
Let's make sure your windshieldtime really makes sense and
then if you actually unlock thisremote sales process that we
have in Hoist, you have thisopportunity to run small jobs
really profitably because you'renot sinking six hours.
When you think about the twohours on average to deliver
(30:21):
price with around a 35% closerate, that's like six hours to
win one job.
Are you really going to spendsix hours to win a $1,200
repaint?
No, but if you can win thatwithout investing any of that
upfront time 10, 15 minutesreviewing a bid and sending it
over that could make a ton ofsense for your business
economically.
So that's what we built, how itworks in practice and some of
our technology.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Now that's really, that's game changing.
I think the good.
Because when I'm looking atfinancials I'm looking for folks
that have an average job sizeof 5,000 to 10,000.
And if they have a lower jobsize I'm like, okay, well,
that's not good, you're probablyundercharging or you're just
going after too many small jobsand you're spending too much
(31:02):
time closing it and deal withthe production and their margins
are usually bad.
But with this, if you can just,like you said, send them a form,
they fill it out and you didn'thave to really do any work, you
get the bid back and you say,okay, well, it's only a $2,000
(31:25):
job, I'm not gonna go out and dothe full sales process.
You know, maybe have a phonecall or some abbreviated process
and but I'm gonna give them thebid still and that's gonna cut,
you know, save me a few hoursof work and so you could, like
you said, still produce thatprofitably.
But then if you get a larger,if they fill out that form, you
(31:46):
know, okay, this is a fivethousand, six thousand, ten
thousand dollar job.
Okay, definitely gonna do thefull sales process with them and
do the walk around and and bethere in person and spend that
extra time.
So I think that's that's areally powerful tool that you
can.
You can serve that underservedmarket of you know, the folks
(32:07):
wanting, you know just a partialpaint Of their home or whatever
it is.
It's also we found like you.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Like you said it, we found it super underserved
because of that dynamic you'retalking about and there's
actually opportunity for someincredible margins on some of
these tiny jobs.
Right, like really incrediblemargins, because Oftentimes
they're not even getting secondbids because painters just turn
them down.
Now your property to roomrepaint, just turn them down
where we're able to sell thoseremotely at a huge profit margin
(32:34):
.
They're actually turn outpretty, pretty incredible for us
.
Now, I don't get too hung up onthe small job component because
that's only one piece.
I think for most paintersthey'll want to actually avoid
those jobs, maybe not even sellthem remotely, which is fine.
I think what I'm advocatingmore than anything is really
good qualification and salesprocesses that take the busy
work out of everything and makesure you know before you go if
(32:54):
this makes sense right, like,for example, the way that we're
running it.
I sell paint work right.
Obviously the way we're runningit is I come through, leads
Come through.
We just explain.
We want to make this as quickand painless for you as possible
.
I'm gonna shoot you a linktakes two minutes for you to
complete and after that for mostbids we might not have to do an
in-home estimate, 90% ofinbound leads fill out that form
(33:14):
.
For our company 90%, and so wehave huge uptake and there is.
There is a drop-off, though Ithink it's important to call out
.
And so for those 10% who don'twant to fill it out, we can
still run our standard estimateprocess.
It doesn't like mean the leadsgone and if they balkers with
great, no problem, we can getover there.
We still do our similarqualification process, but we
don't get that same advantage.
But obviously that's a choiceyou can make in terms of intent.
(33:36):
But from there, right, there'sthat piece of.
We see that lead come in and wesee that house is built in the
20s, it's in that historicregion, it's got a ton of
decorative work to done.
All right, this is an in-personestimate.
Right, we follow up.
Maybe we give a soft range.
No, we're thinking this isgonna be like an 18,000 dollar
job.
This is a huge house, historichome.
I want to make sure to do thisright and, before we even drive
out, right, we have thatinformation.
(33:57):
And so I think, more thananything, regardless of my
software built, which is prettyawesome I think I'm really
advocating for really goodqualification and sales process,
regardless of whether you're,you know, dabbling in remote or
whether that's in person.
I think there's just hugeopportunity there we're leaving
on the table.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Yeah, no, that's.
This is awesome.
That's really good.
And, how you know, we talkedabout data handoff.
Does hoist do anything to helpwith that, that data handoff
between softwares if you'reusing CRM or whatever?
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Yeah, so we're still we're pretty early in our
journey, so we haven't built anyintegrations yet, but we're
talking with our first userslike okay, what are the
integrations we really need?
What does that look like interms of handoff?
But if you use hoist in avacuum, just in itself it's
incredible handoff for the pieceof the sales process we're
talking about.
So the qualified lead comes in,you walk up to the house and
you have all the information onthat home.
(34:47):
You know every single room,room size and what needs to be
done in every single room, andyou know the price already, like
you're ready to go and sharethat proposal straight out of
hoist.
So in terms of that handoff,it's incredibly tight and clean.
Now we probably have work to doto think about.
You know we have a zapperintegration for getting leads
into hoist, so if you're gettingleads from anywhere, you can
just have them automaticallydump into hoist, which is huge.
(35:08):
So even if you kind of use itas a sales copilot for any of
your lead sources, you nevereven had your homeowners fill
out those leads.
You're getting all that dataaugmented about every home
before you even go.
So it helps you kind of do thatprep work that we discussed
automatically.
You don't have to sit on Zillowand think about it and write it
down, it just all puts it allin one place.
So I forgot the originalquestion.
(35:28):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Dina handoff.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
Yeah, that's that we designed it front to back to
really solve the handoff betweeninbound lead all the way to the
one estimate.
Now I think there's more workwe could do for like okay, Do we
then trigger back to the CRMafter the estimates one?
How do we kick that off intosomething like drip jobs or
paint scouts to handleproduction and jobs gossing?
We haven't gotten there yet,but we're eager to explore that
as well.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Cool.
No, but that's good that theyou have Zapier integration.
So if Angie, if you have anAngie Lee, come in, it can go
plug that information into intohoist.
It sounds like and to talk.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Exactly a lot of our painters do that and to talk
about that example for a secondThumbtack is a use case.
That's really crazy.
Same with Angie's, where, ifyou're the homeowner, think
about it for a second.
You Google Paint my house andyou see an ad that says cost to
paint your house.
You click on it, you fill outthe Angie thing and all of a
sudden your phone is ringingwith people who want to get in
person.
Actually, what I wanted was aprice, and if you're the one
(36:23):
painter reaching out that says,hey, you know what, instead of
scheduling in home, just taketwo minutes, I can get you a
price.
The qualification rates ifyou're on these paid aggregators
like this are way higher usingthis approach, because that's
really that customer isdigitally native.
They're looking for a price.
They're more trying to drop byfrom that perspective, and the
number one way you build trustwith someone there is Starting
(36:44):
the conversation with a price assoon as possible.
That's that kind of consumer is.
What they're looking for is aprice.
It doesn't mean it has to bethe lowest price either.
I want to be clear just sellingthat price and beginning that
process doesn't remove yourquality and differentiator.
As a painter, it's reallyimportant to talk about the
overall sales process and whatthat fits into and how the idea
(37:04):
of a price builds trust right.
Tesla isn't selling the cheapestcars by any margin, but they
just put that price in thewebsite.
That has not created a race tothe bottom for them and just
this inevitability is coming.
Like homeowners more and morewant this.
Like Since Amazon hit itsstride 10 years ago, things we
never imagined being sold onlineor sold online car insurance.
I remember when I was in highschool I literally went to the
(37:25):
guy's office and we sat down.
I gave him my report card toget my car insurance mattresses
70% last year was sold online by65 year old dad bought his
mattress online like a Amattress and like that is the
trend.
That's where it's going andhomeowners are changing quick
and I think that's a while tillit really trickles down to home
services.
But it will go there and Ithink it's important we get
(37:47):
ahead of that in a way that'sreally sustainable and that we
as painters own ourselves,instead of a large company
coming in and taking this allfrom us.
In some sense, I I thinkthere's a really unique
opportunity in window forpainters to evolve with
homeowner needs, serve thembetter, really optimize our time
and just make the industry somuch better.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Yeah, no, that's excellent.
I'm excited.
Where do I sign up?
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Yeah, happy to.
So it's with hoist comm toanswer your question.
W I T H O I S T comm.
You can email me at John J Whnat with hoist comm to.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Okay, cool.
So if you are interested instreamlining your lead
qualification process andPotentially dabbling in remote
sales or not, but just lookingto streamline your, your
qualification process and yourestimating process To get those,
those online leads, convertedto sales, definitely check out
with voice comm.
(38:40):
I appreciate your time today,john.
Any last words or words ofadvice or anything else you want
to ask of the audience?
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Not at all.
Thanks so much for your timeand thank you for all the work
you do to help push thisindustry forward.
It's amazing to be on the show.
Thanks everyone, yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Alright, thanks, john , and with that, we'll see you
next week.
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