August 30, 2024 • 45 mins
Welcome back to another episode of the TradeMarke Podcast! This week, we are thrilled to have Ryan Redding from Levergy back on the show. Ryan joins hosts Sarah Ghirardo from Remarkable and Eric Thomas from Rival Digital to dive into the pivotal topic of leadership and its impact on marketing.
In this episode, Ryan shares his expertise on how effective leadership can make or break your marketing efforts. Before diving deep into the subject, we get to know Ryan's coffee preferences, revealing his passion for high-quality, self-brewed coffee.
The discussion highlights the importance of operational excellence and customer retention. Ryan emphasizes that great marketing cannot overcome poor operations, stressing the need for business owners to focus inward and improve their internal processes.
Listeners will gain valuable insights into how small gestures, like bringing treats for pets or moving trash cans, can create memorable customer experiences. The episode also explores the concept of turning problems into opportunities, empowering teams to make decisions and learn from their outcomes.
Tune in to learn how to deliver exceptional service, retain customers, and create a vision that attracts high-quality team members. This episode is packed with actionable strategies and inspiring stories that will leave you eager to implement new ideas in your own business.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What's going on, everyone? Welcome back to another exhilarating episode of the
Trademark Adjective of the Week. Exhilarating.
We're super excited. We've got Ryan back on the show with us this week. Ryan Redding.
Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. Ryan was on our impromptu roundtable a few weeks back,
(00:21):
and he was so smart and so handsome and so intelligent that we decided...
We would allow him back. Yeah, that's right.
So we're going to be diving in about leadership today, which is going to be fun.
Talking about leadership and how it can make or break your marketing,
which is really, really cool.
And it's a topic that Ryan is passionate about.
But before we dive in, question of the day, Ryan, what's your go-to coffee order?
(00:44):
Oh, you like coffee. yeah so i'm a
coffee snob here man so i'm i'm
the guy i'm really picky on like where i get coffee where it's
sourced how it's roasted how it's brewed like i'm
that guy so i typically don't
go to a coffee shop and order coffee because it's usually really crappy coffee
(01:05):
so i will i will have my coffee shipped to me and i will brew it myself and
it's amazing i'm a sucker for like right now I always love Ethiopian coffee
and coming into winter months,
Sumatra is probably my default bean.
Besides that, like take me to a coffee shop. I'm probably just going to order a tea.
(01:26):
That weird. No, I know a lot of people that do this with their own coffee.
Like they have the whole, it's like a routine, like a habit,
like, Ooh, I'm going to roast my beans.
Yeah. There's There's something therapeutic about it. It's a nice zen-like way to start one's day.
But once you have really good coffee, it's really hard to go buy something from
(01:50):
somewhere else. Everything else kind of sucks.
Yeah. Yeah. My ex-husband used to do it.
I would just watch the drip. And I was like, this is not fast enough for me.
My patience level is not going to work here. so
we my go-to order is maxwell house
black and before ryan can make fun of me let's go ahead
(02:12):
step into the trademark your go-to podcast for everything marketing in the trade
hosted by award-winning industry marketing expert sarah gerardo from remarkable
and eric thomas from rival digital together we're here to unite the worlds of
trades and marketing bringing you insights,
stories, and strategies from the heart of the industry.
(02:34):
Whether you're a trade professional, a marketing expert, or somewhere in between,
this is the place for you.
Listen in as we're here for the big ideas, the game changers,
and the everyday successes.
Because at The Trademark, we're with the trades and for the trades.
(02:54):
Okay. No, we got to go back to the Maxwell Hoth. That is the most insulting. Why would you do that?
Also, I was on your little intro sizzle reel. That was fun.
But seriously, if your coffee comes ground and slash or instant,
don't. Why do that yourself?
Don't. Like, I can't tell if you're trying to push a button or if you're seriously
(03:15):
just all like naturally like... I'm dead serious. I had a whole pot of it today.
I guess... Look, Look, it was in a Luke Combs song, so if it's good enough for
Luke Combs, it's good enough for me. Good God.
This is not a conversation we're having right now, is it? Is this where we're going?
This is not where we're going to go, but, you know. I've shifted to Cherry Coke Zero.
(03:39):
Good for more packing. You just need, like, how many? You have such sophisticated
taste. Yeah. That's awesome.
Yeah. We don't judge. We don't judge. All right. I do. I judge.
I know. I was just trying to be nice.
Okay. So let's get started. So I really wanted to dive into leadership and how
(04:02):
it goes with operations and marketing, mainly because I know Ryan very, very well.
And I've worked with him for many years since, gosh, I started at Service Titan
or started just in the trades, really started to talk.
And I think Ryan's an an exceptional leader but ryan
went on a what did
(04:24):
you do was it a podcast that you said no you
were speaking i think it might have been at one of the the your
regional marketing pro events maybe yes it was at the summit and
what did you say exactly because i don't want to misquote you
because i have it was well i
often don't listen to myself when i talk but it was
(04:44):
probably something along lines of like great marketing cannot overcome
poor operations it's probably something around those
those lines it was it was exactly that and i said
at pantheon i thought someone quoted
me and took a picture and i said the exact same thing i said i think i said
piss poor operation and i was like oh thank you for taking a picture and posting
(05:07):
that but i meant it and i went on and i said that ryan redding and this is a
quote from ryan redding so that if it came back on me it would be your fault.
But I want to dive into that and how it pertains to leadership and what it really means.
And I hope that you can explain this in very clear construct ways to business
(05:29):
owners that, yeah, so let's just start there.
What does it mean? Oh, gosh. Yeah. So I think most business owners,
this isn't just for the trades, right?
So anyone who's trying to grow a business, they tend to look to marketing to solve their woes.
(05:51):
And it could be something like, well, things would be better if I only had more
leads or things would be better if I only had more calls or whatever it is, right? Right.
Like there's always like if I only had more, all these other stresses I have
in the business would go away because what they what they experience on their end is all experience.
Like maybe their texts are sitting around or maybe they look at their P&L at the end of the month.
(06:15):
If they do look at a P&L at the end of the month, man, there's less cash coming
down at the bottom than I want.
But if I had more calls, I could make more money.
The reality is if you look at the math if you look at actually how cash works in the business,
marketing rarely contributes to the bottom line and what i mean by that is everyone
(06:38):
looks at marketing then what's the judge marketing but like hey this makes roi
good or bad marketing sucks so the marketing is great based on roi roi is the
result 100 on the operations of the business business.
Every time. Say that again. ROI is the result of the operations on the business. A hundred percent.
And for people who are like, no, that's not true. Let me walk you through the math.
(07:01):
Okay. So marketing is a broad umbrella. So let's make it more specific.
Let's say advertising, right? So something about getting a customer to actually call.
So you do an ad and your customer calls you. Let's say that that customer call
cost you a hundred dollars. Cool.
That's not anything yet. You're not making money off of that person calling you.
If you don't answer that phone, what happens to that $100?
(07:25):
It's gone. It's bye-bye. You just caught $100 on fire.
If you make the customer wait on hold for two and a half minutes,
that $100 just called somebody else.
If you make a customer leave you a voicemail, it's gone. The ability of someone
just to pick up the stupid phone in 30 seconds and answer it.
Like helps maximize their return that's something
(07:46):
that the operator can do on their side not a marketer answer
the phone you got to answer it like a stupid human like you can't just like
go what do you want you can't just be like give pricing like nonsense over the
phone or mark something not a lead just because they asked you a question that
you didn't want to answer you have to know how to talk to humans like humans
because you got the stupid call that's the only a job at this point. Book the call.
(08:10):
If you're booking five days out and the customer cancels, you have a capacity problem.
You have too many calls and not enough techs and you need to hire more people to get that done.
Otherwise, you just wasted that $100 because they're going to go somewhere else
who's going to get there in two days or the same day.
But you start maximizing all this through. By the time a tech goes in the house,
closes the deal, has your pricing set correctly, that's what's getting your ROI.
(08:34):
It's all the ops within the business. It's the booking, It's the dispatch.
It's the actual not canceling before you show up.
It's making sure the tech knows how to close a deal. It's making sure your prices
are set correctly so you are profitable and making sure you're not having to
do callbacks, which is going to cost you even more money.
That's how you're going to maximize your ROI. why. So for a business,
(08:55):
when they're looking at things that they can go, I need to make more money or
they're feeling like all the stress, 99 times out of 100,
the things that they can directly control within the business are going to have
more positive effect than this changing marketing vendors or making a different
marketing strategy. None of those things really matter.
(09:16):
So if your business sucks, and this is actually, I want to say this is from the Volkswagen days,
is like in the 60s and 70s that suck i'm gonna i'm gonna botch his name somebody
made a quote that was essentially great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster,
And there's a whole lot of examples of this, right? So people look to marketing
(09:36):
to solve like a business problem.
It's just going to make things worse, bad, and fast.
So oftentimes, I think business owners forget to look inward at the things they
can't control, at their own leadership skills, at the way that they're training
their team to make sure they make the most of every opportunity.
Opportunity, if they want to change the direction of the business,
(09:58):
first look is to do a really hard, sober look inward at what the things of the
culture and the business that you're creating.
Changing marketing may totally be a part of it. Changing your vendors may totally be a part.
But it's often much more difficult to do an internal assessment than it is just
point fingers and blame.
And I think that's kind of the root of it. So yeah, great marketing cannot overcome bad operations.
(10:23):
Yeah, I 100% agree with you. And really, and it was funny, because I was looking
at a post today from Facebook, and an owner operator posted,
he was like, you know, I would rather know the cost per booked call than the cost per acquisition.
And I was like, no, like, you need to teach your team the cost per ran call,
(10:43):
because that's the marketing efficiency and the efficiency and operations, right?
You're looking at the entire customer journey teaching them, Well,
it started with this cost and then we went here and then we went here and you
can see it inflate as we go on due to either the conversion happening or the
conversion not happening.
And like, that's the important part to teach your team.
(11:07):
And as a leader, when you teach your team that they understand that they have
a part on the ship and, you know, like it doesn't sink.
You're not alone on a sinking ship. You're all together.
You're all together sinking on the ship it's funny though because I think and I saw that post too.
(11:28):
There is a time and place for understanding cost per book call,
cost of customer acquired, cost of brand call.
There's totally a place for understanding those. But if you want to say any
one is more important than another, I think you're kind of missing the point.
I do 100% agree that the more a business can understand the kind of financial
(11:50):
burden that's associated with each of those things and the levers involved with impacting them,
and then helping their team have the knowledge and skills to impact those levers
in a way that helps the business, everyone wins.
Everyone wins. So it's not just how much did this click cost or how much did this call cost.
(12:10):
It really is a more holistic view of, cool, it cost you $500 to run that particular
call, but you made 750K on the lifetime value of that customer.
That's math I will do all day long. That's solid math. Yeah.
We should start doing the math on the opportunity cost per missed book call. Lord, it's crazy.
(12:31):
That would be a sobering report to see.
It's like, well, your cost per book call was $400, but your opportunity cost
for you answering the phone like the lady on Monsters, Inc.,
your paperwork with Soundsky, it cost you $48,000.
Dollars i listened to uh this someone's call
(12:52):
the other day and the like the customer calling in
literally asked the csr like hey i'm
looking at getting a tankless water heater i've been seeing about these how much
how much is it like a navy and tankless water here right so the customer just
comes out and says like this is kind of the model that i've zeroed in on and
the csr literally said oh we don't give pricing over the phone and that the
(13:14):
customer is gone like even on that one One call,
like just that one call alone, which cost, I don't know, 90,
100 bucks, something like that.
There's so much money to be made that it was just gone, just wasted.
Just not just the cost to get the call, but yeah, to your point,
the cost of opportunity that was forfeit.
(13:36):
And the craziest part of that was that same CSR marked that lead, not a lead.
Like they're like, well, there
was a price question. It was a price objection. Like, it doesn't count.
Nope, that's not how that works. I think that's the best thing.
So the old style of leadership that I like to see is, or that I have seen,
(13:59):
is, hey, we're not giving prices over the phone.
Like, we're not doing that. We're not going to be a company that has...
That meets the customers where they're at. And so that's what I hear when I
hear price objections and they're coming from leadership, right?
It's not the CSR that's like, no, no, no, I don't know the price because they
(14:20):
have access to the system. They could find the price, right?
They could Google, they could do a lot of things because this is what the consumer did.
So what would you suggest from a leadership standpoint of how to adjust to the
times and an innovation of price objections.
Yeah. So this is a really good topic.
And we probably need chip salsa and margarita to get into it well.
(14:45):
I could make a couple of arguments. I think first argument number one is leadership
of companies should know now that
customers have more information at their fingertips now than ever before,
including the ability to Google things that are really common.
Them. How much should a water heater cost, for instance?
For good or for bad, Google's going to throw numbers out.
(15:06):
Customers are going to assume those numbers are valid.
Can't get mad at the customers for doing that. You would do the exact same thing
if you were looking to go to a steakhouse or if you're looking to buy a car, it doesn't matter.
Customers are going to do what customers do and business owners do the same
thing. So customers are going to come in with a certain sort of range or a certain sort of expectation.
But also the other reality is customers legit don't know.
(15:26):
They don't, they don't show up to all the trade shows.
They don't see your, you know, wherever you get your supplies from.
Like, they don't know the pricing. So it's a legit, honest, ignorant question for them. So...
I'm a huge fan of addressing customers like the humans that they are versus
like a series of objections to have to overcome.
(15:48):
So when a customer calls in and say like, hey, what's the price of a new water heater?
I'm a huge fan of a customer or a CSR responding empathetically with like,
oh, gosh, are you out without water heater? How long is this going on?
Just ask questions, understanding the customer situation.
Because customers don't want to call and get a new water heater.
It's a headache. It's a concern.
(16:10):
Closing the bridge from like with numbers and going straight to empathy is a huge, powerful tool.
And then when it's appropriate, the CSR can go, I'm so sorry you've been hearing this way.
We absolutely do water heaters all the time. Every job's a little bit different.
They can range from this to this.
Every job's different. And it just depends on kind of the need of the house
because the heaters are designed to fit the house, not necessarily just you.
(16:33):
So we have to actually get someone out to actually make sure that we're sizing
it correctly. I'm happy to do that and have time tomorrow at one o'clock.
Those things at least can give the customer some sense of knowledge and safety,
addresses them with empathy.
It's not letting everything out of the bag. It gives them opportunity to sales
to have the conversation, but it's not discarding the customer's legitimate,
(16:54):
honest request for information.
And it's honest, right? Because not all water heaters are the same.
So anytime a company cannot not view those as problems, but you view them as
opportunities to create a relationship with the customer, that's probably the operative word.
I think those companies are always going to fare better. So I tend to not necessarily
(17:17):
be a fan of giving pricing on a website.
I know there's a lot of argument for there. And I think my argument there is,
for good or for bad, Amazon has made people really impulsive.
And if you compete on price, you're going to lose on price. And so I I think
it's just kind of a weird thing.
I am a fan of kind of the more boutique sort of, hey, we're going to tailor
this based on your specific needs.
(17:37):
We'll tell you the pricing. We have no problem doing that, but we just don't
know the smartest way to do that without knowing more information. Yeah.
But that's just me. I think there's a little bit of both sides that can be played.
Yeah, totally. You know what I mean?
Because of the Amazon situation, you have limited choice in what you can do as a marketer.
(17:59):
And then because we are humans, we want to make sure that we are exactly playing
to their safety and security because that's why they called.
Right they didn't call us because they're like you know what today is the best day.
To break you know to buy a new water heater
like this is what i want to do it's a perfect day to get
a new mini split i've been waiting for this day for weeks well
(18:23):
also like it's like i know that like contractors you
know they're not always competing with amazon but i
think that there's a lot to be learned from amazon like amazon
has made it so like almost dangerously easy
to do business with where like you
have your amazon account and like within two clicks you have something showing
(18:43):
up to your door yeah at what you know however much a hundred dollars two hundred
dollars however much you spend like literally two clicks add to cart and like
quick checkout and it's there so like with with contractors like what i what
i like to tell folks too is like look if we're,
i agree we can't be putting you know all your pricing out there on the internet
because you You might be shooting yourself in the foot. You might be running people off.
(19:06):
But if that's the case, we have to make the customer's ability to contact us
and book an appointment almost as easy as Amazon makes it to purchase whatever
you got to buy off of Amazon.
And that's where a lot of contractors screw up is they make their pricing impossible to find out.
(19:28):
They make getting a hold of them impossible to find out. And then,
like you said, Ryan, the person just goes on to the next company and you lost that opportunity.
And I think it's, I don't necessarily think it's a screw up.
I think it's they don't know. And what you don't know, you don't know.
So what we can give you is valuable feedback is that you need to make the conversion happen faster and easy.
(19:51):
And so the way you can do that is online schedulers, right?
Like it's going into AI agents. Like there are live answering services.
There are ways to help your business out there, optimize the solutions that
will make your business more automated and efficient because that's the end goal in businesses.
(20:11):
The thing that I heard from you, Ryan, that I wanted to point out was you said,
turn the problem into an opportunity.
This is a huge leadership mindset, right? Like there are no problems.
There are only opportunities.
And that's kind of how I view the world. But I was taught that.
So can you go further into what you mean by looking by changing your mindset?
(20:32):
Oh, gosh. So this is one where, again, chips, also margarita helps. Yeah.
How do I say this? I think people would assume that most people are logical, rational beings.
That we make decisions with facts, we take information, we process it in a very
linear, systematic way, and then we make a decision.
(20:55):
The reality is if you look at the science behind the brain and the evolution
of the brain, that's not how it works at all.
In fact, most of the brain is impulsive and it's reactive and it's full of chemical
injections that causes us to have emotions.
And then on top of that, now you have a really frontal part of the brain that
(21:16):
lets us process and quantify with numbers.
All that to say is people are not rational beings who sometimes feel.
They're emotional beings who sometimes think.
And so we have to recognize that because of that,
the most important thing for a business owner to do is understand that reality
and then learn to leverage that to their thing so for for most businesses when
(21:40):
they see a problem their first thing is to have that reaction mode i gotta fix
this this is on fire this is broken this never works right they're just literally
going into like this survival fight or flight sort of mechanism,
and it's not allowing them to actually
reposition the way that the brain will respond if they
can train themselves to reframe a problem
(22:00):
like oh crap the csr didn't book this
call my csr suck nothing's ever right like that's
how they'll feel it will change like they will respond with logical decisions
based on that poor emotional response however if they train themselves which
is a neurological like function to actually say hey this isn't a problem this
(22:21):
is an opportunity to train my CSRs to go, hey, here's something we can do different.
Here's a way we can do this different so we have a different outcome.
It's not just forced thinking. It's not just like feigned optimism.
It literally is retraining your brain to see a different path in the future,
that gives you opportunity to provide resources, training, SOPs that now you can train against.
(22:44):
And now you're creating a future that you want versus just trying to put out fires nonstop.
And I think using kind of like the umbrella of leadership, that is probably
one of the most key elements.
Key skills that successful leaders have is they don't react to problems.
They've trained themselves to reframe those problems into opportunities,
(23:04):
and they look to maximize the opportunities that they have.
In fact, the more opportunities they have, the happier they get,
because that's chances for them to improve.
And it just not only does it change how a person thinks and operates and feels
in that moment, it changes the outcome of the situation.
So yeah, it's a really underspoken skill.
And I'm not a frou-frou. I'm not like a You know, I'm going to sit and sing
(23:27):
Kumpa Yala every day and read poems.
That's not me. And yet, I know I've learned the power of reframing those.
It is not easy. It is not natural. You have to train yourself to do it.
But when you do, it's a really cool change. yeah i think i i think that the
people that just you know react real quick those are the kind of people that
(23:49):
drink maxwell house coffee those guys i don't trust them they just drink maxwell
house coffee mullet wearing maxwell drinking hey.
Yeah i agree with you so like there's this one guy i saw a video this week and
(24:10):
it's called the one, three, one approach, right?
So it's the thing that I am really big on leadership and I am the frou-frou,
ha-ha, let's go to camp and like, let's learn what I'm doing wrong or kind of
thing and turn it into an opportunity.
So the first thing that I do when I leave my team is I look intrinsically.
I'm like, cool, like I'm not communicating properly, right?
(24:34):
Like the opportunity is on me. There's, there's like something going on.
So I evaluate what the problem is, turn it into an opportunity.
I find three solutions to that opportunity.
And then I make a decision with one, right? And it's not going to always have
to solve the opportunity.
It's saying, okay, what is the opportunity? And how do we get there? And.
(24:58):
And I think like leaders need to understand that it's okay to fail forward and
it's okay to, you know, like have these moments because if you don't have these moments,
then like you're setting your expectation to a hundred percent and like nothing
is attainable to a hundred percent.
It well i would okay so
(25:19):
the one three one is a really a really good example and
i think i think there's a couple of nuances that make it powerful and
you just you just alluded to something i think it's underrepresented so part
of one part of the the one three one concept which is identify the problem have
three solutions recommend a solution is is that you're delegating authority
(25:41):
and accountability for other people to solve the problem, right?
Which is not the business owner's first instinct is to be like,
only I can fix this. Only I can do this. Do it the way that I want,
even if I fail to tell you what that is.
One through one allows you the structure that teach other people to think through it.
And they own that decision because they contributed to the thought process.
(26:02):
They contribute to the solution and it's theirs.
So it's a powerful tool. The other thing that it does though is the point you
made, which is my second point, which is that allows people the opportunity to fail.
And you said it's okay to fail forward. I would actually say not just okay, it's required.
Most business owners got to the point that they are, and this is true if they're
(26:22):
a seven-figure business, an eight-figure business, a nine-figure business,
it doesn't matter, by making expensive mistakes.
And that's how they learn. And yet, those same people who learned by making
mistakes want to starve their team, sometimes the leadership team,
sometimes the people on the front lines, from the opportunity of making mistakes and learning.
(26:45):
It is the craziest thing. So part of the 131 is also saying,
hey, whatever you decide, awesome.
There will be an outcome of that decision. It might be good. It might be bad.
But we're going to learn from it regardless. Don't punish people for making
a decision, especially if they made it for good reasons, with good intent,
with good thinking, and then it failed.
That's a fantastic opportunity. Not a problem. That's a fantastic opportunity
(27:08):
to let them learn so that next time they make a better decision.
That's the whole point. So I'm a huge fan of failure.
Failure is a very very powerful teacher yeah and
failure without spending money is even better if you
can but sometimes sometimes like the pain of
the consequences what what has to uh like that's part of the driver right part
(27:31):
of it oh my gosh yes like the most painful failures is like when you have to
issue like a refund yeah it's like this is never happening again but like sometimes
Sometimes that's what it takes. You're just like, okay.
For me, a few times we've never had to issue a refund on something.
I'm like, this stops now.
(27:54):
And we figure it out.
And I'm quick to refund. I'm like, you know what? I don't even want you to have
to bring that to conversation.
This is the first thing that I'm going to do. Because I didn't provide value
to you. And I took your money.
And that's not acceptable. And that doesn't align with my values or my culture.
So, you know, like, but I, I can tell you that in the businesses that I've worked
(28:20):
at, they have given me the autonomy to make those decisions.
And even as a director of customer service, like I had the autonomy to be like,
no, like, I don't have to go up higher to say, hey, can I have a refund for this person?
I can say, nope, this is what's going to be going to happen.
Right? yeah so um yeah
(28:42):
it's it is one
of those things where i mean as a business owner like you obviously you feel
the pain of that check that you're writing right that as an employee they might
not and that's that's okay but there is something to be said about empowering
which is kind of the fundamental thing about the 131 it's like it's empowering
people to think through the problem,
(29:04):
make a decision that they think will best address it, go through it.
And if they were right or if they were wrong, either way, they grew because of it.
That's the cool part. They either learned, I'm not going to do that again,
or that was incredible. The next time this happens, this is what I'm going to do.
Both of them for a business is important. And as leaders, we should jump at
(29:28):
the chance to find ways to level up our people with lessons like that.
And to Eric's point, if we can do that in cheap, fast ways, awesome.
Fail cheap, fail fast. Sometimes they're not.
Either way, learn fast, learn often. Ryan, what's your thoughts on just middle-class fancy restaurants?
We're just going to kind of pivot a little bit here. I feel like this is a good segue.
(29:53):
What's a middle-class fancy restaurant? All right, so I'm Donald.
You know, I asked a couple weeks ago on the show, by the time you're listening
to this, folks, it's probably been a couple months ago, but I asked someone
the question of the day, what was their favorite middle-class fancy restaurant?
I think they said it was a fast food restaurant. and i was like
oh i need to ask someone with you know who has
experience in this kind of thing and
(30:16):
so for me when i think middle class fancy i'm thinking applebee's chili's
olive garden red robin ruby tuesday's
tgi didn't lead with red robin a ruby tuesday
man their salad bars bomb are they still around they're harder to find because
i think they're going through some financial stuff but when i find a salad bar
(30:36):
man it's just croutons it's those damn croutons are you should just market that
i know would you so you'd say ruby tuesday ruby tuesdays,
so i i do like ruby tuesday and for some reason i've never lived close to one
it's always like on a highway on the way to somewhere it's like cracker barrel-esque
sort of locations for some reason so it's hard to like get up the care to go
(31:02):
there but i the the how do i say this.
Most restaurants like and kind of in that level and you're
kind of your your chilies your red robins like they just
have to do things at such a scale that the quality of
the ingredients isn't my jam you know
like red robin's a good example like they've got the unlimited broccoli like
(31:23):
who eats unlimited broccoli i do but it's but it's microwaved and it's kind
of not the best but it's better than their fries you know like i i can't just
stomach the fries but it's just stuff like It's kind of hard to scale,
but I would much rather have like Ruby Tuesdays, like dark green salad bar and those amazing,
(31:44):
amazing croutons than have to roll the dice like at TGI Fridays or Applebee's.
What are some lessons that you think contractors could like apply from the restaurant industry?
That's a really great question. so i don't know
a lot of people may have heard the whole thing about it
(32:06):
is three times more expensive to create a new customer than
to keep an existing one that is directly from the restaurant industry so every
every industry is gonna be a little bit different on that exact math but that
study came from restaurants and the whole idea is a lot a lot of contractors
(32:27):
focus on. I need more new customers.
I need more new customers. And I get it. I get it. It's important.
It is three times more expensive for them to grow that way,
Three times than it is for them to take care of their current customer base.
So if there's anything that's like, hey, pay attention to this,
restaurants run on really, really lean margins.
(32:49):
It's a high failure rate for a reason.
If you could find ways to not just exploit your customers for more revenue,
but serve them, provide a higher level of service in ways that they want to
pay you and do it for longer periods of time,
you will be more far more profitable far
more healthy far more stable business than if
(33:11):
you're just burning through the leads burning through the calls screwing
some like selling a i mentioned the navian if you're selling a thirty thousand
dollar navian just because you can and then moving on to the next guy if you're
just burning these guys one-offs like you are totally missing the point of profitability
and so if there's anything with restaurants i'd be like focus on on your current customers first,
(33:34):
serve them at an exceptionally high level where they want to keep using you,
they want to keep giving you their money,
and then find ways to smartly augment it with new customers and add them to the fold.
But leaning too hard on new customers, I think it's a really short-sighted and
expensive strategic play.
Yeah. Yeah.
(33:54):
I bet y'all thought right now, all the listeners out there, maybe most of y'all
thought Eric was going nowhere with this whole restaurant thing.
Bear with us, folks. So we were talking towards the beginning of the episode
like how the ROI, gosh, I already forgot the quote.
Anyways, the ROI is a result of the operation of the business.
And as you mentioned, such an easy way to increase that bottom line is just
(34:21):
to retain customers and get them coming back for more.
And I feel like we just like, so many folks are always on Facebook.
They're like, who has a good reward system?
Who has a good referral thing? I'm like, let's think about Five Guys burgers and fries for a second.
Have you all ever been there before? Yep. Oh, gosh, yes. Five Guys is awesome.
What happens when you order from them? What comes in the bag?
(34:45):
All the fries you never possibly knew you could eat.
All the fries that you didn't even order are in the bag. You order a small,
like half the bag is french fries. That's a reward system right there.
It's not like an if-then reward system. it's like now that reward system it's
delightful and you tell everyone about it and you come back for more you go back for the fries,
(35:08):
It's a thought. You do the spicy fries? I like, yeah. I'm a big french fry kind of dude.
So when you threw a jam at Red Robin's fries a second ago and my coffee selection,
this episode might not air.
You throw yourself shade with the coffee selection. Two, Red Robin's sweet potato
(35:30):
fries aren't awful. Like, I'll give them credit.
The normal, what are they called? The steak fries, what are they called? I'm like, eh, yeah.
But no, your point stands. It's almost like if a business can find ways to add
value to the customer that doesn't cost them a lot of extra money,
(35:51):
that doesn't take a lot of extra time for them, but it adds a wow impact,
totally worth doing.
Doing i was talking to someone the other day and they did they own
a carpet cleaning business like that's what they do and the
first thing when the person comes out you know so so-and-so
calls like i've got dog stains on my carpet come clean it all right so while
while the technician or the cleaner i don't remember what they called them is
(36:15):
talking to the customer like they're just kind of getting like so what's laid
land where's the mess has happened blah blah they've got like this little spray
bottle and this little thing and they are literally just looking for spots to
stop sweep sweep down, polish while they're talking to the customer.
Just clean it up and stand back up and keep talking to the customer.
It's not a part of the script. It's not, I did this with this chemical so that
(36:36):
we can, it's just, I'm doing something kind because I'm here to help.
Their closing rate when that person's in their house is like 95%, like just sky high.
And they're not the cheapest because they do like this little extra thing that
doesn't take any extra time, cost them a few cents in chemicals,
but it just makes the customer feel special that they would even bother doing it.
(36:58):
Regardless if they hired them or not. And that's like your extra fries in the
bag, right? It's like, yes, they're glorious, amazing fries.
It doesn't, potatoes are cheap. It doesn't cost you any more money to throw in another half potato.
And it doesn't take up any more bag. You're already using the same bag.
It doesn't take you any more time. Like you're already scooping the bag anyways.
It's just a little extra effort that costs the business relatively pennies,
(37:22):
but makes the customer feel exceptional as a part of it.
Like, no brainer. And that's what the customer remembers.
Like they remember that, like I asked what was inside the bag and you guys didn't
say there was a cheeseburger in there.
You said there's all the fries you could have. Like, so that's like what we all remember.
When I think of Five Guys, I think of like half the bag is full of potatoes.
But yeah, like that's something that like, I hope contractors are hearing that
(37:46):
are listening to this right now. It's like- Okay, but give them ideas.
Like what, like just spit it out. Like tell me what is extra.
Tell me what is valuable. First thing I would think of, and I had a contractor
in my house. He took off his Crocs and wore his socks.
Okay, wear booties. Like you can buy them cheap.
And that's just a part of the service, right? Deliver clean,
(38:07):
exceptional service in that way. That starts with a presentation.
What's another value add? When I was with Mosquito Joe back in the day.
Like something that the CSRs would ask is like, do you have any animals?
Like what's some things we should know about the property?
And I think any home service company should do that because you need to know
(38:29):
if they have a dog, if they have a cat, if they have a bird.
And if they said they had a dog, well, the reason we would ask for the dog was
because after they sprayed, the dog can't be out on the grass for 30 minutes.
But all the techs kept a box or a stack of Mosquito Joe branded Frisbees in
their truck, and they just throw it out in the backyard on the grass.
(38:50):
And the amount of google reviews that mentioned
the frisbee and the customers that thanked him for the frisbee it was just a
little thing the dog would come running back inside with a frisbee in its mouth
and they were like where do you get the frisbee from so like little things like
that it's it's what you remember kind of like the french fries or you know that
they were they were wearing the booties or you know all the little things too
(39:10):
they left behind a bag of candy
something Stephanie Allen's baking
cookies cookies are always amazing I I'm a little bit of a different opinion
with the booties at this point I feel like that's not like permission to play
it's just like I just keep singing it and so like there are new people coming
into the industry so let's teach them like this is what it's like that's no
(39:33):
longer a high bar that is now the bar,
but dogs are a great thing I know someone else who same sort of thing Eric they'll
ask about out the pets, but they'll bring little treats for the dog.
It's like, cool. So they just kind of make friends. It's kind of a wow thing.
Someone else I know, they train their text. If you see the trash can on the street, move it in.
(39:53):
And just kind of bake it into your script of like, before you leave,
Hey, by the way, I saw your trash can is empty. I went ahead and will it up
for you. I have to just say, you know, it's a throwaway comment.
If the trash can is empty, if
the trash can is empty, but it's like little things. There's someone else.
Someone else has talked to the other day. I'm trying to remember the exact thing,
but they're working on the water heater and they did like a courtesy inspection
(40:15):
of like other appliances, like other plumbing things while they're there.
And they found like, Oh, this, this garbage disposal is acting weird.
So they literally spent five minutes.
They swapped out a really cheap part that they happened to have on them.
They said, hey, no, you didn't call us for the disposal.
It was going to fail in like a week. I went and swapped out the part because
I had a spare one. Don't worry about it.
Those things are, again, cost the company relative pennies.
(40:38):
But it does create a wow moment for the customer. And gosh dang it,
if you learn something from a restaurant, do that.
P.F. Chang's actually might be a good example of another wow sort of restaurant.
I don't know if a lot of people know this. Back in the 90s, early 2000s,
when they were first growing, they had zero marketing budget.
They had no billboards, they had no radio, they had no frozen food line in the
(41:02):
grocery store. They grew by word of mouth.
But the way that they did that was they would essentially, their marketing budget
that they would otherwise allocate,
they gave to their wait staff to create
what they called wow experience and like for me
i i worked at pf chang's when i was in college and i
remember this one guy came in like the store just opened
(41:24):
it was super popular super trendy so people were like on waiting lists for days
guy came in with his girl trying to impress his girl and she's like oh i got
you know go up and serve him and she wants this whatever dish cool and he jokes
like hey you know i just really love a steak It's like, ha, ha, ha, ha.
No, seriously, why can't I get you guys? No, I just don't like Chinese food. Okay.
(41:46):
So what people don't know is P.F. Chang's is owned by the same company who owns
Fleming Steakhouse. The F in P.F.
Stands for Fleming, Paul Fleming.
So it happened to be right next door. So I had the budget literally to send
my assistant next door, get a steak from Fleming Steakhouse,
which is a high-end steakhouse, come and serve it on P.F. Chang's plates and
(42:09):
serve it to him for dinner.
They were shocked. Like they did not expect a steak at a Chinese restaurant, right?
But that's where the marketing budget was applied. Instead of them spending
this much on billboards and this much on PPC or whatever else,
it's like, nope. They focus on the experience.
And those guests came back the next day and the guy ordered Chinese food.
(42:31):
That is where companies make significant wealth.
Not from taking care of the customer once, but by doing it in such an impactful
way that they want to come back again and again and again.
And again you're saying give them the beef everything's better
with beef and less bees yes yes
yeah no that makes sense deliver the wow
(42:52):
be remarkable great books out there
for you to read contagious purple cow those are purple cows really simple and
short if someone you know isn't a reader but readers are leaders so that is
those are some good books there's a lot of good books out there about delivering
the remarkable service.
(43:13):
Yep. There's a lot. And there's even things that just kind of focus on creating... How about this?
Another thing, since we're kind of on the umbrella of leadership,
one of the most important parts, I would argue, for a leader is to create a
vision big enough for other people to see themselves in it.
(43:35):
And that includes attracting people who want to take care of other people.
Right? So if you cannot attract people who care about serving people,
who just want to do the bare minimum to get by,
who don't want to throw the fizzbee in the backyard, if that's the caliber of
people you're attracting, it's probably a direct reflection on you that you
aren't creating a vision of the business big enough that other people can see
(43:58):
themselves in there and doing those things.
So directly, there is a leadership component, not just like, hey, here's ideas to do.
But there's a responsibility to leadership to dream big, to have a big tent
and to attract really high quality humans to join them i agree i agree too,
ryan is there anything we haven't touched on yet that you were hoping to chat about,
(44:22):
we get we can go over on coffee and we can do some bourbons.
16 billion or a million dollars that was pretty funny oh gosh yeah that was
awesome uh i did a tiktok on that one too that was that was fun yeah i mean
honestly i just i have a huge amount of respect for you guys.
I had no agenda coming in here. I just love the dialogue.
(44:44):
I like that they're really good humans, not just doing what you guys do,
but also in sharpening others and giving people tools and resources to make themselves better.
So it's like, I'm just honored to be here. So thanks for the opportunity.
Yeah, thank you for taking the time to share your experiences with us.
And I always learn from you every single time I to talk to you.
(45:06):
And I just love speaking with you.
And, you know, for me, your partnership has been just incredibly valuable and
I appreciate you so much. So thank you for being on the trademark.
We appreciate you and can't wait to have you back.
I would love to be back. Thank you so much. That was very kind.
What's going on, everyone? Welcome back to another exhilarating episode of the
Trademark Adjective of the Week. Exhilarating.
We're super excited. We've got Ryan back on the show with us this week. Ryan Redding.
Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. Ryan was on our impromptu roundtable a few weeks back,
(00:21):
and he was so smart and so handsome and so intelligent that we decided...
We would allow him back. Yeah, that's right.
So we're going to be diving in about leadership today, which is going to be fun.
Talking about leadership and how it can make or break your marketing,
which is really, really cool.
And it's a topic that Ryan is passionate about.
But before we dive in, question of the day, Ryan, what's your go-to coffee order?
(00:44):
Oh, you like coffee. yeah so i'm a
coffee snob here man so i'm i'm
the guy i'm really picky on like where i get coffee where it's
sourced how it's roasted how it's brewed like i'm
that guy so i typically don't
go to a coffee shop and order coffee because it's usually really crappy coffee
(01:05):
so i will i will have my coffee shipped to me and i will brew it myself and
it's amazing i'm a sucker for like right now I always love Ethiopian coffee
and coming into winter months,
Sumatra is probably my default bean.
Besides that, like take me to a coffee shop. I'm probably just going to order a tea.
(01:26):
That weird. No, I know a lot of people that do this with their own coffee.
Like they have the whole, it's like a routine, like a habit,
like, Ooh, I'm going to roast my beans.
Yeah. There's There's something therapeutic about it. It's a nice zen-like way to start one's day.
But once you have really good coffee, it's really hard to go buy something from
(01:50):
somewhere else. Everything else kind of sucks.
Yeah. Yeah. My ex-husband used to do it.
I would just watch the drip. And I was like, this is not fast enough for me.
My patience level is not going to work here. so
we my go-to order is maxwell house
black and before ryan can make fun of me let's go ahead
(02:12):
step into the trademark your go-to podcast for everything marketing in the trade
hosted by award-winning industry marketing expert sarah gerardo from remarkable
and eric thomas from rival digital together we're here to unite the worlds of
trades and marketing bringing you insights,
stories, and strategies from the heart of the industry.
(02:34):
Whether you're a trade professional, a marketing expert, or somewhere in between,
this is the place for you.
Listen in as we're here for the big ideas, the game changers,
and the everyday successes.
Because at The Trademark, we're with the trades and for the trades.
(02:54):
Okay. No, we got to go back to the Maxwell Hoth. That is the most insulting. Why would you do that?
Also, I was on your little intro sizzle reel. That was fun.
But seriously, if your coffee comes ground and slash or instant,
don't. Why do that yourself?
Don't. Like, I can't tell if you're trying to push a button or if you're seriously
(03:15):
just all like naturally like... I'm dead serious. I had a whole pot of it today.
I guess... Look, Look, it was in a Luke Combs song, so if it's good enough for
Luke Combs, it's good enough for me. Good God.
This is not a conversation we're having right now, is it? Is this where we're going?
This is not where we're going to go, but, you know. I've shifted to Cherry Coke Zero.
(03:39):
Good for more packing. You just need, like, how many? You have such sophisticated
taste. Yeah. That's awesome.
Yeah. We don't judge. We don't judge. All right. I do. I judge.
I know. I was just trying to be nice.
Okay. So let's get started. So I really wanted to dive into leadership and how
(04:02):
it goes with operations and marketing, mainly because I know Ryan very, very well.
And I've worked with him for many years since, gosh, I started at Service Titan
or started just in the trades, really started to talk.
And I think Ryan's an an exceptional leader but ryan
went on a what did
(04:24):
you do was it a podcast that you said no you
were speaking i think it might have been at one of the the your
regional marketing pro events maybe yes it was at the summit and
what did you say exactly because i don't want to misquote you
because i have it was well i
often don't listen to myself when i talk but it was
(04:44):
probably something along lines of like great marketing cannot overcome
poor operations it's probably something around those
those lines it was it was exactly that and i said
at pantheon i thought someone quoted
me and took a picture and i said the exact same thing i said i think i said
piss poor operation and i was like oh thank you for taking a picture and posting
(05:07):
that but i meant it and i went on and i said that ryan redding and this is a
quote from ryan redding so that if it came back on me it would be your fault.
But I want to dive into that and how it pertains to leadership and what it really means.
And I hope that you can explain this in very clear construct ways to business
(05:29):
owners that, yeah, so let's just start there.
What does it mean? Oh, gosh. Yeah. So I think most business owners,
this isn't just for the trades, right?
So anyone who's trying to grow a business, they tend to look to marketing to solve their woes.
(05:51):
And it could be something like, well, things would be better if I only had more
leads or things would be better if I only had more calls or whatever it is, right? Right.
Like there's always like if I only had more, all these other stresses I have
in the business would go away because what they what they experience on their end is all experience.
Like maybe their texts are sitting around or maybe they look at their P&L at the end of the month.
(06:15):
If they do look at a P&L at the end of the month, man, there's less cash coming
down at the bottom than I want.
But if I had more calls, I could make more money.
The reality is if you look at the math if you look at actually how cash works in the business,
marketing rarely contributes to the bottom line and what i mean by that is everyone
(06:38):
looks at marketing then what's the judge marketing but like hey this makes roi
good or bad marketing sucks so the marketing is great based on roi roi is the
result 100 on the operations of the business business.
Every time. Say that again. ROI is the result of the operations on the business. A hundred percent.
And for people who are like, no, that's not true. Let me walk you through the math.
(07:01):
Okay. So marketing is a broad umbrella. So let's make it more specific.
Let's say advertising, right? So something about getting a customer to actually call.
So you do an ad and your customer calls you. Let's say that that customer call
cost you a hundred dollars. Cool.
That's not anything yet. You're not making money off of that person calling you.
If you don't answer that phone, what happens to that $100?
(07:25):
It's gone. It's bye-bye. You just caught $100 on fire.
If you make the customer wait on hold for two and a half minutes,
that $100 just called somebody else.
If you make a customer leave you a voicemail, it's gone. The ability of someone
just to pick up the stupid phone in 30 seconds and answer it.
Like helps maximize their return that's something
(07:46):
that the operator can do on their side not a marketer answer
the phone you got to answer it like a stupid human like you can't just like
go what do you want you can't just be like give pricing like nonsense over the
phone or mark something not a lead just because they asked you a question that
you didn't want to answer you have to know how to talk to humans like humans
because you got the stupid call that's the only a job at this point. Book the call.
(08:10):
If you're booking five days out and the customer cancels, you have a capacity problem.
You have too many calls and not enough techs and you need to hire more people to get that done.
Otherwise, you just wasted that $100 because they're going to go somewhere else
who's going to get there in two days or the same day.
But you start maximizing all this through. By the time a tech goes in the house,
closes the deal, has your pricing set correctly, that's what's getting your ROI.
(08:34):
It's all the ops within the business. It's the booking, It's the dispatch.
It's the actual not canceling before you show up.
It's making sure the tech knows how to close a deal. It's making sure your prices
are set correctly so you are profitable and making sure you're not having to
do callbacks, which is going to cost you even more money.
That's how you're going to maximize your ROI. why. So for a business,
(08:55):
when they're looking at things that they can go, I need to make more money or
they're feeling like all the stress, 99 times out of 100,
the things that they can directly control within the business are going to have
more positive effect than this changing marketing vendors or making a different
marketing strategy. None of those things really matter.
(09:16):
So if your business sucks, and this is actually, I want to say this is from the Volkswagen days,
is like in the 60s and 70s that suck i'm gonna i'm gonna botch his name somebody
made a quote that was essentially great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster,
And there's a whole lot of examples of this, right? So people look to marketing
(09:36):
to solve like a business problem.
It's just going to make things worse, bad, and fast.
So oftentimes, I think business owners forget to look inward at the things they
can't control, at their own leadership skills, at the way that they're training
their team to make sure they make the most of every opportunity.
Opportunity, if they want to change the direction of the business,
(09:58):
first look is to do a really hard, sober look inward at what the things of the
culture and the business that you're creating.
Changing marketing may totally be a part of it. Changing your vendors may totally be a part.
But it's often much more difficult to do an internal assessment than it is just
point fingers and blame.
And I think that's kind of the root of it. So yeah, great marketing cannot overcome bad operations.
(10:23):
Yeah, I 100% agree with you. And really, and it was funny, because I was looking
at a post today from Facebook, and an owner operator posted,
he was like, you know, I would rather know the cost per booked call than the cost per acquisition.
And I was like, no, like, you need to teach your team the cost per ran call,
(10:43):
because that's the marketing efficiency and the efficiency and operations, right?
You're looking at the entire customer journey teaching them, Well,
it started with this cost and then we went here and then we went here and you
can see it inflate as we go on due to either the conversion happening or the
conversion not happening.
And like, that's the important part to teach your team.
(11:07):
And as a leader, when you teach your team that they understand that they have
a part on the ship and, you know, like it doesn't sink.
You're not alone on a sinking ship. You're all together.
You're all together sinking on the ship it's funny though because I think and I saw that post too.
(11:28):
There is a time and place for understanding cost per book call,
cost of customer acquired, cost of brand call.
There's totally a place for understanding those. But if you want to say any
one is more important than another, I think you're kind of missing the point.
I do 100% agree that the more a business can understand the kind of financial
(11:50):
burden that's associated with each of those things and the levers involved with impacting them,
and then helping their team have the knowledge and skills to impact those levers
in a way that helps the business, everyone wins.
Everyone wins. So it's not just how much did this click cost or how much did this call cost.
(12:10):
It really is a more holistic view of, cool, it cost you $500 to run that particular
call, but you made 750K on the lifetime value of that customer.
That's math I will do all day long. That's solid math. Yeah.
We should start doing the math on the opportunity cost per missed book call. Lord, it's crazy.
(12:31):
That would be a sobering report to see.
It's like, well, your cost per book call was $400, but your opportunity cost
for you answering the phone like the lady on Monsters, Inc.,
your paperwork with Soundsky, it cost you $48,000.
Dollars i listened to uh this someone's call
(12:52):
the other day and the like the customer calling in
literally asked the csr like hey i'm
looking at getting a tankless water heater i've been seeing about these how much
how much is it like a navy and tankless water here right so the customer just
comes out and says like this is kind of the model that i've zeroed in on and
the csr literally said oh we don't give pricing over the phone and that the
(13:14):
customer is gone like even on that one One call,
like just that one call alone, which cost, I don't know, 90,
100 bucks, something like that.
There's so much money to be made that it was just gone, just wasted.
Just not just the cost to get the call, but yeah, to your point,
the cost of opportunity that was forfeit.
(13:36):
And the craziest part of that was that same CSR marked that lead, not a lead.
Like they're like, well, there
was a price question. It was a price objection. Like, it doesn't count.
Nope, that's not how that works. I think that's the best thing.
So the old style of leadership that I like to see is, or that I have seen,
(13:59):
is, hey, we're not giving prices over the phone.
Like, we're not doing that. We're not going to be a company that has...
That meets the customers where they're at. And so that's what I hear when I
hear price objections and they're coming from leadership, right?
It's not the CSR that's like, no, no, no, I don't know the price because they
(14:20):
have access to the system. They could find the price, right?
They could Google, they could do a lot of things because this is what the consumer did.
So what would you suggest from a leadership standpoint of how to adjust to the
times and an innovation of price objections.
Yeah. So this is a really good topic.
And we probably need chip salsa and margarita to get into it well.
(14:45):
I could make a couple of arguments. I think first argument number one is leadership
of companies should know now that
customers have more information at their fingertips now than ever before,
including the ability to Google things that are really common.
Them. How much should a water heater cost, for instance?
For good or for bad, Google's going to throw numbers out.
(15:06):
Customers are going to assume those numbers are valid.
Can't get mad at the customers for doing that. You would do the exact same thing
if you were looking to go to a steakhouse or if you're looking to buy a car, it doesn't matter.
Customers are going to do what customers do and business owners do the same
thing. So customers are going to come in with a certain sort of range or a certain sort of expectation.
But also the other reality is customers legit don't know.
(15:26):
They don't, they don't show up to all the trade shows.
They don't see your, you know, wherever you get your supplies from.
Like, they don't know the pricing. So it's a legit, honest, ignorant question for them. So...
I'm a huge fan of addressing customers like the humans that they are versus
like a series of objections to have to overcome.
(15:48):
So when a customer calls in and say like, hey, what's the price of a new water heater?
I'm a huge fan of a customer or a CSR responding empathetically with like,
oh, gosh, are you out without water heater? How long is this going on?
Just ask questions, understanding the customer situation.
Because customers don't want to call and get a new water heater.
It's a headache. It's a concern.
(16:10):
Closing the bridge from like with numbers and going straight to empathy is a huge, powerful tool.
And then when it's appropriate, the CSR can go, I'm so sorry you've been hearing this way.
We absolutely do water heaters all the time. Every job's a little bit different.
They can range from this to this.
Every job's different. And it just depends on kind of the need of the house
because the heaters are designed to fit the house, not necessarily just you.
(16:33):
So we have to actually get someone out to actually make sure that we're sizing
it correctly. I'm happy to do that and have time tomorrow at one o'clock.
Those things at least can give the customer some sense of knowledge and safety,
addresses them with empathy.
It's not letting everything out of the bag. It gives them opportunity to sales
to have the conversation, but it's not discarding the customer's legitimate,
(16:54):
honest request for information.
And it's honest, right? Because not all water heaters are the same.
So anytime a company cannot not view those as problems, but you view them as
opportunities to create a relationship with the customer, that's probably the operative word.
I think those companies are always going to fare better. So I tend to not necessarily
(17:17):
be a fan of giving pricing on a website.
I know there's a lot of argument for there. And I think my argument there is,
for good or for bad, Amazon has made people really impulsive.
And if you compete on price, you're going to lose on price. And so I I think
it's just kind of a weird thing.
I am a fan of kind of the more boutique sort of, hey, we're going to tailor
this based on your specific needs.
(17:37):
We'll tell you the pricing. We have no problem doing that, but we just don't
know the smartest way to do that without knowing more information. Yeah.
But that's just me. I think there's a little bit of both sides that can be played.
Yeah, totally. You know what I mean?
Because of the Amazon situation, you have limited choice in what you can do as a marketer.
(17:59):
And then because we are humans, we want to make sure that we are exactly playing
to their safety and security because that's why they called.
Right they didn't call us because they're like you know what today is the best day.
To break you know to buy a new water heater
like this is what i want to do it's a perfect day to get
a new mini split i've been waiting for this day for weeks well
(18:23):
also like it's like i know that like contractors you
know they're not always competing with amazon but i
think that there's a lot to be learned from amazon like amazon
has made it so like almost dangerously easy
to do business with where like you
have your amazon account and like within two clicks you have something showing
(18:43):
up to your door yeah at what you know however much a hundred dollars two hundred
dollars however much you spend like literally two clicks add to cart and like
quick checkout and it's there so like with with contractors like what i what
i like to tell folks too is like look if we're,
i agree we can't be putting you know all your pricing out there on the internet
because you You might be shooting yourself in the foot. You might be running people off.
(19:06):
But if that's the case, we have to make the customer's ability to contact us
and book an appointment almost as easy as Amazon makes it to purchase whatever
you got to buy off of Amazon.
And that's where a lot of contractors screw up is they make their pricing impossible to find out.
(19:28):
They make getting a hold of them impossible to find out. And then,
like you said, Ryan, the person just goes on to the next company and you lost that opportunity.
And I think it's, I don't necessarily think it's a screw up.
I think it's they don't know. And what you don't know, you don't know.
So what we can give you is valuable feedback is that you need to make the conversion happen faster and easy.
(19:51):
And so the way you can do that is online schedulers, right?
Like it's going into AI agents. Like there are live answering services.
There are ways to help your business out there, optimize the solutions that
will make your business more automated and efficient because that's the end goal in businesses.
(20:11):
The thing that I heard from you, Ryan, that I wanted to point out was you said,
turn the problem into an opportunity.
This is a huge leadership mindset, right? Like there are no problems.
There are only opportunities.
And that's kind of how I view the world. But I was taught that.
So can you go further into what you mean by looking by changing your mindset?
(20:32):
Oh, gosh. So this is one where, again, chips, also margarita helps. Yeah.
How do I say this? I think people would assume that most people are logical, rational beings.
That we make decisions with facts, we take information, we process it in a very
linear, systematic way, and then we make a decision.
(20:55):
The reality is if you look at the science behind the brain and the evolution
of the brain, that's not how it works at all.
In fact, most of the brain is impulsive and it's reactive and it's full of chemical
injections that causes us to have emotions.
And then on top of that, now you have a really frontal part of the brain that
(21:16):
lets us process and quantify with numbers.
All that to say is people are not rational beings who sometimes feel.
They're emotional beings who sometimes think.
And so we have to recognize that because of that,
the most important thing for a business owner to do is understand that reality
and then learn to leverage that to their thing so for for most businesses when
(21:40):
they see a problem their first thing is to have that reaction mode i gotta fix
this this is on fire this is broken this never works right they're just literally
going into like this survival fight or flight sort of mechanism,
and it's not allowing them to actually
reposition the way that the brain will respond if they
can train themselves to reframe a problem
(22:00):
like oh crap the csr didn't book this
call my csr suck nothing's ever right like that's
how they'll feel it will change like they will respond with logical decisions
based on that poor emotional response however if they train themselves which
is a neurological like function to actually say hey this isn't a problem this
(22:21):
is an opportunity to train my CSRs to go, hey, here's something we can do different.
Here's a way we can do this different so we have a different outcome.
It's not just forced thinking. It's not just like feigned optimism.
It literally is retraining your brain to see a different path in the future,
that gives you opportunity to provide resources, training, SOPs that now you can train against.
(22:44):
And now you're creating a future that you want versus just trying to put out fires nonstop.
And I think using kind of like the umbrella of leadership, that is probably
one of the most key elements.
Key skills that successful leaders have is they don't react to problems.
They've trained themselves to reframe those problems into opportunities,
(23:04):
and they look to maximize the opportunities that they have.
In fact, the more opportunities they have, the happier they get,
because that's chances for them to improve.
And it just not only does it change how a person thinks and operates and feels
in that moment, it changes the outcome of the situation.
So yeah, it's a really underspoken skill.
And I'm not a frou-frou. I'm not like a You know, I'm going to sit and sing
(23:27):
Kumpa Yala every day and read poems.
That's not me. And yet, I know I've learned the power of reframing those.
It is not easy. It is not natural. You have to train yourself to do it.
But when you do, it's a really cool change. yeah i think i i think that the
people that just you know react real quick those are the kind of people that
(23:49):
drink maxwell house coffee those guys i don't trust them they just drink maxwell
house coffee mullet wearing maxwell drinking hey.
Yeah i agree with you so like there's this one guy i saw a video this week and
(24:10):
it's called the one, three, one approach, right?
So it's the thing that I am really big on leadership and I am the frou-frou,
ha-ha, let's go to camp and like, let's learn what I'm doing wrong or kind of
thing and turn it into an opportunity.
So the first thing that I do when I leave my team is I look intrinsically.
I'm like, cool, like I'm not communicating properly, right?
(24:34):
Like the opportunity is on me. There's, there's like something going on.
So I evaluate what the problem is, turn it into an opportunity.
I find three solutions to that opportunity.
And then I make a decision with one, right? And it's not going to always have
to solve the opportunity.
It's saying, okay, what is the opportunity? And how do we get there? And.
(24:58):
And I think like leaders need to understand that it's okay to fail forward and
it's okay to, you know, like have these moments because if you don't have these moments,
then like you're setting your expectation to a hundred percent and like nothing
is attainable to a hundred percent.
It well i would okay so
(25:19):
the one three one is a really a really good example and
i think i think there's a couple of nuances that make it powerful and
you just you just alluded to something i think it's underrepresented so part
of one part of the the one three one concept which is identify the problem have
three solutions recommend a solution is is that you're delegating authority
(25:41):
and accountability for other people to solve the problem, right?
Which is not the business owner's first instinct is to be like,
only I can fix this. Only I can do this. Do it the way that I want,
even if I fail to tell you what that is.
One through one allows you the structure that teach other people to think through it.
And they own that decision because they contributed to the thought process.
(26:02):
They contribute to the solution and it's theirs.
So it's a powerful tool. The other thing that it does though is the point you
made, which is my second point, which is that allows people the opportunity to fail.
And you said it's okay to fail forward. I would actually say not just okay, it's required.
Most business owners got to the point that they are, and this is true if they're
(26:22):
a seven-figure business, an eight-figure business, a nine-figure business,
it doesn't matter, by making expensive mistakes.
And that's how they learn. And yet, those same people who learned by making
mistakes want to starve their team, sometimes the leadership team,
sometimes the people on the front lines, from the opportunity of making mistakes and learning.
(26:45):
It is the craziest thing. So part of the 131 is also saying,
hey, whatever you decide, awesome.
There will be an outcome of that decision. It might be good. It might be bad.
But we're going to learn from it regardless. Don't punish people for making
a decision, especially if they made it for good reasons, with good intent,
with good thinking, and then it failed.
That's a fantastic opportunity. Not a problem. That's a fantastic opportunity
(27:08):
to let them learn so that next time they make a better decision.
That's the whole point. So I'm a huge fan of failure.
Failure is a very very powerful teacher yeah and
failure without spending money is even better if you
can but sometimes sometimes like the pain of
the consequences what what has to uh like that's part of the driver right part
(27:31):
of it oh my gosh yes like the most painful failures is like when you have to
issue like a refund yeah it's like this is never happening again but like sometimes
Sometimes that's what it takes. You're just like, okay.
For me, a few times we've never had to issue a refund on something.
I'm like, this stops now.
(27:54):
And we figure it out.
And I'm quick to refund. I'm like, you know what? I don't even want you to have
to bring that to conversation.
This is the first thing that I'm going to do. Because I didn't provide value
to you. And I took your money.
And that's not acceptable. And that doesn't align with my values or my culture.
So, you know, like, but I, I can tell you that in the businesses that I've worked
(28:20):
at, they have given me the autonomy to make those decisions.
And even as a director of customer service, like I had the autonomy to be like,
no, like, I don't have to go up higher to say, hey, can I have a refund for this person?
I can say, nope, this is what's going to be going to happen.
Right? yeah so um yeah
(28:42):
it's it is one
of those things where i mean as a business owner like you obviously you feel
the pain of that check that you're writing right that as an employee they might
not and that's that's okay but there is something to be said about empowering
which is kind of the fundamental thing about the 131 it's like it's empowering
people to think through the problem,
(29:04):
make a decision that they think will best address it, go through it.
And if they were right or if they were wrong, either way, they grew because of it.
That's the cool part. They either learned, I'm not going to do that again,
or that was incredible. The next time this happens, this is what I'm going to do.
Both of them for a business is important. And as leaders, we should jump at
(29:28):
the chance to find ways to level up our people with lessons like that.
And to Eric's point, if we can do that in cheap, fast ways, awesome.
Fail cheap, fail fast. Sometimes they're not.
Either way, learn fast, learn often. Ryan, what's your thoughts on just middle-class fancy restaurants?
We're just going to kind of pivot a little bit here. I feel like this is a good segue.
(29:53):
What's a middle-class fancy restaurant? All right, so I'm Donald.
You know, I asked a couple weeks ago on the show, by the time you're listening
to this, folks, it's probably been a couple months ago, but I asked someone
the question of the day, what was their favorite middle-class fancy restaurant?
I think they said it was a fast food restaurant. and i was like
oh i need to ask someone with you know who has
experience in this kind of thing and
(30:16):
so for me when i think middle class fancy i'm thinking applebee's chili's
olive garden red robin ruby tuesday's
tgi didn't lead with red robin a ruby tuesday
man their salad bars bomb are they still around they're harder to find because
i think they're going through some financial stuff but when i find a salad bar
(30:36):
man it's just croutons it's those damn croutons are you should just market that
i know would you so you'd say ruby tuesday ruby tuesdays,
so i i do like ruby tuesday and for some reason i've never lived close to one
it's always like on a highway on the way to somewhere it's like cracker barrel-esque
sort of locations for some reason so it's hard to like get up the care to go
(31:02):
there but i the the how do i say this.
Most restaurants like and kind of in that level and you're
kind of your your chilies your red robins like they just
have to do things at such a scale that the quality of
the ingredients isn't my jam you know
like red robin's a good example like they've got the unlimited broccoli like
(31:23):
who eats unlimited broccoli i do but it's but it's microwaved and it's kind
of not the best but it's better than their fries you know like i i can't just
stomach the fries but it's just stuff like It's kind of hard to scale,
but I would much rather have like Ruby Tuesdays, like dark green salad bar and those amazing,
(31:44):
amazing croutons than have to roll the dice like at TGI Fridays or Applebee's.
What are some lessons that you think contractors could like apply from the restaurant industry?
That's a really great question. so i don't know
a lot of people may have heard the whole thing about it
(32:06):
is three times more expensive to create a new customer than
to keep an existing one that is directly from the restaurant industry so every
every industry is gonna be a little bit different on that exact math but that
study came from restaurants and the whole idea is a lot a lot of contractors
(32:27):
focus on. I need more new customers.
I need more new customers. And I get it. I get it. It's important.
It is three times more expensive for them to grow that way,
Three times than it is for them to take care of their current customer base.
So if there's anything that's like, hey, pay attention to this,
restaurants run on really, really lean margins.
(32:49):
It's a high failure rate for a reason.
If you could find ways to not just exploit your customers for more revenue,
but serve them, provide a higher level of service in ways that they want to
pay you and do it for longer periods of time,
you will be more far more profitable far
more healthy far more stable business than if
(33:11):
you're just burning through the leads burning through the calls screwing
some like selling a i mentioned the navian if you're selling a thirty thousand
dollar navian just because you can and then moving on to the next guy if you're
just burning these guys one-offs like you are totally missing the point of profitability
and so if there's anything with restaurants i'd be like focus on on your current customers first,
(33:34):
serve them at an exceptionally high level where they want to keep using you,
they want to keep giving you their money,
and then find ways to smartly augment it with new customers and add them to the fold.
But leaning too hard on new customers, I think it's a really short-sighted and
expensive strategic play.
Yeah. Yeah.
(33:54):
I bet y'all thought right now, all the listeners out there, maybe most of y'all
thought Eric was going nowhere with this whole restaurant thing.
Bear with us, folks. So we were talking towards the beginning of the episode
like how the ROI, gosh, I already forgot the quote.
Anyways, the ROI is a result of the operation of the business.
And as you mentioned, such an easy way to increase that bottom line is just
(34:21):
to retain customers and get them coming back for more.
And I feel like we just like, so many folks are always on Facebook.
They're like, who has a good reward system?
Who has a good referral thing? I'm like, let's think about Five Guys burgers and fries for a second.
Have you all ever been there before? Yep. Oh, gosh, yes. Five Guys is awesome.
What happens when you order from them? What comes in the bag?
(34:45):
All the fries you never possibly knew you could eat.
All the fries that you didn't even order are in the bag. You order a small,
like half the bag is french fries. That's a reward system right there.
It's not like an if-then reward system. it's like now that reward system it's
delightful and you tell everyone about it and you come back for more you go back for the fries,
(35:08):
It's a thought. You do the spicy fries? I like, yeah. I'm a big french fry kind of dude.
So when you threw a jam at Red Robin's fries a second ago and my coffee selection,
this episode might not air.
You throw yourself shade with the coffee selection. Two, Red Robin's sweet potato
(35:30):
fries aren't awful. Like, I'll give them credit.
The normal, what are they called? The steak fries, what are they called? I'm like, eh, yeah.
But no, your point stands. It's almost like if a business can find ways to add
value to the customer that doesn't cost them a lot of extra money,
(35:51):
that doesn't take a lot of extra time for them, but it adds a wow impact,
totally worth doing.
Doing i was talking to someone the other day and they did they own
a carpet cleaning business like that's what they do and the
first thing when the person comes out you know so so-and-so
calls like i've got dog stains on my carpet come clean it all right so while
while the technician or the cleaner i don't remember what they called them is
(36:15):
talking to the customer like they're just kind of getting like so what's laid
land where's the mess has happened blah blah they've got like this little spray
bottle and this little thing and they are literally just looking for spots to
stop sweep sweep down, polish while they're talking to the customer.
Just clean it up and stand back up and keep talking to the customer.
It's not a part of the script. It's not, I did this with this chemical so that
(36:36):
we can, it's just, I'm doing something kind because I'm here to help.
Their closing rate when that person's in their house is like 95%, like just sky high.
And they're not the cheapest because they do like this little extra thing that
doesn't take any extra time, cost them a few cents in chemicals,
but it just makes the customer feel special that they would even bother doing it.
(36:58):
Regardless if they hired them or not. And that's like your extra fries in the
bag, right? It's like, yes, they're glorious, amazing fries.
It doesn't, potatoes are cheap. It doesn't cost you any more money to throw in another half potato.
And it doesn't take up any more bag. You're already using the same bag.
It doesn't take you any more time. Like you're already scooping the bag anyways.
It's just a little extra effort that costs the business relatively pennies,
(37:22):
but makes the customer feel exceptional as a part of it.
Like, no brainer. And that's what the customer remembers.
Like they remember that, like I asked what was inside the bag and you guys didn't
say there was a cheeseburger in there.
You said there's all the fries you could have. Like, so that's like what we all remember.
When I think of Five Guys, I think of like half the bag is full of potatoes.
But yeah, like that's something that like, I hope contractors are hearing that
(37:46):
are listening to this right now. It's like- Okay, but give them ideas.
Like what, like just spit it out. Like tell me what is extra.
Tell me what is valuable. First thing I would think of, and I had a contractor
in my house. He took off his Crocs and wore his socks.
Okay, wear booties. Like you can buy them cheap.
And that's just a part of the service, right? Deliver clean,
(38:07):
exceptional service in that way. That starts with a presentation.
What's another value add? When I was with Mosquito Joe back in the day.
Like something that the CSRs would ask is like, do you have any animals?
Like what's some things we should know about the property?
And I think any home service company should do that because you need to know
(38:29):
if they have a dog, if they have a cat, if they have a bird.
And if they said they had a dog, well, the reason we would ask for the dog was
because after they sprayed, the dog can't be out on the grass for 30 minutes.
But all the techs kept a box or a stack of Mosquito Joe branded Frisbees in
their truck, and they just throw it out in the backyard on the grass.
(38:50):
And the amount of google reviews that mentioned
the frisbee and the customers that thanked him for the frisbee it was just a
little thing the dog would come running back inside with a frisbee in its mouth
and they were like where do you get the frisbee from so like little things like
that it's it's what you remember kind of like the french fries or you know that
they were they were wearing the booties or you know all the little things too
(39:10):
they left behind a bag of candy
something Stephanie Allen's baking
cookies cookies are always amazing I I'm a little bit of a different opinion
with the booties at this point I feel like that's not like permission to play
it's just like I just keep singing it and so like there are new people coming
into the industry so let's teach them like this is what it's like that's no
(39:33):
longer a high bar that is now the bar,
but dogs are a great thing I know someone else who same sort of thing Eric they'll
ask about out the pets, but they'll bring little treats for the dog.
It's like, cool. So they just kind of make friends. It's kind of a wow thing.
Someone else I know, they train their text. If you see the trash can on the street, move it in.
(39:53):
And just kind of bake it into your script of like, before you leave,
Hey, by the way, I saw your trash can is empty. I went ahead and will it up
for you. I have to just say, you know, it's a throwaway comment.
If the trash can is empty, if
the trash can is empty, but it's like little things. There's someone else.
Someone else has talked to the other day. I'm trying to remember the exact thing,
but they're working on the water heater and they did like a courtesy inspection
(40:15):
of like other appliances, like other plumbing things while they're there.
And they found like, Oh, this, this garbage disposal is acting weird.
So they literally spent five minutes.
They swapped out a really cheap part that they happened to have on them.
They said, hey, no, you didn't call us for the disposal.
It was going to fail in like a week. I went and swapped out the part because
I had a spare one. Don't worry about it.
Those things are, again, cost the company relative pennies.
(40:38):
But it does create a wow moment for the customer. And gosh dang it,
if you learn something from a restaurant, do that.
P.F. Chang's actually might be a good example of another wow sort of restaurant.
I don't know if a lot of people know this. Back in the 90s, early 2000s,
when they were first growing, they had zero marketing budget.
They had no billboards, they had no radio, they had no frozen food line in the
(41:02):
grocery store. They grew by word of mouth.
But the way that they did that was they would essentially, their marketing budget
that they would otherwise allocate,
they gave to their wait staff to create
what they called wow experience and like for me
i i worked at pf chang's when i was in college and i
remember this one guy came in like the store just opened
(41:24):
it was super popular super trendy so people were like on waiting lists for days
guy came in with his girl trying to impress his girl and she's like oh i got
you know go up and serve him and she wants this whatever dish cool and he jokes
like hey you know i just really love a steak It's like, ha, ha, ha, ha.
No, seriously, why can't I get you guys? No, I just don't like Chinese food. Okay.
(41:46):
So what people don't know is P.F. Chang's is owned by the same company who owns
Fleming Steakhouse. The F in P.F.
Stands for Fleming, Paul Fleming.
So it happened to be right next door. So I had the budget literally to send
my assistant next door, get a steak from Fleming Steakhouse,
which is a high-end steakhouse, come and serve it on P.F. Chang's plates and
(42:09):
serve it to him for dinner.
They were shocked. Like they did not expect a steak at a Chinese restaurant, right?
But that's where the marketing budget was applied. Instead of them spending
this much on billboards and this much on PPC or whatever else,
it's like, nope. They focus on the experience.
And those guests came back the next day and the guy ordered Chinese food.
(42:31):
That is where companies make significant wealth.
Not from taking care of the customer once, but by doing it in such an impactful
way that they want to come back again and again and again.
And again you're saying give them the beef everything's better
with beef and less bees yes yes
yeah no that makes sense deliver the wow
(42:52):
be remarkable great books out there
for you to read contagious purple cow those are purple cows really simple and
short if someone you know isn't a reader but readers are leaders so that is
those are some good books there's a lot of good books out there about delivering
the remarkable service.
(43:13):
Yep. There's a lot. And there's even things that just kind of focus on creating... How about this?
Another thing, since we're kind of on the umbrella of leadership,
one of the most important parts, I would argue, for a leader is to create a
vision big enough for other people to see themselves in it.
(43:35):
And that includes attracting people who want to take care of other people.
Right? So if you cannot attract people who care about serving people,
who just want to do the bare minimum to get by,
who don't want to throw the fizzbee in the backyard, if that's the caliber of
people you're attracting, it's probably a direct reflection on you that you
aren't creating a vision of the business big enough that other people can see
(43:58):
themselves in there and doing those things.
So directly, there is a leadership component, not just like, hey, here's ideas to do.
But there's a responsibility to leadership to dream big, to have a big tent
and to attract really high quality humans to join them i agree i agree too,
ryan is there anything we haven't touched on yet that you were hoping to chat about,
(44:22):
we get we can go over on coffee and we can do some bourbons.
16 billion or a million dollars that was pretty funny oh gosh yeah that was
awesome uh i did a tiktok on that one too that was that was fun yeah i mean
honestly i just i have a huge amount of respect for you guys.
I had no agenda coming in here. I just love the dialogue.
(44:44):
I like that they're really good humans, not just doing what you guys do,
but also in sharpening others and giving people tools and resources to make themselves better.
So it's like, I'm just honored to be here. So thanks for the opportunity.
Yeah, thank you for taking the time to share your experiences with us.
And I always learn from you every single time I to talk to you.
(45:06):
And I just love speaking with you.
And, you know, for me, your partnership has been just incredibly valuable and
I appreciate you so much. So thank you for being on the trademark.
We appreciate you and can't wait to have you back.
I would love to be back. Thank you so much. That was very kind.
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