February 9, 2022 • 37 mins
In this episode, Jan Gierlach shares how he and his partner Wesley made their high school passion a full time amazon consulting business, Hometown Industries.
They serve retailers and brand owners to help them better sell on Amazon and other third party market places. They also consult with and provide high level insight and software to investment companies that are looking to acquire amazon companies. Enjoy the episode!
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Episode Transcript
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Dale Majors (00:00):
In today's episode, I share with you Jan Gierlach
and his story starting HometownIndustries. So Jan and Wesley,
his partner, started selling onAmazon as juniors in high
school. They sold product usingFBA, and then they dreamed of
going into business together,which eventually happened with
their agency HometownIndustries. They serve retailers
(00:22):
and brand owners to help thembetter sell on Amazon and other
third party marketplaces. Theyeven consult with and provide
high level insight and softwareto investment companies that are
looking to acquire products inthat space or companies in that
space. It's just reallyimpressive what he's
accomplished and I'm excited toshare with you kind of how his
(00:42):
mind works, and some of theinsights that I got from today's
call. So without further ado,here is our episode.
VA Intro (00:50):
Welcome to the venture anyway, build your podcast.
Insights from the trenches bythose who are busy building.
When I finally embraced what Iwas really good at, it kind of
felt like an adventure. Yeah, Ireally would have done a lot
differently.
Dale Majors (01:11):
Alright, hello, everyone. Today on the Venture
Anyway podcast, I have JanGierlach. And Jan is with
Hometown Industries and AmazonServices Company, and Jan and I
know each other, we're gonnahave a great conversation today.
And I'm excited to kind of shareJan with the world and give
everybody a glimpse into whathe's doing his journey, what
(01:34):
he's doing well, maybe what heneeds help with, and just have a
good conversation. So excited tohave you Jan.
Jan Gierlach (01:40):
Yeah, Dale, I'm excited to be here. Cool.
Dale Majors (01:42):
Do you want to give us a quick intro into what you
do? Maybe what made you choose?
You know why to start HometownIndustries? And what your
experience has been thus far?
Jan Gierlach (01:54):
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. So I'll start kind of witha broad overview of what it is
that we do in the first place.
So we're an E commerce agency,service provider. So the way I
think of it is, it's essentiallyour job to help businesses
understand the addressablemarket for their products
online. And then the best waysto capture that market share. So
to do this, like you mentioned,we're primarily leveraging
(02:14):
online retailers, Amazon beingthe biggest one, but also
Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe's,eBay. And then we're also
leveraging, you know, paidadvertising platforms to drive
traffic accordingly. So thinkGoogle and Facebook are the
biggest ones there. So that'skind of what we do in a
nutshell, you know, we are, asyou know, Dale, kind of taken, I
think, a bit more of ananalytical approach than is
(02:36):
common in some of this marketingspace, where we are trying to
understand truly like, what isthe market size? Who are the
competitors? And you know,assuming certain variables, you
know, how much market share cana brand capture? So I, you know,
I think that's a pretty goodoverview of what it is that we
do, you know, as far as what youknow, caused us to get started
in the first place. I don't knowif I have a super compelling
(02:58):
answer, I've wanted this. Iwanted this for so long, I kind
of even you know, you kind ofstart to forget with enough time
of why you wanted something inthe first place. Some
background, my co founder and I,Wes, have known each other since
we were 10 years old. And so inmany ways, it's just kind of
like a childhood dream, that I'mjust sometimes I have to kind of
(03:19):
check myself because I can'tbelieve that we're actually
we're actually doing it, youknow, in the stage that we're
at. So yeah, just something I'venever wanted anything else. This
has been something that it trulyfrom the earliest of ages that
I've been super fixated on as agoal and, you know, haven't
really looked back, then I'vecertainly had other jobs and
gained experience and otherthings. But this was always, you
(03:41):
know, our North Star, you know,since we were really young and
going into high school, westarted selling online ourselves
and building that is sort of abaseline of expertise. But this
has always been, you know, whatwe wanted to do?
Dale Majors (03:52):
Wait, so when did you start selling?
Jan Gierlach (03:55):
We were, uh, we didn't, you know, we didn't
start until it was maybe junioryear of high school. We did our
first like, inventory by Yeah,so we, you know, we did our
research and then, you know,it's that model that's very,
very, I think well understoodonline, you know, just for
sourcing products overseas, and,and shipping that stateside, and
that's when we first startedselling.
Dale Majors (04:15):
Yeah. Love it. What did you sell first? Online?
Jan Gierlach (04:19):
Oh, man, the first thing we ever sold was, you ever
go to those restaurants like adiner and you see the, the
holder that has the special likethe daily special on the side?
They're sort of they'rebasically acrylic, plastic
picture frames. Okay. And thatwas the first the first thing we
ever we ever sourced. And, youknow, we learned just so much
(04:40):
through the process, you know,the first batch shows up and,
you know, you got inventorythat's broken and busted, and
you have to, you know, pack andprep everything get it sent into
the fulfillment centers, butthat was the first item we ever
sourced. And we just learned aton through that process. And
the second item was, was a papertowel. holder. So again, nothing
(05:01):
too, too crazy. They're just youknow, it's standard, you know,
run of the mill paper towelholder you might find in any
kitchen.
Dale Majors (05:08):
And you were doing all of that on Amazon FBA
through FBA.
Jan Gierlach (05:11):
Yes, yeah, we were leveraging. That's how we
learned entirely about Amazon,FBA platform, all of that.
Dale Majors (05:17):
Okay. So I've known you for a while, you know, we
use your services. And I knowthat you're young, but even on
this call, I said, What are you26? Or whatever? And 23? So high
school wasn't too far ago, say,no, no, it's not yours. And now,
that's awesome. And and, youknow, a marketplace like Amazon
(05:38):
changes, so much. So to beyou've really been living in
Amazon for six years or so,then.
Jan Gierlach (05:45):
Yeah. And we've seen that evolvement firsthand.
You know, I can't, when we firstgot started, it felt like Amazon
was just sort of starting tophase out. And by phase out,
make the platform more difficultfor sort of hobby sellers. You
know, when we first got started,it was big. And I think to some
extent, it still is, but thiswhole idea of retail arbitrage,
you know, you go and you try andget these clothes out sales or
(06:06):
do these buys and, and, youknow, list products that way,
I'm really small scale. And theywere already sort of starting to
think the platform is startingto change and be geared up for
this is going to be a place forrenowned, huge international
brands, or brands in the worksthat becoming that. So we saw
that evolvement happen firsthandwhere Amazon started to make it
(06:27):
far more difficult. And theplatform started to evolve, sort
of beyond or make it moredifficult for some of the
resellers that have donehistorically, quite well.
Dale Majors (06:36):
Yeah. Okay. Cool.
Well, no, and I think it'simportant for everybody to know,
you got your degree in computerscience, right? And something
computer programming, it's ofsome sort.
Jan Gierlach (06:47):
Yes, I should, I should be fair, to my alma
mater, I did not I did notfinish my degree. So I don't
want to I don't want to say Ihave this credential when I in
fact, do not. But I havecompleted the vast majority to a
computer science degree atcollege.
Dale Majors (07:02):
So full disclosure, I'm seven classes away from
getting an actual degree to sono, okay. degrees.
Jan Gierlach (07:10):
Yeah, I'm about to round up. But I just I don't
want to I don't want topotential when I don't have
that.
Dale Majors (07:15):
What about, what about, so, but you learned that
technical skill, you'veprogrammed, you're building
programs within your company,that's one of the things you're
doing? What, uh, what, whatabout Wesley? Did he get a
degree he did he go to school?
Jan Gierlach (07:28):
He went to school as well, both him and I did not
finish he was kind of on anaccounting track, I believe. But
Wes is, he's a data scientist.
So that's sort of been, as youknow, our foray into this market
is, you know, I'm a sort of anengineer, software engineer by
trade. I've worked in that jobbefore. And Wes is an accountant
and data scientists. So he haskind of those are the tools, you
(07:50):
know, in our tool belt that wewere kind of using to apply to
this industry. That's kind ofhow we came to it was just,
we're both really fascinated andobsessed with like, what are
these larger, like markettrends. And Amazon is just this
ecosystem that contains anendless amount of markets for
consumer product goods, and youcan study those markets and
learn so much.
Dale Majors (08:12):
I think entered it from from the outside in and
having worked with you guys, Ithink that's one thing that you
a lot of people try to do Amazonconsulting to do what you're
doing. But I think where you'vedone a great job is having a
good partner that is verydifferent from you and in in
adding and bringing acomplementary skill set. So
yeah, that's awesome.
Jan Gierlach (08:32):
Yeah, I mean, none of this would have been possible
with without, yeah, well, Wesand I, he definitely, I like to
think we have complementaryskill sets that it really worked
out for us to do what we have sofar.
Dale Majors (08:42):
Yeah, I love it.
Awesome. Yeah, and that's a goodas I look back, when I was
building my business, I probablytook 80% of the credit,
especially near the end. But asI look back, I was 50/50
partners with my dad, and he wasthe steady, you know, consistent
accountant type that kind ofbalanced what I did. And more
and more, as I'm further awayfrom that, I realized how
(09:05):
blessed I was to have a goodpartner, that, you know, that I
could trust implicitly that thatcheered me on, you know, that we
were really we worked reallywell together. And a lot of that
was, you know, I think thanks tohim, but that's awesome. So tell
me, you know, maybe highlight inyour business, a recent obstacle
that you had to overcome? Canyou think of one?
Jan Gierlach (09:29):
Yeah, that's a great question. And every every
day is a recent a recentobstacle in some shape or form,
I would say, you know, in therelatively recent history of our
business, as you know, Dale, weare no, we're experts in
understanding, you know, directto consumer and how to
essentially captured you know,how to sell more consumer
(09:50):
products, you know, directly toconsumers. But the other part of
what we do is we're ultimatelyselling that to businesses. So
we're doing b2b sales. And Iwould say, you know, When we
were first getting started, wedidn't have really much of that
that b2b sales experience, youknow, we knew a lot of these
platforms, we knew how to, youknow, understand these markets
and capture more market share.
But we know we had first sort ofrelied on, we would use
(10:13):
outsource, outsource sort ofsales resources, like STR as a
service type of type of groups.
And that was fine to certainextent, but you know, what we
found is they actually had ahard time doing like lead
generation for us. So actuallybeing able to reliably and
consistently find these, youknow, SMB type businesses that
(10:33):
we were able to serve as an adda ton of value for. And so we we
had to kind of come together andthe team, Wes and I, and figure,
okay, like, how are we going toare going to how we're going to
deal with this, because the, thegroups that we're using to
potentially leverage this, it'sjust not working out. So we
built a proprietary tool thatdoes, like lead generation on
our behalf. So I'm immenselyproud of that. It's been a
(10:54):
wonderful sort of obstacle thatwe have tackled successfully so
far, where basically, we justkind of built it ourselves, and
it goes out and, you know,leveraging the polls, you know,
information directly from Amazonsorts through that. And then,
you know, we kind of have adatabase that we're essentially
building out of all of thesecompanies. And, and from there,
we're able to sort of track andtarget which, which companies we
(11:15):
think would benefit the mostfrom a service provider like us.
Dale Majors (11:18):
Yeah. Love it. So you used to use what you said an
SDR?
Jan Gierlach (11:24):
Yeah, there's all sorts of wonderful services out
there. And the groups we workwith did a wonderful job, but
they're their role is toessentially, you know, find
companies so to lead generation,and then, you know, act as that,
you know, that SDR to go out,you know, reach out to that,
that prospect and thenultimately book a meeting with
(11:44):
you.
Dale Majors (11:45):
So is that sales development rep? Is that what
SDR stands for?
Jan Gierlach (11:48):
Yes, yes.
Dale Majors (11:52):
Yeah, outside sales, helpers to bring in
potential clients, and finallyleads, and then that's where you
would take over to sell it
Jan Gierlach (12:01):
Exactly, exactly.
And we've since taken like fullownership of the whole of the
wholesale cycle. So we're doing,you know, every aspect of that
now.
Dale Majors (12:09):
Wow, I love it.
You're your first priority, youhave a pretty great, really low
churn rate of clients.
Jan Gierlach (12:17):
Yes.
Dale Majors (12:18):
Right. Haven't you had in the 20s of clients or
whatever it was, and never lostany?
Jan Gierlach (12:23):
We are, Well, I that was odd. For a long time,
as we've as we've grown, we havelost, you know, several clients.
But I would say our our industrystandard, like churn rate is off
the charts. And I know thatbecause we have done contract
work for other serviceproviders, especially when we
were first getting startedwesternize. So we were brought
in by some pretty large groupsand brought into manage their
(12:46):
accounts, on their most highprofile accounts. And we could
see, I mean, they were churningclients at probably 30% a year.
And so a big initiative for Wesand I is, you know, how do we
just keep that churn as low aspossible? That that was
something that, you know, forevery sort of subscription model
business, I can speak, at leastfor myself, you sometimes
entered naively think like, oh,like, every, every additional
(13:09):
MRR I generate, that's justthat's just infinite, you know,
that's just going forward inperpetuity. But, you know, in
reality, as you scale beyond,you know, to a certain level of
MRR, there's just, there's justa hole in that bucket, and you
are going to lose clients. But Ithink we've done a wonderful job
of keeping churn really, reallylow. I mean, I would I would
need a, you know, I would onlyneed, you know, essentially, I
(13:31):
think one hand to count thenumber of clients we've turned
and the amount of time thatwe've been in business and
clients that we've served. So Ithink that's a pretty, you know,
gotten the industry standardlevel. That's, that's pretty
exceptional. And I think we havea novel approach to like how we
achieve that in the first place?
No, our sales cycle part of itis doing this pretty all
inclusive analysis, analysis, anaudit of a business, and seeing,
(13:51):
okay, realistically, what's thegrowth potential here, and we
come up with a milestone. So alot of you know, in my
experience, especially havingworked for those service
providers on a contract basis,now, they'll come in and
potentially save you, like,they'll promise any growth
model, they need to sort ofclose the deal. But with Wes and
I's experience, we thought thatwas kind of short sighted, like
if, if you and I are enteringinto this, you know, service
(14:13):
provider type relationship, andwe are not in agreement on like,
what successes, then that isdoomed to fail from the very
beginning. So we've turnedbusiness away as a result, you
know, which is hard to do.
Because you know, it's so muchwork right to get in front of
someone you get on theircalendar to have that meeting.
But you do the analysis, you dothe audit, we have our process.
And the numbers of the numbers.
It's sometimes people say, Hey,you have to be a lot bigger for
(14:35):
us to work with you. And it'shard to, you know, say Oh, but
maybe we could do this. Maybe wecould do that. But we stick by
it. We stick by the numbers, wesay all right, sorry. We should
work together
Dale Majors (14:44):
That that's actually one of the things that
I liked most about you. And asI've told other people, I've
given you a couple referrals andas I've told these people, like
hey, I know these Amazon guys,they do this, whatever, they'll
just give you a straight shot.
You know, they'll just I lovehow straight you are with
people. And because that'spretty rare to find in these
(15:05):
marketing agencies actually needyou to have Bateman Collective
is one that does paid search.
Okay, you know he does Googleads, Brandon Bateman he was in
one of my other mastermindgroups, I need to introduce you
to him, because he's actuallyvery similar to you guys in
that. And and and I've not metmany marketing agencies that do
(15:28):
it that way. And I think that'swhy I've done so well. So that's
awesome. Well thank you. So youhave this sales problem, you
Jan Gierlach (15:33):
Yeah, yeah, it's been a huge part of how we've
fixed it, I think it's reallyimportant to recognize that if
you didn't have good retention,that you're you know, the sales
thing is really just a neverending treadmill, you know, that
won't fix the problem. And Ithink for you guys, that's
exciting that you that you stepthat up, because with your good
(15:56):
intention, or with your goodretention, you know, should be a
winning combo. But a lot ofpeople try to sell too soon. So
you know, and don't. And it'shard chicken in the egg, right?
You need to sell and getclients, but I love the focus
you've put on retention.
how we built the business forsure.
Dale Majors (16:16):
Awesome. Well, cool. So tell me what's a what's
a, like a day in the life? Foryou as an agency owner?
Jan Gierlach (16:25):
Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, I'm not
I'm not sure you know, howinteresting it will be the sound
probably like a typical workday.
You know, as far as Wes and Ihave segmented our
responsibilities, he'sdefinitely heavy, heavily
focused on on the upside. So,you know, he is the premier
expert on all these platforms,and overseeing all the work that
gets done on client accounts. Sohe has a whole, you know,
(16:49):
wonderful team, that's, youknow, working with him to make
that happen. But he's largelyoverseeing, you know, the kind
of the operations portion of thebusiness the day to day. And
then we're, I'm, you know,pretty much spending a lot of my
time is on, you know, thebusiness development side. So I
have a wonderful salesperson, wehired Jeff, who I work with, so
him and I are in close contactthroughout the day. And so kind
(17:12):
of the day will kick off and wehave our CRM, which is tracked,
you know, all of our, all of ouroutbound for that day, or all
the current conversations thatwe're having, rather, and who we
kind of prioritize, okay, basedon that, who's who's the most
interesting to talk to, who dowe really want to follow up
with. So, you know, going overthat, with him reviewing sort of
those goals, we get a lot ofbusiness through some other like
(17:34):
third party services, as well.
You know, basically aggregatorsof job postings, we have a
really good system where webasically go out and we, we
search for people who areposting for jobs, and we kind of
come in and say, Hey, like, I,you know, you're posting for
this specific role. But we're aservice provider, we have this
(17:54):
service, I think it'd be a greatfit, and probably more, maybe
even more cost effective thanwhat you have.
Dale Majors (17:58):
That's interesting.
Jan Gierlach (18:00):
So we go through that a lot together. There's
typically some meetings, a,hopefully, a good day, a lot of
meetings. So actually, the daywill be usually filled with,
basically, you know, pitches, sopeople who have agreed to meet
with with us and our company,and Jeff and I will take those
calls, and essentially pitch ourservices explain more about the
business. So it's kind of ahodgepodge of all the things you
(18:21):
might think of when associatedbusiness development going over
who we're currently talking toyou managing all the follow ups.
Checking in, we again, it goesback to that tool that we built,
that is doing all this leadgeneration for us, a lot of work
goes in on my side for like, allthe software that's involved in
that. So maintaining that goingin tweaking things accordingly,
and making sure everything'srunning smoothly there. And then
(18:44):
yeah, just just also checkingthe rates, you know, we're
sending out a good amount of,you know, emails every single
day. But all the things youmight think of it as far as
that's concerned with businessdevelopment, usually a good bit
of meetings throughout the day,oh, and the more the better,
because that you know, morepeople are meeting with, the
more opportunities, I have toget out in front and pitch our
services and what we're allabout, if I can finish all of
(19:05):
that, then the thing I reallylove to do, and not that I don't
love business development,because I love I love meeting
new people. But at any part ofoutbound sales, you know, you
sometimes people aren't happy tohear from you. So that's, that's
not always fun. But if I canfinish all those sort of tasks
related to that, my work is thenkind of split between, we have
some clients that we do web workprimarily on the Shopify
(19:28):
platform for so then I will sortof go in and do whatever we're
responsible for as far asworking in maintaining those
ecommerce sites. And then whenit comes to again, as you've
touched on our kind of keydifferentiators and competitive
advantages is in a number ofsoftware tools that we're
actively working on anddeveloping. So what I love too,
is I can get through the wholeday or a lot of the tasks that I
(19:49):
have set out set aside and thenactually get to get to
programming. You know, getgetting the right software on
these tools that in many ways Ikind of view you know the
longevity and success of us asan organization, we'll be kind
of the, the maturing and growthof these tools, because not only
do they make us better at whatwe do, and make us better at
account management and theservices we provide, but our
(20:11):
ultimate vision and goal is toactually sell those as
standalone solutions to otherservice providers, like, like
us, or even other sellers outthere. Yeah. So that's kind of
the ultimate vision and much ofthe goal behind what we're doing
in the development there.
Dale Majors (20:26):
So that's what, uh, you know, because the, the
agency model can be tough.
Right, so work, you're, you'realways hustling, you know, I
guess two things, I'd love totake a step back. And then also
maybe dig in a little bit moreto what you said. With, uh, you
know, as you're hustling andbusiness development all the
(20:46):
time, maybe speaking a littlebit to how you keep your sanity
and wits about you being in thatbecause it's hard, you know,
maybe a little bit routines. Butfirst, stepping back, at the
very beginning of the call, yousaid, you know, you help people
leverage marketplaces. Andthrough an analytical approach,
right, you're leveraging ithappens to be Amazon today is
(21:08):
the main marketplace, right?
That you guys are focusingthere, because that's where the
crowd is. But at some point, youwould, you know, if eBay took
off again, or if Walmart tookoff in a bigger way or whatever
else, you would help peopleleverage those marketplaces. So
it's not so much about themarketplace, but about just
(21:31):
leveraging marketplaces ingeneral.
Jan Gierlach (21:33):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, we're, we're pretty muchagnostic as to what the
marketplace is, to your pointhappens to be Amazon right now.
But I'm incredibly bullish onthird party retailers. Beyond
Amazon, Walmart, obviously, isthe one that's pretty well
known. But I often I think whathas less awareness right now is
how big homedepot.com isbecoming.
Dale Majors (21:54):
I hadn't heard that before.
Jan Gierlach (21:56):
Yeah, homedepot.com is picking up a
lot of traction. So we'reincredibly bullish on some of
these other third partyretailers. And we're going to be
poised to take advantage ofthose and understand those at a
very deep level when they whenyou're definitely the larger
market starts to realize like,well, you know, there there are
massive opportunities here.
Dale Majors (22:13):
So in any other retailers, or people that may be
listening to this, they'll haveto will, you know, you're having
these conversations all thetime, right. So you're looking
for companies that want to be onmarketplaces more will share
your contact info at the end ofthe call. But that's yeah,
that's a big, anybody reallywith the catalog could benefit
(22:36):
from a conversation with youguys?
Jan Gierlach (22:38):
Yeah, I absolutely.
Dale Majors (22:39):
So your long term picture is software. That's a
long term kind of hope and dreamof, we're going to end up with
some great software someday.
Jan Gierlach (22:48):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, to your point, read theagency model is it is tough,
it's a, it's a business modelthat we've definitely made work
in a way that I think isscalable, and sustainable, which
I love. Because I think in manycases it can't be. So I'm
certainly proud of what we'vebuilt so far there. But I also,
you know, view the agency modelis one of the other benefits, or
there's several other benefitsis we are building just an
(23:10):
incredible team right now. Youknow, Wes and I've been so lucky
and fortunate, I don't reallyknow how I think mostly through
luck, to convince some reallytalented and incredible people
to work with us. So we're kindof we're building this
incredible team that is verydynamic and flexible, very
skilled. And so we're in a greatposition to, you know,
eventually, you know, buy ourown business one day, you know,
(23:31):
a consumer products company thatwe can owner, as you and I have
talked about running in exchangefor equity. So there's all these
sorts of tangential benefits theagency model, what we're
getting, we're getting, we'refirst getting to meet a lot of
wonderful people like yourselfand many others, and then we're
getting exposure to a lot ofother businesses, we're building
out these skill sets and thesecore competencies that I think
we can leverage to do, you know,much more than what we're doing
(23:55):
right now, as far as you know,okay, we're coming in to manage
the account. But no, we're alsoin a position where, you know,
if we had the, the the resourcesor wanted to buy a business and
run that consumer productscompany successfully, I think we
absolutely could. Yeah, and Idon't know how we can achieve
that if we had or just a pure,like software type, you know?
Dale Majors (24:16):
Absolutely. Well, I think I know why people work,
you know, knowing why, you know,we've known each other for a
little bit, I think, I think oneof the things you do really well
is just maintaining a humble,you know, curious open attitude
of and it's it's easy to workfor people like that, you know,
that have those attitudes andattributes that you have that
you're embodying, and you guysare smart. And there's a lot of
(24:40):
agencies that wouldn't want totake the risk of running one of
these businesses because thenyou really have to kind of prove
your worth.
Jan Gierlach (24:47):
Yeah, you have to be really good at what you do.
Dale Majors (24:49):
You get what you do. So I love the confidence and
your ability to back that up. Sothat's, that's amazing. Awesome.
So to kind of final question oneor two questions? If well, going
back to what I was saying, whatdo you do in in, you know, 30 -
30, 60 seconds? What do you doto stay sane outside of running
(25:12):
an agency?
Jan Gierlach (25:13):
Oh, yeah, that's a great question. Well, as you
know, Dale, I'm a big cyclist.
So I think, yeah, it's becomeabundantly clear, the longer we
do this, that the name of thegame here is endurance, you
know, it'd be so easy to getburnt out in a pretty short
period of time, if you're justnothing but work all the time.
And I do think you know, to beto be fair, I think Wes and I
work a lot of hours, I thinkthat's fair fair to say, what I
(25:34):
would say, as we grow, and weadd, you know, so many wonderful
and competent people to theteam. Now that work feels more
that that additional hours we'reputting in, it feels like, it
feels like it's something thatwe don't have to do if we didn't
want to. So I really wanted to,I can be done by 5, you know,
and call it a wrap. If I want towork beyond that, like I often
(25:56):
do on different projects,because because I'm excited to
and I want to not because likeholy cow, here's a client
deadline that we have to hit orthere's there's gonna be
problems. So that's been awonderful, I think, maturing as
a business, but also just alsounderstanding like, look, I'm
still putting in these hours,but it's, it's because I want to
and if I need to change that Iabsolutely can. Yeah, you know,
as you as you know, from youknow, being me being in the
(26:19):
group with you, you know, thecycling is a big component. But
just, you know, exercise ingeneral, you know, that has been
really key this is, there's noother way to put it that this is
stressful, you know, the day today of running any business
there are, there are obviousstresses involved. And so you
need something outside of workto counteract to counterbalance
that. So for me, you know,that's been, it's been an
(26:42):
exercise, I'd say, primarily,and just I just moved to a new
city, I just moved to Austin,Texas. So exploring that city,
you know, with some wonderfulfriends that I have here is but
also a wonderful way just to,you know, get you know, get out,
get my head out of work and lookat and do different things.
Yeah. Well, yeah, it's a greatquestion. I don't I'm trying to
also, I'm not very good rightnow. But I'm trying to learn
(27:04):
more, like cook more, learn morerecipes. So just developing
skill sets and things outside ofwork and other activities
recently picked up kayaking.
These are the things that areultimately what keep me sane, I
think and keep that healthybalance between work and what
you're doing outside of it.
Dale Majors (27:19):
I love it. You know, I just read Master, I
believe, by Roger Federer, thegeography by Roger Federer,
really good. And one of thethings that they that he
mentioned was his ability toplay and excel in the sport for
so long, was they talked abouthis consistency and self care
and some of the balance that hehas, yeah, to be able to deal
(27:42):
with all of that stress. He goesto new cities, and he learned,
you know, he learns, he loves tolearn new things and be open
and, and just have a little morebalance. And one of he had this,
I'd never heard this thoughtexpressed before either. He had
this coach, right. I've heard itin different ways, though, and
not in sports. But he had thistrainer, who like psychologist
(28:05):
early on that told him that, ifhe can be if he can feel like
his life has purpose, and iskind of figured out that he'll
be able to be much more presenton the court, which I thought
was really interesting, too. SoI think, as I've been listening
to your story to like, hey, webuild products to leverage this,
(28:25):
you know, long term story assoftware, I think that from the
outside looking in a lot of thatyour ability to create and
maintain momentum and excitementand keep building is you do have
a pretty good long term roadmap,at least in the direction you
want to go. And then you guyscan just put your head down and
work.
Jan Gierlach (28:43):
Yeah.
Dale Majors (28:43):
Not all businesses are, you know, I think be really
grateful that your business isat a point right there where you
can be bringing new people ongrowing scaling with a clear
path. Because a lot of people,it's hard to find that clear
path, sometimes it takes a lotlonger than - even in my
coaching, I feel like I've takenit's taken maybe four years to
more clearly identify the path.
And I don't even know if I'mthere yet. But that's awesome.
(29:04):
So to wrap up, if you could likesnap your fingers and have, you
know, fix three differentproblems in your business, just
by saying, you know, waving yourmagic wand and saying this
problem, solve that problemsolve that problem, like, what
kind of things would change inyour business? And I asked that
(29:24):
to also think like, there areother people outside, you know,
in my network and your networkthat probably that may have
those answers are the tools tohelp you do that. So as you kind
of put that out there, you kindof open yourself to maybe other
people stepping in and helpingyou solve them.
Jan Gierlach (29:42):
Yeah, that's a great question. Um, you know, I
when you said off the top of myhead, I think of something
that's just so important that isalso so not fun is creating
these sort of SOPs and thedocumentation type stuff. And
that can be, I think sometimespeople can come to that too
(30:02):
soon, it can kind of almost be aprison, when you're first
getting started out and you'refiguring stuff out, it's like,
Okay, why don't we write down aprocess and we're still creating
it. But we are getting to astage now of maturity and
development and just sighs as ateam, that I think that is a
direction that we're makingactive. We know, there's room
for improvement there, and we'reactively sort of working to
(30:22):
address that is, as we increasethe headcount and staff size,
where it's like, we just have tohave documentation for
everything, for everything thatwe're doing. And, you know, each
time we get a little bit betterat onboarding and training, but
I think that is, you know, asyou try to scale beyond a
certain, you know, headcount andsize, those things are just of
(30:43):
the utmost importance.
Otherwise, there's real problemsas you start to add more people.
So I don't think in any way,it's like an issue for us too
much yet. But if we start if wekeep hiring at the rate that we
are, and I expect, we willcontinue to, it's just on the
documentation side, having thoseSOPs everything in place, all
those processes really ironedout. And I knew that his work
(31:04):
that's never really fully done.
You know, you're always sort oftweaking that. But I'm adding to
the structure that we alreadyhave their I think it's
something
Dale Majors (31:14):
Cool, I love it.
What other what other things?
Jan Gierlach (31:19):
Man, off the top my head, I'm thinking magic
wand, hmm, just wave it. Andit's, it's done.
Dale Majors (31:29):
Wave it, and it's done. A lot of times, you know,
they say that they say thatproper identification of the
problem is like, a lot of times,yeah, 80% of the work, right?
Say, but a lot of times we getso bogged down into the business
that we don't think, man, if Icould just solve this problem.
Wow, that would be amazing. Andthen kind of that the dilemma of
(31:52):
who not how a lot of times asbusiness owners, we get caught
up into, like, how can I solvethis, instead of thinking, who
could help me solve thisproblem? With SOPs, there are a
lot of people who specialize in,you know, in, in creating
procedures, I'm actually meetingwith a coach for four hours
today, that creates curriculumfor people, you know, helped me
(32:18):
create a you know, she's I'm sheflies in here in a couple hours,
I'm gonna pick her up at noon,she's gonna help me write out
more structure into how tomanage the group calls that I do
and some of the coaching andwhatever. But that's something
that I'm just not naturally notvery good at. So thinking who
(32:41):
could help me with this? Not somuch. Oh, how can I do it? Most
problems have been solvedalready.
Jan Gierlach (32:46):
Right, Right.
Dale Majors (32:47):
So if you can, if you can think of something, we
can talk about it otherwise,maybe that's homework for you to
say, you know, what are thosethings that if I could magically
solve that I that I would do?
Jan Gierlach (33:01):
Yeah, it's you know, and sort of related to the
SOPs. And I don't know, if Iview this, well, I don't know,
maybe problem is too strong aword. But maybe goal is better.
And that's for Wes and I to havemore of a step back from the day
to day of like clientmanagement, and always be there
as a resource, of course, foryou know, our staff and in
training and all of that. But,you know, I think definitely, as
(33:24):
we add more people and growsomething that we are trying to
get to a place where we wouldfeel comfortable doing it's
like, all right now the clientsdon't interact really too much
with us at all. So it'scompletely managed, you know, by
the team. And of course, we'rean integral part of the
business, of course, we'rebehind the scenes, in making
sure things that are done theway that we want them to be. But
(33:46):
when it comes to that, that dayto day that that time it takes
right to like have to beinterfaced that point of contact
with a client, I thinkdefinitely our goal for Wes and
I especially with him, is to getto a place where he is no longer
the point of contact for anyclient in particular. And maybe
I sort of view the SOPs as partof achieving that goal, where
it's like, good, we have reallysolid processes and structures
(34:08):
in place, then there's less ofthat need.
Dale Majors (34:11):
As I'm hearing you maybe a simple way to, you know,
clarify that is, you know, ifyou could quantify, look, we we
are engaging with clients on thefront end, three hours a day and
two hours a day for Wes orwhatever. Love to, you know,
what's the next step and how wecould get down to 30 minutes a
day? Yes, you know, and just tosay, what would that world be
(34:33):
like and create that, you know,as you as you talk with your
employees around? A lot oftimes, it's just, you know,
proposing a really good problem,and then everybody can come up
with the answers. You know, ifyou were to say to your team,
I'm interfacing with clients forthree hours a day currently, how
could we bring that to 45minutes? Yeah, and just posing
(34:56):
it to them and having them kindof CO create that and how long
when did you start yourbusiness? Why did you guys start
serving clients?
Jan Gierlach (35:04):
Well, yeah, it's there's two parts of that, you
know, we, we've been sellingonline since 2016, I would say
for all intensive purposes, forwhen in the current incarnation
of the business model we havenow, essentially, maybe two
years.
Dale Majors (35:22):
That's awesome.
Cool. Good for you guys. How canpeople get a hold of you?
Jan Gierlach (35:27):
Yep. So the the best way I would say as far as
socials go would be would beLinkedIn can find me on
LinkedIn. I'm sure you'll attachsomething in the show notes
Dale, but yes, my first name,J-A-N hyphen Edward, my last
name, Gierlach, G-I-E-R-L-A-C-H.
And then we also have a website,I would really encourage people
to check outhometown-industries.com. We have
we have a blog. It's actuallysomething. And this is sort of
(35:52):
also related to the previousquestion a little bit, which is,
you know, something we're tryingto get better at what you do a
wonderful job of Dale is puttingout content, I think we have, we
have a unique approach for thisspace. And I think we have
information that's worthsharing. But I don't know if
it's a combination of probablyskill or confidence or, or a bit
of both putting that content outthere, and sharing that with
(36:13):
more people. So we're trying toget better at that. So I'd
encourage people to check outthe blog and hoping to put more
updates on there on a moreregular cadence because I think
we have things of value thatlike to share with with
everyone.
Dale Majors (36:27):
Awesome, cool. Jan, you're great. Appreciate you
sharing your journey with us.
And I'm excited to you know,continue to see keep growing. So
thank you.
Jan Gierlach (36:37):
Well, thanks for having me, Dale. And I yeah, I'd
like a chance to plug Dale here.
I'm a part of Dale's coachinggroup, which has been very
instrumental for me and justhelped me prioritize a lot in my
my personal life and mybusiness. I would highly
recommend it to anyone who sortof thinking about like, hey, I
need some accountability. I needa way or a curriculum to you
know, up my skills and increaseyou know, what I'm doing in my
(36:58):
personal life and in mybusiness, so, I'm gonna plug
that for Dale, because I don'tknow if you do it himself.
Dale Majors (37:04):
Thanks, man.
Appreciate it. Well, cool,everybody. Thanks for listening.
We will see you on our nextshow.
In today's episode, I share with you Jan Gierlach
and his story starting HometownIndustries. So Jan and Wesley,
his partner, started selling onAmazon as juniors in high
school. They sold product usingFBA, and then they dreamed of
going into business together,which eventually happened with
their agency HometownIndustries. They serve retailers
(00:22):
and brand owners to help thembetter sell on Amazon and other
third party marketplaces. Theyeven consult with and provide
high level insight and softwareto investment companies that are
looking to acquire products inthat space or companies in that
space. It's just reallyimpressive what he's
accomplished and I'm excited toshare with you kind of how his
(00:42):
mind works, and some of theinsights that I got from today's
call. So without further ado,here is our episode.
VA Intro (00:50):
Welcome to the venture anyway, build your podcast.
Insights from the trenches bythose who are busy building.
When I finally embraced what Iwas really good at, it kind of
felt like an adventure. Yeah, Ireally would have done a lot
differently.
Dale Majors (01:11):
Alright, hello, everyone. Today on the Venture
Anyway podcast, I have JanGierlach. And Jan is with
Hometown Industries and AmazonServices Company, and Jan and I
know each other, we're gonnahave a great conversation today.
And I'm excited to kind of shareJan with the world and give
everybody a glimpse into whathe's doing his journey, what
(01:34):
he's doing well, maybe what heneeds help with, and just have a
good conversation. So excited tohave you Jan.
Jan Gierlach (01:40):
Yeah, Dale, I'm excited to be here. Cool.
Dale Majors (01:42):
Do you want to give us a quick intro into what you
do? Maybe what made you choose?
You know why to start HometownIndustries? And what your
experience has been thus far?
Jan Gierlach (01:54):
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. So I'll start kind of witha broad overview of what it is
that we do in the first place.
So we're an E commerce agency,service provider. So the way I
think of it is, it's essentiallyour job to help businesses
understand the addressablemarket for their products
online. And then the best waysto capture that market share. So
to do this, like you mentioned,we're primarily leveraging
(02:14):
online retailers, Amazon beingthe biggest one, but also
Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe's,eBay. And then we're also
leveraging, you know, paidadvertising platforms to drive
traffic accordingly. So thinkGoogle and Facebook are the
biggest ones there. So that'skind of what we do in a
nutshell, you know, we are, asyou know, Dale, kind of taken, I
think, a bit more of ananalytical approach than is
(02:36):
common in some of this marketingspace, where we are trying to
understand truly like, what isthe market size? Who are the
competitors? And you know,assuming certain variables, you
know, how much market share cana brand capture? So I, you know,
I think that's a pretty goodoverview of what it is that we
do, you know, as far as what youknow, caused us to get started
in the first place. I don't knowif I have a super compelling
(02:58):
answer, I've wanted this. Iwanted this for so long, I kind
of even you know, you kind ofstart to forget with enough time
of why you wanted something inthe first place. Some
background, my co founder and I,Wes, have known each other since
we were 10 years old. And so inmany ways, it's just kind of
like a childhood dream, that I'mjust sometimes I have to kind of
(03:19):
check myself because I can'tbelieve that we're actually
we're actually doing it, youknow, in the stage that we're
at. So yeah, just something I'venever wanted anything else. This
has been something that it trulyfrom the earliest of ages that
I've been super fixated on as agoal and, you know, haven't
really looked back, then I'vecertainly had other jobs and
gained experience and otherthings. But this was always, you
(03:41):
know, our North Star, you know,since we were really young and
going into high school, westarted selling online ourselves
and building that is sort of abaseline of expertise. But this
has always been, you know, whatwe wanted to do?
Dale Majors (03:52):
Wait, so when did you start selling?
Jan Gierlach (03:55):
We were, uh, we didn't, you know, we didn't
start until it was maybe junioryear of high school. We did our
first like, inventory by Yeah,so we, you know, we did our
research and then, you know,it's that model that's very,
very, I think well understoodonline, you know, just for
sourcing products overseas, and,and shipping that stateside, and
that's when we first startedselling.
Dale Majors (04:15):
Yeah. Love it. What did you sell first? Online?
Jan Gierlach (04:19):
Oh, man, the first thing we ever sold was, you ever
go to those restaurants like adiner and you see the, the
holder that has the special likethe daily special on the side?
They're sort of they'rebasically acrylic, plastic
picture frames. Okay. And thatwas the first the first thing we
ever we ever sourced. And, youknow, we learned just so much
(04:40):
through the process, you know,the first batch shows up and,
you know, you got inventorythat's broken and busted, and
you have to, you know, pack andprep everything get it sent into
the fulfillment centers, butthat was the first item we ever
sourced. And we just learned aton through that process. And
the second item was, was a papertowel. holder. So again, nothing
(05:01):
too, too crazy. They're just youknow, it's standard, you know,
run of the mill paper towelholder you might find in any
kitchen.
Dale Majors (05:08):
And you were doing all of that on Amazon FBA
through FBA.
Jan Gierlach (05:11):
Yes, yeah, we were leveraging. That's how we
learned entirely about Amazon,FBA platform, all of that.
Dale Majors (05:17):
Okay. So I've known you for a while, you know, we
use your services. And I knowthat you're young, but even on
this call, I said, What are you26? Or whatever? And 23? So high
school wasn't too far ago, say,no, no, it's not yours. And now,
that's awesome. And and, youknow, a marketplace like Amazon
(05:38):
changes, so much. So to beyou've really been living in
Amazon for six years or so,then.
Jan Gierlach (05:45):
Yeah. And we've seen that evolvement firsthand.
You know, I can't, when we firstgot started, it felt like Amazon
was just sort of starting tophase out. And by phase out,
make the platform more difficultfor sort of hobby sellers. You
know, when we first got started,it was big. And I think to some
extent, it still is, but thiswhole idea of retail arbitrage,
you know, you go and you try andget these clothes out sales or
(06:06):
do these buys and, and, youknow, list products that way,
I'm really small scale. And theywere already sort of starting to
think the platform is startingto change and be geared up for
this is going to be a place forrenowned, huge international
brands, or brands in the worksthat becoming that. So we saw
that evolvement happen firsthandwhere Amazon started to make it
(06:27):
far more difficult. And theplatform started to evolve, sort
of beyond or make it moredifficult for some of the
resellers that have donehistorically, quite well.
Dale Majors (06:36):
Yeah. Okay. Cool.
Well, no, and I think it'simportant for everybody to know,
you got your degree in computerscience, right? And something
computer programming, it's ofsome sort.
Jan Gierlach (06:47):
Yes, I should, I should be fair, to my alma
mater, I did not I did notfinish my degree. So I don't
want to I don't want to say Ihave this credential when I in
fact, do not. But I havecompleted the vast majority to a
computer science degree atcollege.
Dale Majors (07:02):
So full disclosure, I'm seven classes away from
getting an actual degree to sono, okay. degrees.
Jan Gierlach (07:10):
Yeah, I'm about to round up. But I just I don't
want to I don't want topotential when I don't have
that.
Dale Majors (07:15):
What about, what about, so, but you learned that
technical skill, you'veprogrammed, you're building
programs within your company,that's one of the things you're
doing? What, uh, what, whatabout Wesley? Did he get a
degree he did he go to school?
Jan Gierlach (07:28):
He went to school as well, both him and I did not
finish he was kind of on anaccounting track, I believe. But
Wes is, he's a data scientist.
So that's sort of been, as youknow, our foray into this market
is, you know, I'm a sort of anengineer, software engineer by
trade. I've worked in that jobbefore. And Wes is an accountant
and data scientists. So he haskind of those are the tools, you
(07:50):
know, in our tool belt that wewere kind of using to apply to
this industry. That's kind ofhow we came to it was just,
we're both really fascinated andobsessed with like, what are
these larger, like markettrends. And Amazon is just this
ecosystem that contains anendless amount of markets for
consumer product goods, and youcan study those markets and
learn so much.
Dale Majors (08:12):
I think entered it from from the outside in and
having worked with you guys, Ithink that's one thing that you
a lot of people try to do Amazonconsulting to do what you're
doing. But I think where you'vedone a great job is having a
good partner that is verydifferent from you and in in
adding and bringing acomplementary skill set. So
yeah, that's awesome.
Jan Gierlach (08:32):
Yeah, I mean, none of this would have been possible
with without, yeah, well, Wesand I, he definitely, I like to
think we have complementaryskill sets that it really worked
out for us to do what we have sofar.
Dale Majors (08:42):
Yeah, I love it.
Awesome. Yeah, and that's a goodas I look back, when I was
building my business, I probablytook 80% of the credit,
especially near the end. But asI look back, I was 50/50
partners with my dad, and he wasthe steady, you know, consistent
accountant type that kind ofbalanced what I did. And more
and more, as I'm further awayfrom that, I realized how
(09:05):
blessed I was to have a goodpartner, that, you know, that I
could trust implicitly that thatcheered me on, you know, that we
were really we worked reallywell together. And a lot of that
was, you know, I think thanks tohim, but that's awesome. So tell
me, you know, maybe highlight inyour business, a recent obstacle
that you had to overcome? Canyou think of one?
Jan Gierlach (09:29):
Yeah, that's a great question. And every every
day is a recent a recentobstacle in some shape or form,
I would say, you know, in therelatively recent history of our
business, as you know, Dale, weare no, we're experts in
understanding, you know, directto consumer and how to
essentially captured you know,how to sell more consumer
(09:50):
products, you know, directly toconsumers. But the other part of
what we do is we're ultimatelyselling that to businesses. So
we're doing b2b sales. And Iwould say, you know, When we
were first getting started, wedidn't have really much of that
that b2b sales experience, youknow, we knew a lot of these
platforms, we knew how to, youknow, understand these markets
and capture more market share.
But we know we had first sort ofrelied on, we would use
(10:13):
outsource, outsource sort ofsales resources, like STR as a
service type of type of groups.
And that was fine to certainextent, but you know, what we
found is they actually had ahard time doing like lead
generation for us. So actuallybeing able to reliably and
consistently find these, youknow, SMB type businesses that
(10:33):
we were able to serve as an adda ton of value for. And so we we
had to kind of come together andthe team, Wes and I, and figure,
okay, like, how are we going toare going to how we're going to
deal with this, because the, thegroups that we're using to
potentially leverage this, it'sjust not working out. So we
built a proprietary tool thatdoes, like lead generation on
our behalf. So I'm immenselyproud of that. It's been a
(10:54):
wonderful sort of obstacle thatwe have tackled successfully so
far, where basically, we justkind of built it ourselves, and
it goes out and, you know,leveraging the polls, you know,
information directly from Amazonsorts through that. And then,
you know, we kind of have adatabase that we're essentially
building out of all of thesecompanies. And, and from there,
we're able to sort of track andtarget which, which companies we
(11:15):
think would benefit the mostfrom a service provider like us.
Dale Majors (11:18):
Yeah. Love it. So you used to use what you said an
SDR?
Jan Gierlach (11:24):
Yeah, there's all sorts of wonderful services out
there. And the groups we workwith did a wonderful job, but
they're their role is toessentially, you know, find
companies so to lead generation,and then, you know, act as that,
you know, that SDR to go out,you know, reach out to that,
that prospect and thenultimately book a meeting with
(11:44):
you.
Dale Majors (11:45):
So is that sales development rep? Is that what
SDR stands for?
Jan Gierlach (11:48):
Yes, yes.
Dale Majors (11:52):
Yeah, outside sales, helpers to bring in
potential clients, and finallyleads, and then that's where you
would take over to sell it
Jan Gierlach (12:01):
Exactly, exactly.
And we've since taken like fullownership of the whole of the
wholesale cycle. So we're doing,you know, every aspect of that
now.
Dale Majors (12:09):
Wow, I love it.
You're your first priority, youhave a pretty great, really low
churn rate of clients.
Jan Gierlach (12:17):
Yes.
Dale Majors (12:18):
Right. Haven't you had in the 20s of clients or
whatever it was, and never lostany?
Jan Gierlach (12:23):
We are, Well, I that was odd. For a long time,
as we've as we've grown, we havelost, you know, several clients.
But I would say our our industrystandard, like churn rate is off
the charts. And I know thatbecause we have done contract
work for other serviceproviders, especially when we
were first getting startedwesternize. So we were brought
in by some pretty large groupsand brought into manage their
(12:46):
accounts, on their most highprofile accounts. And we could
see, I mean, they were churningclients at probably 30% a year.
And so a big initiative for Wesand I is, you know, how do we
just keep that churn as low aspossible? That that was
something that, you know, forevery sort of subscription model
business, I can speak, at leastfor myself, you sometimes
entered naively think like, oh,like, every, every additional
(13:09):
MRR I generate, that's justthat's just infinite, you know,
that's just going forward inperpetuity. But, you know, in
reality, as you scale beyond,you know, to a certain level of
MRR, there's just, there's justa hole in that bucket, and you
are going to lose clients. But Ithink we've done a wonderful job
of keeping churn really, reallylow. I mean, I would I would
need a, you know, I would onlyneed, you know, essentially, I
(13:31):
think one hand to count thenumber of clients we've turned
and the amount of time thatwe've been in business and
clients that we've served. So Ithink that's a pretty, you know,
gotten the industry standardlevel. That's, that's pretty
exceptional. And I think we havea novel approach to like how we
achieve that in the first place?
No, our sales cycle part of itis doing this pretty all
inclusive analysis, analysis, anaudit of a business, and seeing,
(13:51):
okay, realistically, what's thegrowth potential here, and we
come up with a milestone. So alot of you know, in my
experience, especially havingworked for those service
providers on a contract basis,now, they'll come in and
potentially save you, like,they'll promise any growth
model, they need to sort ofclose the deal. But with Wes and
I's experience, we thought thatwas kind of short sighted, like
if, if you and I are enteringinto this, you know, service
(14:13):
provider type relationship, andwe are not in agreement on like,
what successes, then that isdoomed to fail from the very
beginning. So we've turnedbusiness away as a result, you
know, which is hard to do.
Because you know, it's so muchwork right to get in front of
someone you get on theircalendar to have that meeting.
But you do the analysis, you dothe audit, we have our process.
And the numbers of the numbers.
It's sometimes people say, Hey,you have to be a lot bigger for
(14:35):
us to work with you. And it'shard to, you know, say Oh, but
maybe we could do this. Maybe wecould do that. But we stick by
it. We stick by the numbers, wesay all right, sorry. We should
work together
Dale Majors (14:44):
That that's actually one of the things that
I liked most about you. And asI've told other people, I've
given you a couple referrals andas I've told these people, like
hey, I know these Amazon guys,they do this, whatever, they'll
just give you a straight shot.
You know, they'll just I lovehow straight you are with
people. And because that'spretty rare to find in these
(15:05):
marketing agencies actually needyou to have Bateman Collective
is one that does paid search.
Okay, you know he does Googleads, Brandon Bateman he was in
one of my other mastermindgroups, I need to introduce you
to him, because he's actuallyvery similar to you guys in
that. And and and I've not metmany marketing agencies that do
(15:28):
it that way. And I think that'swhy I've done so well. So that's
awesome. Well thank you. So youhave this sales problem, you
Jan Gierlach (15:33):
Yeah, yeah, it's been a huge part of how we've
fixed it, I think it's reallyimportant to recognize that if
you didn't have good retention,that you're you know, the sales
thing is really just a neverending treadmill, you know, that
won't fix the problem. And Ithink for you guys, that's
exciting that you that you stepthat up, because with your good
(15:56):
intention, or with your goodretention, you know, should be a
winning combo. But a lot ofpeople try to sell too soon. So
you know, and don't. And it'shard chicken in the egg, right?
You need to sell and getclients, but I love the focus
you've put on retention.
how we built the business forsure.
Dale Majors (16:16):
Awesome. Well, cool. So tell me what's a what's
a, like a day in the life? Foryou as an agency owner?
Jan Gierlach (16:25):
Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, I'm not
I'm not sure you know, howinteresting it will be the sound
probably like a typical workday.
You know, as far as Wes and Ihave segmented our
responsibilities, he'sdefinitely heavy, heavily
focused on on the upside. So,you know, he is the premier
expert on all these platforms,and overseeing all the work that
gets done on client accounts. Sohe has a whole, you know,
(16:49):
wonderful team, that's, youknow, working with him to make
that happen. But he's largelyoverseeing, you know, the kind
of the operations portion of thebusiness the day to day. And
then we're, I'm, you know,pretty much spending a lot of my
time is on, you know, thebusiness development side. So I
have a wonderful salesperson, wehired Jeff, who I work with, so
him and I are in close contactthroughout the day. And so kind
(17:12):
of the day will kick off and wehave our CRM, which is tracked,
you know, all of our, all of ouroutbound for that day, or all
the current conversations thatwe're having, rather, and who we
kind of prioritize, okay, basedon that, who's who's the most
interesting to talk to, who dowe really want to follow up
with. So, you know, going overthat, with him reviewing sort of
those goals, we get a lot ofbusiness through some other like
(17:34):
third party services, as well.
You know, basically aggregatorsof job postings, we have a
really good system where webasically go out and we, we
search for people who areposting for jobs, and we kind of
come in and say, Hey, like, I,you know, you're posting for
this specific role. But we're aservice provider, we have this
(17:54):
service, I think it'd be a greatfit, and probably more, maybe
even more cost effective thanwhat you have.
Dale Majors (17:58):
That's interesting.
Jan Gierlach (18:00):
So we go through that a lot together. There's
typically some meetings, a,hopefully, a good day, a lot of
meetings. So actually, the daywill be usually filled with,
basically, you know, pitches, sopeople who have agreed to meet
with with us and our company,and Jeff and I will take those
calls, and essentially pitch ourservices explain more about the
business. So it's kind of ahodgepodge of all the things you
(18:21):
might think of when associatedbusiness development going over
who we're currently talking toyou managing all the follow ups.
Checking in, we again, it goesback to that tool that we built,
that is doing all this leadgeneration for us, a lot of work
goes in on my side for like, allthe software that's involved in
that. So maintaining that goingin tweaking things accordingly,
and making sure everything'srunning smoothly there. And then
(18:44):
yeah, just just also checkingthe rates, you know, we're
sending out a good amount of,you know, emails every single
day. But all the things youmight think of it as far as
that's concerned with businessdevelopment, usually a good bit
of meetings throughout the day,oh, and the more the better,
because that you know, morepeople are meeting with, the
more opportunities, I have toget out in front and pitch our
services and what we're allabout, if I can finish all of
(19:05):
that, then the thing I reallylove to do, and not that I don't
love business development,because I love I love meeting
new people. But at any part ofoutbound sales, you know, you
sometimes people aren't happy tohear from you. So that's, that's
not always fun. But if I canfinish all those sort of tasks
related to that, my work is thenkind of split between, we have
some clients that we do web workprimarily on the Shopify
(19:28):
platform for so then I will sortof go in and do whatever we're
responsible for as far asworking in maintaining those
ecommerce sites. And then whenit comes to again, as you've
touched on our kind of keydifferentiators and competitive
advantages is in a number ofsoftware tools that we're
actively working on anddeveloping. So what I love too,
is I can get through the wholeday or a lot of the tasks that I
(19:49):
have set out set aside and thenactually get to get to
programming. You know, getgetting the right software on
these tools that in many ways Ikind of view you know the
longevity and success of us asan organization, we'll be kind
of the, the maturing and growthof these tools, because not only
do they make us better at whatwe do, and make us better at
account management and theservices we provide, but our
(20:11):
ultimate vision and goal is toactually sell those as
standalone solutions to otherservice providers, like, like
us, or even other sellers outthere. Yeah. So that's kind of
the ultimate vision and much ofthe goal behind what we're doing
in the development there.
Dale Majors (20:26):
So that's what, uh, you know, because the, the
agency model can be tough.
Right, so work, you're, you'realways hustling, you know, I
guess two things, I'd love totake a step back. And then also
maybe dig in a little bit moreto what you said. With, uh, you
know, as you're hustling andbusiness development all the
(20:46):
time, maybe speaking a littlebit to how you keep your sanity
and wits about you being in thatbecause it's hard, you know,
maybe a little bit routines. Butfirst, stepping back, at the
very beginning of the call, yousaid, you know, you help people
leverage marketplaces. Andthrough an analytical approach,
right, you're leveraging ithappens to be Amazon today is
(21:08):
the main marketplace, right?
That you guys are focusingthere, because that's where the
crowd is. But at some point, youwould, you know, if eBay took
off again, or if Walmart tookoff in a bigger way or whatever
else, you would help peopleleverage those marketplaces. So
it's not so much about themarketplace, but about just
(21:31):
leveraging marketplaces ingeneral.
Jan Gierlach (21:33):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, we're, we're pretty muchagnostic as to what the
marketplace is, to your pointhappens to be Amazon right now.
But I'm incredibly bullish onthird party retailers. Beyond
Amazon, Walmart, obviously, isthe one that's pretty well
known. But I often I think whathas less awareness right now is
how big homedepot.com isbecoming.
Dale Majors (21:54):
I hadn't heard that before.
Jan Gierlach (21:56):
Yeah, homedepot.com is picking up a
lot of traction. So we'reincredibly bullish on some of
these other third partyretailers. And we're going to be
poised to take advantage ofthose and understand those at a
very deep level when they whenyou're definitely the larger
market starts to realize like,well, you know, there there are
massive opportunities here.
Dale Majors (22:13):
So in any other retailers, or people that may be
listening to this, they'll haveto will, you know, you're having
these conversations all thetime, right. So you're looking
for companies that want to be onmarketplaces more will share
your contact info at the end ofthe call. But that's yeah,
that's a big, anybody reallywith the catalog could benefit
(22:36):
from a conversation with youguys?
Jan Gierlach (22:38):
Yeah, I absolutely.
Dale Majors (22:39):
So your long term picture is software. That's a
long term kind of hope and dreamof, we're going to end up with
some great software someday.
Jan Gierlach (22:48):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, to your point, read theagency model is it is tough,
it's a, it's a business modelthat we've definitely made work
in a way that I think isscalable, and sustainable, which
I love. Because I think in manycases it can't be. So I'm
certainly proud of what we'vebuilt so far there. But I also,
you know, view the agency modelis one of the other benefits, or
there's several other benefitsis we are building just an
(23:10):
incredible team right now. Youknow, Wes and I've been so lucky
and fortunate, I don't reallyknow how I think mostly through
luck, to convince some reallytalented and incredible people
to work with us. So we're kindof we're building this
incredible team that is verydynamic and flexible, very
skilled. And so we're in a greatposition to, you know,
eventually, you know, buy ourown business one day, you know,
(23:31):
a consumer products company thatwe can owner, as you and I have
talked about running in exchangefor equity. So there's all these
sorts of tangential benefits theagency model, what we're
getting, we're getting, we'refirst getting to meet a lot of
wonderful people like yourselfand many others, and then we're
getting exposure to a lot ofother businesses, we're building
out these skill sets and thesecore competencies that I think
we can leverage to do, you know,much more than what we're doing
(23:55):
right now, as far as you know,okay, we're coming in to manage
the account. But no, we're alsoin a position where, you know,
if we had the, the the resourcesor wanted to buy a business and
run that consumer productscompany successfully, I think we
absolutely could. Yeah, and Idon't know how we can achieve
that if we had or just a pure,like software type, you know?
Dale Majors (24:16):
Absolutely. Well, I think I know why people work,
you know, knowing why, you know,we've known each other for a
little bit, I think, I think oneof the things you do really well
is just maintaining a humble,you know, curious open attitude
of and it's it's easy to workfor people like that, you know,
that have those attitudes andattributes that you have that
you're embodying, and you guysare smart. And there's a lot of
(24:40):
agencies that wouldn't want totake the risk of running one of
these businesses because thenyou really have to kind of prove
your worth.
Jan Gierlach (24:47):
Yeah, you have to be really good at what you do.
Dale Majors (24:49):
You get what you do. So I love the confidence and
your ability to back that up. Sothat's, that's amazing. Awesome.
So to kind of final question oneor two questions? If well, going
back to what I was saying, whatdo you do in in, you know, 30 -
30, 60 seconds? What do you doto stay sane outside of running
(25:12):
an agency?
Jan Gierlach (25:13):
Oh, yeah, that's a great question. Well, as you
know, Dale, I'm a big cyclist.
So I think, yeah, it's becomeabundantly clear, the longer we
do this, that the name of thegame here is endurance, you
know, it'd be so easy to getburnt out in a pretty short
period of time, if you're justnothing but work all the time.
And I do think you know, to beto be fair, I think Wes and I
work a lot of hours, I thinkthat's fair fair to say, what I
(25:34):
would say, as we grow, and weadd, you know, so many wonderful
and competent people to theteam. Now that work feels more
that that additional hours we'reputting in, it feels like, it
feels like it's something thatwe don't have to do if we didn't
want to. So I really wanted to,I can be done by 5, you know,
and call it a wrap. If I want towork beyond that, like I often
(25:56):
do on different projects,because because I'm excited to
and I want to not because likeholy cow, here's a client
deadline that we have to hit orthere's there's gonna be
problems. So that's been awonderful, I think, maturing as
a business, but also just alsounderstanding like, look, I'm
still putting in these hours,but it's, it's because I want to
and if I need to change that Iabsolutely can. Yeah, you know,
as you as you know, from youknow, being me being in the
(26:19):
group with you, you know, thecycling is a big component. But
just, you know, exercise ingeneral, you know, that has been
really key this is, there's noother way to put it that this is
stressful, you know, the day today of running any business
there are, there are obviousstresses involved. And so you
need something outside of workto counteract to counterbalance
that. So for me, you know,that's been, it's been an
(26:42):
exercise, I'd say, primarily,and just I just moved to a new
city, I just moved to Austin,Texas. So exploring that city,
you know, with some wonderfulfriends that I have here is but
also a wonderful way just to,you know, get you know, get out,
get my head out of work and lookat and do different things.
Yeah. Well, yeah, it's a greatquestion. I don't I'm trying to
also, I'm not very good rightnow. But I'm trying to learn
(27:04):
more, like cook more, learn morerecipes. So just developing
skill sets and things outside ofwork and other activities
recently picked up kayaking.
These are the things that areultimately what keep me sane, I
think and keep that healthybalance between work and what
you're doing outside of it.
Dale Majors (27:19):
I love it. You know, I just read Master, I
believe, by Roger Federer, thegeography by Roger Federer,
really good. And one of thethings that they that he
mentioned was his ability toplay and excel in the sport for
so long, was they talked abouthis consistency and self care
and some of the balance that hehas, yeah, to be able to deal
(27:42):
with all of that stress. He goesto new cities, and he learned,
you know, he learns, he loves tolearn new things and be open
and, and just have a little morebalance. And one of he had this,
I'd never heard this thoughtexpressed before either. He had
this coach, right. I've heard itin different ways, though, and
not in sports. But he had thistrainer, who like psychologist
(28:05):
early on that told him that, ifhe can be if he can feel like
his life has purpose, and iskind of figured out that he'll
be able to be much more presenton the court, which I thought
was really interesting, too. SoI think, as I've been listening
to your story to like, hey, webuild products to leverage this,
(28:25):
you know, long term story assoftware, I think that from the
outside looking in a lot of thatyour ability to create and
maintain momentum and excitementand keep building is you do have
a pretty good long term roadmap,at least in the direction you
want to go. And then you guyscan just put your head down and
work.
Jan Gierlach (28:43):
Yeah.
Dale Majors (28:43):
Not all businesses are, you know, I think be really
grateful that your business isat a point right there where you
can be bringing new people ongrowing scaling with a clear
path. Because a lot of people,it's hard to find that clear
path, sometimes it takes a lotlonger than - even in my
coaching, I feel like I've takenit's taken maybe four years to
more clearly identify the path.
And I don't even know if I'mthere yet. But that's awesome.
(29:04):
So to wrap up, if you could likesnap your fingers and have, you
know, fix three differentproblems in your business, just
by saying, you know, waving yourmagic wand and saying this
problem, solve that problemsolve that problem, like, what
kind of things would change inyour business? And I asked that
(29:24):
to also think like, there areother people outside, you know,
in my network and your networkthat probably that may have
those answers are the tools tohelp you do that. So as you kind
of put that out there, you kindof open yourself to maybe other
people stepping in and helpingyou solve them.
Jan Gierlach (29:42):
Yeah, that's a great question. Um, you know, I
when you said off the top of myhead, I think of something
that's just so important that isalso so not fun is creating
these sort of SOPs and thedocumentation type stuff. And
that can be, I think sometimespeople can come to that too
(30:02):
soon, it can kind of almost be aprison, when you're first
getting started out and you'refiguring stuff out, it's like,
Okay, why don't we write down aprocess and we're still creating
it. But we are getting to astage now of maturity and
development and just sighs as ateam, that I think that is a
direction that we're makingactive. We know, there's room
for improvement there, and we'reactively sort of working to
(30:22):
address that is, as we increasethe headcount and staff size,
where it's like, we just have tohave documentation for
everything, for everything thatwe're doing. And, you know, each
time we get a little bit betterat onboarding and training, but
I think that is, you know, asyou try to scale beyond a
certain, you know, headcount andsize, those things are just of
(30:43):
the utmost importance.
Otherwise, there's real problemsas you start to add more people.
So I don't think in any way,it's like an issue for us too
much yet. But if we start if wekeep hiring at the rate that we
are, and I expect, we willcontinue to, it's just on the
documentation side, having thoseSOPs everything in place, all
those processes really ironedout. And I knew that his work
(31:04):
that's never really fully done.
You know, you're always sort oftweaking that. But I'm adding to
the structure that we alreadyhave their I think it's
something
Dale Majors (31:14):
Cool, I love it.
What other what other things?
Jan Gierlach (31:19):
Man, off the top my head, I'm thinking magic
wand, hmm, just wave it. Andit's, it's done.
Dale Majors (31:29):
Wave it, and it's done. A lot of times, you know,
they say that they say thatproper identification of the
problem is like, a lot of times,yeah, 80% of the work, right?
Say, but a lot of times we getso bogged down into the business
that we don't think, man, if Icould just solve this problem.
Wow, that would be amazing. Andthen kind of that the dilemma of
(31:52):
who not how a lot of times asbusiness owners, we get caught
up into, like, how can I solvethis, instead of thinking, who
could help me solve thisproblem? With SOPs, there are a
lot of people who specialize in,you know, in, in creating
procedures, I'm actually meetingwith a coach for four hours
today, that creates curriculumfor people, you know, helped me
(32:18):
create a you know, she's I'm sheflies in here in a couple hours,
I'm gonna pick her up at noon,she's gonna help me write out
more structure into how tomanage the group calls that I do
and some of the coaching andwhatever. But that's something
that I'm just not naturally notvery good at. So thinking who
(32:41):
could help me with this? Not somuch. Oh, how can I do it? Most
problems have been solvedalready.
Jan Gierlach (32:46):
Right, Right.
Dale Majors (32:47):
So if you can, if you can think of something, we
can talk about it otherwise,maybe that's homework for you to
say, you know, what are thosethings that if I could magically
solve that I that I would do?
Jan Gierlach (33:01):
Yeah, it's you know, and sort of related to the
SOPs. And I don't know, if Iview this, well, I don't know,
maybe problem is too strong aword. But maybe goal is better.
And that's for Wes and I to havemore of a step back from the day
to day of like clientmanagement, and always be there
as a resource, of course, foryou know, our staff and in
training and all of that. But,you know, I think definitely, as
(33:24):
we add more people and growsomething that we are trying to
get to a place where we wouldfeel comfortable doing it's
like, all right now the clientsdon't interact really too much
with us at all. So it'scompletely managed, you know, by
the team. And of course, we'rean integral part of the
business, of course, we'rebehind the scenes, in making
sure things that are done theway that we want them to be. But
(33:46):
when it comes to that, that dayto day that that time it takes
right to like have to beinterfaced that point of contact
with a client, I thinkdefinitely our goal for Wes and
I especially with him, is to getto a place where he is no longer
the point of contact for anyclient in particular. And maybe
I sort of view the SOPs as partof achieving that goal, where
it's like, good, we have reallysolid processes and structures
(34:08):
in place, then there's less ofthat need.
Dale Majors (34:11):
As I'm hearing you maybe a simple way to, you know,
clarify that is, you know, ifyou could quantify, look, we we
are engaging with clients on thefront end, three hours a day and
two hours a day for Wes orwhatever. Love to, you know,
what's the next step and how wecould get down to 30 minutes a
day? Yes, you know, and just tosay, what would that world be
(34:33):
like and create that, you know,as you as you talk with your
employees around? A lot oftimes, it's just, you know,
proposing a really good problem,and then everybody can come up
with the answers. You know, ifyou were to say to your team,
I'm interfacing with clients forthree hours a day currently, how
could we bring that to 45minutes? Yeah, and just posing
(34:56):
it to them and having them kindof CO create that and how long
when did you start yourbusiness? Why did you guys start
serving clients?
Jan Gierlach (35:04):
Well, yeah, it's there's two parts of that, you
know, we, we've been sellingonline since 2016, I would say
for all intensive purposes, forwhen in the current incarnation
of the business model we havenow, essentially, maybe two
years.
Dale Majors (35:22):
That's awesome.
Cool. Good for you guys. How canpeople get a hold of you?
Jan Gierlach (35:27):
Yep. So the the best way I would say as far as
socials go would be would beLinkedIn can find me on
LinkedIn. I'm sure you'll attachsomething in the show notes
Dale, but yes, my first name,J-A-N hyphen Edward, my last
name, Gierlach, G-I-E-R-L-A-C-H.
And then we also have a website,I would really encourage people
to check outhometown-industries.com. We have
we have a blog. It's actuallysomething. And this is sort of
(35:52):
also related to the previousquestion a little bit, which is,
you know, something we're tryingto get better at what you do a
wonderful job of Dale is puttingout content, I think we have, we
have a unique approach for thisspace. And I think we have
information that's worthsharing. But I don't know if
it's a combination of probablyskill or confidence or, or a bit
of both putting that content outthere, and sharing that with
(36:13):
more people. So we're trying toget better at that. So I'd
encourage people to check outthe blog and hoping to put more
updates on there on a moreregular cadence because I think
we have things of value thatlike to share with with
everyone.
Dale Majors (36:27):
Awesome, cool. Jan, you're great. Appreciate you
sharing your journey with us.
And I'm excited to you know,continue to see keep growing. So
thank you.
Jan Gierlach (36:37):
Well, thanks for having me, Dale. And I yeah, I'd
like a chance to plug Dale here.
I'm a part of Dale's coachinggroup, which has been very
instrumental for me and justhelped me prioritize a lot in my
my personal life and mybusiness. I would highly
recommend it to anyone who sortof thinking about like, hey, I
need some accountability. I needa way or a curriculum to you
know, up my skills and increaseyou know, what I'm doing in my
(36:58):
personal life and in mybusiness, so, I'm gonna plug
that for Dale, because I don'tknow if you do it himself.
Dale Majors (37:04):
Thanks, man.
Appreciate it. Well, cool,everybody. Thanks for listening.
We will see you on our nextshow.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com