Insights from a Marketing Veteran with Megan Beattie

I think a lot of consultants get good at sales, but they're not good at the execution on the back end, which doesn't bring them repeated sales. That's a kiss of death for a consultant. Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week, Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello. Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I ask the team to take notes for you. Just text NOTES to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299. And you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview. All right, guys. Today's going to be a great episode of the Home Service Expert. I got Megan Beattie in the house. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids, Michigan. So I'm from Sterling Heights, so that's awesome. Michigander. expert in private equity partnerships call center lead eggs uh marketing consultant and partner with tony hody training and consulting megan beady is a veteran of marketing with over 19 years of experience in the sales process and outbound lead generation in the home improvement industry starting at a young age of 17 megan mastered scripting call center leadership big box retail marketing events and canvassing eventually helping grow all weather seal of west michigan from 1.7 million to 10 million. She's a certified coach with the Winning Minds Group and a consultant with Tony Hody. Megan now runs Megan Knows Marketing, which empowers companies to build work-class teams, systems, and human-centered sales cultures. That's right. That's pretty awesome. We're working with you right now. Yes, yes. And I'm just fascinated with home improvement. It's just a whole different ballgame compared to home service. Yeah. There's a lot of things similar, but you guys are hunters. We're farmers. It's true. It's very true. Hunters and gatherers, right? We've got two different mentalities there sometimes. So what do you love the most? If you had to design the perfect, and you're probably living it today, but I don't like payroll. I don't like necessarily dealing with lawyers, operations, and it's fun. I love marketing, sales, and culture. What do you love the most? If you could do it, you just love to get in and get in the weeds? Leadership. Leadership. Yep. Empowering young leaders specifically. That's really, I mean, the home improvement industry is just kind of my vehicle to do that, but that's what I'm passionate about. So teaching, and I think it's a lot of times more about the young people that maybe don't have a lot of other options in life. Maybe they come out of high school, don't know what they're going to do. And it just seeing the light come on and seeing the way the home improvement industry and also the home services industry could change their life, in a way they didn't anticipate. So I agree that I've got great technicians that are great at sales. They understand conversion rates, getting five-star reviews, are good recruiters. Not a whole lot of leadership training there. We're trying to get into leadership to say, can you move up? But the best sales guys are definitely not the best managers. True. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, and I think that's kind of a common thing in home improvement and home services. We get this idea that if somebody's great at the job, we should immediately move them, you know, congratulations, you're a manager, right? And, and that's not always necessarily the right move. They don't always have the skill set that it takes to be a great leader. Maybe your leader is better because they are more team focused and they have a thought about how we can duplicate processes and make it easier for everyone else, right? But they have to have a real, I would say, passion for the team mission, right? And so you don't always see that with the highest performer. Sometimes he's all about me and that's okay. He just may not make him the best leader, best manager. Very rarely have I seen at work where you take out a top performer and put them in a management role. They're not patient enough. They don't care. I'm not going to say they don't care enough, but their EQ, the patience, the kind of leaders lead from upfront. That's not who they are. Like you said, it's not a bad thing. No. It makes them great at their job. That's one of the things that leads them to be a top performer is they care about the bottom line and getting the job done, but they're not always the best, you know, big picture, you know, visionary type of person for the business. So I found that same thing, you know, and anytime I've seen us do that, especially like prematurely, like, well, he's our best guy. So we're going to put him in this position. It just doesn't, doesn't track very often. So now in fact, some of my top, top technicians, we don't even let them do ride along. Oh no, no. They're a maverick. You can't, you know, and it's hard to teach that. Correct. Those anomalies. Yeah. And then you get somebody who watches what they do and they try to mimic it and they can't pull off what that person can pull off. And then they go out and try to do it. It's a giant mess because they're just not that person. They weren't born with that charisma that that top performer might have. I love the guys that are a little bit more high C in the disc assessment. Yes. That they're not outgoing, but they still have great KPIs. Yes. They're a little bit more patient and they tell people why they do things and help them understand. And when you get that person training, they're following a system and the system and the scripts work. What are your thoughts on scripts? Yeah. I think that's like one of the most important things. Yes. I could not agree more. I love scripts, but it's not for the reason that most people think. Because normally when I say the word script with almost – without a shadow of a doubt, clients, companies, leaders will hear robotic. Well, I don't want to sound like a robot is the first thing. that comes out of people's mouths. And I said, no, no, we have it backwards. Okay. If we don't use a script, okay, it's not measurable. It's not manageable. And it's very tough to track if everybody's doing something 75 different ways. Right. But if we have a script and we don't memorize it, we sound robotic. We sound terrible. We're trying to read it line by line and piece by piece. Once you memorize the script, that's when, you know, we approach something, the four levels of consciousness where you're an unconscious competent, where you can do it without even thinking about it without putting a lot of effort. And so when we get to that point, that's when the script becomes real, because then it's a working part of how you talk. You can bring your personality in very easily. What I found when training tons of telemarketing teams, sales teams, if we're worried about what we're going to say next, we can't effectively listen to the customer. And that becomes problematic later, because the customer will always say things that we need to be picking up on. But if in my mind, I'm thinking, oh, what's the next line of the script? Because I don't have it memorized, I can't respond to Mrs. Jones across the table from me or on the phone with me. So memorization of the script is super important and scripts are super important, but it's not because we want you to sound like a robot. It's actually because we don't. And that's where most people get it kind of backwards where they think, well, that sounds robotic, only if you don't understand script writing. So when you master the script, our technicians spend a few hours in each home. But a lot of that's fixing the garage door as well. How long does it take to master a script? And everybody's different, but I know people that role play five days a week for an hour. What's the right recipe? Yeah, great question. In the beginning, when they first start for us, everything needs to be script and role play. Like we spend a lot of time teaching them technology and onboarding and all the stuff that's necessary, but we don't spend near enough time with them actually memorizing, reciting, and role-playing. So if I train a call center, we will usually train the entire first week on the script and the why's behind the script. We'll spend five days straight going after, this is why we say this, this is what the customer thinks when we say this, this is the area you're likely to experience resistance in. We've done this millions of times. We know where the customer is going to have a problem. And shame on us if we don't prepare for it. But then going forward, once they're trained on the script and they know it, we still have to be doing it daily. I mean, if we can get at least a couple of reps in every single day, it's like anything else. I mean, repetition, the only way people learn, right? One of the ways they learn is spaced repetition of thought. And people will naturally go off the script over time. There's just no way around it. And so it's really on that key leader to make sure that they continue to push our team to stay on process and on script because it's the best way to convert. Something I've talked a lot about lately. So you took your first marketing job at 17, setting appointments for vacation members. They were vacation members. Yeah, they would enter to win an RV or a truck or a boat inside the mall. And Megan would call them and invite them to my five-star resort to take a high-pressure sales pitch tour. And hopefully they'd buy a camping membership at the end. And so that was an interesting first job. At 17. And I wasn't supposed to be able to do that job until I was 18, but I talked my way into it. And so they allowed me to come in and do that. And I spent about a year and a half there. And so we did that here in Michigan where I'm from. And then we also ran a remote campground from New York. So we set up appointments for the New York campground and the Michigan campground. So I try to go to Ludington every year. Oh, I love Ludington. It's about an hour and a half from my house. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. So what did that teach you? Where do you think that really helped shape where you wanted to go with human behavior and what you still use today? The first thing it taught me is I never wanted to work in food service again. So that was the first piece was once I said, people will pay you to talk to people. To me, it was crazy. My dad was blue collar growing up. I mean he ran a roofing company. And so I just thought, wow, they'll pay you a lot of money if you know how to do this. And then the skills that I taught – I mean a lot of the principles I still use today, creating fear of loss with humans, the way that human beings respond to certain phrases on the phone. What are some of those phrases? Well, if you say something like, would you like to sign up? Nobody wants to sign up for anything. They feel like you ask them, give me your first born, give me your social security number, and they don't like it. If we use the words register or enter to win, they just respond differently. And it's just based on that human conditioning of that word is associated with something negative. And there's a lot of that in home services and home improvements. But yeah, we learned a lot about that. We learned a lot that if I said, do you have time for this call? Initially, the answer is going to be no. We learned a lot about how human beings respond to perceived sales situations, especially when I'm calling to say, hey, you entered to win our truck or our RV in the mall. Most people are like, there's no way I want it. This can't be good. And so we had to overcome that objection to get any further on the call and be able to get to our ultimate goal, which was having them come visit us at our resort. I love it. What was the success rate? What was great back then? I would say if we talked to 10 people on the phone, if we could get five scheduled, that was pretty good. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. That's like making money out of thin air. You control the narrative. Absolutely. And then they have to show up. So then we had to confirm and do the same things we do in home services and home improvements. Right. But yeah, it was a crazy thing because I really realized that, wow, if you can master this skill, companies will pay you a lot of money to do this because not everybody's great at it, and most people don't have the perseverance to battle through the rejection. Well, you moved into home remodeling in Kalamazoo, the zoo. The zoo, yes. And within 30 days, you were the call center manager. What did you do differently that got you promoted so quickly? I was actually working at a home services company at the time. I was working at a carpet cleaning and restoration company, and I was a dispatcher and a customer service person, but it got super slow in December. So I went and interviewed for this part-time telemarketer job. I thought, well, I've done that before. I did vacation memberships. Home improvements can't be that tough. And so I walked in and interviewed, and the owner was really, really desperate to build a call center. He had a guy kind of running it part-time but really had no people. And he was like, oh, you've done confirmations. Oh, that's really interesting. So I started there part-time, and at the end of the week, he's like, what would it take for you to be the manager and I'm like salary benefits he's like done I'm like oh okay so great so I gave my carpet cleaning company my notice and came in there and really just using those same principles that I used at the vacation resort company I mean it was the same stuff I'm trying to get a human being who's very resistant to do something that I know would end up being good for them but they don't necessarily see it that way you know when I'm first calling because they may have heard from three other window or siding companies in the past couple days or they might have gotten beat up by one in their home, right? And so there's a certain amount of resistance there. I love it. So you often credit Tony Hody as being your key mentor. Yes. What was the most important thing that he taught you that changed how you think about leads and marketing forever? Oh, there's been so many, but if I had to boil it down. Maybe top three. Yeah. Well, he came to that company in 2005 when I was there working as the call center manager to teach me door knocking. Essentially, after I took over the call center there, I created a special events department where we did special events and then moved into retail marketing inside of Sam's Club, Costco's, Lowe's. They have in-store promoters that generate leads. Yeah, that's a massive opportunity. So it's huge. It's huge and very underutilized because people just don't know how to approach homeowners, strangers walking by with their ice cream melting, right? So we have to work on that approach. But then he said, hey, how about canvassing? And I said, well, I mean, I've done all the other things successfully, but I've known nothing about door knocking. He said, what if I bring in a consultant to teach you? I said, game on, bring him in. So he brought Tony Hody in and that's how I met him. And so we went out door knocking and the biggest things that he has taught, the biggest things, like if I had to boil it down to three things, one is a principle we use every day, which is serve, not sell. If I come across as sell, I'm going to get resistance and I'm going to get less rapport build with the customer immediately, right? If I come across as I'm here to serve, which I am here to serve, sales are going to come as a natural result, right? But I have to really be focused on serving the customer because if they smell commission breath, if they feel immediately like you're just a pushy salesperson with something to push onto them with, they're going to resist and so serve not sell is a big principle another one that we say a lot that i learned from him was culture eat strategy for breakfast and that is you know you can bring in the greatest strategy on earth but if you don't get any buy-in and the culture rejects it doesn't matter how great the strategy is it's completely going to fail and i've and i've seen that working with all the companies i work with now you know um i have to my first job is to go in and get the team's buy-in that i know what i'm doing because if i don't it doesn't matter what great script i hand them. If I just come in and say, hey, I think this is great and I think you should all say it, well, that's what's in it for me. There has to be something in it for them. And so culture eat strategy for breakfast was another really big principle and I've put in everything that we do. So, and the other one is, you know, you might be smarter than me, more educated than me, more talented than me, but you'll never outwork me. And that's something that Tony and I both, strongly believe in. But we're willing to put in the hours and the reps that other people aren't willing to do. And that's what's made both of us successful in our career and what we've done. I mean, when you're knocking on doors for a living, there's a certain amount of rejection that the average human being will never be able to handle. That's why it's good to get, if you've got kids, to get them in at a young age or something like that, to learn about rejection. They've got to. We can't have them living in participation trophy land for their entire life. I mean, they need to... I never got that. Me neither. Me neither. You know, I will say I used to say I could outwork anybody. Now I say I'll outdelegate because working behind a desk doesn't mean productivity. Absolutely. And it doesn't mean efficiency or economies of scale. So one day – and I love Ed Milet. I actually work with Ed Milet. He said I work – he showed his days in six-hour increments, six-hour days. But he worked three days in one day. And I'm like, yeah, but that's – is it all – Like I've seen people work for two hours that could get more done than somebody that works for 20. Sure. Yeah. A delegation is kind of a skill that takes time. Some people can't even work with an executive assistant. Oh, I agree. Yeah. It's a lot of trust. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of that. And I think that it also has to do with how well you can develop leaders, right? Because if you don't trust anyone, the question is why haven't you been able to develop leaders you could trust? And so, I mean, that's really the question in my mind at that point, right? I want to talk more about developing leaders in a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's a really important thing. And then the other question is, I mean, most of us get into business and own businesses because we have control issues in the first place. Like nobody will do it as good as us. But eventually you'll kill yourself with that mentality, right? The Michael Gerber. You stay as a technician. Absolutely. Absolutely. The E-Myth, one of the greatest books on business in our – especially for our industry, written ever, I feel like. So you know what I don't like? I watch a lot of these door-to-door guys. They're all over TikTok and Instagram. And they always have this – we're not here to sell you anything. Have you heard about the energy company? You heard about your bill. I don't know if you got that memo four months ago. The price are going up. And we're not here to sell it to you. We want to give you the energy at a cheaper rate. And it's just, hey, did you hear about the bad water? The city notified you. It seems like it all is a little bit of a fallacy. Oh, sure. And it feels like the solar, the water, I don't know much about windows. I know there's a lot of money in windows. Oh, yeah. about efficiency and tax credits it's always something like oh the government's giving you this there's some there's some tax creditor bullshit yep what have you seen anybody do it without these kind of gimmicky type things yes what what the right way to do it hard work yes well here here the reality like i couldn agree more with what you saying and door gets a bad name because of a lot of that right like it gets a bad name because we kind of and i been a canvasser so i can say this but we kind of the island of misfit toys right like we didn't really fit anywhere else in life so we door knock or we sell meat door-to-door i mean there's so many of these different things oh yeah yeah my husband sold meat door-to-door years ago we bonded over it when we first met we were cracking up talking about these scenarios of me knocking doors for leads and him selling meat out of the back of a truck, right? But you think about those things and here's the reality. Any decent human being will not be able to do the job for a long time lying to people at the door every single day. They won't be able to do it. If they have a conscience, if they have character at all, they will absolutely get to the point where they don't want to do this anymore. And so we have to do it ethically, but we also have to embrace the idea that homeowners are going to be resistant. How do we handle that in an ethical way, right? So we really suggest and And what we have found has been the warmest reception is going around active job sites that you have completed in the last 30 days, not making up a fake job site, which is great, right? Just make up a fake job site. I did that one time in my career, and the customer called me on it, and I'm so glad he did because in that moment, I realized that's not okay to do, right? He said, where's the job site? Where are these gutters being installed? And I went, and I said, never doing that again. Well, we finished it. It was about six months ago. Yeah, yeah. It was around the block. It's hard to say. Blue House, right? But no, we go ethically to an area where we've recently completed work. And the reason is, is your canvassers are going to get a warmer reception because you've had the trucks driving around the neighborhood. You have the job sign. I mean, you're the master of branding and marketing. You understand that. They see the A1 logo. They see the name. I've got a canvassing team. Yeah, there you go. But we don't sell them anything. We just say, hey, we want to lubricate your door for no charge. Put a sticker up. Oh. Free service call. We did do scenarios. We work everywhere. But we get in over 50% of the homes. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Because we're not there to sell and those stickers generated a million bucks last month. Well, what we found is that if we start with something at the door initially that doesn't sound like everybody else, first of all, that's best because every single person comes up to you and they're, hi, I'm so-and-so on behalf of such-and-such company and I'm not here to sell you anything. And then they just kind of drone into their pitch, right? Well, we've got to come with something a little bit different than that in order for them to not respond the same way. And it's part of human conditioning that the amygdala goes off because the fight-or-flight response happens. As soon as they believe you're a salesperson, as soon as they believe it, they start making up stuff they got to do back inside. They start making up they've got stuff in the oven. They start, I got to go. I was on a Zoom call. They come up with all these different excuses to get away from the door. So we approach them with a completely different response. And we say, hey, I just wanted to apologize for any noise or any disturbance. I don't know if our trucks got in your way. We were just doing a job around the corner at 432 Cherry Street. I don't know if you know the Johnsons. Yeah. And we start there. So when we start with an apology, they start going, oh, not to mention we also have a term we've coined called the vest is the best. And we wear a bright yellow construction vest. And we do that because, number one, we get a better response rate. They also realize – The ring doorbells are going to come. Yeah, absolutely. Who is that? Right. And you think about it too. If you think about a lot of people knocking doors or afraid of police contact and things like that, when the police drive by and see you in a bright yellow vest, they know you're not trying to case the joint. They know that you're not up to something. So they're like, that's paperwork. They just keep driving, right? Like they don't want to stop and talk to you. Then they got to write it up. So the yellow vest does, you know, deter some of that as well. Nobody calls the police because they're like, there's guys walking around in construction vests. But if you're walking around not looking official in a neighborhood, you're on next door getting lit up. Absolutely. I mean, they're on the Facebook, you know, yard sale site. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. My community has an HOA that's the same way. And they're like, did you see this kid? And I literally watched this happen. I mean, on my TikTok channel, I've actually filmed a couple of the kids pitching me at my door and me coaching them on let's not say that, let's say this. But it's been really interesting because I watch how my neighborhood responds, right? And I look at that and I say, well, that kid was dressed this way and look at the response he got versus this. So see a lot of that. But really, there's a great – the thing with canvassing that people just don't really take into account is that it's all – if we hit enough doors, there is somebody there that needs your stuff. Yeah. But most people, again, don't have the perseverance to battle through all the no's to get the yes. They get a couple people saying, get a real job, and they give up. The summer jobs, I mean, it started, I think, probably in Utah with the Mormon community. Oh, sure. Because those guys got really good at it. But they literally like – they can make $300,000 in a summer. Oh, yeah. You can make great money as a canvasser. If you had to pick, okay, you got cable versus dish network or whatever. You've got windows. Pest control is massive. Oh, yeah. Yep. I coach water purification. Which one would you pick and why if you had to pick anyone and you wanted to just build an empire? I would probably. Well, right now, my husband and I own a fence company. So that's my first pick. So fences. Nobody canvases for fence. Yeah. So that's my first pick. Second would be windows, mainly because I'm comfortable. It's my area of expertise. I mean, I spent 11 years, you know, building a window and siding and roofing company. But I like windows the best because, number one, there are so many in the house that they usually need something. So like you might have them do half the house of windows and just by the sheer number of things. With siding, usually they do the whole house or they don't do any of it. With the roof, they usually replace the whole roof, right? With windows, they might have replaced three or four or they might have replaced ten, but they didn't replace them all. So just by the sheer number of openings in the home, windows and doors, you end up getting a higher probability of someone needing it. and that also goes into how you ask them like there's this old canvassing style of we just walk up and pick on the customer's house and do and say oh you're going to be replacing those old windows aren't you that's that doesn't work anymore that's it's really pushy and they don't like it and you know everybody loves an insult on their home of course right um it's what about what about the uh there's this 30 tax credit for windows isn't that going away well we you know when that first came out that was the first year i was knocking doors tony and that taught me that We used to introduce that. We would come and say, your neighbors just took advantage of a $1,500 tax credit by replacing their windows. Some of the neighbors wandered down to the job site, asked for pricing and brochures. So we're going to be out in the neighborhood. And so there's all kinds of different tax credits. I mean, different states have different things even. So there's all kinds of different things that are available. But it just depends on what specifically is there. I don't always use that as the opening line or the pitch, though, because that can change. And when it changes and your whole canvassing team is built on that one pitch, that can be kind of a mess. But the good ones just pivoted and they have other product lines and they did something different. But solar was a really interesting endeavor for many years. And now it's getting tougher and the regulations and some of the benefits for the homeowner going away. What I think is more important nowadays is really that we push easy finance options and things of that nature. That seems to be something that is making it more affordable for people. Sometimes they don't even think about – I mean I can tell you most of our customers that buy fences don't even realize you can finance a fence. right yeah we come out we can do it for 100 bucks a month it's like oh i don't have to part with all this cash right now beautiful so yeah that's actually more of a how much of the fence industry of your revenue is finance um i would say right now about 40 okay yeah close to half my hvac buddies the top ones are in the high 70s oh yeah yeah i'd like to get to 60 to 70 percent ideally so you're at sam's club the retail programs home shows events canvassing where do the best leads come from and what do most companies get wrong about that i don't think there's a best lead i think there's a best lead mix which is we have to have inbound and outbound running meaning i have to have people calling me off of brand reputation referrals google you've got it but if that slows down especially seasonality i mean like in michigan obviously people aren't huge exterior fans in december and january right they just think in their mind oh Exteriors are over. We'll start again in the spring. The homeowners just so the online searches that we see that time of year for exterior products go in the toilet. And so unless you're going to start hanging Christmas lights as your offseason product, which some companies do. Right. Instead, I mean, you've got to learn how to make leads. You've got to learn how to get leads. And so I don't think that there's necessarily a lead that's better than others. They just all have different pros and cons. When you have a warm lead that calls you off of Google, likely they're calling a couple of your competitors as well so in the end in this in the well in your industry yeah not in mine not in yours mine it's busted i can't get out yeah oh yeah that's a more emergency service when it's when it's demand driven that's what drives up the multiples yep yep absolutely um with what with what we do uh normally when they call us and other competitors right that lead is going to give us something at the end more like hey i need to get three other quotes like they're the shopping customer the canvassing lead is not doing that No, they're just going with you. Yeah. Well, they're going to fight us getting in the door, right? They're going to meet us. I mean, I've ran leads where they meet us in the driveway. Either leads them to the front door or the back door to pay on the lead. You got it. Exactly. And so you don't normally see that one lead is better than the other. They just have a fight in a different area and we have to prepare our sales rep or technician for what that's going to look like, right? But I mean, I think you guys experienced a little bit of that too when you got into lead aggregator, which is a different type of lead, right, than A1 is used to, right? Well, we don't have that muscle trained yet. Yeah. And we were spoiled for the last 20 years. It's true. And it's something where I'll tell you my biggest problem going into Q1 of next year is capacity planning because now that I can study with Lace AI. Oh, yeah. I can study cancellations. And then I can study the time slot not available. I'm going, what if we turned everything on max? Everything. social media, PPC, LSA, as many coupons, every single thing we could do, the TV, radio, we just max it out. And then we plan for the capacity to only fill 80% of it up, that we have enough people in that market in every weekends, nights, holidays, doesn't matter. And then we do outbound for that last 20%. So if a guy calls in, boom, same day call out, we're fine. Someone gets sick, someone has a baby, they need two weeks off, whatever that looks like. You can plan some of the stuff, a lot of it you can't. Oh, yeah. Guy gets in a car accident. There's all kinds of stuff. Guy gets held up because of weather. So all of a sudden now you've got a buffer. Yeah. And if we can flex that muscle, that's my biggest goal because you add up cancellation rate plus time slot not available. And then you look at conversion rate. We're losing, unfortunately, a third of the opportunities just in that. And that's crazy. Yeah. No, that's so true. And that's actually true at home improvement too. And the reason that that happens is when you do have a nebulous lead like a canvassing lead or you have like a strawberry festival lead or somebody that you brought into the market. that didn't initiate the search for windows near me, those kick at a higher rate, right? So those, when they set, they're going to fall off at 40%. Okay, so we know. So I actually spent a lot of years when I ran the call center figuring out the perfect combination of how many extra leads to set. So I always had backup appointments. So no sales rep went without a lead because every single slot on the calendar mattered so much based on our net sale per lead issue that I lose that opportunity. Once today is gone, today is gone. I can't make up for it. And so we would backfill the calendar with extra leads so that I could say, okay, if 20% fall off after issue or 10% no-show or whatever it is, I need to have another one I can slide in. So I actually had like a scheduling and dispatch team of people that their whole job, command center style, is to juggle. But at the end of the day, the company makes so much more money when somebody is doing that. Yeah, there's all kinds of things I've learned in the last probably year and a half. We've got a zero line. That increases conversion dramatically. reminding the customer about the appointment oh yeah and allowing them to reschedule if they need to the wording yes from robert cialdini oh yeah robert cialdini love him yeah he's amazing principles of persuasion i use all of them in our scripting yeah so there's seven principles now and the thing is is he's like so when you call a restaurant uh would you call us uh so they'll send up like he figured out a way and he's got all these case studies what i love about chadini He's like, we went from 20% to 73% actually showed up or whatever. So would you call us in advance if you need to cancel? Yes, I will. And that's now you made an obligation. The commitment. That's right. So it's very powerful the wording you use. Oh, yeah. One of the things that we've been talking about is sending the client saying, are you a reactional buyer or um i forget the word that chetting to use this weekend with with my team i wasn't there but or are you a preventative proactive proactive proactive and that way we could lead score yeah and i don't think anybody talks about lead scoring very often no i mean you guys do in home home improvements next level but we generate 34 000 leads a month and we run over, depending on the month, 22 to 26,000. Now, if we got really good on that other, that's why I'm so obsessed with home improvement right now. Yeah. Because garage doors, I think, could fall into both. Yeah. Because there's the demand side and there's the people that are just like, this is ugly, let's replace it. Let's get the energy efficient. Let's get the MyQ that can open and close it and Amazon can deliver. What do you think when you think about it? Do you see the home improvement side or both? I see it as both. I see the garage door replacement as home improvement and then the service is separate because the emergency, anything that's HVAC plumbing, something that's emergency related, it's almost 100% based on response time, who can get their quickest, who's going to answer the call when you need them. Like there's so many facets on that side. And I did that when I worked in carpet cleaning and restoration, I felt that, right? Like I totally knew that that was, you know, we had a policy where we would do an add on no matter what. If they wanted in today, we made room. It did not matter. We have to be able to, they said, My dog threw up and I'm having a party and I need this carpet cleaned and we had to make that happen. And then on the other side of things with replacement, I think garage door replacement, like we could do a much stronger job if we did approach it as more of a home improvement sale and a selling – like a selling – what do we call it? Like if we use that as – like if we did a true like in-home sale process on the actual sale. But, you know, on the phone, too, you can figure that out. I have clients that do roof repair and roof replacement. Right. And so on the phone, we figure it out based on the age of the current roof. Right. We'll say, well, if it's four years old, they probably are just going to need service or repair. Right. If it's 10 years old or older, sometimes they're seeing other things that why do you want to put a bandaid on a broken leg? Right. So we may want to come out, put our eyes on the project and get them a quote. Or we may want to put our eyes on the project and decide, hey, you can get away with a repair. So it's interesting because you can put them into both buckets and you can make that decision on the phone, but it has to be based not on how we feel the customer is responding, but the age of the product and the symptoms that they're experiencing as to what bucket we put it in. I love that. You know, I had to look up the name because I don't know him very well, but I met him at the event we were at. It's Matt Esler. Oh, yeah. Super cool dude. Oh, yeah. I got to talk to him a little bit. I did some things with the mastermind group. He's in right before Top 500. So I got to meet him and talk to him and it was great. 120 million. Yeah. And he's like, look, I've talked to Anderson. I wanted to take over the country. Like I got this. I got to figure it out. And I'm like, man, 120 million. And it's mostly from generating leads, like out of a thin blue. Oh, yeah. And Anderson, I've not seen a company do like, because I get the mailers. I see them at every event. Oh, yeah. I mean, I see them everywhere. They're at the stores. They're like, they're leaving, not at my house now, but my Scottsdale house. They're leaving a little postcard that looks like it's handwritten, like a sticky note. Yep. Like just crazy. Yep. They even host events like at a golf course. They'll send you a piece of direct mail that says, hey, we're doing this special educational course of the golf course. Come have free dinner on us. And they do like they create their own events that way. They do a lot of interesting things. One of my partners at Tony Hody, he actually built Renewal by Anderson's canvassing program in Long Island years ago. He had 60 canvassers, so very skilled in door knocking. Now he's a consultant. He teaches it. but yeah they they definitely it's interesting because they half of the renewal by anderson is still on like the old process of we just walk up and say your windows are old and then some of the other ones i've coached a couple of the the other locations that are trying to embrace more of the get the customer to tell us the pain and really dive into that because the set rate on forcing the customer into an appointment is high but this the retention rate of issuing the lead to a sales person is low yep because they can call back and cancel if they're just setting to get you off the porch. They're just going to cancel. There is no real genuine interest there. You know, here's what I've always wondered. Consultants are so great. You said this guy was involved in this company and I've heard that so many times, but I'm like, I understood that when the multiples were three, four, and Anderson's different because it's kind of, you're not going to get the same multiples because it's got to sell to get you cash flow. Sure. But I'm looking at these multiples going, a consultant should probably want to get into a lot of these businesses or even start a business. Don't get me wrong. I'm just curious from your point of view because it just seems like if you got these skills and you applied it to a couple of companies and now you can consult for equity, there's all kinds of Roland Frazier talks about stuff like that all the time. But what is your take on that? Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of ways you can get involved. The reality is most people become consultants and then they get right back out of it because they realize it's not what they thought it was. They realize pretty quickly that they're managing a lot of companies' problems, and they're not cut for it. They came from another company where they had one department to worry about, and they did pretty good at leading a company. And then they see other people that are consultants, right? And they say, that sounds fun. I mean, then I could just work on it. It's kind of like when people want to be a business owner, but they don't really know what that entails, right? They have this idea. It's kind of like when our employees, too, think like leadership is like fancy leather chair syndrome, right? Where you now, now you can take a break when it's the opposite. Like you now work for them. They don't work for you anymore. You work for them. And most people don't, don't see that. And so I think a lot of consultants, first of all, they go right back into nine to five jobs pretty quickly. I'd say 80% of them I see that start and become coaches and consultants, but a lot of them also, I mean, you see some that want to do it when they don really have the skills the skills the ability to change I think 90 of coaches shouldn be coaches Oh 100 Like what your track record Yeah And I see people go out of business and they like I just going to be a coach now And I like one of the things are where you go to the gym at LA Fitness I hire the trainer, and you're like, well, I don't really want to look like you. Absolutely. No, 100%. It's one of the same things. Yeah. So I'm like, but some of them succeed. I don't know how. Just grit or just. Grit, I think a lot of times too, you know, as an owner, if you're really struggling with a problem, eventually you have to seek help for that. And if somebody comes along and they – I mean everything in life is sales. The consultant is – if they're a good salesperson, they're going to come along, see the – I mean sales is problem solving. You see somebody has a problem, you create a solution and you're able to sell around that. I think a lot of consultants get good at sales but they're not good at the execution on the back end which doesn't bring them repeated sales. That's – yeah. And then what happens is your name gets around as somebody who doesn't – who charges a lot but doesn't actually bring results and there's nothing – that's a kiss of death for a consultant. Like you've got to have everybody saying that you are what you say you are, right? Or it's not going to work. I mean I've been in it for six years now and I started it before I left All Weather Seal. The owner there was okay with it because he's like, you have a gift and I know you could impact a lot of people by helping. And so he let me bring people into the company to shadow me for days and it was a pretty cool deal. But it's not what people think it is. I mean there's a lot of stress because when you really care about your clients, you want them to have success. And when they're not, you're very involved in that. You're very involved in high-level decisions they have to make that are tough, right? Sometimes they've got to let somebody go that's been with them a long time because they're not a good fit anymore. It's so tough. It is. I think the hardest part, one of my buddies, Darius Livers, he's like, I'll never let the owner stay on if he's under $5 million of EBITDA because they get in the way. And they don't really have the talent. And they don't know how to build the org chart. And they got this broken mindset. Oh, yeah. But then the owners say, why did you buy my company if you didn't think I was great? Sure. And most of the time it's because you're getting a lot of leads and you've got some talent that's coming along with it. When we put our systems in, we'll double the company. That's just funny. So if you could erase one terrible phrase from every call center script in the home improvement industry, what would it be? Well, there's two phrases and then there's the principle behind it. The two phrases, and I'll get on my soapbox for a moment, that I dislike the most are platitudes that have been said for many, many years, and they probably worked great in the 80s and 90s, maybe even early 2000s. Asking the customer what other decision makers need to be there is one of the things that hurts home improvement companies big time. Now, I've sold in the house. I agree I want all decision makers there. I don't agree telling them you want that is the best way to get them to do it. And that's where… theory about that too that i've been thinking about this week oh good i want to hear about it well just real quick if i called you up i'd say listen i'm going to bring out a lot of samples first i'm going to send you a buyer's guide to understand what you're interested in and i just like to know since i'm bringing out it's basically an in-home shopping i want to make sure every samples there's someone else that want to see the different designs understand the insulation anybody that like to be involved because i want to bring this to you and if i need to do it twice i'm okay with that but i think that's much better than like i know a flooring company that was like or give you 10% more if your husband or wife's home and like just kind of probing. Yeah. Yeah. It's – and that's the thing too. Like the word decision maker first of all gives the customer sort of the ammo to use against you because the minute you say decision maker, two things come out of their mouth in resistance. Number one, I make all the decisions. George, we know damn well you're not making all the decisions without Marjorie. Okay? We know you're not. And the person that says I'm the only decision maker never is because the real decision maker doesn't want you to know it. And they're not going to tell you that because then you'll corner them knowing that they're the decision maker. So there's a couple of pieces there. The other piece about the word decision maker is they'll say, I don't want to make any decisions. I just want a price. I just want to find out what this is going to run me. Why is this so hard? And they get really frustrated, right? The other thing to remember is you can also insult the strong independent woman by suggesting that there might be another decision maker. and she says, oh, you don't think I can make my – you think I – I don't need no man to make a construction decision. That might have been what you're saying, but that's what she heard. And so we have to be really careful in today's society about the way that we word things. Not to mention a lot of companies will try to go into, well, who else is on the deed? Who else owns the home? And I'm like, you know, that really doesn't even matter because you got – a lot of times you've got a married couple where one spouse is on the deed and bought the house before they got married. So you let a lot slip through the cracks. The other thing is demanding that they sit at the kitchen table. We're going to need you to sit down for 60 to 90 minutes. Okay, again, I've been in in-home sales. I mean, I trained some of the in-home sales reps before I left All Weather Steel. I moved into sales training before I left. So I know one call closed well. Rick Grasso was my mentor for 10 years. And so I know it well. And then with my fence company, now I do it. I agree. I want 60 to 90 minutes. I don't agree telling the customer, I need you to sit at the kitchen table and be chained there for 60 to 90 minutes is the best way to get them to comply. And that's where I differ with a lot of the home improvement people that want to say that reading the customer list of demands, human beings work on what's in it for me. Yeah, what's with them. What's in it for me. And so, you know, if I could show them why it doesn't make sense, kind of like what you said, you know, you had a great what you just said, you know, just off the cuff here about, you know, we're going to bring this to you and show you. I'm like, look, in order to leave an accurate price, we end up needing both parties input. You know, I understand Windows sounds pretty basic. It's glass in a frame. But I got to tell you, in 2025, there's so many options, color, styles, not to mention the way you want them installed, in order to leave you the most accurate pricing while we're there. Nine times out of ten, we end up needing both parties' input. I'm sure you could appreciate that. Yeah. Because all they want is an accurate price, right? In order to get an accurate price. But it can't be about the decision. No, decision maker. That's what's in it for us, right? So let me ask you a question. I'm sure you're familiar with this guy. I met him eight years ago. I haven't seen him since, but this guy named Rodney Webb. And he wore a GoPro, wore a GoPro, and he'd spend 10 minutes encircling things and preparing a video. And I know a garage or company that used him, and they literally like, they wear these magnifying glass. What is your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think that there's a certain amount of show that has to be put on in the house. Like the sales trainer that I learned from used to say it's showtime, right? It's time to showtime. That's what he'd say. And I do agree with that. And I agree with that because, number one, you know, an inspection and a needs assessment is very important. And so looking the part is also very important. Now, what degree do you go to that with? Right. Like, do you go to the point where you just look silly or do you go to the point where, look, I've got enough stuff here to where they understand that I'm the expert and I'm using these things for a reason? So it's part like what Robert Cialdini would talk about establishing authority, right? Being an expert in your field. You need to make sure that that's abundantly clear to the homeowner. And so a lot of people will do it with dressing the part in a need inspection. I mean, I know a lot of roofers that will wear a tool belt. They don't know how to use any of the tools, but they'll get on the roof with the tool belt, right? because they need to, you know, I think, you know, Chuck Toki is a friend of mine, sales trainer that we use. But one of the things, he was on a job and the customer came off the, the customer said, is he going to fix the roof while he's up there with a sales rep getting on the roof? He's like, I hope he doesn't because I don't think he knows how to use any of those tools, right? And so I think it just depends, you know, I, but I do believe that sometimes we can overdo that. We don't want it to come across as cheesy because then we're just another sales tactic that we're using. But it has to be enough to establish authority. One of the things we do in fence that's different than everybody else along those same lines is we do a walk around in the yard with the customer with a little Mosier puck that measures the fence line. And look, everybody else comes out with this wheel. Yeah. Right? What's a Mosier puck? A Mosier puck is a measuring device that it beeps and it measures the whole fence line and draws the map for you. Oh, okay. So it's a little more advanced. Yeah. But the customer goes, what's that? Wow, it's beeping. We plant flags around the yard. This is where your materials are going to go. This is where the gates are going to be. We do that on purpose. Everyone else came out with a wheel, didn't write any of that down. And when we leave, they go, what's these other bozos doing? They didn't even come in the house. They're just going to email me a bit. These guys sat down with me, talked about my different options. Heck, they left flags in the yard so they didn't put the gate in the wrong place. They don't want little rover to get out of the yard, right? And so that does differentiate you when you have a needs inspection that you're prepared for in that way. I love this stuff. I could do this all day. I got a bunch more here. So a lot of people that I've heard over the years say that doesn't work in my market. Appomb doesn't work in my market. That's my favorite phrase. This market's not good. You don't understand. I got too much competition. It's all price-based in my market. There's so many people that are listening right now that say, yeah, you can't do that in my market. you don't understand my market. You don't understand my buyer. I look at their marketing and they're attracting people. Like, how do you sell at those levels? How do you, and I'm like, we are the best. Like we show up, look at, look at our trucks. They're brand new. They're wrapped. We show up, we've got background checks. We've got certifications. We let the client know, like we are a premium brand. And by the way, with my home, I want to buy the best brand, the best warranty, somebody saved from my family. So what do you say to someone that says, oh, you don't understand. It's not my market. It's my favorite cry of the lack mentality person, right? They decide that doesn't work in my market. And the question is, well, let's talk about that. What have you tried? Because the reality is that's an objection. Everything in life is sales. That's an objection. And my next thing will be to ask the questions. Well, what have we tried? How have we tried it? Because yeah, door knocking won't work in your market. If you sent a couple bozos out with a clipboard for two days, gave them no training, no leadership and zero branding or accountability, you're right, it probably isn't going to work. The reality is, is that most of them aren't prepared with the right training. They're not prepared with the right cadences for calling. They're not prepared. So they gave it a half-ass attempt and then they got half-ass results and they go, that doesn't work in my market, right? Happens all the time. People do home shows, right? It's my favorite thing to watch, okay? I go around the home show, everyone, some owner, my heart goes out to the owner who paid for a booth and someone's sitting behind a table playing on their phone, not looking at the customer. And then what the owner does, he comes to the conference, comes to me at Top 500 Live and goes, yeah, we tried shows and events, they don't work. And I said, well, let's dig into that. What do you mean they don't work? Well, we went to 20, we went to 30, we didn't see an ROI. Well, what was your process? Well, I don't know. Well, that's kind of important when it comes to actually getting results, right? So my first question is always, well, what did we try? How did we try it? What did we do? How did you pay them? Yeah, there's so many. And that's where it doesn't work in your market because there's something that wasn't in line. Tony and I talk about this all the time because people say door knocking doesn't work or outbound calling, calling past customers doesn't work in my market. And we have yet to have somebody that we've trained on these processes that have executed it the exact way we showed them to not have success. So it's very tough for me to believe that because when they actually execute it the way that they should be, the way that we know is a proven methodology that works, we don't see lack of results. It's when we half-ass it or we have little things that we thought would work that didn't and then we just throw a baby out with bathwater. I want to learn about events. If you had to just give me a quick synopsis of what it makes – what are the basics? Give me the top five things of what makes these events work. First above all else is not actually displays. It's not actually – take everything, all the money that you spend on other things and put it into training people on a correct process. Because you could take a person – and I have pictures. I speak on stages and I'll have two side-by-side pictures. The most beautiful booth ever, these beautiful doors. And I mean they probably spent $10,000 on this booth setup. and you got a guy playing on his phone sitting behind a table. Then you've got this booth. Like my fence company booth cost me $1,000 all in. I mean I'm talking flooring. I'm talking displays, everything. We're at 63 appointments in two days on a fence only. 63 sales appointments in two days. And so but because I have two master lead generators that have been trained to get every single person that walks by to engage in a conversation with them and then gently shift it to talking about fence. And so at All Weather Seal, our biggest weekend was we set 376 appointments in three days. I had 17 marketers in the booth. And that's the only reason I buy a huge booth is I need room for more people. It has nothing to do with the displays because if you have great displays, great. What about the offer? The offer is not near as important as people think it is. It is important in anchoring the appointment. But if you just stand out there and say, hey, we're offering this, you just sound like a salesperson. And they're just going to avoid it. We have to engage in conversation in a different way and then shift it to what we do. And that's where most people go wrong. There's a lot of leading window brands that will just bark, how old are your windows? Do you think that every homeowner that says they're brand new is telling you the truth? You lie. They lie immediately. Right. It's like the girl at Nordstrom. Could I help you find anything? Nope, just looking. I'm there to buy, but I don't want to be invited. Right. I use that example in almost every training I do is that that's the conditioned response. And if you looked back on when you first learned to say, no, I'm just looking, you couldn't remember if it was when your mom took you shopping when you were six or your auntie took your grandma. You can't remember exactly when, but at some point your brain decided that was what we say to these people. And so and that stretches into home shows. I mean, people say, no, I'm all set. So if people say, no, I'm all set, we lead with, hey, are you all set? They're like, yeah. And then we go, oh, OK, well, let me tell you what we're doing for people that are also. And then it breaks down, right, that that objection initially. And we have to have a great way to shift the conversation. Oh, it is. It's the never split the difference all day long. But we've got to get them engaged in a conversation. They've got to be having a good time, right? The other thing is if we're working a home show, we've got to have – we can have something, law of reciprocity, which is another Cialdini principle. I'm big on that. Getting people something initially. Now, a lot of people are giving things away at home shows. They've got keychains. They've got koozies. They've blown their budget on company swag to hand out, okay? Nobody likes swag. No, and it just ends up in the trash or in your kid's toy box or whatever. They have this big bag full of shit. My kids can't wait to do that, by the way. My kids are like, oh, home show time, Mom. We can't wait to go. And I'm like, I know. A lot of pens, a lot of squeeze balls. Yes, broken pieces all over my house, right? But here's the reality. If it's something that ties in with the theme of the show, for instance, I went to Beer, Wine, and Food Festival one year. They didn't really like Window Girl barking at them about windows and siding and roofing. They were there for cheese, beer, and wine, right? And so the first year, it took me about 100 approaches to get one person to set an appointment, which is not an effective use of my time, by the way. The other 99 kicked me in the teeth and told me, why are you at the beer, wine, and food fest, window girl? The next year, I said, how the hell with this? This isn't happening to me again. So the next year, I got branded wine openers with our company logo on them, and I would give them a gift. And I would say, oh, this is for you. And they would say, oh, thank you. It only took me one out of 20 approaches to get somebody to set an appointment now. So my odds increased exponentially with the reciprocity, right? But we also want it to tie into the theme of the show, right? So if I'm a bath company too, maybe I give away rubber ducks. A lot of companies will do that. But there's got to be a way that you're engaging with them, especially if it's a non-home show, that's something to do with the show and also can kind of lightly tie into what you do. You know, we'd be at a golf show. Why is a window company at a golf show? We've got a glass breakage warranty. A lot of people live on golf courses that have broken windows. Oh, I guess that makes sense, right? so they want to talk about it at that point but it's got to be some sort of lead in right but at the home show the the top five things are train the people right get them to engage with every single person walking by don't put chairs in the booth that's the number one thing that i would say you could do immediately is take the damn chairs out of the booth it's too tempting to sit in the chair sure i hated working booths and i hated doing door-to-door oh i'm not cut out for that no no i don't think anybody loves it i just like it because it's a vehicle to pour into people and teach people skills that they would never learn otherwise. There are people, look, I just, I guess I got so good. Like I knocked on doors to mow lawns and shovel snow, but that was like a need. It was a bunch of snow. I'm a kid. Yeah. My mom works three jobs. Right. I'm affordable. Could I take care of this for you? Young entrepreneur in the making. Oh, they were like, yeah, do you want some hot chocolate? Like it was easy. Oh yeah. But when you, like, I remember 2016, I was inviting everybody over for a neighborhood party and I knocked on their door and they would crack it open and they'd go, can I help you? And I'm like, hey, my name's Tommy. I'm your neighbor. I just want to invite you to our party. Or if you do hear noise and you don't come to the party, call me before you call the cops. Try to get ahead of it. Yes. Yeah. Get ahead of it. Yes. So it was interesting because I'm like, man, it's been a while. And then I went out with Lenny Gray, the door-to-door millionaire, because he runs my program. And he was like, dude, we're going to have fun. Put this vest on. And every single house we went to, I swore, had a cam, the ring. Oh, yeah. And he's like, dude, you are the worst luck. He's like, these are harder to get. But he's so nonchalant. He's like, who cares? He's like, come on. Yeah, keep going. The doors are open. He'd walk into the garage and say, hey, man, I'm going to just a local garage door company doing some work we did down the road. And it was just super – it could be super good. And I know I could be good at it. But I know I'm like there's easier way. I like to fish with dynamite. Absolutely. But it's such a good skill. and if every kid, I told my niece and nephew, I will pay you triple what you make to work a summer of a door-to-door because they just get more dates too in the future. It changes their lives as a young person. It totally does. We have gotten letters from parents that said we were worried about little Ben going off to college. He's so in his shell. And so he worked for you guys for a summer and he's just a whole new person. To them, they see his social skills. Because once you master that, nothing scares you. No girls, no job interview, nothing scares you. So we really – and great farming for future sales reps, right? You get kids in teach them the skills If they can sell the appointment they can sell the product when they get a little bit more mature and get a little sales experience right But if they can sell the appointment they can learn how to sell the product eventually So we poured into a lot of young people A lot of those young people today that worked under me own companies, like some of them home improvement. I've got some that are insurance agents, own their own brokerages, like because they learned that skill at an early age, right? Yeah. They weren't afraid of anything after that. I think if we're talking about blowing this thing up in a year to like thousands of people, I'm going to get the mom to just say, look, little Timmy, different person, not afraid of rejection, learned personal growth, learned no fear, like everything. You could just go on and on. And what I've learned is if I could appeal towards the wives. Oh, it's because my technicians don't want to quit their current jobs where they're at. The wives are like, wait a minute. He works just as hard. He's making half as much money and they pay you to train. and he's going to have flexibility and he's going to have his own truck and be able to move up in the company. So a lot of times I like to go after like the significant other. Oh, it's so true. I mean, nothing kills in, in our industry too. Like when I would interview sales reps, my last year at All Weather Steel was all recruiting salespeople, right? And so when, if I would find out they have an unsupportive wife at home, he won't make it. Unsupportive wife. Yeah. Unsupportive wife. How do you figure that out? Well, he starts asking me how much he's going to make and then tells me that he can't work past five o'clock in the evening. And I said, why not? Well, what's going on? You got some constraints. Well, my wife really wants me home, you know, and she doesn't really want me working past a certain time. If he defers to her in that moment, like that's number one, it's going to be a schedule conflict. Number two, she's not happy because he's not home at the time she's expecting him home because maybe he's used to a nine-to-five job. Then I'll also get in and find out that, you know, well, let me, she'd be okay with it if I was making this much. And it's like, well, that's great, but how about on the weight of that much? Will she be okay with it then? And you can find that out. Dave Ramsey talks about taking both people out. Yep. And then the other thing is finding out, like on Pinnacle, that's when the guys hit like this massive level. There's usually 20 to 30 that make it out of the 600. All their wives know every single one of their KPIs. Yep. Like they talk about it at breakfast. Yes. They talk about it at dinner. One of them prays for success each day. That's amazing. With Jeremy and Vegas. It's amazing. That's so true. But it would be great to understand. So you could find that out a little bit at dinner if you take them out. What other things do you look for? What are some good questions to ask during an interview? I ask them stories. What do you like to do, right? I want to make sure that they have positive things in their life outside of just work, right? They've got to have some sort of goal, something they're passionate about. Maybe it's they like to volunteer at the Humane Society and they foster dogs. I don't know what it is, but I don't care what it is. But they have to have something in their life they're passionate about. If you find somebody that's just not passionate about anything, I start going, I don't know about that. Same as you, though, I would surprise them with questions to see can they think on their feet. Like I'd say if you could describe yourself as a breakfast cereal, what would you be? And then sometimes they just sit there and they're like – I'd probably be lucky, Charm. I'm a pretty lucky guy. Yeah, yeah. Special K, I'm good for you. Yeah, exactly. There you go. Exactly. But that's exactly an answer that you'd be like, wow, this guy can think on his feet. If the customer throws him a curveball, what's going to happen, right? Is he going to buckle and, oh, what do I do under pressure? Or is he going to think on his feet or at least go, you know, I've never been asked that before by himself a couple seconds to come up with an answer. Like what's the response look like? That's a great question. Why do you ask? That's my favorite thing. I say that all the time. That's my favorite. I say that to customers too. When the customer asks a question on the phone in the call center, we use that a lot. And we use that because there's a motive behind it. I think I heard this from Ryan Stumman years ago where he says – he always says people need a drill. People need a hole. They don't need a drill, right? They need a hole. Yeah, it's called blue ocean. You're selling the outcome. Right. So why do we want to fix this story? Look, I want to make sure when you hit that button – I just want to make sure. How many times have you left the house and wondered if you closed the garage? Right. We solved it. If you could solve a problem instead of the features and benefits, what problem are you solving? Absolutely. And so that's what we do on the phone because when they say to you what brand of something do you carry, right, or something like that when they're calling into the call center, we could give them a long list of features that makes ours great. Or we could say that's a great question. What makes you ask? Well, the story about that is Best Buy. Oh. You know the story? I've heard it. So you walk in and the guy says, listen, I got a question. Is this Windows XP? And this is years ago apparently. When Windows XP was. Yeah, Windows XP. thing and uh do you carry windows xp as the computers come loaded with windows xp and the salesman says yes absolutely the latest windows xp he goes i freaking hate it i cannot believe you guys would carry windows xp yes like why would anybody sell that garbage oh yeah and then you go the right question is we have a lot of different operating systems we've got math we've got different series of windows we've got linux what exactly were you looking for exactly your hopes yep would you have a problem with me showing you the different types? And that's a Chris Voss. Absolutely. You wouldn't be against checking out the different types, would you? No. On to that. But then the Tom Hopkins is getting them to say yes. So it's changed over the years. It has. It has. Well, I think that one of the things Chris Voss talks about too, is people are just more comfortable saying no. So, you know, of course we want to be able to help people. You're getting the no's out of the way for the yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, that's part of the sales process in One Call Close too. We have several trial closes that are meant to get no's. So that when we come in, ask for a yes, we actually get one because they're like, all right, I put up a good fight. I tried. Said no several times, right? I think with what our process is, is we try to have it digest. We do a first knock, second knock. And then I'll try to apply some money today. Did you just want to kick the can down the road now that I got the door operating? You know, we got a bottom rubber, keeps all the nasty bugs out. Not necessary. But, you know, on the other side of the garage usually is the kitchen. And I just want to say like the hardest part is getting technicians to stop selling out of their own pocket. So true. Of their own wallet. Yep. Yeah. It's like, guys, yeah, you never buy it, but you don't even own a home. Right. You're not our target demographic. So, yeah. Yeah. So that's a really hard thing because they're like, yeah, I would never spend this much. But I'm like, you got a $400 pair of Jordans. Right. I'm like, this is an investment. Right. You just paid that. You'll never. That's gone. That money is gone. Yeah. And as a homeowner, I know I used to get good deals and then I stopped completely. I don't want a good deal. I want quality. Yeah, you learn. Well, and that's why when you be with a homeowner that's in their 40s, 50s, 60s, they've had some life experience where they've bought cheap and they've had to buy it over and over again, right? The younger homeowner hasn't learned that lesson yet. Yeah. Okay. They have to learn it the hard way like the rest of us, right? They have to have a few times where they bought something and then they found out a warranty was only as good as the company backing and the company's out of business. So it's useless. They have to buy the cabinets and hinges come off second week. Yeah, the stuff doesn't close, right? Or the tile has hollow spots everywhere because they didn't use the right ground. Yeah. We have no horror stories usually of people that spent too much. It's always people that didn't spend enough, right? Those are the ones that have all of the problems later, right? Well, a lot of people haven't defined their avatar. Yeah. They don't even know what their demographic. They've never studied. And ValPAC did a really good study for us because they take all the data and tell us our average demographic, what markets to hit the most of. And you got to go to somebody that has that kind of pool. Absolutely. To really understand it. Yeah. Let's just do a quick speed round. Sure. You're building companies while raising a son. What has motherhood changed the way you think about leadership in time? Well, I have eight kids now. Eight? Yeah. My husband and I are a blended family. So it's changed a lot now that I have a whole football team almost. But some of them are grown and doing their own thing. We have four under our roof. So it's changed a lot. I mean, it's and it's the same. It's just that if I don't make the sale with my kids, prices are much higher because they grow up the wrong way. Yeah. So that's the difference, right? The I have to be a better leader at home than I even even am at work, because if I'm not, I they have to pay the price because everything rises and falls on leadership. And so, you know, they're looking to us and it's more about, you know, doing what we say we're going to do and then modeling that so that they'll do that same thing yeah i heard from age one to seven one and a half but that age is they're they're mirror they're watching you and you're seeing if it's okay or not when my kids cuss i realize right where it is yeah okay so let's pretend you you take the the lorian back to when you're 17 you get to talk to 17 year old maggot what are three pieces of advice you'd give her oh that's not it can't be about dating okay i'll do Okay. There goes the first five. No. The first thing would be, I know it seems bleak now, but your life's going to be very different 20 years from now. When I was 17, I was homeless and living out of my car. So there was a lot of not knowing if there was something bigger for me. So it would be hang in there and continue to put one foot in front of the other. Another one would be the sooner you can get a relationship with God, the better off you're going to be. That would be a second one that I really wish 17-year-old me would have heard from someone and embraced. And the third one would have been, look, all these ups and downs are going to shape exactly what you need to be what you're meant to be. And so you might not see the purpose behind the pain right now, but one day you will. I love that. I love that. I play this thing during orientation. And it's this kid, he's like, he's like god you know it's this little kid he's like god made you it's like it's this great thing and i get goosebumps every time and it's i can't even recite it because i've listened to it about 10 times and my buddy sent it to me he's like i've listened to this 100 times and it's about these trials we go through and it's sharpening you it's making you stronger and it's true like people like a lot of people say i don't know if i changed a whole lot because it made me who i am I didn't learn a whole lot from winning. I learned a lot from losing. Oh, yeah. I didn't. You know, I'd win a lot of games and I'd be like, awesome. Go to practice the next day. But I don't really need to try that hard. We won. When you lose, it's like, wow, you kind of get humbled. Absolutely. And I think the other thing is when you think about like all of that pain and there's a greater purpose in it, in the midst of it, you can't see it in the midst of it. It's very difficult to say, well, one day I'm going to be coaching businesses. And that wasn't on my radar. are. But every single one of those things is shaping – it's happening for a reason. My husband and I always joke when we go through trials with our business, we recite James where it's like, consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, when you are going through trials and tribulations because you're developing the persistence that's needed for your faith. And I think that biblically or otherwise, that's just a great lesson in life in general, right? It's like Jocko. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Good. Exactly. Oh, you failed? Goggins. Good. Same thing. Yeah. Goggins, same thing. But he's like, I don't want to do it. I should do it. There's some lesson in this, right? Like I need to callous my mind to what I don't want to do is my key to success, which that – Discipline. Yeah. It takes it to the next level, which I don't admire. I do admire, but I don't – like I'm like, man, smile. It comes with some negatives for sure. I'm like, I got to meet Jaco and I'm like, what a cool dude. Yeah. He puts on – writes kids' books. Oh, yeah. Extreme Ownership is one of my top reads of all times. So good. a few more questions what do you want your legacy to be in the industry I want people to be able to say that once I came in contact with Megan she left me better than she found me I love that I say pretty much the same thing when he said he was going to do something he followed through you know this is something I'm trying to kind of disassociate with my commitment because if I say I'm going to mow your lawn for the next 10 years I could probably hire someone else to do it but like I got to be able to break I don't consider them promises but like my word is my bond I told Dan Martel that and he goes dude that's a bad thing I want you to practice breaking your bond and that was scary and he's like what do you mean he's like that's not a good thing he's like if you promise you're going to do something and something more important comes up if we need you you know you've got to learn to say no you've got to learn to prioritize and you got it. That's a muscle you're going to have to flex more and more. And he's right. And I tend not to say, no, I just say, I hate yes, but not right now. Let's look at this in a year. Sure. And that's easier for me. Yeah. Is there any books that changed your life? You know, we talked about a lot of books today, but maybe out of the ordinary, out of the ordinary. The number one most impactful in my career has been 21 irrefutable laws of leadership. That's probably not out of the ordinary, but I've been through it about 17 times now. I've taken a bunch of companies through it. We do book studies. I actually would say, and this is going to probably sound funny to people, but probably Alcoholics Anonymous book. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I got into recovery very early in life. And when I learned my troubles were of my own making, that was a really important principle that has fared me well in life. And so that book is instrumental in a lot of the things that I believe and the things that I do today. You know, I always tell people I never went through a 12-step program, but I do know the first thing is admitting to myself that it is a problem. Yeah, for sure. And I think if you can't even say, so many people point these two fingers out and they point at everyone else, instead of just saying, what if it's me? Right. What if it's internal? What if it's something that happened? What if it's something I got to let go of? Absolutely. Although I don't want to open all those doors. They closed them for a reason. I'm not going to do an ayahuasca trip and try to open up shit because I think I sell that stuff pretty tight for a reason. Yeah. Well, I think when it comes to things like that, there's just great power in realizing everything's your fault because you can do something about that. If it's somebody else's fault, they might not ever change. And so that's the part. What can I do? And I think you're right. People don't realize one finger out is three fingers back at me. I mean I'm pointing three back at myself because the reality is other things might not change. The situation you're in might not ever change. But if you can change your part in it, what kind of impact would it have? right? When I heard Gary Vaynerchuk say that, everything's my fault. If I hired you and you failed, it's my fault. Everything's my fault because either I made a mishire or I didn't train you properly. And as leaders, if everybody took that type of extreme accountability and extreme ownership, we would be much further along. Most businesses don't have that person. It's always, well, who else can I? Let me look at the other department. What are they not doing right that's causing my failure? When the reality is, if we all took that type of ultimate accountability, my troubles are of my own making, I mean, we would just all go so much further in life in general. It's true. Pretty concerned about the world in which we live and where we're going with AI. And all these private equity guys, they all tell me, you know, human beings adapt. We figure out new things. I'm like, no, it's not the industrial revolution. It's not plugging the phone in. They're taking over brains. Yeah. It's scary. It's weird to go to that spot, but it is kind of – what are your thoughts on that, by the way? So, you know, and I talked about this at Top 500. I was there the day before you, so you didn't get to see it. But I talked about how we need to be using AI in our businesses to make the human experience better, not to replace it. And that's where a lot of people are trying to replace it. They think, I mean, most companies, if I gave them the option, they'd outsource breathing. So it doesn't surprise me that they would like to outsource that. But, yeah, it is a little bit scary thinking of the capability it has. You know, they said, you know, 10 people will be dating robots by, you know, 2055 or whatever. Yeah, but I mean a lot of that is what I'm hearing around everything. I would say though with AI, what's interesting is that MIT did a study that it actually turns out that 95% of the people using – businesses using AI in their business, it's not adding anything to their bottom line. And I thought that that was a really interesting study. I talked about it from the stage because – and the reason they said that is is because companies are trying to use it on the front end in the marketing and sales processes, not on the back end to automate things better and make their processes more seamless for the customer, which is what they should be doing. And so it was really interesting and I'm like, that is so true and I see that in our industry. I think AI, when I think about it, like there's automated on the back end that might have 0.2% profitability. But if I could figure out some automation in AI but not replace humans, but it will be a hiring freeze. Sure. Like right now, our ratio is not where I want it to be. I want four people out in the field compared to one indirect cost. And we're nowhere near that yet, but I think we will get there. So how do people reach out to you? They want to get a hold of you. Yeah. They can follow me on social media. You can find me, Megan Knows Marketing. And I'm on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. Or they can email me at megan at tonyhody.com, T-O-N-Y-H-O-T-Y.com. Very good. and final question I always ask because we talked about a ton of stuff. I'm super impressed. I'm glad to be working with you. What didn't I ask you? What do you want to close us with? I just want to inspire everybody to invest in training and leadership for their business. I mean, a lot of times leadership doesn't have a measurable ROI we can see tomorrow. So it's kind of like branding. We have a hard time investing in stuff that doesn't give us immediate gratification. But I can tell you investing in training and leadership is everything. And the companies that do it scale and grow much faster than the companies that just kind of use it as an afterthought. Well, this was fun. Yes. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. You know, my uncle lives in Grand Rapids. I go to Ludington. Yeah. So I have to come by. Your shop is right by mine, actually. Is it? My fence company is here and A1 is here. I can literally see you around the corner. Oh, that's so cool. So you'll have to stop by sometime. I love Michiganders. Thank you for doing this today. Yes, thank you. Appreciate you. Hey there. Thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization. It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high-performing team like over here at A1 Garage Door Service. So if you want to learn the secrets to help me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700-plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast and grab a copy of the book. Thanks again for listening, and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.