Business Scaling Workshop Live Q&A | Ep 827

Business Scaling Workshop Live Q&A | Ep 827

Released Friday, 17th January 2025
 1 person rated this episode
Business Scaling Workshop Live Q&A | Ep 827

Business Scaling Workshop Live Q&A | Ep 827

Business Scaling Workshop Live Q&A | Ep 827

Business Scaling Workshop Live Q&A | Ep 827

Friday, 17th January 2025
 1 person rated this episode
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Episode Transcript

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0:00

My name is Rick and

0:02

I sell financial planning services

0:04

to young big tech employees,

0:06

W2 employees. We do about

0:08

half a million in revenue.

0:10

I love to be at

0:12

5 million within the next

0:14

three years or so. And

0:17

what's currently stopping me is

0:19

just a time resource management

0:21

issue where I'm currently doing

0:23

the, you know, fulfillment of

0:25

meeting with our clients. And

0:27

I hired a new full-time

0:29

associate planner to start to take

0:31

over those relationships. And so I

0:33

think my current constraint is figuring

0:35

out how to replicate teams as

0:37

I continue to grow the business.

0:40

We're doing, relatively, we're just doing

0:42

organic marketing, content mostly on LinkedIn,

0:44

and write a daily blog, which

0:46

I post to the website, and

0:48

an email list, a small email

0:50

list. How many sales a month

0:53

did you do? About two. two sales

0:55

a month? And is the model like

0:57

1% assets under management? No, and that

0:59

was another question that I wanted to

1:02

get your thoughts on was, one of

1:04

the big swings that I took about

1:06

four or five years ago is to

1:09

change the traditional financial planning model. So

1:11

instead of charging the 1% AUM fee,

1:13

we charge a 25 basis point AUM

1:16

fee and then a monthly subscription, which

1:18

is 275. So nets out to be

1:20

about 5,000 per client per year on

1:22

annual basis. Okay. And then obviously bigger

1:25

clients, a bit more, you know,

1:27

on the AUN. Interesting. Okay, got

1:29

it. Okay, so typically with your

1:31

type of business, they're usually demand

1:33

constrained, not supply constrained. Like managing

1:35

lots of people and lots of

1:37

money usually doesn't actually take too

1:40

many resources relative to how much

1:42

they make you. And so I

1:44

think that the biggest issue is

1:46

probably just acquisition. So getting two

1:48

sales a month is probably the

1:50

big, the big bottleneck. And so.

1:52

I would. So what's the big

1:54

incentive for someone to get on the

1:57

phone with you? You mean what's in

1:59

it for them? they contact us? Initiates

2:01

to get their financial house in order.

2:03

We do a lot around getting people's

2:05

financial independence by age 50. Yeah. Retire

2:07

for with a million dollars. Retire for

2:09

with a million dollars. Yeah, fire movement,

2:11

you know, real well. Yeah. So, you

2:13

know, as much as you may hate

2:15

what I'm about to say, there's a

2:17

reason that all the big dogs do

2:19

the same exact playbook, which is they

2:22

run to either virtual or they run

2:24

to in-person workshops. because in one or

2:26

two days or even a half day

2:28

you can gain a lot more trust

2:30

than a very long time online. And

2:32

I would probably use that as my

2:34

lead magnet because that sometimes like for

2:36

a lot of you guys like one of the

2:38

biggest leverage you can have on like when

2:41

we unlock like an easy 5x it's usually

2:43

something at the very front where it's just

2:45

like we just swap the lead magnet from

2:47

like hey book a call to hey get

2:49

this thing and then a call just happens

2:51

to be the vehicle for delivering that outcome.

2:54

And when we do that, that's when all

2:56

of a sudden your lead flow goes from

2:58

making two sales a month to eight or

3:00

10. And I think that for me, that

3:02

would be the biggest issue. Now you

3:05

managing customers, it's like, I think you

3:07

just need more cash flow, which more

3:09

customers will help you with, and then

3:11

you can get an account manager who

3:14

can kind of like run those relationships.

3:16

But most relationship guys can handle many,

3:18

many, many customers. Because people, I mean,

3:21

also the higher up you go. Is

3:23

that required? It's sort of like our

3:25

sort of bread and butter. So we

3:27

do a lot of accountability, a lot

3:29

of like coaching, a lot of like.

3:32

Is that for them to like save

3:34

more money and stuff? Save more money,

3:36

save on taxes, tax projections, and managers.

3:38

I think you're under charging and over,

3:40

not over delivering, but doing too much.

3:42

Like meeting every month, that's almost

3:44

like personal finance coaching, more

3:46

than like wealth management. Yeah.

3:49

Because I feel like those are two different offers.

3:51

So it's like there's the Dave Ramsey of like,

3:53

hey, stop spending money, silly pants. And then there's

3:55

the like, once I have money, what do I

3:57

do with that? And I feel like you're kind

3:59

of blending. those but you're not but

4:01

you're but you're doing both services and

4:03

pricing like one but like lower so

4:06

think basically you're not making enough money

4:08

for customer to do the work you're

4:10

doing okay like 12 meetings a year

4:13

is a lot most of the wealth

4:15

management firms that like come through here

4:17

one maybe and so like you're doing

4:20

12 times the work and billing less

4:22

So unless you had a tech enabled

4:24

way of making that the model, I

4:27

would change the pricing. Because fundamentally, like,

4:29

you're either the volume player, and you

4:31

have tech built in since day one,

4:34

and the entire model is around cost

4:36

efficiency, or your premium. There's really not

4:38

a lot of room in between. Like,

4:41

best for least, like, people, it's a

4:43

hard time for people to perceive that

4:45

value. So I just think you're doing

4:48

way too much. Can I see this?

4:50

One of the reasons why I designed

4:52

it that way was so that we

4:54

could fish further upstream than most financial

4:57

planning firms. So we start to work

4:59

with people in their early 30s, right,

5:01

when they're making, you know, a few

5:04

hundred grand a year and then, you

5:06

know, a lot of those relationships that

5:08

blossom into people, you know, doing big

5:11

things that met a, you know, five

5:13

million a year, right? Do you think

5:15

that's a smart player? Is that, you

5:18

know, you know, I don't think it's,

5:20

it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

5:22

it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

5:25

it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

5:27

it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

5:29

it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's

5:32

And you're getting the people who are

5:34

younger with the personal finance thing, and

5:36

they're still not, they don't have enough

5:39

assets to make their AUM really worth

5:41

it. Right. Right. And so like, I

5:43

would probably have a more traditional private

5:45

wealth management model, and if you just

5:48

find out that you can acquire customers

5:50

really easily on personal finance much more

5:52

easily than you can hear, but then

5:55

the ascension is much higher, then like

5:57

that's a great model. feels off to

5:59

me. Okay, all right, interesting. All right,

6:02

I appreciate it. I just blew your

6:04

shit up, so I apologize. of all

6:06

year, so you're going to go for

6:09

it. How you doing? My name is

6:11

Luke Devons. I sell pressure washing, gutter

6:13

cleaning to homeowners. I did $110,000 last

6:16

year. This coming year I want to

6:18

do one five, then the following three.

6:20

So we're kind of throughout this, we

6:23

switched to the subscription model. That's what

6:25

everyone's been suggesting. So how do now

6:27

I get into neighborhoods? or allocate resources

6:29

because a lot of people are saying just

6:32

do one channel but then we do a

6:34

lot of like door hangers yard signs and

6:36

I feel like that all kind of like

6:38

goes into one with like ads like how

6:41

would you kind of rush neighborhoods and home

6:43

service. So can you can you restate the

6:45

question? Yeah like how would how

6:47

would you spend your marketing money

6:50

if you want to get as

6:52

many on this yearly subscription? Currently

6:54

how are you requiring customers? Just

6:57

old school yard signs door hangars

6:59

roof referrals stuff like that. What

7:01

stops you from doing 10 times

7:03

more of that? Probably just people.

7:06

Okay, so then people be a

7:08

lot of it myself. Okay, got

7:10

it. So then So what's the

7:12

return? What's the do you know

7:15

what your altivity CAC

7:17

is on? I guess you're 10. And

7:19

that's with your time being free? Yeah.

7:21

Okay. So if you paid someone full

7:24

time to do that. Do you know

7:26

how much that would impact your row

7:28

eyes? Someone would probably

7:30

be about 50, 60 grand, like a sales

7:33

guy. Okay, so wait, are you, you're

7:35

knocking on doors and getting the

7:37

business? Yeah. Got it. And then

7:39

you, and then the truck follows

7:41

you and then like does the

7:43

work or whatever? Got it. So

7:46

I think in the beginning you'll have to keep

7:48

stacking the subscriptions so that you can generate the

7:50

cash flow Because then you'll have the basically the

7:53

for sure business and then once that starts stacking

7:55

then you'll have the cash flow to hire the

7:57

other sales guy Who's going to be able to

7:59

take? over your role. Thing is most

8:02

order door guys need to make

8:04

like decent money because it's terrible.

8:06

Yeah. And so, like you'll probably

8:08

need to be, like they'll probably

8:11

need to make like, I mean, a decent,

8:13

I mean, how many sales a day can you

8:15

make? Anywhere from like 8 to 10. Okay,

8:17

yeah. So I think, I mean, one of

8:19

those guys could, if you can pay them,

8:21

shoot 50, 100 bucks a sale, they can make

8:24

a thousand bucks a day. I think you'd be

8:26

able to get somebody to be able to

8:28

do that for you. You sprinkle in some

8:30

type of like Facebook or Instagram or Google?

8:32

I just don't want to add complexity because

8:34

right now you have limited resources inside, right?

8:36

You just do more of that thing. On

8:38

top of that now I have to start

8:41

calling leads and have to create a whole

8:43

like on like the online world and then

8:45

working those leads is a whole different monster

8:47

versus like you're right here you say yes

8:49

I call truck, we clean shit, I get

8:51

money. Like, yeah, it's a good business, right?

8:53

Yeah, I would rather you keep it easy.

8:55

Long term, like, once you have, like,

8:57

if you were like, hey, I've got.

9:00

you know, 15 trucks for the city

9:02

or whatever, and I've got 15 teams

9:04

that are out doing it, then I'd

9:06

be like, yeah, I think having a

9:08

canvassed, you know, top of funnel kind

9:11

of awareness, stuff that generates leads than

9:13

a centralized phone team that can then

9:15

also proactively send trucks out, and then

9:17

also proactively send trucks out to people,

9:20

send trucks out to people, send trucks,

9:22

send trucks, and then a centralized phone

9:24

team that can then also proactively send

9:26

trucks out to people that you have to

9:28

bring the new guy in. So I

9:31

revise my original answer. Do that.

9:33

Thank you. Yes, sir. How you

9:35

doing? Cardico Field. We sell tax

9:37

and financial services to high-income entrepreneurs.

9:40

We do about $9 million of

9:42

revenue. I feel like to be

9:44

at $25 million by end of

9:47

this year. What's stopping us. So

9:49

I know the constraint is people

9:51

we need more advisors to surface

9:54

our clients. We need a faster

9:56

$1.40 process to do more five-day

9:58

virtual events. Um I don't think it

10:00

takes to hold company to fix that

10:03

constraint. I think it's HR, CSM's operations.

10:05

Is it okay to have the rest

10:07

of the company focus on a different

10:09

constraint or with that, like, Keot team

10:11

morale? How do you balance constraints across

10:13

basic constraints costs to departments? That's a

10:15

really good question. I've gone back and

10:17

forth on this, so maybe there isn't

10:19

a right answer, but I would say

10:21

that in the season that I'm currently

10:24

in. I believe that there is one

10:26

constraint, and if we solve that constraint,

10:28

the business will grow. And so I

10:30

want everybody to know that this is

10:32

what we're working on. And what ends

10:34

up happening is that you see the

10:36

other fires that are burning, and then

10:38

that actually creates more urgency to fix

10:40

the first one. When you try to

10:42

fix the first one, when you try

10:45

to fix the first one, when you

10:47

try and fix the first one, it

10:49

ends up. But there's this other fire

10:51

burning, you're like, then it's this other

10:53

fire burning, then, then fix the fire

10:55

burning, then fix the first fire burning,

10:57

then fix the fucking, then fix the

10:59

fucking, then fix the fucking, then, then,

11:01

then, then fix the fucking, then, then

11:03

fix the fucking, the whole team is

11:05

greasing the tracks to make sure that

11:08

this objective gets pushed forward even because

11:10

there's so many supporting ancillary things to

11:12

get some big thing done that if

11:14

they're like well we have our priority

11:16

it's like I think that's what gets

11:18

in the way sales has this priority

11:20

but our reason this is not a

11:22

priority for us right now yeah so

11:24

we call it the the silent sixth

11:26

which is basically like every business has

11:29

their priorities for the year or whatever

11:31

The silent sixth one is that we

11:33

have to keep selling, we have to

11:35

keep doing business, right? So those things

11:37

always have to continue. But what is

11:39

the one thing that matters most? I

11:41

think it's Jack Sleutman. He's a good

11:43

book on this. But I'll give you

11:45

the T-O-D-R of the book is that

11:47

he was a big believer or is

11:49

a big believer in not having three

11:52

objectives or five objectives, but just one.

11:54

He said, basically, if you can't get

11:56

clear that one thing is more important

11:58

than everything is more important than everything,

12:00

then, then, then that's your fault as

12:02

an entrepreneur. And so I see like

12:04

if we're the chief allocators of resources

12:06

then it means we have to be

12:08

able to prioritize and if we can't

12:10

do it how can we expect our

12:13

teams to? Which means we have to

12:15

be able to say this is more

12:17

important than that and yes they are

12:19

both important but this one is more

12:21

important. important and I think that that

12:23

kind of betting perspective has served me

12:25

really well being very violent with like

12:27

this is the most important and I've

12:29

just noticed that things get done way

12:31

faster because then it's like hey when

12:33

we do this then we can do

12:36

this next thing and then everyone wants

12:38

to do the next thing too and

12:40

then we do the next thing all

12:42

we move you know we part the

12:44

C's to get that done. Thank you.

12:46

Yeah it also in in service of

12:48

what I was talking about earlier When

12:50

you have that perspective, it also minimizes

12:52

all the other changes that you're making

12:54

across the company too. Because you're like,

12:57

that's not a priority. Could we improve

12:59

this thing? Probably. Do we need to

13:01

right now? No. It's not a constraint.

13:03

Yes ma'am. Hi. Hello. I'm Ashley Stall.

13:05

My agency's Wise Whisper. Wise Whisper. Okay.

13:07

We write and we book TED Talks

13:09

for people, specifically entrepreneurs, we talked yesterday.

13:11

We did 1.3 last year, and we

13:13

actually think and want to do 10

13:15

next year, just because of ads in

13:18

the infrastructure we've built. And it seems

13:20

actually quite feasible just based on it.

13:22

But I was talking a lot to

13:24

Jacob about closing and getting good closures

13:26

that's stopping me. But beneath that, I

13:28

started thinking about the contract. And everybody

13:30

wants to feel like we're guaranteeing them

13:32

their TED Talk and we have 100%

13:34

success, but because we existed during COVID

13:36

and our average time to book went

13:38

from 10 months to 20 months to

13:41

get somebody their talk, I feel scared

13:43

to offer a guarantee when I'm not

13:45

Ted. Yeah. And so I just want

13:47

to show my track record. Are they

13:49

Ted or Ted Exes? Ted Ex. Okay,

13:51

got it. Yeah. So any insight on

13:53

guarantees being... Yeah. So I'll tell you

13:55

a story that applied to a home

13:57

services business not that long ago. So

13:59

he was really scared to raise prices,

14:02

but he wasn't making any money, and

14:04

he was closing 80%. So I was

14:06

like, hey man, please raise prices. And

14:08

so he decided to raise prices. But

14:10

to get him to raise prices, I

14:12

said, so here's the deal. I said,

14:14

what are the biggest concerns of a

14:16

customer? He said, well, it's on time

14:18

and on budget. All right, how many

14:20

times are you on time and on

14:22

budget? He said eight out of 10.

14:25

And said, what happens the other two

14:27

times? He said, one time they'll change

14:29

what the requirements are. They'll say they

14:31

actually want their kitchen to be twice

14:33

as big or whatever. I said, OK.

14:35

He said, the other time, I won't

14:37

get materials in time. And I can't

14:39

control that. I said, all right. I

14:41

can't control that. I said, all right.

14:43

I can control that. I said, all

14:46

right. So it's like, if I don't

14:48

deliver on time and on budget, I'll

14:50

give you all my profit, which is

14:52

20% of this deal off. So that's

14:54

why, so that's the guarantee. And by

14:56

switching to that, he closed way more

14:58

people and made way more money. And

15:00

so the fear around guarantee I think

15:02

is justified. But if you just look

15:04

at the math and you're like, oh,

15:06

I can close twice as many people

15:09

and I have to give one out

15:11

of 10 back, you made way more

15:13

money. You made way more money. So

15:15

I think. Just do the math on

15:17

it. Yeah, I think it's just fear

15:19

like fear of being on the hook

15:21

if there's like another pandemic and I

15:23

have like 400 TED talks. Yeah, breathing.

15:25

Yeah, well, you already went through a

15:27

pandemic. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I'm with your

15:30

gym numbers. I have no excuse. Yeah.

15:32

Okay. Thank you so much. Yeah. I'm

15:34

being honest, I would like to be

15:36

at $50 million. So honestly, what I

15:38

think is stopping me is looking at

15:40

my business just like- 49 more gyms.

15:42

Yeah, exactly. And I honestly don't, this

15:44

is like something that, I don't know

15:46

if it's a belief, right? Looking at

15:48

my business as an investor, right? My

15:51

LTV to CAC is, I mean. Two

15:53

to one. I mean we can get

15:55

it to three to one looking at

15:57

the market and realizing that the fitness

15:59

studio space is becoming a red market.

16:01

It's very tough. I don't know if

16:03

I personally think it's a smart investment

16:05

in my time to try to continue

16:07

to grow my gym. We're profitable, I

16:09

have a great team, and I'm like,

16:11

maybe I'll just sell it in one

16:14

to two years. And then I'm like,

16:16

so I just read the book, how

16:18

to make a couple billion by Brad

16:20

Jacobs. And he talks about getting, you

16:22

know, ahead of the trend, which I

16:24

think you've done a great job of.

16:26

So when I like read that, think

16:28

like an investor, and then I look at

16:31

my business, I'm just like. This

16:33

ain't it? Yeah. I'm kind of

16:35

at this point where I'm like,

16:38

and people are like, this is

16:40

great, Barney scale. I'm like, you

16:42

know, fucking understand it, so. I

16:44

got it. So I guess like,

16:47

like, this sucks. What

16:49

do you think I should do like if you

16:51

or me like if you want to make 50

16:53

million dollars? The likely that you get it there

16:56

from a large group studio is very low So

16:58

if that's the goal then you probably want to

17:00

have a different vehicle And so you can I

17:02

would say that if I was in your in

17:05

your position You have one of two paths. There's

17:07

like a really close adjacent path Which would be

17:09

like I do believe that the best fitness model

17:11

right now is the small small group. Hmm. Yeah,

17:14

I think it's the best model that's in the

17:16

market. Change your existing model to that

17:18

and that one gets exceptional returns on

17:20

capital is a very operationally easy model

17:23

to run Yeah And so that would

17:25

be like the reason I kind of like

17:27

that for you is because it already

17:29

Barrows from a huge amount of your

17:31

existing skill set knowledge base and that

17:33

is a good vehicle. So that's option

17:35

one Often two is you just try

17:37

something brand new, which I have very

17:40

little insight into. What of the unlimited

17:42

opportunities could you pursue, all of them,

17:44

or one of them. But transforming what

17:46

you have into, I mean, I fundamentally

17:49

think that's why you were here, or at least I

17:51

would be if I were you, is like, how do

17:53

I make this, how do I turn the thing that

17:55

I have into the thing that I want? And I

17:57

think that you can do it with a lot fewer

17:59

steps. than you expect. You'll probably have,

18:02

you know, six months where there's

18:04

a little bit of turbulence of

18:06

like people being upset because you

18:08

change the rules of the game

18:10

on them. But unless the facility

18:12

that you have right now like

18:14

precludes you in some way from,

18:16

you know, delivering that other model,

18:18

I would say that that's probably

18:20

a very, the lowest risk highest

18:23

likelihood path. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, because

18:25

my head just goes everywhere. I like

18:27

another. Let me, let me give you

18:29

something. This is the first year in

18:31

my entire life where I haven't had

18:33

FOMO. I haven't had it, and it's

18:36

really weird. And I noticed that I

18:38

didn't have it only at the end

18:40

of the year, and I was like,

18:43

oh wow, that's weird. And I think

18:45

it's because I finally realized how fucking-hearted

18:47

is to do anything. And when I

18:49

see someone who's crushing it, like a

18:52

friend of mine made $50 million encrypted

18:54

this year, and it's not as main

18:56

business, it's a side hustle hustle. Good

18:58

for him. I was like, I'm not going to

19:01

get into it. That's not my game. You know

19:03

what I mean? But he's like, dude, the school

19:05

deals fucking monster. And I was like, I know,

19:07

it's awesome. But that's the game I know. You

19:10

know what I mean? And so it's not

19:12

even the comparisons of the thief of

19:14

joy thing. I think it's just that.

19:17

Learning to play a game really well takes a really

19:19

long time and accepting that like one of the saddest

19:21

things about life for me has been that like I'm

19:23

only gonna have like maybe three or four more entrepreneurial

19:25

seasons in me and that's really sad because it means

19:27

I only have three or four more big swings and

19:30

it's like shoot I have all of these things that

19:32

I want to do in my life but I only

19:34

get to pick three or four more maybe. Maybe, right?

19:36

And so I think that just getting

19:38

comfortable with the idea, like there will

19:40

always be people who make more. And

19:42

even if you are Paul Getty and

19:44

become the richest man in the world,

19:46

everyone will forget anyways. And so, like,

19:48

just context, right? That there's nothing wrong

19:50

with having six months where you, you know,

19:53

reconfigure what you're doing to then say this

19:55

is what I'm going to do to the

19:57

next five or 10. And then you're set

19:59

for life. And you can do whatever

20:01

you want. True. Thanks. How you

20:03

doing, Alex? The name is

20:05

Josh Hadley. We sell on

20:08

Amazon, e-commerce. We talked last

20:10

night. Primarily stationary products. So

20:12

calendars, planners, educational posters. We

20:15

did 12.5 million last year.

20:17

Like to be at 50

20:19

million. And even get to

20:21

100 million. That's kind of

20:24

the trajectory. I look at what

20:26

you're preamble earlier, right? So, you

20:28

know, go to the increase your

20:30

number of customers, do more of

20:32

what's been working for you. And

20:34

I have a podcast in the

20:36

e-commerce space. I really want to

20:38

be like you when I grow

20:41

up, but in the e-commerce space.

20:43

I want to be like you.

20:45

So I'm good. But with that

20:47

being said, our number one priority

20:49

for growth has always been find

20:51

more products, opportunities on Amazon, launch

20:53

those products, right? That's been our

20:55

biggest growth lever. So all stationary my

20:57

wife designs it all right all stationary.

21:00

All stationary. I'm sure I bought something

21:02

from you Probably own that whole category.

21:04

Okay. Yeah, give them So we've looked

21:06

at you know an Amazon's a cruel

21:09

mistress in terms of decreasing profit margins,

21:11

right? They're increasing fees and I see

21:13

like the net over the next decade

21:16

you look at Amazon. You're going to

21:18

be happy with single-digit profit margins. It

21:20

just becomes so competitive So with that

21:23

being said, we've got on to TikTok

21:25

Shop, right? We've had some success there.

21:27

Took 10% of our sales this year

21:29

already. We've then taken the videos that

21:31

go viral on TikTok. We run meta

21:34

ads on them. And we've finally cracked

21:36

Shopify for the first time. We've got

21:38

a Five Roas on that, right? So

21:40

we're doing that. I also look at

21:42

wholesale. We briefly mentioned distribution in our

21:44

conversation yesterday. So as I look at

21:47

like our number one priority for growth

21:49

has always been do more of what's

21:51

worked, which has been launch products to

21:53

serve whatever crap people are looking for on

21:55

Amazon. But I also have these things that are

21:58

boiling up that I'm like, man, I think. this

22:00

can really help things. Tiktok actually

22:02

is supporting all of our Amazon.

22:04

Yeah. Increasing organic rankings. Of course,

22:06

people will search by it, right?

22:08

Yeah. So how do I communicate

22:10

that to the team? Because it's

22:12

like, we still got to keep

22:14

doing. Yeah. So that's the silent

22:16

six. That's the silent six. Right.

22:19

So like we're going to keep

22:21

doing. So that's the silent six.

22:23

That's the silent six. Right. So

22:25

like we're going to continue to

22:27

do the proven winning strategy. Then

22:29

it makes sense to make your

22:31

one big bet of the year,

22:33

let's say it's TikTok. And to

22:35

be fair, it's not that much

22:37

more work to just take the

22:39

same ads and then run on

22:41

to ShopFly. And then that becomes

22:44

the objective of the year, which

22:46

I would probably just put into

22:48

owned customer lists, is probably how

22:50

I would just categorize that for the

22:52

team. I feel like that's it. So

22:54

what was the actual question? Yeah,

22:56

so you talked about. That that being

22:59

like hey, this is the one thing

23:01

we're doing right because we've got 25

23:03

team members ready They're all serving

23:05

that one thing which is finding launching

23:08

new products You can be you and

23:10

I've got a small other team. Yeah

23:12

My follow-up question to this has been

23:14

because I Was talking earlier yeah about

23:16

go hire a director of marketing that

23:18

can go run. Yeah, this whole tick-talk

23:20

side Yeah, all of the shop if

23:23

I stuff that we want to do

23:25

I've been doing a lot of it

23:27

myself And almost my reluctance to

23:29

go hire somebody is like, well, then

23:31

what else do I do in the business?

23:34

You know what I mean? So I'll make

23:36

you a promise and I don't make promises

23:38

often. I promise that if you replace what

23:40

you were doing, you will find something

23:42

else to do. Well, I know that.

23:44

Well, then I will double down on

23:46

that because I've got this other e-commerce

23:48

thing. Like, ideally, a decade from now,

23:50

I've got to win and I can

23:52

go do this exact same thing you're

23:54

doing. To me I'm always like oh

23:56

go go do more speaking on stages

23:59

go start building my own personal brand.

24:01

It's kind of what I like.

24:03

That wouldn't be my priority. I

24:05

think get the win. Because it's like,

24:07

say differently, take it to the

24:09

natural logical extreme. So you do

24:11

lots of stage stuff and then

24:13

the main business suffers and then

24:15

you don't get the W. Then

24:17

you're just a, you know, airbag, right?

24:20

If you, on the flip side, you don't

24:22

do any speaking and you get the win,

24:24

all those doors open tenfold. And so like

24:26

what matters more, the win. So get the

24:28

win. No. Easy enough? I do think that

24:31

with your audience that you have,

24:33

you'd be able to very easily

24:35

head hunt a really savage director

24:38

of marketing who's already done e-commerce

24:40

for Tiktok Shop or Shop or

24:42

ShopFi. And I'd probably do it

24:44

on your podcast. I'd be like,

24:46

hey, I'm looking for a savage.

24:48

Read Ernest Shackleton's ad. Looking for

24:50

men, low chance of survival. Just

24:53

like, this is a dangerous place

24:55

to work. And I think you

24:57

will track the right people. Thank

24:59

you. Yes ma'am. Hey,

25:01

I'm Bree. I'm from

25:04

Tennessee. My sister's over

25:06

there. Hi Bree, sister.

25:09

We saw residential construction

25:11

to middle-age women who

25:14

like to spend their

25:16

husband's money. Love it.

25:18

Yeah, to know your

25:20

avatar. Yeah. Yeah. We've done

25:22

100K in revenue in one year.

25:25

We would like to get to

25:27

3 million ideally in two years.

25:29

I think it's pretty realistic and

25:31

easy in construction. And I think

25:34

what's stopping us is scaling and

25:36

potentially nicheing down. So after these

25:38

workshops, that's what we feel like

25:40

is the right thing and we

25:42

wanted to get your feedback on

25:45

potentially nicheing down to bathrooms. There's

25:47

a two-week turnaround. And it's a

25:49

pretty standard. I can already tell you I

25:51

like it. You do. Is it high margin?

25:53

So it's high margin? Yeah, and it's fast.

25:56

two weeks, I think we can get it

25:58

a little bit lower. Yeah, no. So with

26:00

a lot of, it's interesting because in like

26:02

app development or software shops, it's actually really,

26:04

it's just digital construction versus like physical world

26:06

construction, but they have the same issues. Anyway,

26:09

I wouldn't get into it, but yeah, they

26:11

have the same issues. And so in almost

26:13

all of those situations, I end up saying

26:15

like, okay, what aspect of app development or

26:17

what types of apps or what type of

26:19

development do you do or what types of

26:21

construction do you specialize in or that you

26:24

have, like, that you absolutely nail. And usually

26:26

it's like it's something like this, like, you

26:28

know, we crush cabinets or like we're really

26:30

good at countertops or really good at, whatever,

26:32

right? And then searing on that, you'd be

26:35

amazed at how much more responsive you're responsive

26:37

of your advertising you're advertising, your advertisements will

26:39

be. prospects to your advertisements because like then

26:42

you can you can show before and afters

26:44

on bathrooms like it gets much more niche

26:46

down and then people were coming in and

26:48

calling are like that's what I want you're

26:51

like cool let me just take your money

26:53

and I'll give it to you. So do you

26:55

think like if we're saying no to the larger

26:57

projects which is still holding a 42% margin we

26:59

can do more of those but they take longer

27:01

time you still think it's a better option to

27:04

do the quicker thing? Well what do you make on

27:06

a bathroom? So for a

27:08

custom shower, it might be

27:10

10K, $4,200. Full bathroom in

27:12

Tennessee is probably about 14.

27:14

OK. How many of those can

27:16

you, I mean, how many can

27:18

you fulfill right now at Max?

27:20

Five, five a month? Our Max

27:22

was five a month. OK. And

27:24

that's today. And that's today.

27:27

I think we could fulfill double

27:29

right now with our crew. And

27:31

then we'd have to build

27:33

a fulfillment. Yeah. I

27:36

don't want you to turn off

27:38

how you get customers because you

27:41

need to make money. And just

27:43

for everybody, like when you're really

27:45

small and you're starting out, like

27:47

it's normal to basically accept money

27:49

from anyone. You're like, you have

27:52

a pulse and a credit card,

27:54

like you're for me. So it's

27:56

normal, but what I would like

27:58

you to do. You can take those

28:01

jobs, but in terms of what you're being

28:03

delivered about, you're advertising. If you start running

28:05

ads on Facebook and show some of those

28:07

images to generate leads and sell, I would

28:09

focus on that. And if you think that

28:12

that, because we should be able to pencil

28:14

out in five minutes, like can we make

28:16

more money from this? If you feel like

28:18

your sister's feels very convicted about this. Okay.

28:20

Yeah, so if you can make a lot

28:22

more money, if you can sell a lot,

28:25

yeah, a lot more money selling bathrooms and

28:27

you can sell way more of them. Because

28:29

then the transaction, the deal cycle is

28:31

shorter, it's, you know, you walk there,

28:33

you quote, you close, like it's very

28:35

straightforward. I like those types of businesses.

28:38

Yeah, no worries. Keep the money coming, but

28:40

focus there and then over time you're the

28:42

coloring of your money will shift and you'll

28:44

be like 80% will be bathrooms And then

28:46

you'll just be like okay now we're gonna

28:48

there'll be a time where you'll be able

28:50

to say we don't need this anymore Just

28:52

to get the focus. I just want you

28:54

like shifted over time. That makes sense Okay,

28:56

yes, sir. Hey Alex that Kevin with asset

28:58

protection planners. I set up asset protection trust

29:01

to people in lawsuits for so we're money

29:03

and in lawsuits actively in lawsuits actively There

29:05

you go. Or before. Yeah. And we do

29:07

11 million in revenue. And

29:09

I'd like to be at

29:11

25. OK. And I think

29:13

two things. One, they add

29:15

the paper click cost through

29:17

the roof, eating up a

29:20

lot of the profit. And

29:22

two, finding people who really

29:24

can sell and understand legal

29:26

concepts. Yeah. Super common.

29:28

Yeah. OK. So those

29:30

are two separate problems. Which

29:34

one's the bigger problem? Currently,

29:36

it's the ad costs that are going

29:38

through the roof. Just PPC? Yeah, PPC.

29:40

Well, I mean, if you're bidding

29:42

for those terms, the only way

29:45

to win, because it's an auction,

29:47

is going to be you increasing

29:49

LTV. But I'm guessing, I mean,

29:51

I'm guessing you're selling relatively expensive

29:53

packages. We are. Yeah. So I

29:55

don't know how much room they

29:57

have there. So I would probably. If

30:00

I wanted to solve the acquisition problem,

30:02

I would probably be looking at another

30:04

paid ad, you know, way of running

30:06

ads. So PPC, if everyone here, typically

30:08

pretty good returns, very consistent. It's really

30:10

nice because once you said it, you

30:12

can kind of forget it, kind of.

30:14

Well, definitely compared to social ads that

30:17

are interruption-based, you have to refresh all

30:19

the time. But I think that may

30:21

be actually the next thing, though, is

30:23

that I think you might have to

30:25

look at interruption-based. paid ads rather than

30:27

inbound intent-based. Because honestly, the only thing

30:29

that you could really do is just

30:31

start going top of funnel more. Because

30:34

what percentage is people who are in

30:36

lawsuits versus people who are not in

30:38

lawsuits? About 50-50. Okay. Yeah, so then

30:40

I would imagine that where your growth

30:42

will come is from the people who

30:44

are not in lawsuits, because there's way

30:46

more people there than in lawsuits. PPC

30:48

is going to be intent, red hot

30:50

pain, they're going to come in, they'll

30:53

buy quickly. Whereas the people were preventative,

30:55

obviously, take a little bit more education.

30:57

That's where it's actually very similar to

30:59

the finance thing I was saying earlier,

31:01

where pushing to either virtual or in-person

31:03

events, giving away lots of information, right,

31:05

for selling more complex products, tends to

31:07

do really, really, really well in your

31:10

space. And so I would probably go

31:12

social ads to workshop, or in person.

31:14

And then sell from there into your

31:16

into your stuff That would probably be

31:18

my strategy if I if you wanted

31:20

to get to 25 Because it's I

31:22

don't think I mean can you probably

31:24

can't increase your your spend on PBC

31:26

that much more anyways crew like like

31:29

like like like webinars things like that

31:31

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so you can do virtually

31:33

or you can do in person if

31:35

you want? Yeah, because if you do

31:37

it in person where are you out

31:39

of? Florida Florida Florida? Yeah, I mean

31:41

you could probably run a 50 mile

31:43

radius in Florida So like that would

31:45

be that would be like a because

31:48

it's much easier to get people to

31:50

it's it's a very easy funnel for

31:52

in person if you're local like it's

31:54

literally just legion call schedule remind the

31:56

hell out of them expect 20 25%

31:58

to show up of your leads 20.

32:00

call it. And then from there, you'll

32:02

close the third of the room. That's

32:05

it. I mean, that's a very simple

32:07

model. So I'd probably start there. And

32:09

then as you kind of like get

32:11

more familiar with it, get the pitch

32:13

down, etc. Then you can go online

32:15

and then do the nation. The hell.

32:17

Yeah, you bet. Real

32:25

quick guys, I have a special

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32:29

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32:37

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32:39

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32:41

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32:43

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33:02

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33:06

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33:08

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33:10

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33:12

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33:14

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