Building a $1,000,000 Business for a Stranger in 69 Minutes | Ep 905

This is Philip. He gave up a high-paying job in tech to start a garbage collection business. Last year he lost $150,000. So Philip has a wife and a kid and another baby on the way. And if he doesn't fix the business model fast, he'll put that growing family at risk.

Hi, my name is Philip. I'm the owner of Garby Disposal Services. We do residential trash recycling and yard waste collection. Our revenue is $642,000. Our net profit is -$151,000.

That's the wrong side.

It is on the wrong side.

All right.

Our net margins are -23%. We've been in business for a little under 2 years and we currently serve 2,500 customers.

So what's the problem?

We need to become profitable.

Yeah.

We're not utilizing our assets enough. Trash is a very capital-intensive business.

Totally.

One of our trucks is at half utilization. Routes are not super efficient. We've had lots of unexpected repairs. We need more leads, scale up our door-to-door efforts. We need to scale up our Meta ads efforts profitably though. And we need more conversions on the HOA side, and we need to increase our route efficiency. So a lot of things we need to do.

So many things. Why is solving this important? What happens if you don't solve this?

I'm definitely in the thick of my Rocky cutscene right now where, um, I left my high-paying job at Amazon as a software engineer to start this because I thought it was a great opportunity. And I have been working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week for the past few years with really little to nothing, actually negative, to show for it. And I have a wife and a child at home, and my wife is actually due in the next 6 weeks, which props to me. So I need to make sure that I'm able to provide for her and my daughter and the new baby, especially as, you know, my wife won't be able to work. So it's really crucial that we figure this thing out sooner rather than later. And think we're really close because by my estimations, we— 3,000 customers is going to be that critical mass point. We're going to start to make some money.

Mm-hmm. So here's my promise to you, which I don't normally do. By the time you leave, you'll feel absolutely clear on what you need to do in order to be profitable. All right. So I'll stay as long as it takes to make sure that you're good. Okay. All right. Okay.

All right.

So who do you help? Yeah.

So we have two types of avatars. 50% are what we call scatter. The other 50% are HOAs. And there's two different types of sales processes for these two types of customers.

Customers. Yeah. What's the— is there, is there a difference in, in like home value or income in the scatter versus HOAs? Or HOAs, do they tend to be nicer than the other ones?

Or— we've had some HOAs that are lower income for sure, and then we have some scatter customers that are much higher income. That scatter group is thinking about switching to be an HOA. So yeah, typically it does correlate with income.

The HOAs are higher income in general, right? I think there's going to be a big strategic decision that we're going to have to make that you're probably not expecting, and it's around, it's around who the avatar is. So we'll talk more about that. The second thing is going to be how you acquire them. So how do you help them?

Okay, so we have two different types of services for two different customers. So our Scatter customers have once weekly trash recycling and yard waste collection. Most don't have an existing contract, so we can just get them set up and start service even next week, but typically the beginning of the month.

Is what we do.

Then our HOAs have 2 service options there, so they can either have once or twice weekly trash collection. Most of them opt for the twice weekly trash collection. Yeah, 80%. So they're on 3 or 5-year contracts usually, and so we wait for the end of those contracts for us to be able to bid.

Do you reach out to find out when the end of their contracts are, and then you just have put them in a calendar, basically?

Excel spreadsheet?

Yeah.

Okay. Yep, yep. So once those are up for bid, then we start to— then we just calculate the price and everything, and then we often— the low bid will win, unfortunately. That's just the name of the game.

That's what I want to talk to you about. Yeah, so we'll get— okay, let me ask one more question about the, the slide before, which is who do you help? So of homes in your area, do you know what percentage of them are scatter versus kind of like contained within HOAs and like kind of off the— basically off the board until they come up?

In my service area, there's a very large majority that are HOAs.

Okay. Yeah. That is interesting. Do you have any idea what percentage?

I don't know, but I can just see it on a map.

Just if you guesstimate it for me, it's fine.

Um, 70%.

70%.

Okay.

Okay. Are there a lot of other competing trash services on the scatter side?

There's one big one that's really causing us to reduce a lot of our prices right now.

Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna, we'll deal with that. Okay. Got it. Okay, let's keep going. So give me the money stuff. How do you make money?

So for Scatter customers, we charge $29.67 a month, which is billed quarterly at $89. And as an intro offer, we offer 3 months free. That's not all in one go. That's just on the third— excuse me, second, third, and fourth invoice.

Yeah.

And for our HOA customers, it varies pretty widely. It really depends on, you know, the home type, whether it's a townhome or a single-family home. Single-family home with a lot of families are going to produce a lot more trash, and then we have to pay that at landfill. And so it also varies depending on the number of units as well as the proximity to our current route. And they're actually all on a monthly billing schedule.

But the Scatter ones are on a monthly billing schedule too, right?

No, they're billed quarterly.

Oh, quarterly. Excuse me. Got it, got it, got it.

Okay.

Yeah. You price it monthly. I got you.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay, cool. Okay, so how do you get customers?

We have 4 different channels through which we get customers. So we have door-to-door, And I currently go and do around 300 a week. I knock on 300 doors and my close rate is right around 26%. And we hired—

What's your door open rate?

Door open rate was— I don't have that ready.

Just rough.

I believe it was around 30%.

Is it really?

Yeah.

Dude, so you knock on 12 doors, you get a sale.

Yeah.

So chill. Yeah, you can just like, you're like, hey, I got to get lunch. You're like, give me 2 seconds. Just like knock on 12 doors and buy lunch.

I'm not the best sales guy, but yeah, I mean, I can even sell, so.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. There's, there's some things that we're going to do in the offer that things are going to help us out. But okay, so door-to-door, $50 commission per sale. That's what you're paying your current sales guy?

Yes, exactly. And he recently started with us 3 weeks ago.

Got it. And he's— how many deals is he doing a day?

So he's been getting better and better. But right now he averages right around 5.

5 a day. I mean, it's not a bad— it's not a bad gig. And he'll just keep getting better, right? Yes.

Like yesterday he got 7.

That's awesome. Yeah, that's good. That's really good. That's very exciting. Okay, now you pay him $50 and he's collecting less than $50?

No, he'll— he's a contractor, so he just gets all the $50.

No, no. As in for what he—

Oh, no.

Like he's collecting less than $50, but you pay him $50. For getting the sale?

He collects the $89 for the first invoice.

Okay, for the first 3 quarter or for the first 3 months?

Yep.

Okay, you said that it was— you said it was month 2, 3, 4 is where they're getting their free month?

The quarter 2, 3, 4.

So they get 1 month on quarter 2, quarter 3, and quarter 4? Okay, got it, understood. Okay, that's fine. Okay, so let's walk through this. So I understand the D2D. Do you have percentage breakdowns on these between which one's what in terms of how many are coming from door-to-door, how many are coming from paid ads, coming from outreach? How many come in from referrals?

No, I don't have those numbers.

Rough estimate?

Yeah, I mean, recently I'd say 50% have been coming from door-to-door because I've really been pounding the pavement quite literally. Yeah, yeah. And then we leave cards there and stuff and then people sign up.

Yeah, I did see your door hanger got 1.2%. Yeah, super interesting. Yeah, yeah. Okay, let's— okay, we'll keep going. Okay, so paid ads, you're spending $600 a month? Yep.

Yeah, we have Meta ads we run $600 a month. That gets us HOA and scatter customers, but they're marketing— we're targeting scatter customers. And we also do cold outreach, so cold email. I exhaust that list pretty quickly. And then I also have started doing in the past 6 months handwritten letters to members. 100%.

Yep. 100%.

And then we also have referrals for our scatter customers. And though for each referral they get 1 free month of service.

So I'll just say this right now. If you have, call it 500 HOAs, which represent 70% of the market, it's not a cold email play. So that's where it's the handwritten card, personal gift, drive up. It's like you have 365 days, it's like go to 2 a day, you know what I mean? And obviously you're gonna have the ones that are due, you know, with their own whatever the renewal is. And so even if they're on 3-year cycles, 500 divided by 3, so it's 150. So you go one every other day, or you decide to do one day a week where you visit 7, and it's like you are 100% up to date if you just did that. Yeah, I think there's some— there's, there's opportunity there. Okay, so, and then referrals?

Yeah, referrals for our Scatter customers, when they refer their neighbor successfully, they get one free month of service.

Okay.

We also fast-track them after they get 10 referrals, and we just give them a free year at that point.

Cool. Does that get a lot of people?

Not as many as I'd like. I don't think I've been good enough about nurturing referrals.

I have ideas. So how many do you help? What's your sales velocity per month? Okay.

Yeah. So we get total average leads is 217 per month. We close about 72 of them, which is a 33% close rate.

And is that when you see leads there, is that from Meta primarily?

A lot of them are organic, so they'll see our cans and then—

Oh, shit.

Yeah.

And do you have like QR codes and things on the cans?

No, we don't.

Interesting. That's interesting. Well, yeah. Write that down. Yeah.

But yeah, they'll see our cans throughout the neighborhood and be like, everyone's switching to your service, so I might as well switch too.

Yeah.

They, yeah, that's, they just call in. And so our average month for HOAs is usually 2 leads.

And you provide the bins?

We do, yeah.

Do you have a specific color? Do they have to be a certain color?

Yeah, I think it helps with our branding.

No, so they do have to be a certain color?

So they can provide their own if they want. Okay. Most people just want our bins.

Okay.

And so we provide, we provide a trash and recycling container.

All right. I have so many ideas. Average per month you get 2 HOA leads, you close half your HOA leads. That's great. And those are somewhat inbound or is that from the outbound efforts you're doing?

Yeah, those will, we'll start with the outbound and then we oftentimes I'll reach a property manager. Yeah. Or community manager rather. And then they'll say, hey, not interested right now. And then they'll reach out later. Got it.

Okay, heard. So you've got 1,000 scatter, 13 HOAs, 2,500 doors. Okay, let me— give me all the other numbers unless you think there's anything that's important here. HOA customers more likely to convert in spring and summer.

Okay, just that our churn is super low, um, but I think that that might change if we increase prices, um, because we haven't been as aggressive for increasing recently.

Yeah, I got you. Yeah, okay. Yeah, because I do have— I have a bunch of questions on gross margin, lifetime gross profit, and churn. Yep.

Yeah, so our revenue is $642,000 as I mentioned earlier, negative $150,000 $251,000, gross margin 8%, net margin negative 23%.

So how's your— the gross margin seems off.

Yeah.

So how is that— how is it 8%? Because it can't cost— like, if you're charging $29 a month, it's not costing you $26 per month for each incremental ad.

So that was this past year, and this past year was rough with repairs.

Yeah, the $100,000 repairs.

Yeah, just for one truck, like That's not even all the trucks. Like, it was pretty excessive.

Brutal.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. So blended CAC of $67 with a blended LTV of $1,300.

And is LTV like lifetime revenue or gross margin? Gross margin. Okay. Okay. That feels better. What's annual retention or monthly churn either way?

It's at 0.4%.

Nice. Nice. Sick. That's really good. Okay. So, and then you've got marketing at $1,000 a month. Is that— that includes door-to-door?

Yes. Marketing with door-to-door. That's actually— we, since we just started that guy, that's going to be increasing.

Be way more, obviously, if he's closing 7, that's 3, you know, that's $350 right there. Okay, exactly. What else you got?

So our numbers by customer type. So 50/50 for our revenue. So $300,000 for our HOAs. And then we have a CAC of $1,200 with an LTV of 20%. $300,000 and an LTV to CAC of 18:1. And our gross margins on this are 23%, and we have a total of 13 of these customers. And the reason the gross margins are off there compared to what was last year is because I'm going based on, you know, backing out some of those costs that we had that are one-off, one-off costs. And then for the Scatter, we have $300,000 in revenue and a CAC of $51 and LTV of $1,000. 21:1 LTV to CAC and gross margin of 26% to 40%. And the reason I did that range there is because right now it's at 26%, but once we get efficiency, we're very easily gonna get to 40%.

Yeah. Yeah. You can also raise prices a couple dollars. It's like, oh look, we go 10%, we add $3.

That's true.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

Let me see the ads.

So we have a total ad spend of $7,500 with a cost per click of $2.12. And total clicks of 3,500 with total sales of 153 and a CAC of $51.63 with an LTV of $1,000, just like the other ones. And then LTV to CAC of 20:1.

What stops you from just spending $70,000?

A lot of it is our cost per lead goes like crazy, crazy high because it's such a small area we're marketing towards.

I'll tell you why. Okay.

When I was doing it, I could be doing it wrong, Yeah, but it was just— it was—

you're doing a lot of stuff right.

I feel like I'm doing everything wrong.

No, you're good. We'll get there. Okay, so meds, I got this. These numbers are good though. You're saying that it skyrockets after a certain point. We'll deal with that. Do you have any other metrics or creative to show? I have the cold outreach.

It's kind of skewed a little bit because it's so low for our cost per lead because it's all public data. Um, but this is for email as well as the direct mail.

You're just not valuing your time because you're the one doing it. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Okay, yep. So yeah, I mean, $12,000 would be a 700 to 1. Yeah, let's do more of that. Yeah, it only cost you $174 to make, you know, $12,000. And you got 9 more HOAs in the pipeline?

We do, yeah. I'm— a lot of them seem very interested.

If you close half, what happens to the business?

The business grows substantially. Yeah.

Okay.

That sounds chill. That sounds pretty good.

Okay. You know, so what's really interesting about your business is that we have two key decisions that we have to make. Decision number one is what avatar we're gonna focus on. Decision two is what channel we're gonna focus on to get them. I think the direction we go in will depend on you, but you might be surprised by which way we go.

Okay.

If you wave a magic wand, what thing is giving you the most heartburn right now?

Not being able to—

Obviously money. Yeah. But what's the indicator prior to that? Like, is it like if people paid you $200 up front, that would change the— economics of the business dramatically? Like, is it simply just not getting leads? Like, I'm like, that's— I just want to understand that part.

Yeah, it's more about offsetting some of the upfront costs.

This is what I want to solve for, which is I would like to have the most scalable acquisition channel we can that can get— because also you've said you're like, if you spend $7,000 even in a local area, you're not even getting close to tapping— how big is the market overall? Like on a, you know, 10, 20-mile radius? Yeah, it's pretty big.

A few million people.

Yeah, right. I mean, like, you're not even close. So like, I would love to see spend at like $7,000, $10,000 a month on the Facebook side and then probably another $5,000 or $10,000 a month on PPC, which will have super high intent. I'll have different metrics around it, but we'll get there. For us to solve the problem for good, we just need cash in the first 30 days to be greater than your cost of goods sold. And CAC fully loaded, right? So do you know what that number is? Like, what's— so let's ignore CAC for a second. I guess we have 50, we can use that as a placeholder, or 67 if we want to be bullish or bearish. So $67 CAC, and then what's it cost to kind of like onboard someone and kind of like get them going?

I do that all myself, so I don't—

I mean, if you paid someone and you— and the bin was— you had like fully, fully bake it in because we want to scale past you.

Right. Yeah. So to deliver all the containers for, you know, let's say like 200 customers, it'd be about $500 to pay someone.

So that's $2.50.

Yeah.

Per customer. Yeah. So that's not big. So when I'm— so you get where I'm going with this, where it's like, okay, if it costs us $70, if we made more than $70 on the first transaction, which you do, What's, what's something like what's stopping is just that like you can't get more leads and then it just, and then because you're at 20 to 1.

Yeah.

Right. And you're at least more than 1 to 1 on the front end. So like, why, like, why not? Is it just you just can't as soon as you spend more, just goes to zero?

Like, so yeah, the issue is, is that we have fulfillment those months after that we still have to cover. So like they pay for the quarter in the first month And then we have to pay for fulfillment in months 2 and 3, which is completely— it costs roughly— if we get them all—

Give me that number.

That would be for fulfillment.

That's what I'm saying, cost of goods. So give me the fully loaded before you get the next payment.

Got it. Yeah.

Okay.

So for each customer on the existing route, it's $14.

Or per pickup per month, right? So it's $14 and you're going to pick it up 3 times.

We have 3 pickups per week. Yep.

Wait, hold on. It's 14. It's 14 hours per month, right?

Yes.

Okay. 14 hours per month. And they're paying quarterly.

Yes.

So it's times 3, right? So it's $42 in costs for the first month of delivery. When I say delivery, I mean like fulfillment, right? And your CAC is— we'll call it $70. Right. So if we get upfront cash over, call it, $120, you could be good to go, right? Well, then let's solve for that.

Yeah. Okay. Sorry, I had to pull it out of me.

No, you're good. I mean, that's why we're here. Okay, cool. Let's come over. Let's, let's break it down. Let's figure it out. What order do I want to do this in? I think we need So I think what we're gonna do is I think we're gonna go avatar. I wanna get clear on this 'cause I think that's super important. Two is I actually think we're gonna go offer next. We have to figure out like how we're gonna, you know, do it, you know, facilitate the transaction. And then once we know that, then we can do acquisition channel. And then I think we can go ads. And then we're gonna go sales process. We'll do some funnel, Funnelitics. I think that's it. I think that's all we need to do.

Okay.

You're at that, in that stage where like, I like having one avatar, one channel, one product up to a million dollars or more, right? And you're kind of, you're right there, right? And so you have two avatars and like five channels pretty much, right? Yeah. And so You feel spread thin. This is me just hearing you out. And so what I want to solve for is we have to make this decision between HOA and Scatter. So if you could just do one, which one would you do?

I think HOA is a better opportunity.

Okay. I'll tell you. I'll tell you why I don't like either of them. Okay. And I'll tell you why I like both. Okay. All right. So the reason that I don't like HOAs, I never want to have a commoditized service where I get into an auction. Because it's always just going to be race to the bottom. Now, the reality is that that's not going to change. And so it's like, what business are you really in, right? And so the business that I think you're really in is the efficiency business. So fundamentally, like, if you— if 70% of the market is owned by HOAs and they continue to gobble more and more, you know, more of these houses continue to glob together, then it's kind of an eventuality, right, that happens. So Figuring out the HOA offer, I think, makes sense from a future-proofing perspective, but the strategy of the business has to be geared towards efficiency because it's the only way you're going to beat the other players. Because I agree, I think they're going to commoditize you, and I think they're going to make it lowest, lowest bid. Fundamentally, the reason that I like scatter in the short term is that you can price more aggressively, you can have higher gross margins, you can out-market, you know, your competition. There's still a decent amount of market share that's there. But, and acquiring them is super easy. If you just knock on 12 doors and get a sale, it's like, all right, well, how many doors do I need to knock on?

That's true.

It's like very straightforward. Yeah. Because like taking it to the hypothetical extreme, it's like, okay, what stops me from running an ad, getting 10 guys, getting them into a room, taking a day to have them, you know, to train them, and then all of a sudden I've got 10 guys doing 5 to 7 sales a day.

Exactly.

All on contract with no risk. That sounds relatively appealing. And the nice thing with door-to-door is that they already naturally have a route, right, which you already know. And so it makes it even more efficient for the business right on the back end. So that's what I like about Scatter. But I do think that there's, you know, long, long term, there's, there's probably some downside risk. So yeah, there's some risk. The HOA, I just feel like you're going to continue to get squeezed. Yeah, that's the only— so you're like, okay, well then which one should I do?

You mind if I add something?

Yeah, go for it.

I think that the thing with scatter that's even better too, and the reason I said HOA was not really because of—

oh, you're good.

Like, the bet— I like, I like HOAs because I think that the competitor that we have right now that's really aggressive is really going hard scatter and no HOAs. So like, it'll— and then a competitor that only does HOAs we recently acquired, so people are unhappy with them. So then kind of opens it up for me. But the thing I love about Scatter is what you said about pricing.

Yeah.

And then also the fact that it's only once weekly collection, so we increase throughput for each truck.

Mm-hmm.

So that's the thing I like about it. But in terms of, you know, me being one guy, I guess I'm just thinking about it in a limited sense where I'm, I'm like, I'm only one guy. How many doors can I knock on in a day?

You know, that's not going to be you.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So we just— I mean, let's think of it this way. You said when you get to 3,000 doors is when you're like super profitable, right? Or like it becomes more profitable.

Yeah, we have that.

And if we get to 5,000 doors, then you're like, we're good. Yeah, you're good. Well, I mean, in my mind, I like to think like if I had to take this to its natural extreme and I only had to have one thing be true, because I like to like make a plan on like the fewest need-to-believes as possible. Like every single new assumption that we introduce, like dramatically decrease the likelihood that occurs. If I said, all right, do you think it's humanly possible to get 10 people to work on commission to knock these doors and get to, let's say conservatively, 5 a day right now, this guy's going to keep getting better. He's 3 weeks in, he's already doing 7. Fine. But like, let's just say they stick to 5 a day. Yeah, that's 50 sales a day. It's $1,500 a month. You're looking at $20,000 by the end of the year. That's right. And so to me it's like, okay, well, that overshoots our goal by like, you know, 8x. So there's all these things that you're doing, but if it was like, if only that one thing were true, then what are the other need-to-believes that are associated with that? Which is that you can find the houses to do these door knocking on. Do you have the ability to do that?

Yeah.

Okay, so knowing where to go is not a problem.

Yeah.

And so basically your ability to solve two things. One is the cash to pay the salespeople, that they collect as much as you owe them. And that you can cover the cost of the first year, the $42 that we went over earlier. And so like, if the only thing you did was like you went home and you were like, I'm going to go find 10 dudes and they will be commission only and I will just rejig the offer so that I can get $42 plus what I have to pay them upfront. We don't have to talk about anything else.

Yeah.

Let's do it. I mean, like, I can go through, like, I can look at the ads and I can tell you what I think, like, could be better. I can tell you why the, the, which, you know, we can go through some of those things. But fundamentally, like, I just want to be like, here's the ramrod. Like, if only this were true, then what stops me from doing that? Not a ton, which is just the offer and getting the sales guys on.

Yeah.

And then after that's done, it's like That's it.

Yeah.

And then we just, and then we just jam it, and then you just don't let yourself get distracted, right? I will give you my blessing on if you get an inbound HOA, you can close them. But I still would be like, this is our growth strategy. I mean, like, yeah, sure, except free money provided. It doesn't— there's— it's super operationally efficient. It does take some of your time. Fine, you're the owner, you can close big deals. But by and large, I think that's the play.

Okay.

All right, great. So I think we go scatter. Great, that was decision number 1.

Yep.

Now acquisition channel, you already have 50% coming from door-to-door. So that gives us that one, right? So I'm gonna hit the sales process in a second, but I think we need to go on offer because this is kind of the big, the big unlock of this business. All right, so we have to get You said you're going to pay them $50, right?

Yes.

Okay, so here's how I would restructure this. I would say we have to get $42 no matter what, period, because that's what it costs. That's hard cost, right? So this is base. Then got to get the sales guy paid. So I'm just going to put commission here, which we can fill in in a second. So we kind of backfill that. Okay, we have to get a commission and we have to get the contract, right? So what I want to do is find something So do you give them all a new bin or can they get like a— do they get like somebody else's bin or like how's that work?

We recycle the bins. So if someone like the 3 people who canceled, then we'll— but for the most part, they're new bins.

They're new bins.

Yeah.

Okay.

And we'll finance them over 3 years. Before I bought them with cash, but then I'm like, okay, maybe we should probably hold on to more cash. You—

wait, you used to pay for them in cash. Yeah. You finance them.

Now I'm financing them.

And do the customer— is that $14 per month included? Yes. Yes. How much does it cost for a bin?

For the set including freight, it's $116.

All right, so it's $116. Okay, now, so this is bin. What else can you sell up front?

Bulk pickup, maybe.

Um, but only how many— what percentage customers like opt for that?

That's also seasonal, and that's—

so no, that's not the offer. Okay, what else? So I'll tell you, I had this idea. So we talked about the QR you put earlier. So what I was thinking about doing was like, you put the just the ugliest massive QR code on there and you just say, hey, if you want to not have this big QR code on there, it's, it's an extra $5 a month. Or if you're cool with it and you're still like, are cool with us advertising the business, you allow us to leave it on. Okay. And I think a lot of people don't give a shit. Yeah, right. And so all we're going to do though is just tack that onto your existing pricing. So you're— so if they say, I don't want the QR code, then they're going to pay $5 more than your existing price. So there we bake in a little price increase there. So we get $5 for the QR code. So go buy stickers. They're like not expensive. And just put this massive QR code and put your phone number and put your— like you've got this, you've got this billboard that's just sitting out there. What color are the bins?

Gray.

Man, I totally want them to be neon orange. I'm dead serious. I want everyone to be like, Jesus, what is this company? But they would notice it. Yeah, right. I mean, that's what you're trying to— you're trying to stand out. Yeah. You said— wait, didn't you say you wanted the branding— you wanted to be on brand with the gray?

Yeah, people were like clean and stuff.

Do you think gray is clean? It looks— you should look at them, they look pretty clean.

We have people calling in, saying like, I've seen your guys' clean business.

They're so gray. That's like Perfect gray.

Well, they're light gray.

50 Shades. Anyway, okay, okay. This is how we solve the business.

Right.

So like, let's take the time on this. The other stuff is really easy. I'll show you some easy, like I can't get into ads, I can't get into the funnel. Like if we just do this, we win.

Yeah.

Okay, so you don't charge them anything for the bid, right? As far as they're concerned.

We do have a separate process through our website. So we, at the door, we have that offer that I mentioned. But then when they go to our website, enter in their address and everything and they're qualified, they do get charged a $37 initiation fee and then they get charged $35 a month. So we have a little higher price point if they don't take advantage of that. But most people do the door-to-door.

And so this $42 is labor, right? Yes. Labor plus truck. Breaking.

Yeah. And dump fees.

Okay. Yeah. Plus dump. Okay. Got it. I think our key is actually how we structure this, the bin. So it costs you $116. Is there a way that we could be like— because what I want to do is— you see where I'm going with this, right?

Yep.

Because like, if we can get the first transaction to be like $199, you're covered, right? Because you've got like— so if we add this together, we've got $158. So $158 is the true, like, cost-cost, right, of getting this person set up. Then you have the commission, which is $50. So $208 all in. If we got that, you're like set. Yeah, right.

Something I've been playing around with is maybe doing only doing the 3 months free if they pay annually upfront.

Yeah, totally.

And then like downsell to the $89 a quarter with no months free.

I like that.

Yeah.

I like that.

Because even the rate is really attractive. But the, I mean, the only negative about that is sometimes they're like, yeah, sure, let's do it. And then they opt out because their current provider matched it. But then the 3 months free usually is what puts them over the edge because the current provider will not offer the 3 months free. But out of those that do that, I would say it's only maybe 1 in 8 would really—

would prepay.

Oh, would, um, would like after we like, okay, it's $89 a quarter. And they're like, yeah, actually my current provider matched it. So it's like 1 in 8 people.

And most people are just like, here, just take the business. Yeah. Yeah, so if we get the deal on 7 out of 8, who cares? Yeah, great point, yeah. So if we go, what I'm trying to play with is, so we've got, what levers do we have, right? So levers that we have, this little QR code, like we're gonna make your thing look ugly, that's thing 1.

Okay.

Thing 2 is we have the bid. Thing 3 is we have the commitment, right? Right. These are— this is like what we're— these are our puzzle pieces. Okay. But I want to collect 200. That's what I'm trying to do.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. So a quarter is 89, right? Yes. Is there any reason— do you think anyone's gonna balk at 99? 89 to 99?

A lot of people are paying 105, so it may not get them over the edge.

You mean it's not enough savings?

Yeah.

I hate being low cost. Yeah. Okay.

But I think that there's still some people who would definitely convert because there are some people I talk to who are being charged like $180 a quarter.

Yeah.

It just all varies, you know, depending on if you, if you call them to say, hey, lower my rate.

So $80. Okay, so we got $90, $90 is $180, right? In terms of cash, right? There's going to be some setup fee, right? Which we could say we have a $42 and we also have setup fee, right? So it's another little little thing. We're just— we're constructing an offer right now. That's literally what we're doing. Okay. Um, because you could do 3 months free and it's $33 per month, right? You could still do 3 months free. Yeah, so that works fine. Oh, here we go. So we can basically have the QR code be our $5 extra a month, and you're at $29, so I could see the $35. Okay. Right. Or you can make it Yeah, that's fine. So that gets us to $35 per month, right? And so if we did times 6, and that's going to be 2— was that— that's 30 plus 180, so 210. All right, so it's gonna be 210 in cash. And if you commit to 6 And you normally just eat this, right?

Yeah.

So if you commit to 6, we'll give you our $116 bin for free and we'll waive our $49 setup.

So can you talk a little bit more about these, these numbers right here?

Yeah. So this— yeah. So $35 a month is the price, right? Yeah, but what we're trying to do is get them to prepay for 6 months.

Okay.

So that's the main offer is you prepay for 6 and then that gets you a free bid and we waive the setup fee.

Okay.

If you don't prepay for 6, you can prepay for 3 and we'll give you— actually, we'll just do this. We'll do this. We'll do 12 and we'll step down to 6 and then we'll step down to 3, which is your current offer.

Okay.

So 12 months gets you— because what we're looking for here is blended average cash per door. So if you have some people who pay $420, and even if it's like 1 out of whatever, 1 out of 5 pays $420, we're still effectively adding $80 per door in cash collected.

Okay.

So even if the vast majority of people— if everybody took, or if 4 out of 5 took the, your current offer, and then 1 out of 5 takes the $400, it's like we're still adding $80 with the existing whatever 89ers that you're getting right now. So now our actual blended average goes to like $170 a door. Okay. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So I think we go times this. Now, if they're like, I don't want the QR code, then we're like, fine, we'll drop it to $30, right? If they don't want this and times 12, so that's $360. And we get that upfront, which is going to have lower churn anyways. If they say, no, I don't want to do that, then we say, because with that you get free bin and free waive, or like free, free setup, right? If they say no, I'll just do 6, which would then get us the 2, whatever the $200-ish price point. We can get to, we can finalize the prices in a second, but you get your $200-ish price. Um, and when you do that, we can't waive the bin, oh, we can waive the setup fee, but we're going to add, we're just, we'll finance this over the duration. So that's where you can get the difference in terms of the Like it's $35 a month if you do 6 months, it's $30 a month if you do 12 months. And if you're doing just month to month, if you sign up today, I'll let you waive this fee, but you still got to pay 3.

Okay.

How does that feel?

Complicated.

Yeah. Well, no, no, it's complicated because we had to go through everything. But let me— let's clean it up.

Okay.

Because we got to be able to explain it to the sales guys.

Yeah.

So the offer at the door is going to be 12 months. And what price are we going to charge at 12 months?

For 12 months, up front.

Up front. So we're going to do 30. So that's going to be $360. Yep. If they commit to 6 months, that's going to be at 35.

Okay.

So that's 210. And I would say we bill biannually, which is billed twice a year. And then 3 months. Do you do ACH?

We just incorporated that actually, yeah.

Okay, do you have a processing fee? Yeah, so we Stripe, so it's, um, yeah, but like, do you, you don't charge a processing fee?

No, but we, like, I've gotten a bunch of people to switch over. I like offer them a gift card, like a small gift card to switch over to ACH, but then we don't do a—

Well, I'll tell you really a fancy one. So Say that you charge the 3%, so this is, all these are plus processing. And then if they're like, "Oh, I don't want to pay the processing fee." It's, "Oh, no worries. If you want, if you have a second form of payment, we'll waive the processing fee." It's just because we have the processing fee just because if the card declines, it just takes us work to go redeem it and then you get your service interrupted and you have trash sitting around. So it's honestly in everyone's best favor. It's like, honestly, no one ends up paying it. They just give us two forms. Okay. Oh, thanks.

The, um, so I did actually do that, and when I got the, uh, the prices book that you gave at the workshop.

Yeah.

And so I kind of messed it up. I did like two things. I did like an annual fee.

Yeah.

And then I also mentioned, oh yeah, we're also doing a credit card fee, which is really— I was just too much.

Yeah, too many things.

Yeah, yeah. But I did that, and just, I was looking into how to add the processing fee, and like you have to like go to MasterCard and Visa and all that stuff, and Is that true? Or like they're saying, like, you have to legally go to these companies?

ChatGPT. Oh, I don't know. You can just charge 3% more. Oh, we can just do it. Okay.

Okay.

And just say this is our fee. Okay. You can charge whatever fees you want. Check with your legal counsel. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

Great. And then 3 right now, we'll keep it at— we'll keep it at the 3-month rate, which is going to be 35, right? Which is 1-0— Shit, what is that? $30.105, right? But we'll still waive the $49 fee. Okay, this one waives bid and fee, I think, right? Yes. So this gets the discount. So this gets you the discount and the bid. And the fee. So it's like, what do you like? How— why is it— so it's like the effective rate here is 30, 35, and then here it's also 35, but bin— how are we going to press? How are we going to do the bin? How are we going to work that out? We're close. This is honestly the most important thing of today. Like, we nail this, you go all in on door-to-door, we can get there by the end of the year.

Exactly.

And you're set. So I just want to like make sure we nail this. What else do you think is—

So with the BIN, are you saying that they pay the full $116 upfront?

I would love that. Okay.

But for this one, I guess, because this is not waived with this, with this offer.

Well, what if— So if you didn't have the BIN, right, what would their actual rate be? So what do you charge people who don't, who provide their own bin?

Yeah, the bin is like a few— if you— I mean, depreciating it over its use.

No, not the depreciation. I mean, like, well, what— okay, fine, you depreciate over what, 3 years? Is that what it is?

They have a 10-year warranty on them, so.

So 10 years is what you depreciate over. So you paid— it's like a dollar a month or something like that?

A few cents.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. How's it a few cents? Yeah, because over like, well, 116 months. So doing that math wrong? Yeah, it'd be, it'd be dollars.

Yeah, maybe we're doing that wrong.

Well, 12 months times 10 is $120. It's a $116 bid, so it's 90-whatever cents per month.

Yeah.

Okay, so it's a dollar, it's a buck. They don't know that you do that though.

No.

So that's the thing. So I'm like, that's like, that's, that's one-sided information. Don't worry, we'll cut most of this thinking time out to figure it out. Yeah, no, but I want to— I, I think the magic is in it's been. I actually think that that's— I think that's where the real leverage is.

Okay. It is something I've been wrestling with because initially when we were doing it and we didn't have the competitor, we were like charging $99 per lead and they were like, okay, fine. But then some people balk at it and I'll be like, okay, fine, we'll waive it. But most people would pay for it. But now that it's really competitive, they're just like, I'm gonna go to this other guy who's giving me 3 months free, $89, and I just have to pay for the quarter.

So yeah, so it's become a little bit more challenging in that sense.

Doesn't mean we can't do it. Yeah, but that has, that has been something I've done in the past. Um, I think most people were— I kind of played with $99 and then I went down to $50, and most people were like, they didn't really care about $50 as much. But then like when I did, because I like—

so I'd like— I mean, you're currently charging nothing. Yeah. So if we said, okay, upfront we have a $49 bin fee, right? Yeah, you can buy the bin for $49. We know that it doesn't matter, right? We're just adding, adding money. So they'd be like, that feels reasonable, right? $49 for the bid, and it's $49 initiation. I don't know, I'm just coming up with this. Okay, it's $49 initiation, and then you have your first quarter, which is— let's just use your old pricing— $89. So that would get us to $190. We still have commissions.

Yeah.

But this bin isn't a real cost because it's going to cover towards $42 for the quarter. We're calling it the bin fee, but it's really covering our labor for the first quarter. Right.

That's clever. Yeah.

And their initiation is actually our commission. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

I gotcha. Yeah.

And then our $89 is hopefully our margin. This feels okay. Do you think you can sell this?

I think, I think people will be really upset with the extra $49.

The initiation?

Yeah, I think they understand the bin.

Well, why don't we do this? Yeah, like we can either— basically, would you think they'd be more comfortable paying $99 for the bin?

And they own it?

Yeah. It's your bin, you keep it forever. Yeah. Unless you cancel, of course, in which case we take it back.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that— I'm just like replaying anecdotal experiences.

Yeah, no, no, take your time.

I'm just worried people would be like, "Yeah, that's a deal breaker for me. Like, I won't pay that for the bin even if I own it. I just don't want to have to provide it." Yeah, but what percentage? You're right, I think it'd only be like 25% or something. I just always remember the negative, right?

Of course. Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah, the thing is, is all the new sales guys coming in aren't gonna know anything, right, in terms of like what status quo is. So you're like, here's the deal, guys, like you're gonna get paid $50 on each one of these, and you gotta, you gotta collect two things. You gotta sell them a bin, they gotta pay their first quarter. That seems pretty straightforward, and we can waive the initiation fee.

Yeah. And And we still do the 3 months free with this or no?

Yeah, I think you can still do the 3 months free.

Okay. I don't hate that. And dude, just to clarify for myself. Yeah. So the bin, it's actually theirs now. So they're actually paying for it.

Well, it's $116, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. So why not? Now, if they cancel before their term, then take the bin back. Right. Which gives you another piece of collateral. Yeah. Okay. So all in, you lose $16 on the bin. Who cares?

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. So I think if you go, you sell them the bin. You have this, um, you have the first 3 months, right?

First quarter, and we're, we're in good shape with that.

And this factors— and then you have— you give them 1 free month the next— each of the next quarters. Yeah. And then that means that you're charging them, what, $60 on Q2? Q3, Q4.

Exactly. $59 and some change.

Got it.

And so how do we handle situations where they were like, I'm not going to buy your bed?

So you can provide your own. Okay. And so we just wouldn't—

as long as it's a customer.

Yeah. I mean, you can provide your own if you want. Yeah. Okay. You could, if you wanted to, say, if you're not willing to do that, we'll finance it over 3 years, but we end up charging you $250,000.

I like that. Yeah, I really like that because then it gives you a 3-year term. Yep.

Okay.

And then with the 3-year term, budget in like, I don't know, add in like a, I don't know, 4% price increase each year.

Okay. I think that's it. Feels doable.

Yeah.

I still want to get this anchor though because we still want to— because some houses are like, fine, just fucking bill me once. I don't think about this again.

Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah, and so it's like start at $360. It's like, yes, for the year. Okay, so we're getting close. We're going to do it. We're going to do a cleaner, a cleaner next version of this. All right, so, all right, I want to think through it real quick. So this is the core offer, right? We'll clean this up, but it's like $99 for the bin, $89 for the first quarter. You still get your 3 months free. Cool, that's fine. I still want to start higher because even if we get 20% of people to take, which we totally will, I'm telling you, we're going to. That would be really big for the business because if we can get this on the core offer and then we can add $80 to the average door, then that takes this. So this is $190, add $80, we're at $270.

Right.

Average cash collected per sale. You're good. Yeah. You're home free. Sexy, right? Yeah, it's way better than right now. That is way better than right now. That's, that's, that's facts. F-A-F-A, you know, it's facts, no printer. Okay, okay, okay. So here's, here's where this gets sexy. Okay, I got it. Okay, so, all right, okay, I think this is coming together. This is coming together. If someone, if someone paid $360 up front, would you give them the, the bin for free? I think I'd do that. Yeah. Okay. Boom. I think we're just gonna have 2 offers.

Okay.

Keep it super simple. We're gonna have 12 months. And with 12 months, they're gonna be at $30, right? And they're gonna pay $360 in total, but free $99 bid. So they don't have to pay that. Right. Great. And then the core offer is going to be 3 months at $30, but they have to pay for the $99 bid and 3 months upfront. So all in, they're looking at $180— one night, whatever— $189. So now look at that A/B offer. Yeah. So would you rather pay $360, pay for the year, I'll give you the bin, it's on me, or $189, you just pay the first quarter, but you just got to pay the bin, right?

Yeah, I like that. Now we just gotta hustle.

Yeah, the nice thing is that this keeps it super simple. The billable is the same. All we're debating is who gets the free bin and who doesn't. You get the free bin when you commit for the year because, listen, it costs me money to do this, but if you commit for that period of time, I'll throw it in, right? Like, it actually cost us $116. So like, I'll be like, we actually lose a little bit of money on these bids.

Okay. Yeah.

But if you commit to us, we'll commit to you.

Yeah, exactly.

And then our breakdown is, let's say— now let's look at the math. So let's say 80% take our $189 offer and then 20% take our $360 offer equals $72, and this equals services. Michael, Jamie, Jamie. Well, it's 19.2 is $270, is $27 off this, which is $162. So we add this together, average per door, and we needed 208. Yeah, and then you're home free.

Doable. Yeah, I just, I've never thought about it that way.

You still get 3, you still get 3, like the offers are banging. Yeah, it's like you get 3, like the offer is great because you're giving 3 months free either way. Yeah, so I would, that way I think you've got this great feel, right? You say, listen, we're gonna give you 3 months free either way just because you're switching to us, so we're happy to do that. But if you're willing to commit to a whole year, give you the bit, right? If you don't want that, no worries. We'll get you set up. Yeah, yeah. What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do with all this money?

Yeah, I don't know.

All right, so that's, that's the, that's the play. That's the play. Okay. And for, for our folks at home, the reason that that was so important is that we needed to get above $208 because he had a $50 commission that he has to pay, and we knew we had $42 of labor, and we know that he had these bins that he's been basically fronting the cost for, for customers. Now, to be clear, as of right now, what was the other cost though? There was something else. There's labor, there's commission, and there's something else.

No, I think it's just bins.

Oh, so I'm just being greedy. That works. Okay, so then we got— yeah, yeah, well, I like to have— I like to grow businesses debt-free if I can, because I just think there's, there's always a way if you just think about it hard enough. And so the bins, which right now he's been financing over 10 years for $116, but we add all these things together, we get to $208. And so in a perfectly debt-free, cash flow positive way of growing the business, we have to get on average over $208 to to break even up front and have really high, really strong cash flow for the business, which has been the biggest constraint for you. So getting above that is the objective. And so what we did was we solved for it by having an anchor on the top that we know 20% of people are going to take, and that contributes an extra $72 a door, where the core offer is going to be $190, which already solves this.

Mm-hmm.

Cool. So that was for everyone back home. Okay, now let's go back to our, our handy dandy— isn't this fun? It's a lot of fun. Okay, so we have our, our new offer, our $360 for 12, or 12 at, at $360. And then we have our $3,189 money. And if you really get wild with that and you're like, you know what, I don't need all the extra cash flow, you can pay the guys $100 a day, $100 a deal, and they'll be willing to sell more. If you're like, you know what, I don't need all the cat— like, I'd rather just get more aggressive on the spend. Yeah. You can get way better guys. If the guys can make— I'll tell you, the difference in salesmen that you can get at $500 a day, $15,000 a month, almost $200,000 a year, like a different— an order of magnitude better salesperson. And the thing is, those guys might be doing like— and that order of magnitude better salesperson might do 10 deals a day.

Yeah.

Because the guys who really do door-to-door, they run between doors.

Really?

100%. Okay. Because they know it's a numbers game.

Yeah.

They're like, for every 12 doors I knock on, I'm gonna get a sale. So if I run— I mean, that's why the UPS guys, like the guys who are commissioned and really understand the game, they sprint back and forth because you can cover 4 times the doors just by walking fast. They cut across the lawn, they don't go on the sidewalk, like they're moving. Okay, so we're going scatter, we're going door-to-door as our channel, we have our offer, our 12 our A/B offer, which is great. The extra guys get the bin. Awesome. And now we don't even have to have a financing partner. Yeah. And if you want, you can and just collect the cash.

Right.

The next thing is let's talk about sales process on how we're going to teach these guys. Okay. Okay. How do you teach your guys right now? And what's the sales process?

Pretty relaxed. I mean, yeah, he's the first guy I've done. So I just, I just take him door to door, show him how I do it. And I generally tell him—

You just put the product right next to you?

Pardon me?

He's right next to you?

Yes, exactly.

Okay.

Yeah. And then I'll do that for a few times, show him how it works, show him how to get a few sales, and then I watch him do it and let him just kind of go at it and then chime in if I need to. And then eventually just kind of like give him critiques wherever I see.

How many doors can you knock a day?

I think, I think easy, like 150.

Okay.

If you're out there for 8 hours.

Yeah. So 150 doors if he's closing. I mean, if he gets to what you're doing, 1 out of 12. Yeah. Right, then he's closing more than 10 deals a day, which is chill. Even at 50.

That's what I hear on average, like conservatively you can get 10.

Yeah.

But most guys get 15.

Yeah. Yeah. So the nice thing with your business is that you're going to be in person with them. And so you, you— there's basically two primary ways that people learn. One is modeling and the other is basically doing it. So children learn through modeling. They watch you do something and then they learn it, right? Alternatively, you take it up a notch when you give feedback. And so doing role plays, like in very real time with them, is going to be the fastest way to speed up the lip. Okay. So it's literally just like have the door at your facility or whatever. Like, I mean, you want to, you really want to get them in the, like in the mechanics of, I say this as the door opens, like it will, it will teach them, like, don't just stand next to them. Like close the door, open the door, close the door, open the door, close the door, open the door until they just nail it every time. Because you know, the first 5 seconds of them opening the door is like, that's the only shot you really have. And they're making their split-second decision. And so it's like you have to drill the opener. Corner super hard so they could just say it in their sleep and they say it the right way every time. But they should absolutely be following a script. And for this type of sale, this script— I mean, how long does it take you to do a sale for these?

Like 2 minutes?

Yeah, right. So they're not super hard sales. Yeah. And so the sales script is going to be like 4 questions.

Yeah.

It's not a lot. Yeah. Right. And so it's just like, cool, here's our door, here's our knock, here's our open, and then question 1, question 2, close question, overcomes. Like, that's it. And so I just drill Honestly, drilling the 3 or 4 questions is not going to be tough. Then you're just going to do traditional sales training where you're just going to be like, I have to think about it. I'm not sure. I have to check with my spouse. Like, oh, I don't have the card that I want on me.

Yeah.

And when you're, when you're collecting, do you have a lot of people? Do you have any people who are like, I don't have the card that I want to use on me?

So we actually don't collect money at the door.

Why?

We have a contract that we signed.

Okay.

I heard that it was— I don't know. I just heard that it was— you have to have certain permits to collect money at the door. So then I don't have that permit yet.

But they put a credit card number down, right?

No.

What?

Okay, we're still getting—

but people are just signing up. What percentage of people who sign contracts don't end up giving you the card?

Uh, none of them really.

They don't. All right.

If we haven't— I mean, we haven't done the volume we're talking about right now. Yeah, so I'm sure there would be a ton of people.

Okay, so you then call them back later?

I send them an invoice, and then if they don't complete it, I'll follow up And everyone pays. Yeah.

What are we doing, Michael? We should be selling trash. What are we doing?

Well, they need it.

Yeah. Well, if it's not a constraint, then I'm not going to mess with it. But I do think you probably tighten the sales process in terms of the training. That's absurd. What you just said. I don't know in terms of compliance for that. So check with an attorney, but I'm pretty sure you can just ask someone to buy something.

Okay.

Like pretty, like, feel pretty confident. Yeah, but, but, but, you know, it hasn't been an issue. And so if you really do collect 100%, it's certainly a less friction, a lower friction sale. But a contract without a payment clause, that means nothing. So yeah, the fact that you're getting it is great. The fact that you're getting is great. Okay, let's pull up the ads in the funnel real quick. Okay, so Yeah, just go, just go funnel. So ads. Sorry. Okay. So I think, I think this is fine. I read the copy. I think it checks the boxes in terms of a normal offer. The video ad that I saw that was your best performer was unsurprising to me that it was the best performer. Bottom link. There you go.

If you're a homeowner in Centerville, Chantilly, Clifton, or Fairfax, and you want to save hundreds on your trash collection this year, this is for you. My name is Philip, and I'm the owner of Garvey Disposal Services. We're a local family-owned and operated business in the Centerville area, and we're here to help take care of your trash. So if you're tired of things like increasing bills every year, crazy prices, unreliable pickups, then we might be the ones for you to help give you some more consistency, ease of mind, and stress-free trash collection. If that sounds good to you, click the link down below Hello, so we can give you a quote for trash collection in your area so you can start saving money and stop worrying about your trash collection. It's so cringe.

No, it's your highest performing ad. The thing is, it seemed authentic.

Yeah. Oh yeah.

And it also hit the core pieces. It's like, this is for so-and-so. I do think you introduce yourself first rather than talking about them, but like you can, you can, I would probably make it offer-driven first, pain, pain of like, Hey, what you said at the end, like, hey, if you're tired of X, Y, and Z, blah, blah, blah, I'm so-and-so.

Okay.

Because it's like leading more with the things that they're interested in. And so basically I would just flip the script on that and then I would record 10 different versions of that with you in different shirts, in different backgrounds, with the truck, with a bin behind you, with a neighbor behind you. Like, I would just do as many variations of that if I was going to do paid ads. But we're not going to do that because we're doing door-to-door.

So you want me to just cut it off completely?

I just don't think you need it. I think all of your attention should go to I need to get 10 guys that are commission only that are going We're going to sell this offer and just only focus on that. Yeah, yeah, that's it. I mean, like, if we only have one thing to be true in order for this business to be profitable, then let's just pick that and then just put all of our effort on that one thing. I mean, fundamentally, it's the idea of leverage. Yeah, it's like find the one thing that gives you the greatest output. It also has no risk on cash flow for you because they're commission only. Yeah, the perfect solution doesn't exist.

Except when it does.

That was it. AV offer, 12-month, 3-month, 20% take the 12, 80% take the main. We're cash flow positive on both. You don't even need to go into debt for the, the bins. You get 10 guys closing 5 deals a day, it's 50 deals a day. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. And then, and it's way, way easier to close than solar. You can probably get some of those guys, they're just tired. It's like, dude, you're like, it's It's such a, such a better life to just know you're going to close deals every day rather than be like knocking doors for 5 days and closing 1 or 2. Yeah. Like it's a much more, you know, energizing way to live. Yeah.

No, for sure. I think my next constraint would be then getting the sales guys.

Yeah. Let's talk about that. Yeah. So right now, so I would say if like you can handle more volume, right? You don't have to really change anything about your infrastructure to handle the volume that you would be getting from these sales guys.

I think after a certain point we would need to get another truck.

Well, let's deal with that. Yeah. Yeah. So to get to your 3,000, whatever it was, number, how much can you take if you were full capacity? How many customers can you, can you handle?

I think we could do 3,500.

Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, like 3,500, we had 1,000 more customers to sell.

Yeah.

So you got to sell, I mean, in 6 months, let's call it 5 months, that's 200 customers, that's 7 customers a day. I mean, you're— if you get a second guy, you'll be doing that, right? In 6 months.

Could be me.

Yeah, could be you. Yeah. All right, so yeah, this can be an issue because, I mean, do you have the cash to buy another truck?

I think I could figure out a way to get one.

Okay. Yeah, so the way to do it is, I, I think that you could, given the nature of this job, I would be looking at running like Indeed ads slash Craigslist. Yeah, that would just probably be the easiest thing for you to do. And then you just need to work these like it's a lead funnel. Right? And so like, if you're not getting people, so it'd be like, like you have to think about this like as a true ad. So a lot of people will try to like ward people off. It's like, dude, it's an ad. It's the same thing. It's like you're gonna run an ad. You have to have a headline. It has to be appealing. The cop— the body copy has to be interesting, which is like, hey, you can work 4 hours or 8 hours a day. The guys who work 8 hours make this. The guys who work 4 hours do this. Instead of the other alternatives you have of like, you have to be able to ask 4 questions to somebody at the door. Like break it down to what they're going to have to do. Yeah, it's like, if you can memorize 4 questions, then you could be able to make a 6-figure or multi-6-figure per year income, as long as you're willing to be in the street. But then I do damaging admission. It's like, hey, sometimes it's gonna be hot, sometimes it's gonna be cold. That's the trade. But if you're somebody who's like just barely graduated high school, we don't care about your grades, we care about your work ethic. Yeah, like I think that would attract plenty of people. Yeah. And so it's just add Indeed, and those ones already have kind of like applicant funnels that are built into it. And so basically, if we're turning off all these extra things that you're spending all this time, like fragmented time on, this is all you do. Yeah. You go get salespeople. Yeah. And honestly, all you need, you need like 2 guys just to get this going.

Yeah.

That's it.

That makes a lot of sense.

Yeah. Baby offer, 2 guys, 4 questions. That's it. Let's go.

Yeah. I've been doing Indeed ads and, but I haven't been structuring it like that.

No, it's—

yeah, exactly. It's been more just like the traditional, like, corporate.

Yeah, but the thing is, you think about who's responding to this. Yeah, write it to that, to the salesman, right? Because that's who you're trying to attract, right? Like, what are all the things that either hate about your current job or you hate about your current sales job? Both those are the pains. What are the— what's the promise? You can make six figures, you know, a year or more, and you can work 4 or 8 hours a day. I'll take you on either. So some guys will work, you know, 7 to noon or 7 to 11, and then they go to their other job by noon and they work, you know, 12 to 8 because they're providing for family. So this is a great opportunity for you.

I'm going to work on that immediately. Yeah.

All right. So I'll give you the truth about this. So for a job where someone's coming in commission only, my bar is relatively low because I'd rather give more people the opportunity to take a shot and like prove that they have work ethic rather than they have the skill of interviewing, which is a different skill. I basically would just screen for crazies. I'm serious. I just screen for crazies. And because if you're going to do this, you're probably going to get a lot of applications. Definitely don't do one-on-one interviews. You're going to be doing group calls. So a bunch of people on, 2 minutes, tell me who you are, 2 minutes, 2 minutes, 2 minutes, whatever. And then invite the ones who seem normal to your, you know, your warehouse or whatever. Meet them in person, give job offers on the spot, tell them when they can start. Okay. I just don't think you have to overcomplicate this. And so it's like, cool, what we're going to do is we're going to shadow for a week. And then we're going to break you off in twos and then that's it. Like, you're good to go. And the thing is, here is like, if you wanted to, like, this is, this is me talking about how do you aggressively scale sales. Like, you need like 2 guys. Yeah. So like, yeah, get on a group call, talk to a bunch of them. The guy who seems cool and normal and hardworking, invite 2 or 3 of those guys out because a bunch of them are going to, aren't going to last, right? Because it is door-to-door and there are, there are some risks there. And so like, maybe it's hire 5 to get 1. Okay. Just lower the bar. Like, you're not looking for somebody to cure cancer here. You need someone to ask 4 questions and be able to fill out a form.

Yeah, definitely. Because I mean, like I said, me, I'm not like the best salesman in the world, but I can go up there and sell.

Sure. But the thing is, is you seem trustworthy.

You think so?

Yeah. Okay. So good. And you're also the business owner, so it's like—

I think that's a big—

you have star power.

Yeah.

So, but with them though, I think what the one thing that I'm looking for is hunger.

Yeah.

And so I think that'll typically skew to either young single guys who are just like really hungry and like go-getters, or people who just are about to have like a kid on the way, like you are. You're more hungry now than you probably were, right? Because you're like, because you have to be. Yes. It's like, you know why married, uh, married men with kids make more money than guys who are single without being married and don't have kids? Because they have to. Yeah, that's why they make more money. I mean, yeah, so they literally choose to make more money because they have no other choice.

Yeah, that's definitely how I feel.

Yeah, right. And so you're doing it. So basically, like, I just look for someone's circumstances of like, why do they need this? If someone's like hungry, then I'm— especially in a job like this, this is so work ethic driven. They're not gonna run out of houses. Yeah, for sure. Right.

So would you say I should just not do any more door-to-door and just train the guys?

Well, I think you— I mean, you're going to be doing door-to-door. Okay. In the training. Okay.

Yeah.

So your sales isn't going to go down, you're just gonna have more people so you can duplicate it, right? Okay.

Makes sense.

Two birds, one stone.

Yep.

Basically, as far as I'm concerned, I want you to keep doing door-to-door because if you've got your guy and you've got you, you guys start doing 10 deals a day, just you two, you're at 300 a month.

You need—

in 3 months you're at your 1,000. Forget everything else. In 3 months you're at 1,000.

Yeah.

Right. But as far as you're concerned, I don't think you should ever do something alone.

Okay.

So you have the skill set, you should have somebody always watching you so that you're basically, you're getting, you're getting two birds with a stone, right? You're getting, you're double dipping on effort. Yeah. So someone's always with you because you're the lead salesperson and they're learning until eventually somebody else is the best salesperson. You pass out, you know, you step back Homer Simpson style into the bushes and then they, they slide up and then they become lead trainer. And if you want, you say, hey, I'll give you $60 a sale instead of $50 because it's a little harder to have somebody else with you.

Right. Makes a lot of sense.

Easy.

Yeah, cool.

I feel like this is it. So let's do a quick recap here. Yeah, let's do a quick recap and we'll prioritize it, but it's going to be an easy list. Simple, not easy. How about that?

Yeah.

All right, so make it blue for you, Michael. All right, I know Michael really wanted blue. He's like, all right, so the first thing we're gonna do is we made the decision to go scatter as our avatar. All right. So that's decision number 1, which we just did instantly. But there we go. Number 2 is we switched our offer. So we have now an A/B offer for, offer for 3 months free. And so offer A is going to be $189 and then $60 per month after that. And then Offer B is $360, free bid. That's our deal. Yep. 3 Indeed ads. I'd also hit up your network. You only need a couple, right? Indeed ads into group call, or you can just honestly invite them all in person if you want, but sometimes people are really crazy, so the 2-minute, you know, call. In person and then tag along and roleplaying until your eyes bleed. And the nice thing is that basically document, demonstrate, duplicate is the process that we use. And so like the document is like you have the script, they memorize it while you're walking between doors. You're just like you're roleplaying it back and forth. What do you say? What do you say? What do you say?

Yeah.

Demonstrate. You do it in front of them. Hey, watch me follow the script. Watch me close deals. Now duplicate. You knock, I'll be here, I'll ride shotgun, and I'll watch you do it so you can give immediate feedback. Okay, that's it. And then in terms of— I mean, shit, what, like, what's that? What's the outcome of this? The outcome of all of this is that your cash flow positive and babies Have food. Smiley face. Yeah. Yeah. Feel better? Does this feel clear?

It does. Yeah.

That's it. Yeah.

Give me instructions and I'll go.

That's it. That's all you have to do. And the nice thing is 1 and 2 is instant. Yeah. You literally just have to do this. Right. Go hire 5 more sales guys. I think this is the, this is the play.

Yeah, I think so too.

Doesn't this feel like, like the noise in the world, like quiet?

I think I was doing way too much.

Of course you were doing way too much.

I think I was like, you, 2 different avatars and 5 different acquisition processes.

Yeah, yeah. When there's just one that if we just did this well, yeah, we can solve the cash flow issue and we can hit your, hit your extra $1,000 in the next like 90 days. Yeah, it's a quarter. It's nothing.

Mm-hmm.

Feel good? Thank you.

Appreciate it.

That's what we did. Get through it.

Yeah.

And so, Philip, I'm rooting for you. If you enjoyed this and you want to see a different business that went from negative to positive in one conversation, check out this conversation with Alexiomar. He's a legal person who does legal things for musicians so that they can get contracts and incorporated and whatever musicians do to make money.