141. Accelerate Your Success in 2022!

This is the Wealthy Contractor Podcast brought to you by G4 Marketing. Interviews with today's top home improvement entrepreneurs about marketing, sales, money, mindset, and lifestyle. Now here's your host, Brian Kaskavalciyan.

Hey everybody, Brian here. We have a special episode of the podcast for you today. As you may know, Accelerate Live 2022 is less than 100 days away. It's happening February 15th and 16th at the Westin Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort, and I hope that we're going to see you there. Now, as always, we have a great lineup of speakers for Accelerate, and actually what's cool is that you are going to get to hear from some of them right now. Now listen up because I'm going to give you just a tiny taste of what all these speakers have to offer, but you're going to want to get registered soon. Early bird prices are live now as we record this at www.accelerateevent.com, but they won't be for long. So go ahead, check it out, get your ticket today. Now first, you're going to hear from Charlie Gundel. Longtime owner of Renewal by Andersen of Orange County. Now, this was recorded on March 11th, 2020. You all remember what a crazy time that was. His advice that we should just stay the course through the pandemic and everything would work out. Take a listen.

It's very important to step up and be the leader and not to bury your head in the sand, but also to be honest and frank and, uh, and be positive in every situation. It's very easy to slip into negativity and become the Debbie Downer in your company inadvertently. And it's very important that we become positive and stay positive and continue to generate positive vibrations while at the same time not, you know, obviously ignoring the obvious things that are in front of us. So I think that's very important. You know, who knows? I mean, none of us do know. But until you actually do know, I think you got to proceed with a positive outlook on, on business and on, and just keep, keep on keeping on. And, uh, and I think, you know, we'll all get through this, but, you know, again, don't forget your employees and your customers are not listening on this, on this podcast. Your employees and customers are reading the newspapers or listening to radio. They're on social media, they're watching the news broadcasts, and they're, they're being fed this constant source of negativity and giving people cause for concern.

And a lot of people are cautious and afraid to take risks anywhere.

That's why they work for us and they're not us, right? As owners and managers and leaders, we're risk-takers. People that work for us work for us for the most part because they're not risk-takers. They're into security and comfort, and they, you know, they need to be reassured. And that's, that's our biggest job, I think, at this point in time.

Yeah. And now Any business owner can relate to this next clip with Cesar Quintero, owner of The Profit Recipe, which advises companies on how to follow the Entrepreneurial Operating System, or EOS. It's done wonders for so many companies in our industry. So take a listen.

Most companies that are started are started by a visionary, right? And the visionary has 1,000 ideas a minute. You know, they, they're great at relationship building. They're great at people management. They're typically from the gut, right? They know what needs to happen and they feel it. They know that, you know, it's intuitive. And then the integrator figure is somebody who is project manager, who knows how to follow through, who's very logic-driven and very in the now. So when we really contrast them, the visionary lives in the future. It's what can, what may happen, what's gonna happen. The integrator lives in the now. The integrator lives in this needs to be done today. These are the task lists. These are the project management lists. Who's doing this? Who's doing that? They create consensus, they remove roadblocks, they create processes, right? And that's one of the biggest issues that most companies have is that the visionary and integrator are the same person typically, right? Because we go insane with our teams and we're like, okay, I have these ideas. And then I went to this conference and I just, I just heard this podcast with Brian and Brian said that we need to start having a vision. So we're going to define that vision, right? And then you start the process and And then you hit into integrator mode and you tell all your team, okay, let's all band together, let's be in a room, let's get to this. But guess what? Next week you read a book, right? And the visionary reads a book and it's like, oh no, you know what? I got another idea. So he goes back to the office, everybody stop what we're doing and now let's implement this new thing that I read and this friend of mine told me about, which is amazing. And the problem with that is, is that you're creating a bipolar disorder within your company. Because when the visionary and integrator are the same person, or in your case, like you were partners and you were both doing both things, right? The company just doesn't understand what to do. They don't know what direction to go with. They don't know who to believe. And then they go like, ah, here comes Brian with another idea. Thank you. This is not going to work, so I'm not going to do it, right? And then it starts creating that mentality. So, and, and the first day we implement, that's the first thing we do, right? The accountability chart. And that's where, you know, usually that's, that's where we started to find, you know, we throw everybody, you know, everybody's fired, and then we start putting people on the seats. But we need to make sure that the visionary and the integrator are aligned but not the same person.

Next up is Ed Epley, an advisor to wealthy contractors. When you come to Accelerate, you're really going to benefit from his practical advice. Take a listen.

Hiring managers. First of all, you have to be aware of the danger, the trap of hiring somebody like yourself. You need to have somebody who has demonstrated that they have the capacity to produce results working through other people. Right now, I have a client and a friend who's struggling with a particular individual who does not understand that, in this case, a guy, his job is not to do the work himself. It's to get others to do the work. And because he's predisposed to be a perfectionist, he struggles watching other people do work that he would either do differently or in his mind do better. And as a result of that, even when he does try to get work done through others, he ultimately will micromanage or meddle. And so you really have to be willing, I think, in many cases to hire somebody who maybe has not even been in your business but has been a successful manager in another business. Because if they know how to get results working through others and proven that in a business, there is nothing so difficult about your business that they couldn't learn. But it'll be a lot easier to teach them what your business is than teach them how to manage. Yeah, I would look at somebody who's run a restaurant even if I'm a contractor. Because if they can run a restaurant, if they can run staffing and they know how to get people scheduled and can handle people not showing up and, and having a piece of equipment breakdown and they still have to serve food, if they know how to do that, they can deal with your problems, your issues as a contractor. It would make you uncomfortable, but that doesn't mean it would be the wrong thing to do. So I would very much look for proven track record of producing results, working through others. Now, I'm going to also add a caveat here. The single hardest position that I think any company has to fill is their sales manager, because the work of a sales manager is remarkably different than somebody in production or operations or finance. Yeah. So you need a different mindset of what you would be hiring. And once again, it is really almost irrelevant where they have earned the right and proven that they have the capacity to manage other salespeople. I don't think it matters at all if they know home improvement or not, or if they know construction at all. I think if they've managed the sales force, they can, and proven that they've produced improving profitable sales for that organization, they can probably do it for you without that much difficulty if they're willing to learn and you're willing to teach, teach a little bit about the industry.

So next up, you're going to hear from John Anglis with John Anglis Selling Systems. I've never met anyone who better understands the interaction between salesperson and homeowner quite the way John does. And don't tell anyone, but he's our highest-rated speaker at Accelerate every year. He's also the only speaker that I have had every single year. Don't tell him all of this, we don't want to let it get to his head, but take a listen.

He or she who tells the best story has the best product. And if you don't know your product well enough, and if you don't tell the appropriate story, how, in other words, how is a homeowner supposed to know you have the best window, siding, gutter protection features company if you're not telling a story? You know, telling the right story to build that value. So that's number one. If you tell the right story, you're gonna build enough value. That story consists of not just features and benefits. That story also consists of, you know, price conditioning, which we all know of. You know, a lot of homeowners, when they get an estimate from an average contractor, they say, I want to go shop. And what that means is I don't have enough information. So when you tell the right story, you're able to show the homeowner why your product is what they need. Like, why does it scratch them where they itch? Why is it better than everything everything else on the market, you know? And how does your product compare, both quality and price, with what's on the market? When we do a one-call close, which we do a one-call close, and we're closing damn near 40% of the presentations we give, it's because when we're done with them, they're done shopping. You know, with price conditioning, they're shopping with us. And telling the right story is paramount. When you tell the right story, people want your product. That's the easiest way to get somebody to buy what you're selling is to make them want it. And the only way you're gonna make them want it is if you tell the right story. And I think we do a phenomenal job telling the right story. I would say to people, this was a very difficult reality to face myself. You know, we're all looking for that top producer, we're all looking for that magic man or that magic woman who can come in and who can turn things around. But you have to ask yourself, if you were a top producer, would you work in your own company? We're not a huge company. In fact, pound for pound, you know, somebody asked me last year at the Accelerate event when they, you know, how much revenue do you do? About $5 million. So you must have what, 8 salespeople? No, I had 3, 3 or 4. But a lot of the talent we have, whether it's sales or marketing, if these people, some of these people met me 6, 7 years ago, they wouldn't be here. And I would still be lamenting, why can't I find that great salesperson The reality is top producers, high-quality people, want to know they're working for a company that's organized. They want to know they're working for a company with a great reputation, with a great product, who tells the right story to help facilitate sales, who can get the jobs installed. So many of us have probably had that person slip right through our fingers without realizing it, and then when owners get together, We're always hearing how hard it is to find people, etc., etc. But while we're looking without, we should be looking within, you know. Do we have the right setup, process, system, culture that can get and keep that right person? And I think that's something that we've gotten really, really good at over the last couple of years. And, you know, that's how we're able to find and keep top talent. The other thing I'd like to say on it, the top 1% of earners, I mean If you're like a typical home improvement company, you should have salespeople that have the potential to earn well over 6 figures. So if you're going to attract someone who's going to make, you know, $100,000, $150,000, $200,000— we have a representative that's going to make over $200,000, you know, it's hard to find those top producers. They say, why, as far as the top 1%, why are they in the top 1%? Because they're willing to do what 99% of the others, of the rest, won't do. So when you're out looking for a top producer, you almost have to consider that you're going to have to interview 99 people to find that one that you, you know, that's going to fit the mold, that's going to fit what you're looking for. Now, does it take you 6 years to interview 99 people, or does it take you 6 months? Does it take you 6 weeks, right? So if, if you go through that process, you find the person you're looking for, you plug them into your business and jobs can't get installed, or you don't give them the tools to succeed, or it's just everybody's disorganized, again, that top producer is never going to manifest as a top producer. They're going to be part of the exit, as you know, the merry-go-round. And again, we're all wondering, why can't we find that right person? So, you know, I think, I think it begins within what, you know, what we're doing at our company to make sure that when we do attract them, we can keep them.

All right, last year at Accelerate, Mark Curry gave such helpful advice that our attendees asked for us to do a whole separate event with them, which is when we developed the Profit Workshop. But what you'll be most impressed with about Mark is that he can break down the most complex business issues into very simple formulas. He's a no-nonsense kind of guy, and that's the kind of advice you'll get from him. Take a listen.

You need, in my humble opinion, have a plan that you're growing at a rate of 20 to 25%. Some of these companies that have explosive growth, that grow 60, 70% in a year, it's impressive on the surface. And not that I'm not impressed with it, but I'm more so curious as to how they do that. And when you look into it, it's not really a surprise. I mean, some people will gamble on certain marketing campaigns and they win, they win big in terms of doubling or tripling their lead growth or lead production from the previous year. But, you know, how cost-effective was it? That's one question that everybody should have in terms of, you know, what was our cost per issue lead, to use that metric again. You know, did it triple, quadruple in terms of lead costs? And then the other factor is the growth. You have to do it in a way that you can keep pace with it. In terms of your personnel. And oftentimes I see these companies that have 30, 40, 50% growth and everybody's excited, never mind the fact that they didn't make any money this year, but they grew the business. And the personnel growth I'm talking about is tied to extra installers, more production managers, doubling the size of the sales force, extra sales management, Additional admins. I mean, all that comes into play. And if you drop any balls and compromise that customer experience, then you're going to be set back on your heels. So that's what doesn't oftentimes get talked about enough.

Well, and that's where all the fundamentals come in. That's where the math comes in. And that's where the understanding of how all of the math works in this business and ultimately like you, being focused on the bottom line and making sure that you've got the fuel to be able to do all this stuff. So you're not going into debt, credit cards, credit lines, owing your suppliers a bunch of money, and you know, all the other nightmare scenarios we as business owners can get ourselves.

Yeah, well stated, Brian. I didn't touch on that, but that is so true. I mean, it's one thing As a business owner, anybody who's an owner of a business knows that they're gambling. You gotta roll the dice on some things. But the one thing that just scares the bejesus out of me is being in debt. I don't use credit lines at all. I don't owe anybody anything. And it's just a scary proposition is to be leveraged that way. I mean, and I think you even have it in your book about how— I learned it. Oh, I learned it from home.

Yeah, but I learned that lesson the hard way, Mark. Yeah, I wish I'd met you 15 years ago 'cause you wouldn't have let me do, if I had you as a mentor 15 years ago, oh my God, the stuff I would have done different.

You would have never let me borrow a penny.

Thank you for those kind words.

I was talking with somebody the other day and they were saying that, you know, young guy starting off in business, great attitude, you know, really good, he's gonna do well. He was, he was asking me my advice about getting a business plan and going to the bank and borrowing money. And I said, absolutely not. Here's your business plan. You're going to sell 5 jobs this month at this margin, put the money away. You're going to use that money to buy your next set of leads so you can sell another 5 jobs next month. And then you're going to, you know, put some of that money away so you could bring on a salesperson. You know, I mean, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's like, you ain't going to the bank, you ain't leaning on credit cards, you're gonna sell at the right price, and then you're gonna use that money as the fuel to grow your business. And so—

That's right. And to add to that, is when you're starting a business from scratch, anybody listening who is not a business owner, but they're considering making that step, my advice would be every, bit of your focus is on 100% on making a lead and then selling that lead. And then whatever money you make from it, you reinvest it in making the next lead and then selling that lead. And you know, when I've seen what I've done in 2007 with a tough economy, I mean, that's all we were focusing on. And I saw some other peers, and I won't be specific, but companies that were starting their own business around around the same time I was in 2007. And they were taking monies wherever they got it from, their investment perhaps, or from others, or the personal investments is what I mean to say. And they were taking this money and they were getting their F-150 pickup trucks wrapped with their company logo and spending all kind of money on different things, nice offices and stuff. And we basically just worked out of a little a little, uh, 1,800— I don't think it was even that— 1,500 square foot office space in a strip mall somewhere. You know, paid our bills, but all of our focus was strictly on just making a lead. We didn't have a CRM system, it was just a fancy Excel spreadsheet. We picked up the phone and we made some calls, yeah, from home show leads. So, love it. But, you know, humble beginnings. But that's, that's where the focus is. And, you know, not a whole lot has changed since then after all these years. Still, every day I walk through the doors, my focus is on lead production and what we do with those leads.

Next up is Scott Berman, owner of Florida Window and Door. Now, if you've met Scott, you know he's extremely focused. He has a good eye for what makes money and what doesn't. He's in the trenches every day, not as a business operator, but as a business owner, an investor. He is constantly working on his business, and you're gonna get a lot of great tips from him. Take a listen.

Listen, when we first started in Florida, I mean, you know, the Florida market is so much different than the other markets around the country. You know, there's so much more regulation and code requirements and inspections. So when we first started, we just had no idea what we were doing. I thought we did we didn't. We could sell. I mean, you know, as, as most of us, I think, in this business would agree, the sales process is the easy part of the, of the process. But we could sell. We didn't have the administrative side. So where we really— I mean, honestly, for the first 10 years, we were figuring out the business down here. We really were. We were just— we were tripping over ourselves because we knew there was a market and we didn't have a great process. And, and, you know, we were, we were just an average window company. And then we started to recognize that in order to grow, we really had to create processes that not only fit our company culture, but was just a best practice. And so we literally went from department to department and started developing the process. And the first place we started was sales. And what we tried to do was we tried to speak to and meet as many successful window companies as we could and determine what their processes were and just became like, even though we had been in the business for many years, we just became sponges and we just learned and we interfaced with these people and we took their concepts and we made them Floor to Window and Door concepts. Not that we, I don't wanna say that we stole them or we borrowed them or, you know, copied them, but we certainly learned from them in order to create our own processes. And then the other thing that I think we did which I believe really propelled us to the next level was we made a business commitment to never hire another company salesperson. And I think that, that really took us to a whole different level because what we recognized was that, and I'm sure all of us have seen this, is that, you know, salesman from another company comes in and says, oh, the other company sucks. Company A is terrible. Here's why Company A is terrible. And here's my W-2. I sold $3 million worth of product for Company A. And imagine what I could do for you. And we used to look at that and be like, oh my God, this is amazing. Like, the guy sold $3 million, you know, that's great. He'd fit in great here, or, you know, fit in well here. And, and what we found was that disgruntled guy at Company A turned out to be the disgruntled guy at my company. And not only does he become disgruntled, but he then, then he just compares Company A to Company B. And inevitably the guy realizes that, you know what, maybe the window industry wasn't for him. Her to begin with. And so when we made that change, we also recognized that we had to— by making that change and getting rid of or being unwilling to hire, you know, another competitor's salesperson, we also recognized that we had to implement our own sales training. And so in my mind, you know, those were the areas where we specifically started and really changed our business for the better because it allowed us to not only basically create our own group of soldiers, but it also gave us the ability to grow consistently because we could— we knew that we could train those people. And, and we could take a person who was an insurance salesman or a Cheesecake Factory waiter, whatever the case may be, and turn them into a Florida Window Door salesman who knew how to sell because he followed our best practice.

And finally, I just wanted to end with Ed Epley, one more time because this does a great job of summing up what's most important about attending Accelerate. As a business owner, your mindset is key, and at Accelerate, we're going to focus on how you can break through the barriers that you think are standing in the way of your success, or maybe you don't even know those thoughts are there or that they're standing in your way. This is the real work you need to be doing on yourself in order to improve your business and your life. Take a listen.

Mind— state of mind is disproportionately important. You could argue it is the most important thing. Some people might not agree with that, but I think if you look at Elon Musk, if you look at Steve Jobs, if you look at Mother Teresa, if you look at any of those folks that have done these exceptional things that most of us look at and say it's worthy of admiration. So it could be socially, it could be in business world, but either one's worthy of admiration. They had a, a mental outlook that they were not going to be constrained by whatever they confronted as obstacles.

Yeah.

So they had an indefatigable, they had an unlimited capacity to remain fully committed no matter how difficult it became.

Right.

And there's a weird thing about our brain. The subconscious does not know the difference between fact or fiction. And I think it's neurolinguistics, but there were other people who wrote back in the '30s, '40s, and '50s about this. Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich, and other individuals. So if you repeat something to yourself good or bad, often enough, your subconscious moves you in that direction. So if you tell yourself you're bad at something, you will not— you will definitely be bad at it. You will suck at it. Yeah. And you will be painful. It'll be painful for whenever you're in that situation. Likewise, if you tell yourself you're going to get good at something, you will get better at it. It doesn't mean you'll be world-class, but you will, you will make progress. And so controlling the, the thinking that goes on between our heads is the first real mastery that we have to have before we try to master working with others. So I, I think it's, it's really important. Can I get up from the mic here for just a second and grab a book? I want to show people so they can— hold on a second. A friend of mine, let's see, this would have been almost 50 years ago, made a recommendation to read this book, and it's called As a Man Thinketh by James Allen. Do you have it?

Oh yeah, yeah, it's gonna be right. I think it's there somewhere.

Yeah, yeah, it is 60, 65, 60, less than 70 pages, but it essentially equates your mind to being like a garden. And if you let doubt, if you let fear, if you let negative thinking grow in your garden, it's just like weeds, and they choke the, the good things you're trying to grow. And so you— it's not ignoring reality, but it is choosing the thoughts that you, you allow to be part of who you are and what, what you're going to let consume your thinking. And so, as a man, as a woman thinketh, though, that's what they will become. And, you know, as parents, we try to help our kids have the right thoughts, to think the right way. And part of it's, you know, I think one of the worst things as a parent— we, we hate to see this in our kids when they say, 'I can't.' Yeah, it pains you as a parent when they say, 'I can't,' when you know they can.

Yeah.

And so one of the great characteristics— I want to bring this back to management and leadership— so one of the, one of the attributes of a really great manager and leader, because I'm Leadership is a function of professional management. So one of those attributes that's just so powerful is the manager who can help a person become more confident. When we help people increase their confidence that they can do the job that we need them to do, their performance will go up, their job satisfaction will go up, their interaction with both internal and external customers will go up. I mean, it is such a powerful lever to people's performance becoming what we want and need it to become. And so if a manager is really the kind of manager we want, one of the things they'll do is appropriately inspire confidence in others.

All right, so I hope that gives you a good taste of what you can expect when you come to Accelerate Live. February 15th and 16th with a bonus day on the 17th. We've got 3 bonus day options that are really exciting. We're going to be looking at how we can take your business to the next level in 2022, and I can't wait to see you there. Again, if you have not secured your ticket yet, go to www.accelerateevent.com. Acceleratevent.com. Yes, it's a lot. There are two Es in the middle, but it's acceleratevent.com. In fact, use the coupon code Wealthy22 to get an additional $100 off your ticket. So until next time, this is Brian Kaskavalciyan with G4 Marketing Group and The Wealthy Contractor. Thanks for listening. To today's episode of the Wealthy Contractor Podcast. Let me ask you, did it help you look at your business in a different way? Did it spark an idea or ideas that you hadn't thought of before? Do you have a list of action items that you can take and implement into your business or your life today? I really hope so. If it did, I'd like to ask you a favor. Would you leave a 5-star review of the podcast? By doing so, you'll help other contractors find the podcast more easily so that we can help them achieve more success, wealth, and freedom. And before you go, make sure you subscribe to the Wealthy Contractor Podcast so you get access to the latest episodes as soon as they're available. We're always striving to provide you with great content, so you don't want to miss what's coming up. In fact, if you haven't already, make sure you go to thewealthycontractor.com and get your free copy of my latest book, The 7 Secrets to Becoming a Wealthy Contractor. Just pay shipping and handling, and I'll take care of the cost of the book. So until next time, this is Brian Kaskavalciyan.