Navigating Through Uncertainty Ep. 1 with Jason Phillips

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.

Hello and welcome to the Wealthy Contractor Podcast. This is Brian Kaskavalciyan with G4 Marketing Group. If you're one of our regular listeners, you know, I typically interview home improvement entrepreneurs and ask them about specific strategies they've used to become a wealthy contractor. In fact, we have quite a few killer episodes we've recently recorded with amazing strategies to implement in your business, but I've decided to put those aside right now because of the unique environment we find ourselves in. Instead, what I'll be doing over the next couple of weeks is sharing conversations I'm having with some of these same people to find what they're thinking, feeling, and doing right now. My hope is that by sharing these conversations, you'll hear how others are overcoming some of the challenges you might be facing right now. I also sincerely hope to inspire you and build your confidence. One thing you will notice in all of these conversations is the underlying expectation that what we are experiencing right now is a temporary setback. It will pass, and there will be even greater opportunity on the other side. So enjoy these conversations. We're all in this together.

Stay the course.

Do not give up. Keep moving forward. And always believe in yourself.

All right, so Jason Phillips, Phillips Home Improvements. Welcome, thank you. What are you thinking? What are you feeling?

You know, from, from talking to different people around the country, it seems like there's some, some different impact and different attitudes about around what's going, going on. And you're always going to have, even in your local market, you're going to have people that have a different mindset regarding what's going on. Some people, some people think this is a total hoax. Some people think this is the end of the world, and you're going to have to deal with probably employees and customers that are in both camps. And so, you know, I feel like there's, there's 2, 3 main ways you can deal with this. And the first one is, you know, you can just throw your hands up and say, oh my gosh, I give up. Business is over. I've had all these job cancellations. I'm just going to close, you know, close it up. You see, you can give up. The second way is, You can have the attitude of, well, I'm just going to ride it out. I'm just going to keep doing what I've always been doing. I'm going to ride it out and this too shall pass. And I think there's some validity to that as well. But I think the best way to approach this, and that's what we're doing here at Philips, is to see this as a challenge and an opportunity like never before. You know, there's, there's kind of two aspects of what's going on. There's, well, three. There's, there's people's health, the real people's health. And keeping people safe. And then the other one is the hysteria around what's, you know, and I don't know anybody that doesn't feel that the media is whipping this up into a frenzy more, more than it needs to be. And by the way, this is a wonderful example of why you must have multichannel marketing in your business. You know, we, we were preparing to do a local home and garden show here, and I happen to know that there are numerous companies they get all of their business, all of their leads from home and garden shows and other events. Well, those— that's not happening. So those people right now have no business, no leads. So this is a— this is something to remember. If you have a single channel of marketing or just one or two channels of marketing, regardless of what it is, whether it's digital or shows and events or whatever, something can change in an instant and cut that flow off. And so I'm, I'm very glad that we have multi-channel marketing. So, but for us, here's, here's, here's what we're doing. And and what I would suggest that other contractors consider is number one, be diligent and safe. Just be diligent and safe. We've got the hand sanitizer for all of our people and we're sanitizing the office multiple times a day. And of course our team is wearing the booties when they go in the home. And so first is just actually being safe, being diligent to be safe. And the second one is setting our customers' minds at ease. Letting them know that, hey, we are proactively addressing this, but yet we're still here to serve you. And so it's, for instance, when our guys get out of the car, they're— because, you know, the homeowner's looking out the front door. Yeah, our guys get out of the car, you know, rub this, put their booties on and go up to the house. We want it to be real and visible what we're doing. And so I would ask a question, how does, you your particular product or service speak to the need or of the times with the homeowners, with your clients right now. And for us, we have access to an amazing product that I've just been— I haven't said much about, and it's actually a paint that kills bacteria. Oh, just— it has the same active ingredient as household cleaners, disinfectants, and it kills like 99.9% of staph, MRSA, E. coli, VRE, and although it hasn't been tested on coronavirus, the product, the active ingredient has been. It's the same stuff that's in Lysol. This product, it actually kills, and not that this is a commercial for that product, but I'm saying this speaks directly to it, and for up to 4 years, it continues to kill when contaminants get on the surface. It was developed for hospitals and such, and it's an amazing product. We're introducing that to our clients who are homeowners. Hey guys, you can protect and beautify your home and keep your family safer using this product. Whatever industry you're in, maybe there's a product that could help them as well. Another thing is, if you have a repair that you're putting off, it's just going to escalate in price anyways. The longer you wait, the worse it gets, the more it's going to cost in the long run. Helping your clients understand that, I think, is big. I see this as an opportunity to solidify and strengthen and forge our relationship with our existing clients. When others close up shop, we're going to gobble up market share.

Yeah, that is one of the, I guess, fortunate or unfortunate opportunities that comes out of this is just that, is people just are going to clam up. That don't have relationships with customers like you do, this is gonna be tough. This is gonna be tough for them because we need to rely on those customers now more than ever.

And they need to rely on us.

Yeah, so what are you doing kind of personally to keep your head in the game?

Brian, I need to look at everything as an opportunity. And you and I have a lot of the same mindset. Life doesn't happen to us, we happen to life. And no matter what situation we find ourselves in, We take it as a personal responsibility to improve the situation. The answer lies within our own mindset and actions.

Yeah, yeah, that's good. Yeah, because there's a lot of fear, you know, and uncertainty. And yeah, we kind of got to keep our wits about us, right?

Yes. Yeah, and it's not fun. You know, we've had some— we've had some appointments canceled. We've had one project so far that I know of cancel. I know some guys in other parts of the country that have lost tremendous amount of business already. But there's a certain amount of trust that our homeowners have with us and just reinforcing, hey, here's what we're doing and you just navigate it and do the best you can. But again, I want to say just do the best you can. That doesn't mean just continue to do the same thing you've always done. Times change. And we need to react and respond in a positive way.

Yeah, we've all been slapped.

So it's, it's time for all of us to step up.

Well, cool, man. Thank you. I appreciate you joining me and doing this.

I'm talking with, you know, a few of the people, like I mentioned earlier, a few of the people that I know have real good head about this and can give a, I guess, put a positive spin on this and think it through from a place of opportunity and abundance rather than from a place of fear and scarcity.

And, and, you know, you're one of the first people I reached out to.

So thank you.

Right. Awesome. Well, I'm honored and, uh, it was wonderful talking to you today, Brian.

Yeah.

Cool.

Thank you for listening to this special edition of the Wealthy Contractor Podcast. I hope it gave you the confidence to know that there are other successful contractors out there just like you who are not letting circumstances get in the way of providing excellent service to their customers, serving their communities and achieving their goals. This will pass, and your attitude and the messages you take in right now will determine your mindset and where you end up. I'd encourage you to listen to the other podcasts in this series that we're releasing regularly, as well as going back to prior episodes of the Wealthy Contractor Podcast to hear from like-minded contractors in the industry so you can pick up on strategies, tactics, and tools that will help you overcome the circumstances around you. We'll be back to regularly scheduled podcasts soon. So until next time, this is Brian Kaskavalciyan with G4 Marketing Group and The Wealthy Contractor.