Navigating Through Uncertainty Ep. 11 with Victor Smolyanov

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.

Hey everybody, this is Brian Kaskavalciyan with G4 Marketing Group and today is April 2nd, Thursday, having another one of these quick conversations with my client Victor Smolyanov from Victor's Roofing. Victor, I said it wrong, didn't I?

Victor Smolyanov. Close enough.

Oh, I did say it right.

Okay, cool.

Close enough.

So Victor is in a really interesting situation. He owns one of the largest roofing companies in Michigan. Up until, what, 2, 3 weeks ago, you were busier than busy and things have slowed down. Obviously, Michigan is on pretty strict lockdown orders.

So I just—

we were just having a conversation and I asked him if he wouldn't mind jumping on and letting me record him His answer to the question I'm asking all, you know, all of the people I do this interview with is, what are you thinking right now? What are you feeling right now? And what are you doing right now?

I mean, thinking, feeling, I think that we share the feelings with a lot of the people. It's, you know, it's times of uncharted territory. You're not really sure what's going to happen tomorrow, the day after. But my outlook on it is it's a temporary pause on what we're doing, right? Like we were typically, we're doing 50 to 60 jobs a week and then about a week and a half ago, We have a stay-at-home order, and what we decided to do is we are only pursuing projects that are actively leaking. And that means that we're only doing one roof a day and one repair a day that are considered essential, we will. But to me, it's a temporary pause. You kind of put your business in idle, put it in maintenance mode, and once the stay-at-home orders are lifted, my gut feeling is that there's gonna be a pent-up demand. I was telling you earlier that our website is seeing more traffic on it than it did last March of 2019. And I think that people are spending more time at home, they're doing the research, and I do think when people start feeling, I guess let me say, safe again to be outside or to be doing things, I think the demand will be there. So temporary pause, working on projects, putting new processes in place. So, and for especially for the management team, for the leadership team, it's hey, let's get things in order that we, you know, we're putting off before because right now is the time to do it. So I think it's a temporary pause that's going to be recovered later.

Yeah, and, and I like what you said about that is, is doing the things that you've had on the list of things to do, improving processes. Do you mind sharing any like specific things that, that you are, are working on?

I mean, uh, something simple, right? In finance, a better way to track expenses, right? Because there's not a lot of things to process right now. You go from 50 to 5 jobs a week, so now we have time. So let's get a better expense tracking system in place. On the sales team, you know, let's use that to train our guys, coach our guys on Zoom calls, right? And even when this is over, I think the consumer is going to be a little bit hesitant to let us in the house. So unless we pivot and we change and we say, hey, If you're comfortable having us in the house, we'll be out. And if you want to do a virtual appointment, we'll do that as well. And, you know, we're coaching guys right now, having trainings on, hey, how do we get better in selling virtually? Because selling via Zoom is very different than selling in the house. You can't do a show and tell, right, as good. You have to keep people engaged because it's really easy just to zoom out. That's actually funny, zoom out on a Zoom call, right? Because you don't know, you don't know if they're watching you, you don't know if they're paying attention, are they texting, what are they doing? So It's just practice, practice, practice. And even our own yard, like at our shop, we wanted to organize it better, we wanted to grade it. So we have only one guy working in the yard right now. He's the only one there, but he's moving things around, getting everything organized, and to make sure when we get back into the swing of things that we're prepared for it.

Wow, awesome. Great advice, great attitude. Again, thank you for doing this. I'm gonna keep it short because I know you're busy, you got stuff to do. What a great message. I appreciate you, man. Thank you very much for doing this. Any parting words?

Keep your head up. You know, a lot of guys— and I know that a lot of our competition will be out of business based on how they do business— and keep your head up. We will all get through this. I mean, I was telling you earlier, we have $800,000 in the pipeline that we just cannot produce because we're not allowed to, right?

Right.

And I think that for anybody that's listening to this for future actions, for future things that you can do differently in the future, man, save your money. Because what I did is, you know, in 2019 we had a— it was a great year, it was, you know, we grew exponentially and we kept money in the business, you know, we kept returning earnings in the business and right now that stuff is crucial. So having money in the bank and knowing that, hey, this is just a pause, definitely gives me a lot of I guess, comfort and peace of mind that, hey, we'll just put a pause. We might lose a month, we might lose a month and a half, but the business is nowhere near to being in jeopardy. And just, you know, we'll get back to it as soon as the government says we can.

Awesome.

So, all right. Thank you, Brian. Cool.

Thank you, Victor.

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.