You’re a Key Hire Away From Doubling Your Business | Justin Bartley (Ep. 239)

The biggest mistakes I've made in business by far is just having the wrong people. Yeah. For too long. Sure, you're going to make a mistake or hiring, or maybe they were good 2 years ago or 5 years ago, but you've grown and they're no longer a good fit. I already mentioned the sales manager. I mentioned the controller that took me 10 years to hire a controller. Our contact center was another one that we just couldn't get it filled and maybe just settled for too long or without one or the right one.

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Wealthy Contractor Podcast. This is Brian Kaskavalciyan, and with me today is Justin Bartley from Next Door and Window. Welcome, Justin.

Well, Brian, it's great to be here, and I think this is our 4th or 5th time on the podcast together, so appreciate the invite.

Yeah, well, it's always good to have you. And to those of you that may not know Justin, he's out of the Chicago Middleland area, has an incredible door and window business. And recently this year, because our Wealthy Contractor Success Society has been growing so much, we needed more mastermind facilitators. And Justin was somebody that was just at the top of my list because he's just, just incredible entrepreneur, runs a great business and a lot of really good experience. And so I want to talk a little bit today about his experience conducting a mastermind group because he's been in mastermind groups before. So I want to, I want to get his take on it. And then we're going to talk about, we'll see where that takes us. But there's a couple of interesting topics that I want to hit with, with Justin. So Justin, again, welcome. And for those of you that could see, see me, I'm a, I'm in an undisclosed location. I'm not in my, in my office. So I, you know, this video is going to look a little different. But for those of you listening, hopefully, all the quality and everything is good. So, Justin, we had our first meeting of the year. You had your group. And by the way, to everybody listening, Justin and I have not spoken since then. And I did this purposely, because I I wanted to get it recorded. I wanted to hear everything that you had to say and good, bad, and ugly. We're going to air it all here. So what were your kind of impressions of the group and your role in the group?

Well, first I'll say that what you're building is truly a great, unbelievable service for the home improvement industry and something that's—

That's cool.

Needed by many. So hopefully, and you know, I'll tell you, when I got there, I was a little surprised that, I mean, there had to be at least 50 or more companies and some of the companies had 2 and 3 people. So it was a very large group. It's very impressive what you've built. Thank you. And when I go back, because I started 23 years ago, and for the first 10 years, I was so in the weeds of the business, working 70, 80 hours a week. And I truly, I didn't know what a coach was. I didn't even know there were opportunities out there in networks. And I don't think there were as many, if any, back then. And so, it was very difficult those first 10 years to go through kind of trying to do it all on your own. And, you know, it was a painful process, but you learn a lot. But if I could go back, I would definitely say like getting a good coach can save you years of trial and error doing it on your own. And especially when you can get around a group of other people who are in the same industry and you can learn from one another. So, there's a lot of power there. There was so much energy in the room. And so much transformation from a lot of people like me who, like John O'Leary comes to mind, running his business for, I don't know, 30 or 40 years, very much in the weeds of the business, not realizing that he's just a few key people or key processes away from unlocking a really great profitable business that can really just improve your lifestyle and your time freedom. So that was, I think the biggest realization is that this is a really great program, a great outlet for the industry for people that to really step away and look at wherever you're at, whether it's that $1 million or $5 million or $10+ there's some key unlocks there that could really help you get to the next level a lot quicker than maybe you would have trying to do it on your own.

How was kind of the, you know, as a first-time kind of facilitator, was there anything that anybody kind of said that maybe surprised you about, you know, business or impressed you?

Yeah. Well, there were a lot of speakers and a lot of really impressive people there. And you had at least 3 or 5 transformation stories. I know John was one of them. That's really amazing just to see, again, running a business for 30 years, kind of doing it your way and then realizing there was a better way. And how quickly you can transform that and really get the business that you want, whatever that is, you can get there much quicker. And I think the thing that's surprising, but it's not, is just that it's really about people and the common theme. And I think it's probably every industry, but especially in this business, you try to do it on your own and you don't get the right people in the right seats. That's probably the theme across the board when you look at it. And it could be any level. You're always a few key people away from really saving yourself hours of time each week or just filling that position that will unlock growth in the company. So that's probably what— it's surprising, but it's probably the most common theme that we see is the people. And it could just be that we always say build your org chart, have someone help you or just get a blank org chart. You need a production person, you need sales, you need an HR, back office, finance, and put the names in the boxes. And it's pretty common that owners will find themselves in half the boxes. And a lot of those roles are not—

Or all the boxes.

Or all the boxes, half of which we're terrible at. That's probably the the area that it seems like it's so common and it is pretty easy to fix once you realize, put yourself in those areas where you really are going to excel in those areas that you like. And then the next step is, okay, how do we get these other areas filled?

So I hate to admit this, but over the last couple weeks, there's 3 or 4 things that I've been banging my head against the wall trying to figure out. And I realized, why am I trying to figure this stuff out? I know people that can help me do this. I just, before we recorded this, this morning, I'm like, wait a minute, I'm trying to figure out not an IT problem, but a technology problem. Why am I doing, who am I to figure out, try to figure out this technology problem? So I called my tech guy. And I'm like, hey, I need to have this and this and this. Is this something you could help me with? Yes. Great. So by when can you help have this done? Early next week. Wonderful. Great. And it's off my plate now. It's now, it's on his plate and I just have to follow up with them next week. But that's just one dumb little example. It's like, and you know, the hard part about the people thing is And let's stay on that because I think this is a really good topic because that's really the big difference between people that really build a great organization that where they're not having to figure everything out and do everything themselves is they figured out the people thing. So you mentioned an org chart, and I think a lot of people get hung up on, well, how am I going to hire this person? How am I going to pay for this person? And that gets them stuck, or they're too small to bring on somebody really good. You know, if you're looking for like a sales manager and you're a $1 or $2 million company and you're looking for somebody that's run a $20 million or $50 million, they're not going to want to come and work for you unless you give them half the business. They're not going to want to come and work for you. And so how do you overcome some of that stuff?

Well, I think you have to start with one person. And again, when you build the org chart and you may need help with it, I needed help with it. I thought I had an org chart and I had managers and this was 10 years into the business probably. Yeah, I had managers, but when I really looked at who was in the boxes and I looked at some of the boxes that again, where I had still, my name was in probably 3 of them and, and 2 of them that it should not be in. And then, and again, I needed help, but I did get a coach and my coach said, why are you doing job costing and accounting? Like, I'm, I'm not an accountant. I'm not good at job costing. I was spending 5 hours a day doing job costing. So that's where we decided, okay, this is, this is the first position we have to fill. I didn't like it and I'm not good at it. So that, that's where you start, you know, find one position. What's the, what's the key position that's going to move the needle the most? And that's what we did. And that's when I brought a controller on our first one about 10 years ago, and it saved me 5 hours a day. Where I could focus on marketing. That's really what I really like doing. So I think that's where you have to start. And if you're the owner, you have to sell the vision and don't settle for your friend or someone that you know who's convenient. I also went through that with my marketing manager. I would hire like a friend because I thought it was less expensive or part-time. And I realized I was just settling, maybe just selling myself short or the company or the opportunity. And until I realized that this is a great opportunity and I had the confidence to sell that to these candidates, it wasn't going to happen. And today, you know, our marketing director moved here from Colorado to accept the job. And so that's, you know, when you have the confidence to do that, you can recruit anybody and the right people are the ones that are going to make the biggest differences. Another example was our sales manager. We, for 10 years, I settled for sales managers that were not the right fit for our company. And it literally took us 10 years and we finally have one as of about a year ago. It's making an exponential difference. You know, really truly being honest with yourself about having the right person in the right seat will make all the difference. And so sometimes we settle for convenience Or maybe the people that were with you for 5 or 10 years, that they're not— they don't have the capabilities to get you to the next level, but you keep them because it's convenient. Or maybe, you know, they're good people, you like them, but they're not the people that are going to get you to the next 10x level or wherever it is you want to go.

Yeah. Now, some people hear that 10 years and it's a little scary. It took 10 years to find the right sales manager. Was that more of a you problem Or was that you just couldn't find the right person problem?

I mean, it all comes down to the owner. So it was definitely a me problem. And I just— it was probably I didn't know where to find the right person or I thought I had the right person and mostly just getting the wrong person and probably knowing they were the wrong person, but just sticking with it for, for longer than you should, even though, you know, they're not the right person. So I think it was, it was a trial and error, but also just not knowing how to and where to go to find good people.

Yeah. And that's where something like EOS comes in really, really powerfully. It makes a big difference in the company is that you're going to know pretty quickly because every week they're going to come to a meeting like the sales manager, say, okay, How did we do this week? Are we on track or off track with whatever KPIs we're tracking? And if we're off track and then next week we're off track and then next week we're off track, is this really the right person? You find out pretty quick. And I think one of the things that happens with us is, like you said, we get comfortable having that person there, even if they're not good. And we don't hold them accountable like we should hold them accountable, or we don't give them the training that they need, but we don't give them the resources that they need. And so they don't do well. They've been there for a long time, and then something happens and it's ugly and there's a breakup, and then I got to go start with somebody else. But if you go into it with the same behaviors as before, and you let these things go, no accountability, no KPIs, no this, no that, then how do you, how do you break out of that cycle?

Yes, you do. You need clear job descriptions and clear expectations. And I'll go back to what really helped me is having that outside coach. And 10 years ago, we did start using EOS. And we had an implementer. And as the owner, as you're building a leadership team, or maybe before you have a really good leadership team, there's really no one there to hold you accountable as the owner.

Yeah.

And I think that's where, you know, why it took so long is because I didn't have— I was pretty isolated, didn't have like an outside board of directors or someone to go to, to push me and hold me accountable. And once I found a coach through EOS, he really helped give me clarity on this is what you need to do and it better get done this quarter. Just like we do with, often do with the people in our company. But then when it comes to us, sometimes we don't have that person that can really help push us. And that's why the program like Success Society, you know, it has a built-in quarterly cadence, you know, weekly, monthly cadence even. To meet with a facilitator, a quarterly cadence to meet with your mastermind group in person to really be that board of directors, if you will, that can really help push you forward and keep you accountable. I think at the end of the day, it comes down to the discipline and the accountability for the owner to get outside the box, right? Because we all know what got us here. We've been doing it for 5 years or 10 years. That's not going to get you to that growth you're looking for. And you need to look outside for a coach or for a mastermind group that can really help push you.

As the facilitator, so you're going around the room conducting hot seats and what were some of the things that you may have noticed that are holding people back, even in the group that you had? I think everybody in that group is doing well in excess of $10 million a year, so they're a little more sophisticated maybe. But what did you notice there as, as their facilitator that was holding some of them back?

Well, I think again, it comes down to it's if you really get to the root cause, it's always people. Because if you have a function of your business and you have a manager running it and it's dysfunctional or it's not producing results, it's the person who's running it who's accountable to that. And so, as we dug in, there were various issues because we tried to focus on like, what's our biggest issue right now? And they were ranging from our, you know, our leads aren't working or, you know, our marketing is down or we're having an issue with our installation day, just collecting the money or the process of installation day with communication with the homeowner or it's, you know, we don't have a, a good drip program or a good rehash program after we do a demo, or a lot of it was just around process on the back end and managing job costing and managing inventory items on the back end and having the right processes for that. So there were really various issues that, that arose. And again, these were $10 to $20 million businesses, you know, ranging from windows and doors and roofing to bath and basement systems and really all different types of home improvements. Again, when you really dig down, half of the time it was really, it came down to the people running those businesses or those departments that needed, maybe they needed better processes or they needed better coaching from the owners. And there was one example, where a marketing manager was missing the mark with leads and one of the managers just stepped in to say, "I'm going to just run the marketing now." And therefore, they had this marketing manager who was kind of pushed to the side so the owner could come in and just run it and do it his way. But what happens is that the manager didn't learn anything, the manager was not empowered to learn what they were doing wrong, and, you know, they're unable to really go move forward without proper coaching. So, it really came down to people and processes were probably the two areas where, you know, the issue, the kind of the root causes of the issues lied.

And what is it once the solutions are identified, what was some of the resistance you may have gotten, if any? I'm sure you got resistance.

Well, the resistance always comes in the following meetings where, okay, we isolate a problem, And we think we know a root cause because that's what we really, we try to do in these workshops is try to find a root cause and work from there. But as you go maybe to the next month, oftentimes, how do I put this in a way that's fair? Not a lot of progress being made or some excuses. Of why we didn't make the hard decisions. And I think that's what it comes down to so often is being able to make a hard decision with a person who's not a right person in the right seat. And I think those are the hardest moves to make, even when you know it's probably not the right person. It's kind of convenient or you're comfortable there and you think, well, what am I going to do? If I replace this person, who's going to do it in the meantime? Am I going to find a better person? And my first coach that I talked about 10 years ago who had run 5 or 10 $100 million companies in his career, he, as we went through the trials of our sales manager, he told me, well, you're going to let this person go and you're going to run You're going to run the sales department until you find someone else. And that's because who else was going to do it? So I know that was one way to learn and to just get to the root of the problem right away. And if it's a wrong person, remove that person, give them obviously coaching and give them plenty of time. But once you determine it's the wrong person, you know, you have to let them go and you have to move forward.

I think that's a big one is that as business owners, we're so busy, busy, a quote unquote busy, productive, maybe, maybe not efficient, effective, maybe, maybe not, but busy. And so the idea of now, crap, I gotta take that on now with everything else I'm doing. And what we don't realize, and you can look at in hindsight, is by not making that hard decision, what is it now costing me in terms of time and money? Because ultimately we're here for freedom, time and money freedom. And to get more time, you need more money because money buys time. You can't make more of it, but you can make more money and you can buy time. And so we postpone that. And every day that goes by and every week that goes by turns into months and months turn into quarters and quarters turn into years. And pretty soon you've had this person there for 3 years that's been ineffective and you're like, why are we not making money? Why aren't we getting, you know, making more sales? And then you go to conferences and you see and you hear from all these people and then you beat yourself up.

Oh, wow.

Look, they're doing it and I'm not doing it. And it all comes down to that. I love how you said that root cause. What was the root cause is you couldn't make that one hard decision that was going to make your life painful for maybe 60, 90 days. And we have a hard time with that. It's because it seems like when you're in it, it seems like, oh, this is the rest of my life. Fuck, yeah, I don't want to do that. But the reality of it is it's maybe 60, 90 days.

Yes. And when I look back, I mean, by far the biggest mistakes I've made in business by far is just having the wrong people.

Yeah.

For too long. I mean, sure, you're going to make a mistake or hiring, or maybe they were good 2 years ago or 5 years ago, but you've grown and they're no longer a good fit. But I already mentioned the sales manager. I mentioned the controller that took me 10 years to hire a controller. Our contact center was another one that we just couldn't get it filled and maybe just settled for too long or without one or the right one. And on the flip side, when I look back at all of our Maybe you call them transformations, maybe you call them when the company really grew. You know, we've been in business 23 years, so we've definitely had those periods where you're like, wow, like we doubled our business the last 4 or 5 years. And maybe you go through a period where it's slower, but almost every time when I look back, because I've done this exercise and I've said, when did we really like, what were the periods where we grew the most or had the most improvements, transformations, or maybe it was we became more profitable or we saved a lot more time, we became more efficient, 90% of the time it was when we got the right person in the right spot. And so, that's what it always comes down to when you talk about your program at the Success Society, getting the right people. And setting that vision of where you want to go and really looking at who are the people on the team and are they going to get me to the Super Bowl and really being honest with yourself and making those hard decisions on people. I mean, I think that's really what business comes down to is your ability to attract and coach and training. That's on us as well. I mean, we can have a superstar who's in the making, but if we don't give them the right support, they're going to probably go somewhere else. But that's really what it comes down to. If you had to simplify it, it's all about the right people, again, providing the right support and coaching to them. And those are always the unlocks as you look across the business. Where do I need, like, where are we hurting right now? What is that spot we need to fill that could make the biggest difference?

Yeah, I love that. Because when you said that, you know, I immediately went to thinking about that for me and in my life. And you're right, I could put a name to, oh, wow, wait a minute. When this person took on their new role, there's the first big one was actually Yanni. At G4 who is a— she's a powerhouse, young powerhouse. And, uh, when we put her into the, the, the first big role that she took, things changed. And then I could name them one after the other. Oh yeah, when this person came in, then this happened. And when this person came in, then that happened. So you're— so you're, you're right about that. And I think that the vision is so important. You know, a lot of people don't have a great vision for their business. And the owner's job, you said it earlier, is to sell that vision. And I sometimes, when we're doing these podcasts and I'm listening to these conversations, I'm trying to, you know, I'm listening for the listener. And immediately, and I hope I'm wrong about this, but I think with some people, they're hearing this and they're saying, well, yeah, that's good for you guys, but man, you don't understand my situation. You know, I am, I'm doing all this myself. I only have 2 people and I want to grow and the money's not coming. And I get that. But part of what's going to help you is to have a vision for your business, to know where you want to go. What does this business look like for me to be really happy? So how much money does it make? Because when we know how much money it makes, we can reverse engineer it to see what the business needs to look like. And then we could say, okay, what's the delta from where you are today to where you want to go? And then, well, let's start to build the parts and pieces that you need. You're not going to do it overnight. It's going to take years. It took you— how long did it— it took you, what, 13 years to get to a point where you could say, well, wait a minute, there are better ways. And then, and then it took you another 5 or 6 years to really get everything dialed in. And then it's just really been the last, what, 8, 9 years that you've really seen this acceleration happen. And we're not telling you, you know, you guys listening, it should take 23 years. There are ways to shorten it.

Yeah. No. There are ways. And Brian, that is why I'm here and that's why I'm honored to be a part of your program because it doesn't have to take 23. Now, there's no shortcut to the experience that you gain and the learning and the grind. That's all part of it, but you can accelerate your success and learn from people and just shorten the timeframe to get there. You're going to have to put in a ton of work. There's no way around that. But I'll go out there and say, if you're listening, get involved with someone that can help you. And I would strongly recommend Brian's group at Success Society.

So we're going to do something interesting and unique at the next meeting in July. I don't have the dates right in front of me, but it's towards the end. I think it's the 23rd, 24th, 25th, I believe. But I'll give you a URL in a minute. And for those of you that are listening that are interested in possibly joining a group like Success Society and just checking it out, we're doing a Discovery Day. And essentially what we're going to do is the first day you get to come in as, you know, like a member and check it out and see, wow, what's going on in this place. And you'll see presentations, you'll have lunch with the group, and then we'll do a little bit of masterminding just so you get a sense of what it's like to be on the hot seat. And then you'll have an opportunity to say, you know what, this is great. I want to move forward with this, or no, this isn't for me. And, you know, at least you'll have found out. So go to theentrydoor.info. That's theentrydoor.info. And reach out to us. And then, you know, you'll meet Justin in person, you'll meet Vince, you'll meet Charlie and all the rest of us there, plus all of our amazing members. And so, and for me, you know, you said it's an honor to be a part of it. I mean, for me, from, you know, I remember back, you know, when I was building a business and I was on my own, to think that I'd be at this point now in my life where I've got people like you that are on this mission with me to help companies not take 23 years to build a business, or like me, you know, go broke and bankrupt at 40 because I made a bunch of stupid decisions in my business. If we can help more and more people, it's exciting. So I want to shift gears for a minute. So we've been talking about, you know, your impressions of that, but I want to ask you now, how's business for you? What's going on? It's— we're recording this towards the end of April.

Yes.

First quarter was, you know, it's been an interesting year so far.

Yeah. Before that, I just wanted to give, you know, with the people in the recruiting, just some concrete, like, this is what you can do today.

Oh, great.

Once you determine, you know, I have a need here, I need to fill a position, how do I do that? That was a struggle as well. Posting your own ads and doing interviewing, all of that is very time-consuming and painful, which is why we all put it off because we're like, "You know what? I'll just stick with what I have because I don't want to spend the next 3 months of my time trying to recruit and interview." And all that is very difficult and it puts a big strain on your managers as well. So, Yes, you can do it on your own. There are recruiting companies out there specifically for home improvement, for management level and up. I would strongly recommend using a recruiter for higher-level management positions. And then a third way is you can find recruiters that will work for your company. We talked about it earlier, like having the confidence to go out and get a high-end recruiter. If you've got a $5 million company, well, I can't do that. These people are making $100,000 a year plus. Here's what we did. We went out to the marketplace, found a wonderful recruiter who worked in the corporate world, She had 2 children, left the workforce. Her kids were small. She wanted to find a part-time job working from home.

Oh, nice.

That was it. She wanted to work 10, 20 hours a week. We had enough positions to where, you know, we started out 10 hours a week on a 1099. We had a real lights-out recruiter. Who would do all the job postings for us, who would screen every resume, do all the initial, like a Zoom meeting, like a 20-minute Zoom meeting, and then just hand us on a platter, like the top 3 candidates for the roles that we were trying to fill. So that is another great strategy. You can find people who are, they want to work part-time or on a 1099 basis for your company. Even if it's a few hours a week, you can really get an excellent recruiter to help you with that.

So interesting. Yeah, that's a great, that's a great one.

And our recruiter started out 10 hours, went to 20, and we just brought her on full-time just in April, just this month.

Wow.

Cool. So we have a full-time recruiter, but 3 or 4 years ago it started out small. That's a great way to approach it.

That has got to be one of the greatest feelings ever is actually having a recruiter that works in your company. That's like full-time, just dedicated to, you know, your— in this case, Next Door and Window. But that should be the goal for everybody.

The whole theme today is people, and as an owner, people development is your job. That's it. If you could master that, there is nothing that can stop you.

That's true. And it's—

yeah.

Anyway, so tell me, how is this year? It's been an interesting year so far. How's it going over there?

Yeah. So, the theme always, Brian, is marketing, right? I mean, that's that is the lifeblood of everything. And most of the time in home improvement, marketing is your— is one of your problems. And oftentimes it's the primary problem to the growth of your business. And this year is one of those years where we are seeing declines in our lead flow. So April 23rd, And our core leads are down between 10% and 20% versus the same period last year, 2024. And that's across the board. We do a lot of direct mail. We do a lot of digital, TV, and radio. The one bright spot is field marketing. And that is the one area where we're seeing green. We're seeing, you know, increases in our lead flow from field marketing. So we're adding a lot more events. And we've been very fortunate over this past year to get involved with a big retail program through Costco, which has really given us, you know, plenty of lead flow, which, you know, those opportunities are out there. With affiliate marketing and other types of field marketing. But it's been very difficult with lead flow. So I think that's the top story right now for us is just getting a grasp on what's happening. Is it, you know, we're in the window and door replacement business. Is it kind of isolated to certain niches or industries, or is it kind of widespread? In all of home improvement. There's a lot of uncertainty politically with tariffs and the stock market, and there's a lot of noise in the market right now. And so there's no question it's having an effect on business. What has worked in the past is not working the same way as it has. So you have to adapt and know your numbers and keep trying new things. And when I looked at our marketing report yesterday, it was a lot of red declines across the board. As I said, the field marketing was really the only area where we're seeing growth this year so far.

Has that impacted sales as well? Because sometimes it doesn't.

Well, our sales— I mean, when our appointments are down, sales are going to follow. So again, we started this Costco program, which has given us a lot more leads through that program, resulting in increased sales. I would say that from a closing standpoint, our Sales are solid, so that means people are out there buying. And I, through just improvements in our sales process, we've seen actually increases in our closing ratios.

Well, yeah, but that's how you make up for the down lead flow is if lead flow is down, well, now we got to convert at a higher, at a higher level and hopefully at higher prices so that even though lead flow might be down 10%, we don't take a 10% hit to the top line. We can make up for it with other levers. And so that's why I asked you that, because, because I know you— there's no way business is down 10, 20% over last year with the efficiency.

Yeah, we've been just much more efficient with our lead handling. With our, with our sales process. And we're tightening all that up in a big way. But yeah, this retail program's helped quite a bit. So we're still seeing nice growth in our business overall. But when you, when you take out the retail program and just kind of look at our traditional marketing, it's been very challenging this, this year. And we're, we're in the Chicago market and also in Madison, Wisconsin.

What I think is the next 3, 4 months, I think as this whole tariff thing is getting sorted out, and I think it'll be shorter, short-term, I don't think this is anything that's going to last more than another 3 or 4 months. I think once the noise dissipates, I think things are going to open up big because there's really nothing with the economy that aside from the stock market going down, but that's just people getting jitters and selling off. I think most people, I spoke with my financial advisor, not, I wasn't panicking, but I said, hey, you know, are we just running the course? He said, yeah, we're just running the course. This is going to correct itself. The stock market's not going to crash and burn. And if you're every day making decisions based on your stock portfolio, you could have a, you know, that's like being at the roulette wheel in Vegas. You got ups, you got downs, but this is how people are. I mean, we're still human. We still react emotionally to things. And so if we see that the stock market went down a whole bunch and our 401(k) went down a little bit, I crap, should I really call this window company? Should I really be spending money on my house right now? And that's probably what's going on. I think.

Yeah. Well, the wealth effect, to your point with the stock market going down, housing is held in there really, really strong, especially in Chicago. Chicago was kind of a laggard. It did not grow like Miami and Phoenix and some of these other markets that really exploded over these past 5 years where Chicago was very much growing at more of a normal rate. But Over the last year, Chicago home values have been one of the leaders in the country. So we're all in home improvement and that's the real positive is home values are at least holding real strong or even growing in some markets. And that's what we have to remind our customers that this is about their home. That's probably where they have most of their money tied up. And that's real solid and growing.

And everything is working.

Everybody's working. The economy is growing. Everybody's working. Yeah. And with the tariff situation, this could be a very long, drawn-out negotiation with the tariffs on and they're off. And it looks like they're just on now with China and we're working through negotiating with all the other 180 countries. But I think most of us are somewhat isolated from that as far as our businesses with a lot of our products being made, you know, here in America. And hopefully we will have, you know, pretty stable prices in, in what we offer to the customers. And so I'm feeling really positive about that, that we won't see crazy price increases like we had seen. Me too. Years back.

Yeah, I don't think so.

But yeah, there's definitely a lot of uncertainty and that's why we have to get real aggressive with our marketing and not just sit and wait for the phone to ring. And, and, and the field, field marketing has really been for us an avenue that we're, we're trying to grow to get out and just be more, more active with maybe Proactive, proactively going out.

That's the beauty of this business is you could go out if you have no leads this morning or you don't have enough leads, or you could go out, start knocking on doors. You'll make leads. You for sure, you'll make leads. A lot of businesses can't, can't do that kind of stuff, but we can. But you've got to, um, you can't get emotional about it. This is something late, I think I'm going to write something about this because this whole idea of emotion and logic. I see so many people reacting and overreacting to stuff based on emotion, not on any real facts. And as business owners, we can't afford to do that. I know when I was younger, I made my decisions from emotion. It was a lot of it was not from logic. And you make decisions that way. They usually don't turn out that great. But I would say to everybody listening, if you're experiencing the same thing, don't let it defeat you. Just— you just need to get better at building value for your customer. Tell a good story at the kitchen table and make it easy for people to buy, you know, offer financing. Like Justin said, you know, about home values. The market is solid. Home values are up. People have job, everybody's got a job and we don't have any real unemployment problems. I think we're going to have an employment problem soon as these companies come into America and start building factories and plants and stuff here. I think we're going to have a people problem at some point, but we don't right now. People are paying their bills as much as they can. You know, some people are— there's a lot of debt out there, but for the most part, our customer homeowner, they're, they're pretty good.

I think they're in good shape. And, and I'll— yeah, for sure. We are very fortunate to be in this industry, like you said, Brian, where you could just go out and generate leads, go meet people. At local events and come home with leads and people are buying and home values are up. And it's really a great industry to be a part of. So there's really no excuse to, to not continue to grow through, you know, whatever, you know, economic uncertainty there is out there right now. Cool.

I'm going to leave it at that. We can't end it a better way than that. Just— oh, but wait, wait.

There's one more. There's one more thing. One more.

Oh, there's more. There's more.

Yeah, I can't let— because I want to give folks like something they can go home, they could go do today. And I always go back to when leads are tough, Brian, go to your database. And this was— you asked me what I was most surprised about. So I'm going to say it was probably this. When I asked the question to the whole group, and I don't know, it was 7,500 people, I don't know how many people in the room. And I asked how many out there are mailing to their database at least every quarter, and not more than 5 people raised their hands. And I'm not surprised. I'm surprised, but I've heard it so many times and it is the single most important low-hanging fruit that you have in your business is your database and to mail it with a letter mailer in an envelope in a mailbox every single, at least every quarter, if not 5 to 6 times I would recommend. And you will get a half a percent marketing cost on that investment. There's no better way. And so when leads are tough, I always have to remind us, And this is what we do. Leads are down, we just mailed them a month ago. Okay, let's wait 2 more weeks. Let's mail them again. And it brings returns every time. You're going to be able to work with 60% of those leads who call you because they know and trust you. They're going to tell their friends. Consistency in the mailbox still works. 23 years later, it still works better than anything else out there. For, for return on the investment, you know, at least every quarter. I would argue 5, 6 times a year, get in the mailbox from your customers and you will get, you know, amazing returns and know your repeat and referral numbers. If you're not getting at least 30% of your business from repeat referrals, you're leaving a lot on the table. Because we think you can, you can get that up to 40, 50% of your business could be from repeat referral.

And we do have a company that helps with that, G4 Marketing, of course. But okay, so we're not ending the podcast. Hold on. So that was shocking to me. The other thing that was shocking along those lines was the whole rehash thing. I think when we asked the room how many people have like a rehash program in place, What was it, like 10% of the room, maybe 20% of the room? It was— it wasn't a lot of people. And I told everybody, and that, that right there is a huge opportunity to go back to the people that for whatever reason either didn't buy, they didn't show up to the appointment, or you couldn't set an appointment. Go— that's when he's talking about database. You not only do you have your past customers that you can go back to, but you could go back to all of the people that didn't buy. Just because they didn't buy last month or last year doesn't mean that they can't buy now. So that's great advice. That's great advice. Look at you. You're just a giver and a giver and a giver. We could keep going here. You could, you could keep giving us more and more stuff.

Well, it doesn't get any better than your customers.

No, it doesn't.

Take care of your customers. Make them happy and keep reminding them about you with helpful information and content in the mail. And of course, we're all doing social media and email, and sure, we're all doing that, and that's fine. But there's nothing like the mailer in the mailbox, especially for our demographic, which is still The 40 to 75-year-olds, they love getting their mail still. There's a lot less mail in the mailbox. So there you go.

Yep. Love it. And if you need a resource for that, go to G4 Marketing. They're G4 Marketing. They can help you with that. We were talking about newsletters. You know, you want to send friendly stuff out there. You don't want to— you can't always— I mean, look, it works. You can't always show up with, hey, it's me, it's Justin, or it's Brian from next door. Door and window, hey, it's time for you to give us money again. You gotta cultivate those relationships. But he's right. If you're slow on leads and you haven't gone back to your database, there's gold in that database. Go back and mine it.

Right. You can send them a letter right now and remind them that real estate, you can look up your local market values, but that's going in our next letter. Chicago real estate is up 8 or 9% over last year. Like, who's not going to love that as a homeowner? Just put them in a different state of mind, right? Give them some good positive data to look at.

Well, that's interesting. What's the average home value of your customer? Typical?

Oh, it's in the $400,000 to $500,000.

$400,000 to $500,000.

So that—

so 9% of $500,000 pays for windows. $45,000 pays for windows.

It does. And if it doesn't, you know, we can finance the rest.

That's right.

Yeah, that's cool.

I like that a lot. That's interesting. Let me know how that does. That's, that's a cool thing to add in there.

Well, I know how it does. It's going to come back at a, you know, like a half a percent cost of marketing. I already know because we've been doing it for 20 years, every single 5 or 6 times a year. So—

but that message in particular, have you done that message?

We've done it. Yeah, we try to do it once a year.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. To your point. Yeah. Because you, again, you want to make it conversational and it's great when you do it like an owner just writes a little letter to the customer. To your point, don't make it all a sales thing, but make it, hey, how's it going? Thanks for being our customer. Hey, it's great to be in Chicago. In 2025, home values are rising and they're, we're leading the way. One of the best markets in the country. It's great to be a homeowner. And hey, by the way, you know, we've got a— it's a good time to, to buy windows and doors. So yeah, make it fun and change it up and just connect with your customer like you would write to a friend. That's, that's how we try to— we try to communicate with, with our customers.

As always, this has been great. Brian Kaskavalciyan: Appreciate you. I appreciate your work in the Success Society. We've gotten rave reviews on you as a mastermind facilitator. And for those of you again that are interested in learning more, we'll have more information in the show notes. But we are doing a Discovery Day in July. Love to have you if you're interested in learning what goes on behind the doors, you know, what's going on in this wealthy contractor community, it's a good chance to come and find out. And, you know, love to have you and just reach out to us and we'll let you know how the whole thing works. So thank you.

You're going to get many times over in your time and money back. I don't have any doubt. For anyone out there, if you're unsure, this is, it's great to listen to a podcast and hopefully you could take away and go do something from something you learned, but there is no replacement for being in a group that you can connect with once a month. There's a ton of resources and to go meet in person every quarter, that is the game changer right there. Because that's when you're forced to get outside of the weeds and as they say, work on your business. That's a guaranteed 2 days, 2+ days where you're going to just work on your business and it will transform your life and your business if you give it probably a year or two and you're going to see massive results.

And I'll also add to that, not only are you working on your business, but you're also working on yourself. And that's where— that's when things really start to accelerate. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you again, sir. And until next time, this is Brian Kaskavalciyan and this is the Wealthy Contractor Podcast.