Part 2/2: Home Service Masterclass – How to Find Customers⏐Ep. #127

I got into commercial power washing. I advocate everyone do this. That commands about $1,800 a stock. We probably do between 400, 500, 600 maybe of coil cleaning.

It's 600 grand. Yeah. Dang.

Next year, we'll do $450,000 of crystallites. Get a yard sign. The yard sign is the single best thing you could have. I've done millions of dollars based on that yard sign. He takes a couple rock flyers and goes and throws them in the driveway. That is how to market residential service. I sold the service before I had it.

I say this all the time. Sell it before. Okay, we're picking up where we left off last week with Daniel. If you missed the episode a week ago today, go back and listen to that. Otherwise, just keep listening to this one. You're gonna love it. We're gonna get super specific about how to find customers, how to start home service businesses that are fun and profitable. Enjoy. What's the best way to acquire customers in that line of business?

I would use what's called a rock flyer. I call rock flyer. It's a flyer with a bag of rock. Or the number one, which, if you're in the service industry and you're listening to this podcast, get a yard sign. The amount of people who don't have.

A yard sign, that's stupid. Wasted money.

It's stupid. You're idiots. Like, the yard sign is the single best thing you could have. You put in the yard. They talk to their neighbor. They ask them about it, whatever it might be. They drive past. It costs. I don't care if it costs $10, it's $10.

And they're like $3, aren't they?

What? Yeah, whatever. Yeah.

You ask permission. No, you just put it in there. And how many have complained?

Do not ask permission.

How many have complained?

I don't care.

But, like, it's. I'm. I'm trying to make the point of, like, it's negligible. People don't complain.

A, they don't complain. B, I want to talk about that because too many people care that people complain. I want you to be so mentally strong that you don't even care that they complain.

Yeah, I love it. I love it.

My business. My business. I've done hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars, actually, based on that yard sign. I want to one up your CL comment. So you asked me, do people complain? I have a lady who says, hey, the township, like, bust our chops about, you know, this yard sign. I'm like, I'll pay the fine, right? I don't care. Sure. Next time we're back in the area, we'll pick it up for you, right? I have that lady. Yes. And you know what? We put a sign in our house every year.

Even then.

Even then it's Christmas lights. Because guess what? I probably do 14 of the 20 houses in that neighborhood. Yeah, there's 20 houses. I do 14 of them Christmas lights. But I want to one up your. Your comment about do they complain? I had a lady call me and say, yo, they forgot to put their yard sign out. She wants that sign. She wants everyone to know she paid crank lights and green lights are the best. And that's who did my lights.

So that's amazing.

I make sure tell. Do my guys know they do not get in that truck unless it's full yard signs? Like there's a. I don't care if you forget lights because you can still drive the house. Put a sign out and we're coming back, but you do not forget a yard sign. How we got on that topic, I.

Was asked how you acquire customers the.

Yard sign with the rock flyer. They know you put the yard sign out. And then if while one guy's packing the truck up, usually Chris lights a three man crew, the lowest totem pole guy, he takes a couple rock flyers and goes and throws them in the. In the driveway of like the adjacent four or five houses. That is how to market residential service. I don't care who you're. I don't care if it's. You name it, it doesn't matter. And that's why I'm confident.

Throw it in the driveway from the car.

If you want to put the mailbox, go ahead. Like, my opinion is like, you want to cause a ruckus like you want people. I've had people literally call me and complain about the rock fire. Yes, that was a scary one. Like, you know, think you're lettering, they're gonna call this on you, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, go ahead, dude. I would love a nice newspaper article we have find right? I literally had someone say, you threw these flyers in our neighborhood, but some of my neighbors need you. I'm like, are we complaining or you want. What do you want to do here? You know, some people just like to complain. And the best thing you could do is let. Okay, here's my advice. And we call carbon bombing. I will literally call it operation carpet bomb. Beginning of the springtime. My residential guy knows for power washing, you go out there and you hammer like, you just go out there and throw every neighborhood that has this on it, that needs a roof cleaned or house washed or whatever, and. And they don't answer the phone for the next day. You'll be. Or like, three hours later. Because, you know, like, three hours after you send these out, you're gonna get about 20 calls. People are just gonna. Oh, yell at you.

The timing of it is key.

The time is key. Yeah. Just don't answer the phone for, like, three hours. And then the next day, it's gonna be the. No one calls the next day to complain. They called, right? And they pick it up right there.

Yep.

They're walking back to their house like, I hate these guys. They throw this trash in my, you know, yard. And then guess what? The next week, they see us across the street at the neighbor's house who called me. Go wash their house. Just. That's just how it works.

That's so good.

No, the best is the person who asked for the sign. That was my favorite.

Give me a rough guesstimate. How many rock flyers have you thrown and how many complaints have you gotten? Like, I know it's. It's almost impossible, but, like, it's.

It's almost impossible. Yeah, I mean, I've definitely. Because we've been doing for 12 years, and every season we throw lock flyers. We always do the Christmas lights, too. I. So best thing to do there, have a. Either a younger sibling or like a high school kid. They make the flyers in the basement. People have their own kids make these flyers up. Yeah, I can have my kids, you know, do it. It's flyer, bag, rock, staple. That's it on repeat. 20, 30, 40,000 flyers, you know, maybe more. I mean, I. I've ordered 20,000 in one year before, you know, but I might still have some of those, you know, and at first I said, my manager, I said, dude, no one sees this flyer. If it's in our basement, get it out, launch it, you know, toss that thing. And so that's, like, really important to. To me is, like, making sure, like, people know who. Who we are. Right.

My dad used to say, you can't catch a fish if your hook's out of the water, because every five minutes, let's try this lure. Let's try that lure. Let's.

Yep.

Nope.

Yeah, exactly. But yeah, lure in. In the water. And that's. That's a really good analogy. So I actually just talked to a friend before our call. Here I was on the phone, and he's, like, starting a new business. I Said the best advice I give you is that no one knows who you are. So look at yourself in the mirror because the only person who knows right now that you're starting a business and you need to be everybody.

Yeah.

And the more people who know, the better you're going to be. I mean, that's really like on a daily basis. Like, that's what I do is make sure people know who our coil cleaning business, because it's my favorite thing to do is our best margins. I just make more and more people know this is what we offer. But yeah, Crystal Lights is, is great. I really added that on to the employees to be able to have a something to do for like from November burp too.

Yeah, it's kind of like, it's kind of like a home builder, like always needing something for his contractors to do. Like, yeah, we'll take this con, this carpet job. Yeah, we'll do this drywall job. It keeps my guys busy. It's the kind of that equivalent.

Well, exactly. But then it actually turned into a really great business and we're like, oh, wow. Like, you know, I'll put 90 grand in my pocket at the end of the Crystal Lights. He's my brother, he's my partner in Crystal lights. He puts 90 grand in his pocket and like, we kind of know it's like guaranteed.

Yeah.

You know, from. We were working like three quarter days from September, October 1st, until about December 10th, 12th. And because the calls die off and then we do take them down. But you could put up like three or four houses, five houses in a day. Like your crew is skilled. We could take it down about 15 in a day. Great.

500 a pop.

How much per job? Yeah, no, Our minimum is 800.

Won't go a lot cheaper than your customers. I pay five, I beat them up.

We won't. That's a perfect example of like, hey, that's great. You pay 5 because there's someone else who wants to pay 8. And we tell them, like, look, we only have an eight week window. Like, if you want to be on our schedule, like, this is it. If you want.

See you later, we don't need you. And that's like the best sales pitch ever is like, we don't care if we're fine, don't. All right, 800. Fine.

Yeah, I, I and you know, we, I, we have a couple people who've like switched from previous from other companies. Now they're like, yeah, we just, that guy just rubs us the wrong way. We'll pay him to not come back. Right. We'll pay you guys so we don't deal with him.

You know what's hilarious about all this? I'm bragging about paying 510ft away from me outside, my lights are still up because my cheap guy has still not taken them down. And it's January 23rd right now.

See that? You're getting. You're getting. That's. That's exactly. And we had people, like, switch to us because, like, he didn't put my lights up till, like, December 10th. And I'm like, well, if you were our customer, like, we'd have you ready to go in October, November. Whenever you want to plug them in, just fire them up. So, yeah, like, there's. There's. You can pay for some professionalism there. But our most expensive 5, $6,000 lights jobs that people do.

That's amazing. What kind of bags do you use for your Rock Flyers? Like, Ziploc.

I had a company out of Orlando. They. They make this fly. They make this plastic bag that fits my.

Okay. And it's, like, branded.

No, the flyers, the brand.

Okay.

It's just. It's just nice and neat.

Yeah, just like, clear plastic.

Yeah, clear plastic bag. Thin. It just keeps it from getting wet and, you know, stable over the top. But, yeah, I have it specked out.

Okay. Where do you get the rocks from? Like, a bag at Home Depot.

Buy Home Depot's fine driveway. Whatever. You know, whatever rock you want. You know, you want to be a good weight. You know you're throwing that thing, you don't want to be, like, too heavy where it blows out. You don't want to be too light where it flies into the yard. Like, kind of want the ideal.

Okay.

I recommend giving a few tosses to see how many rocks you want.

Yeah. Okay.

That's actually a funnier phone call. People like, what do I do with this rock? Yeah, whatever you want. I don't care.

With a rock, you need.

You need more to do if you clean their house.

That's what I do. Oh, all right. So you used the Rock Flyers to find any home service, job, residential, anyone.

Yes. And a yard sign. Those two combinations of those things. The third secret there is you have a wrapped vehicle, but yes, you have a yard sign. The initial contact. Right. Like, what is the initial contact? Is it a Google click? Is it a postcard? Is it a Rock Flyer? Like, what does the initial contact look like for your customer? And then there's other forms of contact where the initial one is that Rock Flyer. The second Contact is they see your wrapped truck. The third contact is that yard sign in the yard. Right. There's all those things go into your next customer.

What would you say roughly your conversion rate is on these rock flyers? You get two customers, three throw a hundred.

So it's probably between five and ten, I would say.

Yeah, crazy.

Once again, it's highly targeted. It's the customer because you're choosing the customer. You know, the house you're throwing it to. Right?

Yeah.

I'm not throwing these in Center City Books Bear screen. Right. I'm throwing them to the outskirts where I'm throwing them to a golf course community. Right. Where the people have some money. I'm selecting it. That's why I honestly hate AdWords and that stuff because it's such a blanket coverage that it's just picking so much garbage. You know, I just trash customers who I are not my customer. And I've done such a good job of like identifying my customer, which I think a lot of people have to do that like identity who is your customer and knowing that is leads to a lot more success.

Yeah, dude, I've said this quote like a dozen times over the last month, sometimes on this podcast because I'm obsessed with it. And it's the harder way is usually the better way. AdWords are easy. Facebook ads are easy, right? You just, oh, I just want to sit in my office and put up some AdWords and do it. But it's not as effective actually. Stuffing these bags with rocks, stapling them, getting in the truck, driving around. Maybe it's hot, maybe it's cold, maybe it's raining. Going to the strategic neighborhoods, throwing them, it just, it's so much more fruitful. Going to the networking meetings where, where you find the guy that has a twelve thousand dollar water tower contract. Like you're not finding him with AdWords, you're just not. You got to get outside of your house.

Yeah, that was a wrestling pizza party. I coached my kids wrestling.

Dude, I'm a wrestler. I'm a wrestler.

I'm not good, but I wrestle.

Yeah. But yeah, I coached as well.

I was standing next to. Yes. My, my daughter, she's seven and I have a son who's five. And I was at their two years ago, the wrestling party and the dude next year was wearing a shirt that said, you know one of the companies I was trying to get into. I'm like, yo, what's with this? He's like, I do that. I'm like, oh, I coach with you and. Which is Kind of how I. I was. I was taught that, like, I never asked people what they do. It was just funny how, like, we knew each other all year. From wrestling. Yeah, he was the other coach, but we never talked about what we did. And I'm like, well, I can do this for you. And he's like, great, Send me some prices.

So that's amazing.

I did, like, it's close to 100 grand worth of water towers.

Jeez. All right, so wrap truck, rock flyers, yard signs. That's the recipe for finding customers in any home service niche residential.

That is the way to go. And I don't care who you are, I will battle you to the death on that one. I mean, it doesn't. It doesn't matter.

Like, yes, specifically, yard signs after you do a job at that house, or, like, yard signs anywhere, like, neighborhood entrances.

I would use them for both, actually. Yeah, I like a yard sign at the neighborhood entrance as well. If you're not getting yelled at by, like, zoning or somebody, you're not putting enough out. That's also factual. But if the guy is showing up, I don't care if it's plumbing. Right. It's very simple math. It's. It's. If I'm going to your house, the house next to you is probably built the exact same time. So if your water here is going bad, guess who's water here is going bad next? Everyone around you. So the plumber. Even though mine is a little easier because it's outside. Like, you could see the house being cleaned, right? Blacktop asphalt. You can see the asphalt being done. You want that yard sign? No, Never ask a. As soon as the guys get out of the truck, I want the yard sign out. Before the job is done, I want out. Like, yeah, the first minute my guys know, like, as soon as point one guy gets out of the truck, goes hook up water, next I can tell the truck to put a yard sign out. It's a very simple recipe for success for residential business. No matter which business it is. It's. It's. That's, say, dope.

Do you do anything specific with your copywriting, like, with the signage, like. Because when I put out yard signs, I want it to be as obvious as possible. The letters need to be as big as possible. If the logo doesn't add value, there's no logo. Phone number, name. Like, what do you do on your copywriting on both your flyers and your yard signs? That has proven to be effective.

So flyers are different. So. And one of the things someone said to Me, which I was a really great is like always get them to the website, right. Like is I could give you like this much information on a flyer, but I can give you this much information, like massive amounts of information on a website. So you always want to get them to a website, ideally through a postcard or a flyer. But on a flyer for Christmas lights we break down like the process of like, hey, we're going to design it, we're going to install it, we're going to maintain it, we're going to take it down, right. Like those, those are four bullet points right on the flyer so they know what they're getting. And then a picture of a house that's done with a yard sign. It is company name. Because people I think make the mistakes so much they don't put their company name on it. Like, yeah, Gutter cleaning. It's like, well, who, who, who clean gutters? It drives me.

I'm a wall that tells me that it's Chuck in a truck.

Yes.

Right.

Yes. Yep. So you want. First thing to do is put our name on top, right? It's Kringle Lights who did it? It's Apex Offwatch who did it. That's, that's number one. And then the second thing would be the service done, right. And their phone number. So like what was, what was, what do we do? I actually, it's funny, I don't even think Kringleites has a service because like it's kind of self applied. But for Apex Softwash, you know, roof cleaning or house wash, like that, like that, that's the main, the biggest ticket item that got done, I would have on the art side, but let's say it's a plumber and you can't put it on there. Then just put the name of the business and the phone number. That's it. Because they're going to, they're going to talk to a neighbor, they're gonna find out what was done. You were.

So video is cool. But you know what's better? Long form audio via podcast and my newsletter tkopod. Do go there to subscribe for free to my newsletter. It's one email a week. Very tactical. And then go to my audio podcast. Three episodes a week. Stuff like this, you're going to love it. All free. No sleazy sales pitch. Tkopod.com if I did a bad job.

How long you leave that yard sign in the yard for?

Yeah, you're.

You're ripped out in three seconds.

That's the implied message, right?

Message is that like this person was a trusted person. Came to my house. They did good. They didn't rob me. You didn't assault my wife or dog or whoever's in the house. Like, this is this. They're a reputable.

Yeah. And the same principles. You know, if you sell a house, you got a yard sign out there for the realtor. Why do you leave the sign out there and put sold on it? The house is already sold. You're doing the realtor a solid. They did a good job. Right. If they did a crap job, they wouldn't leave it up.

Yeah, exactly. So that's. That's a. To me, there's not even a topic or discussion to be had that is just yes and move on to the next, which is whatever. As far as my. My journey goes. Not that I never have enough. I'm definitely a person. Like, I'm always, like, trying to. I'm always hungry for. For. For more. But I like to work out. So this is kind of a funny story. My. My brother and I, or actually, probably just me in the beginning, there's a local college, King's College. Actually, a lot of people from Utah ended up coming to King's College because of their PA program. We had no gym, so Hometown had no gym. And it really drove me nuts. I had to drive downtown. I live on top of a mountain, so, like, there's a physical barrier called the mountain. That bad weather, just in general, like, no one wants to drive down the mountain. It adds an extra five minutes to your trip that you don't want to do.

How many people live up on this mountain?

Probably like 12 to 15,000 now. Yeah, maybe.

Oh, wow. Okay. Quite a bit.

Yeah.

So certainly enough to have a gym.

Certainly enough to have a gym. So I would drive downtown, and I'm probably 25 at the time. And so I'm. I'm actually sneaking into this college gym. I'm. I'm. I no longer am in college. Look like I'm in college, but don't go to college. I just like to work out. And it just happens to be the better gym in the area to. To work out. Or I just like this one and it was free. Cause I was sneaking in. So at first I, like, had someone's ID and just scan on the door and go work out. And then you do my thing and leave. And then that person graduated. So I didn't have their ID anymore. But. But definitely the security guard. Every day, just from walking in, I. I would. I was there more than any student in King's college history. And I didn't go there. So you just wave the security guard and then I time it where like it was a glass door when someone was walking out of the gym.

Just kind of hang in the parking lot.

Yep.

Hang right there.

Or like if no one was at the glass door, always go to the bathroom or water fountain. Right. To help your timing out.

Yep.

And then you're there walking out. I'm walking in, I go use the gym. So now it's like, I don't know, like year five, like I did for a while. Like, I mean like every, like I would go five times a week and, and use this gym. So now I'm in there working out and this one kid like leaves his weights like all over the floor. Like they're just in complete disarray. And he leaves. He's like out on the street and the ways you could see all glass windows, like which way this kid went. So I walk out of the gym, I open the door, I yell like, yo, buddy, you don't need your weights. He's like, yeah. I'm like, come clean them up. Right. And security guards made fun of me for like the next year after that thing, I was like the gym police.

Making sure you're like that viral tick tocker that like he takes zip ties to the shopping carts and if someone leaves them out there, he ties them to the car.

It's like.

So I like, you're a. You're a vigilante for good.

I. I am. And that's exactly right. So I ended up doing this for probably six years, seven years, I don't know. I actually like was designing. I was getting ideas for the gym I wanted to build. And like, it worked out that the one time I was in there, like it was all the college students are on break, right. And I'm not sure if they thought I was now like professor because I've there for so long. I'm working out, then I have my. It was great. You could bring your own speaker, play your own music. It was, it was awesome. And security guard walks in. I'm like, oh no. Like I'm busted. Like I'm the only person here. I have no id. Like I'm not. And so before he says something to me, I said, what song you want to hear? And you know, put his song on. He started working out with me.

That's amazing.

Yeah, it was great.

So.

But it gave me the, the knowledge and like, I understood. We built a 24 hour gym and because I knew how to Sneak into a gym. I knew how to prevent people from sneaking into our own gym. And so it's cool. So we built a gym.

And how did you build it from scratch? Like, that's. I can't get that out of my head. Like, what did you do?

So something we didn't talk about, but it's like the next level of business is taxes. And we ended up power washing business started my childhood tree fort and I had a needed place to go because we were growing. So bought a old carpet building. My dad was able to put his office in the middle floor. Me, my wife moved into the top floor and the basement area, outside area was our shop for. For Apex for the powers and business. And with it though came like 2 acres or 3 acres of land right on our main thoroughfare in our hometown. So amount I was talking about, you have to drive past this gym to leave Mount Top. And so we had the land. And actually at my wedding, I believe my. My dad was talking to someone, a family member who knew how to build stuff. And we're like, all right, well we have some like abra able bodied men and we don't know what we're doing, but like, let's. Let's do it. So he was using it as like a showpiece to build this like special building. And we were using it as like a cheaper cost, you know, like we were able to build this thing for 600 grand when our quote was for like 1.2 million to do it. It. I understand why now. It took us three years to do it.

So far, my favorite quote from you so far has been we don't know what we're doing, so let's do it. Like, that's entrepreneurship.

That's. That's entrepreneurship. Yeah. I mean my favorite compliment I've ever gotten in my entire life was from this guy who I. I was, I was building a layout of the gym and I had no idea what I was doing for a layout. I was just only going to the gym that was built previously in my hometown and then. And go after that. And he said to me, he's like, you don't know what you don't know. Like, and you're like, okay, admitting that. And I looked at him like, I don't even know what that means. He's like, exactly. And what he meant was like, you're. I have zero fear to tell you I don't know what I'm doing. And one of my biggest complaints is with these people who like pretend to know what they're doing and they don't. And like, that drives me up a wall. It's like, dude, like, why is it your ego, like, why are you putting up this front to, to, to know when like eventually gets exposed that you don't know? And I will be the first to admit when I don't know something. And that has really been beneficial, like, to me because he looked at me, he's like, you don't know what you're doing? I'm like, no, I don't know what I'm doing. He's like, you want to let your gym out this way? I'm like, great. Your. You sell fitness equipment. Like, you know way more gyms than I do. Like, yeah. Okay. What you just said to me, as long as it makes sense, I'll trust it. If what you say to me doesn't make sense and I can't figure it out, then it's probably either you're lying to me or you don't know. I have a pretty good intuition. I'm sure you can relate to that. So this guy like gave me the layout I wanted for the gym and how we should have it. And I'm like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And then just using like modern day psychology, like where the first time you walk in is our treadmill. And why is it the treadmill? Because it's the easiest, most comfortable, most recognizable piece of equipment in the gym. And so when anyone walks in that gym, like, that's a treadmill. Perfect. I know how to use that. I'm now comfortable. Yeah, right.

I'm not overwhelmed.

I want to stay here and you want to stay here. The most intricate or like, you know, most skillful piece of equipment is going to be a squat rack and it's all in the back corner. And you know, you keep these high skill people away from the low skill people. And that's a, that's by design. Right.

And it's the same as Planet Fitness's model. Right? Like they want it to be approachable to everyone.

Approachable, everybody. And yeah, inviting environment, having all that's really important. And I think it's like year six now, five now. But yeah. So yeah, somewhere I, I never really keep track of that stuff. I don't, it doesn't really bother me like when we started or not. I don't, I always have this like, philosophy of like, I can go to business tomorrow. Like, I don't know, like something can happen and, and like we're done. So like, does it really matter? I've been here 10 years? Like, no, because, like, the next year might be here last year.

And how's the gym doing? Is it the only gym in town still?

So. No, we had a competitor. I happened to your point. I was at a networking event. This guy did a really great topic. He talked about. It was really interesting. I was really invested in his conversation. I was participating in it. And I went up to him afterwards. I said, hey, I'm in Mountaintop 2. I'm actually building a gym. And he took, like, two steps back from me.

So you just told him that you owned a gym, and that's when he was standing?

Yeah, he owned. He owned two buildings and a manufacturing plant, like, in the same hometown as I did. And we're talking about stuff. And I'm like, oh, well, hey, I'm in Mountain Top. I'm going to actually do this. And he took those two steps back. He's like, I have to tell you something. He's like, I just, like, emailed a guy at least to sign one of my warehouse spaces to put a gym in.

And he's like, and you were about to open or you'd already opened.

I'm about to start building. Like, I. I have the land. Like, I have the land ready. Like, a permit just got approved. The guy's like, I don't know what to do here because I just met you and you're cool, but, like, I just signed this lease with this guy. Like, so I'm telling you both, like, what's going on? And I said to the guy, I said, look, he just signed. He's like, in the process of signing a lease, like, you might save him some money, you know, by telling him, don't do it. And I don't know if that's seen as, like, cocky from my standpoint, but I was like, yo, we just spent 100 grand engineering, like, we're doing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And the guy's like, your location is better than not. Mine is.

So I was just gonna say that you have a killer location.

Our location is fantastic. He's like an industrial park back. Like, total. I've not on purpose. I've never driven past this guy's place just because of where it is. Whereas, like, he has to drive past my place to get to his place. And so the guy, he emailed me said, hey, he's going to move forward. He's going to do it. And this is actually kind of funny. I do like the. Not that I'm purposely competitive, but I'm definitely. I enjoy the game and he. He built his gym. He was open first. It took us longer because he was just renting a space out. We were building it from scratch. Our first month, we added a thousand members. So from zero thousand, like, maybe a month and a half, you know?

But that's a tenth of the town.

Yeah, yeah. Which is funny because that if you look at the numbers, like, that's how many members, like the percent. We were doing the business plan, doing the math, you have about 10% of people who own gym memberships, like, in the United States. So I'm like, that was the goal. 10th the town.

We're saturated. We're done.

Yeah. Which is part of a problem I'm having now is that we are at the ceiling. It's like, what are you doing? You hit a ceiling, Right? I can't do any more. So I spend very little time on.

The gym because raise prices. Not that you want to, but that.

Guy, he was only open. Wasn't open on Sundays. Right. So one of the first things we did was show your ID Sunday. So if you were a member of any other gym in the area, you could show your ID on Sundays and work out our gym for free. So after, like, two months, the guy's like, well, I guess I got to open on Sunday because all my people are, like, leaving to go here.

And so you. Sorry, you let them work out for free if it was on a Sunday? Anyone, even if they weren't a member. Yeah, brilliant.

Show your ID Sunday. So show your id and you come into our place and check it out and use it and get familiar with it.

Were you able to track how many you converted from that?

I don't. I'm not a big track convert guy, which, like, my one friend hates that.

Yeah.

I'm like, dude, I just know it works.

Yeah.

Like, I'm not gonna waste my time, like, tracking if I already know it's good to go.

Well, like, you're familiar with the midwit meme, right? Like, the distribution curve on one end, it's like, it just works. And then in the middle, it's like, oh, no, we gotta track this. We got a conversion rate. What are the attribution metrics we use in UTM parameters yet? And then on the other end, it's like, it just works.

It just works.

Just works.

Right?

You graduate past all that tracking?

Yeah, I don't think it's that important as long as, like, you have a pulse on it. Right. I was at the gym. I could see faces I didn't recognize. I'M like, yeah, okay, this is working. You know, what's going on here? And. And I knew he had a couple hundred members that might even want to work out on Sundays. It was closed, so why not do it? And so it worked out well and enough where in like, four months, he closed up shop, went out of business. And so I felt kind of bad, but at the same time, like, I don't feel bad. I'm like, dude, you didn't try.

He had the luxury of being warned, and he ignored it. How often do people get that? Yeah, not that, like, I mean, if it were you, would you have ignored him?

Right.

In his defense, I did warn him.

I did the right thing and said.

I'm saying you probably would have opened too, anyway if the roles were reversed. Right.

Based on my location, I don't know. Like, it's really hard to beat our stuff. But to your point, maybe because someone.

Just the confidence, someone moved into his.

Space who already had two gyms in the area. I'm not sure how well they're doing, but so we do have another gym now in the hometown. And, you know, so there's some competition there, but, you know, we're still doing well. And. And I honestly think we're at that. That ceiling where, like, yeah, like, you said you could raise prices, but then you're changing your model from, you know, high value to, like, higher cost.

So what's your monthly cost and how many members do you have today?

So we started at 25, and during COVID we raised it, like, cost of everything kind of went up. The cleaning chemicals went up. We changed it to 29. I actually wanted to kind of change it early before, like, inflation kind of hit. I was more so raising prices just on kind of your principle of, like, cutting some people out. But also we had more costs with COVID so charging 29, and we're about 1200 members.

Nice.

We were at 1500 before COVID and Covid like, killed people. Or some people had never came back to the gym who were like, are afraid of. Of COVID so crazy. Like, still battling back from that Covid times, which I say if you survived Covid, you could survive, like, anything ever in the gym business. Especially.

What did you do to get those first thousand customers so quickly brand new, just opening.

Yeah, like, there was. There was that other gym that supplied. Didn't know the gym existed. So, like, it was. Yeah, we bought the land. Yeah, I spent 200 grand on land. Like, that was. I told people that was my marketing.

Like, yeah, land like you cannot so much pent up demand, no supply. Right place, right time. Yeah. Which is why you open. That was your whole thesis.

That was my thesis. And like, it's funny because you talk to people and like, I usually don't say anything to anybody when it comes to, like, business. I, I'm like a very, like, shut up until it's done right type guy. Because, like, you know, there's people who like, talk, right? Like, oh, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna have five locations. I'm like, shut up. Like, yeah, do it right. So I, I remember being at like, you're getting my for ice cream and. And someone overheard it. Guy's like, wait a minute, you're putting a gym in the mount up. Like, yeah. He's like, oh, my God, it's amazing.

Right?

Like, so everybody kind of had the same thing. It was like, that's a home run. Like, that's all you heard? That's a home run. Like, you'll, you'll do well. But if you didn't have the right business, you could definitely screw it up. But we did well. And then my brother, his girlfriend he met was from an area like about half hour north, and he's like, yo, they have no gym. Let's put one there. So we end up renting a space and put one there. So.

Oh, two gyms.

Yes, we have two gyms now. And the hardest part is trying to find that real estate for another one. So you kind of have to have a good spot and all the good places are gone. Yeah, but so we have two gyms and that one does around the same thing, has around 1200 members and it's good. Yeah, they're actually one of my favorite things is going to work out at that one because no one knows who I am. And yeah, get an incognito workout in. It's great. I play a little bit of like undercover boss.

Secret shopper.

Yeah, Secret shop. It's fun. I give it a good review.

Yeah, I, I could talk to you all day. I literally have a headache, which is always a good sign from these podcasts because I'm just like invested in everything you're saying, which means it'll be a good, A good one. So good. Thank you for your time.

Yeah, no, I, I feel the same way. So whenever, you know, round two or we'll discuss more.

Yeah. Kindred spirits. I mean, it started off right with Diablo 2.

So you logging in tonight or what? You logging on?

Dude, I haven't played Diablo in years. I Haven't.

Yeah.

You still play two.

I fired it up during COVID and unfortunately it sucked. It's crazy. And all the stuff that we liked about it. There's so many bots. Like, the bots ruined the game. So, like, these guys would play and have, like, their bots follow them. So, like, they were going. They're going to Chaos Run. And, like, they would automatically have a buff from the barbarian. They'd buff from the Paladin. Like, they would just have their. It was like, stupid almost. And everyone knew how to play the game and be the best at it. So, like, it was too easy. Like, I used to love the struggle. Like. Like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trying to go kill a boss, like, by ourselves, like, was such a hard thing to do. The only other thing I wanted to say to you, and we'll hop off and try whatever, is I was at my friend's bachelor party in Pittsburgh and I was like, yo, actually this dude on Twitter that just hired this guy from India or Pakistan to. To teach his kid math or physics, whatever it was. And across the table, this dude who. I don't know who he is, Chase stands up. He's like, that's one of my best friends.

Oh.

I was like, what?

Oh, Chase Green. Yeah. So that's amazing.

Yeah, it was wild, dude.

That's how I found you on Twitter.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Chase just standing up at a random steakhouse in Pittsburgh I've never met before either. Yeah, so it was like one of the first thing I said.

And I were best friends in high school. That's so funny.

It was wild. It was like, you know, six degrees of separation. Like, dude, he knew you. And I just saw tweeted, which I want to ask. How's piano lessons going?

Oh, it's fine. We actually have an in person tutor now, believe it or not.

Oh, so no, it's not fine then?

Because the. Well, no, it was fine. I just. I upgraded. I upgraded in person. I went up.

You're saying it was an upgrade. So that's I'm looking for. Okay.

Yeah, it. It worked, but it wasn't as good as in person, but it was much, much cheaper.

Oh, okay. All right, Good to know. Yeah, I have a piano and my kid is. Is kind of interested. One of the. There's a teacher down the street, so I. I just got.

Okay, dude, I. I forgot to ask you one thing, and I know we're out of time, but what's quick, real quick.

We can always recap whenever you want to. I'm good. I'M flexible.

What's the quick and dirty on the permanent light business? Do you like it? Don't like it.

The permanent light business, from a business standpoint, sucks. From a user standpoint, it's great. An Indian guy, I'm saying he's Indian because Indian people are very smart with their money. He came out, I gave him a quote. I usually don't go to people's houses, but it's permanent. So I, I come to the guy's house. You typically do everything online. I send, I'm not some Instagram or some Twitter fame for just a Microsoft paint. I, I bring this guy, I go this guy's house and he's like, how much for seasonal? Like, it's gonna be a thousand bucks. Say how much are permanent? 2500. He's like, okay, permanent, done. And I'm like, all right. He's like, why would never do permanent? I said, because some people don't do math. And the guy's like, if I'm gonna do this for three, four years, it's paid off.

It's an investment.

Yeah, dude, I've had people pay me $20,000 over the course of the last seven years to do their seasonal lights. And the guy's like, it's a no brainer. It sucks as a business because I got a message today like, hey, like, what's with this? Right? And this lady can't, she's 70 years old, she can't upload her schedule. And what am I supposed to do about it, right? I, I, I, I can't train her any better. I can't.

You're not getting any more money out of her.

I'm not getting any more money out of it. So I hate them. I, I, like, that's the, the down dirties. I hate them.

But it could be a good like, quote downsell if, if you don't get the, the recurring sale. It could be like a throwaway sale.

Yes, but there's, there's unfortunately, okay, the seasonal after January 5th or December 25th, I never hear from the rest of the year. And guess what? They're coming back next year. I've done almost a hundred thousand dollars worth of permanent lights and permanent's a new thing. The problem is I have now 25 or 20 liabilities out there.

Yeah.

Because. Yeah, if something goes wrong and these are permanent, like they're expecting it to.

Be literally a liability. And your seasonal stuff is literally an asset.

Yep.

Period.

That's it. So from a standpoint, I actually hate them. I mean, yeah, I can make like a three thousand dollar profit in a day's worth of work. But it just has an underlying, like loose sleep over it. Like if I did, if I had a million, if I had, let's say, a thousand of these jobs out there, I would have to have a full time guy who just like handles stuff that goes wrong, you know?

Yeah.

Permanent.

It's just a different business altogether.

It is? Yeah.

Cool, man. Well, thank you. I'm starving. I gotta go get eat a late lunch, but.

Okay. Me too. Sounds good.

I appreciate your time.

Appreciate it. Yeah.

Yeah. See ya. All right. Thanks for listening to the Kerner office. Please share with a friend. We'll see you next time.