The Smart Way to Start Small and Still Win Big

Business is relatively easy if you use common sense.

What's your playbook for turning a truck and a phone into a sellable asset? That's just cash flowing nicely.

My roofing company, like, we don't have a truck. We only have the phone because we're.

Just marketing and you sub out all your work.

Yes, about the work.

That's what we do.

You don't even need the truck. I've always went and sold it first without having the product go sell it first. Having fake Facebook accounts is a very valuable thing.

I agree.

Like, insanely valuable.

I had a company that did 9.8 million its first 90 days and it was 100% through organic Facebook marketplace.

Post business for me was a cure of my anxiety because, like, there is always something to work on.

If you had to start from zero tomorrow, what business would you start?

I'm very optimistic. I'm probably one of the most optimistic people you'll meet, but I'm not optimistically stupid. You know what that means is like, the reality is I don't know and I don't know. So because I don't know, I'm going to take precautions. And it's like jumping into a pool of water. We don't know if it's 3ft deep or if it's 33ft deep. So I'm confident I can jump into water, but I'm not confident of the depth of the water.

Oh, what a good analogy. Just to get all the listeners caught up to speed, I asked a question right before I hit record. He has two gyms, he's opening his third. And I said, do you think it's going to do better? Your third one will do better than the other two. So.

So, yeah, I. I mean, I'm confident I could build a gym and I'm confident the area is very good. So to try to answer your question best, the area, affluency wise, you know, they had definitely more money, good market, good people. Yes, we'll do better. There, however, are two other gyms in that area. I'm very confident that we are better than both those gyms because I've been to them, I've seen them, I've got the feedback from the community. Those gyms suck. Yes, we will do better than them. So maybe in the short term we won't be as successful because I have to put those other two out of business first. But once we do, then I think they actually should be more successful than the other two.

I want to get back to, like, four different things. You Just said, but before I do, is there anything strategic you do when opening a gym to like specifically steal customers for your competitors or do you just build a great product and service and wait for them to come?

So funny, because I feel like there is so much we have to talk about. And two add people are bad together. We think we'd be like a mediator. Look, I always say business is relatively easy if you use common sense. And one of our competitors in our hometown, our first gym opened up. They were closed on Sundays. And I'm like, that's absolutely stupid. You know, like, like, okay, easy. We had show your ID Sundays. So if you showed your ID from any other gym in the area on a Sunday, you could work at our gym for free.

Yeah.

And within a month, that guy was out of business. It made no sense, you know, so these people who want to work on Sunday had no place to go listen to your market. They want to work out on Sunday. You open your ass up or guess what, you're gonna be done. And so yeah, that was a, an easy way to steal them. As far as going into, we always kind of. I was very selective on where we went. I'm not currently on the topic of like, you know, diving into head first into water. I don't know, I'm not gonna go like sit next to a planet fitness. Like I don't know if we're that good yet.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, I would just stay away from like an angry dog. I don't know what they're going to do. So I like to go into these markets where I know the gym's already there and I know that we can beat them. So there was a anytime fitness down the road from our second location. The word on the street was this gym was just poorly run, not update on equipment. So we just go there and ward gets out real fast. Actually, you'll like this one. This is funny. War gets out real fast in today's day and age. So if as long as you put out a good product, I don't think there's any reason that you have to do anything special. People will talk, especially in like gym communities. Like they talk to friends who go to other gyms and they'll eventually, you know, pull their way in the ears.

I interviewed a guy, episode 58 that opens laundromats and he will only open at an intersection that already has two to four other laundromats, assuming that they're garbage and old school and just run down, which they almost always are, because he knows that the Local community is already in the behavior of getting their laundry done at that intersection. And he always, always steals the majority of the market.

I love it. Yeah, that's a great idea. But the key words are he picks a rundown laundromat. Right. He's not going against someone like him because that would be a problem there. Going into Planet Fitness is not going against a rundown laundromat. You know, there's a big difference there. But this is funny. Like you, I know you love marketing too. So this was a my recent, like, marketing ploy. I have some land next to the first gym that just kind of vacant land. We could develop it for whatever. We have not figured out what we want to do with it yet. I usually like to travel around, like to different cities and stuff like that to see like what they have and then bring them back to our area. There's a joke that like, if the world ended today, it would take two years to end in northeastern Pennsylvania because, like, if an asteroid hit Texas, we wouldn't know it for a while.

Yeah.

Because that's just how things are. Which makes it.

That's nice, actually.

You see, Is it nice? Right? So there's this dynamic and I always. The optimism in me always plays to your side of it, which is.

I asked him how big his business is. Two and a half million dollars a year, double digit margins. He gets 100% of his business from Facebook Marketplace Organic. Like not boosting posts, just posting like once a week. I had a company that did 9.8 million its first 90 days selling Bitcoin miners. And it was 100% through Face Organic Facebook Marketplace posts. And so we had multiple accounts. Just because Facebook doesn't want you to post the same thing at a time.

Sure.

Right. And there's hundreds of different makes and models of minors. And so we created multiple accounts out of necessity and funneled all the leads back to one place. There are just certain niches, whether products or services that just crush on Facebook Marketplace. And if you find that it's really helpful to have multiple accounts so you can post multiple times.

I know I might be like, can you almost like hire somebody? Is there a company that does that like, you know, is trustworthy?

There needs to be. There needs to be an agency. Because I thought about that.

It's actually, it's a good idea. Or you know, I have, you know, we always see the groups, oh, recommend a power washing company. Recommend this company. Recommend this. And then like, you know, there's 85 responses in there. But if you have eight people recommend the same company. It's like, wow, that really built trust and built value. But like I said, morally is that messed up.

Right. That's kind of a different ball game in a sense. Right?

Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. You're just having, you know, more leads out there.

Right.

I'm like playing on the human psychology of trust.

Yeah.

And I'm like, well, if I'm not doing it, somebody else is probably doing it. You know what I mean?

Right, right. If I don't sell this guy crack, someone else's.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, hey, I'm a libertarian. You can't win that one on me. Like I said to you earlier, before we jumped on was I had a great response from your clients, your listeners, you know, ask him. I actually wish I had some questions from the first episode that people had or I'm not sure if you have any.

I have questions for it.

Okay. But yeah, people did reach out to me and say they liked it and I thought that was pretty cool, you know. So I'm ready to dive into any service related stuff, but I don't think I ever answered the haters. I hate those people who are just overly optimistic.

Oh yeah, yeah.

That have this. I'm not going to say their name because I, you know, to each. I don't believe in badmouthing people, but I never have built a business at zero and said like, oh, we're doing 100 million.

Yeah.

I'm like, maybe you won't, you know, like, I mean, yeah, I would like to do 100 million. But like the reality is, I don't know, don't. I don't agree with that mindset of that mentality of like you were going to 100 million because like that focuses on like the end number. And I think it's more important to focus on like the system and the processes that like can get you to the end number or that are more under your control or they're more under your control. That's fine too. Yeah, the system and processes are totally under my control.

It's like, instead you should be like, I'm so excited to launch this because I'm going to cold call 100 people a day over the next hundred days.

That's fine. Yeah. No matter what. I'd fully support that person because a very actionable versus I'm gonna hit 100 million. I was debating with some people who just for some reason had it in their heads that they were going to be a five million dollar power washing company. I'm like, I've been doing for 13 years. I'm. I'm like 5 million for power. Shooting is really, really difficult. You know, like how.

Yeah, how many crews is that?

It's. You're probably doing like three crews. Gets you to a million. So three times, you know, 15 crews. That's a lot of crews. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and then, of course, you're having some scale in there, so it might be more than that, but let's just focus on getting the first hundred grand. You know, I don't know. I always. I was always like, you know, go smaller guy, and then, you know, go from there.

Well, you said, like, I know how to dive. I'm great at diving, but I don't know if that pool is 3 or 30ft deep. Like, that analogy just rings true to me immediately. Like you, I'm opening something very similar to a gym. I'm opening a pickleball club in my backyard.

Okay.

I have a metal shop, 2100 square feet, and it's going to cost 30 to 40 grand to build it out. I've got to add a bathroom. I've got to fix the septic. There's a few things. I'm extremely confident that this business will work. I only need one to 200 members until I'm at full capacity because I can only fit one core. Right. And so it depends on how frequently people play. Do they play doubles or singles? 100 to 150 bucks a month. 100 to 200 members at max capacity. So basically where it stands today, I can rent the thing out for 2,500 bucks to a home service business. If I do all this, spend 30 to 40 grand, do marketing, put in a key fob, cameras and all that, I could make 20 grand a month from it, almost 10 times as much. With no employees, cleaning service, insurance. Right. There will be some customer support that I'll have to take care of, but that's the whole play. And so I was about to get started in launching it. I called a septic company. I got some quotes, and then I was like, chris, you're breaking your own rule here. Like, let's do the research. Because on paper, there's about 10,000 people within 10 miles of me that play pickleball weekly. Okay. I need 1 to 2% of them. But I've gotten in trouble so many times when I play that 1%. I could just get 1% of this market, like, stop. It's probably going to be 0.1%, right?

Yeah.

And so I've got in trouble and so what I did two days ago is I put up a bunch of Facebook ads. I did three types, I did instant forms, I did messenger ads, and then I did just a link to a type form. This is, here's the address of the pickleball court. Here's what it will cost. Here's our features. Fill out this type form. Tell me your shirt size. How often you play? Do you do singles, doubles? What time of day do you play? Are you okay with a hundred bucks? Do you have other friends? You could bring all this stuff. And I'm converting leads at under $2 each. Like, very high intent. They know the price, they want to buy under $2 each.

How many, how many leads here?

Yeah, well, I just started this two days ago and I've got like 20 something leads. And so it's going to cost me like 20 to 100 bucks to convert a thousand dollar customer. $2,000 customer, which is amazing. And so like that's just a good example of doing the research on how deep the pool is. Like actually how deep. Because maybe people want to play on the mega courts that have 12 other courts for the energy and for their friends. Maybe they don't want to play in a single court. And my thesis is wrong, right?

Actually, this is a really important time. What we're saying is I'm like, I hate these people who focus on that end number of like, oh, I'm gonna do 2 million in pickleball. And like you're not focusing on the 2 million dollar, you know, number. You're saying, hey, like, can I judge the depth of this water? Do I have a sonar machine? Right. Is there something that allows me to figure out the depth of this water? I can then eventually do whatever. $2 million. That's great. You know, I've never gotten that advanced into the testing of the market. I've always went and sold it first without having the product. I always recommend people that too. I'm like, go sell it first.

I'm doing that as well. Like I'm going to collect pre orders. Yeah.

I mean essentially you even buy advertising right now and getting your leads, you're selling it. So I'm like, hey, sell it now. And if you have like you had 20 increase in two days, okay, there is a demand for it. I before buying hot water, power wash, I'm like, yo, go sell it. I mean, I was bringing the, when we were open our first gym up, I was bringing the community in to help name it. And they don't have any good names. Oh, My God, dude, people love giving their opinions. They're like, oh yeah, name it this, name it that, name it do. I had. I mean, I played 200 responses of wow. People who want to name and then they feel invested.

Oh yeah, 99 of those, if not 200, you're not going to choose. But they all feel invested in the process, which makes them all more likely to become customers.

Oh, 100. I mean, that's a great, like you should throw it out there. You need a name for your pickleball club, you know, whatever. But it's. It cost me nothing. Right? And it gets them engaged. They feel invested. Yeah, those are all great. Like very small, but I don't know how do you know how to do that? I never taught, I was never taught that skill. It's just that to me is a natural.

Well, let's talk about that because I've been in the habit this last week of asking people like me, like you, like us, how does one build or develop a bias for action? How can you teach that? And I won't accept the answer. It's nature, not nurture. You can't. You just gotta be born with it. I won't accept that. How can you flex that muscle? Build the muscle to have a bias for action?

I think it's traumatic life event. I was probably middle school, 12, 13 years old, my dad quit his job. And so we went from a two income household to a one income household. And like we. I felt the lifestyle shrink. So like I knew what it was to have extra money and, you know, nice vacation. And then all of a sudden we're like, whoa, whoa, like we're gonna go borrow clothes from our friends.

Huh?

My mom would like, she knew a lady who had a restaurant and like catering business and the lady would just give us food to have and like we would eat. I want to say it's called the Brass Buckle. It's not the name of those, but it's it Golden Palace. The Golden Palace. So I had golden palace mashed potatoes for like months straight. It was awful. And. But I remember that pain and like seeing like my mom and dad both stressed out about finances and like what we were doing. My dad actually, it was like doubly bad. He quit his job to then start trading stocks and he was bad at it. So he started losing money trading stocks. So we were like really losing money. You know, we have to like, yeah, like, like going down income, then losing. So I saw that and for me, like, that was always my like, yo, you gotta go to Work like, you know, my mom's response was like, I'm gonna go get another job and go get another job. So, like, she had three jobs at one point. Like, that was her action was going, getting another job. And I definitely saw that, paid attention to it. So when it comes to, like, for me, like, being able to sit and watch a movie, like, it's really hard. Like, I have a tough time sitting and just watching a movie because I have this anxiety in the back of my head of like, should probably go cold call 100 people, you know, or probably go, do, you know, improve the business somehow. Which I always said that business for me was a cure of my anxiety because, like, there is always something to work on. Like, there's always. There is, there's legitimately the word. I hate the phrase always something because people usually a negative connotation. There's always something in the business. You could go down your website again and improve it. You could, you can edit things, you take off product that you don't sell anymore, or you can improve product that you do sell better. There's just always a piece of business that you could work on a system or whatever to improve, which allows me to always have action to take. Like, I don't like not having anything to do. So to me, my. I don't know if I have a bias towards action. I just have an automated response to action. Like, I just do it.

Yeah. So you've probably heard me talk about Beehive before. And if you've ever received a newsletter from me, it was powered by Beehive. I've been using Beehive for the last year and a half. Their three founders left Morning Brew and built the platform so the rest of us could use the same tools that turn Morning Brew into a multi million dollar operation. That's why Beehive doesn't feel like every other newsletter platform, because it's not. It was built by people who scaled a newsletter empire. Now you know that I only recommend stuff that actually moves the needle. For me, this moves the needle. So go to beehive.com Chris use the code Chris 30 to get 30% off your first three months. So if you're just like, you're doing something around the house and you're thinking and you get a new business idea or a new marketing idea for your current business and you get excited about it and you're curious about it, what are your next steps? Do you sit on it? Do you write it down? Do you go do something about it? Right then I want to know.

So this is a leveled question, meaning, like, when I first got started, if I had a business idea, I would probably go try it or go do it. And now since I've had multiple businesses and I now have different goals in mind, like, to me, if it can't, if I can't see it on paper, making 2 million a year, I'm not even entertaining it. Like, I, I don't care. I don't like throw it out, you know, I just, it's just, it's gone or like getting me towards that. So, like building a third gym isn't going to make me 2 million a year, but it's a very, it's already, it's plug it in. I have the systems in place, I have the people. Like, that's just you bolting on something else that's different than a new business. New business venture has to make me 2 million year. Otherwise I don't even, I don't care to even entertain it. So it's been easy to take ideas like you're saying and like, yep. Does it make that. Nope. Okay, see you later. It's gone as far as a marketing idea towards business. I'm a big like, checklist guy. Like, I, I'm holding up a piece of paper with a checklist on it because not everyone watches this, but I always have a checklist 365 days a year next to my desk that I just write down because I can't keep in my head. I will forget it and lose it. So I'll just write down my checklist. And then eventually, if it's a good marketing thing, I'll turn around and start, you know, going after it if it's something that's not as important, you know, sits there for a couple days. And then like, I just had to get a trailer wrap. Like, that's a marketing thing that like, you know, drop the trailer off to, to get that ready to rock and roll. Which, by the way, I love trailer wraps. Big great return on investment there.

How would you compare a trailer wrap to a truck wrap? Equally valuable.

Oh yeah, Equally valuable. Yeah. I'd buy 10 of them. My trailers. You could buy 10 trailers for what, one truck? You know, so trailers are easy to get and easy to wrap. I see no reason not to have like, you know, if you can like at both. Well, at the one gym location where the entrance is, we took the once again Steel a Planet fitness model. They have a trailer out front. The $10 whatever. So we took it, we got a trailer, wrapped it Brand new trailer. Bought it, wrapped it, threw it out front. If that was a truck, it's 40 grand, you know, trailer, it was like five, maybe less, you know, so.

So what if someone, they want to have a bias for action, they want to just do things, but they're not. I feel like you have to be a naturally curious person as, like, a prerequisite to have a bias for action. What if you're not naturally curious? Any tips on becoming more curious?

Your tips for becoming more curious? I don't know if you can, like, change a person. Yeah, like, can you change who a person is? I don't know. Like, I'm not artistic whatsoever. And like, sure, I probably could take some classes and become artistic, but, like, I'm not, Like, it's not me, like. So, like, don't try to make me artistic. I'm not artistic. If you're not a curious person, don't be a curious person. Find something else in life to do. If I was to practice it, it would be through gratitude. And what I mean by that is, like, at night, our circle here, we're dividing. I'm not religious at all, so I will have. My kids will go around the table asking three things that they are grateful for. Because I always thought, like, praying was stupid. Like, it didn't make any sense to pray. But it's not as actionable. Like, praying is just like a thought in your head, right? But like, gratitude and like, watching. I want you to do it tonight. Ask your kids what they're great for. You know, three things you're great for. And, like, you'll see when they get to their. Their third one, because the first one's really easy. Second one, you know, whatever. The third one, they're like, they sit there and like, what we're doing now. Ask them, what's he grateful for?

Yeah, what are you grateful for? One other thing that's not obvious. Video games. Video games.

All right, good answer.

Tell them. Answer. Those are great answers.

I'm so glad that happened because I was worried that was gonna happen to me, actually. I was like, I thought my kids are walking there.

I think gratitude is the antidote to depression, right? Like, oh, but gratitude makes us happy.

Yes. Yeah, no, gratitude is. But it also. What I mean by that, which. That's what I want to tie into your question of curiosity is which. I'm sure you've done it, dude. I just get my mind blown in the middle of the day because I'm so grateful. Like, because of my gratitude is so high. But my Gratitude is actually, like, linked to my curios, where I'll be doing something and I'm like, wow. Like, those who can't visually see. I have, like, two very red eyes. I got pink eye by. From both my kids. I've double pink eye from my kids. I'm in recovery. I'm actually. I could actually see today. But what I meant by that is I laying in my bed sick, I was like, man, how did Indians, like, in teepees, survive sicknesses like. Like that, like, my mind. I was genuinely curious.

Yeah.

That also allowed me to be so grateful for modern day my hot water. Like, the simplest things. If you could be grateful for the simplest things, like, you're unbeatable. And I firmly. I believe that with all my heart. And I've yet to be proven wrong on that. But to a person who's genuinely not curious, I'm like, find more gratitude. Because if you could find more gratitude, you could be outrageously curious. How did they.

I never would have thought to tie those things together.

Oh, my God. Why not? How do they. How do Indians do it? How did the Indians survive? Like, Like, I do. I. I was so cold.

Right. They just died.

Yes. But I mean, they. Someone. They. Eventually some survived, you know, not all of them died. The fever and chills. I was so cold Sunday night, I had to call my wife. Like, either our baby in the shower. I'm like, can you please come get the baby? I was afraid to, like, touch outside the shower door because I was so cold. And I'm like, what would have I've done if this was like, 1840?

Yeah. And up until 50 years ago, no one had ever experienced a hot shower. And now it's. That's all we have.

50 years ago. That's mind blowing. Hey. Yes. We got guests. Yeah.

We got all kinds of guests.

Yes. I knew it was gonna happen to me. I told you so. But gratitude through curiosity. Yeah.

Okay. I like it. I've never tied those together, but I will now for the rest of my life. We talk to him about gratitude, but not as intentionally as you do. As not as intentionally as we should.

When you ask them, I'm telling you, they get to that third thing. Like, so you see how fast he's like, dad, Mom, Right? Like that.

Yes.

That's cool. That's fine. But, like, if you ask them every day, right. It's not dad, Mom. Like, they'll change things. They'll see the different things in their day that happen, but the reality is, like, they'll get to that third one, sometimes they don't, like they can write them off real fast. Sometimes like they think about that one or you think about that third one. In my opinion, you're like, you're opening the pathways of like to see things and. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what you want.

That's like the, that's why there's three. Because it's mom and dad or you know, it reminds me of. They say that the like the bottom third of a resume is the best part. It's like where I went to school, what I did for work, what results I had. But they're like, what do you love to do? What are you obsessed with? What are like those things that would not overlap with very many people. That's the most important part of the resume.

That's a great, that's a great example. Yeah.

I'm gonna ask you some hot take questions in your experience. I look at you as like the home service guru. Okay, so what is the most overrated? Or they could be multiple home service business right now, in your opinion.

I'm in the field. So saying power feels like a cop out, but I have to say it. Yeah, it's just flat out is by far the most overrated. And I'm saying that is because of TikTok videos. Like people think they could. They saw these TikTok videos of people power washing and gone this trend and everyone with $300 could go to Home Depot, buy power washer and start one. It has to be by far the most overrated. I'm trying to think of like my second one will probably have to be a landscaping business because it's like really not a very niche type market. You cut grass, it grows. People are just looking for the cheapest price. They don't really care. You're competing with Jose, you're competing with everybody. I mean I had a landscape business when I was 16. Who didn't? Yeah, I just took my dad's tractor down the street and sold jobs. You're. Anything that low barrier to entry is in my opinion wildly overrated.

What if you had to start from zero tomorrow? You couldn't start anything that you've already done. What business would you start?

I'm not sure if I would start a business. I'd probably buy one that's first because I think that's really important to see like Tracker, a lot of people fail on their first startup. If it was going to be a service business, you would probably have to be H Vac and he like, you just need Those two things, there's skill involved. They have, there's training that have to be my number one. It's a necessity. Like, like they. Yeah, there's no, we're starting roof roofing business. I thought roofs were a necessity and I realized like they're not like people have leaking roofs. They just put a bucket underneath it and they're like, yeah, whatever, I'm selling.

The house or tarp over it.

Tarp over it? Yeah, yeah. It's not as necessary as like when you're hot water stops working or like when you have no, no heat. Like you don't care. You're calling the next person.

Yeah, you're burning your furniture.

You burn your furniture. Exactly. And probably because I've had a business like powershell is more of a leads problem. Like we don't have enough leads. We have work, we don't have leads. H Vac has so many leads and enough work. So I wouldn't mind having the opposite problem.

Yeah, yeah. So that would be a perfect business to buy then because of all the like the licensing and regulatory stuff you'd have to go through.

Yeah, I wouldn't, I would still buy. Hi Mrs. I not. Even though I'm not a certified. It's actually kind of funny. This happened to us. We had a, one of our trucks got dot, we have 550s and guy who's driving it was, he was kind of borrowing to, to do a touch up job. He normally doesn't drive it but he got stopped by DOT and dot's like, hey, you don't have a medical card to. You can't drive this. Which by the way is completely ridiculous. My sister in law rented a U haul that was £26,000 and she drove it from Vermont, you know, this weekend. But my guy can't drive 10 minutes down the road without a medical card. It makes no sense. However, he got pulled over by the police and he called me and said, hey, I got pulled over. Like, yeah, come pick this, you know, truck up. I'm like, I don't have my medical card. You know, so I, I wouldn't necessarily go get my medical card. I wouldn't get my H. VAC license. I would just buy someone who has it. And yeah, you go that route.

What business model is a scam that no one's saying out loud? Doesn't have to be home services, Any business model or industry.

There are certain franchises that are scams and I've met a few of these guys who they, I think they take advantage of military veterans who they know how they have some money and they're, hey, you'd be perfect for this, you know, fit. And they're like, giving them no support. No, they give them like a logo and an email and they're like, okay, like, here you go. Like, go off on your own. I'm like, dude, good luck. Yeah, like, you gotta make a bunch of money to pay back those. That deal. I. I don't like the way that works. So I think there are certain franchises that are scams. I. I'm not a big franchise guy. I don't know if I have just a heavy bias towards entrepreneurship and, like, starting your own. Like, I don't know if I even call. If I bought a franchise. I don't even call that entrepreneurship. Like, you're just. I don't know. What do you. How do you feel about that?

I think there's a time and a place for franchises, but it's not for everyone. Like, entrepreneurship is not for everyone. I think some people want the middle ground between having a job with a boss and some support versus being an entrepreneur. And franchise can fill that gap pretty well. That's that most franchises out there are probably a waste of money. The majority of them, I would say.

Okay, so you agree with me, like, my scam comment. I think certain franchises could be on the side. Like, I don't want to pick on anybody because that's not what this podcast is about, you know, But I can. I would have no problem selling a franchise of power washing just to somebody. But, like, I know what it takes to build it. And, like, there's this huge, like, headwind that you're going right into, which is like the TikTok generation of power washers. You know, there are so many more power washers. I mean, I wish that you're a data guy. I wish you'd pull that up. Like, registered power washing businesses, like, you know, from 10 years ago to today, I mean, it might be astronomical like that. That might be just straight hockey stick, you know, level up, you know, And I'm like, well, like, hey, like, you're in that mix of, like, competing against those people. So, like, yeah, you a franchise. Well, guess what? That entire hockey stick of new businesses that are registered softwashing and power washing, like, that's a uphill battle. Me personally, like, the way I do business, I don't want to fight that. Just, like, go back to full circle. Like, I'm not going next to a planet that is for a gym. I'll go next to a crappy Gym, sure. But I'm not going to go. I'm not diving head first into a three foot pool.

That's a good point. I'm making a video about this, but have you heard of Brahms? Like the ice cream place? It's. They're based out of Oklahoma. They have like, I don't know, 100, 200 locations. It's like, it's really random. It's a fast food restaurant, mostly an ice cream place, and then a grocery store. Like a very, very small footprint grocery store. And it's kind of like In n Out, you know, In N Out is unique because they're only regional and they distribute only fresh ingredients. They're vertically integrated. There's no franchisees. They're all corporate owned. You know, they won't even open on the east coast because they want everything fresh. And nearby. Brahms is kind of like the ice cream store version of In n Out, in that they own their own farms, they own everything. They have their own dairy, their own cows for the cheeseburgers. And I don't know how, but they've somehow like resisted inflation, right? You've got insulin resistance and then you've got inflation resistance. And I can still go to Brahms and get like a bag of cheeseburgers. There's like 10 cheeseburgers in there for 20 bucks today. Or you can get an ice cream cone for like $39.

Okay.

Like a, like a real ice cream, not soft serve. And you can get like a big fancy, like four scoops with like nuts and toppings in a bowl and like a waffle bowl for like 350 at Brahms. And then if you go right down the road and you go to Cold stone and you get the exact same thing. Three scoops, toppings, waffle bowl. It's literally like $11, okay. For the same thing. And Brahms has better ingredients.

Like they have their own dairy cows.

A consumer at Coldstone has to go through how many layers of costs, how many vendors to get to the source, right? You've got to pay like 8% franchise fee, 2 to 3% marketing fee. They have the expensive rent, you know, probably $30 a square foot rent. And then like the vendors, there's kickbacks and then they got to pay like 100 grand up front. They got to build out a $500,000 store. Whereas Braums, the vertical integration gets passed down to the consumer. And so it's cheap, right?

Yeah.

And so in my opinion, when I think of franchise versus not franchise, I think of Brahms first, Cold Stone and like the end result to the consumer in this case is 70% cheaper product and the same quality, if not better. Quick question. What if there were a private community out there of people that were building businesses based on this podcast? Well, I just made it, and it's only for business starters. And business builders. It's called TK owners, and it's basically like having me and 100 other business geniuses as your business partner, but you give them 0% equity. Also, there's going to be exclusive new trends, growth hacks, business ideas, and a database of everything I've ever talked about. You'll find thousands of startup case studies. You'll have weekly ask me anythings with me while I'll answer your questions directly. You'll be in my Slack channel, where I'm hanging out every week and helping members one on one. We've got exclusive guest speakers, including some names that you'll recognize. And if you're building something cool, I'll introduce you to anyone you need. TK Owners is the fastest way to plug into a smart, ambitious group of builders and accountability partners that are sharing wins without the fluff. And it's 99 bucks a month about the cost of an energy drink per day. You can join now@tkowners.com link in the show notes.

And how are Cold Stones doing across the nation?

They're not doing great. They're not doing great.

So I actually, I'm. You know, it's funny, you asked that tough question of, like, which one's a scam? I'm very satisfied with my answer.

Franchise. Okay, okay.

Because, sure, are there some good use? Honestly, you said it best. Like, those who want to be their own boss. I've met these people, and I'm sure you have, too. They're like, hey, I want to be my own boss. I've never used that phrase. Like, I just have. You have it. No, I'm like, I'm just gonna be me.

I don't know what it's like to have a boss, honestly.

Not me either, actually. But. But my point is, like, I. You've never said the words, yeah, I don't want to be boss. You never had a boss. But my point is, I am doing entrepreneurship because, like, that's what I want to do, not because I don't want to have something.

Yeah, you're running towards something, not away from something.

Yeah, exactly. And the people who are running away from the boss, I think the franchise might be the good fit that you're referring to for them versus, like, your eye are like, I don't know. I just have to jump off the bridge. Like, you know, I would think if.

I were to think of a Persona of a perfect franchisee that would actually be successful, it's someone that's 30 to 60 years old, someone making six figures, call it 150 to 500 a year. Someone that has six to seven figures in savings, maybe home equity, something, they've got a safety net. They are completely dissatisfied and burnt out by the workforce. They hate it. They think they're better than it. They think that they could do what their job or their boss does and better. Maybe they've tasted entrepreneurship. I've talked to guys that had a landscaping business in college and then they got a job and they've never done anything since. Like that guy who, like, does really well within systems that can fall into a system. He's not creative, but he's hardworking, he's smart, and he'll follow a script that could be the perfect franchisee. You and I would be the nightmare franchisee because we want to do our own thing on our own timeline, our own way, and that just doesn't work. My son went to a crumble franchisee training.

Oh, gosh. Yeah. I mean, like, those franchises kill me. Like those thingies. Like that.

They told him. They said, this is not the place to be creative. If you're creative, just walk out the door. You're going to follow a script to a T. We know it works. We promise it works. We know how to market it, we know how to sell it. We know what to say, we know the ingredients. Just follow the script and you'll be successful. If you don't, you're not a fit here. And that's any franchisee. Yeah.

Which I respect that because they're like, hey, we did it. We tested it. Like, we know what we want. This is what we are. And if you don't ask me, because I don't know the answer, if you ask me a question of like, hey, what's a successful franchise? You know, I don't know. Like, that's. I'm startup business guy, you know, I don't know enough about franchises and that type of thing. I just know I'd be very weary to dive into the pool. Yeah.

Yeah. Why do you think most home service businesses, I mean, 80, 90% never scale past one to two trucks? And how can they get over that?

Do they have enough leads? That's question one. Right. Like, if we have the leads for multiple trucks, then like, let's go. If we don't have the leads for multiple trucks, then yeah, you're stuck at one or two. So I make sure that, like, our system's in place. I had a conversation with my. The guy runs our residential this morning and one of the employees wasn't putting the yard sign out at the job and was told about it and like, happened again. And in our opinion, me and the managers, it's grounds for firing. Like, that yard sign, is that freaking important like that if you don't put it out, you will get fired. And the reason that is because that's leads.

Right?

Okay. We need our leads.

You're hurting our business by not doing that, that 30 second task.

The 30 second task.

Yep.

And $11 or $7, whatever they are, like, you are hurting our business. You're hurting everybody in the company not having that yard sign out. So, okay, if our leads are accounted for, the next part of that would be looking in the mirror and saying, like, your employees will mess up. And I think that most people are afraid of the mess up and like, it's just acceptance of, like, I'll remember as clear as day. I remember like being behind one of our trucks and they left the tailgate down and like a bottle, like a five gallon bucket of soap went right down the highway. Like, just like you were behind your own truck. Behind our own truck.

Yeah. Yeah. And that must have been a great conversation.

Five gallon bucket of soap just went like flying down the road. And I was like, you know, I put my head down, I said like, hey, nobody got hurt. It's a good time to learn. Right? That's okay.

Maybe they did that because they were just rushing to get to the next job. Like they were trying to do a good job.

Exactly. So it's not grounds for, you know, you know, yelling at somebody or fire at somebody. But like, mistakes happen and that's why you have insurance for mistakes like that. But my point is I had to understand mistakes are going to happen and then to accept the mistakes are going to happen in to order. Once you do those two things, then you can start getting past the one, two truck thing because you could understand, hey, there's going to be problems. That's okay. You know, we're learning, we're growing. We have to do that together. And then we can get past the one truck thing. But with the one truck, they always have control and you have to give up a little bit control to get through there. And then the next part is systems.

Yeah, I call it the 70% rule. Like almost never will any employee do any more than 70%. As. As well as you do disagree.

I have a manager of our second gym location who does things so much better than I do. She is a animal. I'm actually doing her a disservice. She's going to help us launch the third gym and eventually be our regional manager because she's so freaking good. Like, I don't think I could give enough like credit to an employee as I could give this lady. So anyone who has employees are here. The math is unreal.

We can find them.

Yeah, like she. Oh yeah, dude. She's so. Dude, I suck at like, I'm so good at the action box. I'm so good at startup and like launching idea getting into. I could take clay and make it into object. But like, let's say we had to decorate that object. Or like you'll paint the object like that is not me whatsoever.

Or keep that object alive for three years.

Yeah, I know. I'm good at that. Yeah, that. Because business has been. Every business I've had has made longer than three years. But I'm great at that part of it. But however, I'm not good at like the mundane small tasks like reviewing a waiver form. I'm terrible at that. Like my employee will do that 100% better than I would.

I guess. Like, I'm trying to make an analogy of like the average employee will do 70% as well as you do at like really caring about running and knowing the business. That just means if you have two employees to replace yourself, then you've grown 40%. Right? 70 plus 70, right?

Yes.

And most people are afraid of that unknown. It's a big unknown.

I always was a critic of like mission statements and like, you know, those things in business. I'm like, who needs that stuff? But like, I understand it now. Shout out to John Wilson. Went to John Wilson's conference last year. He did a great job. The conference was awesome. About scaling your service business to $5 million and you all throughout his offices. It was all about like those team building, higher level characteristics. And I was like, wow. Like I was so wrong about that. Like, I was like, who needs mission statements?

Eye roll.

Oh, I totally. I rolled. I rolled for years. And I came and I left John Wilson's event. I was like, wow. Like as manager or as owner, you go further away from like the customer. Like you really do need those mission statements. And like the mission statement for the power washing business would be like, hey, we want our customers to be wowed. Like, we want them to have A special experience with Apex. And that is why they choose us. And if you don't understand that, then you shouldn't work here. And like, that's the. That might need to be said every three months or every six months. And I hope people are eye rolling me at home and you're watching this. And then six months down the road, they're like, damn, that guy actually was right, you know, like, he knew what he was talking about because I've done it too, and set the gym. Like, hey, what's our mission statement for the gym? It better be. We want a comfortable environment where these people can come in and work out 24 hours a day, seven days a week, whenever they need the gym to be there for them. And that's our mission statement. I just made them up. But my point is, like, the employees should know, like, the message they need to convey is that to, to the customer. And if you could do those things, like, then if the customer or your employee starts to understand those things, then you can grow to get further away as owner, as manager.

It ties back to what we said about family and gratitude. I feel like those things are important, those kind of intangible mission statement purpose things. Because people that work for us want to feel like they have purpose. Like there is a purpose. Call that like. And in our lives, that would be our family, a higher power, our kids, you know, a shared, like, we all need and want purpose. So we're not just floating out there in the ether, you know, with no plan.

You said the words work for us, and it triggered something in my brain. But you also said higher power. So I want to go off both those two things. Higher power and work for us. I will never say an employee works for me. I say the employee works for the company. So my employees work for Apex softwash. I work for Apex softwash. Why I'm bringing that up is because it does. It rubs me such a wrong way. Like these pompous sons of bees who, like, just like, oh, those are my employees. They work for me. I just want to punch. I absolutely. I can't stand the attitude. I hate it. Like, who that person thinks they are the higher power. And what I want anyone listening just to understand is that like, the business is the higher power. Like, and what I mean by that is you have your own higher powers. Religious wise, I have my higher power of the business. And the business is all things. Like, hey, the business is doing well. It's because the people inside it are doing well. Like, that is without those people, there Is no. There is no. There is no higher power. There's no business. It doesn't exist. And some of these owners tend to put themselves above the business. And I don't. I'm not sure where you put yourself.

I've never thought about it like that. I've never really thought strategically about it, but I'm with you.

Now that I think about it, like, there's a hierarchy. And, like, especially, like, if we're. I'm, Like, I'm the type of owner, like, I don't even want to be there, right? Like, so, like, I want to take myself over here. So if I take myself off the table, the business is still on the table. The business is still the top of the pyramid, whether I'm in there or not. Especially on, like, brag if Tits. The gram. You know, you see, like, garbage like this all the time where, like, you know, people are just flaunting or just showboating their stuff. And I. I really. Especially on, like, brag if Instagram, you know, you see, like, garbage like this all the time where, like, you know, people are just flaunting or just showboating their stuff. And I. I really. I just can't. It just. It, like, actually makes me go the exact opposite. Like, my wife will yell at me for wearing, like, clothes that look like a bum, and I'm like, I don't want to. I just can't. It just. It, like, actually makes me go the exact opposite. Like, my wife will yell at me for wearing, like, clothes that look like a bum, and I'm like, I don't want to make someone feel uncomfortable that I'm dressed too nice. You know, I don't like to do that. It's not my vibe.

One of my favorite business books of all time is Three Signs of a Miserable Job. Have you ever read that make someone.

Feel uncomfortable that I'm dressed too nice? You know, I don't like to do that. It's not my vibe.

One of my favorite business books of all time is Three Signs of a Miserable Job. Have you ever read that?

I have not.

No, you've got to read it.

Okay. I have not.

No, you've got to read it.

Okay?

It's not about having a job. It's about entrepreneurship. And the author says that employees need one. It's not about having a job. It's about entrepreneurship. And the author says that employees need one of three things to have a miserable job. And so, as the business owner, you need to make sure that they don't have those three Things. Number one is irrelevance if an employee feels irrelevant unseen. Three things to have a miserable job. And so as the business owner, you need to make sure that they don't have those three things. Number one is irrelevance if an employee feels irrelevant unseen, like they're not serving a higher purpose. Right. Their job is irrelevant. Right. Number two is immeasurability. There are no metrics tied. There's nothing measurable tied to a person's job or role. They're just kind of doing things. And so in his book, he takes over a restaurant and they have a drive through. And he didn't really know how to measure that because the guy in the drive through collecting orders wasn't in charge of sales. He had no, he couldn't move the needle on sales. He wasn't cooking the food. And so his like metric became after he took over this failing business was what percentage of people in the drive thru do you make smile? Right. And keep track of that? Write it down.

That's so good.

It's so good. And it made his job more enjoyable, which made him a better employee, which served the higher purpose the business in this case better. The third was anonymity. Like employees that are just anonymous to the owner or to their manager. The manager doesn't ask about their kids, about the soccer game, about what they're into. They're just one, like at Amazon. They're just literally a number, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

So it's a great book. Great book.

That sounds amazing. I definitely would read a book like that because I like, that's the side of business I love. Because if I wasn't an entrepreneur and if I wasn't in business, my second calling to life is psychology. And me too, dude, me too.

That was. I was gonna major in that before I like even thought about business because it is business.

Like that psychology. And what you just described me was all psychology.

Yeah, first principles.

I don't know if business books teach or business, you know, classes teach, any of that stuff. But like everything you just said was psychology. And I love it, you know, because that's like, that's really neat. I went to a conference about 10 years ago now and this guy who's speaking, he like converted it whole the whole business to run on the five star review. And he would like have if the job if they didn't leave his five star review. Like the people didn't get paid. Like he, he basically had everything based on the five star review. And like that was the whole mission for the company was to get a five star review and it was unbelievable. Like their pay, everything was based on the five star review. And it was really, really cool because it was like such a tangible metric. Like, did you get a five star review, yes or no?

Do you remember what industry? Because I bet it was like a highly competitive industry in that area.

It was like window cleaning, power washing. Yeah.

Because I mean, what's more valuable than a five star review when it comes to ranking in your Google business profile? Like, it makes sense.

This was before even like that, like he would actually send like post. He would give the people postcards and like with prepaid like postage basically say, hey, hey, like if you're not going to give us an email 5 star review, then at least give us this and like send it back. And he would use everything off that review. It's really cool. Yeah.

Oh, that's good. All right, I got another one. What do most operators, business operators, waste time and money on that doesn't actually move the needle?

My first thing would be accounting. If you are doing any type of bookkeeping or accounting, like stuff like that should instantly be gone.

So video is cool. But you know what's better? Long form audio via podcast and my newsletter, tkopod.com 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 gonna love it. All free. No sleazy sales pitch. Tkopod.com like if the owner is in the weeds of accounting, you're saying, yeah, yeah.

And I'm trying to think of like stuff that I had like delegated off my plate before because I would just go down that list. And the first thing I did was get rid of accounting. I was like, okay, I don't want like, okay, you're gonna get my bank statements, you're gonna do all that. Perfect. Great. Because I don't ever want to see it ever again. I think that's a huge waste of. I mean, to be honest, if you're not selling any jobs, then you're not moving the needle. Unless you're like one of these people who like, well actually let's talk about that because I'm not good at it. When I called you a little bit out before about the employee doing better, my manager, she's so good at saving money and I'm a horrible saver. Like when it comes to saving money, I'm like, screw it. I rather just throw it out.

I can make more.

I Was going to make more. Yeah, I always go, I'd rather go sell a $10,000 job than worry about 50 bucks. She's so good at saving the 50 bucks. So it's a great once again counterpart to me. So the reason I brought that up is because you can say, oh, well, I'm gonna look at numbers and save money. I disagree with that. So anything that's not increasing sales, in my opinion, which is like, to me, number one for entrepreneurship is like, that's it. It's just sales is gonna be a waste of time. So the next one would have to be anything related to the mail. So first, the second thing I did was have an assistant who got all the mail. Junk mail, all the mail. Like, I don't get my mail anymore. I have assistant grab the mail. If it's important, they'll scan it in and upload it. Otherwise they throw it out. Getting the mail is a giant waste for operators. It's time it doesn't be done. The third thing on the list would be invoicing. I see no reason why someone can't come in. And every week I have a virtual assistant come through on Friday, look at the jobs, send them out and have those done. I see no reason why someone's still sending invoices. As an owner or operator. Have someone trained to do that very, very quickly.

Okay, I love it. What are you working towards personally?

I am in the process of closing on a small strip mall. So we have the. I'll eventually take a picture and post it because it's a little easier to understand. I have our office space, which we bought, and then that came with some land. We built the gym. And then next to that is that land I was actually telling you about. I put the trailer billboard on. And then next to that is a strip mall. It's actually a pretty cool little story. Old Gu, he's 90 something years old. He owned it, he managed it, and he was a big Philadelphia Eagles fan. So me and him would talk back and forth. We got into a little dispute because he was an old timer and he was like giving me a hard time with doing his snowplowing. And he like wanted to pick and choose when he wanted to do his snowplowing. And this is an important lesson because people do this way too fast. Instead of writing the guy off, I just said, hey, I'm not your plow guy. No worries. So didn't really talk to him much after that, but I wrote him a letter saying, hey, I own the properties next door. If you're ever, you know, in the point where you want to sell this thing, like, keep this letter in your file and like, call me and go, Birds. Because I knew he's a big Eagles fan. So the Eagles won the super bowl this past year. And sure enough, I get a phone call from one of his. His daughters. The guy passed away. They say, hey, we have this letter here. My dad said to keep it, you know, we'll sell it to you. So worked out great. So I'm able to. My wife and I are gonna buy this strip mall and it actually. So it connects all of our properties. It's really cool.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

Is it a good price that you're buying it for?

Yeah, it's a good price. So I had some. A friend of mine already offered to just add 50 grand to the contract to buy it. So I'm like, okay, that makes me feel better. It's always good when you get one of those, you know.

No, thank you, but thank you.

Yeah, yeah, no, thank you, but thank you.

Exactly what is your end goal? Like, do you have a number? Do you have. I mean, I know you, you love what you do, but what's the big, like, goal or number in your mind?

Big picture, I'm more of a time guy, you know, I will actually tell you there's definitely people wake way more money than I do. I don't know if you can find anyone who has the time. I do, which I value that a lot. So definitely working on my golf game. You're trying to improve that. Like, that's something that I'd be working on. Like, and it's funny. Like, that's an honest answer. Like, broad picture, I'm like, I'm pretty good, you know, money wise. Unless it's something that could really move the needle, right? I'm not. I don't care about 10 grand. You know, it doesn't move the needle. Or I even tell people, like, if you sold something for a million dollars, like, unfortunately a million. If a million. If you think a million is a lot of money, then, like, you need to listen to some more podcasts because it's like, it's not enough. You know, maybe if you're 80. Yeah, sure, million sounds great if you're 80. But, like, you need to have a bunch more money or I'm a big cash flow gu. So, yeah, as long as the cash flow is really strong, like, then you could do a bunch of fun stuff and, like, still have time to do things. So I've always focused on like, making sure my cash flow was good so I can go play golf tomorrow morning. Like, work on that. But as far as. I hate to say that too, like, am I getting complacent? Like, I've built a pretty good life and I definitely do. I had my times where I was like, power washing 20 of 24 hours a day. You know, I would work all day doing sales and then like, go power wash a Walmart at night, midnight, because we were learning how to do Walmarts, you know. So I've done it. And I'm not sure if, like, as you know, you have kids, you get to this point, like, man, have a good time hanging out with my kids. I really want to. There's always like a give or take, like, addict. I'm not. I don't care about 10 grand. You know, that doesn't move the needle. Or I even tell people, like, if you sold something for a million dollars, like, unfortunately a millions. If a million. If you think a million is a lot of money, then, like, you need to listen to some more podcasts because it's like, it's not enough. You know, maybe if you're 80, yeah, sure, a million sounds great if you're 80, but like, you need to have a bunch more money or something. Your play is taking away from someone else's, you know, time. And I'm not sure if I'm at the dad level or I'm like, you know what, I have a pretty good, like, don't mess it up.

Yeah, I like that. Would you rather own one company doing 5 million bucks at a 25% margin or five companies doing a million bucks at a 40% margin?

I don't even really know if I heard the margins part of it, but I'd rather have five companies. It goes back to, like, these guys who are like, oh, I'm doing 5 million next year. I'm like, dude, you didn't do 1 million this year. But my point in saying that is I am the type of person, like, I don't hold on to anything. Like, there could be any given moment where one of my gyms could get put out of business or my power washing business could go out of business. I don't know. Like, I just like, operate like things are so fragile. I rather have five businesses so that, like, if a TikTok wave of power washers comes up, all good, I'll put roofs on, you know, or like, I'm a big cash flow guy. So, yeah, as long as the cash flow is really strong, like, then you could do a bunch of fun stuff and, like, still have time to do things. So I've always focused on, like, making sure my cash flow is good so I can go play golf tomorrow morning. Like, work on that gyms. So, yeah, one business, actually. My friend, he was looking to buy a business. This is actually a really cool story for those who are looking to buy businesses. He was gonna buy a. A business that helped with servicing passports for Italy. And this, man, this company looks so good on paper. Like, I was like, wow. Like, you're talking like, the price to profit ratio was awesome. But as far as. I hate to say that too, like, am I getting complacent? Like, I've built a pretty good life and I definitely do. I had my times where I was like, power washing 20 out of 24 hours a day. You know, I would. I'd work all day doing sales and then like, go power wash a Walmart at midnight because we were learning how to do Walmarts, you know. So I've done it. And I'm not sure if, like, as you know, you have kids, you get to this point, like, man, have a good time hanging out with my kids. So I really want to. There's always like a give or take. Like adding something to your play is taken away from someone else's, you know, time. And I'm not sure if I'm at the dad level or I'm like, you know what? I have it pretty good. Like, don't mess it up.

Yeah, I like that. Would you rather own one company doing 5 million bucks at a 25% margin or five companies doing a million bucks at a 40% margin?

I don't even really know if I heard the margins part of it, but I'd rather have five companies. He ends up, it doesn't work out. He didn't get it. He got something else. But six months later, big announcement. Italian government stopping the passports.

They knew something that he didn't know.

Yeah, they knew something. They knew. So they were unloading this thing because someone in the Italian government was like, yo, there is a bill coming. Something's changing. And dude, their numbers got crushed. So, yeah, that's one business that was doing outrageous margins that you were just talking about. And guess what? They might not be in business next year. That was unreal. Like, that's a true live story. Just happened in the past six months.

That's such a good story. Reminds me of Breaking Bad when Walter White wanted to buy that car wash. So he, like, he got the EPA on the Owner and had them send, like, a warning that they were leaching chemicals. Oh, yeah. And then he went in to buy the. To buy the car wash. That's.

Yeah, that's a great move. But reality is, like, that stuff happens. And so, yeah, to answer your question, no, no brainer. Five companies.

All right, last question. I want to be respectful of your time. What's your Playbook for turning a truck and a phone into a sellable asset? That's just cash flowing nicely. What's the 8020 of using a truck and a phone in the home service business is nothing else to just cash flow. 10 grand a month free cash flow.

You're saying identify a service.

No, no, just a Playbook. Like a launch playbook.

Oh, launch playbook. Launch playbook. Okay. Oh, oh, okay. Any service.

Any service.

Yeah, like the rocks.

Like the rocks in the bags. Stuff like that.

This is my specialty. And before I forget, because I will forget forgetting three things, we're going to talk about our religious comment later on, but I want to make sure that anyone who, like, listens to that. I'm not sure. Do you have a. A Q and A? It goes back to, like, these guys who are like, oh, I'm doing 5 million next year. I'm like, dude, you didn't do 1 million this year. But my point in saying that is I am the type of person, like, I don't hold on to anything. Like, there could be any given moment where one of my gyms could get put out of business.

Yeah. Oh, we can do a Q A. I do Q and A's every Friday, actually. So let's do it. You're welcome to one.

If anyone has any questions, it'd be cool to like, or if anyone has any. After this, you know, goes out, the Playbook is actually stolen. I'm not sure if we talked about this. Last time I thought we did is I literally took Cutco's book and opened it up. Did I tell you about this?

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah.

Yeah. So you sold for Cutco, right?

I sold for Cutco. And. And the Playbook is steal the Playbook. Like, look at what they're doing, like, on that Playbook and then model after that Playbook. So that's number one. Number two is we have to market, so we have to have a website. Or my power washing business could go out of business. I don't know. Like, I just, like, operate like things are so fragile. I rather have five businesses so that, like, if a TikTok wave of power washers comes up, all Good. I'll put roofs on, you know, or like, I have gyms. So, yeah, one business, actually, my friend, he was looking to buy a business. This is actually a really cool story for those who are looking to buy businesses. He was gonna buy a. A business that helped with servicing passports for Italy. And this man, this company looks steal ever. You can then go to marketing, because I think that's the number one most important thing. It's very easy to do the service you're doing. That's why you chose it, because you are skilled at it or you know what you're doing. No problem. But you probably suck at marketing. We need to have a professionally designed logo and name. Like, someone I mentioned. I blew up names on Twitter. And then someone sent me the funniest video ever. That was like a skit where everyone's just, like, bashing the most generic names you could think of. Like, you would love this video. It was hilarious. They're like, oh, do you do quality work? The guy's like, yeah. He's like, okay, we slam your company. Quality. Yeah. Like, that was like Tel AmeriCorp. So funny.

So get ready Innovations. Get rid of.

We need a good name. I'm not. I don't want your initials. You know, I don't want Joe. I want a good thought. So good on paper. Like, I was like, wow. Like, you're talking like, the price to profit ratio was awesome. He ends up, it doesn't work out. He didn't get it. He, you know, got something else. But six months later, big announcement. Italian government out name and then a logo. And then as far as marketing, yeah. I always said I'm a cheap guy. I should say that I'm a smart with my money guy. So, like, I have no problem spending money on my family and friends and doing stuff like that. That's okay. I'm not cheap at all. It goes that I'm cheap when it comes to marketing. Like, I personally hate Facebook ads. Google Ads. Waste of money. Facebook ads. Waste of money. They're way too expensive for your dollar. You want to get a rock flyer. You have bag, Rock card. Put it in there because you know exactly who your customer is. And then this is also, I'm. I have to bake a noodle quickly here. This one threw me off. I always thought you had to throw the flyer to the dirty houses, like, for power washing. Like, oh, that's a dirty house. Stopping the passports.

They knew something that he didn't know.

Yeah, they knew something. They knew. So they were unloading this Thing because someone in the Italian government was like, yo, there is a bill coming. Something's changing. And, dude, their numbers got crossed. They need our service. It's actually not true at all. Like, the clean house gets power washed more often than the dirty house does.

Yeah.

And once you. That's why it's clean. Yeah, that's why it's clean. Camera. I have such rush. So. Yeah, that's one business that was doing bad. Like, memory terms of, like, if we talked about it or not. Did we talk about the Febreze?

No. We talked about targeting neighborhoods with the rock flyers, but not nothing about Febreze.

It's the power of habit. I believe Charles Duhake is the book. Okay, if you've never read it, the. Oh, my God. This literally, like, we're talking. It might be the most important thing I've ever read in my life. In the Power of Habit, they study Febreze, and they were calling Febreze the billion dollar bust. They spent a billion dollars making Febreze. It was the best product ever made. They've had nothing like it ever. And people probably gamble. They gave it to this lady who's like a wildlife rescue lady. So she's like, I can't go on any dates. I stink all the time. And like, perfect. They gave her Febreze, and she sprayed the Febreze, you know, over house clothes, whatever. She's like, oh, my God. Like, this is amazing. They come back a month later, guess what? She's got the entire bottle still there. Never used it. And these people are like, whoa. Like, what's going on here? Like, we just answered your outrageous margins that you were just talking about. And guess what? They might not be in business next year. We answered your problem like you steak. Here's for braze. Problem solved. Doesn't use it. They have a garbage man. Same thing stinks. You know, no big deal. Hey, we got you solved. Give this lady. They hit this garbage man a bottle. Come back a month later, full bottle. And now they're like, we're in trouble. Like, these people, like, they're not using our product, so they give it to a. There's unreal. Like, that's a true live story. Just happened in the past six months. House lady, you're cleaning. You know, just a. I want to say type A type person. And within, like, two weeks, the bottle's empty, and they're like, oh, my God. Like that. Our customer is the person who stinks. Our customer is the person who wants.

That's such a good story. It reminds me of breaking bad when Walter white wanted to buy that car wash. So he, like, he got the EPA on the owner and had them send, like, a warning that they were leaching chemicals. Oh, yeah. And then he went in to buy the. To buy the car wash fresh.

And dude like, it. When I realized, like, that I'm like, that blew my mind because that's power washing. Like, your. Your customer is not the dirtiest house on the street. Your customer is the cleanest house on the street. And that's a perfect segue into the answer of your question is like, you need to identify your customer. Like, it is your job.

Like, not.

I don't care what you want. I don't care what your customer wants.

Yeah. It's funny because I. I feel like I've heard that story, and I feel like there's another part to it. On how they marketed febreze. Like, isn't there like, another part of that story where in the beginning they were like, it makes your stuff smell good, and then they kind of changed?

That's. Yeah, that's a great move. But reality is, like, that stuff happens. And so, yeah, to answer your question, no brainer. Five companies.

All right, last question. I want to be respectful of your time. What's your playbook for turning a truck and a phone into a sellable asset? That's just cash flowing nicely how they described it. Does that sound familiar? I need to ask ChatGPT.

I'm 90% sure it's power habit and Charles U. Haig, but I definitely go to the febreze story, and I just. Or I took a iTunes U course on Yale. The guy's like, human memory is so bad, we forget everything. Like, don't believe anything I say.

And it was, what's the 8020 of using a truck and a phone in the home service businesses? Nothing else to just unbelievable.

Unbelievable. Dude, it was amazing. The end of the course, the professor after, like, 12 weeks was like, don't believe me? I might be wrong too. It was really cool.

Okay, So I found it. They used to pitch Febreze by saying, get rid of tough odors. You think about how people work too. Like, if you have a cat lady house, it doesn't smell bad to you. You live in it. Whereas if a stranger walks in, they're like, holy crap. That's just how our bodies work, right?

Yep.

So when they change it from get rid of tough odors because people didn't think they had smelly houses, they thought their house was fine. They changed it to Finish your clean with Febreze, which goes into what you said they had. They tied it into a habit loop. Right. Which is more human psychology. To build a habit, we need to tie it to something else.

Yeah, that was in the book. The lady was. She made her bed and she just gave you, like, a spritz. Yeah, that's what they. That's what they said in the book. Like, that was. The person who used Febreze like crazy. Loved it. Yeah, it was amazing. You know, it was really.

That. That's a really good.

Dude, I read that. I was like, that's so good because it makes you think about cash flow.

10 grand a month free cash flow.

You're saying identify a service.

No, no, just a playbook. Like a launch. Playbook.

Oh, launch. Playbook. Launch.

Yeah.

Okay. Oh, okay. Any service.

Any service. Yeah.

Oh, this is like the marketing a certain way, too, like who your customer is. And if you want to be successful with a truck and a phone. I don't care about the truck. Technically, you know, to go one level, my roofing company, like, we don't have a truck. You know, like, we only have the phone because we're just marketing. Right. And if you know how to market, you could do anything.

And you sub out all your work in the roofing.

You sub out the work. Yeah. So you don't. You don't even need the truck.

Just. But.

But, you know, marketing. So if you want to be good at business. No marketing, which goes back to no psychology.

This is so good, Dan. You don't disappoint. Where can people find you?

Yeah, Twitter's rocks.

Like the rocks in the bags. Stuff like that.

This is my specialty. And before I forget, because I will forget forgetting three things, we're going to talk about our religious comment later on, but I want to make sure that anyone who, like, listens to that. I'm not sure. Do you have a Q A?

Yeah. Oh, we can do a Q A. I do Q and A's every Friday, actually. So let's do it.

You're welcome to one @ Danielle Cronauer on Twitter. And then LinkedIn is also. Is great. Yeah, that's both. Both are good there.

Yeah. All right, what'd you think? Please share it with a friend and we'll see you next time on the Kerner.

Office. If anyone has any questions, it'd be cool to. To like or if anyone has any, after this, you know, goes out. The playbook is actually stolen. I'm not sure if we talked about this last night. I thought we did is I literally took Cutco's book and opened it up. Did I tell you about.

This? Yeah, I think.

So.

Yeah. Yeah. So you sold for Cutco.

Right? I sold for Cutco. And the Playbook is still the Playbook. Like, look at what they're doing, like on that Playbook. And then model after that Playbook. So that's number one. Number two is we have to market, so we have to have a website. Steal wherever you can. Then go to marketing, because I think that's the number one most important thing. It's very easy to do the service you're doing. That's why you chose it, because you are skilled at it or you know what you're doing. No problem. But you probably suck at marketing. We need to have a professionally designed logo and name. Like someone I mentioned I blew up names on Twitter. And then someone sent me the funniest video ever. That was like a skit where everyone's just like bashing the most generic names you could think of. Like, you would love this video. It was hilarious. They're like, oh, do you do quality work? The guy's like, yeah. He's like, okay, we slam your company. Quality. Yeah. Like, that was like, tell AmeriCorp. So.

Funny. So get quality.

Innovation. Get rid of. We need a good name. I'm not. I don't want your initials. You know, I don't want Joe. I want a good thought out name and then a logo. And then as far as marketing, yeah, I always did. I'm a cheap guy. I should say that. I'm a smart with my money guys. So, like, I have no problem spending money on my family and friends and doing stuff like that. Or that's okay. I'm not cheap at all. It comes that I'm cheap when it comes to marketing. Like, I personally hate Facebook ads. Google Ads. Waste of money. Facebook ads, waste of money. They're way too expensive for your dollar. You want to get a rock flyer. You have bag, Rock card. Put it in there because you know exactly who your customer is. And then this is also, I'm gonna. I have to bake a noodle quickly here. This one threw me off. I always thought you had to throw the flyer to the dirty houses, like for power washing. Like, oh, that's a dirty house. They need our service. It's actually not true at all. Like, the clean house gets power washed more often than the dirty house does. Yeah, that's why it's clean. Yeah, that's why it's clean on camera. I have such Bad, like, memory in terms of, like, if we talked about or not. Did we talk about the.

Febreze? No. We talked about targeting neighborhoods with the rock flyers, but not nothing about.

Febreze. It's the Power of Habit. I believe Charles Duhigg is the book. Okay, if you've never read it, the. Oh, my God. This literally, like, we're talking. It might be the most important thing I've ever read in my life. In the Power of Habit, they studied Febreze, and they were calling Febreze the billion dollar bust. They spent a billion dollars making Febreze. It was the best product ever made. They've had nothing like it ever. And people at Proctor Gamble, they gave it to this lady who's like a wildlife rescue lady. So she's like, I can't go on any dates. I stink all the time. And, like, perfect. They gave her Febreze and she sprayed the Febreze, you know, over house, clothes, whatever. Say, oh, my God, like, this is amazing. They come back a month later, guess what? She's got the entire bottle still there. Never used it. And these people are like, whoa. Like, what's going on here? Like, we just answered your. We answered your problem. Like, you stink. Here's Febreze. Problem solved. Doesn't use it. They have a garbage man. Same thing stinks. You know, no big deal. Hey, we got you solved. Give this lady. They hit this garbage man a bottle, come back a month later, full bottle. And now they're like, we're in trouble. Like, these people, like, they're not using our product. So they give it to a house lady or cleaning, you know, just a. I want to say, type A type person. And within, like, two weeks, the bottle's empty, and they're like, oh, my God. Like that. Our customer is the person who stinks. Our customer is the person who wants fresh. And dude like, it. When I realized, like, that, I'm like, that blew my mind because that's power washing. Like, your. Your customer is not the dirtiest house on the street. Your customer is the cleanest house on the street. And that's a perfect segue into the answer of your question is like, you need to identify your customer. Like, it is your.

Job. Like.

Not. I don't care what you want. I care what your customer.

Wants. Yeah, it's funny because I. I feel like I've heard that story, and I feel like there's another part to it on how they marketed Febreze. Like, isn't there, like, another part of that story where in the beginning, they were like, it makes your stuff smell good. And then they kind of changed how they described it. Does that sound familiar? I need to ask Chad.

JBT. I'm 90% sure it's power of habit and Charles Duhegg, but I definitely go to the febreze story, and I just. Or I took a iTunes U course on Yale. The guy's like, human memory is so bad, we forget everything. Like, don't believe anything I say. And it was unbelievable. Unbelievably, dude, it was amazing. The end of the course, the professor, like, after, like, 12 weeks was like, don't believe me? I might be wrong, too. It was really cool.

Okay. So I found it. It's. They used to pitch Febreze by saying, get rid of tough odors. You think about how people work, too. Like, if you have a cat lady house, it doesn't smell bad to you. Do you live in it? Whereas if a stranger walks in, they're like, holy crap. That's how our bodies work.

Right?

Yep. So when they change it from get rid of tough odors because people didn't think they had smelly houses, they thought their house was fine. They changed it to finish your clean with Febreze, which goes into what you said they had. They tied it into a habit loop. Right. Which is more human psychology. To build a habit, we need to tie it to something.

Else. Yeah, that was in the book. The lady was. She made her bed, and she just gave you, like, a spritz. Yeah, that's what they. That's what they said in the book. Like, that was the person who used febreze like, crazy. Love it. Yeah, it was amazing. You know, it was.

Really. That. That's a really.

Good. I read that. I was like, that's so good, because it makes you think about marketing in. In a certain way, too, like who your customer is. And if you want to be successful with a truck and a phone. I don't care about the truck. Technically, you know, to go one level, my roofing company, like, we don't have a truck. You know, like, we only have the phone because we're just marketing. Right. And if you know how to market, you could do.

Anything. And you sub out all your work in the.

Roofing. Yeah, sub out the.

Work. Yeah. So you.

Do. You don't even need the truck, just. But, you know, marketing. So if you want to be good at business. No marketing. Which goes back to no.

Psychology. This is so good, Daniel. You don't disappoint. Where can people find.

You? Yeah. Twitter's at. Danielle Cronauer on Twitter. And then LinkedIn is also. Is great. Yeah, that's. Both are good.

There. Yeah. All right. What'd you think? Please share it with a friend and we'll see you next time on the Kerner.