It Is All About the PROcess! with Adam Sand

Foreign. Hey, everybody. It is your favorite contractor podcast, Contractor Radio, where we help you get control of your business so you can grow your business and achieve that personal and financial freedom that you were chasing when you started your business. I'm your host, Jim Johnson, the head coach here at Contractor Coach Pro, and we have an amazing guest for you today. I've been following this guy for a long time without really interacting. Like, I always notice, like, anytime somebody say, hey, who do you know that's good at doing Facebook ads? This guy's name kept popping up over and over and over again. I'm like, I gotta meet this guy one of these days. Because most people hate those guys. And then he has evolved into something new and even better, I believe, not only for himself, but for contractors in general, because it's one of the things we struggle with the most, is efficient processes and automations and those type of things. And I cannot wait to talk with him. But before we do that, we gotta pay the bills. Keep these lights on. We'll take a little word from our title sponsor, Atlas, who helps you differentiate yourself when you're out there in the field selling roofing to your clients.

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Hey, guys, if you're a roofing contractor out there and you haven't checked in to how Atlas will differentiate you and then what they do to support you as a contractor, I strongly suggest going to their website, getting engaged with them, attending their events. Amazing partner of ours and amazing partner to a lot of contractors out there. Now, today's guest, I've been able to watch his evolution through Facebook. We finally got to have a bit of an interaction at one of our events, and I was like, God, this guy, he's smart. That is a smart guy. He has something tangible to him that sometimes is missing in our industry. And I couldn't be more excited about bringing on Adam sand, your roofing business partner. Founder, right? Is that our founder? And, Adam, it's awesome to have you on the show today. It's long overdue. It's one of those things I keep going, I gotta get a hold of that guy. I gotta get a hold of that guy. And I'm glad we finally connected. And with both of our busy schedules, it's been a bit of a challenge to get this podcast out there and record. But thanks for being here today, man.

Hey, I'm happy to be here, and it's been cool to see you, and it was awesome to get to watch you on stage at one industry and model. And I'm really excited to get to chat today.

Yeah. And that's what it is here on contractor radio. This is a conversation between two human beings trying to help a bunch of other human beings improve, not only in business, but in life. And so give us a little history. Like, how did you go from Mr. Facebook ads and to what you're doing now as you're roofing business partner? I love the name of that, by the way. But just kind of walk us through that a little bit.

Yeah, I mean, it was. You know, I was not a roofer. I didn't know anything about roofing. I made an app and sold it. I owned some tanning salons. I sold cars. I sold lawn care. I did all kinds of jobs. I was in the military. Like, I was a bodyguard. Like, I did a lot of stuff. And I had a best friend who was a Shingler. That was what he did, right? All the time I knew him, he was Shingler. And I just thought, you know, you gotta make some money. Like, this sucks. Like, I was starting to make some money, and he. He wasn't. I was like, be cool if you could make some money too, so we could do some cool stuff together, you know? And so I ended up kind of investing some money in him. And then I realized I wasn't gonna get that money back unless I started helping more. And then I remember the first day I went to one of his sites, and I was like, why does it say urban? The company's called Sergeant's Roofing, but it's an Urban contract. I'm like, why does that sign up for? He says, well, that's the guy who got the job. Like, what do you mean? He's like, well, so this. I got the job from this guy. This is who we're doing. I'm doing their roof, but he's the contractor. I was like, you don't have A business, you have a pimp, like, that guy gets the credit. He's like, yeah, I had no idea what subcontracting was. That's how little I knew about roofing. When I owned a roofing company, I had invested in a roofing company, and I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. You gotta get your own customers. I was like, what are you guys. This is 2015. I'm like, I don't know. Facebook's pretty popular, right? Why don't we go there? Tried finding gurus, couldn't find gurus. So I ended up learning how to do it myself. And then I got. It was just an accident. I just told people in the private Facebook groups that this is what I did. And they were. And everybody was like, those were way bigger numbers than people talked about on Facebook ads back then. It was like dog toys and weight loss and ebooks and little cheap stuff that you could buy with a buy now button. And so my numbers talk about, like, $400,000 in roofing. They were just big numbers for these, like, podcasters that did little Facebook ad campaigns for little businesses. And so then I was interviewed 28 times. One guy made a course off of what we did. He called the Facebook. The course I took was called the Facebook Advantage. And then the guy who taught me made a course off of my case study called the Facebook Advantage Local. Probably the inspiration for a lot of Facebook ad guys that the industry hates came from that course because they basically said, target roofers, because they're a great business with big profits, you know, And. And so then everybody rushed in, and I was just. I. All these roofers started reaching out, and I just. I'm this little guy from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and I'm just like. Like, so nervous to talk. And I was like, yeah, sure, I'll help. And, you know, we. We did that, and we started helping him. But then I started getting fired. Back then, we charged, like, $7,000 a month for Facebook ads. That industry's been completely crushed by commodity. Yeah, your eyes go up. That's how people paid it handily, because the leads cost nine bucks back then. So it was like, you know, it was easy, right? And so. And so then we started getting fired for getting people too many leads, which, as you can imagine, there's not many roofers running around saying, my Facebook is getting me too many leads. But back then, it started happening. We said, well, why? And they said, wow, we lost. Missed a color. And we got a bad Google review because we didn't call this guy back. And like, so I built an app and sold it. So I understood, like, a little bit of system design, a little bit of this kind of stuff.

And I.

And I was like, how did that happen? And he's like, show me, like, how you keep track of your customers. So he walks around FaceTime and he's like, well, this is where we put our folders. And they go on these things along the wall. And we have these post it notes we put here, and then these magnets that we slide across the whiteboard we write the name on. Like, that's your problem. Like, you're doing all. Like, everybody's got everything everywhere. Some guy draw. And so I was like, you guys need a CRM, I can make you one, so keep paying me and I'll make you a CRM. So then we started doing that. And then what I learned was that, like, Facebook ad guys are easy to fire. You know what I mean? There's always somebody offering to do it cheaper and all this kind of stuff. But what I learned was that if you could build something that was like a piece of infrastructure in their business, you kind of had a customer for life, so to speak. You know what I mean? Like, and I remember this movie, Margin Call, where the stock guy gets fired right before the 2008 crash. And he was. His name was Eric and he was the risk management guy, and he gets fired. And coincidentally, he was the guy who found out everything would happen before 2008. And they were like, trying to get him back. And when they go talk to him, he's like, you know, I built a bridge once. It's like, yeah, I was the engineer on this bridge, and it made, you know, save these 100,000 people a 40 minute drive and this many tons of carbon dioxide, this many tires and landfills, like, that meant something. And this Wall street stuff doesn't mean anything. And I, that, that hit me way before I did any of this. But I remembered that speech from the movie and I said, that's what this feels like. It feels like I'm building something that actually makes a difference, you know? And I was like, whereas, like Facebook ads, it was just like, you're only as good as the last lead you got. That's how I ended up in the CRM and process game.

You said it. I was waiting for it. We have got to settle this debate. Okay, which way is that word supposed to be said? Is it process or. Or process? It was immediate. Like, when we were on stage, you used the word. I went, he's from Canada. Definitely from Canada.

So the reason that got notoriety was because I was speaking on stage at the roofing process conference, right? And everybody else says the process. And I was saying process. And I made this, like. I don't know, I had this idea when I was at home that I said, it's systems, standards and expectations, systems and processes. That was like my speech, right? And so I got it. I got up on stage and I held the camera backwards because I wanted that Instagram reel of people going. And I got everybody to stand up and scream, standards and expectations, systems. And follow the effing process, right? And I did that. And, like, the whole route, you know, portion of the room got up, and that was my thing. Well, then I didn't realize when I went to do that, that nobody else said process. They said prost. I didn't realize that. So Lenny Scarola goes up after me, right? And he's speaking, and he. And I'm sitting, like, front row, and he's like, when you're following your process and kind of looks over and the whole room laughs. Because now they realize that I'm now understanding the inside joke that I see this word weird because I said it, like, 15 times on stage to try and hammer the point. Standards, expectations, systems and processes. And so all of a sudden, people started like, you know, Dimitri made a shirt with my face on it, said, follow the process with the pro. Like, in these, like, stamped letters. And other people now just people, like, I walk up to people, like, process, you know, Like, I like it. It's. It's fun. But, like, people. I go anywhere, people tease me about it. And I mean, so then it, like, became part of this, like, brand. I don't know. So I like how it's supposed to be said. Probably process. You got 400 million people. I got 40 million people in Canada. Probably process. But, I mean, if people get to know me for saying a word weird and it makes me likable, I'll take it.

It's funny. One of the. One of the greatest pieces of information I ever got from somebody. And it was just kind of like, they kind of said it randomly, but it really stuck with me was be remembered. Okay, so, like, what is your thing that you're. And that is one of those things, right? Just it happened by accident. It is what it is, and now it's a thing. I think that's super cool. So, you know, the things that you talk about and the things that we talk about.

A lot of them aren't.

Really all that exciting. If I talk about marketing or sales or recruiting. That's exciting. Everybody loves that stuff. Like you can get anybody's attention all day long. But when you talk about process, you talk about systems, you talk about standards, you talk about KPIs, you talk about that kind of stuff. People kind of go back their heads. Yeah. Like.

Yeah, the yawn start.

So, so what is it that trips your trigger about that? Why that, why is that such a big thing?

You know, it's kind of an interesting question. I think it's because I'm actually kind of introverted. Uh, I've learned to have extroverted capability. But if you take me to a bar, I'm like the quiet guy in the corner. I'll. I'll probably drink too much and make a fool of myself just because I'm trying to make the pain of being around so many people I don't know. Okay, give me six foot riser and a microphone. I'm fine. But you put me in a room with, with, with people like that, I get uncomfortable. And so I'm very distrusting of human beings. Right. And I like things that I can control and I like and then make. And I just find it that the world feels more comfortable if I can organize it and I can draw it. Like I've been drawing circles and lines on stuff and I can make a thing that this is how it's supposed to go. Because sometimes being like a person who you know, wants to like envision a better, bigger thing, it's tough to like get ever get other people to understand it. And so then I try to just find ways to make process exciting because it, it makes it feel like I can trust that things are going to work out. It feels safe.

Yeah. I learned it the hard way. I'm the other way around. I'm that kind of outgoing, gregarious gu. I wasn't always that way. But as I got more and more into sales and that kind of stuff, it started to feel more natural and I was tired of the pain. There was so much pain with not having processes, not having standards, not having some kind of reference that I could go to and say, hey, this is exactly the way things should go. And when I found out about getting that stuff in place, it saved me.

A bunch of time.

Like time is the most valuable commodity that we have. And so that's why I'm so fascinated with it. So CRM. I caught this when you said it, he said, well, I'll build you one. Okay. So I don't know if you know this about my background or not, but I actually had that same thing in my own company. I said, hey, there's no way to manage this stuff. I want to automate some of these things. We're going to build a software to do that. We used Microsoft Access back in the day, a long time ago and that became something that we turned into a thing called Silver Lining, which then got bought by Accu Links and we had built out this CRM for contractors. Where did you start with yours? Like that day when you said, hey, I'll build you one, where did you start?

Yeah, so I started on this one called Podio. It was just very simple, right? And it was, it was more of like a, just a simple like almost more like an ERP than a CRM. But it was just a graphic user interface on top of a table. It wasn't much to it, it wasn't very fancy but I could do. When we were sending text messages, like having text message conversations in 2017, like the CRMs today still haven't figured out how to do this properly. We were like having full on back and forth text conversations that are fully kept in the notes, automated text back then. And it was super powerful and I, and I loved it. And it was cheap, right? And so that was like what I built sergeants on because I tried, I tried the roofing ones, I tried Jobber, I tried Zoho, I tried Method, I tried and I always wanted things to integrate and talk to each other and I was so annoyed that I couldn't make things do what I wanted them to do with roofing softwares. And so then I went and I just, I found Zoho to be a clunky. It's like I land on point like this is simple but I can make it do anything I want. And so. And I was like that's the one I'm going to use. And then from there, you know, we did that for a few years and then I. The mobile app never updated and some stuff was coming out that was like kind of better and I was like man, I wish I could do some of this stuff. And so we re looked at it and we went and looked at like Prosperworks and Copper. They became the same thing. And we revisit the roofing ones. We looked at Salesforce. They're so expensive. Zoho. I still didn't like it. Even though they got a lot cheaper. I looked at some other one Pipedrive, you know, we tried that for a bit and then I found HubSpot and I was like, I really like this. Like, this feels really good. And I really like the people that were in the company. Like, it's a cult. But I mean, like, you know, like, I shouldn't say that's negative, but they're just like, they bleed orange. Like, they're like Apple people or Jeep people or Tesla people, you know, like, they're like that. Like, they love where they work that much. And so I was just like, I want to do it on that. So then we convert our company and start converting our clients over to it. And so we just, we just realized that because there was a small spot in the middle where I partnered up with another guy in the roofing industry. He's like, we should make a custom CRM on job Nimbus. And like, I'll service it and you can build it and we'll like make this thing. And it was a terrible flop. And it was because I just got sick and tired of telling people, no, we can't do that. No, you can't do it. Like, well, I thought you were the guy that could, like, customize. I am, but like, it's a limitation software. Well, you didn't tell me that. It's like, well, I can read your mind and tell you what you want, what you want to do. So I got sick of all that. And I was like, no, I just want to build on something and do whatever I want. Right. And then that was. That was HubSpot.

Listening to that, like, I feel the heebie jeebies, right? Like, all these things that I went through in helping get acculinx kicked off and doing it. And don't get me wrong, I love acculinx.

It's great. It's my number one. My number one customer is acculux, people. My favorite software in the business. Because it's amazing. Until it's not.

Yeah, and it is. And there's some philosophy things there. And I want to kind of talk about that. Do you see it kind of like I do. You have kind of two philosophies. You have the one that's like, hey, this thing is going to work every time. It's going to be like, Apple, it's going to open up.

I was just going to say that. Apple and Android.

Yeah, it's Apple and Android. And so this one over here, you can get it, do whatever you want to do. But philosophically, when it comes to the people using it, I think it's important to understand who you are about software. Like, are you bought in? Are you going to use it? Is it something that you're going to implement? Is it something you're excited about as the owner but you're not going to use yourself? You're not going to champion, you're not going to enforce or hold people accountable to. Those are all those questions that I don't think a lot of people ask whenever they're looking at CRMs. Do you find similarities? Like hey, we're going to build this cool thing that can do everything and it's amazing. But then implementing it and having people use it is the struggle.

Yeah. Like my evolution through this has been like, oh, I want the tool, I want the tool. And then it was like ah, but it doesn't matter what the tool. We need the process. Right. And then it was like. And then now I like everybody knows me for this like follow the process thing. And I was really about the process for a long time and now evolved more about follow the. Like the follow the is more important. It's like tool doesn't matter as much as the process and the process doesn't matter as much as adoption. And that's what I like about accurate is easy to adopt. Right. And so it's like when people say what's your favorite CRM? I'll say acculinx because it's the best tool for you to get your company off the ground on in my opinion because it's, it jams you into a structure. It's very closed, it's very structured and forced into a certain way of business and then eventually. Right. Like, and I know some companies have found ways to get by. I mean there's 60 million dollar companies running on Accu Link so it can be good. But when you really like we say that our ideal customer avatars is, is kind of a person who's doing like 7 to 10 million dollars or more. I should just say 10 because the inflation. But. And they're the, the marginal utility of more money in their bank account is kind of having a diminishing rate of return on their happiness. They don't need another boat or another car, another vacation. None of that stuff's gonna make them as happy is that their business could just run the way they always wish it could and they know it should. And they've got like five or you know, five or 10 rogue spreadsheets and, and 10 softwares that are siloed and not connected together. And, and so they're using spreadsheets kind of make up for that. And acculinx really makes it so you can get There you can get to the point where you're doing $10 million, got a 10 net profit, you got cash in the bank. You don't care about another boat or another car. Acculinx can get you there. Right. And then we come in and we just, we, we will migrate people off. Whereas like when we look at people who are in the same position but they're on like a job Nimbus, and I'm probably gonna get sued for this, but I mean like it's just when I look at some of these other softwares, I don't see, I don't see them having anything uniform, you know what I mean? Yeah.

I don't think you could be sued over opinion. So I think you're in good shape there.

Perfect. But yeah, they're like, I, I, I see that like you know, say a job Nimbus is a lot more open, integrates with everything, you know it is. But because people don't know how to set it up right, they end up with this thing that's just kind of broken and it's their best worst guess as to how to set it up. Whereas Acculinx, it's like this is how you use it. Oh, you don't like that? Go somewhere else. We charge, by the way, we charge more for money for this, that and the other thing. Oh, you don't like that? Go somewhere else. Like they're very stuck in their way. And I, I like it because I mean it seems to be coincident. Like it coincidentally seems to be related to companies that are successful. Right. There's a lot of very successful companies running aculinks. Maybe it's the age of the software, you know what I mean? But they've, I like migrating companies off of it because they, they seem to be in better shape.

Yeah. And that was a strategic approach. Like it was something that we talked about and thought about from the beginning was you're either going to try and build something for everybody or you're going to build something that works. It's one of the two choices. And not everybody has an Adam sand working for them that says, hey, I can make this thing do everything they want. You know, in our industry that's not a common thing. It's not a high tech world. I love that insight. I think that was extremely good insight. So HubSpot, I've noticed this about you especially over the last really year, maybe a little bit more than that. That HubSpot seems to be the place where you've resided at this point.

Why, why that Well, I mean they. So like there's a couple angles from that for that question. Like, HubSpot as a company evolved huge around 2020. They had this issue with Salesforce. There was a non compete in place because Salesforce bought all these companies and then people left and they weren't supposed to have left. And Salesforce either was going to sue HubSpot or sue the people. And HubSpot said sue us because we're not letting these people go because they're good. And so they got boxed out of enterprise grade features for five years. And so then they were basically crafting this thing in the background for themselves but knowing that they're going to release it all. And they did. It's been like a flurry. My head spins trying to keep up with the product updates for two years. But they started releasing all these amazing features and it's truly, truly incredible stuff. Like everybody is like, it's the talk of the CRM nerds. Like, holy shit. HubSpot's going to like challenge Salesforce. Like they're actually, like, they're actually doing it. Holy crap. Like that's the dialogue that's going on even like, so there's that. Right. But then the other part was like, I've evolved from that. Like, I'm excited by tools, then I'm excited by processes, then I'm excited by getting adoption. You know, makes you get more fascinated by leadership because leadership is what gets adoption. Right? Selling the vision of using the tool. And I've just learned that that's really what our company is doing, is helping create opportunities in an environment for adoption. And so when we made that more of our focus, we started noticing like clients going, you know, like, just like every consultant coach has their bragging things, but we are like kind of like 90% right now on companies doubling in their first year since moving and like tripling in some cases. And not just that, but like making it more fun to work. Retention is better. The people like working in the software. There's more notes. Like, like the stuff that people usually hate about their CRM. It's not just like, oh yeah, we made more money. Like great, congratulations. It's the industry's all made more money. Perfect. But, but it's also like they're actually enjoying it. They're actually. I have one client who tattooed the HubSpot logo on his lake.

That's a, that's buying into the orange right there. That's pretty. I want everybody to realize this is an ad for HubSpot. HubSpot's great. I've actually checked it out, been looking into it for about five years when I first was aware of it. How do you overcome, and this is varies, I would say by company, but it's expensive. It can get really expensive for HubSpot as well. How do you overcome that aspect of it?

Quite easily. The companies that we work with again, you know, fit that ideal customer avatar, right? And they're usually like people who want to do something special. Like we, again, we don't appeal to everybody. I can do 12 a year. I mean it's like. But we're so they. We're able to demonstrate how it removes the need for people in the business. So one of the big measurements that we take when we're talking to companies is revenue per capita. Just like thinking how many people do you have in your business that aren't putting nails through shingles and how much dollars are you earning? Right? So if you have five people and you're doing 5 million, you're doing a million dollars per capita, right? And then if you got 10 people, you're doing half a million, right? We find that like. And you could confirm because you deal with more companies than I do because again I'm a very niche focused person. But we find like healthy companies between five and 700, a million dollars, they're like running their asses off doing five jobs per person at 300,000. They're throwing people at no systems. And it's like that's kind of the continuum they exist on. And when you're in that 5 to 7 range, you're either going one way or you're heading the other way. And it's just we're knowing which way. And that's like the ultra simple like superhero stat that, that I find helps diagnose it. And what we found is that our clients are able to get to a higher revenue per capita because these systems act like part time employees that take care of stuff. And then the data driven decisions that you're getting back from some of the stuff that that's in there. I mean I can give like examples but I mean when we can measure feedback scores from multiple stages of the process and like measure the time it takes to do certain things, the time between this and this and this and this and this and this and these people do these tasks and these people do these tasks, but then we move these three tasks back to these people, customer service scores go up, closing rates went up and we're able to measure like, you know how they say like what gets measured, gets improved. Like, we're able to do all that from, like a really intense build that literally tracks and times everything, because we build 250 workflows and 300 custom properties that do it. But then we can make pretty reports that make it easy for them to look at it, and then we can start working with them as an ongoing relationship to make data driven decisions. All of a sudden, it seemed more as, like, I have this, like, I have like five employees working in the business that are in the computer. And so, you know, I think I talked about this at one industry, but it's like, if you can get the 30 roofing companies that are paying $5,000 a month for a person.