Network Focus is Key to Optimal Results with Matt Danskin

Foreign.

Hey everybody.

Welcome back to Contractor Radio. This show is focused on helping contractors get control of their business so that they can grow their business and achieve their personal and financial freedom that they were chasing when they started their business. We hope that each time that we do a show, we bring something, one of those golden nuggets that makes the difference for you between being one of the 80% that don't make it in the first two years to being part of the 20% that do make it today. I'm super excited about our guest. He is a good friend of mine in this industry. I can't believe I haven't had him on before. When I got the message like, hey, you know, this guy wants to be on your show, I was like, I thought he had already been on my show. It's long overdue. I'm excited about having him on here because I he's going to teach us a little bit about the value of a network and what that means to our businesses and how that will play to your benefit over the long run to take the hills and valleys out of our business. But before we get to there, a little word from our sponsor, Atlas. The Atlas Pro plus Contractor program is designed to help you build your business. It gives you tools and resources, training, industry insights, bonus structures, technical knowledge, the brand power and science of 3M Scotchgard and what we think is the best product and warranty in the industry. Become part of the family that is succeeding and growing their businesses. We went from nobody ever heard of us to the number one roofing company in our region and we've gone from.

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Hey Jim, thanks for having me, man.

Yeah, it's super fun watching. I love your videos. They're creative, they're great. And you've kind of created this whole thing in our industry, this restoration referral system that helps contractors build a network of insurance agents that pretty much supply them with business. But before we get there, why don't you give us a little background, like what happened that led up to this being your thing.

Yeah, kind of. To, to. To give you the. The short story. I was selling roofs just like, you know, a lot of guys out there, and I was knocking doors, I was buying leads, I was doing telemarketing, we were doing social media, basically all the things. Right. We even did some managed repair program stuff. And I had one of my friends that was referring. It was an insurance agent that was referring me business. And it dawned on me that that was by far the most efficient deals that I had. Like, those customers trusted the agent, so when he referred me, they trusted me and I closed those deals. And he worked for a good carrier and all of his customers had insurance through that carrier. So they paid the claims really quickly, really profitably. And. And so I was able to actually control which carriers I was working with without having to do a managed repair program. And so that really got me kind of obsessed with figuring out how do I replicate that. How do I not just have one friend that I've known for 20 years who's referring me business, but how do I have 20 of those guys so that I don't have to waste my time chasing customers that don't want to do business with me?

Yeah. I'm going to guess that the insurance carrier wasn't one of the ones that advertises on tv.

Not much. Yeah, exactly.

Word of advice to you guys that are viewers out there, if you're not a contractor, you don't already know this. You do any kind of like, hey, I got to get my house insure, a car insured, put pretty much whoever's advertising all the time on tv, that's who you don't want. That means they're having to go out and chase a bunch of customers and stuff like that. And it has proven that they're kind of sketchy when it comes to actually paying out on claims. And that's all I will say about that. Yeah. So you found this guy, he was good. You went, hey, why don't I repeat that? That makes a lot of good sense. And you built a network of contractors that were helping you develop your business. You weren't having to knock as many doors. You weren't having to really focus on a lot of air there is, you could get really focused about one. And then you said, hey, maybe I should teach others about this.

No, it was kind of really, I had no intentions of sharing what I had figured out with anybody else. It was just like, all right, cool, I'm gonna go sell a bunch of roofs and I'm gonna, you know, see if we can do more. And actually ended up my ex wife decided she wanted to move halfway across the country and take our son with her. And it was either leave my network of agents referring me business or leave my son. And, and I wasn't going to leave my son. And I knew I could just take the, the lessons I had learned and apply it to a different market and, and be able to replicate those, that network anywhere I went. And so we, we moved to Tennessee from Denver, Colorado. And it was, it was kind of when I told some of my friends that I was leaving Colorado, that they were like, hey, since you're leaving, leaving the market, why don't you share with me what you've been doing? And, and that's where I really realized that it was, there was so much value in being able to do that well, and there wasn't really anybody out there that had figured that piece out as I feel like, as well as I had. And so it's been awesome. You know, it was something that took me from having to always work evenings and weekends and being away from my family and making decent money but not like great money, to being able to control my time, being able to control my schedule in my work life balance and making, you know, four or five times as much money working less. And so it's been incredible just being able to, to share that with other people and see them replicate that and see them be able to kind of take back control of their, their times and their lives.

Yeah, it's, it was one of those things like that concept has been around for a while, but it was always very well guarded. Right? Like, it was like, hey, this is our thing. We kind of do our thing. And you're really the first to say, hey, I've got this thing, I'm willing to share it with you. Of course there's some cost to it, but the cost is pretty minimal for the reward that comes out of it. Now you started this how long ago?

It'll be three years November. So three years next month.

So it's legit. I'm a big believer. Three, three years in business, you're legit at that point. It's like, all right, you're starting to make some, some headway. What's been your biggest success story.

Man? You know, there's a lot of the companies I've worked with that, you know, are decent sized companies that have added 5, 10 million to their, their revenue or whatever. And like, that's really cool. Like, those are the biggest numbers I think that, you know, I can kind of talk about. But really I, I think the biggest success stories for me are taking the, the individual sales reps is really what that's more important to me. Like, all right, cool. The owner can buy a bigger boat or whatever. That, that's great. You know, and I, I guess I shouldn't say it that way. The owner is usually the one that pays for the program, but it's being able to see these guys that, you know, miss all their kids sports games and, you know, and Maybe they're making 80 grand, but they're working 60 hours a week. Right. And they're stressed out and they don't know what their next check is going to be. And it's up and down, you know, all over the place to, you know, they're making a quarter million a year and, you know, they get to take vacations with their family and they like, they're like winning and they're like actually getting traction. And, you know, that countless people that I've seen take that journey. And so I think that those are the success stories that, I don't know, I care about more.

No. And that you should, like, everybody ask us, like, why do we do what we do? And I think they're expecting us to say, hey, we're here to help contractors do amazing things and all that other good stuff. But the reality is we're here to help the consumer. We want great contractors that people can trust and raise the bar so that we get out of this perception that contractors are somewhere between ditch digger and used car salesman. I'm just tired of that. And so I can, I can understand that. That's actually really cool that it's about those guys, those guys that miss a lot of the sporting events, the band events, the gymnast events, like all that stuff. That's really what all matters, right? In the end. I've never met anybody that when they died, the other people said, God, he had a lot of money. That was amazing. No, that's not what it was. They're like, hey, he was a good father or he helped another person. That kind of stuff.

Yeah. And I think some of the best company owners that I Work with are honestly, like, hey, if I make more money, cool, I want to help my guys. Right? Like, and I think, you know, I just align really well with people like that.

Well, one of the reasons why we had you on here is because of that alignment. We agree with you a lot in a lot of areas. So it's pretty specific, like this idea of the insurance agents. But the reality of it is it's networking. That's what it really is. I can remember back to my contracting business and we had different versions of that, right? Like, we had the insurance agents and how to go get those guys and make them part of your network. But we really coached it from the beginning that that first 30 to 60 was. Your job, was to create your network. I don't want you to knock doors for the rest of your life. I want you to build a network in the first 30 to 60 days. It could be from your customers. It could be from attending a BNI group. It could be insurance agents, real estate brokers, it could be glass guys, gutter guys, like all kinds of folks that are related to what we do, that we can help them and they can help us. Now, is that really kind of the emphasis behind it that you're just building off of that, or is there more to it?

Yeah, I mean, the, A lot of the principles that we apply, you know, in restoration referral system can be applied to realtors or gutter guys or to a lot of different people because it's about providing value and selling on that value that you're providing. But we focus specifically on insurance agents because I found that to be the. The best referral partner. And I think a lot of guys go really wide and not very deep because they, they don't have a lot of success. And, you know, so they need to spray and pray, so to speak. And not to say that that's what you're doing, but what I'm saying is like, like, I think, you know, they'll go meet with a hundred insurance agents because they know it's going to be 1 in 20 of them actually send them any work. Right. That's not very scalable. That's not a good use of your time. Right. You know, so I think if you can figure out a process that is very effective and you can be targeted in the agents that you go after, you can be very effective there at converting those relationships into somebody that is referring all their business just to you. And that seems like a, you know, an impossible thing, but it really does happen.

Yeah, it does. And you're right. Like, we coach our guys. Like, I said that there's all these different ways, but once they found their way, let's go after that way. The way you believe it, is it your clients is the B and I group. Is it this, is that. Okay, now that you have that, let's go after that. Mile wide, an inch deep, right? That way you can get really focused and really tailored to your message. You mentioned about being effective in this networking, and I have some thoughts there, but I love to hear yours about what makes. What's the key to it all? Why. Why is it not go talk to 100 and get one that actually sends something to me? Why is it maybe talk to 10 and have 5 send something to me? What. What's the key to that?

So the key to it, really, I think where, where I started seeing success was in being very intentional about trying to figure out what insurance agents want. And, and that seems like really basic, right? But I, I see people talk about this topic all day long. And, you know, and this is my, you know, this is my lane. Like, I don't try to be, you know, Jim Johnson, contractor, coach or whatever. Like, let me show you all about your whole business holistically, and that's an awesome thing. That's not me. Like, this is my narrow little lane. And, you know, I see people talk about it, and a lot of times they're, they're in the right neighborhood, but they're missing major components. And so when you get those components down and you, you know your messaging and you know exactly what you're going to say and you, you do it in an authentic way, right? Have a conversation with them. But, you know, you know, here's. I know what your buttons are, and I'm going to make sure I'm pressing all your buttons and I'm going to show you why I am actually the best contractor to do all those things that you want. That's. That's how we be. That's how we're effective with it. It's just being really calculated in and how we approach it, but still doing it in an authentic way to engage that person.

So, so let's do the exercise in a different area so we don't give away all the insurance.

No, no, no, no. Feel, feel free to ask.

So let's, let's dig into that a little bit. So I know I want to work with insurance agents now. You can apply the same thought process, I believe, to real estate and whoever else you're being like, whatever it is that they do. You have to sit on the other side of the fence and go, what do they want? Like you said. And so my first instincts are, I don't want any stress from my policyholders. I don't want that. I want to retain the policyholders that I have. Yeah, I want to sell some more policies. I'd like to do that. Am I on the right track? Is there something.

Yeah, absolutely. So, so those are. I think he listed three or four of the. The. Some of the. The top things that we look at.

I got one more. Give my policyholders something they couldn't get from anybody else.

Okay, that's nice. That's nice. So the way that I look at it, and there's all sorts of different ways you can chop this up, just depending on how you categorize it and all that. But the way that I look at it is from. There's six things. So convenience. You want to be easy to work with, right? Like if. And that can be as simple as being the guy who picks up the phone when the other one lets it go as a voicemail. Right. I'm sure you. You harp on that type of thing all the time. Right? But you need to be convenient. And, and we use some stuff. We use online calendars and some stuff like that to be slick and extra convenient. But it can be as simple as just being the guy that answers the phone or having someone who answers the phone. It doesn't matter. We need to. One of the most important things is that we build trust. And that's easier said than done, right? To build trust with someone, especially if they've been working with another contractor for three years and you come in to talk with them and you want them to trust you more than they trust that guy who's done a good job for them for the last three years. So how do you do that? Well, the, the way that we do it is we volunteer transparency. If, you know, you handed your spouse your cell phone and here's my password. I'm volunteering transparency. Hon, you can look through here. I don't have anything to hide. Right?

Right. Yes. Has my password just so.

Yeah, yeah. I wouldn't expect anything else. And, you know, same thing goes if I go to an insurance agent and say, hey, anytime you send me a customer, I'm going to send you this company cam project timeline, or, you know, this timeline through my CRM or whatever. I want to show you whether they have a claim or not, whether they use us or not. I want to show you everything that we're doing with your customer so you can see that, you know, everything's above board. They didn't ask me to do that. I'm volunteering it. And they're like, man, this guy, I can really trust this person. Right. So then that's one component of it. We need to provide excellent customer service and communication for both them and for the customer. All basic stuff, right? All stuff you're any good contractors working to be good at anyway.

All the things we're supposed to do, right?

Yeah, yeah, that's an important thing. You need to talk about that and explain exactly what that looks like and set expectations that you can at least meet, if not exceed.

That's the difference. So there's the. I think that's a key thing that I think is going to be important for the listeners. A lot of people say it, right? Like they say, hey, we have good customer service or we have great customer service or we have a customer service person maybe. But they don't explain it what that actually means because customer service to one person might be totally different. Customer service could mean to you the contractor that I'm going to call them whenever I get a chance like that's good customer service for me. Where to another person that's like they should be priority, especially if they're my client. Right?

Yeah. Yep.

So that's a key component, like explaining it is key.

Show what that looks like. Right. One, one thing is that you're doing quality work, right. If they're going to refer you, they want you to do good work for their customers. Seems pretty basic.

Right.

And Jim, you, you can probably attest to this. I've been looking for about the last year trying to find a roofing contractor's website that does not mention the word quality. I haven't found one.

You can go with either one of those.

I've been on a lot of roofs. Somebody's lying, right. Somebody out there says that they do quality work and they're not. Right. The point being that talk is cheap. Everybody says that they're doing quality work. And so just like the customer service part, you have to be very clear about what quality work is. And this is kind of a double edged sword. So it works against you in the fact that they don't understand what quality work is, but it works for you in that you can provide them with that definition. You can provide facets and characteristics of what a quality roofing job is. And that's both the, the, the atlas shingles from your sponsor here as well as, you know, the, the Craftsmanship as well as the, the whole process. Right. The. The way that you protect the property, the way you clean up, the way that you. You do the whole thing. And so, of course, And I feel like I'm speaking to the choir here, because I know we're aligned on all this stuff. If they're selling a commodity, the price drops. Right. If you are selling a unique product, then there's a reason. A lot of guys say, well, yeah, they want to add me to their list of contractors. Well, that's because you're selling the same product is that other list of contractors. If you're able to present your product in a way that is not the same as what everybody else is offering, they feel like they're doing an injustice to their customers if they refer you and to other people, because they, you know what happens if they pick one of those other guys and they miss out on the. The Jim Johnson advantage that they get from using your company.

Yeah. You're not preaching a choir. You preaching a congregation. All the listening. I'm on board with you. Yeah, we both heavily agree on that side of things because, like, the quality and service thing, to me, that is a commodity. I mean, that's like what everybody. I've never had a contractor ever, ever come to me and say, yeah, we don't provide quality. They don't do that. Yeah, our service is not good. Nobody. Everybody says those things. But what is it that truly makes you different? Like, everybody's saying that thing over there, but what's the thing that makes you different? I think that's important. But then also important, the explanation of it to your referral partner.

Yeah, yeah. It's. It's nothing without that explanation. Right.

I mean, you could say you have this great system and you do this great thing, but if you don't explain how that works, they don't understand the story and they don't see the value in it, and you lose them.

Yeah. So those things are all important, basically, what you're doing for their customers. Like any good agent is going to want you to do good things for their customer. Right. But really, the things that influence them more than that are the things that affect them directly. So you touched on both of these. They want to retain their customers. That's how they make most of their money, is on renewals.

Right.

And so they need somebody that they know is going to be an ally to them, somebody that is going to act above board. Somebody's not going to create problems where there shouldn't be, you know, filing claims where there's not damage or, you know, heaven forbid, creating damage or whatever kinds of crazy things. And I don't bring any of that stuff up, but they need to know that you're on their side and that you're. You're not going to bite the hand that's feeding them.

Yeah, it was. It was always one of those things for us that we wanted to relate it, what we were doing to what they were doing. And what they're doing is they want to keep all those policyholders so they get those renewals so they don't have to chase a whole bunch of new customers all the time. That's why we want to work with you. We don't want to have to go chase a whole bunch of customers all the time. We look at you as, like, our renewals, and we want to make sure that you're served well. And so you could put it kind of in this story that made a lot of sense to them.

Yeah.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And then really, like I look at it, those five things, if you were the best contractor on the planet, you are not gonna blow out of the water the number two guy in any of those areas. Right. There's other people that do quality work, that do good customer service, have integrity, all that sort of stuff. And so, like, how are you going to have this agent, have this come to Jesus moment of, oh, my gosh, I can't believe I've been referring somebody else. Thank goodness you're here. Right? Like it. You've gotta create some distance between you and that next guy. Well, the. The area that we really excel at is in referring business to those agents, and that's where it is. It's exceptionally rare that contractors are good at that, I would say.

Yeah, that seems like a tough one. It was always one that I, you know, I wondered, like, how does that work for everybody else? Like, we are in our own silo, right?

Yeah.

And so I. I'm good. I'm really good. I go out and I get like 40 agents that are sending me stuff. I got one homeowner that's working with somebody that maybe they shouldn't be working with. How do I pick which one to refer them to?

That's a good question. So in terms of how you distribute those referrals, there's a lot of different ways to figure that out. You can do a 111. You can do, hey, my gut tells me this person's going to get along with this person, or they're in the same Part of town, or they do high net worth, they're high net worth, or however you want to match it up. The, the problem really is an economics problem. If you've got one customer to refer and 40 agents to refer to, there's going to be a lot of hungry agents, right? And so what you need is 40 agents to refer to and 400 customers refer over. And that, that doesn't happen by accident. It doesn't happen. When the customer comes begging to you, who do I need to go use? I want to change. You have to be proactive about it. You have to be intentional about it. So the example I use is, Jim, how many, how many red cars did you see today?

I'm sure I saw some, but I don't have a count of them.

Yeah, you didn't notice a single one, probably, right? But if I said, how many red cars are you going to see on your next drive? You could easily count. You could find every one of them. And they're everywhere. They're all over the place. If you're looking for them and if you're, you know, and that's really the kind of, the, the foundation of our, our process is that we're, we're very intentional and very, just kind of engineered in terms of creating those opportunities and finding them and capitalizing on them and letting as little as possible slip through our fingers. So I would say the, the, the prospect of being good at actually sending them referrals just comes from finding abundant opportunities. And then it's almost like, man, I, I've already given that guy a bunch of referrals. Man, I, I need to go find another agent to give some to. That's the problem you want to create. And it's what I call high quality problems.

Right? And that, and that works with any networking thing. Like, and usually, like, I don't know about you guys, but there's a lot of people in this industry, right? A lot of folks like you and I that are out there in a variety of different formats. Manufacturers and distributors to coaches like us, to marketing companies, to specifics. And like, there's, I can't keep count of all of them, but there's very few that I have a connection with, right? Like, I, I dig them. They're cool. I hope they think I'm cool. And we can hang out and enjoy each other's company. And, and we call that your measure, right? Like the, we all afforded a measure in this life of people that we connect with has to do a lot with your actions and words. That you use and how you carry yourself, your authenticity, all of those things. Is that something that you guys talk about whenever you're connecting with those agents or is it just every agent?

You know, I, yeah, it's definitely not every agent. You know, it, it's going to be the, the criteria to, to select the agents. And that's another kind of economics issue. Like if I can go get any agent that I want, I'm not going to accept working.

Right.

You know, and, and so if, if you're really effective there, then you can, you can start to be more exclusive. And you know, I've got one of my customers works with Chubb Nationwide Private client and Pure. That's it. If anybody has anything else, he refers it to another company, he doesn't want to deal with it and he's doing five times what he did a few years ago in volume, just, just working that way. So like, and most people aren't that, that exclusive but you know, you can, you can look at it from a carrier side. Okay. You know, I usually recommend, hey, pick your three least favorite carriers and don't, don't go after those agents. At least be, be at least that exclusive. And then when you go meet with them and you get to talk with them and like talk to them about like how they fundamentally, philosophically think about insurance and about, you know, relationships with their customers and, and if they don't, you know, you're not, not jiving with them, move on to the next one. There's plenty of agents out there speaking.

Of relationships and keeping them in that network of people that trust. We've got to take a word from our sponsor real quick, but we're going to come back, we're going to talk to you a little bit more about you. Like Matt dancing. I want to learn a little bit more about you. Is that cool, Matt?

Yeah, sure.

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I figured we're talking referrals so we should probably. Yeah. If you're not rewarding those folks that are providing for referrals for you check out, get the referral. They really help you do that quite well and help you keep track of. That's where we always struggled with referrals and like, tracking that stuff. Yeah, worth. Worth the phone call, worth the demo. So, Matt, we understand what you do. We understand pretty well how you do it now. Like, you shared a lot of, like, insight and information. I want to find out a little bit more about why this. Like, I get it, it was a thing you were good at and that kind of thing, but, I mean, you could have chose anything. Why this? Or is there something else you got kind of in mind that you, you want to build off of?

You know, I really. My, my whole career has been kind of an evolution of learn, learn and kind of evolve and, you know, and, and kind of move on to the next thing and next thing. And this is just where I feel like my, my skills have aligned really well with what I'm doing. And I never pictured myself being kind of a teacher or something along those lines, but I really enjoy it, you know, so I, I think we'll continue to, to grow and evolve and, you know, we've kind of changed the way, you know, our training happens and some of the way that it's structured. But I think we've got, you know, a good while longer to, you know, continue down this lane and you know, again, no, no interest in, in being the, the everything roofing coach. So you don't have to worry about me, me for competition there, but there's plenty of them out there. But, you know, I'm, I really enjoy being, you know, kind of being the guy for this very specific thing and, and just getting to, to develop deeper and deeper relationships with the people that I work with. You know, some of my first clients now that we've been working with for almost three years are just growing and growing and now it's not, you know, hey, just do our online training that now we're doing, you know, a boot camp with them or we're, you know, just kind of doubling down on our efforts and helping them go further down this, down this path.

That's super cool. There's a couple of things that kind of stick out to me about you in this area. One is you're like, it's a little bit of science for you. Like, you're like, everything is very particular, very clean. It's been well thought through. And that what happens is that's from being very focused on an individual thing. Like, I got this one thing I'm going to Go do that.

So I had to hire a bunch.

Of other coaches because we are the do everything coach. I can do some things. I had to go get a finance coach. I had to go with marketing coach. We needed specialists in those areas so that they can be really focused to provide the best possible experience. And I love that about you. Like, that. You keep digging at it, you keep poking at it and perfecting it. Not a lot of people do that. Just so you know. That's a unique characteristic. Most do just enough to sell something, and that's about it. So I love that part about it, and I love the singularity of it like this. It strikes me a lot like company cam. Like, there isn't really a competitor out there to company cam. It's like company cam is company cam. If they exist, I don't know anything about them. Same for you. Like, there's nobody that really does what you do. And I think that's because you've owned it so much and invest a lot of time. I find that to be something that you should be proud of. Seriously, like, you've done a great job. So I also noticed something else. It looks to me. Now, don't take this the wrong way, but it looks to me like you've kind of leaned up a little bit. Is that a fair assessment?

Leaned up? Yeah, I'm a little bit. I'm down about £30 in the last six months.

Nice, nice. So anything prompt that.

Being humongously fat.

I feel you there, brother.

Fed up with. With being fat? No, my weight had just kind of crept up, you know, and had, you know, just focus on a lot of other things. And. And so I just realized that maybe I can eat until I'm full and then stop eating. It's an incredible thing. Even if there's a little more food, you know, within arm's reach, I can discontinue eating, you know, so, like, there's all these, like, diets and stuff, and I. I work out, but I was working out and being humongous, too. But I'm. I'm trying to lose about another 30. I think I can. Think I can drop that.

I think it's one of these things we. We deal with as entrepreneurs. So, you know, all the people listening, they're entrepreneurs in most cases, whether it's owning their business or maybe they're a salesperson. That's a 1099. You know, we. We get so involved and so, like, focused on our business, we kind of tend to lose sight on us. I went through this, like, as, um, I have a job to do. I have this thing that's unique and I gotta, like, keep investing time. And I always felt like everything, if I don't do it right now, somebody else is gonna jump ahead of me. And it was costing me my health, like, my. My physical fitness, my mental fitness. And I went and did something about it. Is. Did you notice that, like, the business was kind of getting busy and, like, taking a lot of your time and that causing it, or is it something about.

I would say, yeah, I was just really focused on, you know, all the things in business and, you know, managing employees and, you know, thinking about the next thing and all the stuff we got going on that I wasn't thinking about and being intentional about my dietary choices, you know, what I was eating and, you know, you know, just letting.

A lot of.

Giving myself, I guess, too much. Too much slack. Not being disciplined there, because it was like, I have to be so disciplined over here. I'm just gonna eat whatever I want. And. And I also. I used to be. When I was about 25, which I'm 38 now, so 13 years ago, I would eat absolute garbage. I mean, I would drink 20 Dr. Peppers a day. I would, you know, eat a big fat cheeseburger for lunch or whatever. And you could see veins in my abs. I mean, I was chiseled out of stone. Well, your metabolism is not the same at 38 as it was at 25 for. At least for me. And so, you know, some of those things were just. I couldn't get away with what I used to be able to.

I. I hear you on that one big time. Like, when I was younger, man, I could eat whatever I wanted. It didn't matter. And I was always athletic. I was. And I was always, like, really busy on that side of things, too. You know, play softball, play basketball. And I coached a lot of sports and stuff like that. But as time has gone on and my kids got older and business got a new one again and just kind of stopped paying attention, and all of a sudden it jumps up again. I'll tell you what clicked it for me. What clicked it for me, I saw a picture of myself on stage and I went, dude, who is that fat ass?

Yeah. Probably the biggest thing for me is actually I saw a video of myself. I was doing a training for a company out in Colorado, and we just kind of set up a. A camera over to the side, and it was like, holy cow, I am enormous. Really try to, like, you know, be. Be gentle. If I'm Talking about somebody else. But, like, with myself, I'm like, you are disgusting.

That's a funny. That's an interesting point you make. We as human beings tend to be that way.

Right?

We're. We're. We try to be kind, if we can, to others unless they can't hear us, and then we're really bad. But when it comes to us, like, we're harsh. We're. I. I remember, like, God, if somebody pokes me in the belly, I'll explode. Like, that's how I felt. Like, Jesus, what happened to me? Big ass elephant. And I would never say that about somebody else. Right, right. And we beat on ourselves that way. But when we make that realization, we kind of beat on ourselves the other way. Right? Like, we go the other way just like, all right, I am going to do something about it. And we feel that bit of encouragement from a little bit of effort. I remember the first day I worked out, I went, yeah, I forgot what that felt like. That kind of hurts, but feels good at the same time. I can't believe how mentally with it I am after that workout. Like, I'm ready to go. I miss that feeling. And so it kind of builds on itself, too. Whether you're going downhill or uphill. It tends to. Yeah, go against us. Are you feeling that whenever you went through this?

You know, I went. I went for about six months when everything shut down with COVID that I didn't work out. But I've been. I've been like a four or five days a week guy for the last 20 years. It's, you know, sometimes I got where I was really big and strong, you know, several years ago, I got where I was really lean. You know, I've got kind of gone all over the map, but I. I've been pretty consistent with working out my whole adult life, except for that, like, six months where I turned into goo.

So really. So really just a diet thing for you? It wasn't the, the exercise part of it?

Yeah, man.

I wish I could say that. It was like exercise, diet time, a lot, like, all kinds of stuff. It was really bad. So, Matt, somebody's listening to this. They go, that seems kind of cool. And I. I do deal with insurance stuff. How they get a hold of you at insurance Restoration Referral system or referral restoration or how do we say it?

Restoration. Referral system. Yeah. So very simply, they can go to restorationreferalsystem.com they can email me, Matt, Restoration referralsystem.com they can check us out on Facebook, on LinkedIn, YouTube, tick tock. Tick Tock's really not very business related. We just have fun over there. But there may be a few business things on there. But yeah, that's kind of the best ways to get a hold of us. And yeah, and we're happy to answer any questions. We don't make it a real like tough sell. You know, a lot of people are like, hey, you're a sales coach so you're gonna like hard close me on this thing. I have to get people to like actually do the stuff that I teach them. And we offer 110 money back guarantee. So like I really don't want people signing up that aren't like in this because then I'll like lose money on the deal. But like I, I really just present. Here's what we've got. Let's talk about where you're at. If this is a fit, let's do it. If not, that's fine. If another time is, is better, let's do it. That's fine. I feel as a salesperson and I can sell people if I want to. I kind of tie my hands on, on this stuff. So if somebody wants more information, you want to check it out, I'm happy to answer questions. And we're not going to make you feel like you have to do it except for just given such a crazy deal that, that they have to.

Yeah, it's so cool. Like you don't hear much of that really. Like that's our world. Like that's what we do. It's hey, we're going to do a free coaching call with you and it's actually a coaching call. It is not a sales pitch or anything like that. We're going to. Let's figure out what's two or three things you need to work on your business. Let's give you some great advice. If you walk away from that, go do it great. If you think coaching's great, that's good too. Either way is good with us. Which goes against every fiber of my being as a salesperson because I want to close you man. Like I, I love that part of it. But I also know that if you aren't ready, you're not capable. You won't set aside the time. You're going to be really disappointed because we do the same thing as a guarantee. Like as long as you do the work, we guarantee you're going to get the results. If you don't give your money back. And that's, that's a, you got to make sure you got the right clients.

Yeah. And I mean, I think that's why in the coaching space, the people like actually having success, you know, in the broad coaching space is very low because there's so many, like, let me offer you the moon, but really I just want your money. And then I'm gone.

Let me show you my system. Hop online, watch it. Thank you very much. Right, right.

Yeah. And, you know, it's, you know, it's important that, you know, the person actually cares about the success of the people working with them. And for me, and for you too, because I talk to, I talk to your clients all the time. Whether you know it or not. You know, it creates so much more momentum because they're saying, hey, buddy, you know, other roofing contractor that's two states away. We were facing the same problems. Jim help us get through it or Matt helped us, you know, figure this thing out. That's. That makes it easy for me to find that, that right client instead of trying to force people, you know, to.

Yeah, ours is turning a little bit more networkish at this point where they're. They're seeing the results from somebody else that's in their market or a market over or they met them at a conference, that type of stuff. They're hearing the consistency from us like, we've been doing this for 10 years now. We haven't really changed a whole lot as far as our message and the consistency of that message. And hopefully our actions and, and behaviors are aligned with all that, which I believe they are. And I think that in the long run is a better route than the high pitch and close somebody on something. Like, yeah, I probably could have done a bunch of that and made a bunch of money. But I don't know if I feel a great. As great about it as I do today. And I think you're feeling pretty great about what you do too.

Yes, sir.

Awesome. Hey, Matt, thanks for being on today. Appreciate it as always. Enjoy hanging out with you. I think we'll have to do one in the future. Might get some of you marketing guys on and do like a marketing roundtable and.

Okay. And I'm that weird guy that doesn't fit neatly in any category. So I'll hang out with the marketing guys. I'll hang out with the training guys or whatever.

Absolutely. Well, good having you on again. Everybody. Is Restoration Referral System.com or MattRestoration Referralsystem.com we'll put all the stuff in the show notes at the bottom. We really appreciate you having you guys here. And thanks a lot, man. Appreciate it.

Thanks, Jim.

Yup, no problem. All right, guys, that was Matt Danskin, an amazing individual, really cool business model, getting really focused, uber focused on one thing and perfecting that thing and being better at it than anybody else. That's great concept. It works really, really well. You see it in a lot of businesses, and we try to replicate that in our coaching. Like, we want to be the best possible business coach. And when it gets outside of that, it's got to be specific. We're going to go get the best coach for that. Thank you for hanging out with us here on this episode of Contractor Radio. We hope you enjoyed it. We hope you learned something from it. If you're looking for a little help in your business and you want to get control of it so it doesn't control you, you get into a position of working on it instead of in it so you can grow it and achieve that personal and financial freedom that you've been chasing, go to our website, Contractor Code.