The Compounding Effect of Microgains with Tim Musch

Hey, everybody, it is Jim Johnson here, your head coach with Contractor Coach Pro. And we found another amazing episode of Contractor Radio here. It's one of those things. I enjoy doing this, especially when we have great guests. And last week I had the honor of bringing on an amazing guest and we were, we were talking about the things that your presentation should have in it. What homeowners and clients demand that your presentation should have these five key components. And it was a great conversation. If you haven't heard that podcast, go back and listen to that podcast from last week and you'll get a little insight into who our guest is today. But before we do any of that, we have this fun thing that we have to do that's called keeping the lights on.

Right.

And so we need to get one of our sponsors out there, our premier sponsor. We love these guys. Let's go ahead and hear a little bit of a word from Atlas. When you're looking for shingles, you need to look for that Scotchgard brand that Atlas has on the shingles to know that you're getting protection against those black streaks caused by algae. I think the Scotchgard is an important part of it. They're literally putting their science into the product. It eliminates all streaking on the roofs. Everyone knows Scotchgard, so it gives it some legitimacy. When we go into a home to sell a roof, you know, the Scotchgard branding's on our samples or on our literature. I mean, it is recognized.

Homeowners can't tell you what kind of brand of shingle that they have, but they can tell you that it has Scotchgard.

Husbands, but most importantly, wives. The women know Scotchgard. You go into that house and you say you're gonna have a clean roof. It's backed by Scotchgard.

Wow.

Everything comes with Scotchgard. Our new couch came with Scotchgard. Our new chair came with Scotchgard.

Hey, you got Scotchgard on your furniture now we got it on shingles for you. No more black algae.

It's just that brand recognition.

So the client just feels really comfortable.

It definitely builds credibility as well.

When we present an Atlas shingle to a customer and we tell them that this has a Scouts guard Warranty Backed by 3M, the trust is there. We feel more confident that they feel confident in us that we're giving them.

A product that's going to last for the life of the roof, you're not only selling the color, then you're selling the long lasting color. And it lasts for a lifetime.

You sold. Done deal. If I could put on all Atlas products And avoid any type of streaking and drive by that roof 10 years.

From now and it looks like, like.

The day we put it on.

That's what I'm looking for. That's the peace of mind I want to give my customers. It's just an easy sell. So if you want to give your customers a roof that looks like the day it was put on down the road, get ahold of Atlas, your Atlas local manufacturer's rep and find out more about their Atlas Pro Contractor program. It does help you differentiate yourself in the market and win more deals. So last week, like I said, we talked about these five things that are the customer demands in presentation. While we were having that conversation, the idea of the marketing funnel and the full marketing funnel. And then this concept of compounding micro gains came up and I was super interested. I wanted to talk about this. And as I talked with our guests more, I found out he's literally like the guru of digital marketing. Tim, welcome back. The show here on Contractor Radio. Good to have you again. Thanks for like coming right back.

Well, you're welcome. Thanks for, thanks for the invitation to come back. It was fun last week and I look forward to, look forward to this session.

Well, whenever I find a smart guy, I like to like take everything out of him I can possibly get. So you are one of those guys. Nathan, my right hand man and I talked about you afterwards. He goes, I knew you two were going to get along because I like the history of this industry, the fact that you literally created Market Sharp so you might have a bit of knowledge whenever it comes to marketing, especially from a digital platform perspective. And I wanted to bring you back. But before we do that and before I spoil too much story, just give us a little reminder of kind of your route to where you are now with Paradigm Vindo and a little bit of what Paradigm Vendo does.

Yeah, you bet. We'll do the short version. We did the longer version last week. So if anybody wants to review that, just check out that podcast got started in the home improvement industry, gosh in 80s and in the window replacement business, door replacement business, things such as that. And was going well. Long story short, one day picked up computer, decided to fiddle with it, ended up creating something that's now known as a CRM and ended up turning into a business of its own. And you mentioned before it turned into a product called Market Sharp that's used by thousands of home improvement companies now since then. In August of last year I made the move after 30 years with martyr Sharp to a company Also in Wisconsin called Paradigm. And Paradigm has a product called Vendo, which is in home sales, presentation quoting, contract generation tool. And hence we had that conversation last week regarding, you know, presentations and how you can spruce those up a little bit. So, yeah, that's a little bit about my background. Jim, I'm kind of excited, you know, you and I just, just met last week actually. But I'm, I'm really interested and excited about all the good stuff you guys are doing for the industry as well.

Well, we love doing it and, and one of the ways we do that is this contractor radio podcast. We want to, we want to bring on interesting people, share intelligence and knowledge with contractors so that they can get control of their business, grow their business, and hopefully find some of that personal financial freedom they were aiming for when they started their business. And last time we talked about, you know, the more of the sales side of things, what Vendo does and its product, but we gotta get in front of those people in the first place. And so marketing and sales are brother and sister. They work symbiotically, side by side. And it's funny because we've done a podcast in the past of the battle between marketing and sales. You know, you got your marketers over there generating opportunities, and then you got your salespeople going out there and attempting to close those opportunities. And there's always this battle like finding quality versus quantity, providing opportunities that are legitimate. And that's always a hard thing to kind of have. You experienced that between like sales teams and marketing teams?

You know, I certainly have. And you know, now that you mentioned that, I got, I got a stat here I'd like to begin our conversation with. It's from an organization called Velocity Market Research. And here's what they say. They say lead conversion, and that's really the center of the topic we're doing today is determine 57% by lead quality and 43% by sales process. Now, having said that, I'd like our listeners not to get too hung up on whether they think 57 is right and 43 is right for their business, because that those numbers will vary depending on a number of things, how you're getting leads, things such as that. But I think what we got to remember about this is lead conversion really is made up of those two elements. Generating the best quality leads you possibly can, but then having that sales process that can increase your chances of getting those things converted. Because when you think about it, if all of your leads are coming from repeat referral business things such as that, you know, the lead quality is through the roof. And frankly, your sales process, your marketing process that goes along with it doesn't have to be anything too special. But if most your leads are coming from, like, sweepstakes entries, more nebulous leads like those, you know, the lead quality, you know, not really good. So your sales and marketing process has to be through the roof in terms of its, its quality and what you do with that. So, yeah, I have, I have seen that battle between sales and marketing, and, you know, constantly fingers are being pointed at each other. And the companies that really knock it out of the park are the ones that get those two departments working like this. And hopefully we can talk about some things today that can help.

I think most of us kind of run that route whenever we start our business, right. We run this route of I kind of have the word of mouth thing going. I've let a few people know what I'm doing. I start getting some of that business seems really easy because every sale has a really strong opportunity, and you start to generate enough revenue, enough profit to start investing into marketing.

And.

And then you're trying to figure out what that is, right? Like, how does. How do I make this work? And you go, wait, hold on a second. I'm not closing 80% anymore, and now I'm closing 20% and trying to find that balance between those two. And so we're going to talk about the marketing funnel today, really? And truthfully, the full marketing funnel. So could you explain that so we can set a little bit of a baseline for where we're going to go with this conversation today?

Yeah, absolutely. First off, I'll describe the marketing funnel, and then what I want to do is I want to share some metrics that we did share in the podcast last week, but we'll go through it quickly because it does set the tone for what we're discussing here today. But what I'd like our listeners to do is have this visualization in your mind about a marketing funnel or a funnel in general. And typically, a funnel starts wider at the top, gets narrower, and you got a very small opening on the bottom. And that's really what a lot of our businesses look like. So let's describe the phases of the marketing funnel. And in a second here, we're going to kind of take a look at this from a different angle. So hopefully this will make sense. But this is what all of us go through into business. Now, the first thing we got to do is generate inquiries. Those are called leads. You know, we had a lead generation Doing its job, having people raise their hand and say, hey, I'm interested in what you guys got. Whether it's a burning desire to be. To be presented or whether it's kind of like, yeah, yeah, okay, tell me. Tell me a little bit. I'm kind of interested. Or somewhere in between. But that's where the whole thing begins. And then it doesn't stop. Then we got to take those inquiries we get. We got to get those things converted to set appointments. And we're going to talk about each one of these individually, Jim, and how we can improve these. And that's one area where I think a lot of companies can really, really make some improvement in their business and see some profits go to the bottom line. Now, once you get an appointment set. Not done now, you got to get that appointment converted to a full demo, because not all appointments turn into full demos, as we all know. And then when we get that done, then we have our opportunity to actually make our presentation. And we want to convert those demos to sales, either now or in the future. And we'll talk about that in a second as well. And then we're still not done. Once we get a sale, we got an installed project. We now want to convert that customer. We have to what we want to call a lifetime customer. Some people want to call them a raving fan, but somebody who is a true ambassador for your company because what that unleashes for you is reviews, repeat business referrals, and that's the stuff we love in this business. So. So that's the funnel generating inquiries, converting inquiries, set appointments, appointments to full demos, demos to sales customers, to lifetime customers. That's really what the funnel is all about. So.

So the thing that you brought up that was really interesting to me and you put some math to it, I think you're going to share some of that math today was that at each one of those, if we just improved a little bit, it would have a big effect. This. This concept of compounding micro gains. So each one of those, if we can make a little bit of movement, it compounds the actual full result in the end. Can you explain that concept, a little bit of what we mean by the compounding effect of micro gains?

I can. And you did a pretty good job there. Because what will happen when we wind this session, John, down? Jim, we're going to talk about some things that everybody can do to improve each phase of this marketing funnel, but then we're going to go ahead and put a small improvement, incremental improvement in each one of These activities you go through with your business business and see what happens when those things get added together and give you that end result. It's actually quite amazing. So we won't really, we won't really share with the group right now what that's going to end up being. We'll kind of hold that for the end, but that's the idea. But what I'd like to do now, I'd like to review some, some industry metrics that I think will paint the picture very well for what we go through in this marketing funnel in our industry. And these metrics are courtesy of our friends at Market Chart and they have a huge number of people using their CRM and a ton of data to analyze. So what I did is pulled that out and they gave permission to use this data and it really tells a great story. So if you got your pen and paper out, now might be a good time to take a note or two. So we're going to do it.

I didn't know I was going to have to take notes, but I'm ready.

All right, what we're going to do is go through this marketing funnel and talk about the industry as a whole. And this is a huge sampling of the industry. So they're very reliable numbers. We're going to take a look at what this looks like. So let's begin with inquiries. Last year with this group, 3,027,126 leads were generated. Okay, let's keep going. Of those 56 point, or, excuse me, 55.6% of those turned into appointment set, which is 1.686 million. Not done. Of those, 80.7% of those turn into leads actually issued to salespeople because not all leads that get set are issued to salespeople for a variety of reasons. And we're still not done. Of those, 77.1% of leads issued actually turn into full demos in the home or however you demo. That's 1 million leads were fully demoed. Now of those, 37.2% turned into net sales and installed projects. 391,000 sales with an average sale in this group of $10,611. So this group represented $4,150,850,605 worth of installed home improvements.

Not a bad industry.

No, it's not bad at all. But here's the deal. We went through those numbers. 55.6, 80.7, 77.1, 37.2. And your mind probably didn't do the math quick enough. But here's a metric I think we should all track and many of us don't. And what that is is the difference between inquiries, the top of the funnel, and net sales as we approach the bottom of the funnel. And with this group, 12.9% of inquiries turn into net sales. And Jim, there's a point I want to make about this that's somewhat related to the topic today, and in some cases not. But here's the deal. We went through a heck of a last couple years in terms of consumer demand. You know, it was off the charts. Who would have thought when Covid hit that that happened? You know, consumers just wanted to do things with their home. So demand was off the charts. But something very interesting, I went back and analyzed these metrics a couple Years ago in 2019, before the pandemic, and guess what the conversion rate was for inquiries to installed sales.

Well, I kind of cheat because I listened to a podcast last week, but it was better.

It was 15.4% or 16% better than what we went through the last couple years with this demand that was off the charts. And that made me scratch my head when I saw that. I said, whoa, what's this about? And frankly, I think what it's about, along with maybe some other reasons, along with abundance, meaning unprecedented demand, often comes waste. And by waste, I mean inefficient processes in your marketing funnel. So we went from 15.4% conversion as an industry group 2019 to 12.9 last year. So very interesting stuff. So that kind of sets the stage.

Yeah, I think that's really the point of today's conversation is how can we become less wasteful with the investment that we've made? Because that's what it is. Whenever you're marketing, you've made an investment either of money or time, one of those two things to get this opportunity in front of you. And if you're wasting, I always look at this like wasting actual dollars. Like I'm literally setting hundred dollar bills on fire, just throwing them in the garbage because I'm not doing what's necessary to be effective and efficient throughout that funnel. So if it's okay with you, do you want. Do you. We want to go through the funnel and maybe help these guys become a little bit more effective and efficient at each one of those areas.

You bet.

To move the number a little bit.

Yeah, you bet.

And I'd like to get back to the 15.4 or even above that in my own company.

Yeah, yeah, that would be great. So let's do this. Let's set the stage. And what I'd like us to look at when we're thinking about this marketing funnel is I'd like us to look at it this way. We're actually making five sales throughout this process. And sometimes we don't look at this this way. We look at we got to make one sale. That's when we make a presentation, we try to close it. No, no, there's actually five sales going on. Because think of this, the first sale you have to make is your top of funnel. You got to make a sale to get somebody to raise their hand and say interested in what you got? So your marketing has to make a sale right there. Okay. Sale number two that you have to make, we've already covered this is you now have to convert that inquiry to that set appointment. That's also a sale. A lot of us don't look at it that way, but it is. And we'll cover some things along those lines that I think can help help the listeners in their business. Okay, we're still in the mid funnel now. So now we got that appointment set. Now what can we do to convert that to a complete demo, complete presentation? And you might think, well, there's really not much you can do with that. Some things just don't work out. Yeah, that's not the case. There are certainly things you can do to improve your chances to take somebody that did say yes, come see us to actually follow through and give you the time to make a full presentation. And then we're going to enter the bottom of the funnel. Sale number four, that's the one we typically consider the sale. And that's where we have a chance to make our presentation and convert them to a customer, get a contract out. Whether that be right now for you, one call closers or sometime in the future, doesn't matter. You know, either one is important to your business. And then as we as we exit the bottom of the funnel, the last sale you have to make is, you know, you got to convert that brand new customer to a lifetime customer and that raving fan and you might say, is that really a sale? Yeah, it is. You really got to give them the opportunity to be that ambassador for your company and give them and enable them to do the things necessary. So.

I always like to draw attention to that last one there because it's dependent on those first four. If you do everything right through those first four, you have earned the right to ask for that last sale.

Yep.

So I think that's a big point that and I'M going to ask you this. When we get to the referral aspect of this, I got some questions there. But do we want to start with generating more inquiries?

We do. All right, let's start there. I'm sure you got plenty of input here, Jim. So let's just dive in and get into these five sales, talk about some things we can do to help. So.

And before we do that, I want to draw attention to the listener here. Tim is absolutely right. Each one of those is a sale. The very first one is just you're generating. You're putting something out there that they go, hey, I'm kind of interested. So it has to be good, has to be solid, has to speak to them specifically. And so in order to generate more inquiries, what are some of the things that a contractor out there should think about? Tim?

Yeah, the first thing I would think of, and I don't know. Have you ever heard of a guy by the name of Willie Sutton?

Yeah, I have. Yes.

Yeah, Willie Sutton, known as Slick Willie, the most famous bank robber in the world, way back. And here's the deal. One day a reporter asked him after he got caught, said, willie, tell us, why did you do it? And he's famously known for answering that question as to why he robbed banks by saying this. Well, because that's where the money is. Okay. You know, when you think about it, there's actually two things. Something called Sutton's law, which is taught to medical students to look for the obvious in their diagnosis. And also in accounting or activity based cost accounting called the Willie Sutton rule, where cost should be applied, where the money is. So kind of interesting. So what's that got to do with lead generation? Well, pretty simple. When you want to spend some money and generate some leads, spend it and go to where the leads are. And that, that seems obvious, Jim, but I see way too many people not putting much thought into that and really, really knowing their metrics as they go with their marketing dollars so they can continue to refine and be better at picking where to spend their money.

We call that the shotgun approach.

Exactly.

Out there trying everything out of the sun because nothing's working for you and you're rooting for this magic bullet that you pull the trigger the right time, in the right place, in the right situation. So all of a sudden, figured it out. I got a bunch of leads.

Yeah, you're right. You know, back to Willie Sutton. There's one more quote from Willie after he said, yeah, because that's where the money is. His other quote is, you Know, go to where the money is and go there often. He obviously did it more than once and really that's our job. So with that said, what should we do? Let me just generally say something that I think everybody should know and probably does know. So forgive me if I'm really beating a dead horse here, but obviously where people are right now in many cases is they're on the Internet. I mean they're browsing around and obviously they're getting a lot of information from there. So that's not a surprise to any of us. But I'll tell you one thing that's a surprise to me Jim, is some of the companies out there that, that don't necessarily get help with their Internet strategies. And what I mean by that is, you know, they might say, well you know, save a couple bucks here. My brother in law is kind of a geek, you know, I'm just going to have him put up a website for us. So. All right, great. Brother in law says, well good, I can do that for you. Sure. And ask the question what do you want on it? Oh, and a business owner goes, well, I don't know, here's a bunch of brochures of stuff we sell. You know, just put something up, make it look pretty. I guarantee you that your brother in law will probably make that site look pretty, but I also guarantee you it probably will not convert worth a darn. So get some help with web strategies. There are plenty of companies out there, I know Jim, that you work with companies that can help in many areas of web strategies, whether it be social media or paid search or whatever the case may be. And if you'd like some recommendations to some companies that are good in this area, just let us know. Happy to share that. But it's really something I think oftentimes doesn't get considered enough is to get some help from some competent people that know our industry. See, we're not selling pizzas here. The kind of web strategy that works to sell pizzas is not going to work in our industry. The conversion process is way different. So get some help with your web strategies.

Yeah, I'm not getting estimates for pizza.

That's right, get three.

It's great that you mentioned that. And there's different versions of this Internet thing, right? You've got social media over there, you've got your Google strategy and that kind of is broken up into a few different pieces like your SEO, YouTube possibly and applying that Google, my business and those type of things. In our experience at one point Facebook was really pretty Good. You could target and be really good about getting things out there in front of the ideal buyer. But one of our concepts that we talk about when we teach, like, okay, put yourself in the shoes of your buyer. All right, so let's first figure out who your buyer is. Like, who are they? Because they can vary too. But if you know who that is, where are they? Are they going to Facebook and saying, hey, help me find a great roofer? They're not. They're going to Google best roofer near me roofer near me roofer in Austin, Texas. Like, they're. That's the type of things they're typing in to find you. And whenever they do, if your website doesn't do what it's supposed to, because it's not supposed to look pretty necessarily, it's supposed to go, hey, here's where you can call me. Here's where you can set up a time for appointment. It's got to have that stuff on it right away, because that's what we're looking for. Am I off base there at all, Tim?

No, not at all. You know, most websites that I see in this industry are not set up for conversion. They're. They're set up to provide information. In some cases, they do fine with that, but that's not what we got to do. We got to evolve that from somebody that landed there, regardless of how they got there, to get to the point where they go, I want to. I want to talk to these folks one way or another. And that's the conversion process that has to take place on the website. So, again, just get some help with this. You know, if you're not satisfied with the way it's going, you know, research some. Some solutions that can really help you. And I find that we definitely have.

Some resources there that people can reach out to us for. You know, we're going to be placing this podcast out there. Feel free to comment on it on our YouTube channel. Ask us who we suggest. I mean, one of the ones that I'll. Right off the top of my head, the Hook Agency is really good at doing that type of thing for you. Kill your competition is really good at that as well. They're partners of ours, people we trust. They do a great job. I'm sure Tim knows a couple as well.

Sure.

Just comment on. On our stuff and we'll help you out. We'll help you find the right ones, because that's the hard part. Like, out of 100 of them out there, two or three might be.

You're right.

And it's so hard to find that right one. And leveraging folks to help you out because not everybody can go out and spend five or ten thousand dollars on this great converting website. But there's other ways to do it too. Through third party services, you can go to fiverr.com there's all kinds of people that. People by the hour out there that do some pretty good work to get you in at least a good start on your website that you might improve over time.

Mm.

So that's one of the ways to create more inquiries, have a high converting website. What else we got going?

Well, you know, some of the things that many of us have like tossed aside. Radio, tv, you know, some of the biggest players in a lot of. A lot of the major markets in the country, you know, their presence is really made known through radio and TV and things like that.

So that's a lot more affordable than people think it is.

It is. And it's the same story, Jim, with radio and TV and things such as that. Get some help from some people that know this game in our industry. Don't just rely on your local radio salesperson to handle all this for you, because they probably are not going to make it work. So likewise, we have people we can recommend that can help you with, with those areas. How about, you know, direct mail? One thing I'm noticing is a lot of the big, lot of big companies out there, you know, the really large brand manufacturers and so forth, have really stepped up their direct mail. And I know these guys and I know they don't do it just to do it. And it's ongoing. Yeah.

Everything's measured. They have seen a return rate on whatever it is they're doing, and they're. They're literally sitting up there in their ivory tower pulling the right lever at the right time for these things. And I'll ask you, because this is more judgmental than factual, maybe if everybody is doing something one way. So Facebook was really big there for a long time. If everybody's there and doing their thing there, it tends to start to sound like noise or almost a commodity. Like there's a whole bunch of them, and I just choose whichever one. And so by doing something completely different that isn't being used as much as everybody else, you're. Well, the number of people you might get in front of shrinks, but their number of options also shrinks. Is that a fair assessment?

I think that's a great way to put it. You know, obviously, years and years ago, you know, all of our mailboxes were full, just like our email inboxes are full today. But what's happened is it done a flip flop on that, you know, now most people's mailboxes are not full of that kind of stuff. You know, until you get into political seasons and things such as that.

Yeah, I was going to say politics.

Yeah. So it's kind of refreshing and people go, oh, wow, it's a local company, you know, so don't discount some of those methods to get leads. But again, test, test, test, keep track metrics, how it's working. You know, obviously with direct mail, one of the better ways to do it is if you're not doing this, you know, get yourself set up with someone that can, you know, do this for you. Because there's plenty of options that, that are available for this. You know, certainly do marketing around your existing jobs. My gosh, whether it be direct mail or canvassing or door hangers or a combination of all three, you know, there's not a better setup anywhere than that. You're in a neighborhood where all the homes are probably similar. You got some centers of influence who can tell your story for you. So, you know, have, have a goal to get another job for every job you install by doing some micro marketing, you know, in the neighborhood. It's just something that for some reason many of us quit doing when all this digital stuff came around. And it's something that can, that can still work really well today.

Yeah. And I'd add a couple of things there, like don't forget about the people that work for you. The people that work for you are a center of influence. They have other people that they know they should be putting it out there that they do what they do for who they do it for. It should be something that's common in their own social feeds and what they're sharing and getting involved in the community. The very first thing we ever tell a rep, like we hire a new rep, Very first thing we tell them, write down everybody. You know, write all of them down. And I want you to take out of there all the ones that know a lot of people. So you got two different lists, ones that know a lot of people. And then everybody I know, we're going to write a specific letter and piece of content, an email to these guys, and we're going to write a different one to these guys. And just know that you're doing what you're doing. It is shocking, shocking how many leads they get just from that first. It's literally the first thing it's the power of who you. We all know all the people we need to know already if we just would let them know what it is that we do. So that's a good way to create a few inquiries right away for a new guy. I agree with you. Working around your job and usually having a multi pronged attack. You mentioned it, I think last week, who people buy from, they buy from people they know like and trust. They gotta know you first before they can like and trust you. And most of them start skipping this no part, which is why you see the TV ads, the radio ads, the direct mailers, the vehicles that are wrapped and that kind of stuff. Because when they first come into contact on an appointment with somebody, it's not the first time they've ever heard of them. There's been some knowing of who they are and whenever that presence is larger, whether it's right or wrong, you're trusted more.

Yes.

Is that fair?

It is, it's very fair. So, you know, we best, we best move on. I just want to mention two more under generated inquiries and you probably got some comments here as well, Jim. But certainly canvassing still totally viable. And shows and events, you know, obviously very, very viable. The thing about those two elements is get your people trained up right. And that's going to make all the difference in the world. The results you can get from either a canvassing program or your shows and events that you're doing. So plenty of things available training wise in the industry along those lines.

Yeah, it's going to take forever if we treat all five of these.

A.

Lot of ways to create some inquiries. If you want to get more of that kind of stuff, we do help out with that in our coaching. We apply this thing called all star marketing to what we do, which is based off a book called Guerrilla Marketing. Go check out that book. It's a great book. Tim, you ever read that book?

I certainly have. Loved that.

It's a fantastic book. Yeah, it really helped me as a salesperson get my mindset right that there was nobody to blame for me not making the sales I wanted to make other than myself.

I remember one example that I think was in the guerrilla marketing book. I never forgot this. It was just an example that he used where there was a strip mall that had actually three different furniture stores kind of kind of in the same strip mall area. And let me make sure I can get this right. The one on the right, it says something like sale going on 10, 20% off. The one on the far left said sale going on 30% off. The one in the middle said main entrance. And I thought, that's guerrilla marketing.

Yeah, it's. Smart is what that is. And it just takes a little bit of thought. It's a lot of fun to work together as a team to build some of those things out. So now we've got convert those, like. Okay, I got my hand up.

Yeah.

How do I get you to set the appointment?

All right, sounds good. Two things. Well, actually probably more than two, but because the time only can deal with two. The question I ask folks when we get to this part of the conversation is, do you and your company have what I call response ability? Now, break that word in two. Put a dash in there. Response dashability. And you can also ask yourself the question, are we taking full responsibility for this part of the marketing funnel? So when we're talking about having responsibility, two things are critical here. Speed and skill. And I know you've had conversation about this, so we don't have to beat this one up too much, Jim. But the speed part of leads, when somebody does raise their hand, however, they raise their hand, especially with leads coming from the web, speed is so critical. Just a couple stats here. You know, let's go here. 78% of customers buy from the first company to respond. You know, if that's true or anywhere near true, you don't want to be second or third or fourth, do you? And how about this 391% increase in lead conversion when responses within one minute or less. And there are a zillion other statistics along these lines, but here's the one I want everybody to remember. We all know these things because you've heard podcasts in the past talking about the same stuff, how important it is. You nodded your head. Yes, I agree. How about this one? Here's a stat. 7% of companies respond to leads. Here's the real. Here's the real life. 7% of companies respond to leads within five minutes, while 55% of companies respond in five days or more. So, in other words, we all know this stuff, but most of us don't do it. There's a big difference between knowing and doing. So get yourself some technology or whatever it takes, and it's all out there for you to get this.

The whole idea of speed delete, I think, is really what you should take away from what Tim's sharing right now. The fast. Like, first off, if they call you on the phone, you don't let them off until there's an appointment. So let's just get to that there's no, like, hey, I'll have somebody call you back. Train the person answering the phone to do their job, which is to get an appointment for your salespeople. I always use this analogy. If you were to call your hairstylist and say, hey, I need to get my hair done, and they said, sure, no problem. Let me get your name and number, and I'll have Sally call you back in a few minutes. She's cutting somebody's hair right now. You go, okay, and you give them the name and number, and you hang up the phone. What's the next thing you do? I call the next one. I have a job to do. I have a task to get done. I'm trying to get an appointment to get my hair done, and that didn't work there. So now I'm going to go do this other one. And that's how long you have a choice. Either you're going to get me called back fast enough, I haven't set an appointment yet, or I'm going to set that appointment. I ain't answering your call. One of those two things is going to happen. So set that appointment immediately. Automate as much of it as you possibly. Make it easy for them. Go to your calendar, pick an event and set it up, and it just goes on there automatically. But do not hesitate whenever it comes. Speed delete is what you should take from that. Would you agree with that, Tim?

I would. So that's the speed part. Let's go to the other S. And that's the skill part. And this might be the area where maybe many of us mess up as much as we do with the speed part. And what I'm talking about there is the skill involved to convert an inquiry to a set appointment. Here's what many of us don't understand is that we've already mentioned that this is an actual sale that has to be made here, one of the five. You got to sell that person to agree to let somebody come to their home or whatever your process is. And a lot of people confuse this. Oftentimes it's a phone call, either inbound or outbound. They confuse this with selling their product. And you can't do that because you're not selling your product right here. You're selling what's known as the value of the visit. And that's different. That is different. And if you don't have your people that are on the phone here trained up and scripted properly so they know how to handle the common things that come their way, like, hey, you just want to get a price. If you don't know how to handle that at this part of the game.