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Contractor training room show where we go live and we talk about various aspects of our contracting businesses. And today we're going to be talking about production. And production is where promises. Either become reality. Or regret. I want to underline that for you. One second here. Get the right thing. Reality or regret. When we're fulfilling on a project for a homeowner, we're either gonna deliver on the promises our salespeople made or we're gonna regret the job that we did. And the whole thing today is we're gonna talk about what production needs to look like and what you need to do in each stage of your business. So let's talk a little bit more about how we need to perceive production. I'll just move that up a little bit right there. Try to get a good spot where there's nothing else on my screen. There we go. Perfect. And, and so I want you to think of production like this. And this is my goal today, is to share with you guys. Draw it out here. Right? We'll share with you guys. Think of this as like two cliffs, right? And over here on the left hand side, we have our sales promises. And over here on the right hand side, we have customer. I want to make sure I have enough room here. Think so? Yeah. Customer trust. And what production is, Is a bridge between those two things. Production is your delivery mechanism, your fulfillment on the promises that your sales team makes. Pull this down. Well, we'll leave it there. You guys can see it. So production is the bridge that brings the two together. Sales guy's out there seeing his thing, customers over here believing this thing is going to happen. And we have to bridge that gap. And so we stand inside of this gap in production between the customer and the salesperson. We don't ever want to throw a customer under the bus. And we never want to throw our sales team under the bus. We want to defend both sides. We want to be there to stand inside of that gap for them. And so I'm going to walk through today exactly what that looks like, how we need to perceive it in our heads so that we understand the best way possible to deliver on the promises of our sales team so our customers trust us. So I want to give you a little bit of an image here. We'll make this a little smaller so I can get to where I want to be. And there's really three major components of this that we want to talk about. Okay. And the first one is preparation. We want to prep well, and I'm going to walk right through exactly what we need to do in prepping for a job, because if you don't do that well, you're going to have some issues with your overall production. Now, the next piece that we've got to be very aware of is our execution. So this is your fulfillment. This is what the customer is going to see out there in the real world. And so that's first we have to prep well, then we need to execute well. And then finally, and most importantly, we have to validate or validation. So we're going to earn something, we need to validate, earning that, and then we're going to get something from it. And so this is overall how you need to be looking at production at a very high level. How do we prep, how do we execute, and how do we validate that? We executed exactly the way that we said we were going to. So that's going to bring us. And I want to make sure I stay on track here. That's going to bring us to an image that I think is going to make this really clear for you on the preparation side of things, because we're going to start right there. I want you to think of preparation as the engine of your production vehicle. And so what we're talking about there is you're the first cylinder. Preparation is. It's the first cylinder of production. That's the very first one that's going to fire. And if you want to check me out, if that's the first one that fires not, go ahead. I had to look it up to make sure I got all you motorheads taken care of that. Cylinder number one is where everything starts. And if we misfire here, everything's going to go poorly the rest of the way. But if we can fire well there, we're going to have at least a great start to what we're going to produce for our clients. And so what are the things that are involved in preparation? Well, very first thing that we have to have, the very first thing we have to have is a great handoff. And that handoff is from sales to production. So we got to hand it off really well. So we have to make sure that what's getting delivered from our sales team is exactly what we need to produce this job. Well, whether you're doing roofing, siding, gutters, windows, whatever it may be, you need a package. Whether that comes through a CRM, a hard file, however you're doing it, that allows you to bridge the gap to customer trust. If you don't have a great handoff, you're already shot in the foot that's the very first thing that you have to get figured out is how to handoff from sales to production. Now, I want you to remember we're talking about the contractor's blueprint, this pillar that's called production inside of that blueprint and that there's a matrix over the top of that blueprint that says we have certain things we need to do at certain times based on the stage of our business. And so the stage, if you were small, like a startup or solopreneur, there is no handoff from sales to production because you're both. And so we don't have to worry about that as much. But we need to make sure that we can deliver on that and be prepared for that as we move forward. We also need accurate material orders. So if we're going to be handing this off from sales to production, we need to make the sure that whether we're getting the order from sales or we're creating the order in production, that they are highly accurate. Any leakage here where you're over ordering materials, even under ordering materials, if you're not accurate, it's going to cause a problem. One will be somebody has to run materials back after a project is done or get credits for them. And a lot of times you guys don't. Or if you under order, you're running somebody back and forth. That's losing time. So the more accurate our material orders are, the more likely we are to be not only efficient, but very effective. The other thing that we have to do in preparation is profit analysis. So if I have a gray handoff and I have an accurate material order, I can determine the profit on this job because I know what my labor is going to cost. I like to run a profit analysis prior to ever doing the work. I want to make sure that this thing is going to be profitable because nobody should be wasting their time if it's not. If we're not creating profit on each job that we're doing, why are we doing this in the first place? I tend to have a barrier for profit that, hey, we want it to be at least here if we're going to go and produce this job. The other thing on profit analysis, and this depends on who's responsible because of the stage of your business, if early stage. So thinking startup or solopreneur, you're the owner, you're the production manager, you're everything. You're the one that has to analyze whether the job is profitable or not. But as you grow a little bit more, it might be a Production manager that in place to analyze whether the job is profitable or not. But you, as the owner, might still be in charge of negotiating out pricing with your crews and with your suppliers. So we have to get that front end part done as well to make sure our profit analysis is as profitable as possible. And then as we grow a little bit further into our getting serious and expansion stages, now we have a production manager doing those negotiations and owning that aspect of our production department. So we're going to talk about that a little bit later as I break it down stage by stage at the very end to give you a very clear picture of what you need to be doing. The other things that we need to do is we need to schedule, we need to get permits, And we have to handle logistics. So all those things need to be done very, very well prior to us doing the job. So we got to put them on the schedule, we got to get the permit for the job. We've got to make sure that everybody knows where they're going, what's being delivered, what's not being delivered, when it's being delivered, how it's being delivered. So all of the logistics needs to be handled. And there also has to be some crew alignment. And so that's your work order. You have a work order that you're going to be giving to a crew. That crew needs to be very clear on what this whole entire job is going to entail. It's not just a material list of things you're supposed to do. It includes things like special instructions, where to set up, how to park their vehicle, all of the information that's necessary so that we're aligned to deliver on this promise the salesperson made to earn the trust of the customer. Because if we earn the trust, we're going to get something very special at the end of the entire project. And then finally, we're going to have a customer call. We're going to call that customer and let them know everything's about to begin. So this is your prep stuff. These are the things that you need to be handling on the prep side of production. I'm going to have a great sales handoff to production. I'm going to have an accurate material order. I. I'm going to analyze whether it's profitable or not. If it is, I'm then going to schedule it, get the permits, handle logistics, then I'm going to make sure that the crew is aligned through a very clear work order. That explains everything that the customer expects and what we promised. And then I'm Going to call that customer and let them know exactly when we're going to start the job. I'm going to probably send them a how to prepare for a construction job handout so that they are prepared. I want to communicate with them very, very well so that their expectations are delivered upon whenever we get out there. So this is part one preparation. So I want to do a little housekeeping right here. You guys that are watching this and listening to this presentation on production, I want you to take notes. If you're going to learn anything, it's awesome to hear, you know, great insight and wisdom and stuff like that. But when you see something that's a golden nugget or important for you, and sometimes, even if it isn't just for reinforcement, it helps to write it down. So take some notes as you go along. Also write down any questions that you may have. At the end of this, I'm gonna close out the actual presentation part. I'm gonna open it up for any questions and answers, any feedback, any struggles that you might be having in your production department. I'm gonna be there to answer those questions for you. So as you go today, take notes on your phone, on an iPad, maybe your computer, or even handwrite them back old school again. So just a little bit of housekeeping before we move on to execution. So let's go ahead and move to that piece of the puzzle, execution. I want you to think of execution. Like a camera, okay? And so let me grab a pin here. Get the right color up there. We're going to be talking about execution. This is the second phase of what we do in production. And when we execute, I want you to imagine a camera in your head because that's the lens that your homeowner is looking through. I'm going to share a quick story with you about this specific thing. The very first job I ever sold as a roofing job, the customer was awesome. Guy really enjoyed my time with him. Got a signed contract, got all the colors figured out, created a great work order and the whole bit, I called him and let him know I did all the prep stuff and my production department did all the prep stuff that we were supposed to do. We thought, and I'm on my way on a Monday morning because that's when we were going to start his job. And I'm headed to the sales meeting. I communicated to him like, hey, I got to go to this sales meeting first. I'll be out right afterwards, and the guys will be there about 7:30, so everything should be good. And I mean, at 7:30 on the nose. He calls me, your crew's not here. I'm like, okay, I'm sure they're close by. Let me call the production department, see what's happening. By the time I called, the production department got back to him. He said, oh, yeah. They pulled up shortly after I called. I went, great, good. Everything's awesome. Continued on my way, got another call. He's like, hey, they're putting all their tools and everything in my yard. I go, yeah, they're staging everything so that they can get it up to the roof and take care of things and calm down. And this happened like four or five times. And so I said, hey, Tom. Because I'll never forget his name. His name was Tom Wicks. I said, hey, Tom, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna call my office, I'm gonna tell him I'm not gonna be a sales meeting. I'm headed your way. Make sure you have a couple of lawn chairs ready. He's like, what? I said, just make sure you have a couple lawn chairs ready. He goes, okay. So I deviate from my path and go to his house. And I pull around the corner, and he's out in his front yard, and he has a 35 millimeter camera with one of those telescopic. Telescopic lenses on it. And he's taking pictures. And I'll tell you how old this was. This is back in the day when he didn't have these digital cameras that we have today. I have film in them for you young people. That was a piece of stuff that picture showed up on, and we could produce it later. So he's taking pictures, and I watched him take the canister out of the camera. And he puts another one in real quick and starts snapping pictures. Before I could get parked, he had already taken all those pictures, and he was on to the next roll of film. So he's taking pictures of everything, and I jump out of the truck and I go, hey, Tom, how's it going, man? He goes, man, they're tearing off all the shingles. I go, yeah, exactly. That's what they're supposed to. You can't put them over the top of them. And he has the. But they're not pulling the nails out. They're banging. I'm like, yeah, that's exactly what they're supposed to. I had to, like, stand, step through, step every single part of the way. I said, hey, Tom, let's grab those lawn chairs. We grabbed the lawn chairs, we sat them in the front yard. And we both watched this project together. I went up on the roof and checked, sure all the decking was good, that everything was removed. There was no nails that were bent over standing up or anything like that. I did my job to make sure that we did a great job. But I had to walk him through literally every step of the way because that's how he was looking at. It's his most valuable asset. He was super proud of his house. So he's looking at it through this lens that's like a camera. It's the thing they're going to remember the most. It's going to be the thing that locks in their head, is your execution. So whenever you execute, you got to kind of look at this like you're dealing with a lens. Now pull that lens out here. We'll make that a little bit bigger so we can talk about what's going on inside of that lens and what you have to deliver. And that's going to be very OCD for me. So we'll get rid of that. And what are these pieces of this lens that people are looking at? And so I want to make sure I stay on track here. And the first thing that we've got to make sure we understand is the start. So this is a starting protocol. This is a protocol that you have that when the crew shows up, this is exactly what they do. And that could be handled by you just being on site if you're a smaller contractor, or it could be an SOP as you become a larger contractor. But you have this starting protocol that you follow exactly where people park, how they park the trailer, whether you put plywood underneath a vehicle, all these things that are really important to the setup aspect of things. And then we have the next piece, try a different color for that one. And that one's home protection. So how are we going to protect this person's home, their most valuable asset? What is that going to look like? Are we going to throw a few tarps down and hope nothing gets damaged? Or are we going to do something that protects the home? You have tools out there, like the catch all and stuff like that. We. You can build out structures over the top of air condition, there's all kinds of things. But you have to protect this home like it's your own. Exactly the way you would want somebody to treat your house. And so that's the other thing that they're looking for inside of your executions. How do you protect their home? And then the next piece, let's say that we need to be aware of is safety. How are we keeping everything safe? What does that look like for the homeowner? Not only for them, but the neighborhood itself and for your crew. So is your crew harnessed off? Are they tying off their ladders? Are they wearing the proper safety equipment to do the work? Have we left a space open that a homeowner can get in and out of their house without being hindered? Are we making sure we're not dropping things over the top of a doorway or anything like that? So we want to make sure that those two things are handled. Maybe we even put up like caution tape or something like that across the front of the property so kids aren't running into the yard. If it's a really busy neighborhood, we want to make sure that we set this up with maybe lights on our vehicles. If we're parked in the street, cones around. Safety is super important. You can follow all the OSHA guidelines. There's a reason OSHA exists. Number one reason. I don't want anybody to die or get hurt. Seriously. Been at this long enough. I've seen those stories and heard those stories over and over again where roofer falls through a roof. Roofer falls off of a roof. A truck goes through a house, Shingles go through a skylight. There's been all kinds of things and stories about the safety aspect of things out there, and your customer is expecting it. You've probably set it up as part of what your sales team promises, that we're going to be very safe. But if you don't show that out in the real world, you're going to have a real problem with delivering on the expectations that you set for your homeowner. Now, the fun part for me at least we'll grab another color here. Let's grab that one. I like this one for this one. Anyway. Installation. So we had our starting protocol. We got the home protected. We set up all of our safety stuff to make sure we're safe. Now we're going to install everything. And this installation method needs to be proprietary, unique to you. How do you make it different than everybody else's? And so we want to make sure we're proprietary. If we can get there. So there's all kinds of things that you can do. You can look at a roof and say, hey, building to manufacture inspects is enough. And that's what most contractors do. Or could you do something that would be a little bit more than manufacturer specs? Could you run a bead of adhesive all the way around the perimeter of the roof? Could you run a bead of adhesive before you drop a pipe jack or a vent on a roof? Could you use a different type of nail? Could you use a different way of installing valleys? Could you use a different product that's better? There's all these things that we can do in installation that would make it unique to us. And we want to make sure that if we do anything unique and different from the way manufacturer inspects and building codes say to do it. Because you got to think about that and just think about that for a second. Manufacturer specs and building codes is the minimum requirement. In other words, you are making a C in class. You're just passing, you're just getting by. But our goal is to make an A. And so how do we deliver on the A system that our salesperson sold to make sure that our crews and our team and our project managers and quality control and everything else are delivering on that in our installation? So those are the first four components. Let's come back over here and we'll go to the next component, which is documentation. This is one where a lot of people fall down on. But we want to document as we go exactly what's happening. So we want to take some pictures when we tear it off, Take pictures of the decking and make sure it's a great deck. And if it's not, we have the validation for why a piece of decking needed to be replaced. Take pictures of the property before you even start. And then during the process, take pictures of the progress of the roof and share those off or siding or deck or whatever it is that you do and share those off to your homeowner. You can send them text messages with the pictures. You can use tools like company cam to get those pictures to them. They have a link for it. But we want to document the entire process because for two reasons. One is to inform the homeowner and create a great experience. Two is to protect ourselves. That something out there, that was the way it was before we touched that house didn't become our problem just because we touched the house. Damaged gutters, that a tree limb hit it six years ago now became our problem because they haven't looked at it. They didn't notice it, but now they notice it because they're looking at the house once you get done. Now, the last piece of this and the piece that I want you to really pay attention to as you go through this, get this color here again. QC Deering. So you heard me tell my story earlier, and we as Salespeople were responsible for that because we were the size of company that that's who needed to do it at the time. And so we were trained on quality control. What it looked like to fully tear off a deck, how to look for good decking versus rotted decking, nail patterns. We were taught everything about how that roof was supposed to be installed so that we could ensure the quality that we promised. The homeowner as a salesperson was actually what was being delivered. So these are the six major things that you need to accomplish during the execution. Gotta have a grid starting protocol, protect the home very well, put in your safety measures, install it uniquely and proprietary to your company, document it as you go to create a great customer experience and protect yourself and then quality control throughout the entire process. So that's execution. I want to talk about the third piece of this, which is verification. And we'll get over to that real quick. We're going to talk about this thing. Called the promise keeper loop here. And this is the promise keeper.

Loop.

So your promise keeper loop starts with expectation. Okay, so let's just give us this little piece right here as expectation. This is what your customer is thinking is going to happen. And what we're doing here, this is the third pillar of our production. We did preparation, we did execution. Now, now we're doing validation. We have to understand the expectations in order to deliver on that validation. What were the expectations? Then we have our execution. That's part of this as well. We'll just use the same color. Execution, Verification, Trust. And ultimately the big thing that we want, which is a referral. This is what this promise keeper loop looks like. Hey, we understand expectations. We executed on them. We verified that that happened. We earned trust, which gets us a referral. And so what does this look like when it comes to the verification side of a job, which is this piece right here. How do we deliver on this promise keeper loop? And so I'm going to come down here and we'll just move it over here. Well, let's come down here right a little bit. What are the components of. Of verification? Let's get my pin back. There we go. That one. We have cleanup. We have to have a great cleanup. So you think about it. We did the whole entire job. We installed it, we did all of that good stuff, which was the execution side on the validation side, Sales guy promised we were going to clean up great. What does your cleanup look like? Is it doing the best you can or is it making it spotless? Is it like a white glove? Like you were never there before. Like it was better than it was before you left. We actually like raked yards and stuff like that. It would look better than it was before we started. And so cleanup is that first step along the way. Then you have a final inspection. And this serves two purposes. One is, is to make sure that you delivered on the expectation. So this would be a quality control thing that at the end, I did quality call control throughout. Now I want to do quality control at the end to make sure that we delivered on our promises, that we installed it exactly the way that we said we were going to. So I'm going to walk through a checklist to make sure that we did that exactly the way we're supposed to. The other purpose it serves is to make sure that you get paid. Because if you go through a good final inspection, you go over it with your homeowner and say, hey, everything looks good to you? Yep, everything looks good to me. Great. Can you sign right here on the final inspection? And what that does is it tells them that I've agreed that you did exactly what you said you were going to do. And you don't get in this hassle later on, hey, I'm not going to pay you, because homeowners will try to do that to you. If you don't have a great final inspection, if there is something that goes on on your final inspection that you need to attend to, that's called a punch list that needs to be created and executed and communicated quickly. So punch list, created, communicated to production, get the crew back out there, or get a specialist on your team that comes out and completes the punch list so that you can get paid on the job. You also have to. If you're in insurance restoration, one of those things that you have to consider is. Is supplements. So if you're in the insurance restoration side of the world, you may have supplemented earlier to get on the same page with the insurance company, but as you did the work, something came up. You might have had space decking, so you got to meet code. You could have had a second layer that wasn't accounted for. There's a few different things. And that would be like a post supplement, is what we tend to call them around here. But if that needs to be done to ensure the homeowner gets paid for it so you can get paid for it, that would be one of the things that you would do in verification. You would also invoice. Because the only way you can invoice is if they signed off on it. They said you did it right. Which you can also give a certificate of completion. And so we're doing a process of validating that the promise was made. We delivered it. Here you go. This is the validation of that delivery. We also request a review. You guys all know how important those are. The more reviews you are, the higher you rank out there. We want to get a review each and every time. Make that as easy as possible. Don't just ask the homework. Will you do a review for me? Say, hey, before I got started with all this, you said if we did a great job, you'd give me a review. Do you mind if we do that right now? Let me grab your phone. I'll look up our company for you. Oh, there it is. I'll click on review. Can you just write a quick summary of what it was like to work with us and hit that enter button. Boom, Done. Assume that they will do it. The more of those that you do, the higher the company will rank on Google and the more leads that you'll get. So we want to make sure that we get reviews and referrals. The best way to do this is when you were selling back here and creating all those promises. You asked that homeowner. I just did the example for a review. But I would say to them, hey, if we do a great job, you're going to give me a great review, right? Yes. Oh, any referrals as well too, right? Yes. Okay, great. So now it's time to ask for those referrals. Who else do you know? Now, be very clear about asking for referrals. Kind of COVID this a little bit in our sales stuff. But you don't want to just say, who do you know that needs a roof? Because you just opened up this giant Rolodex in their head of everybody they know, and they can't parse anybody out along the pathway of the sales process and through the production process and your entire time involved with them. You should be asking for referrals by grouping so your neighbors early on, people you work with, people at church, any associations you're a member of, groups that they might be a part of. You've talked to them this entire time. Maybe they have a kid on a baseball team. Hey, any of the parents on the baseball team need somebody to come take a look at their project, whatever it may be, Deck, fence, roof, whatever it might be. And then finally, this lifetime. Value. If you do this right, that's what you're creating. You're creating lifetime value, not just a one off. I did your project See you later thing. But for those of you that do multiple trades, you do one of them very well. You're more likely to get the next one whenever they have a need. Also those of you that do storm work, you do a great job of your preparation, execution and validation in production the second the storm hits the next time, it's not a situation of, hey, let us come out and take a look at your roof. It's more, hey, your roof is under warranty. We're going to come look at it. And so we go out and look at it and obtain that job again because we did a great job and we're not ashamed to show up. The big part of this for me, and especially as the owner of a company or a salesperson directly to a customer, is I lived in their community. I didn't want to walk into a grocery store and have to avoid them. I didn't want to put my head down if I saw them. I wanted to walk up to and say, hey, I remember you. It was awesome doing your work with you. Hope you enjoyed it. Yeah, it was a great experience. Remember, if you need anybody, needs somebody like me, think of me first. Here's a few of my cards. That's what this leads to whenever you do production. Well, so now what I want to do is I want to go through and remind everybody exactly what this is all related to. So I'm going to reduce my screen down here. Don't know why I did that. Let's come up here and remember what we're talking about, okay? We're talking about this contractor's blueprint. But there's 12 pillars of our business and I'm talking about one of them today here in production, how we produce. This is the 10th pillar of our business. We have been going through this as a series and we did sales last week. We did marketing the week before and on all the way back to leadership. We did an introduction to this contractor's blueprint that explains the concept. But the idea is that There are these 12 pillars in our business that we have to be very aware of and that we have to do certain things in and as our company grows. And so we have these stages. I'll just. These are your stages over here. And our stages are a startup. And as a startup, I'm not really too worried about the 12 pillars. I'm just getting started in my business. I'm probably doing less than 500 or maybe even $250,000 a year annually. And I've got to do the million dollar Muss. I've got to create opportunities, I've got to sell those opportunities. I've got to produce this thing we're talking about today, those opportunities. I've got to collect on those opportunities and ultimately I have to be profitable. So five things I've got to be really focused on here in the million dollar muss. And that's why we see so much of people bumping up against ceilings and is because we're focused here on these five things and we continue to focus on them without building out the infrastructure around. Now when I move into more of the solopreneur stage where I'm starting to break a million dollars in my company, I probably have some part time help helping me out, somebody leading a crew, maybe somebody doing some paperwork for me. There are certain things that I have to do in each one of those pillars, just like I did in production today. Hey, I can't do everything I just explained in production, but what should I be doing at this particular stage? I'm going to walk through those here in just one second. So this is what we've been talking about, these stages that our business goes through, how we get blocked by them and what's happening and why we're getting blocked by them, and that they happen in a sequence. These pillars all happen in a sequence. This last one I'm going to be doing right before the new year on the 30th, we're going to talk about recruiting, hiring and onboarding. I can't do that very well if I can't train people well. If I can't produce my jobs well, I can't sell them well. So they're all in sequence, but they're also related to each other. If I don't get everything done in sequence here, it makes it really hard to break through the ceiling to get to the next level of friends and family. Same thing for friends and family. I got to do all these things in these pillars and then I got to break through. And that's what we do. We help contractors break through those ceilings, install those pieces that they're missing to ensure that they're able to progress along in their business. So let's talk about what we need to focus on and the thing we need to take action on whenever it comes to production. So once again, I want to talk about our stages. That's what we're talking about here in this pillar is our stages. I'll bring that down a little bit so everybody can see it. There we go. All right, so what do we do when and where. Okay, so what should I be focused on if I'm in one of these stages Now? Understanding our stages, startup is that, hey, we're just getting started. You may not have broken 200 to 250 to $500,000. This operator or solopreneur, they're probably at about a million or so. And they're starting to have to bring people into the equation. And the people they bring into the equation are usually friends and family. So they start to move to this more entrepreneurial stage of their business and then their business becomes an actual business. They start to get serious. They start breaking three, four, five million dollars. We've got to get really organized, really communicate well, because we're bringing in strangers to our business that need to understand the systems and processes that we follow, which, when we get organized there, we're able to grow and become a true owner. We're able to grow and scale our business and become a true owner where we're owning the business and leaders are leading because we've started to build those leaders back here. This is usually companies that are getting into the 7, 8, 9, maybe 10 million, moving all the way up to about 25 million, 30 million somewhere in there, and then ultimately expansion once we get to there. We kind of dominated our market in this particular trade. How do we want to expand? Do we want to expand in market in a trade that's very similar that we could just apply our process and systems to and own that one as well, or do we want to take this mechanism, machine that we built and go open a new location? So those are some of the decisions that we help people with along the way. But I'm going to be talking about the production stages today and what do I need to focus on and then what actions should I be taking? So down here in startup, I want to just focus, number one, and we'll use a different color just to. I want to focus, number one on just understanding. The flow. All right. I need to understand how this flows through my production situation. What does that look like for me and my business? And I'm probably going to take action and create a checklist that'll just keep us on track. Nothing huge or hard to do. It's a pretty simple thing to do. Hey, here's the flow. Let me create a checklist for that and let me just make sure I check that off each and every time. Because it's you. You're the. You're the one person running this whole entire operation in a lot of cases. So you Just need a simple checklist to follow to make sure that everything's going well. Now, when it comes to being a solopreneur, you're going to actually install the three P's that we just went over. You're going to install that, hey, this is how we're going to do things. And we're going to prepare well, we're going to make sure that we execute well and we're going to make sure that we validate well. So proper preparation prevents poor performance is what we want to make sure that we're taking care of. So those three PowerPoints of production, and so how do we do that? What do we need to do? And so you're going to create a system, simple system for preparation, execution, validation, and just follow that. You don't have to create a whole bunch of extra stuff, anything like that. It's just a simple system. Okay? Think of it as a task list. Okay? Not all the everything else, but just a task list. Here's the task list of what needs to be done. Now, whenever you get into the entrepreneur and friends and family, you're going to turn that into SOPs. Okay? That's your focus. And I did that backwards. Give me one second here. Your focus when it's SOPs is documentation or the process itself. And so what does that mean? Whenever we say process, that means sops. That's what we've got to create. We've got to create some SOPs for doing the work that we do out there in production. So I've got an SOP for preparation, I've got a SOP for execution, I got an SOP for validation. We want to make sure that we have those SOPs documented. We may not have even installed them yet, but we're going through that work right now in this stage of our business to get those things in place. Now when we get into getting serious, we're going to start to build out our proprietary aspect of things. So your focus is on how to be unique or proprietary. And this is the mistake so many people make. So many people try to create all of this proprietary stuff and, and, and it's a whole bunch of work. It is some effort to do it way back here when they don't really need it yet. You remember back in here, you're working off of referrals, word of mouth, knowledge of who your business is. But now you're starting to scale and starting to build out lead generation and those opportunities, especially through a digital aspect. And so this proprietary thing gives you an advantage whenever you're out there marketing, and so what are you focused on? You're focused on that home protection. And so we're going to call this the system for home protection. Safety, installation, cleanup, those things. What does that system look like that you're going to deliver to your customer? Now we need to get into growth and scaling. And this has been pretty standard, this process. If you've watched these, you've started to see like, hey, this is sounding familiar. I've got some checklists to do, and then I've got a system, a slight system to follow. Then I got to build the process and SOPs for them. Then I'm going to make it unique and different and systematic for my company. Then what are we going to do with that system? Our focus is to measure whenever we get to growth and being a true owner. So you started to put leaders in place. You want to put some measurements on production. What are those measurements going to be? It could be the amount of time it takes to do a job. It could be velocity from start to finish of a job. It could be quality of a job. There's these KPIs that we want to measure. And so the action would be to install those KPIs and hold people accountable to them. If we're not hitting these standards that we've been able to set back here for our business, then we have the wrong people in place. It tells us exactly who the right person is and who the wrong person is. Now, finally, when we get into expansion, this is where we start to replicate. Everything that we created back here. And we start to take that thing out and we're going to build some playbooks. Think of these as the manual. Okay? This is the entire manual for everything in production that's ever needed that. I could just simply go over to another location and install that. And it works perfectly because we have built all of this underneath. So this is what it should look like as you grow your business, the things that you're focused on, where we usually work with people and get a hold of people in, the ones that they're having the biggest difficulty breaking through is usually right in here. When they're starting to hit into friends and family, they're starting to hit that 2, $3 million, and they're starting to bring more people into the equation. There's more communication that has to happen. More of the hard work has to happen. Systems, processes, documentation. All those things we don't want to do because we want to focus on the fun stuff. We want to focus on, hey, how do we get more leads and how do we make more sales and how do we make more money? That's really where most of us focus our time. But to build a business that goes beyond that, you're going to have to get serious about the systems and processes which we have and we just help every customer customize it to them. So that is our presentation for today on production, the stages of production and then the three major aspects, preparation, execution and validation that you've got to make sure that you're tight on because if you're not, you won't be able to break through that next level in your business. So a couple things, pull this up real quick, have a couple different options for you. Think if I'm in a smaller stage and I'm trying to get the information I need to move my business forward, you might choose like thing, there we go. You might choose the do it yourself route. And that's our AI tool. That is literally my brain, everything that we've ever coached, Nathan's brain, all of of our brains kind of compiled up and saying, hey, you have some questions that need to be answered. This is usually best for startups, solopreneurs and friends and family. You're a little bit smaller and you're trying to fill in some of the gaps, but as you start to get bigger, you may choose to get some one on one help. This is where we work with contractors directly. It's been our bread and butter for 13 years. We've built some of the best contractors in the nation. Several contractors in that 30, 40, 50, even over $100 million in revenue. Because we followed that blueprint, we applied the matrix, we coached them accordingly, we filled in the gaps and they were actually able to break through those barriers into the next stage. So you can take your phone out and QR code either one of those if you like. You also get some information about this afterwards, go take our contractor assessment. This assessment, which is what this QR code will do for you, is going to be a significant thing. You're going to take about 20 minutes to take that assessment. When that assessment's done, we get a copy of it back. You get a chance to set up a time for a coaching call. It's free, it doesn't cost you anything. And we're not there to sell you, we're there to coach you. Because that assessment is going to tell us where the gaps are in the stages and in the foundational pillars of your business to coach you on the next thing. And we're going to do that. If you like coaching, you think, hey, that's wonderful, and you'd like to engage with us, we'd love to help you along the way, but if that's not the right time or the right fit for you, at this point, at least we've given you the next step or two to continue to grow your business. So that concludes contractor training room for today. Thank you for being here. Hang out for a few minutes. We're going to answer some questions, we're going to have you give some feedback and hope you enjoyed the conversation today. Make that a little smaller just in case. All right? So, Braden, you want to open up the mic and let people in and all that good stuff. Looks like we have Katie, John, few other people in here, Michelle, Noah, anybody have any questions today? Hey, Michelle Meyer. How are you? It's been. It's been a minute. I hope you're doing well.

Hey, Jim. I got a question for you, sir.

Sure, John, go ahead, man.

Yeah, so, I mean, it's been a slow year here in the Austin area. You know, with the lack of storms and everything, we're hardly getting any kind of. Any kind of insurance work to speak of. Just hoping and praying the spring brings us something. But on a. So we're doing mainly cash deals right now. So, like, on a cash deal, what do you think's a reasonable, like, adjusted gross profit and net profit percentage? Like, you know, I know insurance pays like 10 overhead, 10 profit. I mean, is that a guide for us to go by from your experience?

So nothing changes for me, whether it's retail or it's insurance. I'm trying to hit a mark. And before we discuss this, we need to be clear on what that mark is. So you mentioned gross profit and net profit. And in our world, in the construction world, contractors, we look at gross profit one way, where in the financial world, they look at it as a different thing. For us, gross profit means I have revenue of a job. I have cost of goods sold, so material, labor permits, anything directly related to that job, not including commission. Okay, so commission is going to be paid out, obviously. But I want to hit a certain mark whenever I have gross profit prior to commission, and that mark I want to hit is at least 40%. That's the number I'm shooting for. The only way I can achieve that number is if I'm selling value over price. In other words, I have something unique, proprietary, different about me and my company, that I can position myself differently and swim over here in this blue ocean. If you've ever Read the book Red Ocean, Blue Ocean, that I'm over here competing only against other companies that are unique and proprietary. Now, if everything comes down to price, like the homeowner perceives that you're just a roofer and you do roofing work like everybody else, then they're going to be all about price with you. And your gross profit margin is going to have to come down because you don't have anything that you offer that deserves to earn a higher margin. And I usually see those companies running anywhere from 25 to 30% margins at that gross profit level. So if you extrapolate that and you pay out commissions and overhead and all that other good stuff, what should you end up with? Well, option A, if I'm proprietary, unique and different, I have a higher gross profit. I should. And you also have to think those companies are likely doing some marketing. I've got to include my marketing expenses into this as well. And so I want to achieve at least a 15% profit margin net afterwards. If I'm option A, a unique or proprietary company. If I'm option B, a company that's just another company like everybody else out there, 8 to 10% is usually what I see from those folks. Now, I don't want anybody to be option B. I want everybody to be option A. But that's, that's kind of the parameters that we normally see whenever we're working with. Did that help understand that a little bit?

Yes. Yeah, it does. So on an insurance deal, you know, most of those are coming out of like 20% gross profit, adjusted gross.

If they are, we're doing something wrong. We're not supplementing, we're not including everything on a scope that needs to be done. Most of the funny thing is the most of the insurance restoration contractors I actually see achieving some higher profit margins sometimes. And like I said, nothing changes for me. I still need to be at that number. And I am going to validate that number with any insurance company by making sure everything that is supposed to be in the scope is included. And most of the time it's not. It's about 25% light. If I just allow the insurance company to do it, they go out there and hey, here's the paperwork. And I work off that paperwork. I'm screwed. It's 25% light every time. It's because they missed items that were necessary in the scope to do the work.

Gotcha. What do you think a reasonable overhead charge would be on a job? Like deduction? Like, I mean, I've been as low as 5%, and I've been as high as 15. Well, deduction off my sale price. Right off the sale right off the top to cover my expenses. What do you think are reasonable?

So you said that as a deduction. Are you talking about, like, when you pay commissions to no support that, like.

Basically, you got your sales price. Okay. Off the top. Like, say it's a $10,000 sales price. A thousand bucks is taken from the.

Company, and I want to be really clear about that. That's not overhead.

Well, that goes toward paying over the overhead expenses.

That's exactly all it is. And it's really just office fee or an administrative. Yeah, is what that is. Overhead is everything that isn't. Cost of goods sold is a really good way to think of it. So in the financial world, we'll move from the contractor world to the financial world. True gross profit is cost of goods sold. So that's material, labor, permits, eagle views, whatever, and commissions, leaving you gross profit after commissions, and that usually is about 10% less across the board. Although I've seen everything from 15 to 20% less because people pay crazy commission structures. I think you should try to keep your sales commissions in this 10 to 12% range so that you're not crushing your ultimate gross profit. From a financial perspective, your overhead probably needs. And this is everything about the size of your company, the stage that you're in. So after attending a few of these, do you know what stage you're in as a company?

Well, I mean. I mean, I was in the $5 million range. This has been a bad year. It's not a normal year for us. So we're. We're reevaluating everything. So definitely every sale needs to be more profitable at this point. So I've scaled way back. I mean, I was 25 folks a year ago down the store.

If I remember our conversation right from being at rcap, you were kind of moving from friends and family to that getting serious stage, where it's like, well.

No, we were serious. We've been serious. We had four offices, and my overhead was 60 grand a month.

Oh, wow. Okay.

One of the reasons my overhead pullback off the sale price was 15%, but on cash deals, that we were way overcharging. I was losing a lot of deals based on price, I think, because my overhead was so high that I needed to recoup my money from each sale.

But your overhead is your overhead. It's not going to change, is it? Well, it changed that $60,000 you had to pay a month Wasn't going to change. So you had to pay the number, so you got to charge the number.

Right. But now I'm down to like 10 grand overhead a month. Right. So I've had to make a lot of cuts to be able to compete. Like it's on a cash basis to not basically that gets passed on to the customer, you know, so it was pricing us out of the market.

So listening to what you're telling me is, and please don't take this the wrong way, this is just what I'm hearing. It sounds to me like we're out competing on price. Like that's the thing. Like every homeowner we come up against, there's somebody else that they've gotten an estimate from and it's cheap, cheaper than ours. And that's going to force you down unless you have something unique that you can sell. I have clients, multiple clients all over the country that sell a unique and proprietary system that keeps them out of those water that we call that the red ocean. That's where everybody's fighting over the jobs because there's nothing different about them. You're a commodity. You're, you're just a roofer. Now there's a thousand of you. Which one's the cheapest one? They all do the same thing. So let me just get the cheapest one until I run across one that goes and does something different. And the best way I can explain this like for people to really understand it is when you go to buy a car, in most cases, we're not looking for the cheapest one. If we were, we'd all be driving Yugos with roll up windows and AMF and radios and, and stuff like that. We want something more than that. And so we're, that's human behavior. That's how we're wired. We, we actually want the best is what we want. But we can't afford it in most cases, so we end up somewhere in between. We're not getting the cheapest guy and we're not getting the most expensive guy. But if I walked into a grocery store, I'll give you another analogy, and I saw just a whole aisle of green beans, right? Like there's just a whole aisle of them. They're all sectioned out and they were all varying prices. Which one would I buy? They're all green beans. They all look exactly the same. They're all sectioned out in their own little things, but they all look the same to me. Which one would I buy?

Well, I'd buy the one that I.

Could afford, I'd buy the cheapest one the same, and they all have different prices. I'm going to get the cheapest one. Yeah, it looks different. And I'll prove it to you. If you've ever bought organic beans from the grocery store before, you paid more for them. That's because they put the word organic on it and you think mentally, psychologically that that's better. And it probably is, to be honest with you. And it's probably worth paying for organic green beans, if they truly are. You need to think about that for your business, for your business. How am I different from all those green beans? Because if I'm not any different, the homeowner is going to buy the cheapest one. Does that make sense?

It does, it does. It just seems. I'm not blaming. I guess I am blaming the economy a little bit and the uncertainty this year. People do seem to be more price conscious right now. And maybe I don't have the right. Maybe I don't have the right customers either.

That's a possibility. Although I tend to find, you know, across the human race, we would like to get the best that we can, and we tend to work down from that. And so whenever you're out presenting to a homeowner, it's the best thing that you have. This is. This is the cat's meow. This is the best possible thing you can put on your roof. They go, holy cow, that's too expensive. Everything down from that is a discount. And they're walking through the whole buying experience. This, wow, that's the coolest car. It's on the showroom floor. It's awesome. Look at the sticker price. Holy cow, I can't afford that. Where's the next car like it down from that? Where's the next car like it down from it? Because that feels good to us. It's a decrease. We're like, oh, we were responsible, we saved some money and we still got something close to what we wanted. But if we're over here going, eh, it's just roofing, that's the thing. Which one of these guys is the cheapest? One step in between those two things is the folks that really bought into a brand. Okay, so over here, we're not bought into a brand. We're just selling the cheapest thing and trying to get the cheapest price on people's houses. Over here we've got the best thing in the world, and it's unbelievable. And there's no way they can resist us. But in between, we do have some manufacturer type programs that are pretty good. Gaf, Master, Elite, Owens, Corning, Platinums, those type of things where I can sell some added advantage. And when I do, if I, if I take that away from somebody, it doesn't feel good. All right, if they say, man, that's just too expensive, well, we could give up this warranty thing, and I don't want to do that. Okay, let's figure out how we can make this affordable for you. Have you ever considered financing a purchase of this size? And so we've got to really walk through that thought process inside of our own businesses of how are we positioning our sales guys in the field to not be over here in this red ocean? Maybe they could be in the purple one in between, but I really want them swimming in the blue ocean as, as quickly as possible. Do you offer financing?

We did offer financing, but very rarely would people take us up on it.

That would probably be more of a sales process and delivery mechanism than it is whether they would or wouldn't. It's how we delivered it. So I get to the end and I go, hey, here's the amazing thing. And just take a step back for a second. Whenever we're out presenting to a homeowner, what are we doing? Are we going, hey, here's a shingle board. Pick a color, right? Which one's your favorite color? Because now I'm back to green beans again. I'm back to being like everybody else. Here's my sample board. Here's the colors. Which color do you think is going to be the best on your home? And they pick one and, oh, well, the price for that is this. I don't have a lot of options there. Like, I'm like everybody else again. But if I say, hey, here's the builder grade. This is what everybody has on their houses. This is a little bit better. Deluxe, or the thing that's usually most referenced with is high impact. All right, there's our high impact shingle, and here's our designer. Which one of those do you think looks best on your home? Well, I really like that because I wouldn't say anything about money. I would just say, here they are. Which one is the best solution for your home if money wasn't an object? Well, I really like that designer sham. Great. Let's start there. Now, let me tell you about my amazing system and all the cool things we do in our system and how we install it different, how we clean up different, how we keep things safe, how we protect your home, all these things that are so different from everybody else out there because they're not talking about it. Even if they might do it, they're not talking about it. And I build that value, especially in the installation side. We don't use those kind of nails. We use these kind of nails. We don't seal our roof this way. We seal our roof this way. We don't use that kind of underlayment. We use this kind of. Always the best possible option. And when I get to the end, I say, well, here's the best option. Here's the better one. Which one, if money was an object, would be the best one for you? Well, I really like those nails and that nailing system, that ceiling system and that kind of. I like that one. Great. Is there any reason other than price and affordability we couldn't move forward today with your project if you do it that way, then they selected everything, not you. They picked. They made the choices. They picked the best solutions for their home. And because they picked the best solutions for their home, when we reveal the price, they have a heart attack. They fall over on the ground. I pick them back up and go, hey, it looks like we might have reached outside of our budget a little bit. Yeah, I wasn't expecting that. Now, there's a lot more to that with price conditioning and some other stuff that can be done there to not make that such a pop. But great. Okay, we overreached our budget. What do we want to give up? Do we want to take a step down in shingle? Do we want to move over to this system? We can navigate that using what's called a give up to get close. I'm giving up something to get to the price where I feel like I'm getting more than my neighbors, but it's still something I can afford. And I always ask, how are you Planning on paying? Mr. Jones, we're going to cut a check for this, or have you considered financing? I mean, this is a pretty good investment for your home. Would you like to see some financing options that make it very affordable? Yeah. Okay, great. Let me grab your. Let me grab your driver's license. It's a soft pool, so nothing's going to go up in your credit. We just see if you qualify. Oh, sure enough, you do. It's $220 a month. Does that fit better in your budget? Sure does. Great. Now let's get you that roof you want. I want to get you on the schedule right away. And that's how we should be talking about it now. I mean, I'M answering a quick question here, but there's nuance to that, obviously, and there's more details to that, more training to that. But that's the overall concept. That, man, I delivered something way better than that guy did. No homeowner is going to expect them to be the same price. If they are, then we go, oh, I'm too much. How do you mean? Because I don't always know how they mean, am I too much for what it is I'm giving them? Is it too much out of their budget? Is it too much right now? I need to know the answer to that question before I proceed. All of this type of stuff and this type of training is in our platform contractor, trainer. There's a whole section on how to sell like this. It might be helpful, I don't know. But if I'm. If I'm really working on how am I profitable, I have to understand what my base overhead is. I have to understand what my cost of goods are. I have to understand what my margin is that I want to make and that determines my price. And I have to create a system that can sell it at that price. I can't cut prices because I have to run a business, a legitimate business. Just so you know, after the first year, John, I'm going to be doing a whole series on what we call the profit car, going by somebody else's house, not mine, but the profit gap. And we're going to talk about how revenues have risen over the last three to five years on projects, whether it's roofing decks, whatever, it doesn't matter what it is. And our costs have actually risen faster. So our material, our labor and ours have started to hit a ceiling. Like, we can't charge any more even for the amazing thing than what we are hitting. But our costs are still here. How do we increase that gap by reducing our cost? Not so much raising our price. And most people do what you did, you slashed everything. Which standard operating procedure in business, but not always necessary. There are other ways to get it done. I'll be doing that series after the first of the year. Did I help you out with that at all, John? Did all that help you? Oh, John. There you go.

Yes, sorry.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. And I don't know if this sounds like you would get more in depth in your future training, but like on a percentage basis, what do you think your labor percentage and your material percentage cost should be related to sales price from.

So people that work with us, we're shooting for anywhere from 25 to 30% on material and anywhere from 20 to 25% on labor. Ideally we want to be about 50% high side, 55% of the total revenue.

Perfect.

Anything outside of that, we're, we're not doing very well.

Okay.

We're going to talk about how to trim those numbers if we can. And we're going to find, we're going to find dollars. That's what we're going to do. In this series, I'm going to be doing, I'm also going to be going and doing some trainings through RCAT and Dallas, Houston and San Marcos between Austin and San Antonio for the sales guys on how to sell it and on for the owners on how to achieve it and increase that gap. Again. We'll be doing that here after the New Year's, probably March sometime. Any other questions from anybody?

No.

John, you got anything?

I'll let everybody else ask now. Thank you, Jim.

Yeah, no problem. Katie. Oh, what is it? Let me go look. Google. Is that Katie? I don't know. Well, that's a big question. First off, when it comes to reviews, the very first thing I'm focused on is I got to get 10 to 20 reviews on Google as fast as possible. And that could be people even that you've gone and met that you didn't get their business. They could actually review you because they may not have needed your services, but everything you did was great. Okay, so don't look at people you didn't sell as non review oriented people. You also can look towards the people that have had interactions with you surrounding what it is that you do. So I tend to leave reviews for my clients and I've never had them do work with me. But I know them, I know them, I know how they do work and what they do. And I write my review like them. Hey, if you're looking for a great contractor, these guys are one of the best. They do things like this and this and this and this. I would highly suggest them. So that doesn't say they did work with me, but it does validate through authority that somebody believes that they do great work. So you can get those type of reviews as well. So Google would be number one just for search engine optimization and those type of things. Facebook, I really don't care too much about their review thing isn't really a review thing anymore. Your other choices, especially in New York. And congratulations, by the way, starting your own business and getting that up and running. My reviews are important to get credibility, but they're not necessarily as important if you're Just starting out to move my company up the charts on Google and all the other review platforms. You might consider things like Yelp. Yelp would be a really good one early on in my business. And there's also Contractor Advisor I think is another one that's out there that ranks roofing companies. Make sure. And I can't stand them, I really can't. But it's one of those necessary evil things. Make sure that you're listed on the Better Business Bureau. And those things that. Because what you're looking for at this time is credibility from the person that you're face to face with and you need to prove to them like, hey, we do good work, check out our reviews. They're not going to be probably finding you on Google just yet unless you're doing some really good search engine optimization. Some really simple things that you could do for that side of things if you're trying to get leads off of the Internet and those type of things. Update your Google listing often. Post pictures of the work that you do, success stories, testimonials, those type of things, and that'll actually move your rankings up faster even than reviews. So keep that business profile up to date. If you, if you write a short blog, put that on your Google listing as well. The other thing that you might want to consider now because the world has changed dramatically, is thinking about the large language models, ChatGPT and those type of things. People are searching through those now and how do you get listed on there? That's where you're writing those stories, creating those blogs, putting those testimonials, that type of stuff, putting that on your website and on your Google listing will rank you higher in those search platforms as well. I really think that if I opened a contracting business today, I would be all in on SEO and what's called geo, which is the large language model searching. So that's kind of that part. The second part of that question is what would I do if I was just starting up and could I get a clarifying question, what kind of work do you do? It said general contractor, which means everything to me. Like you could build a skyscraper, but usually it's pretty specific. Is there any insight there at all? And you can unmute yourself if you like or just type it in the chat message because depending on what I do or what I'm great at, that's where I would probably focus. Usually a general contractor isn't great at everything other than organization. That's what they're really great at. They're great at organizing Subs to go and do work. And so you don't usually see people on the Internet searching for general contractor. And I'll go, who's the best general contractor near me? They're looking for who's the best remodeler, who's the best roofer, who's the best deck installer. They're looking for those type of things. So that would be one thing to consider is if there's something that you're great at, how do you lean into that particular thing? But for my first year, I would focus solely creating opportunities, creating a sales system that works so I can close those opportunities. I would work on my delivery, fulfillment production, whatever you want to call that thing so that it's perfect every time. I would work on collecting my money systematically right away. As soon as that thing's done, I want to get paid right away because that allows cash flow to reinvest back into your business. And then finally, over those four things, I'm making sure I'm profitable. That's all I'm focused on right now. I'm not focused on really anything too special on the Internet other than having a website up and a Google listing. I'm more how do I get involved in my community, how I own this five miles around me, or if you're in New York City, one mile around you probably. So that would be my advice. Oh, plumbing and electrical. Okay. So I would target, likely within a mile to three miles of where I'm located, the most strategically positioned opportunities that would need your services. So I would be thinking about buildings that are 20, 30, 30 years old and what needs to be done with those and then sharing that message out there. I would create a Facebook page so that it gives you this place to communicate with other people. And I'd be sharing that to anybody and everybody I know. But even more importantly than that, whatever social media platform that is your jam, because everybody's a little bit different. Make sure everybody that knows you as a friend knows what you do and you should talk about it all the time on your personal feed. So if that's Facebook, Instagram, whatever, talk about it all the time, share the stories all the time. Not only will you get those face to face, word of mouth referrals and opportunities like that, you'll start to get ones outside of you because of what you're posting out there in social media. And what you become is top of mind for people, people, all of the people that you know. And hopefully it's a bunch of people if they're following you or engage with you in any way on those platforms. When you post consistently about what it is that you do, you're now top of mind. And so they're off doing whatever grocery shopping, hanging out at the park, whatever it is that they do. And they're talking to a friend. That friend goes, oh, yeah, you know, we had a plumbing leak. Oh, I know just the person for you. My friend Katie. I think Katie's on here. So, Katie, I'm guessing that it's you. My friend Katie, they do that work, and they're really good at it, and she talks about it all the time. And so making sure that you're very consistent with that is uber important right now. Just all the time, every day. Any little story that you can share about how you help somebody, the problem that you saw, how you solved a problem, what. Whatever that is, share that all the time. And the last piece of advice, write down a list of every single person you know, every single one of them. Then separate that list from the ones that know a lot of people, so they might have a business or something like that, from the people that don't know a lot of people. The people that don't know a lot of people. I'm going to send one message to, like, hey, just want to let you know, give you an update. We've started a new business, and this is what we're doing. We have some incentive for you. If you know anybody that needs what we do, boom, over there. Okay? And that's what I'm doing over there. These guys that are over here with a lot of people that they know, I want them to become part of my network. So I need to stay top of mind with them, too. And so, hey, just want to let you know, I'm involved in this and all of your customers, I want you to be thinking about them. And if they come up with any of the things that we do, because here's a list of the things that we. We do, think of us first. And if you do, here's some incentive for you, and you'll be shocked at, like, almost immediately, you'll get something off of that. I can remember getting started in sales in this contracting world, and I had already known that that was one of the things I had learned as a salesperson prior to this. And I went and told my entire network what I did. I got 10 jobs immediately. It was like, bam. Just like that. Oh, I know. So and so over here. You should go and talk to them. Went over here and go talk to them. And it was like, wow. Oh, magic. I got a great start. And then each one of those people became part of my network. And I worked each one of them for who? Do you know that story I told earlier today about Tom Wicks? I never asked him what he did for a living. It was a mistake on my part. But I found out that day when I was out there with him, that he was the superintendent of schools for the largest school district and most affluent school district in Minnesota. And I said, tom, how do you think this went today? Because I started off kind of rough. I go, but it's all about how you finish, right? He goes, yeah. I said, you know, do you think anybody at your school would like to work with somebody like me to make sure their project goes well? He goes, yeah, absolutely. I said, if I put a letter together, would you put it in their little mailboxes? I got 80 jobs off of that deal. So be thinking about everybody that's in network for you. Anybody else have any questions? Michelle came on there for a second. I was thinking she might ask me something, but it looks like she had to go, and it looks like I do too. I'll take another question if there's one right now, but if not, we'll go ahead and close it down. No questions, Braden. All right. Great. Alrighty, we're out of here. Have a great day. There's been contractor training room live.