Welcome to our live show!

Let's talk about that expensive mistake that you're making in technology, and it's not what you think it is. I'm Jim Johnson here at the contractor Training Room show, and we have been walking through what it looks like to be a contractor, the pillars of your business, the stages of growth and how all that works together. And today we're going to be talking about the technology pillar, that one that everybody gets excited about, like all the new shiny objects. Hope they edit that out whenever we get done. And so we're going to talk about all these technology things and kind of what they're doing to your business. Now, the promise I'm going to make to you is that whenever we get done with today's conversation, you're going to see exactly what you need to do with technology and when to do it based on the stage of your business. So when we're smaller, what we need to do and as we grow, each time, the different things that we need to be focused on in our businesses. I also, for those of you that stay to the end and hang out for some Q and A, we're going to give you a free download to do an audit of your technology, to do a checklist on how to buy the tech that you're after, and to be wise with your money. Because while there's a lot of shiny objects out there that are a lot of fun to have, they can really cost you dearly in the end. And then the big thing is the biggest problem, that why we don't get the ROI out of our software. We're going to talk about that today and how to solve it as well. So before I get started, I want to ask you to do one thing. I want you to be really aware of this as we go through this today. As I talk through this presentation, I'm going to give you guys, you're going to be able to listen in. I want you to write down a couple of questions that you may have about technology, maybe some nuance in your particular situation. And I also want you to write down a couple of takeaways. At the end of the show, I'm going to stop the recording and we'll hop on and we'll do some Q and A with the folks that attended for that live webinar. That's one of the nice things about being able to hop on live is you're going to get some questions answered about your particular situation. So let's talk about what's going on with technology and really what technology needs to do. For us and how I'm going to help you get that done in your own business. So we'll grab us color here that we want to use. And the biggest thing that technology has to do is it has to increase. Speed. So think of this line. I want, I gotta, it's gotta be able to grow with me. It's gotta start to increase speed, make things more efficient, make things more effective. But it has two major criteria. So I want you to think it from like startup. You're, you're a new company, you have some basic needs that you have in software. And then maybe over here you, you're an expanding, you know, you're starting to go 50 million plus in your business, maybe 25 million plus in your business, and you're expanding. So think of that as a timeline. Velocity going to that area, how quickly we get there makes a big difference in the ultimate result of our business. And then we have the thing that all of us want that software should do. These are the two factors that software should do. If it doesn't do it, you shouldn't buy it. Number one is it should make us money. Okay, that should absolutely make us dollars. That could be by being able to increase prices, okay? It could also be by decreasing cost. So it can do one of those two things. But it's got to make me money. Now think about increasing pricing. I could have an amazing presentation given an amazing presentation tool that helps me deliver my very special system. Maybe I have some financing options and those things start to help me make some more money and charge more, more for what I do and having the tools to really be impressive to do that. It should also save me some money, overhead, manpower, all this stuff. The expense of having a bigger building because I can use a smaller team and run leaner. It should help me analyze my business so that I can buy things at a better price. Like these two. I can actually look at my advertising, understand my cost per click and cost per acquisition. Bring my price down there. So think of software doing that side of things. When it comes to dollars, it's either helping you charge more or cost less. Now on the other side of things, we have one of my favorites is it saves you time. This is time, okay? That's money up there. It saves you time. We'll draw a little clock on there. And whenever we can make more money and do it in less time, we become extremely profitable with great cash flow. So what would this look like over time in my business? Right, like this is a great concept and this is what we should all be striving for because it gets us to one place that's I kind of think the place that everybody wants to get in their business is it gets us to this dream business. It's a well oiled machine, it runs on its own. It just spits money in your bank account. That's what we're striving for whenever we create a business that it's this tool that, that allows me to live the lifestyle that I want to live and can run effectively, efficiently and repeat over and over again so we can grow and scale it. So what does that mean ultimately to what should we be focused on at this point? So I want to talk about that a little bit. Go back to my notes over here and we'll talk a little bit about what we should be doing in each stage of our business and a little bit of a reminder just kind of what we're doing here. So over the past several weeks you can go back and see everything that we've done in this series. We've been talking about this thing called the contractor's blueprint. And this blueprint is 12 pillars of your business. Those 12 pillars have two sides. There's a foundational side where there's six of them. There's an operational side where there's six more. The foundational side is leadership, culture, process finance and numbers, accountability and team performance or hr. Right. So that's the, the six pillars in foundational. We've already done those. You can go watch that series and the whole goal is that you understand based on your stage of business, what to do in each one and what not to do. That's the biggest mistake we all make as contractors. If we try to get doing things that are outside of our capability, capacity and finances and it ends up taking us out and putting us out of business. It could be even worse out of business and losing partnerships and friends and not delivering. There's all kinds of things that can get us out over our skis and put us in trouble or get us behind the the dollar and trying to make up for it. So we go through each one of these startup a solopreneur, friends and family. You think about friends and family. That's kind of how we get started with people we know. Then we get serious, we're like, hey, we should get some other people. Outside of that, we start to bring some leaders in which allow us to go into a growth phase, which ultimately can lead to an expansion phase. You can go watch all that in the other series. The very first one in this series called the Contractors blueprint and scaling matrix. It'll give you the whole idea. But we're going to start the second half of the series, which is the operational pillars. And the very first one is technology. And if you think about it as a contractor or really most any entrepreneur, we kind of get focused on the operational side. And that's inherent because down here at the startup phase, we don't have to do all these pillars. You notice there's no pillars there. These are the million dollar must. This is what gets us to that first. First million dollars in annual revenue. We have to know how to create opportunities or market. And for on a budget, we gotta be really tight on our budget. We gotta learn how to close those opportunities and make the sales at a profitable rate. We have to know how to produce it and do it well and create an amazing customer experience. And then ultimately we have to know how to collect it. Those are the four basics. Where we're gonna go beyond that after you get out of startup that I've got to know at least that much, which builds a great foundation. You can think of that as like your slab built on this rock down here of guiding principles. Now the problem with it is that's how we start and then we continue with that. Because if you think of all of those that I just shared with you, they're operational. They are in these operational pillars. Technology, marketing, sales, production. Technology, marketing, sales, production, training, recruiting, hiring and onboarding. So you think about these pillars over here and some of them we're very focused on and we call it the candy. We create more opportunities, make more sales, that's the thing. And hire more people. Those tend to be the ones that are really our focus more than anything else. So we're here to tell you to stay in order on things. These foundational pillars happen in a sequence. If I don't lead well, I don't build a great culture. If I don't build a great culture, we won't build great processes. They work together in that order. But they also have certain things that we need to do in each stage and they need to be completed before we can move to the next stage. This is why we keep bumping into ceilings. And so today we're going to talk about technology and I want to add on a little bit to what our conversation just was and we'll move this over here and we're going to talk about what you should be focused on in each of these stages as you are growing your contracting business. So first things first, here These are our stages. Get my pin right, There we go. You saw them over there. We have our startup. This is just getting functioning or making our first few sales and things like that. It could be anywhere from six months to a couple of years sometimes depending on how fast you're trying to roll into it. But you're still a startup, it's just you solely, there's nobody else. And then we go into this kind of operator or solopreneur where we wear all the hats. We're everything and every, everyone to everybody. And we might have a couple of people that are kind of part time, maybe helping us out. Usually a spouse or a good friend, but they're still part time in the specialty that they have. It could be like bookkeeping and maybe a little paperwork and stuff like that. So we can go and sell produce, build all the other things that need to be done. Then we decide, hey, we're going to move that up a little bit and we kind of move into this more entrepreneurial phase that we call friends and family. We start to hire more people that are close to us because they know us, they think like us, we're culturally aligned and we can grow a little bit, you know, can we can start moving into that 3, $5 million range. And then at that point we run out of people that we know. We got to actually go beyond that into this more business and getting serious aspect of things. This whole time we've had a business, right? But it wasn't a real business. Now it's becoming a real business. Systems process, documented, like things that a real business has. So what do we do in each one of these stages? And the first thing I want to talk about here is what we should focus on. So what's our focus in each one of these when it comes to our technology? So let's start off first with the startup guy. What should he be focused in right away in his business? And that would be financial. Okay, so it would be the dollar sign, finance and most likely QuickBooks. For most of us there are some other tools out there like Xero and FreshBooks. But if you're gonna do that, you gotta make sure that that's gonna carry and be a great foundation for you as you move forward. That's why we tend to focus mostly on QuickBooks with most of our startup companies that we work with. As we move out of there and we start to move into probably getting a little bit more business, we need to start tracking things a little bit better. We have to move into, I'm Going to use some different colors here just to keep them separate. In the operator or solopreneur phase, we're looking more towards customer data. This importance of customer data, making sure that we have it and then it functionally handles a little bit of a job flow for us. So we need the demographic data, we need to be able to create an estimate, we need to be able to create a little bit of a job flow so we can walk that customer's job through. A bit of a system for us so that we can stay organized. And so this is where you start to see the CRMs customer resource management tools that allow us to do several of those things. So we start to now look into those and decide which ones are the best ones for us. So that's your first two phases. You might have some light estimating stuff, but you're not into the whole the fancy, expensive, crazy stuff. It's like, hey, what's the most affordable way I can get started with the best product that can scale with me over time? Where does the investment make sense for the long term as well as the short term? And so some of you really, this is what we talk about when we talk about CRMs. Who are you? All right, like figure out who you are and what you're all about and then you're going to figure out then which software kind of works for you. Are you the techie nerdy guy that loves workflows and loves messing around with software and you've got a team of people that are advanced, been on tech their whole entire lives and can do some amazing things, then you want to look for a type of software like that. When it comes to a CRM perspective that might be more like a job Nimbus or a Proline. Now if you're more the Apple, the iPhone, the hey, I just want this thing to freaking work and it needs to look great and it needs to be super easy to use and I need my people to use it. Then you might be more in line with the acculanxes and companies like that, the service titans, those type of tools might be the ones that you might want to consider now as you move into this entrepreneurial phase. So you think, hey, we're growing a little bit here and we've got now some people working for me and not all of those people are doing non revenue. So think office and production. I'm actually probably brought maybe a couple of salespeople on. And so what I want to do here, and that's really important is I want to get Tools that help me close, they can help me close more deals. And so this is where you get into like proposal tools. They can be add ons to the CRM that you have. So you look at the CRM and say hey, does it have an excellent proposal and presentation tool? Because we now have a real presentation for our company that we've built. Because we're at that phase where we need to so the people coming in can repeat it and we have a consistency across our system. Looking at those two things that helps you decide what kind of CRM, like hey, my CRM, can it do a great proposal and close a deal? Can it facilitate financing and stuff like that? Is that important to your particular company? So you got to start thinking when you hit this phase, friends and family, it's we need to close deals and we need to close more of them at a higher percentage of rev of profit and also a higher percentage of closing rate. Because if I can just move my closing ratio 5 to 10% it can make a dramatic difference in the ultimate result for me on an annual basis. So that's your first three stages. Hey, Finance and QuickBooks. Now think about it back here in this financing QuickBooks you're probably needing to learn a little bit about some spreadsheets and stuff like that. You can track them there. You can actually carry those spreadsheets into the operator solo and not really get too heavy into a CRM. CRM might come in up here. So these can kind of move between each one, but you can't get much further than the next one up before you have to have it. And so what happens whenever you get past the entrepreneur or friends or family stage? Well, we're going to move into get us a different color here. We'll try that one. There we go. What we're about here is system and I'll just put it sys for that and automation. We want to start systemizing everything so that it's repeatable, creating a great customer experience and shortening the timeframe of how long it takes to process and do a job. We're start looking at time here. We're really trying to squeeze down the time while still having an amazing experience. So this is where you see marketing automation tools like a HubSpot or a Go High level. You start to see more of the systematic communication between a client that's done through workflow automation. You have those type of tools and so now you're looking back and going okay, what tool can close? What tool can tool can actually do my CRM as well can. Is there anybody that does all of those? Because down here, I want to make a good decision because I know I got to do these things up here. Now, whenever we get into the growth and trust side of things, we have to start thinking a little bit deeper. And this is where we measure and analyze. So we've got systems, we've put automation, and now we have tools that are actually measuring the results. Think of these as the tools that are measuring how quickly a job is going through. So like a velocity tracking type tool, this is where you start probably stepping into some AI type stuff that's able to look at your whole entire business in one fell swoop and go, hey, this is exactly what's happened. Here's your dashboard for it. And then we're constantly looking to try and move that thing to again, shortest time frame, optimize for client experience to deliver as quickly as possible, which increases our cash flow even more, reduces our cost even more. Because you're looking here at how much materials, how much is labor, how much could I actually buy a pallet worth of stuff to save me money so I don't have to spend that over time because I'm going to buy it anyway? Have I put enough resources back to be able to invest like that? These measuring and analysis tools allow you to do things like that. And then finally in expansion, we'll come in here and we'll put. This is the green one. I like green. Green's good. What we're doing here is integration. And in two places, all right, we start looking integration across our entire system. We might be looking at it back even in the growth and the true owner phase. Like when we're in growth and scaling, that's when we start to become true owners. We're putting leaders in place. Those leaders are installing the systems, putting in the technology that we want, and they're analyzing like, hey, is this something that's going to be right for us moving forward as we continue to grow? And when we get it all integrated together, think of it as an ecosystem or an enterprise system, it makes a massive difference in ultimately how successful we are. So we're going to leave that there right now. We're going to come back to this in a few minutes. We're going to talk about why this is so important. But these are the things that you should be focused on as you start to move up that scale in your business as far as the stage at which you're at now. Here's the biggest problem, the biggest problem that we see Is we see people putting in this, these type of things up here, way back here when they should just be getting their CRM tight. And so what happens, why does this happen and what's going on with us as owners and leaders in our business that forces this equation. So I'm going to pull this up real quick, see if we can find it. Here we go. There we go. We're going to start right here. Okay. So the real problem is not the software. The real problem is not you necessarily, or at least your intentions. So I want you to think about it like this, okay? I want you to think of it as this first piece here. Make sure I got the right color. Ah, I did have the right color. So these are your good intentions, we hope. You have gone to a conference, you have seen all the software in the world out there and there's the magic pill that's going to make you more money, save you more time, speed up everything, and you've decided we're going to do it and this is going to be amazing. You're going to invest in it and everything's going to be wonderful. So that's good intentions. The next component of that is, oh, you move forward, Bring this over so everybody can see it. And that gets you into making some choices on good software. And here's the honest truth. Most software out there is good. It's not the software that's the, the most of the time they actually do what they say they're going to do. In some rare circumstances over the years, as new things have come out, they can be a little bit more challenging. They're still going through their learning curve and growth curve and stuff like that. If you're trying to get something that's, you know, is going to work, try to work with somebody who's been established a little bit longer or at least has a history of putting out some really strong software. So I've got good intentions as an owner. I found a good software. And so now we have to consider the all important. And cannot be overlooked. And the number one reason we fail with software. Is adoption. Because the cold hard truth is this. Get it where you guys can see me, I hope without a whole bunch of lines all over my face. This adoption thing right here, this is the one you, you, the owner expects everybody else to do for you because you think it's a great idea and you say, hey, we're going to do this thing and you tell everybody this is we're going to do it. And you attempt to roll it out without Any plan. And so what ends up happening ultimately is two things you have no buy in. So nobody's bought into what it is you want to do. And there is, because of that, a lack of usage. And so you end up doing what most contractors out there end up with. With most software they get, they buy it, they try to integrate it, they integrate as much as they can. Probably use anywhere between 10 and 20% of its power. When it's a CRM, a simpler tool, they might use more like 75, 80% of its power. And before you can nail it and get all of its power down, you're buying the next software, you're buying the next solution, you're buying the next magic pill to solve all your problems before you perfect the first one. It's just like running one of these businesses. You try to move from stage one to stage two without perfecting stage one or stage two to stage four without perfecting anything in stage two. And when we don't perfect the thing, the foundation we continue to build off of is an absolute mess. So then we get pissed. We're absolutely upset. We're spending a lot of money on software. We're not getting out of it what we thought we were. And it's not the software's fault in most cases. Some of them, yes, there may be, but it's not the software's fault in most cases. Most of the time, to be honest with you, it's you. You didn't have a plan, you didn't find the things that you need to find. I'm going to talk about one of those things right now that you have to find. That's super important. So let's move this up a little bit and figure out how do we solve. How do we solve that problem right there? This poor adoption, this idea that, hey, software is neat, we like shiny objects, but we do not implement, nor do we adopt well, because we have no plan and because we think it's a neat idea and we say, hey, everybody, do it. But there's a key ingredient missing in most cases. What is that key ingredient? This thing that would make all the difference in the world. That would be. This person right here that I'm drawing. It has everything to do with whether you're going to be. Successful or not with your business when it comes to software. Because when you learn this concept right here, to find a champion who not only is passionate about what it is that that software does, they're capable of doing it. They're willing to plan out how to use it. And they're also willing to take ownership over it. Now in some cases that might be you. You might have some passion as an owner for a piece of software and you really want to be involved in it. But most of the software is going to take to grow to those larger size companies. That's not going to be the case. So we really want to make sure that we identify a champion for whatever software piece that we need to use. All those ones that we started stacking up over there. Do I have a champion for them? Who's that and why is it and can they handle it and are they capable and do I need to get somebody from the outside to do this? Because spending a whole bunch of money on software that doesn't do anything for you to increase the amount of money you make or save you a tremendous amount of time is just money being set on fire. And that's what we don't want. So let's talk a little bit about this usability filter and how does that work to make sure that we make good choices with our software? I got a few checkboxes here. We'll make them a little smaller so we can actually write next to them. But this is your. Own. Momento. Let me just grab that again. And this is what we call the usability filter. So this usability filter helps you filter through by least important to most important, what we should be doing. I'm sorry, most important to least important. So what's the very first thing that makes everything important important for my team to use this particular piece of software. And this would be you at an expo. You go, okay, so all cool stuff, man, this guy's really got me sold on how amazing it is. What does it look like from a usability factor? So I'm sorry, let me erase that intuitive. Factor. Is it intuitive? Obviously that's a big part of being usable. Is it intuitive that just naturally click the right button, move through the right thing? Seems self explanatory and like wow, I can just use this. When I, when I was the director of sales and at acculinx for their first five things, this was one of our big things. How intuit how just like make it simple, stupid. Like how does this just naturally flow very well and does it make it easy for others to use? So think of it as intuitive, okay? It has clear workflows. This is one where people really struggle with their softwares when they get into the more complicated, especially CRMs, right? But there's like this clear workflow that needs to be followed and Then I can maybe build it out a little bit, but it's. It's pretty clear, like, boom, boom, boom. This is what happens. And I have a workflow, right? I have a workflow for my business. And I know that I do whatever it may be, maybe it's roofing, fencing, siding, whatever it is that you guys do out there as contractors and even you as entrepreneurs. Whoever is watching this, you think about it, you got this thing that you do, it has specific nuance to it. For example, if you're doing roofing and you're doing windows, those are very different workflows. And you have both in your business. You have to find a piece of software that has multiple workflows. But if you're doing business that is very similar workflows like roofing and fencing, well, I could buy one that has a very clear boom, boom, boom. This is what we should do in our workflow. So think clear workflows. Now, once you have clear workflows figured out, you have to ask yourself, does it integrate into the systems we already have? I'm going to get this thing, and it is the coolest thing, man. It solves all the problems in the world. Does it work with my CRM? Does it work with where I house all the data and information for my customers and stuff? I'm going to get this cool new video thing that just shoots video of everything and every ounce of it, and AI reads it and tells us everything. But now I have to move all of that from over there over into here because they're not integrated, which actually cost you time, cost you money for the product, and it doesn't bring the value back for you. So you got to ask yourself, does it integrate? This is another one. And this got sent to me this morning because I am actually involved in software again. And so like our software, we tell you, don't buy our software unless you're at least a 3 million, more likely a $5 million company. We're not right for you. We're in a measurement and analysis tool. We can measure and analyze exactly what to do. And we're also a problem solving tool where we can do all your commissions for you, we can do all your crew payments, we can do all your material invoice verification automatically, like, boom, done, finished. We don't have all these people and doing it and trying to make sure that it's done right and perfect every time. But if you're not a larger company, that doesn't make sense and you shouldn't be doing any of that. Early on. So you want to make sure that the tools integrate into your other tools. Now last but not least, and this is the really important one and you'll notice that, hey, it's got to pass this bar first. So I'll come up here and put these little green check marks up here, passes these bars first. The final bar and hurdle for it to jump over. And I'm going to just put that in a different color because I think it's that important is that it is a 10 day ramp. Because every day after that that you're using as money down the drain without it being earning you your ROI that you have spent on it. So we don't want to be wasting, we want to make sure that we can put this thing into our system quickly, which means that that's a criteria for us. So think of this. Every time you're talking to somebody that they've called you about software, you investigated their software and now they're calling you all the time, you're getting emails from it. I get a million because I am the worst man. I am Mr. Technology. I love it. It's a shiny object. Can it solve my problem? But I've gotten really good at asking these questions. Is this thing intuitive? So I'll go try the free trials, I'll go watch them do a demo and see how easily they do it versus how many questions do I have to ask. Does it just seem like this is the next thing that I should be doing? Does the workflow make sense to me? Does it integrate with all the other stuff I've got? Like, if it doesn't do that, man, I don't know if I even want to use this. And then can I learn it quickly? Yeah, it's intuitive. But can I actually learn it quickly? And if I bring it on board for my company, can the other people use it? Like that's the big thing. Can I get them up to speed on this thing as quickly as possible? So that's your usability filter. I would suggest early on, whenever you're first starting out and in your early stages of growth, that you really ask yourself of these questions. But if you need help and you're bringing somebody on, you're going to have them help you with bookkeeping or maybe paperwork and stuff like that. Make sure that they become the champion of those tools that help you do that, QuickBooks and CRMs and those type of things. Because you have two different kinds of champions. You have one champion. That's because they have to be. They are the production Coordinator in this production tool is the thing they got to learn and they got to implement in their team. And so hey, that's what's got to happen. But sometimes it's a, hey, we want to analyze our marketing and create automations to push our social media out and we don't know how to do that, but we know the software exists. Who's passionate about analyzing our marketing, making sure our cost per acquisition and cost per lead is right and also loves to get things off onto social media. Anybody on the team? Yeah, I do. Champion. Guess what? Now let's go and follow a bit of a plan, which again, if you guys hang out today, we're going to share with you what that plan would look like to help somebody bring this on. So that has gotten us through the usability aspect of things. We're going to come back over here and we're going to talk about this again because it all relates now from the stage we have these things that we're focused on. Which now brings us to, Oh, get the right one. I'll mess everything up. Action. Okay, so what's the action that I have to do here with Finance and QuickBooks? Well, the action I've got to do is probably get some training. I'm going to get some training on that tool because if I don't get some training on that tool because I'm a startup, I have to learn some of this on my own. Maybe there's some things that you already know with spreadsheets and stuff like that, but you've got to be where you're in this position of starting to train with what it is that you're learning. Now when it comes into the CRM, I've got to do a few important things and actions. We've got to do some. You got to build. That's not build, That's build workflows. For CRMs. There's a workflow that goes along with it. We got to build some of those things out. Those are the actions that I'm taking when it comes to closing tools and things like that. The tools that allow me to execute and estimate and stuff like that. I am creating database. And presentation, A few other things, making connections and stuff like that with finance. But I got this database of all these items. There's a whole bunch of them and I've got to present them and deliver them as a solution. That may look like a good, better best. It could be a better best, fallback to the rest. There's all kinds of different approaches out there, but I've got to build a tool that helps increase the closing percentages on that. Now over here, the actions I'm taking are more in the automation side of the world and this would be marketing automation and job automation. So how do we automate as much as we possibly can in our systems and processes and also admin. So that would be like payroll and automation there, direct deposits and just all the things that we can do there to get really transparent between us and the people that work for us. This is where you start to see tools that are the analysis and agent AI tools that are starting to come into play nowadays. Solve a lot of these problems. And then now whenever we move into these measuring and analyzing, the action that I need to take is build dashboards. So we got to build some dashboards that give us clearly with the measurements and analysis for our business so that we can review them and make decisions quickly based off of them to. Because they're like little levers that we can pull to move our business forward. And then integration, this is where the action is. We're going to get somebody in place to normally handle getting that and even maybe a team to get that in place. And one of the things I've seen, and this is one that probably irritates me the most in my entire career of doing this for the last almost 14 years now of coaching clients is watching people do this and we'll even expand on this more into enterprise. That's part of it. People doing that enterprise thing back here at Entrepreneur and Business and Growth you've just now gotten to where hey I got some systems and stuff. You've also gotten your systems documented but now you jump the one in the middle which is to analyze and measure everything so you can repeat it over and over again. And you step into spending hundreds of thousands of dollars HubSpot on a fully automated system that breaks on you that you take a year, a year and a half to integrate. And it's not hundreds of thousands of dollars anymore. It starts being millions of dollars and it becomes a money pit. Because what you're really doing is you're taking a platform and turning it into the custom thing that you want it to do, which takes an immense amount of time, which is why people design and develop software all day long. So watch out on going full out enterprise too early in the system because it'll take you down. And watch companies almost go out of business and some have gone out of business over doing things like that. Be smart about your technology now when add one last little Piece on here and we'll add it right in between. You can see I got a little bit right there. So we'll just move it over and we're going to grab. Let's see here. I kind of like that yellow color, I think. I think that one will stick out. Who's my champion down here? It's probably you. Who's your champion? It's probably you. You are the champion of getting Your Finance and QuickBooks figured out. You might get a little bit out, but really you've got to enter stuff in, take stuff out, know where to put it, categorize things like that's still you and it might be you plus somebody here, but you're still both learning it, figuring out you're not pros yet. When you get into the next phase here, it is probably one of your team and likely a sales manager. So they're specific. Okay, this specific person now here in systems automation, these are passion people in a lot of the cases, and passionate here as well. But I'm identifying somebody that goes, hey, man, I love that stuff. Please let me do it. It's going to be amazing whenever I get done with it. No problem. You own whether it determines roi and you're going to be measured based on the ROI of that software, if we're going to implement it. So that gives you an idea of what this looks like as you build out through stages in your business to determine whether you're going to be successful with your technology or not, when to install what, and also who to help get it installed so that you have this plan to get it done. Now, all of this may sound like a whole lot and a big lift. Ultimately it's not. It's like, let's do the lift right here. Where we tend to really participate with people whenever we're doing our coaching and where they get the maximum amount of return on their investment. Again, coaching, right time, right place. Probably don't need a lot of coaching back in here. You can probably figure a lot of that out pretty simply as you start to move into these upper levels. Some coaching might be helpful. And so where we tend to work with people is right here. That doesn't mean that we don't work up here with people because we've grown them to there. But this is where we get ahold of you and we start to develop out each one of the places throughout that whole entire framework and matrix where you are as a stage and then what needs to be done, in what order we speed the process up with all of Our templates, tools and everything else to do the thing. Based on experience of 13 years of coaching, another five years in the software world and seeing systems and process of thousands of contractors in their back offices and then also dozens of years myself as a contractor running a pretty good sized business, 20, 25, $30 million. Now if you want to help with any of that stuff and you think, hey, this is important, I am serious about growing my business, I'm willing to do the work because that's the big thing for us is are you willing to do the work? If you're willing to do the work and you're into that friends and family and growth phase, you might want to consider over here our one to one coaching and the way that starts. Think of us as your guide. We're hand in hand with you the whole way to get everything in place at the right time, in the right order. There to slap your hand whenever you get excited about some kind of new shiny object and go, no, we don't do that. We have a plan. We're going to follow this mission, we're going to get that done so you can stay as profitable as possible throughout your growth. Well, the first step in that, shoot that QR code right there, it's going to give you a link to our assessment. Take the assessment, it's going to take you about 20 minutes probably. We want to know everything about you in each one of those pillars that'll help us identify what stage you're in, which pillar needs to work in that stage, and then what to do next to move up a stage. If that's what you're trying to do. Don't come to us if you're not willing to do the work. You're not hungry, you're not. If you think it's an easy button, go find one of those hype machines out there that say they're coaches, have some kind of little superfluous program that's going to help you sell a few more jobs. It's going to create chaos for you and tear up your business. Or let's build something sustainable, something that you've dreamed about, something that's a well oiled machine that just repeats what it does. Man, it goes pretty quick. It's pretty fast. Like hey, it's anywhere from six to 10 months to get everything in place to go to whatever stage you want to go to. I can't imagine a better way to get that done. So that's our coaching. Think of that as guided. Okay. Over here on the other side, we have chat with Jim and think of that as coach. In your pocket is AI tool. 20 million words. Everything we've ever done, coaching wise, tools, templates, the whole bit is there for you to ask questions. If you give it great context right away is do it yourself in those early stages. That's what we built this for. You don't have time to be on a meeting to be a part of a thing just yet. You got simple questions that need to be answered right now. Get those questions answered. Go and Download this. It's $29 a month. I mean, that's less than making a homemade cup of coffee every day. For that $29 a month. You got my brain in there. Helping you build out your business and get to the next stage seems pretty simple and pretty affordable. But, hey, who knows? Shoot that QR code if that fits you a little bit better. That's our training for today. I hope you learned something about how technology can not only improve your business and make it amazing, also how it can wreck your business if we're not strategic about it. So that's our training day. Thanks for hanging out with us on Contractor Training Room. Show those of you that registered you're on there live. Hey, I hope you wrote down some questions. I hope you wrote down some takeaways, because I'm ready to take those right now. Everybody else, see ya. Go have a great day. Go be good humans. All right. Do we have anybody hanging out there? Braden Sweet. Yeah. When you click that request to join the call, we'll see it pop up and we'll just add you. Come on in, ask a question. Hey, ask one that's specifically about technology. Right now for you, here's a cool thing about tech. Those of you that are still listening, there is a big problem where our amount that we can charge for a job is starting to hit up against a bit of a ceiling of what homeowners are willing to spend. We need to focus on the other side. How can it save us cost, overhead, material prices, labor. Like, what can it do to get the number down so we keep that margin? Because if you can, if you have your revenue rising and tailing off, you have costs continuing to rise in employee wages, in material cost, all labor costs, all those things, man, we got to find it somewhere. So we got to cut some costs. And so that doesn't mean cutting people necessarily, although it's possible. But what it does mean is if I'm going to scale, I don't want to hire any more people, especially administrative or production, because I want to have the tools that I get that are available nowadays that amplify my humans not and make their lives even better. Like they. It gets the work done for them. They go high fives and they own that thing and they have a better lifestyle too. But we get more out of doing it. So do we have anybody join. All right, guys. Man, you get. You get this chance. Ask questions. I always wonder, like, why are we embarrassed? Is there something like that? I hope not because there's no such thing as a stupid question. This is a stupid person that doesn't ask one. No, just kidding. I wasn't talking. That was a joke. Please, if you, if you have questions, you got comments on this afterwards, feel free to go and put those comments down below. Ask a question down below. I'll get back to them and answer those questions as well. It's been an amazing day. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. I hope that you have an amazing time with your families. I hope that you understand the importance of connection and relationship with your families. Be intentional about that time. Set your phone down. There's no work stuff that has to happen on Thursday. Be present. Be intentional with your family. Those you love and care for, take that day to be thankful and grateful for all that the world has given you. And if you think it's been rough on you, hey, guess what? It's just a season. There's still something to find to be thankful for. We'll talk to you guys later. I'm Jim Johnson, head coach here at Contractor Coach Pro, and hope to see you on one of our assessments or in our chat tool. Peace out.