Phil Golding of ARC Contracting in Neenah, WI, talks about how they’ve sold over $500K in the first two weeks after COVID-19 hit the U.S.

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What we're seeing is a trend of the people calling are much more serious.

Right, right.

You know, we're not taking as many tire kicker calls. You know, if they're willing to call during the coronavirus, they're probably willing to buy or to be more interested in a presentation.

Welcome to the Successful Contractor Podcast, powered by Success Group International, a show for residential contractors about residential contractors. We chronicle business journeys, share insights, and celebrate successes in this wonderful industry. I'm your host, Bob Houchin. On today's show, you'll be listening to a conversation I had with Phil Golding of ARC Contracting in Neenah, Wisconsin. We talked about how his company sold over $500,000 in the first 2 weeks after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. Phil and I talk about how his sales team is using iPhones in the field, to run sales appointments. He also explains what a sales manager is doing before and after every sales opportunity to help each salesperson. And Phil shares how outbound calling has kept ARC busy and so much more. Let's take a listen. I hope you enjoy.

All right, Phil.

Well, hey, I can't thank you enough for your time, especially on a Saturday after a busy week. For those in SGI or any other contractors listening who haven't had the chance to meet you, could you kind of share with everyone your name, your title, your company, and where you guys are located?

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. So my name is Phil Golding and I'm the president of ARC Contracting. We're located in Neenah, Wisconsin, which is just south of Green Bay by about 20 minutes.

So, and how long have you been with SGI and what's your experience been like these— I guess it's only been a couple of years, right? I looked real quickly.

Yeah, we've been part probably, I want to say 3, 3 and a half years now. Took us a while to get implemented and really been working with Jared closely probably for, I don't know, probably 6 to 8 months now. So it took us a while to get wrapped in and really start using it.

That's good. That's good. I've heard you're doing good things, obviously. That's why we're talking. But before we get into more of the fun stuff, how has, you know, Neenah, Green Bay, that Has your community been affected by COVID-19? Has there been much of an outbreak at this point, or what's the situation?

Yeah, about 2— actually, 2 weeks ago yesterday, they announced they're closing schools. And that was really when we were like, oh man, what's happening? You know, this is really going to affect our business. And we just honestly have worked a lot of 12, 18-hour days since that day. And then about a week, about a week later, they put our state on— I think they call it Safer at Home— where everybody had to stay home, right? Non-essential businesses closed. Um, you know, we just, you know, you're trying to make business decisions and everything's a big question mark.

Sure.

So very difficult. Yeah.

How did, uh, how did you kind of calm the fears of your team? I mean, you've got a lot of— I know you're a good-sized business, uh, you got a lot of people that work for you.

You know, how'd you kind of let them know, hey, we're gonna get through this, it's okay?

Did you have a big team meeting or just a lot of phone calls? What'd you do? Yeah, we did.

Right away we had a team meeting before— in between there, I forgot to mention they had the thing where you can only have 10 people in a room at one time. So before that happened, we had a team meeting. I believe we're at about 38 strong right now. So yeah, and after that, it just kind of slowly Everybody started going home. And right now we have about 6 people in the office, so it's quite quiet. And we had our call center go home kind of before they announced it just to kind of practice for a couple days before it actually went into effect. Right, that's a good idea. Yeah, but some of it was honestly, you know, if I'm speaking super honest, just fake it till you make it, 'cause we didn't really know what we were gonna run into, and we still don't. It's still changing. Pretty much every day. Sure, sure. Yep.

Um, how, you know, you've had— we're, we're speaking because you've had a pretty remarkable couple weeks. I think if I read correctly on the RSI Facebook page, uh, $522,000 in sales in the last 2 weeks, which is pretty, uh, pretty remarkable. What, uh, what have you done to change how you sell based upon, uh, you know, what's going on? I mean, you're using what, your iPhones and, and Talking to customers or FaceTiming? And what are you exactly doing?

We're trying to do anything. But we did, you know, we have the first couple days of this, we were, we sold nothing. And we've noticed it tied to the news. So if there's a big announcement coming out on the news, we literally have seen our phones go to silence. But when they don't, we're just preparing for that to capitalize on. You know, any moment that the phone's gonna ring. Obviously we can't make that happen without anything, but just being ready when it does. And we're also tying our marketing to that. So for instance, if we know there's news coming, we'll turn all of our Google Ads off because we just understand that the phone is not gonna ring. Everybody's watching the news. They don't care about roofing that day.

Right.

So, you know, just being flexible. That's really what we've been telling our team and our sales guys. Definitely had some guys a little concerned. Our guys are commission-based salespeople, so that can be, you know, a little scary for them at first. And the last pretty much 2 weeks, you know, we've had some really good success doing, you know, what you mentioned, you know, doing FaceTime, doing Facebook videos for people that don't have iPhones. We're developing some video stuff. We haven't used it from like a computer. We are still going to the houses.

Mm-hmm.

So you are still— you are—

no, that's right. You are actually, uh, you're going to the houses, but you're not necessarily going inside the houses, correct?

Okay. Yep. So we're— when we take the call, we're asking them what they prefer. Like, is anybody sick? We have a whole— our script changes almost every day, right? Uh, just based on what they're hearing, and we're adjusting to that. So, you know, what, what would you prefer? Are you okay if we come in your house? Are you not? Would you like us to wear a mask? Would you like us to wear gloves? And really catering to their feelings and what they— and their preference. That's really what we're doing.

How do you handle, um, going over, say, the options or doing the sales presentation? Um, are you just, uh, emailing them the options or screenshotting them, or is it just verbalized over the phone or FaceTime, or how are you guys handling that?

Um, currently we're doing everything there and we're still using paper. You know, we used to be more digital and then we went back to the, um, the RSI Roofing Solutions book. And, you know, we've noticed people really like to see the printed pricing.

Right.

Um, so that does create a little bit of a challenge, um, not being digital there.

Right.

Um, but what the guys are doing, uh, the most success with that is FaceTime. So most iPhone users are very okay with using FaceTime. They're used to it. If they have an Android, that's where we did actually run into a problem where we got to the point where Android users actually didn't even prefer to download a different app. We looked at using Zoom, even WhatsApp, all the free video/FaceTime or face video things outside of FaceTime. And they actually said, you know what, let's just wait until this all blows over.

Right, right.

So we actually created a Facebook an account under the salesperson's email with their picture and our logo on it so they didn't have to use their personal accounts. And if they have Androids, then we're switching over to the Facebook video feature. So that's a really good idea.

I like that. Um, yeah, how are you, how are you managing, um, training and meeting with your sales, sales guys and talking about, you know, sharing your experiences? Okay, this worked, this didn't work. Um, you know, are you, are you having FaceTime meetings yourself? Are you guys still getting together in the morning? and keeping 6 feet apart, or what are you guys doing?

Um, well, we, we do have a unique situation. Our sales manager actually has recovered from some pretty serious cancer about 6 years ago, so he's a— he has a compromised immune system. So once we knew that, uh, we, you know, literally asked him, you know, do you want to stay home? And he said, yeah, I should. Um, so he's actually doing everything from his house. Wow. Which is absolutely amazing because you wouldn't think the sales manager could do a lot not seeing the guys, right?

Right.

So at first I thought we'd have some issues. He's an amazing servant leader and he's just calling the guys, you know, 3, 4, or 5 times a day before, after each, you know, appointment. They're doing Zoom meetings. I believe it's every day, every morning, um, where everybody's on video. So, um, and then he's gathering that information and then sharing it with the next guy. Okay, very good. So mostly phone, to be honest.

Uh, you mentioned that, that calls obviously dip down when, uh, when news tends to break or, or when we know news is going to break. How's your call count been otherwise? Have you noticed a significant drop or, or has it stayed, uh, You know, relatively the same.

I'm just gonna pull this up here. We have an inside sales manager that runs our call center. And so for Friday, which was yesterday, our call volume was actually up 15%.

Interesting.

So we're tracking it daily, week over week, and then we're going back before the corona.

Okay.

So we can kind of understand how things are affecting it. We have made some cuts in marketing just because of, we weren't sure what was gonna happen. So, for instance, last week Friday we only booked 5 appointments.

Okay.

But then with 15% increase in volume, yesterday we actually booked 14 appointments.

Wow, okay.

So what we're seeing is a trend of the people calling are much more serious.

Right, right.

You know, we're not taking as many tire kicker calls. You know, if they're willing to call during the coronavirus, they're probably willing to buy or to be more interested in a presentation.

So that's interesting. Are you guys doing much outbound calling?

We are. Um, so our call center is actually all at home, um, remotely in different— in their, in their houses. So, um, our inside sales manager runs that. And so she's, she's a rock star. She's meeting, um, with them via Zoom multiple times per day.

Okay.

And I believe it's 3 times a day so they can share what they're hearing.

Wow, okay.

Because whatever changes on the news changes everybody's thoughts, right?

Sure, sure.

So I wish everybody would just turn it off.

I understand.

To be honest.

Yeah.

But for instance, this last Wednesday we actually sold $102,000, I believe.

Wow.

And our call volume was actually down 23%.

That's interesting.

Yeah, so, but we had, we set more appointments.

Right.

Which is, it doesn't make sense, to be honest. We just feel really blessed. But we actually, I think 75% of the calls that day, the appointments that we sold, were actually outbound appointments set.

Wow, okay.

So they're definitely rocking it.

Is it, um, I don't know if you guys have a club membership in place. Is it just people that you've left, uh, bids with, you know, in the past, or who are you calling?

Um, actually we don't. So we don't do the club yet. Like I said, it took us a while to kind of get engaged in it. Sure. Um, so these are all just cold calls with, you know, leads that we've gathered from marketing over the last, um, year. Uh, we are— we have been starting to use inspection forms Okay. So those have been very, very helpful. So we've been gathering them from our salespeople. And now we know, okay, this person did say that they would do a siding project in the future. And their siding is 20 years old. Right, right. So we've been analyzing that data with our CRM. And that's what they're calling.

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Welcome back to the show. We were talking about ARC Contracting's outbound phone strategy. Let's see what Phil says about his sales team's renewed sense of urgency, and he reveals how financing has been a huge tool and more. Do you think maybe, um, your, your sales guys are just paying a little more, being a little sharper possibly because they know, hey, don't know what's going on, don't know what tomorrow brings, so hey, better, better be on, on point every time?

Oh, I think so. I don't know if they'd admit it.

Yeah, right.

To be honest, but, you know, sometimes sales guys can be difficult, usually just Monday through Friday. But I do believe that. I think the urgency for them knowing that they're 100% commission, I do believe they're taking more time. On each appointment, right? And but I also, I do believe the sales manager calling them before and after each appointment, right, is very helpful, right? Kind of when we're busy, we don't do that every time, right?

So I guess getting their mind right and then, and centering them afterwards, whether it was good or bad.

Yeah, you know what worked? Um, one of the big things that we are doing differently is financing. Um, right when this came out, we Kind of came up with a process around that, working with Jared and Ryan, our sales manager, to figure out how we were gonna position, you know, everybody knows the interest rate dropped.

Right.

The Fed's dropped it. I think it's at zero now. So everybody feels like they should get a better deal, right? So you can't go in offering a 9.9% finance plan right now because it's on the news. Everybody's getting money for free.

Right.

So we have absorbed some more expensive financing options. Um, that we hadn't normally used before. So, you know, we're positioned as, you know, never before have we been able to offer this plan.

Right.

Um, which is true because, you know, we didn't, we didn't want to offer it. Um, you know, we use Service Finance, GreenSky, um, Aqua, you know, a couple different finance partners. Um, and we're just leveraging that a little bit more.

Sure.

So we're We're paying a little bit more dealer fee, but to be honest, when this whole thing started, you know, if we take, you know, 3 to 6% off of a job that we're usually not taking right now, we're just glad that we're getting them. Right, right, for sure.

You mentioned you're talking to Jared, you know, are you talking to any other members or any other contractors, kind of just feeling out what they're doing, how's business, just Kind of sharing best practices, or have you just been too busy?

Um, yeah, a little bit of both. I've been too busy. I've neglected my family. I had a couple midnight, 1 o'clock, uh, mornings for sure. But, um, really, I've reached out to, uh, Jonathan over at Five Guys, and he's an awesome guy. I asked Jared for a couple names, and what that does is it gives you a perspective of what's going on in the country, right? Right.

For sure.

So he gave me an idea that he was using, and they were actually not locked down and we were locked down. And you kind of have to analyze a bunch of data and make a decision. Unfortunately, right now we're making daily decisions because of the changes in the news. So it's been challenging. I mean, I'll be very honest, we've made some choices and decisions. But we're pretty blessed to have happening what's happened in the last 2 weeks. Right, right.

How have you kept a positive mindset, you know, driving in every day? And because there is so much news and you, boy, you spend 10 minutes listening to it, you're going to be in a bad mood. So what have you done to keep a positive mindset? Are you listening to anything? Are you just turning it off and have a quiet truck on the ride in? Or what are you doing to keep yourself centered?

I'll be honest, the only quiet time I have is in the bathroom these days. If I decide to leave my phone on my desk.

Right.

But yeah, I mean, in the morning, I'm— I have pretty strong faith. And there's a couple of Christian songs I listen to. And I just honestly, maximum volume. And yeah, you know, I'm trying to worship the Lord without taking my hands off the wheel. But It's beyond us. I mean, I can't predict anything, and I just try to get my mindset right. And it's really hard to portray that over video.

Sure.

Because you only see 6 people in the office. So unfortunately, I've watched more news in the last 2 weeks than I have in like 5 years.

Right.

I'm not a news believer, so I don't actually watch the news, but I do have to keep our people updated with how we're handling that as a company.

100%.

I have to be a little bit informed, and unfortunately I do have to turn the news on.

Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, there's no silver bullet. It's just, it's a whole bunch of variables and trying to center yourself on not being afraid.

Sure.

I think that's the big thing because the first couple days, if I'm honest, I was fearful.

Sure, sure.

And you're like, what are we gonna do? We just came out of winter. There was still snow on the ground when this COVID thing came out.

Right.

And we're like, okay, our call volume is just supposed to be increasing. Is the phone actually going to ring tomorrow?

Right.

I mean, that was the question we were asking ourselves. Like, what do we do if it doesn't ring?

Yeah.

And to be honest, I was afraid.

Yeah.

So yeah, I think it's just trust.

Yeah. You know?

Sure.

Understood, understood. Well, obviously we all, we hope this wraps up quickly, um, but do you have any long, you know, and I think we all, a lot of us also think that once this does end that there's going to be a demand, a pent-up demand. So are you doing anything in preparation for that potentially, or are you just more focused on, on, you know, day-to-day, week by week, and making sure you keep everyone busy?

A little bit of both. Um, you know, I think everybody's business has changed immediately.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, our plan that we had worked out, you know, 4th quarter coming in this year, we pretty much threw in the garbage because we have no idea what's happening.

Right.

So we're making daily plans, weekly plans, 30-day, 60-day, 6-month is kind of how we're thinking.

Mm-hmm.

So you obviously can't run a business on a daily plan. It doesn't make sense.

Right.

But you have to be analyzing that data.

Right.

Um, so if you don't, you're really running in the dark. And, um, so, you know, we, we sat down with our sales manager, um, and asked him what, you know, how do we, how do we try to make a budget for April? And we're both looking at each other like, that's really impossible. What if the phone doesn't ring? Yeah. Um, but also leveraging outbound, right? You know, if you do have a care club I understand how the Care Club works. We don't do it, but you have to be leveraging those people, you know, and what you're good at. And we also made, if you guys wanna check out our Facebook page, we made a couple videos specifically to what we're doing differently to keep people safe. Oh, okay, very good. You know, we have a video of us sanitizing our office, and I think Stacy Feller also made one. I think Five Guys recently made one, so. You know, videos and imagery is huge right now. So, I mean, you have to be, you know, showing people what you're doing different. We're addressing it upfront.

Right.

So right when they call, we're asking them, we're talking about it. We wanna know if they're uncomfortable 'cause we don't wanna send our sales guys there and they get there and they're like, well, we just wanna wait till after this whole thing blows over.

Sure, sure.

You know, we're just taking that and say, okay, cool, do you mind if we call you in 2 or 3 weeks? And they say, yeah, no problem.

Right.

We don't wanna burn that opportunity Right, right. So yeah, so a little bit of both, planning short-term, long-term. We're trying not to lose any people because of this. So we are a little bit slower than we would've been. We were staffed up for— our budget was $12 million this year. So we were staffed up for that. So we have had a couple people take half days and trying to manage by the numbers. But yeah, so it's definitely hard. It's a question mark. Right.

But you guys are doing it. I mean, it's been a good 2 weeks and hopefully it'll just keep going on like that.

Yeah, we'll see what next week brings. Yeah, we have no idea, but we're going to adapt and change. And the message I keep telling the team is we just need everybody to be flexible.

Right.

What yesterday was is not tomorrow. Right, for sure.

Well, Phil, thank you so, so very, very much for taking some time out of a Saturday when you've got family there, and I know you want to play with the kids and all that good stuff. So I really appreciate it.

Absolutely.

Have a great rest of your day, and if there's anything SGI can do for you, just let us know. Thank you, sir.

Awesome. Thanks. All right. Bye-bye.

Thanks for listening to the show. If you feel like you have a great story worth sharing that also would help other contractors, email me at bhouchin@yoursgi.com. You've been listening to the Successful Contractor Podcast powered by Success Group International.

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