Changing Customers to UNLOCK $1M Business (Coaching w/ Mike Andes)

Hey, everyone, it's Mike Andes. I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn Care. We have over 150 locations around the world. I was in person with a business owner that does chauffeuring. If you're like, well, this isn't necessarily home service. There's a lot of similarities in terms of getting recurring revenue.

If I spend about $3,000, I'm bringing in 30,000.

Focusing on your core larger customers that are bringing in lots of revenue.

If you guys want to fight over that, I'll get everybody online.

These are some of the hurdles that Obi, the founder of the chauffeuring business, is struggling with.

When I see their faces when they light up with this guy really thought about me.

I believe that these are applicable to any service business where you have any sort of recurrence. How do we get those customers without spending the ads? And secondly, how do we keep them coming back? How do I turn a one time landscape project into a monthly contract where I'm coming back every single month and taking care of the landscaping leads? Solve everything. And he's servicing rock stars and top level entrepreneurs that get private cars instead of Ubers from the airport. So this is an interesting one. It's an extended cut from a turnaround that I did recently. Let's go ahead and roll the coaching tape. So, so then if you had to like say for example, on a hundred dollar trip or $150 trip, what's kind of like the breakdown of what actually would go to a driver? I guess it would probably depend a lot on whether they have their own car versus your own.

Yes. Okay, typical industry wise, it's 20%. So whatever 20% is. So 100 bucks. 20 bucks. But that's just a one way some people pay that. What I do, I guarantee my drivers for one way's minimum two hours. So that's 40 bucks. So if they do a trip as 140, they get 40 bucks. We keep 100.

Yeah.

So that's about the individual. And then they get to keep their tips.

Got it.

So that's what makes it fun for them. And they do a great job. They get, you know, I've gotten $1,500 tips, $1,000 tips, $500 tips, 100 bucks tips. So it makes up. So Wednesday, do a great job. And I'm trying to figure out a great P4P for this thing. Trying to figure that out because I don't know how that's going out to put that together yet.

But yeah, I almost wonder who it could Be. Because a lot of times I find people that have their own car especially, are more entrepreneurial. And even if you gave an opportunity for them to make more than 20%, if they brought the lead.

Okay.

Cause if they actually started thinking about, how do I get leads myself? And the fear a lot of times is, what if the client starts calling them directly?

Yeah, I mean, that's happened. You know, I mean, that's kind of. That's why I pick my people who vet my people well. And I pick the right people to do the right job. That in this industry, that's the honor code. You don't take anybody else's client. If someone calls me affiliate, calls me last minute, say, I need you to do this job. That's why there's no signage on my car except my license plate. No signage. Because I can go in and work for any of the other affiliate companies, and they're really great ones. So I'm, hey, I'm with these people. I represent you, These people right now at this time. And we go from there. So it's just a cardinal route. You don't sniff other people's clients. And even if they call you, you tell them, call, book them through me. And. Because we already have the affiliate rate and the affiliate plan, so that's kind of the thing. And when you break it, then you just. It's. It's bad because, you know, people know, and they're like, hey, they'll blast you. Yeah, yeah.

Because even. Even the drivers that you currently have with you, if it was like, hey, if you guys find more clients, you can get, say, 40% or 50% of revenue versus 20%.

Yeah. I mean, for them. I help them out in a way where I'm like, some jobs are just not standard for us. Like, some. I can't do some jobs. And I'm like, hey, I can't do this. They call me, they want a cheaper rate. If you want to do it, go ahead and handle it. Because some of these guys, they're already independent. They have their own cars. They work for Uber before. So. And the rates with those are just really going down the hills is just terrible. So to keep them employed, give them. If I'm giving them a good lead, I break it down usually 60, 40, 70, 30. However that goes, because I'm doing all the work. I'm calling, I'm answering the calls, paying for the ads, doing all this, giving it to you. So obviously, we gotta figure out a way that makes it make sense for me and makes it make sense for them. So we've just been doing that, those kind of splits. So, you know, if I'm charging maybe 160, 170, I give them 100 bucks, keep the other 70.

So that's how it works on the marketing side. I know you have the agency now and they're running the ads. Do you know your customer acquisition cost is on those or did you break down on leads or anything like that?

I tried. I kind of. So on average, if I spend about $3,000, I'm bringing in 30,000 on those. So it's about. It's high, but it's about 20, $25, 22,000. But are you actively tracking everything?

Yeah, because like, my question is, like, if we stopped ads tomorrow, would we get more? What would our revenue be tomorrow? Would it be 15,000 next month?

If we stop ads, we have. Because the thing is, as the ad come, we get regulars from the ads too.

Right.

So we have recording from the ads.

So that's my one.

I feel like, because. And these people that travel or this book, that book Lives made it. They check through their ads. That's what they seen. Whatever they put it in is what they seen. They're viewing, making sure the review is right, that we get that right. And they just going for who can help them. And you know, I feel like there's no. I was thinking about getting rid of that, but there's no good way to do that. That's just, it's just part of the. For us here. And I know all the bigger companies just part of their thing.

Yeah.

Yes.

Because the challenge is if we have, say, $150 trip and we're giving, you know, 50 bucks, just say to a driver, if we're spending another 50 on acquiring the customer from ads, like, we're literally eating half of our profit.

Yeah.

And especially if they're one off customers. I think the real money in this game is the recurring customers. Just going to call you once a.

Month, once a week, whatever, two, three times a week. Yes, those kind of guys.

And so then it's a matter of like, first off, how do we get those customers without spending the ads? And secondly, how do we keep them coming back? And so from the keep them coming back part, what's the sort of strategy? Do we do an email marketing to our existing customers? Do we give discounts or in certain times to them? Is there any sort of way of reactivating customers?

I feel like the email would work because if we think about it, the people that make These calls for VIPs are their office assistance assistants. So it's where to get your office assistants, those guys that make that decision for the boss, because the boss is not viewed book industry.

And I've made really good. I'm figuring out how to get better with connecting with them because based on the connections I've had with so far, that's what's bringing me some of the stuff I have right now.

And so right now, outside of the ads, are we doing any sort of other outreach or networking or is it really the ads drive the leads?

Ads drive the leads. Right now I've not been doing any. I've not really done any hard networking, which is what I started to do slowly because I just wanted. At first when I started, I just wanted to see whether this was going to work. Then it blew up and it worked. Then I started growing and I was like, I can't just do one car, I have to do more cars. Then I decided now, okay, this year too, I want to make it more profitable. So I leaned out the cars I used got the right people involved and I was like, okay, now it's a growth. It's not growth, but it's just to make it more profitable. And, and that's where I'm still tweaking a lot of all these other things to get to where we need to be to probably establish and go up.

And really, ultimately it's like even with the cars we currently have, we could probably do 5, 600,000 easily.

Okay, I know that. Especially in this market. Columbus. Yeah, yeah, we can easily do that. We can easily do a million here, right? Yes. If we even tried, like, I know like lots of business that we live enough of that phone calls or something was not answered or we didn't get back on time or stuff like that because I'm the one handling all that right now.

And really right now it's just a matter of getting leads. Then. Yes, it's simply if we get triple the leads, a lot of these other problems we can figure out.

Yes. Okay.

And so right now, is there just not enough profit in the business for you to go, okay, I'm gonna remove myself from driving and just do the actual networking and driving leads.

Well, it's not that there's not enough profit. It's.

I'm good at the closing part. Yeah, I probably need to replace. I've stopped doing the driving. What I did, I took away from the driving, only driving. Maybe VIPs or special request people that request me or new guys that I just want to Figure out what they like. And I do that driving just so I can know what they want, know how they roll. Then I can pair them with the right driver that works for them, because I can tell what someone wants and I know who the kind of driver I want to put them with. So I do those drive ins just to still be. You know, because I feel like you say I'm still in the manager stage, I need to be in the field with them so I can have a tone on what's going on. But while doing that, I cancel calls. So when phone calls come in and I'm really good at closing because I know what to tell them. You know, I have sales experience, so I know how to close. And then. So I'm doing admin, driving and doing. But I've stepped back from that to start being more in the community. But at that point, too, I'm still getting phone calls. So what do I do? So that's kind of where we got here. Possibly thinking of getting someone to just answer phone calls or figuring out a way to do that phone system that makes sense, that we can get all the leads that we need and book it.

Yeah.

Because if the drag cars are going, the cause is there. It's just. Just need to open up the faucet maybe.

Yeah. The challenging part with answering the phone with this business is like, it is so wide at hours, and you're only gonna get a few calls a day. Like five, six calls a day, maybe.

Yes, yes.

Right. So it would be ideal to have an answering service.

Okay.

But like, that person's gonna have to be of your caliber in terms of sales. Otherwise it's a waste of time.

Exactly.

And so if there's only five or six calls a day, I'm not opposed at this point to. To still you handling the call. The question is, if you're in meetings or you're trying to network with people, you can't take the call. So even if it was like a backup plan, it's like, hey, if a call gets missed on my phone, it goes to this answering service. And then, you know, it's at least being managed. Because ideally, it's like, we really focus on the B2B customer. These are like event planners, like people for weddings.

Weddings people. Right.

People for funerals, people for VIP meetings, like big gatherings and conventions. For example, we're doing an event that we need John Taffer brought in with a exact service like Europe. And so they require that they don't even allow.

No, you don't. That's the thing we've done, we've had good luck with the city and some stuff like that with the zoo and all these where some artists, they just require black car service so there's no way around it. They call hey, who's the black car service we used before? And we just plug in with them. So it's a required service. These guys are not using Ubers. So my competition is not even that. My thing is letting people know what I do here and claiming my ground and having a better website, having better stuff like that, that just makes it much easier and future what we're working.

And the bride and groom, they don't just go find their black car service, they're going to the wedding planner. Like who? And so I think it's like where are those middlemen that we can contact and just become their best friends.

Exactly.

And that would be the part where it's like it is networking, it is going to be with them, it is getting in front of them. And that's the part like we can estab that we want to get rid of the ads because like we can't scale where right now we're spending, you know, three, four, five grand a month on ads going after. I feel a lot of one off customers.

Yes.

Because an ad is going to show up after someone just, just find. No short, you know, quickly trying to find you. And if we're spending 30, 40, $50 on $150, that's a huge chunk of that revenue just going to a one off job.

Yeah, but most of our jobs are like average spend is about 6, 700 bucks. Really? Yes. Average business, 6, 700 bucks. I mean we do, we do, it's hourly. So most of these jobs are business people come in for six, seven hours, four hours. They've come in flying private jets, they're coming in, they're gonna do a meeting, they're gonna go here, oh, they need to go to New York or the weather is bad, we need to go somewhere. When they go to Chicago, that's 12 hours. So those jobs are long term or long hour kind of deal. So that's why it doesn't really affect me paying 20, 30 bucks to get the lead. Because if I get a seven hour job or seven hour van job or 30 or three day weekend stuff, it pays for itself more than pays for itself.

So how do we then nurture those leads to make sure that in the future they're not even searching for us again, they're just coming straight to us. Are we any sort of Lead nurturing or like your database, I would assume is probably 1,000 plus contacts.

Yes.

Right. Is there any sort of nurturing we're doing now?

Okay, I need to learn how to do that. So nothing. Yeah. So this is average spend. This is, this is our stripe. So this is where we are this today. I'm not anything today. But this is.

Customers payments six.

Wow, you're right.

Yeah.

These are bigger tickets.

Yeah, they're big tickets item. They're not like a 1500 average of 7, $800 per ride.

So that's pretty cool, man. Interesting. Yeah, so you're right, like getting the lead isn't necessarily a bad thing unless they're doing like the minimum, which is.

Yeah, the minimum. The minimum is the airports.

Right.

So those are the short term things where you can't, you know, they're only going 14 miles. They probably go in seven miles. It's a 14 minute trip.

Right.

And those are. Yeah, those are. Yeah, those are not, they're not, they're not our main thing. But those lead into other things because when you get them that way, then also they say, oh yeah, I'm staying here for this, I'm doing other things. Or I'm going. But you know, this add up.

Well, you could even just take like stripe because you're using stripe. Integrate that with something like mailchimp.

Okay.

And so that way every single time someone books it already is going into your email database in your list. And then I would just really focus on the fact that like, because you serve this market, every time there's a big event in this city, you're sending out an email blast. Right. So if there's a big PGA Tour event, you send it out to 1500 people, I guarantee you'll book your weekend solid.

Nice.

Right.

I believe that.

And then really like tailoring like. So for example, in the gym industry, we'll do like summer slim down. And then like for Halloween we'll do make another event Christmas. It's this, it's seven days of Christmas. Like do the challenge. Exactly right. And so it'd just be a matter of like, this is your market, Columbus and Cleveland. And it's like every time there's a big event in this market, it could be every week or two that you're like, we're gonna email blast.

Yeah. Our convention center really books solid. So I have not gotten even in there. So I just got, I watched some videos. Like every time I watch stuff and I learn, I'm like, okay, I'm not doing this shit. There's a lot of things I'm not doing yet. But yeah, so it's like there's more things we need to do and do better. So I like.

Yet catching tail ends of things which they book everybody else. Then they come into me later or before. Sometimes I catch the beginning of it and then I'm also booked solid. Yeah, but if you catch the tail end of stuff, then you can charge the right, you can charge hard because this last minute everybody's booked, nobody else has it. So it's like, hey, because even when we did the win the championship here, we have a really good MLS soccer team here. They need a 26 corner cars. Like nobody has 26 cars in Columbus. You can't possibly make them or the limo or doing prom season. So it gets really crazy when it.

Gets crazy, because you can even segment them. Like the 2.0 version of that is when they're booking. You figure out, okay, what segment of my customers is this a corporate event? Is this a professional athlete, Is this an executive, whatever it might be. And then you start having, okay, this is going to be for corporate. I'm going to send an email out to all the corporate level people. This one's going to be for events, right? So weddings, funerals, proms, et cetera. And then you could target them separately as well. But I really believe the ability to reach out to these customers and keep them in your world is what prevents you from having on the treadmill of spending on ads.

Yeah, I want to get off that treadmill. Trust me, I, believe me, I want to get off that treadmill. I just want to get off the treadmill the right way because it's working still. So it's like I need to tweak it a little bit. And it's a two step process because if I just take the ads off and just run it straight and then book in directly, then there's no compensation. It's figuring out.

That part.

Yeah, well, you still do the ads because they're working. It's just a matter of we want to get so busy to the fact you're like, I'm questioning whether I should even have these on because I'm so busy.

Busy. Yes.

Right. Like we don't turn them off because we have so much capacity. Right. Like if we're looking at the capacity that we can do, we're probably like here like halfway in terms of how much revenue we can produce. So we're not gonna turn off the ads, but if we can increase this by literally getting like a mailchimp set up integrating with Stripe. You immediately probably have a thousand plus contacts and immediately start booking. Like, you send out one email a weekend before a big event, you get 5, 6 extra. Like that is worth to you. Just an ad. Spend a couple hundred bucks.

Yes.

And probably literally could double the revenue. Instead of thinking about new customers, we just think about more and better pay our existing customers and do more with them, and then you get higher lifetime value from them.

Okay.

Well, right now, the only question I have about that is, right, some of my clients right now, they don't live here. They come in, they visit, and they book those trips. So.

But when are they coming? They're coming for events.

For events, yes.

Right. And so that's why we would target, like when, you know, you literally look at a calendar. Okay, These are the 20 big events in Columbus or inside of Cleveland area.

Ohio State football games.

Boom. Right? And then down the road, you'd start segmenting because, for example, a corporate person might not care about the football game. However, they really care about three or four events at the convention center. So down the road, when they're checking out, if you can just have like, what brings you to this area? And they had a list of like four things, you could then segment that inside of mailchimp to know exactly, like, what are these people actually looking for? And then your offers would be tailored to that. Okay, this is the calendar. This is the marketing calendar for corporate events. This is the marketing calendar for the football and the sports side of things. And then you just simply be making. Your whole job would be just like, how do I keep these people engaged.

With me making offers for them?

Making offers 100%. And then you can tailor your experience in the driving too. Like, if they're coming to a football.

Game, pick them up from the airport, take them to the game, do all the whole.

Here's a hack. Yeah, right. That's game over. If you're able to start tailoring the experience to them.

Yes. Feel like that. Yeah. I had some contacts with some restaurants that say, hey, want to do something with you? It's just. Yeah, I'm the only one. I can't go. I was still driving still. So, you know, now that I just got off not driving a lot like that. So it's like, this is the time to do those relationships and do those things.

And so do you feel like from a financial perspective, the business can handle you stepping out of the field or stepping out of doing the driving? Is that not a problem?

Yes.

Okay, so then it's just a matter of like we just gotta fill our schedule doing that but then making sure that someone answers the phone when you don't pick it up. Yes, got it. And are there answering services in this world or like is it something that we can just find a more generic answering service?

I have to explore. I've seen some different people I've seen some different people use different places use the Philippines needs I've seen different people use different kind of services. I've seen AI I'm thinking AI shoot. Somebody told me some people using some AI tech to delay the calls or move because I was really checking on how many people call me versus because the big money item, the six seven, seven thousand the ten thousand dollar jobs you want to talk on the phone with them, they want to hear your voice I mean they, they can accept it and say yes but you do want to hear no the that you're competent in knowing what you're saying. So those ones I always call and try to make sure but the airport, the little hey, just pick me up here, those come in right now they just come in text form and I can just accept them. So yes or no? So I feel like I'm working on a way where there's less touch make it easy for them to come in, pay them, accept the job, give it to them, get someone to sign it.

And are those coming through your website when you say accept those jobs or is that coming from another lead source?

So it's coming through the website too. To the website too. I get a text message, something is here. Then I say okay, accept it, give them the price, send it back to them. They accept, they pay.

Got it.

So that's it.

So it's still on a bid per service basis?

Not bid. I mean I'm not, I'm still fixing. There's a way to fix my our system, our software where it gives them an actual price. I'm still working to tweak it out well to the price I want. I mean it's there you can actually book right now we have two zones set up but to make it better where they know what they're pricing and they can just book and pay but most of the time I always like to because.

They might say an address here but it might be in Cleveland or it might be somewhere far so when I have to I try to look at the stuff so that I can really value engage the job because sometimes if you don't you give them a price and you realize this is a two, three or four Hour job. And you only charge them because you thought it was just a 10 minute job. But no. So those are the kind of things where I just review each stuff before going. But I feel like that's something I can train five somebody else do.

Yeah. And even just like package pricing. Right. For example, you can make something around Ohio State, like a Buckeye special. It's like, here's what it's going to include and you can add all these little things that don't cost you very much. Like you can have theme music that's being played and like it's coming with a jersey and a hat. And hey, if someone can get a jersey, a hat, show up to a game and they're like ready to go with a flag and everything, we'll pay an extra thousand dollars for that. Right. And so I think like creating bundles, like for a wedding planner, they go on there like, here's the package we have for weddings. We roll out the red carpet. We have this, this is what we look like. And like it is a website or a page on the website that's dedicated to that type of specific service.

Okay.

I think it would help with SEO too.

Yes.

Because if people are looking for the Buckeyes, if they are looking for wedding planning, if they're looking for corporate stuff, and then you have a webpage that's dedicated just to that, each one of them. So it's YourWeWhiteDomain.com Buckeyes WeddingPlan, whatever it might be.

To really just. You want that wedding plan. Like this is gonna blow my client away.

Yes. Nice.

And you can put so many little things that they don't cost you, like rolling out the red carpet. You buy that red carpet one time for a couple hundred bucks and you use it a thousand times.

Oh, we do that like birthdays. They don't expect it, but we come up with cupcakes. We get a cupcake here, you know, 20 bucks from one of the real small business out here and we put it in and it just makes their day.

And if you make that part of the package, you can add little things but make it look like an incredible experience. And that is just like worth so much.

Yeah. Airport. Some people want visitors, they come in at one time. If they tell me, I try to, I do it on my own because I just love doing that kind of stuff because that's what like when I see their faces, when they light up with this guy really thought about me, he really thinks about this stuff. So that's what makes it special. You know, kid's birthday, you put a balloon, you put their name on there, or you put something with their face on there. It's really fun.

Yeah. And it's like, how do you package? In a way, the customer knows what they're getting because they're just gonna. Otherwise, people compare you as a commodity.

Exactly. That's why I don't want. I say we are chauffeurs. It's a different level of servants. It's more than just driving when I first started, and people don't want to compete. They're like, driving is just to drive here and there. But I'm like, no, it's more than that. You have to know the area. You have to be situational, where you have to know how to park, you have to get out, you have to know what doors to go, the back doors of areas, how to get out, different places, the stadiums, different routes. All the stuff that you need to know. The best steak in the place. Like what he asked me when he came. The best steak locations, stuff like that. So current locations. Okay, Kinko, do they need to go, where is the Starbucks from the airport? What's the closest one? What's the one they can get in and get out? So it's like little information that you need to know that when you're a chauffeur, you're just not a driver. Drivers just drive, but chauffeur, they plan, they think ahead, and they take care of the clients. So they go do stuff. I get people that call me to go pick up their mom, take them shopping. They don't live here, but it's just. We do that all the time. Hospital visits, different little things like that. Hey, go take my dog. I'm leaving. So it's like stuff like that we get calls for and we just. Because that's just the level of trust they've had with us.

I think there's two big opportunities when I look in the business. One is like lead generation and two is lead nurturing. Lead generation is we want to switch from a B2C company to a B2B company. And that's gonna come in the form of. Instead of relying on the ads where a lot of it's one off. It's people just finding one time you transacting with you. It's like we need to go build relationships with all the middlemen to all the customers.

Yes.

Because the most valuable customers have middlemen.

Middlemen. Yes.

Right. And you just gotta build those relationships that will time and that will take the infrastructure. So that when you're with those people, calls still get booked and jobs.

Jobs to get done. Yes.

So that's like the lead generation side, the lead nurturing side is how do we take our existing customers and double their lifetime value?

Okay.

Because if we just took our existing customers without spending any more on ads, we just took what's coming in, and we took our existing database, and we could double them from a value of $2,000 a year to 4,000, because we do a better job of booking them when they do come in. And we're creating offers specifically based on events. Like, we double the business without having to do anything extra.

Wow, that's cool.

And so that lead nurturing comes in the form of email and text messages. And that's all through mailchimp. You can do text and email. You have their phone number. You have.

I have all this. I have over a thousand contacts. I have them. I have them here.

I think if you spent a few hours, two or even a day and kind of like just even from your own mind, went through the ones and. Okay, how am I gonna tag these in mailchimp? I would tag them like high value. Okay. That's anyone over 5,000. I'm gonna think this is a special group of customers that I am going to tag inside mailchimp. That is very, very high value. And then I'm gonna tag based upon, like, event status. So whether it be sports executive and events, whatever you want to do there. And then I just, for all four or five of those channels, create a marketing calendar. And it's like, what are the two events every single month that I'm gonna pitch? What are the two offers I'm gonna give every single month? And then the offers don't have to be price. It can be like, okay, it's a Buckeyes game. Here's the package you can buy. It's $2,995. It includes picking up from the airport, bringing you back from the game. It comes with the balloons. It comes with a jersey and a hat.

Like, yes.

People will do that all day.

All day, yes. And that way you don't have to do 50, 100 of them. You just gotta do three or four. You be still good.

Yeah.

That'S how I like to think.

And then if you split. What I like about the segmenting is there's gonna be different events that, like, no one, like, the high executive does not care about the football game. Right? So we don't. We aren't gonna. We're gonna market to them differently. That's why we wouldn't need to segment them. Eventually. Yes. In the beginning, you just did everyone. I don't care. Cause for all you know, the executive likes sports.

Yeah, right. Yeah.

Right. But if they have any sort of connection to the city, they've come here before. You've already got their contact, which means they've come here for something. Whether it be family events.

Yes. Something. Yeah.

Or they're an event planner. Like I would be looking at 20, 30 event planners in this area and I'd just be going all in on them.

Okay.

Because no matter what they're planning, there's usually a VIP if it's of size, or there's an event like a prom or a wedding where they're gonna want this sort of surface.

Yeah.

That'S a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. I wish I had something written down this. But I was like. Okay.

It really comes down to though, like, to your point, like creating the infrastructure so that you can go do this.

Yes.

Because right now, if you're answering the calls, if you're managing the crew and you guys out in the field.

I can't. I can't. Even though my guys are good, they can't handle a lot of work without me. It's just fixing, building that system that the admin can still be done. Some days it's just tiring. It's 12, 15 hour days. You do a PGA. Nine cars, nine vehicles, 10 people going and you different places.

So from your perspective, and you're managing all of that, what does that look like for you? Like, I see your 12, 15 hour days if you're not driving. What does that entail? Besides just the calling, like what sort.

Of driver that entails. So it'll depend on. So I started trusting him. The more I watched your videos, the more I started delegating jobs. So when you met Mr. Joseph right there, like, I give him some jobs, I'm like, I don't need to keep calling you. I know you handle it. Talk to him. He has everything. He's done this before. He knows what to do. So some big jobs. I'm like, hey, this is the lead. Talk to this guy, he handles. But before that, I used to get all the calls, hey, I need this thing. Blah, blah, blah, something changed, blah, blah, blah. I called and I have to call the driver and head, hey, this just changed last minute. Let's fix this. Then I'm looking at calendar. And while I'm looking at all that stuff, other calls are coming in for other jobs. So I have to make sure that is taken care of. And when you're sitting down, you're also doing the books payment, making sure they're getting paid and just. Yeah, that's kind of what the job is. And also trying to build those other relationships. Respond to emails fast. Because I believe the biggest thing that gets me job is that I respond, I talk to, I try to get everybody within an hour just to get. And that's what takes a lot of time is at that point where somebody sends me a request, hey, I need to do this, I'm gonna look at it, Send them text back immediately, hey, we can do this. Blah, this is the price. Boom. And they say yes, accept it. Now I have to now book it. So that's what most of my, that's what takes most of my time right now. So it's the double booking service which I'm trying to figuring out how to work that where it just does it one time where I accept it and it's done so I don't have to do it twice. Because right now it's coming in from the leads get generated through those high level stuff and it comes. Then I can put it in my own system, my dispatch system, then send it to the driver. So it's a two step process for me now.

Right, I got you. Yeah. I think some of the manual entry part, like that part could be done by a virtual assistant pretty easily. I do think right now, especially the high value clients, they're gonna want to talk to you.

Yes, right.

And so it's a matter of like how can we system where you're not on call essentially 24 7.

Exactly.

Even if it was like a phone, like the way that you, you do the voicemail can be really, really important. Like hey, this is your personal driver I'm currently driving. Like leave me a message, I'll get right back. So they actually feel like they're connecting directly with you.

Okay.

And then, but then they'll still leave the message. It's not like you've reached this company. Leave us a message. It's like, hey, I'm your personal driver. I can't wait to be of service to you. Leave me a message, I'll get back to you within 60 minutes guaranteed. Like that gives you an hour of flexibility to be able to be in a meeting or being doing dispatch and not be always two phones ringing at the same time.

Tell me about it, tell me about it. This happens.

So the goal is how do you get them to leave a Message. And you don't want to be losing 40, 50% of your customers.

Yes.

Because only 37% of people leave voice messages.

Yes.

But if you can get to the 80% by leaving a very specialized voicemail answer.

I like that.

It could be helpful.

Yeah. Because I was thinking it's either that or being able to push that button and they press one. And if my phone rings four times, it goes to somebody that picks it up. So that's what I was thinking of doing. Someone that picks it up, that can pick it up when I can pick it up, or on the weekends, actually having someone that can pick it up. Because I'm also doing events and doing other stuff. So, yeah, working through that part.

And parts of this can be automated. For example, if someone leaves you a voice message, you send them a text message. You have their phone number.

Yes.

Right. So you can do certain things.

I have. With some of the stuff I have right now, it already does that. Say, hey, I saw you called. How can we help you? It just automatically sends them that message. Does that. Yes.

Yeah. So I think some elements can be automated, but, like, ultimately, it's like, how do we get more leads? And so I think by going after lead generation, lead nurturing, and like, the third component in my mind to kind of grease all these wheels is social media.

Yes.

Like, are we doing anything there right now?

Not a lot. I post on my page. I'm the brand. So it's like I'm figuring out the best way to do it, whether to post as me or post as the company. So.

I'm figuring out a social media plan. Cause I don't have one right now. And, you know.

I don't.

Well, this is the thing. It's like, well, what are the memorable moments that a customer has and emotions they feel with your brand? And so whether it be a wedding.

Yeah.

Very happy.

Right.

A game, a football game.

Very happy.

Right. Like, these are events that are great for social media.

Yes.

And they don't mind you doing any sort of, you know, video or picture with them. The challenging part is like, executives, like, they do not want to be executives.

Don't want to be. So that's the thing. It's like, that's the two edges. So with this, it's like, some people want to be private. They don't want that. You know, had situations where it was like, people like, hey, don't even bring a black car. Get us, like a Highlander white off brand. We just want to blend in. We just want to blend in. Go to this, we just visiting family. Super, super VIP people. We just want to go. We don't want people to know we're here. So we've done those kind of stuff before. So it's like, I want to be professional. I'm finding my niche. I feel like LinkedIn will be my space, my jam, where I want to post most of my stuff, because those are the kind of caliber people I want to be in. Now the rest of the stuff, I don't know. I have to figure out a system that. I don't know, maybe it's YouTube shorts or something that works. But you know, even if you're posting.

On Facebook, Instagram, doing shorts, whatever, and you're going. Cause remember, we're not really going after the executive. We're going after their assistants.

Yes.

We're not going after the bride and groom. We're going after the wedding planner.

Yeah.

And so even if you don't post, you know, going to the wedding and with the wedding group, because, like, maybe they're very popular, they're wealthy locally, they don't want that. And. Or like, you can just help. They're not gonna want that. It's like, okay, great. I'm not going to post of them, but I'm gonna post me getting the. Everything ready.

Ready? Yes.

I got the. I got the bouquet here. I got this music. I'm jamming. I'm gonna go pick them up. Like, that is like, okay, a wedding planner. That's a different service. That's no longer me scheduling an Uber for them after the, you know, rehearsal or whatever. I'm getting like something special here. And they now look good in front of their client.

Exactly.

And so I think that would still be a good strategy. Even if you don't go directly to who you're gonna be picking up. You go to the people planning that event. Okay, right. And I would probably go your company. Cause that's who they're gonna have the interaction with and because you don't wanna be picking them up.

Yes, yes.

Right.

So, yeah. So do the company. Use the company's. Make their own profile and just use it.

And I would even probably do in parentheses, like your city name. So that way it's like very special. Like it's, hey, we know where you're serving. You don't get random. Because that's a problem with social media with this sort of thing. I talked to a guy the other day that was like very specialized fountain work. He has leads from the entire country. He's like, I can only serve Orlando. Right. And so you can just put like, you know, Columbus or Cleveland or whatever you want to serve.

I mean that was the goal. That's the branch of goal was build this in cities like this, under 1 million to get a GM like I'm watching you run it. Move. Build another one in Cincinnati, build another one in Dayton. This three, four vehicles, three drivers, one CEO, one operator guy, and possibly an office person that takes a call and does the admin.

Well, I think as you cross like 4 or 500,000, it makes sense to actually get a full time admin person in the office. And if you're gonna scale to multiple locations down the road, you would actually build an office like two, three, four people on the phone. You have a dispatcher, you'd have a salesperson, you have just answering the phone, like lead person. Like that's how you scale this.

Yes, yes.

Right. And I think right now you're in this awkward position between 200,000, 500,000 where like it's like, well, I kind of need an AM in person, but I don't need them all the time.

I have five, six calls. Exactly.

Right. So that's where I want to dump so many leads on you. You'll just immediately scale to 5, 600,000 and then be able to afford that.

Yeah.

Right. But you're in this weird. It's like for all businesses.

Yeah. So it's like we're zone where I don't want to go take in debt that I don't need and more than I need and because it's really doing well. So it's like I just want to get to a place where when it's really crazy, then I have the job form. Because even now it's like people call me, hey, do you need admin? Do you need a job? I'm like, I can't guarantee you the hours because I'm doing all the taking the calls right now. What day am I going to give to you? You know, so it's like, it's a tough one for me. That's why I'm like thinking all this other stuff.

That's why if we can just focus on the lead side, I know that it'll fix a lot of these problems.

Yes.

We have the vehicles, we have the drivers. Sounds like there's people that you could get more drivers. Like that supply, is that supplies there. And so it's like how we just. We are literally a sales company in a marketing company.

Yes.

We get leads and when we hand them off to drivers.

Yes.

Right. And so that's where it's like, well, where the leads come from. Right now they come from ads that if all of a sudden our customer acquisition cost has doubled on ads, we'd be in a world of hurt.

Yes.

We need to be able to create a dependable stream of leads from ourself that we are farming. And I think that you creating those relationships, like, I'd be contacting the sports teams, like, hey, I'm your guy. If your coaches are coming in, if your top players are coming in, if you have people you're flying in to be at one of the clubs, like, I'm your guy. And that's gonna take some work to, like, just make those connections and then make sure that they're all segmented correctly to be able to constantly keep them warm.

Yeah.

Because if someone come in a year ago and last year they just searched Columbus, Ohio, chauffeur, and they found you a year from now, they don't remember your name.

They don't.

You're going back on searching again.

Yeah. Or they text me or randomly text me or find something. Oh, yeah, this is the guy.

And so how do we keep them warm?

Yeah.

Right. That database to you, I believe, could literally double your business. I think so just keeping them warm. Like, we do it once a month, but I'd say even twice a month for you would be totally fine. And it's like, based upon the events that are happening, you know, the ones that are big already.

Yeah.

You just double down on them and you crush it.

Yeah.

And then for, like, locals, for example, you know, live here and you're doing 10, 15, 20 trips a month, a year. Like, those are the ones where you're like, okay, I'm going to give these people offers on my slow days. Like Monday through Thursday, here's a special offer for you, right? We're going to give 20% off for local discount for these days. Like, you have like, happy hour.

Yeah.

Right. Where, you know, say, hey, if they go earlier, I can get a second trip in afterwards. Because everyone wants to come home for the club.

Yeah.

I can get two trips in if they come earlier.

Yeah.

So I can give them a discount if they come early, right?

Yeah. Nice.

So there's all those little things and so many little things. And I understand, like, right now where you're at, do you feel like you're juggling like 50 things, right?

Yes. Oh, man.

So my goal is, like, get enough leads to where you are. Like, I cannot do all of these inbound leads. I cannot take all these calls. I will have to outsource it and I can now afford it because I could double the bids. We've got to give up 500,000.

Yes. I feel like we can not.

If I do what the leads needs to. What needs to happen with the leads? 500,000, it's a no brainer. It can be done. It's like. But that's gonna cause more problems and we gonna have more cars or if we're getting more cars, we're gonna have that talk when we get there. But yes, adding more things to it. Because all this so far has just been on me, just based off the business surviving itself, bringing in, doing what it's doing by itself and organic. No loans, no nothing, no sba, nothing yet. So. And I didn't want to go there yet till I needed the real need to go there.

And I don't think we need to. I think we can create a lot of this lead flow without spending money because we already have the capacity. We have the cars, we have the drivers.

Yeah.

We just need to fill their schedule.

Yes.

And setting up mailchimp and emailing everybody and getting their, all their text message blasts set up isn't gonna cost you much, but that can literally double the business.

I need to have a profession that knows how to do that. Right. Well, I gotta learn it.

YouTube, like literally. So literally you're going to go into Mailchimp and there is A, the ability to be able to connect with Stripe, immediately pull all your customers in and then you can either A, start just the whole database or B, start segmenting them. And then segmenting is just like, okay, how, what are the five or six tags I'm gonna use? I'm gonna pull them in and make sure they're in these different buckets.

Okay.

Right. But I genuinely believe this is a day project. Yeah, I know it seems daunting, but like this one thing I think could double the business without any spending in any marketing, having any more vehicles. This would just be a matter of getting the leads much more smoother because you already have their contacts. It makes the setup way easier.

Yeah. Right.

You don't have to set the expectations of what's happening. They already know.

Yes.

The amount of admin work for a customer that's already in the database is lower than a new customer that's never used your service. And so I'd rather go after that warm customer database. These are people that have already bought from you. They already like you, they already trust you. Go after them, don't go After a cold audience.

Yeah.

Right.

Nice.

And then now your time is much more better spent in a chamber of commerce meeting. Going to a real estate meetup. Going to a team event. Right. Going to. Like, I'd be looking at.

Okay.

If I was a wedding planner in Columbus, what would I be doing? Oh, they have, like, these little meetups.

Great.

Guess where you're gonna show up there, you know, So I think it's, like, relatively simple. And at school, this is not necessarily, like, a failing business. This is like, how do we scale it past the current point where it's most painful.

Exactly.

And it's most painful when you're in between. Like, I kind of drive. I kind of manage. I also need to get the leads. I kind of juggle all the admin.

Yes.

Like, you're doing everything in the business.

Yes.

And you can't really afford to start delegating a lot of that until you face your 500,000.

Go past the level. That's where I am right now. Yes.

And I genuinely believe you're three days away from just getting some system set up to be able to get past 500,000 and then be able to afford the admin person.

Yes, I believe that, too, because we switched. We switched a dispatch system to be so much, much, much better and nicer and easier to work with, and the drivers can get the job, have everything done. So once I fully switch it on to that system.

Then work on this lead stuff you're talking about, then. Yeah, I believe we can do it.

Cool.

Yeah.

Let's go, man. I know. It's a lot.

That's a lot. That's a lot.

Did some of your family come over from Igo, too?

Yes. So, yeah, my mom just came. She came two weeks ago, so she's up. Yeah, she's up there. I told her about this, but, yeah, I had a daughter. She's turning one in a couple of weeks, so it's like. Yeah. I mean, started that stuff out of that apartment.

What do they think of everything you're doing over here?

They who?

Your family.

My family. Okay. My family thinks it's. So my mom is an entrepreneur, so she understands it. My dad has always been W2 guys, so they know this is what I love, and I enjoy doing this. So they're happy for me that I finally found something that I enjoy and I do it for the long term. And. Yeah. So they're happy about this. They love it because they see what we do. They see the client. They see how everybody's happy. People call on the phone and we just getting to take care of them really well. That's the biggest thing. And just being able to afford more stuff, better stuff and just do a little bit. So yeah.

There'S so many things too. Once you start getting the data from the customers, we can reach out. So for example, having a Google my business page with 100 plus reviews.

I do.

You do.

I have 89.

I'm doing good.

See, every time since I watched your videos, I've been implementing stuff getting better and better and better and better. So it's not like I've been chilling. I've been really getting better. So when you come here, it's like I've solved that problem. Before you came. I solved that problem.

Let's go.

So, yeah, we have 90. We have 98 plus reviews. I'm waiting for your review. Owen, you should get that message six hours after. You gotta let me know. You get that message six hours after. So yeah, we have great reviews.

Good for you.

With all clients.

That's cool. Vehicles, driver, company, airport, wedding. That's very cool.

Yes. Weddings on weekends.

That's awesome.

When sports teams come here, then. Yeah, we get a lot of great stuff.

That's so cool, man. I think there's so much opportunity. You're in that weird phase where you're going to feel like you're just doing a bazillion things.

It is.

And I think, I literally think we are three, four weeks away from, you know, create the systems on the routing software. Like, sound like you're working on that.

Yeah.

And then it's a matter of focus on just getting more leads. Like leads solve everything. And if we can get these leads for basically not spending money.

I want to get my website better.

Yeah.

Because my website is not as good as I think it needs to be.

I agree. I agree. I think that's mostly, though, customer facing.

Okay.

And if we've already done service for someone, that box to them is kind of checked off.

Checked off. Yeah.

I agree. Though. I do agree.

For the new guys. For the new guys, we need better website. Because then I also bought Columbus Limo and car service. I was gonna ask you a question. Do I. Because that's a really good domain name. I can't believe it was still open, still available. Do I just use that too? Or do I just keep my business XCC and leave it that way?

You could literally use both. You could literally take the other one and just forward it to your current firmware too, just so it ranks well. Or you could create more of a Blog style too. And you can make it more about your story and things and then everything just transfers over to the current, you know, business. But it's an SEO thing.

Yes.

That will be searched a lot more than.

Yes. Yes. It's for my brand right now. So I feel like I didn't know what to do with that. So that's like. I agree.

I do agree. The website is a good move like, and make it more mobile friendly and streamlined, et cetera. I also know that we can double the business without even having to get people to worry about that because they've already done business with you. You have a thousand plus people.

Yeah. This is the list. Like this is. This is what I use right now.

Kymark.

So this is how you see all the stuff that is going on. You can see Amir. He's doing that job right now. This is all the jobs we have coming in. Let me see if we go to our reports. Insight. So this is all time.

That's very cool, dude. I said okay. Got it. Sweet.

So this is what we've done so far this year.

Yep.

3. We've done 335. This is what we did in each month.

That's cool. 48,000 in June. That. That's pretty awesome, man.

So it's up from last year. So this is what last year was.

Yep. And we're not even done June.

We've not done yet. Oh, you're gonna crush June.

June, probably be your best month ever.

Probably.

Good for you, man.

Then this is how the breakdown. Sundays one days between weeks.

Wow. Wow, that's interesting.

And the bookings on which cars go out and all this. This is June.

Trip day is 2024 right now. Let me see this one. Yeah, this is what we do.

Oh, they actually give you a breakdown of all the stuff.

Yeah, they give you a breakdown of.

All the stuff we've done so far.

This is all time airport rides. So we do quite a few. Right. So that's. Those are the airports that we do. Not as profitable, but it keeps the life running and it's a busy job. So then bachelorettes anniversary Corporate is a lot 129 concerts. Then city transfers. We get a lot of city transfers for people want to go to Cincinnati. Four hours away, two hours away.

So you could just use this data for your tagging. For my tagging inside mailchimp or whatever you're using.

That's what I was going to use to do my tagging and also see my most valuable clients because it shows me all that stuff.

So yeah, up here it has email templates. Does it do mass emails?

Yes, yes, it does mass email.

Okay, let me see here. Email template server.

So it tells them when. So each thing you do sends a driver reminder. It sends customer confirmation, it sends all that stuff.

But this one doesn't send like mass email.

No, it doesn't.

Got it. It's not marketing.

It's just not marketing. Just confirmation and stuff like that. So yes, that's pretty cool.

And then even I'm wondering if you could drive people to a page from. If we do use mailchimp, they click on a button for a certain package. Could you drive them to a checkout or some sort of like I feel.

Like we could in a different version of the new one I'm going to from this system. So we could drive people to different things on their page and they have better SEO. The people I'm working right now, they have better stuff that we can do. Or just do it on my website and just, just put this as. Embed this in there. Right.

And then the button on the emails links over to your site.

Links over to the site where they just book. Yes, that's good.

Yeah. I think it'd be really cool to be able to have each page for each of those major four or five events or segments on your website that you just drive people to from the email.

Yeah. So we have about 1400 clients, email.

Suites and phone numbers.

Yes.

I just haven't done anything that's really nap done anything with that.

Those are all people that know like and trust you already, right?

Yeah.

They're not comparing price. They've already done servers. They've already had a great experience. Yes.

That's awesome, man. I think that's the gold mine right there. And so if we can transfer them into something like mailchimp where we can keep leads coming in without having to pay Google Facebook. So is it just Google right now you're paying?

Yeah, it's just Google right now. I'm paying. I do Yelp a little bit too, so.

Yep.

It's too early for him to leave now. Okay. And you'll just send me a text. Okay, drivers. That's good. Drivers.

Gotta love em.

Yeah. Good. Yeah.

Cool. Well, they'll probably wanna interview and stuff and I know it seems simple some of the changes but like I really do believe the existing customers are the ones that is like the gold mine.

I believe that too. Yeah. I've been figuring out what works. What will I do to get my existing custom and just be ahead of It, Because I read that somewhere, I watched the YouTube, learned, and like, hey, go to the event centers, figure out that what events are coming up, Use that, put that in there, send it to them, Facebook groups, all these other places. I could be doing that, but I can't be doing that and also managing it. So it's like.

What you just said is what the problem is. There's a lot, there's 50 things to do is like figure out which one you need to to do better at and go for it. Which one is going to move the need the most and which is getting the leads in, which will bring me an admin, which will now get me to be able to go out and do other things out there.

If you ended up actually being able to do over 500,000, I'd probably say get an in person admin. Like you have the office.

Yeah, I want to do it. I always prefer the in person.

Yeah. And then if you have them in person, you can train them with some other stuff.

Yes.

Right. Some of these text messages could go to your dispatcher.

Yes.

Right. And you would tell your crew like, hey, contact the dispatcher.

Yes.

You give that person the phone.

Yes.

Right. But it just comes down to like, we need. We probably need at least 10 to 15 leads a day to accommodate having someone in here all day.

Yeah.

But then between those things, they can do the email segmentation, they can build the email marketing, they can do the social media post, they can manage the books. Like, they can do so many things between all the calls.

Yes. That's kind of what I told the person that is gonna come. I'm like, I'm looking for. It's like, there's just not one thing. Cause phone calls is one thing. You're probably gonna get six in a day till we get really good. But there's social media that needs to be handled. There's a lot of other things that you can do. My thing is not paying. It's like, I need you to see the results for what you're doing. It's not paying you. Paying you is one thing, but I just need to see that. Hey, we're doing, posting, we're doing this. We're doing this. If you showed me, hey, this is. I paid you for this. I'll pay you. You just gotta earn your money. You know, that's where I'm at with it and figuring out that. So, yeah, good for you, man.

I think that one person could literally get you to the million marker.

Yes.

Right. And so it's like, it is a lead problem. Like, if you tomorrow had 50 leads, you'd be like, yeah, I'm gonna go find someone tomorrow. We're gonna scale this thing up. That's why I genuinely believe the lowest hanging fruit is putting them into something like mailchimp and emailing people and getting them. If you just send them a more generic, like connecting with them, you get so many responses of people being like, oh, yeah, I got someone come up in two weeks. Oh, yeah, I totally forgot about you. I'm coming next month. Can I book something? Yeah, like, you just gotta stay top of mind.

Yes. That's the whole marketing thing. Stay top of mind. Yeah.

So I would say, like, in terms of just your. Your general trajectory of growth, I think you can afford the space. And I do believe if we grow fast enough, you'd be able to afford an admin person in person because their value is so much more. It's a pain to find them. It's hard to train them sometimes. But the virtual admin staff would only be able to take really the calls. And I feel like a lot of it's still going to come back to you anyways because it's such a personalized service.

I think that's kind of where people come to me because it's like, if Obi's going to do it, he has to be professional and he has to be right.

Let's go.

Yeah, cool.