Fed Rate Cuts Effect YOUR Business - Episode 077

Welcome back. Another episode C Suite Unfiltered we are coming pre recorded live to you. And I know that this is obviously kind of an opinion education.

You know, debate podcast. What would you describe it as?

Chat with Lee.

It's just, it's kind of in conversation. It's entertainment.

Yeah.

We try to, you know, stick to the facts, I try to pull up news articles. But I do like to lean towards being somewhat educational or bringing value if we can to, you know, primarily small business owners who follow you. And I thought, let's talk about last week. The Fed had some rate cuts. And I thought, you know, this could be important for us to kind of get your take on it. Not only because you, you've built some large companies, you stay aware of these sort of things, general macroeconomics in the US and it, it could be educational in the sense that some, some of us don't really understand it. And so I was like, you know what, I want to go all the way down to like the kindergarten level and just kind of start from the beginning. So I googled what, why does the Fed control rates? And it was basically that like I read a couple different articles. I would summarize it as. To control pricing and stabilize long term like economic stability. Correct.

Yeah, they have a dual manned it. So, so they have to keep inflation around 2%.

Yep.

And then they have to keep, they basically monitor unemployment.

Yeah. And that's where I want to start asking you questions. Now. Why is that the federal government's responsibility to do that?

Well, they are, well they, they have a huge part in like the jobs of most Americans, unfortunately. But like they, they're, they're the biggest employer. They control the rates because all the banks give them their money essentially and say, hey, give us some sort of return. And we also need a ton of debt in the United States.

Yes.

So in order to facilitate that debt, we are going to give an interest rate. Well, the most, like from a statistical standpoint, currently the most secure form of debt is US treasury bonds. That is the debt of the United States. And so their product is debt in the United States and they sell it to banks, institutions, international, et cetera. And they're willing to give a certain amount of return on that loan. That's the interest rate. And so when they change that, it massively affects whether or not people are giving them money or if they're putting into the market. And it usually is a pretty good indicator of where the economy's at. Because if the economy is doing really, really good, then people want to buy typically bonds, I. E. Give the government more debt cause it's harder to get in the market. But yeah, there's just so many different opinion pieces on this. But like typically when someone, when you cut interest rates, the ideology is okay, if they're cutting interest rates now, it's more appealing to put money into stocks and real estate instead of bonds because now there's a lower yield on the bonds. However.

When you look back in history, because when they usually cut rates, they are expecting some sort of economic turmoil. They wouldn't just cut rates for nothing. So when you look at in the past when they have cut rates, usually actually the market kind of either dies off like kind of for a year or two or decreases dramatically. And so outside of 2020 when it just roared after they cut it to zero. So yeah, it's just like it's one of those things. It's a factor. I do think this will affect home prices. It'll affect how many houses on the market that will then trickle down to affect contractors. We've seen a massive contraction of project work because people can't get cheap debt. Their home equity lines of credit are now 9 and 10% where they were 3 and 4% just a few years ago. And that is the difference of hundreds of dollars a month in interest on a project that you want to do for your house, an improvement project. And so that's what's really hit project so hard. And so interest rates coming down theoretically should help that. It also though will likely could potentially I should say because there's two diverging thoughts on this. And there's like one is that by reducing interest rates now people can afford a bigger house because the cost, the mortgage is going to actually come affordable. People want to spend more money because the cost of capital is lower and that we're going to go, the economy is going to rip. The other alternative opinion is that now with interest rates being lower, the pent up demand of people that want to sell their house over the past three years that haven't because interests are high and they can't buy into another market, all of a sudden they're like, okay, now we can sell. There's buyers in the market and then they sell. And then by too many people doing that, you saturate the market with a bunch of sellers. By doing that you collapse the market. So there's two different schools of thought on it. The Fed is trying to thread the needle. And so for some people, they're like this is too soon. Well, they really, really increased rates too late a few years ago, and that's what led to all the inflation. And so I think they're just trying to get ahead of what they kind of feel could happen over the next year or two. And I don't think it's a bad move. I think it's the right move to do given where we're at. They usually have just mistimed everything. And so I would have been really concerned if they wouldn't have lowered rates because I think they would have been adjusting too slowly and then we'd find out in a year or two just like we did with when they cut interest rates and then left them there too, too long. We found out a couple of years later when inflation took off. So I don't want it to be where all of a sudden we have a in unemployment to 6 and 7% because like they were too slow to cut rates and stimulate the economy.

And when the Fed announced these rate cuts, Jerome Powell said the economy is still strong. So that's a question that I have because when this happens, you know, you hear a lot of different highbrow language of well, this is going to happen or that's going to happen. You said there's kind of these two general paths that could go down. What is an indicator of rate cuts being, I guess, successful? Is it the home prices? Is it, is, is that at home prices or just the market for homes in the U.S. is it the stock market? Is it unemployment levels? There are so many different metrics people track to say this was a good decision to cut rates or this was a good decision to increase rates. What would you say are important metrics we should look at when these rate changes happen?

Well, it's not, it's not a matter of debate. It is a matter of the Fed is given a mandate and that is don't let employment get out of control and don't allow interest rates to get to allow inflation to go out of control. That is their only two things. So they are conversely though, when you cut interest rates dramatically, you're going to have a massive drop in unemployment. And that's what we've seen over the past couple of years. It's hard to find people, etc. Well, now as you increase interest rates, businesses are less likely to spend, they're less likely to invest, they're less likely to hire, they're less likely to build more equipment and manufacturing and hire more people and offices. By doing that, what happens, unemployment will trickle back up. And we've seen that over the past Six months. So I'm glad they're getting ahead of it because we can't let that wait a year, two years. And all of a sudden now we're at 5, 6% unemployment. And then they're cutting then because then it could trickle out to 7, 8% and then we go into a recession.

Yeah. So I'd like to zoom in a little bit on the stock market and get your thoughts on that.

I will say this is why people think that everything's manipulated. And they have a good point because, like, it literally you just watch the Fed and you kind of. That's how you react. Right. Again, like when it comes, like smaller businesses, I just say keep performing, like, keep executing. Do not worry about the rules. This does not matter, like, whether or not projects are going to increase or decrease and recurring revenue is more or less important. Just adapt. Like, oh, we're getting way less close ratio on projects. Okay, let's focus more of our market dollars on recurring. Like, just adapt. Yeah, don't worry about this stuff. Like, I only even keep a pulse on it because, like, I kind of need to know where we're going and what, like, our focus is going to be for Augusta. But anyway, sorry, go ahead.

No, you're totally fine. And that's what I want to get at is really, you know, what is Mike's general take on this for small business owners and how does this impact, you know, the average American, if you will. But when you look at the stock market, because we have talked about that a decent amount on the pod, you look at historically what has happened with larger rate cuts, you pull up 2001, 2007, and then 2020. Well, 2001, the stock market fell 30 something percent, I think like 31%. 2007, we had, what was that, like the mortgage crisis or what do they call it? The housing crisis, and the stock market fell 26%. Then you look at 2020 and the stock market ripped and it actually went up about 40%. So what do you think? Do you think either path is the option here is are we going to drop drastically? Are we going to rip again? Like, what's going to happen with the stock market?

Yeah, well, the stock market I don't think is tied to this directly because again, you have, I have seen when you lower rates that the market will still tend sometimes to actually down. And because economic, like so, for example, it's like, well, interest rates go down, people are going to take money out of bonds and put in the stocks. Okay. But the reason we're reducing the rates is because the economy is weak and we're gonna have bad forecasts and we're going to usually have less in revenue increases and less earnings per share, et cetera, which means the stocks are worth less. So that's why like, if you're going in a recession and like, he's like, well, interest rates are low. We should all invest in stock market. Yeah, but all these companies are going to be worse. Like they're going to lose money. Like, Nvidia is not going to be printing money like it is in two years if we go into a recession. And so when you, when you, when you peel that back, that's why there's not a direct correlation. The stock market is like completely just like, like for example, you just mentioned like 2020 or 2001. Right. These collapses that happen. The stock market just like is a reaction, it's a lagging indicator. Yes, right. Like the Fed simply is looking at, and that's what they should be looking at is like unemployment and interest rates. And that is usually an indicator of like, okay, stimulating the economy or are we trying to like kind of damp right down and like, why would they want to damper the economy? Because if you don't, what happened a couple years ago happens and that's massive inflation.

So do you think that where we're sitting? Because, you know, I, once again, I'll say, I'll say this very clearly. I'm not an economist, I don't know these things very thoroughly, but I do try to consume a lot of articles and podcasts that talk about it to try and educate myself and understand a little bit better. There are some people out there saying that where we're at is similar to 2001, where it was that.com bubble where the stock market ripped in the late 90s and then the bubble burst. Now, because that was so tech related, right.com, it was all about the Internet. Now people are saying it's similar to that with these emerging technologies, with like EV and AI and all that, that we're in this new AI bubble, if you will, and that's going to pop eventually. What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, in every industrial revolution or like technological revolution, there are a hundred companies that start and two of them that make it right. And all the winnings go to those two. So like, yes, the dot com bubble, there's a lot of people, it popped, but like Amazon came out of it, you know, like, like Apple, Windows, Microsoft, like all these companies also emerged from that. So like the biggest companies today basically got through that bubble. So, like, the biggest companies in 20 years will probably be the ones that get through this bubble. Like the AI companies and the EV companies and, you know, energy companies that make it through now are likely the ones in 20 years that will be the biggest companies.

Yeah. Not financial advice. What do you feel that we are headed towards a recession? That there will be a proverbial bubble pop in the next coming years? Are interest rates going to keep dropping? Like, what do you see happening?

I think that if I had to put a prediction on it. Yeah. Because I. I only have one prediction I'm very proud of. I called the bottom on January 4, 2022.

But not financial advice.

And not financial advice.

It's just an opinion.

I would say, like, the Main Street's gonna feel a recession for the next year to two. It's gonna feel like we're going through recession. I actually think that we are not going to go into actual recession. I also think that the last time we actually had a recession, we didn't have social media.

And it's gonna feel way worse.

Yeah, that's a good point because we're.

All gonna talk about it. And so, like, even this past year, like, yes, there are. There have been layoffs and, like, the economy has been a little more tough. But, like, let's sit back for a moment. We're comparing it to, like, 2021, when, like, we couldn't even hire people because, like, no one wanted jobs. And, like, everything was going up in the stock market. Like, yeah. So it seems a little bit less, but I think it's returned back to normalcy. Like, what happened 2020? There was so much money pumped in the system, and there still is so much money pumped in the system. It will take a while for this to normalize. And so I really hope that we know we'd cut the budget and go through a massive amount of dollar devaluation stuff. I would love to live through that. It won't happen in my lifetime, probably, but it will eventually have to happen because of our debt. But if I had to predict, I would say that Main street, we're going to feel a lot more pain. I think it's going to be very easy to hire people because there's going to be a lot more people looking for jobs. I think we have a reset of wages because wages have been increasing so quickly. And we've seen anyone watching this has probably increased their base pay by 40 to 60% over the past five years. And so, you know, I Think we're going to see a reset of that. And then I think that housing prices is the one thing. I just don't know what's going to happen. I can totally paint a picture where it's going to pop. And I mean pop, like maybe decrease by 15 to 20%. Yeah. And then I can also paint a picture. It rips another 20% because interest rates go down.

Yeah.

So I'm kind of leaning more in the direction that it's like if I had to like a distribution, I think 60%. We're going towards a mild, very mild recession. Very mild. And I think that the housing market will come down after spiking a little bit here. I think the spike a little bit when interest rates come down, people are like, okay, go buy. Then what I think is going to happen is people that have been wanting to sell for the past three years are going to put their houses on the market because now they can go buy someplace else. And they've been wanting to do that, but they don't want to buy back into the market at higher interest rates. Right. I also feel like we have a big problem with people that at those higher interest rates are now refinancing and they're still at 7% when they thought they were going to be down to 3 and 4%. They're not going to afford the house. So what do they do? They have to go put on the market. So there was a lot of 12 and 24 month, like, hey, we'll give you an entry level rate and then you can refinance in 24 months and everything will be fine. And now they're refinancing realizing, oh, I can't afford extra fifteen hundred dollars a month in this mortgage and they will have to sell. And if you flood the market immediately, that's, that will cause a collapse. So I'm mostly concerned about that. That's like. Actually the thing I'm looking at the most is inventory on the market. If that starts to accelerate, I will immediately be looking at, okay, like this is going to really affect the housing market. And I watch the housing market mostly because it affects home services is a direct correlation.

So not making any real estate place.

I'm, I'm, I have no money right now because I'm pouring it into copilot Perfect. But I do believe in like a year, two years, if I had cash available, I'd definitely be like looking because there's gonna be desperate buyers if we go into recession. But this is the thing. If you bought stocks at Any other time that was a bubble, including the middle of 2021, if you bought like Amazon, you bought Apple and you bought all these, you'd still be up massively. So, like, it's always good to take your cash and invest in the assets that appreciate in value. Because your cash goes down in value, it is standing the test of time forever.

Yeah.

Even if you invest in the worst, it's the top of the market. Just invest. And so like turn your cash into stocks and turn it into real estate and turn into businesses that produce revenue and are actually, you know, cash bearing assets. And so anyways, that was my rant. Yeah.

That's where I feel like there are some people, I don't know how everybody does it, but I feel like maybe I do it like most people where at the end of the year is when you make your Roth IRA contribution, you just got to put it in. So that way it goes in that fiscal year. Fiscal year. And you're good. And I'm like, almost like, I'm gonna.

Do it, I'm gonna do it.

Obviously I'm gonna put my money into my Roth IRA before the end of the calendar year. But I'm like, it just feels weird. Like everything's high. Like I don't know what's gonna happen. We have an election coming up, but it's like you just gotta do it. Like it's not timing, it's time in.

Yeah.

So yeah. But no, I appreciate you sharing with that, sharing your thoughts on that with us because you hear interest rate cuts, you hear what's gonna stock market going to do, what's it going to do to house homing, house prices, what's it going to do to unemployment rates? What would you say if there is, if your prediction is correct, there is a milder recession on Main street usa. What would you say is most important for home service business owners to focus on now if that's the case?

Okay, so two things. So first I'd say for anyone that's like just generally watching, not a business owner. Yeah. Buy assets, they will go up in value and your cash won't. And anything you can do to save any dollar possible to put towards an asset, I would do that. And if the only asset you have right now is your skills, invest in those so that those go. Because they'll go up in value the fastest. Then I would say to a business owner, if they're. What. What was the clarification if planning for a recession.

If we're planning for a recession, a light recession, a Mild recession in the next couple years. What should they focus on on now?

Just get recurring revenue. Like it's literally the. I've been pounding this drum literally for like six years. And I thought in 2020 I was gonna have my victory lap, but the Fed stepped in and I only had my victory lap for like two or three weeks because it all came collapsing down projects. But I didn't take a victory lap because everyone was such a horrible time for everyone. I was like, I was right and I was like, who cares? Everyone's hurting, I don't care. And so like there was no like, see, I guess as I told you this and this is happening. I know that none of that happened because I was like, dude, people are literally dying over here and everyone's freaked out too. It's just very scary time. So I would say like what I've been talking about, five, six years will happen. Whether or not it happens this year, next year and five years from now, like just please, you just don't want to get wiped out. And if you're just doing projects and one time jobs, that can happen. And we've seen across the board at Augusta closing ratios over the past 24 months drop dramatically on projects and it's harder to get them. And yet mowing and like recurring revenue has been very easy to not only get high close ratios but increase prices. And like, so I just really, I don't think you need to go all in. I just always get like completely misunderstood here. Like don't go all in. Like don't. You don't need to sell. Like I mentioned the other day talking like a $10 million company the other day that does project only and they're really hurting and they're like, we're going to switch everything to maintenance, like hardcore swap. Like whoa, whoa, whoa. Because if in three, four years we're back in a boomtown market, you're gonna be kicking yourself again. But you know, they scaled like basically 5x in the past five years once, you know, all this money got pumped in the system. There's tons of projects and they bought trucks and well now their monthly payments like $60,000 and so 50,000, $50,000, like all their equipment and stuff that they've leased and like loans and all the rest of it, which was fine as long as you're growing by $2 million a year on projects. And so I said like, don't do everything. Like just start going that direction and fill up your current trucks. Maybe you take, you know, 20 of your trucks and make them maintenance. You don't need to make all of them maintenance. Like the projects will come back and I think like, so it's like don't overreact to this stuff. Like that's I've learned. Like I always used to be overreactive. Like oh my God, look like the economy will keep going on. We've had dozens of elections and you know, we still kind of make it through. And regardless of who gets elected, like we will still be alive likely hopefully in four or five years. So like don't overreact. That's what I've learned.

Yeah, fair enough.

Just realize it's gonna be probably easier to hire people, harder to close close big projects. And you're gonna have to get really, really good at your churn and your internal metrics. Because in the past like we didn't care about churn cause we had so many leads pouring in. Now you're like nail down churn. Nail down. Internal processes will be much more important than marketing down the road.

Yeah. Well, I appreciate you sharing that with us. Hopefully that was educational to some of, some of you out there. It was to me. I want to completely switch gears. I, you know, for those who don't know, I don't prep you for this. It's just we sit down, we turn, we hit record and we go chat with Lee. So do you want to give people any teasers about the upcoming blue collar summit? I know you've been putting in some work.

What teasers do I put in?

Yeah.

So yeah, like the three, three months out.

Yeah.

So basically three and a half.

Basically Friday we're gonna have some heavy hitting speakers. It's basically four hour long keynotes that are like really, really good. Kind of like our heavy hitters. I have two more. I'm trying to get that be really good. And then Friday is all workshop that whole day.

Cool.

So I've been working on that for a couple months. I scrapped most of it a few weeks ago and I'm now back on track of what we're doing. So I'm hoping I don't have to.

Rising from the ashes.

Unless Dr. Kashi comes in veto something. I think I got a really good plan. So. And then Saturday is like really fast keynote. It's like 30 minutes a person just like one right after the other. And then I do believe Friday will. I always say this but like I do believe it. I think it'll be like my someone best work ever.

Good.

And so like I think it'll be twice as good as the book. Because the book. I felt like a lot of my time was spent like doing the writing of it versus like the presentation part.

The total business turn around.

Yeah, the book. Yeah. So yeah, I think this would be like really good. I think it's going to be like people will leave and be like completely think about their business differently. I really do believe that. And some of like Augusta's been feeling the past like few months I've gotten that feedback as like we've implement certain things around Winter services and Winter tracks etc, that's like it's going to be work for every industry and I really think it'll help people. Like, I really want it to be like, the reason I scrapped the other one is like, this is too heady. People will leave, they will think Mike was smart and they'll have a lot of really cool projections and graphs that we make in the workbook. And I also thought they probably come away with like 20 different items that they need to improve. I need them to walk away with one and that one needs to change their business. And so that's why I scrapped everything a few weeks ago. And so I'm looking forward to it. I think it'd be good. I think people are going to really look at me like that was like the best conference I've ever been to. So that's what we're going for.

Yeah, no, I'm excited for that. And are you going to use the proverbial Alex Hormozi how this presentation is going to make you more money?

The workshop? Probably not. Because it's a full day, like eight hour presentation. That's a marathon. Yeah. So.

That one. No, because I'm going to like very much build up my case as to why this is important. It's not going to be a one slide how this will make you money and dive in. It's going to be like, here's the problem, here's my proof, here's the solution, figure it out, here's the five options and like go through it and then like, let's demo this. Let's create scripts for you. Like and then one of the turnarounds actually that we did last weekend that that'll be coming out like end probably beginning of November is a $2.4 million handyman business.

Okay.

And what I did for them is kind of what we're going to do for every business at Landscape Summit or Home Service or Blue Collar Summit.

Summit.

Wow, confused. Landscape Summit is for Augusta only. Then Blue Collar Summit right after Republic. But that's Kind of what we're going to do for. I want to try to take what we did with them. I very much, like, looked at their business model. We, like, took all these inputs and then we came up with, like, here's a solution to solve the problem. I think everyone will walk away with, like, very tangible. I think I'm going to miss out, like, one or two, like, people. People that have, like, either figured out the problem, the solution already or something like that. But I do believe everyone that comes will like. Like, it'll actually, like, they'll change their business and once they leave, like, completely.

Good.

Yeah.

Blue Collar Summit.

That's the guarantee. If you don't, I'll give you your money back.

Yeah. Blue collar summit.com sign up today. Yeah, I sent her an email. So I tested something. I sent her on email. So if anyone listening is on my mailing list about joining Augusta. And I did something a little. Not risky, but a little, you know, I'm trying new things.

Okay.

It was like, hey, I understand joining Augusta might be a big decision for you. You know, when I. A tactic I like to use is ask yourself, what's the best. What's the worst thing that can happen? What's the best thing that can happen? I said, the worst thing is Mike and Lee are scammers and Augusta. Or Mike and Lee are frauds and Augusta is a scam. The best thing is. And then I explain what could happen if you find success with Augusta. And at the end of my email, I put, P.S. if Mike and I ever try to scam you, I personally give you permission to sue us. So I don't know if I opened this up to any sort of legal ramifications, but I don't think we're going to scam anyone.

Is there anything worse than scamming? Let me think. I guess a scam would be, literally, they send us money joining Augusta.

The worst thing that in someone's mind, it's not that.

A pyramid scheme.

Yeah, we're on the pyramid scheme, which we aren't. But that's the worst thing that could happen.

Right.

If you give. If you pay the initial fee to join Augusta.

I think that's in most areas of life. Like, what's the worst thing that could happen? And it's like, lose everything. Best case, the world is your oyster.

Yeah. We're just trying to. Trying out new things.

So. Okay.

We're jumping back in here.

Okay.

Now, we've talked about this guy a few times on the pod before.

Okay.

But I have to give credit where credit's due.

Okay.

I found this short on YouTube of Andy Elliott crushing a follow up call. Okay, absolutely. Crushing a follow up call. So I want to show it to you and then we can talk about it because we have. You've really been impressing us on the owners inside of Augusta how important follow up call procedures are and what the framework should look like based on the. The amount of work you currently have on the schedule and what state stage of growth your business is in and all sorts of different factors. You've really been laying that out for the owners in Augusta. It's been phenomenal. So I've also been looking at like, you know, follow up content, email, follow up phone call, follow up. And I saw Vandy Elliott and I was like, dude crushes. This is so good. Barbara Brand.

Hi, is this Barbara? I wanted to reach out real quick with master movers. Are you still moving February 26th?

No, we don't have a date yet because we haven't sold our house yet.

You're gonna sell your house quickly. I'm gonna buy it myself if I have to because that's how committed I am to you. Now don't say this lightly. I talk to people every single day on the phone. You sound alive. No, listen. Hey, okay, hold on.

Our house has been on the market for two weeks and we have not.

Had one showing yet.

You've got to start making decisions like this has already happened, like we've already sold your house. Do we want good positive energy in that home or negative energy? Hold on, I'm just asking. Listen to me.

So you're not willing down a little bit?

Well, it's not willing to come down. I'm not gonna do a bad job and I'm not gonna hire kids to move your stuff. Here's what I'll tell you. I don't like cheap stuff and you probably don't. You probably don't like cheap stuff either.

All right, I'll do it.

Wait, what is the billing address on the cart?

That is obviously an edited clip of him doing a follow up call. Looks like he's probably doing some sort of training, but I thought he would. What I really liked and what stood out to me was towards the end there, he obviously, you know, builds a little bit of rapport, cracks a joke like, I'll buy it myself if I have to.

Right.

Just kind of lightening the tone of the call. He's not being pushy. He makes a joke of it, but he's trying to build rapport. But I like at the end where there's a price objection. And a lot of times people try to overcome that objection with really demonstrating, like, specific value to the customer. But he just said, it's not that I can't come down on price, it's that I'm not going to do a bad job. I really like that. Just showing them that, like, we are the right company to choose. And he also said, I'm not going to hire kids to come and move your stuff. And I don't like cheap things. And you don't either. And you've talked about that with owners before. With Augusta is like, sometimes people just don't want to be called cheap. So you can kind of play that emotion a little bit. I thought he did well. What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I was good.

That's a really good follow up.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think. I think it's. It's pretty. The most ballsy thing he did is he took a objection that is actually a very large thing like moving your house. Right. And basically called her bluff on it. Like, they already know they're moving. Yeah, they already know they're moving on that approximate week approximately. Because otherwise she wouldn't have gone through with it.

Yeah.

Assuming this isn't planted, which I assume not. I think that's pretty good. I thought it was really good. Yeah. He basically just did not take her excuse and be like, oh, that's a legitimate thing. And I think that's a lot of times that's what we do when we do follow up calls, like, they throw a red herring and they're like, oh, like, that's valid. Because in our mind, we rationalize it. Right. Versus just being like, okay, let's assume that's true. Will they still choose someone to like? It could be true that they haven't got a single offer on their house, but they have another offer on another house and they know it's going through. And they already crossed the bridge of having to juggle two houses for a second. So now it's a matter of when do you want to move?

Yeah.

Right. And so most of us would have heard the objection. Like, oh, I think total sense. I'm not going to, like, push them if they're not even going to be moving. They haven't even sold their house yet because then I have four to six weeks before the house closes. So we always rationalize it without, like, full evidence of, like, the fact that there's likely she has another house already purchased or it's about to close. And she can move. And it is just a matter of pushing through the red herring.

Yeah. It's. It's reassuring the customer like, this is. This is going to happen either way.

Yeah.

So I'm the best choice to make it happen for you. Whether your timeline is today or tomorrow, we'll work with you. But it's going to happen. And I like how I said, like, we got to start making decisions about this because the house is going to sell at some point and you need to lock this in.

Yeah. I liked it.

I thought it was good. Yeah, I know, I know. There are a lot of, like, click, clickbait things.

I would say 60% of. Of customers won't laugh like she did.

Yes.

And that those are hard.

I know.

And so as long as you're willing to get through those ones where they, like, I shut up or hang up on you because, like, you really go on a limb there. Yeah. And so as long as you're okay with that, realize that you're either going to get 5 or 10% of these people that have kind of ghosted you organically because they actually end up coming back, or you're going to get 40% of them and the other 60% are going to think you're a little bit weird.

Yeah.

And as long as you're okay with that, then rock and roll, baby. You 4x in your business.

Yeah. So, yeah, you have to be comfortable. Like, that's what they say about sales. You have to be comfortable getting no's. You have to be comfortable getting the door slammed in your face. And obviously, I think he does have the reps to do that, that he can feel at those moments where he can try to use a little bit of humor, where he can try to use specific tactics and, you know, talk about positive energy in the house.

Right. Yeah. It's also easier to sell and close when you're not the person that's going to see the customer.

Yes.

So, like, this is why on stage closing is actually pretty easy. So I was going to do it last year.

Oh, yeah.

Follow up calls. I was going to do it. But so easy because you don't have to actually meet the customer. Yeah. Like, it's. If Andy was the one going, doing the moving and he shows up and they're like, hey, you know what? Like, we still haven't sold the house. I don't think we're going to be able to do this. Like, we like, then it'd be weird and awkward because he basically said he would kind of buy the house. And kind of pushed him into getting their credit card. But he's not the one that has to deliver.

Yeah.

And so that's why, that's why usually like larger companies, you want your sales team to be somewhat removed from operations because they don't. You don't want them seeing the dirty laundry. You don't want them seeing, you know, the customer that says something when they actually get to the house. Or like they say, oh, I thought everyone's professional and this person, you know, look at them like you don't want that stuff. Salespeople need to have the confidence to be able to push through. And so that's why it's so easy to kind of default calls when you're not the person doing fulfillment.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. What are your thoughts on. And this is kind of large scale. There are some folks who think, and I think Simon Sinek is a big proponent of this, that like your sales team or sales managers should meet with product and should meet with customer satisfaction to not only swap stories but also make sure that they're saying the right things, that they're integrating very well. Do you think that that's important overall or do you think that you should try to keep them as separate as possible?

Yeah, no, you definitely want crossover because the support always, here's the negative. And you don't want, you don't want your sales team to become the support team where they're hearing all the negative because they will never have conviction to sell.

Yeah.

And there's always dirty laundry. And so you want your support team to deal with those things. But then you need your sales team to also hear the, the good stuff. And so the support is usually also when it gets like that portion of stuff. So usually it's like you want it to be like a, mostly a one way street. But then the sales team needs to know what the expectations are. Because if they just keep setting expectations super high and then they get sold over to support and then support is getting all these complaints. But really it's just like false expectations were set, then we have a problem. So like for example, we had to reset stuff at Copilot even this past year where it's like, hey, we went from like very innovative and like delivering features every two weeks to basically, you know, they're not seeing much on the front end. And so you have to reset how the sales team had to like adjust to that. But yeah, we have like, I think it's twice a week where the department heads get together and like sales gets the Information of like, okay, where are we at? What expectations can we be setting? And then what are the positive stories to like reinforce the fact that like we are doing what's right here for the customer.

Yeah, I love it. Fantastic. Well, that is all the topics I have for today. Jump into some non financial.

Go ahead.

I know you're itching, so I have some. This is not going to relate to you.

Okay.

But it's going to relate to, you know, most normal people out there. Okay, you, you are not normal. You're. You are abnormal in this regard, I guess.

You know like music, tv, pop culture.

Close one more movies. No, not sports.

Sports, sports.

But it's a good thing. Okay, so this is, this is, this is going to sound crazy.

Yeah.

This is the first time in my life in 14 years I have not been in a fantasy football league.

Okay.

Okay. So you know fantasy football, you pick all your players, you set your lineup. This whole thing. I didn't do it this year because I was like, I just don't think I have like the, the mental capacity. I don't think I want, I don't think I want to do it. And some people are going to listen to this and be like, dude, it takes five minutes and it's like, yeah, but it's five minutes every week that you have to like set aside the time to think about it to like set your lineup this, that or the other. And also no one wants to be that guy in their league that like doesn't set their lineup, doesn't play and because then you just, you just look bad. Right. So I didn't do it this year. And the amount of just like almost like stress relief I have is so nice because most of the time I play in leagues with buddies where it's like you pay 20 bucks, 10 people, so you're trying to win 200 bucks, which is like 20 bucks, it's whatever. But it's more just the time factor and the mental distraction that I just don't need. So my non financial advice is to all of us out there that love sports, just stop doing fantasy sports. You can still watch sports. Like I still watch football on the weekends. I still watch clips of games. But I'm just done with fantasy sports because it takes too much mental capacity. It's just a distraction. So just be done with it. Just walk away. It's not worth it.

Okay.

Yeah, it's very nice.

Let's go.

Yeah.

My non financial advice.

I would say.

Find a track and field like stadium in your area that is public. Sometimes schools have it kind of like your like local area community.

Yeah.

They're great to work out and very few people go there. Yeah. Because like, it's too high brow for like, you know, mom and the kids. Yeah. And then it's like too low brow for athletes because, like, they're going to go to the gym. So I say this because we went and shot a part of the video for one of my YouTube videos the other day at a, at like a.

Stadium.

Yeah.

With a track field and there's like five people there. I'm like, dude, you could like run the stairs. They had a chin up bar thing. You can run the traffic. Yeah. Civic, dude. Yeah, it's great.

That's cool. That's a good idea. All right. There you go. That's fun.