0 to $5 Million By Creating Raving Fans in Your Business With Clifton Muckenfuss

Welcome back to the show. I'm your host Phil Risher. And on today's episode we're going to be diving into how to scale your business, build smart systems and unlock your team's full potential with Clifton Muckinfoost. Thanks so much for joining us today, man.

Hey Phil, I greatly appreciate the opportunity to come on. I'm looking forward to this, this conversation today.

Yeah, I appreciate that you came in on the red eye for us 1am and hopped back on it. So it's going to be a good conversation. I appreciate that.

Well, the flight didn't start as a red eye. It just happened to end up as a red eye. It started as a 4:30 departure, but oh man.

Yeah, that's, that's a story in and of itself.

Yeah.

So Clifton is the director of coaching at Winra Consulting, draws on his deep expertise in sales, marketing and leadership to help contractors and service based businesses grow. He's a co founder of multiple small service companies including a multimillion dollar home improvement firm. Clifton is passionate about delivering outstanding client experiences. His work has earned recognition in Inc. Magazine, Qualified Remodel and Remodeling magazine. He's also has a company called Building Raven Fans, which we're going to be talking about today. So can you tell us a little bit, Clifton, about how you, because you used to own a home service business and then I guess you sold that, but how did you kind of get to this point? What do you do?

So not going to take the whole backstory, but grew up in a very small town, you know, kind of a, an interesting childhood. You know, my grandparents raised me, but my granddad was a, was a small business owner. And so I kind of understood not then but now, like all of the challenges that come with, with owning a small business. Right. Yeah, I saw him get up every day, had a little money box. He would go down to his shop and you know, he sold used cars and, and replaced windshields and did body work and all kinds of stuff as well as owning like a farm. And so I kind of saw like, you know, the work ethic and the hustle, if you will, of owning a small business. I've since realized that you don't have to do that and we'll kind of talk about my journey. But so anyway, so that was kind of childhood. I did a stint in corporate America when I was in College. I did three internships for a Fortune 100 company, graduated college and my whole family was like, all right, you're going to go to school, you're Going to graduate, you're going to come back home and you're going to work for this international company. I'm like, great, that's your plan. I got no desire for that. So. But I did have a stint in corporate America and kind of bounced around and really just Phil chased opportunity for the longest time, like, hey, where can I go and make the most money and have the most fun? And, you know, definitely a conversation for another day, but just really living for the wrong reasons and really the desires of the flesh and the world and all that kind of stuff. And so anyway, that brought me to 2008. Right. I was working in the mortgage industry. And, you know, prior to that, like I said, I had worked in corporate America. I had worked and sold yellow page advertising door to door to small business owners. So I'd had a lot of experience. But in 2008, I was working in the mortgage industry. And if your listeners know what was going on back in, you know, seven, eight, nine. The Great Recession, right. Or yeah, the great Recession was happening. And so I was working in the mortgage business. July of that year, my grandmother, who I grew up with, she passed away from cancer. And in August, the mortgage company went bankrupt.

Yeah. Wow.

I was like, well, this is awesome, right? The girl that I was dating at the time looked at me and goes, hey, what? Now I'm in a new area. I was living in Raleigh, didn't really know anybody. And I was like, holy shit. I actually don't know.

Yeah.

But I looked at her and I said, what do people hate to do? And we landed on cooking clean. And so in that moment, I took 100 bucks, I went to big lots, and I bought some cleaning supplies. So my first legitimate business, like, legal entity was I started a house cleaning company on 100 bucks. And so literally going door to door, knocking on doors to clean people's homes. And I was just sharing this story at an event we were at. And so I grew that company to, like, a $400,000 company, which is bigger than a lot of remodeling companies.

Yeah.

Literally cleaning toilets.

Wow.

And so that's really, you know, kind of where I got my. My first start into. Into entrepreneurship. But the truth is, Phil, like, I'm not very passionate about cleaning toilets and changing out, you know, trash bags and stuff like that. But I had a childhood best friend come to me and talk to me about this, this home improvement company, and he said, hey, we can. We can do this and this and this. And now this was in a market again. 2008, and 9 where companies were going out of business.

That's right.

And here we are. We're going to go start a home improvement company. I've since learned that the power of an idea is and can be judged based on the amount of resistance that it gets. The amount of that'll never work. That it gets. Because in that moment, Phil, I'm telling people, hey, I'm going to go start this sighting company. And they're like, what are you talking about? What are you doing? It's never going to work. And I'm like, okay, cool. Just watch me. Just watch me. So I literally sat down with a post it note with three guys. So three of us. And I said, look, here's our business plan. We're going to do this and this and this. I need 1500. 1500 and 1500. I'll put in. So 4500 bucks, right? That was our plan. My one buddy looked at me and goes, you are crazy as shit. I'm like, sweet, hey, man, go get another beer. Because we were sitting at a brewery, I looked at my other friend, childhood best friend. I said, hey, cool, I don't need 15. I need 1,750 bucks from you right now. And we started our company on 3500 bucks. Wow. Now here's the thing. I did not take the traditional path into home improvement business ownership. Phil, you work with a lot of contractors and business owners, and a lot of times, you know, guys are very technical. They're great at their discipline. They're a great plumber, they're a great framer, they're a great this. And then they kind of say, all right, well, I hate my business. My, my boss, and I'm going to start my own company. And they have this right. I can do it better than him. And I didn't, I didn't have that. In fact, I, I, I couldn't even read a tape measure. But what I was really good at, Phil, is connecting with people, helping them feel comfortable enough to share with me what was causing them pain. All right.

Yeah.

So we started this company. We had a zero dollar marketing budget because, remember, we started the company on 3,500 bucks.

Right.

But with some grit and some determination. We went and knocked on some doors, got some, got a couple people, you know, some, some relationships, some introductions, and we sold our first job. And I remember sitting at that table and just asking, what are all the things that you think about when you hear about a contractor?

Yeah.

Like, and they would share with me, you know, they're Never on time. The things we hear now, they're never on time. Over budget, never on budget. Communications, terrible. All the things. Right.

Yeah.

This was 15 years ago. People are still saying this.

Yeah, yeah.

But in that moment, I said, okay, cool. I'm going to start a company that's so unlike what the public knows. And so that's what we did. We set out to create a company that was not really a home improvement company, but really an experience company. They just happened to install siding and windows and doors.

Wow. So can you talk to us a little bit about that trajectory? Because you ended up growing that business and I guess exiting at some point.

Yeah.

What were those, like, inflection points? I'm not sure the size of it or anything, but, like, you know, usually at like 700,000, you hit this point a million, you know, like, what does that trajectory look like?

Yeah, yeah. So 0 to 100,000 was a lot of lessons. Right. Then that quarter million was. Was. Was some more lessons. And then we added like a million dollars, right?

Yeah.

And so then we. Then we. Then we added $2 million, then we added another three, then we added five. And like, in every one of those seasons of growth, we broke everything in the company.

Yes. Okay.

Right. And so. But the lessons that we learned, you know, I figured out that, okay, well, I was. I was operating in all the boxes, all the roles at first, right. I was. I was answering the phone, I was. I was scheduling appointments, I was running the sales, I was ordering the materials, I was running the job sites, I was scheduling the crews, I was invoicing. Maybe, maybe not all the things. And. But then we got to, all right, over 100 grand. I need somebody to answer the phone. That was kind of our. Our deal. So we. We brought someone on to answer the phone, right. Then at a half a million dollars, we're like, all right, well, we need somebody to. To start helping us, like, project manage. Right. So those were the pain points, and those were. Here's. Here's. Here's the key here. Here's how we learn which roles to hire first and in which order is the pain that was having the negative impact on our client experience.

That's a good point.

That's how we hired a lot of people. Didn't do that, and still don't do that. Yeah. But when I'm looking at how I'm bringing people onto my team, I'm always analyzing my client experience and at what part in the journey do I have the most friction.

Yeah, I would.

That's how I hire Yeah.

I would say to most people listen to this show are going to be like 1 to 10 million in revenue. And usually the pain points happen in the sales process because the guy is the number one salesperson. Yep. And they're trying to hire someone else but then they, they don't have good follow up. They lose estimates. They lose, they keep, they can't keep track of things as they're scaling their business.

Yes.

And that's the hardest one to let go of is the sales. Were you doing the sales in the company or how did what I was.

And so it's interesting you say that because sales was the, the last one that, that, that, that we let go of. I let go of.

Yes.

So my partner and I were both doing sales and we were both kind of splitting roles for a while. But I felt like. And we both agreed that it would be easier to train the project manager. And there's also ego tied to this.

Of course. Yeah, of course.

Right. Nobody's ever going to sell as. As good as I can. And all the things, you know, we tell ourselves and that we hear in this industry. But again it really goes back to the, the pain point in the journey, the client experience. We were having communication issues. Exactly. The thing that I said, I'm building a company not to do.

Yeah.

We started experiencing those and I just realized early on that like that actually wasn't my of genius as well.

Yeah.

Remember up to this point I had never, I never used the tape measure.

Exactly.

And you know, and I'm walking around people's homes. I remember my first estimate, Phil. It took me like six hours, you know, to. Because I didn't even know what fascia was.

Yeah. You're measuring the light bulbs. You measure. I don't know what I need to measure, but I'm going to get it all.

Exactly. And so, so anyway, yeah, there are those points. And so sales was. Sales was one of the last ones that, that, that I gave up.

Okay, so can you talk to us a little bit about that transition period? Because a lot of people that listen to the show, you know, they're scaling their business whether it's to sell it or to build a business that self managing company and exit without exiting of some sort. Can you talk to us about like that transition of like obviously you have to get out of sales because you're going to find someone to buy the company or take it over some. You can't be the, you know, the only guy. Like what is, what did that look like for planning?

So, so that's a great question. So there. There did become a point where, you know, going to conferences and having con industry leaders and things like that, which I can't. I can't, you know, stress the importance enough of getting around people like, yeah, you don't have to operate on an island. Like, there's people out there that want to serve. You want to pour in. So I started getting around those people.

Okay.

Those high performers. You know, success leaves clues like, follow the. Pick up those breadcrumbs.

Yep.

And somebody one time said, hey, do you have any intentions of selling your company? And I'm like, never even thought about it.

Yeah.

And they shared with me, well, even if you don't have visions of selling, you should build it like you're going to. Right. And so what that means is you need to start documenting processes. You need to start having, you know, clear systems, clear processes for each department in the business. Because one of two things is going to happen. You'll build it so it's attractive to someone else, or you'll build it and it'll be efficient and actually, you'll love it.

Yep, exactly.

And one. And either of those two things is probably a win.

Yeah.

And so I heard that from someone. And so that's really what led us down this path. Like, okay, I'm responsible for 95% of the sales. Nobody's. Because if I'm selling, I'm not staying.

Exactly.

And nobody wants to buy that. Another thing I'll share, Phil, with your audience and you here in this moment is that someone also said, have you ever heard the phrase hit by a bus? And I was like, no. What does that mean? Well, Clifton, if you were to walk out of your office and you got ran over by a bus, could your company continue to operate? And the answer is, if you're responsible for 95% of the sales, the answer to that question is no.

Yeah, that's right.

And it was sort of those two things that I'm like, aha.

Yeah.

And that's what led us down this path of, you know, going down the sales and developing the process and all that.

Okay, so I want to dig in a little bit there. Like, what are those processes or that sales? Like, what did you do to, like, figure that part out? Because a lot of people are stuck there. They're at the 3 million, 2 million. They want to get to that jump. Like, what do they. What do they do? What did you do?

So the first thing is, like, most entrepreneurs in this space, everything. And if you're listening, you can't see this, but everything lies up here between your two ears. Right. So you, everybody has a process. You're following a process of some sort. Now most don't have it documented. Right. And if you want predictability, you have to develop a process, you have to document that. And so that's what we did. We started there documenting every part of. Well, we first started with the client journey. So what can that person expect when they, when they, when they call our office, when, when they, when they submit a web form, when they send a text message to our office, what's going to happen? So we documented that. So before. Okay, then how do we confirm an appointment? How do we call ahead to let them know that the sales rep is on the way or I'm on the way. What questions do we ask, you know, leading up to that to build rapport? Do we send a video? These are all evolutions in the process. But you know, where do we park? How do we approach? What do we say? How do we set the agenda? How do we run this sales call? So basically we documented every, every part of, of the journey.

Yeah.

Right. Then do we agree to move forward? Do we create an estimate? If yes, here's what we do. If no, do we offer a referral?

Yeah.

And then we set the next steps. What's our follow up process? And then we designed a follow up process. On day one you get like we would walk out of someone's house, get in the truck, immediately got a selfie video.

Oh, that's great.

Yeah, right. Immediately. Then we would send a handwritten thank you card.

Yeah.

So all of those little touch points throughout the process. And then we had a follow up process like I mentioned, it was, you know, video, text, email, phone calls, those still work by the way. And then it was. So that was the sales process. I can repeat that. I can train that.

That's right.

If we follow that process, Phil, and your listeners, if you follow that process, it's going to lead to some predictability, some predictable results. As humans, what do we like? We like security and predictability.

Yep.

So that's, that's what helped us first.

I love that one. Low hanging fruit. If you are still running the sales and you don't know how to document your sales process, when you go on a sales call, use voice memo on your phone, record it, take the transcript, put it to ChatGPT, say make an SOP now, you got it covered. And you could do this over and over and over and over in your business very simply, for free.

Yes. Here's think about this. Now we're talking about what I just described. Yeah. 13, 15 years ago.

Yeah.

Right.

You got to write it down. What did I say here exactly?

That. That's exactly what happened. But you're exactly right, Phil. And this is what I train my clients on as well, is just. Just take out the voice note the voice memo. There's other technologies that will do. And even now, what I've gotten some clients to do now is using plod, I think our plaid.

Yeah, plaid.

Right. And so they just wear that. That's right. You get that. And yeah, so the technology has definitely helped with. With the documentation process.

Yeah. So you hinted a little bit about your. Your wowing customers, building these raving fans. That's your company. Can you talk a little bit about, like, how you coach people? Where are those inflection points? Like the video after the selfie? You can't really automate that. AI that. You kind of got to build it into your system and do it.

But.

But that will help you stand out. So can you talk about those things?

Yes, yes. So, so, so building raving fans. We'll park a lot that for just a moment. Okay.

Yeah.

There are parts of the process that we can automate. Right. So we can create a generalized video leading up to the sales appointment. Right. So we can say, hey, I'm Clifton Muckinfoose. I'm a design consultant at ABC Contracting. You know, I look forward to meeting with you in the very near future. A few quick things about me, you know, I'm a Christian, I'm a husband, I'm a father. I have three wonderful children. I coach youth sports. And so I can. I can start to build rapport. I can add that to an email automation sequence leading up to appointment confirmation. So you can do a little bit of that.

Now.

The personalized things obviously are personalized.

Yes.

Because we want to be able to draw on our experience with them. You know, hey, Mrs. Smith, you know, when you shared with me, gosh, I could really feel that. And so I really feel confident that we're going to be able to execute on that thing. So that's a little more personalized, of course. Right. But what we talk about is really, what are the. What are the points in the journey? Phil, we're talking about building raving fans. What are we doing now? What are our clients really want? Because sometimes those things aren't the same. And then really, how. What's a wow moment? What is a wow moment? And so, case in point. And we actually do this, now we automate this process. But let's say the sales rep closes a deal. Right. Everybody's happy. But inherently, Phil, what happens is when the sales rep leaves, Mrs. Smith starts to have some anxiety. Did I actually make the right decision? Am I going to be a statistic? Are they going to show up? They seem all of these stories they tell themselves. Right. And so what we realize is how we can actually eliminate that is, and this was in our own business, we did it by hand, is we would sign a contract, we would send a handwritten thank you card confirming their decision to buy. Yeah.

So good.

So now they've gone from super excited, I'm afraid. I knew I made the right choice.

Yeah.

But now we automate that process for contractors.

Okay.

Right. So now if a sales rep changes a lead status from, you know, quoting or whatever to jobs sold, that trigger comes into our system and then we fulfill an automated handwritten thank you card from either the sales rep to be more personalized, or the company that simply says, you know, hey Phil, thank you for the opportunity. We know you have many choices to choose from when selecting a roofing contractor. You know, we're committed to delivering this five star experience. Thank you so much for your trust. Yeah.

So good.

And so that helps a lot. Especially because if you think about one of the complaints, contractors are bad at communication. So now let's just say that now after job sold leading up to job start, that's what we call the dark ages, the dark period. Sometimes communication falls off. But we've deposited some money into the trust bank with that handwritten card.

Yes.

Right. So now they give us more grace. Now again we go build it. After that job is complete, we send another handwritten thank you card. Then we start sending surprise and delight gifts. Those are those wow moments. Those are those top of mind moments. Because when people feel appreciated, they conspire to help you.

Yeah.

And that's how we grew our company. That's exactly. Those are the things that we did inside our own company.

Yeah. I think a lot of people think, oh well, if I just do a better job of fixing, you know, installing their generator or a quicker job of getting out here to get their no heat call fixed or whatever that sounds like that's going to wow them when it's really these inflection points that's going to like completely change, whatever. They never even thought that this would ever happen. And that's when they get hit with that. They're like, oh my gosh, like, wow, this is crazy.

Yeah. So when you show up to do what they hired you to do. Yeah. That's not, that's not creating an exceptional experience. Right. That's actually creating a satisfied customer.

Yes.

And satisfied customer truthfully feels a liability for business owners today because a satisfied customer is, is not one that's going to proactively go out and tell their friends, their neighbors or co workers, they're just satisfied. You literally just showed up and did what you said, what you're going to do.

That's right.

30 years ago. Great. That don't work today.

Yeah. You may give the obligatory five star review and if you ask, other than that, there's not much you want people to be talking about you when they're at a sporting event with their kids, when they're at the dinner table with their friends, whatever you want them to be saying, oh my gosh, you'll never believe what this was.

Exactly. And here's the thing really quickly to that point, so that, so that, so the gifts that we. And again, this has been an evolution.

Right. What are some of these gifts? I'm curious.

So some of the gifts. So for example, we sent out a gratitude journal set last fall. And so here's the thing. I want to make sure everybody and somebody is going to say to themselves, they're going to be cringing here when they hear this. We don't send anything out with a logo on it. Nothing. So for all the listeners that give people gifts with their logo and a yeti mug and all of that, hey, I appreciate one that you actually are giving things. But the truth is, if you really have some self awareness, it's really self aggrandizing, it's really self promotional. And guess what? The recipient of that gift actually can feel that.

Yeah, of course.

Right. So it completely diminishes the gratuitousness, if that's the word that you're trying to convey. And so none of the gifts that we send have, have logos on them. We don't send out cookies or brownies for, for a multitude of reasons. One, I can't control the quality of that, you know, so the baker who's responsible for that, are they on point? Are they to my standards? I don't know. Two, does the recipient actually, can they eat that? Do they have an allergy like all the things?

Yes.

But beyond that, after I eat the cookies, after I eat the brownies and let's say I love them, they're amazing.

Yeah.

And after the carbohydrates, you know, I got this feeling that wears off. Dude, I got nothing left.

That's right.

I throw away the box, I throw away the wrapper. And so as quickly as I was like, wow, Phil sent me these cookies. That's amazing. 17 seconds after I finish eating them and I've thrown the box away. I've probably forgotten Phil gave me those cookies.

Yeah.

So the gifts that we send Phil, they're practical, they're, they're thoughtful, and they stay around like that gratitude journal said. Yeah.

Because they're going to look at it every day and they're going to say, oh, yeah, man. Clifton sent me this from abc.

Exactly. Exactly. And a lot of the gifts are also experiential as well. So we sent out a candle making kit one season. And what's really cool, this is why I love the company. It's mine. But this is one of the reasons. This is the feedback I got from someone. That a gentleman received a gift that we sent out for a client. It was a candle making kit. He ended up giving the gift to his daughter. All right. Yeah. And they lost power and somehow were able to put this candle making kit together. And that was the light they had in this moment. Wow. And I'm like, dude, that's just so cool.

Yeah. This is so crazy, right? Yeah.

And so one time we sent out some dryer balls. And so now a guy client who receives those now gives those to his wife. And so like, now there's. Those are the types of gifts that we give out. Yeah.

I love it. I think a lot of people are thinking like, okay, that all sounds good. Is this, like you connected with your CRM and then things kind of funnel through after a certain time point, like, how does that all work from like.

Yeah, and that's a great question. And because when I, Because I get super passionate about this and people are like, yeah, Clifton, that sounds great, man. That sounds like a lot of work. And I'm like, here's the thing. We do all the heavy lifting based on a. Based on a trigger in your CRM. Now if you don't have a CRM, you probably know how to use Excel or a Google sheet. We can work around it.

Yeah.

But most companies today have some type of CRM.

Yeah.

And we integrate with almost every. All ones that have an open AI. Open source. Yeah. There's some closed source where you can still do some workarounds. But anyway, based on a specific lead stage, we get the data, we fulfill it. Ghost in the background. It's literally set it and forget it.

Yeah. How many gifts are too much? And how many, like, should you just do one, like, after six months? Or should it be like, every year when they're sending me all this stuff or what?

Yeah, really good question. Because how do you determine, like, you know, when to send these things? What we have found in our experience, and we've been doing this for, for our company for a couple of years, but in our company, I own for, for, for, for. For many years. Right. What we have found is that people generally need to be reminded of you about every 90 days when it comes to gifts. Right. So I give you something. And the cool part about this, Phil, is we, we literally just show up out of nowhere. Like, the gifts just show truly surprise and delight your listeners. Can't see this, but, like, you can see this. Like, it literally will show up in a box like this. Open this up. There's a card in there. Who thought to send me something? Here's your gratitude set. We give you some instructions on how to use this. You know, it's got like 60, 70 cards in there. And so then based on the season, we're going to drop something else in your mailbox in about 90 days. Right? So that's the gifting portion. We also send out milestone handwritten cards. You know, hey, can you believe it's been a year since we had the pleasure of, you know, working with you? So that's on the gifting side, but as you well know. Yeah, go ahead, you ask a question.

Yeah, I was going to ask you. So people might be listening and be like, I'm going to send them something every 90 days. And like, how do I get my return on investment back out of this? You know, like, that's like, okay, cool, I'm going to send out all these gratitude journals. Probably cost a bunch of money. But, like, what's. What does this look like?

Yes, it's a great question. I love it. So, you know, traditional marketing and business, we're very programmed to have this ROI conversation, right?

Yes. Yeah.

And I think it's. Unfortunately, it's what we've been trained. It's what we've been taught. It's very transactional. Right. You know, I give you $1000, I'm going to get 2000 back or 5000 back or whatever the case may be. So part of the education that we do with relationship marketing is we have to think not so much in terms of roi, but ror return on relationship, which is we're depositing things into an equity bank over time. Okay. Now, what I can share with you is some Case studies, if you will, where we had a decking contractor that grew his business over 100% from 4 million to 9 million. Went from a marketing cost of, you know, 13%. He's down to three and a half percent. Why? Because when people feel good, they start to conspire to tell others. He just sent me a text message literally 24 hours ago. And it had the guy's name. I said, he was on your first gifting list, dude. His name was Sean, the customer. I can remember these people. I don't know why he goes. He has become a super refer. He's referred him over a hundred grand in business.

Wow.

Just the one guy.

Yeah.

And so.

So the other.

The other thing. What's that?

How long do you send these gifts?

Like.

Like forever. Like, you just keep going, like.

It's a great question. Now, with all things Phil, there are diminishing returns.

Yeah, right.

The cool part about it is this particular client, he's got. He's got clients or customers, depending on how you refer to your people. He's got customers on their third year of gifting. Yeah.

Okay.

And now here's the thing. They never get the same gift ever. And so, you know, if they're continuing to refer you people, why not continue to reward the relationship?

Yeah.

But typically we're seeing probably, you know, three years, like, in my own company. We typically. Because people are going to move.

Right.

And things like that. But. So it's a good question.

Yeah.

I love the ROI question.

Yeah.

I know.

Everyone's brain's thinking, we have a saying at Flash. You can't get lifetime value without the lifetime relationship.

Bingo.

And. Yeah. And a lot of times people miss out on these. Oh, they're going to call us when they need us. Oh, they'll let us know when they need us. No, you got to make sure you maintain this relationship.

Yes.

And I think that's what people miss.

Say that one more time. Lifetime. You can't get the lifetime value without the lifetime relationship.

That's it. Yep.

Man, that's good. Do you have that trademark? Can I use that again?

That's a bar. No, you can use that. You can use it for sure. Go ahead. It's all good.

I love that. I love that.

And I think there's another, bigger component to this, which is when we do marketing for home services.

Yeah.

It's like, okay, people are going to go and look for roofing contractors near me, but you want people to go and search for your name because that's your brand and that's what's going to beat everything else with AI and search and all this stuff. And what you're talking about is you need to create this buzz in your community with your raving fans that people are talking about you. So they don't even go to Google. They just say, oh yeah, this is the company I got to work with because I got.

Well, so, so I think it's. Yes. And I also want to make sure that everybody knows that relationship marketing, which is what, which is what this is.

Yeah.

It's not meant to replace direct response and paid ads and SEO and all that. It's not meant to replace that. It's meant to amplify that.

Yes.

Right. So, so you, you bring them in top of the funnel, they sell something and boom, we carry the relationship forever. Lifetime, lifetime relationship. Right. So I think that's because I've actually had clients come to me and say, hey, I'm thinking about canceling my Google Ads and I want to do this. And I'm like, whoa, stop. Yeah, stop. Let's, let's, let's figure out a holistic strategy. I'll share this with you. I just signed on a deal with a marketing agency. We're going to be a white label partner of theirs to do this because they understand the value and how relationship marketing complements what they do as well.

Yeah.

And so I wanted to just make that, that, that distinction that we're not trying to replace. Yeah, we're really amplifying.

Yeah. I think the entire customer journey. There's, there's like three pillars that we talk about. Getting new visibility, new customers in the door conversions and then retargeting people to bring them back into your funnel or refer you that new customer side of things. You've really got to get that dialed in. And the lead nurture process through a combination of automations, marketing and what you're talking about. But there's a whole part to it. So I definitely agree with you on that. So where should people go to learn more about you and what you all do and see if they might be able to work with you in some capacity.

So online on social media. Clifton muckinfoose@cliftonmuckinfoose on Facebook buildingravingfans.com that's our website. Go learn about our mission. Go learn about our vision. Go learn about how important we believe gratitude is. We believe in a growth through gratitude strategy. And so you know, online. Buildingravingfans.com Follow me on social media. Happy to connect with you, answer any questions whatever it is.

Yeah, I appreciate that. First off, I appreciate your transparency on building your company and the pitfalls and the struggles there, but then also just the way that you approach the relationship with the customer. I think a lot of people get so stuck on the numbers and these levers and stuff. It's, like, really comes back to, especially home service. Like, we're in the community. We're building relationships with the community. It's what it's about. And I think that you have a big focus on that, which I appreciate a lot.

Yes, I appreciate that. Phil. It's been an awesome conversation with you here today.

Yep. All right. Take care, brother.

All right, my friend. We'll see you soon. See ya.