7-Figure Gutter Cleaning & Roofing Business with Justin Stanley | Gutter Ethics LLC

Welcome back to the show. I'm your host Phil Risher. And on today's episode we're going to be discussing how Justin grew his gutter and roofing company into the go to company in a very, very competitive market. Justin, thanks so much for joining us today, man.

Yeah, absolutely brother. Thanks for having me, man.

For sure. So you're the owner of Gutter Ethics. How did you get into the gutter cleaning trades space?

Yeah, I'll try to be concise here. It was kind of like random, odd. Like a lot of people I think in this industry, you know, you find yourself kind of just stumbling into some things and it worked. So right out of high school I, I was debating on whether to go to college or not and I, this was in the time. I'm, I'm 41, so I'm old enough to be old, but young enough to be young. Right?

Yeah.

And this was at a time when you would still look for jobs like literally in a paper. Right. And I came across this ad that was a chimney company looking for a chimney technician. And I, this is again to give context guys for the younger, you know, crowd is I'm like guys, this is a time where you just took a job. Like you were just like so happy to get a job. You're like, like you didn't talk about what you were going to make. That was like afterwards like we'll talk about that later. I just need the job.

Yeah.

So got the job. And the individual who hired me, quirky but smart and unique and really knew how to grow. He took a shoestring budget and really as far as the customer was concerned, we were like, you know, the bees knees. Right. Like we were the best and but they had no clue that this dude was operating this like out of a two car garage from his house.

Right.

And, and like we would, I, I got the job. I immediately just dove into working with him. We had nothing but all we did was chimney maintenance and repair and like chimney cleaning.

Yeah.

And, but we had like the super high end contracts in Northern Virginia, like all the historical properties and buildings I was going into like you know, high end government officials, houses. And then he secured the contract with the White House in the Capitol.

Wow.

And I at like 19 years old was in every, I mean I remember the engineer one time and the Capitol looked at me and said, you couldn't pay to get in this room you're in right now, dude. Like, like he was like Michael Jordan couldn't pay to get in this room. And here you are you young, 19 year old, just being like. And the room that I was in was. It was the Kennedy chambers. And I remember I was working on the chimney, the firebox. And they put this in perspective. Like, this was like some black ops stuff. Like, you had to know your job so well. You didn't talk, you didn't like, you just, I mean, you literally walked your way backwards out of rooms and stuff. So we were like, really? I mean, we were in our world, we were elite, like high end elite. And I remember he said to me, I was at this table and I looked over and it was just like custom big chess, you know, piece in of a chess game and had like world leaders as the pieces. Wow. And. And there was these pair of black sunglasses there. And he was like, hey, you know who, who those are? He's like, those are Jackie Onassis. And he was like in. The last person that touched those was her. If you bump that table, you have literally shifted history. And so. And I'm like 19 years old, man. I'm like, what? I'm like, like, like, dude, I'm just trying to earn a paycheck, right? And they got, I mean, brother, man, like, people don't realize, like, they bring in, they bring in companies with like laser beams to clean off the chandeliers. Like, they don't touch the chandeliers. Like, this is like some wild stuff, right? It's the capital, right? It's the White House. So anyways, I took what I learned from that, which was a crazy capacity to be attentive. And I mean, really at a level that now looking back on it, it's still to this day, is embedded in my genetics. Like, like if I carry a vacuum through my house, even, like you would think I was playing doctor. Operation, like, I'm not touching walls. I'm not doing anything.

You know, it's something crazy that in the trades, it's like, you know, the plumber's crack and all this stuff. You think about that. But when you, when you, when you are 19 and you're in, you know, the White House or the Capitol, and you're responsible for doing this service in there, I think it really is like mind blowing that, like I took this job and now I have this huge responsibility. Like, there's endless possibilities of how this could go. I'm not just in some random person's. I think for someone that's getting into the trades, you never think that, like, the White House has to get their gutters clean, they have to get a new roof they have to get their ducks cleaned.

Yeah, yeah. No, this was 100. There was. This was 100. I remember being around some armed guards and just thinking to myself, like. And I could tell these guys were like prepared to pop anybody off from a distance. And I'm like, just trying to make some chimney bricks aren't falling out, bro. And it was like. But it. But to your point, I was like, man, it felt very big and, you know, like formal. And I knew there was possibility there.

How did you go into gutter cleaning from that? Like, did you?

Yeah, so. So that's how we kind of stumbled into it. One day I was. We were at a. Yet again, another high end home, like I think in McLean, Virginia. And the customer said to my boss, hey man, can you clean the gutters while you're here? And classic scenario, why you're here, why you're up there scenario. And my boss looked at me and like, kind of waved me on just to do it. And so I did it. And when I came down, the guy of course, was like, what do I owe you? And my boss threw out. I think it was like a number of like 300 bucks, right? Decent size home. And even still, today was decent money for what we. For what it was probably actually overcharged him, to be honest. And the guy pulls out $300 bill or three 100 bills and he hands it to my. And he proceeds to hand it to my boss. And my boss just waved him on and hand it to me. Now, I knocked this out in like 20 minutes, dude. Yeah. And that was my eureka. That right there. I was like, I was probably 20 years old and I made 300 bucks in 20 minutes. Wow. And I thought to myself, I was like, man, if I could go do like five of these a day, right? I was like, game over. And I would still be off by 12 o', clock, you know, like on my way home, pulling into the house at one.

Yeah. So. So what did the. The chimney guy, was he like encouraging you, like, hey, go out and do this and I'll feed you leads or something? Or was it like, I don't know how I'm gonna.

No, I don't think he was thinking that deep into it. Finding out later, when I finally parted ways with him, which was Amber Coy, it wasn't nothing crazy. It was. Yeah. Matter of fact, he even said to me, when I. When I parted ways with him, he was like, oh, I knew that was gonna happen one day. He was like, Justin, you were too smart. He was like, you were you were just too aware, soaking up too much information. And then later on I found out he was like, hey, man, do you know why I always paid you so good? And yeah, might I add, this guy was paying me like I was 19 years old, making like three grand a week. Like, yeah, it was pretty. I like. And now, granted, that was crazy. Hours. I tell the story all the time. I will always be indebted to this guy. Because we worked, I believe it was 123 days straight with no days off, like 12 hour days. And I was just so hungry to make something out of myself that I will always look back at that as, like a superpower because I knew from that moment on, you can be bigger, smarter, whatever. You will get tired before I will. Yes, you will want to quit before I will. Yeah, you will get hungry and need lunch. You will feel stinky and take a shower. I will work right through it. And. And so later on he tells me, he goes, man, you know, I never really told you this, but he was like, you kind of took the place of like three people. And he was like, that's why I paid you so well. Because, like, you were just. He was like, dude, you would come in like, like you were fat. Like, you didn't eat. You would fast all day. And that was before people were talking about fasting. Yeah, I didn't even know what that was. He was like, you were fast. Like, what is that? He was like, we just wouldn't eat. He was like, you were just so focused on work and getting things done. And. And so when it came that time, he was really just like, I get it, man. And so, you know, I. This was a time of the world where you were still, you know, like there were really the yellow pages and people were calling and you were putting flyers out and doing that old school, super old school organic approach. And it just.

Just kind of got going. So. So once you, you, you had the eureka moment, like gutter cleaning.

Wow.

I can make somebody doing this. You start doing some on the side, then you start a business. It was it, you know, you were the technician, you were out cleaning the gutters, everything.

I was everything. I was everything.

So what. What year was this? Or how long ago was this?

Oh, man, this was probably. What are we now, 24? I want to say this was, you know, maybe 2008, 2007. Somewhere around there.

Wow.

Yeah, it's been a while. And it was just.

So you started filling your routes and then you're like, okay, I need to hire someone and train Them?

Yep.

And did you step off the truck at that point and train that person or were you running like two. You and someone else and.

Correct. Yeah, we had a couple trucks running at that point. And look, man, I'm the classic, classic cliche story of an entrepreneur struggling to let go, struggling to train, struggling to train. It's all like, there's a reason why it's cliche and, you know, just bringing people on. And it'd be one thing if we were like cutting grass. I think I'd be a little bit more ease. But this was a job that people can literally get very severely hurt at and or worse. And so to put. And you're working on people's houses, like really doing major, like sometimes major repairs and or replacements. So there was just a lot of liability and concern there. And I was, I was super young and, you know, in my mid-20s, taking on a crazy amount of like, responsibility from all the way from purchasing things to debt to this, to that, to that. And so I just, you know, I. I don't want to use the word struggled, but I definitely was reserved about taking my finger off the pulse. Hired people and yeah, just taught them, trained them. And luckily. And some of those guys, by the way, still work for me to this day. And so I was lucky to just kind of know some people who are already somewhat in similar trades and they saw what I had going on and were like, dude, you know, classic. It was almost like a startup, you know, like, yeah, dude, let me get a part of, Let me be a part of that startup. Like, because I know I'll reap benefits, you know, fast forward, you know, 10, 15 years from now? Yeah.

So were you selling service contracts or were you just like, you know, job to job and then hopefully they reoccurring every year or six months?

Yeah. @ that time, I don't think. I don't think the world was just witty enough. Right. Like, we, like, we weren't. I mean, mean. And I really mean as like, as a whole, like the entire, like, I mean, even my buddies who were in H vac, like, they weren't even thinking about that stuff. Right. It was just like, you know, and it always goes back to. I'm a big, you know, proponent of like, believer of. It's always about like your thresholds of like what you call comfortable. Right. Like you want to get to this level financially and make this much and you're good with that. And. And so at the time, we were just happy to be so busy and always having calls and Jobs and da da da da da. So it just, that was good enough for us at the time.

Yeah. And what about now? Do you all have service contracts for go.

Absolutely, man. Service contracts, automation look like.

What does that look like?

So, you know, we try to promote to our customers that we should be out at a minimal once a year. At a minimal.

Yeah.

Now kind of rewinding quickly, what we did was we, we started to build trust really quick with our customers. So they started to ask for other services like, hey, can you replace my. My fascia board, my gutters, my. This. So it just kind of kept building. I always compare it to am. Amazon, you know, just wanted to sell you books. But they knew if they could build your trust on something simple, that eventually you would buy others from them. And so we pretty much did the same thing. And you know, before you know it, we were, you know, replacing, you know, twenty something thousand dollar roofs and siding and this and that and all kinds of stuff.

So service contracts allows you to say like, hey, let's get you on a rotation. You'll come in to our kind of like the H vac world, you know, come in for, for a simple repair or maintenance, get you on a service contract. How did you make the transition into roofing? Was it just natural? You're on the roof, people are like, hey, do you replace shingles or this kind of thing or, or what was the progression like that? And, and also the skill set that it takes for that because it's.

Yeah, because they're two totally different worlds. And to be very candid, that's the thing that's kept us to this day separated from the pack. We are. I'm a licensed builder, commercial, residential. I can build a strip mall. That's where my education's in. And so we have a knowledge base that really is robust, man. I mean, like again, bro, I mean, point to a part of the house, I could give you the gist of it really quick.

Yeah.

And so does my team as well too, you know, so actually I'm gonna argue they're even smarter than me because they're out there in the trenches doing the work. So we, we already had a certain level of skill set going into it that we were comfortable with and we knew if we could increase that skill set through, I hate to say it, learning because unfortunately in the trades, I ha it to you customers and consumers out there is. We don't have like, we're not working on good divers out there, guys. Like, there's no fake houses to go put Fake roofs on. Right. You know what I mean?

Like, so it's like it's the same with digital marketing. Like, oh, you're just going to build a fake website out there and like test, you know, build 100 fake websites.

Like, no, you're literally building the plane and flying it at the same time. Yeah, like, right, you know, or as I tell my kids all the time, like, whoever invented the ship, invented the shipwreck. Like, like you're gonna try and you're gonna fail.

It's true.

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, we, we kind of learned. We took our skills that we already had built on that, built on that, built on that, built on that. We're always though, obsessed with customer like satisfaction and service and skill set like to almost to an extreme. Like I have two particular guys on my team, one in particular that will always come to mind who is just like, dude, if it's not right, it's wrong, period. Like, I mean, like, I will work here. I remember when we were first starting, this guy would stay on jobs till 10 o' clock at night with headlamps to be like, nah man, like, I'm not driving away with it. Not like this, you know. And so we just built this culture in this attitude of like, it had to be right. Like there was no BSN and that, you know, like I said, when I say to a fault, what I mean is like, you know, we were just, it was it again, it was at a level like I always tell everybody when they hear the word code, like, don't get so impressed by code. Code means bare minimum. That's all it means. Right? Like entry level or builders couldn't be profitable. So we were always just taking it to that next level. You know, how could, how could we integrate things into our system, into our install processes? And that just kind of took off, man. People were seeing it, people, word of mouth was happening and so on.

And I think that's when, when you and I connected, that's what really stood out to me. I interviewed this guy named Brandon and he, he owns a painting contracting business. But what, what stood out to me was that what he was saying he used to do was he would basically like get leads. He would, it would be. It's a sales company where he was just selling and then he was, didn't know the sub he was going to sub it to, but he would be like, yeah, I'm going to sub this out. He'd go on Craigslist, you know, who wants to do this job? And then like try to Sub it out. And his. It's not. You're not building a business, you're just building a sales machine that will fall apart. And that's why with roofing companies, they're so fly by night.

Yes.

Because they're always just. It's a sales organization.

That's all it is.

And what really stuck out to me for you is that like you were doing gutters ethically the right way.

Yeah.

People were like, hey, can you do this? And you're like, yeah, we can keep it to our standards and do this. You're not just like a sales organization that's just like subbing random stuff out. Which I think is a huge testament to you and your business that people don't really think of that when they think of a roof. But there's, there's two totally different types of roofing companies out there, I would imagine.

Oh, there are. And again, if there's any consumers that ever come across this, this interview is, I hate to break it to you guys, majority of roofing companies out there are. You just know that they're. They're four. They're four sales guys sitting in a room waiting for a warm lead. And they're basically brokers. They're selling your job to a sub at a certain margin and they're going to be project manager and you know, they're going to get their commission off your install. And both of those parties may not even be associated with that company in the next two to three years. That is the sub crew and the, the sales rep. And then you're left with arguably. And the problem is the sales rep doesn't know how to install. Usually couldn't swing a hammer if his life depended on it. And then so he has no way to vet the crew. So you kind of a little bit got the blind leading the blind. And the homeowner is just like to the novice homeowner, they look up at the end of the day and go, those are new shingles and my yard's not too terribly messy. Must be good. Right? There's no understanding of the nuance, the detail or anything. So.

Yeah. So how did you take your gutter cleaning customers and turn them into roofing customers?

Was it self promoting initially? Again, this is still in the day of age of getting up, coming down.

Yeah.

Ma', am, did you know, were you aware? Did you understand? And the thing that I jumped on from day one when these devices came about were smart devices. The moment the. I mean, I still joke around. It's probably worth some serious Money. I got a iPhone, original iPhone and original iPad still in the box.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I just knew, I knew from day one I was like, game over on device world. Right.

Are you an Apple guy though?

Because I am. Yeah, I'm Apple guy. I'm an Apple guy. So what you may be popping up is through our VoiceOver IP system. But I'm, but I'm an Apple guy through and through, man. And I just knew from a mile away I could see the ecosystem they were creating, all the app style applications. So what I'm getting at is like we immediately jumped on iPad in particular. The iPad in particular. This is what I'm doing this on right now is an iPad. Right? Is I was, for me I was like, wow, a big phone that, you know, I don't need to have connectivity. It's got data.

Yeah.

And so put that in the hand of your technicians. They can take pictures, they can take videos, they can put notes on file. They can show the customer really large and in charge. And that really from day one just served the customer level of professionalism and it helped us stay organized. And this was before CRMs and any of that.

Yeah. So do you have any apps or anything that you use now, like Company Cam or like with roofing? I think there's things you can, you can, you can even like analyze the, the roof and like get it right and like that kind of stuff. Are there any like apps that you would say I've been pretty, I, I.

Dude, I Company Cam, I would tell, I would tell anybody use Company Cam. Even if it was just like if you told me you were a bird watcher, I would tell you to use. Right. Because it'd be like, it keeps everything organized. You can track the GPS location. You're not eating up data on your device or you know, space on your device. I don't care if you even have a terabyte. You know, now they have that capacity to be able to do like 60 second videos. Excuse me. So Company Cam is like when that came about, man, I, I, yet again, another company where I was like, well you guys are off to the moon. And so Company Cam, as you know, see the coffee cut in the back, we use Jobber. We've been on Jobber from day one. I say day one, we, we, we got on with them kind of in their early beta days a little bit. And as dude, entrepreneurship is just funny, man. Like some of the things that I've stumbled across of like I still, I remember this to the day I Died if somebody asked me about Jobber. How'd you find Jobber? On a walk at one o' clock in the morning through my neighborhood because my dog really wanted to go on a walk and I just had my. Just because I had my phone out and I'm like, just sitting there, like, flicking through things and I was researching topics and. And literally came straight across Jobber and was like, that looks kind of interesting. Called him up the next day, did a trial month, and boom, there we are, you know, six, seven, eight years later.

Yeah, that's crazy. So use company cam Jobber. What about, like, nice job or any other.

Yeah, so nice job we've used for quite some time with the integration with Jobber. I will say, and I know I'm not the first one to say this about Jobber, so if anybody from their team hears this, they. They know we love them. But Jobber is really good at letting others do, like, yeah, create products and then, like, we'll API it, you know, and like integrate it. There are some things I wish and look to. To that point, though, I don't blame them. Like, let somebody else work out all the kinks. And if we think it's that great of a product, maybe we'll build out our own with internally. Right.

Service Titan is the same way, to be honest.

Absolutely.

They all kind of do that because they try to focus on their core stuff and they're like, sure. Oh, that's a cool add on. Like, either buy the company or build something of their own.

Absolutely, absolutely. So, yeah, nice job. What else? What else? What else? Hatch. You know, we use Hatch to follow up with. But yeah, it's, you know, and all those are awesome tool. And they are, they're amazing. Like, I mean, I'm telling you, man, I remember the first year using Jobber. I was just like, wow, man, everything's in one place. And yeah, you know, we can go back to the customer. Because before that it was, oh, gosh, dude, the world we lived in was just.

Yes.

Stupid.

Yeah. So let's say someone, you know, they have like three or four people trying to get to, you know, 10ish people or something like that. What are. Is there anything particular that helped you? Like, hey, when I got off the truck and I started running the business, that helped me or when I put in this system or this game plan. What, what was it? Or maybe a combination of things.

So this is where somebody like you comes into play. Being awesome at what you do is I'm a big believer in. And everybody wants to say, build it. And they will come. Like, you know, everybody in the contracting world, I think this is just human nature. Like, people get, you know, they want to get the big shiny truck, they want to wrap it, they want to look the part before they are the part. And, you know, they go do all that stuff. And I did it the exact opposite. I was obsessed on getting customers first. And what I found was getting customers was like, how can I say this? It was like, it's like being, again, it's like being a, a brewery or a winery or a restaurant and just knowing that there's so many people out of the door that it's going to put you in a position where it's game time. Like, you will, if you want it bad enough, you are going to scramble to, to build out the things in place to, to fulfill the need. Right. Where if you're trying to create a, I hope, you know, mythological need, like, oh, you know, maybe one day I'll have a thousand customers. So let me put that system in place now so when those thousand customers get here, I'm ready to go.

Yeah.

That, in my opinion, is kind of the cart before the horse. It's like, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're busy.

Yeah.

You're not accomplished.

Exactly.

And you're doing all these little things. So I did, what I did was I got super. And why I brought you up was I got, you know, really focused on the marketing side and getting the customers and getting the leads and getting the people, because it, it makes you go. I mean, when you get 100 calls in a day, which, might I add, we got yesterday, it makes you go.

Yeah, it's a part about the airplane. Like, you fill the airplane, then you got to build it, you know, an addition.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Oh, we need another engine over here because this one's sagging a little bit.

Yep. And there's something to be said for that pressure. Right. And anybody who doesn't believe that, okay, then why would Elon Musk go take the, you know, the cybertruck and say, give me the 5,000 orders now? Because then all of a sudden, you know, they go back to corporate. The engineers, everybody's looking at you like, oh, my, do you see what we got to fulfill? And again, if you're not, if you don't have that entrepreneur, like, craziness about you, and it really is a little bit of craziness. Look, I know we don't. None of us want to live in the crazy we Want to try to get out of the crazy, but I tell anybody, man, if. If you.

If, if.

If you like your nine to fives and getting off early on a Friday, this ain't for you, bro. Like, even if you build your business to the point where you eventually can do that, the. The mentality of the entrepreneur, that's just. We kind of. We kind of thrive in chaos a little bit.

Exactly. We love the pressure. We thrive in chaos. Diamonds come from pressure. There's a good book about. It's called buy back your time.

Yes.

Yeah. And he. And he says, like, you operate. We operate in chaos, and we. We thrive. So we create chaos in our business. Sometimes when it's like, whoa, hold on. It's all working. It's all working. But, but, but to your point, I think this is a really good point. One of my buddies, he's starting a business. He literally posted nine reels on his Instagram. He got a customer that reached out, and he was going to charge her 400 bucks. She's like, no, pay 1500. That's what it's worth. Then he. He literally called me yesterday, and I'm like, dude, like, let's go. And now he's like, he. He's going down a whole nother thing. He's like, I need to build a website. I need to get contracts. And also, I'm like, dude, no, just post more stuff. Get more customers.

Yes.

It'll force you to do those things.

Yes.

But. But don't get in a logo and a business card and also go get customers.

Yes, You'll.

You'll build it from there.

Yes. I know we live in a, you know, a new. And I mean, whatever. I'm probably putting too many cards on the table here, and you can edit this out later if you have to, but is. Is, you know, we live in this new world of, like, obviously sensitivity, right? A lot of people are sensitive about things. Whatever. No harm, no foul is what it is. But I'm a big believer that being uncomfortable is one of the greatest, sometimes the greatest things, right? Like, if. If. If you. If you want to feel uncomfortable and maybe even darn near, say, embarrassed, that will make you rise to the occasion, you know? Like, you know, you talk to a fighter, like, get choked out in front of 50,000 people, and let me know if you ain't working on your jiu jitsu that night. You know what I mean? Like. Like that kind of pressure really does just weed out the people who are being entertained by the idea and the people who are Obsessed by the idea. And I. So for me, I again, my wife with her degree in psychology is like, she jokes about it all the time. She's like, dude, you've built this thing. You arguably can be a lot more restful if you wanted to. She's like, you know, even if you sold it one day, she's like, you're. That's like, you will find something else to just get really intense about because that's just you.

Yeah, I think in that book buyback your time or another book that I read, he was saying, okay, what's the goal? Like go and live on a, or go on a beach or something and just relax. Well, like, we're wired. We'll. We'll see the guy putting the umbrella in the sand and be like, oh, that's a great business. Like, he could, he could make five more shops, you know, like, he do this online ordering.

Everything's a business. Like, right. Like you're driving. My wife loves it. We really do. Like, my, my daughter just started a horse, a horse cookie business. Like a horse high end horse treat business, right?

Oh, okay. Yeah.

Because like, let's just be real, man. You see, I got the horse shirt on from a daughter, blah, blah, blah. Your daughter, My daughter. It's dude, the joke. Everybody knows horses are expensive, right? You, you buy, you. If you have a $40,000 horse, you think you're not going to buy a $5 high end horse treat. Of course, right? One, you have the financial means probably, and two, you want to give it the best. So. Yeah, yeah. So. But the, the point there is, is yes, to your observation. It's funny, right? Because we both like got big smiles joking about it because we know it's true. Like, like there's nothing. Like it does not matter what it is. I'm always just like, like the one. I'm always blown away by the one. I'm always like, how in the heck was this under all of our noses? And we didn't do this. I didn't do this. You didn't do it. Whoever is the, the pooper scooper. The pooper or the, or the poop troops, whatever.

Yeah, poop troops, man.

That dude, I think it started from Fairfax and now they're like worldwide.

Yeah.

And I'm like, bro. All because he was a landscaper that just finally started asking his customers like, hey dude, can I charge you 10 bucks to pick up this poop? Said that you're not obviously picking up that I'm now hitting with a lawnmower and Slinging all over my feet, like. And. And they blew up.

That's right. This is a perfect tie into. You started in chimneys. Someone said, hey, gutters. You're like, yeah, we can do gutters. You got into gutters. Someone's like, hey, can you do my roof?

Yeah, we can do your roof. Yep.

I think there's a really good principle in here for business owners that if you're not listening to your customers and whether you're doing the service or you're finding affiliate partners to partner with and refer business out, there's a huge opportunity to make more money to do the job without actually doing the job or figuring out how you can take your lifetime value of your customer to the next level.

You just hit it. Lifetime value, man. You know, everybody's. So we live in a world now of new, new, new. Like, and you know this. In the marketing world, everybody's asking, how do I get new leads? Well, what are you doing about your leads? You have. What about your current paying customers now? Like, are they coming back to you? Are you upselling? Are. Do they even know you do anything else? Yeah. It's crucial.

We have a good saying. You can't get lifetime value without a lifetime relationship.

Yeah.

And if you're not actually touching your customers, reaching out to them, emailing them, stopping by their house when you're in the neighborhood.

Yeah.

You know, fill in the blank. Do you think that they might not. They might know you as gutter ethics. They might not know that you do roofs.

Yeah. No one ever told them. Yeah, no. Trust me, dude, there before, we got a little bit more dialed in with our marketing and our retargeting and, like, pixels and all that jazz.

Yeah.

I remember a few times having a customer being like, justin, I just got my roof replaced or my windows replaced. I didn't know you did them. And I was like, there's something wrong with this, man. Like, this stains. Like, I don't like this. Like, and especially when they didn't even go as far as saying, I would have hired you, no questions asked. Like, you're. You're. Dude, you're my. You guys are my boys. Like, why. Why didn't I know? And I'm like, oh, man. Yeah, we're past that phase now. But so.

So some quick tactical questions. So, like, your. Your gutter cleaning techs, do you incentivize them to sell roof roofing leads or, like.

Yeah, to promote. To promote. Yeah. 100. So we create, like, different tiers of bonuses, basically, depending on the size of the Project. Right. I mean you go out there and you get a customer to sign up on a 20 something thousand dollars roof install, we're going to take care of you. Right. Obviously then there's maybe the townhouse roof, maybe there's the repair. So there's different tiers there. But our big obsession as a brand now is just acquiring as many and again sounds cheesy and surface level, but hey, well, pun intended, it's surface level is trying to acquire as many customers as possible. Therefore then building out the team and creating this ecosystem, this world where we are just so gosh darn in demand that we're now interviewing our customers as much as they think they're interviewing us. I know you guys do that obviously and that now our income is so foreseeable in the future and so projected that if we were to even just turn off all the marketing and ads and leads that we could literally look at the year and go, well if we didn't sell not a single thing, this is what our year will bring in. So now we know what we should be reinvesting, whether it be through pay, buying new trucks, equipment, now through in fresh marketing that we're doing every single day and, and building, you know, on top of that and upselling to that foundation of customers. That's where what I call the play money is. Right. Because now it's like, okay, that's where our team can go out there and build on their own income. We can build the brand more. That's, that's kind of where we're at, man. We're just, we want to get to a place where we have so many repeat clients, so many annual clients that again we, we can look a year to two out and know that regardless we're going to have this.

Yeah, I think for your business that's so it's great that you got that because the gutter cleaning is the, is a repeatable thing. Roofs is like you know, every 20, 30 years, whatever windows similar. But when you have all those things that you can cross sell and keep customers coming back, I think you just create this ecosystem of referrals, you know, staying in touch with them, getting repeat business. So.

Yep. I mean and the problem in our industries though man, and if I can touch on that quickly on why companies I think struggle with this is, you know, we've gotten to this place. I mean again you're from north, you lived in Northern Virginia, so you're familiar is we've gotten to a certain markets, higher end markets, which Northern Virginia is one of them. We've gotten to a place where, you know, the service industry is really like sales rep oriented. Right? Sales rep oriented. The problem with that is, is then the smaller jobs become come for the birds. Right. It's for the birds. Because there's no commission there. Right. There's nothing to really kind of grab onto. So you'd have to sell a lot more than to get, to get a good commission off of. So what that's created is you got these companies who are like, I don't do unless. We won't touch unless. And I've always said, man, that's like a restaurant saying, man, if you're not coming in here with four people for a four course meal, you can't have a bottle of wine and an appetizer. What, like you wouldn't sell them a bottle of wine. And first and foremost, there's margin there. So you are making money. Secondly, you're converting that client and they're going to fall in love with what you have and what to offer and they're going to grow with you.

Exactly.

So it's, it's been kind of a little bit of a self cannibalizing thing where some of these companies have kind of set themselves up for. They may have had instant gratification. This is a great year. We sold so much. We sold so much. Fast forward 10, 12, 15 years. It's like, dude, that's not sustainable, bro.

Yeah, you're not building a business, you're selling. You're just selling stuff.

Yeah, yeah. And that's cool. And I'm glad it worked out for X amount of time. But, but eventually like the floor is going to fall out. Like, you know, when you have like a economic year, like this year for example, and last year, like, you know, and people are like, oh man, our sales are down. I bet they are because your cost of entry is ridiculous.

Well, the guy that I mentioned, that I interviewed who was doing the subbing out, the sales thing, he had 12. A 12 team. 12 person team. The rug got pulled out from under him two years ago and he went down to zero employees.

Wow.

Because he wasn't building a business, he was just subbing stuff out. And over the last two years, he's literally transformed his entire business to change his mindset because he came from that world. Sub it out, find a sub. And that was it. Like, can I pay Angie, you know, X amount of dollars to get so many leads and then sell and then sub it? And he's like, it doesn't work. It works. Until it doesn't. Yeah, but to your point, when you build a quality business, you take care of the customers. You're not getting lawsuits every, you know, other week or something.

Yeah.

Doing right by the customer. You're going to build us a solid business. But then today's the next step. You're going to build a sellable business that's worth something.

Yeah.

Not just selling your next job to get a paycheck.

Yeah, man, it's, it's, it's, you know, and I think that's. Unfortunately, I think that kind of boils down to personalities. Right? Like you gotta be, you gotta be humble. And I know that's a throw around buzzword, but it's like you really do. Like, you gotta be a person where you're willing. You know, as a business owner, you can appreciate this. Like, you see a lot of money, that'll mean it's all yours.

Right?

Like, you know, like, it's like you reinvest it, you know, you, you're building something where sometimes. And again, I'm not digging on the sales because like, trust me, bro, I've got the gift of gab. Like, nobody would believe I can get after it. Right?

Yeah, me too.

Exactly. So I'm not dogging on the sales mentality, but when I am dogging on the, you know, the idea of like all, you know, like this idea of like I need to sell X amount so I can get X amount of commission and if I can't make X amount, then this, this company is no longer a company that's a good fit for me. Like, okay, well if that's always going to be the narrative and you're not just being force fed leads and you're in an economic downturn, then that's, that's a, that's a problem, man.

Yeah, you're selling from a place of scarcity. How much can I get opposed to selling solutions and solving people's problems and the abundance mindset. The money will come as long as you're solving people's problems.

Yeah. My grandfather used to always say, man, I think maybe I jokingly share this with you in our original conversation. I would always. Good old country boy from Beckley, West Virginia, owned a ton of businesses. I swear to gosh, if you saw the guy, like, you would have no clue he had two nickels rub together. But he, trust me, he had it. And I would say to him sometimes like, hey, you know, being a young man, hey, grandpa, making a bunch of money this week. And you're like, nah, just Too busy helping people.

Yeah.

And lo and behold, eventually, obviously, yes, I'm making money, Justin, because I'm helping people. I'm solving people's problems. Like, that is the world. Why do we all pay what we pay for these smartphones? Because of the amount of problems and solutions that they solve for us. They give us ease of use in other aspects. People will pay for ease of use, man.

Yeah, there's. I'm reading a book right now called Thou Shall Prosper. And in that book, it basically is saying that I'm a Christian, as a Christian.

Likewise, brother.

We believe that it's adding value to people's life and solving their problem and loving them. And what he says is that if you are not solving people's problems and helping them, then are you really, like, living out what you're supposed to be doing, loving people? And what he. What he goes. The next step is that when you solve people's problems, they pay you in certificate of appreciation. And that's called dollar bills. You could quantifiably say, the more people that you're helping, the bigger problems that you're solving, naturally you're going to make more money.

Yeah.

So you should give yourself permission that you're not some greedy rich person, but you're actually solving people's problems. And the way that they're saying, hey, thanks so much, is. Here's a certificate of appreciation.

It's super well said. Super, super well said. It's. Yeah, that's.

It's awesome book. I highly recommend that.

What is it called again?

Prosper. It's actually written by a rabbi.

That's what's up.

Yeah, it's pretty cool. And my boy, Dave Ramsey, he did the forward.

Did he? So, yeah, Dave's. Dave's legit, man. I think we all kind of stumbled into Dave in our early years of being like, get my buckets together, man.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, man. I just. I. And that's. And to be honest with you, man, like, not to get off the path here, but I'm really at a phase now, my brand and my business, in my life, man, where my team would tell you, man, they probably think of me more as, like, of a motivational guy at this point than they do anything else. Like, because, you know, like, I, like, I have this, like, in our. In our call system, I have, like, I'll send out like a blast text with like a, you know, a quote in it every morning and things like that. And just, man, you know, I always say, like, one of my favorite calls to get from one of my team members is that they need to take a week off for vacation. Because. Because I'm like, the fact that one you're going to take that paid week vacation, that you have the financial means to go to that cool place and take your whole family, like, I'm like, do you realize that's like one of my favorite. That's a reflection of our business, the fact that you can do this and it's not the, you know, in the contracting world, I think, you know, let's just keep it real. There's the other calls of like, hey, man, so I got pulled over, drunk driving. I'm not going to be in work for 10 days. I got to go do this, I got to go do that. It's like, that's the calls you don't want. The calls you want is, yeah, dude, I'm going on vacation with my family. Oh, man, that's so awesome. I can't wait to hear about it. Like, make sure you send pictures and videos so we can post them and do this and do that and do all kinds of stuff. So I'm just at a place now, man, where I just. I love seeing people thrive, man. I love, I love. Because that's my real passion, bro. My real passion is a zeal for life is just at the end of the day that you got this one crack at this thing and you know, you're either, you're either getting after it or it's getting after you. Either, you know, it's life's either happening to you or happening for you, you know, you gotta, you know. And I heard something from. Oh, man, I can't think of his name right now. It's gonna kill me is God. You ever heard of Rob Bailey? Yeah, Kill Rob Bailey. He's a good dude, man, right? Yeah, I like his music, man. He. So he's. He, he said something yesterday. I'm sure he got it from somebody else too. But I love the way it was worded, right? It's like you got to switch your mindset sometimes, right? Right. Like, you could say, I've got to do this podcast. Or you can say, I get to do this podcast. Right? And just that simple shift, you know, puts a positive spin on it. How blessed you are, how lucky you are. And you know, he says yesterday, I think he did a post where he said, you know, I can't solve this problem. Which is just a dead end narrative, right? You're like, you're dead in the water, literally. Or what if I solve this Problem, like the possibilities after.

Yeah.

And I'm just at a place now where I'm just loving the kind of like the building, the plugging the plane, the seeing people's life enriched, including mine, you know, and my families and this and that, and meeting people like you and. And just really kind of just seeing that. Man, there are a lot of good, smart, witty, caring people out there.

Yes, I, I agree. I think a good takeaway for business owners on this is in your business, look at it as an opportunity to. To literally build your community with quality people that can make money and you can speak into their lives. You're. You have built this thing to create this opportunity for people. Like, what a blessing that we have.

Amen.

Do this for people. And I think a lot of times we can get bogged down in those calls. Like, someone broke into my truck, you know, I did. You know, your accounts receivables, all this, Suppliers not paying and everything. But when we really, really distill it down, it's like life. Like, we're helping these people live a quality life and build a quality family in our community. That's something that, yo, it's. It's. It's a big burden to take on, but it's a blessing as well to be able to have that.

It is, man. It is. And I would say to anybody getting into this, and I don't want to be a Debbie Downer here, a wet blanket is the thing you have to. The thing you have to. And I'll tread this lightly, you have to protect yourself. Is. And this is more deeper, philosophical, spiritual, etc, is. You know, I always equate to dealing with. I mean, right. The old saying, the human element, right? People. We're dealing with people, right? And dealing with people, I've always said, is like walking through like a beautiful scene in like somewhere in like the. The jungles of Africa, right? Like, you see this lion that you would never kill, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't eat you, right? And so it's what I've personally and I say unfortunately, but then I immediately say fortunately because it's taught me so much about life and, and myself. And just in general is, you know, just as much as there are some amazing people out there, there's the opposite, right? There's the opposite. And. And, you know, sometimes we always take inspiration from people that we want to be like and things we want to be like or do. But I'm a big believer you can find inspiration in the opposite, right? Like, you can also find Inspiration of what not to do and what not to behave like and not what to act like. So. So I always try to walk away from an interaction and be like, okay, well, cool. I'm not down with that. But I'm. There's a reason why I know I'm not down with it. And thank you for showing me why I would never be down with it. You know what I mean?

Like, yeah, you've given me clarity to my values on why I. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, man.

And I. And again, I know that's kind of off the beaten path a little bit, but I say that because anybody coming into any business, I would tell them any. Any field of entrepreneurship is, you know, there's a lot of sharks out there, man. There's a lot of. There's a lot of biters out there. And, you know, you're gonna swear you knew this person, that person, and. And it. And it will weigh at you. And, you know, and you. You broug. Man of faith, you know. You know, Jesus really had to give Judas that long stare, man, and be like, you know, it's. It's. It's hard, man.

There. There's some people. And this is something that I. I hate when people say this, but, like, it's just business. It's like, no, this is not just business. This is life. Like, we're two human beings, and you treat people with respect.

Regardless, brother, me and you both. When I. When I. When I get that, I'm like. Like, dude, that you. You just. You just told me everything I needed to know.

Exactly.

That every. Like that at the end of the day, if something doesn't fit for the narrative of just business, you will cut anybody off in half, whatever. And that. So going back to being inspired by the wrong.

Exactly.

Cool, bro. Thanks for showing me. You just showed me everything I needed to know, man. Thank you so much. Yeah, yeah, no, I'm right there with you, man. Because the one thing that we deal with on our side of the fence as a. As a contractor, service provider is, you know, whether this be plumbing, electrical, our world is, believe it or not, is suppliers. Suppliers are massive. You know, companies like, I mean, we're talking within the, you know, billions. I won't get in the names, but there's some of them out there that have created some of the wealthiest people in the. In the country and. Or the world. And. And look, cool. I'm a capitalist, right? Thou shalt prosper. Right? Like the book. You know, I'm all for it, but it can come sometimes at an expense of man. Hey, we've loved you for five years and today we don't love you, buddy. Not anymore, at least. Out of nowhere. And you're like, because I'm making, I'm holding you guys accountable to something you said you would do. Like.

Yep.

I mean, okay, like that's weird. But and, and so it's again, the, the thread here I'm trying to highlight is, you know, we can talk numbers, we can talk marketing, we can talk, you know, how did you transition to this? How do you do this? How do you do that? Dude, businesses. It's the most intense sport ever. Yeah, it's intense. Like it's. People are coming at you and life's coming at you, problems are coming at you constantly. All the normal stuff is going to come at you. And oh, by the way, you know, I'll give an example. Like two of my texts broke some phones this week. Just broke some, you know, a couple thousand dollar phones, right? And I'm like, well, I'll tell you, T Mobile has been approaching me about switching our account from, you know, this company to them. And that takes about a day and a half and I have to review the agreement and I have to sign it and then I have to bring in all 20 something devices and switch them over. I guess I'll just do that on a Saturday. Yeah, let's just go do that on a Saturday. Sure, Saturday.