Tom Reber's Proven Formula for Family Freedom vs The 9 to 5 Grind

Welcome back to the show. I'm your host, Phil Risher. And on today's episode, we're going to be discussing how to stop stealing memories and time from your family and start owning your business instead of your business owning you. With Tom Reber. Tom, thanks so much for joining us, man.

Phil, thanks for having me, man. Good to be here.

Yeah, awesome. All right, so I'm really excited to have you on. We were both on the Jobber podcast, and your episode recently came out, and I'm like, this guy hit another grand slam. And I already had you scheduled to come on, so I'm like, is going to be great. So can you tell us a little bit about how you got into the trades? I know your family, your dad was in tile. I think your. Your other family members were in painting, but then somehow you got into the painting industry. Is that right?

Yeah, my uncle was and grandfather were painters. My dad was a tile guy. And as my dad got older, he got shorter. My uncle stayed the same height because he wasn't hunched over all day, like tile guy. So when it was time to go to work for one of them. Plus, my dad was a jerk. I the job site, he was a total ass. It's like, just not fun to work around, right? So. And my uncle was like my big brother. He was cool. You know, he'd drink beer with us and stuff, so I'm like, I'd rather hang out with him. And he's not getting shorter, so. And I couldn't afford that. I'm only 5 10, so I'm like, you know, I can't be hunched over.

Exactly.

And so went to work for my uncle and, you know, did that through high school. And then, you know, when I got out of the Marine Corps, I ran a crew of his for. For a couple few years and then started my own thing. And, yeah, I've just come from a family of trades people and. And, yeah, you know, actually did everything I could do to not work in the trades, you know, because I. I just saw again, and I'm not ripping on my. My family here necessarily, but I just saw contractors that were tired, broke, you know, too many ups and downs. They were dirty at the end of the day. And I'm looking at all my buddies and their dads who are doctors and lawyers and whatever else they did, and, you know, they seemed to have, you know, the life. And we were always broke, never went on vacations or anything. So, yeah, I spent a lot of years trying to not be in the trades and then ended up just going, you know, this is where my people are and it's, it's pretty cool stuff that we do. And, and I was more the problem than the industry. Right. So.

Yeah. So with the, with the painting business, you, I've heard you say this, like, not the best painter, but really good at sales in some aspect. Is that right?

Well, yeah, you know, I'm, I'm like barely average as a painter.

Yeah.

And, and just quite frankly, I don't like it. You know, like, I like going like, I like throwing the whites on for maybe a day.

Yeah.

You know, and just being around the guys and, and that whole thing. I like the camaraderie of being around the crews and stuff, but I just don't enjoy it. I am not a craftsman. Yeah. I'm not a, I'm not a trade craftsman. I'm a business craftsman, if that makes sense, so.

That's right.

I get fired up about the game of the business and you know, painting is just the thing that we happen to deliver, you know, a service through and, or what we did. So. Yeah.

And I think a lot of times people, they, they hold on to that technician mindset without actually going in to build the business. And something I think that was unique about you, you ended up partnering with your competitor or something.

Yeah, it was a, it was a guy we met. We were mixing paint in the paint store one day, we're both standing there waiting and I, I don't know, we just struck up a conversation and then we ended up grabbing a bite to eat and we'd run into each other over the course of the next few months and, and fast forward another three or four months. We, you know, partner together and had about a 10 year run with that. And you know, it was, overall, it was a great experience. It was a good partner. And just, you know, I sold my half of the company in 2012 because I just felt there was a next chapter for me. And you know, we wanted to move out of state. We lived in Illinois at the time. We wanted, we were looking at moving here to Colorado, where we're at now. And you know, so it was just kind of one of those seasons of life, you know, and it was tough at first because, you know, you become known for something in the, in the area in the community and your own identity and.

Yes.

And then one day, you know, you just don't do it anymore, you know. And so it was, it was actually one of the best things that happened to me in the sense of just figuring out what really fires Me up and who I am and who I want to be and the impact I want to have in the world. I was just feeling like there was. It was time for a change.

Yeah. Did you ever think, hey, I'm going to go out to Colorado and start, you know, version two of this painting company? Or was it like, I want to be, you know, I want to start this business? Coaching, contractor fight, or.

Yeah, well, I. I had already, you know, I was already speaking and doing some coaching, you know, on the tail end of me owning the company. And then until about 20, 2017, we rebranded what I was doing to the contractor fight. So from 2012-17, I was speaking and doing a little coaching and stuff like that, but didn't really pour gas on it until 2017.

And.

You know, I. I've learned to just be open to things, not to say never. And, you know, I'm know if something keeps popping up on my radar or on my heart, I'll pursue it. You know, that's just kind of the. I think that's the universe or God or whatever you want to call it, you know, poking in, going, hey, you need to look at the. Look into this. And, you know, so we're. Yeah, I. I get the itch every now and then. So, yeah.

Very cool. So with contractor fight, tell me who. Who are the people in there? Who are you serving? What are you. What are you doing? What is contractor fight?

Yeah, so it's, I believe, the most powerful movement in the home improvement industry to help contractors get their heads out of their asses, stop stealing from their families, and build a life and a business that's attractive to others. And, you know, we do that through our free content. We do it through, you know, our paid programs and events and, you know, we. We produce more free content. We have over the past 10 years or so or eight years, whatever it's been, you know, we produce more content on YouTube and podcasts than anybody else in this space. And we're teaching people how to price their work and how to sell and not be d bags in the sales process and how to, you know, pour. You know, just pour their. Their passion into building their brand and getting their phone to ring and being a better leader. You know, we work with contractors that are all different stages of business and, you know, work with people up to 100 million bucks and from startups and everything in between in our programs and really comes down to the mindset of the person. You know, it's. It's like somebody who's. Who they despise mediocrity. They're, they're tired of the status quo. They know even if they're winning, they know there's another level of winning. And you know, and they're, they're just, they know there's another gear and they're willing to put in the work and run into the discomfort and get uncomfortable and, you know, really just, you know, be an uncommon contractor. I think one of our biggest issues in the trades, as you know, is people leaving the trades and not coming into the trades. And I think, I think, I personally think aside from the message our society and our government's been preaching for 40 years about the trades are a backup option and you have to go to college and all that crap. I think the number one reason there's a recruiting issue and people don't want to come into the trades is because most contractors don't have their. Together, you know, they're, they're a bad example. They're out of shape, their marriages are wrecked, they're broke. Why would anyone look at that and go, hey, sign me up? Yeah. So that's why I talk about making money a lot. I think if you've been in, if you've been a contractor for, had a business for more than, you know, three, four years and you're not putting 200 grand a year in your pocket, then you either got to, or get off the pot, like get serious and run a real business and. Or go work for somebody else because it's just, the stress isn't working.

I agree. So you mentioned about mindset. Would you say that it's more about, Would you say, which would you say is more important? Like the mindset of the person or like knowing your numbers and dialing in your numbers? And it could be both. But like, where do you start with people usually, or how does this progress?

Well, I believe this. You know, 80, 85, 90% of our success in business is how we think about it, how we show up, our discipline, our mindset, our self talk. The other 10, 15% is math and marketing and messaging and those things. And you can outsource that stuff. So, you know, and yeah, you got to know your numbers. I get that we talk about that a lot. But I, I just believe it starts with owning your crap between your ears and going, where am I sabotaging myself? Where's the friendly fire? Meaning if you wake up and you're like, oh, nobody wants to work, everyone's lazy, then you're going to get more of that.

Yes.

You know, if you Wake up and go, hey, I need some employees. We got about 700,000 people in my city. I know there's three or four that would love to work for me. Different reframing, just, you know, because again, you, you get what you focus on.

Yes.

And a lot of contractors, they, they're like, oh, we could never charge this for our work, or whatever. Okay, you're right. If you believe that, then you're right. You won't. And so, you know, we. Everything starts with the way you think. And at some point, it can't be just like sitting around the campfire doing these little kumbaya exercises and going. It's all mindset. You got to get off your butt. You got to execute and attack and be consistent and, and understand that success is inconvenient. It doesn't care how you think about or feel about something. It just takes what it takes. And those that are willing to embrace that discomfort, they usually win at higher levels.

Yeah, I agree. I think, I think you have a good saying for this. I forget what it is, but if, if you're a slob, your marriage is a wreck, you don't take, you don't spend time with your family, you don't track your personal finances. You have no idea what's going on. What do you think is going to happen with your business if you tighten up all these other pieces? Well, hey, your business is going to be just naturally tightened up.

Well, there's the old saying that, you know, how you do one thing's how you do everything. And, you know, the success is an inside out game. It starts with a strong you, a strong home, then a strong business, in that order. And most of us have it flipped. We put the business first in the name of taking care of the people we love so that we can provide for them. But, you know, we often give them scraps. And so, you know, that's why we talk about you got to get sleep, you got to work out, you got to watch what you put in your body, you got to read good stuff, you know, take care of you first and pay you first. That's the other thing. You know, I'm, I'm tired of hearing people say, I pay myself last. You know, you, you're running a business and you can't do it with a clear mind and the confidence you need if you're not getting paid. And so, you know, like I said earlier, we talk a lot about personal income because when you start calculating the time and the hours and the stress and all that, you're bringing your business. I mean, I see people that come to us, they run, you know, $2 million businesses, and they pay themselves 47 grand a year. Like, hang me, find me a bridge and toss me off the thing. Okay. Because, you know, that's what you should be making a month.

Exactly.

Not, not, not a year. And the average income In America in 2024 here, median income is a household income is around $74,000 a year. Okay, well, if you're a business owner, like, let alone just a normal citizen. Right. That a lot of money. But as a business owner, you're going to, you know, that's just wrong. You got to be making 200 grand minimum as a business owner. Uncle Sam's gonna get his claws into you. You know, you got taxes and all this other garbage you got, you know, you want to hope, hope to, you know, hire good key people and stuff that can lighten the load for you. I mean, you know, we could talk for days. All the reasons why you need to make 200 grand.

Yep. We had Mike Michalowicz with profit first on and just talking about, you gotta have profit if, if you don't know your numbers. And I know you're a big proponent of the profit if you're. If. If it's. If it costs you x, charge 2 if cost you one call, charge twice. I think a lot of times people, they get so focused on, well, this is my price. And they don't know what their numbers are when they're job costing and they get stuck. And then at the end of the year, they're like, I pay myself 47,000, there's no profit left and they get stuck. So inside of your program, are you helping with job costing and profit and structuring stuff?

Yeah, like, it's a. The whole first part of our Battleground group coaching program. It's our flagship program with about 400 members in it.

And.

But it's about 300 companies or so, give or take. And then you can bring in up to, what is it, four people per company under one membership. So because we want, we want your whole team trained if you want that. So, yeah, we dig into the numbers and your break even point. I mean, like most contractors right now, listen to this. Don't know their break even point. Meaning what do you need to deposit into the bank this month to break even on all the expenses of the business? Not even having a net profit. So if your overhead, which should include your profit. All right. Or include your salary. I'm sorry, say it's 30 grand a month. You know, if you're producing your work like most guys do, you know, when we get their, our hands on them, they're doing like a 30, 35% gross profit. That means on a ten thousand dollar job, they're only keeping 3500 bucks to pay the bills.

Exactly.

Well, that at, at 30 grand. At a 35 gross profit, your break even point is 85 grand a month. That's what you have to deposit to not make a profit, by the way. Okay. And so that's why we, we hit, you know, we talk 50% minimum. 50%. So that 50% gross profit on the 30 grand of overhead is 60 grand in deposits, not 85. So 25 grand less. Because your gross profits are, that means you get through the, you get to your break even point quick month and then you get into profit time, net profit, so.

Exactly. I think another one that I really like about profit first is tax. You got to set tax money aside. People, people don't think about that, oh, I made $10,000, whatever it is. But wait, wait a second, you got to pay taxes on this. It's not just your money. And going back to being a business owner versus an employee, as a business owner, you have all this risk, you have all this taxes, all this other stuff you have to pay for. If you're only making 50, $60,000, go be an employee. It's going to be a better life for you.

Totally. You know, nights and weekends back.

Yeah.

You won't be worried about payroll and marketing and running sales calls and, you know, that's what I'm saying. Like if you want to, you know, a lot of guys, you know, I used to coach high school football for like 17 years, right. And there were certain players that they liked the idea of being a football player. Like, they like the idea of putting the uniform on and walking through the school on game day and going out under the lights and saying they're a foot on the football team. But they weren't really a football player. They didn't do the things that are required, like staying eligible, going to the weight room, eating right, getting sleep, you know, working out, you know, watching film and those types of things. And that's fine. You know, like if you don't want to pay the price for the thing you want, that's totally cool. But at least be honest with yourself. And so I see that with a lot of contractors, they like the idea of having their lettered up truck and their, you know, cool flat bill hats that have their brand on it. And, you know, I'm in business. I'm an entrepreneur, but they don't do entrepreneur stuff. You know, it's. What's the old saying? Everyone, Everyone wants to be a lion until it's time to do lion shit.

Yeah.

You know, and. Same thing in business. So I think those of you that listen to this, you're like, you get fired up by doing the actual work and the craft and building, which is. I envy that. I do. I'm not a craftsman. I just. I suck at shit like that. Right. Like I told you. But if you're not willing, you know, the amount of time. Here's it. The amount of time it took you how to, you know, hang crown molding in your lifetime. Right. Spend 25% of that time learning how to be a better business owner and, and how to sell and market and your numbers. And you do that just a quarter of the time that you put into the actual craft of the business and you'll be head and shoulders above 95% of the contractors in your area.

Yeah.

In the money department.

Yes, I completely agree. I wanted to talk about some tactical things. You have some Shin Fu sales training?

Yeah. Yeah.

What's Shin Fu? What the heck is shinfu, by the way?

Yeah, it's a sales process that we teach that is designed to save you at least half your estimating time, raise your average job size, and make sure you never spend time with somebody who's not going to cut you a deposit check when you go out and see them. We are not in the proposal writing business. We are in the check cashing business. And again, we have a rule that we're not going out to meet somebody at their property until we have a conversation. That's rooted in five things. Really. Four things. And the fifth is an optional thing, but it's the motive. What are their reasons for buying? And don't make the assumptions that you think that you know why they're buying. You don't. 99% of you on here are amazing craftspeople. And you totally suck at sales because you don't know how to communicate without shutting your mouth. You're telling and barfing on people about all your experience, but nobody gives a shit about that. Not everybody does. Not saying these things aren't important, like the materials we use and the years of experience. And we don't use subs. We do use subs. All this other crap. Right? Remember this organization? We won these awards. These are all great things. But. But they're not necessarily important to your Prospect.

Correct.

And so step one is about uncovering their reasons for doing the project and hiring somebody and choosing somebody. Not barfing. All yours, all over. Then we're going to talk about money. We're going to give ranges around what things cost. Now there's a percentage of contractors right now. They're going, oh man, you can't do that on a phone call. You know, you got to go out there and rub your face on the wall to give a price to paint it, you know. And no, we teach you how to, how to bracket and speak in, in different, with different strategies and techniques where you will get their budget 100 of the time before you jump in your truck, before you spend any time typing up and making thousand follow up calls after they go into witness protection program, after they get your price and they ghost you. And then there's steps three, four and five that we don't need to go into. But basically it's, you know, we'll see people come in and you know, I just interviewed a guy my show the other day who's been in our program a little over a year. He was doing 500 grand a year. Fences, exteriors, you know, siding and things like that. Decks 500 grand a year. He was stuck there. His gross profit was around 20% which sucks. Yeah, within one year, man, in our program he was doing 2.5 million at a 44, 45% gross profit. And it's the main three things are we taught him to have confidence in his numbers. We taught him how to sell, man. We do like crazy amounts of role plays and stuff. If you're not role playing, you're not a salesperson. Right. And then we teach him how to pour gas on his marketing and get, you know, better leads with, you know, more qualified prospects. But you know, the average contractor spends so much time in the sales process meeting with people that are not a good fit. And, and there are ways that you can have conversations with people and really find out what's important to them. Talk about money. And if you just did that, if you just did those two steps, your closing rate would go up and the time spent doing it would go down because you wouldn't be all the windshield time and typing things up and tap dancing in the yard and look how amazing we are. And, and we just see it all the time. You only have so much time in the day. Right. So you got to make sure you're spending your time not in the proportion proposal writing business, but in the selling and communication business.

Yeah, there's A really we. So we do marketing consulting for home service, local service businesses and one of the main things that we see is on your contact form, whenever someone fills out a form, have something in there that asks them what is your budget? And kind of bracket them into different things because then when you get the lead you'll know who you're talking to. And if it's, if it's zero to a thousand dollars and like dude, we have nothing for zero to a thousand dollars, we're not the right fit, you're done. But then you can put people into different buckets and even having like an estimate calculator or a price, a buying guide, pricing guide to kind of like set the stage for this is what this stuff actually costs. I think goes a long way to your point.

Yeah, I mean you've got you know, your website and your content. You should, you make, should all be talking about price. You know, you should talk average is a, an average, you know, bathroom like this to remodel starts at X price and can go up depending on this and that. You know, educate people that that's going to also, you know, weed out who's calling you and filling out the form and wasting your time.

Exactly.

You know, if I got a $5,000 budget and your price is $65,000 do the bathroom, there's no reason for us to get together.

Yeah.

You know, even if you, your, your budget's twenty grand and it's a forty thousand dollar project, there's no reason for us to get together.

Exactly.

And that's, that's where you know, we'll see people raise their. You guys know, don't know what this is? I'll have to tell you. We call it esr your effective sales rate. So if you take a period of time we, we actually have people track their sales time meaning their, their time. It's a it the process called shinfu. So we say if you do your shin fu call that's you know, a 15 minute conversation, 20 minute conversation or whatever. But so everything from the call to the windshield time to being at the home typing things up, making follow up calls, track these things. Can't fix something and improve it if you don't track it. And so we'll take what did I get signed contracts on in a period of time. So let's just say it's a week. This week I sold, I'm making it up here. Someone sold, you know, 45,000 bucks and if they spent you know, 12 hours in the sales process, divide by 12 that's an ESR of 3750, you know, and what we found is the more training and the more, what you call it, role plays that you're doing. Like the guy I was telling you about who went from 500 to 2.5. Yeah. Um, he posted every week. We post our KPIs and our group and stuff. And he posted in the first quarter. He did. I think it was 962,000 bucks. And it took him 50.5 hours all in to sell it in the quarter. Not the week, not the month, in three months. That's an ESR of over 19,000 bucks. So for every hour he spends in the sales process, he's earning 19 grand for his company.

Wow.

So it's these types of things that we approach in a different way. About the use of your time.

Yes.

And really protecting your time. And that's how now your time is freed up to work on your business, to train your people to do the marketing and build relationships that you say you don't have time to do.

Yeah.

Because you're running around selling to people who are never going to buy.

Yeah. Would you have your sales team track their ESR too, like your sales people? Is that something that's important to do?

Yeah, yeah.

We had this. You might have heard of this software called Rilla Voice. It's big in H vac and electrical, plumbing. And basically what it is is when your salespeople go in, they hit record on their phone and they record the entire sales call. And then it spits out the amount of time that you were on there. Your words per minute.

Yeah.

It took you this long to get to this pricing thing. That kind of stuff sounds like kind of what you're mentioning.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you just got to be, you know, there's so many tools out there and stuff. Point is, it's just, you know, if you're a pro at something, you track your. I mean, it's that simple, you know, like, you keep score. How you know, where can I be better? You're fanatical about improving your efficiencies and your performance. And. And I think the first place that most contractors are hosing themselves is they're spending way too much time in the sales process with people that are not a good fit. Again, to your point of why you want to have things on your website and the pricing and the, you know, and what I found when. Whenever I had the budget thing on my forms on my painting company, like what your budget people would like, they. They'd Fill in. Like, they'd lie. Let's just say they lie.

Yeah.

Because when you. You come out and ask somebody, hey, what's your budget? I do the same thing. I lie to the salesperson. We all lie to sales people. Yeah, but if you bracket. If you're like, hey, you know, Phil, based on what you're telling me here, you know, this basement, you know, we could go, you know, crazy with all the bells and whistles and features that I. I won't bore you with right now, but something like that. You're looking 150, 200 grand. Or we could just come in and keep some of the bells and whistles out and give you some of the things you said were important and. And maybe we're looking at, you know, 75, dude, 100 grand. Which of those conversations does it make sense for us to have? When you ask it that way and you bracket two different ways, they will. They will opt into one of those. Or they'll totally opt out of everything. Sometimes they'll say, oh, it's in the middle. Sometimes they'll be like, oh, 75 to 100. We got, like, 74 other bids, and those were, you know, all under 50 grand.

Yes.

You know, and by the way, this is on a phone call before you're wasting your time and you become the 75th victim. Okay. Who wasted his time?

Yeah, man, that's so good. So. So in the shinfu, what would you say if someone's like, hey, hey, Tom, you know, thanks so much. Let me talk it over with my spouse, and I'll get back to you kicking the tire they can down the road?

Well, I totally get that. What do you think she's gonna say?

She's gonna say, that's too much.

Okay. Would it make sense for us to.

Get her on the phone, get the conversation going?

Yeah. Or, by the way, step four of our process is called the influencers. So it's like. So we. Instead of getting hijacked by it earlier on in the conversation, when I'm getting your motive and you're dreaming with me, and we're talking about building this big backyard getaway or whatever it is, I'm going to say, hey, man, you know, is there anyone else that's really excited about doing this project?

Yeah.

Oh, that's my wife. Oh, cool. What's her name? And you're going to build that rapport and that relationship, and I'm going to try to pull her in. And this isn't like, if they say, like, hey, my spouse is on board. We're good. You got to take them, take their word for it, right? Like, I'm not going to argue with somebody, but I. I just see a lot of people. You know, you got to take people's temperature. You know, sometimes I'm like, you know, Phil, I appreciate reaching out. We're talking this. Hey, just out of curiosity, a scale of 1 to 10, where are you at on your. Your excitement to do this job? You know, and you might be like, I've had it where I'm talking to one of the spouses, and it's, you know, know, I'm like, a two. And I'm like, why you two? Yeah, well, my wife wants the. The kitchen. I don't want the kitchen. She told me to call and find contractors. And I'm like, wow, man. You know what? Where's your wife at? Oh, she's an 11. She doesn't care what it takes. She wants a new kitchen. I'm like, all right, so, you know, Phil, do we need to get you to attend or have you just accepted that you're doing this? You know, like, you just have open, honest conversation, and we. We agree to not bullshit each other. And sometimes we're fit, and we. Most of the times we're not, and that's okay. This is why you also have to market, like, your next lead, next meal depends on it. And you sell like you're independently wealthy. All right? Most salespeople don't. Most contractors don't have enough leads, okay? Consistently year round. They have feast and famine. They don't have enough leads. And then when their leads dip, they. They become desperate salespeople, you know, and you can't sell, and you can't sell at the right rates, and you can't build your business and your brand in the right way. When you're desperate as a salesperson.

Yes.

So you've got to have a ton of, like, if you're a specialty contractor, like, I come from the painting world, I'll speak to, like, the painters and the flooring guys, right? If you don't have three to four leads a day, you're. You don't have a business.

All right?

I mean, What. What's that? Four. Four leads a day is what, 100, 120 leads a month?

So, yeah, so what happens when someone says, oh, the. The baby birdie. Google leads are. Are. Are not here. What's up with that? What do you say to those guys?

Yeah, I make fun of that. You know, most salespeople are order takers. They're waiting for the, the Google gods to feed them a lead, right? They're like baby birds with their mouths open in the nest going, feed me, feed me, feed me. If you're like that, you're not a salesperson, you're an order taker. Get off your ass. Build your own book of business. You know, dude, I used to drive down the road when I had our painting business. I'd see a remodeler drive by. I'm like, hey, I don't know. That guy would literally just dial the phone. And I go, hey, you guys got named Doug. I called once, hey, you on Route 59 right now in the truck. And he's like, he laughed. He goes, yeah. And I said, well, hey, you build stuff and I paint stuff. I just thought we should know each other. He started chuckling. We met an hour later at his house, and I became their only painter because they just fired. This never happens, by the way, right? Like, it just what I created. My people go, it's lucky, because he fired his painter like an hour before I called his truck. Okay. His number. Well, and somebody said to me, like, oh, you were lucky. I'm like, no, I did that every day.

Exactly.

You know what I mean? I made my. And those opportunities come up. Well, that was like a half a million dollar a year account because I picked the phone up.

Exactly.

You know, and I didn't wait for Google. I didn't wait for a referral.

Exactly.

So you gotta be fanatical about building your own leads, man.

I completely agree. We were talking about jobbers. So this is a crazy story about being tenacious. Tenacious and going at it. So I was in jobbers Facebook group for a year, adding value into the group. Not selling, just adding value, giving stuff. A year later, they called me and said, hey, we want you to be on our podcast and fly you out to Las Vegas. All because I put in the work every single day. I wasn't trying to take, take, take. And eventually I got lucky and they reached out to me. Oh, how about that? It's about doing the work in and out that people are so lazy. They always want Google to feed me, feed me.

Yeah, it's, you know, I. I'm. I'm wired a little differently. I work 365 days a year. Like, and I don't. I don't mean like, I go clock in, but I'm saying, like, I will Send at least 3 messages a day to people in my database year round. I'll just, you know, know I have days off and Stuff like that. But like that non negotiable task is I'm going to connect with people in my database, I'm going to text somebody and go, hey, I, you know, appreciate you coming to our event last year and you know, how's your business doing, man? Hit me back when you get a minute. It's just those touches throughout you. You guys build or fix something for somebody, text them a month or two or six or 12 months later and just go, hey, how's the thing looking? Yeah, have those conversations. And we found that when you do that on an annual basis, about 5% of those of the total that you do annually turn into another job.

Yep.

Okay, so if you do that three times a day, you know, even just the working days of the year, that's about 800 of those a year. That's 40 new jobs that times your average job size. Free leads, free work, all because you got off your ass and you were consistent.

Yeah, I completely agree. We have a saying at Flash, you can't get lifetime value if you don't have a lifetime relationship. So what are you doing to build that lifetime relationship? To your point, Text them, call them, send them an email newsletter, reach out to them, stop by their house when you're in your neighborhood. Like that is really what it takes, is like you can't expect people to just come back into your funnel unless if you never touch base with them and build a relationship.

Most contractors and service companies are treating it like a one night stand. You know, they get in, they get out and they move on and they look for the next customer and they don't realize that they got millions of dollars right under their nose in their own database.

Exactly. Cross selling services, adding on new services, building affiliate partnerships with, you know, the guy that builds stuff. There's so many things that people could do. So, so what do you think are some of the biggest changes coming in the industry as far as like contractors, technology, AI, all this stuff, you seeing anything that's game changing with that?

You know, obviously AI is going to have a big impact in things and I, I'm not a tech guy by any means, but I, you know, we've got a couple irons in the fire that, that are looking to take advantage and do some things more efficiently in the, in the industry through AI. Yeah, I actually believe that, you know, and again, I'm not anti technology. I'm not one of these, you know, I'm 54, I'm not one of these old geezers. It's like, you know, Back in my day and you know, all that. But one of the things that I see as an edge for people is that who really want to win more is going to be their, their, the personal touch. Like we've become so automated as a society. You need an app for everything. You need a login for everything. You know, my, my wife goes to one of her doctors and you know, they're always like, download our app. And she's like, no, I would like to pick the phone up and call you when I want an appointment. Like, you know, it's just, I don't need another app to manage, I don't need this and that, you know what I'm saying? So I just think leaning into that personal relationship, you know, when we send these messages, we don't send them by bulk through our emails or it's literally a text going, hey Phil, man, we built that thing for you last year. How's it looking, Tom? Yeah, you know, like it's personal. And I think those that lean into the discipline of that human touch and really going deeper into that are going to actually have an edge and they're going to make more money again. I'm not saying you don't have automations and things like that, but I just think that's where I feel it going because everybody I know, the friends we have and this and that, they're tired of not talking to human beings.

I totally agree. That's actually why I call the company Flash Consulting, because a lot of digital marketing companies is just automated emails and reports that get sent out to people. There's no human touch. There's no, hey, pick up the phone and text me or call me or emails or meetings. It's just automated marketing stuff. So I'm like, there needs to be some human touch. And I completely agree that contractors can fall into that trap and then you lose the edge of what makes you different, of who you are, what, what, what you're about. It's hard to articulate that when you don't have that human touch.

Yeah. And you know, they're like, listen, there are some people, my wife's one of them. Like she's not an email person. So you could be sending her emails all day with your, with your business stuff. She's not gonna see them.

Yep.

Like she does everything she can to avoid her email. And there are a lot of people. And listen, we're in our 50s and again, I'm just trying to paint a picture. Like we, we have money, we're in our 50s, we have things we want to do around the house and this and that. But you know what? You're going to need a different approach than email if you want to reach the queen.

Yeah, right.

You're going to need to pick the phone up. You're going to need to come knock on the door, you know, like, hey, I was in the area, we did your project last year. I just wanted to swing by and look at it. You know, how the things going. Like that personal touch.

Yes.

It's worth millions of dollars.

That's right. And guess what? Those people that want that personal touch, they're the people that pay more money. They're not nickel and diamond, you fighting you on price. They want that level of service and that's what they expect and they're willing to spend money for that. I agree. As we're wrapping up here, so what are some books, podcasts, resources? Anything significant that's been an impact from a business perspective, life perspective?

You know, your timing is terrible asking this question because I'm kind of doing my own content fast, if that makes sense.

Okay.

I, you know, every now and then I just, I shut off all the outside noise. I don't read anything, I don't listen anything because I, I want me to be talking to me. I've learned to trust myself. And if I have too many of these voices coming in. Now, that being said, I mean, I'm. I'm looking over at my, my bookcase now. I mean, I've, you know, I've got every book under the sun. You know, there's the, well, there's, there's my book Winning the Contractor Fight. My next one comes out in, in the fall. It's called Sell Unafraid. I mean, you got Uncommon Leadership by Ben Newman is a great book. You got buy back your time. I mean, you know, all the books. Right. You know, I think, you know, we, we all have our, our thing, you know, podcasts and stuff. You know, I've, you know, I'm an Ed Mylet fan and, you know, MF CEO and this and that. I, I think what I'm learning to do is, like I said, when I shut off the content for a while, and it's usually just for a few weeks, you know, like, instead of having earbuds in on a podcast, when I go for a walk or something, I just go in silence and I let, I, I just hear myself, right?

Yes.

And one of the other things I've learned is that I'm not interested in consuming content that's not in line with something I'm currently working on personally.

Yes.

So let's say I'm working on being better at building our brand and the contractor fight. I'm only going to read books or consume things that have to do with that.

Yes.

You know, having clarity around what I'm trying to accomplish through it.

Yeah, I, I love Andy Frisella and it's kind of similar to what you're saying that like some of his episodes are not about business and it's hard. Like, I like listening to the guy. He seems like a great guy, but that stuff doesn't align with where I'm at going for right now, so. But. But yeah, I agree. And Ed Bylet. Yeah. What a good dude. Cool. Well, thanks so much for sharing. Where should people get in contact? Contractor fight. Get your book. What should they do next to get in contact with you?

Yeah. Head to TheContractorFight.com and get everything there. And if they want to connect on Instagram, you know, with me personally, it's at Real Tom Reber. We also have a contractor fight Instagram, but at Real Tom Reavers, where I'm at. And, you know, appreciate you having me today.

Yeah. Awesome. Tom, any. Any parting words or final things you want to say to any contractors or anything?

Yeah, it's about discipline. You know, everything you wants. On the other side of you being disciplined, you're not where you want to be right now because you lack discipline plan in a certain area of your life. So here, my last challenge for you is this. I want you to identify the number one discipline that you have control over. That is a daily discipline. That when you do it, you win more in your business. Okay. So it could be prospecting, right? Whatever. Like I talked. I send those three messages a day like clockwork, year round. Okay. Once you identify that, now I want you to rate yourself on the last 30 days. How'd you do on that? Daily discipline? On a scale of 1 to 10, over the last 30 days, most of you are going to be under a 4 or 5 if you're honest with yourself. Okay. And so that's the thing to work on, that's the thing to fix. Get it up to where it's truly a non negotiable. If it's having a check in meeting, like if I have a check in meeting with my project manager every day for 15 minutes first thing in the morning, right. We have a conversation. We talk about the plan for the day and we recap it for a 10, 15 minute conversation on the drive home with each other, whatever is. It could be something that simple. Would I do that? We win more in business then freaking do that. Right. Don't blow that stuff off. So whatever it is, it's. It's your thing. But it's got to be something you're in control over, you know? It's not like, oh, because of inflation, I can't do this. That's. Yeah. So.

No, no, no, no. Well, there you have it, folks. If you want it bad enough, you'll find a way. If not, you'll find an excuse. Tom Reber. Stay disciplined. I appreciate. Made it. Take care. Have a great day.

Thanks, Phil. Appreciate you, man.

All right.