Roofing Success
The Roofing Success Podcast is a show created to inspire roofing contractors to achieve optimal success in their roofing businesses. The host, Jim Ahlin, is the co-author of the book, "Internet Marketing For Roofing Contractors, How to TRIPLE Your Sales and Turn Your Roofing Website Into an Online Lead Generation Machine", and Co-Founder of Roofer Marketers, the Digital Marketing Agency for the roofing industry. On each episode, Jim will be sitting down with industry leaders to talk about their processes, the lessons they learned, and how to find success in roofing.
Roofing Success
How to Scale Your Roofing Company WITHOUT More Leads or Sales Reps with Jonathan Cronstedt
Most owners think scaling means more leads… or hiring more reps. But that’s wrong.
In this episode, you’ll learn a whole new way to grow your roofing company WITHOUT chasing more leads or building a bigger sales team.
Jay “Jcron” Kronstedt helped Kajabi grow from $6M to $2 BILLION. Now, he’s sharing his 7 P’s of business growth — and how they apply to roofing.
You’ll discover:
- Why most roofing companies never get real leverage
- The 2 types of PURPOSE (and how to use both to win)
- How to grow WITHOUT more marketing or sales reps
- A simple test to see if your customer experience is strong enough
- Why sales and marketing often hide the REAL problem
- How to build a business that THRIVES… even if you turned off sales today
https://www.jcron.com/
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What if scaling your roofing business wasn't about more leads, bigger ad budgets or hiring more sales reps? Jonathan Kronstadt, better known as J Kron, helped take Kajabi from $6 million to a $2 billion powerhouse, and today he's breaking down the seven key principles that fuel massive, scalable business growth that he outlines in his book, the Billion Dollar Blueprint. In this episode, we're going to talk about the seven P's of business growth and how they apply to roofing, why most roofing companies fail to create real leverage and how to fix that, and how to build a business that thrives, even if you turn off sales and marketing today or tomorrow. If you're running a roofing company and want to scale sustainably without constantly chasing the next sale, this is an episode you can't afford to miss. Let's dive in with Jonathan Pronstead. Welcome to the Roofing Success Podcast. I'm Jim Alleyne and I'm here to bring you insights from top leaders in the roofing industry to help you grow and scale your roofing business. Jonathan Kronstadt, jay Kron, how are you today, man?
Speaker 2:You know any better. I'd be two people. I mean, come on.
Speaker 1:I'm on the Roofing Success Podcast. This is a great start to my day. Well, that's awesome, because it's great to have you here.
Speaker 2:You are probably not a name synonymous with the roofing industry but Well, depending on how much software or creator commerce takes place in the roofing world, you're probably pretty correct.
Speaker 1:That's right, that's right, and so from, from the marketing perspective, high roofing world.
Speaker 2:it's very nice to meet you officially, so there you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, introduce, this is J Cron roofing world. So I know you from the marketing side of things, man, you, you were the CEO of a digital marketer. You know CEO of Kajabi also, correct?
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, president of Kajabi Kenny, when you were a CEO, I was president, got it President of Kajabi, which is an amazing marketing platform, and have done a lot of cool things. And then you wrote a really cool book that resonated with me. My friend Jody turned me on to it and I was like, oh, this is really cool. One of the things that I got from it and the book is called the Billion Dollar Bullseye and one of the things I got from it was, wow, that's a lot how I think, but framed better than I think it.
Speaker 2:I'm honored. I'm honored, and actually I don't know that I could think of a higher praise than it immediately resonates, but hopefully any framework that prompts you to use how you think more often.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was very. It really provided some clarity to some of the things that I man, I, I, yeah, I believe in this. I, I, I, I explain this to people this way, but in this fashion, um, it's different. So let's talk a little bit about yourself. Give the roofing industry your your formal introduction, and, uh, and, and, and, and what you're doing now, and then let's get into the, the, the core principles that you outlined in the book.
Speaker 2:Sounds great. Well, roofing industry. Great to meet you. My full name is Jonathan Cronstead, but since we're now friends let's go with J Cron. It's the nickname that came about about 15 years ago and it simply stuck Very inventive, first initial half of my last name, not a whole lot to it, it's like J-Lo, but without any of the street cred. So it's something that has always stuck with me and hopefully, as I get a chance to do a lot more in the home services world, you're going to be hearing a lot more from me and hopefully looking forward to it.
Speaker 2:So the way that I got here was a bit interesting. I moved to Southern California when I was 15 years old, moved from the Midwest Northwest suburbs of Chicago for anybody familiar, and that was kind of my start, my Midwest roots. Coming out to the West Coast. I was introduced to a level of lifestyle that, candidly, I'd never experienced and I said, man, I better bring my A game if I'm going to participate out here in California. My dad was always in sales, so that sort of brought me into this sales universe and I remember my earliest jobs were telemarketing. I sold vocabulary, building tapes and conversational confidence. I sold timeshares Anything you can imagine, on the phone. Up until starting college I was selling and then in college, met one of my earliest mentors by dropping a note in a Lamborghini Diablo in a parking lot and through a variety of conversations he's like let's up that sales game. He introduced me to the general manager of a Fletcher Jones Motor Cars, the largest Mercedes dealer here in Newport Beach, and they were starting a phone sales room. So that took my phone sales up another level, now selling Mercedes, which led to me taking that phone sales skill into selling mortgages, which was going masterfully well right until about 2007 hit. And in 2007, thinking I was really smart, not realizing I was really talented, but very lucky, I had 100% financed a bunch of real estate. The business is gone, the income is gone, all of the homes are now underwater and I'm left picking up the pieces, and so the most humbling moment of my life was probably helping my parents move out of a home I had bought for them to live in. That was definitely one of the tougher moments and that led me into this world of marketing.
Speaker 2:So I started in the digital education space, primarily on the customers, creating digital education like Digital Marketer, which then led me into my Kajabi timeline with Kenny. Met Kenny about six months after Kajabi was started in 2010. Consulted with them for six months, they dumped me to work with Frank Kern, another very famous marketer, and then, after dumping me, they hired me back as VP of Business Development, which lasted all of three days, as I got the CEO offer of digital marketer. You know. Quit at that point and then, in 2016, fast forward, I am in office. On Monday, I was renting an office from Kajabi because they had extra space.
Speaker 2:Kenny walks in asks me how my weekend was. I said you know, not a great one. I'm not moving to Dallas to continue working in success magazine. I got to figure out what I'm going to do next and he said well, you've grown a lot, we've grown a lot. I really feel like I have something here that could be unbelievable, like taken to the moon, exciting. But I need somebody that's going to help me do that. And I said you know what, let's talk about it. He said I agree, it's going to be easier than moving your shit out of the office. So that was the beginning of that conversation in September of 2016. We were about 25 team members, about $6 million a year in revenue and five years later, looking back, we had achieved north of $100 million in revenue, 400 team members and a $2 billion valuation with Tiger Global, tpg, owl Rock, meritech, tidemark and Spectrum TPG, owl Rock, meritech, tidemark and Spectrum. So an incredible, incredible journey, and that was kind of my experience that became the foundation for what is now the billion dollar bullseye and aspects of what I'm excited to talk about today as it relates to the opportunities I see in the home service world.
Speaker 2:Sure so, the way that I like to share this book is through the metaphor of playing darts, and if you were to ask somebody the best way to win at darts, they're going to tell you that it's to be good at darts. You know, get good at throwingarts. I'm going to say that is true, but I would actually prefer to just throw it a much larger bullseye than anybody else. And so the idea of these seven Ps is designed to create aligned leverage in an organization where all seven areas are actually improving each other, resulting in exponential growth. So we start at the center with purpose, then profit, then product those core three, without which you pretty much don't have a business. Then we move into the amplifiers of prestige, promotion, persuasion and people, which is your customer experience, your marketing, your sales and the people that drive those systems. And so those are the seven areas of focus that I would put forth you want to pursue in order to maximize that aligned leverage concept of becoming that growth engine for your business. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:And so I think we just jump right in into purpose. Let's start with the first P of purpose. Into purpose. Let's start with the first P of purpose. And for the audience, though just to just to pull it back a bit, you know when, when J Krohn talks about, like, the size of the companies and things like that, these are fundamentals. Man, when I read this book it was like this is the, these are the real, true fundamentals of business. So I so don't take these as, oh, that's for a big software company, that's for a big right, like these are some really core things around your business. So let's start with purpose, because you know everyone talks about that. You got to know your, why you have your, your culture and your company has to be there for you know, chasing the same goal and and all of those kind of cliche things. What are your thoughts around purpose?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm so glad you asked and it's actually very much why I am excited about talking to the roofing world today, because my core belief is that entrepreneurship, in any form is the single most transformational force we have in our society. And, given how fragmented and polarized politics are, I believe that entrepreneurship may be the only thing we have left that could save it. So, anything I can be doing to support entrepreneurs, big or small, that is my favorite, favorite thing to do. And these core concepts don't come out of a oh, I'm a software entrepreneur. These core concepts come out of three and a half years of me working to answer the question that everybody asks when you get to a $2 billion valuation is how did you do that? How did it happen? How did those machines play together to create that outcome? And I would actually say to anybody listening these seven P's apply to any business, regardless of the industry, regardless of the macroeconomic trends. I believe you will find that true through line. That will impact your business if you let it. So, if we dive into purpose, I separate purpose into two things Because my guess is you've probably heard of purpose before.
Speaker 2:You've probably read a couple of books on purpose. I'm going to tell you that there are two types of purpose that matter internal and external. Internal purpose is what you are doing this for, what gets you out of bed personally and this is one where I see so many entrepreneurs make a mistake, where they feel like they have to select a purpose for themselves that is shareable, that is social media appropriate, that is able to be jammed into core values and mission vision statements, and something you can share with employees. The reason I don't like that is because your internal purpose might just be I want to get rich, I want a boat. I want to get rich, I want a boat. I want a vacation home. I want a car that looks like a spaceship. I want to travel whenever I want. If that is your internal purpose, if that is what gets you out of bed in the morning, that is totally okay and you shouldn't feel shame for it. You shouldn't feel judged for it. You shouldn't feel like you have to check your privilege or whatever baggage is around that driving you personally.
Speaker 2:In my book, the Internal Purpose you define it however you want, because you're the person getting up out of bed driving this boat every day the second type of purpose is going to be the external purpose. External purpose is going to be entirely around the transformative experience you provide for your customer. So think about external purpose as what you do or who you do it for. That is your external purpose. Now I know you're wondering well, okay, wait a second. Here I've got my internal driver. What gets me out of that? And I've got my external driver, which is how are my customers liking what we're doing for them? How excited are they for the experience that we provide? What about the purpose for employees?
Speaker 2:This is where, again, my experience is different, in that I don't think you can actually get employees to buy into purpose outside of allowing them to raise their hand and say I'm excited about your external purpose, I'm excited about the people you serve and I want to be a part of serving them, driven by my internal purpose. So they have their reason for doing it, which often is not at all tied into a mission, vision, value statement that none of your employees can remember. And they're going to do it because they like who they're doing it for the end customer. So that's where internal and external purpose kind of plays in my world and it's one of the reasons why I hate mission, vision, value statements and a lot of the flowery things are exercises that companies go through that have tons of time, tons of resources are completely forgotten, put up on a wall and never read again Tons of time, tons of resources are completely forgotten, put up on a wall and never read again.
Speaker 1:I think that's the. Those are some great things there. I love the differentiation between internal and external purposes, and and and when I heard it in the Reddit well, I heard it in the books. I listened to the, to the audio version, cause that's how I listen, that's how I get through books fastest. Because that's how I listen, that's how I get through books fastest, and and it really made me think, like there is such, there are such different intentions in our purpose, right, we?
Speaker 1:Someone you may not know, but you'll know soon in the roofing industry I had him on recently, nathan Tebido, and I had a conversation about this recently. Like he's a, he's a coach. He coaches roofing companies contractor, coach, pro, and, and and he in the beginning he sits down and he gets to that. That, that that roofing business owners, why? And their goals, revenue, you know revenue goals and then, well, why do you want to make a half a million dollars a year? What? What goes into that? And really digging deep into that? That's, that's that owner's true purpose, right, it's not the. How many roofs, how many homeowners we can help put roofs on right Like it's not.
Speaker 1:There is a separation between our internal purpose and our external purpose. I also really love the framing that you know. I mean they really don't care a lot. Most employees don't care, even if they can recite your core values. And I do want them to recite our core values. I do want them to align thanks between the organization to our core values. I want to be able to have a conversation of hey, is what you're doing right now in alignment with our core values? But the core values is that external purpose. That's the power in it, it's the service of the customer. So I's that, so I love that. Any thoughts on how to find I guess we'll get it, we're going to get into people later but thoughts on how to, how to make sure your external purpose resonates with your team, or that you have the right team that is resonating with your external purpose.
Speaker 2:Great question. So the way that we talk about this in the book and the only way that I believe purpose can be utilized as a magnetization or a pull force of having people excited to join your company is talking about that purpose in public and helping them understand that that external purpose is a vehicle for their internal purpose. That if your purpose as a roofing company is to be viewed as the best and most trusted brand in roofing in your market because of unbelievable customer experience, that is an amazing external purpose. And if your team knows that by creating that and being willing to stand at that level of standard, that they are going to make more than anybody else and that they are going to be creating the life that they want, they're going to care about that external purpose not because of any reason other than it helps them achieve their internal purpose. That this idea, I think for most businesses and don't get me wrong, like if you're working for the Red Cross, hey, there's a different purpose to be had, there is a different mission to be had there.
Speaker 2:I think the greatest disservice to most businesses is we've tried to shoehorn this idea of purpose into this, calling this martyrdom of like. Well, you have to lose everything more than anything to work here and it's like dude, I love my family, I love my paycheck, I love my weekends. That's what I love. I do this because I like it and I know that, if people like me, I'm going to do better at this to do more of the things I love.
Speaker 2:But the idea that we're somehow going to drag people into this service element, I don't think it's possible and I think that we would all be so much better served if we just here to win and if our brand is great, that is an amplification or a multiplication of your ability to win because you're in this brand. So it's very much putting the things in the right places and being willing to talk about them authentically. It's one of those things where it's like there might be some people that are in home services businesses that they truly love what they do, like they're the engineer personality, like they're the person that's talking about the newest technology and cement roof tiles for anti-flame retardant roofs, like they're. They're in it and they love it and that's awesome. But there is no way on god's good green earth you are going to scale an organization full of just that guy. So that's kind of my take.
Speaker 1:That reminds me of my friend John Cenac, john the Roof Pro. He is a shingles expert. He was sitting on a plane flying from event to event and the person next to him asked hey, what are you doing? He said I'm a shingles expert and the person thought he was a doctor. But you will not get a lot of John Sienak's on your team and my audience knows who he is. He loves the technology of everything about that aspect of roofing right. So you're not going to get those people. Most people are not John C Nacks. Now let's talk a little bit about profit.
Speaker 2:Wow, we got to have that one right, my favorite. Yeah, the easiest way to talk about profit is very simple, and if I had a visual aid, profit is very simple and if I had a visual aid, I would put it up. But I want you to think of no numbers, no business, kno, kno versus no numbers, no business, nono. And what I want you to visualize is, if you don't know your numbers and if you are not managing to those numbers, don't know your numbers. And if you are not managing to those numbers, you're almost better off not being in business, because all you're really doing is amplify liability. You're out there, you're busy, you're doing things and your chances of having money left at the end of the month go down precipitously the further you live from those numbers.
Speaker 2:And this is the part about business that, for many people, the sad truth. This is the eating your vegetables part. This is the part where it's like, oh man, I don't want to do accounting, I don't want to know my numbers. Well, I'm not going to ask you to be an accountant. And bear in mind, coming out of the software as a service world. I lived in that universe of more metrics than you can manage or count slide decks that are great reading material if you have trouble sleeping. It is the level of math that is really horrible to even dive into.
Speaker 2:I'm simply saying just know your top line, know what the bottom line is supposed to be, know what your average order value or average job value is and just do spot checks, just like every couple of days or every week. Hey, how are we tracking? How are we looking? Find those compass points for you and for your business that feel appropriate given your size and complexity, to make sure you're on the right path. Because if you measure daily, you only have bad dates. If you measure weekly, you only have bad weeks. But if you measure monthly, sure you're on the right path. Because if you measure daily, you only have bad dates. If you measure weekly, you only have bad weeks, but if you measure monthly, you're going to have bad months.
Speaker 1:If you measure yearly, you're going to have bad years, and if you don't measure at all, god help you. Yeah, I loved that. I think it was chapter two or something like that. No numbers, no business, no numbers, no business Like that one. It was such a resonator. A lot of people you know in the roofing and home services industries. You know we start from. You know just, small business, right, it's it's. You were either on the sales side or you were on the production side's. It's. You were either either on the sales side or you were on the production side, and you know you were a technician or or or a salesperson and and the business of business is not there, right? We're not thinking about that. So simplifying the metrics is what I'm hearing from you. You don't need to be.
Speaker 2:I want to make this be something that you actually I'm not going to say enjoy, because, let's be honest, there's a lot more exciting things to do than numbers but something that the reward is so good that you can't not do as Vanessa Underhill. Not do that as Vanessa Underhill, jody's wife, always says, the money's in the math and unfortunately, that's just the truth. Any roofing company I come into, first thing I'm looking at are the financials, absolute first thing. How heavy are our working capital requirements? How quick are our collection cycles? How are our margins? You know, top and bottom. How are we doing on managing costs, overruns, like?
Speaker 2:I'm going to look at numbers immediately, because what that is is that's the diagnosis, that's your. Are you running a temperature? You know? Let's look at your blood work, your cholesterol, like. Those are the things that tell you where to look and what to fix. And if you ever talk to somebody that's coming to your business other than hiring them for a very specific reason and they don't start with the numbers, they probably don't know what they're doing. Yeah, and it's one of those things. If you treat them like they don't matter, you get to treat them that way until they matter more than anything else and likely end up crushing.
Speaker 1:That's right that you will fall under the weight of not knowing those numbers. You said something that really resonated with me. Moving on to product, if you turned off sales and marketing, would you have a business turned?
Speaker 2:off sales and marketing, would you have a business? Yeah, so this actually comes out of a tremendous personal pain point. So in the book we talk about this story where we're growing, we're scaling, there's growth everywhere. How do we catch it, how do we make it happen? And I mean, we're psyched. This is that season of business where you're like, oh my gosh, we built it for this, this is so cool.
Speaker 2:And we were spending a million dollars a month in advertising, which I mean don't get me wrong, it sounds like an absolute fortune and it was even for a company of our size. It was a ton of dollars. And so, as we're spending a million dollars a month, our marketing team is sucked, man. I mean, they are bringing in the spreadsheets and the presentations. Oh my gosh, if we just drag this formula, check out where we're going to be, how awesome is this. And we're, you know, we're pretty excited about it. But the gut intuition was just like, you know, I don't know that this feels right. And then marketing teams like well, what do you mean? We have all the you know, attribution models, which is a fancy way of saying, well, this is where our clicks and dollars are coming from and you're going to find out about marketing. It's a really great place to be very busy and get very little done. So we just basically said you know what? Turn it all off. We want to see if it's actually working. They're like what do you mean? It's working like crazy. And it's like well, if we're wrong, you get the right to say we told you so and we will just double up the ad, spend next month to catch up because we're bootstrapped profitable. We don't have anybody looking over our shoulder. Shut it off. Sure enough, shut it off. Our growth rate continued unchanged for 30 days, which means we were essentially setting a million dollars a month on fire. We would have actually gotten more results filming setting a million dollars on fire. I bet that would have gone viral more than our marketing was generating at the time. And so the reason that I asked that question of if you woke up tomorrow morning and sales and marketing were made illegal, what would happen to your business. If your answer is dear God, we're done, that's a good indicator. And the reason it's a good indicator is because it means that your customer experience is not prompting more growth of the world of home services of any kind.
Speaker 2:The product in many ways can be somewhat undifferentiated. As long as I get a door, I've got a door, no matter who puts it in Now. Is there some nuance to that? Absolutely, there is going to be the quality of the experience, the quality of the technician, the quality of the hardware. There's innumerable variables in there, but as far as this idea of I need something done, it's not super differentiated.
Speaker 2:And so in a market that isn't super differentiated, the customer experience has such a gigantic, gigantic leverage point in any business, because that's going to be a customer that if you do a new roof for them and you're not going to see them for 20 years, how many people over the course of 20 years are going to be a customer that if you do a new roof for them and you're not going to see them for 20 years, how many people over the course of 20 years are going to say, oh, yeah, I got to get my roof done. Or oh, I mean, like it happened to me this week, this week we have torrential rain in Southern California and of course I got a roof leak. So, asking around, hey guys, yeah, you know, every roofer right now is backed up busy. I don't know who to call and do any of you know a roofer? Because right now my roof is leaking onto? I already lost a Wi-Fi access point that was in the ceiling because it was dripping into it. Help me out, what do I do?
Speaker 2:I didn't necessarily go to Yelp or go to all of the places. You would think I started with asking my friends I need someone that you trust that can get here quickly, because Yelp is telling me everyone's booked. If you're not leveraging that experience, or if you're relying on sales and marketing, if something changes or an algorithm changes or Yelp ad rates change or Facebook or wherever your advertising changes, you're out of luck because you are so dependent on that channel and that channel might not even be what's driving your business. So that's where I think that idea of focusing in on how the product and how the experience can be differentiators, because if you nail that, then all marketing does is add horsepower to that vehicle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what it really made me think of as I was reading it on the software side it's the fancy term is product market fit. Right, like we need product market fit, we need product market fit. In a commoditized business like home services roofing, siding, gutters, windows, there's there is not a significant differentiator between a company that installs each a lot of times, and it was just that the yeah, we in in software, jim, to your point.
Speaker 2:We've got product market set in your market. You have people market set like it's. It's the same pmf, it's just slightly different, because the bottom line is, if everyone's using the same tile, the only difference between the company that gets the referral and the company that gets shit on on all the online reviews is the person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that People market fit. So now that's what we're striving for right In this industry it's people market fit and in product market fit there are measurements to determine if you have product market fit. How would a roofing contractor determine if they have people market fit?
Speaker 2:I would say I would look initially at your reviews. What are people saying about you online? My favorite definition of brand and there's a lot of them my favorite definition of brand is your brand is what people say about you when you're not around. Favorite definition of brand is your brand is what people say about you when you're not around. That if you see reviews that are calling out and this is a bit nuanced, so you might have a great program really encouraging people to leave glowing reviews and if you do, rock on, that's super helpful. But if you start seeing people mentioning the name of the technician, finding out why they're mentioning his name and talking to him about how he's having an experience, that is good enough that he's getting mentioned in the review. It's not just. You know, roofers are us. It's Nick with roofers are us. That changed my life, saved my day. You know, my daughter's room is no longer a swamp because of this guy. So I would start with the reviews, because that's going to be kind of let's call it your divining rod. That's going to be where you begin to find those differentiators, either in the experience or in the person providing the experience that you can then dig into, amplify and multiply. That's for sure where I would start. And then I think the let's call it so. Reviews are one source, then referrals how many times are you getting a phone call which, by the way, if you know, in your scripting you're not asking how'd you hear about us? Now's the time to start asking how'd you hear about us? Because if it's a referral, you want to know and if it's a referral about a specific technician again dividing rod there's another potential area of riches that we get to dive in, learn about and put out organization-wide.
Speaker 2:So much of this is simply finding out what works and doing more of it. I can't tell you how many companies have success in an area and it works so well. They never did it again. Well, why didn't you? Well, you know we already tried it. It was boring. We're like why didn't you just do it again? Well, I mean, you know we wanted to do something different. Yeah, but that works Well, but you know we just wanted to do something different. So the biggest secret I've learned is massive success is elusive to most because it's really, really boring. It is not hyper-innovation, it is not having a product so good. That Don't get me wrong. Steve Jobs yeah, totally, he did that. But I mean, I'm not Steve Jobs. I don't know how many Steve Jobs there are, but there is so much more success to be had by being the and I can use a random example of the guy that built Alcoa, one of the largest, you know, us conglomerates in the consumer space.
Speaker 2:And this was a guy that when he got hired, the board was furious because he has this big, you know coming out party of. He's hired. What's his plan, what's his vision? And he's like we're going to work on reducing factory injuries. And everyone's like, oh God, what have we done? Like we have hired the biggest nerd. We are going to lose so much money. This is going to go so terribly for us. And the guy shot the lights out for two decades Because what he knew was workplace injuries were indications of bad processes and if those processes improved, the prices could go down. And if the prices went down, the market share could go up. So what he really did is he went back to this works and I can manage to it and it changed everything. This is that it's just simply asking a question, digging into it and finding a way to amplify and multiply it across the organization.
Speaker 1:And I love how you frame it too, and we'll probably get to this as you're talking, but in that, if you turn off your sales and marketing, these are the core things that your customers are experiencing. Now, moving on to the fourth P, which is prestige, which I think that really leads to, especially from a brand perspective. So talk to us about prestige.
Speaker 2:Totally so. I mean and this is one that I think in the world of home services, product and prestige is intertwined that you would be hard pressed outside of, like I want a very specific type of tile for my roof because I live in a fire prone area, or I want a Euro line door and that's the only thing I want, and there's only one guy that sells Euro line doors. The product and the prestige is inseparable. That these are things that my judging of the quality of any of the aspects of my home service is going to be solely judged through the quality of the interaction and aspects of my home service is going to be solely judged through the quality of the interaction and outcome with the person that is installing or servicing that item. So prestige is going to very much be auditing that customer experience. And I mean, you know, let me take it down to brass tacks, because I don't want this to feel like, oh my gosh, I can't do that. I want you to experience your experience, that's it. It's like the stupidest thing in the world. And guess what? Nobody does this, nobody Like. If you're listening to this right now and you're like, oh, I do that every week, I want you to email me and tell me I'm full of shit because I don't believe it. Or hit me on Twitter, linkedin, whatever you want. Flay me any channel you'd like. The reality of it is when's the last time you called your own service number during work hours? When's the last time you called your own service number during after work hours? When is the last time you went through putting in a lead to see how the lead gets handled, or how long the service experience goes, and circling back with a customer post service to see how it went for them? And not in the lazy hey, just send out an email way. But like truly experiencing your experience, and so the two examples that I want to give on this are number one a lead responded to in 60 seconds is worth eight times the amount of a lead that's responded to after 60 seconds. So if you're sending someone to an automated press one voicemail and you're sending them to leave a message, you're already done, so that's an easy win.
Speaker 2:But when you think about Walt Disney, walt Disney is probably the greatest experience auditor on the planet, and so let's think about where Disney audits their experience. They don't start at the ticket line when you buy your ticket. They don't start at the ticket line when you buy your ticket. They don't start at the parking lot. Those would be areas where most small business owners are like well, I'm just in the park and I'm going to see what happens. That's early stage. Hey, I'm trying this. Then middle stages yeah, I'm going to start at the ticket line when they buy a ticket to come in and I'm going to audit the experience from there and someone's like oh, you know, I'm going to be. I'm going to be advanced level. I'm going to start in the parking lot where they park and then what's it like to park, to get to the ticket booth, to get into the park and everything that happens. That's the advanced level. The Walt Disney level is I'm going to start with the city of Anaheim and I'm going to start with the city of Anaheim and I'm going to sit down with their city planners to rework the freeways, to make sure that getting to Disneyland is the easiest possible exit imaginable, no matter where you're coming from in Southern California.
Speaker 2:So what level can you take this to? The answer is whatever level is most effective for the size of business you have. So if right now you are two guys in a truck. I would tell you to just call your service line and your after hours line once a month, check in on the process, see how it's going. If you're starting to look at seven figures or eight figures annually, this is something that you're going to want to invest heavily in, because at that stage you're relying on systems, technology and people to deliver the experience that you would have manually been able to supplement.
Speaker 2:So this is an area where, as the business grows, the medium and advanced and beyond levels of auditing that prestigious experience become more and more important.
Speaker 2:And what I think is challenging is most people, the more successful they get, the less they do it, because it's like, well, you know, we're good enough. And that's what happens when all of a sudden, you wake up and you lost 20% market share to a new startup that you hadn't even heard of, and it's like how the hell did that happen? How did we not see them coming? My bet is they just answered the phone when you didn't. That's it. And guess what? With AI I mean, we were talking about that, jim, just before we hopped on the phone today. With AI, there is no excuse that I have a phone call answered ever for any reason, plain and simple, unless you hate money. But so prestigious customer experience is a priority in any business and in the case of an undifferentiated product, prestige is the single greatest lever you have by far. If your prestige is great, your marketing is going to outperform, your sales are going to be easy and your people are going to be thrilled.
Speaker 1:Yeah, check out the Power Up Agents link in the description for more on AI voice and how you can solve that problem or work towards that solution. It really is that response time, it's the experience and it starts there For a lot of my listeners. Maybe they've seen me at an event and I do a really extensive presentation around the customer journey and customer journey mapping and defining where and looking for those opportunities and it's a continuous. What I love that experience auditor framework to it. Yeah, of you know, like, just take a sliver of the business right.
Speaker 1:Just take a sliver of the business and and and really determine what's going on there. What, man, if I you know, sit in the customer's shoes for a while.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite things to do is experience your experience, but also watch your own experience. So, like, for example, Jim, you and I we're in businesses that the prestige really matters, and I bet at some point our companies have just sent out emails to ask for a survey or ask for feedback or ask for something. And so my question to myself is how often do I respond to surveys that are emailed to me to talk about my experience? The answer is never, so it's like here I am doing the exact thing that I don't do, and if I don't ask, well, maybe I'm weird and I'm the only one that ignores them. Totally possible. And if I am weird and I'm the only one that ignores them, then it's okay because it's working and it's working well. But if I'm ignoring, probably should look into it because it means that other people like me are ignoring them. So maybe that means I don't wait until a survey email to ask for the experience.
Speaker 2:I literally have gift cards in my pocket as a technician for Starbucks and it's just like hey, I want you to know this job was really a pleasure. Our business is based on. Reputation matters more to us than anything else. I know that you hopefully had a good time with me. I would love to give you this Starbucks gift card and I would just love you to leave a review while I'm here and be totally honest If you don't like it.
Speaker 2:The other number on that Starbucks card is for my owner and my owner is happy to take your call and figure out whatever we need to do to make it right. Happy to take your call and figure out whatever we need to do to make it right, but if you've got good things to say about us, I would love you to do it. Here's my phone. Type it in. Thanks so much. That's powerful, because you're not relying on an email when that person is, three days afterwards, totally forgot. The guy's name doesn't really care, because they woke up late and they're rushing to work and the last thing they want to do is tell anybody that you did a good job work and the last thing they want to do is tell anybody that you did a good job.
Speaker 1:I love how these concepts stack on top of each other. So purpose then we're focusing on the profit, focusing on the numbers, really getting that people market fit in the product, our prestige in the marketplace. And then we get to do you're a's favorite thing, probably, and that's the promotion, right.
Speaker 2:But I love what you said.
Speaker 1:Just to paraphrase, it was like the. You know, from a marketing perspective, from a business owner, most of them feel that, man, if I just hired a better marketing manager, if I just hired a better agency, all of this would go away. But if they didn't start with the other P's, they're having a problem in their promotion. You cannot sell a terrible product over and over and over again. So talk a little bit about promotion.
Speaker 2:Totally so. Promotion is my drug of choice and what you as a business owner will find out and for those of you listening this might be a writer downer for you Whatever your proficiency is, it will become your purgatory or punishment in growing a business. So if your proficiency or passion is marketing, it is where you will go when there are other problems in the organization that you want to hide from. So for me, if my product or my prestige or my profit are hassling me and not doing what I need them to do, I would previously hide in marketing. I would go build a hype-ier funnel. I would go find a new ads buyer. I would go hire a new agency. I would do anything to fix this because I didn't want to go do the hard work. That was not my natural inclination. Like I, I can easily sit down and write a new sales Cool, great. But did it fix the product? No, probably not. Did it fix the customer experience? No, probably not. So I have not solved my problems. And worse yet, now that I've thrown new marketing into the mix, all I've done is amplify them. I'm now going to be trying to fill up a bucket even faster with even more water, with a giant hole in the bottom and I'm going to be frustrated and worse. Yet here's what's going to happen next. I'm going to now blame the agency and I'm going to fire them, and I'm going to tell everyone how shitty they were and I'm going to go try and find another one. And now I've got the cost of switching. I've got all of this downtime. All I've done is amplify everything because I didn't follow the order of operations of auditing. Why isn't this working the way I want it to? Why am I not looking at this system holistically? Why do I keep going to marketing? So that is why I was always drawn to it.
Speaker 2:Now, marketing is something I love, because marketing gives you the ability in the home services world to set the buying criteria for your universe. And I think all of us would agree. In home services, we don't want all of the customers. We want the best customers. We want the right customers. We want the customers that are not looking for the lowest price from the guy that's cutting corners. We don't want the customer that's not going to care about the quality or skill of the installer. We don't want the bottom of the barrel customer that is ultimately going to be a liability for us and a no profit job. We don't want that. So this in marketing is where you get to set the differentiating criteria for your universe. This might be levels of certification, this might be something as small as having your technicians put booties on before walking into a home. And you know me, I'm sitting here on European light oak flooring. I notice that every single time, because every single time I walk to my kitchen and I notice when somebody didn't, whether they be a friend or a technician, I remember it.
Speaker 2:So these little differentiators where you get to set the buying criteria. Let's say, for example, you're in Roofing, you've got somebody who says they've already gotten two other estimates and they want to get another estimate from you. So what you can gather is the two estimates they got, or the two experiences they had, were not good enough for them to say yes, because ultimately, all they want is the roof that they want at a price that they can afford. They don't really care about the price, they just want the job done and they want to know that they can afford it. So it means that two people gave them a buying criteria lens that didn't work. So maybe the first guy said I'm the lowest price provider and that's what his marketing is. Well, congratulations. All that guy has now trained them to do is look at other offers because he has said he's the lowest price. Well, the only way they can prove that is to get other estimates, and they're going to get other estimates that they're not even trained how to compare, you know. I mean Jim's going to know immediately. Oh yeah, that guy's using dog shit tile. It'll break in three years. Why would you even do that? It's like well, that's how we got a low price. So that sets the buying criteria. Because his marketing lowest price.
Speaker 2:Let's go to guy number two. Guy number two says we have the best service. Well, what does that really mean? Does it mean that my job will be done on time? Does it mean that my job will be done quickly? Does it mean that you can fit me in faster? Does it mean that you're going to have technicians that are more polite and enjoyable and I'm not freaked out having them in my home? All of those things are qualifiers on this buying criteria lens that you're handing your customer.
Speaker 2:So your marketing in the home services world is designed to empower your customer to make the right buying decision, and the right buying decision is working with you. So it's your job to present all of the things that, if presented to them in marketing, whenever they get somebody, they're going to qualify that person based on how well you have educated them. And that's critical because you want to hand those customers weapons to defend against other offers and to qualify you as the best possible choice. And to qualify you as the best possible choice. So, again, whether that is through product differentiation and certifications, quality materials, nuance differences, design capabilities, all of those things, whether that is through customer experience differentiators hey, our techs are going to be there on time. This will be completed on budget. We're going to be wearing booties and putting down RAM board and protecting every area of your home throughout the process in roofing a big one. And, by the way, here is our license, our bonding, our insurance policy. We are covering you six ways from Sunday. So none of this is on you if somebody falls off.
Speaker 2:That was something I didn't even know as a homeowner, I had to ask for or think of until you find out. You know, I had a guy that walked away with 100 grand on a remodel project and didn't do anything. Well, I didn't know I should check a license. I didn't know I should check for a bond. I didn't know any of that, but yet had somebody been setting that buying criteria for me, I would have known, I would have asked, it would have disqualified him and it would have qualified somebody else. So, in this universe, marketing is designed to hand your buyer a lens through which to view this universe they are engaging with and make sure they are equipped to make the right decision, which is choosing you.
Speaker 1:And now that they have that lens, let's move on to the next P of persuasion, because that, to me, is where the handoff between sales and marketing happens right. That's the relay race. We're both holding the baton at one point, and then the sales takes it from here. Let's talk about persuasion and sales.
Speaker 2:So sales to me is defined best by a guy named Dan Sullivan. Dan Sullivan, in my opinion, has the best, most elegant way of describing sales in a way that doesn't feel like I'm closing someone or I'm tying them down or I'm, you know, pick any any. You know Alec Baldwin, glenn Gary, glenn Ross. Sales methodology do not. Sales by Dan Sullivan's definition is getting someone intellectually engaged in a future result that is good for them and getting them emotionally charged to take action on that result. And the reason that that's important is because if you, as a technician in the home services world, know that you are DTIC-Limitant, doing good work and a better provider of whatever it is that you're providing, you have a moral and ethical responsibility to have them buy from you, because whoever else they buy from will not be as good, will not care as much. You need to get it into their hands. And I think that mental shift of helping technicians understand that this is not a sales process of how do I get something by them or how do I use a Jedi mind trick to get them to buy, but it is educating them in a way that you are the only option because they have decided to buy based on that criteria, and so for me, the persuasion side is, in home services world, very much education and a service-based approach and a willingness to understand that if you are in a sales conversation with the wrong customer, don't stress walking away from it because it's a job you don't want anyway. There's five other jobs that you can go out and get. Rather than try and strong arm somebody that doesn't want what you're selling, that doesn't want you to be the one to deliver it, Just be willing to recognize those signs and say, hey, you know what this isn't for us. And I mean, and if you want to, if you in all sincerity, if you want to know how me as a buyer is going to lean in, have somebody there that I called to get a job done and they said yeah, you know what I got to tell you.
Speaker 2:Based on what you're asking for and how you're sort of looking at this job, I don't really think we're a good show. I'm going to be like well, wait a second, you just broke my brain. Why are we not a good fit? Well, I mean you still show price focus, that you're only going to attract technicians that are going to cut every corner and are not going to pull permits that are probably not even going to do the whole job? Because, let's be honest, how often are you standing on your roof or knowing if the whole job is done?
Speaker 2:And I just don't think that we are going to be competitive. We are known for doing perfect work, on time and on budget, with technicians that will make sure you feel confident with us on your work. If you want the lowest price provider and take on those risks, totally understand. But that's not us. And all of a sudden, you have now taken away my ability to do this job with you and you have put me in a place where I have to basically tell you I'm going to use someone less qualified with more materials that I can't even check their work. That's tough.
Speaker 1:That is tough, it's and that's. And being confident, I think that's a thing early on in business, or or even as you're growing. I mean you could be a three, five, eight million dollar company. Maybe you have some newer sales reps that just don't have that confidence to say that. But understanding what your product is and that you have an exceptional product, you know, is that old adage of you turn your salespeople into sold people and so now when they're facing that, they can say, yeah, sounds like you're not the right fit for us because you are looking here.
Speaker 2:Your point, jim. This is why that role as the owner is both so hard but so necessary that if you've got people that are out there selling, they got to know that you have their back. They got to know that you stand for quality work. They got to know that you are going to put them in a role where it's not about getting every client, it's about getting the right clients and you're going to build the business you want through them. Because if you train your team to go out and close everyone, whether it's a good fit or not, you're going to end up with low margin jobs painting the ass. Customers that are looking for a reason to burn your brand the first chance they get.
Speaker 1:For sure, kind of speaking to those sales reps and those, the people on your team, the last P J Cron, the last P people, what did you do there?
Speaker 2:I know I know I get this question often and the idea that I'm now going to be in this universe with a people-focused company everyone's like why do people come last in your equation? And I want anyone listening to this that is an employee in a company to hear this from me personally. This that is an employee in a company to hear this from me personally People come last because I believe that if they come anywhere other than last, I am promoting lazy owners of companies. Here's what I know. I know that anyone listening to this that has been an employee, or any company owners now that used to be employees at some point you had a bad boss, and you had a bad boss who did not invest in systems that would not improve product, that would not improve process, and just kept throwing bodies at something. And that's just the saddest place to be when you have somebody who says I am throwing in with your brand, I am counting on you for the future of my family and let's lock arms and do this together and, as a result, you basically are dropping them into something with no proven sales process, no proven revenue generation for them, no ability to hit targets or make money, and you are just can't be bothered with that because you just want to keep throwing bodies at it.
Speaker 2:I think that's not delegation, I think it's abdication and I think it really does terrible companies. And it's abdication and I think it really does terrible companies and it's one of the reasons why lots of employees hate owners, because it's like man, if you were here having this conversation with a customer that I'm now having because of our shitty processes, because they called three times, I didn't know it didn't get answered, and now they're mad, what am I supposed to do about that? How is that my fault? And now they're mad? What am I supposed to do about that? How is that my fault? I'm on a roof, doing a roof.
Speaker 2:If I can't have the feeling that this company has my back, why would I link my brain with that brain? So people come last, not because people don't matter. People are one of the greatest amplifiers, force multipliers, in an organization that you will ever have, especially in the services world. But if you are hiring before, you are optimizing those systems, that's not fair. You're bringing somebody into something that you are asking them to bet their future on, when you wouldn't even take the time to audit those systems, and for me that's an unfair trade. If I haven't done my job, I sure as hell shouldn't be asking you to do mine.
Speaker 1:And that's. We see it all the time. I talk to owners, all the time Like that are man. I hired eight sales reps last year and it crashed and burned. It's because they didn't work on the first six steps, right? They?
Speaker 2:they. And you know that Jim better than me, oh well, sales doesn. And you know that Jim better than anyone, oh well, sales doesn't work. You know we tried that we hired. Didn't work. Oh, marketing doesn't work. Yeah, you know we tried that didn't work. It's like well, no, like that always works. Since you knew it didn't work, like sorry, but that's the truth. These are systems, these are units. Any business on the planet, when adding sales or marketing, does better if it is a business. If it is not a business and it's held together with duct tape and bailing wire, yeah, you're right, amplifying that not going to help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the contractors. When we had roofer marketers, our agency, the best owners that I know in the Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance and all of the friends that I've made in this industry the best contractors are the one that are great at turning one into many, and they turn one into many because they focused on those other things. They've created an amazing experience. They are profitable so that they can, whether the highs and lows that they've done all of the work and now their team performs exceptionally. It's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yep, and that's where the magic happens. That's why, when you look at how can you increase the size of a bullseye and have each of those bearings in leverage format and have each of those earnings in a leverage format, you can't help but win. You just can't. And it's not easy. I'm not saying it's easy, but it is simple. Like that, when you look at some of the other industries that are out there that you need to go out and create demand for what it is that you have, that's hard work In this universe. The demand is there, the thing is broken, the thing needs to be cared for, the thing needs to be fixed or replaced. The demand's already there. You just have to serve it in a way that prompts a transformational experience.
Speaker 2:And the great news is for everybody here that's listening. If you're listening to this, you're not normal. Most people are not interested in improving themselves or their business. They just don't care. So you're already on the way, and that's why you're plugged into gym, because you want to build a better business. So you're already doing the right things. Just do the layup easy in front of you. Things, the simple things of just auditing your experience and just see what happens. And again, I challenge anybody to do this and tell me I learned nothing, and if you did, I will say dear so-and-so. J Kron says he was wrong. In the case of your business, you are already doing a good enough job that you learned nothing and I am going to send you a Starbucks gift card for wasting your time. I'm very sorry.
Speaker 2:Before we end today.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about talent on tap, or and uh, and the concept of the revenue workforce platform. Um, you know they're, they're hiring and retaining team members is, you know that's. That's the challenge. People is the challenge. I think that you've. You have given a framework to solve for better people in your business because they will be able to perform better based on the framework that you already put in place in your business. Right, all of the other things that you put in your business. But talk about Talent on Tap a little bit in the workforce revenue platform.
Speaker 2:I would love to and I am so excited to be on the board of Talent on Tap. And what a revenue workforce platform is is very, very simple. If the profits in your business depend on people, you have a revenue workforce. And if you have a revenue workforce, you need a revenue workforce platform. The reason that this exists is because, by the time you know you need to be hiring or upskilling, it's already too late In this business. By the time someone leaves, if you don't have someone to swap them out immediately, you're probably losing $50,000 a month in rent. And so by the time you get through your checklist of, I'm going to go try and put up a job board. I'm going to then sort through some resumes and then I'm going to make the time for the calls and then I'm going to go do all of these things which, by the way, take you away from running your business. Now you've not only amplified the loss by the lost revenue of the missing team member, but the lost revenue of your focus and time that could have been spent elsewhere. And what a revenue workforce platform is designed to do and Talent on Tap is the only revenue workforce platform in existence it is designed to build you a talent pipeline, and this is a pipeline that you can turn onto a drip or you can turn onto a flood, but at the end of the day, we believe that people-driven profits require something different. It requires a software platform that is going to engage 100% of the workforce, not the 30% that's browsing job boards, that it will engage them in a way that they are ready to be engaged, which is brand forward, purpose-driven and giving you an experience that is optimized for them to do on the go, not resume dependent. We then want to go ahead and take care of culture fit. We're going to be inventorying and qualifying these people to fit into your culture. Is your culture kind of like Jim at the office or is it like Jocko in SEAL Team 6? That's going to be pretty important when somebody stays or somebody goes, and then we're going to go ahead and take them through video interviews and serve up the best possible candidates that have come through this pipeline so that you are amplifying your revenue with every hire.
Speaker 2:This is not about simply putting bodies on a chart. It's about hearts and trucks. It's about people-driven process on a systematic approach that you can depend on. That's what a revenue workforce platform is Because today it's broken, it's reactive, it's dependent on let's just call it what it is the 30% lowest performing labor class that is actively browsing job leads, because anyone who has the attitude and aptitude that you want probably is already working somewhere. So we want to be able to access that, engage it, serve it up on a silver platter and let your revenue multiply. And we're also going to be building the elements of as a revenue workforce platform. How do you know those people are performing? How are you indexing their sales abilities and are they delivering on the numbers and metrics that matter in your business? Because if you can't judge them based on standards that allow their people to win, you're not going to create a high-performing organization. So a revenue workforce platform is designed to give you the right people, the right way driving revenue. That's it.
Speaker 1:Awesome man, Everybody check out the book the Billion Dollar Bullseye. We'll put a link to Talent on Tap in the description here too, If you want to check out the platform.
Speaker 2:Talent on Tapcom. Everybody, let's get it on, all right.
Speaker 1:Thanks for your time today, jay Krohn. This has been another episode of the Roofing Success Podcast. Thank you for tuning into the Roofing Success Podcast. For more valuable content, visit roofingsuccesspodcastcom While there, check out our sponsors for exclusive offers, shop for merchandise and sign up for our newsletter for industry updates and tips. Also join the Roofing Success Facebook group to connect with other professionals and stay updated on the latest trends. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, like, share and leave a comment. Your support helps us continue to bring you top industry insights. The website link is in the description. Thanks for listening.
