Optimizing CRM's with The Process Prodigy, Adam Sand

Dec 8, 2022

On this episode, roofing company growth hacker, Adam Sand, joins Mike on the show! 
 
Adam has been evolving in the industry for years using methods that Gary Vaynerchuk and industry leaders have used. The thing that makes Adam's processes so much better is that he doesn't evolve WITH the industry; he evolves where the industry is HEADING to before other brands even get there! 
 
Adam & Mike go into how he crafted HubSpot, a top CRM for roofers, owning the future of your industry, implementing good business practices, and generating operations for yourself no matter how new you are in the industry! 

 

 

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[00:00:00] Mike: It's not always a money thing. It's not always gonna be throw more money 

[00:00:04] Adam: at, you're trying to capture market share. You're just trying to put your logo somewhere so that someone else can't put their logo 

[00:00:10] Mike: there. I think culture's really important. I think core values play a big part in that,

and we live. Welcome back to another episode of the Mission Control podcast. I'm your host, Mike Sterns. Today's episode is sponsored by the team over at Roofer. If you're looking for end-to-end sales solutions, anything from instant roof measurements to clean and pristine proposals for your perspective customer, be sure to hit up the team at roofer.

We've got a very special guest today, Mr. Adam Sand. What's up Adam? 

[00:00:44] Adam: Oh, you know, just traveling around being the homeless HubSpot guy.

[00:00:49] Mike: Yeah, that's, uh, the homeless HubSpot guy. Let's talk about that. What is HubSpot? For those that don't know, uh, 

[00:00:56] Adam: well, it's just a, an enterprise grade cr I'm kind of similar to like a sales force or a NetSuite. Um, that's just where we landed as far as what, what we're offering people when we're driving around trying to help them elevate and do different things with their business.

They need something custom. That's where we come in. 

[00:01:13] Mike: Do you find that, as far as a contractor's concerned, there's typically like a revenue point to where it makes sense and it's not overkill to have such a comprehensive solution? Oh yeah, 

[00:01:24] Adam: absolutely. I think that, uh, like we kind of say that our ideal customer avatar is a roofing company that's doing 10 million a year more that's been doing seven to 10% net profits for two years or more.

And like the marginal utility of more money in their bank account is having a diminishing rate of return on their happiness. They don't need another boat, another car, another vacation. They, they, those things won't make them as happy as if they're. Business could just run the way they knew it could or should, but they need to, they need to have somebody come in and just make their thoughts into reality.

And that's like one of our first core values is thoughts into reality. Um, and so you typically kinda have to be in that place because at that point, a six figure number, you know, is, is about 1% of revenue. 1% of revenue is a pretty small investment to make, to have your business run the way they, you always wanted it to run.

Yeah, 

[00:02:11] Mike: that's a really good point. So, so wait, you talked about no profit, that's important. I shouldn't just pay attention to, you know, the grows. 

[00:02:19] Adam: Um, well, I mean, it's not that you shouldn't, I mean, I, I know clients that are, you know, losing money, right? And they're doing so intentionally. Um, I just say that our ideal customer avatar is the person who.

The person who's go, who is going to hear what we're having to, what we have to say or who's looking for what we do, is a person who's just feeling really unfulfilled by their business and frustrated by things that just always seem to be, they always seem to be told, ah, Acculink doesn't do that. Oh, QuickBooks doesn't do that.

Oh, we can't do that. Oh, you have to do it that way. Oh, you have to click that. Oh, you can't do it that way. Oh, if you wanna do that, you're gonna have to get that. And they're just sick and tired of constantly getting, you know, brick walls that wherever they go looking for opportunities, and we just. We used to do a bunch of roofing CRMs on the Roofing CRMs and we just got, we got really sick and tired of kind of having our brand tarnished cuz we were like, oh, Adam, yeah, he's that, that CRM guy.

Talk to him, he knows the CRMs. And then people would come and say, Hey, can you, uh, build us a custom CRM and like, make you do the things we want to do? And we'd say, yeah. And then we'd be like, oh, sorry, that doesn't do that. Oh, sorry, that can't do that. They're like, well, I thought you were the guy. And it's like, well, yeah, but I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm building on this tool that you want for 50 bucks a user.

And so over time we just realized that like most businesses should just wake up and choose ays, you know what I mean? And then, um, unless they have like big, big, big growth ambitions and they're really technically smart. They have, they're like that ideal custom avatar that I mentioned. Um, they should just get up and go buy culex, you know, and just use it.

But, um, the rest, the ones who have, who've hit those walls, they want to do something special if you wanna know it. It also kind of see, depends on where you see the industry going, right? Some people have a different vision for what the industry looks like, and they, they're willing to, you know, even the, the private equity right now is just buying up the industry basically saying, we'll give you 3.2 years of your profit, right?

Like, and when you see like, you know, 3.2 multiple on Abida, what they're really saying is, for the profit that you could take out and spend a boat spend on to buy a boat, we're going to buy, we're gonna spend three years of that so that we can own that market share three years from now. Because we believe that the industry will be different three years from now until the smartest money in the world is same.

Hmm. So, people who can look at that, recognize that are saying, well, we're gonna have to skate where the puck is going. Right. Not trying to catch up to where it's already been. Not to use the most 

[00:04:59] Mike: Canadian analogy. I was gonna say, it's a very Canadian analogy. Uh, you are from Canada. Yeah. Um, so you have roofing business partners, right.

Which was established when, 

[00:05:11] Adam: uh, 2016. 

[00:05:15] Mike: Okay. But you also have been involved with a roofing company, correct? Yes. Okay. So how, how much, how much did the experience in, let's say, sergeant's Roofing and, and what you experienced there, how much did that play a role as to the founding of Roofing Business Partners?

I would imagine it would be a pretty significant role, right? 

[00:05:38] Adam: You know, not as much as you'd think, right? Mm-hmm. , um, so essentially, A long time ago, I owned a tan salon and I found out really early on how social media, um, could be used very powerfully. I ended up in jail because of a Facebook campaign. Um, and I also, uh, like grew my, I I grew my ability to sell things using social media.

All along the way, I, I watched this web TV show back in the day called Andrew Locke, uh, help My Business Sucks. And he talked about how web TV was the future of the internet. This is before YouTube. And Andrew Locke said, you know, you gotta get into web tv and there's this really great, like, probably one of the best examples of a web TV show besides his of course, uh, was this guy named Gary Vaynerchuck, who had had this wine library tv and you should do something like that.

So way back in the tanning salon days, I had Golden Tan tv, which is where I talked about tanning lotion much in the same way that Gary V talked about wine. Now in the world of wine versus, uh, wine versus tanning lotion, he definitely kicked my ass in the total addressable market. , uh, right, 16 to 18 year old, or 16 to 22 year old girls definitely don't have the cup purchasing power of bougie people that wanna buy expensive wine, but Sure.

Uh, but I learned, but I learned a lot. And then I used video to sell cars in the car industry. And I, I used video to sell an app. You know, I made an app and then I sold the app. And so I'd kind of done all these different things and my buddy was a shingler. . And, um, he was a roofer that, you know, like that's just what he did.

He just woke up, got meant, the crew went roofing and it kind of sucked cuz he never had any money, you know what I mean? And I, it was like he was my best friend and he saw me through a dark time. I like literally slept on his floor for a while. I was, I had a place, I was just so depressed. I didn't wanna go home and be alone.

So I hung out at his house, but he only had one couch and it was him and his wife on the couch and me sleeping literally on the floor falling asleep watching movies every day. Um, and I, and so. You know, I felt indebted to him, right? Like I really wanted, like, cuz he kinda was just like, there, like, just kind of gave me a place of like safety, I guess you could say, or face, face, uh, you know, someone who wouldn't judge me cuz I had a fall from Grace.

And you find out who your friends are when you have a fall from Grace and you learn a thing or two about loyalty. And so, uh, he was one of the few people that was loyal to me in that time. And I, uh, and so I was like, when I just kind of saw my life was like up and then down and then up again and I, and it's like I'd already made, made and lost more than he'd ever made.

And I was just like, you know, it kind of sucks. Like, I'd like for you to like be able to come do fun things, you know? I went, um, . And I was like, why don't you like, why don't you start a business like a roofing business? Your boss has sold their company for like a couple million bucks. Why don't you start a roofing company?

And he was like, I don't want anything about business and, you know, taxes and stuff like that. And I was like, well, I'll help you. And so I loaned him the money to go get a business license and loaned him the money to buy some tools. Went to Home Depot, literally started pulling stuff off the shelves and, and, and gave it to him.

And then he had a party at his house with his roofers and one of the roofers came back after they left to go to the bar and stole his tools off his deck cuz he lived in a one bedroom condo. Um, and so I was like, damn, I'm never gonna get my money back if I don't help this guy . And so I started helping, but I, I didn't, I, I knew nothing, nothing about roofing when I like invested in a roofing company and I, I started helping 'em out, helping 'em out and didn't get paid anything, was just kind of helping.

Cause I thought it was kind of cool. And in fact, because they had that fall from Grace, I didn't want anybody to know. That I owned a business cuz I, at that time I was worried that like people were gonna go on the internet and go, oh there's that, I'm gonna start another business. Right? Mm. And I was, and I was embarrassed about it, which is ironic, but, uh, and so I, I was just helping 'em out for free and then finally I was like, Hey, you know what, um, you, oh yeah, that's right.

So I went to a job of his and I saw that he was, he had, he was on the roof, but there was a science at Urban Contracting up front. And I was like, why does that science say urban contracting? You're Sergeant Roofing? And he is like, oh, cuz they're the guy that got the job. I was like, so why are you doing it?

He's like, well, they get the job and then they contracted us. That's how it works. And I was like, we don't have a business. You gotta pimp . I was like, what? Like, I was like, as a pimp, you know, he goes out, sells the, sells the job, and then you have to do all the dirty. Right? Yeah. And so I was like, you're just, like I said, that's not real business.

I said, you gotta, you gotta like advertise. And so I was like, well, why don't you use Facebook? Right? Why don't we do that? And so I went searching for a Facebook ad guy, and back then, I mean, now you can throw, can't throw a shingle off a roof without hitting, you know, three, three Facebook ad guys in the head.

But, um, back then you, you, um, there was nowhere to be found. I tried finding a guru. I tried finding a, uh, you know, a course a, an agency. I hired two agencies. They both told me that. I, I said to one, will you do Facebook ads? And they said, Uh, no, uh, that would be dumb for a roofing company. There's no buy now button.

I was like, okay, well, um, you're fired. So I went and found another agency. I said, do Facebook ads? They said, yep. I was like, great, you can do my Google stuff too. And so I hired them and they started Google stuff. I was like, okay, when do we start the Facebook ads? I'm like, ah, that's dumb. You don't have buy now button.

Why would you do that? Can't track, can't track conversions. And this is when there's still no ads in the newsfeed. It was just the ads on the right hand side. Yep. And I, and I was like, ah, you know what? So I went, I was trying to find like the Facebook, I was trying to find a Joseph Hughes or some course that I could take, and nobody had it.

And the only guy that was out there was a guy named Rick Mul already teaching the Facebook advantage, but it was just like, how to sell like dentist tooth whitening and, and, and dog toys and weight lo weight loss programs. And so I ended up talking to the guy and took his course, even though he said like, I don't even know if this will work, but take the course and, and you'll learn Facebook ads.

And I was like, okay. So I took that. I spent, uh, my own money, right? So I didn't, I was like, I still had a job at this point. So I was still a sales manager at a car dealership and I was helping sell roofs on the side just to help my buddy out, and then also running the Facebook ads on the website and doing all that stuff all in this first year.

And, uh, and then I've found a way to make it kick ass with the Facebook ads, and we just figured it out. And so I was in one of those private Facebook groups that all the courses sell, and I was like, Hey, I figured out, um, how to do, like, we ran like $7,000 worth of ads and we sold $420,000 worth of roofs and.

Everybody in the group that wanted to be the, you know, the guy in Facebook ads wanted to interview me. And so I did like 28 interviews in one year about Facebook ads, because back then it was like, guy runs a thousand dollars worth of ads and sells $7,000 worth of dog toys. Like the numbers were always small.

My headline was like, super click baby back then, right? Yeah. Cause nobody was running home services ads and the home services numbers are just bigger. Right? Right. Sure. And so I got all these interviews, so from like 2016 to 2019, if you Googled roofer and Facebook ad, it was me just cause all these, all these like digital marketer and like, oh gosh, all the, like, there was a bunch of roofing shows and a whole bunch of no name podcast shows that aren't even still around.

But I mean we just, we were just like that guy. And so from there, an X NFL guy, Named David ta. He reached out and he, he was a X NFL player who started an agency and he was part of this group called Ya Go Like, you guys are awesome. And he, like, the owner of High Level is in there. Um, all these kind of, all these kind of guys were in there and, and we, we would meet every weekend and as we started and we, we all had digital agencies or something like that.

And so Sergeants didn't have much to do with it. I mean, it definitely added a sense of trust at, I guess at the very initial beginning that like, I was somebody talking about advertising, who knew what it was like to wake up and have to deal with guys who drank a bottle of shampoo for breakfast and got up on a roof and then did some days, showed up, some days didn't.

And I could talk about like underlayment and 12, 12 and Slope. How much, you know, how long a job took and the difference between shingle brands. Like it helped a little bit for sure in that like initial trust phase. But I would say after the first year of like doing it, really the reputation kind of stood for itself.

Cuz Sergeants, roofing's just a company in Edmonton, Alberta. It's the northernmost city in the world with a million people. I mean, it's blanketed in snow right now. Yeah. 

[00:14:03] Mike: I like how you put it. It's, you have a pimp, you don't have a business, um, . So man, there's a lot to unpack there. So as far as you went, you went to jail, not Facebook jail, actual jail.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

[00:14:19] Adam: For, for a couple of hours. Yeah. Let's talk about it. Okay. So, um, yeah. I, so I had this tanning salon, right? And I wanted to figure out how to, um, wanted to figure out how to run. like a campaign because like, like how do I get a big burst of customers? Because in, in August, tanning is like kind of a hard thing for people to pay for because the sun is free for two months outside in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

And so I was like struggling to like, I was like, where do not gonna make rent? Like how am I gonna do this tonight? It's like really the tanning thing doesn't really pick up again until November. You know, as people start thinking about, like, I get a little burst in Halloween, right? Cause all the girls are wearing nothing.

And then right after that you're kind of gone, right? So you get a week right before Halloween and then you're dead until like Christmas time people start thinking Christmas party, new Year's warmth, right? And so I was like, how do I do this? It's August, we've had nothing in June and July and August. It's like, it was like basically barely made rent August 1st.

And so I started thinking, and by. Uh, 12th, I think it was, I came up with this idea that one thing customer, I needed an innovative campaign. Right? As a ceo. As a ceo. That, that I remember learning that I had to spend my time in four places, innovative campaigns, um, business development, leadership development, and systems and processes.

And so I was like, I need an innovative campaign. And I remember there was this, um, the movie, the Matrix, right? And it was like The Matrix has you and I and I, I saw something in an Ad World Magazine that was like, talked about the Matrix and talked about that movie Cloverfield. I remember reading that. It was just somewhere buried in the cerebellum in the back.

And then about a year before this, there was this shopping mall in our city that just put. November 8th or whatever, they just put this big eight, it was like eight foot tall box and they put these boxes all over the city in like ditches and stuff. And it was just an eight. And everybody back then, cuz Facebook had just kind of started getting traction, they were like, what's this eight all over town?

And everybody started asking all these questions about this eight all over town. And uh, and then it got, word got out that it was this, it was the opening of this new, um, what do you call it? Like a wing of the mall. Mm-hmm. . And so, I don't know, something in all the little things inside my brain, kind of thought Cloverfield Matrix eight, I need a curiosity campaign.

And so I said, okay, so what I need, I need a curiosity. Campaign's gonna do this. So then I got this and I was like, but I have no money , so what am I gonna do? Um, and so back then again, images were not pot. Like this is before there was even ads really on Facebook. This is, images weren't even there. What year is this still?

Just uh, this would be ish Iowa. Oh gosh. It's gonna be about 14 years ago. Right. 

[00:17:04] Mike: Cause I was 20 got, so we're talking like original iPhone . Yeah. 

[00:17:08] Adam: This was before iPhone. 3G. S like the first iPhone just came out. There was no Facebook app. If you wanted to upload a picture, you had to like manual digital camera, go home, plug it in, upload your computer, put a, it was still just like Adam Sand is mad that his sand, which was cold.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, yeah. Right. That was all Facebook was back then. It was very few pictures. Very little. And so, uh, I thought that, okay, this is what I'm gonna do. I'll get people to take pictures of these boxes to win. It's like a scavenger hunt. They gotta find the most boxes. And the thing that I was doing is people hated bringing tanning lotion to the tanning place.

Cause this one bottle that you leave in your car, it gets cold, it freezes, it's ruined. You leave it in your car, it gets hot, it gets wrecked. It's ruined, you know, you forget it. It's in your, it's in your other gym bag. They just hated remembering. And when you come there, you gotta pay $10 for a packet cuz the tanning guy's just gonna rip you off on the single use packet.

Right? And I thought, okay, people want unlimited lotion. And I don't know where I got, I think this probably got this from like a Prime membership. Or I got the idea somewhere. I was like, everybody pays for unlimited tanning, but nobody gives unlimited lotion. What if I gave unlimited lotion? People came in and they could pick from one of three bottles of lotion.

We would just give them single use cups, but they got it for free. And they could pick up bronzer one day, but then if they're wearing white, they could wear something that wouldn't stain in their clothes. You know, and all this kind of. I thought, okay, what is a year's worth of tanning lotion look like?

It's like a box this big. So it's like, okay, I'm gonna hot, I'm gonna go to the, to the basement of the mall where they put all the cardboard and I'm gonna take all these boxes from like, cuz they always had piles to the ceilings of boxes. So I took all these boxes. I. And I filled them full of some junk to make 'em heavy.

And then I got this brown and gold wrapping paper, a brown wrapping paper with this gold ribbon. And it was beautiful. And then I got these stickers printed that said it was, its like in 30 days, I gotta solve this problem. So I said, September 11th, a special gift to Tanners. And it was a year's worth of tanning lotion and a year's worth of tanning.

And, and the person who found the most boxes was gonna win a prize. And so I got, and then I, I knew everybody in this mall. It's West Evanton Mall. It's the biggest mall in Canada, second biggest mall in the world. It's got, you know, there I knew all, all the girls that worked at all the stores tanned at my place.

I was like, Hey, can I put this box in your window? Right? And they would let me, like, put all the boxes in their displays. And then I started announcing this, that there was this like $1,300 prize that would be given away, um, to whoever found the most boxes, posted them on Facebook and tagged me in them.

And back then there was no pictures. So all of a sudden, for like two weeks, Facebook was just blowing up with these pictures of these brown boxes that said, and all you could see in the picture was September 11th. Because there's like, right. And I was stupid, but I didn't, I was, I'm Canadian, right. It was 10 years, it was like 10 years after the whole thing.

I wasn't thinking, right. Sure. I just knew that I had 30 days to solve this problem, and so then I put these boxes all over the place and connect the dots looking backwards, like you, you'd think I did it on purpose, but like anybody who knew me back then was just like, it didn't, nobody, nobody thought of it.

Sure. Like all these pictures, the people from Canada who were taking these pictures to the scale of hundreds, none of them realized it, but they had American aunties and American cousins. Right, right. Who were like, hello, September 11th, he's gonna blow up your mall. So, oh God. They ended, so then they, so people from the states ended up calling somebody in the States.

So then the FBI called the Canadian Security Intelligence Services, who then deferred it to the world, Canadian Mounted Police, who then take, took, came to my tan salon, arrest me, and threw me, threw me in the, there was like a police station in the mall, threw me in there. And so then I had to explain to them what these boxes were.

So then they had to go and find a box. And like, I was like, there's nothing but like old tanning wall and bottles and paper and like junk and these things. So then they did it. So then I had to change my contest and I had, and I, and I had to put all the boxes in a pile out front of my store. Um, and uh, and the mall owners got involved and Oh, like, and they're like billionaire Jewish people, right?

So it's like they, they're like, you know, like they don't need the bad press of like, you know, and just, ugh. Yeah. That the story 

[00:20:59] Mike: I was gonna ask, did you get a press release out of it? ? Um, 

[00:21:02] Adam: you know, I didn't, I, I, well it got, it got worse because then someone, so you know how back then you could tag people and it like looked a little bit more like you posted it.

Mm-hmm. . So, and it only took a second for people to get triggered. Somebody made a meme, you know, about me before, like memes really had what they were today. They actually like custom drew it, but it was a picture. So back the two big tanning franchises in Canada where Golden Dan. Or sorry, we're Planet Beach and F Butan.

And someone drew a picture of two buildings with the Planet Beach and the F Butan logos. One had a plane stuck in the side of it and another one had a plane heading at, and both the planes had my logo on the wing of the plane, and they called me the tanning terrorist and they tagged me. And then that shit went everywhere.

And then I got even more heading, even more trouble. Um, and like the funny thing is that same year the World Wildlife Federation did the same thing. They made like this picture of like 300 planes heading at the Twin Towers, saying that like Hurricane Katrina was the a hundred times more devastating than, than September 11th or whatever.

So it like, I don't know, it was, it was just a weird, weirder, but I learned real fast how powerful social media was. So that's what led to the Golden 10 TV thing. And then it led to, and then I just used video all the time, everywhere I went. 

[00:22:23] Mike: Yeah, it's smart. I mean my, my first. Exposure to you. I mean, personally was like an eee when I was working at another agency.

And, and you were working with Charlie and Steven over at Dreamworks, right? Yep. And typically when I would get brought into these meetings, you know, with their, another marketing person, I'm like, here, we fucking go. Right? Cause it's usually just a bunch of surface level nonsense. Um, and it's, uh, it's frustrating to be a part of in those instances, right?

And, uh, mm-hmm. , I was thoroughly impressed with the strategy and methodology, um, as far as your, your ad campaigns that you were helping run for them. Um, the fact that it wasn't surface level. In fact, it was very, very intricate. Um, and the extent to which you took a deep dive and I'm like, yeah, this guy's, he fucking gets it.

Uh, , thank you. Yeah, no doubt man. 

[00:23:15] Adam: Um, so I didn't actually put two and two together on that. I really appreciate that. But yeah, I guess I wouldn't, I would've thought of it as just like the agency that you were with. I didn't really connect the, connect the dots there. So that's kind of cool to know That's the origin story.

Cause I didn't, I didn't put those dots together. 

[00:23:29] Mike: Yeah, no doubt man. So, uh, shout out to the guys over at Dreamworks. They're great. Yes. Love them. Yep. Um, okay, so let's talk about core values. You mentioned one of your core values. Let's, let's share our core values and, and why they're important. So what are your core values that you lead with?

[00:23:46] Adam: Um, so one thing that I, I believe is the core tenant in life is to, is to question your thoughts and beliefs, right? And so it's like, is this true and does it serve me? Right? And so it's like there's a difference between what we see as our truth and what like as truth and what actually is truth, right? Mm.

So it was important to me to somehow put that in there. And so the core values spell truth, but every single one of them means something to me. Um, and uh, and so the first one is thoughts and the reality, right? And the whole idea is like the most, you know, the like, power is really that, right? God said the universe existed and it did, right?

So thoughts and the reality, and that's what our clients are really looking for. They're looking for their thoughts to become reality. And so when people on my team, you know, say, they say lead and manage around your core values, I say that, um, you know, like when our customers ask for something, we say it can't be done.

It's like, no. Like that's exactly what this business was evolved from, is customers wanting something that could, that couldn't be done. That's what we do here. So basically we don't take, that can't be done as an answer very often. Um, we exhaust all options before we get there. But our goal end, we try and do it fast, right?

Like the whole thing is speed. It's like thoughts into reality, not like thoughts into ideas that turn into plans that turn into workbooks, that turn No. It's like, you know, quick, right? And then the other one is reward on merit, right? So a lot of companies, you know, they, they reward on seniority and they reward on time, you know, time invested or who's been there.

Like, like that kind of stuff, right? I wanna reward on the activities that people do. Someone comes here with a good idea, it's a meritocracy. We, we, we judge things based on their ideas, not their tenure and, uh, unimpeachable character. Um, I've done business with people who, you know, I, both clients that have, we've made them lots of money and then they bought Corvette's before they bought health plans, you know, or for Ferrari before health plan actually.

Um, but not Kayla? No, not Kayla . Okay. He, uh, he's, he's, so, he's put, um, he's working on his. It's gonna be there soon, I think. Um, and then he, uh, so then he, so yeah, rewarding on merit, but then also, or sorry, unimpeachable character, right? So trying to do that, but then also people, right? Um, I've had people who have stolen from me who have, you know, even just, just bad character, you know what I mean?

Like, it's just, I just don't want people that are gonna have skeletons come out of the closet, you know what I mean? And then, uh, trust is earned, right? So that's the other t right, for trust is earned. And I mean, that's pretty self-explanatory. And then hard boring work is our advantage. That's the h And it really, everything that we do is just hard, boring work.

It's just building another workflow, building another automation, making it so you don't have to go into your crm, do the thing that you're supposed to do, and then go click a box that says you did the thing you're supposed to do. And should we have, we have to try and find a way, way to make it so that the box you're supposed to check that says the thing that you did is done because you did the thing.

Right. So it's like if you're supposed to do a job file playbook, you don't do the job file playbook and then go and check a box that says, I did the job file playbook so that you can progress the deal to the next stage. It's do your job file and then therefore the job file playbook check box is done.

And that, to do that on all things is really hard, boring work. Getting the reporting that people want is hard, boring work. Um, and so, you know when people say that like, oh, that's hard, or, oh, it's boring, or it's, it's meticulous, or it's arduous. I'm like, yeah, hard boring work is our advantage. It's the reason that we don't have a lot of people doing what we do is because it's hard and it's boring.

[00:27:25] Mike: Yeah. And I think there's, yeah, there's definitely, I love that. And like one of all of those things speak to me. And you talked about like meritocracy versus like, like you said, like there's a lot of like cronyism and nepotism, especially in like corporate America, right? It's kind of like who, you know, somebody is unjustifiably in a position of power, now you're taking orders from this person who doesn't know what the fuck's going on.

And now there, there's like this dissonance internally and it usually perpetuates a really shitty culture, which I think culture's really important. I think core values play a big part in that, right? Because it's like, I don't know, I left my previous job where I made objectively a really good living cuz I didn't like the culture, right?

Mm-hmm. , um, it, it wasn't great. And I have like, you know, what I pulled out of that for me was like, money attracts talent. Culture retains it, right? Mm-hmm. . So like what can you do to create an environment where, You people can be productive, they can thrive, and like they know that you give a fuck about them, right?

like, I think that's really important. Everybody wants to feel valued. Um, whether you're talking about business personally, what have you. Um, so those are, those are awesome core values. Dude. The, the hard boring work too, right? It's like, so one of our core values is, is execution, right? Because like anybody, I can pitch anybody anything and sell them and it sounds fucking fantastic.

But where the reason why people hate marketing companies is cuz nobody fucking does what they say that they're going to do, right? Mm-hmm. , it's like, yeah, this, like, you pitched me this like, you, you promised me the world and you showed me fucking Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and I hate you now , right? And I, and it's scorched earth.

And, and justifiably so, because that's the majority of the people in our industry. And I mean, I don't think it's, I don't think it's exclusive to roofing or to marketing companies. Like there's usually like the vast percentage of businesses that just aren't fucking great in, in their industry. And then there's the industry leaders and you know, we try to push every day to be one of those industry leaders.

So like our core values are, you know, accountability. Like it is really simple not to be accountable, and it's my pet peeve and personal and business relationships when people aren't accountable, it's really important. The same way that we need to be accountable for expectations. Our clients need to be accountable.

My employees need to be accountable, their colleagues need to be accountable in order for those cylinders to all fire harmoniously and to achieve what we wanna achieve. Solutions not excuses, right? Like, get the shit done. Like we can justify a million ways why we can't accomplish something, or we could just fucking find out the way to do it right and get it done for somebody.

Um mm-hmm . And I think that's really important. Compassion. Um, I think compassion, empathy, and compassion are very important. And the way I look at it is compassion is like the emotional response to empathy. So you have to be able to empathize with somebody, but like, that's not enough, right? Like, you have to then take that tact of wanting to help, be willing to help, and then actually help, um, in order to, to make that difference.

And then do the right thing, uh, you know, for yourself, for colleagues, uh, for clients especially, right. Just be a good person. Mm-hmm. , right? Yeah. You know, and it's, we try to, we try to do exercises and do things to embody those every step of the way. Cuz I think that, you know, I find that, you know, some people, they don't know their core values.

Like they set 'em and forget 'em. Right? Or they don't, they don't have activities, they don't have anything to remind people of what they're there for. Do you, do you ever. . 

[00:30:55] Adam: Yeah. I, I, I mean, we've, I've, I've experienced that just traveling around the country, you know, working with these roofers, you, you see that some people have it as like a thing that they put on their wall, right?

And then some people have it as a thing that they live. And I find that, that there's, I mean, I don't, you tell me if you feel this is true because you've worked, um, in corporate America and maybe seen some of this, but like, I feel like if the core values are designed to make the employees do what you think they're not gonna do, then it will just be something that you harp on.

But if your core values are actually what make up your DNA as a leader, then it's going to be something that you embody and therefore you're gonna attract and then kind of, I guess, assimilate people into that culture of being more like you. 

[00:31:43] Mike: Yeah, I, I couldn't agree more based on my experience, right?

Because it's like, It's, it's like the execution thing, right? Like it's simple enough to pitch these core values. Like this is what we stand for as a company. And it sounds fucking fantastic when they come into the Monday morning meeting and it's like, you know what I mean? I gotta be honest with you, I can't, I've worked for a few different companies.

I couldn't even tell you what their core values were. Um, but like, even like concepts that would be, I guess derived from a mission statement or core values, it's like, have a rah rah meeting, but it's like lead by example and do your actions speak to what we're trying to accomplish? Or is it just something to get people excited for the day to hit your next goal?

Um, and I think that purpose in being able to prove through action, it's really, really important to get people like legitimately bought in. So like, if you think about salespeople, I was a salesperson. Like, what do you care about as far as a salesperson is concerned, you care about, especially in corporate America, you care about their numbers, right?

How much revenue are they bringing to the company? How profitable are they to the company? And a lot of that other shit kind of goes by the wayside. But I'm a firm believer that, like if I have employees, regardless of the capacity in which they're fulfilling work for our clients, if they're happier and we have things that we live by and execute, and they can see that from the top down, I feel like they're gonna be happier and they're gonna be more productive.

So selfishly, like, I want that for them, right? Because it benefits everybody involved. Right. And it makes my life easier, less churn as far as employees are concerned. Right. Retention is, is important I think, when you're running a business. Mm-hmm. , because it, it sucks hiring people. I don't know. I don't love it.

Um, do you, do you like going out and hiring people? Well, I mean, 

[00:33:29] Adam: I, I like acquiring good people, but I mean, I think like you, it sucks replacing. Right? Yeah. It costs, it costs a dollar and a half for every dollar you paid someone to replace them. Um, and so when it comes to digital marketing, I got out of it for this reason, I didn't, I found it was really hard to find and train people who would uphold those expectations.

And I was in that like, lull in the middle where there was more bad than good. I think they were getting to a place where you've had some, I guess, some invisible hand of capitalism effects and there's less just bad operators getting any traction. You know, you going into the Facebook groups and saying, Hey, I'm a marketer.

How do you need 10 more leads? Like, that whole thing is like a meme now, right? And so I think the dust has settled a little bit and, and people like yourself and, and, and others that you know, are, you know, they're kind of cemented in place as leaders in the industry. But I was in that spot where all the commotion was in the middle, and I was also doing this CRM stuff, and I was like, I hate being part of this marketing stuff.

I don't wanna do this anymore. It's not even my passion. It was just something that. I was, I was good at and people wanted, and it was good business. But I really love this like CRM stuff and I am curious, um, what you feel has changed in, in the marketing industry now, cuz I mean, it's like I'm seeing more collaboration between like you and Tim and it seems like the marketing, the marketing industry has gotten less backs savvy than it, than it used to be.

[00:34:58] Mike: Yeah. And I think there's, there's something to be said about like, withstanding the test of time in any type of business or, you know, my brand is my brand, Tim Brand is his brand. Both of us have been a part of like those roofing community groups, especially online for quite some time, right? So it's, it's one of those social proof things where it's like, if this person is consistently getting shouted out by myriad of people as to what they're doing, how they're helping, there's gotta be some baseline, um, established as far as credibility and efficacy of what they're doing.

Right. Um, and that's been huge for us. I think that it's been pretty big for Tim as well. I don't wanna speak for him, but like Tim and I, like, we have a great relationship. Tim's now a friend of mine, right? He's, he's my biggest competitor and I consider him a friend. Uh, we talk all the time because, you know, our situation is different than two local roofers because we have, like, our addressable market is the entire United States, right?

There's a hundred and I've seen anywhere between 90 and 110,000 roofing companies. And we both focus on a very small percentage of that, people that are very growth oriented. Um, and, and I think that we share some of the same values to where like, I know that we aren't, and I'm very, very, very confident that Tim wouldn't tells somebody that comes to him and is like, Hey, I want a hundred leads a month.

And we're not gonna tell 'em, Hey, spend two grand, we'll get you the a hundred leads. It's gonna be great. Here's the contract, sign this contract. And in a year's time, it's gonna be great. You can get that fucking Ferrari that you always wanted. Like I hedge against that. Every stop of the way, I'll tell somebody like, Hey, look on Google Ads, if you know in your market, I would expect you to pay around 150 bucks a lead, or around 200 bucks a lead, there's gonna be a management fee associated that if, if we're setting up a long-term strategy as far as seo, this is what is going to cost you.

Our websites are gonna cost you this. So we lose a lot of opportunities because of that. And like, I wouldn't have it any other way because now I don't have the backlash of people that are saying like, this dude's a fucking charlatan. Right? Like , like internally, I'm not that person and I don't, you know, and I probably, quite honestly, I probably lose some really good opportunities to work with some really great companies just because I am so terrified of those, of somebody like not being completely satisfied with our service and the impact that it can have because, Character takes years and years and years to build and can fucking be destroyed in the snap of a finger, right?

Yep. I think it would be hard to do that and dismantle what we've established, um, whether it's Tim, whether it's myself or, or anyone else that that has, I guess, clout in, in the marketing industry. Um, but it, it, it, it's a tough pill to swallow when that happens. Um, so yeah, I think it's kind of like, uh, the, the, the time factor, right, of, of what we've done and how consistently we've done it for a lot of people.

And I think that, uh, and, and I guess like just the really shitty approach of some, some sales people has also really helped that, right? So for instance, when I was a salesperson, go. . 

[00:38:12] Adam: I was just gonna say, do you think that there's, do you think that there's opportunity there for new, for a new marketing company to come enter the space?

Like, I see them come in, I see some good, you know, some actually some half decent dudes, like some nice guys and, and, and maybe some people who know a thing or two. And I see them trying really hard. Like, you know, what would you do with this? What is it? How, what would you do with more time? Like, they're asking all the questions on their Facebook posting the thing with the words.

It's like, what would you do with an extra 10 hours a week? And then, you know, if you could have cu like they're trying to, like, trying to do the thing to like get just two people to like, talk to them, you know? Yeah. And I wonder like, is there even space for them anymore? Like, should they just go get a job with you at might, you know, at a sandage leap, just be a salesperson for you and help you blow up?

Like what would they, what would they do? Like, you know, I wouldn't know. Like, how would you. And to get so crowded, and it's like nobody will give you the time of day. Right? If you, if you don't have a rep, it's like one of those things, like you can't get a job without experience. You can't get experience without getting the job.

It's like, yeah, 

[00:39:12] Mike: yeah, you gotta be 22 and have 10 years of experience to get this job. Well, how the fuck does that? Yeah. Is it, 

[00:39:18] Adam: is it like, do you have to go work for Michael and then steal your client base? You know what I mean? Like, is that what you do? You go work for an agency and then you find a relationship for, and start your own like, and, and, and like, you know, hope that you left them better than when you started so you don't feel so bad about it.

Like, what? I'm curious if there's a, how you'd start a digital agency today. 

[00:39:36] Mike: I think, I, I think that it, it would take, it takes time and effort, right? Like, believe me, like when I started, you know, whatever, five years ago or six years ago when I got into some of those roofing groups, like I under, I went in with the understanding that like, I'm like, there's opportunity, right?

There's a lot of people that need help. And I know for a fact just through my experience on like a micro level in the community that I was in, Not on Facebook. Like a lot of people prey on contractors cuz they don't know. Same way. Like I got taken advantage of when I was 19 and the mechanic's like, it's gonna cost you three grand to fix your car.

I've got a one year old daughter at the time started early and it's like, fuck, I just know that I'm getting fucked here. I can't point a finger as to why or how, but I just know it's not causing $3,000. And maybe, maybe I was, or maybe I wasn't. But as long as I, you know, we don't die in a car crash cuz I didn't address the issue.

I guess I have to be okay with it. And I feel like that's where a lot of contractors ended up falling. So like my job in my mind was to help cure that. But you, you 

[00:40:36] Adam: needed a mechanic with compassion. 

[00:40:39] Mike: Aha. So with that being said, it's like I knew, like I looked at all the posts that even back then that were going into the groups just like spamming for opportunities.

And I, and I think people, contractors especially, they've gotten a lot more keen on picking up the motives, right? So you have somebody that posts really good question to get engagement, an engagement post, right? What would you do with 10 more hours? Like what's your biggest struggle as a roofing contractor?

And those things are great, but there's an immediately a DM that's very salesy. It's not, it's not well thought out. I mean, I get dms all the time asking me if I need fucking leads, right? I'm not a roofer. And if you, if you search my name, if you click on my profile, if you did any type of research into your prospect, you'd be like, this guy doesn't need leads.

But that's never done. So I'll give you for, for instance, you know, before everything that we did was like reputation oriented as far as growth. Like I did cold calling. I started out my, like my career when I was 18, I started doing collections, which is a fucking, it's an awful job in my opinion, but I was good at it and it taught me so much.

It taught me so much. You're sitting there pounding the phone, getting told to go fuck yourself for eight hours for that one opportunity to talk to somebody who you can show empathy to be compassionate with and help them through a shitty situation. And you can truly make an impact and they're forever grateful for you.

And I'm not talking about like the type of collections where you threaten the sheriffs to come to their house and shit like that. It's like have a rational conversation. I got in in oh eight right when the mortgage meltdown happened in America. Right. So like there were a lot of good people in really shitty spots.

So like, it taught me things and like one of the things that I realized when I started doing sales was, you know, cause there's a lot of parallels. It's like you have to identify who, who that avatar or your target market is going to be, what they look like, what's important to them. You gotta understand what that pain point is and like, , you have a very small window to, to grab their attention as to how you're going to help them, right?

So the way that I'd always approached prospecting before, it was like Facebook community groups was like, okay, I know that when I made 10 calls, eight people fucking hang up on me when I tell them who I am. Right? It's just gonna happen. And there's gonna be two people that might listen and one of those two are gonna hang up after like five or seven seconds, and then the other one might gimme the time of day and maybe I get an appointment.

So it's a numbers game. I'm like, how can I optimize that process? So it's like you think of like the norm of reciprocity, right? Mm-hmm. , you do something for someone, they're more inclined to do something for you. And I always talk about like the girl at the bar situation. Like if you wanna have a conversation with the young lady sitting at the end of the bar, what do you.

You buy your drink because now she feels some sense of obligation perhaps to allow you to talk to her for a moment, right? Get her attention and open the door for conversation. I'm like, so how can I deploy that in like a, in a sales position to where I can take that two outta 10 and maybe turn into four outta 10 and maybe two or three of those conversations are productive.

So all I would do is like, I would research my prospects. So I'd go on manta.com. So if I call Sergeants Roofing, I'm gonna know who I need to talk to. I'm not gonna call you and say, hi, I'm need to talk to whoever handles your website, cuz that's a surefire way to get fucking hung up on. So I would research who it is that I'm calling.

I would pull up their company profile on Facebook right before I call, and I would like their profile cuz now they're getting triggered and alert to the Mike Sterns liked Sergeant's Roofing. So now I call, and there's already a familiarity there, right? Where there's, there's some sort of understanding of who I am.

So it's a cold call. It's just not as cold. Right. And that made a huge difference, dude. It made a massive 

[00:44:24] Adam: difference. I have no, I have no doubt. Just because you get a like, and then all of a sudden it's Michael Sterns phones you a minute later and as after they saw Michael Sterns, you say, hi, it's Michael Sterns.

It liked your Facebook page. I, I can't imagine the pitch, but I, uh, I, I did telemarketing too when I was younger, so I, I kind of did some stuff on the phone and I could see how that would be a powerful thing to 

[00:44:43] Mike: do. So it's just, it's, I think kind of, that was very long winded way to get back to answering your question.

I think there is opportunity, but it's just a matter of being willing. Like that shit took a lot of time. And I would get beat up by my sales leadership team all the time, cuz they're like, Mike, you're supposed to be making 50 calls a day and you made 13. And it's like, yeah, but I set twice as many appointments as anyone else on the floor.

Right. Like, that's really important. And I'm like, you know, as far as like sales rankings, I'm doing like, Top notch. Yeah. But you need to make, you know, 50 calls a day, you need to make 40 calls a day you need, and I'm 

[00:45:20] Adam: like, you say this, wanna see your number multiplied by three? 

[00:45:23] Mike: And I'm like, it doesn't scale that way.

Right. Because the investment of time for me to get those four appointments conversations, and, and there's a lot that I would do for my clients outside of like, what they would sign up for me personally to help bring value, right. To where I'm just the salesperson. But it's the equivalent of like, you know, I'm, I'm doing the marketing, I'm showing up, I'm selling the roof, I'm on the ground cleaning up as the guys are tearing up, I'm climbing up and helping them tear off.

I'm dealing with the initial claims meeting, the adjuster meeting, I'm following up with the desk adjuster, I'm getting the final check from the homeowner, from the insurance guy, like doing quality control walkthrough. And that's why it's like, in due time I was like, you know, it just makes more sense to, to, to do it myself, I guess, right?

Mm-hmm. . Um, so I think that if people put in the time and, and into like the prospecting side of it, And it's not always just a bait question. If you're having authentic conversations, try to understand people's pain point and you invest time into asking like good follow up questions to really have a sound understanding of what the struggles are and you craft solutions that are based off of that.

I think people would be more successful in the marketing space as it relates to like those Facebook groups. But I think that a lot of the times people could sniff out the fact that it's just a bullshit engagement post to get somebody to respond, to trigger a dm, to be like, can you handle 20 more leads though?

Yeah. Like, you know, and it's uh, it's just bad salesmanship. 

[00:46:46] Adam: So what do you think is, uh, what do you think is the best, um, what do you think is the best, you know, 12 month strategy right now for roofing company? Cause I get asked this question all the time. I mean, everywhere I go they're like, you know, they wanna know, okay, well now we spend all this money on the crm, now we want to pour the gas on.

[00:47:00] Mike: You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So I think that that, that there's a ton of variation as far as having a good answer to that based on the context of that company. Right? So a 12 month plan for somebody who is pre-revenue or just starting their business looks undeniably 

[00:47:21] Adam: different. Let's preface it like a 10 million plus company.

That's like, if I was to say, Hey, my last five clients go watch this podcast I was on, because you're all the same. You know, this is like a good 12 month strategy for a $10 million and up company. It's doing that profit that has an established brand, but wants to like somehow find a way to get that extra umph out what they're doing.

So they're probably already doing some Google ads. They're probably already, you know, they're thinking about or doing some kind of social, but it's probably just picture ads. Um, you know, and they, and they've got some traditional media, you know, how do you come in as a person who knows this industry instead of say like a, a kind of a white.

Gray agency that does all kinds of industries, more of an agnostic, generalized marketing agency. What, how is it that you come in and say, you look at an established marketing campaign and go, I think I can make this better. Like, what is the thought process that you go through? 

[00:48:13] Mike: Yeah, and that's a really good question and thank you for answer, uh, asking it.

So I try to take things like in a consultative fashion, right? So it's like we look at everything you're doing and maybe like if you're doing 10 million, maybe you're doing billboards, tv, radio, things that I wouldn't recommend typically a first year company to do, which is why I was so fucking impressed with Caleb and what he's accomplished through radio.

Um, cuz that's typically what I tell people is like a year, two, three strategy based on revenue. Um, but you know, the first thing that I'll answer to that question is it's not always a money thing. It's not always gonna be throw more money at it. If you're really trying to scale, you know, to, to 15 million from 10 million inside of 12 or 18 months, it's probably gonna involve money, right?

Um, But like what I tell a lot of companies is like, I find in my experience that a lot of roofing companies have entitled teens for sales reps, right? And it's the opportunities that are generated by the company are viewed as an entitlement, not a perk of working for a good company. So we'll talk about in like the, a retail situation, right?

So tirelessly I hear like, I gotta make sure that I get another 10 leads a week for each one of my guys so they can set, you know, appointments and make sure, and it's like I come from a background where it's hunting, right? Like you. If you didn't hunt, if you didn't kill anything, you didn't eat right. And I think there's a happy balance there.

So I think like sales activities would be the first thing that I would look at is like, what are you doing and what type of ecosystem have you created as far as getting your reps to generate opportunities? So like I was on, when I showed up at the one industry, one model, or we did the event and New Serna Beach with uh, tj, it's like the social snowball effect.

Like it's real. Like the only reason we're sitting here today and we have this conversation is cuz what I've established as far as a brand within community groups, roofing companies can do the same thing, right? Mm-hmm. , what does that look like? Well, one, you should have like a quality control walkthrough for your customers and make sure that they're happy.

You should use that opportunity in conjunction with automation as well to make sure that you get the review while you're there and that there's follow up thereafter. And then outside of that, like invite people, if you've got your sales people, let's say there's 10 local community groups on Facebook where there's homeowners and there's 5,000 here, 3000 here, 20,000 here.

Get your sales people in there and invite, have them, invite their customers into that ecosystem and talk about how fucking fantastic you are. Right? If you're doing 10 million, Adam, how many customers do you think that they're servicing on an annual basis? 

[00:50:50] Adam: Oh, uh, to do 10. To do that? 10 million what? A second ago?

Like 600? Yeah. Depending on, depending on where they're at in the city, in the country. Yeah. 

[00:51:01] Mike: So I mean, if we get 10% of those people to be brand ambassadors within these local community groups where there's more. Um, than just randomly somebody posting, right? If you're, if you're in a neighborhood, a geographically designated zone within Facebook, it's like if you can get 10% of those people and have 60 to 80 people consistently tagging your company and talking about how great you are.

Anytime somebody talks about roofing, siding, gutters, that's huge. I see that as a huge misstep for a lot of companies. Um, scaling your budget, right? Like, take a look at what's working. So you're building an environment within a crm, which I'm sure the attribution and tracking capacity is second to none, right?

So take a look at what you're doing, what your closing percentages are, what your revenue, what gross and net is based off of your lead sources, and understand, make a database decision as far as like what's been productive, what should we scale, right? If you're in a market and Facebook is absolutely crushing it, Throw some more gas on Facebook.

If it's Google ads, that's absolutely killing it for you. Go ahead, expand your seo. If you're getting a ton of organic leads, um, you know, that's how I always advise people to make that decision because I can sit here on a soapbox and tell you what's best for your company. But like that company should have a way better understanding.

than me as far as what's working, what's working well. So those are the types of conversations that I have with people when trying to establish like, what is the best strategy for you. Does that, is that a good answer? Is that me just kind of is 

[00:52:33] Adam: That's No, that's a fan. That's a fan. That's a fantastic answer.

Which is like, do what's working and more of it is like, um, and it's like as your agency is maybe getting complacent, right? Um, and thinking, okay, well we talked them, if we took them from six to 10, we're good. Let's put 'em on the, the rotisserie cooker and just set it and forget it. Um, I feel like that's where I like when I, cuz when we do build this stuff, it's HubSpot, right?

So it started as a marketing automation platform. So the attribution is second enough. In fact, that's how we kind of sell it, is we kind of sell, it's like this is like gonna be working as like, Part-time employees that get paid three grand a month in your company. So you're already making, you're making money just by having it because it's gonna do the job with three part-time people.

And one of those people is gonna be the guy, the person who reports to you and how all the different marketing efforts are working. And if you just know that information, not only are you gonna have that person working for you for free because it's just a report and a system built in, but you're also gonna be able to make more data driven decisions as to what's working in your marketing.

Because that's the problem is like you use the roofing CRMs, right? I mean Job Nimi, I'll bet you, I bet you $10,000 right now. Um, job Nimi, they use HubSpot Sell Job Nimmi and they are US are Canadian. Where? Hmm? Thousand US. OK. . Yeah. Um, so Job NIMS is going to try and come out with something similar to Marketing Hub for Job, for Job nis.

They're gonna try and, cause they, cuz when you're using HubSpot and you look at Job nis and you see like even in their marketing ads, When they show a screenshot, HubSpot's up in the corner, like they got three tabs for HubSpot open up in the corner of their screenshots of Job nis. And I'm like, and I'm, I always like, screenshot it and like zoom it in and like Guy , but that's so, so funny.

But like I guarantee you I'll spend, I'll bet you 10,000 bucks, they're gonna come out with a marketing hub copy for Job Nibu. Um, trying to, trying to do something similar. And that's because the problem that it's existing is the industry is changing, is that you are going to need to find economies of scale, right?

So if you can take and find like every, there's 30 roofing companies in Denver that all got 4.5 stars on Google. There's not really much that separates them. They're selling the same shingles with the same prices installed in the same way, in the same amount of time by the same type of people for more or less the same price.

What's different about nothing. And you can, we can do a lot of stuff and value extraction to try and find out what makes 'em special or try and come up with something that somebody to make them stand out. But at the end of the day, there just isn't that much that you can do different. And so, Um, if you can take a look at them and they're all spending $5,000 a month to get to, to basically to be competitive in the marketplace.

So, you know, 30 of them, 15 are paying Mike and 30 15 of them are paying Tim. And they're all just footing that money into the market and they're all getting so, so results from it. Well, um, and I probably wouldn't happen cause you guys wouldn't do that kind of thing, but, um, but anyway, see if, if you can be a company that can find a way to spend 30,000 to replace the marketing efforts of those 30 companies spending 5,000 each, that's $1.44 million a year in frost removed outta the market that you can use to make more profit sell jobs for $1.44 million cheaper a year.

Um, all because you find ways to create these economies scale. And the only way you do that is without just saying the data driven decisions and. I feel like that that's a very good way to go about your approach, because you're right, most of these companies that we're taught that, that we're working with, right, when we kind of sell HubSpot, it's like, and this is gonna help you do this.

Um, that's one of the questions they start asking the last week. They're like, well, what do we do? Like this company is planning some big initiatives when I leave. Um, and, you know, they're trying to hire an in-house marketing person and they're trying to like, they're like, okay, now we got this tool. This's increased our capacity and our ability to swing a hammer at our market.

Um, now how can we go and, and just like flood the place of business? And, you know, my answer is, well get on Facebook and record 2000 videos like I did, but they're not gonna do that. Right? And so they, they need to find other ways to do it. And I think that, you know, the agencies that people have, they, they kind of, a lot of times I see them and I say, well, what are they saying you should do?

And they're. Spend more . It's like, and, but on what? And like, what's actually working? They'll just give you report, like these are your keywords and you've got like 6% click through on this one, 2% click through on this one point, 6% click through on this one. But they never say, so we should cancel that one and we should pour more money on these two and see which one of those two still is the winner.

And if this one's still laggard, well then let's just pour all the money from all three into that top one. Right? They don't ever do that. We just, every month they send the same report with the same, with the same keywords, get the same click through, rate the same. And it's like, it's just the same ads running the same report.

You'll see it for six, I'll see it like six months. They, sometimes they include me or I see it come in through their, like, through, I, I got so many people's stuff sent to me at this point. We just like, we see it, it's like the same thing every month over and over and over and over again. Um, and they never, and they never like optimized.

So I think that your, your answer was perfect. 

[00:57:22] Mike: Thanks man. I really appreciate that. It's, what do you do? So like, Causal relationships are a beautiful thing when you're talking about marketing companies and, and, and people investing into marketing and advertising, right? Cause it's like, I invested this, which presented this ad to this person.

They clicked, they bought we top line revenues. This company made this fantastic. Like, it's very clear and concise, but how do you handle situations where maybe it's, it's foggy, it's not as, maybe it's just correlation because there's different variables and there's, the customer journey looks a little bit different and there's not that straight line attribution 

[00:58:04] Adam: you.

I mean, you have to then just kind of take an aggregate of everything that you're doing. You know, the, the probably the best book on marketing I ever read, and probably the thing that got me out of being an agency was this book called Sheep Don't Eat Complicated Grass. It was recommended to me by a guy named, um, Josh Kelly has like a hundred and it's probably like 200 something million dollars now.

The, uh, uh, air conditioning company that, uh, we worked with him in the past and it was back in the Facebook and days, but he said, he showed me this book, um, and now, and then he went and actually started our agency too, called Clover Marketing. Really smart dude has like five businesses. But, uh, this Sheep Do Complicated grasp.

It's literally like this thick, it's tiny little book, looks like a comic book, but it was, everything in it was just gold, right? And it really just says, People in their sheet brain make decisions to buy things. Right? I instantly just saw your drinking laqua and thought, Hmm, lemon cello, that's a good flavor.

And I go, and I don't even know if that's the flavor, but that's my favorite flavor. But I just 

[00:59:01] Mike: saw lemon cell as good as fuck. This is just lemon. It sucks. Yeah. , 

[00:59:05] Adam: right? It's like it's, but you, so why does Tide put their logo on a race car? Right? Because sheep don't eat complicated grass. Their brain, when you're in your sheep brain, you pick up on things and that's why Caleb's radio worked.

It's a consistency. Um, and so you kind of take the aggregate of what you're doing, and it's like you, you get to a point in a size, in a company where you're doing so many different marketing initiatives that don't necessarily have direct attribution. You have to kind of do it the same way Coca-Cola does it, which is where we spent 10 million and we got a hundred billion in.

If you spend 15 billion, did we get 150 billion in sales? No. Then we then somewhere in between those two numbers is a sweet spot where we get a diminishing rate of return and we have to make some, we have to try and see what makes an adjustment. So you're using kinda like a gap method of measuring it where it's like, based on this, between this gap and these two numbers, our effectiveness went down.

Why? And, and you have to start analyzing everything you're doing and just trying, trying to get answers. But you're trying to capture market share. You're just trying to put your logo somewhere so that someone else can't put their logo there. You're just capturing attention in market share. So I believe that once you get to these certain size, these like eight figure companies, it just becomes a matter of being everywhere, being omnipresent, and, and you have to just start looking at your marketing spend and your total addressable market and how much of it you're capturing.

Um, because you can't try and get attribution from every single thing, but that doesn't mean spend stupidly the places where you can get attribution, you can get returns. Optimize and then take what's working in those places and go put it in the places where you can't measure. So when you get a kick ass like image ad on Facebook that works, you know, like let's say like the hot shingles in your area, ad that, you know, goes around every once in a while, right?

Yeah. Like if you find that ad kills, right? On Facebook, you're advertising to your same market of people. Well, the bill, the, the, the, the banner ad in your, like, whatever you call it, the image ad just in the newsfeed, that's no different than the billboard on the side of the road. Yep. Right? And I know, like the joke that Gary V said that every market is rehearsed and said, oh yeah, they're not looking at the, they're not looking at the billboard.

They're not even looking at the fucking road. Right? They all say that that joke's been chopped up and reused by every marketing agency in the world. And it's true to a degree, but guess what? 120,000 cars getting on that off ramp every single day someone sees it and they're gonna drive on that on ramp every single day on their way to work for now until years from now.

And it's like, hit that up, you know? And so if it works in the Facebook newsfeed, it'll probably work on the billboard or the bus bench, you know? And so take what you can measure and apply it to the traditional advertising world. So if it works as a podcast, put it on. Or like, if it works as an ad in a podcast or some kind of audio format, put it on the radio.

Right? If it works on YouTube, put it on tv. Right. That's really, it's just like, take, 

[01:01:58] Mike: sorry, go ahead. No, that's really smart. And you know, and. The reason why I usually tell people it's gonna be year two, year three, that you're gonna do more traditional media is because you have to have liquidity. You have to be able to pay for your means of acquisition for new customers.

And typically, like that's what I found is like that timing. But you're 100% right. Like I, you know, I've cracked the joke where it's like, when's the last time you got in the fucking car to go find a roofing company to do your roof? That, and I say that in just what happens, like you said, 120,000 people perpetually your commuters, maybe 30,000 of 'em are hitting past that same route every single day.

And maybe it's not, oh yeah, I'm gonna get this number. But what's gonna happen is if your omnipresent, they do a search a year from now and they see three roofers there, right? And one of 'em is the one that's been just bludgeoned into their brain, subliminally through, whether it's the billboard, whether it's Facebook ad campaigns, whether it's organic posting, whether it's door hangers and neighborhood blitz is whatever.

They're gonna have that level of familiarity. And they're gonna be like, ah, they're more inclined to click you and choose you out of those top three in the ads or in the maps section organically, wherever they choose to engage. Yeah, dude. Yeah. It's 

[01:03:10] Adam: just, it's that inception from the end of that movie focus.

Right? It's like you just wanna put five five everywhere, right? , I dunno if you've seen that movie. Yeah. But it says, uh, there's a, did you see that movie Focus? I've not seen it. You seen it? Okay. So there's this, basically he runs up this gambling debt, this betting, this betting game between this dude and a, a, a, I can't remember, it was a football game.

Yeah. And they're betting on like every play and everything. And he's losing and winning and losing and losing and losing and losing and losing. He's losing all this money. And then he's got, but they keep doubling the bat. Double or nothing. Double or nothing. Double or nothing until the number gets really big.

And then they find, and it's this whole hustle. And then at the end they say, I want you to go look down. It says, look down the team, look down the field. Pick it. Like pick any player from any team. And I bet I can guess the number on the back of their jersey. Right? And he looks down. Has the number in his head.

And then, um, he, and then, then Will Smith, the main character who made the bet says 55. Right? And, uh, And, and the guy's like, holy shit, you did it. And now, now he gets all his money back in this huge bet. And so then he walks out and like, everybody's losing their mind how this happened. Turns out they had been running this hustle on this guy for a long time, changing the numbers on his door to five five playing a song five five, changing the wallpaper on his hallway to five five having five five on his pin.

And like the song that was playing in the background when he was making the be was woo woo, woo woo. Old song and it's like basically woo, woo woo, I guess his number for five. And so all these things were like inception, you know that to make him think of when he looked down on the, on the field, he looked at any of these numbers.

They, they knew they had to make him pick a number and they made him pick 55. Well, it's the same thing in marketing cuz sheep don't eat complicated grass. And when we're in our sheet brain, right, and we're just like trying to like, just not fall, go past the yellow or white line and we're just trying to like get to work and we're listening to the music on the radio or the podcast and then you just like see stuff and like your brain just like picks up stuff that feels familiar, right?

If you pulled a cup off your table, that was some thing I've never seen before. I would've maybe been, it would've been completely benign. But the fact that I saw it, that it was Laqua, I'm like, oh, right, not Laqua Lemon Chill. That's a good flavor. . 

[01:05:20] Mike: Yeah. Yeah. It's funny how that works. I think it's, you mentioned diminishing returns too, and I, I don't think that that's always going to be a bad thing.

And I'll give you an example of why I feel this way. So if you are trying to, like, let's say you're running an ad campaign. Let's say it's Google Ads, cuz this is what we deal with a lot. You've got your optimal search terms in conjunction with your negative keywords to get in front of the most ideal individual that's likely to click your ad, engage and buy from you, right?

Mm-hmm. , the more we scale that budget, the less of those ideal people you are. And it's like you move down a tier as far as like maybe the quality or the intent of the individual. So your cost per lead may rise, your cost per acquisition may rise. That's not a terrible thing. If you are still, let's say you go from 150 bucks, a lead to 180 bucks a lead, you should be able to be pretty profitable acquiring leads at $180 through Google Ads.

Um, so I think that's an important distinction to make. But to your point about diminishing returns, like be cognizant of them for 100%, right? Because there is a point where those things are not nearly as productive and then they become a liability on mm-hmm. on the, uh, the sheet, the balance sheet, or what have you.

Do you agree with that? 

[01:06:33] Adam: I agree. I agree completely. I mean, if you're, whether your lead goes from 150 to 180, it's it's cost per customer acquisition, and then it's also so many other things that you have an influence over in the business, right? I mean, the smartest people that I'm working with are, you know, they're , they're losing $500,000 this year, not making $500,000 this year, but they're capturing market share, you know what I mean?

And they have the capital to do it, but they're looking at it and just saying like, we want to create a customer acquisition machine, um, because we want to, we want to make it so that as the dust settles on this changing marketplace, You know, we have this customer acquisition machine that when one, that one lead turns into a sale 50% of the time or 40% of the time, but that one lead turns into three more sales because they build this customer acquisition, um, methodology throughout the entire sales process.

And they systemize it with, with, with, with, with a crm when they, they don't have to use me to do it, but the smartest people are doing that. They're like, how do I turn this one roof into three? So they're creating this like massive build day presence. Big sign, or not a big sign, but like a big guy. One was like tent with the roof on top with their logo and table with the tablecloth and a cooler that they're taking care of the roofers, throwing 'em, you know, water bottles and freezes and they're, they're out there and they're making themselves present in the neighborhood and they're magnet raking the, the, the, the driveways and magnet raking the street and waving as people go by and, and, and putting a nice, you know, clean cut person with the polo and all that kinda stuff on site.

And they're putting, putting this, this build day presence that creates this neighborhood domination effect so that all of a sudden they take your, your increasing cost of leads or your diminishing rate of return and, and, and, and they take that and they turn, they maximize that spend by creating this customer acquisition machine on the back end.

So it's like, I just need to buy opportunities. They, they're thinking. Kind of like how SaaS thinks in like mrr, like we need to pay cost of a customer acquisition. It's three months of membership revenue, or six months of membership revenue. But once we have them, their explanation lifetime value is not canceled.

Yeah. Lifetime value. Well, their lifetime value of a client is really what is the lifetime value of a neighborhood, right? They're just trying to infect a neighborhood and then they, and then they just, they want that disease of positive experiences to spread through the neighborhood and then just do neighborhood domination.

Rather than knocking 10,000 doors to get on to get on, you know, um, let's say a hundred roofs, right? And then get 50 in, you know, 50 inspections that get approved. They're like, let's instead apply that same amount of energy to just get to get 50 leads that turn into 30 rows. But then let's turn that. A thousand roofs that we do in the neighborhood, and there's a lower upfront cost, and they really only have to spend money once they're making money.

So then they just need to work with someone who could help them work to that end. 

[01:09:20] Mike: Right? Yeah, it's, it really is brilliant. And it's like there's layers and levels to it, right? Because you can say, you can go to any roofer who's been on a job site, maybe they put a lawn sign up, maybe they don't, but just their truck being there.

Maybe a neighbor comes and talks to 'em and they've gotten leads that way, but that's not the end, right? So as if you put the lawn sign up, more people are gonna be inclined to call you based off your presence there. If you have a wrapped truck, if you have a tent, if you then have a person at that tent that's giving out coffee or giving out coolers, if you have, um, you know, any type of banner or catchall that's branded, hanging from the house, all these additional layers that you're layering on are only going to.

Maximize the likelihood that instead of one neighbor approaching you, four of them do, or seven of them do, or 10 of them do. Mm-hmm. , if you parlay that with other marketing efforts like sending out, you know, drip campaigns of mailers, maybe, or, I'm, I'm not here to promote anyone in particular, but there's a lot of things that you can do if you choose the right vendors to work with and just take kind of a holistic approach.

Take the blinders off of just acquisition. Now. There's so many things that you can do to create that machine that you're talking about, and with automation, it's come such a long way where it can be so powerful. . 

[01:10:39] Adam: Yeah. And that's, so that's, that's really where I, where I look at it as, as being the, you know, what people are doing in the full scope of like trying to acquire customers, not just like marketing or lead gen.

You know how like, or advertising the agenda, but marketing, you know, like how do you just really try and capture market share and make it so people want to want to do business with you. And then, you know, if you can do some cool things that, you know, make your brand stand out and they like, they just want the invisible hand of capitalism to make you win, then great.

You know, but, um, yeah, people are gonna, you know, you're, people are going to see that the industry is gonna be looked drastically different three years from now. 

[01:11:19] Mike: Yeah. I couldn't agree more. Before we wrap up here, what's one fun fact that nobody knows about Adam Sand? 

[01:11:27] Adam: Hmm. Fun fact that nobody knows is, well, 

[01:11:29] Mike: I don't wanna say nobody that most 

[01:11:31] Adam: people wouldn't know, is most people wouldn't know.

Um, um, I don't know. So I would say something like, I used to be a. . Hmm. I was in just a little theater company and I used to want to be an actor when I was young, or maybe that I want to go to space. And I'm super jealous that you get a rocket in your logo. That's 

[01:11:52] Mike: another one.

That's funny. I wouldn't peg you for the theater type. 

[01:11:59] Adam: No, I was actually really introverted. But you know, when you could act, you could just kind of like pretend that you weren't right. Yeah. So I'm actually really introverted. So on the football team and in the theater group and in high school and uh, in, you know, in both cases it was like you kind of got to wear a mask, so to speak, right?

Mm-hmm. . Cause in the football helmet, you're just like, you're just part of a team. You're just another guy with a mask on his face, you know? And then it was, I found a good place to expend energy. And then same thing with theater. Um, it was just like, it was just something that, that I got influenced in. And it was, I mean, the best part was, it was really, really cheap.

You know, my parents, um, didn't have to pay much, so me to be in theater and football wasn't that bad either. It wasn't like hockey. 

[01:12:40] Mike: Yeah, I, I got one year to play hockey because my grandfather's like, my boy's gonna play hockey and I don't care if it's a thousand dollars. I remember the conversation. Right.

And, you know, that was it. We played one, I played one year. Um, and it, I mean, it was just wildly expensive and we weren't by any measures, any type of well off. So, uh, yeah, it's football and basketball, but theater. Dude, that's awesome, man. If there's one thing that you could tell a roofing company owner as far as based off your experience and, and common missteps that you've seen, what's one thing that people need to be situationally aware about when they're running a, a roofing business?

[01:13:15] Adam: Well, I, I, I got kind of known for this whole follow the process thing and I used to be really obsessed with like process. I used to say, have a process. Map out your process, document your process. The word process was really the thing that I focused on and now I'm more about the follow up, right? It doesn't matter the tool, right?

I used to get really excited by tools and tech and stuff like that, but the tool doesn't matter as much as the process. And then really the process doesn't matter as much as getting adoption of that process. And so trying to get, so really focusing on being able to get adoption of every initiative that you're putting in place.

You'd rather have a simple three sheets of paper CRM that you can get a hundred percent adoption of than having a $10,000 a month CRM that nobody uses. 

[01:13:57] Mike: That's an amazing point, and I think, you know, A lot of y'all are gonna have to take a look in the mirror because that shit starts with you, right? The accountability and whether it's you holding your team accountable or it's people that you've delegated to trust to help with the adoption internally of these systems and processes or processes, sorry.

Um, you know that there has to be accountability there, right? Especially when you're entering something new into your business, right? And if you don't, it's 100% your fault and you're likely there's gonna be a detriment to your business as a result of that. Very well said. Well, look it, dude, I could sit here for another four hours and talk to you, but I'm sure you've got shit to do.

Um, I really appreciate you stop and by I would love nothing more than to link up in the future and, uh, continue the conversation, man. 

[01:14:46] Adam: For sure, man. Thank you so much. It was great to be here. It 

[01:14:48] Mike: was a good conversation. Yeah, absolutely. If people wanted to discuss, you know, the build out of, you know, your crm, how would they go about reaching you?

Well, 

[01:14:57] Adam: I wouldn't be a very good marketer if people can't find Adam Sand on the internet, but that's really it. Roofing business partner.com, find me on Facebook, Adam Sand. I try and be very present and very, very helpful. Try and help people solve the level one and two problems for free. So they'll come pay me for level three, four, and five 

[01:15:11] Mike: problems.

All right, well, there you have it folks. Again, rather appreciate you and I'm sure everyone's pulled a ton of value from this. Um, be sure to, you know, like, comment, review the podcast and, uh, we'll be back next week. Peace.