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Episode transcript from the Close It Now podcast with Sam Wakefield.
Hey, welcome back to Close It Now. This is Sam Wakefield. I am excited to have you back. And we've got a guest on today. This gentleman is Doug C.
Brown. He's been on the show twice in the past. So welcome, Doug. Hey, Sam. Thanks for having me back on here.
And I'm so grateful because now we are business partners. Yes, we are. Yeah, it's been a fun journey. Give everybody a super quick highlight reel. How in the world did that happen?
Because it was unexpected, but at the same time turned out to be exactly what. What was needed at the time. Yeah, I think, you know, the old statement is, you know, when you're ready, things appear. Right. And you and I had been ruminating separately on how do we solve, I would say, the challenges that are in the trades industry for, for, for the folks, and at the same time, do it, and not only an ethical way, but do it in a way that's going to make it happen.
You know, as we've seen so many people, whether they made decisions on vendors that were inappropriate for them. I don't mean inappropriate in a relationship. I mean inappropriate for the need of their business. Ended up spending tremendous amounts of money. Out way over, buying the programs and things they don't need at the time, et cetera.
Yeah, they're investing in training programs that quite frankly, could move the needle a little bit in the direction they wanted to go, but there's little implementation or accountability, a process around how to do that so they can install it and all of these things. And then you and I sort of just came and found one another. One of my assistants had reached out to your company to see about getting on your podcast, quite frankly, this podcast. And, you know, I have a podcast of my own which does quite well called the CEO Sales Strategies Podcast. And, you know, we ended up having really good conversation and then eventually it turned into more of a hey, let's do a discovery session.
And you ended up engaging with my services initially and you were able to add. I was very quickly, in the first five, five months, I remember the numbers were well over $500,000 and you know, and business there and hundreds of thousands of dollars in booked business at that point. And as we got to know one another, we just sort of were like, you know what? We have the same common mission, you know, and we decided actually not only to, you know, just talk about it, but actually do something about it, which has led us to where we are here today. I think I love one of the things that I say so often that I love so much about our partnership and what was the moment that I knew I wanted to do something together with you was we both live by this axiom of success happens at the speed of implementation and the faster that we just start, we could talk about it forever, but let's just do it.
And so I love so much that. So in maybe two minutes or less to set a little bit of context for everybody of why we came together to build what we're doing here, I'd love to hear maybe two or three of your past success stories from companies because you've helped companies grow like crazy before in numbers wise that a lot of times would blow minds in the trades industry. In the trades. So hit us with two or three of your cool success stories. Okay, well, you know folks, we might title this podcast it's all about Us.
Just so you know, a little joke there, but it really is all about you. And so, you know, I've worked generally, I've worked with many, many, many, many trades companies in my lifetime. My dad was a master electrician, grew his business, but I had the pleasure of being in these roles. And one of those roles was an independent president for Tony Robbins companies and a company called Another Gentleman, Chet Holmes Companies. Chet wrote a book called the Ultimate Sales Machine.
Tony Robbins, Big Tall Guy. You know, done events and worldwide recognition and we were building business divisions within those companies. And I, I, you know, that's just one of a handful. I mean, I've worked with E Myth and different companies that we were helping and in the trades business, you know, there was Longhome and Fence, which was a pretty decent sized company and another company called Bath Fitters and some others. And I was working on very, I would say a lot of the high end companies.
And then I was also working with people who had you know, million dollar companies, or, you know, they were trying to get to a million dollars. And what I realized was it's all the same thing, but being done differently at different stages of the business, which allowed the business to grow. The concept and the construct of the whole thing was money in, money out equals a result. And that result numerically, Sam, is either a loss, a break even, or a profit. Now, depending how we deploy our strategy and our business model and the tactics we use will also directly influence that formula.
How effective we are or how efficient we are at making the money come in, for example, and how effective we are and efficient we are of reducing the money going out will, at the end of that equal sign, always will give us a positive cash flow in the business. Now, at the end of that equal sign, there is a result, but there's another equal sign to the next stage of that, and that is that equal sign. And the second equal sign equals you, the owner of the company, the person running the company, and the quality of the life of that individual and their family and everything that's they're connected with. Right, right. And I always wanted that to be in the positive column.
And that's part of the reason that you and I came together. Because, you know, when I started seeing results that you were getting for your clients, and then, you know, witnessing the results you got in your own business and the fact that we are so aligned, and I think it's universal alignment that brought us together. That. Yeah, I mean. 2% in four months.
I added tens of millions of dollars. I reduced their refund rate from 15% to under 1% within a week. I doubled this close rate on the front end of this sales team. I put a tremendous amount of profit in that business. Documented operating cash flow to tens of millions of dollars, literally.
That's just one example. But I mean, I've had literally hundreds and hundreds of companies I've helped super large companies, you know, from. Can you talk about the one you're working with right now? The company that I'm working with in the capacity? Which one are you talking about?
So I want to make sure I know which one you mean. Can I name the company I'm working with right now? Yeah, yeah, I can name it. I am under non disclosure, and I do sign non disclosures, but I have permission to use the name for sure. It's a company called Click Funnels and If people don't know who that is.
It was started by a man named Russell Brunson, who's a very smart dude, by the way. Super smart guy. And I think the irony of that is I'm much older than Russell, but I remember when I was doing the president of sales and training for Chet Holmes and then later on Tony Robbins bought into that company. That's how I became that and started running the business divisions with Tony Robbins. Russell Brunson came through as a student.
How interesting. How funny. And he was sub million. That company, of course, valuation is well over a billion. Yeah, they were offered a billion dollars at one point for the company.
Over a billion dollars. And Russell was smart enough to take what we were doing in that company especially and the we did webinar presentations and Russell was, he was creatively using that and then building upon that to make it even better for his own. And you know, proof is in the pudding, as it said. Right. So there's lots of companies, but what I want people to understand is you don't have to be a $170 million company.
You can be right. 200, 3, 4, 5, It doesn't matter. I've worked with multi billion dollar companies, but the same concepts in business apply. Whether you're just starting your business out, but your focus is slightly different than if you're a billion dollar company. Billion dollar companies still have to focus on sales.
When you're trying to build your first business to a million dollars or the business to a million, 2 million, 3 million. The majority of time should be spent on selling. Right, Right. And so many people, 90% literally on my board right here. Literally.
Yeah. He has a 90% on the back. A constant reminder that they should be prospecting and selling almost all the time,. But selling at a profit, Sam. Right.
That's, that's the thing that a lot of people and since we've teamed up and we've been working with clients, you know, individually, really understanding and honing in what people are absolutely. I don't want to say the word need, but it's more of what they're seeking and what can solve those challenges for them. You know, that concept of what they should be focusing on, when and how, how do they grow their revenue, how do they grow their profits and how do they put processing around the business? Because what I've discovered, and I saw it happen in my dad's business, you know, master electrician, he built it on his back. And I find that a lot of trades companies built it on their back you know, Concrete Plarrows, you know, was one company, they built it on their back, right, that I worked with.
And there's a process to not building a company on your back. And if you have it on your back, there's a process to get the business off your back, there's a process to raise the revenues in the company which you do so well. I mean I was blown away by the amount of your ability to take concepts and break them down into its bite sized chunks so people can understand them. And I was able to do that and I am able to do that on the profit side of the business, the margin side of the business and the process side of the business. And so our collective skill sets coming together, we were like, hey, you know what, we can take anyone and help them achieve their dream.
Because I don't know one trades person that got into business to say, wow, I'd like to build something heavier on me than I already had that I was just leaving to build the business exactly right. I want to start my own company so I can work more hours and make less and have less time with my family. I'm sure there's a few out there, but we never run. I've never run into anybody who's ever said that. You know, it's always the opposite of listen, I'm, you know, I'm doing my thing.
I'm really great at what I do. You know, I'm the greatest HVAC person in the planet. A plumber or you know, fill in the, fill in the trade. You know, my dad was the greatest electrical, electrical electrician in the area and he was well sought after. But he didn't know how to build a business.
He started a company and didn't understand how to build a business nor what should be focused on at what stage and why and when. And you know, that was the part of the game I was able to even, you know, I think even with your business we were able to work on that. And when we are co working on companies today, they're seeing results faster than they've ever imagined. Because while we're growing the revenue through your brilliance and bar to mine, I'm also looking at how are we taking the margins and the expense size, the money out of that equation and putting money back in. So when you take money out, like you know, money in, money out, but you can take some of that money that's going out and then bring it back in.
Now it's back in the money in category and you know, that's My skill set on and around and helping with the process to make it easier on people. And that's what I love about our partnership because the clients that we've been working with are just seeing exponential growth. Remember, let's highlight one of our case studies. I think that'd be a good way to summarize what we're really talking about here. Well, the one that the, you know, the one in Virginia comes to mind.
Right. I mean, gentleman started out, he started working with you. He, he went from, keep me honest on the numbers. I think it was 40, $45,000 a month in sales to $150,000 a month in sales. Yeah.
That was a 90 day progression. Yeah. And you know everybody. So for a plumber out of, out of his, out of his van. Yeah.
And then when I started looking at the numbers in the business and restructuring the numbers in the business, we were able to half his expenses, widen out those margins for him in the positive way. And then we started putting process around everything and working on growth strategies in his business. And I, I, I love this case study because this just happened, I think three weeks ago or two weeks ago, he gets on a call with both of us and he's like, guys, I got to tell you, I had my best sales day and my best sales week ever in the company of the history of the company. And we're only two and a half weeks into the month and so we're having our best month ever. And you know, that's the wonderful part of the synergy and the synergistic skill sets that we bring to be able to help these people.
Yeah, yeah. It's exactly the reason that we're doing this, and I love so much about it, is it gives freedom back. It gives the owner. When you're the business owner and you feel like you're beating your head against this wal, you're stuck. And no matter what I try or what new every single time we get this excitement of this is the next thing and we'll buy a digitized follow up program or oh, this is the next thing and we'll buy a, oh, this software is going to do it for me or this AI call center.
But there's no magic bullets in business. And what we have found is. So. Much of that is a distraction and a drain on the company that it only delivers a fraction of what it should be doing or it's just in the wrong timing for the company. Yeah.
And a lot of times it's the latter. Right. And it's the Timing and the amount that's put in. See, just like a wrench, you know, a pipe wrench, you know, or a, you know. Well, take different types of hammers.
Right. There's a claw hammer, a ball peen hammer, you know, you know, soft faced hammer. Right. And, and they all are a tool to be used at a strategic point. I mean, you're not going to take a ball peen hammer, turn it over on the, on the ball in the end and whack a PVC pipe with it unless you want to break it.
Right, right. And most people, you know, but if you just need to tap something gently, you know, you're going to use potentially a very, you know, soft rubber mallet, if you will. Right. To kind of move it. Right.
And so it is the right tool deployed at the wrong time, we'll end up with a result. We don't. If it's the wrong tool deployed at the wrong time, you'll end up with a really disastrous issue. If it's the wrong tool at the right time, you're still going to, that's like, you know, trying to use a screwdriver as a chisel. I mean it will, it will work.
Or using a chisel as a screwdriver. To apply it to a trade using a side of a flathead screwdriver to cut it through some sheet metal. Yeah. Which by the way, I have your. Wrench as the hammer.
I have done that. I've got the scars to prove it. Yeah, yeah. I was gonna say I, I'd done that too. And I, I got caught up doing it.
Right. And, and it's, you know, so in business it's, it's really about understanding how to build the company and what to do when and in the right sequence. And that's where people, you know, it's like, let's say we wanted to go ice skating. Well, you know, if you put the skate on, you jump on the ice, but forgot to take the skate protector off the blade, you're going to fall down, no doubt. Right.
You, you have the equipment, but in the wrong sequence. Right. So it's, you know, and we decided between us through our partnership and really through, I would say a lot of conversation about what to do for the trades business and how to do it the right way. So it's not just theory, it's not just book application, it's not join a training program. And we want, you know, $400,000, you know what story I'm talking about, and.
Half the ownership of your company and. Half the ownership of the business. I was like, what? What? No, no, no.
And the crazy part is that company was actually going to do it. You know, they were a $3 million trades company and they were actually going to do it until we had the conversation and realized, no, that's not the appropriate thing to do at that time, you know. And so how do we deliver to the trades business, the owners, the people working in there, how do we make a better quality of life for them in the terms of gaining more rev share, gaining higher profits in their business, gaining process in their business, setting their business up so that if they ever decide they want to exit that business, they can do it on their own terms. And we have had, I would say, exhaustive conversations in a, in a positive manner between ourselves and a lot of other people who have built very large trades companies, you know, to the tune of hundreds of millions to billions of dollars, and started with them just their one person going forward. One man in a truck.
Yeah. And so we put together the whole process in the punch list and we're ready to roll it out. And it's not a new thing. We've been testing it all the way along through the process so we know it works. Every client we've been working with is getting amazing results.
And so of our case studies right now, we've had two clients in the last two weeks that have doubled in size. And I say double in size. Everybody hear me correctly, they were single man operations that have now been able to add a second truck on the road and instantly are feeling the relief of leverage, which is a huge word in this conversation. And they're adding these people profitably. They're adding these people and it's not like, oh no, I'm not going to get paid for two, three months until this person's actually producing.
Because the way we're structuring this on the money in and the money out is we're, we're making sure that titration, that balance between those two are. So it's always in the profit column and there's a way to do this and there's a way not to do this. And you know, we've run into several situations, Sam, where the not to do it was what we had to kind of undo right, with, with, with some of these clients. You know, one of them in particular was using subcontractors in a way because they were big paydays for the big jobs. But then when we ran all the numbers were like, these big jobs are killing your profitability because you're losing money on almost every big job.
And they, at first they didn't even believe us. They're like, no, that's impossible. Until we actually like really laid out the numbers for, for that individual. And you know, I remember another one, we were talking to a plumbing company that thought they were making a, you know, several hundred dollars profit on a, on their work, on every single job. And it turns out they were losing $680 per client.
Didn't understand because they weren't looking at the money in, money out component correctly. Right, right. The big picture. And then we've been able to, you know, really take businesses and make them super profitable compared to what they were. And here's the thing folks, those of you who are like, wow, this is kind of interesting.
It didn't take two years to do this. I mean, we're talking within the first six months. And so there is a process or if you're listening to this in Canada or in the uk, a process for this. And we've fine honed this and we're going to now make this publicly available. Absolutely.
And that's where what we want to announce is the official launch of this program. And so what we're really excited about, especially this first, we'll call it iteration. The first class of 2026 is going to be us working very directly with you hand in hand to help you get past those hurdles. You know, it's funny, I've been reaching out to clients all, all day, past coaching clients and just company owners. I know.
And I got this text I want to incorporate here because I think it's very applicable to what we were talking about. This gentleman, he's over in California. I was asking him how's his year going, is he still crushing it, is he growing, etc. He says first year he did $700,000. 1 million.
This year he's on track to do $1,500,000 to $1,700,000. Says it's nice, but need to do much more to get to $5 million I of coaching or consulting for it. And of course that's exactly what we're talking about here is this program is a group program built for you. Now what it's not is we're not going to talk at you the whole time. I know what the other groups are like with the other trainers and the other celebrities call it in the industry.
And you hop on a 30 to 45 minute call once or twice a month and they Talk at you. And there's no real meat that you can take and apply to your business. Doug and I both have the one, the experience behind us, the actual boots on the ground experience, to be able to show you the actual steps, not just conceptually, step by step, what it's going to take to recognize the biggest gaps in your business, those gap zones, and how to close those gaps as fast as possible in the right order. And the missing piece from every other training program I've ever looked at is the accountability part, because it sounds great, I attend and I learn a lot. But we don't.
So many of us in our business, you chase fires all day or the things don't actually get implemented. So that's why I want to bring back the quote from how we started this particular recording is success happens at the speed of implementation. So what we've built into this is accountability to make sure that we are actually taking the steps and you're getting the work done in your business that will move the needle faster than you ever thought really possible before. Yeah, it's about working on the business, but it's not about throwing your life out of balance to do that working on the business. It's just what to work on, what growth strategy to work on when in the business.
And even though we're doing this in a group to keep the investment lower, you're going to have a ton of access to us personally as well as team members that we're bringing in. And you know, and we have some pretty smart team members that will potentially be joining us on the calls. You know, one team member I was just talking to the other, other day, I had lunch with him and you know, he's not against coming on and talking. He. He built 7,000 homes.
That's right, 7,000 homes, you know, and has run many, many, many trades organizations. And so. And one of the things that we're going to do is we're going to be looking at how do you bring the money in, minimize the money out. And part of that is we're going to be bringing our resources to this as well so that we're looking at all the money reduction out that you can possibly squeeze back in. So many of you, and I would say probably all of you have hidden revenue and hidden margins in your business sitting there today that you've already paid for, that you're continuously paying for.
It's not in your bank account, it's in someone else's bank account. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna go in and we're gonna find that and we're gonna help you get that back. And our intent is anything that you invest in with us gets offset in the first 90 days through this process. Yep. In fact, that's our guarantee.
We've got a guarantee on this. And this guarantee says, and we've got it in writing, is if we don't help you do that in the first 90 days, then we will continue to coach you at no charge until we have been able to recognize all of that and help you get that. Because we know it's possible for every single one of you as long as you do the work. Of course there's criteria. You have to actually do the work and take the steps.
But as long as you're taking the steps and we've recognized that on the front end, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to reclaim that in all of your businesses. So basically what that does, it turns this program into a zero cost program to get access to. Because we're going to cost justify it immediately. Yeah. And so we're going to work on that revenue and we're going to work on those margins together.
And why would we make such an offer? Because we know it works. So it's pretty low risk on our end. To be quite frank. We've done enough clients together to realize that those funds can get pulled back.
We will put the guarantee in writing. And of course, there are stipulations on that. You've got to show up, suit up and do your part as well because it just doesn't magically happen. So we're rolling this thing out starting in July, right, Sam? Yep.
July. TBD on the day and time. We're locking that in this week. But it's first week of July as this is kicking off, because this is the first run and we're going to be working so directly with you. There's a limited number of seats for now and so there's already a handful of them.
They're starting to fill up. So I want to make sure that you have the opportunity to reserve a spot and get signed up. And why would we do a limited amount of seats again? Remember I said this podcast is. It's all about us.
We know, we help you. You're a great testimonial, you're a great case study. You're going to tell other people. And it's not that we can't deliver, we already know we can. But when we're starting something out new and pay attention to what we're doing, you know, how many of you in your business right now can have your clientele pick up the phone for you and say, hey, you're crazy if you don't let this person install or do this job.
Because this is what happened in my experience, right? So it is a win win for all of us. We are going to teach you so, so, so many things, but we're not going to overwhelm you. In fact, we're going to stay to one subject matter, one growth process every single month. The major growth processes that can install and be installed in your business.
We're going to not only teach you what to do, we're going to implement with you and we're going to have that accountability and we're going to make sure that we are moving the needle every single month. And you know, let's say that we got you 1% better every single day in your business. Just 1%. It's not a lot. If you run those numbers out on the compounding interest in 70 days you are literally twice as good mathematically.
But in a year it's 36x you are 36 times better. So now maybe you say 1%'s maybe too much. Well, what about 1/10 of 1%? You're only 4 times better than you were. I'm sure that just about everybody listening would say I would be okay with 4Xing my business across a year.
Yes. And again, we're not guaranteeing you can do it, folks. We're guaranteeing, we're going to show you how to do it. And we are guaranteeing that you will make your money back in this thing in a very short period of time as long as you do your side of the business. That's it.
That's it. Got to implement. Well, I guess that's it. Sam, what's, how do they, how do they get. How do we get in touch?
Yeah, so you can, so step one, you can pop me a text. Just let's go old school on this because so many times tech technology complicates the process. So text me 5123-6485-5951-2364-8559. net or find closeitnow on Facebook and message me there. There's lots of ways to get a hold of me and I will make sure in the process that we've.
Let's have a call. Let's hop on the call. And we'll unpack this for you and get you enrolled, because this is the year 2026 is the year where we stop fighting this business monster and just tame it. Let's just turn that lion into just that cat that sits in the corner and sits on the lap and it's. Like, hey, you turn it into your pet.
Yeah, yeah. Let's turn this into exactly what you want it to be instead of something that basically took over your life and you don't know how to control it. And so it's time. So that's it for everybody. Well, that will be all and we look forward to hearing from you.
And you've got the phone number, you got the text. And Sam, is there an email address? Did you put the email address that I did? Yeah. net Go be somebody worth buying from.
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