This Changes Everything: The Door 2 Door Institute Is LIVE

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Episode transcript from the Close It Now podcast with Sam Wakefield.

Well, welcome back to Close It Now. Sam Wakefield here. I am so extra excited about this. This is a, a plus episode and an extra one that we're doing here and there's a very important, special reason that this is an episode that we're doing. One, it's going to be three of us on the show.

The other is we're introducing something today that I have been talking about for at least two years that if you've listened to the Close it now podcast, I know you have heard talk about the importance and the value in canvassing and door to door and knocking on those doors to go find business. In fact, if you haven't, go back and listen to the Turning From a Carnivore to a Hunter series like I did a six part series last year, year, year and a half ago on how I literally broke it down for you on how to go knock the doors in your neighborhood to go find business. Well, today we're diving in a whole heck of a lot deeper and I'm excited to announce something which you'll hear in a minute. So stick around, stay tuned because you are absolutely going to want to hear from these two gentlemen that I have guests on the show today. I've got Jonathan Banister and I have Ken Baden who what you're going to hear is we have come together to put together something really special for you and be on the lookout because we are about to blow Home Services and Home Improvement wide open.

We're disrupting things in a way that you have not seen in the past, especially in the market today. So we're going to get into what some of the problems are we've recognized and how we came together and then how we're solving those problems for you. So if you are tired of being not able to get the the traction that you used to on digital, you know, you got the ad spend going, and the cost of digital leads are going up and up and up, and you don't know how to compete anymore. This episode is for you. All right, guys, let's dive in today.

I'm excited to. For everybody that's listening, this is this. You're right, Ken. This is such a big episode. It is important.

And for everybody that's listening, yes. The Kitchen Table Podcast, Home Service Hustle Podcast, and Close It. Now, we all have the same episode that we're launching at the same time, because you all need to hear this announcement today. But before we get into that, guys, it's cool to just hang out and chop it up for a little bit with you. Let's take a quick second and introduce ourselves to each other's audiences for a second, and then we'll dive into what we've all recognized as a major problem in home improvement home service, especially since, realistically, you can draw a line right down the center of 2023.

And that is where we all experienced this huge boom in, you know, Covid and with the pandemic, everybody was home. It's the biggest boom that any type of home improvement or home and home service has ever seen in the history of home improvement home service. And so starting in 2020, everybody grew like crazy, and it was just easy. And then what happened mid 2023, you can almost write it on the calendar call volume went down 30 to 40%, and it never picked back up. So for most people in the industry that were newer, they're like, oh, my gosh, they're losing their minds.

What's happened? Well, the rest of us know, if we've been around a while, well, it went back to mostly normal. But what it also did, things have dramatically changed. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. But let's.

Let's introduce ourselves. Everybody, let's go around. And for those of you who are not listening to Close it now or the Kitchen Table or Home Service Hustle, who. Who the heck are these other guys? So let's take a second and do that before we get into anything here today.

Yeah. So my name is Jonathan Bannister. For. For those that are hearing me on the other two podcasts right now, I'm the host of Home Service Hustle Podcast. I'm also the founder of Top Serve Digital digital marketing agency.

Been doing digital for the last 10, almost 11 years, working with the home service space. And, you know, I think my World has changed over the last couple years, and we've gotten heavy into branding because it really falls hand in hand with what Sam was just saying that 2023, 2024, and especially this year in 2025, this year, it's not only the individual contractors, but the distributors and the manufacturers are feeling it big time. You know, for those people that have been denying that Covid and the overselling of new systems really hasn't had an impact or, you know, you know, we. We can sell through this. It's just not the case.

You know, we got to get back into maintenance, we got to get back into service. You got to get back into doing things the way that you did before COVID because those weren't real years. You can't gauge anything off of that. And so we've gotten heavy into branding on the top serve digital side. And I think a lot of those branding ideas and strategies and getting data and getting precise of how do we get our brand in front of those people, the right people, is really what excited Sam.

When you and I met at AKA and we were talking about it, and I think some light bulbs went off when I was showing you and telling you what we were doing, you're like, you know what? I've got some ideas that I'm kicking around and I've got somebody that I'd like you to meet and ended up being old Ken here. And, you know, we've had great conversations since then, and it's kind of like, you know what, there's something special here. And there's something that. Not just because of the COVID issue and what has happened with sales, but I think it's the industries that haven't done this process.

They haven't put this division inside of their business. And for whatever reason. Right, we're going to talk about those. I just think it's something that's missing and I think whether we get back to a flat line of where we were before COVID I think what we're introducing is, needs to be introduced to every single home service business. It doesn't matter what industry you serve.

No doubt, no doubt. Love it. Ken, tell us a little about yourself, man. What's up, guys? So for those of you who aren't listening on the Kitchen Table, my name is Ken Baden.

I am the host of the Kitchen Table podcast. But I am also the owner of Potomac Customer Modeling, which is a DBA PCR roofing. And I've dabbled on a lot of things. Pcr, solar, PCR bathrooms. But Potomac Customer Modeling has been the main baby for the last several years and I've consulted for several other businesses, partnered in other businesses, just about all of which have been in the home remodeling space over the course of the last 20 years.

This is where I've lived. Whether I was a sales rep, sales manager, sales vp, you know, I've cultivated a. A decades, multiple decades plus career in an industry which I believe has uniquely prepared me to have some success. And the numbers would indicate that that's the case and all of that and has been as a result of a specific model. And that's the model that we're looking to recreate and even add to make better and bringing that model to other industries that don't typically look at it, which I would call the setter closer model.

And it's just an excellent model for anyone, especially, you know, whether you're conservative on capital or you have a ton of it. I mean, it's just, it's a, it's, it's what I believe. The reason I believe some of these powerhouses that have been around for years have had the success they have and are some of the biggest companies you've never heard of is because they do these types of things. And so we'll, we'll get more into that. My audience obviously knows that I do that.

But for those that haven't, you're getting ready to find out. So love it. And my name is Sam Wakefield. I host the Close it now podcast. So where we focus in on most psychology of sales, it's not specifically for originally six years ago, six and a half years ago.

We started out as. It was very HVAC focused. And about six months in, I started getting messages from people in all other trades. And it applies, the conversation applies across the board. And so one of the foundational elements of my show is of course work to become someone worth buying from.

So it's identity sales from who you are, not from what scripts, you know, because one of the things that I believe is, and this really is in alignment with Jonathan and with Ken is sales is not the performance of the hour that you're in the house. Sales is the overflow of your life. And so are you functioning in integrity. We don't lie, cheat or steal. Everything we do is full of integrity.

As long as it's legally, morally and ethically sound, then those are the parameters. And that's why I want to start this episode with that. Because what we're about to talk about, some people have some misconceptions. About. And so I want to make sure to lay the foundation that every single thing we're going to talk about today is 100% full of integrity.

Legal, morally and ethically sound. And the bad stories that you've heard in the past is not what we are going to talk about. So without further ado, let's introduce what we'll start talking about the problem. So where we're going, everybody. Yes, we're going to be talking about door to door today.

This is the conversation is door to door canvassing. How do you go find an appointment? We're not talking about leads, we're talking about qualified appointments. But let's back up, guys. Before we get into that, let's dive a little deeper into the problem because some we've really recognized it and you alluded to Jonathan and I did a little bit, but let's go deeper into the things that we've recognized or some of the issues across the board.

I mean, you even wrote a book, you own a digital marketing company and you wrote a new book recently called Fuck Digital Marketing, which is if you're on YouTube, make sure to like and subscribe. But he's holding a copy of it. So tell us a little bit about that and where you recognize the problem is and then we'll pass it over to you. Ken and I have a few thoughts about this as well. Yeah, I think the last few years things have gotten harder and harder.

Right. We can say it's Covid related. I think there's just been this big separation between marketing that's working and marketing that's not. And, and, and I've heard it, all right, this marketing company sucks and this marketing company is no good. You know, this company's better at this and that.

And I just kept digging and looking and researching and I was like, I'm just not seeing it. I'm not seeing that it's this company. You know, look, there may be internal operational things that, you know, customer service and the way that communication. There's a breakdown, but I just wasn't seeing it between some of the top digital marketing companies. It wasn't this company's inner any better than that company.

Right. We're doing the same exact processes. Essentially what I noticed was the stronger brands were dominating on digital compared to those that had a weak brand. And the more I looked into this with our own set of clients, I was like, wow, it is clear as day we've got less lead flow, less opportunities with this company over here that has a strong, really very strong brand. And then this company, we're getting way more leads and way more opportunities.

But when you look at close rate conversions and you look at total revenue brought in, it's like it's day and night. And I just kept looking into it and I was obsessing over and, and really, Sam, the, you know, and I talk about it in the book, the aha moment for me because I had been working and talking with the team at wizard of Ads for several years now. All right. And so the story kind of goes like this. One of my clients who's turned into a friend, Dylan Rucker, he owns All Heart Heating, Cooling and Plumbing out of Southern California.

He told me about three and a half years ago, hey, Jonathan, I want you to be on this meeting coming up in a week or two. It's with a company called Wizard Ads and I want you to be part of the strategy call. Well, I remembered this like gut punch reaction because I was like, wait, wizard of Ads, like we do your ads. We're doing a great job at ads. I thought, so like, why are you going to this new ads company?

Because I didn't know who they were. And so I joined the call and I hear Roy Williams and Ryan shoot and his team talking about branding and talking about storytelling and talking about emotional connections. And I'm going to, this is super interesting. And I felt this sigh of relief because I'm like, oh, they're not in. They're not going to try to step on my toes of what I'm doing.

They're just going to try to do help what we're doing, just make it better. And so then that fear of losing my clients ad side of the business went away because this guy had turned into a friend. And I was like, man, I don't want to, I don't want to lose. You know, doing his ads, I felt like we did a pretty good job. Well then a couple weeks later, the client comes to me and he says, all right, we're going to move forward with wizard of Ads and we're going to do about 30 to 40,000amonth in radio.

And then it was kind of like that scene, I don't know if you remember Wedding Crashers where he goes and sees him at the end of the movie and, and Owen Wilson's is reading like I'm about to how to Kill Myself books. And they make up right there at his house. And then once they make up, he's like, man, I'm glad you're doing good. I'm glad you found love and then he goes, well, I'm glad you feel that way. Listen, I want to invite you to my wedding.

And he goes, get out. Right? And he's like, wait a minute, you just told me that you were happy for me. And he was like, I'm sitting here reading I'm going to kill myself books, and then you want to tell me you're getting married? He's like, get out.

Well, it was this great moment with the client. I felt, great, yeah, go do your thing. Then he goes, we're going to do about 30 or 40,000amonth in radio. And I was like, have you lost your mind? That's what I told the client.

He goes, what are you talking about? And I was like, you know, you're going to spend 30 or 40,000amonth in something that you have no way of tracking, like, have you lost your mind? And then you look at who I am today, three and a half, four years later, and it's like, if a client told me they're going to spend 30 or 40,000 in TV or radio or billboards, I'm like, go for it, right? I'm so happy for you because I know the impact that it's going to have on digital, but I didn't feel that way. And I think there's so many digital marketing companies that are obsessed with digital and they're obsessed with return on ad spin.

And I just think it's all right, because return on ad spend is really only quantifiable when you've got a brand and you've got brand equity in that market, because you're not. And I don't care how great you are, you can get the best PPC person on earth. And I'm going to tell you right now, if you give him a company that has no brand equity and has no brand recognition, like, they're gonna struggle and they're going to get you leads at a very high cost, and the cost per acquisition is going to be very, very high. It doesn't matter how great the person is. You can only do so much with an unrecognizable or unmemorable brand, period.

And I just think so the aha moment for me was I had this client that we had had impeccable digital results for. The problem was when. When this client came to us, they had taken a brand that was 97 years old. And when he bought the company, he worked there for six or seven years. He.

He bought it. And when he bought it, the first thing he wanted to do was Change the name. And so he went to a large branding company and they changed the name and they turned it into a beautiful brand. The color scheme, everything was beautiful. The problem is, and I want everyone to hear this, when you go and mess with your brand and your identity so much and you don't put the proper strategy in place to let the community know who you are and why you're doing it, it's going to have negative effect.

And unfortunately, in this situation, he did not get advised the proper way of how to roll this new brand out, and he lost 50% of his revenue in one year. And I'm here to tell you folks that there's, there's ways to recover from this, but it's not just throwing money at digital. Because what I'm also going to tell you is I know Ken here, and Ken's going to speak about it. Ken, you know, they're doing millions and millions of dollars a year in his business, and they don't get one single lead from digital, right? And he's going to share that experience.

So I'm here to tell you that the. Everything isn't depending upon digital. Because what we did was when we started working with this company, the digital was bad. And we turned it around in four or five months and it got it to an amazing place. And I'll never forget, I got a text message from the client and he said, Jonathan, it's 12 degrees outside and my phone's not ringing.

And I immediately went to my computer and I changed my location to be Cincinnati area where he's located. And because I wanted all the ads to be, you know, to. To be real of what is actually there. And so when I changed my location and put in heating repair and furnace repair near me, boom. The client came up in all four places of real estate.

They came up in the top of Page lsa, ppc, the second place of Google Maps, in the second place of SEO. But then I noticed something. Sam. I saw where he was in Google Maps. So he was here in number two.

But the company, that was one in three. I recognize them, I recognize them. And I'm not in the market. And I was like, oh, wait, I remember this company. Oh, I know what it was.

When we were there shooting video content, I went down, I took my video team downtown to eat. And when we left the restaurant, we were strolling downtown Cincinnati. It was a beautiful city. And I noticed that the tram system was fully wrapped in a. In a company called Arling House.

And it was pink and it was arling house, plumbing, electrical, HVAC. But the whole train was wrapped and it was pretty. And then I noticed that the other company that was in the third spot had every billboard going down the freeway when I was there. And then right there, it dawned on me. I said, you know what?

There's my client owning all four places of real estate for heating repair and furnish repair. But I know the way that the human mind works is when we're in that fight or flight moment and people need to realize that this isn't home improvement, right. If someone has a plumbing problem or an air condition problem, like they're calling you in a, in a, in a place that they're uncomfortable, right? So they're not, they're. They're in almost a fight or flight situation.

So if they're calling you, their brain isn't really thinking if there's not enough brand equity and they thought about calling you by your specific name and looking your specific name up. What they are subconsciously, I think what they're looking for is something that might stick out and be familiar. So if they type in furnace repair, they're not looking for anyone specific because they, no one's acquired or earned that brand equity. But when they saw my client in the second spot, who had no brand identity in that market yet, right? But when those, even though he's in the second spot, the ones that are in first and third, they're investing tens of thousand a month on branding.

And I think that people need to realize that it doesn't matter if you have top of the page rankings. If there is a company underneath you that has a stronger brand, I believe you're going to get out clicked every single time. The brand matters more than the ranking. And so the subtitle of the book, you know, it's digital marketing, but it's why building a memorable brand matters more than rankings. And it matters because what is the person seeing and what is their brain remembering or recognizing?

Oh, I remember that video, that funny thing with the dog and they had the wife and the kids in there. What kind of emotional connection are you creating to make yourself memorable? I love this. This is such a good conversation. And so when we start from that place, everybody that's out there, of course, the private equity conversation and how they have endless pockets and they're dumping all of this money into lead generation.

And so it makes it harder and harder and harder to compete in that digital space like that. And also reinforces one, because they really don't care about brands, they just care about Turning volume. So one, the import. And I'm glad you went into that because the importance of having a solid brand is crucial. So at the same time, building a brand takes some time.

It takes like you're talking about 10, 15, 20, $30,000 of monthly investment to create a big brand. But there's shortcuts to get there. There's a ways to actually self fund that in a way that doesn't actually come out of your pocket in, so to speak. And there's ways to get there much, much quicker. While we're building the brand, we can create a huge business at the same time.

So I think that's a great segue to pass it over to. Ken. Ken, take it away, man. Because you've done something wildly different in a place where, you know, most people think, man, you got to have the brand first and boy, you got to be able to spend all this money to buy your, buy your leads. And so how do you go to business if you can't buy leads?

And so I think that's a great place for you to pick up from. I'm actually glad you said that because I had a conversation with a good friend of mine and Pier who is in the roofing space and you know, he, he and I were neck and neck in terms of volume just a few years ago and then they got hit with a, and mind you, they're several years ahead of us, right? Like several years, probably four. But we were right there, right? Just, just I'd say two plus years ago.

And, and I was really proud of that. And they blew up. They blew up because they had a generational storm. They're in a storm market. And that's, that's just something where if you're in the roofing space and you're in the storm restoration, if you get hit with a generational storm, well, that's, that's going to happen if you're prepared.

But what do you do afterwards kind of thing. But anyhow, he was really giving me the third degree on like, dude, why, why haven't you spent anything on branding? Why haven't you, why hadn't you? I mean, he had spent something like a half a million on just, you know, news stations and all this stuff. And it seemed to have really worked out for him, but it kind of made me second guess myself for a second.

But nothing that I had done was not done strategically. It was on purpose. And I'll tell you why. I mean, for my money, you know, whenever I get started doing something like this and I'VE done this several times in the last eight years. In fact, in the last eight years, I have now done this twice as an owner, one as a partner, one as a sole owner, twice as a consultant, and then another time, as I would say, probably consulting.

Yeah. So three times. So probably five times in the last eight years, I've done this exact dance, this exact thing, you know, insert industry. But it all boils back down to the insurance or restoration, solar or retail roofing game. And so to me, they're, they're all very similar.

That's the fastest way for you to get results in terms of leads, the most cost effective way. And in my opinion, for my money, I don't have time to wait to generate a brand. You know what I mean? So I got to get going tomorrow. I got to be able to pay for that brand.

So while I had always wanted to do that, you know, and I was kind of like, man, why, why haven't we. Well, we were always planning to come back to it. And I think this is where John can really help and why I think we're such an awesome trio. Because even in my own business, you know, John and I have been, he's been, he's been guiding me and the. And I do think, could I have been further with.

Sure. But there was a time where I had to get started right away with very little. And there was no way that was going to happen with SEO, because SEO is not a results driven thing like tomorrow, today. Whereas I can train a replacement that day to go out and get me leads that day, which will then, you know, generate the cash flow in order to do these other things. Right.

So, you know, I kind of thought about it. I'm like, no, man, we, we did what we did strategically and purposefully, and we're now at a point where we will start to invest in a brand and we will start to build those things out. We are doing those things. But, you know, why hadn't I done that beforehand? We didn't see the need.

You know, we had several years. We started with nothing, $5,000 in a panic because my partnership dissolved overnight. And that business before then was as grassroots as it gets because I literally was out hitting doors. I literally was out with the canvassers and I hired the first group of canvassers and the canvas van manager and I made sure that they got out there every day. And then I hired the closers and the setter closer model, which we'll talk a whole lot about setters who are grabbing these leads Closers who are closing these leads and you know, making sure both of those things are working on a small level.

We had a 2% ad spend that September and we're generating right around 500,000 or maybe a little more in gross volume. That is. If you could recreate that lightning in a bottle, man, you'd be a bad dude. You know, I had a hard time doing it but you know, 2% is really hard to recreate but, but still sub 10 is phenomenal. That's like everyone's dream in this industry.

So you know, doing this this way has, has been a proven model not just for me, but for some of the biggest and I'll even name drop, you know, a company like Power Home Remodeling Group. This company is a billion dollar evaluated top three in the United States remodeling company. And you know, it's often said they're one of the biggest companies you've never heard of unless you're in the industry and you've never heard of them because they don't do a whole lot of branding, really. Very, very little, if at all. You know, they, they've since expanded into some other things like call centers.

But all of those things are predicated around the main thing which is doors. Teaching people to knock doors to generate leads. It's the fastest way to get results. It's the most cost effective way in my opinion to get results. And you have direct to source marketing.

You have a, what I think is imperative is the ability to generate your own leads in perpetuity. You have to have your own source, whether that's a call center, whether that's canvassing or whether that's both. You now have a function within your business that is able to get you leads that day and you control it, you control where they go. What, what is a qualified lead. I just, I've been doing it so long at this point, man, I feel like to not do it would be so foreign.

But you know, John wanted me to mention, and I don't feel like we've done anything world beating by any stretch of the imagination, but we did just under two in our first year. Now granted you have to understand that was like a fraction of a year. You know, we just kind of did what we had to do to stay afloat because we weren't prepared to do that. The first full year. 7 million, which I didn't think was anything, to be honest with you, because I was comparing myself with people that were doing 20 30, 40, 50, you know, so I wasn't bragging to anybody, but that was a big jump.

And the very next year we did, you know, almost 10, we did eight and some change, you know, some tax maneuvering and expenses and spending money, but still we had significant growth. And so in your first three years to do that kind of growth with no marketing, no advertising outside of just boots on the ground. And that's still. I want to, I want to restate that again. I just want to show this zero because I got to do all the audits just recently on Ken's digital and it was atrocious, right?

And I'll tell you, there was a cut. There was some small periods where it was like a year, two years ago and about, I don't know, 12, 13 months ago, where inside of his ADS account he did try to run some PPC and all they did was waste a ton of money, right. And he, he quickly turned it off because he said this all we're doing. And I'm just, so I was just mind blown going, here's a company that is generating zero leads from digital and well on their way of doing 10, $15 million. And it's all through canvassing.

And it was super eye opening and mind blowing at the same time. Yeah, John just did an audit for us by the way, so he pulled every. So he's seen it, like literally seen all of the money. And to say that point, I know the importance of it. So like I'd spend something on it now.

I know that the money we've spent on it might as well just not even have spent it, but whatever, you know, so I was trying at the very least, but what I found myself really only doing, and I'll save you guys this, this, this pain is like someone calling and, and knowing that we know we need it and getting our money and promising to do something that's just not possible to get done and service SEO for like a thousand bucks a month or whatever. It's just not possible. But you know, you know, you need to do it. So you spend the money and then you come around somebody else that sells you on doing, like you said, a ppc. We did, we tried Facebook and one other thing and it was a couple months and it just was a waste, man.

It's just to me, I'm like, I don't see it. I just don't see it. I'm out. You know, back to what I know and I hate hearing like, well, look, spend this money now and in three months that Just to me is just like, so hard for me to digest, you know? But now I trust John.

I know John very well now. So now I finally found somebody. That's another thing. It's a scary thought to spend money with somebody that's like, hey, give us three months and you'll see some results. Like, that's scary.

Especially when you come from a business where it's like, I'm gonna go get results today. What are you talking about? You know what I mean? I'm gonna train this kid to do this today, and I'm gonna go get leads today. So be careful who you spend money with, but do your due diligence and.

And don't, you know, don't just waste money frivolously. But. But he's seen it. I'll tell you what I found interesting. I want to say this one quick thing.

Sam is, yeah, no, you're good. Ken said when I did the audits and talked to him about it, he goes, listen, I know we could be further along if our digital was dialed in. I know this is something I need to do. He goes, I tried a few things. I've wasted some money, in my opinion.

And he. When his comment to me, I'll never forget. He said, listen, it's just hard for me to get too distracted with finding the right strategy approach. That's going to take a long time. He goes, because, listen, I know this world of canvasing and I know I can generate business tomorrow.

And when I need business tomorrow to grow my business, it's hard for me to get sidetracked and get lost in trying to find the better solution of who's going to help me with digital. He says, I'm busy building canvassing teams and I know I can generate leads tomorrow. And he goes, when someone tells me it's going to take six months to see results, he's like, it's just hard to wrap my head around because I know I can get results tomorrow. And I'm like, wow. So think about the power behind having great digital with a brand that's being built at the same time with a canvassing team.

It's like, man, it's like dynamite. Oh, no doubt. And I want to. I want to restate this because I. I think that we went.

You went through that really quickly, Ken. And for. From. And this is the fun part of where Jonathan and I are coming from and where Ken's coming from in perspective, because, you know, we're coming from a space where, you know, doing a million dollars in a First year is a pretty decent number for a lot of a million to two year. Two million is a like record setting pace for a lot of HVAC and more traditional home service companies.

Did everybody listen to what Ken said? You started in September, so a fraction of a year ended just under 2 million. The first year. No, that year. If you, I see why you would think that.

That was just when I had gotten the canvassing going. But probably more like May officially. Okay, so May through the rest of the year. So half a year, fraction year. Yeah, just under 2 million.

The second year over 6 and the third year over 8. Those numbers are really freaking incredible. com just want everyone to know with yeah, $0 with Angie's List do. Right. I mean and generated guaranteed business.

That's what I never thought of and was like, holy. And I remember going to you Sam, going like why are other people not doing this? I ran to Ryan Shoot and said why are, why are other companies not doing it? And Ryan Shoot told me a lot of companies have tried it but they don't know how to dial it in. So once the canvassers drop off, because it is a revolving door that you're always having to recruit and train and hire.

He said when it gets a little tough, they just go, hey, we'll kick the can down the road just for a little bit. We'll come back to it because we know it works. But let's, let's put our money back into Google right now. And he says that's what they do and they, they need that quick fix and they don't have the solution to keep the canvassing going. Yeah.

I'm telling you, I think there's a lot of opportunity here that people are missing out on. No doubt. So before there, so for everybody, there's one, one other comparison I want to make real quick and then where I'd like to hop into is some of the misconceptions because I know a lot of you listening on most of our shows even I'm sure plenty of people on the Kitchen Table podcast have some misconceptions about doors, probably less than others. But one of the comparisons I want to make is when you look across home improvement, home improvement is different than home service. Home service is the traditional HVAC, plumbing, electrical, the need based things that are a lot more immediate.

Home service is a bigger picture, a little more in general. Roofing, of course, and storms, those types of things has a gray area that overlaps. But when we start comparing size of Organizations. This is the comparison I want to make within, we'll take within HVAC, there's not a single company that has a billion, maybe what one, maybe through this huge roll up has a billion dollar valuation. One or two maybe in home services, home improvement, there's well like 15 companies can.

There's, you name it. There's the. Everybody from power to the leaf guys to. There's just this humongous list of all of these companies that are billion dollar plus valuation. Why is that?

Because every single one of them, this is one of the main metrics. 2 billion in sales in eight Years. There's a guy that actually had on the show, go back and listen to the Clark Manwaring episode on Close It Now. He started an HVAC company in year one with zero ad spend at $5 million the first year, strictly with canvassers. So all of this combines into why we came together because we know that it's a vehicle to get companies where they want to go in a much shorter amount of time with way less ad spend.

But how do they do that? And so, and this is fun for everybody. Listen, you're just getting to hang out with us while we're having a conversation today. So what are some of the misconceptions, guys that people have about door knocking and door to door? John, you want to jump on that first?

Well, I mean the only one I have ever heard when I've asked a question is like, that's not what our industry does. And I didn't know what that meant. And I just believed it for what it was because this was a plumber and this was an air conditioned guy. And they just said that our industry doesn't do it. Only roofing and pest control and solar does that.

And I just took it for the gospel. I was like, okay. And I just let it go. And then, you know, and I never heard anybody else doing it unless those, those industries. So that's the main one that I've heard now that I've talked to people.

I'm hearing, well, I just don't know how to do it. I would, I'm interested in it. It's just something that no one ever really teaches it unless it's roofing or pest control. So how do we get our plumbers in there? How do we get our HVAC guys in there?

So now people are interested, but I just think it's been something that's been taboo to that other home service side of things. I'd say that's probably the biggest, the biggest thing I would echo that, number one, is probably that it's just industry contingent. But I would also say that piggybacking on that, that a lot of the misconceptions are, or maybe they've tried it. And I got a guy on Facebook that's like, oh, I almost went broke on that. Doesn't work.

Well, it doesn't work. Is not true. We're living proof of that. And there's also billion dollar evaluated companies that are living proof of that. It just didn't work for you, you know what I mean?

And so I think it scares people because it's people. And so a misconception is that it's just, it's too hard, you know what I mean? And so the safer space, the safer bet is digital or traditional advertising means because they don't understand it, you know, and it is a building process. It is not, you know, I have a client that just wrapped up in Minnesota, man, and you know, we're going to do a talk, but it's probably not what you think in that. Like, I'm not over here trying to sell that it's an overnight process.

It is something we can do relatively quickly with a lot of success, but it's going to be a long term. It's people. And so when it comes to people, inherently, you have to be able to work with people. You have to go through the, you know, you have to master recruiting, you have to master staffing, you have to master retention after master training. You know what I mean?

And so if you have all of these things down well, then you're good, right? But if you don't know the day. In the office, then spend a lot of money on nothing. But you could do the same. The reason why I like it so much is I, okay, I could do that and I could do the exact same thing.

And John, who just audited our stuff, has seen the times in which we did do that. We spent money with digital, didn't see a result, and went right back to what we know. And so to me, you could do that anywhere. You can go broke. The number one reasons why, in my opinion, why a lot of remodeling companies or home service companies do not succeed is because they don't understand how to get leads.

That is the biggest problem facing every single home service company that I know. Leads, leads, leads, leads, leads, leads, leads. It's always Leads and you know, you can go broke spending money on it in any way. At least this way there's an element of control where what you're building is an internal mechanism that is able to present you with leads on a daily basis if you spend the time to build it. And I think people just don't understand it.

It scares them and intimidates them. So, you know, that's probably the biggest misconception is that it doesn't work or that it's industry contingent. In my opinion, 100%. The one, the one that I want to talk about real quick is what, what when I'm going around and I'm training companies, especially HVAC companies, one is like Jonathan was saying, one, we've just never really done it. Well, the short answer to that is yeah, we did.

You know, I've been in the industry long enough that before the Internet, this is one, this was one of the main avenues for generating business. This is what all home service and home improvement companies did. So we've just forgotten. The other part of this is, you know, when we start talking about reputation, we have to remember if you just because you don't like somebody knocking on your door doesn't one, doesn't mean it doesn't win work. But two, does it mean you're not your client?

Remember, if you're the business owner, you are a tiny fraction of society in order 10% of people are qualified to be an entrepreneur. 3% of people are qualified to be an entrepreneur in some type of home improvement home service space. These are, I don't remember exactly where I heard that over time, but I'm sure it was from a book that I've read. But this truly what's going on. So you're not your client for one.

And so one of the big misconception is hey, what will it do with our reputation? Nothing. It's not going to hurt it or help it. It's just another avenue of generating business. As long as you do it properly.

It's just getting. It's no different than a referral or somebody seeing your branding at the local little league game and calling you up and there it's a marketed lead is how you classify it. So if it's digital, if it's from your van rolling down the street and somebody calls, if it's from a next door app, if it's from somebody knocking on your door, it's a marketed lead. And so we have to be able to handle those when they come in. But this is why I love it so much.

Well, I want to say one thing. There, there, there was a time, the same client, who I know will hear this episode, but Dylan and All Heart, there was a time and I had several clients went through this. There was a couple companies out there and Sam, you probably know who they are, that were offering a cold outreach, cold calling approach. And I think it was, it was 25 or $50, a scheduled free tune up. They were paying this company like $50 to set a free furnace tune up or whatever the tune up was.

And I just thought like, like, man, that's, that's pretty, pretty crazy. Now you want to talk about reputation or burning reputation? Like, well, you know, called 10,000 people in your area and, and have a bunch of them hang up on you. Why are you calling me? You know, because you didn't have permission to call them anyways.

But you're talking about knocking on someone's door, you're talking about putting a friendly face there, showing the brand. And at the very least you're just giving them a leaf behind of hey, you know, like we're, we're in this community, right? And this is who we are and would love to offer you X, Y and Z, but at the very least, like here, will you take that? Like that's less of, way less offensive in my opinion, than calling someone's phone out of the blue that doesn't know you and wasn't expecting that call and trying to sell them on a free furnace tune up. So I think people just need to like, put it into perspective.

And I'm going to tell you, me, as a business owner of a family man and a homeowner, I like to be able to put myself into the shoes of everything that my clients are doing as far as marketing strategy wise. And I'm going to tell you that I have a lot of respect when people knock on the doors and I like to hear them out. I like to see what their pitch is and depending on, you know, and I'll give them more time depending on how they do, all the way down to a politician that knocks on my door. And I may not have the same political beliefs as them, but I at least hear them out because I'm like, you know what, if you're out here with your husband, wife and kids or whatever and you're knocking on doors, I at least have respect for you to, to, to hear you out. And so I don't think it's, it's, it's not what people have put in their head that it's like, you know, it's gonna make us look bad.

It's like, I think it's the opposite. And Sam, I wanted to ask you this question. Every sales trainer I've ever heard since the beginning of time have always talked about, like, the clover process or knocking on the five or eight doors and around you, it's like, that's the same thing. And people will say that they have ton of success, but I can't get my technicians to. To.

To do it actively or, you know, stay consistent with it. Well, I mean, what is the difference than having a trained professional person that isn't afraid to hear no. Or get a door slammed in their face? Right. Like, there's no difference there.

But instead of doing the six homes around you, you're doing the 600 homes in the neighborhood. 100, no doubt. So here, actually. The clover process, by the way, that's funny when I smile when I heard you say that. Yeah, yeah.

It's the six pack, the golden tea, the clover. I've heard a lot of different names, and you're right. They'll pitch that to a door. To an in home salesperson that does not regularly knock doors. Like, yo, when you're out there for this lead that was procured by us, knock these six homes around here, here, here, here, and here.

But you won't do it on a daily basis. Yeah, right. But they won't do it right. Because they're technicians and. And they still don't do that, by the way.

But they should do. But you're right, they don't. But they should and they don't. A lot of it is identity. A lot of it is, you know, fear of getting, you know, told.

No, all the different reasons. EVAs, by the way, a lot of it's. They're just freaking divas. Oh, they're divas. Or it's.

Yeah. I think more important, more than anything, it's not. The current culture of the company is because if it was the culture of the company and there was two or three people on the team that said, what do you mean you didn't do that? Right, right, right. Everyone was doing.

Or the top dogs were doing it then. Now all of a sudden, wait a second. Why am I not doing that? You know, so you're right. I don't.

Well, that's what all the top performers do. Maybe success leaves clues. Maybe I should do that. Yeah. So good point, man.

So let's turn the corner a little bit. Let me say one thing. There is. Yeah. That's why I was super intrigued when you and I talked back at the AC event in March.

I think it was because there is one statement over the last year I've been telling clients, right. There's been clients struggling and it's not struggling necessarily with call volume as much because they can put more money into things and get the call by but they're not closing deals the same way that they have been over the last couple of years. People are getting a little tighter. The economy's you know, question marks. People are worried about things.

And when they have told me, well, I mean I've got guys sitting around, I've got, I've got installers that are going to leave and I go are they out knocking on doors? And I said this before I understood door to door canvassing with the two of you. But I was just saying to like as a counter to them, like who gives a. If you got guys sitting around, what are they actively doing trying to go make money for themselves or for you? Right.

I mean it's not hard take a customer list and go knock on doors or call them and go can we come to your home? But you can't have these divas just sitting around expecting you to fully take care of them. Yeah. Oh no doubt. I could spend some time on this call this lead babies just sucking on the tit of the company.

It's absolutely what it is. So I'm going to drop a couple stats here real quick and then I want to turn the corner into why we came together and what we're doing here today because I think this is crucial one to set the foundation here. So most of the listeners, at least on the close it now and home service hustle, a lot of home service. So HVAC plumbing, electrical and you know in other home improvement, plenty of other home improvement companies, you know, kitchen table all, all of us have people that are in garage doors and roofing and solar and irrigation and all of the different things now. So there's a interesting numbers here because let's take HVAC specifically.

As huge as that industry is the entire industry, we're talking about trillions of dollars in volume every year. S. households. Something has to have been wrong for them to raise their hand, pick up the phone, click the button and say come help me. Now that means that's a horribly like absolutely muddied like blood in the water, sharks fighting over this is why the cost of digital has gone up with, especially with private equity dumping endless cash into it.

Cost of new client acquisition, it just skyrocketed. Now, what we're doing when we're talking about going and knocking on new doors is we're effectively reaching into 94% of the houses out there that no one is talking to right now. So it's a massive blue ocean opportunity. So for one, that's what it is. This is also the difference so far.

When we talk about digital, we're talking about advertising and marketing. Even creating a brand that's advertising and marketing. The other thing that door knocking is is not that it's prospecting. Prospecting is the third. It's so many people almost treat it like the redheaded stepchild of the advertising marketing world.

But prospecting is looking for the most likely buyer right now, which means that's why we get immediate results every single time Ken's team step out on the doors. And when I've done it, we set between one and three appointments an hour every hour, every time we go out. And it's the coolest thing that's happened. And so what that leads us to is traditionally, the way it's been done, it's been pretty moderately unorganized and pretty mechanical. But now we're adding some supercharge to this.

And so let's go through, and I really want to just dive in a little bit and introduce for everybody that's listening, what we're doing. We're calling it Door to Door Institute. So this is the name the three of us are together, because we are. This is the company that we now have formed to help you do this in your company. So we're the Door to Door Institute.

And so let's go through and talk about how we're going to go to bat with this and how we're going to do it different. And then we can introduce, of course, where everybody can come to hear more about it. Okay, so I think the first piece is the recruiting, right? I mean, the recruiting and marketing are going to go hand in hand. Right?

So I'll just speak on the marketing, we'll let Ken speak on the recruiting. Because basically, you know, the strategy that we're going to do is make sure that before we come into your business, you, we've helped you recruit your team and then helped put the marketing in place. We want to nurture the places that we're going to be canvassing to make sure that people know you. That's the branding part that Sam's been talking about. So when it comes to understanding which neighborhoods you want to, you, you want to knock, Right.

And Ken's going to talk a little bit more there. Different industries are going to look at different data points of why they want this neighborhood, whether it's the age, the size of the home, the median income, whatever. But once we establish these are the homes that we're going to knock and why, then the marketing, right now you either want direct mail or a handwritten letter that's going to go to these homes. That's going to be one piece of the marketing. The other is going to be using video content.

Right. So you want to make sure that the homeowners in those developments that you're going to be knocking can see your canvassing team. They can see them, they can see who they are, what they look like. They can see your branding, your hat, your shirts that you have on. But you want to make the announcement, right?

Hey, I'm Jonathan, this is Sam, this is Ken. We're going to be canvassing, we're going to be knocking on doors in your neighborhood over the next couple weeks. This is what we're going to be talking about and this is what we're going to be offering. You go ahead and lay everything out on the table, but, you know, now you got to get that on their big screen TVs, you need to make sure that they turn on Apple TV or Hulu or Roku, they're seeing those commercials. If they open up their phone and go to Facebook or Meta, they're seeing those ads.

If they're going to YouTube or any app they're on. And you need to nurture those neighborhoods and make sure that if they open up their mail, they're getting some kind of letter notification. Hey, I'm the owner of this HVAC and plumbing company and I'm going to be sending my team into your neighborhood over the next couple of weeks. And here's who we are and how long we've been here and what this community means to us and what my team is going to be offering. Right.

A free tune up or a free furniture plumbing inspection or whatever that may be. But just notify them and let them know who you are so that it's not a complete stranger that's getting there. And then obviously the other point part of that is going to be making sure that the canvassing team is put into place. And I'll let Ken speak on that. Yeah.

So I mean, this is a full service and that's kind of what, you know, bringing every element into this, that you could possibly have, even ones that, you know, I hadn't thought to implement. You know what I mean? How can we make this, how can we take what we know works and make it even better? And what I love about, you know, I wanted to bring this up earlier. You know, I had a, a board member on our board of advisors that was really big on, you know, the same thing with branding and different areas and different demographics.

You areas like we're in a couple different states. Delaware is a little more old school. You know, they, they're still very much. Well, we know this company, even if that company has a terrible reputation, they still know that company and you know, they want to see you on TV and things like that. So that's branding.

And branding is in my opinion the difference between a customer that would have said no at the door switching to say yes because they've seen you, you know, and I think that's so powerful. So the branding element ties directly into the marketing element and the two are, you know, this symbiotic relationship that if, if applied directly, which is what we're doing, I think is going to have huge, huge dividends to just kind of warm them up. It's a warmer door. And I know if you've never done this, you don't know what that means. But these are cold doors.

Brand new folks don't know who we are, you know, and as, as Sam said, a lot of this industry, especially the solar Bros. No shade. It's just, you know, some of the biggest names in the industry will just get out and go and there's nothing wrong with that, you know, and they see results. But if you could do it better, why not? You know what I mean?

If you could do it more effectively and more systematically and have a better result, why not? And so that's where we come in. And I think we've taken this whole mechanism and broken down every possible piece, you know, into where we can make this better and moreover, bring it to industries that wouldn't otherwise consider it, you know, because there is a problem. And that problem is factually that businesses, even in my demographic, I just talked to my manufacturers and my distributors and my, you know, they come out and meet with us annually. And recently, you know, our industry is down across the board.

I want to say 19 and we're up. You know what I mean? We're up. And some of the biggest companies over here have, have gone downward and they were the ones that are focusing on traditional marketing methods and they're now getting back to canvassing or getting into canvassing and in an area and in an industry where that's normal. So we compartmentalize what it takes to do all of those things, including all of the aspects like recruiting, because that's number one, right?

We, we will help teach. But also do you know, that's the combination that I think we're bringing that, you know, teach a man to fish or, you know, so we can, we can go as deep as you need us to and helping and really instill these, these verticals into your business on a macro or micro level or a combination of the two, you know what I mean? Whatever meets your needs. If you're not in a place yet where you can do all of it, but we can at least teach you how, you know what I mean? Or come in and do it right.

But we'll teach you how to recruit, we'll teach you where the pools are to recruit from. Because there are, there are plenty of places where canvassers are traditionally found that just parallel really well with the door. And that's just something you learn with experience. Experience is the value driver here, you know, like, what is it that's going to keep me from spending a bunch of money trying to learn how to do this canvassing thing with no results and then I just bail because I don't want to go broke? Well, we are, we're going to, we've learned what not to do.

We've learned that canvassers coming from this area traditionally don't perform well. We implement things like the DISC method that give us a psychological profile where Sam and I are very much in line in that, you know how impactful that can be and teach you how to read those results and you know, you know where to find these folks from a cost effective standpoint and help you recruit them personally. But moreover, how to keep them, because it's one thing to get them. Canvassing is a high turnover industry. Just by nature of what it is.

Everybody wants to make money until they have to go do the thing that is to make the money right, they don't understand it until they go do it right. So we have to be prepared and understand that there's a high rate of turnover. So how do we minimize that? How do we capitalize on that? How do we handle that?

How do we, we constantly are recruiting, we're constantly running training class. I mean, that's just something we'll teach you how to do because we've been there and done that and we can do it at a highly effective Rate to the point where we can actually give you statistics and data and metrics and say, look, you know, we'll bring you in a class of 10. We ought to recruit and maintain probably, you know, three or four of those over the course of years, mind you. Right? Like right away you'll have a much higher rate.

But then how to implement the management teams, because that's a whole different hire. Right? Recruiting for management is very different than recruiting for, for the canvassing, how to move those canvassers that are successful into your selling mechanism. And now you have a farm team that you've created. We'll teach you how to do that.

I mean, the entire vertical is. There's a lot of moving pieces because it is people. But. And as John said, the demographic. Where are we going?

Why are we going there? Right? Where is our target? Right? What are the houses look like?

How old are they? What's the average income? What's the credit worthiness? Right? Like, what are we looking for?

What's a qualified lead? You know, what are the things that have to be there for us to determine that we are going to pay for this lead as a qualified lead. So we'll build all of that for you, teach you all of that. But moreover, I think the biggest selling point is that we will help you navigate the potential pitfalls that could really cost you a lot of time, effort and energy. And that's the value, you know what I mean?

That experience of being able to take what would otherwise probably take years to figure out, and a lot of money and a lot of pain and a lot of headache and possibly never figure it out because you spend so much and, and these things don't work and you bail, we'll make sure that they do, and we'll make sure that it's a success. And we've been there, we've done that, right? So we'll prop you up and we'll make sure that you're seeing a return on your investment, an actual return on investment. You know, we keep harping on that. The three of us didn't want to go into business together until we knew we were in alignment on what.

What we knew was out there with consulting and coaching and all of these different things. And, and on. One thing we were all unanimous on was the fact that a lot of the industry gets hooked on. Just, you know, give me money and I'll coach you. Well, what, you know, I mean, what are the expected results?

What are the metrics? What are, what's the outcome that defines that? This was a success. And so we, we work on real results, you know, real KPIs, real expectations, you know, an example of which could be, okay, hey, look, if you're in roofing, we know that we can get you at no problem. We'll have you demoing at 20%.

Your good folks will be demoing at 30%, but that's the expectation. And we'll make sure that your closers are closing on a minimum of 40%. And we have that data, so we know that we're good and we can show you how. If you're doing these things at this cost, then you should be making a net net of 20% or what have you, right? So that experience and that audit that we do initially will lead us to those numbers and make sure that you're successful.

But it's the experience that I think is the real value driver mixed with, you know, climbing, combining. Excuse me, that. That branding and marketing element that I think is going to take us to. Because like John said in the beginning, yeah, we did some really extraordinary numbers that didn't feel extraordinary at the time. And I certainly am blessed that we were able to do that.

But to his point, like, you know, what could we have done if we did, if we were successful in that element, what can we do now? Can we generate an extra 5, 10 million in gross volume that we wouldn't have otherwise wife's gotten while also doing this other thing? So now, you know, our. Our company has doubled in size overnight. And essentially because we've applied this method that we just weren't thinking of, so you could always get better.

And I think that combining all of our forces, it's just everything from start to finish, from the procurement of these guys, to teaching you how to run them, to teaching you the expected results, to teaching you how to close, to working with your closers, to working with your managers, to working with your VPs. I mean, we can do all of that and we'll do all of that for you. And I think that's where each of us has an expertise that's going to ensure that this thing is successful. Period. No doubt.

I was gonna say, before Sam starts talking about the knocking and the getting the set appointment, I just want to tell. I swear, Sam, I thought it was at your event, but I've told you this, and you're like, I've never heard this for either. So it was somewhere this past year I heard someone tell this story of. It was somewhere near Savannah, Georgia, and it was a small community that a advertising firm was collecting data from. And so they went in to do this experiment.

An experiment was they sent out a survey to every single homeowner in the community and said who is the best realtor in this market? And they gave a multiple choice selection of the realtors there. And when the data came back, there was no clear winner there. You know, each person maybe had 10 to 15% people that selected them. And then what they did over the next six weeks, they sent a direct mail card out six weeks in a row to every homeowner promoting this one particular real estate agent.

And then after the six week of the, the, the digital direct mail going out, they sent another survey out and they asked every homeowner who was the best real estate agent. And this person won hands down. And it was a fake person. It was not a real real estate agent. It was a complete fake person.

And then the person said, we wanted to prove that it's not about who is the best, it's who is the best known. And so that's what, you know, I think Ken sees the potential. They're knocking these neighborhoods. They're making sure it's the right neighborhoods they should be knocking. But what kind of openness or friendliness and, and energy would they be getting from these homeowners?

Even if they're not interested, they're still gonna show much, so much more respect. And maybe they'll take the information to leave behind and maybe they're willing to tell the neighbor that asked them, like, hey, I've got a roofing problem. They're like, well, you know what, we just had a, you know, this team come by the other day, and I've seen all their ads on TV and stuff that, and I've seen testimonials from some of their customers that live near around here. You ought to look into it here. They left something behind.

I think you would see more of that because when you do strengthen the brand and when you do tell the story of why we're reputable and what is our past customers saying about us instead of just knocking, Right? But I mean, I think people need to realize that like, you think pest control. How many people listening to this podcast has had a pest control person come and you got sold to and you may have already been with a pest control company. Me too, right? So it's like, I didn't need a pest control company because if I needed a pest control company, I would have called one.

Right? And so, like, we know it works because it's happened to us ourself, but we think that we're in an industry that isn't normally doing it, so we just don't want to do it. Now's the time. And I think, you know, I think we're going to change the lives of a lot of companies moving forward because I do feel that digital is about to get and I'm here to tell you as a digital marketing owner, I'm telling you digital is about to get extremely hard and extremely expensive because Google is dying. And I want everyone to understand that Google is dying.

Whether it's going to be a slow death or a quick death, Google's traffic is diminishing rapidly. And it's because as people get more and more used to using chat, GPT and Gemini and Perplexity, whatever one Gronk, whatever one they prefer, the more that they start using it, they will not ever go back to Google. And I want people to understand that. And there's competitors of mine that disagree with me and they're like, well you know, but all the traffic's on Google AI Overview right now. It is right now.

For the people using Google, yes, they're using the, the Google AI overview, but I'm telling you Google AI Overview is never going to answer their question and then do the next step for them. Because the future is the person that says, hey AI, I'm off on Tuesday. I only have like really? I've got plans at 2:30 on my day off so I need you to. But I need my water heater flush, my tankless water heater is way overdue.

So can you find me a plumber that is very reputable in my city and get me some pricing and find someone that's available on Tuesday before 2:30 and let me know when that's booked and scheduled. That is the future. Because people are going to want to get their time back and time is going to be so much more important than anything else that you can think of. Now what you hope and you want to happen is that AI won't affect you because you're working on your brand and you're going to try to be 5 mile famous or 10 mile famous and they're going to say hey AI, can you find Bob's Plumbing and get me a quote and get it booked and scheduled. That's what you hope happens with a strong brand.

But what I'm here to tell you is because all the traffic is not going to be on Google only and they're going to be spread between at least a half dozen or more AI platforms, marketing is going to get hard and expensive. Because your customers, like Sam said that 95 or that 4 to 6%, that's all that in your market right now that needs a plumber or an HVAC guy or electrician, only 4 to 6%. So everyone's fighting for that 4 to 6%. But the large majority of that 4 to 6% has been on Google. Now that 4 to 6% is going to get diluted between.

Between a lot of AI platforms go after that. 95, 96, that live in a home, live in your zip code, but they just don't need you right now. Right. Knock on their freaking door and say, you don't know me, you don't need me. But guess what, I've got something for you and I can provide value and build that relationship.

Absolutely. And that's where we come in. Because they think they don't need us now, but they do. They just haven't. The pain hasn't gotten big enough for them to take action yet.

But the chances are they absolutely do need us. So here's a couple questions and this is. So we'll start wrapping this up. We got to land this plane here. I knew this was going to happen, by the way.

But yeah, get us three in a room. Hey, this is literally just an example of our meetings every week. No kidding. Yeah, that's what I love so much. Everybody is basically, you get to be a fly on the wall to us putting this, this business together and this.

Plan together for our scheduled one hour meetings that turn into two or three. Right. So, couple questions I have and I want everybody out there that's listening to think about this. If you are in an industry that has what are called shoulder seasons, what if there was a way to eliminate your shoulder season so your company is no longer dependent on weather, it's no longer dependent on what the seasons do. But you could continually have a lever, a mechanism to get not just leads but qualified appointments from the exact neighborhood, exact demographic that you serve the best, a constant flow of those qualified appointments year round.

This is, that's a way to sum up exactly what we're talking about. So instead of being a company that is reactive, you get to the chance to turn the corner to be a company that is proactive in a way where you get to design what your business does, how it grows, what you want your revenue to be. And it's literally a matter of deciding and then turning the switch on and then that starts to happen. What this will do when you fix that problem, just like Ken was Saying the lead problem, every company, when you fix the lead problem, the next thing in line of course is can we sell it. So that's where I come in.

That's my zone of genius, is helping your teams develop the exact conversations to be able to take somebody from blind date to marriage proposal in 45 minutes, so to speak. So my history, if you know anything about close it now, the history is there. That's a conversation for another day. But know that there's hundreds and thousands of testimonies at this point of people from going from the industry average of 30% close rate to 50 plus average tickets of 15 to right now, every single one of my clients, their average ticket is bouncing right around 20k. Every single person that's coaching with me right now and that's what happens every single time.

And that's what happens when I step foot onto location when we train companies. So that's the element to this also because we're not just talking about getting more people in the door. And absolutely we're going to be doing awesome things with the marketing side with Jonathan to warm those up. So like Ken was saying, it's a warmer door but you got to be able to close them. You have to be able to convert marketed leads.

So that's the other component of this that doesn't exist in anywhere you reach out to for companies that, and there's not many, the ones too that can quote unquote teacher company how to door knock. What they're not doing is teaching you also how to close those specific type of appointments. And that's where this is a sweet spot of the three of us coming together because we start in the front with the marketing and the branding and warm it up. Ken gets a, we get out there and we, we, we get those appointments, we get on the doors and actually make it happen. And then we're showing you how to close it also.

And so that with that what happens is now you've turned your company right side up and turn it into a sales organization that is now has the revenue to turn around and invest in your branding. So if you're that company that knows you need branding, this is a way, this is what I mentioned by we'll show you how to self fund it without taking extra out of your pocket with the increased new revenue now you have the money to be able to invest in your organization, to do your branding, to invest in systems and platforms and all of the things to grow your company to pay your people better. So better people stick around all of the things that you've always wanted to do. This is how big companies are able to do that by fixing the lead and sales portion first and then you can. So it turns into your biggest problem will be how fast can we hire and recruit people to.

In the production side, in the operations to be able to keep up with the sales, which is the best problem to have in business. So that's my, that's my piece on this because I love this so much and I'm so excited that this is finally coming together and we're putting it out into the world. For everybody who don't know, we've been working on this for a few months. This isn't just something that happened last week. And because of that, we are going to be hosting an event.

Let's go the other way around. We've been going Jonathan and then Ken. Let's go to Ken first. Just because I don't like doing things over and over the same way for very long. Anything that's been done the same way for 50 plus years is ripe for revolution or five minutes.

So, Ken, why don't you talk about our. Let's take it to the event because I feel like that's. It's really crucial to lock this in and give everybody the opportunity to come here a whole lot more because this is just tip of the iceberg today. Yeah. So this, we just wanted to announce.

We've been wanting to announce this for a while now, so we're still, you know, getting everything. We had to get everything dialed in, but now that it's out, we've already had the event sort of quote unquote planned. But October 24th will be in Texas. The DFW, I believe it's Addison. Is that, Is that how you say that, John?

No, you put me on. He's. He's looking. I have it. I have it, I have it.

Look, it's in the DFW or close enough. I'm just the only one that's not actually in Texas, but we'll give you the exact, the exact address here. But we've got an event 24 October. So while he's coming up with the exact address, we've got a, a link that I'm sure will be on this podcast on all of our podcasts for you guys to go and register. But the main thing is, is this event, the whole purpose of the event is for us to go into greater detail in each one of our.

Our areas or respective areas and kind of take the time to really build this out, at least from a thousand foot view. Right. Obviously we can't do it all there, but I think the bigger emphasis is going to be on why is this important for your business? Like, because if it's not, then it's not. If there's no problem, then we can't fix anything.

But you know, if, if this sounds like something that, you know, might be of interest to you, I think you really need to be there. You know, we're not, we're not out here charging millions of dollars for tickets or anything like that. You know, we're trying very hard to, to keep this as reasonable. You know, I think that's one thing that I really want to make sure I stress to everybody is the three of us again, are unanimous in making sure that we just don't do some of the things we've seen done before. And I'm not gonna, you know, point any fingers or, or name call or anything like that, but you know, you.

Can call them gurus. I think everybody understands. Yeah, the gurus, man. Or, you know, I don't know. Yeah, the gurus, right.

So let's leave it at that. But you know, we want to make sure everything is. The, the point is, is we want you to have an opportunity to get there. So we're keeping it as reasonable as possible. You know, we don't, we don't expect, nor are we even looking for, for hundreds.

I mean, we're, we're really focusing on if you're a business owner or a CEO in any respective industry in the home services space, this is possibly for you. And if you think that this is something that could possibly benefit your business, the possibly is why you'd want to come. Right? Because I think that's where you find out in greater detail each one of these pieces, how they work together and how it might impact your business. I mean, that's really what we're going over is the metrics, the data, but also just a little deeper level of understanding of each one of these components and, and why, and how it might impact you.

And then we're looking for a very small group of folks that might be good fits to work with us, man. I mean, we really want to make sure we get it right right off the bat. We don't want to take on, you know, more than we can effectively service. Right. So it is kind of exclusive in that regard, especially at the highest level, because we want to make sure that we can deliver on our expectations.

And so we're going to be very selective on who with whom we choose to move forward with, you know, Is that you? Is, is that not you? I guess to determine, to determine if it is, you need to be there. But you're going to get value either way, right? If you're not looking to go to that level, the intention is to make sure that you get value and that you understand why this is something that could help you regardless.

So you leave there feeling like you have gotten real value the second you leave there. And if you want to have us help you and instill this, then let's see if we're a good fit. Yeah. So it's in Aubrey, Texas. Aubrey.

It's about 45 minutes from the DFW airport. Right. But everything. And everything in DFW takes 30 or 45 minutes. Yeah, everything there is 30, 40 minutes from the everything.

And what I will, what I will say is what was most important for me in this, this partnership, and it's been said many times in our meetings, is I want to make sure that the value is delivered no matter what we do. Because I hate going to events. And whether it's me feeling that way or my clients there feeling like, man, this was a wasted two or three days of my life. And so I've always said event should be. You should get something that you can go back to your office tomorrow or Monday morning and apply it and should see instant results.

And if it can't be that specific, then I, I just, you know that I think it's more of a party. It's not an event. And so this is going to be a one day event, all right? We're not going to waste several days. It's one day.

And in that day, we are going to teach you how to recruit, how to do the marketing, how to knock on doors, how to actually set the appointments and get in close at the kitchen table and set those appointments. So we're going to teach you all that. And so like Ken was saying, you know, you're going to get value from this event and you are going to take a book with you that is going to have all of these strategies and approaches. Right? And then for those that are super serious about no, I want this implemented yesterday and I want to start generating leads tomorrow.

Well, then we'll come in and we'll help you. And like Ken said earlier, we're building this out to where you will get a return on investment for what we come out there to do. Right. We want to make this affordable for every company. Right.

Our goal is to come out 4, 5 6, 7, 10 times a year to your company because you keep growing new canvassing teams and we're working and training with those team, those new teams over and over and over. Right. And you don't mind having us out because the doors that we're knocking and appointments that we're setting is bringing instant value and revenue to your business. There's an expression I heard years ago from Brian Tracy and this, I love to apply those things, these things that you get immediate results from that get an immediate payback. It's called free plus profit.

And that is exactly how we like to go to business with this. When you, when we do these programs with, with the companies. In fact, everybody, we've got a couple beta test companies right now. So we're, we're in process of work. We already have some that we're working with currently in this process.

So don't think that it's, we haven't done it either. We've all done it differently. We've all done it separately. Literally adding these pieces to my own business, I mean that was one of the first things. I mean John and I have been working together.

This is something that we believe in to that level. Yeah, Ken's put them in his business. We've got a couple others that we're working with. So the cool part is. Yeah, when, when anyone, if you come out, you're going to get the value, you're going to get a roadmap to be able to, to put this into your own company.

So yeah, again, who is this for? Owners, man, principal managers, CEOs, who you can make the decision to implement this in your organization. And if you're not that, but you're in a company or a team that, and you hear this podcast, pass this to the owner of your company, pass this to your manager. Because if you are tired of not having leads, you want to get out on the doors and maybe you just don't know how all of these things you're sitting around, it's, you're, it's right here. Today is September 1, 2025, date of recording and you're staring into the fall going, how am I going to stay alive?

How are we going to keep food on the table for our kids? How are we going to keep the lights on? Send this episode to your, the owner of your company and implore them to get to DFW October 24th, one day event is going to be able to leave there with either the framework where you can go back and you guys can implement yourself or we can have a conversation and we can come do it for you where you immediately start to get those incredible numbers right away. And so I've done this all over the country. Every single time I train we're on the doors and I tell you the conversations are awesome.

Every single time we're in the doors, people are constantly asking, hey, do you have a maintenance plan? I need to get my maintenance store. Wow, I didn't know you guys were even in the area. It's so good to meet a local company. People are starved for interpersonal communication since the pandemic and this is one of the main reasons why canvassing works so well, especially in our society right now as everyone's moving towards digital purchasing, the conversations with humans is becoming less and less in society.

And so this is one of the reasons of many why it's so effective. So the three of us are going to be hosting this event. It is October 24th, so where do we go to find it? So again, Door to door Institute is the name of our company and the website. com that's D O O R the number two D O O R institute dot com.

They'll definitely. I'm sure we'll have it in the show notes and go get registered and grab your ticket for the event because it we are capping the room at 50. That's all we're taking into the room. It's actually going to be at Jonathan's location. So pretty excited about having it in his facility.

But you won't have the opportunity to get to do this very, very often. We're going to host some more of these but they're undetermined. Don't know even know when we're going to do it. We may or may not even host more events depending on how you know where we take the business. But this is the launch event.

Make sure to get there. There's going to be. I've got a really cool extra extra surprise and in fact I have a giveaway for everybody on the show as well for everybody who registers for that event. com I just wrote a comprehensive gorilla guide to how to get a constant flow of leads in your door without spending a dime online. So I actually just wrote that that is something I will give to every single one of you listening on.

Doesn't matter what what show you're listening to. Register for this event and that is my free gift to you for and it's got. It's not just canvassing. We've got a whole bunch of different ways to be five mile famous in your community. How the companies that are winning right now across the country are going to business as if the Internet didn't exist and then only supplementing with digital.

And so this guide is exactly how to do that in a way where you can start immediately and get some value. And so that is an example of, of course, the value we're going to bring to the event. So make sure to get there. October 24, 2025. You've been listening to the Close it now podcast.

Our passion is to dive headfirst into the transformative movement that's reshaping the very foundation of HVAC and home improvement and at the same time covering fitness, nutrition, relationships and personal growth, proving that we can indeed have it all. We hope you've enjoyed the show. If you did, make sure to like, rate and review. net find us on Instagram at thereal Close it now. And on Facebook at Close It Now.

See you next time.