A

My name is Alex Ramosi and I've been in business for 15 years. And I recently broke the Guinness world record for the fastest selling nonfiction book of all time, making over $106 million in a weekend. And this is scale or fail.

B

Good morning, Alex.

A

Good morning, man.

B

How you doing?

A

Good.

B

Great to see you.

A

Good to see you too, man. So tell me about the business.

B

My name is Nas. I'm 29. I'm the founder of Flexdog Moving and Delivery. We did about $300,000 over the last 12 months, profit being 62%. Our goal is really to expand to multiple locations with two to four million dollars per location in the next two to three years. We'd love to paint the matte pink with our pink trucks.

A

Walk me through the business model.

B

Most of our business come through local residential moves. That represents about 90% of the revenue we charge it. Based on an hourly rate, it's $165 for two professional movers, plus DOL $150 for the truck and equipment.

A

Are you the cheapest?

B

No, absolutely not.

A

Are you the most expensive up there? Okay. And how do you get customers?

B

So being the second highest and best rated moving company in San Diego, as you can see, like, most of the revenue would be from Google Maps and SEO. It's kind of like organic. Costs about $1,000 to $1,200 a month for ACO. And the main winner right now that we've been testing with would be the realtor outreach.

A

Tell me about this realtor thing.

B

So we would reach out to them and they would tell them, hey, if you have anybody like moving out, we'll give them that little offer of like anybody over $2,000. Then we will, you know, give them $250 off them. So for the realtors, the job is like, they pay so much. For example, this month, out of out of 17 jobs on Google, we made $16,000. Okay. And out of six jobs with realtors, we made $15,000.

A

Yeah.

B

So it's over $3,000 per job with the realtors compared to any other channel.

A

Okay. Anything else that's stopping you from scaling?

B

Just not enough leads. We could easily double up the business, but as of right now, just not enough leads.

A

Okay. Why do you even want to grow the business to begin with? Like, you're already making money, right?

B

There's different reasons. Number one is that my wife just quit her six figure job about five days ago to bid on me. I know you're done a lot, but this one is real. So she Quit her job. She's bidding on me. She trusts me on doing this. I'm not going to let her down. And then two I' guys that have been working with me for the last few years. And these guys, all they asking for is just stable work so they can feed their families. Three would be. My mom worked extremely hard for us to be here. Coming from Morocco, her only dream in life is to own a house. And I would be the reason make that, you know, dream a reality. And last but not least, it's kind of like a little bit personal. People that have been against us, it's not really to show them that they're wrong, but just to prove myself that I could go along.

A

Show that you're right.

B

Sure.

A

No, I dig it. Okay, cool. This seems pretty straightforward. I've got a. I've got a handful of things that I think we can do. So let me just walk you through how I kind of think this large scale. So I think we'll start with the offer.

B

All right.

A

And then I want to work on the sales process a little, and then we'll talk about this realtors thing, and then we'll go traffic. So if you think about fixing a business, I always fix things from back to front. So it's like the thing you sell, how we sell it, who we're going to sell it to, and how we get them find out about it. Right. Okay. If we're talking like big picture, basically, you will become a commodity if you're using the exact same measured unit. Right. You're. Because they're. They're just asking, what's the hourly? I'm guessing a lot of people are getting on the phone. Right?

B

Yes. What's the price?

A

Yes. Right. And so I think if I were you, I would break that frame and just say we don't do it by hourly. We just do it by job. And I can give you an estimate because at the end of the day, because how someone might respond back. Well, I just need to know what the hourly. It's like. I can't have the guys drag ass and take all day. You'd rather get done quickly rather than take a long time. Right. And you want it done well. Well, that's what we'll do.

B

Yeah.

A

Because that'll get you out of this. Kind of like it's 120 here and they're 125. It's just like it doesn't matter because they could take eight hours and I could take four.

B

Yes.

A

You know what I'm saying?

B

The Only issues with that is that a lot of these people would like to tell you what they have. And, and you can't really estimate that if you do a flat rate.

A

Think about like this, like, in order to scale the business long term, it's like we want to have something unique that's. That's somewhat different. Right. If we can. Now, if we're also selling a commoditized product, which is just sheer labor right now, plus a truck, there's not a lot of differentiators there besides maybe, like, pink. I'm trying to think of a way to get you out of the hourly race, if possible, because right now you're servicing kind of the lower end of the market. Right. If you're. If you're servicing renters and kind of smaller homes.

B

Yes.

A

Because, like, I'll tell you, when I moved, I honestly have no idea what I paid, but I'm guessing it's probably in the neighborhood of like $25,000. I have no clue. But the idea was I'm going to leave my house and then I'm going to show up at the other house and it's done. That was what happened.

B

Yeah. That's for the rich.

A

Yeah, no, exactly.

B

Yeah.

A

Well, have you heard my stuff? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

B

Of course.

A

You know where the money is.

B

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Sell to the rich.

A

Right. And so my point is not like. I'm not saying you all of a sudden overnight become ultra diamond. You know, whatever.

B

Yeah.

A

But if you. What you realized was the realtors, it's not that the realtors are special. It's that you got a taste of selling to people who have more money.

B

Of course. Right.

A

And so you made way more profit on those deals than you did on the. On the kind of generic. And so that's why I asked about the offer, because to me, there should be a white glove offer. To me, that's what's missing.

B

So I thought about that. I did. Worked.

A

I.

B

It worked a couple times, but then I kind of just turned it off.

A

Okay. Why?

B

Because it wasn't selling well.

A

Okay, well, it's fine. The offer wasn't good. So I'm not. I'm not thrilled right now. Because you're just like, I'm a little bit more expensive and people get a little bit more value than they would with other people. And it's very hard to claim anything that's different. Besides the trucks being pink and the guys being better and no hidden fees. Sure.

B

Because material is included, like shrink wrap and moving buckets and all that. Stuff is included. Compared to other companies, they would just throw an extra $600 at the end of the bill and you have to pay for it because you have absolutely no option. But they don't tell you that until it's done. But people still see the hourly rate being cheaper somewhere else. It's what's going to save the day.

A

No, I know, I know, I know. Don't love it. I'm going to shift gears. Let's talk about this realtor thing. So why don't we say let's just for fun, for shits and giggles, right? You can have a VIP moving level. Right? And then you have your standard moving level. I think that the realtors would be better served. They probably don't care about the 250 because if they sold the house, they made way more than that. It's relevant. They want the referral and they want the people to know that it was like a great experience. And so I think you probably get way more referrals. If you said, I'll give everybody who you send a VIP service for the price of standard, that will probably mean more to them than getting $250. And then for them, they'll be able to be like, hey, if you go through me, he'll give you the VIP level service at the, at the standard rate.

B

Got it.

A

To me, I think it's a lot more compelling.

B

But what would the VIP be?

A

I don't know.

B

Create.

A

Yes. Let's make it up.

B

Okay, okay. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. In the cloud. Yeah.

A

Well, I mean, you could offer to unpack and if everybody says no, then that's that. Right? Like, it's like we'll even unpack it and then people might just opt out. If, you know, most people do, then it's great. It's almost like a faul false offer because you know more about the customer than they do, which is the whole point.

B

Or the VIP could be, I can give you like movers with 10 plus years of moving experience. That would take care of this entirely.

A

Only reason I don't like that is from a model perspective, that'll be more difficult to scale. And I don't know how much that'll matter. So I'll tell you a different version of this, which is like, instead of doing 10 years, it'd be like, every mover has over 50 moves.

B

Okay.

A

And so I'll give you an example. So like when I had my trainers at my gyms, anyone can be a trainer. Literally anyone can be like you. I have low Skilled labor. And then you can have a certified trainer, which they go through accreditations versus not. And you can also internally certify. And so what I did was I created three levels of internal certification. I'd be like, you're gonna have a level three master trainer. Most people are like, oh, wow, that's awesome. But it's just like they just had to do some stuff. And for me, a level three was like, they've done a thousand sessions, fair enough, or whatever. And so for you, you can be like, you have a level three mover. So we have different moving movers, different for different skill levels. And so you'll have all level three movers. Because what you're trying to do when you're selling a commodity, you're basically sowing seeds of doubt against the competition. So part of what you said was, well, they're charging 120 an hour, but that's because they're going to nickel and dime me over here. I'm not going to do that. That's basically sowing some seed of doubt saying I'm actually different. That's basically what you're doing. You're saying we're not the same. Basically. How many other things can we do there? So we have speed, risk and ease. So speed, since you're charging hourly is probably not going to be a thing. Now you could do speed in terms of we can come tomorrow, but they probably have a moving day that they like are planned out, doing.

B

A lot of times you do last minute moves and we charge up a little bit. Yeah. Oh yeah. People call like today for today. It's like my movers bailed on me. And that's the reason why a lot of people would go with cheaper movers.

A

And then you have the same day premium.

B

Not premium. We're kind of like, okay, because like, because sometimes they're so desperate for a job. So like, yeah, whatever, I'll just take it, you know? I know. Got it.

A

Okay. Um, okay, so you have the fee that, that, that other people are nickel and diming. And then so another kind of seed of doubt, right? So there's risk, speed and ease. Right. And so what we're hitting on with this kind of like master mover, if you will, actually sounds kind of nice. Master mover is the risk component, which is, listen, believe it or not, a lot of my competitors, they can win on price because they're just literally going to take someone off the street. When I say literally, I mean literally. And that you don't know if they have a record you don't know, like, what's going on. Right. None of my guys are, you know, ex cons. And on your move for VIP, you get all level three master movers who've done at least 50 or 100 moves. Whatever. Make. Make whatever you want. Right. So how does that sound in terms of the vip? It's going to be around risk, so it's like we're going to have this higher tier of mover, and there's no extra thing besides the labor, and we're going to include all the materials.

B

If you do full service moves, that's like packing and unpacking. I love that a lot.

A

Okay. So that, to me, is what you give these guys, the Realtors, and you already use master movers as is, right?

B

Yeah.

A

So there's really no change between that and standard. It's just that if you have standard, you have the option of using cheaper movers. If all your guys are already, quote, master movers, then great, so I'll just go here. But basically our vip, right, is going to be pack plus master, you know, master movers plus material, and then standard. I would say it's still pack, but it's just not master movers plus anyone. So that's probably not too big of a cost for you.

B

For me? No.

A

Okay, perfect. Well, then that's about the $250, but this feels significantly more premium than just 250 bucks off or 250 backs to the realtor.

B

Okay.

A

Do you like that better?

B

I love that a lot.

A

Okay. So also when you're. When you're getting on the phone, I think you can just basically have these. These tiers. Now, would start with vip.

B

That's how you would sell it to anybody or just.

A

No, I would do it to everybody. I always start high.

B

Okay.

A

Because the thing is, when you get on the phone with somebody who has money, they don't care. They just want it done.

B

Yes, I agree.

A

And so you have to give that up, that person the opportunity to buy. Now, as someone says, no, I'm on a budget, you're like, no worries. Then just do standard.

B

Perfect.

A

So most people do is this. But if you're on a budget, we have this. And then if someone still objects, then you basically have to walk down the seeds of doubt. So this feels like it's worth diving into a little bit. The issue that you brought up, you said Yelp you didn't like, and Google Ads you didn't like. Right?

B

Yeah.

A

Right. So to me, that's not a leads issue. It's A sales process issue.

B

Okay.

A

So we have to make you different in some way compared to everybody else. Okay. So we have our factors, so we have master movers, we have that, we have materials, we have that. Do you have insurance, anything like that?

B

Yeah. Okay. Do you talk about. Yeah, I mean, as an operator moving company, you're supposed to have license and insurance.

A

Great, great. These are, these are, these are elements. Right. We like, we need components to the offer.

B

All right.

A

Because again, think risk. So this is risk, this is eas, this is risk. What else do we have? We have speed. So I do think that if someone does same day, you can just say, we have a same day surcharge of 10%.

B

Okay.

A

Just because I want you to get used to charging it. Because speed is one of the biggest things people pay for. If someone had someone back out and they need something to get moved today, that's when you can charge. Yeah, right.

B

Yeah.

A

And this might not sound like much, but again, when you hit 20 locations, this will add up because your margins are going to be 70%. You might be at 30 and all of a sudden a 10% lift or 20% lift, all of a sudden you're like, oh, shit. And it's all margin. Right. So I'll say a date premium start at 10%, but I want you to go to 20% over time and you can basically keep moving up until they say no. So these are different components. We have our A, we have B, we have C. See how we're getting? We're getting little pieces that we can talk on the phone. Right. Okay. What about a cap? Meaning it's not going to cost more than this. Let's say they do an estimate.

B

Yeah.

A

How likely is it that they're off by 2x?

B

Not by 2x. No.

A

Okay.

B

But at least a 30%.

A

Okay. So I mean, what if we say 50%? So I'm saying I want to give you a buffer. I'll tell you why I'm saying this. If you get on the phone and say, hey, did the other guys give you a cap? And they'll be like, no. And you're like, oh, well, yeah, that's how they're going to get you. And then they're like, wait, what? You're like, oh, yeah. I mean, like, I can just take 20 hours to move one thing from here to there. There's not much you can do. When somebody's on site and they're like, oh, I didn't really think about that. It's like, right, so we'll be this. And we won't exceed this.

B

Got it.

A

Unless there's a huge issue when we arrive on site. But that's basically like, are you the type of person who's going to be lying about this? No. Okay, great. Then it's fine. So it will not be more than this. And then that way, because again, we're trying to sow seeds of debt. Like if they have two things, they're both 100 an hour, 90 an hour.

B

Yeah.

A

They're going to pick the 90, of course. So we have to be like, oh, okay. Got it. So what insurance? The other guys. Oh, they didn't mention. Oh, yeah. Well, for sure. If you're uninsured, then, yeah. I mean, that's. That's a cost. But I'm assuming is nothing you have valuable, you know, like. No, I have some value. Things that matter to me. It's like, great. Well, we have insurance that we can include. Do you know what I'm saying? With this sale here.

B

Yeah. It's going to come. It's going to come down.

A

Yeah. And we're gonna. We had to get this part here so that when we move to sales,

B

my brain is going, like, all over.

A

Yeah, yeah. Okay. But fundamentally, because this is going to ladder into this. But we have our VIP and we have our standard going to start everyone here.

B

Yeah.

A

And then we're going to. If they say, I'm on a budget, we'll say, no worries, we can do this for you.

B

Yeah.

A

Okay. All right.

B

Yeah, yeah. It's opening up. I love it.

A

All right. So sales process. So you were able to talk to all the people who came in on the. On the Google leads, right?

B

Yes, everybody immediately.

A

That's great.

B

The main objection we have is always price.

A

It's always price if they don't know what else to talk about. Customers will always go to price if you don't give them any other variables to consider.

B

Okay.

A

And this is what we're trying to do. Like, that's the point of the offers book. It's like, how do I. How do I break these two things of price and value?

B

Yeah.

A

Right. If. If there's apples and apples. You want apples and oranges. And even though you build the same way, we like. Fine, I get that. Can we still make it different enough on all these other things that they're like, I didn't even think about that.

B

Yeah.

A

So when someone, when someone calls in, what's the first question you ask them

B

the day of the move, when are they moving? Just to make sure we have availability

A

okay, so you ask for the day and then let's say that you're empty. Now what?

B

Now I do ask how much stuff they're looking to move. Like, what's the size of the move? Okay.

A

Can you say size of your. What's the square footage of your stuff or what?

B

No. How many rooms? We go by the rooms. Like, is it a one bedroom, two bedroom? And then the time is, for example, it's a two bedrooms. Like, great. Like, what are we looking to move?

A

Yeah.

B

And then it asks stairs or no stairs, to have an idea. Like, okay, like, how long the job will take and then where the truck is going to be parked.

A

We still want to walk through these other pieces, which is. Okay, got it. Do you care about the. The qualifications of the movers that you have? Like, I never thought about that. You're like, oh, okay. Because a lot of the guys have like, ex cons and people are like, very uncomfortable with that. Believe it or not, it's actually 20% of the industry. I put some stats.

B

Right. Yeah.

A

No, no, for sure. Right. So it's like, do you care about the. Well, I don't want ex cons in my house. And you're like, great. So. And you're, you're in your mind. You're like, okay. They want master movers. Be like, okay, so do you already have all the materials to get all this stuff packed up and all that? Oh, no, you don't.

B

Okay, packing.

A

Got it. Right? And you're like, okay. And you're like, got it. So do you have anything that's valued over $500?

B

Obviously, yes.

A

And they see it.

B

You're like, okay, insurance.

A

You're just listening, right? Yeah. And you're like, okay, now this isn't today. So if it was. If it was today, then we'd include the date premium. If it's not, then we're like, okay, got it. So this is what we can do. We're 165 an hour. And if you go with us today, I'll include the master movers, I'll include materials, and I'll include the insurance.

B

If they do full. If they do full service, like packing, if we could pack for them, then we can include the materials for free. So that is the offer you were talking about earlier. Okay.

A

And if they're like, oh, I can't do that, then it's like, okay, we still do it, but we're going to be at standard. What's your. I don't know if this is going to be the new VIP make this 195 and make this 165. Whatever.

B

Okay.

A

Okay. So this is VIP, and this is going to be standard, right? Do you like that?

B

Yeah, I love it. It's fantastic. It sounds.

A

Because that way, that way. Again, we're already having a conversation with more detail. I just want to give you bullets so that again, we want to get on the phones because how many. How many are you losing to price or a lot?

B

40%.

A

Yeah. Okay, so. So this is important, right? So we want to make sure that they don't think that they're getting the same thing for less. We want them to know they're getting way less for less.

B

So the way we've been selling is that if they kind of hit us with the price issue and like, hey, if you find anybody in this industry in San Diego right now that would match our reviews will be their pricing, because they don't exist. Again, that's not.

A

Yeah, but that's. They're like, yeah, but whatever.

B

Yeah, yeah.

A

If you can find somebody else that does. Insurance has. Has level three movers, includes materials, you know, and has a cap, by all means, I'll price match it. But like, I've never been in the price matching game in my whole life. I'd rather just be in the value surpassing game, which is if these things matter to you, we're the only shop in town that does it. If you don't care about having ex cons in your house. And again, I have no beef with ex cons. But people have perceptions, right? Yeah. If you have no issues with cons and you plan on doing the packing yourself, and you're okay with them potentially breaking it because they're not. They're not insuring anything, which honestly, it happens in 25% of moves. And if you're the three out of four, it's great. If you're the one out of four, it's pretty tough. Yeah, right. And if you have no cap, and you don't care that, because I can come in at $10 an hour if you want. I'll just take a weekend. It's like we have to. You have, like, you have to explain the whole. The whole system. Right. And so what this is called is, I call it shifting from local to global. Right. So, like, you're thinking about this. I am, I'm thinking about this. Not me, but the consumer. Right. And so all of a sudden you give them way more variables than they thought about, because you know more about movie than they do. And that's the point. Of a good sales process. And so, like, I didn't even think about these things. It's like, right, that's okay. That's what education is for. I'm educating you right now. Yeah, Right?

B

Yeah.

A

And so this is what it sounds like you really want, and that's what I can deliver for you. Because at the end of the day, if you get everything on time, nothing breaks, you have great experience. I was like, is that worth the extra 50 bucks? Bucks? My God, yes. Right? It's like, oh, good. Good man. So this is what I want you to walk through is like, this will get you the, The. The deals you're losing. You're losing a price because they have nothing else to say. They're doing apples to apples. You're like, no, it's apples and oranges. But it's totally fair that they're. They're charging less because they're not doing all this stuff. Which by all means, if you want us to not do that stuff, I can't, because I have to have a level service. You see our reviews. I'm not willing to. I'm not willing to sacrifice my reputation for that. Some people are, though, because they're in and out of the industry.

B

Yeah, they.

A

They come in, they. They just start moving, you know, for short periods of time, and then they get out.

B

Yeah. I'm here for the long run, right? Yeah.

A

Now that we have a better idea of what our offers are, what we need to say is I would include, we'll give them a free VIP upgrade or free white glove, if you want to use that term, for anyone who you refer. Just so they, like, think good things about you.

B

Okay.

A

They need to gain from referring you. Their customer has to see them better because they have the hookup. Right. People go to realtors because they're supposed to know the area better. And they've done this more times than they have. Right. If you knew everything, you wouldn't need a realtor because you already know the houses, you already know how to deal.

B

Right.

A

So saying, oh, my, my guy, I've got an amazing moving company. They give all my customers free upgrades. That makes them look great. Right?

B

Got it. Okay. I love the offer. So we did try sms. We also tried emails. Emails did not get us absolutely zero convenience.

A

Yeah. They're on their phone. That makes sense.

B

Yeah. So SMS is what would give us some traction. And then what we've been trying lately is that we would just go follow them on Instagram.

A

I think following and DMing would probably have a higher Conversion than anything else.

B

So what we tried is that sms, if absolutely any response in a positive way, even like liking the text, I would find that person on Instagram, like go look them up and then follow, like, hey, I saw you, like the message. Would love to tell you more about what we have going on.

A

I mean, I think start there, but I would take that list, feed it into AI and have an agent search online, find the Instagram and then follow them from my account.

B

Okay.

A

And so every day I would DM 10 or 20 of them. Because you can't, you can only, you know, DM so many now. If they follow you back, then you can DM as many times as you want, right? Yeah. So we could do. There's two, two, two considerations. So one is we could say follow everyone and then anyone who follows you back, then you DM. That's one option. Or you just automatically DM 10 or 20 cold, independent of whether they follow back.

B

Okay. So you would actually do massive outreach instead of just like picking up the top 100 producers in San Diego.

A

I mean, we should do that. Start there. Yeah.

B

That's why my. Okay. My wife quit your job to actually take care of this Realtor.

A

So you're going to do your sms. This is what you're currently doing. I don't think you necessarily change anything about that. That's fine. The second is the follow to dm and I would say, like, do you know anyone? We have our Realtor special, which is VIP upgrade.

B

I like that word. Upgrade.

A

Yeah. Or White glove, Whatever you want to.

B

Yeah, yeah.

A

And so that would be my auto DM back. Now the third thing that I would do, because this is like a lot of the Realtor offices, the brokerages, Right. They have 5, 10, 20 agents. Right. I would want to go to the head of the brokerage and say, hey, I'll do a brokerage level deal for you. We'll give everyone who's an agent of yours vip, like for free. If we can just be the first people you call when you have a move. And ideally it's like, can you integrate us into your packet? Because that's the thing. It's like they give people packets, vendors. Right, exactly. So it's like I want to be the only one in the list and I'll give all of your customers VIP upgrade. You can look at our reviews. Really good. That's where. Because you want integration. Because as soon as you get integrated in their sales process, as long as you do a good job, they'll just, they're not going to look anywhere else.

B

Yeah, I have two that I can like let it call up today and set up an appointment for this upcoming like tomorrow.

A

Yeah, because like one brokerage might sell 20 agents, right? Well yeah, 20 agents. Then each agent might sell, you know, let's say a house a quarter on average. I'm just making it up, right?

B

Yeah.

A

So it's like every brokerage is five houses a month.

B

Okay. That's $15,000.

A

Right.

B

On an average of her. Her.

A

Right, yeah. And so it's like okay, well how many brokerages are there? Plenty.

B

A lot. Right.

A

And so I'd rather you sell one to sell 60 a year. Like that's what's worth your time. Like let Jacob take the individual calls. Yeah, but you should be going out and getting the brokerage who's going to get you 60 houses a year each. And then like every week you bring another brokerage on and that means like every week you're bringing another five deals a month on it stacks.

B

Right.

A

And then what's going to the next bottleneck is going to be you're not going to be able to manage the relationships. It's not there yet, but that's what's going to happen. And so you're going to need to hire one person to full time manage the realtors.

B

Developer.

A

Yeah, exactly. It's just a farmer.

B

My wife is going to be doing that for now.

A

Great. So I think we target brokerages because this is the long term play like you like. It's good to have the reviews you do and that's going to continue to compound and all that stuff. But where I'd like you to get is in the future at some point you start turning deals down that are

B

too small, like one bedrooms and small deliveries.

A

Be like it's just not and we're not there. Yeah, I'd like you to get there because there will be a day where you don't do deals under 3k or under 5k. Yeah, they exist.

B

I know. I like, trust me. I have to believe that they exist.

A

They do exist. I promise you. Okay, so we have our offer. We have our VIP understander. That was the key thing to differentiate us. We itemize all the elements inside of the sales process. So again we can further differentiate from the hourly. If we're going to stick with hourly. And we still have to have as many different colors as we can here. All right, okay then. And also I'm very flexible on this. This might be able to be 225. Like, like continue to keep pushing this VIP level up until people stay say no, because you always have your backup. You can always fall down to standard, but the people who have money will just. They'll spend more. It's just. It's a different monster. Realtors, we keep doing this, but I think these two will give you more leverage. This one is the biggest one.

B

Okay. Can I ask one question?

A

You want to show up in person here, and so here's how I do it. This is the process. Once you get any realtor thing, you need to show up in person to their office to meet all the other realtors in their brokerage. Come, come with donuts. Come with whatever. Meet the head guy and say, like, I had, you know, I set up Kelly. Was that a good experience, Kelly? Great. I can give every single one of your agents VIP upgrades for all of our moves for free. That's on me. Just because she was so great to work with. And it gives you something that you can kind of have as a nice experience.

B

Yeah. Okay.

A

What was the question?

B

The question is about the SMS. Like, because now we have a list about 12,000 agents. What do you think the first SMS should feel like? Is it. Should it keep you the same or. It doesn't really matter.

A

You're going to see what the response rate is.

B

But would you send the same thing to all of them?

A

The smart cookie move would be look up the agent. AI can do all of this. So hook up AI to the list. Create an Excel sheet that has personalized information and then have a template for it to then output what you think or what it thinks the personalized first text should be. And it'll give you the whole list of all hundreds. You read them real quick to make sure that they sound like they make sense. And click go. Because then they could all be personalized. That's what I would test against. Just the generic opener.

B

Got it.

A

And if you want to be wild, you could probably. Are you doing from. You're doing it from a true sms, right?

B

No, I was using Milk Chimp.

A

Is that. Does it have like an iPhone? Like a blue.

B

No. The blue bubble? No.

A

Okay.

B

Would you recommend the blue bubble?

A

I would give it a shot. So I would say four blue bubble. And I would say just test it because it's going to be more. But if you have a higher response rate, then it's worth it.

B

With an area code that's local.

A

Yeah. And then five for this SMS here. Let's put it over here. Is AI personalization for that first message. It'll also make it less likely that you get put into spam.

B

Perfect.

A

Because if the carriers see you spend that same thing to a hundred people, they spam the number. Yeah. So traffic. So there's a couple, couple smaller things that I think are worth doing. So right now, how are you getting the reviews? What's the review process?

B

Soon as we finish the move, the guys just ask for a review immediately as a cage me a huge Favor. It takes 30 seconds, helps us tremendously.

A

So what's the script for the guys to ask?

B

If you guys think we did a great job though, would you mind leaving us? A five star review would highly appreciate. It takes 30 seconds.

A

So I would just add one little piece in, which is there's probably a leader on each job site, right?

B

Yeah.

A

So the foreman goes over and says, hey, you know, was this a good experience? Yes. Okay, well, the guys get a little spiff from ownership for five star reviews. So if it means anything to you, it'd mean a ton to those guys. And then you can just take who got the most reviews at the end of the month and give 100 bucks. It doesn't matter. But like the likelihood that they'll just leave review 6 out of 10. If it's like these guys, it actually makes a difference for them. The likely that they'll leave, it's way higher. And it's better when it's not you. Because you can't be like ownership. I mean, you can, but like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

B

That's true.

A

But it's easier for the foreman to just be like, the owner gives an extra spiff to the guys if they get a five star. Okay, so one is foreman review, Foreman owner. I'll say spiff. How about that?

B

Perfect.

A

And then two, do you do any social media?

B

Barely.

A

Okay, so I'll bet you you're losing to people who have better socials than you are. Because obviously search is one thing, but the next thing you look at is, well, let me see if I can find these people on social. And that'll make a big swing. And so can you maybe have the foreman do like a before and after,

B

like house full and house empty.

A

Yeah. And then also empty to full. So basically it's four. It's, it's before, after, at site one, before, after, at site two clipped into one.

B

Okay.

A

Because you can just post those just before and afters. And if you get the review, put the five star review at the end.

B

Got it. Okay.

A

So it's like you're posting before and after review, before and after review, before and after review.

B

Got it. Okay.

A

So the organic is before, right after at site one, and then again before, after at site two and then review. So it literally shows the full arc right end to end. Like, this is what it was. This is what we did. This is where we went. This is what happened. And they said it was awesome over

B

and over and over and over again. Okay.

A

Yeah. And then if you can, I would get the realtor reviews because that's going to matter more again, for. And when I say reviews, I mean

B

really testimonials, like on a video. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I can definitely do that. Yeah.

A

Yeah. And also because the thing is, is the bigger, the bigger your organic following gets. Right. When you go to that brokerage and you say, hey, we're good movers, we've been in the area for a while. We just made a partnership with XYZ Realty. If you're looking to sell house, check it out. Like, they love that. It's free promotion for them and you just throw it in if they do the deal with you.

B

Beautiful.

A

Now, when you have 100,000 followers that are local, makes a bigger difference than we have one. So because big picture, if we need the business to grow right, one is we're having a more premium offer. So for the people who want to spend money, we allow them to do it. Right.

B

Yeah.

A

And we're including things that other people are not mentioning, which are these elements which then when we get into the sales process, we ask the normal questions, but then we ask their preferences, which they didn't think about to differentiate our price versus everyone else's. And then we can step down from VIP to, oh, you don't actually care about this preferences. Oh, you're more on a budget and you don't care about that stuff. Fine. Because I promise you're not going to find these things at a different price. Then with our realtors, we're adding in the personalization for the AI. This is going to be more lead gen. This is going to be big. Especially when it's paired with these. Right. Brokerages is what I think you should do. This is the highest leveraging that you can do is you go and get 20 agents at a time. As soon as you get one realtor who responds back, I would go in person.

B

Got it.

A

Because then it's like you don't just get them because they're already a unit that can send you business every month, but they have five other people or 20 other people in their brokerage. That would be what I would go. That's this is my, my big 20x lever. This is just to enhance that. This is the, this is the smallest piece of this. I wouldn't even obsess about it. But these are the bigger ones.

B

Got it.

A

So we can just boost the guys reviews, just run the spiff play and then from a long term perspective, we can build up our organic by doing before and afters at every single site with a review at the end. I think we do all this stuff. This is going to be your, your biggest one. That's the biggest lift for you. This is probably going to be like this. These guys are going to be your second biggest lift. And then this whole sales process that I outlined here is going to help you win those other 40% of deals long term. That'll compound too.

B

Thank you so much. Appreciate you.

A

Yeah, congrats. All right, let's see here. So if we're looking at where you're at in the scaling roadmap, you're between three and four, mostly on the four side because you got six employees, you're acting as a manager. Right. It's your first full team. And so from a product perspective, you were saying yes to everyone who would pay.

B

Yes. I mean, desperate, you know.

A

Right. No, you're good. This is the transition. You were getting feedback from different customers. So you were like, oh, do I do the cheap thing or do the expensive thing? I've got these very different. So to graduate we have to specialize the product which creates our V2, which is the VIP, and we price to serve that richer customer score. And just for the magic of the audience here, it's not like I, I had this and I wrote this after we talked.

B

No, I, it put me here when I did the whole thing online.

A

And now you're here.

B

Put me here. Yeah, yeah.

A

But now you're here, right?

B

Yeah.

A

From marketing perspective, we're talking too many unqualified leads, which is what we're dealing with. And so we have to make more content, which is what we're doing on the before and after side. Right. And we're adding more qualifications and friction. Right. Which goes into these elements of what we can do to kind of differentiate what we're selling, which from a sales process, speed to contact. Now you haven't had it drop yet because you still need to get more lead volume in. Right. And so we have to start tracking a little bit more on this side than you probably are now. From a customer success perspective, you've been doing fine. But as we scale, quality is going to be that's going to drop. And so to move from here to here, we're going to have to have a quality assurance loop. That's going to happen. That's not a problem yet. It's going to be okay.

B

Thank you so much.

A

Appreciate it. Thank you.

B

Great. Thank you.

A

So, two things. One, I referenced the scaling roadmap. Wherever you're at, you should check out where you're on there. Like, it's pretty spot on. It's because businesses are not as unique as we think they are. Patterns exist across all of them. So that thing's free. You can go grab it. But inside my offers book, I talk about, I think the first chapter is that you're selling commodity, the commodity problem. And if a customer can look at two things and say, these are the same, they will always take the cheaper item. And so our goal as business owners, unless your entire strategy is to be the cheapest, which is you want to compete in the commodities game and you built your whole business to be cheaper than everyone else, unless that's your goal, which it rarely is, and it probably shouldn't be for service, then you want to be on the other side of the spectrum, which is you want to be the value leader. And value leader is thinking about all the different components that a customer and all the problems that you could potentially solve for a customer. Break them down kind of like I just did and say, okay, these are all the elements that a customer is not thinking about. But once I present them, they realize that these are actually two very different things. Which then allows us to price for the right customer at a much more premium price. Thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next scale or fail.