EP157: Curtis Lewsey on the Competitive Edge of Saying Thank You in Business

Absolutely. So in fact, let's see, it was over 2009. I wrote the book called Appreciation Marketing. And I wrote the book because I realized my first job out of college, one of the biggest competitive advantages in all of business. And that's saying thank you, being appreciative, being grateful. and making sure people remember you and know that you care because the repeat and referral business will flow that way. So my first job out of college, I worked for CentOS Corporation. I sold really sexy products like toilet paper and air fresheners and soaps. And I was knocking at every door, every store and every floor. And I subscribed to the quote from Jim Rohn. He says, what you lack in skill, you can make up in numbers. So I just made more calls. I knocked on more doors and I was able to... within six months, be the number one sales rep in the country out of 1,250 sales reps. And about three months in, I was about ready to quit. And that's when I had some really good mentoring. And there was a gentleman by the name of Sean, and he took me under his wing. And he's like, you know, Curtis, you're looking at this as, you're looking at your customers, you're looking at everybody as dollars and decimal points, which was true because you start over every day, every week, every month, every quarter, every year at zero. You sign up an account and gets turned over to customer service. They manage the account and you're a hunter going to get new business, right? And then I realized that there are people that are in my network, like the drivers that are driving around the back streets when they see a sign that says under new management or coming soon. If I get that phone call, the first one in the door usually gets the business. So those are high value leads and I wasn't getting those because I didn't have the relationships built with these people. And so once I started working smart and I started working hard, that's when everything started coming together for me. And then I layered in appreciation and gratitude, making sure I followed up and sending greeting cards. I realized how powerful that was. It was a completely a differentiator. It separated me from the competition and allowed me to win a lot of business.

Yeah, you know, it's not on purpose at all because most of the contractors that I know are working so much in their business. They don't have the ability to work on the business as much because when they're not working, they're trying to spend some time with their family. They're trying to just actually have a life outside of work. And I totally get it. So if they don't have systems and actually slow down just a little bit and tweak and put some things together or find some help. Have some people that can help them in certain areas to make sure that these clients that are taken care of, they remember them. They come back for that next project. They're referring their next door neighbor. They're talking about them at work. You know, those types of things are really powerful because you know that the best possible, it's not even a lead, it's a referral. When you get a referral, it's a whole different level of energy. You're not getting three or four different names. One of the things I like to say is you get a lead by what you do. You earn repeat and referral business by who you are and how you show up in people's lives. So now you just got to slow down and say, how are we showing up in people's lives? Are we even showing up at all? Are they remembering us? Do they even know that we care? Do they look at us as too busy to even go and give another estimate? Or there's a huge opportunity to be able to generate and to secure future business by simply taking care of your database and being like, I'm here. I appreciate you.

Absolutely. So when I found out that how powerful this was when I was in my early 20s, my first job out of college is 22,22 years young,21,22. And in that business, it's a multi-billion dollar company nationwide. And I went to work there because I read the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And in that book, Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad said, go to work for Xerox when you get out of the military, not for the money, for the training. So that's what I did at Centos. And then you either move up or you move out. There's really kind of nowhere in the middle. And they wanted me to make me a manager by the time I was 24. But yet I knew that. the tricks that they play and they string you along just one more quarter, just one more quarter and like hit your number one more quarter, then we're going to talk. And I didn't want to play that game. And so I realized how many businesses out there could use some help along in this. So I started a marketing agency. Not long after that, I wrote a book called Appreciation Marketing with my business partner, Tommy Wyatt. Appreciation Marketing, How to Achieve Greatness Through Gratitude. And Brad, all this stuff in the book is all common sense stuff. It's just not common practice. And if you want to separate yourself from the competition, these are some things that you can do. And we'll dive into some nitty gritty type of things too, like specific things. I know people like to take away what, what, this all sounds great. Gratitude, appreciation, but what do I do? Well, see appreciation marketing at the highest level is sending out without expectation of trying to get something in return. Appreciate you. Thank you for your business. I appreciate the opportunity to earn your business. You know, thank you for the referral. They say behavior rewarded is behavior repeated. You want more referrals? Do a better job of rewarding the referrals that you're earning. You're earning referrals. You're not getting referrals. You earn a referral by who you are, how you show up in people's lives, the people that you, how you treat people. And so, and also how you take care of your work as well. Because obviously the product that you produce is very important in how you're going to earn referrals. You'd be the nicest person in the world, but you keep messing up. You're not going to earn referrals, right? Now, what I did was I realized that there were so many salespeople, especially we have a lot of contractors that use our product. We have over 25,000 real estate agents. We do have a ton of lenders. We have financial advisors, insurance agents, and a lot of contractors. And the contractors, they're the ones that are typically like, okay, this all sounds great, but where do I go from here? If they have to go do it themselves, it's not happening. So what AM cards is, is. Very few anyway that have marketing managers, have a team that has an office that is doing the nitty gritty stuff and making sure that they get this stuff done. But basically AM cards stands for appreciation marketing. And it's a way to be able to send a single card by typing up a message, clicking card, send, or let's say you get done with a job. You can click one button. And in some CRMs cases, we can automatically have it all go when they pay an invoice. It just triggers a campaign. They'll get a thank you card maybe with. Some gourmet fudge brownies appreciating on them for their business. Then maybe 60 days later, just a checking in card. Maybe you offer a warranty. See, most contractors don't ever want that call because they feel like they're losing out on money if they have to go back and fix something. I guess that's one way to look at it. Yes, it's man hours. It takes out. You're not getting paid for it. You could be on another job site generating revenue. However, when you go back and do that job, there's a good chance that maybe you're a hardscaper in the back. You did a waterfall and you did a patio. And then all of a sudden they're like, I really would like to have the bar. I'd really like to have the planters, you know, for the flowers around here. I just didn't have the funds at that time. You show back up, you fix something. Next thing you know, you're quoting another job. You show up there and the neighbor walks over and says, do you have a business card? Stuff happens all the time. So now with what this is, is how about like St. Patrick's Day rolls around. It's like lucky to have you guys in our life. Appreciate you as a customer. Thanksgiving comes around. Grateful for you. A year after the job is already done, and this is already done. So you might 20 to 50 bucks a client, you would reinvest in that person and make sure they never forget you for the next three to five years. You have a card that goes out a couple months after. Then you have a card that Thanksgiving. You have maybe a 4th of July card. One year anniversary of doing the job. Can you believe it's already been a year since we wrapped up your job? Wow, how time flies. Just want to say a thank you. I appreciate you. Spending that few bucks, a couple bucks here and there, it really does go a long way. And cards get saved. They get remembered. Everything is digital these days. Text is becoming the new spam. I mean, look at the politicians and everything is blowing up our phones every day, all day. Emails, by the end of the day, it's already on page three. It's buried. So we like to say, be remembered, not deleted. And when you have something that shows up in your mailbox, it's more emotional. It gets saved as long as you're sending out with the right messaging matters because it's not what you say. It's not what you do. It's how you make people feel. That's a Maya Angelou famous quote. So if I'm sending you a card, Brad, and said, hey, happy birthday, Brad. Everything's going great with your business, your family, your podcast. At the bottom, I put the greatest compliment in the world is a warm referral. Oh, by the way, I'm never too busy for your referrals. Now it negates the message that I'm sending out. And now it's what we talk about in chapter five of our book, sending out poopaganda. It's sending out chocolate frosted dog crap.

Hey, you know what? That's not a bad place to do it. They're paying the invoice. Some of them are happy to pay it. Some are not. But like, for instance, let's say that you just get done with a job. They're elated. They're excited. Oh my God. Thank you so much. My wife is so thrilled with the work that you did. It makes me happy that she's happy, blah, blah, blah. And just say at that point, you can say, hey. Thank you so much. And I just want to thank you in advance for always thinking about me, whether it's a neighbor, a family member, a friend, coworker. It really means a lot to me because my business is really built on referrals. Look them in the eye, shake their hand, shake the wife's hand, and say that. Now you plant that seed and they want to go out of their way because you're not Brad the contractor. You're Brad my contractor. And you know what? If you don't provide that service, I'm calling you. Because you probably know somebody in your network that's really good at putting up fences in my backyard or somebody that's going to seal my pavers in my driveway or my lanai, whatever it may be. So you want to be that reference. And you can even tell them. That's another great way to build and add value to a relationship. I work with a lot of real estate agents. One of the things I say is build your vendor list and qualify them. Make sure that they're really good. And give somebody a couple of names. But I know a lot of real estate agents that won't give more than one name in certain categories. And you want to be that person.

That's a great, that's a great question. So there's a few different things. Let's say you're just working with a client and they just said, I'm sorry, but I have to head out of town because my wife's grandfather or my wife's father just passed away. You want to send a card, you can go into the system. click a sympathy card, type up a little message. You can even use your own handwriting. We have the ability to convert your handwriting into a font. You can use your own signatures. You can upload pictures. You can make them customized. When you click send, we have our own printing and finishing equipment in-house. So not only did we write all this code, but we have our own buildings. We have our own printers. And so we print that card, put it in an envelope with a real first-class stamp on it with handwritten... font on the envelope. So it comes personalized and your people that are handwriting cards right now and doing and consistently doing it, you know how powerful it is. And I would never, I would always say, don't stop, don't, don't stop doing that. Continue doing what you're doing. But the challenge is you might have thank you cards over here, but you might not have a congratulations card, a sympathy card. a different type of a card that you want to drop in the mail so we can do that all for you. But what's even more powerful, like that one-off card is amazing. And anybody who's in a business that has the time and it's actually in front of their computer from time to time, I would recommend that they carve out 30 minutes a week for appreciation marketing strategy. Because every week, if you're on Facebook or I also realize contractors are probably the least likely to be on social media because they're working with their hands. They're constantly working, right? And so... Facebook, Instagram. If you happen to see somebody though, that just runs a marathon. And they just raised a bunch of money because their cousin has an illness and they're passionate about it. Crossing the finish line, their hands are up. Grab that picture, download it, pop it on a greeting card, type a nice little message saying, proud of you. That's a lot of work that goes into that. They'll never forget that. It's going to go on their mantle or go into a book. You know, it's going to be saved. They'll never get thrown away. Somebody just had their first grandbaby. Grab the picture. Put it on a card. Congratulations on your little angel. She's beautiful. Whatever. So those types of things that you can look for ways to appreciate, recognize, or congratulate of people that are in your network, right? That's like at the highest level. It does take more time. It's also the highest impact. Now there's other things that you can do. Put together a sequence. So it's a campaign. We have a professional services division that does this and tip the contractors are the one that usually buy this right away. It's four or 500 bucks, one-time investment. And our design team builds out a three to five year campaign. puts all the language in there, builds out your assets, put your logo on there, put your website, turns QR codes into going to your website or book a consultation here. They can click the QR code and book into your calendar, things like that, that makes it just easier for the end person to be able to contact you. There's your phone number, a little signature. So then we build out the cadence. So here's what we would recommend. Get done with the job. Click this one button. It could be on your phone. They could leave a job and literally we send a text message on Monday and Friday. Any closed business over the last few days? Check this out. All they have to do is text the name and the address in a text message and it will trigger off the campaign. That's awesome. And that's it. They don't even have to log into our system. That's a set it and forget it completely hands-free. And then what's going to happen is you're going to get text messages and emails. It's going to happen because these cards, they lead to conversations. Oh, thank you so much for my Thanksgiving card. That was really thoughtful. I'd say stay away from the holidays. Everybody sends holidays. Everybody's trying to put offers in the cards and all that stuff. So send a new year's card, be different or send Thanksgiving card, be on the front end of everybody else, you know, receiving cards and stuff like that. So that is important.

And you know, the number one reason why somebody signs up with AM cards, I'll be completely frank, is out of guilt. Because they know that they should be doing this kind of stuff. They just don't because life gets in the way and at the end of the day, it's a pain in the ass. But yet they know that it's important. So something like this, having something in place will make you feel really good and it makes you feel like a rock star. It's a very small investment to be able to secure some future business. They'll never go anywhere else. As long as your product is good and you did what you said you were going to do, now you follow up and layer an appreciation and gratitude. Amazing. you'll be having to start another career.

Yeah. We have thousands of templates to choose from yet. We also. have the customization piece of it so we have a professional services division that will help build out custom templates and use incorporate your logos put it on the back of the card so all the information is there obviously everything you use here give it over to your accountant because it's a form of marketing and then what we're working on probably by the end of quarter two of 2024 we are going to be launching a sphere So what's going to happen is like when you get done with a job, if you want to send a postcard to the closest 100 homes or 200 homes with one click of the mouse, it'll just send it out. Because we already have the address we just sent the thank you campaign to. It will pin that location and then draw a circle around it and we'll already have a template set up. So it's just the whole idea of it is just to make it simple. There's a million services out there that sends postcards. There's tons of places out there that does it. Our job is just to say, hey. We're going to make it the simplest and we're going to be really fair with the pricing and how we do it. So yeah, it's all I know it does. It flat out works and none of your competitors, none of the people that are doing this kind of stuff. They have great intentions. They just don't.

And you, in the back of the card too, be printed by a computer and not. Right. And you have your own signatures on there. But you also can do some pretty cool things. So let's say a contractor is doing kitchen and bath remodeling. They take a picture of the before, they take a picture of the after. They could take 60 seconds on the computer or your phone, upload a side-by-side picture. Because it's not long before they're going into their kitchen that they almost kind of forget. What their old kitchen looked like. They love their new kitchen, but it doesn't take long before they, you know, they, they, it's out of their memory. So you put that as a before and after picture, they're never going to throw that away. And that's something you can't do when you pull a card out of your drawer, put that on there.

And I would take upwards of 2%, definitely 1% to 1.5% of gross profit. So if you have a $10,000 gross profit job, take $100. Okay? Take $100 and reinvest into that client. Okay? So maybe the thank you gift is $25, $30, and maybe the rest are cards that go to them for the next four or five years. So it's not that much to invest. I mean, you will spend... hundreds or if not thousands of dollars in a lot of these other sources, Google pay-per-click or this or that or ads or newspapers, all these different things. I don't know. Some contractors just completely do away with that all because they just have a lot of business coming in. And even though you have a lot of business coming in, there's certain types of business that you absolutely love to do and there is the highest profit for you. And imagine just going down that lane of saying, I'm just focusing on pavers. and ceiling or pressure washing, or I'm focusing on this one niche that I am instead of having to take all these other jobs just to be able to pay the bills and pay my people. So when you're really, really good at what you do, or you have separate crews that are doing the specific things, like how awesome would that be? So those are the types of things when you have really quality, not even leads, quality referrals coming your way. You get to pick and choose and you also get to pick more premium prices that way too.

It's right. I mean, I have we like give me a perfect example. I know I mentioned real estate. We have a lot of real estate clients as well. This real estate agent sends birthday cards only. She's in Michigan. She only sends birthday cards to her clients. That's the only form of like greeting cards that she sends out. She does. seven to eight deals consistently since 2019. And she told me that our average commission is the suburb of Detroit and our average commission was $10,000 a deal. So if you add it up, since then it's been $400,000 in GCI, gross commission income. So $400,000 in commission that has hit her bank account over the course of the last several years from only sending birthday cards. Curtis, what do you mean? Sending birthday cards? What's she doing? She asking for, actually, she's not asking for the business. But what's happening is people are calling her, testing her, thanking her for the business. It makes people remember her. See, these cards lead to conversations and conversations lead to opportunities. And we all know that opportunities lead to closed business. And so. Just by layering in a few of these appreciation marketing strategies into your business, you will see results. Now, you mentioned gifts. We do. We can send gourmet fudge brownies, cookies. We can send birthday gifts like candles that open up and sing happy birthday and spin around. We got Starbucks, Amazon gift cards, Home Depot gift cards. I like to stick to the food items because it's more instant. And if you know they have some kids, send them a box of 12 gourmet fudge brownies or six and say, P.S. 12 seconds in the microwave and a scoop of ice cream equals heaven. Then what happens is they put them in the microwave for 12 seconds and then they throw a scoop of ice cream and they're texting you a picture. Hey, eating our brownies. These are so good. Thank you so much. Like there's another emotion. It just takes it to another level. Now the kids associate you with these amazing gourmet fudge brownies, you know, like things like that. It goes a long way.

You know, people do, obviously. People do. However, I just feel like you don't always necessarily need to ask for the business or do something. Don't just ask for the business, deserve it. Do things that would, you want to show up in the life that would make them want to go out of their way to talk about you behind your back in a good way. And so, yeah, I mean, yeah, some people give away hats and shirts and stuff like that. I mean, it's, it's all, you know, they're prerogative, but I think it's even cooler to do something the opposite. I heard this a while back. It's like, let's say you just work for a client and they have a business and you have a really cool embroiderer. And you say, you know what? I really like these melon hats. I had a buddy of mine just mail me a hat out of the blue and said, hey, I've been using these hats. I love these hats. So I was like, oh, that's cool. Then my sister looks at it. She loves to fish and she likes the outdoors. And she goes, that's really cool. It looks like waterproof. She looked it up and flipped out. They're like 60 bucks a hat, right, for these hats. 60,70,80 bucks a hat. And then what I did recently was I got these hats and I actually put my logo, AM cards, on my hat. And I'm like, you know what I'm going to do is the next time that I go meet a big client, I'm going to get one, but I'm going to get their logo and embroider it on that hat and give it to them. You know, so they'll remember that even more than you put your own logo on it. If they have a business or something like that, it's kind of a really cool above and beyond thing that you can do. Take some time. Yes. Take some money. Yes. But is it memorable? Very much so. And that's what we're trying to do. If you're remembered and they know that you care, you go to the top of the list. And that's where we want to be at because there's only two top reasons why somebody is not going to come back to do business again or refer you. Number one, they don't remember you. Number two is perceived indifference. And perceived indifference is just a fancy way of saying they don't think that you actually care.

That's a great way of putting it. You're right.

amcards. com, AM for appreciation marketing. Set yourself up for the free account. I pay for the first card for you to send out. Upload some pictures. You can put some contacts in there. Send anywhere in the United States. Clients or family members are out of the country. We do have international postage, so you can send cards anywhere in the world, which is cool. And then we have some gifts as well, and people can send one-off cards. Or there's a membership option where they can, for a small monthly fee, we'll bonus you credits every month. It rolls over for a year, gives you 50% off our cards. And so you can see that all online. And if you happen to mention Hammer and Grind to our team, just say that you heard me on the podcast. We have, there's a $199 system license. That's just a one-time investment. But if you reach out to us, we'll waive the entire $199. There's no contracts, no commitments, something like that. So if it's something that you've been thinking about for a while, I'd recommend just signing up for free, sending a card, or... Give it to an assistant. Give it to a spouse or give it to somebody that they say, hey, can you go look into this a little bit more? And we'll be happy to do a little training or you can hop on a live Q &A. We do that weekly with our team. So yeah, I think that's the best thing that if somebody is interested a little bit to go do. We also have appreciationmarketing. com forward slash audio book. That's appreciationmarketing. com forward slash audio book. You can download my audio book for free. My national bestselling book, Appreciation Marketing. You can listen to it for free. It's also on Audible for like five bucks. That's one of the easiest ways. But it's on back order right now as I'm doing this podcast. By the time it launches, I'm sure I'll be back on Amazon.

You absolutely can. And you know what? You can also go ahead and grab some pictures, you know, on that you have in your phone, turn them into cards. You know, there's a lot of cool things. I just saw a couple of my friends that are at Disney world right now. And I, just grabbed a couple of the pictures of their family and in front of the Magic Kingdom and Magic Kingdom and the castle behind him. I just grabbed those pictures. I'm going to put that out. And then he's a principal at a school in New York. And so what I'm going to do is pop them on and I have the address to the school. I'm just going to send it there. I guarantee that I'll be sitting right on his desk. You know, when he comes back from vacation, it's going to be right there. I love doing that kind of stuff. It goes a long way. And I'm not doing that, trying to get any business. There's nothing that I can get from that. It just makes me feel good. He's a really good friend of mine. I know that it would be valued. And so, yeah. It's like, you know, just getting a habit of doing this stuff a little bit more. It comes back many times over.

No, man, I, I'm actually interested in, in. more of what you do as well. So, I mean, if you don't mind just sharing a little bit, cause I know you do these podcasts, you do an awesome job interviewing so many different people. Right now you're what over 150 episodes in.

That's all that's consistency, man. That says a lot about you.

One that I read recently that I absolutely recommend is anything by Alex Harmozy. Been following him a lot. And he wrote the book, $100 million offers and then $100 million leads. And I believe later this year, maybe $100 million brand may be coming out. He's hinted. I think it's going to be about brand. Anyways, when I went through the $100 million leads, that really lit me on fire. And one of the clients that we're working with right now that we're heavily focused on is car dealerships. And so he helped me because they're a higher ticket and it's much more difficult to speak to them because general managers and owner principals of car dealerships are extremely busy. You think contractors are busy. You should see them. So anyway, so he's really helped me put together a marketing strategy to be able to. So, I mean, people on here thinking about marketing and different things. I mean, it will take it to a whole nother level, especially people that want to do really big things.

I love it. All of his stuff is free, acquisition. com. You go there for free and get educated on some stuff, and he gives out so much stuff. It's great.

Extremely very high IQ. I mean, at 20 years old, I read Rich Dad Poor Dad at 30 years old. I read it was called, oh my gosh, Millionaire Fastlane. And Millionaire Fastlane was by MJ DeMarco is really cool. That helped me actually. want to get started with AM cards. Because basically he says, if you're not building something you own, you're wasting your time. And so you build your own brand, build your own business. And then something that, because especially in the contractor space, if somebody gets in and really hustles for three to five years and fine tunes and builds out their systems and an engine, you really could exit in five to 10 years and live a really nice life if you build the right. model that we, you can step aside and have somebody come in and take it from there. So there's a lot of cool things that you could do. So that was, that was powerful. And then at 35, um, I read the, um, million dollar offers million dollar, uh, and then that was, that was really powerful. Think and Grow Rich. I read several times throughout between now and then. And each time that I read that, it really took me to another level. That's my favorite all-time book.

You're good, brother. Great remembering. That's 100%. He sold it for a million bucks and realized a million bucks wasn't as much as he thought it was. And then he went back and built more businesses.

I just kind of like his no but yes attitude, and it was exactly what I needed at that time in my life. And so believe it or not, he even gives his email in the book. I emailed him, he emailed me back, and it was pretty cool.

Appreciate it. Thank you so much, Brad. It was an honor. Take care.