EP261: Building Trust and Value: Rick Storlie on Effective Client Conversion

Hey, thanks, Brad. Appreciate it. Nice to be on with you again and see you again.

Yeah, we met at the bar and we were talking about Jesus at the bar. And if you want to talk about Jesus today, man, that's my favorite topic ever. So I'm down with whatever.

We gave him the gospel, but I don't know if it took or not. So we'll just have to pray the Holy Spirit gets out to him.

Yeah, my name is Rick Storley. Our company is Builder Lead Converter, and we attract, capture, and convert high-quality leads for our builder partners so they can pick and choose their clients and jobs. My background, Brad, goes back to the 80s. I started as a job site laborer and worked on framing crews and did siding. After college, I got into sales and, you know, sort of gravitated back to new homes. My father had a, he had a partner where they were developing some land together. My father was a real estate broker and his partner was a home builder. So they had these lots they were developing and twice a year they would build a model home. We had a pretty large parade of homes in our local market. And my father's real estate team would They would staff the model home. And so as I was in college, he needed some help. And I was, I think I was a senior in college. This is back in the early nineties. So I mean, it's like forever ago. And so I reached out to him and I said, sure, yeah, I'll help you out. And so I'm in there and I'm green. I know nothing. I mean, I'm a framer, right? I mean, I'm just, I remember I was wearing a suit and I'm, you know, doing my, you know, put on my Sunday best and, you know, I'm just this snot nose kid who knows nothing about anything. And I started just like, getting all this contact information. So I remember going back to school, I reached out to my dad. I said, okay, dad, I had notes on everybody. And I said, this guy's got land. This guy wants to start building, you know, such and such a time. This guy's interested in this. And I gave him all the notes. And I talked to him like maybe a month later. And I'm like, how did it go? Did you sell any of these people? You know, what happened? You know, and he's like, oh, you know, nothing really came of anything. I'm like, what? These were like legitimate leads, you know, and I had all this stuff. And so when I, when I graduated, I said, hey. if I am willing to work a model home, you know, a week in, a week out, would you, you know, and your partner build something and not sell it? Because they tried to sell the model right away after the event. So would you, would you try to sell it? And, and he's like, yeah, well, we'd do that. And so that's really, I had my C training and I call it Brad. It was like, see your model home, see your keys. When am I going to see some contracts? And so I would end up slung mud on the wall and just sort of learn by sort of trial and error. I finally got some training later on, but I worked my way up to be a field manager and I started overseeing other locations and then worked my way into becoming a sales manager, sales and marketing manager, and then got into being a GM for a custom builder. And then I started back in 05, I started doing fractional management for builders all across the country. And so I was working for design builder modelers and custom builders and then 08, the market crashes. So a lot of guys really, I mean, that was actually helped me get sort of my company going because they couldn't afford to have an in-house person. And so I was managing from afar. And then in 2010, I picked up a software partner where we were developing and creating a CRM for our builders that I was managing and doing sales training at the same time. We're using that software. And then in 2020, new software came out, high level. Some of you may have heard of it. It was called. And I said, hey, this has everything we want. My partner was 75 years old. We weren't going to use this platform anymore. And I said, hey, Runa, Runa Hogson from Norway was his name. And I said, Runa, I said, why don't you go retire? And so he did. And I built my team up from there. So since 2020, we've really focused on client acquisition. do sales training or coaching anymore. I've hung that hat up and just focus on client acquisition. And what we do, again, is the attract, capture, convert. We built sort of a perfect sales assistant for our builders. And so our baton handoff, if you will, is when the appointment is booked and you as the builder has the phone call. And then we have the CRM. set up for them where they can manage that relationship. And then there's an integration with job trade and we've done some software development with some other tools as well. So yeah, it's a full cradle to grave client acquisition system sort of built on, you know, what I learned back and from the early nineties forward, you know, working those model homes. The focus again is on the conversion aspect, you know, not the, not the lead generation aspect.

No, we do. Actually, it's probably 50-50 home builders and remodelers. And a lot of our clients do both, you know, especially since, you know, design build is, there's not a whole lot different except for a lot feasibility, you know, when you're building a home versus remodeling. So yeah, a lot of them will do higher end projects. You know, a lot of, most of our clients try not to do a whole lot under a hundred. We have some that are averaging a million for a remodeling project and we'll get into custom builders, you know, that are in the 5 million plus,6 million plus areas. So very, very high end sort of luxury design build stuff.

It's interesting because every builder goes through this, it's like this evolution. And you start your company. A lot of guys come out of the trades like me, but you know, there's others that start as real estate agents that are flipping houses, especially for remodelers. But they get to a point where they build their business and it's more or less all referral. And, you know, it's their friends, family, and then it's their sphere of influence. And then maybe they're getting some business referrals and they get to the point where maybe they're done a million, you know, maybe two. And then they think, oh, you know what? This referrals, it's great because they're very, very high converting leads, but you can't really scale the business on referrals only. So the question always comes up like, okay, well, I need to market. Well, I should run Facebook ads. And it's like, yeah, you could do that. You can run ads on Facebook and you can get a whole lot of leads, but they're all garbage. And see, I talked to a lot of builders, Brad, and what they say to me is like, where do I start? You know, where do I start? And so it's one of the issues that we try to tackle is like, say, you know, don't look at it as lead generation. Don't look at it as marketing. Don't look at it as sales, but look at it as client acquisition. And instead of focusing on generating a lead, focus on converting a lead to a highly profitable client that you enjoy working with as a type of project that you're good at and you're making money at. And it's in a location that you don't have to drive four hours, you know, to get to. And, you know, you have less windshield time. And so once we sort of lay that out for our builders, the light bulb comes on this. We're like, oh, yeah, that's true. OK, so where do I start? Well, so we just developed this three phase approach where you do some foundational things. We call it our build phase. And again, I go back to my roots as a framer. You know, when we got to a job site, the first thing we do is we're inventorying lumber. We're checking for, you know. Is the foundation square? Are our walls level? Do we have high spots? That sort of thing. Because if you have to make adjustments there, make sure you have a solid foundation before you build the home on top of it. And if the foundation's screwed, it's going to show up in your framing. And then also the trim carpenters are yelling at you, you know, because none of the doors are closing, you know, and it's like it just cascades from there. So we built this system to sort of take this builder where you go from a period of going from. I'm just built this business on referrals or I've tried marketing. I've tried lead generation. I've crashed and burned. I just heard from another builder recently too. He said, hey, I'm spending 3,500 bucks a month on, and I'm trying to do high-end projects,300,000 plus. And I'm realizing that's not the right approach. I'm like, yeah, that's not the right approach. You need to do this as where you crawl, then you walk and then you run. So you don't jump from building your business on referral only to where the point where you're running, you know, high-end Google pay-per-click videos or ads, that sort of thing. It's like you work your way up to it. And in some cases, Brad, you don't ever have to do that. You know, there's much better ways to attract high-quality opportunities in the local market besides meta-ads or, you know, pay-per-click on Google. So that's what we do is we build that infrastructure where we build the foundation and then we start attracting opportunities. No, we focus on growth. And so the systems we put in place can take that guy that's going from one to two million. They want to do five million. They want to do 10 million plus. They can do that. And there's lots of cool bells and whistles that go with it too.

So one thing I figured out when I was selling is I was able to be a fly on the wall. So we were in a market where we had the largest parade of homes in the country. At one point, there was like 1,300 homes twice per year where we had consumers like dozens, if not hundreds a day. coming through our model home. So the problem I had was, how do I slow these people down? How do I differentiate myself? Like, how do I get their contact information, let alone book an appointment? Because it's like crowd control. And so I would watch people as they behave as they came into the model home. And I realized a couple of things is like, okay, we build model homes, not just to, in that day and age before the internet, was not just to get people. in front of you, which we needed to do, but it was also what we did is we created an emotional environment. So the homes weren't just empty. They were, we spent thousands of dollars staging them and doing extra, you know, putting furniture in place. And so what we were trying to do is we're trying to depict a hope for lifestyle. So you really quickly realize is that when people come into that model home, they weren't looking at my builder at the time. They could care less about the builder, what they had envisioned, this hope for a lifestyle. And so they start. by trying to understand what's this lifestyle I'm after? What does it look like? So they can't visualize it, right? That's design. Okay, so we start there. Then once they see something they like, the next question is, well, how much, Brad? You know, what does this cost? What's your price per square foot, right? And so we've all had those questions. And that's because when they look at us, when there's no value that's been established, no trust that's been established yet, we get commodified. So if they're going to walk through 10 parade homes a day, which oftentimes they would. The one differentiator was price. Oh, I like this. I like this. I like this. Okay, well, what's your price? The lowest price wins the three bid aspect, if you will. But one of the things I learned from that is that if you can be the local source of information, they'll come back. to you. And if they look at you as the local expert, you will develop the same trust and value that that referral lead did, that you built your business up to that first one or two million dollars. Those referral leads, they convert so well because trust is already established because you did a great job for their friend or coworker or neighbor. And they conveyed that trust over to that lead. And so when they're talking to you, they don't come in and say, hey, Brad, what's your price per square foot for this? They come in and they say, hey, you did a job for so-and-so. He said, you are awesome to work with. We're thinking about doing this. Can you help us? Right. And so it's the same logical conclusion you want to get to with this lead that comes in through organic search on a website or a zero search summary from an AI search or from your Google business profile. It's the same process of developing that value and trust that is just natural with that referral lead. And so once what happens is, is I learned this by sitting in front of hundreds of, you know, new home and remodeling buyers is that they go from, well, how much project for how little money? That's their main question when they start with, I want the most for the least, that's human nature. And then they shift to what's the next step. Because once they trust you and they see the value of what you bring, then they'll look at you as an advisor and a guide. What's the next step? And once they say that, you've got them. Now they're going to follow you. So they start by looking for information first. If you're the local source of information, then they try to identify, okay, are you an expert? Because if you are the perceived expert in your local market, they want to hear from the expert and you just provide information to start with. And then once they are ready to take that next step, They value you. They trust you because you've given them everything first. And then they're willing to sit down and listen to you and follow your process, which ultimately tells them what they're going to get and how much it's going to cost.

Yeah, the go-to way is... wherever the client wants to learn from me. You know, so if that's SMS, if some people maybe want to jump on a call right away, maybe it's following me the email for years. Maybe it's following me on social media or my Google business profile or press releases. I mean, everybody is different. When you're walking a tightrope when you do this, because you have to produce content in different formats that is going to be that the Google wants. Okay. Or what ChatGPT wants. Okay. But at the same time, you also have to produce content that is relevant to the user, the lead. So you're walking that tightrope. So yeah, it's blog posts and it's having your website with the right content on it, but then you have to build the website the right way. So it's high performance because AI search. You know, you could have the greatest website in the world, the greatest information, but if it's a poor performing website, AI searches, they're going to pull up the resource. Let's put it this way. AI is going to come in and they're going to scrape your website based on what performs the best. So if it takes them half a second to load the information and scrape it and provide the answer versus two seconds, they're going to go to the half a second website, even if it's not the best answer for what they're looking for. So the performance is huge. So, yeah, so now I'm building, you know, all this information. And then, yes, I've got to get my socials up to speed. But even your Google business profile or your free house account, I mean, that's like super foundational stuff and it's free and you can deliver a lot of opportunities. So you're pretty much doing everything. But here's what I can tell you. Next to referral leads, your highest converting lead sources are going to be organic search or. AI search, okay, whatever you want to call it, a generative search. It's going to be direct website visitors, which means somebody that's aware of you and they're typing in your URL and they're coming to your website direct. That's the next step. Then it's going to be social media and there's very little traffic that comes from social media to your website. It's usually the other way around. They go from your website to your socials and they just want to follow you. And then it's going to come out of your database too, long-term nurturing. Business-to-business referrals is really good. The lowest converting... type of source is paid. It's paid ads or it's paid social. It's the lowest converting. And yet you're going to spend the most on that. So we usually end there if we need to. We don't start there. We do everything else first and then we just measure everything we're doing. But the organic people, the people that find you through organic search and we put lead magnets on your website, you probably heard that term, but that's just an offer. Those offers, those organic search, what they will opt into in order to start that relationship. That's what gives you the data to really nail it on paid. Because paid is all about really just fine tuning your audience and your offer and having a very high click through rate, low cost per lead. And then once you get that lead, you got to do a lot of, it's a mountain climb to get that lead to go from cold all the way to warming them up. seeing the value, trusting you and getting them in front of you. That

Local service ads are a great example. Okay, if you're a plumber and somebody needs to have their water heater replaced or they've got some sort of an issue and then you get fixed right away, local service ads are great. If you're trying to sell $300,000 design build projects, local service ads are a complete waste of money. So yeah, you're exactly right. Know your audience, make sure you understand your product. It's all about sales cycle, you know, and it's a need versus a want, right? Okay, if my water heater goes out, that's a big need. I'm going to take cold showers until I get it fixed. But obviously a want is, hey, I'm going to do this addition. I'm going to build this $5 million custom home. And it's a very, very long sales cycle. So yeah, understanding who your buyer is and what they're after is where you want to make sure you're putting that information out there to really take advantage of whatever that source might be.

Yeah, everybody is different. I would say, okay, so what we know is that for whenever every 100 opportunities that visits a website that are engaged, that means they're on your site for at least 30 seconds and their IP address is like, say, from the US. Okay, so take all the bot. activity, all the spammers out of there. And also somebody that's legitimately looking for a builder. Typically, you see somewhere between three to eight leads captured for every 100 opportunities. It's seasonal. Right now is a good time to capture leads. A lot of people are looking because we're getting into that spring market. It's going to be a lot different looking in December or November even. It's going to be lower. So from that three, so let's say for every 10 leads you capture, we see about three. We'll book a call within two weeks. Seven don't. Okay. And now, again, for those seven that don't, now what I have to do is I have to focus on, all right, how do I stay top of mind with them? Because we've seen it before, Brad, where like this recently, one of my clients, they'd sold a $2 million custom home. That lead was in their database for five years. So five years, we had to religiously stay top of mind with them. We had to stay relevant. And there's a way to do that by nurturing that relationship. And when they were ready to call a builder, we got the call. Okay. Most builders, you know, if they get a new lead, they might call them, maybe they text them, maybe they email them once. And if that lead doesn't respond next onto the next one. So the higher end projects you do, the more important that long-term nurturing, value building, as well as re-engagement. we call it quarterly reengagement, which would be doing events and database reactivations, the more important that is. So yeah, you can see that's an extreme example of five years. But what we normally see is that if they haven't booked an appointment in the first two weeks to have that first phone call on there, you're probably looking at, you're not going to realistically hear from that lead for maybe six months. And during that time, you may never get an opportunity. You know, you just have to continue to work and work and work and work and try to give them a legitimate reason, a compelling reason. I would say you want to give them a compelling reason to want to talk. And that's just an old sales strategy, control leads for information, right? You give them just enough to keep them interested, but not too much. So they don't need to talk to you. And so that's what we try to do is just continue to educate them, show them the way, but then always give them a compelling reason to want to take the next step, which is the book that call. you know, do go through that qualification. So the builder can say, yep, great, let's go. Or no, you're not the right fit next.

It's a really good point. It's all about the conversion. So if we look at it from the lead standpoint, vast majority of leads on your website are not ready to talk. And if you look at what do most builders have on their website? Well, if you want to build a home or remodel your home, here's a phone number or here's a form. Call it the two Fs, right? I got a form and a phone. Well, the vast majority of leads don't want to talk. So what they do is they come and go. So go back to my model home experience. If I didn't give leads a reason, like most leads didn't want to talk to me. Oh, you're a salesperson, right? Get away, right? You ask them, oh, you think about building a home? Oh, we're just looking. You know, and so I used to play games with people that we only built homes. We didn't do remodeling at the time. And so people would walk in and say, oh, hey, my name is Rick. Are you getting remodeling ideas? And they'd say, oh, no, we want to build a home. You know, so you had to use reverse psychology because otherwise they're just they have a script, too, just like you have a script. Yeah. So you have to, again, give them a reason to want to stop. So what I did. Because I figured out, hey, if I put a lot book, I would take them to get plots of all the different projects around me that we could get access to that land. And then we had floor plans and I put a plan book out. And I would just leave those out in the kitchen and I would wait for somebody to start looking.

to the show. Okay, so think about your website. If you don't have the right content on your website, they look around, they go like, okay, nothing's here and they leave. And so, you know, and the most frustrating thing, Brad, is when we'd be sitting in that model home, And it's dead. And there's nobody there. And a car would drive up and slow down and stop and kind of look. And then they would drive off. You're kind of like, well, why? What was it? Why didn't they come in? You know, what was there? So you look at your website. That's the same thing that's happening every minute of every day. People are coming through. They're looking around. And if they don't see what they like, they're leaving. So the most important thing we have to do is we have to. not lose the opportunity. So that's why we look at as a website for home builder, remodeler, whatever it is, is that most of those websites are builder centric. The website's all about me, how great I am. Look at my awards. Look how long I've been in business. It's not lead centric. So we used to call in the model home on the parade days, you know, we would go out and look at our competition, you know, during that time too. And we'd walk into a model home and Every now and then we walked through one and it was so overbuilt and so ostentatious. You could tell the builder built a home that only he could fall in love with. And we'd chuckle, we'd walk out, we would say, well, we know who's going to buy that home. It's the builder. He won't be able to sell it in six months, he'll be moving in. And so that's what you see a lot of builders' websites too, is that they're built for the builder's ego. And I just had this conversation the other day with a guy in California and he goes, Rick, so what you're telling me is, is that I just got to like, let you put the content on the website and not like get my ego out of the way. And so that's exactly what we're saying is that it doesn't matter what I think or what you think, Brad, it's what does the lead think? What does the lead want? And we know that we have all that data because that's the beautiful thing about doing things online is that you can track everything. So we have all that data. So we have a very specific format and very specific information. We make sure every one of our partners has on their website because the most important thing is to not be eliminated. If I can not be eliminated, I can create, if I can't get them the first time around, you know, that opt-in, is that we find that about 20 to 25% of the website traffic is a feedback traffic, which means they've been there before. So they'll come back. So that's what we used to call it in the model home days. You know, someone would come through on Friday and they say, oh, I'll be back. And then sure enough, Sunday they'd come back. He'd be like, yeah, all right, I got a live one. And so your website's like that too. is about, you know, again,20 to 25%. It depends on how much you're advertising, you know, how much you're doing for GEO, that sort of thing. But it's a pretty good number. And so in that, you give that reason, that lead a reason to come back. The reason they come back is because you have information that they want and they saw it there and they remembered you. And so now they're coming back to it and then you give them another offer. Hey, how about I send you this? Whether it's a white paper or enhanced design library, design idea book or pricing. You know, we have pricing tool that we built that allows the lead to create a scope of work and then they can get an instant price or they can request a meeting, you know, with the builder where they can pick the date and time that scope works created. The builder will give them a budget over the phone, you know, so you can't run from it. Every lead wants to know how much it's going to cost. Builders hate to give pricing up front, but you have to give them some sort of a budget range.

Exactly.

Yeah, exactly. And it's like, yes, every builder can say it's, you know,250 to 500 bucks a foot. Okay, you can tell that to the lead. They just want to get some sort of parameters. Am I in the ballpark? And that's the reason that most people, you know, will leave a builder's website is because they look around and they're going to think one of two things. Okay, you're too expensive, Brad. You're above my budget because all the homes, all the photos you're showing on here are way high end and I can't afford that. Next. Or it's the opposite. They have a budget up here and what they see in your website is stuff from three, four, five years ago and it's out of date, out of style. You as a builder maybe don't even build that type of stuff anymore, but you've, you just haven't updated your website. It's like, it's your virtual showroom, man. I mean, that is the most important thing that you're putting out there. That is who you are each and every day. And if that, all that leaves looking for is a reason not to, you know, talk to you because they're going to look at 30 different builders websites. They might only talk to one, two or three. So don't give them a reason, right? So just give them everything that they want as much as you can upfront, give them a reason to start a relationship. And then treat them like they're the most important people in the world by nurturing that relationship, establishing trust and value so that they want to talk to you because you are the local builder of choice, right? And the perception is you got it going on. Whether you do or not, it's all about perception. I just got to create the perception that I am the best choice for them to get them on the phone. That's all I got to do.

Yeah, well, we use Microsoft Clarity, which is probably very similar. It heat maps people. Yeah, heat maps. Yep. So, I mean, that's just a thing is look at behavior. But I used to have it. I still have a saying. It's like general contractors generally attract people interested in the lowest price. If you are a generalist and not a specialist, you're just going to attract everything. So you're exactly right. If I'm going to if I want my bathroom remodeled and I see that you also stain decks, am I really going to look at you and say, are you the best choice for me? Or am I going to or did you just give me a reason to eliminate you? So absolutely, you need to niche down. I guess, Brad, the bigger question is why do builders feel like they need to be everything to everybody? And I think the answer to that is, well, I don't want to put myself in a box. I want to cast a wide net because I don't have enough opportunities. I don't have enough leads. And so I'm not going to turn down that $5,000 job. Because I don't have, I got a hole in my, you know, my schedule and I need to fill it. And that's really what it comes down to is that you, yeah, you have to make the determination of what are you going to be known for? And then what, what are you really good at? And most importantly, what do you make good money at? You know, because you can be, you can enjoy doing something, but if you're not making money at it, why? You know, unless you like to practice. I think, you know, I think most builders are for profit. Last time I checked. And so, yeah, you got, you need to figure that out. Now, there are some times I get it. You're in a rural market and you've got to do lots of different things and wear lots of different hats. I get it. Yeah. But, you know, if most of you are probably in markets where you've got at least 250,000 people to draw upon plus and you can niche down and there's different ways to segment your services that you offer, but you've got to be presented as a specialist because nobody wants to work with a generalist and you just attract the wrong type of leads. And it gives it gives the right type of leads. And this is important. It gives the right type of leads the ammunition to eliminate you. And that's what you don't want to do. And that's the biggest crime out there is that you might be the best builder for that particular lead. But because of your perception of what you do and most importantly, like what you don't do, they're going to eliminate you and you never even get a chance to talk to them. And then they go to one of your competitors who is crap, but he just does a better job marketing and creates that perception that, hey, he's the go-to guy. And you're, you know, walking around going like, We are so much better than that guy. You know, people hate him. They say, look at his reviews. But for whatever reason, he's getting the business.

Yeah. Know your buyer, right? You have to know your buyer inside out and you have to create the perception that you're the best one to solve their problem. You know, what's their problem? They have a hope for lifestyle and they're looking for somebody to provide that and they don't know who to go to it. So they're going to look around and when they see someone, it's like, hey. I think you can deliver my bathroom in a week and it seems too good to be true, but I'm going to jump in anyway. You know, they might be regretting the decision and probably a lot of those clients are regretting the decision they went with them. But still, you might do the best bathroom job in the world. But again, if you don't come off as the best solution. In other words, the best advisor to solve their lifestyle issue, which is we don't have enough bathrooms in our house or my bathroom, you know, it leaks and it's, you know, it's pasted together with spit and... bubble gum, you know, and I just need to get it done quickly and I want it to look nice and I want it to perform. It's like, if you don't come off as that guy, you're not going to get the business. And we just got back from the International Builder Show where I did a panel discussion there with three of our clients. And one of the things we talked about is that we're in the business of building, you know, and not focusing on the craft of building. Most of you, if you have been in business for five years, which a lot of our clients have, and you've built up a $1 to $2 million in annual revenue and you're making decent money, you're profitable, you understand the craft of building, but you don't understand the business of building. And in order to get that company up to $5 million or $10 million or even $3 million, you really have to understand the business of it and how that works operationally as well as how to acquire those clients that are going to get you there.

That's not even what I was going to say.

Yeah, we call it confidence builders. So when they're on your website, you're going to put. strategically placed confidence builders. So that's going to be, you know, your Google business profile reviews. It's going to be, yeah, if you've won awards, that's fine. They're not front and center. But if you're, especially if you're a remodeler, people do go to your about us page. They want to know the people that potentially they're inviting into their home. Remember, that's their most sacred space. So if you're a remodeler, your about us page is the most important page on your website. Again, because they have to relate to you from a human standpoint. If they can't, they're not going to go in there. And Brad, I can't tell you how many times I look at Remodeler's websites when they reach out to me. Now look, I go to the About Us page and there's no photos on there even of the owner. And it looks like it was written, like it's a templated website and nobody even changed the verbiage on there. It's completely generic. Boy, if you want to turn off people in a hurry, it's like, don't make your company human. They've got to connect with you first. So yeah, they start with information. But once they get the information they're looking for, especially from a local resource, now they're going to start saying, okay, who are you? And the question they're asking yourself is, should I start a relationship? And that could be a live chat on the website. It could be a phone call maybe. It could be downloading one of your guides or your lead magnets or using the scoping tool to price things up. But you just want to start that relationship. And again, how do you do that? You have to give first. You don't ask for anything in return. I'm going to give you this information. I want you to get good information to make a well-informed choice. I used to use that as a sales guy. So Brad, my job is to give you good information so you can make a well-informed choice. So in other words, if you're going to choose a builder to do this project, I want to make sure you have all the information you need so that when that project is done, whether you choose me or somebody else, you're happy. The punch list is complete. The warranty is in place and you're living that lifestyle that you've been dreaming about. If they look at you and say, you're the best advisor I've come across, why would I not start this relationship with you and then... it's your deal to lose is really what it comes down to. And that's why if you're in design build, if you're getting a design deposit, you have a 90 to probably 99% conversion rate is because the dating is done during design. And that's where a relationship and trust is formed. And it's just a natural progression to go into construction. They're going to hire you because they trust you and they see the value.

Because the heavy lifting is done before you ever talk to them. And I would say this, I'm a marketing guy, I'm a sales guy, although I have run a company as a general manager, a custom home builder. I would say this, is that before you ever launch into any sort of a... marketing campaign or lead generation campaign is that you have got to have your operations figured out. And what I mean by that is, is that if you're going to quadruple or triple the amount of opportunities you have coming in, you better make sure that you are making money because that otherwise, whatever precious cash flow you have laying around, are you going to put into this endeavor? That's gone, right? If you don't do it right, it's gone. And all that you've done is you have compounded your issues because the issues were there at surface level, or maybe they're even deeper. Maybe they're below the surface because you're only doing one to 1.5 a year. Well, now all of a sudden you did three and you just figured out you made less money doing three than you did at 1.5 and you've just lost money. So you just compounded your issues. So, and this is something as a coach, I know you get into a lot of this. It's like, well, okay. what comes first, right? Is it marketing or is it operations? Operations always comes first. Always, always, always comes first. Get your operations down, get your systems down, get your SOPs in place, get your workflow in place, get all those things right. Make sure you are making the kind of money that you deserve to make. Once you've done that. then go into the client acquisition, then reinvest in the company. Because now you know, you've got a good process that can work. And hopefully the idea is, is that without you, because as you know, every builder should try to get out of the day today as much as they can as they build this company. If you ultimately your end goal is to sell the business, which a lot of builders is, you know, it's like, it has to be able to operate without you. And that's going to come down to your systems and your, in your SOPs.

Well, it seems to me one of the first hires that a lot of billers make is a project manager. Is that what you see too? It's usually like, hey, I want to get myself out of the field, and I need to get a guy that can handle jobs.

Yeah, sure. That would make sense. Sure. You're going to try to eliminate some of those things.

And that's an easy one because you can do that with the VA in a lot of cases and you're just off-floating. you know, stuff that administrative things that you don't have time for. That's a pretty easy one. But I'm going to say, I'm going to say the first main hire or big hire is typically a project manager because you as a builder realizing I cannot work on my business when I'm knee deep in it, especially on a job site. It's just, you're too inefficient with your time. You're wearing too many hats and you realize that the highest and best use of my time is not necessarily a job site. It's going to be in the office and working on systems. We work it backwards from there. It's like, okay, I'm going to hire a project manager. What should I do without a job description? Should I do it without having a set process of how I'm going to bring this job from pre-construction to completion? So if I'm going to essentially, I'm going to replace myself as a project manager, I better have my system down so that when I bring that person in, I'm not going to throw them to the wolves. Well, you figure it out, right? I hired you. You're the project manager. It's like, no, you need. That's why I hired you. Yeah, that's why I hired you, right? You need to dictate it. So I see the same thing, you know, on our end, I see the builders saying, well, Brad, I want to hire a sales guy. I'm like, okay, is your sales process documented? Do you have conversion metrics figured out? Do you know what this person should be doing, how they should be doing it and what numbers they should be hitting? Well, no, I don't. It's like, you're not ready to hire a salesperson. You need to figure that out first. And builders. Even though some builders are part of the sales prevention team, most builders are much, much better at selling their stuff because they have the passion, they have the industry knowledge. And let's face it, everybody wants to talk to the builder, right? It's like, they don't want to talk to the sales guy. They want to talk to the builder. So if you're doing design build, you're never going to get completely out of sales. Even if you have someone that does the upfront, you're still going to come in at some point and do the pre-construction work with. with designing and estimating. So with that said, yeah, you have to have all of that mapped out. Your office administrator, you mentioned, Brad, that person could take lead calls. You can train that person very quickly to qualify those calls, to ask the right questions, to book appointments for you. Absolutely, you can do that. But you can't just say, well, yeah, if a lead calls, Brad, you know, just go ahead and talk to them and, you know, let me know if they want to meet. What do I ask? So again, you got to have a script, you got to have a process, you got to have a system. And that's where it comes another thing too, a cardinal sin that a lot of builders make is they don't have a system for taking that lead from capture to contact where they're actually on the phone with them. So conversion. The first conversion you're going to do is actually take that opportunity and get them on the phone and have that call. So to do that, it's all about automation, follow up. being quick to it. Most builders don't, they maybe do an auto emailer, like if somebody fills out a form on their website, but there's nothing. Otherwise it goes back to the builder. And let's just say you're busy. Maybe it's Friday at six and you get a lead. And then you got a production meeting Monday morning and you know, you're got to, you know, do things. The next thing you know, it's Tuesday morning, Tuesday afternoon, you're getting back to that lead. Well, guess what? They contacted three of your competitors in the meantime. And they've already had two conversations with you. And then now they just ghost you. It's like, why didn't they call me back? You know, they called me on Friday. Well, it's because they didn't think they were important because you didn't follow up with them. So you have to treat them like they're the most important people in the world. And oftentimes getting that deal comes down to you're just the first one to get with them. And they say, oh, well, I think you can solve the problem. I don't need to talk to these other guys because they don't want to talk to three or four builders. You know, they just want to get somebody they trust, they see that knows what they want, that can produce it. And let's go. Let's rock and roll. We're ready to move.

Builderleadconverter. com. Builderleadconverter. com is our website. Yeah, you can find out all about us and what we do from our client acquisition system.

That's a good one. So I'm currently reading, we're finishing up the five dysfunctions of a team. which is a great book. I'm a huge proponent of EOS. And so the book Traction, I think, is a great read for any business owner. And that's really the art of understanding how to operate your business, how to manage it, how to grow your business as well. So, yeah, if you're not familiar with EOS or not using EOS, a lot of our clients are. I've been on it for six years. In fact, we just put an integrator in place. I don't have to do that job anymore because I'm a visionary. I'm not an integrator. And it's been game changing for us. But five dysfunctions of team is a great one, too. But that's not going to be for the solopreneur. That's for when you've got a team of, say, three to five in your leadership. And it's really a way to help understand what are some of those roadblocks are maybe keeping you from. getting through those recurring issues that you're dealing with. Awesome.

Brad, it was a pleasure. Thank you.