EP27: Do You Want To Dominate Or Not?

I want to set this up a little bit first because I'm an I personality. I want people to like me. I want to like people. I want to have this good conversations and good community. I want my competitors to win. I really want to state this right now because I think a lot of people misconstrue the meaning and the way I'm interpreting domination. I want my competitors to win and I'll actually reach back and grab their hand and pull them forward. And you know why I'm reaching back and pulling them forward? It's because I'm fucking dominating them. I want to dominate. I want to win at all levels. I want to market. I want to be the best possible service in my area. It's my goal to be better than them and then be better than myself. So I really want to state that. I want my competition to win. I really... Really from the bottom of my heart, do I want like my, my closest competitor that like we grind against each other and we don't like each other sometimes. Like I want him to make enough money to where he can send his daughter to like the ultimate dance classes and take her to the zoos whenever, like I want him to win really bad. So this is like this really weird. It's a, it's a really weird thing to think about. Well, I want to dominate him. But I don't want to crush them. I don't want them to lose. I want them to win too.

Yeah, I mean, I want to wake up and piss excellence. You know what I'm saying? I want to be Talladega Knights. Listen, it's just the way it is. But I want them to win. And like, as long as I'm winning, I'm going to reach back and like help them. I want to like go like, hey bro, like maybe you should make some adjustments here and like that'll be helpful, you know? But see, here's the thing. Like, I think there's a healthy competition and actually I call it co-opetition, a cooperating competition. Like I want to cooperate with my competition and I want to like inspire them with my domination. You know what I mean? And I want them to be like, I got to be better. And I want to be inspired because they're trying to catch me. That's the mindset you got to have.

Right, for sure. So like, I think we set the stage. I just wanted to like, I wanted to set that whole thing up. And then so like, I'd love to talk about like the profit funnel and like the way, the philosophy behind the way we think about business. And maybe this will help be a catalyst to get people to want to dominate.

That's not a bad plan. I mean, that is actually a successful formula. Just, I want to say that it is like you're a genius by that.

This is a really interesting point because this competitive spirit is what makes people grow. If you don't have competition, there's no leveling up. you know, it's like, like until someone did the four minute mile, it was impossible and no one was like doing it. As soon as someone did the four minute mile, like hundreds of people were doing it. Like, I mean, I don't know the exact quote on that, but like no one thought it was possible that someone did it and everyone did it. So it's like having this competitive spirit and I feel like we're going down a real long rabbit hole because I already have some other things I want to talk about, about competition and domination and all this stuff. But like, I want to, I want to dominate my competitor because I want them to be better. Because if I'm in a specialty niche, we do exotic water features and ponds and koi fish and waterfalls in people's backyards and stuff. So if all my competitors are delivering a shitty inferior product and that's clouding the market that we're providing, then you know how bad news spreads way faster than good news. So if I have a couple of competitors that I'm totally dominating, and they're just trashing the whole industry, then people are going to be talking bad. Like, oh, I got this waterfall. There's so much work. They're terrible. Contractors are total pain. It's not a good thing. I don't want that to happen. Because I really truly believe if we all work together, the pie gets bigger. And so my slice gets bigger. And so many people have that scarcity mindset. They believe that the pie is only so big. And so they want to get as much pie as possible. I believe that if I inspire my competitor to get better and then my other competitor to get better and those two fight it out and we're all challenging each other, I come up with innovations to be better. I serve my clients better because I want to be better than them. All of a sudden, it's like the ingredients get bigger and the pie suddenly becomes larger and then there's larger pieces for everybody. And so that's when I'm like, I want to dominate more than I want to win. And that's like my formula in my head.

Well, the funnel, let's first of all say like you're at the bottom of the funnel. Right? This is the formula is you're at the bottom of the funnel and you want leads and sales and money to drop into the bottom of the funnel to where you're catching it, like in a bucket or in a box or whatever you want to do. Right? So the top of the funnel, you want to set it up. And so I think that what I want to tell people is the first thing is like, you were like, Hey, I want the phone to ring. I got to do some marketing. I got to get leads into the funnel. And those funnels turned into sales and sales turned into... production, the production turns into money and then I get profit at the bottom, right? So that's the philosophy behind it. But a lot of people overlook the very first step and that is reverse engineering what you want to make, what you need to make, what's your ideal life look like? And I want to kind of set this up because if someone just listened to this, this is the very first podcast anyone ever listened to and they don't know anything about us. So the first thing is like most of, I think a great deal of our audience, they start as a craftsman. They're working for a contractor. They want to start their own business and then they start their own business and then they don't really understand business, but they know that their boss was charging 75 bucks an hour for their time. So they're going to charge 50 bucks an hour for theirs. And so like that's just the philosophy and like they get people to call them and they start doing things. The real, real... The correct way to do it is to figure out what you want to do, what you want to make, what you want your life to be like. And that is what we call a KPI. We figure out what we want to do and then we reverse engineer everything at the top of the funnel.

Well, that's the point I was trying to lay out. It's like, hey, well, I made $25 an hour. I'm going to start my own business. I think I'm going to double my income. I'll make $50 an hour. That's just a random arbitrary number. You're just making some shit up. Literally think about and throw everything out to the wind. What kind of lifestyle do you want to leave? How much vacation do you want to do? How many kids do you want to have? How much money is that going to cost? What kind of college funds do you need to generate? When do you want to retire? Whether you're 26 or 66 and you're in business and you're listening to this podcast for the first time, you should just pump the brakes, pause, and just take a four-hour session of like, where am I at now? Am I really where I want to be? And where do I want to be in a little bit in the future? And then kind of like put those pieces into play and then you can reverse engineer. And sometimes we've seen it, Brad. Like we've seen it talking to some of our students. It's like we see like the deer in the headlights moment when they're like, I'm not charging enough money. Like I thought I was making great money, but. I'm not even anywhere close to where I need to make this happen, right? So figuring out what you want to make and how you want your life to be in reverse engineering it is a really important factor just before you even get started.

Yeah. And I mean, this is when, you know, contractors start scratching their head and go like, this is more than I want to, you know, this is more than I want to do. But really like figuring out where you want to go is like, it's like the best possible thing you can do for yourself. And so, you know, it's, I think too many contractors just go like, I'm going to charge 50 bucks an hour. Like, oh, well, I'll charge 60 bucks. I'll charge the extra 10 bucks an hour. Like, it's a little more complex than that. It's a little bit more of a math problem than that. And so to try and figure those things out is really important. And so we could literally stay here for an hour and a half, Brad, and talk about tracking that stuff. But in a nutshell, that first initial top of the funnel, before you start to get the phones to ring and start to do some marketing, you really want to figure out who you are, what you want to be, how many kids you want to have, what you want your life to be like, what your hobbies are. what your retirement is going to look like, how you want to leave a legacy on the world. What would that look like? And then you can reverse engineer from that. And you can even throttle that down. Maybe that's super wide, like that super dreamy thing. And then you can throttle it down and get to a spot where you can begin. But you have to find your bare minimum, which is your break even. This is what I need to live. I want to eat filet mignon every night. But to eat Top Ramen, this is where I have to be. You have to figure out your bare minimum and then your dream. And then you know that if you start to bid projects below your bare minimum, then you don't get to eat Top Ramen tonight. You know what I mean? In a nutshell, that's kind of the thought process behind it. So if you know where your dream is and where your bare minimum is, as long as you're landing in between that and pressing the envelope to dominate and push up... This is a good understanding. This is how a scorecard begins and you know what to do.

So part of the funnel process I want to think about, and this is the multi-pronged approach for marketing, this just explains it all, really. Like, if you only have a website, if the bottom of your funnel is an inch and a half diameter, and you only have a website, then the top of your funnel is only an inch and a half. Okay? So then... you get a truck and you put your stickers on there and you get it wrapped really sexy and like it's attractive and it's got all the, all the right information and all the, all the right stuff's going on. All of a sudden the top of the, the top of the funnel is three inch diameter. Okay. Three inch diameter is not bad, but we want it to be like 30 inch diameter. And that's when Brad said, this is a multi-prong approach, right? So, that's when you're like, okay, I want a yard sign. So it expands a little bit. It gets a little bit bigger. And then you join a business network group and then it gets a little bit bigger because you got this word of mouth expanding. And then you're actually engaging with your customers and saying, hey, thank you so much for letting us work on this project. It would be really amazing if you would share some of your friends with me that might be interested in our services because I'm really trying to grow my business right now. And then you get a couple of leads. Your word of mouth expands a little bit. So the ultimate goal is to make this funnel, the top of the funnel as wide as possible to where those leads are dropping in, right? And then you have like the phone's just ringing. You have to work crazy hard. You just know you've done all the work. You've done all the research. You've done all the leg. You've put in all the effort to get the phones to ring in the funnels. was why it's possible and things are falling in. And I don't think people realize that. And that's why I'm like, it's a multi-prong approach. Like if you were stranded on a canoe in the middle of the ocean, you had no water, it started raining and you opened your mouth up, that's how big your funnel is. It's as wide as you can open your mouth. Raindrops coming in to get some water. But if you had some kind of, you know, like you had a piece of plastic and it was 10 feet wide and you had some poles and you could put it in the air and you could catch the water, now you could collect it. You know, like... You got to think like that. This is life and this is your lifeline. The lifeline is how wide you make that funnel at the top. And I don't want you to just use the shotgun approach and just throw out as wide as you can. It's like... start with an inch and a half at the bottom, inch and a half at the top, and then expand it a little bit and expand it a little bit and get really good at it and expand it a little bit more and get really solid at it, expand it. And I think that's the way I would like to see people focus on it because if you get too wide and too spread thin, you're just messy.

I'm pumped up about this because I feel like people need to understand this. The shotgun approach is just a mess. You're getting all these leads in that don't qualify. No, I'm not done. I'm going to keep going. Like you want... I was asking. Yeah, you want qualified leads. So like you want to be thoughtful about it. You know, just shotgun. This is not a shotgun approach. This is tactical, strategic. Your turn, Brad.

Are you done?

No, I mean, that's the thing. I mean, we all know marketing is a vehicle that drives leads to us and it's important. I just wanted to... to have the visual understanding the funnel needs to be wide. But, and we don't want to, like Brad said, just spend 50 grand and the top of the freaking funnel is super wide, right? Like that's not necessarily the best thing. Cause as he said, if you get too much coming in, you can't handle it. But like, and, and you don't necessarily know what's working unless you're really tracking it, which is what we're going to talk about next. But like, if you're very methodical about it, you can track, like you can try a campaign out and then see what kind of, audience it tracks. And then you can go, oh, that wasn't what I expected. You can make an adjustment. So that's the importance of this stuff. But the true and tried way is to expand the top of the funnel through marketing as fast and as methodical as possible to attract the leads in that are your ultimate avatar, your ultimate customer. You get them into the next step of the funnel.

So the next step of the funnel, remember we started with the KPI at the top where we're tracking like what we want to make, what we want to do, reverse engineer our lifestyle and what we want to do. And then we build our marketing around that. And then sometimes marketing, depending on your team, you would base your marketing around your strategy, right? And then once you establish your marketing, then we set up another KPI, another measuring tool to track how our marketing is working. And I said it before, and I want to say it again, and I hope this doesn't sound redundant, but again, if this is the first time you're ever hearing this podcast, Hammer and Grant podcast, it's like, can you imagine building... a custom home without a tape measure. I mean, sure, it's possible. I'm sure Brad and I could get it done. I mean, I have no doubt Brad and I could build a custom home without a tape measure, but it would take a heck of a long time. We would be old and dying before it got done. And there might be a couple of imperfections with it. We'd call it character, right? But the problem is if you're building a business and you don't have a KPI, which is your true measuring tool, You're just prolonging and taking forever to get something done. We can measure and make things expedite your success level. So after marketing, we set up another KPI and we track marketing. We want to know how the people found us, not only just the website, but maybe the truck, but maybe the yard sign. We want to really have a good understanding of the marketing pieces that captured this client. Right, Brad?

Yeah, for sure. So the tracking

So part of the thing is like, this was really interesting about different industries, right? And having a coach to kind of help you through this, right? So an HVAC company, a yard sign, I mean, I don't know if that's a really great... I don't know if that's a great move. Maybe it works. I don't know. But I bet you, I can almost rest assure you that a company that is landscaping in the front yard and there's a yard sign that says like, we did this yard. Like I'm just speaking really general. You're driving by, you see this beautiful yard. You're like, holy cow, look at this amazing plantings and all this stuff. Look at that. Like, wow, look at the nightscape lighting. And there's a sign that says, we did this front yard, call now. And there's a phone number, you're like, I want my yard to look like that, right? So that might be a really powerful thing, right? Or if it's like windows, and so you see the front of the house, you're like, wow, look at these beautiful windows. Like if there's some context to it, hardscaping, concrete driveways, stamps, whatever, like that yard sign might have a whole lot more impact because it has the front of the home to be the product. But if it's like, hey, we redid the kitchen in this house, such and such constructions. It's like, oh, cool. Good for you. It doesn't move me. But when I see a beautiful front yard with nightscape lighting, I'm like, wow, this is amazing. I'm blown away by that. I can see it. I can touch it. I can open my car door, walk the landscape, smell the flowers. I want to be part of this. That's when that becomes more popular. But the only way you really know this is through tracking. And so from us having all the different members and all the different trades and all the different industries, we have this kind of data to share with people. So that's why Brad doesn't like that kind of thing. I'm a landscape guy, so the yard signs work better for me than Brad who's doing interior bathrooms and stuff like that. So you would never have that kind of information and those statistics in the context unless... You actually ask the person who's calling you like, hey, how did you find out about our company? I would really love to have this information so I can track my marketing dollars. Do you mind giving me some information? They're going to want to tell you.

Exactly.

It's a perfect example. Perfect.

Yeah, that was a good example of like, hey, I checked this group. He said yard signs were amazing. I'm going to go all in on yard signs. But sometimes we're so in the moment, we're so in the bubble, we're so close to it, we can't step outside and see really what's happening. So if an electrician is taking advice from a landscaper about getting yard signs, it's a really bad mix. But if he was tracking it through a KPI, through a measuring tool, he would have a really good understanding of it. So that's a great spot. So take us to the next spot of the funnel, which is probably my favorite.

So, I mean, look, there's all different ways of selling. I mean, if I just started my business, I'd probably run out and get a phone call and be like, hey, I'm coming over to talk to you right now. I want to meet you in person and show you how cool I am. That's how most contractors start. But, you know what I mean? That formula leads us to a pretty rough spot where we get crazy cycle and we're running around every night chasing potential leads and stuff. Like sales is really dynamic. I mean, we could talk for hours on this one topic, but really you want to get into a system. You want to understand the psychology. You understand like why they want to buy. And unfortunately, the way we learned as craftsmen, I did myself personally. I'm going to speak for Brad too. Like he learned it the same way. Like you'd meet with a person, you'd be like, I'm really good at what I do. I won this award. Everyone in my neighborhood loves my stuff. I've been doing this for 15,20 years. I got a lot of experience. It's almost like you're in a freaking interview. That's how it used to get done 50 freaking years ago. That's not how it gets done anymore. You don't have to tell the people how long you've been doing it. You know why? Because they already freaking know. They have social media. They've checked out your website. They've seen you on Facebook and Instagram and all that shit. So they already kind of vetted you. So for you to go in and start talking about how... amazing and all these awards you won, it's pointless. At that point, they've already been like, hey, this guy's probably pretty good. I think he's a good fit for me. I'm going to call him up. And then they just want you to listen to him. But you're running your freaking mouth and it's a disaster. So understanding the psychology of sales, understanding how to do all this stuff, it's paramount to understand we're literally an S-curve switch in the way people sell today. Right now as we talk, right now on this podcast.

I mean, that's the part of it. We have totally different chains. We're a completely different world the way contractors should be communicating with people. The problem is most of the old timers, and I view myself as an old timer. I really do. I think if I was like 10 years different than I am now, I probably would never have made the switch. To where you're really selling the person as an interview style instead of interviewing like you're trying to be the one to get hired instead of like... Okay, let me see if I want to work for you. It's a totally different switch. In the past, people would call you and you're like, I got to tell them how awesome I am so they hire me. Today, we set it up to be like, is this the right person for us? Can we make the right margins? Am I going to be able to make them happy? Those kind of things. It's a totally different way we change things. So the S-curve is happening where all the contractors are learning this. are going to fly to the top and dominate all their competition. So, I mean, it's very different if I called Brad right now and said, hey, listen, I got your information. I checked you up online and I'd like you to come out and give me an estimate. And Brad goes straight into like, well, you know, it's a good thing you called me. I've been doing this for many, many years. Won a lot of awards and like that's how it used to get done. I could probably make exactly what you want to happen and I'll give you a bunch of cool ideas that blow your freaking mind. Like that's how contractors used to work. But today it's to be like, hey, man, thank you so much for reaching out to me. How'd you find out about me? Oh, Google. Okay, cool. Yeah, Google's amazing. Well, so cool. Well, listen, why don't you tell me a little bit about your project and how you're hoping I can help you? Like the whole switch changes, like that opener just changes. You shut your mouth, you open them up, let them talk. So, I mean, it's... I feel like we could talk for 40 more minutes. I know we've been going a long time already, but understanding sales and what to say, when to say it, when to shut up, and how to get the people to open up. Because that's a really important thing, Brad. I want to talk about that. I want you to really talk about that because most contractors don't know how to get the client to open up. They're so much in the fact of running their mouth. that they don't know how to get the client to open up. And when they do realize they need to shut the hell up and listen to the client, they don't even know what to ask the client to get the client to open up and tell them what's happening.

Well, at least a free group and get a little teasers. But that's what I'm saying. It's so detailed. Here's the thing, Brad. It's so freaking simple. It is. It's so stupid simple. You know those puzzles when you play with this puzzle for an hour and a half and you're trying to figure out how to get the ball to spin around and go into the thing and not have the knot open up and you're like, oh, I don't know what to do. And then someone walks up and just spins it and all of a sudden the balls are where they need to be and the puzzle is solved and you're like, it took two seconds. I've been struggling it for two and a half hours. It's exactly what their profit sales system is.

It's every single piece of the puzzle is super critical. And this one's probably the most critical because I think that, well, This is what's interesting, Brad. It just hit me in the face right now. I feel like I'm going to get a black eye in the morning. The top KPI and the bottom KPI, the intro and the outro, they're really the most important pieces. Because at the top, you need to go like, who am I and what do I want to do in my life? What kind of legacy do I want to leave for my family? Where do I want to be? And everything in between is where everyone gets stuck. Everyone thinks they're doing good. Everyone thinks they're an amazing salesman. Everyone thinks they got their marketing on lock and the funnel's perfect. And that's where you get so caught up in the chaos and the crazy cycle that you don't realize you didn't track who you are and where you want to be. And at the very end of the cycle, the bottom of the funnel before the profit trickles into your bucket, is it the right amount that I need? So it's the beginning and the end of the funnel that's the most critical pieces. Every other contractor that is out here that's kind of like scratching their head and don't know where they're at, they're stuck in the middle of the funnel, like bouncing off the walls. It's the beginning and the end that give you the critical, important data to help you make adjustments to make you land where you actually want to be.

Yeah, that'd be good. I love tomatoes. I love tomatoes. I want a big old fat tomato in the middle.

No, on my sandwich, I'd have like roast beef, a little slice of chicken, some turkey, like pastrami. I'd have all kinds of stuff in my sandwich.

right. Well, I wish we could draw pictures right now and let them know. But if you wanted to see the pictures of the profit funnel, you can check it out. If you visit hammerandgrind. com and you look over down at the menu bar, it says the Profit Club. We really have a good explanation of the profit funnel, the crazy cycle and all that fun stuff. So it'd be a good place to go if you're kind of scratching your head and not knowing what's going on. But we're really hoping, Brad and I... Our goal, our mission here is to help contractors get out of this cycle because we've gone through it. We know what it's been like. That's our whole mission behind this crazy coaching thing that we just decided to out of the blue do. And it's become this really fun, amazing side hustle for us. We don't even need to do it. It's just fun. And so it's been a fun adventure for that. Anyways, with that being said, you can shoot on over and check on a little more detail on the Profit Funnel if you want to see some pictures and kind of understand that and look for resources on our website. But other than that, we are so thankful that you've reached out and listened to our podcast. It would mean the world to us if you share the podcast with some other contractors because you know,96% of contractors fail within the first 10 years. And we want to reduce that statistic. drastically. And you can help in changing that statistic by sharing the podcast. So that's it for the day. Until the next download, we hope you guys are crushing it out there and taking care of your families.