Welcome to Close it now, an H Vac sales training podcast with Sam Wakefield.

Here we'll build your reputation in residential H Vac sales to be the expert influencer in your market.

You'll get insight into the top minds in the industry as they share their skills and hacks to help you on your journey.

This podcast isn't just about selling more, it's about understanding your customers needs and building efficiencies behind the scenes so you can sell more but work less while being top of mind when people think H Vac.

Now let's get started with your host of the Close it now podcast.

This is Sam Wakefield.

All right, well, welcome back to the Close it now podcast.

Sam Wakefield here.

I am excited to introduce my guest.

He is for.

This is going to be a really fun interview because I've stalked this guy on social media for the last several months and from my perspective, he kind of appeared out of nowhere in, in this industry.

In fact, when some of the very first posts I ever saw him make were like, hey, I'm brand new to this industry.

Who do I need to know?

Who do I need to meet?

And so I definitely want to talk a little bit about that because dive in.

As we dive in today, so many people are like, I don't know how to, how to generate leads, I don't know how to do all this, you know, and how do I get out there and meet people?

Well, you just do.

And this guy proves it.

And clearly he.

This is just a handful of months later and he is running in the highest circles of our industry very effectively.

And so I'm really excited to, to introduce our guest today.

His name is Tim Brown.

He owns the.

It's the Hook Agency, correct?

Yes, sir.

No, technically, no.

The.

Before.

Okay, just going to get ahead of that.

Now we're just Beatles.

We're not the Beatles.

Yeah, I, I still have guys that have referred me a ton of business.

All so from the roofing side, because we've been in roofing a long time that still call us the Hook Agents.

They've referred us so much business and we've closed it and I can't, I can't.

I don't have the heart to tell them there's no the.

Well, maybe if the public demands it, it's time to make the.

But, yeah, no, so this is fun, everybody.

This is, this is Tim Brown with Hook Agency.

Not the Hook Agency or the Hook Agency.

And I'm just really excited to dive into the mind of this.

Mind of this marketer.

Clearly you're bringing some things to the table that hopefully are a little, fingers crossed, a little unique, a little different.

Yeah, that.

That's what this podcast is known for.

If there's a box that H vac lives in, I live outside of that box.

And this is right now with what we're doing in close of now, we're really disrupting the industry with the way we do a lot of things.

And so I like talking to innovators and people from, especially from outside the vertical, because you bring some different perspective and a lot of new ideas, which is really exciting.

Absolutely.

These kind of congested.

You know, like you said, there's a tight circle up at the top at a very industry.

And then it's kind of crazy how you get a little bit of, like, we regurgitate the same things, and if you say something that's not accepted, like, it's kind of like you conform, you kind of get conformed.

And so I'm kind of already seeing that I can feel the pressure to say things, to say things a certain way in H vac because this is what you guys have said for a long time.

And I kind of like, I'm gonna keep on saying things a little bit spicy.

Even though I know it's not accepted, I'm gonna keep doing it because I, you know, I have different opinions, and I think that that's okay.

And I've been successful with those opinions.

I'm certainly teachable.

I'm open.

But I'm.

I also have some strong opinions.

Lightly held.

But I definitely don't want to just like, conform to conform.

Yeah, 100%.

Well, I will get for, for clarity's sake and transparency, you have full permission to be as spicy as you want to be on this podcast.

That's usually what I, I sometimes like.

I was talking to my video guy the other day and he's like, should I cut this?

You know, like, there's something on here that's a little.

I'm like, I want one of those at least every video, every podcast, so that at least two thirds of the way through this, I will say something I'm probably not supposed to say.

And so you will want to continue listening because I am not going to just say everything that we're supposed to say on these things.

Oh, I love it.

I love it.

It's been so interesting, too, in this.

We'll get to some.

Some story here in a second.

I love.

I want to park a second because everybody listening.

There's.

Gosh.

When I started this podcast, five Years ago, there was only like two or three H vac podcasts that existed.

And over time, there's been the rise of some really big ones that have come out.

And it's really interesting in the space because especially from a trainer perspective, you know, I've been in the industry 18, 19 years now, and you've got all of these, like, you're talking about.

It's a really tight knit circle at the top, and it's almost like you have this mental checklist of, okay, we don't reference this type of thing because that person might hear about it, or we don't reference this or this because we don't want to be on the hit list by all of these big contenders.

And that's kind of.

I'm with you.

I threw that out the window.

I said, you know what?

Anything that's been done the Same way for 50 plus years is ripe for revolution.

And that's what's happening right now.

And is one thing, you know, you stand on the shoulders of giants in any industry.

Right.

Like you, like, I was listening.

Joe Crocera, Stroke, Sarah and Victor Rancor on a podcast.

Yeah.

And Victor's like, and how do you feel about these new guys coming in?

You know, like, do you have any resentment or whatever?

And he's like, no, dude.

Like, there was people before me.

Like, he like started listing out the names from the 80s and 90 ever.

It's like, there's always people before you.

And I think that.

But.

But you have to be able to, like, bring some realness and cut through.

Because especially for content creators, right?

Like, we have to be able to bring fresh perspectives.

And we certainly in every industry, there's like, things that work, established norms, but then there's other.

You have to shake it up.

You have to shake up those established norms.

You have to actually bring something fresh and challenging and then it will become familiar and trusted over time.

Yeah, that's so fun.

Especially in this industry.

When I started years ago, my mentor, Brian Winkelman in Texas Panhandle.

So shout out to Brian if you're listening.

He told me years ago, he's like, man, this industry is a huge ship that takes a long time to turn.

And so, and it's very, very true.

I mean, you can just look at the technology.

It's 20 or 20 to 30, 25 years behind the rest of the world, and it's barely coming along.

So it's very, very similar in some of these other things.

So.

But let's hop into it, man.

Give us, Give everybody Your highlight reel.

Where'd you come from?

How in the world did you, you know, what inspired you to start your company and then tell us a bit of that history and stuff and kind of some philosophy of how you approach things.

Sure.

That's a great way to put this.

So I.

10 plus years ago, I was in school for marketing or web design, really Web design.

I had studied a little bit of marketing.

Seth Godin, Gary Vee.

These are just like, kind of like Gary Vee was just upcoming at the time when I was.

Whatever.

Yeah, jab, jab, jab.

Right hook was back then.

And yeah, crush it.

So one of my first marketing books, Purple Cow by Seth God, which is about standing out, you know, all these different things.

I hadn't, I wasn't really into marketing, I was into psychology.

And I was kind of like one of those kids that's like, I don't care about money.

You know, like what a luxurious position to be in.

You know, like as a.

Partly subsidized by my parents still like in his early 20s, you know.

And I went to school, I got the web design stuff.

I was in music before that, so I was really pursuing music.

And I kind of failed at that.

Failed.

Like, and my wife told me I sucked.

And like when we were dating and I was like, what?

No, it devastated me, but it was real.

I wasn't that good.

I wasn't.

You know, we get the best of everything in this day and age and all across the world from Spotify streaming.

Right.

It's like liquid music coming into our ears.

We can get the best around.

It's hard.

It's hard industry.

That's a hard industry.

Holy.

We think H vac and home service is a hard industry.

Right Past is at their fingertips all the time right now.

Going through a phase of shedding all that.

And also I was getting sober at the time.

So I had a whole.

I had like an opportunity to recreate the identity, so to speak.

You kind of like, I. I had a cracking open of my mind and some sanity started to creep in.

And unfortunately or fortunately, like I think I took this tact of like I had to be useful to other people every day.

And so as the website thing, learning how to make websites on WordPress and developing and designing and all that, I like really enjoyed the fact I could make money.

Wow.

I can make.

I could literally like I remember going to Yellowstone and on the way back, like selling a website at a coffee shop.

Like that was such a illuminating moment for me that I could literally travel around the country and be useful to people.

And just that feeling of selling something and getting the money the next day and starting the project or whatever, like on the road, it felt so good to me.

And.

And then I, you know, made a lot of.

I made a lot of websites.

You know, I went and joined another agency.

They ended up.

I've made tons of websites there.

And then they let me be the marketing director for them and I doubled their leads in eight months, which was pretty wild.

I. I had the whole.

The fight between marketing and sales with the sales guy about qualified leads and unqualified.

And I kind of like had to learn that leads are not just all the same quality.

Right, True, true.

And so had a lot of discussion about that and then went out on my own three years after joining that company.

That was kind of always the plan.

And little tiny basement in north loop of Minneapolis with a.

Shared with another freelancer.

And so 250 square feet.

And you know, my wife came and joined me there.

Like we did 360k our first year and now just this past year we did 4 million and we're trying to shoot for 6 million this year.

So this is kind of the size.

It's a little bit different than home services.

Our gross profit tends to be.

And I don't, I'm still learning the standards in H vac and plumbing.

But like our gross profit tends to be a little bit like the size of a larger company.

So 4 million is a little bit better than that.

And homes, you know, if there's a home applied to home services.

But like, I have had my butt handed to me many, many times over this past seven years of running this company.

First with, you know, had to niche.

I was working for everybody, financial management.

Like, I worked, you know, did Mall of America's blog, you know, like I did like health and medical device companies.

Like all this stuff had to niche to get good because it's really frustrating working for every type of company and not being the master.

And then two, three years in, we were niched and we, we had problems with culture, right?

So I have had, as a leader, I've had my butt handed to me.

People leaving, right?

Like after they just got trained, like, God damn it, that's the worst.

And you know, a year in and you're like, you just got useful, dude.

You know, and then I've had just trouble.

It's like the, the lessons have been out of pain.

I think you, you said get into your ideology a little bit.

Like my ideology.

I think it's a powerful one is around every problem, there's a seed of an equal or greater opportunity.

Yes.

That is my real ideology.

It's.

There's a.

There's a book about it called Anti Fragile by Nassim Taliban.

Super good.

I'm going to try to mention one or maybe two books, this whole podcast because I know we could just sit there and rattle off books.

Oh, man.

Yeah.

For sure.

I'm making a note because it's one that I.

That I haven't read.

It's very good.

It is long, but it is basically that that idea just extrapolated out talking about how nature does that.

Nature.

Like a lot of things in nature, when they're challenged, when they get hurt, they often get better from it.

And that is a very robust and.

And hearty life philosophy that if we're challenged, we can get better and better.

And we tried to take that tech and I try to build that in to my entire culture and team.

I.

There's a really good clip on the Internet with Jocko Willink talking about, like, things don't go right.

Good.

You know, there's a problem in battle.

Good.

You know, like.

And I, like, I played that at our Carter kickoff because.

Good.

If there's problems.

Good.

Because guess what?

We're the type of company, we're the type of people, we're the type of sales people that get fired up, that get.

What would I have done?

If this negative thing that's happening.

There's always something negative.

So it's great.

Yeah.

That you can sharpen yourself on that.

Good.

Because now, like, what would I have done in response to this that would have made it a good thing?

So that's kind of my life philosophy.

And I think that's partly why, you know, we're hitting 30 people now in seven years.

We've been growing.

We have a, like, very good reputation in the current niche, which is.

I am still being honest about that.

It's roofing and.

Yeah, for sure.

Very good reputation over there.

And there's nothing wrong with being in more.

Having a foot in more than one space once you've, you know, once you've got a really good vertical happening.

Exactly.

And so I still like, as, hey, maybe you have this going in your home service business, like, where you know, you've got one market cornered you, you've done a really good job about treating those people well and having a really good local reputation there.

And you're trying to go to a new city, you're trying to open a new, like that's that's an expansion strategy.

That's an incredible strategy for continu your growth.

And we are expanding our base of power.

So it doesn't mean we're like abandoning anything.

We're expanding our base of power over here and we're, we're also pushing into this new market and trying to treat those people well and long term reputation.

Like, I'm not going in.

I'm like going to go, okay, we're going to really quickly go over to this one.

We are planning on being here for a long time and making sure that our reviews are good, making sure that we treat people well, making sure that our reputation is right.

Because I've seen the other thing where people kind of bust in and act entitled and you cut.

You gotta watch that.

Right.

You can't act entitled.

And that's weird one.

It's a weird thing to do.

It's a difficult thing to do because you've had success.

Right.

So frankly, I have ego.

I probably, I have a little bit of ego.

That's the, that's the thing about working in new markets.

You have to humble yourself and make sure that you're treating people like you don't deserve.

You know, we don't deserve anything over here.

We have to, we're gonna have to earn it.

And I hope, Sam, that you can look back on this podcast in a year or two and like, wow, Tim hopefully did it right.

Came in humble enough to like learn.

And I'm, I'm, dude, I will say H vac and plumbing and like you guys got some sophisticated things here that other home service verticals don't have.

And I'm, I love it.

I love some of the focus on profit and the focus on technology.

It looks like you guys have so many cool new technologies, like the smart AC stuff and like coming in and watching the private equity stuff and the roll ups.

I think that like there's some really cool things there that I, I hope to share with their other kinds of clients as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's like borrow from all the different verticals and help each other out.

Right.

I love it, man.

Well, thanks for that highlight.

That's really, really powerful.

So then the question follows with what you just said.

What was your, I guess, driving factor or motivation to step into the H vac plumbing, electrical vertical?

Yeah.

Because obviously you were successful already, so it's not like you needed to, but you decided to.

And I feel like there's a difference with the way you're doing things.

Sure.

And there's A bunch of like industry specific agencies out there that, so this was the plan all along, to be honest with you, because like there's like, there's these companies that have the vertical in their name.

It's hard.

Like literally you could, I could just pair H Vac marketing pros or something.

I don't know that company, but I bet you there's one, right?

There's like, there's like kind of the generic Cheerios of all these different industries, you know, and they, they pigeonhole themselves from the beginning to be that one niche, which is good because you get quicker wins.

You get, people know, oh, these guys are H Vac marketing pros, you know, like so I know, you know, there's no guessing here.

Yeah, it does work.

However, you know, I, I planned this from the beginning to be like a brand brand so that we could, you know, we could go into these markets, get a great reputation and then move.

But like I also was instigated now to do this because I took a couple extra years.

I was going to try to do it back two, three years ago, 20, 21 or something like that, but we went really hard into roofing.

We decided to do it now.

We, we look at this next three to five years as like we're gonna have somewhat of market saturation and roofing, it's still three to five years off.

But you have to start now because we actually are that type of company that turns down customers which is, which is, you know, less likely in marketing.

Like people just take whatever they get kind of thing.

And we've been turning down 3 out of 10 or 2 out of 10 or something like that now because of, we have too many people in one market.

So we take 1, 1 per 500,000 people.

And it's weird, I don't know if that like, that might not be.

Some people hate like even you saying that you'll take more than one in one market.

They'll get mad to just hear that.

And then other people see, I told you I'm going to say things I'm not supposed to say.

No, no, you're fine, go for it.

And then like the other one is that essentially like, I don't know that we necessarily need to like would need to do that.

But the reason we've done that is and put that on our contracts and stuff like that is because it's, it's good to not be have.

You know, if it's a 300 or 3 million dollar area, 3 million or sorry, 3 million people in an area to have like 20 agency agent or 20 clients in one vertical there.

It is kind of claustrophobic and you're being kind of like.

And also clients hate that.

So we've kind of tried to take that feedback and find a middle ground.

Yeah.

And being a niche agency, that's the real drawback of niched agencies.

There's a lot of really good things and we could probably go into those specialties and knowing the market, knowing the industry, but that's the negative.

So that's why we did that and, and just kind of getting ahead of it, knowing that we're going to be capped out.

And what I want to do is build a 40 million dollar marketing agency, you know, and so kind of that dream outcome for us will need to I think expand into other home services to not get so claustrophobic with their clients.

And I love it.

I love it.

No, that's great.

So kind of circle back around.

So why did you choose H Vac?

Yeah, so originally I was big into contractors because like three out of the first five clients that I had on my own were home home service contractors when I first went out of my own.

And, and my original business coach told me niche, niche and get into it and what's their real outcome?

So like I still, you know, it's funny to sell against people that are trying to like sell SEO.

Like we're selling leads, you know what I mean?

Like knowing what we're really selling, the, the actual outcome that we're selling.

Because no one gives a.

About SEO or impressions or views or any of this stuff.

Right.

They care about vanity numbers.

Right?

Yeah.

They care about revenue and profit.

Right.

Like, and so like sitting there trying to sell SEO is a. Oh man, it's exhausting.

Right.

Because really care about his business is new business.

Right?

Yeah.

And in most contractors aren't like super crazy sophisticated on their marketing.

So it's understanding like what did they really want and selling them that and figuring out how to get them that.

And so yeah, so we, you know, we identified H Vac plumbing and roofing kind of as major verticals for us because high ticket items, you know, I like that it can be like $8,000 for a new H vac unit and install.

Right.

Like I thought.

I like that there's recur.

You guys have recurring too.

How cool is that?

I love recurring.

I love, I love non sexy trades and I like homeowners, you know, like I like.

Because I do think an H Vac out of those three is probably the sexiest one.

Yeah.

But I think I like the, the non sexy stuff.

Like, I just like it because like remodelers and pool company like and solar and all these things are kind of like, they're the first thing new marketers think of.

Like I'm gonna go sell solar.

You know, I'm still.

The luxury stuff.

Yeah, the luxury stuff.

That's the first thing you want to do if you like get out of college.

So it's a little bit more claustrophobic over there in these industries and we like these non sexy ones.

You know there's a lot of marketing agencies that work with H Vac but like there are, we've found that we can do better, we can justify ROI quicker to the clients when it's a larger purchase.

And you know, so that's part of it is just the ability to defy our work.

Cool, cool.

I love this.

So along this same conversation then, and this is really, you probably will have a little bit of insight that I don't have because I only see it from my side.

But with everything that's going on in, I'm really curious about your timing because with everything that's happening in the, in the trades and I know you've heard it in home services, it is, you know, call volume is down 30 to 40% all across the country and all of this madness.

Right.

That's all you hear anywhere you turn.

Yeah.

And so, and that, that's also one of the reasons that right now I'm basically the face of leading the charge for our industry for door to door canvassing because of what's happening with digital marketing and stuff.

So super low cost lead generation and that kind of thing.

So the timing seems like you hopped in.

It just kind of goes back to what we were talking about.

Where there's a problem, there's an opportunity.

It seems like you hopped in right around the time everybody else is starting to turning into a bloodbath and all of this doom and gloom and all of a sudden you're like hook agency on the scene.

Yeah, that's great.

That, that there is problem and opportunity.

There's opportunity problems.

Right.

You know, I can only speak to like basically on the roofing side, door knocking is our actual biggest competitor.

Yeah, sure.

And instead of fighting it like I, I did, I would like make memes anti, you know, I'm a meme guy.

I, you know, I know there's a meme battle out there on the Internet right now.

I promise you all win.

I'm just kidding.

I, I, I do plan on throwing My hat in that ring I am.

Right.

Right.

You create my own memes and I, I am relentless.

So the thing with the door knocking is I stopped fighting it and I started recommending it.

Because the clients that I see growing and consistently growing have more than one lead generation strategy.

Absolutely.

There's the shit out of me.

When we're the only one.

Yeah.

Scares me so bad.

Like why?

I have five solid lead generation systems, SEO.

If I get, and this is a rough estimate of our last year, we had 500 leads for our company.

Right.

100 of those were from SEO.

I did not rest my myself on this one lead generation strategy.

Now it might not be door knocking for us just because it's a different kind of vertical, different kind of industry.

For me it might be going and speaking at events.

For me it might be.

I, I have like every Thursday I'm going to do referral Thursdays where I'm working on referring other people that could refer us.

Sure, right.

Affiliate partnerships.

You, you might consider Dan Antonelli and your brand and your wraps, your truck wraps as your van wraps as a big opportunity for leads and getting in, you might see that in your CRM.

If you actually vigorously do that, show up as a lead gen source, you know, you may, you could count Google Ads or you know, LSA as a big one.

Right.

But like door knocking is a big one and it's a big opportunity probably in this space because people will buy.

It's like I always just like I put myself in the homeowner's shoes.

Yes.

I don't want it.

And so I'm probably, I'll be real, I'm probably not necessarily, if I'm doing a home service business, I'm not necessarily making it to go rush new neighborhoods, but around jobs, around jobs, I would.

Yeah.

I've also heard people do it like they call it other people's opj, other people's jobs.

So if they, if you saw a van out in front of somebody's house, you could, you could steal this.

If you haven't said this, you could go door knock around their jobs.

Yeah, there's an opportunity where people are seeing work being done.

Now you guys don't have it as good in certain ways that there's not like a obvious job site, but you could make it more obvious.

Right.

Like you bring the belt.

I don't know how you like, how you recommend, but you could put on like a vest, bright color vest.

You could put on a work belt.

You could make it clinky and clanky.

And go up and like a PSA and say hey we're working in your area and if these, you know, if there's any noise or anything just let us know.

Oh by the way, you know, here's the card, you know.

So the PSA is the, this is just the stuff that we're doing over in roofing that, that the, that we're recommending that you do it around jobs.

So I, I still strong.

I strongly recommend this.

Now it's funny because people usually go one of the two routes.

Yeah.

They go heavy door knocking.

Because it is good Sam.

Like people are running 100 million dollar companies off of door knocking over.

Absolutely.

So like it's so good that it might, it might become your number one legion source.

And so that's why it's hard as a competitor of that it's a bigger competitor than any of these agencies that you guys all know and, and H Vac.

But so I don't know, I mean like I could see it definitely making its way across the, the divide in this next couple years if you and other people like you are kind of championing it and people might find that it's very good to the point that it may at least become one of your five lead gen systems.

Absolutely.

I'm recommending that you diversify so that you don't, you know, you don't feel completely hurt by the downturn in leads.

There's still business to be had.

It's just you got to pluck it earlier.

You got it.

And you know, I think that's what I love so much about it.

And I'm all about having multiple lead sources too.

You know, I've been in that place where you know, all of our eggs were in the digital marketing bucket and one algorithm changes by Google or Facebook and zero leads and it's a horrible place to be and it, it put makes you feel so out of control of your business and that's why it's so good to have so many, you know, so many sources are because I'm all about what I train is like what are the things we can control?

And those are the metrics we focus on.

Yeah.

And then you know, and then build opportunity out of that.

And in fact with doors since we're, we won't park here too too long but wonders what I love to do is I've always been the person that's like, instead of being like these can't work together.

The mindset is how can these work together?

And so I love to do a massive Blanket of both digital marketing, direct marketing, like in mailers and stuff.

Combined with doors for a highly geotargeted area.

So now they're seeing you all in one spot.

Right.

What most people don't realize is you can become insanely wealthy off of one neighborhood.

Everybody thinks they have to be all over, all over the map and it's just not true.

Oh yeah.

So.

So a guy in art and, and roof.

I keep on doing this but I'm gonna do it for a couple.

I'm gonna do it for like a year probably.

So I'm sorry.

I'll do this 100 reference roofing.

It's totally fine.

In roofing dude.

There's a contractor, Dynamics Joseph Hughes that constantly talks about five mile famous.

He's just really pushing this idea that like you hammer five mile radius much harder, you get much better results.

And.

And Dave from dope marketing talks about the same thing.

Pick your top zip codes and hammer those.

Yeah.

Because the people around the jobs that you're currently.

So you export your, your zip codes from your top three zip codes from you know, service titan or you know, whatever.

So then you push on those because you.

If somebody sees the truck or the, the van, somebody sees the yard sign, somebody sees the, the Facebook ad, somebody hears the door knock, somebody, you know, you.

These things start to add up.

Yeah, they start add up and it's, it's, it's basically small time fame, you.

Know, local star power.

Yeah.

Like the only reason it's probably crazy people will see this about me for the next six months or 12 months.

Like you're gonna see my video every day.

You know, you're gonna see, you're gonna see me at the event, you're gonna see me speak at something.

You're gonna like we create a kind of a vibe like this person's famous.

They're just famous to you.

Yeah.

They're just famous to you because you are their target market.

Yeah.

You're in the world.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the same goes with the five mile famous thing and really hammering that.

So.

I agree.

100 I the direct mail.

Yeah.

Facebook geotargeted ads.

And I was just saying this with home shows too.

Do it at home.

You know a little nugget.

Like do 1 mile radius around home shows too.

Do Facebook ads and then do one that's like kind of got creative that's going after that the people at the home show and like we're doing that for ahr and stuff coming up.

So like just that idea.

I think in five mile Radius.

I think just the rep.

If people, Harvard Business School says it's seven touches to, to remember and go through with something like, then I'm listening.

I don't know if I believe everything Harvard ever says.

Right.

But I, I, for some reason, because it jives with my personal experience, I.

Believe that I'm all about how do we compress time.

If it normally takes, you know, somebody driving by a billboard, you know, across a two week time period to see the billboard seven times, how can we get something in front of them seven times?

Day one.

Right.

And so that's why it's so effective to have so many different avenues.

And I love it, man.

So tell us a bit about Hook Agency and the way that you guys go to bat.

Because like you said in, you know, and personally I, I tell you I get probably a half a dozen or more, you know, spam messages a day.

Could you use 30 leads this month?

Yeah.

Right.

From all of these companies and all of these yahoos out there that are doing things the same and it's trash.

So how are you guys doing things differently than what anybody has seen so far?

So most marketing agencies suck.

We know that.

You'll see that in the Facebook groups.

You'll see even like coaches and stuff like that.

You could, you can feel that off of people.

That, that's a common theme.

Yeah.

And people struggle with them.

I understand why.

It is like they don't show you where your money's going.

They, they don't show you real results.

They talk about clicks and impressions and, and things that you couldn't give a flying rat's ass about.

I think that's a new phrase.

And some, like sometimes you can't even get a hold of them.

They don't like you ask them and make a change on your website and it takes a month.

But there are a lot of strong legit marketing agencies and I'm gonna challenge the audience by saying you aren't choosing well enough.

There's a bunch of strong agencies in H Vac.

There's some really good ones and I, I'm not going to name names because I'm still getting to know the ones that are like great reputation and I'm still trying to know the ones that are, that have less than a great.

Reputation and some kind of sort them out.

And sometimes it's just politics.

Sometimes they've just done very good job at buddying up to the right people.

And I know because I'm trying to do it right.

Same with the trainers.

You know, it's Very, very similar.

It's like you hear all these big.

The wildest thing for me, and I'm sure you're experiencing this in marketing is I'll follow behind some like insanely famous name and people are like, our numbers went down after they were here and they're supposed to be this super badass salesperson.

And when we went out in the field they had a 9% close rate.

I'm like, are you kidding me?

How does this even happen?

Yeah, it happens because we're really good at hype.

Yeah, sales trainers and marketing people very good at hype.

Right.

So the, the kind of sorting the hype.

There's.

Besides hype, there's also just low end agencies too.

Like there's those usually, even the hype ones usually are okay.

You know, like you can't, like, you can't survive this long in an industry without like having something.

Right.

Because there's, there's good and bad experiences on sales trainers and marketing person.

Like I definitely have had bad like situations with clients.

I'm sure, no offense, Sam, I'm sure you had something that wasn't quite perfect.

Right?

Of course.

Yeah.

But there, there's a lot of strong legit agencies out there.

You can tell by the reviews.

You can tell by like go look at the reviews, read the last ones.

Like read the start by negative, see if there's anything real.

Look for the three stars, look for the four stars, whatever, like, but it's kind of like the ratios too.

Like those low end, low end agencies that just cold call you usually.

You can figure that out quick if you look at reviews.

I don't know why some people aren't, I don't know how they still have customers, but who knows?

Comcast and these, these bad Internet providers still have customers, so.

Yeah, exactly.

The pain is bad enough that people try jack.

Like you know, bad.

They'll try anything to get.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

But the good ones, they'll show documentation for everything that was completed.

So they actually do real work and they show documentation.

They're pushing each month to get lower cost per lead.

They're actually doing changes in your Google Ads accounts.

They're actually doing things monthly and telling you about them.

And I think arguably like the most important one is just being a phone call away and making time for the paying customer just with, with prompt service.

Like that's probably one of the things that frustrates people the most.

It's like you're not answering the phone.

I, I messaged you.

Like that's One.

That's one.

I used to be the early guy too.

But that's one bad thing about using the local or like the like freelancer because sometimes they go to business quick.

Yeah.

Just like H Vac contractors that don't charge enough.

Right?

Yeah.

They're here and they're gone.

30% churn every year.

Exactly.

So just recognize that just because the price is super low doesn't mean that it's that great of a deal.

Like how good are those warranties on the H Vac contractor that.

That said they gave them?

What, how.

What's the long crazy warranty that you guys have?

Oh dude, there's some like 12 year part in laborers out there.

Even crazier though, there was a company where I started years ago.

He gave people a lifetime refrigerant warranty.

Yeah, lifetime.

Yeah.

Are you kidding?

Of course the name is out of business.

Yeah, there you go.

See like no offense, like how the warranty is only as good as the service.

And in really the kind of thing I'll note with agencies is yeah there are some good deals on the early freelancer, small agency side and sometimes they go out of business because they're not charging enough.

Like I said, there's a handful of amazing agencies out there in the H Vac space.

Like just get, get one like us.

That one describes their reporting rhythm.

They can actually tell you how often you're going to be talking and what that communication looks like.

Describe, get them to describe their deliverables documentation.

How do they document their deliverables monthly and share those with you and the commitment to turnaround times and communication.

Ask them to describe that.

Now those are things that we do well and I hope that we do differently.

I'm still trying to understand how we're different than these H Vac.

Like we all lead with like we have other businesses like you.

We're going to.

We're a niched agency into home service and we're.

We're essentially going to be learning things on other accounts that will apply to your account which is that.

That's a beautiful thing.

I believe in niche agencies.

I think that the H Vac companies out there.

There's a lot of good agencies out there.

The ones that suck are usually those big corporate ones or the ones like it's really that ratio man.

It's that ratio between like employee to client.

So maybe ask that question because that's one I could see like as a common.

I'll see like one to eight and to me that's not enough.

Like it's like too few of employees to clients because, okay, ours is like one to three, one to four employees, the clients.

And so that's one that I think about a lot because it's like, that's how we get good customer service.

Sure.

And that's, you know, I think that that's not a bad question to ask, like, what's your ratio from employee?

And that's like behind the scenes stuff.

But it would actually show you how much customer service and deliverables am I getting for my money.

Right, right.

You got it.

Oh, I love it.

So let's.

What.

What are you really excited about right now with Hook Agency and for.

For Tim Brown right now, looking into.

So you spent basically the second half of 2023, from what I saw in hopping into the market.

And in fact, right now you're in your touring grasshopper.

Is that right?

Yes.

Yep.

I am in New York right now.

I'm about to go on a tour with Amanda and her team.

I'm like, yeah, Huge shout out to Amanda.

What's up?

Yeah, yeah, super.

Drop a bug in her ear to come on my podcast.

I messaged her a while back before Profit Rocket.

He's hard to get a hold of.

See, this is one, why the reason I do office tours, you get their undivided attention for a second.

And then two, like, I'm relentless.

Like, if I'm like, because I'm trying to understand this industry and like, I will say that that's like, that's what I'm most excited about right now.

I'm most excited.

It's so.

It's challenging.

I am, I am going to fail a lot over this next year, and I'm excited about it.

Good.

Because I am so excited about this industry.

I'm so excited to understand the challenges that you guys have.

I'm, I'm excited for office tours and then going out with technicians and salespeople in the field, because that's what I do to understand an industry.

I'm going to be around it.

I'm going to make flubs.

You guys are going to see me as this beginner that, like, doesn't know anything about the industry.

And then next year, you're gonna, you're gonna be like, oh, that guy has.

Was a beginner and he, you know, made a lot of flubs, but, like, I kind of like him.

And then the next year after that, it's gonna, there's gonna be a bunch of new people in the industry that are gonna see me as an authority.

They're gonna be right two, three years in and they're gonna be like, that guy's been around and like that's a weird thing that happens with our novelty to trust.

Right?

Like, and, but yeah, the office tours and then being out with technicians and salespeople and like we're gonna be doing video with those people on our YouTube channel at Hook Agency.

That's what I'm the most excited.

I'm super stoked about it.

And it's, it feels good to not have any pretense.

Like I promise you all those, the famous people in home service like Tommy Mello.

And it does get old like having people pretend to adore you or you know that I know that people like actually do like him.

But you know, the point is, is like it's, it does get old being like a, a personality in an industry and then like having people like we all like fluff each other and pretend and do all this.

It feels good to like not have any of that in this industry and just be like, like people don't give a about me.

I get to see exactly who they are.

Yeah, exactly.

In two years they're going to pretend, they're gonna pretend around me.

Well, you're important.

We're like, it's still home services.

It's like it's you like, it's also fun to see like in roofing we have people that just have these giant egos, right.

And you're just like holy.

Like no one gives a about you outside of roofing.

What are you doing?

And the same thing.

It's gonna, I'm gonna feel that and see that occasionally from people and it's good.

They have enormous amounts of money that I don't have right now.

You know, it's cool to see people in home services winning, but I see, I've seen so many and I.

That it's this, it's a sorts people a little bit that money, right?

It starts people.

I see people with incredible amounts of money that are so humble.

Like I, I shadowed an 18.5 million dollar roofing salesperson.

And like you, you know, homeowner after homeowner after homeowner.

Humble.

He puts in the reps, he's connected, he's locked in.

He, he coaches the football team, he.

He gets branded vest for the, the cops, dogs, you know what I mean?

Like he's in the community and that's how he's driven his business and his personal income up to millions and millions of dollars every year.

Personal income.

Yeah.

Let's time out on this super quick because you just said something that would blow some minds.

Because I, I know what's happening in the background.

Strictly because I know the industries.

You, you just mentioned a single roofing sales rep that's selling 18 million a year, right?

Yes.

And that's incredibly unusual and literally everyone that hears it says no way.

But I dare you to go watch my video with him.

And I'm going to do the same with some high performing H vac contract like selling people, sales people.

I can get you connected to some.

Just one, just one really awesome one that I will like.

That's nice too because I like to hang out because I want to hang out with people that are nice and winning.

I'd say.

I'm, I'm sorry.

I'll get back to the, the sales guy in a second.

I'm greedy.

I don't just want money.

I want to be, I want to like, be a person that I respect.

Yeah.

And it's kind and then it's having a good time.

So like that's.

Yeah.

Somebody that's like that.

Somebody that's selling a lot but also is like cool to be around.

And I want to be like, that's who I try to hang out with.

And this guy.

Yeah.

18.5 million.

When what I saw in his day to day, and it's probably very similar, is well ordered.

He was supported.

His wife actually does, you know, helps with paperwork and stuff like that.

His family, he got them on board.

He said, hey guys, this is going to be a crazy year.

A storm just hit.

My phone's not stopped from ringing because I have a great reputation in my community.

I need help, please.

We're gonna have a blast and have a crazy vacation at the end of the year.

But like, please help.

And so he got the help of his family right away on that crazy push.

And he did say, I'm gonna be a little MIA for a second.

You know, like we make sacrifices, right?

He made significant sacrifices to hit 18.5 million in one year.

But like what I saw in his day to day habits was like well ordered, prompt.

He was quickly.

He was, he was, he was the one running these appointments, right?

Not the homeowner telling him what's going on.

He was the one running the appointments.

He let me sell one, you know, while I was out there with him.

I'd never sold the roof before.

So he had such good rapport with the homeowner that he just said, hey, just, you know, he came up to them, hugged them, hadn't seen him in six years since the last time he sold them a roof.

He hugged him and he said, hey, just, you know, I don't know what he said in their ear, but he's like, you know, this guy.

Yeah.

So he like, let me sell one.

And then to, to have that kind of rapport and that like just the familiarity, the trust, because you're so, you're so big in the community that like, of course I'm gonna go with this guy and whoever he brought here, you know, and then just the, the quickness, the diligence.

And yes, and in roofing we have insurance, you know, stuff like where it's like insurance is paying for stuff.

So that's a difference, you know?

Yeah, it turns into a bit more of an order taking situation than it.

Is, which is incredible.

But you still need to sell and there's still options, so.

But even then, it's still insane.

And it's the well orderedness, the diligence, the quickness with which he was professional, but it's also the understanding of the, the process and the, the product.

And he just knows it down to such a detail that he makes it simple for the homeowner, the process and the product, and he makes it so simple for them that they just feel comfortable, they feel trusting because they're just making it simple.

It's also a little bit of a sense of like, just kind, like, of course this is going to close.

You know what I mean?

Like, that's the way he treats every appointment.

It's like the presumptiveness in a positive way though, like in a comfy way where you're just so happy to, you know, like, of course I'm gonna work with this guy.

He's a big teddy bear.

He's just like super nice.

And that's the vibe I got behind the scenes too.

And I think that to me that's.

It's a mixture of understanding the process and the product down to such a degree that you give them confidence, you transfer your confidence in your company to them, and then you're just kind and likable.

And I think that, like, to me, I love seeing this.

I love seeing these people because, you know, there's occasionally a guy that sells 4 million or whatever, and then it's got a giant ego and you're like, is that what does it right?

Is that, is that what?

Like, do I need to have this giant ego and be a crazy guy to like sell 4 million?

And the truth is, no, there's people that are selling more than them that are just super nice.

Right, man, you're exactly right.

I love it.

And we're speaking the same language, man.

One of the what in fact, one of my.

One of my hashtags is sells on easy.

You know, we say that a lot.

It's like if we do not need to over complicate it, we don't need to give the homeowner a decision overload and.

And one of the other.

So it's two parts there.

One of the things we say often in this podcast is work to become someone worth buying from.

And when you up level your own personal growth to the point that you're just like describing this person is just like a genuinely awesome person to be around that people just want to do business with them.

Okay, what is it that we're doing?

Because whatever it is, I just want to do business with you because I just like you so much.

And that's.

That has to do with personal growth and emotional intelligence and, you know, having your nutrition in order and your fitness in order and your home relationships in order, your spiritual life in order and all the other elements.

It is not cell skills.

One other thing.

And now we might just be like, you know, looking at somebody's like, I'm trying to do a rain dance to like produce what they're doing.

But like one thing that I found interesting about what he's doing is he has goals each day about like connecting with people.

Connecting with like three new people.

Yeah, like he wants to create new connections and then he like would set goals around that.

Like he hung out with me and my wife down in Austin when we were down there.

And he's like, I just want to get.

He said his.

One of his personal goals for the day is just really to get to know us and get to know our baby, June.

So like, it's like he had this.

He has goals for new connections and then also like for getting to know people.

So that your goals could not just be sales related that they could be.

And I'm sure some of the days it is all sales but like getting to know people and like really to truly understand them.

So I felt that in the amount of questions that he was asking us and I just thought that was really interesting that he set that he set that goal in the morning.

It's just an.

A lot of times my goals are like really brass tax money or sales or whatever.

So I thought that was interesting.

I love it.

No, that's really, really incredible.

And it actually goes back to doing the things that we have control over.

So everybody's.

Listen, these are the.

This is the important stuff right here.

Some everything is important, but this is a big nugget of do the things that you have control over.

So in those connections.

Right.

So if he has a goal of three new people a day, what, 300, we'll call it 350 days a year.

That's way over a thousand people.

Brand new people he met in a year.

And if you're very intentional about getting to know them, well, at some point.

So that's putting people at the top of the funnel.

And what.

I don't know if you've ever read the classic how to Swim with the Sharks Without Getting Eaten alive by Harvey McKay, which is exactly this, but in like a 1980s version.

Right.

So it's perfect.

So he's talking about the Rolodex.

He was the most connected person and still is on the planet at one point.

Right.

Massive networker.

It's about meeting people, but not just meeting them for the sake of meeting them, but truly intentionally getting to know them because at some point they're going to remember you and.

Or in conversation.

Everybody has a house, everybody has a roof, Everybody was hit by the storm.

Yeah.

So same thing for.

With, you know, take it to a track.

Right.

We meet enough people and become that person worth buying from, they will remember.

Everybody has a house, everybody has a heater and air conditioner.

At some point they're going to need you or.

And also they follow what's going on on your social media.

If you're doing it right, you should talk about stuff every now and then.

So anyway, that's just my.

Where I. I love that so much, man.

The other one is that you're kind of getting there, getting into a little bit is just the whole, like, do the activity and then the results will follow.

Yeah.

You have to parse out what's real activity.

And like some of this is just him being a nice guy.

And he has, like you said, we want him to.

He wants to respect himself.

And so he's becoming a better person.

And it's crazy that sales can actually do that, make you a better person.

But it's also like he's doing the activity that he has identified does create results.

Now if you do the activity that creates results that day, I feel like life gets tighter and tighter and tighter sometimes.

But if you do activities that create results in three months, like the kindness and the relationships and stuff like that, life expands.

I've found, like, so if you don't need to Close or the next step all the time, constantly with everybody that I'm working with, but I am creating relationships.

But I love that, like I'm just gonna have a better time, like, because, like real tight, like I gotta close constantly.

You gotta close it now.

But I'm just saying, like, yeah, there's reaping and there's harvesting and I think you're right.

Sewing and there's reaping.

And so I think like sewing is such a good experience and that you got to do the activity that leads to the result.

And you almost have to just focus on the activity sometimes and not focus on the result.

Because life is long and the activity has to happen.

We gotta, we gotta create the activity.

I think it's just the, the hardest part.

And for me as a salesperson, selling what we do is just like making sure it's the real activities, not the fluff activities, you know, like.

Yeah, difference in busyness and productivity.

Right, exactly.

Because we do come up with other stuff, you know, like along the way.

That's not actually creating deals for us.

That was like, you know, like some people get real, like I do video, but you know, it's not just me back there doing that video.

Like, it's not like I'm got, I've got people kind of doing the video a little bit, you know.

So yeah, I'm not spending all my time on that.

If I was, that would be a pretty big like waste of my time.

Right.

So it's understanding, like that might be a good activity to create awareness, but I'm not gonna, I, I'm not personally going to spend all my time on that.

So I think some people, yeah, we got to figure out what's revenue generating activity and what's not and try to delegate some stuff that might be a little fluffier, like video or whatever sometimes.

Sure.

Oh, I love it.

So you mentioned something a minute ago and I'm actually going to bring it back around to what you do with digital marketing and with.

So before we do, actually give us a super quick rundown of everything Hook Agency does.

Yeah.

So make sure we're, you know, having the right context in this conversation too.

Sure.

Excuse me.

We sell website design completely custom is our difference.

There's a lot of like templated copy and paste agencies.

We do custom, completely custom website design and development built cleanly on WordPress for the purposes of SEO.

Beautiful website won't make you money.

You got to get people there.

And so we build things in a very clean and fast way that's well ordered that allows you to drag and drop, but it's completely custom.

Okay.

Not, not built on shitty.

I call them popsicle stick themes where they're kind of like, they're kind of like meshed together and then like you move one thing and the whole thing breaks.

So you want a clean, well put together website.

We, we're craftsmen, craftspeople to build them correctly.

And then we do SEO.

And the big difference is really, simply put, we have, we show them everything that we completed in a Google Drive folder every single month so they can log in.

And look, there's okay, there's December's deliverables, there's November's deliverables.

There's, you know, going back so they could always see, here's the content that was created, here's the links built.

Those are the two biggest levers for SEO.

Here are the technical changes that have been made in a way that like, you know what you're paying for.

Yeah.

And it's scary.

Now we're going, oh God, this is the first shot.

And I'm sorry.

And I know everyone hates in H vac that I'm not supposed to like ever not going to say a name, but that it's scary that I've seen some people that have been doing SEO for three years in H Vac and I'm like, we would get that much done in three months.

Yeah.

So that, that's our real difference.

And we show you, we'll show you what got done.

That's the real difference.

And then paid ads, we do touches every week for every client.

Right.

Like, we're actually looking at the account making changes and we're consistent about trying to level up accounts.

That's our philosophy.

And frankly, like, we have to make changes in our company sometimes if somebody's not lining up with that, like consistent work in an agency that is just letting it develop and keeps telling you like, oh, we just need Google Ads to optimize.

It will figure it out.

It just give it a couple more months.

That's not our philosophy.

Our philosophy is diligent changes and edits and tweaks to make sure that that pruned bush is growing in the right direction.

So we're doing that every single week for people.

And that's a little different than some people's philosophy.

And then lastly, the overarching.

So websites, SEO, Google Ads, nothing else.

So three services, nothing else.

For only home services.

We don't take any other clients.

Even though I would love to.

There's been some really Cool H VAC coaches that have asked us to do their stuff.

And I just, we're not B2B.

We have, like, our systems all dialed in on home services.

That's it.

Nice.

And I know Sam was like, damn, I kind of want this.

But the point is, is like, we are letting you own everything.

That's also different.

This is my last kind of shot at some of these agencies in H vac is like, do you own your website?

Could you get logged in and change everything you need to change?

Do you own your Google Analytics and search console?

This is really, really important.

The theme is own your marketing.

You want to own everything.

Do you own your domain?

And lastly, do you own your Google Ads account?

Can you take it with you wherever you go?

You should be building systems that you own.

And if you don't own them, I would say that you're.

You're missing out because let's say you made a lot of ads over the last couple years with the agency and a lot of things have failed.

A lot of things have worked.

That's all data.

You want to own your data.

So by owning your Google Ads account account and all this other stuff, you're owning your data.

You can take it with you so you don't have to repeat the same mistakes.

Now, we were talking earlier about how it's good if something goes wrong.

It's not good if you don't learn from it.

Right, right.

Like something went poorly.

It's not good.

I I quoting somebody here, but it's essentially like everything happens for a reason.

And sometimes that reason is that you're an idiot.

Yeah.

And I just want to know when.

I've been an idiot, when I've made a bad decision.

Yeah.

I want to know what didn't work on Google Ads.

I want to know what didn't work.

So if you have the data, then your PPC people, whether they're in house, because sometimes you get bigger and you need marketing people in house or there's another agency should be able to look back and, oh, this look, this financing campaign worked for a little while and then it went way down or whatever.

Right.

So it's understanding that you should own that stuff and that data is yours.

And so that's a big, like, kind of, I would, I would hope a paradigm shift for people that they should be owning their marketing, owning their data, so that they can learn from their mistakes and they don't have to repeat them over and over and over again.

I love it.

So you mentioned something a minute ago about Doing things that get a, it's like a three month cycle and it's something I've definitely talked about a lot.

A lot, a lot, a lot.

The actions we do today, yeah, we might be able to accomplish some things today, but the amount of work we're putting in right now, it's going to show up three months ago.

So if we're in this big boom right now, it's like, okay, what did you do three months ago?

What level of activity were you doing three months ago?

That means you're doing this right now.

So so many people like get out of balance with that flow and that rhythm.

And I know this is especially true with website SEO, Google Ads, with digital marketing, it's massive, massive masses of about a three month cycle.

So can you talk into that a little bit?

Because I know a lot of companies, they get busy in the summer and they pull back their marketing.

They get busy in the winter and they pull back their marketing and then they wonder why they have zero to do in the spring and fall.

And so then they start marketing in spring and fall because, oh crap, we got to put some stuff in.

And all of a sudden they're busy in summer and winter and it's just this like roller coaster.

How they get off that roller coaster.

Well, find a reasonable pace that you can continue all the time and set your baseline.

Right.

Whether it's, you know, you're spending $5,000 a month or 30,000, whatever that base is for, you spend it and keep it.

Whether you're doing it in house, like, like, I'm not talking about, you have to have an agency for this.

Like if you have a marketing manager and they're spending 5,000, find your baseline.

But then I would say push into the, the upswings.

That's my take.

And that, yeah, that sometimes affects the people, the amount of people that we have.

And I understand that it's difficult, but that's, ideally, that's what we do in marketing.

We'd push into the upswings even if we don't perfectly have everything in order.

Like I would hire ahead of it a little bit.

But I push into the upswings with marketing.

That's my take because I'm willing to hire and I'm willing to, to train and I've got sales, I've got training systems in place and the marketing spend is going to go much further during that time of demand increase and stop trying to fix the trough, stop trying to fix the lulls completely.

But you, you keep it with the base Right.

You don't want to.

Yeah.

You don't want to have no work.

Because obviously I get that, like, technicians sitting around is not a good thing, but I still think it's like, really ride and push the waves.

That's my take on it.

Like, I. I'm still learning the industry, so excuse me if this doesn't quite translate perfectly, but, like, I really believe that, like, marketing spend goes so much further when demand spikes.

Sure.

And you're a little more cash flush.

To be able to.

To easily afford it, too.

Yeah.

There's just.

If there's not demand, we're all spending more money on every click.

Right.

Like, because it's.

It's demand.

There has to be demand.

And when there is demand, you should get as much of it as you possibly can.

Right.

And figure out how to handle that.

And like, basically almost prep your people.

Prep your people.

Like, for instance, we're in a big push of demand at this exact moment.

Like, we had, like, 20 leads last week, and that's really good for us.

And probably like 20 leads this week, if not more.

So, Like, I just told everyone I know this happens for us the first quarter of every year.

And I just said, hey, guys, just so you know, I'm gonna need all hands on deck, and I'm gonna need everyone, like, hardcore, like, this quarter.

Like, I did my whole motivational, you know, like, I'm pulling out Jocko Willink, you know, and you kind of got to prep your people for this.

Like, we're gonna take.

We're gonna reap when it's there to reap.

And, like, you like that that requires us to become better leaders.

Like, I'm trying to become a better leader and a leader of leaders.

Yeah.

So we have to be.

We have to be okay with letting them know we're not always going to be on a push or we're on a push.

I need everyone to be tight and, you know, we're gonna have to hire some more people.

And.

And I don't know, I just, I think that we're trying to create demand out of nothing by spending money.

And I think that that's honestly a big mistake in those down seasons, but I do think.

I love to hear that from you.

Yeah, that's awesome.

And that.

And it's kind of.

Not that this episode is about door knocking, obviously, but that's how, you know, how I coach and how I can see it working together is in those slower times or especially times we need to crank up those much lower cost of customer acquisition Activities that are reaching into the market, that the other 95% of houses, that nothing is wrong, they're not clicking on an ad because something's broken.

We're going out to find them, right.

And bring them in.

And that like seesaw back and forth of what you're saying.

We can keep a company consistent year round if it's done properly.

So that, that's my.

I take a huge step back and look at this big holistic picture, right.

The other thing is, is salespeople are, you know, when they're needy, when they think that they're.

The only thing is is leads.

Like they have to get leads or else that like they're not taken care of.

I think that things like what you're doing and teaching theirs is helping offset that a bit.

Like, that's not.

They should be hunting, they should be learn how to gather, learn how to hunt.

Like, like we have to figure this out when we're not.

Our salespeople should not be wet the tail should not be wagging the dog.

Right.

And I think ideally that this kind of helps with that.

Like other key activities they're.

They're networking too, right?

Like finding other activities that salespeople should be doing.

When it's slow.

It'S like you're not doing anything.

Go get your butt out there and go to networking groups.

Meet people, get in front of people.

Yeah, exactly.

And that it's a sign of.

We, we got, we had it too good for too long, man.

I've been, I've been preaching that the last three since 2020, man, was such a boom.

But I've been in the industry long enough.

I've seen it, I saw it happen years ago, you know, in 2010, when all the tax credits started fading off and going away.

The whole industry was, you know, oh my God, we're not going to be able to sell anything high end anymore and we're losing our shirts and all this.

Well, no, it just got past the boom and it right size back to normal, which is what's happening right now.

This is not like, oh, the whole world's falling apart.

We're just past the boom and it right size back to a normal place of where it consistently is all the time.

And it's the bigger picture.

So how do we.

It just made people lazy, right?

It made people super lazy because it was too easy.

And so now with, with struggle with those, those moments of, you know, like, like we started talking about where there's those places now there's massive opportunity, but it Makes you strong real fast to be able to survive and, and it.

Knocks out some competitors morbid here.

But the companies do die and they, they free up space.

Sorry.

Yeah, 100 dude, I'm seeing that happen with, with training too.

You know, the people that made their name in the last few years when it was so easy are now this decision collector goes out and can't sell anything worth a damn and it's like, okay, well I guess now you're gonna have to learn how to sell.

But that's good, man.

Well, dude, this is good.

Thanks for hanging out with me, man.

I heard the other day that you did a episode with my with Corey Barrier on the six on Successful act too.

Yes.

Awesome.

We were talking about some sales stuff too and then he was on our podcast as well and we were talking about AI and like seven ways to use it.

Now I know he loves AI so like yeah, we have a lot of good like examples of ways to use it.

So that one will be out soon as well.

Love it, love it.

Looking forward to it.

Come on mine and talk about door knocking for H Vac because I think that like I would love to try to rank for that on YouTube.

I told you that's my strategy is like trying to rank for stuff.

So I would love to have you on ours and talk about that.

Yeah, we'll do it actually because I'm one of the speakers at Door to Door Con at the end of this month.

June, June, January25, 26, 27.

So everybody that's listening, you can go to H vacdoors.net use the code SAMW20 and get 20% discount on your tickets to Door to Door Con.

So quick little plug there.

Yes, but, but yeah man, I love it.

So I, I bring him up because he's actually the first trainer to come on board with Close It Now.

So he's the newest Close it now trainer.

Also we're going to be doing the Imagine that with him.

We're doing the virtual program.

He's going to be coordinating a lot of that.

So that's pretty exciting for virtual training.

And yeah, all the one off people across the country that you know, can't get to an event or that want some accountability weekly.

It's incredible for that.

So I love accountability, man.

Like I think like big, big value proposition with coaching.

Huge like amount of value even to just mirrored like they tell you what you said you were going to do last week?

Yeah, like how will I. Yeah, I love those questions of like, okay, what's your Action plan this week.

How will I know when it's done right?

And like, that level of accountability is like, okay.

And then having.

Then committing to a day and a time to be like, here's.

Here's the thing, right?

And it's super powerful to hold us, hold us to consistency.

Well, awesome, man.

Well, we about time to land this plane.

I know you've got a big day to get to.

And so, yeah, this podcast is known for immediately actionable items that people can implement right away.

So what's one thing that from your perspective that you see?

I love this because being new to the space, what is one gaping hole that you see that either sells people or just H vac contractors in general, owners, managers, whatever, can plug that hole and fill it right away with an easy tweak?

I'm gonna go soft, super soft on this.

Since I'm new.

Since I'm new here, I recommend.

Okay, we're have to schedule an episode where you can go hard.

Then I'm gonna go with.

I believe you should talk about things you're grateful for every morning with your spouse or your partner.

So I.

And from back in the day, I used to ask very tactical questions when I was not a salesperson to our salesperson at the agency.

And so much of his stuff had to do with your morning routine and your mindset.

So to get your mindset right, I strongly recommend, like my wife and I, on the way to work every morning, we.

We share three things specifically that we're grateful for.

Whether it's the fact that we have, you know, working plumbing, or we're so grateful for this new person starting this week, or we're so grateful for, you know, our baby or whatever it happens to be.

We try to do different stuff every day, but, like, we both share that with each other back and forth, and it sets our mindset for the day.

And I do believe that actually helps me in sales.

I love that normally when people come on, especially with some kind of a more technical, you know, they're giving us something like, okay, change this one thing on your ads or whatever.

And I love mindset stuff.

So thank you.

That's.

The power of gratitude is incredible.

Good stuff, man.

Well, cool.

So how do people get in touch with you and yeah, how they can.

They started that conversation.

Feel free to connect with me.

Tim Hook on Facebook.

Just, you know, easy to remember and there's less of them.

So Tim Hook on Facebook and then also Hook agency all over social media.

But yeah, send me a DM on Facebook if you're interested in something and we'll get you connected.

And do we have brief intro call, low pressure stuff.

So if you'd like to connect, send me a message.

Awesome.

Sounds good.

And also I will send you an invite into.

I don't think you're a member in my Facebook group just yet.

If you are, then that's awesome.

But I'll make sure you're in the Facebook group.

So for everybody listening, Tim's going to be in the Close It Now Facebook group as well.

So that's a really, really good clearinghouse and a way to get in touch with him if you don't remember the rest.

And then one last Close It Now Facebook group.

One last thing just for people can follow along on my Facebook too.

And our YouTube.

I do literally like website audits every single week live.

And then I also do.

I'm doing DIY SEO from scratch.

People charge 500 bucks a month for like a course on this stuff.

And, like, you know, I do think probably the accountability part is good of that.

But, like, we're giving away all the information, literally everything I know about SEO.

So I, you know, 40 minutes to an hour videos every single week of walking you through one specific thing.

And the playlist on YouTube has everything of just like from the beginning of setting up a website on a theme and then doing SEO step by step by step by step.

I'm going to basically show you how I do this.

And I rank for a specific home service term.

And I think people might find it interesting if they're on the earlier side of their business and they're trying to do some of this themselves.

Love it, Love it.

That's great.

So education, man.

And jab, jab, jab.

That's the way to go.

We think alike when it comes to that, that's for sure.

I ran the podcast for six months before I brought on a single coaching client strictly because I wanted to give value until the point where the first person said, I, whatever you want, I will throw it at you.

Please coach me.

Okay, well, I guess it's time to turn on the coaching program.

So very, very, very good stuff, man.

Well, awesome.

Everybody listening.

Thank you for joining us today.

Couple quick housekeeping tips, then we're gonna let Tim go.

1.

Like I mentioned, January25, 26, 27.

I'm speaking the 26th at 4pm Door to door Con.

The other keynotes are Lance Armstrong, John White, Chris Voss, which I'm super stoked about, wrote Never Split the Difference, and Sam Taggart and myself.

Also Victor Rancour is going to be there and Michelle Van Beek has a session and about 40 other.

Just absolute hunter mentality carnivores out there creating, making business happen has zero to do with the weather.

Has everything to do with your mindset and your level of activity.

So there's that.

Also end of March 21st and 22nd, I am hosting a in person in Austin, Texas where I live a two day sales master class.

Come learn the cell system that is basically disrupting the industry we're seeing.

Every time we go out, we're seeing 65 to 70% plus close rates doing right along just with the system and with the model.

But more importantly, it's the philosophy and it's the mindset where it's not just a flash in the pan, but people are consistently seeing that kind of those kind of metrics over time.

Months after when I do an on site training.

So that's the cell system we're training March 21 and 22.

You can get the info in the Close It Now Facebook group.

So make sure to join that group and that is it for announcements.

Thank you everybody for listening.

Thank you Tim for joining us.

Yes sir.

Thank you sir.

By the way, it was really enjoyable.

I really, I really appreciated the time with you and I. I hope to get to know you more, Sam.

Absolutely, brother.

Well, we'll schedule for me to get on your show and also I'm sure we'll run into each other at events this year.

There's no way that we won't.

Yep.

So that's exciting and all right, everybody listening.

Go out there, save the world one heat stroke at a time.

Go save the world one frostbite at a time.

Thanks for listening to Close it now with Sam Wakefield.

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