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 by 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.

Well, all right.

Thank you for joining me today.

Welcome back to the Close it now podcast, your source for solar and H Vac sales training.

I am so excited for this interview today.

I have followed this lady for quite a while.

I've been in the industry industry for 17 years and have actually heard about this company.

Not, not her directly but her company for a long, long time.

I've known a lot of people in the industry that have used them and you'll hear more about it here in a second.

But just it's always great the connections you can make in the industry.

And for all of you listening, if you're to this podcast, this means you're a top performer or going to be a top performer and you're focused on personal growth.

So the one thing that you will learn is the H Vac industry is a very small world once you achieve a certain level.

So going to events, meeting people is super crucial.

Your network is your net worth.

So never forget that.

So I'm so excited to introduce today, she is the owner and CEO of CI Web Group and that is the most impressive thing for me is they have had the exclusive contract for over a decade for the largest heating and air manufacturer in the world.

So with Daikin Global, which is amazing and you know she, she can tell a cool story and I hope she does about how they outperformed everybody else when they first to even get that contract.

So that was exciting.

CI Web Group's top 100 places to work and for more than one year, for several years now.

And they have 200 full time employees in three countries.

So massive organization and so excited today to welcome Jennifer Bagley to the podcast.

How are you today?

I'm doing great.

Thank you so much Sam.

I appreciate you taking time with me today.

Absolutely.

Well, welcome.

We are just.

This is such a cool honor to get to talk to everybody.

This is part of the profit rocket Growth Summit 2023 speaker series.

So the minute that I was connected, interviewed Victor first, Victor Rancour, who's putting on the event for everybody listening.

And if you don't already have a ticket, you've got to get one.

This podcast will drop before the event.

So it's September27,28 and 29 of 2023.

So make sure you get your tickets.

You can get them directly off of my Facebook group.

I have a link in there.

So go find the Close It Now Facebook group and join.

And all the speakers that I've interviewed along this way are all members in there now.

And that's how you can connect with them as well.

So that's a good start.

But tell us a little bit about your, your history, Jennifer.

How did you get in, how to start your business, why did you start your business?

And a little bit of philosophy of kind of what your guiding principles are.

Absolutely.

So I'm going to try and truncate this down to a shorter story.

My background.

I grew up in the retail industry.

I actually wound up by the time I was 26, I was VP of Global Logistics and supply chain strategy and had that burning entrepreneur blood that you cannot get rid of under any circumstance.

So I was constantly dibbling, dabbling in other companies, building companies on the side, and finally got out of corporate.

In my late 20s, I opened up a real estate and a mortgage company.

We wound up growing to over 200 real estate agents and loan officers and my role was to get them business.

So it's heavily on figuring out a system to be able to compete in the real estate and mortgage industry.

Competition is entirely different than heating and air conditioning, home services, electrical and plumbing.

The home services industry as a whole when it comes to marketing and advertising is very, very, very far behind.

Which is great, right, because it makes it a little bit easier to be able to get in the door and be able to make progress with significantly lower budgets.

But in the real estate industry, not so much.

Highly, highly, highly competitive.

So we built this little team and everyone called them the CI Web Group.

It wasn't a company.

It was a team of people who worked for a real estate mortgage company that were responsible for generating business referral programs, lead nurture programs, rewards programs.

They were responsible for everything digital, building all of their websites and so forth.

Out of the blue, they started all my real estate agents started bringing inspectors and appraisers and H vac plumbers and electricians and all the people.

They started bringing them to our company trainings and we would have people ask, can you build us a website?

Can you help us get leads?

Can we help?

And so we kind of expanded that group and man Ed just, it blew up from there.

That was in 2006.

So it's been a minute and we see our web group and it's been off to the races since there.

And about 2012 I was called out.

Some of my clients had.

Well, actually, no, I'm sorry.

2008 I was called out as a speaker for the Mitsubishi Diamond Dealer Conference.

And my business coach, Tony Jerry is a Coach, the top 500 CEOs in the world.

He had asked that I help him out with his presentation that he had at the Diamond Dealer conference.

And that was my first real introduction to heating and air conditioning.

So I think prior to then my experience was ripping the paint off my wall to put in a filter in a return vent because I didn't know any better.

So that's amazing.

Started with Mitsubishi and then from there wound up, you know, interviewing with and getting called from recruiting firms, IBM's consulting firm.

They were contracting with Ferguson and then Johnstone and Daikin and so forth.

And so we had to come in and, and deliver it.

It was funny because when we came in, especially for the Ferguson one, when we came in they had a, they had an RFP out.

And the RFP was straight traditional media.

It was really, really old school.

It was everything.

Paid ads only tv, radio, billboards, mailers, flyers, it was everything out.

And I read this rfp.

They flew us out there and I was so bothered by it.

We were the last vendor to come in and have a conversation and I got the RFP like, I don't know, 20 minutes before I was supposed to present and I was like, this makes no sense for this industry at all.

So I was like, forget the rfp.

So I sat down at the table, there was like nine executives in there and I basically ripped up the rfp.

And I was like, let's talk about why your RFP does not make sense for this industry.

This is grassroots industry that everything is broken.

Websites are broken, they don't have content, they don't have ownership of their assets.

They.

There are a laundry list of fundamental issues they have and they have limited funds.

So they were going to wind up in a program that had them burning through cash like Blackjack Table instead of investing in their business, in things that have compounding interest impacts on their business, assets they own.

And so yeah, they all kind of show slowly closed their computer, started looking up, paying attention and the next thing you know we've got that one too, right?

Like wait a minute, who is this lady that just destroyed everything we thought we know?

I love it.

That is powerful.

It's challenging for corporate executives who've never launched a business.

They don't know what it feels like to throw all of your money, your time, your energy, your efforts, rack up your credit cards, have to learn everything related to IRS and taxes and employment and people and everything.

And they don't have entrepreneurs do not have the bandwidth to burn through cash on the wrong resources or do the right things in the wrong order.

And that's the challenge you have to have, you know, had to move into an office or had to see what a giant IRS bill looked like before you get to make those calls.

I love it.

Absolutely.

You know, and you said something early on there that I have been preach shouting from the rooftops as long as I've been doing this is our industry is so far behind.

It's like easily a decade plus behind on just about everything.

And it's such a slow moving ship, which is actually kind of.

It's two things, it's two edged sword.

One that means we're behind, but also that means it's so easy to stand out ahead of the pack when you just embrace things that are modern and current like using technology or you know, just the sake of conversation.

I have people, the reason I started the company is we sent some people to a really famous sales training in the industry and they came back with the same slide deck that they.

I had taken the class 10 years prior and it was the exact same.

They hadn't changed a single thing.

Well, nobody buys like this anymore.

I see that constantly.

And that's such a huge point.

You know, I tell everyone in our company that when the rate of change internally doesn't keep up with the rate of change externally, you are dying.

As this is slow or a fast death if consumers and this is worse because there's some oxymorons in this, right?

If you wake up and as a consumer yourself, you put your, your mom and dad hat on and you think about how do you order things, how do you check out, how do you do research, how quickly do you want responses, instant gratification.

You want somebody if you schedule something, ship something, order food, restock your groceries, whatever it is you want.

This, you know, truly e commerce based, simple, quick, amazing experience that doesn't involve having someone come and sit in your home and have a conversation with a notebook or flip chart.

Get out of my house.

Let me do this on my own.

Exactly.

So as a, as a consumer, our demands and expectations are here.

And then as a company, we're delivering a process that's way below bar.

And that gap has to close that gap.

We have to make sure that our clients, our contractors in this industry internally has to evolve at the same rate they, as a consumer themselves.

Absolutely.

Oh, man.

That's something I've.

Gosh on how many times I've said this is.

Anything that's been done exactly the Same for over 50 years is ripe for revolution.

And that's, that's the moment that our industry is sitting in right now, especially when it comes to the sales and deliverable side of, of that.

I mean, partly that's why I'm putting together a course to teach people how to sell virtually over zoom just like this.

Because just like you just said.

Yeah, we've got to be, we've got to disrupt in the industry if we want to stand out and, and really make that.

That's how these companies are growing from know 1 to 40 million in five years by doing things completely different.

And, And I love it.

Yeah.

Coming out of the retail industry, I'm a speaker, so that's, that's how I train and educate.

And when I first got into this industry, I remember standing at my first speaking event and I was talking about online sales and E commerce transactions and monthly subscriptions and online subscriptions and MRR and AR and average revenue per user.

And your LTV is.

And I'm going through all these things and the entire room is looking at me like, lady, you have no freaking go back to retail.

This is atac.

This is.

Doesn't fit here.

This broad has no clue.

That's.

I can feel deer in headlights right through my.

My soul.

Right?

And then Covid and every one of those clients that I had been preaching and preaching and preaching, all of them called and said, no.

How do you do this online?

Covid was this.

I'm sorry for everybody who experienced anything negative from it.

However, the benefit of COVID is it accelerated time in a rapid.

A rapid short window.

It forced people to figure out how to evolve at least a little.

You started seeing E Commerce and ZOOM meetings and zoom sales and online subscriptions, the ability to log into your account and pay your bill and schedule maintenance.

All of these things happened during that window.

And the adoption rate flew up, which is fantastic.

Now, now I don't wearing eyeballs down.

My soul.

I love it.

It's so.

You're exactly right.

It's so powerful.

I mean, something as simple as being able to look online and schedule your own appointment.

I mean, geez, we've been doing that for decade plus with, at the doctor, at the dentist.

Right.

You know, it's like, why can't we do that here?

Every other business, if you go to a website, what's in the top right corner?

You have the ability to log in, see your orders, you have to save in your cart.

You have the ability to pay online.

You have the ability to update your credit card.

You have the ability to upgrade whatever programs you're in.

Every other industry.

There is a login button in that top right corner.

This one says contact us with the old school web form.

Yep, the web form.

Or call this number.

Our representative standing by.

Right.

I mean Yellow Pages talk, polar text would be good because.

Yeah, that's just.

We could.

Oh my gosh, I love it.

So let's look forward a little bit.

Tell us a little bit about what CI Web Group is doing right now.

What are you really excited about?

That is the.

Since we're on the topic of the new latest things.

What, what's happening?

I gotta think for a second how much of my secrets I want to put out here.

All right, I'll, I'll put out, I'll put out some.

Obviously AI is playing a huge role, right.

Is on the forefront.

So we've developed an entire group of people that are heavily focused on AI.

I'm not going to go into the details of what we're releasing.

However, I will say that every ounce of effort we're putting into top level resources in the AI development world, everything we are launching over the next six months will give the greatest competitive advantage to anybody working with us in this industry over anyone else that they're working with, period.

And it's hands down.

So this is execution speed, delivery, growth, results, everything.

Our goal is to leverage technology to be able to accelerate results at a rapid level.

So I think that, I think that one of the benefits is, is that our, from a fundamental standpoint, our philosophy is very different.

Right.

If you compare all these other agencies to us, we have extreme differences in just philosophy.

I do not have a giant office and I will never have a giant office.

I don't care to have one.

I don't need one.

Right.

I will not be hosting giant events bringing out famous people.

I just, I'm not going to do that.

So we, we have an agency that has all of our human capital.

We have three shifts, seven days a week, so that we're working 24 hours a day so we can execute faster.

When you compare apples to apples, if all of the agencies basically charge the same amount and you have a competitive advantage of not wasting 30, 40 or 50% of our customers investment in their marketing on all of those things, 100% US courses, giant offices, all of these sales marketing things.

We don't even have a sales team in our company.

We have myself, my husband and Clay don't have to.

So because we dedicate our, we dedicate our clients investments into human beings who do the work, get it done to get results.

And I think that's a huge, huge difference.

So when we take number one, having a significantly greater amount of resources that are not sales and account managers, but literally those people doing the necessary things, all of our content writers, all of our editors, all of our designers, developers, SEO engineers, our backlinking experts, our reporting team, people who are doing the hard work that's necessary in order to get onto page one of Google.

Increase visibility, increase your total traffic, increase leads and opportunities so that you can do your thing and get people to sell more, put more jobs on the board, close more business, make more money.

Right, Got it.

When you put all these things together and then we're going to layer on this AI solution or series of solutions on top of having extreme expertise in execution like game on, man, I cannot.

Oh, I'm so excited.

So excited.

It's dirty.

I'm so pumped about this, you know, and in the last probably six months, more like three or four.

So actually a guest I had on the podcast here a little while back and need to do a follow up, but he was just on a reality TV show for tech startups.

Six weeks into his business, he started a company using AI to create an AI driven business.

And six weeks in had a million dollar valuation and we're now a couple more months in and it's a $15 million valuation.

And he literally has AI.

He has AI as a seat in his Zoom meetings.

His, his AI answers emails directly.

Every single group is conferenced in, has his AI seat and it's wild what's going on.

And so.

Yeah, absolutely, you know, we should have brought them in to, to actually take notes for this, for the Zoom.

I, that's the next step.

But so I've been using it just very rudimentary for creating, you know, small things and writing bios for people and that kind of stuff.

So I cannot wait to see what you, with your resources and work workforce, the human capital that you have that are top notch to see what you're rolling out and talking about a game changer.

Oh my gosh.

Well, that's just the next, that's just the six months.

Our 12 month play that I definitely cannot talk about, but our 12 month.

I will just say that we should do this podcast again.

Give me six months to roll the first one out.

The 12 months is, is gonna be a wild ride.

I love it.

I love it.

So without giving away all the, the trade secrets of what you're doing, how tell us a little bit about who your, who your key demographic is and how that will help them.

I mean, definitely home services, you know, this is prior to getting into this specific industry and being owned by this industry.

I feel like we did marketing for all kinds of industries and we still do projects for, you know, our home service contractors, spouses that own another business on the side.

It gives everybody a break in a side project, however.

So I think from a demographic standpoint, as far as who our ideal client is, it really has only one thing that matters and that's mindset.

I don't care what it is.

I don't care.

I don't care where they are.

The only thing I care about is, is this what their, their mindset is?

If they are willing to show up, suit up and participate.

And when I say show up, I mean you show up for your meetings.

You show up on a computer, not on your phone, not in your truck, not driving, not in an attic.

You show up, you make this important suit up, you're technically prepared for the meeting.

You come to the table with the assets you need.

You come to the table with the information you find whatever resources are necessary to help us help you and participate.

I mean, these KPIs, these reports, entrepreneurs, you know, coming to the table and saying, I don't look at my financials, I don't look at my balance sheet, I don't look at my profit and loss.

I don't look at my SEO report, I don't look at my marketing report.

I don't look at all these things.

No excuses.

I don't play when it comes to that.

So when we get on a call and I'm talking to any new customer, I think that's partially why I don't have a sales team, is I want a personal commitment from whoever we're working with that both parties table with more than an appetite.

I can't care more about your business than you do.

That is not a good working relationship.

So, you know, and we're not in a position where we need more Clients.

So I would, I would like to work with people who are serious about growth, take advice from experts and like I said, they show up, they suit up and they participate and they are truly serious about wanting to grow.

And if, if those things all line up, that's a good fit for working with us.

I love it.

You know, and the reason I ask that for all the listeners sake is so many times, especially as a smaller company, we get just a jaded misconception that if a company is a company like yours, a digital agency or something is larger, that I'm probably not a good fit.

I need to find.

It's just this imposter syndrome that happens and they just don't feel like it's attainable or possible to work with a company like yours.

And so thank you for clearing that up for us because it is, it is crucial, you know, so you have to have a growth mindset.

Yes.

But I've probably talked to 10 clients this, this week or prospects that were interested that are two or three people, they just launched their business.

I haven't seen their first hundred thousand yet.

They want to grow and you know, we, it's an interview and we're trying to figure out does this make sense, are they willing to do.

And those are some tough questions.

Those are when you just starting off your business.

You know, I, I think it's easy for me to have those questions.

I know what it's like.

I was a single mom when I, when I launched this company.

I did jack up all my credit cards, I did put every blood sweat here I had into this.

I was doing this 100% on my own.

You know, I did work 24 hours a day, burn them in night oil, not take care of my health.

I, I can name the list year over year over year.

Half a decade, every half a decade you get a tail whipping that'll hit you straight like a brick in the middle of the forehead that you have to learn something new.

I mean even recently my newest is, I'm now registered company in 42 states and paying sales tax and franchise tax and so forth from one audit where they all went to lunch together and the Texas group talks to the rest of the United States.

Oh wild.

Those are real things.

And I know people don't want to talk about them, but you know, that's try getting 42 state audits all within a six month period.

That's what entrepreneurs have to face.

So yeah, there's hundreds of lessons before that.

And you know, when I'm sitting down with an entrepreneur.

This is about are you sure you want to put in the work that it takes?

There is no easy button.

Sure.

If it was, everybody would be successful.

There is.

Everybody would be doing it right.

And you know, the challenges is a lot of the entrepreneurs, they get on the phone with great salespeople and great salespeople, they sell whatever they sell regardless of whether it's good for them or not, whether it's going to work or not, whether they have a great execution team or not, whether they should be paying for that right now or not.

And I've, I have never had a sales organization because that's not our, that's not our style.

I don't want to sell you something if it doesn't make sense.

I love it.

I love it.

That is such a, that's, that's a big reason why we're talking here.

Because that's exactly how I train.

It's like you, it's always their, their best, best interest first.

And when we take care of people primarily and the money will follow, but we've got to completely divorce ourselves from the funds.

You know, the price is the price.

Be proud of your price.

But it has no relation to what is their problem and what's the solution to their problem.

And when those marry, the numbers are just happen to be what the numbers are.

And we have to get rid of that commission as salespeople.

That commission breath, people can smell it a mile away.

When we just truly serve, that's where things start to really happen and the magic happens.

I love that it is.

And I think what I explained to the team and what our company knows that is part of our culture is you have to be obsessed with your customer for you to be able to transform.

You have to be obsessed with your client.

I have to know our customers.

I have to understand where their mindset is, what their goals are, what they're willing to contribute, what assets, what tech stack, what problems, relationships, partnerships.

I mean there's so many different elements that play into this.

I'm not trying, I'm not trying to just do provide marketing services that I don't.

I could launch any business.

It's going to be successful.

The fact that it's marketing, that's a piece of it.

But we're never going to ignore your operational efficiencies.

We're never going to know, we're never going to ignore what's your gross margin, Are you profitable?

Are you under bidding, underselling, under promoting?

Do you have a scarcity mindset?

Are you trading Deals.

I mean, this is every entrepreneur got into business for some reason.

And when you get to that root cause, why'd you do it?

Why'd you do it?

Why'd you quit your job and your PayCheck and your 401k and all your benefits and your security and throw your whole life on the line to start a business?

And it boils down to three things.

They wanted more time, more money, and more freedom.

So I'm never going to let them forget that ever.

Because the day you forget, the day you get absorbed by the business, you start working in the business, on the business, and you started right.

You start not making the decisions you need to make and not saying no to the right things, not saying yes to the right things.

It is ultimately every one of these entrepreneurs needs to be thinking, exit from the day that they start.

How are we going to design a business that has a proper exit from the beginning?

And that exit is your more time, money, and freedom.

So don't lose it.

What's your exit?

How are you going to get it?

Let's work backwards.

Absolutely.

There's a great book I read, gosh, lots of years ago now, Begin with the end in sight.

And that one right around the same time I read start with why.

And both of those just dramatically impacted me in so many way.

So many things.

So, man, I.

This is why your business has grown to what it is, because you take.

You treat everything holistically.

I've not heard this type of conversation from another digital marketing agency.

They're like, here's what we do, here's how we can help.

We only work with companies if they're ready and they got these things in order and let's go.

Well, cool.

That's fine.

And there's a fit for, you know, fit for them.

But I love the holistic approach to.

And that's the exact same way I do sales.

I have a wheel of life that I train.

It's like sales is one sixth of what we're talking about.

Right.

The sales is not the performance of an hour.

It's the overflow of a life.

And it's the same thing with the business.

You've got to have all those pieces together or it's just unhealthy.

Your business is your child.

You know, does it need fed every single day?

It needs, you know, taken care of every single day.

And how.

How are we taking care of that?

Yeah, I think one of the.

One of the conversations we have right up front is I'm like, so our philosophy is 100 transparency.

Let me explain what that means.

If I'm an extension, if our company is an extension of your business, that means you have a design team, a dev team, a server team, a technical SEO team, a link building team, a content team.

You have all of these teams.

So if those teams work for your company, you'd be able to see them duke it out.

Right?

Because that's what, that's what they would do if they worked in your company.

So our philosophy is 100% transparency.

They live in our project management system, our customers, and they get to watch all actions.

They get to watch the work.

They get to watch them duke it out.

They get to watch two departments go head to head on behalf of them.

So this is a mindset shift because you may see one department find an error that another department made.

Right.

And that is, that's what this should look like.

Right?

You.

There is nothing that is proprietary to us.

I don't care.

Because by the time my competitors attempt to do what I'm doing, I'll already have something new.

So I don't care.

Better.

We're so fast.

Love it.

So everything is.

Everything is owned by our customers.

They actually, in our environment, you will never hear one of our clients say, I don't know what I'm paying for.

I don't know what my SEO team is doing.

I don't know what they've done.

I'm not sure that will never happen.

If that happens, it's straight ignorance.

They're just not logging into the system.

They're not showing up, suiting up, and participating.

That is the only way that can happen.

Because our company operates like a machine.

And that's a challenge because a search engine optimization just on its own is complicated.

Complicated.

And it takes an army.

And the majority.

Not to mention how often they change it.

Right?

Yes.

The majority of.

Yeah, you get to see this is not easy at all.

But you know, the majority agencies that are out there aren't performing the necessary tasks that are necessary in order to get results.

They're doing half.

So let me just.

Let me share this because this is helpful for all right, so search engine optimization, the process of taking pages on your website and getting them ranked in the top 10 organic results where the majority of educated consumers purchase, especially those who avoid ads.

Let's just.

That's.

That's what that is.

What is it?

Technically, every service you want to sell, in every city you want to sell, it needs to be cataloged in your digital store.

That's your website.

So if I Want to sell AC repair in Denver.

AC repair and blank.

AC repair and blank.

AC repair and blank.

Each of those need to have a place in that website and that page, that's called on page SEO.

The process of identifying what is the search term, what is the primary geo target.

That's your marketplace.

What is the demand for that search term?

If the demand is zero and you're on page one of Google, then your agency gets to say, I have seven key phrases on page one of Google that have no demand.

So make sure you understand that demand matters.

No one's looking for it because this is weird ass.

Excuse me, but weird key phrase, you're fine.

Okay, so if no one's looking for it, it doesn't help you.

So if you're wondering how I'm on page one of Google, but my phone's not ringing, that, that might be part of the problem.

All right.

These obscure search terms.

Yeah, you need to know people are looking for it.

If I'm trying to.

Look, I got bloody Mary mix here.

If I'm trying to sell bloody Mary mix, I got at a farmer's market.

This is really good, by the way.

So I'm trying to sell this and I call it red juice in bottle.

And no one's looking for red juice and bottle.

But this is on the front row.

Then I'm not going to sell it.

It says Bloody Mary mix.

Right?

So.

So first off, if you have a seven page website, I just got off the phone with somebody yesterday and actually I, I met with, I've met with 10 companies that are with one specific agency and every one of them is in the same, same ball, same bank.

Right now the company has a seven page website, has been paying $2,500 a month for SEO for the last two years in a contract.

Seven page website.

They don't have a single page on their website mentioning an actual service other than H vac services.

No new content added to the site, no new blogs added to the site.

There's zero.

Nothing to optimize.

Not one mention of a, A geolocation, a location, no link building.

So on page SEO is creation of the pages, creation of the content based on the service you want to sell in the city you want to sell it.

That's your combination.

Not based on city pages, it's not.

You're not marketing for the city of Denver, right?

Yeah, we're marketing to people need those things together.

Service city, those go together.

Right.

And then off page SEO is the process of writing content, submitting it out and Trying to get other websites that have a high domain authority to post an article about that topic.

AC repair in Denver with your sales page, that link trying to get to page one of Google on their website.

Those links are what drive your web page, that single page from the bottom of Google to the front of Google.

So if you're not seeing report, then you're not doing SEO.

And if you have a seven page website, there's nothing to optimize.

You're just getting taken to the cleaners for 2500.

That is so rough.

Thank you for that.

That's a crash course in SEO, that's for sure.

I hope everyone listening is paying attention.

Yeah, rewind that and listen and make notes because Jennifer just literally gave you the recipe for success.

And also so that actually kind of raises another question of, you know, if somebody said maybe there is, there's isn't exactly what you described.

But how does somebody know if they have a healthy web presence, healthy SEO, all of that and what to look for as far as warning signs.

And then when they're shopping for a company like yours, what are some good things, some great questions to ask.

Oh good.

Okay, so get a pen.

First you're going to type in inside Google go to Google.

And for all you old school, the Google, go to Google and type in site S I T E colon.

Then put in your website address.

No HTTP no HTTPs, no www just site colon, no spaces my website.com and hit enter.

What that's going to do is that's going to show you what Google sees.

That's going to show you the total number of indexable pages and you'll get to see the titles of them.

So think about you just opened up a store and it only works on a computer, not on a phone.

I'm glad you're writing it down.

So okay, I am.

Yep.

I am making notes right here.

It's going to open up, it's going to open up a inventory list of everything that's in your digital store.

Based on what Google sees, that is going to have a meta title, a permalink, a meta description, that title, permalink and meta description.

Other than your homepage, Contact Us About Us our that's it Reviews.

Right.

Other than those four, I'm going to call them junker accessorial pages.

Every other page should have a combination of a target search term which is a service you want to sell and a Target geolocation which is a city you want to serve AC repair and blank heater repair and blank AC installation.

And blank AC maintenance.

AC tune up.

Forget AC tune up.

Most people are not looking for that.

Scratch that.

However, if you have a demand forecast done in advance.

So technically, before you implement any SEO program with any company, there should be a market analysis first.

The market analysis is going to tell you what's the total population by city, what's the total number of households, what's the average income by location, how old are the homes on average.

These are all important things for you to know.

Right.

If I know this city has a thousand households in it, I can go back to my database and I can look at how many total active customers do I have in that particular city.

Divide your total customers.

However you define them, just keep it consistent by the total number of households.

That is your determination of market share.

Oh, that's a, that's a powerful KPI.

Most people don't know how to calculate.

Yes, we, we attempt to teach all of our clients to calculate market share by city.

Because you can't acquire market share in an area you're not marketing.

Exactly.

Is it just like, oh, we went and we happen to have a service call over there.

So people saw our van.

Hi.

Yeah, this is.

If you are serious about acquiring market share.

A, you need to know where you stand and B, you need to have a marketing plan to acquire market share for the services you want to sell in that market.

So that would be first.

Second is a demand forecast.

And I'd be happy to create any, any of your guests.

I'd be happy to wave the wave all fees related to creating these two reports for them.

So normally it's around thousand dollars.

We'll take care of it.

For anybody that listens to yours that winds up reaching out.

So thank you for having me.

Absolutely.

Well, thank you for that offer.

So everybody mentioned when you reach out, mention, close it now and that's going to be a massive savings for you.

Yeah, maybe I'll make you a form or something.

Okay.

So second is a demand forecast.

You take each one of the markets that's in your market for market analysis.

Spread across spreadsheet where you have every single market in one single spreadsheet.

Each one of those is going to have your demand forecast.

A demand forecast tells you for each individual search term how many total competitive pages are inside Google's drawer.

So when you go to Google and you type in AC repair in Denver, I don't know why I'm on Denver, but it's a good area.

It's a great market.

AC Repair in Denver.

A giant door is going to open up.

If you're on a computer, it's going to tell you the total number of competitive pages in the top left hand corner.

That's who you have to be.

So you need to be in the top 10 of whatever that number is.

If that number is 215 million, you better have a long, a long period of time that you're willing to invest in SEO before you wind up on page one.

If you're going after ductless AC installation in Denver and there's only 600,000 pages, you can get on page one of Google in three months, months and start cash flowing to fund some of your more competitive phrases.

Right?

So demand forecast is going to give you every single term.

It's, it's going to tell you total number of competitive pages.

That's who you have to beat.

That'll tell you how long do I have to invest in SEO before I see a return.

It's going to tell you the total annual searches, how many actual searches are happening on an annual basis.

It's going to tell you if, slash when you get to page one of Google, what you can anticipate for your total annual traffic to your website.

And then you can go into your Google Analytics and start pulling up two pieces of information.

What is your bounce rate?

Let's say it's 50%.

What is your conversion rate?

How many of those people are winding up, filling out a form online, scheduling, giving a call, sending a text message, how many options do you give them?

Right.

That's going to give you your conversion rate.

That's going to tell you for my $50 a month, I invest in my ductless AC repair page that needs to get onto page one of Google.

Out of in the top 10 of 600,000 other pages that you get in there in 60 days, how many total ductless AC installation jobs can you do in a 12 month period times your average ticket.

Now you know your margin.

So search engine optimization is not a cost when you know the math, right?

Oh my gosh, this is brilliant.

You can make any money you want.

I love these metrics and I do something very similar on a much, much more granular level in sales.

It's like, you know, if we know how many what I call it the average dollar per lead.

If we know the every single person on your sales team, you know every time they knock on a door, sell it or not, what that value is to you, then you just have to know how many doors you need to knock or how many people to get in front of and you can easily scale your marketing by knowing all of those, you know, all the.

If we have a 10 million dollar goal or 100 million dollar goal, we just have to get our people in this many doors and that's it.

And that's it.

It's like, it breaks it down and makes it like the easy computable math.

Right?

Yeah.

And demand is fantastic.

That shit's broke.

My AC is busted.

I go to Google, I do a search, AC repair and blank.

I need help right now.

Those are really easy people to get in front of because today you don't have to.

How many do I have to hit?

It's not like a mailer, you know.

Right.

Even industry average people that are horrible salespeople, they're going to close 30% just because that's the averages.

Somebody, you went out, it's broke, we fixed it, end of story, you know.

Yeah.

Gosh, I love these metrics.

You asked for another tool, I'll give you another one.

This is a, this is, it's free.

So this is.

And it doesn't require any technical skills.

So it's spy.

Www.sp y spy foo fu.com.

go to spyfu.

So is it as good as Semrush or Google Analytics?

No.

But will it tell you a story of how well your SEO or organic rankings are performing?

It'll tell you a story.

So it's going to give you a two year window or a 12 month window and it's going to give you a chart and that shows am I improving or am I declining?

So it's also going to give you an estimated number of organic visitors to your website.

So those last 10 that I told you that came from the one company, not a single one of them had more than 100 organic visitors coming to their website on a monthly basis for $2500 plus minimum spend on a 2 year contract.

Zero progress in any KPI.

Less than a hundred.

So if I have less than a hundred visitors to my website and I have a 50% bounce rate, that breaks down to 50 if I have a 1% conversion rate.

Can you make enough money off of that?

Absolutely not.

Absolutely not.

And all of the, all of the agencies that are hiding.

So you also ask, what should I look for in an agency?

Make them show you their work.

Like first off, don't sign any long term contracts.

Why would an agency hold you in a long term contract?

What is the reason they can't perform?

They're concerned about being able to perform.

That's the only reason they need to get you in there.

There's, there's no reason.

Make sure you own your website and your content and make sure you own all of your Google assets.

Make sure you own your Google Analytics, your GA4, your Google console, your Google Tag Manager, your Google Business profile.

You better be the administrator.

Don't let them help you set it up.

They can get on a zoom like this and help walk you through setting it up.

But it needs to be your name, your account.

You need to own it.

I, and I don't understand why any agency would hold a website hostage.

If a company buys a website, they should keep the website.

Their websites are no good after two years anyway.

They get old.

Like they have to be updated every year.

Why do you need to keep it?

It's just mean.

So I don't know.

I love the way you talk about this.

This is, this is one of the most real conversations I've had about, with anybody, about such a normally stiff subject that is hard to digest for most contractors.

And I think that's why so many are, you know, have resisted so much.

Digital is just because it, it normally seems so foreign.

And I would, you know, definitely even submit that a lot of companies like you're talking about keep it that way.

In, in the same way that, you know, a technician has a hard time communicating to a homeowner because they talk in such technical terms.

It's the same thing here, you know, so, so many companies try to keep it away and keep it mysterious.

So you can charge whatever they want and we'll tell you when you get results.

Yeah, absolutely.

You want me to have a guest appearance on your podcast?

I'm really serious.

Darren Dixon.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm the CEO of Fixify here with me today, Darren Dixon.

Hello.

How's it going?

Hi.

Welcome.

Fantastic.

Ask this man about how to disrupt the industry.

Yeah, so let's talk about industry disruption.

What, what, what do you got going on?

Well, the first, the very first, easiest answer to that is you have to be consumer focused.

And our industry has proven over and over again in many, many very evidential ways that we're not consumer focused anytime, anytime.

What you're advertising is, is really not the real purpose of why you want to get into the customer's house.

And you have a second agenda.

You cannot be focused.

You are, you are corporately focused.

And corporately focused businesses do not ever scale.

The only businesses that truly successfully scale are those that are consumer centric.

And so that's the biggest plague that our industry has been trapped in.

For a long time.

And why we say why?

Well, because contractors were taught that they could gain wealth through something other than just good service and that they could, they could sell at a very high rate and ultimately generate high levels of profitability, but lost sight of the fact that the consumer's needs and the modern expectations of the consumer were something that they really should be more focused on.

So our combined focus is consumer centric and building systems and tools that are designed to help the consumer get what it is that they want and enable the profitability of the organization through that relationship.

Can you name an industry that doesn't even think about retention?

Solar, actually back in.

I mean, typically KPI.

Right.

I mean you would think that knowing what churn is and knowing what lifetime value of a customer is.

Lifetime value of a customer.

I was going to mention that.

And in our industry, you will never hear those things spoken about from any training from anybody.

It's about how do you put somebody in someone's house and sell them more stuff and.

Right.

So that's, that's an issue.

100 agree.

Oh my gosh.

So that is, that's super insightful and you know, it really speaks to everything.

Actually what we started off this whole conversation with is divorcing ourselves from the numbers and truly just finding what is the problem and how can I help that homeowner solve that problem?

And then the rest takes care of itself.

It's the true center.

You have to understand what the true center of purpose is.

And the true center of purpose is not consumer experience in this industry.

Imagine if the consumer could be in these training meetings, right?

Let them speak where technicians are sitting there.

If they could be a fly on the wall and hear about all the manipulative tactics that are taught to technicians.

And then.

Well, now you, now you.

Actually we touch on another big issue, right.

And that is that we have removed or redefined the industry, has redefined what a successful technician is.

It's not a technician salesperson that in a technician that is dressed up like a technician in a disguise.

Right?

So we disguise a person whose primary purpose is to sell and like a technician.

And we expect that the consumer is going to enjoy that.

I mean, they, they know.

The customer knows.

Right?

They can tell.

They can tell.

But that would be, that would be like me having my developers talk directly to my clients instead of giving them the right resource to have that conversation.

Oh my gosh.

Well, and then there's there's this, there's this existential issue that's created from it because now if you technicians did not become technicians because they wanted to be salespeople.

So now, but now if I'm in an environment where the only way I'm ever seen as valuable, the only way that I'm ever going to get to start to experience the, the earning that I need to take care of my family is if I'm actually acting like a salesperson, well, then I don't want to be in this industry.

So there's a detriment.

Yeah, it's an existential issue because, because we have basically we, we've created like a negative karma on the, on the, you know, I mean, it's like, so there's still plenty of people that like to work with their hands and want to do things like that, but they're avoiding this because of these issues that we've talked about.

They don't want to sell.

Yeah.

They don't want to be that.

Every single place I go to, I hear that over and over is, you know, we, we've done all these other sales trainings, but every single time it makes me feel gross and smarmy and I don't want to be that pushy salesman.

I'm not selling used cars here.

I just want to fix stuff.

So I was like, absolutely.

I get it, I get it.

That's exactly why I designed the things the way I do it.

Because the people's BS meter goes off a mile high the second they smell that salesman walk in the door.

And, and either you become anesthetized to it and you become a different person than what you set out to be, or you don't do it and you want to leave it.

And then, and, and then we start to, you know, now we have the impact that, that there is on a technician's family and the fact that they can't even, they can't even provide for their family without like, you know, superhuman expectations.

Right.

You know, fix those things.

And now you are one of one.

Right.

Every, every single thing is connected.

I don't have enough business, so I have a scarcity mentality.

So I offer discounted prices and every deal I'm trying to close regardless of whether it makes sense for the customers.

So my profitability is lower.

I can't bring on good people.

I can't take care of my people.

I don't have a benefits program.

No one gets to go to their kids baseball game.

I can't take a vacation during summer.

And it just that all of those things turn into negative rap and reviews.

And it's this Cycle that has to be broke.

We cannot look at business and have, and I mean, the other challenges is a lot of the advisors are out there only focused on the small piece or advising on things they shouldn't be advising on.

And it needs to be this group of tactical advisors that understand each of these different components and can properly advise themselves.

Business on a whole.

This is, this is what we're doing.

You know, the thing that you'll see too is that it's not going to happen.

The way we're describing it.

It's not going to happen where all of a sudden everybody just gets it and starts acting different.

It doesn't work that way.

It becomes a disruption because the pendulum is already swamped.

I mean, we already know that we're on the back side of, of the momentum change.

And in every company that I talk to, they, it's palatable.

They understand.

They're like our calls are down or this is down, our blah, blah, blah, blah.

And they want to blame everything other than what it really is.

And what it is is that there is disruptive model that is, that is growing, that is going to, it's going to really change a lot.

And then they're going to have to.

It'll be too late in many cases.

They're going to have to join it.

They'll have to join it.

They won't be able to recreate it themselves.

If you think about the entire consumer marketplace, there is.

There are groups that are removing consumers from the availability.

They're putting a ring on it and taking those people market.

And so the market is.

So there's not a amount of time for everybody to get this down, which.

Means that cost of acquisition goes up, which means that I have to sell harder, which means that I.

Right.

And it just, just, it just perpetuates it.

Right.

Yeah, it's just a vicious cycle there.

Oh my gosh.

I love this conversation.

Let me pop in and say hi.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

I appreciate the, the guest appearance.

So send me the address to write the check to.

Well, thank you.

That, that's incredible.

He's built one of the largest brands across the entire United States multiple times.

Times.

So, yeah, he's, he's a great strategic partner.

We do a lot of business together.

Oh, no kidding.

Yeah.

And that, you know, it sparks such a, a powerful conversation which is, you know, at the heart of any industry, but especially ours.

He's right about that.

Pendulum.

I mean, what we're seeing right now with all of the massive acquisitions of these big, huge VC firms Snatching up all these companies all over the place.

So I, I just let.

Which also this is really fun because it does two things.

If they are happen to be customer driven, which most aren't happen to be customer driven, then that's great.

But what we're seeing is they'll come in and double, just double the company's prices for the sake of bottom line.

And cut the commissions in half at the same time.

Yeah, and then force all the technicians to sell at such a high volume and if you don't turn over this many systems for replacement, well, then you can just go down the road.

And so I just left Kansas City where I worked with a really great small company there.

And part of the introduction we crafted was listen, Mr.

Homeowner.

So we're local, we're family owned and listen, Mr.

Homeowner, I don't know if you knew this, but 70% of the companies in Kansas City are corporate owned by this big monster somewhere.

Not us.

We're, we're.

There's just one of us.

And, and that's, that wasn't 100 in the intro.

And the second we started executing that in the house, it was just this like you could see shoulders relaxed by the homeowners.

Like, oh my gosh, that's great.

You mean the owner works in the field every day?

Yeah, absolutely.

Standing right here.

You know, and so it just, it takes us back to that, you know, how our industry, industry started, you know, 50, 60, 70 years ago, just being truly really hard to serve people.

And you know, you see that in, in even some of the big branding.

It's like, hey, we started by the, you know, think about ghetto.

I was the boy holding the flashlight for my dad fixing the furnace.

So it's, you know, I love it.

And the more that we can embrace that, but also combine it with the cutting edge of everything that's going on to give that relationship is, that's truly the recipe for success.

Just like he was talking about.

Yeah, absolutely.

We have a lot of PEs as clients and you know, they all have different, they all have different business models.

Some are looking for quick exit, some are literally looking to combine 21 million dollar companies and take them to market in less than 12 months.

So there's not a lot of process improvements.

It's just a quick consolidation.

Some of them truly want to build businesses.

But yeah, I'll just leave it at that.

There are, there are a lot of differences in, in between them, even within the PE groups on how they're going to market what Their overall plan is when they plan to recap and so forth.

So that's very interesting.

The other, you know, where Darren is heading.

A lot of the, these companies understand how to put consumers on subscriptions.

They understand they're not selling anymore.

They're selling a subscription to comfort.

And we have to remember that a subscription to comfort is no different than the ring on this finger.

When I subscribe to this, I am now off the market.

Right.

It's the same way.

So the larger the number of companies that are selling subscription based programs, subscription to filter, subscription to maintenance, subscription to comfort, your entire system, your, your warranty program, right.

That is going to narrow the market.

Narrow the market, narrow the market.

They're going to perform to maintain those relationships.

But you have to be better than you are today to compete with a narrower margin.

Right?

So yeah, this industry is awesome.

It's awesome.

Really exciting.

I love it.

I love it.

So it's, I think, I feel like we could talk about this for hours and hours, which I hope we will.

We'll do some, do some more of these in the future, especially as you release some of the big launches you have that you is, you know, kind of hinted at.

But it for today, it is time to start landing this plane.

Thank you so much.

One of the things that this podcast is known for, like we talked about is giving people very actionable items to implement immediately.

And definitely thanks for that.

You know, the tools that you gave us today, so super powerful.

Everyone listening, make sure you get your ticket to the Profit Rocket event.

Jennifer is going to be one of the keynotes for the event.

She's got a whole, I'm sure you have a really powerful session planned for us in as a side note, everybody dealing with working with Jennifer's assistants to schedule this.

We had a couple of fun conversations about Jennifer and she basically told me she's like, oh my gosh, she's the best on stage because she's a comedian.

Nobody knows it.

So I know it was one of two words.

One started with the C, one started with the B. I wasn't sure which route.

No, said you're a total comedian.

A awesome to listen to and so much insightful information.

So thanks for joining us today.

I am really excited about what we're going to do in the future and everybody make sure to get to the event.

I'm going to be on one of the speakers panels.

Jennifer has a keynote and it's going to be such a powerful event.

But more importantly the, you know, depending on when you listen to this.

That event may have come and gone, but dial into the CI Web Group.

Clearly there's a lot they know.

They know how to do this.

It's.

They're not guessing.

This is not a fly, you know, spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks.

What's the old expression in marketing is, yeah, half my marketing works.

I just don't know which half, but they do know which half.

And that is.

And that's what you focus on.

And so, so how can people get in touch with you?

What, where do they find you to, to reach out?

Yeah, look up CI Web Group.

You can look it up online, Facebook, LinkedIn, I mean, pretty much anywhere.

Or send an email to help group.

That's the easy one.

Helpi webgroup.com if you need any help, feel free to connect with me personally.

I mean, I'm likely going to be one.

There'll be one of three of us that gets on a call with you and like I said, we'll give you those evaluations.

Don't forget to at least submit your website.

You can do that right on our website.

Just make sure our team knows that it came from the podcast.

And also, if you had not attend Profit Rocket, let me just tell you, Victor's our client.

We built the Profit Rocket website.

We help with the entire organization, the blueprint and everything else.

Those are our babies.

With Victor, it is different.

It is different than any other event in the entire industry.

This is where rubber meets the road.

This isn't a BS superficial old school what worked 15 years ago.

This is down and dirty.

So, I mean, you got to be ready to learn though, because the, the coaches and speakers and trainers and people that are at this event, they're not here because they're a paid speaker.

They're here because they want to make a huge difference.

And these are all people who have been very successful in their own businesses recently, not 80 years ago.

And.

This is when you can, you know, really move the needle.

But you got to come with a notebook, get yourself a remarkable tablet, one of these things so that you can take a million notes, bring AI otters that can record all the presentations for you.

Remember, the same thing applies at this event.

You got to show up, suit up and participate.

You're not just coming out to, you know, drink and eat free food and network.

This is come with the intent to capture as many golden nuggets as you can come prepped and ready to learn and document it.

And then when you leave this event, make an execution plan and hold yourself or get Somebody like Sam to hold you accountable.

It's really important.

This is, it's got to create.

Yep, you got it.

Success happens at the speed of implementation, everybody.

It doesn't matter how much you learn.

It's how fast can you implement what you did learn and that's, that's how change to get changes.

We got to make them.

So super excited about the event.

Thanks for joining me today.

This has been such a good conversation and yeah, so that basically wraps us up for today.

And any, any final parting thoughts before we close out here?

The only one I'll leave you with is change occurs two ways.

Either consistency and repetition or an ass whooping.

One of the two.

Wisely.

Choose wisely.

You get it.

Significant emotional event that causes change, right?

It's significant emotional event.

That's what I call ass whooping.

But that's something and usually it's bad.

So if you want to avoid having to get taught a lesson the hard way, consistency and repetition, make it happen.

Create that execution plan.

Get a coach, get Sam on your team and, and have him help hold you accountable, show up.

So to participate.

That's all I got.

You're amazing.

I love being here.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Well, everybody, you heard it here first.

So make sure to find the close it now Facebook group.

Just search close it now and it will come right up.

It is easy to find everywhere you go.

Just search close it now.

The branding is consistent across every platform.

Email me directly samoseitnow.net and yeah, get connected.

You can learn more about the site.

Visit.

A good quick story from the last type is that company average was 40% close rate.

We rounded out the week I was there at 77%.

So it's strictly from listening and helping people.

So if that's the kind of numbers you want to see in your business, reach out to me and get me scheduled to come.

Clearly paid for itself in the four days I was there.

And because it's half a day classroom and half a day I'm riding along in the truck with your people to make sure we can that they execute because that's the only way to truly lock the knowledge in.

So reach out for that and then you can learn more about the other coaching group events, coaching programs, I have that kind of thing.

But thanks for joining us everybody.

We both of us look forward to meeting you in person at the Profit Rocket event.

And if not there, we'll be all over the place.

So watch out.

There's some big, big stuff coming from both CI web group and that is the letters CI Web Group.

So don't, don't think it's like Seeing Eye or something.

Central Intelligence, baby.

There you go.

CI Web Group.

And big stuff coming from them.

Big stuff coming from Close It Now.

We're about to be everywhere on a ton of platforms.

So everybody, you go out, save the world one heat stroke at a time.

Thanks for listening to Close it now with Sam Wakefield.

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