"I'm Running Out of Leads. What Do I Do?" — Transcript

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1. 0:00I sell outdoor lighting to homeowners.
2. 0:02We do 880,000 revenue. About 40% is in
3. 0:05the holiday season doing Christmas
4. 0:07lights.
5. 0:08Um
6. 0:09The problem is we don't have enough
7. 0:11leads in the not holiday light time of
8. 0:14year. So,
9. 0:15the first half until basically now
10. 0:18>> this business so many times. Do you want
11. 0:19me to walk you through it?
12. 0:19>> Yeah, for sure.
13. 0:20>> Okay, cool.
14. 0:21Um
15. 0:22>> [laughter]
16. 0:23>> So, basically you have you have one kind
17. 0:25of existential uh decision that you need
18. 0:27to make which is are we going to be
19. 0:28full-time lighting which there's nothing
20. 0:29wrong with that? Look at the Halloween
21. 0:30store. Like they're open 2 months a year
22. 0:33and they just murder it and that's all
23. 0:34they do, right? The alternative is that
24. 0:36you basically have um
25. 0:39a home team that goes from lawn care and
26. 0:42other home services to
27. 0:45uh you know, lighting because the the
28. 0:47lawn care guys have the equal opposite
29. 0:48issue. They're like, "Okay, well,
30. 0:49there's grass that's growing 9 months of
31. 0:50the year and then it's holiday season
32. 0:51and what do my guys do for 3 months or 4
33. 0:53months depending on whatever geographic
34. 0:55area you're in, right?" And so, um
35. 0:58I tell you which one I prefer. I prefer
36. 1:01the keeping the holiday season business
37. 1:03>> Mhm.
38. 1:04>> year round and I'll explain why, but
39. 1:06either option works. I just want to be
40. 1:07really clear about that.
41. 1:09I like thinking about it. How many
42. 1:10months of the year are you doing the
43. 1:11lights? Three?
44. 1:12>> Yep, 45 days basically. Yeah.
45. 1:15>> So, instead of So, the way I think about
46. 1:17it is how can I take how can I equip my
47. 1:19existing team with as many skills as
48. 1:21possible so that the other 10 months of
49. 1:23the year all they're doing is getting
50. 1:25business. And so, like the perfect
51. 1:26business in the world is you sell all
52. 1:28year and then you don't have to go
53. 1:29deliver for this much. It's an amazing
54. 1:31business. You just collect cash all day
55. 1:33long. Collect cash, collect commitments,
56. 1:35collect cash, collect commitments all
57. 1:36year round and then you boom and you
58. 1:38basically earn the living over the next
59. 1:4045 or 60 days and then you go back into
60. 1:42the sales cycle. And so, that's one way
61. 1:44of doing it. I like that cuz it's such a
62. 1:46simple like you just have to think about
63. 1:48one thing for 10 months which is
64. 1:49marketing and sales.
65. 1:50>> Yeah.
66. 1:51>> And that gets pretty nasty and the cash
67. 1:52flow is really good. The alternative
68. 1:54obviously is you're like, "Okay, well,
69. 1:56these guys don't have these skills,
70. 1:57which then begs the next question is
71. 1:59what type of talent would I need to
72. 2:00facilitate model A versus model B. But
73. 2:03if you have model B, which is maybe
74. 2:05maybe you have lower skilled people who
75. 2:06work for you right now,
76. 2:08then it's like, okay, can I buy some
77. 2:09lawnmowers? Can I buy some landscaping
78. 2:11stuff so that I can give them something
79. 2:13to do for the other 9 months of the
80. 2:14year?
81. 2:15>> Yeah, so we were doing lawn care and
82. 2:17picked up Christmas lights to fill that
83. 2:19gap. Well, where I live in October, you
84. 2:21have to do both. So I got rid of the
85. 2:23lawn care.
86. 2:23>> Okay.
87. 2:24>> Well, just do all just Christmas.
88. 2:26>> And you made better margins and all that
89. 2:27stuff.
90. 2:27>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so that
91. 2:29was awesome. So what we're doing now is
92. 2:30project-based permanent lighting jobs
93. 2:32with the exact same team. So we can
94. 2:34literally just shut it down as soon as
95. 2:36Christmas time starts.
96. 2:37>> Cool.
97. 2:38>> So
98. 2:39I guess where I'm what you're saying
99. 2:40would be just sell Christmas all year.
100. 2:44Which is like really hard to sell this
101. 2:45time of year. Really you like
102. 2:47super easy to get leads in Christmas.
103. 2:49>> Yeah.
104. 2:49>> So my thought was sell permanent lights.
105. 2:52>> Uh-huh.
106. 2:52>> And then also 50% of them still get
107. 2:54Christmas lights.
108. 2:55Um, but
109. 2:56>> Why not do that?
110. 2:58>> That is what I'm doing.
111. 2:58>> Well, great.
112. 2:59>> Well, so the the problem is the leads
113. 3:01problem.
114. 3:01>> Okay.
115. 3:02>> So I'm running out of Christmas light
116. 3:03customers to sell landscape lights to
117. 3:04cuz that was a natural first like easy
118. 3:06to get them. Well,
119. 3:08I'm running meta ads.
120. 3:09>> Uh-huh.
121. 3:10>> Um
122. 3:11>> So lead gen for permanent
123. 3:11[clears throat] lights, okay.
124. 3:12>> Yeah, exactly is the problem. So
125. 3:15what I'm trying to figure out is is the
126. 3:16problem like lead magnet issues or
127. 3:18landing pages issues is where I'm at, I
128. 3:20think.
129. 3:20>> Great, so now we're now we're in the
130. 3:21meat of it. Great.
131. 3:22>> Yeah, yeah.
132. 3:22>> Uh no, I'll bet you that the creative's
133. 3:24probably not that good because I think
134. 3:25it's a pretty easy thing to sell.
135. 3:26>> Yeah.
136. 3:27>> The permanent lighting? Like you just
137. 3:28show a house before and after to show
138. 3:30the dark
139. 3:31>> Mhm.
140. 3:31>> before and after. Like
141. 3:32>> Mhm.
142. 3:32>> Oh, look, lights.
143. 3:34Nice thing is it's very [laughter]
144. 3:34visual.
145. 3:35>> Yeah, yeah, yeah.
146. 3:35>> So I actually think that I actually
147. 3:36think that the ads is probably the
148. 3:38issue. What's the lead magnet you're
149. 3:39offering right now?
150. 3:40>> Uh we come to your house to do a free
151. 3:41demo so you can see how it looks.
152. 3:42>> Yeah. Um
153. 3:44I'd probably try and enhance that offer.
154. 3:46>> Mhm.
155. 3:46>> Um the nice thing is in local markets
156. 3:47it's very offer driven.
157. 3:49>> Mhm.
158. 3:49>> Um and so
159. 3:53I'd have to think more than three
160. 3:54minutes, you know, two seconds about it
161. 3:56um
162. 3:56cuz it'll be the front end of the whole
163. 3:57business. Um
164. 3:59but it would probably be some element of
165. 4:00like
166. 4:02some amount of lights that come for
167. 4:04free.
168. 4:05Uh so like like I think something that
169. 4:07would murder would be like can I light
170. 4:10someone's like
171. 4:12not their deck, but like maybe their the
172. 4:14side like from the sidewalk to the house
173. 4:16or can I just light the driveway? Like
174. 4:18some small element. So we talk about in
175. 4:20the in the leads book. Um a lead magnet
176. 4:23can either be a trial of something. It
177. 4:25can be one part of a multi-step process.
178. 4:28Um
179. 4:29uh or it can be a third thing.
180. 4:33But for yours, I think the Thank you.
181. 4:36Uh one step in a multi-step process.
182. 4:37That's why I wrote I wrote it down so I
183. 4:38don't have to remember it. Uh
184. 4:40Um but I think like if I can if I wanted
185. 4:43to because like I'll I'll prefer to
186. 4:45start with a banger offer and then add
187. 4:47friction uh because the thing is just
188. 4:49like you can say I'm going to give this
189. 4:50away, but you don't have to give it away
190. 4:52to everybody. You can say I only give it
191. 4:53away to houses that are over X. And you
192. 4:56can have people put their address in and
193. 4:58then run an API to Zillow, look at home
194. 5:00value, and then rank-order the leads
195. 5:02based on value of home, and then
196. 5:04basically prioritize those leads ahead
197. 5:05of time. And so you can go to those, you
198. 5:07know, those houses first and probably
199. 5:08sell much bigger bigger packages
200. 5:10overall. But I think that like
201. 5:13if I'm struggling to get leads, I just
202. 5:15need them to say they want lighting. I
203. 5:17don't really care how they say they want
204. 5:18lighting. I just need them to say they
205. 5:20want it and then the sales process takes
206. 5:21care of the rest.
207. 5:24>> Cool.
208. 5:25>> Do you like that?
209. 5:27>> I'm just trying to process. Yeah, yeah.
210. 5:28Like how that would go. I mean, you're
211. 5:30100% right. That's the problem is people
212. 5:32once they say they want lighting,
213. 5:32selling it is easy.
214. 5:33>> Yeah.
215. 5:34>> So I just got to get them to say it and
216. 5:35put their phone number on the form.
217. 5:36>> them a crazy So give them a much better
218. 5:37offer than I'll give you a free sales
219. 5:39pitch.
220. 5:39>> Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
221. 5:41>> No, I'm just being real. Like that's So
222. 5:42fundamentally that's it. So I think you
223. 5:44you saying like we'll we'll do the
224. 5:46install for free, you just cover the
225. 5:47cost of the lights.
226. 5:48>> Mhm.
227. 5:49>> For this tiny amount? See how I'm
228. 5:51developing it now? I like it. All right.
229. 5:53Now, you can put the markup on the
230. 5:54lights and put zero on the labor. It
231. 5:55doesn't matter either way. You just
232. 5:56basically mix and match how you're
233. 5:58showing the money. And that way you'll
234. 6:00still break even on that first thing and
235. 6:02you'll just know that one out of two or
236. 6:03whatever it is who buy the first thing
237. 6:05buy the 10 times bigger package.
238. 6:06>> Mhm.
239. 6:07>> And then that's just math. Cool.
240. 6:08>> I see. I like that.
241. 6:09>> I like that, too.
242. 6:10>> Awesome. Thanks.
243. 6:11>> Yep.
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