"Should I Slow Down When Demand Isn't the Problem?" — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00My name is Pierre. I sell disability
2. 0:02support services to people with
3. 0:04disabilities. We do about 1.5. I'd like
4. 0:07to be at 35.
5. 0:09>> Okay.
6. 0:09>> I think what's stopping me is actually
7. 0:11being really comfortable slowing down. I
8. 0:13had some great advice from Ed. Like
9. 0:16leads keep coming in. We haven't
10. 0:17advertised for 18 months. Referral
11. 0:19network coming in. We keep saying yes.
12. 0:21We're being very reactive. Putting the
13. 0:22ops processes in place to deliver them.
14. 0:25And just think for so long it's been the
15. 0:27next lead, the next milestone, the next
16. 0:29revenue target.
17. 0:30>> Is that your margin?
18. 0:31>> It's more It's very much a margins game.
19. 0:33We can't lift prices. They're capped by
20. 0:35government. So it's optimizing the
21. 0:37internal operations. AI agents building
22. 0:39the process, automating matching clients
23. 0:41to
24. 0:42um workers, all that kind of stuff,
25. 0:43which mostly with me at the moment. So
26. 0:46saying no, slowing down. Should slow
27. 0:48down right now.
28. 0:49>> What are margins right now?
29. 0:51>> Margins right now, gross margin um
30. 0:54is 25 to 45% based on staff delivering
31. 0:57the work. Um EBITDA is about 15%.
32. 1:00>> Okay, 15. I guess you're at like two
33. 1:02200-ish on
34. 1:04on uh 1.5.
35. 1:05>> Yeah, and I've been trying to hire a lot
36. 1:06to get out of the swamp. It's just been
37. 1:08fun.
38. 1:09>> Yeah. It will suck until three.
39. 1:11Um
40. 1:12Okay. So this is an interesting one
41. 1:14because when you have uh rate caps,
42. 1:17which happens in government stuff or
43. 1:18regulated stuff, um you have to eat up
44. 1:21margin from the bottom, obviously, which
45. 1:22you've already figured out. Um
46. 1:25So
47. 1:26I think what you'll have to do is be
48. 1:29comfortable turning down business.
49. 1:31>> Yeah.
50. 1:31>> For a season cuz demand's not the
51. 1:33problem.
52. 1:33>> Yeah.
53. 1:34>> It's like you
54. 1:36you you don't want to enter into a
55. 1:37vicious cycle, right? If like there's
56. 1:39why bother? Like the It's like if
57. 1:41someone's going to come on and they're
58. 1:42going to pay you What's the average
59. 1:43customer pay?
60. 1:44>> The average customer, let's say $1,000 a
61. 1:47week.
62. 1:47>> $1,000 a week. Okay, so so 50K a year is
63. 1:49what they're paying. You're making 15%
64. 1:51on that. So it's like 7,500 bucks that a
65. 1:53customer's going to you know that you're
66. 1:55that you're going to make.
67. 1:56It's like
68. 1:57I have to be willing to know that if I
69. 2:00can say no to these $7,500 customers, I
70. 2:04can take my margin from 15 to 30 if I
71. 2:07can get AI completely installed in the
72. 2:08whole business.
73. 2:09>> Yeah. Yeah.
74. 2:09>> So great. So there's 200 and something
75. 2:11there, but then this now can scale to
76. 2:13where I want it to and then you'll never
77. 2:14have to say no again.
78. 2:15>> Yeah. Yeah.
79. 2:16>> So this is a go slow to go fast. But the
80. 2:18thing is is like
81. 2:19you're not going slower. It's just your
82. 2:21revenue number is not going to change.
83. 2:23>> Yeah. Yeah.
84. 2:24>> It's like reframe it says like you're
85. 2:25not going slower.
86. 2:27You're just doing like it's like you
87. 2:28fill up your car before you drive.
88. 2:30You're not going slower. Like you're
89. 2:31filling up the car.
90. 2:32>> That's great. Seems like a ego and
91. 2:34empathy kind of battle. Each customer
92. 2:36you say no to you can't help now, but
93. 2:37you can help more later if you actually
94. 2:39>> If you want you can say we're really
95. 2:40busy right now.
96. 2:42Um
97. 2:43and I can put you on the waitlist to
98. 2:44start in 3 months and then just like
99. 2:45push everything out. Give yourself a
100. 2:4790-day sprint so you can still say yes,
101. 2:48feel okay about it. And then if you lose
102. 2:50some of them, whatever.
103. 2:52Um
104. 2:52are they So there's rent there's caps
105. 2:54for the service, right?
106. 2:56>> Yeah. Yeah.
107. 2:57>> Are you allowed to charge for anything
108. 2:58else?
109. 2:59>> You Yeah, there is some other things you
110. 3:01can charge for. Sometimes privately, but
111. 3:03a lot of it is they're using a
112. 3:04government bucket of money.
113. 3:06>> So I would just say like we obviously
114. 3:08have a lot of demand. Um you can pay to
115. 3:10be on the waitlist a one-time fee. Um
116. 3:12it's just to show that you're serious
117. 3:14and
118. 3:15as you probably know, there's a lot of
119. 3:16people who provide the service. Most of
120. 3:18them suck. And so if you want to be
121. 3:19first in, that way you still have cash
122. 3:21flow and then you feel good. And then
123. 3:23that's you don't have to worry about the
124. 3:25government stuff and it's all margin.
125. 3:27>> Awesome. All right, I love it. Thank you
126. 3:28Alex. Appreciate it.
127. 3:29>> Rock and roll. Yeah, thank you, man.
128. 3:30>> [applause]
129. 3:31>> So you just saw a compressed version of
130. 3:32me going back and forth with the
131. 3:33business owner to help them find the
132. 3:34constraint and then ideally give one to
133. 3:36two tap steps on what to do next to help
134. 3:38de-constrain it. That being said, if you
135. 3:40would like to have the exact same
136. 3:41process applied to your business, but
137. 3:43based on 10,000 businesses with a
138. 3:44perfect memory,
139. 3:46um then we made this free tool that
140. 3:48actually aggregates all of that data for
141. 3:50different businesses and industries that
142. 3:51we've actually had walk through the door
143. 3:53and it's yours, it's new, it's free, and
144. 3:55it's fast. So, go grab it and on the
145. 3:57thank you page, if you want to be in the
146. 3:58room, you can book a call, but either
147. 3:59way, the tool is free and so are the
148. 4:01solutions. Enjoy.