Building a $2,500,000 Business for a Stranger in 36 Minutes

AAlex Hormozi
창업/스타트업마케팅/광고경영/리더십수리/DIY

Transcript

00:00:00This is Corey. Corey runs an HVAC business with his wife doing over $1.2 million per year in revenue.
00:00:04But number one, that $1.2 million isn't all profit. And number two, he has $60,000 in debt that he
00:00:10wants to get rid of. I'm Alex Remozie. I own acquisition.com, which is a portfolio of companies
00:00:13that did over $250 million last year in aggregate revenue. We have several service rate businesses in
00:00:18our portfolio, so I've done a lot of thinking about the problems that Corey's dealing with.
00:00:21And so first, we're going to deep dive into the business, and then we're going to break
00:00:23down all the tactics that he and you can use to scale. And at the end, we're going to check in
00:00:27with Corey one year later. Originally, we were doing about $1.25 million in sales. Currently,
00:00:32see if the tactics actually helped him scale his business. So let's meet Corey.
00:00:35What's going on, Alex? My name is Corey. What's up?
00:00:39I own ProShine Professional Cleaning with my wife, Nicole. We are an HVAC cleaning and
00:00:43ductwork repair company. What problem are you trying to solve?
00:00:46So right now, we're allocating about 10% of our profit going towards paying off some of our debt.
00:00:50How much debt you got? It's about $60,000.
00:00:52Okay. And then lead generation. We're trying
00:00:55to get higher quantity of leads and also leads that are higher value clients. On the bottom of
00:01:01that is just to really just help our client with our booking process. I think that we can streamline
00:01:06it a little bit better, make it easier on them, and then also not lose out on the possibilities
00:01:11of upsells or anything like that throughout that process.
00:01:14Why is solving this important? What happens if you don't fix this?
00:01:17First and foremost, we're a people company. So we really go out in the community and just do
00:01:20the right thing. And I'm grateful to have guys on my team that really share that goal. It makes our
00:01:24life a lot easier. That's why it's important to us so we can help more people and then also
00:01:28grow our business. All right. Awesome. Okay. So how do you make money?
00:01:31This is actually where ProShine's a little bit unique. For our HVAC cleaning, full-end price
00:01:34for us is $15.75 per HVAC unit. Okay.
00:01:37Each house we do has about two units. So with that $15.75, we have a two-year growth-free guarantee.
00:01:44What that is, is when we come out, we make sure that we're disinfecting that ductwork properly,
00:01:48killing any kind of bacterial growth. So clients love having that guarantee in place so that they
00:01:52don't have to worry about it in the future. And then we have ductwork rewrapping, which is pretty
00:01:56much replacing the old insulation. And then also our dry vent cleaning, which is $175.
00:02:01Do you show customers pictures of the inside of their vents?
00:02:05Yep. Absolutely. So actually we have a customer profile so they can access any point in time. So
00:02:10if they want to sell their home, they can use it as an advantage for them.
00:02:13I like that. Where do you get your customers?
00:02:15All right. So we have a couple of different channels. 60% come from paydads. 3,000 a month
00:02:19go from Google. We actually just up that a couple of days ago to 5,000. And then also 650 from
00:02:25Facebook. Facebook is very new for us. We just started the last two weeks. And then 15% of our
00:02:30job flow comes from a local SEO, which is a third-party company. And then affiliates and
00:02:35referrals are a very big portion for us because we are partnered with a lot of HVAC companies in
00:02:40our area. One of them actually sends us about 30K a month. So we really just want to replicate what
00:02:45they have going on and then share that with our other partners.
00:02:48So what's the advantage to that affiliate sending you the 30,000 a month?
00:02:51We actually send them back roughly four to 45,000 because they have higher ticket items. So
00:02:56when they go in, they're doing full replacements where we're doing some patchwork and some cleaning.
00:03:00Say they send us 20 leads, we'll send them maybe four or five,
00:03:05but they make double what we would sell. So Corey has a unique affiliate strategy,
00:03:09which is that he purposely limits his own services so that he doesn't compete
00:03:13with other businesses in his "space." And so he refers them, the high ticket business,
00:03:18but then they refer him some percentage of their business. But the beauty of this model
00:03:23is that he's able to do this with tons of high ticket providers so that he has almost
00:03:28limitless lead flow of people coming towards him basically for free.
00:03:32So give me whatever other numbers you think I should know.
00:03:34Our number is right now 1.25 million over the last 12 months. Profit on that is 479,000.
00:03:41Our net margin is 38%. So our marketing spend right now is just under 7200 as far as our
00:03:47marketing strategy altogether. Our show rate actually, funny enough,
00:03:50is 99% because it's the 1% that the client just happens to not be home where they
00:03:54forgot about our appointment. And then our close rate is 82%.
00:03:56If we double the lead flow of the business, can you handle that?
00:04:01Yes. So actually we just hired on two more employees and we just got a third van.
00:04:05Right off the bat in every business, I think the first problem I try to delineate is this
00:04:09is supply-constrained business or demand-constrained business.
00:04:11Meaning if we can double the lead flow and they can handle it, then it's a demand-constrained
00:04:15business. If we double lead flow and they can't handle it, then it means that we got to go build
00:04:18the resources and infrastructure to be able to handle a double and lead flow in the future.
00:04:23And I think this is such a common thing that I see with business owners. They're trying to
00:04:26fix a problem that's already a problem that if you fix it, makes your existing problem worse.
00:04:31I got a bunch of notes. I think we might be able to help you get more people,
00:04:34more impact and more clean air. That's what I'm talking about.
00:04:36All right, let's do it. There's nothing majorly wrong. And so that's the good news. And obviously
00:04:40you have 38% margins you're growing. The last thing I want to do is break something.
00:04:43Right.
00:04:43And so I think this is going to be a game of incremental improvement.
00:04:46Right.
00:04:47Like no Hail Marys. This is just consistent yardage.
00:04:49Press the process, right?
00:04:50Yeah. Number one, I think that there's actually still some more room for pricing. Number two,
00:04:56let's talk about the debt. Number three, let's talk about the affiliate piece.
00:05:03Four, we'll go funnel conversion rate optimization. And then five, we'll go ads.
00:05:08Perfect.
00:05:09Six, reactivation. Emails.
00:05:13Corey's at stage five on the $100 million scaling roadmap. He's at productize. So he's got 10 to 19
00:05:19people who work in the business. She's got maybe two or three people in the business that are kind
00:05:22of like manager leaders that are running this thing. Now, some of the issues that he's dealing with is
00:05:26that customers are having nothing else to buy and churn. We have to figure out how we can get more
00:05:29repeat business for the business. His qualified leads are too expensive and cap your ability to
00:05:34advertise. And so what we're doing is we're trying to improve the throughput on his existing
00:05:38advertising process so that he can get more leads because he can handle more leads. We're creating
00:05:43more sales materials, tweaking pricing, sales process, creating a CS playbook. All of this stuff
00:05:47is the things that happen all the time at the productize stage. And so if you're like, shoot,
00:05:52that's almost exactly what he's going through. That's because businesses behave in patterns.
00:05:57And so if you're not sure what stage of business you're at, this scaling roadmap is 100% free. You
00:06:03can go and get it at acquisition.com/roadmap and put in your business details. And on the thank you
00:06:09page, if you would like our help actually helping you de-bottleneck these things, kind of like what
00:06:13I'm doing with Corey here in person at my headquarters, on the thank you page, just schedule
00:06:16a call. My team would love to have a conversation with you. Worst case scenario, we provide value.
00:06:20Best case, we'll see you out here in Vegas. So first things first, the price. So you did a 23%
00:06:24price increase after the first time we talked to you. And so that resulted in a higher close rate
00:06:28and more money. Wonderful. So Corey had actually come to one of our workshops at acquisition.com
00:06:34earlier, and we had made this first initial suggestion, which is like, hey, bump your prices.
00:06:37And he obviously saw a big improvement, right? He was able to charge more and close more. And the
00:06:44reason we made that recommendation is because we looked at businesses in that space and we're like,
00:06:48we think you're mispriced. Some people might be like, how could you raise prices and close more?
00:06:52Well, let me explain. There's two scenarios where this could be true. One is something called a
00:06:56Veblen good, which in economic terms is usually like a high-end luxury item. So like a Rolex,
00:07:01sometimes if something goes up in price, it becomes more sought after. That's not what happens for Corey
00:07:05because he's in the other bucket, right? No one's like bragging at their rotary club about how much
00:07:09they spent on their HVAC. So instead what happens is that if you have what I would consider a normal
00:07:14business providing a normal service or product, if you raise your prices, what sometimes happens
00:07:18is that the conviction of the customer that you can actually deliver on the promise you're making
00:07:21goes up. And so on the value equation, which I'll talk about in this book, it actually increases the
00:07:27perceived likelihood of achievement. So by raising the price, we actually increase the value. And this
00:07:33is why I talk about charging premium prices. Page 48 in the offers book, I talk about the virtuous
00:07:38cycle of pricing. And so what happens is if you raise your price, you increase the emotional
00:07:42investment, you increase the perceived value, you increase the results, and you decrease the
00:07:47demandingness of the customer. You get more money to actually deliver. And so what happens is a lot
00:07:51of times people will just try and like, ah, they're so afraid of charging money that they actually
00:07:56sell themselves out of a sale because it's so low price that they're like, gosh, this guy seems like
00:08:00a run, you know, a super seedy duct tape operation, right? And so many of you, especially newer
00:08:07business owners, I'd say like sub call it three, sometimes 5 million in revenue. Some of the biggest
00:08:12levers that exist in the business is simply charging more because people actually believe you can deliver
00:08:16the service now. So whenever I hear 80% or over 80% close rates, I usually know that there's room and
00:08:21so basically what I penciled out was a 10% price raise. This is more asking than telling. We would
00:08:26have to believe that we're not going to drop to 65%. As long as we close more than 65%, we make
00:08:31more money. Thing is, is that 10% price raise for you equals roughly a 25% increase in net profit.
00:08:37Right. So that'd be roughly a hundred plus thousand a year. And that's at last year's volume in profit.
00:08:42So that's number one. Does that sound something like something that you could stomach or no?
00:08:46Yeah. A hundred percent. So the second thing is how fast do you plan on paying off the 60 K debt
00:08:50that you have? We are planned to pay off completely in the next four to five months. Okay, good. That's
00:08:54one of those things that like, I would say this is more of an emotional thing, but it's just this back
00:08:59of mind thing. If there's a range of like Dave Ramsey and then like, you know, Wall Street,
00:09:04I tend to skew like very close to the Ramsey side. And the single argument that I have around it is
00:09:09basically debt increases risk. Risk when multiplied over a long time horizon tends to come due. And so
00:09:16like businesses have seasons, they have volatility. And why did I take the debt out to begin with?
00:09:21A lot of times it's like, cause I wanted to grow faster. You know what I mean? If you look at some
00:09:24of the most enduring companies, a lot of them like Chick-fil-A operate debt-free. Let's do ad stuff
00:09:28first and then I'll circle back to affiliates. So let's pull up the page that the Google ads are
00:09:33going to. Right now, this is where the ads are going, right? Now, what most people are probably
00:09:37doing is they're clicking the button on the top, right? If they're desktop or if they're mobile,
00:09:40they're probably clicking the button right there. It's almost like having two landing pages in a row.
00:09:44And so you might not know this, but like typically you'll lose about 50% by like half. Just for every
00:09:50step you add, it's usually about half or more that you lose. Can you shrink that to mobile just so I
00:09:54can see what it looks like on mobile? Okay. That looks a little better, but what I'd want to do is
00:10:01like, I want that to just be a headline. I don't think the pro shine, et cetera, stuff that like,
00:10:05see how it's kind of like messy. There's a lot of stuff going on. So I tend to just either really
00:10:09shrink the logo. So it's like a very small because it's literally the prime real estate is everything
00:10:13that's above this fold. And the first thing someone sees is the top, which right now is like a lot of
00:10:17blank space, right? So I would probably wipe that probably that button. So it's just the hamburger
00:10:21menu and the pro shine that'll massively shrink the top bar. You have the home and then the site nav.
00:10:26You can drop that. We want to basically build a specific Lander for ads, which isn't the homepage
00:10:31because this page, it serves one function, which is conversion. We actually don't see an offer.
00:10:35Keep scrolling. Yeah. And so this is actually where the conversion happens. So we're losing a ton of
00:10:39traffic going to the top. Oh yeah. The basic level of this is like, let's just have this offer clear
00:10:44and then eliminate all the other stuff on the page basically. So let's go to the edge real quick. I
00:10:49think the one takeaway that I have there is you have more opportunity to spend. Absolutely. So like,
00:10:54I think that at the very least we'd be like, we just want to continue to spend month over month
00:10:58provided our ROAS and our CAAS stay more or less the same. And the fact that you're already at 13
00:11:02to one upfront and that's with like what I would consider like a pretty unoptimized page, like that
00:11:07might double to like 26. The changes that we do in the funnel, you might be able to go from like 5,000,
00:11:11like 30,000 a month in spend. Right. Which be sweet. Yeah. Right. So let me ask you a question.
00:11:16If for every dollar you gave me, I gave you $5 back, what would your budget of dollars that
00:11:22you'd give me be? If you answer that correctly, the answer would be as many dollars as you possibly
00:11:26could. And then once I give you more dollars back, you take those more dollars and give those more
00:11:29dollars to me. And then I give you more and more dollars back. And fundamentally that's how good
00:11:32advertising should work. And so it's interesting is that there's a lot of businesses that you've
00:11:36probably seen multiple on this show where you'll see somebody getting 10 to one, 20 to one, 30 to
00:11:41one, and they're spending a thousand dollars a month. And it's like, why are we not spending
00:11:43$2,000 a month or $5,000 a month? Now, if you're not sure, then you have a data problem. So you got
00:11:48to go make sure the attribution's right. But if you know that's where the money's coming from,
00:11:51by all means spend more. And I know that there's like some emotional barriers because I've gone
00:11:57through them where you're like, Oh my God, I can't believe I'm spending a thousand dollars a day.
00:11:59Cause you feel like you're getting a thousand dollars poorer and you're like risking it.
00:12:02The thing is, is that if you already know based on past metrics and the existing campaigns that
00:12:06you're running, that you get this expected return, then this is just part of leveling
00:12:10up in businesses that you take greater and greater risk. And at the same time you get
00:12:12greater and greater rewards. Okay. So let's go Facebook ads. All right. So the good news is that
00:12:19you got ads up. The way that I would try and look at these is that most times when people make ads,
00:12:25especially the creative people, they'll use Canva or whatever, and they're making it on their desktop.
00:12:30But the thing is, is that the way that you need to see it and the way that your CMO should look at it,
00:12:33you should literally text. She should text you the image of the ad. Cause it's going to be about as
00:12:37big as it's going to be on someone's phone on social. Can't even see you visit our website.
00:12:42You can't see that little, you can't even, you can barely read it now, right? You can't see the
00:12:45number. You're not going to be able to read that. That's the checkpoint things. You can't see that
00:12:48either. All we really see is picture of you and your wife and air duct and driver cleaning experts.
00:12:54That's actually the only thing that we're seeing. I'll bet you, I don't know, but I'll bet you that's
00:12:58the highest converting. Absolutely. Yeah. So, so, and that's actually still with pretty rough contrast.
00:13:04Like the 18 point is actually kind of hard to read. You don't need to worry about logo stuff for when
00:13:07you're doing direct response. Okay. Hilton head Bluffton. You want that in the ad copy as the
00:13:12headline. And then the actual image, if we're just sticking with image ads for now, uh, we want the
00:13:16free 18 point inspection to be like, boom, it says, get yours today. Just be like, get yours. And then
00:13:21that way it's all the same size. Right. And you can probably drop it today. Then I would run 40
00:13:25variations of white background, blue background, blue on white, like take all the colors that you
00:13:29have for your brand. And I would just basically just run a lot of variations there. And you might
00:13:33be amazed by this, but the picture that you choose there, just like it's kind of blocking the work,
00:13:38which is kind of over cause I want to see what you're actually doing. Right. Also you with pictures
00:13:42with customers like smiling and super happy near their HVAC unit. Like people understand what it's
00:13:46about, but I would be running a ton of different images. Also, do you do any organic like posts on
00:13:51like Instagram or I would take all the best performing organics and literally just the
00:13:56last five seconds, just tack on like, Hey, if you want an 18, like if this is cool and you want an
00:14:0118 point inspection, it's absolutely free. Just click the link and we'll come straight out to your
00:14:04house. Yeah. So just take the best performing ones, add the five seconds on the back. And then
00:14:08basically each one of them become good, typically pretty good ads because the algorithm already does
00:14:13the testing for you. The cheapest ways of testing new ads. Um, it's just like post them as organic
00:14:18and then see how they do. Now let's go funnel CRO. So this is what the page is going to look
00:14:22like. You're gonna have your little hamburger menu here. I think you could just put the number
00:14:25three, three, three, whatever up here. You want to make sure that on mobile, this is all one line.
00:14:29So there's no, no other room. Do you do free assessments or no? Yeah. Okay. Uh, we actually,
00:14:36we saw that just changing the verbiage instead of doing a free estimate of like the 18 point
00:14:40inspection. Yeah. People love that. Yeah. For 18 point inspection. And then I think we have our form
00:14:46right here underneath. They have the number of the top for the people who want to call. Cause I'm
00:14:49guessing cause you have it all over that you do have somebody who's answering those. And then you
00:14:51have your little, you know, submit whatever thing here. Gotcha. And then I would probably put a
00:14:56locations just because I'm thinking what are the most common questions that someone might ask? If
00:15:00you already know there's other ones that I might also include FAQs at the bottom. And that would be
00:15:04it. That's more like that's the page. And it should be a freestanding page. That's you don't even have
00:15:09to have it navigatable from the side. You can just be like, this is where all my ads go. You might also
00:15:13find though that if you change all the buttons on your site to redirect to this page, you'll just
00:15:17convert more of the existing traffic also in the SEO side. Yeah. So I think this honestly of like,
00:15:21of all the things I'm going to go over, I think the pricing, the ads and us doing this funnel change in
00:15:25terms of how we're directing the traffic is probably gonna be by far the biggest improvement. I think
00:15:29you probably have something in the neighborhood of a two X number over here. That's going to be really
00:15:35big. The funnel conversion we've outlined that you're going to increase Google ads. You probably
00:15:38have a ton on the Google side. On the Facebook side, we're going to do a plus plus on images.
00:15:44And we want less text and basically offer first. Basically just leave with the offer. In general,
00:15:53with marketing, like I don't want to say think the same thing multiple times. I'll say different ways,
00:15:57but the same content over and over again, like it just looks cheap, you know, for lack of a better
00:16:02term, which will impact your brain. So let's do the reactivation stuff. And then let's pull up
00:16:08the emails. We recommend a yearly free checkup for your dryer event to ensure it's working safely and
00:16:12efficiently. If you use your dryer frequently or have furry pets, we suggest cleaning it more often.
00:16:17Frequent use means more than three loads per week. If you have pets, consider more frequent clinics.
00:16:21Okay. So what's interesting about this is that this is like, I mean, what you've proven is that just
00:16:27telling people you exist tends to get more business, which is like first, first objective. I would say
00:16:33the second version of this is we says, Hey, you know, ProShine family, two things that I would
00:16:36probably consider testing. I owe you a free checkup or I owe you X amount of money. So whatever the
00:16:42cost of a checkup is you 175 or whatever, like I owe you $175. That'll get a lot of opens. It's
00:16:47like, Hey, it turns out that when you signed up, we didn't communicate a component of our offer that
00:16:52we did to other customers. And I want to make sure that we're just trying to do right by you more like,
00:16:57Hey, we messed up. Can we make it up to you? It's a different frame than like, Hey, like we're coming
00:17:01back. So nice thing is with this, you can just split test it. So you can run it when we can see
00:17:05what the open response rates are in the next week. And the way you're doing this, you're just doing
00:17:08this manually. Just looking at your list, who was the last time out and then, okay, that's fine. Then
00:17:12this, I mean, the nice thing is that creates a really easy way to do the split test. You don't
00:17:15have that no cost to you in here. So I would make sure that that is definitely highlighted. Yeah. So
00:17:19we recommend a yearly and then I put bold underlined at no cost to you because people scan these things.
00:17:24Some of the things that I thought of that are like unique angles, kind of like the, Hey, I owe you some
00:17:28money or Hey, we messed up, dot, dot, dot. Like what will make this business more valuable in the long
00:17:31run? So number one, it's savings. So if you can ask for people's bill from your existing people
00:17:39and be like, Hey, can you just send us your bills from last 12 months? And it shows before and after,
00:17:43because then you'll have a 12 month running average. It's such a stronger pay. Hey,
00:17:46this actually saves money. The reason that I think this is so compelling is that this is what,
00:17:50when paired with the larger price will make sense. We're charging 1500 bucks or $7,200 per unit. So
00:17:57it's 30, whatever, 3,400 that you're going to pay. But the average person is getting that back in 18
00:18:01months. And it's going to increase the value of the house. Cause we're going to give you this,
00:18:04you know, this little portal that'll show you all the, the, the fix it's in the mess ups or whatever
00:18:08one is I would send those stats out about savings. Okay. Number two, in terms of themes of the emails
00:18:13is I would take the exceptional ones and send those. I'd be like, Hey, this is Casey. Casey was
00:18:17at $600 a month. And now she's at one 50. You're like, Holy cow. I could use that kind of, it's like,
00:18:21Hey, you know, hit us up. It's better for your allergies and it's better for your pocket mode.
00:18:25Right. Those are three kind of strong angles, which then leads me to the second kind of stat
00:18:30that I think is worth collecting. So when we have the stat on savings, which I think will be the most
00:18:33compelling, but interestingly, I'll bet that if you had a different angle on some of the ads, which is
00:18:37like, are you sneezing a lot? Are your eyes watering? Like what are the pains of somebody who has allergies
00:18:42and I'm somebody who has terrible breathing. And so that's why, you know, I, I recognize it. And if,
00:18:46if someone says, did you know that allergies are reduced by 33% by just having better air and then
00:18:52be like contrast that with 90% of houses or past their period of time where the existing filters
00:18:58work or whatever. That's why we blow up in April when the pollen season comes and all the windows
00:19:02are open. That's big for us. So the nice thing is that if you have one or two times a year that
00:19:07you know, it's going to kind of blow up, then you actually get basically year round coverage. In the
00:19:11gym world, people want to get in shape for summer. So for us, we have summer and then we have new years
00:19:15as like two kind of polar ends, but we can get year round signups because as new years approaches,
00:19:19it's like you're advertising, Hey, when it starts, you want to start getting in shape for the new year.
00:19:22And then once new year happens, it's like, Hey, don't you want to make sure you have your
00:19:25news resolution that worked? And then it's like, Hey, did you miss your news resolution? Right.
00:19:28As we're getting into like March, April, it's like, Hey, if you want to get in shape for summer,
00:19:32you got to do it now. Right. And then once summer hits, it's hot as shit. And then they're like,
00:19:35you know what I mean? I'm going to be keen. I look like I look terrible. Hey,
00:19:38if you look terrible in your bikini, you should come in now. It's like, Hey, did you,
00:19:40and then write it then we're going right back into the year. And so we only need like one or two kind
00:19:44of seasonal pain points to go pre during post twice, basically on two cycles a year. That theme
00:19:50is what you would communicate to the CMO. All of our messaging for the next two months is going to
00:19:54be anti-allergy and that's going to be through the emails. That's going to be through the ads.
00:19:58It's going to be through Google PPC next two months. It's going to be like, okay, season's here.
00:20:01Because thing is, is also you're targeting is going to go to some of your existing customers. And so
00:20:05I'm sure some people are booking through Google search that already are customers of yours. They
00:20:08just don't know how to find you. They just Google it. Right. And so this just gives you another
00:20:12opportunity to get in front of them more times. So it was really cool to hear from Alex that we
00:20:16could start using some anti-allergy or some mildew kind of things that we can implement. Cause I know
00:20:21that this is a big issue that many homeowners don't think about until it's unfortunately too late.
00:20:25Real quick. I'm going to show you the exact 10 stage roadmap from zero to a hundred million plus
00:20:30that less than 1% of companies finish. I've now done multiple times. And so I can say with a lot
00:20:35of confidence that these are the stages as headcount increases that you need to get through. And I broke
00:20:40each of these down by eight different functions of the business, what the constraint feels like,
00:20:44like what are the symptoms of it when you're going through it. And then what steps we actually took
00:20:48to graduate. And we've done this across software, physical products, service businesses, brick and
00:20:53mortar, all of this, and it works. And it's my gift to you. It's absolutely free. And so the link's in
00:20:58the description, but you just go acquisition.com/roadmap, just enter your info and it'll spit it
00:21:02right back to you. All free. The other thing, do you have retargeting across all platforms set up?
00:21:06We're working on it. Okay. Yeah. So that would be for me, like probably be number seven cross
00:21:13platform retargeting. And the other thing is rate is we want to own all terms.
00:21:23Quick pro tip for just about anybody. If you advertise at all, or even have some level of
00:21:29word of mouth, people will search for your business or your name. And so for me, it would be like,
00:21:34I should own Hormozi, Alex Hormozi, Hormozi acquisition, acquisition.com, all these different
00:21:40permutations of things that are words or branded terms that I have been consistently marketing over
00:21:46an extended period of time. And so we just have to think, what are people most likely to search for
00:21:50if they know who we are? And we just want to make sure that we're first thing that people see,
00:21:54because otherwise you leave that space open for competitors to advertise and scoop your customers
00:21:58for you. And this also helps out businesses who don't have as strong of SEO, so search engine
00:22:02optimization, so that if your customers are searching for you, that they find you.
00:22:06And that's the point. And I'm willing to do that even if I have to pay, because some people are
00:22:09like, well, they were going to find me anyways. I don't want to pay for that click. Dude, get bigger
00:22:13problems. Like you're not going to lose money on that. Because think about the alternative. Someone
00:22:17could just outbid you on your own terms and then it becomes a problem. And I'll say this, if someone
00:22:21is outbidding you on your own terms, the good news is you'll always be able to beat them on being more
00:22:25profitable on your name. If we're looking at this stuff, I think we're looking at basically once a
00:22:30month here, one time per month. And I think that these reactivation emails, I'm going to pull this
00:22:36over, would be one is like, I owe you, which I would have a follow up to this one. So there's
00:22:48difference between like, we might email once a month, but we might have like a two or three
00:22:52email sequence just for like that little segment. Does that make sense? So it's almost like three,
00:22:57six mini campaigns more than six individual emails. And so we're like, I made a mistake
00:23:03on your account. Okay. But that's like, kind of like A and then B.
00:23:13We probably have our allergies angle and then we have our savings angle.
00:23:17And then we have our environment. You never know. Yeah. Another good one around the allergies,
00:23:25like from the polar opposite from obviously April to like the end of year, like when it starts to
00:23:29get cold is mildew smell. Because a lot of times when those heating elements start to kick up in
00:23:33electric heat, you're smelling it through the duct work. So you've got pollen and then you've got,
00:23:37would you say mildew, right? These are kind of like your two variations of your different kind
00:23:41of allergy angles. I would also consider doing case studies as the follow-up for each of these.
00:23:49So it's like, here's the stats behind this. And the follow-up email is like, Hey, here's Casey,
00:23:54who had the same issue. Maybe you should consider that. And so then this one gets us to like,
00:23:57come back. Right. Cause that's our six months. Like I would be unsurprised if it doesn't do
00:24:0420 to 30% of revenue. Yeah. Big time. And next thing with this, it's all profit. Right.
00:24:10All right. So let's talk about affiliates. Okay. All right. So walk me through your existing affiliate
00:24:19process. So right now we just have a connection with our other partners. Typically they're either
00:24:23in HVAC space or they're pest control, even remediation companies. We've made connections
00:24:29one-on-one with them. They know what we do. How'd you make the connection? Through networking,
00:24:32just in general. So we have networking events that we go to. People that we're partnered with
00:24:36refer us out to other companies that they work with. Your existing referral program has basically
00:24:40just been like, I'll send you a business. You send me a business and that's worked out. Okay.
00:24:43But how many would you say are actively sending you a business? On a consistent base in one.
00:24:47Okay. Yeah. So I I'm going to guess that's just worked out, but most of the times,
00:24:50if you want to have like a true kind of affiliate or partner program, we need to have some sort of
00:24:54offer for them. I see this as basically two potential avatars, and I don't want you to focus
00:24:57on both. I want you to like pick one, basically. We've got the events play, which is okay. I'm going
00:25:02to go to these HOAs. I'm going to go not during the time that there's an event and say, Hey,
00:25:06when do you have your HOA events? I did this house and this house in this neighborhood.
00:25:10Cause that's going to be key, right? We already did this house and this house. You can call them up if
00:25:13you want, hear their numbers. We'd love to be able to just know what your schedule is for when you have
00:25:17your HOA events, just so we can just show face, you know, we like to be a part of the community,
00:25:21blah, blah, blah, blah. But this is an outbound. Okay. Effort that you're basically it's you plus
00:25:27car or Nicole plus car going out and shaking hands, kissing babies. And basically what we want to do is
00:25:32create a calendar so that we end up getting to, you know, one to two a week, which I think you could
00:25:36totally do. The stuff that we're getting from that event. I mean, the last time we did, we booked 55
00:25:41inspections, both our CMO and Nicole. I mean, they rock that stuff. So I see this as a very good way of doing it, but
00:25:47I think we go outbound, give us your calendar for what your events are. And then it's just like, once
00:25:50you have their calendar you're in, and then every time you're there, you're like, Hey, when's the next
00:25:54one? And that way you just always go book an event from an event once you're in. Now on the partner side,
00:25:59what I want to talk about is the offer. We want to have a really compelling offer for them. Referrals,
00:26:03everyone promises no one delivers. And so it's like, you need to have something that they're going to like,
00:26:07you know, get into bed with you on. Whatever the highest gross margin thing that you can do,
00:26:13that's like kind of lower ticket. So that $175 thing, I think that you say, Hey, you can charge $175
00:26:21and you can keep the whole thing and we'll do the work. But then when you go out, you've got the client
00:26:26and then you can sell the rest of your, the rest of your work. So this is the $100 leads book.
00:26:30This is page 223. We're talking about affiliates. And so one of the key parts about making an affiliate
00:26:35work is figuring out the offer. That's going to work best for them to sell on your behalf. And so
00:26:41I have a couple of different versions of, of setting this up. I outlined them on pages 237 to 239. So I
00:26:48basically give you three different versions that you can use to get affiliates to promote your stuff.
00:26:53Now, what I'm proposing for him, he offered number two, which is they have the core thing that they're
00:26:58selling, but then they upsell for 175 bucks, his lead magnet. So they're going to sell something
00:27:04that he's going to give away for free to them, to give to their customers. And then once that
00:27:10customer comes in with that lead magnet, cause they bought the $175 thing, you then upsell the
00:27:15core offer that applies to you. The reason they do it, the other business is because they make all
00:27:19this money on the 175 bucks that they don't have to do anything for. You like it because it might
00:27:24cost you only $25 to deliver that $175 thing. So your cost of acquiring the customer is your
00:27:29conversion rate from lead magnet upsells to your core offer times the cost of delivering it. So
00:27:35let's say one out of three people takes the upsell. Well, if your cost of delivering that
00:27:40upsell is $25, then it costs you $75 per customer, which is probably exceptional math for his business.
00:27:46And it's a very good point because our technicians are trained to, even if they're doing just a
00:27:50dryer, to push the inspection, to see what's going on while they're there. Okay.
00:27:54And so this we'd give this two affiliates. So, you know, you have your, your one guy, but it's like,
00:28:01Hey, let me talk to 10 other ones. I saw that you guys don't do duck cleaning. We do. It's one thing
00:28:05to say, Hey, we're going to free business, which we will, but you also only have so much business
00:28:09to refer to. And the thing is, is long-term it's a less scalable option because what ends up having
00:28:13to happen is if you're like, well, I want 20 referral partners. It's unlikely that you're
00:28:17going to have sufficient referral volume to send them all enough business. So the good thing about
00:28:21what we have right now set up, it's another set of eyes as well for us to go through and diagnose
00:28:26their system. So it gives them more visible time on their, their units in their client's houses,
00:28:32which allows them, it allows us to say, Hey, listen, like this is, needs to be replaced,
00:28:36or this is wrong. We'll upsell your stuff if we don't do it. Right. Well, we send them right back
00:28:40to whoever sent us there. Yeah. So, you know, depending on what partner we're going there with,
00:28:45solidify some of their sales as well, which is why that affiliate with our biggest one is working
00:28:51so well. So I think that this is the offer I would approach them with and just say, listen,
00:28:55you can sell it. I'll send all my guys out. I'll eat it at a hundred percent of cost. You take all
00:28:59the money and you just know what your metrics are. Like you're still going to close 87% and it's going
00:29:03to be three, four K. So who cares? Right. You would pay 175 because the hard cost of sending the guy
00:29:08out is less than that. So what's the cost of sending the guy out? About a hundred. Okay. So your actual
00:29:13cost is about a hundred, but you're probably going to close. What percentage do you think you'll close
00:29:17into new business? Probably 75% of that. Cool. Let's be conservative and say half. If you had
00:29:22to pay $200 in terms of CAC, who cares? Right. Right. And so that's the, that would be the offer
00:29:28that I lead with because that way you don't feel like you owe them. I mean, obviously you're going
00:29:31to want to try and refer business if you can, but this at least gives them real money. No extra work.
00:29:37Like it's a compelling offer. They just send it to us and we get it done. Yeah. I don't think you're
00:29:40going to be able to do both of these. I agree. So which one do you feel you would be like more
00:29:44equipped to do sooner? Equipped to do sooner. I think outbound is probably easier because we can
00:29:50obviously have our CMO to start making those reach out calls and see what's going on. Ultimately,
00:29:54I think that this is going to be very interesting for us. We want the activation. I think that
00:29:59at a certain point of just having people say, Hey, this is the price chart. So, okay. So if we're
00:30:04looking at a timeline, it's like probably for the rest of this year, you're just going to, it's going
00:30:08to take you to spend this up. Right. And so this is probably a 2026 thing. Okay. Realistically, because
00:30:13for each of these things, you basically need someone who's full time in charge. As ugly as that
00:30:18sounds. But the thing is, it's going to be worth it because you're going to do a bunch of business.
00:30:21If you get one more partner like your current one, it's already paid for itself. And I think that if
00:30:24one time one person's full time, that's the only thing they're doing, they'll definitely do more
00:30:28than that. And then you'll run into supply constraints because you won't have enough guys,
00:30:30which we can do it. For our affiliate, I think that this is going to be a great program for us.
00:30:34And we always look at how we can get back to everyone around us. So this is going to fit our
00:30:38model and then just really explode the whole process. Let's look at our, our, our overall,
00:30:43our overall improvements. We'll prioritize them. Does that sound good? Okay. Number one is we're
00:30:50going to do price raise of 10%. So around 1650 per unit. And as long as close rate stays of
00:30:59above 65%, we're making money. Okay. Two is you're going to continue to pay off the debt. So we're
00:31:04going to, we're just going to keep it debt paid. Number three, change funnel. So optimize landing
00:31:10page and redirect buttons. So all the buttons on the site should now go to this new page. That's
00:31:18already optimized. So number four is fixed ads, which is variety plus organic best performers
00:31:33with a plus five second CTA. And then we're going to increase ad spend now that we fixed these two
00:31:41things. So it's like, let's go make a better funnel. Let's go fix the ads. Then we will increase the ad
00:31:46spend and we're just going to keep doing this kind of infinitely. This should be, there you go forever.
00:31:53And for the increased ad spend, what are you thinking? Like how much do I,
00:31:57do you want me to designate percentage base on, on that? Or the reason that I do it in this order
00:32:03is because if we fixed the landing page and we've just improved the ads you have, you might already
00:32:08double or triple your lead. And so you might not even have to spend too much because it might be
00:32:12like, shoot, I don't have enough guys, which is a problem I'd love to create for you. Then we go
00:32:15retargeting cross-platform plus own Google search terms. The last main one that we're going to do is
00:32:23just going to be outbound to HOAs. Like you can do one through four in the next, like two weeks.
00:32:32Right. This is kind of like the first thing that happens. This then is kind of happening
00:32:37anyway. So there's not really any work that has to happen. These two happen together. These two will
00:32:42happen together. And then this would be the last thing that I would do because all of these might
00:32:46even result mobile. Like, shoot, I don't even need to do these events yet. Like we're already crushing
00:32:50it on this part. So I think that this could reasonably increase profit by 25% in profit.
00:32:58That will also, once you have to not pay off the debt, that'll increase your profit by like
00:33:025%, but at least a hundred percent in headache. This might be a 2x that's sitting right here for
00:33:10optimizing the pages. And it might be even more because you have your SEO that's going to feed
00:33:14into that too. Fixing the ads and organic like this could definitely be a two to three X. I know
00:33:20that sounds wild, but like, I think you're getting by with the ads that you have because other people
00:33:26who are in your industry don't know how to advertise more than because the advertising.
00:33:32The ad spend is just going to be, you know, one to one ratio of basically you're scaling, right? If
00:33:37you can keep ROAS the same and we double it, then everything doubles down the funnel, right? This is
00:33:41probably going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of like a 10 to 20, I'll just call it a 10.
00:33:45Conservatively, I'll say it's about a 10, 10% lift, maybe 20% that you might get from the retargeting
00:33:50side. And then outbound is kind of like uncapped because you could figuratively just be like,
00:33:57I'm going to go get a hundred HOA and then like you're completely plugged in. You do that and
00:34:01you're at 10, 20 million horse here. Oh, you know what? I forgot one. So six email reactivation.
00:34:10There we go. And I think that can give us another
00:34:17probably 20 to 30% lift. Yeah. Money. And that's, and that just keeps growing. Well,
00:34:24the nice thing with things like that is that they do compound as the business grows. Right.
00:34:27And so you don't like, once that's installed, it just continues to print. Do you think this will
00:34:32help you grow? Absolutely. Sweet, man. Awesome. You feel good about this? I do. All right. Rock and
00:34:39roll, man. Drum roll, please. It's been almost a year since we filmed this episode with Corey.
00:34:43My team jumps on a call to check in on his progress and I'm going to watch it live. Hey Alex. So yeah,
00:34:48so when we were there originally for the recording, we were doing about 1.25 million in sales for the
00:34:54trailing 12 months. Currently we are on our, on our goal here for 2.3 to 2.5 a year later.
00:35:00The biggest impact that really, that we obviously went over was a lot of like my marketing,
00:35:05which we knew was an issue when we first got there. So went with a new third party that's been there,
00:35:11done that with many other companies before. So they're been amazing to work with. And again,
00:35:17our, our lead flow after kind of making some of those conversions from the landing page,
00:35:22marketing, upping Edspend, we were sitting about 120 leads a month and now we're about close to 200,
00:35:29which is really great. And they're higher quality. And then I'm excited. Hopefully in the next 12
00:35:34months, we'll be looking at another location, which is super exciting, not only for myself,
00:35:37but for my team. I got some, some good individuals here that are looking for some new opportunities
00:35:43and I'm happy to be able to facilitate that. I just want to say, I thank you and I appreciate all
00:35:49everything you do. And I love your mission, which again is like very similar to the way I go to help
00:35:55my clients. You do it for the right reasons. And that's something I can respect. Well,
00:36:01there you have it. That's Corey. You know, crushed it almost doubled within a year,
00:36:06just walking through the stuff that we went through. All the credit really goes to him. I mean,
00:36:09at the end of the day, you can watch a hundred of these videos, but if you do nothing with it,
00:36:12nothing's going to happen. So real businesses, real tactics, real shit. And, uh, hope to see you on the
00:36:18next one.

Key Takeaway

Doubling a service business from $1.25 million to $2.5 million in one year requires shifting from a demand-constrained model to a systematic growth engine through 10% price increases, optimized single-purpose landing pages, and seasonal email reactivation sequences.

Highlights

  • A 23% price increase resulted in a higher close rate and increased revenue due to higher perceived customer conviction.

  • Eliminating navigation menus and blank space above the fold on mobile landing pages prevents a 50% drop-off in conversion traffic.

  • Transitioning from free estimates to an '18-point inspection' frame increases lead quality and booking volume.

  • Emailing a customer list with the subject line 'I owe you money' significantly increases open rates and reactivates dormant leads.

  • Corey's HVAC business grew from $1.25 million to a projected $2.5 million annually within 12 months by implementing these tactical shifts.

  • Raising prices by 10% can equate to a 25% increase in net profit, providing over $100,000 in additional annual income at current volumes.

Timeline

Business Diagnostics and the Scaling Roadmap

  • A 38% net margin on $1.25 million in revenue indicates a healthy but demand-constrained business model.
  • Business growth occurs in ten predictable stages where headcount increases dictate the necessary operational functions.
  • Corey's business is currently in the productize stage with 10 to 19 employees and a focus on reducing churn.

The initial analysis separates businesses into supply-constrained or demand-constrained categories to determine if infrastructure or lead flow needs fixing first. Corey's operation shows a 99% show rate and 82% close rate, suggesting the infrastructure can handle immediate scaling. The scaling roadmap identifies common patterns like high lead costs and a lack of repeat purchase options that must be addressed at this specific stage of growth.

The Virtuous Cycle of Premium Pricing

  • Higher prices increase the perceived likelihood of achievement for customers seeking professional services.
  • A 10% price raise for a service business can result in a 25% increase in net profit.
  • Premium pricing decreases the demandingness of customers while providing more capital to deliver superior results.

Raising prices often leads to higher conversion rates because the cost signals quality to the buyer, particularly in non-luxury service industries like HVAC. This creates a virtuous cycle where increased revenue allows for better service delivery, which in turn justifies the higher price and increases emotional investment from the client. An 80% close rate serves as a primary indicator that a business is currently underpriced.

Funnel Optimization and Ad Creative Strategy

  • Mobile landing pages must prioritize the offer above the fold and remove all distracting navigation elements.
  • Direct response ads perform better when they feature high contrast, minimal text, and a clear call to action.
  • Organic posts serve as the most efficient testing ground for discovering high-performing ad creatives.

Most traffic is lost when a landing page functions like a homepage rather than a conversion tool; removing site navigation and shrinking logos recovers this lost volume. For Facebook ads, text should be large enough to read on a mobile screen, and logos should be omitted in favor of the core offer. Successful organic content can be converted into paid ads by simply attaching a five-second call-to-action at the end of the video.

Reactivation Through Seasonal Email Sequences

  • Emailing existing customers twice a year around seasonal pain points like pollen or mildew can drive 20% to 30% of total revenue.
  • Psychological frames like 'I owe you a free checkup' or 'I made a mistake' increase open and response rates.
  • Sharing data on utility savings from past clients creates a stronger financial incentive for repeat maintenance.

Reactivation is a zero-CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) method for generating profit from an existing database. Messaging should shift based on the season, such as focusing on anti-allergy benefits in April or mildew smells when heaters are first turned on in the winter. Highlighting the 18-month ROI of a service through energy savings data makes the high-ticket price more palatable to recurring customers.

Scaling via Strategic Affiliates and Local Partnerships

  • A compelling affiliate offer allows partners to keep 100% of a low-ticket front-end sale in exchange for the lead.
  • Outbound efforts should focus on securing the event calendars of local Homeowners Associations (HOAs).
  • The cost of acquiring a customer through an affiliate is the hard cost of delivering a low-ticket service versus the upsell conversion rate.

Affiliates are more likely to promote a service if they receive the full payment for a 'lead magnet' service, like a $175 dryer vent cleaning. While the service provider breaks even or takes a small loss on the labor, they gain access to a customer with a 75% likelihood of purchasing a multi-thousand dollar core service. This model is more scalable than traditional referral swaps because it provides immediate financial value to the partner.

Implementation Results and One-Year Follow-up

  • Monthly lead flow increased from 120 leads to 200 leads following landing page and ad spend adjustments.
  • Annual revenue grew from $1.25 million to $2.3 million within one year of implementation.
  • The business is now expanding into a second physical location due to the increased demand and team growth.

One year after the initial consultation, Corey reports that the business is on track to hit $2.5 million in sales. The primary drivers were the marketing overhauls and the increase in ad spend enabled by a higher-converting funnel. The business successfully transitioned from a single-operator mindset to an expanding enterprise with higher quality leads and improved team opportunities.

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