Home Service Niche Growth Strategies with Tim Brown

What this episode is about

Tim Brown, CEO of Hook Agency, shares insights on effective marketing strategies for home service businesses, emphasizing the importance of playful and emotionally engaging advertising alongside data-driven approaches. With expertise in Google ads, SEO, and web design, he discusses his journey from solo entrepreneur to leading a team of 30, and the launch of his book, "How to Become a Hometown Hero," which serves as a guide for driving traffic and leads in the home service sector.

Key takeaways

• Home services: a $6.7 trillion industry poised to quintuple by 2030. Forget automotive, this is the real goldmine!
• Entrepreneurship is a rollercoaster; it’s only fun once the profits roll in — until then, it's hair-pulling agony.
• Positioning in marketing shouldn't just be on paper; get on the roof, and customers will see you mean business.
• Niche down to scale up! Tim's agency thrived only after he focused exclusively on home service contractors.
• Playing with data is great, but remember: emotional connection in marketing makes your brand unforgettable.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Tommy (Host) · 37 min speaking
• Tim Brown (Guest) · 24 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 10:00: Tim Brown, Hook Agency, How to Become a Hometown Hero, Google LLC
2. 10:00 – 20:00: Marcus Sheridan, How to Become a Hometown Hero, Google LLC
3. 30:00 – 40:00: Google LLC, Marcus Sheridan
4. 50:00 – 1:00:00: Google LLC, Building a Story Brand, 10x Rule, Pitch Anything

Notable quotes from "Home Service Niche Growth Strategies with Tim Brown"

• In six years. Champion roof companies, HI companies, and home service businesses. Tim has consulted in helping them drive more traffic and leads.

  about Tim Brown · at 0:30

• Really had spot put in this book a lot is Marcus Sheridan and I'm a big fan. I talk to him all the time.

  about Marcus Sheridan · at 18:49

• You know Yeah. Behind these ones? Yeah, I've got a few that I love. We got Building a Story Brand.

  about Building a Story Brand · at 58:35

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Tim Brown — Person · Main guest · 1 mention · first at 0:11
  Primary interview subject discussing home service marketing, agency growth, and his book 'How to Become a Hometown Hero'—including SEO/PPC/LSA strategy and community-based 'blue ocean' marketing.
• Marcus Sheridan — Person · Referenced expert · 3 mentions · first at 18:53
  Cited as a major influence on content/organic strategy ('They Ask, You Answer') and as someone Tim Brown learned from directly; used to support the episode’s emphasis on answering customer questions and YouTube as search.

Books & papers

• How to Become a Hometown Hero — Book · Primary recommendation · 2 mentions · first at 0:04
  Tim Brown's book on home service marketing, discussed as a guide for local businesses to stand out.
  Yeah, sure. I really like marketing. It's fun and I think there's like an element of playfulness that we have to keep in all of our marketing. I think it's the best when you can be a little bit playful and.
• Building a Story Brand — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 58:38
  Recommended for its approach to making the customer the hero in marketing narratives.
• 10x Rule — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 59:09
  Highlighted for its emphasis on setting significantly larger goals in sales and business.
  Taking tests to your body and the reason I'm at a nutritionist now. but a few more that relate to business. These are my three favorite sales books. the challenger sale, 10x…
• Pitch Anything — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 59:09
  Recommended for its insights on positioning and framing in sales pitches.
  Taking tests to your body and the reason I'm at a nutritionist now. but a few more that relate to business. These are my three favorite sales books. the challenger sale, 10x…

Companies & orgs

• Hook Agency — Company · Business focus · 1 mention · first at 0:22
  Tim Brown's company specializing in home service marketing, discussed as a case study in agency growth and specialization.
  He's a CEO of Hook Agency. he's an expert in Google paid ads, SEO, and web design. has gone from one person to 30 in six years. Champion roof companies, HI companies, and home service.
• Google LLC — Company · Referenced expert · 4 mentions · first at 0:26
  Discussed in the context of paid ads and SEO strategies for home service businesses.
  He's a CEO of Hook Agency. he's an expert in Google paid ads, SEO, and web design. has gone from one person to 30 in six years. Champion roof companies, HI companies, and home service.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Welcome back to the home service expert. Today I got a buddy of mine. Um he just wrote a book, How to Become a Hometown Hero. A powerful guide to the home service marketing. Uh he's he's an awesome guy. Tim Brown. Uh visited my shop probably five, six years ago. Run into him everywhere. He's an expert in sales, business, marketing. He's based in Minneapolis. Uh he's a CEO of Hook Agency. Uh he's an expert in Google paid ads, SEO, and web design. has gone from one person to 30 in six years. Champion roof companies, HI companies, and home service businesses. Tim has consulted in helping them drive more traffic and leads.

0:40 Content strategy, persuasive web design, and actionable small business marketing are his biggest areas of expertise. Tim, it's a pleasure to have you on today.

0:50 Thank you. Keep going. No, I'm just kidding. I like it. That's a great intro. Uh, so why don't you just tell everybody a little bit about why you got into wanting to start an agency and why you wrote the book and and what you're excited about.

1:05 Yeah, sure. I really like marketing. It's fun and I think there's like an element of playfulness that we have to keep in all of our marketing. I think it's the best when you can be a little bit playful and data and data. I know I love data, too. But I think um playfulness and humanity and emotional stickiness also really help. And I I've seen your recent commercial, the Delorean playfulness, right? You you got some playfulness in your guys' advertising. I think it's really good. So I love I love uh marketing and I also I'm starting to like entrepreneurship.

1:45 You there was about five years there where I was like I cannot recommend it. Yeah. to a lot of people. But now I'm starting to like it.

1:53 Yeah, once you start making money, it starts to become more fun. But those early stages are like you're pulling your hair out going, "Why did I do this?" Most businesses don't survive 5 years. Actually, 33.8% I just read a stat earlier, make it through the 5year mark.

2:06 Uh it's crazy. Home service right now globally is a 6.7 trillion dollar industry and expected to 5x 2030. because I was comparing home service, home improvement to automotive.

2:22 Automotive is supposed to double. We're gonna 5x. It's the right industry to be in. What made you excited about home service?

2:31 Yeah, it was just kind of some of my I mean, not that exciting, but it was some of my early clients and my early clients that I liked and that I hung out with and I was kind of doing video for them. So, I was the video guy. I was I was kind of early on that though. I was the I was running around and on roofs and you know in atticss and stuff like that and I enjoyed that part. That was really really fun but it was hard to scale and it was really early and no one was doing video like as aggressively so it was like kind of harder to sell. So um and that was in addition to my background in web design and SEO but I wish I kind of love video man. I feel like I love video and I wish uh I know that it's getting more and more popular to do that. Um but I think that was part of what led me to home service because I would like take a picture of myself up on a roof, you know, with my client and then like

3:24 people more and more people saw it. It was just like that visual anchoring. So our positioning got better and better as I was out in the field with people. And so that's why you can see to this day like you're seeing me like install a water heater like get in a trench is because I am actually I I learned a hack is positioning right positioning with people not like outside and above them which is a lot of like you know sometimes marketers kind of don't get in the trenches enough so that's it's been a really good thing for our positioning um as far as like the types of people I just enjoyed being around the the contractors I was working with a little bit more. I wanted to spend time with them. I kept on upselling them and I kept on hanging out. So, as time went on, it was just like, you know, a coach was like, "Stop doing the other stuff." So, our business really started, I think, I almost think

4:18 of it as the real second start is in 2021 when we started saying no to anything that wasn't home service contractors. And that's when it kind of went, you know. So once we started saying no, it opened up a ton of stuff for us.

4:34 I think home service is a great industry and I think roofing is probably one of my favorites to date because I feel like it's garage doors were. It's just such a massive ticket. It's not organized. So many people are so focused still on insurance, but that game's slowly ending and there's rules and regulations. And I think I look at the guys around me. Chad Peterman, Chris Yaniano, Travis Ringy, even Ishmail. Uh, shoot Chris Hoffman. I mean, there's not a lot of people. Tom Howard, everybody in my group that the LSD group is involved in roofing now except for me. Uh, but they obviously know it's a massive opportunity.

5:14 Come on in, Tommy. The water's fine. You're going to love it here. Come on in. You know what? There will be a time and a place for that. But right now,

5:22 I just decided if I do one thing better than everybody else could do and I negotiate with my vendors better than anybody could do and I could make a great technician. We've got 52 guys next door

5:32 training their first month. We've got 50 coming in next month, 50 coming in the next month.

5:37 Uh if I wanted to start a roofing company, I'd have to I know a lot of stuff, but I'd have to rebuild. And by the way, you don't need to know the trade to master it, but you got to get that takes years and it takes camaraderie and it takes building a team that you trust. And I think it's foolish for people to just jump into everywhere there's an opportunity because

5:55 they're in the same place they were 10 years ago. You know, they're making a buck. They're they're living a nice house, but they're not creating enterprise value. And in my

6:04 in my history, the only reason to be in business is not for profit. It's to build enterprise value. And so many people ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch a lifestyle business and they go, "Hey, it's paying the bills and it's getting easier." And I'm like, "Yeah, you're stupid."

6:17 And you know, a lot of people listening might not like that, but uh this is my podcast so

6:25 I'm I'm a pretty big proponent of sticking to what you know. Now, that being said, I just entered HVAC hard this last few years as far as niching, but an agency, right? Still agency model and then uh rocking it. I'm I'm looking at plumbing, man. So, those are my three. I think we you we love all home services, but those are like what I'm pushing like marketing ourselves hard, too. And uh I think honestly I think you could take a marketing company to 40 million just with those three trades. That's how I feel, but I mean like I'm not going to say no to other home service contractors, but yeah.

6:59 Well, it's smart. I mean, if you as you build the ad campaigns and understand, you know, the SEO and and what's doing well, uh, how do you feel about two clients being in the same market for H HVAC or plumbing or roofing?

7:13 Yeah, in general, we try to keep it to like one per 500,000 people. That's kind of our benchmark as far as like having multiple in one. such a hard kind that's like the hardest question to ask because there's an element of or answer because there's an element of if you're going to be a niched agency you're gonna this it's going to be imperfect on that front or else you're just not going to grow. So, what we've done is kind of have that benchmark and then that was part of the reason I branched out into HVAC and plumbing, Tommy, is because I was like, if we keep on going on roofing, we're going to have every single market. And I was saying no like a lot to uh contractors where I had too many in one spot, you know. So, um yes, we said generally 100 500,000 per.

7:58 It's not a perfect answer. No one's going to like that. Well, but it's ultimately like we're try Yeah.

8:05 Well, no. keep going. So, you're trying to do what? Yeah, there's we're trying to have some balance there, right? Like where it's like we can continue growing and um and that's why we've pushed into HVAC and plumbing and and maybe you would have talked to me two years ago and whether or not I should have pushed into HVAC, I could have that discussion. It was very time inensive, very very resource intensive for me. And for me, resource intensive is like a 100,000 bucks, right? Like it was a lot of time for me as a CEO to spend on that. But it part of the reason was this exact question was trying to like be a balance of like not just being all roofers and feeling like that overweight. So some people were like, "Hey Tim, did you switch or are you doing more because you know you didn't do that well in roofing?"

8:55 You know, we've done very, you know, anyways we've done well in roofing roofing. So, it was more just like trying to answer that question better.

9:03 What uh what do you when you meet an owner, a founder and their marketing team, maybe their general manager or COO, and you start to talk to their CMO or VP or whoever's ahead of marketing, what are some things you can't stand that you're like not going to work with that company? What talk to me about the worst, talk to me about the best?

9:23 Yeah. Yeah. I think uh just kind of you know it's I used to get eager when somebody was talking a lot of smack about their last marketing agency. I would get like oo we're way better than every you know like that early pride. And then um now I'm just like okay so how many have you had in the last couple years? And if it's like five I'm like we're trying to see ourself out of that conversation because that's uh going to be messy. They're going to hate us. I mean, you you're not going to love us if you just had five agencies in two years. So, that's something that I see. Um, obviously, call answering systems. We're always trying to like partner with people to like help, you know, the homies with Power Selling Pros. Like, I'm trying to like figure out what else could be part of this to be helping people with that. Uh, you know, at the end of the day, data is a scary double-edged sword for an agency,

10:20 right? like if there is a abundance and it's just a pure like PE play sometimes they get a little like 6 months is not they can't handle six months for ROI and like SEO right and then on the other hand I think it's worse when somebody has no data and doesn't know because even if the math works out for you know close rate and booking rate and amount of leads and their goal Sometimes you lose people just because they're unsophisticated and they they're not understanding the ROI, which is our job at the end of the day.

10:56 And that's what we're trying to get better at is be a little bit more consultative. So, as time goes on, Hook and like any agency kind of just has to get more consultative and like coach people better on the actual numbers. And uh as time goes on, hopefully those are, you know, you're getting better with those numbers. In in our case, I think the only thing that will hold you back as an agency or or a home service company is like if you don't want to look at them, if you don't if you want to like hold your nose when you're looking around the numbers, but otherwise if you drill in on them, even if it doesn't look great right at the beginning, you have to keep looking at the numbers, which is something that I've had to learn, you know, like Ellen Roar style on uh on money.

11:45 Yeah. I I took pride that I didn't sign into my bank for a year. Like I don't take pride in anymore in like ignorance of money. So

11:54 I was there once too. I I'll tell you, you know, I I kind of worked this out in the last three months because we we use a special media buyer. We we've got somebody that specializes in GMBBS. We got somebody that a different company PBC, a different company organic, a different company LSA, a different company does PFP, then we've got Valpack Clipper, then we've got And so I meet with them once a month. And basically what I told him is look, number one, I need you to hold us accountable. Um, we're in so many markets, right? And I I don't think it's because of the booking rate, but if the conversion rate or average tickets off, I'm going to need to pull back. I'm going to need my VPs on this call. So, we have this come to Jesus conversation. And most of it's about internal co communication and and accountability. But then I also say if if it this isn't working, uh, we're either going to have to lower our spend

12:41 or find another partner. Uh because if we're we got the best KPIs in the industry, I feel like and not in every market, but I'm like I know our ticket averages. I know our conversion rate. I know our booking rate. And I'm going if you can't make it work with us, how you going to make it work with Joe Schmo that that's charging a third of us that doesn't answer his phone nights, weekends, early morning. They get a bunch of abandoned calls.

13:07 Like the problem I have with PPC, my my CFO came up to me the other day. He goes, "How could it be competitive? How could we have to pay $200 per CPA or cost per acquisition?" And I said, "Because nobody knows. They just say, "I need jobs today. They just see like you did. They don't look at their bank account. They're saying I want calls."

13:30 And so it's set to bid at whatever it costs. And I'm like, Adrian is my CFO. I'm like, "Trust me." They have no idea what they're paying per lead. They have no idea what they're paying per acquisition. they're just like, I don't have work. And PBC is the easiest thing to throttle a switch.

13:46 And I think PBC is pretty expensive. Um, if you're if you're just straight doing broad terms like garage repair, HVAC repair, or or fix my roof, or whatever the search terms are there, uh, you're going against a lot of companies that that either have it turned on to max bid or they're sophisticated and know higher quality scores. I mean, what is your take? SEO versus PPC versus LSA versus optimize your Google My Business page.

14:11 Oh yeah, I like to kind of do the look down the search result page and like order your efforts there first unless it gets too expensive basically. So LSA and then maps, you know, I think ads and then Google uh maps and then organic. That's kind of the way I look at it is like in in order, but it's it's totally like if somebody's swimming in leads, they have to and you know, some people are just like booked out a long ways and they haven't

14:41 Yeah. Then they got capacity issues, cancellations, and uh they can't book the call.

14:46 Yeah. So those people I might push to more organic because you should be investing somewhere. You shouldn't stop marketing, you know? So organic and brand, you know what I mean? anything with brand in it first of course a kick charge or like somebody that's really good at branding but then also the brand heavy community marketing stuff that that's kind of what this book is about and I'm not trying to get into that yet but this like so much of it is talking about those those um blue ocean community marketing things that you can do and just like that 101 for other folks the red ocean is where everyone's already competing eating and then looking for blue ocean, right? And what where is where are people not spending all their money already? Cuz it's hard and honestly it's hard and a lot of it's about local super hyper local stuff because it's hard for PE to compete with you there and they don't even know half

15:41 the time. So it's like you have to go into these little blue oceans and try to find inventory. I'm going to put that in quotes. inventory things like events and things like relationships with, you know, organizations in your community and kind of just finding inventory that doesn't exists on a spreadsheet. You know what I mean? That type of stuff. And that's that's kind of the the mood here is about finding the blue oceans for marketing and kind of giving a list of a bunch of blue oceans. Um, and uh yeah, your chapter is really good. I just read it this morning in review.

16:18 Well, it was it was short. It was narrow. I appreciated what you put in there. I mean, I I I enjoyed being part of the book. I was going to ask you when you wrote How to Become a Hometown Hero.

16:29 What were some of the largest takeaways? What did you enjoy the most about it? Yeah.

16:32 When you when you got to meet all these people, I mean, you've got you've got myself, Roger Wakefield,

16:38 uh Tim Medley, and the people go on and on and on. Yeah. Um, so there was a ton of there's a lot more charitable communitydriven stuff than I think I thought I was going to put in this book to begin with. It's probably a little bit more like uh, hey, you should be giving back than I thought it was going to start as, but I think as I tapped into like the more community marketing stuff, a lot of it is related to giving. So that surprised me. Um, I think I I was pleasantly I I feel like I was driven into my kind of understanding my ideology on marketing a little bit more which is hey chat GBT 5 just came out today how cool is that but everyone kind of thinks they're going to hack their way with with AI and I think that hey we should be doing everything we can to learn that and get agents and all this stuff we got to try all the stuff we need to do all the things but it it is helpful to understand the fundamentals,

17:43 the emotional core of marketing and what's persuasive communication. So I think really trying to understand better what persuasive communication looks like in home service marketing and then also just learning more persuasive communication for myself writing a book, right? It's a challenge to write a book. It's try it's hard to fit as much as I'd love to fit in there. Um, but it's a challenge kind of boiling it all down and try to give the most important pieces.

18:13 It's a it's a really thick book with a lot of great stuff. I haven't gone through it yet. I mean,

18:19 uh, I I did I did go through it, but I haven't read it word for word yet. Um, yeah,

18:24 you know, I know there's this craze about AI. It's the most common question I get. What are you doing with AI? And I kind of had an epiphany a while back and I said, 'You know, I'm going to go double down on traditional TV and radio when everybody, it's kind of like a magi magician. You're looking over here and I'm doing this

18:43 and we're getting involved more in community and nonprofit and we're getting involved so much in social media. You know, one of the guys you really

18:50 had spot put in this book a lot is Marcus Sheridan and I'm a big big big fan. I mean, I talk to him all the time. Yeah.

18:58 And I think he also wrote a book called Endless Customers, which came from they ask you answer

19:04 and it really is what we're doing for organic plan of growth and giving people more answers. A lot of people are self-service now. 80% of our clients, they want to understand, you know, if I was looking for a watch and I'm looking for a Rolex, I'm not looking for the cheapest price, but I want to see a price. I mean, it's literally like if you go fill out a form to get a price that used to work. It doesn't like people are like, I'm going to get my answers somewhere. There's so much more content available where people are just putting it all out there. So, we decided we're going to put it all out there and we're working hard on that. What uh what do you think of Marcus Sharon? How did you become buddies with him?

19:41 So, he became a a client of ours after he found us on Chat GBT. So he works with us with the pool company. Um and I'm I'm PBC and so that was first of all can you imagine like I I love Marcus Sheridan like I'm a huge fan and you can see it all over our website like we answer all the questions even if they're uncomfortable generally on the website and you can see all our videos are embedded. So like when he came through as a lead from Chad, you could have met like that's so cool. And then uh and then he just invited me to go offshore fishing with him one day. So and I just, you know, picked his brain.

20:21 You can imagine I just picked his brain on all the things I'm trying to do. I'm trying to learn how to be a better keynote speaker and all this stuff. But like I said, persuasive communication. Um, and I feel like I'm learning so much from him. We're we're also consulting with his uh question first group for our AMs to get better at consulting essentially. And um basically being curious, but then also on keynotes, and I think this is good. You'll like this. I think maybe this doesn't apply to everyone, but maybe because it's persuasive communication, it all it all applies.

20:57 He's he's got this system, right, where he answer he asks question. It's the clear path qu question method where you ask questions and but you know the answer. You know what I mean? And you lead the audience with questions. You know exactly where each one is going. It's like a mad lib, but you know the answer. And then you lead them. So then they come to the same logical conclusion that you wanted them to, but you didn't do it through like preaching. You did it through asking good questions. And so just picking up, man, it's so fun to pick up stuff from folks like that that just have mastered communication to such a degree, you're just like boom, you know? I I feel the same around you sometimes. And I um I think that Yeah, that's a big thing for me is just getting around people that are killing it. And I I just got to get Hormosi just 10 minutes on my business only. Dude, that was crazy, dude. like two days ago

21:52 or mo like and literally seven people in the group got to answer question or ask questions specifically about their business and him specifically on our business. He's like you're going in the right direction. I'm like yes. Uh, and your uh, your homies Lips Electric were there, Lips Electric, and they were talking so much good things about you and Aliv Systems and Home Service Freedom and uh, yeah, I don't know, man. Just getting around people, getting like I paid to be in that room. It's good to pay to be into, you know, people have said it before, but paying to be in bigger rooms with crazier um

22:29 getting around the right people from them. The dream big, you know, I I love Alex Roszi, big fan, big follower, buy every one of his books, listen to all his content. The one thing that I'm not so sure of is the people that go to that event at acquisition.com, and I would tell this to his face as at the end it becomes how do I get in bed with you on your business? And that's okay because to be completely transparent, there's a lot of home service companies in the next 5 years I'm going to want to invest in whether they're part of freedom or not. But I know my lane.

23:00 I'm not going into real estate. I'm not going into hairdresser and salons. And I'm not going into dog walkers and and you know, poop shoveling. And I feel like he's like, I've got a system that works for everything. And I feel like I really really really understand home service. I understand how to raise capital. how to use debt to make the deal better, how to negotiate with vendors. I understand the, you know, the truck side of it, the advanced depreciation, how to build the manuals. Some of these things are universal,

23:28 but now it's like a one-sizefits-all. Whatever your business is, I'm going to be in bed with you on.

23:34 And I just I I think that's a jack of all trades, a master of none. And I think you you disappoint a lot of people. I was just watching this thing called Baller Busters, and I looked at every video, and they're all about certain individuals that I know. Dude, you looking for yourself in there one day.

23:51 I don't think I think it would be hard if they really researched me because I don't make these crazy promises.

23:56 I don't you know they had uh recently um Brandon Dawson and you know he's going to sue them and but the point was that all they did is use his own podcast about

24:07 they used it against him. So I got to be what happens Tim by the way is you got to be careful what you say as you start to grow. And you know, I really do care what people think about me. Not not the random strangers and the people that live in their mom's basement,

24:21 but the people that meet me, they shake my hand, they get to know me. They might spend time with me at the office or the house. I care probably too much about what they think. Everybody says, "Don't care what other people think." And I'm like, "But they got to get to know me." And then if they don't like me, I'm like, "Well, did they really get to know me?" Because I'm super humble. I try to pay it forward. I genuinely want to see them win. Uh, and it's hard for me. And I think you're a little bit in the same direction is like you might say, "Dude, losers haters going to hate blah blah blah blah blah." But I think you care quite a bit what people think, too.

24:56 Yeah. Absolutely. But I, you know, I've lied to myself. I don't give a Yeah. Oh, I totally care. Um, yeah. And I mean like I you know you go viral every once I'm sure you get like bigger videos and like those people that have no clue who you are and they're like just talking smack. Who cares? Who cares? But then yeah, it's the people you know

25:19 and the people that have actually met you and I mean like the truth is is so many people talk nice about like everyone can say the nicest things on the planet, but then there's one guy who's like, you know, saying something weird. Hey, don't do that. we're watching. But, uh, there's somebody doing that and you're like, "What?" But it's often to enrich themselves. There's, you know what I mean? Like, it's often to like use your brand to kind of level themselves up. So I think people like use like kind of the haterade thing to like kind of hey you know this guy

25:58 also and I don't mean like you know just got to be careful about all that. Well you

26:02 but I mean like okay so can we talk about the Grant Cardone thing or no? Yeah I I don't care what we talk about. Yeah.

26:09 Oh okay. I just like there's definitely been a lot of people with the them coming into home service or like roofing and stuff like that. There's been a lot of I mean I don't know that you're talking about a genre. Let's go genre. There's a genre of person coming into home service that is not from home service and they're kind of trying to it's just a capital play. It's a little bit more of a capital play than a um than a like they shouldn't they maybe shouldn't be teaching the seminar.

26:38 Well, my problem is a lot of these guys the only way they make money is by teaching the seminar. They don't actually when the businesses get involved very few of them have success. So they make money on the education. If you think about it that's what a lot of these people do. You know Jim Leslie flies to our boardroom members there's 12 of them and spends three days with them and actually gets invested into their business and finds the biggest holes. And what we we're proud of is like if we can't make massive impact one guy was doing 22 million 3% of the bottom line. This year he's going to do 4718 to the bottom line. That's one year. And so we've really let the right businesses. And by the way, I don't want to be I want to say more than I say yes.

27:20 And by the way, if we hate doing business with you, you know what was crazy at last year's freedom is there was like 15 people that came that were just trying to sit in the back of the room and pull people into theirs. And I don't I told Jim, who cares?

27:34 I I really don't care because at the end of the day, these networking things, that's what they do. But I I think our things stand up to anybody's. And I think Jim's a genius and the team's a genius and you know we partner with El Levy and Alan Roar and and we've got the best of the best.

27:50 And not to mention we built it off the model of A1 on what works. And if we can make 25,000 calls a month work at an $1,100 average that's including zeros, door sales, and service. I know there will be a time I'm in HVAC plumbing, electrical, roofing. And I, you know, I say this as nicely as possible and I'm trying to stay humble, but no one's going to stand a chance. There's no operator out there. There's no marketing team. I don't think once I enter those industries, and I say this to be the nicest as possible, but when people find out I'm in those industries, I'll negotiate better with the vendors. People will come work for us that are better because they'll be owners of the business because I do equity incentive programs. And I just know if if I'm able to do 25 people are like, "Well, yeah, it's harder in HVAC."

28:36 Well, how much does it cost to generate a lead in HVAC? Because most of the time we're looking at a $200 acquisition cost. Maybe you're at three or 400, but your ticket average and the money you're taking home is 10 10x. So, do the math. I I So, I I just can't wait. I can't wait to spread my wings, but right now, keep your head down, focus. You know, there's a reason raceh horses, you actually put that in the book, race horses wear goggles, is because they need to focus on winning the race. You know, they wear uh blinders, right? They're blind. They're so focused.

29:09 And so many small businesses, man, they're like, "Maybe I should invest in real estate. Maybe I should invest in that bar. It's time to get the second house." And they they just they have no idea how to They don't understand discipline.

29:20 That's tough. That one's tough, man. cuz you'll see somebody whose business is good and then they're just pulling out too much money and trying to do three other businesses and it's like I don't think you can at a certain point and we're all up and like when you're in those first chunk of years you're all up and down. You can't just be shoveling money out of the business trying to like be an investor that early. And I I know that there's there's exceptions, but God, that's a tough one because it's like people I'm rooting for and then they get pulled into a bunch of different businesses and then

29:57 all of them fail. They're juggling and you drop everything. You're robbing Peter to pay Paul and everybody, you know, you hear Gary Vee, you got to have a side hustle. My problem is with a side hustle and that's why I love Dan Martell. He's like, how much do you make per hour at that business? And if it's the most amount of money, don't focus on anything else. The Gary uh uh what's his name? Uh the one thing Gary Gary Keller wrote the one thing is focus. And I always say the hustler had to die for the leader to be born is once I started committing all my life and energy to one thing,

30:33 everything changed. And I would tell all the people out there, go all in on what you're working on. Don't don't don't live above your means. If you're not willing to downgrade your If you're not willing to downgrade your lifestyle for a few years to live the lifestyle you want, you care too much about what people think.

30:53 Yeah. No, absolutely. I agree. And there's there's a lot of that like not only on the personal life side, but in business, right? Like if you have a bad year, like the ability to be flexible on the up and down, you know what I mean? Like to be able to let go of people quickly. Let's just say it. You have to be able to be willing to not get attached to your current headcount. Um, if something's, you know, not right.

31:18 One of the things I wanted to ask you is you do a great job on LinkedIn. You know, we've got X, LinkedIn, Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook. We've got all these different places to post. Why do you like LinkedIn?

31:32 So, actually, I mean, we've we've cranked on LinkedIn. Um, I don't know if I like it. Um, we spent a lot of time there back in the day. I'm actually my biggest one is Facebook. So, and I I generally push contractors to spend more time on Facebook just because the average um size. So, I post there, but I don't that's not my like biggest one. Um, and I do think you kind of got to choose to a certain degree. Like I'm starting to get a little marketing department now. Like I have a marketing manager and a video guy and you know I've started to get that in place for me. But you kind when you're when it's just you, you kind of got to choose like your one or two that you're going to go really hard on.

32:13 I did it back in the day and I I'll continue to have some presence on LinkedIn because employees. So now, like for instance, like we've got a video going out tomorrow that's sick that's just our team going to a Twins game and like talking about how much they love working here because I'm going to try to get talent, right? So when I do cool stuff on LinkedIn and even like we just did a cold plunge challenge with my team and each one of them like got to choose a charity to give 500 bucks to and like eight of them did it. Five minute cold plunge under 50 degrees. It's called the hometown hero challenge.

32:48 Go do it. Go do it. You don't have to. I will do it. Yeah. Oh yeah. No. Yeah. Tommy too. You better go do it. But anyone watching, go do it. But um that type of stuff like sticks out. So if you do things that are a little bit more casual, not that like formal on LinkedIn, it just it cuts through because everyone's used to everyone just kind of being almost not authentic on LinkedIn. And so you can really cut through the algorithm just by like doing more laid-back stuff and kind of showing your culture for what it really is. I think that that's an opportunity on LinkedIn. But yeah, my biggest one I go hard on is Facebook.

33:27 And then second, YouTube. We get a lot of business from both of those. Yeah, I didn't I didn't bring that one up. That's something where we're working on. That's supposedly the best one. Um,

33:37 you know, I know that you which one is YouTube. YouTube is we we're going to start committing. I mean,

33:43 as I Marcus Sheridan believes YouTube will be far bigger than Google in 5 years. It won't even be close. It'll become the largest search engine by far. So, I I'm we're going to commit ourselves to doing better on YouTube.

33:58 I love YouTube. And it's so simple. I mean, you know, you've already figured it out. You You figured it out a little bit. You're being humble. There's It's like the big numbers thing, you know, it's like there's big names like, you know, like it's I think one thing that's done really two things have done really well done really well for us. Office tours. You could do that. It's sick. It's so fun. And it's plus it's fun to go out there anyways. And then two, um, big number sales guys, you know what I mean? And I know that it's like your your ideal person you're talking to is usually the owner, but if you get the sales guys talking about it, too, you you kind of like get the owner by um inference. So, that's kind of my my strategy has been because those those just cut through. There's such a bigger audience for sales guys and especially these large numbers. So yeah, that's been those are some of our best content

34:50 on there which might apply. You know, you're you're on a lot of podcasts. You're on mine today. You were on Seven Figure Agency, The Roofing Academy, Service MVP. Uh what are your takeaways as you you sit here, you learn, you talk to these different people? I know all those guys. Uh why do you do that?

35:11 I know I do it all the time and I got my own reasoning, but uh I use it as a learning channel. I I actually and I I build relationships.

35:19 Yeah, definitely for me having people on the podcast, it's almost like free consulting and I use I use all I use as much of it as I can, right? I use all that information and I apply it and I hope you've seen me apply some of the stuff you've told me over the years because you've given me a lot of time and I appreciate that very very much. being on other podcasts. It's just we don't I think we always underestimate how much market there is and we think everyone knows us and they don't. You know what I mean? So that's why I'm aggressive with that is their audiences are different and it's the relationships and then it so the relationship side of it getting in with these people they could refer you right that's kind of my mindset and then secondly they have a chunk of the audience that you don't have and ultimately we just have to we probably are like at like 10% of the market knows about us even though

36:15 sometimes I would think it's like 50% because I like because people act like they know us right they act kind chummy with like oh hook you know all this stuff but most people don't know us and just like recognizing that's the truth for almost all of us it's like 10% of your market at tops knows about you and we got to try to get it to 50 so that's why I'm really aggressive like getting on other people's content and I think it applies even if you're not like trying to get on all these industry podcast you're a home service business owner getting into other people's content around the city there's a bunch of other home services there's a bunch of other influencers in your local market. I think people could do more of that, like apply these principles of what you're seeing Tommy do and I do, but apply it to the local market and who are the centers of influence. Sometimes it's not like people that have influencer in the

37:04 their Instagram, but it's another it's a remodeler who has 10,000 people following them on Instagram or something. So, it's like finding ways to just cross-pollinate audiences is the biggest thing for me.

37:16 Yeah. I talked to a guy that's super smart years ago that said, "You got to have a purpose for a podcast." And he said, "You know, the ideal podcast is for listeners that are your avatar." So for me, that's homeowners, property managers. It's it's finding out people that want to know how to make their home worth more money. Now, I haven't gone down that road because when I started my podcast eight years ago, I want to learn more about the best of the best in home service, home improvement. So, I'm not I will never end this podcast. I love this podcast, but if you're going to build a podcast, why not talk to homeowners? Why not educate them where people are listening to like the Bob Vas. I can't think of a whole lot of influencers or, you know, I like Dirty Jobs and and and all those guys. I I you get in front of your clients, they listen, they're going to use you. So, if you could build a way

38:05 to get in front of realtors, designers, architects, builders, I in your space, in your market, you'll be super successful. That's the best advice I could give is understand who your avatar is. Build value. Make sure they know you're a cool dude that just somebody you go have a beer with or go fishing with. And they're like, "Man, this guy, he's like, "Yeah, I'm going to use him." You know what I mean?

38:26 Yeah. And that's like a big theme in this book, but also just in my mindset as well for our business. I think it relates to home services is like I'm often marketing for referrals, not just leads. I think a lot of these folks, I think they get stuck. They're posting a picture with their phone number and the website and they're they want a lead every time they post. They think they're going to get a lead from them just posting on social. And it's like understanding the culture of that platform. And I think it's more posting to get referrals cuz people need to know about us. Like I connect with a lot of referral like people that could refer me. And that's kind of my mindset on this stuff. I think it's if you're posting for referrals, it also gets you leads too.

39:16 So it's not like it has to be either or. It's just if you go for referrals, leads come in, too.

39:24 Yeah. I know. It's it's amazing what happens is if you just got this this discipline and consistency to do it all the time. You you you know one of the things I was listening to the other day, it was Alexi or Gary Vee is just it might not be perfect. Just post it. It gets better. You never know which one's going to take off. You never want know. Another one is turn your employees. I mean one of the biggest things that I failed at that I'm working on right now is

39:47 if the employees aren't posting what they do, where they work, the best store they installed. Nobody knows in their circle that they do that. And if they knew that, I mean, everybody they went to high school with, they go to church with, where their kids go to school.

40:00 And if they just posted a video a month, it'd be like that top of- mind awareness

40:05 and that would be a game changer. What's your favorite strategy? What was the one thing you were like, "Dude, I never thought about that." There's probably several of them, but was there anything that was like that's genius

40:14 in the book? There's so many. I mean, honestly, like there's like 20 things in here that like I Yeah, I wouldn't have come up with myself. That's why it's like the 27 different people added a lot. One of the things I like is uh John Cak. He's big in roofing. Um him talking about incentivizing the the introduction versus the deal. So, a lot of people's like referral thing is the if the deal closes from somebody,

40:45 but but he's pushing like here, get get a bunch of $50 gift cards and give it to them as soon as they make the introduction, which I thought was, you know, pretty smart. That's definitely one that I feel like we've started to experiment with that with our with ourselves a little bit. And I think that it is very relevant.

41:04 But there's so many, man. There's like literally like there's I got a ton of information by making this book, which is cool. And some of it I had to research. There's a few chapters in here. I was like this this would really flesh out the the book, but I didn't know it from the bottom, you know, yet. So, like for instance, like how to be more funny because I talk about funny in the book and and I talk about like cute animals and babies and using all the brain chemicals, right, to get more memorable. And the funny thing is like I'm still working on that, right? Like I I would love to get funnier and I believe it's a skill we can cultivate.

41:41 So part of it was like learning and I'm still learning. I'm trying to like I'm gonna I'm hoping in the next few months to attempt standup, you know, I'm trying to do an improv class. I'm because it's so it's so valuable in communication. Like humor is so valuable and so anything I can do to cultivate that to me is like I I just say the the funniest people in the world are not poor.

42:08 Well, one of the things that I know was always funny is if when you can make fun of yourself. So yeah,

42:14 whenever I get the chance I I I try to like bring down the room and you know, we could be talking about anything and I'm like, "Yeah, well I've got ADHD. I'm barely able to focus on this for the one minute at a time. And by the way, I've got 90 slides and you're probably going to get lost because I can't help myself. Whatever I could say. No, but what what humor is to me

42:36 is when you could explain a situation, have people live it with you and say, "Yes, that's me." Like, have you ever walked into an airplane and people you start with everyone's been How many of people here ever flew in an airplane? Well, everybody. So then you start out where everybody knows her.

42:51 How many of you you have ever farted in front of your wife or girlfriend and like you know and everybody's like thinking about that time. So you have them live that moment

43:00 and it's so funny like I used to tell people you know thatole that gets up like right when they park in the bell then they stand up in the aisle like you just why why is that guy standing up in the aisle? I go that's me. I'm the guy standing up in the aisle. I'm the guy you hate.

43:13 Yeah. And so I I love and I'm not very funny. It's I think why do you do that? Can we discuss that for a second? Why do you do that? Oh,

43:20 well, number one, I'm 6' three. I'm 6 foot three. Yeah. And the big deal is, I mean, look, I'm anxious to get out of the plane. I'm literally like stretching out. I always touch the ceiling and I put my hand straight up against the ceiling and I'm like, I want to get my bags out. You know, the other person stands up and then you can't put the damn thing down because they're standing in the way. And you're like, excuse me. And I like to have my backpack on. I'm just I I just I I only sit in aisle seats. I do never sit windows unless it's like if we're booking a flight that Ashley and Bri know I'm only aisles and I want to have it's just something about being able to get up.

44:00 David Carroll always posts memes from Dope Marketing. Shout out always posts memes about about that guy. And so I I wonder if do you ever comment back to him on his memes or have you seen his memes on that?

44:14 I see Dave text me he texts me a couple times a month. He's a good buddy. I spent time with him in Minnesota. He's been over my place a million times. Like I I love hanging out with them. They're great people. I enjoy I you know what's really hard is like no matter if I do business with people or not and I've done a lot of business with Dave over the years and like I just like it like look

44:34 I would not be insulted and I mean this from the bottom of my heart if if you were in my market and you didn't choose me as a garage door vendor like it wouldn't break my heart like I put friendship so much above doing business and I'm very fortunate because a lot of people and this is the craziest thing the last two years they don't let me know they're using my company. They just text me afterwards and say, "You did a great job. You just we just paid you 7,500 bucks." And I love that. It's like if I own a bar, I'm not going to say, "Dude, how do you get me in there and get me a bottle service at half price?" I'm just going to text you afterwards and say, "Dude, phenomenal job. I spent five grand at your bar. You know, I took my whole crew there. We had a blast." And

45:15 I I love the people that do it to me. And it's not it's not I don't expect it, though. I I would never say you're not my friend

45:22 because you didn't use me. I I just I think I I hold friendship much above that. And look, if you want the cheapest and you're selling your home. If you called me, I could do it for you and I would do it for you, but ultimately, look, maybe we weren't available. I don't really care what the situation is because doing business with friends is hard, as you know, and family.

45:41 Yeah. Well, yeah, absolutely. And you you really like we don't get that many like ultimately I've got like three real or five real like closer friends, right? It's like I'm not squandering that anymore because I've hired people. You know what I mean? I don't do that. I don't do that like as employees because it's scary. Um

45:58 well, I'll give you some advice. A great job out of my house. I will throw that out there. You I we we hired A1 Garage and they did an incredible job for us.

46:06 Thank you. I really like I think I think they got away with we got away with just a repair.

46:13 Well, good. It was nice. And I I'm not I I appreciate like because it was like not that expensive. I was like kind of like Tommy's company must be pretty expensive, but it was actually really good um service and deal and the guy the guys were super nice. That's probably the most notable thing. So, whoever was at her house, if you remember who came out or whatever, I I think I posted a picture. But they were just very nice and that's that matters because I'm uh you know, it's my wife often dealing with that. I'm like, I don't want it to be

46:42 high pressure high pressure sales guys. Yeah. No, we don't do that. Um here's a a piece of advice. If you are ever going to hire friends or family,

46:50 there's two things you need to do. Number one, you don't work for me. I'm going to give you somebody else to be a direct report. Number two is we're going to do this as like a prenuptual agreement. We're going to have a walk away that we both agree. And when that happens, we got to agree we're going to still be able to have Thanksgiving together.

47:05 And I'll tell you, it's the hardest thing in the world. I hired a buddy at another company. I ended up getting him a job. And he called me 18 times a day. And I'm like, you know what I do now? I when we see each other, he doesn't talk to me about work. And I was very clear about that about this other career that he's in.

47:21 But I I started hitting ignore. I'm like, I'm never going to talk to you about business. Period. Never call me unless you want to talk about life.

47:30 And it it's tough. But here's the deal. You knew that going in. You put down the the things

47:34 and if you did it correctly, cuz there's some great people that, you know, will do great. And I'll tell you, it's 50/50 because they know fathers and sons that don't talk to each other anymore

47:43 because of business. So, it's not easy. And I would I I do I appreciate your five best closest friends that you keep the you keep yourself guarded. And I think you're doing the right thing.

47:55 Yeah. Hey, if we got five close friends at this age, I feel like you're doing really good. I mean, it's it's hard as a it's hard out here for a pimp, you know, to have adult male friendships. I mean, seriously, dude, we made a new friend like uh a new couple friendship recently, like for real friends. And like we're all kind of like similar industries and talking about the things we like and stuff, but I'm like this is the best. It's so good when you can make a real adult friends. So it's a beautiful thing. And people should I think it's important super important to try.

48:32 You know, me and Bri randomly every like few months I'll be like, "So, who's your best friend?" And she'll ask me and I'm like, "You know, we go through these seasons of life. Of course, the kids I grew up with were still close and the that could go through, but really what it's kind of came down to if you cut talk to who am I communicating with? I mean, me and Aaron Gainner are about as close as you come. I mean, he flies out, his son's going to ASU. We confide on each other. We don't hold back from each other. We never talk down about one another in public.

49:03 Uh we we confess each other's dreams. So, she she I I've learned to say, "Who is my best friend?" Because I don't I don't go like this, Tim. Let's pinky swear that we're best friends like we used to do when we were kids. But it's like who you putting time, energy, and focus into

49:18 and who's actually delivering. Like he's like, "Dude, make make me a deal that you're going to work out at least 5 days a week the next two weeks."

49:25 And he goes, "I'll do the same and I'll send you videos." And I say things to him to motivate him and we want to see each other win.

49:31 And that's rare these days. It's rare. Oh yeah. I agree 100%. Tim, um G gainer plumbing. Plumbing, baby. I love

49:42 plumbing is where it's at, man. Go after them. Yeah, dude. In a perfect world, I'd love to do business, but you know what's nice about once the money comes, and I will say this is if you partner with somebody and money's kind of off the table because you guys have done so well, it makes it so much easier.

50:00 And if you're sitting almost as a board seat versus in the business, that's why I think Russell Brunson or not Russell Brunson um

50:07 uh, what's his name? Sir, Sir Sir Richard Branson, he just hires top down and he's not involved. He hires the right people. They build the team and it's not emotional and if you're not doing great and losing money, he you know, he already discussed I'm going to have to replace you before you got started. That's where I want to live in the future.

50:25 Tim, how does uh I think I'm just going to say one last thing about that. I think all of us could do better to think of ourselves as board members, stakeholders of our business, not just CEOs. You know, I think that that's a huge unlock for me as I've started to like think that way and and and increasing enterprise value, right? Like I think thinking that way and not being so in it is a beautiful thing when when people can get there. For sure. I agree.

50:55 You know, money is a tool, but but I know what you guys do. you travel around and and believe it or not, money is a tool to have fun and travel. Money is a tool for fitness to get the best trainer, take the right supplements, the right peptides, to get the right stuff at the Nexus scan, that cost money.

51:11 You know, if you think about family, when you want to go on vacations and you know the it's not only money, it's time, but it costs money and faith. I mean, if you're giving 10% to the church, that costs money. and almost everything. It's a tool, but it's like what's nice about it is the reason I say enterprise value is if you worked hard for three years and got your business to $2 million of Ebida and got a 6x, that's $12 million.

51:36 And I just don't think people just don't they don't think about the end in sight. They pay themselves a ton of W2 money versus building real a massive exit that could it could be 5 million, it could be 20 million, it doesn't really matter. And they're like, I want to get to 100 million. And I'm like, why? and they don't really have an answer because you proved this possible. Well, I'm not married. I don't have kids. Never been married. And uh it's something I had to do because, you know, it's something I decided when I was four years old. But at the end of the day, don't live my life. You know, write down the reasons why you want to build. Imagine your parents are at an age you can still have fun with them and you make enough money.

52:14 I've talked to you about this. I'm like, you know, a lot of people say, "I'm just I'm just having fun. I don't really have an exit. I don't really It's like saying, "Hey, I'm going on a trip, but I don't know where I'm going. I don't I'm not going to pay attention to the gas." Yeah.

52:25 And who cares what mile per hour I'm going? Who cares if I get a ticket? It doesn't make sense to me because I've been there. And the reason I could talk about this, Tim,

52:34 is I've been exactly there. I don't know where I'm going. I'm just driving and I'm just trying to learn as I go. And now I'm very, very good at understanding the destination. And it's not a lifestyle business. It's not a career for me. There's a goal. There's a site. I want to make a lot of millionaires in the process. I want to service a lot of homes. I want to be a trusted adviser for my clients. I want to build a legacy. But at the end of the day, yeah, the more money I make, the more people I could help. I could teach a lot more people to fish. And I just think it's totally wrong when people just say, "Oh, yeah, just, you know, figure out as you go. You know, things will start coming to you." No, have a plan. I don't care if it's a six-year plan, 8-year plan, three-ear plan. Put it together. build enterprise value and share the wealth with the people that work for you to help build it and your family.

53:20 Absolutely. I got a seven-year plan right now. 2032, baby. That's 2032. But I mean, like,

53:26 yeah, I've got I've got a clear plan. I want to sell this thing for 20 million. So, if you know anyone um and we'll figure it out and we might go past we might go past that. I think I think this thing could be 50 and I would be happy to overlap, you know, for a while into that whether it be sooner than that or a little later than that. But I'm trying to what I want at the end of the day is continuity because I see private equity sometimes ruin stuff and I would like continuity. That's the toughest part to find is continuity between like our serviceoriented mindset and what we're trying to do and high you know customer service to what it would be. I would I would really love and I would hold on to it if I can't find that continuity.

54:12 Really love the next buyer to like have continuity with what we've tried because that's what I think the brand that's what I think brand is is like the higher

54:21 customer service like in you could have both if you're a premium premier service with great relationships you could charge it too number one. Number two is private equity has more stress than you have. You might have to say, "I got to report to my customers." They're reporting to uh municipalities that took the whole teachers fund and put it in your business to make their money grow. And they've got to have weekly meetings with their limited partners. And I think people just think, "Oh, private equity is so evil." No, they're investors just like in real estate, just like in bowling alleys and strip malls and all these other things. Like you think just bec Yeah, there are a lot of companies that say we're going to cut our way to the top. There are great ones out there, too. It's like house flippers. that are horrible ones. It's like plumbers that are horrible ones

55:05 and they just get a bad rep. And there's venture capital and there's silent investors and there's all kinds of different investment thesises, but there there's hedge funds

55:12 and I just I'll tell you, I found a great partner. I'm going to find another great partner and and they they leave me alone. They let me run the business. They give me a lot of insights when I need it. They've got a lot of capabilities and you know, they've got a deeper checkbook which makes it easier to grow. And I'd rather have a smaller piece of a massive pie than own everything. And I've learned to be very humble, ask a lot of questions, and show up here

55:34 and let them guide me. They've been where I want to go. So, not in every aspect. They can't run this business. They know that.

55:40 Yeah. So, I I I do agree with you. Continuity, making sure you're running towards the same, not taking advantage of everybody around you. There's a lot of people, man, Tim, in my industry, I'm either loved or despised. They go, "That guy charges a lot."

55:54 But they never say how good he takes care of his employees. None of them ever say that. that they drive new trucks and they get to train every day and they're buying houses and they got a bunch of PTO and we take them to Mexico and we take them to eat and we cook breakfast for them. They don't talk about that. They just say they take advantage of their clients and the problem is they're installing inferior parts. They can't get out there for a week. They can't don't run warranty calls. Their cars are breaking down. They can't afford to market. That's why their guys quit because they can't keep them busy. They only talk about the little side they see. And it just shows how non-intellectual they are. shows and I was going to say stupid, but I shouldn't call them that because they just they don't know what they don't know yet.

56:31 Yeah. Well, like you said about the cost per lead thing on Google ads. It's like if they don't know their numbers, they might be bidding it up and it's actually dumb.

56:40 Oh, yeah. It's the same with it's the same with these prices. If they're they're being ridiculous. Some people are being ridiculous and you should not follow them.

56:50 Well, I don't think you're a guy that likes the cheapest. I I doubt you'd say, "Let me buy the most expensive." That's the deck and it cost a fake plywood. It never warps. You'll never have to paint it. And this is good with a 40-year warranty. We've been in business 62 years. And the average deck, if they show me the evidence, needs to be recoded every year, and you're going to have to replace it every 10 years. What's the better investment? It's It's the one.

57:23 As long as you got financing, I'm I'm down. As long as you got financing, I'll do it

57:28 100%. I'll do the higher thing if you give me financing. Well, here's the deal, brother. I think you wrote a spectacular book. Obviously, I got two books ahead of it, but I've gone through it

57:40 and I love what you did there. You you you were looking out for the small guy, looking for guerilla marketing, looking at ways to improve their business. Let's just not outspend yourself. Um, when people want to get a hold of you, Tim, what's the best way to do that?

57:54 Yeah, check out hookaggency.comcall to book a call now. And we are, like I said, HVAC, plumbing, roofing, and um, we have some other home services as well. But, uh, we're we're custom, consistent, and transparent. But, if nothing else, this book is a is a steal. And really, we spent a lot of time on it. It's like 13 14 bucks on Amazon and it's got a lot of really good takes from other people. 27 home service industry leaders. I think you will enjoy it. Or you can go to hometown herobbook.com

58:30 and u is there any other books that help shape your life other than the E-Myth and um

58:35 you know Yeah. Behind these ones? Yeah, I've got a few that I love. We got Building a Story Brand.

58:41 Yeah, Donald Miller. Donald Miller. There's a 2.0 out now. incredible about make making the customer the hero. Um, hey, this one's good, but it might not be my normal one. The power of ownership. This one's about um HRV and take like heart rate variability and taking tests to your body and the reason I'm at a nutritionist now. Um, but a few few more that relate to business. These are my three favorite sales books. the challenger sale, 10x rule, and pitch anything. So, those ones are all really good. One is about challenging people to to uh to ch change their mind and then you there you own that idea in their mind for the rest of your life. Setting way bigger goals and how big um positioning and framing is in your pitch. Those are my favorite three sales books.

59:35 I love it. And uh we talked about a lot of things, Tim. I'm going to let you close us out with what's ever on your mind.

59:43 Yeah, just gratefulness, man. I think so much vision, right? We want we have vision our lives. I think we should also have a vision for the energy in our relationships and the way we're treating people around us and also going towards our ideal state. you know, um, a lot of it has to do with fitness and and nutrition and for me meditation, but it's like, what is my energy going to be like once I get all the things that I dream of? Let's say you're going to get all of them. Let's say for a second, you're going to get all of these amazing things that you've put in your vision, you've written it down, and you're consistently pushing on it. What else could you add? Could you add this is what it feels like between my relationship with me and my wife and my kids and how could I show up in my relationship? So a vision for relationships and personal energy not just things because I think things are

1:00:39 great and then additionally aim bigger. I love it man. I've been thinking a lot about what good is all this this wealth without health, you know, showing up, being optimistic, smiling, energetic, passionate. So, you hit the nail on the head, my brother. I really appreciate you doing this today. It was great stuff.

1:00:59 Yes, sir. Thank you for having me. All right, my man. I'll talk to you soon.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Home Service Niche Growth Strategies with Tim Brown"?

Tommy (Host), Tim Brown (Guest).

What is "Home Service Niche Growth Strategies with Tim Brown" about?

Tim Brown, CEO of Hook Agency, shares insights on effective marketing strategies for home service businesses, emphasizing the importance of playful and emotionally engaging advertising alongside data-driven approaches. With expertise in Google ads, SEO, and web design, he discusses his journey from solo entrepreneur to leading a team of 30, and the launch of his book, "How to Become a Hometown…

What is mentioned in this Home Service Expert episode?

8 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Tim Brown, Hook Agency, How to Become a Hometown Hero, Google LLC, Marcus Sheridan, Building a Story Brand. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Home Service Niche Growth Strategies with Tim Brown"?

The episode runs 1 h 1 min; the transcript is about 12,443 words in 165 timestamped sections.

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