0:01 hey guys I got a solo episode for you
0:02 today I wanted to answer somebody's
0:04 question that was asked recently about
0:06 why we quit doing door to door marketing
0:08 we did tons of door to door it was the
0:09 primary driver growth for a company and
0:11 then in 2020 we quit doing door to door
0:12 and we haven't brought it back so in
0:15 this video and this podcast I want to
0:17 answer why we did door to door for so
0:19 long why we quit doing door to door why
0:20 we haven't brought it back and my
0:22 thoughts on it so hope you enjoy the
0:28 it in 2019 our business generated about
0:30 $3 million in sales from door to-door
0:32 marketing which accounted for about half
0:34 of the business that we did across our
0:36 painting companies in 2020 we shut down
0:38 door too door marketing and we haven't
0:40 brought it back the other day somebody
0:42 asked me why did we stop doing door
0:44 to-door so in this video I'm going to
0:46 answer that our whole company started
0:48 with door-to-door marketing back in
0:51 college from 2005 to 2010 I worked at
0:52 College Works painting and we generated
0:54 two and a half I generated $2 and half
0:56 million doll worth of business over
0:57 those years with me and my team of
0:59 interns and we generated all of that
1:00 business through door to door marketing
1:02 we did it because it was cheap or
1:04 essentially free if you did it yourself
1:06 and it was easy and you could get leads
1:08 and you could choose your exact
1:09 neighborhoods exact houses you wanted to
1:10 work on it was just an easy way to
1:12 generate business so when I started my
1:14 painting company fo Hills painting in
1:17 2010 that was the easiest way to start
1:18 it didn't cost me anything to start up
1:20 when I wanted to start the company I
1:22 simply hired a girl named Faith we went
1:24 knocking on doors for three hours six
1:26 hours total three from me three from her
1:28 I got 11 leads set up six estimates
1:29 booked five of them and in the first
1:32 first month I made profit then anytime I
1:34 needed more work or more money I would
1:36 go knock on doors sell a job produce the
1:38 job and then make more money because
1:39 when I started my painting company I
1:40 didn't have plans to build a big
1:42 painting company I just wanted to be
1:43 able to travel I didn't want to have to
1:45 get a real job and I could basically
1:47 just get leads anytime I wanted
1:49 essentially for free and even when I
1:51 hired other people to do it that was
1:53 really really cheap didn't cost me much
1:55 money it was one of the most efficient
1:56 ways that we could spend our money and
1:58 get leads and at low scale it was really
2:00 easy to do and so then I ended up hiring
2:02 a sales rep Ben who's now my business
2:04 partner and his job was to hire his own
2:05 door to-door marketers they would get
2:07 leads give them to him he would set the
2:09 estimates and sell the jobs and hand
2:10 them over to me and I would hand those
2:12 jobs to Paul our production manager and
2:14 we just grew our business that way so
2:15 that's how we built our business and for
2:19 years from 2011 2012 2013 14 15 and on
2:20 we just kept getting better and better
2:21 at Doo marketing and by the time we got
2:25 to 2019 we were generating about 40
2:27 estimates per week we did about $3
2:29 million in sales from door too but it
2:30 was starting to get
2:32 unsustainable um at just Foothills
2:35 painting we had that's where we were
2:36 generating about 40 estimates a week was
2:39 just at Foothills and we had seven or
2:40 eight people going door too and they
2:43 would go out 10 to 12 hours a week so we
2:45 would have people knocking on doors 80
2:47 hours a week we were burning through
2:49 territory so fast that it was just
2:51 getting inefficient we weren't going to
2:53 be able to scale it any more than that
2:55 so then in late 2019 I went out to a
2:57 boot camp for door to- door with Sam
2:59 tager and door door experts and at that
3:00 boot camp they were talking all about
3:01 door to door marketing and I realized
3:03 like man how we had been doing door
3:05 to-door was working for us but these
3:07 guys were robing on on a different level
3:08 when it comes to door too marketing and
3:11 door to- door sales you know Sam and the
3:13 crew a lot of those guys worked at viven
3:14 Sam was one of the top sales guys that
3:16 are top team leads at Vivant which is a
3:17 billion dollar company doing all
3:19 door-to-door marketing mostly in the
3:21 alarm system space but now they're doing
3:23 solar and other things I believe anyway
3:24 the point is that they were like on
3:26 another level and so when I had an
3:28 opportunity to hire Sam for Consulting
3:30 and in-person Consulting days um I
3:32 pulled the trigger on it at that event
3:33 you know and I paid him a bunch of money
3:36 to come out and meet with us one day a
3:38 month for six months plus some calls in
3:40 between to coach us up on how to elevate
3:41 our performance and that's what we
3:43 started doing in January and February of
3:47 2020 um Sam and Jake Bennington um two
3:49 awesome guys came out worked with our
3:50 team and we started implementing new
3:52 practices and the results were amazing
3:54 like we were getting better and better
3:57 results by like 200 250% um better
4:00 results and so the investment made was
4:03 going to pay off huge and then we had
4:05 something happen called Co and when Co
4:06 happened we had a choice to make we had
4:08 a decision to make and it was keep
4:10 knocking on doors and keep pursuing this
4:12 or stop doing it and just the choice we
4:14 made um was to stop knocking on doors
4:16 during Co we felt like there was a lot
4:18 of a lot of customer like we could still
4:20 get leads doing that but our team wasn't
4:21 super comfortable with it customers
4:22 weren't super comfortable with it we
4:24 didn't want to tarnish our brand and
4:27 that may be just uh our own illusion and
4:29 our own like concerns cuz I know there's
4:31 a lot of people who like crushed it with
4:33 door too door through covid um I know
4:36 Jake Bennington who was coaching us like
4:38 they did amazingly well selling Pest
4:40 Control door to-door that was like
4:42 record-breaking years but we chose to
4:44 stop and at the time we had about 25
4:46 full-time employees between sales
4:48 production managers office managers and
4:49 we were really committed as a company
4:52 not to lay anybody off but to still make
4:54 profit and so we just took all of our
4:56 resources as a company and we went all
4:58 in on like every other form of marketing
4:59 you could we were doing lawn signs and
5:02 fly and Facebook ads and SEO and we were
5:03 doing direct Outreach to people and like
5:06 the company rallied together to say hey
5:07 we need to hit these targets and we
5:08 can't do it door to door how are we
5:10 going to do it and it only took us about
5:13 four weeks to turn it around where we
5:15 had like a dip for about two weeks when
5:17 door to door got totally shut down and
5:18 then a couple weeks later we were back
5:21 at like full estim estimate capacity our
5:23 company that year Grew From 5.8 million
5:25 in 2019 to 7 and A5 million in 2020 so
5:27 we actually grew the company through
5:29 covid while getting rid of door to door
5:32 was half of our business and so coming
5:34 out of that you know Co was still kind
5:37 of a thing in going into 2021 and
5:38 honestly like marketing wasn't really
5:39 the problem for us then we started doing
5:41 a lot of work on improving our sales
5:42 rate improving our production systems
5:44 our customer experience and we just were
5:46 focused on other things and then when we
5:49 needed more marketing it was easier for
5:51 us to do more of the things we were
5:54 already doing than to bring doorto door
5:56 back you know the thing about door to
5:57 door marketing is it's amazing but to do
5:59 it at scale which like that's where we
6:02 we were at um it was just it's more work
6:04 um and time was something we didn't have
6:06 a lot of because we were focused on a
6:09 lot of things and so for us in you know
6:11 going from 2020 to 2021 whenever we
6:13 needed more marketing we just got we
6:15 just like did more of what we're already
6:17 doing which was Facebook ads was a big
6:19 thing or more lawn science more flyers
6:21 and also because we were working so much
6:22 on our customer experience we were
6:24 getting more referrals and more reviews
6:27 and more repeat business and so from
6:31 2020 to 2021 22 23 24 our companies have
6:33 grown substantially we went from 7 half
6:35 million to 9 million to 12 million to 16
6:36 million to 23 million and then we
6:38 acquired some more companies so now
6:40 we're over 30 million and marketing has
6:42 not really been like the biggest
6:46 bottleneck in our company now we are
6:47 getting around to that point where like
6:49 marketing is starting to become one of
6:51 the biggest bottlenecks and I do think
6:53 that there is there is a place for us to
6:55 bring door to-door back into our
6:57 organization and to be able to do it in
6:59 a way that's really efficient really
7:01 aable so that's on my radar to actually
7:03 come back and bring that back into the
7:06 fold because I think it's it's just so
7:10 good so that's why we stopped and it's
7:12 just because if it there was easier ways
7:15 to accomplish our goals at the time and
7:17 uh that's been that CA the case for the
7:18 last four or five years so we've had
7:20 incredible growth marketing hasn't
7:21 really been the problem once it starts
7:22 being the biggest constraint I think
7:23 there may be a place for us to bring
7:25 doorto door marketing back and do it in
7:26 the right way and if I'm going to do it
7:27 in the right way I'm going to go work
7:29 with someone like Sam tagger or the or
7:31 his Consultants or the people I don't
7:32 even know how he does everything now but
7:34 that organization is dialed and there's
7:36 a lot of experts out there in door
7:37 to-door sales and dooro marketing that
7:39 we would want to bring into our company
7:42 to help us do it the right way now
7:45 that's our journey but if I was starting
7:49 brand new like if I lost everything to
7:52 tomorrow and I had to start over again I
7:55 would start by building a door to-door
7:57 marketing team there's just no question
7:59 about it like that is how I would start
8:01 because I could go from zero to 100
8:04 essentially overnight um I would also
8:05 launch Facebook ads and and start
8:07 running that and I would staff my team
8:11 as fast as possible but it's so cheap so
8:13 there's there's virtually no other
8:16 marketing avenues that you can get that
8:17 kind of a return so the cost of
8:20 marketing is really low on door to-door
8:21 at the beginning you can keep things
8:23 really simple because you can choose
8:25 your customers and so because we can
8:28 choose our customers like we can say
8:29 these are the neighborhoods we want to
8:31 Target these are the houses we want to
8:33 do they're really easy they're big job
8:36 sizes they're all centrally located and
8:37 because we can choose our customers in
8:40 our neighborhoods we we have higher lead
8:41 conversion because these are all the
8:44 types of jobs we want and can do all of
8:46 our crews end up working in the same
8:48 neighborhoods we put lawn signs around
8:49 all the same neighborhoods we do flyer
8:50 drops around the same neighborhoods we
8:52 brand job sites in the same
8:54 neighborhoods and we get this multiplier
8:55 effect in these neighborhoods that we're
8:57 targeting with door Todo we can also
8:59 start to then use all of that cash flow
9:00 and grow the business really quickly to
9:02 get to the point where we're hiring a
9:04 team where I've got sales reps estimate
9:06 and estimator sales reps estimators
9:08 project managers office managers I can
9:10 get my company to that stage really
9:13 really fast with door to-door and then I
9:15 can hire somebody or I can start doing
9:17 more other types of marketing to then
9:19 scale it further for the next sales rep
9:21 and the next project manager so if I
9:23 wanted to just Sprint my way to3 million
9:25 a year I've got to get my company to 30
9:27 estimates a week I would probably plan
9:29 on getting 15 of those estimates a week
9:31 for door too and then the other 15 from
9:35 SEO referrals repeat clients job site
9:36 branding and flyers and lawn signs
9:37 around neighborhoods and then if I
9:39 needed two Facebook ads and that would
9:41 be it like that's that's the marketing
9:42 mix you would need to get to 30
9:43 estimates a week and then the only other
9:45 thing I'd have to do is staff that up
9:47 with a couple sales reps couple project
9:48 managers and an office manager and I
9:50 think we could basically get to a $3
9:53 million run rate in like six months
9:54 because it just wouldn't be that hard
9:55 now we can do that faster because we
9:57 have we have all the systems I have all
9:59 the knoow I have all the process so it's
10:01 easy for me to to scale that really
10:02 quickly because I don't need to rebuild
10:04 all that I could just lock myself in a
10:06 room for a week and write out all those
10:07 systems and processes and have them
10:09 recruit the people train them and we
10:12 could be up and running so I still think
10:14 that door too is like the biggest
10:16 opportunity you have when you're in the
10:19 small stages of your company it's super
10:22 cheap super effective you can choose
10:23 your clients you can make and then
10:24 therefore you can influence your job
10:27 sizes you can Target and totally take
10:28 over neighborhoods I just think it's
10:31 like a no-brainer now if you don't want
10:33 to do it fair enough but you would be
10:35 choosing to move slower because you
10:37 absolutely can move faster if you're
10:39 willing to go and do this and you don't
10:41 need to do it for that long you can go
10:43 do door Tod door for a couple months and
10:44 then all of a sudden you've got the
10:45 money and you're starting to get so busy
10:47 with estimates that you can just hire a
10:48 couple people and they don't even need
10:50 to do that good of a job to get you
10:51 amazing results you could have two
10:53 people out there 10 hours a week that's
10:56 20 hours they'll get 20 leads set up 12
10:58 or 15 assments from those 20 leads and
10:59 like that's
11:01 that's huge like that's enough to get
11:03 you to a million dollars a year so
11:05 anyways that's that's why I quit door to
11:06 door I didn't stop doing it because it
11:07 doesn't work I didn't stop doing it
11:09 because it's not incredible that's how I
11:11 would start a company if I was starting
11:12 it again or at low stages because it's
11:15 just the it's the fastest most direct
11:17 way to get to your estimate targets and
11:20 grow and scale your business and I do
11:22 think that we will come back to Bringing
11:23 door to-door in but we're going to go
11:26 straight to doing it like the elite way
11:29 the premium Way by bringing in experts
11:31 to help us do it the right way so that's
11:33 highly highly efficient effective and we
11:36 will intentionally wrap that in with all
11:38 of our other marketing strategies and
11:40 initiatives so so that's it guys that's
11:42 why we launched and skill door to door
11:43 that's why we quit door to door and
11:44 that's why I probably bring it back and
11:46 that's why I think if you're doing under
11:48 $500,000 a year you should be doing door
11:49 to-door because it's the fastest way for
11:50 you to grow your marketing and grow your
11:52 company hey guys thanks for listening to
11:54 the show I hope you found it valuable we
11:56 make these episodes in the show for you
11:59 truly so your feedback is super valuable
12:01 to us whether it's you know things you
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12:05 less of any feedback you can give us is
12:07 going to be super helpful as we continue
12:09 to evolve and improve the show over time
12:11 and if you want a copy of the fast
12:14 growth road map for painting contractors
12:16 which really simplifies the steps you
12:18 take to building a business um we've got
12:19 that resource for free for you just
12:22 check the description or the bio where
12:23 you're watching or listening to this
12:24 episode and you can just click and
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12:29 build and scale your business like the
12:30 people that you're listening to on the
12:32 show so thanks for listening in we'll
12:34 see you soon [Music]
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