Andy Walker: How much money would you walk up to an ATM where you put in a dollar and get. Almost $8 back, like as much as you can. 

‍Austin Gray: Andy is a student of the game when it comes to marketing and online sales. He recently went back and read through a hundred million dollar leads and a hundred million dollar offers.

‍Andy Walker: Lowering your prices is absolutely the wrong thing to do, is when somebody is trying to get you to lower your price. You're talking about a competitor who has this other price. It's the worst thing to do. 

‍Austin Gray: He's running Facebook ads. We're running Facebook ads. They're dominating. SEO. I'm a student of the game and I always want to keep up with SEO best practices. And so what Andy and I are going to do is do more regular content for you guys about SEO offers, leads, how we can apply these concepts to our home service and local service base businesses.

Andy Walker: Is that oftentimes your cheapest customers are your worst customers. They're the worst customers. They're terrible. You're gonna spend 10 times more time with them. They're gonna complain 10 times more often, and they're gonna be 10 times more likely to leave you a bad review. 

‍Austin Gray: So this is gonna be a lot of fun. Andy and I dive deep on reviewing a hundred million dollars leads and offers, and we're going to touch on things like how to optimize your offers specifically at the local level. So stick around for the whole episode. These are going to be fun. 

‍Austin Gray: Stryker digital. Good to have you. 

Andy Walker: Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be back on. I always leave these, , when we do these, I leave with a lot of energy. I have a, I usually have a good rest of my day after we do these 

‍Austin Gray: Rock and roll. Let's get some energy going here. So what are listeners going to learn? You just got done reading, rereading a hundred million dollar leads and a hundred million dollar offers again. Yep. Learn. 

Andy Walker:So I just went down a, a Hormozi rabbit hole leading into, , the webinar. So, , reread those books for the first time in like offers was like two years ago, leads a year ago, and just. I've grown as a person, so it's offered a lot more new perspective for me. And so a couple things I wanna talk about as it relates specifically to your audience, home service businesses, is increasing the average order value and lifetime value of a customer. We can break down those definitions for people of what they are, why that matters, , a, a pretty deep look into that. And then some like real live examples I'm gonna use like a roofing company for example, for a lot of these topics that we have. And then basically how to not compete on price, because I think that's a really, really big issue especially guys that are in higher ticket spaces, say painting, roofing, bathroom remodeling, landscaping, things like that, where typically the homeowner's going to get a few, if they're smart, they're probably gonna get a few estimates from people.

And so how we can price higher and make them feel like they're receiving more value and purchase from us instead at that higher price point. And why that might be your best strategy moving forward. And then different wrappers around offers that you can make to your customers. , We're gonna dive deep into that. That's gonna be an exciting part. , I think it's, it's super simple, but I think it's gonna add a ton of value. And then growing through referrals too. Those are the topics that I really wanna dive into here. 

Austin Gray: Let's rock and roll. Let's start with defining LTV and average order value and why that's important.

‍Andy Walker: Yep. Yeah, so basically lifetime value is how much a customer pays you over their lifetime, right? So I think this is, I'll dive into this one first because I think this is really overlooked in home services. So I think a lot of guys just, they get the job and then they're just like automatically moving on looking to the next job. And as you probably should, because like once you complete whatever, if you're doing a roof, you're landscaping, like it's kind of a one and done for that time period though, right? And it depends on how far into the future you can look. Because a lot of these services, they're not recurring services, but they can be reoccurring services, right?

So you can provide services for people multiple times into the future. Think about a pressure washer retargeting for next season, , while on the job upselling to a gutter cleaning that increases their average order value, right? The more money you can extract from a customer. And so. You know, like it's not gonna happen immediately, that you're just gonna extend the lifetime value of a customer right away in a lot of these specific services.

‍Austin Gray:  I recently got back from launching a land clearing business down in Austin, and this last winter I launched a snow shoveling business alongside Bear Claw. In both businesses, I've implemented jobber as a way for us to efficiently manage quoting job schedules and invoicing, and even collecting online payment. Why? Because it's worked so well for us in Bearclaw and it's saved us a ton of time and headache. So if you are looking for a software that can help you manage the back end of your business, look no further than Jobber, you can visit Go dot get jobber.com/owner ops O-W-N-R-O-P-S.

‍Andy Walker: But like, let's use their roofing company for an example, right? So you do a roof, you do a residential roof for a family that lives in a home, they're probably gonna live there for a long time. They have kids, you know, they're gonna be living there for the next 30 years or until the end of their life, right? So after you finish that job, those people, one should be stored in your CRM as completed Job. Not even gonna talk about getting reviews, , asking for referrals. We'll get to that at a later point. This person should be stored in your CRM for two reasons. One, if there's a big hailstorm or whatever storm damage happens during your CRM, you can immediately call them right away.

You can call them and target them before the door knockers. Get to them. You already did their roof in the past. They're already familiar with you. You can contact them immediately. You can also direct mail them immediately in a time like that. But you also know. What roof you did, what's the average lifespan of that roof? And so this is where I'm talking about like thinking  on a longer term time span here is that in 15 years you can  retarget these people, you can retarget  them in 15 years through direct mail or a  call and get the next roof, right? Or even in between then. I think it's important to have touchpoints. So a painter that we work with at Stryker Digital, , he made a really good point to me one time and he said he keeps touchpoint like one to two times a year just with customers that he is worked for in the past.

Even though he, he knows they won't need their service for a specific period of time and it's just like, Merry Christmas or like Happy July 4th, like whatever it is, there's a touchpoint through email, text, maybe a direct mail. 'cause the reality is, is if you got your house painted 10 years ago or you got a roof done 10 years ago, you probably don't even remember who did it. You probably don't even remember the company's name. So he just stays relevant in that aspect because all of this is just small touchpoints and reminders of who you are for the next time that they do need that service, that there's no doubt in their mind that they're gonna come back to you because one that you did work for them before provided a very high quality service, and then you've stayed relevant and had a personalized touch to the mail you sent them to the emails you sent them and things like that.

And I mean, you can even go as far as like calling them a year later after the roof and asking if they're running into any issues. Have they seen any leaks? Is there anything that we can help you with? We can give you a free roof inspection. Just like I know it's like a lot of added operational intensity to do those kind of things. But if you put yourself in the customer's shoes, if you're that customer and you purchase and the person's following up to make sure that you had an excellent service. That everything was great and they're offering you more free value, we'll come back out and check it in a year. , If you want us to, we're happy to do so.

A lot of times people are probably gonna say, no, we don't need it. Everything is fine. It's just the action of you reaching out to them and having a touchpoint with them. And so all of that said, that goes into extending the lifetime value of a customer because the more that you can get a customer to spend with you over time, on average, the more you can spend to acquire a customer, right? As we're, as it relates to like paid advertising and things like that. So if it costs you as a roofer, $1,500 to acquire a customer through paid ads and your. Your profit after your job is say, 5,000, right? That leaves you with $4,000, of margin there, but you're good at upselling, new gutter installation society, I don't know whatever the specific thing is that you can upsell.

You could do this like example across a ton of home services, but you profit 2000 more dollars on average from each job that you do compared to your competitors. You can now have some form of a mote online to an extent because you can now outspend them. 'cause you can afford to pay more to acquire a customer. So your ads can just be in their face everywhere and just mute out your competitors' ads. So you're the only one that they see. 'cause now you can afford to spend more money on advertising 'cause your average order value is much higher than theirs or that lifetime value is higher, et cetera. But that's kind of my, my spiel to start there about average order value and lifetime value. But to recap those definitions, average order value is how much. A person spends on their first order. So what can you upsell to increase that average order value? Because you, if you extrapolate this over time, like if you're looking at 3000 customers over the next 10 years and your average order value is increased by 10%, overall, that's a really big number.

Over time, it might feel small with that one specific customer that you do it with, but extrapolated over years and thousands of customers potential to add seven figures to your bottom line depending on, you know, what the pricing, , of your service is. 

‍Austin Gray: Yeah. And. So interestingly enough, I went several years in business without understanding or like I had read some of the books, but just didn't really take these concepts seriously. And Hormozi does a video, , it's called If you just type in LTV slash CAC and type in Hormozi and just go watch that video. Like he explains this, , even in further detail. And that was a great explanation. So thank you Andy on that. But once I was sent that video from a guy that we're both working with down in Austin, who owns a really big marketing business. It was like, guys, we need to pay attention to this, right? And so I went and watched that video three times that night and I just was like, okay, this is the most important thing that I need to be focusing on in Bear Claw right now. , So yeah, we've got our, our CAC dialed in, what it costs for us to acquire a customer.

We understand our average order value. And interestingly  enough, it's like you said this, so roofing. We do fire mitigation, land clearing for fire mitigation, right? It's like a one-off project right out of the gate. So the nice thing about roofing in that is that they are high ticket services. So I do get a lot of people who reach out I'm interested to get your perspective on this too Facebook ads work for us because we have a high ticket service. We can go spend money on Facebook ads to acquire a customer because we have a high ticket service. Now, if you're just doing like, like $65 lawns, Facebook ads probably not the best route. Andy Walker: Yeah. Yeah. Super difficult. So we're actually, haven't like, talked about this publicly yet, but I'm currently building and testing an offer for roofers that is Facebook ads. But it's different. It's not like, Hey, we'll just run your Facebook ads. It's, , more extensive. It's to the point where the lead comes through Facebook and we have appointment setters on our end that will qualify them and then book them into your sales team's calendar. So like handling all the intensity on the backend.

You don't have to hire more people or anything like that. It's just people show up on your calendar basically is the way it works. And we we're doing this, I want to handle that intensity, , because I, what I see a lot of guys struggle with is as they're owner operators and they're not there yet with a full team. They'll be doing paid advertising and the front end metrics of paid advertising will actually be pretty good. But it's not translating the profit because of a couple things is they don't have any systems in place to nurture leads. Their speed to lead is like six hours. You can't take six hours to get to a lead.

The ideal timeframe, like for this offer of what we're working on is speed to lead is like three minutes is the idea is like as soon as they submit a form to us, we're calling them within three minutes. , If we can't get ahold of them, contact them for seven days prior to marking them as a lost lead, put them into a longer term SMS strip, email sequence. I think all, all things that you do as well. , It's just like a huge missed opportunity for a lot of people. And med ads is much cheaper than Google Ads as well. Google ads are very expensive 'cause they're intent based. But , and we're doing it with roofers specifically 'cause one, we have a lot of great results with roofers. And then, 'cause they're high ticket, like you said, like we can't really offer that service to someone that's on like a $70, $125 ticket price. It's just, , not really profitable unless you're locking them into like a really good recurring year long contract at that point. Which is like a rare thing in Home Services.

‍Austin Gray: Yeah, for sure. So let's further dive deeper into this customer acquisition cost is important to understand as a home service business owner in relation to your lifetime value or your average order value. Can you just like explain that in the simplest form why those two metrics are important and how they relate to each other?

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Andy Walker: Yeah. The only metrics that really matter, like when it all comes down to it. , And what in that video, Hormozi took it to the next level. So a lot of people on the front end, they'll look at customer acquisition cost, how much you pay. In advertising to acquire a customer. And then the LTV would be basically how much that customer pays you, right? But what you really need to look at to get a really deep understanding, this is what the best minds do. They find that initial data and then dive a level deeper. So Hormozi looks at lifetime gross profit. So not just like, 'cause LTV to CAC, lifetime value to CAC would just be revenue versus customer acquisition cost.

That doesn't give you your real number because you have a cost to fulfill that service. And so your LTV to CAC can juke you out really fast because you can look profitable. And then once you actually do the math to pull out those expenses of like how much you actually profited from that customer, it's not gonna be as sexy as it looks on the front end of like just a revenue number. You know, it's kind of a vanity metric at that point. But in, in the end, really like. That's what it comes down to is those two numbers. And like the ultimate thing is, is if you just rank on top of Google and people come and find you and call you, you have no customer acquisition cost at all. Like that's the ideal, like the ideal thing is people find you through Google organically they call you, you get the customer, you didn't pay anything for that phone call to acquire that customer.

So it's all profit. And then if you have a good referral system in there as well to ask for referrals, that next customer has no customer acquisition cost. So like that's the Goldilocks to not have to do paid advertising. But. Really, I hope I'm answering this question well. But it really comes down to like the lifetime gross profit of a customer. How much you profit after you do the job, and how much you paid to acquire that customer. And the wider you can make that range, the lower you can bring CAC or the more you can get somebody to pay you, the wider that ratio gets is when you're gonna make a lot of money, like a lot of money. And if you can find yourself in a sweet spot like that, you really gotta double down and lock in and add an extra zero to how much you're gonna spend every single month. If you find yourself in a position like that, because it's a, it's a lucky spot. There's a, there's luck that goes into that variable right there. It's not all skill. 

‍Austin Gray: What should people look at from an LTV to CAC ratio? Like what is, well, excuse me. In that video Hormo, he talks about, he calls it LTGP Yep. Lifetime gross profit. Do you have metrics that you're looking at, , for just a baseline that people should be hitting? For LTV or LTGP to cac. 

Andy Walker: Yeah. So it'll be, it'll vary like over every different business. , So you ideally if you could be at least two to one, so you're profiting on every single customer. That would be great. , And eventually the data gets a little bit fuzzy 'cause it's hard to add in referrals and things like that. You're never gonna have super clean, perfect data. But I think there's value And Sam Allsopp has talked about this. You've had Sam, , he's a referrer. He is one of our clients on here.

He's talked about this before. Whether he is talked about on here or on Twitter, but even if you're one-to-one, your LTGP to CAC is one-to-one. And this is where the data gets fuzzy. If that leads to a referral, if that review gets read by a customer, they leave you a five star review. And that's, that review's the deciding factor for another customer that found you from a different source to become your client. Actually, LTGP to CAC is actually extending there. But I can't say there's like any concrete of, like, you, if you're not three to one, you're not doing good. 'cause it's gonna change. And the data is dynamic. So it's never gonna, you're never just gonna be three to one. It's gonna stay three to one ever. Like, if you increase your ad spend, you're gonna see that immediately. Drop immediately. And like a lesson for anybody with paid advertising. 'Cause that's kind of what, like, when you talk about LTGP to CAC, you're really talking about doing paid advertising for your business is really what you're talking about.

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Unless, there's no other, like you're paying to acquire a customer, whether it's through a digital, , or an in-person billboard or whatever. You're still paying money to acquire them through that source. And so, something that you need to know. Is that you are going to be in the red. Like there's no way, like you are going to be negative because you have to spend money first to get leads.

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And then there's a sales cycle that happens until that deal actually closes. And that whole time you're spending more money and you're getting more leads. So like if you're in the center at neutral, you're spending on ads and you close a deal and you're gonna come up to here, you're gonna be a little bit closer to break even, but you're still gonna be spending get the next deal a little bit closer till eventually you hit break even.

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And then you start extrapolating forward into a positive return on your ad spend at that point. But you're gonna start out in the red and there's kind of a tuition to it. You have to learn. And even if you're working with like an agency who is experienced, every single market's gonna be a little bit different because the competitors, how much they're spending, how the people inside the market react.

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And so you're going to just have to spend money to learn initially. Like you're not just gonna turn this on and all of a sudden your phone's gonna ring, you're gonna make a million dollars, like not gonna be the case. Or else, I think Austin and I would just be like on a yacht right now in Italy, off the coast of Italy doing something else.

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If that was the case, if you could turn on ads and, and make money that easily, easily, 

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Austin Gray: Yeah, you gotta run and you gotta test. So check this out. I told you whenever I flew down to Austin several months ago, I watched that video and I was like, man, this is the important, most important thing that I can do in my business is figure this out.

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But I realized that I had to come back and like download all my reports from Jobber and then download all my leads from Facebook, download all my leads from Google, and then match it up. I literally spent like two days doing it when I got back, but I understood my customer acquisition costs from 2024.

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And then I understood, , what my average order value was. So I at least had a starting point. So I was like, man, I think I could build a system to do this. So check this out. I'm gonna share this and we can break  this down in real time. I just implemented this into my business last month. So this is tracking the last 30 days.

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So you can see here we've got number of leads. Our appointments is not tracking properly right now because I haven't changed our process with our sales guy for how we book. So that's not accurate. But you can see how many quotes we're sending, how many jobs we've won, total revenue, and then our average order value is tracking consistently.

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And all this stuff is built on top of jobber. So a new go high level could get us there. We just had to like tweak it to make it work. So what I wanna do in real time is just have you take a look at this and then let's calculate customer acquisition cost, and then let's calculate LTGP and then we can come up with metrics.​

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Austin Gray:  Stryker Digital specializes in SEO services specifically for local service businesses. Bodie and Andy, the two co-founders, have helped me get Bearclaw Land Services to the number one search result on Google inside my state for my specific search term. If you wanna learn more, visit stryker digital.com. That's S-T-R-Y-K-E-R digital.com.

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Austin Gray: So down here, which look at, you guys got us 24 leads over the last, , 

Andy Walker: Hell yeah. 

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Austin Gray:  Still the top. , But we've got 17 Facebook leads and six Google leads. So we go down here, 1563 on Facebook, 1526 on Google. 

Andy Walker: Oh, you're, you're running Google ads and Facebook ads. So you spend a total of about $3,000, 3089 click through rates look pretty good.

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And then how many leads? 40 is the leads number, correct? 

Austin Gray: Yeah, leads number is correct. 

Andy Walker: Okay. So let's do round math. 3000 divided by 47. So you're paying $63 per lead with an average order value of $10,000. , And then how qualified are these leads that come through for you guys? , Do you have like a, you know, on the Facebook ads or like is there a qualification process? So tire kickers coming through. 

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Austin Gray: I think we can like jump straight to the point here. Like, this is the amount of jobs that we want over that time period. In this amount of time that the leads came through, we sent this amount of quotes. And sometimes we send we separate our quotes. , So that's why this number is more, but this is the amount of jobs that we've won.

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I've gotta add agency fee into that customer acquisition cost as well, right? So tack on another 3K to that so that we're getting, call it 6,000. Yeah. And then out of the jobs that we won is 11,

Andy Walker:  So $545 to acquire a customer with an average order value of 10,000. That's a sweet spot. It just depends on what your cost to fulfill is. 

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Austin Gray: So just run it, like 50% gross profit. I think you could run it at even 40% just to be safe.

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Andy Walker: Lemme write some numbers down. 5 45 cac, and then you made 10,800. We'll run a 40% profit margin 4,320. LGPT to CAC is 4,320, over 545. So you're running outta 7.92 LTGP to cac, which if I was looking at those metrics, I would say, how can we spend more money? How can we spend more?  Like when you look at that number, it essentially. It's 7.92. So every dollar that you put in to paid advertising, you're getting $7 and 92 cents back.

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And it's like, how much money would you walk up to an ATM where you put in a dollar and get almost $8 back, like as much as you can. But you'll see as you increase the spend one, 'cause it's a local market, there's only so many people are interested in that service at a specific time. So you, it can only handle so much money.

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So , you have to go geographical expansion in order to like make the budget work at that point. , And you'll naturally see that number, probably decrease. But when you look , then when you look at the dollar value, you know, like say you spent a thousand dollars and made $10,000, , but now you put in $10,000 and made $50,000, right?

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Like the. The number, the ratio shrinks a little bit, but from a dollar value, you're totally satisfied. ' You actually made more money, but the ratio looks, , a little bit different.

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Austin Gray:  Yeah. So I wanted to be able to use that as a real time example just so you could break that down. And so we could start making sense for some people. So that's CAC to LTGP. And so if this is the first time watching that for anybody, Hormozi does a really good video on that, just type in LTV slash cac Hormozi and he breaks that down. And so basically Andy's just going off of that same format. , And it's essentially just like what we're trying to track here. Inside the business so that we know how much we can spend to acquire that customer. Going back to the point that you talked about early on, how much can I actually go spend to get a customer?

And to a point you've already made, he who, he or she who can spend the most is the one who wins. 

Andy Walker: Yep. So what's stopping you? , Where are we at right now? Why aren't you spending more money? Is it, , limited from just the quantity of people that need the service? , Austin Gray: Well, I'll be straightforward with you right now. Like, I think, , like most entrepreneurs, I struggle with shiny object syndrome and my business is even a good representation of that, right? Like I chose early on in my business to say yes to more services, which now that I'm three years in, if I could go back, I would just do Bear Claw, fire mitigation, just 100% fire mitigation.

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I would just scale that geographically, , because that's what's working and that's the. That's where we're getting that average ticket value. And that's where we're running profitable paid ads. But just like everything else, once you put in the reps, you start learning And entrepreneurship, I view as a long-term game, right?

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So the only way to learn is by doing, and I'm glad that I understand this now three years in, and we're not too far gone, right? Like I can still refocus the team. And I have over the last couple weeks where it's like, Hey guys, this is the data that I'm seeing and this is where we need to grow and this is where we need to focus.

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And so, , to answer your question, what's holding us back? It's lack of focus by me who's leading that? And so I'll take responsibility for that and I'm gonna make some changes moving forward. , But I do get a lot of questions. And I got a question yesterday from a guy, it's like, Hey, should I say yes to Septics?

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And I'm like here's what my experience was. I thought I wanted to go really wide with services, but like what I'm learning is like it's really hard to build multiple divisions within your business especially in heavy equipment, because not only do you have to go build different SOPs and different processes and hire different crew members for different services and different certifications, you have to then go buy different equipment, which that's where I'm at right now because we were so close to the point of like investing money in dirt equipment.

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And then I'm like, wait, why are we not doing more of what's working? Like why are we not figuring out how to optimize this operational process and get as much LTV out of that as we possibly can? And so that's the answer. The second answer is geographically, like we're constrained by mountains, right? We have to mobilize to get to a different service area at least two hours.

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So there are some geographical constraints, i've been using that as an internal excuse, and I think that that's the hard problem that I just need to solve as an entrepreneur. And it's so much easier to go shiny object, and I'm just learning that, and I'm confronting that.

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Oh yeah. It's a fear that I have. And I need to be honest with myself that's scary to go do because you don't know if it's gonna succeed or not. But the reality is, is like we just have to face that fear and just smack in the face and figure out how to go figure it out. Right? Yep. Yeah. So those are my real answers.

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Andy Walker: Yeah,  I think that's really goal to every single entrepreneur ever, especially when you're in your first like three to five years or so. , I think you eventually transition, like I think that comes from a scarcity mindset, right?

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And then when you realize the abundance in like one vertical specialization. You are like, oh, I'm way more comfortable now. But at first it's just like you're trying to prove to yourself that this is achievable and something that you can do. And then once you kind of reach past a certain level, , whether it's like in your personal financials or the business financials or something like that, where you have some room to maybe play or, and like step back and think a little bit.

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I think like I've come to that realization recently, recently too. 'Cause like you recognize like, oh, this is there. Here's an opportunity where there's good money to be made. This is a good value to the customer. This is something that should definitely be done. But you gotta say, oh. But I'm gonna have to let somebody else do this.

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I can't take this on. And I think, , like once companies reach such a scale,  it becomes a thing where you're gonna launch a new division. You're bringing in like somebody who's like really good, really big, and you don't have to pay them extremely well and give them equity ownership if you want to tackle multiple departments, because that's why I like the largest companies.

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It's not like bootstrapped by one founder, right? Like even if they're still a private company, there's a lot of equity distribution within that company because if you wanna bring on top talent, top talent's gonna come with high pay and probably an equity stake. , But those are the people you can put in charge of a division and get it off the ground too.

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So it all depends like when those, when you wanna make those investments and things like that. But you can also think of it in the aspect of I could take this capital and I could go put it in the stock market and average like an say an 8% return. Or I could reflect on my business. And I've been far outpacing the market over the past X amount of years. And so is this riskier when I actually have more active control over this capital? Probably not. Probably not. , If you like, with the confidence and like the systems you built and the knowledge and skills that have been gained over time, the right investments probably back into the business, but there is, you do have to strike a balance of, you know, de-risking for yourself as an owner at some point too and pulling capital.

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I think initially, I think like the right path is pull capital out of the business early on to give yourself some padding and then once you hit a certain point, heavy reinvestment. Back in a little bit off the topic of what we were talking about, but I thought like what you were getting to was. Really relatable and good for everybody.

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Austin Gray: Yeah, absolutely. Well, you look at a guy like Sam and what's interesting about hosting the podcast is I get to interview people who have crushed through the seven to eight figure mark and there's just one recurring theme. Just like they just focused on how to do more of the thing that made them their first million.

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And you look at a guy like Sam who's doubled his business every single year since he started. He's not washing the roofs, he's not power washing things, he's not doing siding. The guy is literally putting on roofs and he's scaling that one thing. 

Andy Walker: Yep. And pretty much all residential too. 

Austin Gray: And what's interesting to me, and I won't, I'm not gonna talk about his sauce 'cause like that's his to share, but he has mentioned to me the one-to-one before, and I know he is, got , his, , strategy for how he actually increases. And, and is profitable on the customer acquisition costs there. 

Andy Walker:Yep. But yeah, that's what you're gonna see with the, with the best guys. You're gonna see. Like, they really, they want data because data is power and decision making. And then with that data, you don't have to think too hard. It'll tell you what to do.

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And so the best guys that we work with, Sam being one of the best guys that we work with, like they're tapped in, they're dialed in with their data collection, right? Like they're, they have extremely good reporting on a weekly basis, , every single week. , Even daily to an extent for some specific data points.

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And like, that's one of the biggest separators I see from the guys that are stuck at say, 500,000 or a million dollars in revenue versus the guys that break through 10, 20, 30 million. It's data, , it's almost just data. , 'Cause data gives you perspective on how to think.

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Austin Gray:  I mean, it's true, man. Like once we implemented that system and just. It just solidified the decision in my mind. Like there's no question what the right decision is for me right now in our business. I remember Sam on the podcast told me that he, for the first several years of business, would literally go manually input how many leads came from each source, where it came from and I don't remember all the specific points that he was calculating. Now he has a VA who does it for him, but , like he's tracking that stuff daily so that he can pull levers at different times of the month. 

Andy Walker: Yep. Yeah. We, we do it manually still every single Sunday. We input all of our data, lead data retention, like all metrics that you would assume that get tracked, and it gets it more extensive over time. It keeps getting bigger and bigger, but I do it manually. Could we automate it? A hundred percent, definitely. But I think all of the value is doing it manually because as you're entering these numbers and collecting it and putting it in, you're forced to think about it. And I'm like, that's where all the value is. It's like me sitting down with these numbers and taking the time to think about it. So we force ourselves to do it manually every week. 

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Austin Gray: That's awesome. Okay, so we've, , jumped into the first topic here, and I think you had about eight written down. So we've covered LTV and cac. Let's dive into the next topic. 

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Andy Walker: Okay. So let's talk about how to not compete on price. And I think, we have to do this in our business, but I think you'll have a lot of really insightful takes on this because like you're actively. In the weeds doing this with homeowners specifically. I mean, of course we do it with business owners as well, but something I've come to learn is that lowering your prices is absolutely the wrong thing to do is when somebody is trying to get you to lower your price or talking about a competitor who has this other price, it's the worst thing to do.

Unless you have like some revolutionary way that you can just significantly decrease your cost and maintain your profit margin, then I'd say absolutely, go ahead. But I'm gonna guess 99% of people don't have that. But it just gives them, I've noticed, like when we've done it, and what I hear from the clients that we work with is that when you do this, you kind of give that person leverage and the rest of the time working with them.

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It's kind of like they're beating on you a little bit for more and more and more like things outside of scope of work. 'cause you've already given in to them at some point on one of the most important things, price. And then the scope of work starts to try and increase on the things that they think you should do and whatnot.

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So one, you should definitely have that well-documented, like when you go into any high ticket job of exactly what those services are that you're gonna provide that scope. Like probably on a signed document. I couldn't imagine doing somebody's roof or even going and doing fire mitigation for somebody on a big property of land and not having a, a good scope of work laid out because it could just be disastrous for your business.

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When you work with enough people over time, and if people listen to this, have done enough business with enough people over time, there's things that pop up, right? So , you're well aware of it. And then another reason I don't think you should be lowering your prices. Is that oftentimes your cheapest customers are your worst customers.

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They're the worst customers. They're, they're terrible. You know, you're gonna spend 10 times more time with them. They're gonna complain 10 times more often, and they're gonna be 10 times more likely to leave you a bad review. Like, it's just, the reality of it is like when you lower price, you are stuck with the people who can't comprehend the value that you can provide.

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All they care about is the price. And people who know how to think and like separate price and value are happy to pay a higher price. Right? Like, I bought Hormozi $6,000 offer because I understand the leverage. I understand that in the books that he gave or in the AI that he gave, like the other offers that come with it.

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I understand leverage and I know that there could be one sentence that I read in there that clicks for me. And will cause me to make a hundred thousand dollars, right? Because I have leverage in my business. I understand the leverage. So paying $6,000 for information is something , I would definitely do little off topic, but I wanted to throw that one out there.

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'cause I think a lot of people are afraid to invest in like coaching and mentorship and things like that. And like, to me it's like so important. Let's just like silly if someone has the information that you want and you can either spend two years trying to learn it and fail and probably spend way more money making mistakes or just pay someone to shortcut you there.

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Like, it makes so much sense in my book. But, so I know like a lot of people are thinking like, okay, well now I'm gonna miss out on a ton of jobs because they're going to go with the cheaper person. And I think we, me and Austin were just kind of talking about this with shiny object syndrome a little bit, right?

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I think it kind of like plays into, , the same territory of the. You have to say no to the work. That one you don't want, it's not gonna benefit you. It's gonna take more time. You're gonna make, you're gonna make less profit on this job, right? I know roofers who have done jobs for $500 in profits, like, holy crap, all that work and effort for $500, you could've just saved a little bit of time and just waited for the next job that came through.

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That was like a $5,000 profit job. You can do less quantity of work, less headache and make more money. So like you have to be comfortable saying no to those. But then also like you're going to get those price objections. Like, and you have to anticipate that you're going to get those price objections.

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It's going to happen for sure. Like, it's like you can't pretend it's not so, like you already have to have an answer prior to that objection happening. 'cause it'll happen. And so something that, , Hormozi talks about is bonuses, right? So like, you saw it live. On that webinar, there's the 200 book donation, $6,000, and then free bonus, free bonus.

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Like a lot of value in those bonuses, which like most people aren't buying to donate the 200 books, they're buying for those free bonuses, right? Because you make the bonuses, feel like they eclipse the value of the price, like just the bonuses themself. So like, if somebody is buying a service from us, it's like, here's all the things that you get in this service.

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And when they're price objecting, it's like we can add these other bonuses in at this point in time now, like, you're not gonna, you're not gonna reveal the bonuses that you have until you get the objection. And then you can reveal those and when you reveal them, you attach like a value to those. And Hormozi did a world class job at attaching value and like all the time and the money he spent and how much money other people spent with him.

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For him to be able to collect that data to make you feel like you're getting millions of dollars for $6,000, you're like, this is a absolute grand slam offer, right? Like when he talked about a hundred million dollars offers, it's like the, one of the best offers I ever saw. Tax deductible with all of those bonuses.

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I'm like, this is a grand slam offer. Like this is ridiculous to say, , no to, but like back to the roofing company example. , You know when you're getting price objected, there's bonuses that you can add in that one. Oftentimes you'll add these bonuses and then people will never request them into the future ever.

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Like they, they got the deal over the line and people just aren't even gonna ask for it. So. You could like, take the time, like as a roofer, you know your business better than anybody else. You could sit down with a document. You could probably list like 30 different like small things that you could potentially offer as bonuses.

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And I wrote down a few, a free annual roof inspection for the first two to three years. That's a bonus. A no leak guarantee. If any leak occurs, repairs are free within X amount of years bonus. That's a pretty decent value. You can attach a dollar amount to that free gutter cleaning at the six month mark. Attach a dollar amount to that. Nice. I would probably take on that if I a homeowner, extended warranty. I think a lot of people play into, , the warranty side and then things like a guarantee of a timeline of completion. , So like even for like remodeling projects, that's a like a big thing. It's like you're having your whole entire kitchen redone, which is a significant part of your house.

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I think one of the questions that the homeowner's gonna ask is, how long is this going to take? And you can either answer and you can be like, well. It might be two weeks. It could be up to four weeks because of this. Or you could say, I will guarantee that we will have this done within the next 16 days and be precise about it.

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That's a good offer, right? Not like the guy that's like, oh well it might be two weeks, or I gotta get these materials in, I wait on this guy. I'm not really sure. , It could be within this timeline. No, guaranteed within 16 days your kitchen's gonna be done. You're gonna be able to use it, it's gonna be fully functioning.

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If it's not done within 16 days, I'll refund you $1,000. Right? No, no brainer offer. , So there's a lot of ways to add those bonus stacks in to not compete on price. 'cause I do see a lot of people, like in the Twitter sphere, in the home service money Twitter side, like a lot of people talk about this, complain about this.

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I see it within our clients. , But I think you're gonna have to experiment with it, right? Like. The first time you do it, you're probably gonna flop and fail. And the second time probably too, , you're not gonna know how to like frame it correctly. So you gotta get your reps in. It's like if you're a single guy learning how to talk to girls, like you're gonna look like a dummy, the first couple girls that you approach and try and talk to, right?

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Like same thing in business, same thing in sales, it's the same thing, right? You just gotta put it out there and try it and then collect the data on it, iterate and improve it. That's my take on , like trying not to compete on price. I'd be interested what you think about that Austin? 

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Austin Gray: Nolan Gore from Top Choice Lawn Care and I were talking yesterday and he sent me this picture, $500 client.

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 Austin Gray: This episode is brought to you by Dialed in bookkeeping. Ben and his team provide bookkeeping services, job costing reports, and accurate financial information for the home services industry. If you're looking to keep your books up to date, visit dialed in bookkeeping.com/owr ops. When you use this specific landing page, you'll get your first three months, 50%.

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Austin Gray: I just feel as though with this investment I'm about to make in you that we should understand how our lives are about to change and I need results and you need to bring them. I am entrusting you with our livelihood and lives and then down below $50,000 client. The quote, say, money sent. Thanks. 

Andy Walker: Yep. I've actually had a prospect to basically say that exact thing, like brought his wife on, brought his kids onto the call, and he is like, I'm trusting you with my life. I, that's what I told him. We're not gonna do this deal. We're not gonna do this deal together. I'm, I'm just doing your SEO, I'm just doing your SEO. I'm not running your own entire, your whole entire life. I can't go into this one. 

Austin Gray: But it's true. It really is. And it's like, I think that that's why I really like the approach of, I mean, look at Hormozi, right? He puts out so much free content. Anybody could go watch his YouTube channel and literally just implement the stuff and grow their business, right? So if that's you, and if you're early on, there's plenty of stuff on YouTube that you can go use to go grow your business, right? But then the people who are paying.

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The highest ticket price. They just want it done by a pro, or they want to be held accountable by a pro. Right? Same thing in home service. It's like, what do the people who are willing to pay the highest price want, they want great service, they want clear communication. They want access to you to be able to communicate, even though most of them aren't going to take you up on it, right?

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But if you can show up and showcase that you are the pro, and that you do have a process to take them through the estimating process and then showcase how the process is going to work for operations, those people trust you as the pro. And if you can build that trust early on, they're the ones who are willing to pay more, and they're the ones who are going to give you the least headache.

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Yeah, it's, it's so true. I've seen it so many times inside of our business, just the people who ask for the deals and early on. Whenever you're in business and you make a deal or you do a price negotiation, they're the ones who just complain about every little detail and they just end up being a thorn in your side.

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Andy Walker: Yep. One of, one of the things I think is a telltale that you might be walking into, , a bad deal with a bad customer is when they ask for the price before they even know what they're getting. Right. Like, how can you even value the price if you don't even know what you're receiving? And anytime somebody has asked me for what the price is you don't even know.

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You don't even know what, what it is. How can I give you the price when you don't even know, like the value that you're gonna receive on the other end? Doesn't make any sense. But, one thing that you said in there that I think was a, a piece of gold is how you said, like walking 'em through the estimating process like that.

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It's only something that can happen with time and reps to get there like that. But as I've been on the other side when people have been selling me, you can tell you're like this person. Like they have this dialed in, , like they've done this a lot. Like they've really done this and there's a certain feel that you put off and your level of confidence, like they can tell, you know exactly what you're talking about when you're walking them through that process.

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And at that point, it's not even about the price. Like when you're doing that, it depends like the demographic you're selling to. But if you're selling to say, a rich person, a lot of things that they're buying is peace of mind from you as well. Just peace of mind that like, they don't wanna think about it.

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Their time is valuable. They don't wanna spend any time like even thinking about this thing. And so like during that process when you're showing like how intelligent you are about this specific thing, and it looks like this is just like another day for you. You've done it a million times, you're instilling a lot of confidence in them through that process there. So I think that's like a, a piece of gold that I had to point out that you had there. 

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Austin Gray: Absolutely. And it even starts in the initial lead process, right? If they fill out a form on your website, they fill out a form on your Facebook ad, or if they're clicking on a Google ad, I know how I feel whenever I'm searching for a service and I can't get a hold of the customer at that time.

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'cause it's like, think about how busy we are as Americans. Think about how busy you are as an entrepreneur living in America. Like you have a million things going on at any given time, right? If that customer that you're reaching out, if you're looking for a service, doesn't call you right there, you're already onto the other 999,000 things that you have on your to-do list.

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And I believe that customers in today's day and age feel similarly, so Oh yeah. If you're not reaching out to them immediately. They're just gonna go to the next person and the person who does reach out, going back to speak to lead here is going to be the one who gets the at bat. Andy Walker: Yeah. Touching on the offers. , I think some of you're getting to is you don't want your prospect to have to do anything. The more that you can decrease the effort on their side, the better the offer becomes. So like if you, if you guys go back and you read a hundred million dollars offers, it's hard for me to skim the pages to find where it's at right now, but he lays out like, oh, here it is.

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Meditation versus anxiety or, or meditation versus Xanax, I'm sorry. And you know, like how much effort one takes. So meditation is this huge long list of like, you got 10 to 20 minutes, you go through physical discomfort, you do all of these things. It takes a lot of focus and attention. And Xanax is swallow the pill, 15 minutes for the effects.

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Relaxation, decreased anxiety, feeling of wellbeing. Like I just swallow a pill, right? And so you can tell as humans, we're a path of least resistant creature, right? And so, I mean, you can just look at society as a whole as it relates to, like, fitness is always a great example. Weight loss food that you eat takes a lot of effort to go to the store, shop for good food, cook the good food, right?

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Or you can just drive through and pay a couple bucks and get food served to you. That's unhealthy path of least resistance. Obesity, , rates drastically increase over time as that becomes more accessible to us. So you see that we simply choose the easiest path consistently. But us as entrepreneurs, we don't, this is not the easy path to do, right?

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But you can see like from this example of how you wanna decrease the effort on their side. You wanna make it super, super easy for them. Whether it's like from that first initial lead intake process of gathering the, the information that you need from them. . Then all the way through the actual fulfillment of the service, like the less contact you need from them, or if you're a roofer and each day that you finish, you're sending pictures in a short video showing like what was completed, what happened, what the next steps are, what the next stage are, and expected timeline like.

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That's a really good quality service to offer is like the touch points during the service as well, like the initial, like in our business or digital business, we call it the onboarding process. High touch, high value. Speed to a win as fast as possible is the goal, but you can like stretch it out through like all the fulfillment of the service after that.

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And then when you're delivering a good service in the moment like that, a lot of people will wait till the job is over to potentially ask for a referral. But typically the customer's excitement is most after they made the purchase or after you get them, like that first win in the service that you're delivering.

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And they're like, you can tell that they're really excited. Best time to already ask for review, best time to already ask for a referral at that point. And so like give and take, like there's gonna be nuance to it with your service or the customer you're working with. That might not be the right approach sometimes, but , that's a really good way to get referrals.

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Like in our business, we ask for referrals as soon as like we get the first win with people right away. So after the onboarding process, if they're like, that was really great, that was awesome. Like, this is the best process I've been through. Perfect time. Ask for a referral. Ask for a review, anything like that.

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And I think that a lot of people need to ask for more referrals. You need to ask. And so. People won't do things like, they won't even think about it until like, someone would maybe approach them and someone would ask them like, Hey, who should I use for this service? They won't think about it. You have to ask.

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You have to ask them. And you can't be afraid to ask them. If they say no, say no big deal, no problem. Just thought. I would ask, no big deal. And they'll just shrug it off and they'll probably just forget about it immediately. Immediately as well. But you gotta ask for referrals too.

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And the last part, sorry, I was gonna be quick about this one, is, , offer wrappers, right? So the actual offer that you have could be a first time customer special. It could be a thousand dollars off a roof, like you name, like whatever free or like special offer that you have, discount, whatever it is. And that offer can stay the same.

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You just give it a different name. July 4th, a thousand dollars off your roof, Memorial Day, a thousand dollars off your rear roof. You just rename the offer. Over and over again. And the thing is, is that the customer won't remember because if they're looking for a roof, they're only looking for a roof for that period of time.

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Once they got the roof one, they're not getting hit by your ads anymore. They're not just following the marketing of your company to see what you're doing. So to each new person, when it's time for them looking at for that specific service, they think right now is a special offer. It's perfect, it's great.

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But you're really running the offer the entire year. You're just giving it different names for like certain events. And Hormozi you'll talk about in a hundred million dollar offer. It's like two year anniversary special, $1,000 off July 4th, veterans Day. Use anything. , As a special offer, it'll work. 

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Austin Gray: Somebody said something one time, and I don't know who it was, but I used to think every ad I ran, there's like something psychological where it's like, okay, if I'm putting it out on social media, that means everybody's seeing it. And the reality is very few people are seeing it. There's this concept where it's like somebody has to see your business seven times before it ever even like sets in.

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And so I've been thinking about that a lot recently because early on you think, okay, I'll, I release a Facebook ad or I release a YouTube. The reality is the people aren't following it. They have their own lives to live. They care about themselves, right? They really don't care about you and your business.

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And I think like once that's set in, I was like, okay, like I can rip on all these platforms and like just blast things everywhere. Right? And to your point there with the offer, like if you did an offer last year, nobody remembers that. 

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Andy Walker: Nope. Not at all. They don't like, you pay attention to yourself and your business very closely. But trying to think about like another business, like just trying to think of like your local plumber. It's like, I have no idea if they're running a special offer. Must be, must be the first time that they're doing it. I have no idea. I have no evidence to. To say they're not, people just don't think about it on that level.

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Entrepreneurs like us, we might think about it, but the average consumer, isn't necessarily, , thinking about it like that. And another point that you made there is like, kind of just like being comfortable putting yourself out there is what it is to an extent too. And so you do a good job of this and, , there's a couple other guys that do a really good job of it, making content and making it fun.

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So, you know, Malcolm, , Malcolm has been on the podcast before. Those guys do awesome with social media content. So when they run ads, , depending on what level of awareness the customer is, they come through the ad, they click through their Facebook page, they click through their Instagram page. These guys have really good content about pools.

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Like they, they're pool builders, they pool cleaning, fiberglass, gunite, whatever it is. They have really good content, meaning they have a really good brand. And me being able to see the back into the backend, they have a lot of branded searches that come to their website, which is a good, that's a sign of a good brand like.

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Your number, the number one way that people get to your website should be them searching you. That's how you have a good brand. That should be, it shouldn't be like roofing company near me or whatever it should be. Your number one should be your brand because that's how you know you have a good brand.

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And this the subset of clients that make a lot of content. I see a lot of branded searches to their website a lot. And then a common thing with all of those businesses is that they're doing really well. They're doing really good. And they make con, they're all doing great. It's like, , there's no guesswork to it. Like they're all crushing it. 

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Austin Gray: There's no guesswork. And dude, it's like we live in a time right now where we have no excuse. There is no excuse. The only excuse you have or the only reason you're not growing the business is because you aren't putting in the effort. And dude like. I used to guide elk hunts after college.

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Like I was in the woods every single day. Like I freaking hated social media, you know what I mean? Like, like I really did. And then I got into business and I'm like, well, if I actually wanna grow this thing, I gotta figure out how to like, make this fun and actually enjoy it. And so I'm an all in or all out type of person and for a long time I was all out.

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And now, if you guys are watching this, you probably think I've been all in. And the reality is I made a decision to just be like, I'm gonna figure this thing out. Because the guys and the gals who have figured this thing out there is a common theme. If they're leveraging social media in a way, to push the brand out there.

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Like there's a good chance that the business is growing. And so, yeah, I've just been on a mission the last couple years to just figure it out. Right? We live in one of the coolest times ever to be able to go grow a business. And a lot of this stuff is free. And whenever you're starting out, it's so hard to think about. It seems overwhelming, right? It's like, oh, I gotta have an editor. I gotta have like microphones. I gotta have all, it's like, dude, I've scrapped everything. And I literally just used the iPhone for like as many things as I possibly can. So while we're doing these live streams now for the podcast, it's the least path of resistance.

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I'm gonna do no editing on this thing. Andy and I spent two minutes creating a thumbnail on Canva right here, slapping it on, and I'm gonna post it to YouTube, right? And you guys who are, there's 342 people here on Twitter right now, or X, whatever Elon calls it. So like my point is, is you can create stuff and then you can publish and you can move fast.

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I think I posted like 16 YouTube shorts yesterday and I'm just stuffing the crap outta keywords. Why? Because the YouTube algorithm, if you just put your business and your search term and your keyword and your service areas in the stuff, bodhi pulled it up on, , one of our last calls. He's like, dude, I'm doing using chat GPT, I'm using search.

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Like your YouTube videos are just like coming up left and right. And so my point and my encouragement here is like, figure out a way to use one platform or a couple platforms and just start posting and talking into the, the algorithm. 'cause the algorithm is so smart now that it's just gonna recognize your voice.

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It's gonna recognize what the video is doing and it's gonna serve you up when people start searching for that stuff. I'll stay off my soapbox here. Is there anything else that you wanna add here? 

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Andy Walker: No, I think, , I love doing these, , I'm leaving a lot of excitement into a team meeting after this, so gonna gonna bring, , all this energy over there, but, , really enjoyed it, I think ton of value.

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And then I guess one last piece to add is that, , you mentioned there's really no excuse and there isn't any excuse because any of any home service business specifically that you want to build, really any business, unless you're building a new Facebook or whatever. There's someone who has done it, that has laid the path, that one you can like on your own probably go find content that they've created, podcasts they've been on and learn from them directly.

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Or my path that I choose is I just choose to pay that person directly and learn from them one-on-one is the best path. So like if you were like starting like a fire mitigation, land clearing business, , the, if I was starting it, I would just go pay Austin right away as I would just pay him right away.

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Because it's just like, this guy's already doing it successfully. He's doing it really well. We looked at his LTV to CAC on the call, and if you could replicate that, you're gonna do really well for yourself. And it's like, here's a person who's actively in the weeds doing it, right? That's an important thing to look at when purchasing something from somebody is like, have they actually gotten the, the outcome that I want or are actively like close to that outcome and things like that.

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But I'm adding this in because a lot of, like, you saw a lot of love and a lot of hate for, , Hormozi after the webinar there. Because there's a lot of people that just love to hate when people that sell information. And I'm just so the opposite because I've bought into several masterminds and right now I'm in an expensive mastermind right now.

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It costs me $72,000 a year for this mastermind. And I literally felt like after three weeks being in there and showing up to one of the in-person events right away. So I was like, I already got the va, I already got the value. Just the people that I've met. 'cause the people that you meet inside of these add a lot of value.

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It's not even always the person at the top that runs the mastermind. It's the people within the mastermind that you can also make connections with that can also help you. , In there. It's just you're buying yourself into like an elite group of people who are all super hungry to learn and grow together.

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And so I just don't think you guys should shy away from being willing to invest in yourself in that aspect. Because for me, and then a lot of people who are way ahead of myself too, like it's a common theme. Super common theme. 

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Austin Gray: Yeah. And I'll, I'll second that here. . I don't know. I see a lot of hate on X for people. Like, it's like somebody will launch some sort of like online training and then people are like, oh, you're just a course guy now. It's like, I mean, if he actually has the, the insight and if he's actually done it, I don't dock anybody. It's like, I think Stump guy ties ripping that PDF left and right.

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And it's like, and I shared that on the podcast. I'm like, I'll never knock a guy for like an entrepreneur for trying to make money. It's like, aren't we all entrepreneurs? Yeah. If you're selling snake oil, that's one thing, but if you're actually selling stuff that's gonna, that is tried and true is gonna help people.

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Like I do see a lot of people bashing people on X and it's kind of interesting to me 'cause it's almost like people get on X because they have the ultimate goal of like getting into selling some sort of online digital product. But. Since they aren't doing it, they're bashing other people who are doing it.

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So, I don't know, man. I, I just encourage you guys, if you're listening to this, it's like what Andy said, I've paid for the Masterminds too and same deal. It's kind of where my YouTube strategy came from, right? Like I took what one guy is using in the digital space and I'm just applying that to home service.

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And the 5,000 I spent on that training, I'm like, dude, I'm, I'll make that back in one job. Right? Yeah. And so it's like if you can just level up consistently. 

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Andy Walker: Yeah. Yeah. You detach price and value for yourself too. It's like, this costs 5,000, but okay, if I get two customers from this, and a lot of the people that I think have a lot of hate towards it feel that they've been burned before, but when you're selling, like coaching or consulting.

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The coach can't do, like, it's not done for you. The work's not done for you. You get access to the information and the help and the assistance to move forward and do better. But it's on you. It's on you. And so the mastermind's like, they should be expensive. They should be expensive to hold you accountable in a sense too, in my mind, like if I'm paying $200 for something, I'm probably not gonna pay that much attention to it, right?

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Yeah. But if somebody's gonna charge me $6,000 for something, probably gonna put a lot of effort into this. It holds me accountable. 'cause I really pulled it out, put it on the table and I put my money where my mouth is, so I need to back it up now. 

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Austin Gray: Yeah. The last thing I'll share, as an entrepreneur, something's wrong in the business.

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It's always your fault. 

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Andy Walker: Yep. Great. Great book. If you're referenc in Jocko, great book. Extreme Ownership. 

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Austin Gray: I haven't read that one, but it's something that is a reality, right? It's like. Second, we start pointing fingers at other people, something's wrong, right? Like if, if you're the owner, if you're the one leading, it's your fault.

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Build a better system, hire better people. Figure it out. Make things happen. I don't wanna end on a negative note there, but this has been incredible. Andy, thanks so much for, , bringing your time and energy into this. What's one last thing you'd share with listeners here? 

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Andy Walker:  It's mindset. It's so much of this is your mindset. As we talked about, whether it's come to advertising or growing the business, it's that, especially if you're someone who's listening that's early on, there's gonna be times you really wanna give it up. You really going, when you're dealing with that hard customer. You haven't generated a new business for a period of time.

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And I'll tell you that these lumps are never going to end. They're never gonna end. And the lumps start becoming larger sums of money as well. The mistakes that you make start becoming larger sums of money as well, but it's really like. You deciding that you're gonna be the person that's just going to figure it out.

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Like just, I don't care what you throw at me, like it's gonna suck probably, but I'm just gonna figure it out anyways. Like you're, it's just like success is just a decision that you make. Really, it's just a decision that I'm the person who does not give up and is pushing forward through, no, whatever comes at me, I'm just gonna push through it and I'm gonna do my best to figure it out.

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And sure, I'm gonna take some losses along the way, but the losses are the most valuable part of it. Like all of those hard times when I reflect on like the last couple years for us, every hard time because I didn't shy away from it, I walked towards it. I grew so much. Not, I'm not talking about like the business financials or like the business growth, but the skills that are developed as a person and a, as a entrepreneur.

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When you're going through those hard times, you're either gonna get a lot better or you're gonna be the person that just quits and runs away. So it's a decision of who are you going to be in those hard times. I think that's my last edition.

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Austin Gray:  I love it. I love it. Well, thanks again for joining.

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Andy. Once again, , listeners who are listening to this live, thank you for joining. , andy from Stryker Digital SEO specialist.

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You can find him on X at what's your username, 

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Andy Walker: Andy underscore. W-L-K-E-R. 

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Austin Gray: Sweet one X. So Stryker Digital, he and his, , business partner Bodhi, they've been running our SEO at Bear Claw for us, , for the last three years I believe. And, , still they got us to number one within the first six months and we're still sitting at that spot for our search term.

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So, , shout out to you guys. Thanks for doing what you do.

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 Thanks again for being guests on the show listeners. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Owner Ops podcast. Every week we drop episodes on Friday where we talk about building local service-based businesses. Every Saturday we're sending you a newsletter where we summarize the main learning points from the guests on the podcast.

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So if you haven't signed up for that yet, go to owner ops.com/newsletter. That's OW NR ops.com/newsletter. We'll see you guys next week. Don't forget, work hard, do your best. Never settle for less.

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