The Sharpest Tool™

Ellen Rohr is the President and Franchise Operations Manager of ZOOM DRAIN. As a home services business makeover expert, she also offers consulting and often contributes to publications like Wells Fargo and HGTV magazines.

Ellen shares that her expertise comes from her own journey as a plumber’s wife and entrepreneur, which you can hear more about in Part 1 of her interview.

After working with some great mentors, Ellen and her husband got their business out of debt and started making a profit. Since they weren’t worried about making payroll anymore, the conversation shifted to what was next for their company.

Her husband said he wanted to work on his own. The business growth and expansion Ellen was envisioning was not what he wanted. This realization was a crucial part of their planning as they moved forward.

“Business planning is the process by which you clarify your intention and move to aligned action…another way to think of it is to dream, act, and test.”

They soon sold their company, started ZOOM DRAIN, and Ellen began her consulting journey. In this process, she shares how she also stopped trying to change her husband: a lesson that can apply to any business partner relationship.

Ellen emphasizes the importance of “auditioning” various experts to see if their approach to planning and structuring an organization resonates with you. Al Levi, Howard Partridge, and John Maxwell were some of the names who were instrumental in helping Ellen create her own business planning process that she outlines in her book “The Bare Bones Biz Plan.”

Ellen’s guide to building a flexible and dynamic business plan is broken into 6 steps: 

1. Setting sight: your vision/vision board, mission statement, value proposition, and financial goals.
2. Building the team: who do you need to make this vision happen? This includes business partners, employees, vendors, etc.
3. Making money: your Known Financial Position, weekly scorecard, and monthly checklist.
4. Getting it sold: when you reach this step, you’ve probably realized that you need to charge more for your services. Learn from experts how to create strong marketing and sales processes to make this happen.
5. Getting it done: make good on your promise to your customers by implementing systems and procedures.
6. Making sure: are you on the right track? Do the numbers look good? Is your life improved?

Ellen’s number one piece of advice for reaching success is: write things down.

Both of Ellen’s books, “The Bare Bones Biz Plan” and “The Weekend Biz Plan,” will help you build and implement a successful business plan. Start with “The Weekend Biz Plan” for an introduction to her processes. Then, dive into “The Bare Bones Biz Plan” and start achieving your goals.

For more information, visit ZOOM DRAIN and Ellen Rohr.

Ellen Rohr is the President and Franchise Operations Manager of ZOOM DRAIN. As a home services business makeover expert, she also offers consulting and often contributes to publications like Wells Fargo and HGTV magazines.

Ellen is passionate about giving small business owners a clear structure and plan to reach their goals. With these tools, their dreams of long-term success and making more money are much more attainable.

Ellen shares how her experience in many job industries and positions shaped her perspective and approach to business. Eventually, she joined forces with her husband, a plumber, to build ZOOM DRAIN. But they soon found themselves in debt.

That’s when she read an article about profit by businessman Frank Blount that struck a chord with her. She wrote him to tell him why his ideas were wrong, using her failing company as an example. He followed up to her letter with a phone call and some straightforward advice, and from that moment, the trajectory of her business changed.

Ellen’s journey to building a successful home services business required dismantling several myths she had been led to believe.

Myth #1: If you do what you love, the money will follow.
Ellen says that while it is great to do what you love, the money is never guaranteed. You need a budget and a plan.

Myth #2: Principles and profit don’t mesh.
Ellen says that money actually reveals your character. Use your profit to help others and do good.

Myth #3: Business is hard.
Ellen says that business is a matter of small, doable steps.

Often, the process of dismantling these myths and building a business that is profitable happens in three stages:

1. Complete denial: falling for those myths (listed above).
2. Avoidance: thinking that someone else should do it and figure out the financial problems you are facing.
3. The brick hits you: you get audited by the IRS or get ripped off by someone. This is when you are forced to take responsibility.

One of the huge shifts that Ellen had to make was letting go of comparison. She had been basing her pricing off of her competitors’ pricing, instead of based off of ZOOM DRAIN’s unique costs. Frank’s advice and approach helped her shift her mindset from comparison to value.

Ellen shares what a value-focused business plan looks like:

1. When she is training her team members, she teaches them how valuable the service is that they are giving the customer.
2. Ellen worried that raising her prices might upset customers and employees. So, she adopted the practice of open book management, a concept coined by Jack Stack, author of “The Great Game of Business”, where she shows her team the numbers. This keeps all of the costs and profit transparent.
3. Think about it like this: you’re selling an inventory of time. When you look at how many hours you have in your fiscal year, spread out over your team, the math breaks through denial. This will help you see how to charge fairly and make a profit.

“A budget helps you set goals and a justifiable selling price.”

Ellen emphasizes the importance of understanding your business’s numbers. Do not outsource that responsibility until you have a good grasp on it yourself. She shares that at a recent panel discussion, she heard the advice that your business should always “be audit ready.” To start cleaning up your books, Ellen recommends:

• Meet with your person entering data and your accountant/bookkeeper. Have print outs of your reports and your QuickBooks available on your computer. Discuss each of the numbers on the books and ask questions about them. Mark whether they match, do not match, or you need more information on each line item.
• Use a checklist and make procedures for everything.
• Look at your finances once a week, and again at the end of the month. Think of it like a game, and make adjustments to your strategy as you go. This will help you determine your Known Financial Position (KFP).
• Share your score (business goals and plan) with your team - make sure your employees understand your goal and are invested in getting there.

“They’ll play if you let them play. They’re going to help solve all your problems if you bring them into the game.”

Ellen emphasizes that turning a profit, even if it’s just 20% more, will help your business in important ways, like: giving your employees healthcare, providing money back for your customers if you make a mistake, and reaching a KFP.

Most importantly, she emphasizes that it’s easier than you think.

For more information, visit ZOOM DRAIN and Ellen Rohr.

Kelly Schols is a speaker, author, success mentor, and business consultant. He is currently building his own personal consulting business and writing his first book, “Never By the Book.”

In Part 1 of his interview, he talked about his journey and the investment in personal development that transformed his life and his business. Another key element to his success however, was learning about the power of cultivating financial health.

Kelly shares how when he started investing in personal development and training resources for his business employees, a friend recommended he look into Dave Ramsey. Dave’s processes and values aligned very much with how Kelly had already been living and managing his life, so he decided to become a Facilitator through Dave’s Core Financial Wellness training. He then brought these teachings back to his business, and saw his employees start overcoming their debt and becoming financially healthy.

He went on to get trained to become a Master Financial Coach under the Dave Ramsey Program. Dave Ramsey teaches seven steps for financial success. However, Kelly wanted to distill these steps into a more straightforward process, which includes:

1. Learn the habits of money.
2. Learn the difference between wants and needs.
3. Save an emergency fund and how to do that.
4. Get rid of debt and become debt-free.
5. Create a budget.

“Learn how to control money so money doesn’t control you… Most people get a paycheck and it’s gone. Learn the habits of how to tell your money where your money should go instead of your money telling you where it’s going to go.”

Kelly tells his story of going from a dead broke alcoholic to industry leader. If he hadn’t changed his habits, he would not be where he is today: an author, a business consultant, a father, and a millionaire. Making these habits a priority and being able to distinguish between your wants and needs is key. If you can learn the difference, you will be successful. He also emphasizes the value of establishing an emergency fund, and how borrowing and credit cards do not provide the same stability.

Kelly’s method for becoming debt-free is called “Debtstruction.” He says that while it does take intensity, once you change your habits, you can reach financial freedom.

One of the most important takeaways Kelly shares is how to protect your assets. As he emphasized in Part 1, about four to five times a week around the dinner table, his family talked about the life and business they were all building together. These are the hard conversations: life, death, debt, medical directives, living wills, and more.

However, as exemplified by Kelly’s life, when his wife passed away unexpectedly, these conversations became more than just treasured memories. They had a plan. A few months later when he had to go into open-heart surgery, he was at peace because he knew everyone he cared about would be taken care of. Protecting your assets requires a plan.

“I was at peace… at this point it was in God’s hands and the doctors’ hands. Since Heather’s death I learned don’t worry about things that you can’t control.”

Who will care for your family, your business, and your assets if something happens to you? Kelly recognizes these are tough topics, but the benefit of having a plan far outweighs the challenges that come without one.

So, his advice is: have that family dinner conversation. Be honest, open, and share your hopes, dreams, and plans. Kelly also highlights that encouraging your employees to be serious about their financial health, and helping them achieve their goals, is a great way to cultivate and identify loyalty within your company.

For more about Kelly and his future projects, you can connect with him at [email protected].

Kelly Schols is a speaker, author, success mentor, and business consultant. He is currently building his own personal consulting business and writing his first book, “Never By the Book.”

Kelly grew up on a farm, and started working in plumbing at age 16. He confesses to acting like he had it all figured out, which led to wrecking a company truck in the first month on the job.

“So they gave me a job that was probably one of the worst jobs you can imagine. A sewer line had broke under a local hospital and they had been dumping sewer underneath it for a year. So they gave me a hazmat suit, and 50-pound bags of lyme, and said get to it, kid.”

One of the co-owners of the plumbing business, Steve, appreciated his tenacity in taking on this challenge, and kept in touch with him even after he left the business.

Kelly shares how after he was 21, he moved out to southern California and started working odd jobs to support his drinking habit. During this time, Steve called him every month for two years, encouraging Kelly to come home and work for Steve’s new company. In January of 1990, Kelly moved back up to Washington state, broke and an alcoholic.

But with Steve’s encouragement and mentorship, he got sober, bought Steve out in 2002, went through many transitions, and then sold the company in 2018. At this point, he didn’t believe in himself. But Steve did. He became a mentor to Kelly and still is to this day.

Kelly says he took on the initial plumbing job and the project in the hazmat suit because he saw it as a challenge. He credits his values growing up on a farm and his strict mom’s phrase “Can’t never did anything” to shaping his work ethic.

Steve’s mentorship was also instrumental in both his personal and professional journey.

Thanks to Steve’s recommendation, he read “The Millionaire Next Door.” What he learned from the book was:

1. The people with nice things are not always the people who make a lot of money.
2. Save more than you earn.
3. Don’t worry about how much you make, worry about net worth.

Today, he is 29.5 years sober.

When Kelly bought the business from Steve in 2002, it was right after September 11, and during the recession. To overcome this challenge, he turned to his brother for advice.

“He referred me to Brian Tracy, and I bought what was called ‘Universal Laws of Success and Achievement’ the CD series…so I turned my truck into a university on wheels... and it completely changed my mindset of focusing on building myself as a better person but to help the people around me.”

By investing in personal development for himself, Kelly saw the benefits and encouraged his team to improve and develop too. He soon made time for personal development and training a priority for his company culture.

“When I quit alcoholism…I had a couple of friends who just stood behind me 100%. I just saw how…if you surround yourself with good people and help other people get what they want, you’ll get more in return.”

He shares how he wanted to help people get better just as they had helped him.

1. Work hard.
2. Set goals.
3. Seize opportunities.
4. Be adaptable and change.
5. Watch your money.
6. Learn all that you can.
7. Believe in yourself.
8. Get out of your comfort zone.
9. Focus on your family and give back to your community.
10. Blow through the naysayers.

Kelly emphasizes that writing down your goals is key if you ever want to achieve them.

When he met and married his wife, he shares that they talked about what they wanted to build together. They discussed their goals and dreams together often as they sat around the dinner table with their two daughters.

Their family goals included:

1. Pay for kids to go to a private college.
2. Pay off business.
3. Build a dream home.
4. Buy real estate.
5. Go camping
6. Buy a vacation home.

By talking about these hopes and dreams, Kelly says they were able to figure out how to achieve them. He remembers that as a kid he always knew he wanted to become a millionaire. However, when he finally realized he was a millionaire, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that the journey he took to get there was fulfilling.

Kelly recognizes how many people are afraid to look in the mirror and confront their faults and weaknesses. But he points to this difficult yet rewarding practice as critical for changing and growing into a better version of yourself.

The pivotal moments in his life where change was a difficult yet important piece of his personal development were when he became sober and moved back to Washington State, bought the business from Steve in 2002, and navigated the stress of the 2008 recession on the business.

He also shares how when his wife passed away unexpectedly in 2012, he had to dive back into personal development and counseling to overcome that challenging life change. However, her passing also gave him a new perspective and gratitude for how much they had accomplished together.

Push Yourself

Kelly acknowledges that it’s scary to step out of your comfort zone, but that it’s part of change and growth. When he joined the Blue Collar Success Group and started coaching it was scary, but rewarding. Now, as he is pursuing his own personal consulting business, it’s still scary, but necessary to growth.

Kelly is currently working on his personal website, but you can connect with him for the time being at [email protected].

Stay tuned for part 2 with Kelly Schols about financial success and protecting your assets.

Portland, Oregon based A-Temp Heating, Cooling & Electrical has been serving homes and businesses for forty years. Tyson, General Manager, and Erika, Marketing Director, say they were “born into it,” and are proud to carry on the family business their dad built.

Growing up in the business, they saw the value in treating employees like an extension of the family, and this continues to be a distinctive part of their culture today.

“That’s the best review we get - when the client writes that our employee was out there raving about A-Temp and that they love working there.”

At A-Temp, employees are treated like family and that’s what makes the culture so strong and dynamic. Although they are growing at a steady pace, Tyson and Erika emphasize that they aren’t in a rush to hire. In fact, they have to turn down work right now because they only want to hire the right people.

Tyson and Erika highlight the standards by which they strive to keep their technicians, which include:

1. Hire people whose values align with yours.
2. Prioritize families.
3. Be reasonable.
4. Listen.

Asking for feedback and advice consistently from your employees and techs is important. Being open to all ideas, in fact, even silly ideas, can turn out to be valuable. Erika shares how their dad had the idea of yard signs. They thought it was silly, but the signs turned out to be incredibly efficient in helping them establish themselves as the neighborhood business they wanted to be.

Their technicians are out working long, unconventional hours, so Tyson and Erika emphasize the importance of giving their techs flexibility to accommodate their lifestyles and family time.

Tyson and Erika share that they also like to surprise employees with intentional, thoughtful things like a giftcard to an employee’s favorite place, bringing an employee their favorite drink or ice cream, or surprising staff with lunch.

1. When interviewing and hiring, focus on attitude, vibe, and finding the right culture fit. Go with your gut.
2. Be reasonable and do what you think is right.
3. Don’t let numbers cloud your judgement. Don’t let the few who might take advantage of a benefit you are giving stop you from giving it to the ones who won’t.

Follow up with your customers and ask them about why they keep coming back or why they don’t return.

Tyson and Erika’s advice for business owners include:

• Don’t compromise your integrity.
• Do what’s right for the customer always. This allows your employees to stand behind your company.
• Align yourself with the right people and make sure you can trust your staff like family.

Al Levi, business consultant, teacher, author, and former contractor for 25 years was making money but he was stressed out. This inspired him to found the 7-Power Contractor, dedicated to helping other contractors have less stress and more success.

This requires a strong foundation and plan, which he outlines as the 7-Power Contractor system.

1. Planning Power: you have to have a plan for accomplishing your goals.
2. Operating Power: you need to have policies and procedures of how you will accomplish your plan.
3. Staffing Power: you need to be always recruiting, hiring, orienting, training, and retaining.
4. Sales Power: sales needs to be asking great questions, listening, and affirming to your customer that you can hear their wants and needs.
5. Sales Coaching: you need to coach customers on good, bad, or indifferent results.
6. Marketing: you need the right amount of calls from the right customer at the right time.
7. Financial: you can’t ignore this. You need real-world accounting to make good financial decisions today.

There is no shortage of great ideas, so you have to create a master project list. Using the filter of “biggest problem, biggest challenge, greatest chance of becoming profitable,” to prioritize and create a list of the top 30 things you need to work on. Then, narrow those 30 down to the top five.

Then, work on those top 5 every week.

Spend your time, energy, and money wisely by focusing on your plan instead of multitasking.

“To me, it’s akin to driving your car without GPS. What is leadership? What is planning? Setting a destination and trusting your GPS to get you where you need to go.”

The operating power requires you to create a model system that keeps everything from how you answer the phone, dispatch, pay taxes and payroll, clean your trucks, organize your tools, etc. in one place. It’s systematizing and creating manuals for every job description so that your employees are prepared to do exceptionally well in their position.

Advice: get over being the rescuer, fireman, and guru. This will undermine your ability to reach your goals.

The stuff your bookkeeper, accountant, and adviser do impact your business immensely, so they should be operating off of reality rather than prediction. Real-world accounting is not driving based off of your rearview mirror - it’s looking out your front window while you’re driving.

Operating with “Known Financial Position” will determine how much you’re charging and paying employees and which jobs you take.

”Customers will take you to what they see as the problem, but good contractors know that the problem that they’re showing you isn’t necessarily where the problem exists. It’s somewhere else.”

Al’s five-step sales process:

1. Ask good questions.
2. Listen.
3. Affirm that you’re doing it.
4. Provide the best solutions for them.
5. Move forward.

The essence: great communication.

Al’s Sales secret: “If you’re talking, you’re selling. If they’re talking, they’re buying.”

Having the right amount of calls at the right time from the right customer is the result of good marketing. Not everyone should be your customer. Focus on exactly who you should talk to.

Good marketing should include:

1. Unique Selling Position.
2. Specific Target Audience(s).
3. Progress Measuring.
4. Marketing Plan.
5. Marketing Allocation.
6. Marketing Calendar - year-round and proactively driven.

Your service should back up exactly what your marketing promises. Your customers value being able to trust that your services are guaranteed and consistent.

Al says that he doesn’t just like Millennials, he loves them. He encourages other business owners to take the time to understand them and how to work with them so they can elevate your business.

Here’s what you need to understand about Millennials, according to Al:

1. They have great energy.
2. They want to know the why.
3. They want to have clear directions.
4. They are well-prepared for interviews.

As a contractor you should focus on:

1. Making more calls than you can usually do.
2. Staffing more techs. The more techs in the field, the more profitable your company will be.

If you can provide willing employees with skills, then that will create a good culture and empowered employees. Let them know that you have a career for them, not just a job.

Leadership is important to your business’s future and it requires reflection and sacrifice.

“I created 10 golden rules for my personal life and 10 golden rules for my business life, and if they don’t mesh, there’s always friction.”

Al emphasizes the importance of writing these goals down so you can hold yourself accountable. You also need to give yourself a deadline for achieving these goals, otherwise, they’ll never happen.

In addition, make sure your techs and your company are staying ahead of the competition with technology. Leverage technology in every way you can, including for your own growth and education.

“I only got smarter by listening and hearing to other people along the way. Well, that’s what podcasting is… Turn off the radio and plug into podcasts.”

Visit the 7-Power Contractor for more information.

Growing up, Al’s dad owned several businesses, and he worked on all of them. He saw that no matter how different those businesses were, there were several important concepts that consistently made each business successful.

Once he took on more of a leadership role in the businesses, he also saw how challenging it is to both deliver services and work on the business. He found himself in this position, doing well financially, but stressed out and unhealthy. Al shares how he finally “shut up and listened” to advice, and this reshaped his success, his health, and lead to the 7-Power Contractor.

Al outlines these seven powers as the foundation of a successful business.

1. Planning Power: you have to have a plan for accomplishing your goals.
2. Operating Power: you need to have policies and procedures of how you will accomplish your plan.
3. Staffing Power: you need to be always recruiting, hiring, orienting, training, and retaining.
4. Sales Power: sales needs to be asking great questions, listening, and affirming to your customer that you can hear their wants and needs.
5. Sales Coaching: you need to coach customers on good, bad, or indifferent results.
6. Marketing: you need the right amount of calls from the right customer at the right time.
7. Financial: you can’t ignore this. You need real world accounting to make good financial decisions today.

These are the things that make the difference. Al highlights that while you don’t have to be a 10 at all seven of them, you can’t be a zero.

“I was always getting run over by the business, not ever ahead of it. So planning power is working on the right thing at the right time in the right way.”

Al says you have to put yourself in your employees’ seats. The way you orient people dictates their success for the rest of their time in your business. By creating a clear path for your employees to follow, you set them up for success.

His approach to recruiting techs is to find willing people and teaching skills instead of hiring skilled people and trying to rewire and retrain them.

“I share all the time that my dad’s advice is why you paid me to come to your place today.”

Al explains that his dad was both his life coach and business coach. From a young age, he remembers going along with his dad to jobs, sometimes in the middle of the night, and how special that experience was.

Lessons his dad taught him include:

• He didn’t enjoy going to wakes, funerals, or hospitals. But his dad taught him that those were non-negotiables.
• When you feel overrun, remember that your customers woke up today and chose you out of 2,000 choices. Instead of thinking of your to-dos as a burden, think of them as an honor.
• Think of all the things you’ve accomplished. If you don’t congratulate yourself for what you have in your rearview mirror, you can’t move forward.

Al feels he was given a gift when he shifted from working on the business to consulting. Once he got systems and processes and the right people on board, he realized there was a whole country out there that he wanted to help.

Al says he is constantly learning, but can pinpoint a few moments and decisions that resulted in pivotal growth.

1. They stopped hiring experienced technicians in the HVAC/plumbing business, and instead hired people eager and willing to work.
2. They created detailed manuals for each job.
3. They integrated all of the manuals across departments so that they were able to serve their customers in a uniform way.
4. They wrote down the 30 projects that must be completed for success, and then prioritized them to find the top five projects. Then, at least once a week, worked on completing the top five.

As a contractor and business owner, Al confesses to being competitive. However, he had to learn to let go and delegate so that his team could learn, grow, and improve.

“We’re competitive. We want to win every battle. But here’s what I’m going to say today: ‘You can’t! And if you did, you’d lose the war,’ which is what I finally got attached to.”

• Build an organization chart with the various boxes it takes to run your company. Then, expand those boxes to create a depth chart and create cross-trained positions.
• Write manuals that will help guide those charts and that you can build systems around.
• Make sure your goals are objective and measurable.
• Cultivate leadership that is balanced between having a plan and a vision.

Stay tuned for more home services business fundamentals and lessons for success in Part 2 with Al.

Tim Flynn is the Founder of Winters Home Services, a thriving plumbing business in the Boston area. His advice for recruiting and retaining techs is not a short-term solution; it requires high standards, dedication to the craft—and above all—strong, engaging leadership.

In today’s market, there’s a shortage of people who want to be in the trades, but a steady demand for work. Because of this, home services businesses have to not only compete for new hires, but also retain their current employees.

Tim is quick to dispel the myth that great healthcare, two weeks paid vacation time, or a company car and paid gas are enough. Today, your business needs to do something very different.

First, the benefits of working for your business should be crystal clear. It should be easy for a potential employee to take a package home and explain it to their significant other. From the salary and commission guidelines to the health, dental and life insurance coverage, keep it simple.

“Very similar to marketing to new customers, you have to do multiple things to market to new employees… Newspaper ads, Indeed advertising, hiring fairs, basically getting referrals from your current employees and paying those employees a commission or check for somebody who works out. If you’re not coming to hiring with 5-7 different disciplines, you’re not doing enough.”

When hiring and training new techs, Tim highlights several areas of consideration. Do they:

When he brings in a new tech or employee, they go on ride-alongs, takes notes, and observe the more experienced techs. It doesn’t matter if they’ll be working in the field or in the office, they go on ride-alongs to understand how the whole business fits together. If they are a tech, they are then sent to the Ultimate Tech Academy in Arkansas in order to learn or improve on a certain trade.

While poaching is certainly a reality in the competitive home services space, remember that people leave a business most often because the culture is not a good fit. Don’t take it personally.

Tim relies on the “Slow to hire, quick to fire,” motto, in order to make sure that potential employees are truly interested and invested. On the flip side, he strives to paint a vision for the future for his employees and show them how they can excel and grow within the company. This is crucial for retention.

Two of Tim’s favorite ingredients for creating an engaging culture are:

Tim emphasizes that there aren’t enough people who want to work in the trades today, so it’s important to be active in recruiting and retaining now.

“I think, for the next 10 years, in all markets, hire as many people as you possibly can... Train them and make them great. Because… anybody that answers a phone and goes to a phone, you’re going to be in demand. Because if you look around, we’re building more houses than you can even imagine. Those are houses are going to need to be repaired, that need to be fixed, that need to be maintained, and we don’t have enough people going into the trades.”

Looking to the future, you’re going to be working your people harder. This means you’ll need to provide time off, show appreciation, and give a lot of gratitude.

Most importantly, he says you really need to be there for your employees. Tim shares how he works hard to get to know his employees and be there for them as they navigate life. As a leader, don’t be afraid to get personal and be available to them.

“The first thing you do to retain a technician is work on yourself and be in a better place to give.”

Rustin Kretz, CEO of Scorpion, and Daylen Farkas, Vice President of Advertising Research, continue their conversation about how artificial intelligence and machine learning are helping home services business owners win customers and discover a return on their marketing.

Successful home services businesses are spending their money wisely by relying on machine learning. However, it takes going above and beyond the numbers to have a healthy company in the long-term. While machine learning and SAM® are part of that, it’s the intangibles like answering the phone and going above and beyond for customers that sets companies apart.

For example, Rustin and Daylen share how at the end of the day, your customers don’t know that your home services company is analyzing data about them in order to make decisions. They just know they’re receiving a great customer experience from you.

Scorpion’s Advertising Machine, SAM, uses the data collected from various marketing platforms to take your leads to the next level. Rustin and Daylen emphasize that it’s not about the number of leads, but rather the quality and if they are actually converting to sales and impacting your ROI.

“Don’t focus on the leads, focus on what drives revenue, because that’s going to grow your business.”

With SAM, Scorpion is able to predict what the average close rate is for any plumber or home services business across the country. From these predictive analytics, you can look at your home services business performance and compare and contrast. Looking at your unique numbers against those of your competition allows you to see where you might be able to improve or step it up from a customer experience standpoint or services offered perspective.

Rustin and Daylen also highlight how important it is to make sure your advertising is evolving and changing to stay ahead of your competition.

“When you actually compare digital media buys, like actual digital advertising against traditional media, digital media is up by about 20 percent over the last year.”

Social media platforms and digital entertainment services like Hulu and Sling TV are the new frontiers. Where phone book ads and TV and radio commercials used to connect you with your customer, today it’s important to stay relevant on these new platforms. If you can establish yourself early on a new platform where your customers spend time, you can build brand trust and recognition.

Rustin and Daylen explain how SAM makes it easier for your home services business to show up where your customers are.

“We own our own website platform. Most people outsource their websites… so not only do we have analytics around what do they search for, when do they search for, what were they using, what was the device, how long do they spend on the site, we know what they click on what they scroll on, what interested them, did they watch a video, etc.”

Having all of this data to build predictive analytics about your marketing performance and customer behavior in one, streamlined, integrated system, helps you make informed business decisions. There are so many options for where you can be spending your marketing budget, and it’s important to put your dollars where it will actually pay off.

Rustin Kretz, CEO of Scorpion, and Daylen Farkas, Vice President of Advertising Research, share how artificial intelligence and machine learning are helping home services business owners win customers and discover a return on their marketing.

In today’s world, technology and the data it commands and collects has made on-demand television and movies, driverless cars, Alexa, and Uber, commonplace. However, many home services business owners are not leveraging it for their marketing.

Rustin and Daylen highlight how using predictive analytics can help you make better decisions for your business. Predictive analytics allow you to see where the market is going.

“We’re looking at all of these different things because we want to make sure that when we have a budget and we’re trying to go after customers in a certain place, that we’re putting them in front of the best opportunity.”

Predictive analytics is a lot like studying history. By studying the clicks associated with your business and target market to analyze where they came from and if they became a sale or not, you are able to predict how to advertise at a more efficient rate.

Home services businesses that utilize predictive analytics are able to reach their goals and fulfill their purpose.

“Predictive is what we use today to say ‘What is the market going to look like or generate based on what we know? And what’s the best way to spend your money based on what we know?’ And then the after part is once we run it, ‘What are we doing to constantly optimize it to what works for you?’”

Because the home services industry is constantly changing and evolving, the data you’re using to make decisions should be too. Having a streamlined system that tracks trends in your market and helps you stay ahead of your competition is key for making informed decisions about your advertising.

Rustin and Daylen share how they see businesses wasting money marketing to customers who are not interested in their product because they don’t have the tools or a system to help them make smarter decisions.

“Every plumber, every HVAC guy, they’ve got different priorities… and you can’t just come out with a cookie-cutter template and expect that to work for everybody, because it doesn’t.”

In order to help shape and mold strategies around your home services business’s goals, Scorpion creates a unique plan supported by predictive analytics. This plan allows you to look back and find trends in your market to capitalize on or learn from, and areas where you can take advantage of more opportunities.

“This is basically the system that powers all the intelligence behind our advertising… it’s dedicated to basically looking at modeling data so we can have the best results possible.”

Rustin and Daylen explain how Scorpion’s SAM helps home services businesses stop losing money and spend it effectively by using data to make good decisions. For example, when it comes to leads, it’s important to know:

As the market and ads only become more competitive in the home services industry, it’s important to make sure you’re spending your marketing budget efficiently. Local Services Ads (LSAs) are taking up valuable real estate at the top of Google search, and your home services business might be missing leads if you’re trying for a top spot with only SEO.

Stay tuned for more marketing wisdom next week on part 2 with Rustin and Daylen!