On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. The tyranny of the urgent is real. We all have the same problem. We need more customers. We need more customers. Beyond that, we We need more good customers because I think that's, I mean, that's the trick here. Right? How do you actually find the good customers that you wanna work with and that wanna work with you. Referral is great. It's still the king. It's still the number one most cost effective means of of getting new business.
But you can't scale that way. Sure. But I have a kid on the way, but I got 2 kids on the way, but I got 3 kids on the way. Yeah. I mean, the whole the whole spiel. It's always a butt. And, yeah, we have to fight the butts. We being high. I have to fight the butts every day. Fight the butts. Just do it and fight the butts. What's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe, gathering the king's podcast, coming back to you with a king today on the stage. My Ross McDaniel. How we doing?
Doing good, Chaz. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, man. I'm excited for this conversation. Obviously, I'm always excited for conversations here with incredible entrepreneurs like you, but we've had a chance to kinda get to know each other a little bit. You're actually gonna be doing some marketing one of my companies, our our remodeling company here in Kansas City. And, so we've gotten a Chaz, a chance to kinda pick each other's brand a little bit before this show.
And I think you're gonna create create some great value here for the listeners, not just the marketing piece, but the way that you think. So I'm excited for that. Tell us what kind of business that you have. Yeah. So, Vince Post, what we do is we help home service businesses find great customers and vice versa.
And we really just do that through review automation, Paid search, Facebook ads, all the typical stuff you'd think about when it comes to digital marketing, but we've combined all of that into a local growth formula. And so we're here to really just connect to the awesome customers with the awesome businesses because those are the back vents of our communities. Wow. You've said that a time or 2. It sounded really good. That's right. Thank you. It was clear, though, man.
I also I also have a lot of friends in the home service space. Several of our mastermind members are in the home service space. And I don't know if you would agree with this, but I find myself in the same categories I would put them. It's just this down to earth simple individual. We we want a lot. We we are winners. Don't get me wrong. We we we wanna charge the hill and freaking take over, but but we're just simple, man. Like, it doesn't have to be super complicated.
So that's actually what I loved about what you said is, like, I understood it. That's right. Well, I'm glad you said that because, yeah, I mean, to be honest with you, that's been the the trick here is how do we distill down all of these crazy w we talked before snake oily type of concepts that other businesses are are deploying and how we distill them down into, like, the cliche first principles so that everyone can understand them.
And then specifically the everyone, the backbones of our communities that, like, the the core entrepreneur is a guy that's going out and hanging to shingle and saying, I'm gonna go put roofs on on on houses. I'm gonna go put roofs on buildings. I'm gonna go fit fix HVAC deals. Yeah. I mean, that's the backbone. Yeah. I mean, we think about, you know, the the flashiness of business You know?
And maybe all of what we see in our mind as success, but what you're talking about is, you know, a lot of the people listen to this show. A lot of people that I consider like me and they have a story, and they came from, you know, either either something or nothing. And but but here they are. They're they're putting their hand and their nose to the grindstone. They're trying to make something work. And we all have the same problem. We need more we need more customers.
We need more But I think beyond that, we we need more good customers because I think that's the, I mean, that's the trick here. Right? Everybody can. Can put up a billboard. Everybody can get the phones ringing, but, like, how do you how do you actually find the good customers that you wanna work with and that wanna work with you? Yeah. This is a huge point. I wanna dive into it because you opened up the can. It's not my typical Sorry. Jump to hear. But I love it. No. I love it.
It's actually why we connected with you. I mean, we had connected with you about the show, but then as I learned what you did, I immediately got my remodeling team and communication with you because you're right. We we know how to freaking close, man. Like, I know how to run businesses, build teams, freaking close, but it's the the technique of finding more and more of the better clients Chaz could be a size of project. That could be a certain area.
That could be a certain type of person that I like to work with. And that's what we've just figured out in the remodeling space is that there's a certain person, a certain type of family, a certain type of project, and you were someone that came across someone who can help us do that. So I wanna dive into that. Why would it be important for a business owner listening right now? Rather than just accepting any job possible, any HVAC job, any electrical job, any remodel.
I'm just I I just they they call me. I take the job. As opposed to no. No. I'm gonna go after specifically whether it's a specific area, specific type of customer, specific type of home. Like, what's the value here? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think we all fall. If if we have started a business of any caliber, any scope, any size, any industry, we've all fallen victim to a poverty mindset at at some point or another.
The tyranny of the urgent, the churn, the the whatever that's causing us to and anxiety. And what does that lead us to do? It leads it leads poor decision making and poor decision making when it comes to customer quality, really just means not knowing what you're about and who you serve. I'm not gonna be able to effectively serve somebody that's outside of my core core competency. I've built my systems. I've built my playbooks. I've built my team around this.
So why would I go offer this to that? And I think when we get down to the home service level where, really, it it the waters become a bit murky because when you have a home, your your roof is is as good as any, but Wolfe, is it actually the right roof? And if I'm like a a metal roof specialist, right, like, am I gonna go do an asphalt roof or hire a crew to go do an asphalt roof or something else, I don't have that specialty. And it just leads to to leaks. It leads to bad relationships.
Yeah. And I think beyond that, it stopped me if I'm too far, but I I think beyond that, we've got this new generation of small business owner and, like, blue collar, home service small business owner Chaz is placing more of a priority on the customer interaction Chaz we have been in times past. And you and I of, well, forgive me for assuming. I well, you know, this millennial generation, right, we do. Yes. I'm in there. We're in there. Yeah. We're in there.
We place a higher premium on that customer interaction. And I think, you know, if we're not truly being knowing what we're about and saying yes to the right yeses and no to the right nos. You know, when it comes to our sales pipeline, we're we're missing the mark. Yeah. I used to I I might say that this might I might make some people mad by saying this, but I can back it up with data. So hang tight with me.
Don't let me don't let me fluster you here, but I used to in my younger years, I used to be the top salesperson for a company called HomeAdvisor. Oh my goodness. We're gonna need to Angie. I know, Angie. Hey. I got I got trophies, bro. But here's what I'm saying. Not only so first off, before I give you the data there, I use Angie and HomeAdvisor leads in my current company right now. We've sold almost a $1,000,000 this year on lead leads.
So if you're hearing this right now and you have any sort of qualms about some sort of third party lead source, your sales process is a good enough. And so going back to years ago when I was a young man selling this, I would say the same thing because I had customers crushing it. So I knew that it worked. And I knew sales, and so I knew the key. Right? But everything that you're talking about, I would talk to a guy, answer the phone. Well, we're busy. We don't need leads. Wait a second.
I didn't ask if you were busy because busy being busy don't make nobody any money. Right? And so what what what Ross Chaz given to you guys is talking about profitability, and you can't have profitability if you are just serving any job, any home, any roof. And so really dialing it in, whether it's by the location, whether it's by the size of home, whether it's the type of person. And I'm not talking about, you know, like, I only work with, you know, this type of demographic or, ethnicity.
I'm just talking about there is a there is a playbook that you run, and it works for a $100,000 home or a $1,000,000 home, or the type of person inside of that home might be really, really particular, and you do really well with that person, or maybe you don't. And all of these things matter.
So I'm I'm backing up what you're saying, Ross, by saying that this is really important, but give us some practicals in here, maybe some clients of yours, how this is, like, made a big difference to their to their their business, not just getting more leads, like you said, but getting more of the right leads. Yeah. Getting more of the right leads. Well, 1st of all, like, how do we do that? There's a whole we call it the local growth formula.
There's there's a whole formula for Chaz, but how it tangibly plays out in, like, saying yes and no to the right things. I think there's a great example, and we have a local so first of all, I'm from Augusta, Georgia. Anybody who's a golf fan, you know, we're we're here. But cleaning companies are big because we have the masters. And so we've got entire industry built around, like, home service cleaning companies, residential painting companies.
And a a client of mine a while back, they were just getting land. I mean, labor was getting tough. Supplies are getting expensive, and they're just getting hammered. They've got tons of business, more they could possibly need, but it was, you know, tiling grout cleaning. It was carpet cleaning. It was home, home, full home cleaning. It was move out cleaning. It was all these different things. And, you know, finally, after a visit to the hospital, Terry, owner just ended up saying, Hey.
Like, we can't do this. We have to start saying no and start building systems around that. And the cool thing that they did, which I think that's the big red flag here is a lot of folks think, oh, saying no means saying no to dollars. Well, I mean, Terry was pretty creative about it, and he actually went and said, hey. No. I'm going to to separate my business. And create systems surrounding residential cleans and everything involved with the home. Boom. That's one business.
Then I'm gonna do everything that involves a floor carpet tile, grout, whatever, and put that over here. And so it allowed him to say systems here, staff, here, materials here, system staff materials here and separate those 2. And, surprisingly, like, created 2 businesses out of 1 and ended up reducing his time in the business. I don't know how that happens. We can back into Chaz, but, like, that when you put that level of clarity into your business, that's what happens.
Yeah. I'll I'll back that up. I don't share a lot of, examples here, but since you've brought just an incredible example here, I wanna I wanna share something. So Nathan, in our mastermind group, owns multiple companies. And, one of which was a family business. And so this is a little bit of a plug for the for the group, but, as you have people around you, you can help make you they can help you make hard decisions. And in essence, is what this was.
He was in a hot seat sharing a situation about this company. And the collective around the room was shut it down. It was the worst margin, the worst type of customer to work with. He didn't want to do it. It was just eating him up and taking away from energy and growth in his other companies that he could be putting effort and energy into and investment of time. And but it was a forty year old family business. So he was stuck. Right?
So he got the freedom of, like, the this collective of of strong business owners saying, nah. They just cut it and press on these others. It's been 1 year since that decision. He just posted in our in our group Chaz. But actually how letting letting that little division go, he he did 100 of 1000 of dollars less, but made 5% more profit. That is wild. And that's when you Crazy. Knowing your numbers matters a ton. Yeah. You told him about 5%. That is a big deal.
And and his other business grew 30% because he was able to focus on it. I mean, what? Yeah. Are you kidding me? So everything that Ross has given to you right now is huge because he's talking about being precise in your business and being calculated, not just open the door. Let the phone ring. We say yes to everybody. You have to start somewhere. So if you're hearing this right now and you're just getting started, fine. No big deal.
But you need to work gradually towards a calculated plan, which includes knowing exactly who you wanna work with and going after them solely and saying no to everybody else. It's funny how things open up, though. Would you agree with this? They open up to the people who we want to if we say no to everybody else, would you agree? I would absolutely agree. It's gonna be a plug stand, I think. I mean, so Donald Miller, a fantastic author, a number of books, wrote a book called Building Story Brand.
I'm sure many are familiar If you're not, check it out. It's awesome. But, I mean, he he talks about how, like, we have to be clear as business owners. We have to be intentional as business owners. But more than that, our customers have to be clear on who we are and what we do and how we actually guide them to the the solution of their problem and pain.
And I think that's the biggest thing because when we're in the business, my business, your business, anybody else's business, we have an acute understanding of what we do on a day to day basis and how what we do solves and impacts the businesses and clients that we serve. However, a lot of times our clients, I still get people, and this is a problem I'm trying to sell my own business. I still clients that have been with me for years saying, I don't know exactly what you do for us.
Thank you for growing our business, but, you know, I I have no idea. Please don't talk to me about all And that's fine. Right? Like, we we don't need to dig into the technical jargon all the time, but what we do have to be clear on for our customers and our perspective customers is what their problem and pain is and that we have an acute understanding of that so that we can then communicate effectively how we're going to solve that for them.
And so clarity and the functionality are the 2 things I'm championing there. Yeah. I I love the word clarity. You just said something though that I wanna ask you to dig further on because you said in in order to know them specifically, Right? And so it's not just like I'm helping people that have a hole in their roof. It's to know that family. The Johnson family and to know that they are, you know, our age millennials, and they've got kids our age, you know, under 10. And the house is crazy.
And they've got a house. Maybe it's a whatever whatever house, whatever neighborhood, you know, whatever the details are there. But knowing what's going on with the Johnson's and knowing their problem intimately and how this roof affects that, I can then speak to them directly. And and I know you're leading right in here leading you right into this marketing value, but, like, take it from here. Please. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, At the end of the day, a roof is a roof. Right?
Like, I mean, at a at a macro level, we could just say, well, all roofs are the same. But to your point, And I think this is going back to what I originally said about this new generation of business owners and home service business owners. There's a level of connection and trust because in the same way that a roof's a roof. Well, a roof is a roofer. Right? And so there's some level of differentiation that happens there. For the customer and no longer is the requirement.
Do you have the skills required to do this job? It is, do you have the skills required to do this job, and do I trust you? Because increasingly, mom's mom's mom or dad's dad's dad is no longer given the the referrals on down the line for these businesses. Now we have to, like, go in and and say, hey. I know you. I am you. I I solve a very specific problem for you, and here's how I will solve that problem. And in what time I'm going to solve Chaz problem afterwards.
Here's the guarantee I'm gonna give you. That sounds like straight out of the story brand textbook. But, truly, they strip story brand out of it. Like, that just the formula for building an authentic relationship with a human. And I think we need to apply that same principle in our in our businesses. Yeah. Authentically building and then and then but we're building a business.
And it's like, man, this is a regular conversation that I have now, but, you know, I think 2030 50 years ago, this, I mean, people having a similar conversation. They wouldn't have been on a podcast maybe on a radio show, but I don't think they would have been having this type of conversation. Would you agree? I don't know that their options would have been as abundant as they are for us today. I mean, I think it's good.
With the rise of you know, increasing demand for for trust and authentic relationships. We've also had increased confidence in man, this is actually a catch 22. This is gonna be one of those things we talked about last where it's like, hey. I might go back and revise this, but my point is I think that entrepreneurs feel a bit more emboldened in this, like, internet age, and they feel empowered to go out start a business. And so our resources or our options for services are just so much more.
And so, yeah, I mean, we have to build that us, not only Chaz our generation, do we desire that authentic relationship? Well, we also have to have that in place as a consumer because we're gonna get burned. Snake oil is everywhere. Yeah. And it's like, like you're saying, there's there's more information than ever. But because there's more information than ever, I don't know how to disseminate. And so like you said, a roof's a roof. Well, a roofer's a roofer.
And I think that was one of the most powerful things you've said so because, you know, you can say, well, roofs are roof and go, no. No. No. No. No. They're they're not. They're not. And we know that as business owners, like, no. We know the and we would love to have more of this. But thinking about it from the customer perspective, going back to even how you open this up saying, you know, nowadays, especially in home this.
It's just more about the experience because people have they've gotten experience everywhere else. They get experience with Amazon. They get experience you know, at Costco? I've some of my friends love Costco. I was like, what? Okay. I'm I'm a lot with you. I look. I'm not saying I'm not. I'm just saying that my my wife and some others that I know, like, are deep, hardcore fans. And I I get to a place where you buy food. I don't know.
Yeah. Yeah. I go every couple of weeks because it feels her love takes, you know. That's why I'm doing it. Point being, though, that we get this yeah. Exactly. But we get this experience everywhere. And so why why would I not demand that now from the the guy working on my windows or doing a bathroom remodel or, you know, especially especially at the home, bro. It's like this was where my family is. Yeah. 100%. 100%.
And truly at those price points too, and this is what I've gotta explain to a lot of a lot of clients is, okay. You're quoting, you know, $2 for you know, whatever job you have and the other person's quoting $3 or vice versa. Right? Like, they're quoting $2. You're quoting $3. Well, as a homeowner, I could care less about the $1000 difference if I know that I have immense trust and a guarantee behind the work you're doing. I know that the outcome is gonna be exactly what I want.
Like, as the higher tickets we go, the the variance in pricing, you're not gonna be able to compete. People are not going want to want to compete just on price. They're gonna wanna compete on experience and trust, and that's where we have to go as as business centers. Yeah. Love that. Alright. Let's go let's go into the weeds here for a second. You've been building your business and been successful. You talked about, you know, building your team.
I know you guys have, you know, got a downtown office and all the fun stuff that you're doing inside of a business, give us such a really good decision that you've made that we can apply. Our business. A good decision that I've made. 1 Yeah. Plug for click up. Click up was great, but that's a that's really a tactical at, a in a micro. I think at a macro level, the the best decision I made was last year, and it was systematizing literally everything we do. Everything has a system. Regardless.
Right? Everybody everything has a system. What matters is whether or not it's standardized. You standardize something by writing it down. Write it down on a piece of paper. But regardless, write it down. And that was the best thing we did was standardize everything. Obviously, there's some variance here when we get into specific instances, but when those come up and they become consistent, write them down again. I would say that's been the biggest the biggest and most impactful decision we made.
It opened up sales. It opened up hiring. Opened up clarity for the home personally. It was good. Why do you think clarity came from writing down the things that you already knew? That's a great question. I think in the process of writing down, he realized how much unnecessary stuff exists in your world. Unnecessary in the form of you, the business owner, unnecessarily doing those things, unnecessary in the form of holy cow. You hate doing this, and the client has no value in it whatsoever.
That's a big one. Eliminated a lot right there. Yeah. And and clarity, just in life, brings immense peace and an immense joy brings some of the joy back into what we were doing too. He's now everybody's super on on the right track, new hires, exactly where they're going, what they're doing. I know exactly where I'm going or what I'm doing on a day to day basis. Clarity skiing. Yeah. I love that. I think that's Sometimes.
Yeah. Well, look, I I'll support you in that walking cliche because they're cliche for a reason. That's right. It's because they're real. I had a guy on the show. I don't know. Maybe close to a year ago. He was like, look, man. I'm just trying to execute the cliche. Oh, that's a great one. I love that. So don't run from it, man. Write all the cliches down. Just I don't know. And then let's just go do it. Let's just go freaking do it. Hey, Kings and Queens. Chaz Wolf.
I wanna talk to you about something that's super important to me. We put a lot of time and effort. We, meaning myself and my team, into this podcast into the content that goes out every single day. And if you have been getting any sort of value or insight from this, we want it to be able to reach other business owners too. So we would love if you would like, comment, share, leave a review, post, share again, all of the things.
On social media, on all the different platforms, or even on the podcast mediums of Apple and Spotify. We would love to be able to get our content into more hands, more entrepreneurs so they can grow their business as quick as possible. Together, we are building a community of like minded entrepreneurs who are committed to growing their businesses to new heights. So let's do this. Let's help each other. Let's help each other grow.
I think it's implementation, right, and everything that's even the clarity that you're talking about, now you can duplicate. Okay. But so now I wanna ask a secondary question with the process. You said it opened up sales. It opened up, you know, you mentioned a couple of things there. How how did it open up things? You said you gave you clarity, but you what you're really saying is that it grew your business or it enabled your team to grow or enabled things to change.
How did slowing down, writing out process, getting clarity, enable growth in all those other areas. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a that's a great question. Wolfe, one of the cool things about our local growth formula and, you know, how we how we do life for our clients is we're actively working on it for ourselves. And one of the big things that the local growth formula empowers you to to be able to do is get out of referral is my only sales pipeline. Referral is great. It's still the king.
It's still the number one most cost effective means of of getting new business, but you can't scale that way. And so really what we what our aim was and what our goal was with getting clear on systems was to say, okay. How can we actually develop a pipeline of new business that's inbound and outbound, but beyond the referral network. And so when we standardize things, We standardized our onboarding process. We standardized our, you know, discovery calls. We standardized our client intakes.
We standardized even like the little kickoff email that we send to say, hey. Thanks for the call. This is what's next. And to that point, your pa even your your podcasting onboarding is a great example of that where we've got very clear standardized systems. And what it allows me to do is make an easy decision to say, yes. I will be on this or or no. I will not. And it does the same thing for the the client.
So long winded way of saying our tangible output of that was we had a a pretty significant bump in conversion rate proposals that went out. I'm gonna have to go back and get the number on that, but it was palpable. And we felt it in our business, and our business grew as a result. Yeah. The the person that's list listening right now, they are wondering, I mean, they hear me say slow down to speed up. They hear you say create process, and it opens things up.
But they're, you know, stuck in the proverbial chasing the tail, you know, putting out fires all day long. How did they get to a place where they can even where you were last year and go, stop the madness. Let's make process. Yeah. Yeah. I I've wrestled with this. I mean, to be frank, like, I I still wrestle because what it requires is it requires letting some fires still smoulder and ember, and you've just gotta pick the ones that are not gonna burn the forest down.
Find a couple of control buyers, let them burn, forget about them, and make time carve out space in your week, in your day, every day to firm up your systems. To make clear what is unclear, and that's really it. The nutshell there is some things you're gonna have to burn. Yeah. And just do it. And just do it. Alright. Yeah. There's the hope there too. Burn and Yeah. Do. Yeah. Well, I think that it's real. You know?
First off, even if you weren't going and building systems, listener, those those other fires are burning anyway. Right? That's a great point. Yes. I mean, come on. And that was a big realization too. It's like, oh, wow. I mean, 1, they were still burning anyways, and 2, they had the same amount of client impact most often none. And, yeah, the tyranny of the urgent is real. Again, another cliche. There you go. Boom. We're gonna make a list of Ross's cliche statements.
And then that way I can hold you accountable to being executing on them. Right? You and your team. That's right. That's right. That's right. Okay. Let's flip the script. Let's talk about a bad decision. Something that's it was just your worst hour. I wanna know the juicy details. Yeah. There's a lot of these. It's it's tough. I mean, I think every entrepreneur out there can attest.
Like, for every 3 great decisions you make, there's a bad decision that you've just, maybe it even sets you back, more than the good decisions set you forward. I'll just say I feel like it maybe it's the opposite. It's 3 bad to one good. I mean, you I think you're batting really good average. Yeah. Embelishing the the the You're really good at making good decisions, Ross. Embalishing there.
No. No. I think there have been a couple specifically surrounding Chaz we entered into like, we we made the conscious decision to say, okay. We we don't just wanna be a referral business. We do kinda wanna scale this thing. We wanna see where see where we can go. Read a fantastic book by Paul Jarvis called company of 1, really spurred me on in a spoiler. Company 1 doesn't mean you have to be a solo entrepreneur.
But, you know, it spurred me on to to some new growth goals and actually even set a a growth goal cap a growth goal cap for the business, which I thought was a cool concept. And realizing Chaz, it's like, well, we can't just rely on referral. And so we started trying everything. We had firmed up some systems and some processes on the onboarding side, but we really tried a bit too much, on that end and actually ended up getting, getting burned, monetarily, and energy wise by cold email.
I think cold email is effective for many folks. I think it could probably be effective for us. Wasn't effective for us at the right time. It was the wrong decision, wrong time. And, we we ended up getting getting burned by that pretty significantly dollars wise, and certainly effort and intensity wise. Yeah. That feeling of being burned, it's rough. And, you feel like you I don't know. Like, you went backwards. But, obviously, you learned through that process.
And I I even actually appreciate that you said that's it. Chaz you know, like, death to cold email. It it that wasn't it. It was it just probably wasn't the right time. You learned a bunch, I bet. We learned a whole lot. Honestly, what ended up happening is, like, our discovery calls, the quality just kept going down, down, down, because We weren't super clear on who we're hitting. We're just going for volume. Right? And we we weren't practicing what we breached on that point on that front.
So we were wasting a ton of time, ton of dollars, doing that. And you know, maybe we'll pick it back up again. I think that and it it's so hard entering into this new sales world because you're trying to find, okay. Well well, what stick But then you have to, like, come back to to 1st principles and realize, like, get clear on who you're talking to, where are those people, go talk to them where they are, and they'll come in. So the side tangent, the side quest on, on sales. It's good.
It's good, man. I think that's it. You already said it, but it takes us back to what it is that you do for folks and getting getting clear on those things, but then also taking action towards those things. You even just said a little you know, going where they go, it's just like there's just so many layers of clarity, really, that you can get to the people that you're trying to reach all the way down to what do they do for fun? Where do they hang out?
And if you were to think of it in a physical sense, where are they? How can I go there, or how can I advertise there? Maybe the secondary question, but how can I go there? Where are they? Well, most likely the listener right now either hasn't asked that question or if they have, most likely they haven't taken the action towards going, I know that they're there. How do I put my thing in front of them there?
That's, I think, what not only what you do, but it it's it's a large part of winning on the on the marketing side. Give me strategic. Can I riff on where where they're meeting them, where they're at for a sec? Yeah, dude. Come on. I have I've thought about this, and it's it's gonna sound like ancient. You're a grandfather or something here. But we're we're opening up a coffee shops called Charles Coffee Bar here in Augusta, Georgia.
And one of the reasons it mattered to me was, yeah, I get to, you know, practice what I preach and open up a brick and mortar and local growth formula there. But the real reason is we love our community. We've planned a deep, deep roots here. And we live forty seconds from the shop. Got 4 partners 3 of the other ones live, you know, 45 seconds from the shop. And we're excited about getting to impact this community.
But the thing that has been absent that we feel like we're gonna get to bring here and that I get to bring in Vince Post that's been absent for many, many years is just this emphasis on customer service. And what did customer service used to require back in the day? Well, it required meeting them where they're at. Even if it was door to door sale You were going to meet them where they were at, and it was socially acceptable to do so.
When they were coming to you and your hardware store or, I don't know, to, check out marble countertops or whatever else. Like, you're still going in and you're still shaking the hand and you're still financial man wealth manager. Right? You're still going in and you're you're having the conversation. And, yes, we don't, like, if somebody calls me and I don't recognize the number, I'm probably ignoring it.
But the question then becomes, okay, the coffee shop, in the digital marketing agency, in the mastermind group, in whatever, right, how do we replicate some of what was lost way back when? To today's standards. How do we make that customer interaction that trust building happen today here in a digital format? That's my riff. Don't necessarily have the answer, but I think I'm trying to do it. Find the answer every day. Yeah. Well, I think I think it's a key.
It's a key to knowing who that person is and then being able to meet them where they're at. I think it speaks also to the customer experience that you that we're so deeply ingrained in as consumers now. Mhmm. But then as business owners, especially in the local format, it's like, okay. I gotta up my game. I can't just, you know, I think there's plenty of opportunity right now for for us to be able to look at businesses and go, well, have terrible service.
I think we could probably pick out some restaurants and and a list of places that were just like, I keep going back, but it's terrible. I don't know why. But generally speaking, it's not like It's very much I have choices, and a roofer is a roofer. I'm gonna pick somebody else because you're a jerk. That's right. So, okay, let's talk about family for a sec.
You and I were chatting family for, a few minutes before we hit the record button, but I know that, you've got young family, and that's important to you. And you just talk about your community and how that's important to you, and you're opening up another business for that reason. But inside of obsession, right, there's this word session that I am obsessed with, but it's in it's in Converse to balance. And I just don't I just laugh in the face of balance. Don't think it ex exists.
And I think that Man. Looking at your story, you're like, no. I'm all in. That's what I hear you say Chaz I'm all in. And so how have you, Ross, gone all in on your marriage, your kids, Chaz other business at the same time of doing all these major shifts, which takes obsession in your current business. You're doing it all the same time. How you doing it?
Yeah. Man, so the first thing that needs to happen here is like a big dose of humility 1, appreciate you saying those things, but brass tax for you and everybody listening out there, or we're not necessarily doing it super effectively all the time. We're not necessarily going in. No. Not even not necessarily. We for sure aren't going all in in each of those areas. All the time. Yeah. And, like, we just need to acknowledge that. That's not the case. Yep. I use the word repentance.
I daily repent with my wife and my kids for sometimes letting them be the ones that I'm not going all in on. And I say repentance because that should not, and nor should ever be the case. And so we're constantly daily trying to figure out, okay, here are the obsessions that you talked about. Fint's post, the team of Fint's post, the clients at Fint's post, Trello's Coffee bar, the partners, the the potential customers, whatever else, our home, our neighborhood.
Yeah. And then, like, how did those take priority, but not preeminence over our family over my wife, over my 3 kids. And so, yes, I my Wolfe, truly, you asked how it's her. I mean, she is the the backbone of our home. And, I mean, I'm sure you can probably say the same, but without a a partner that's propping you up and participating even, my wife just spent 10 years in HR. She does all of our our HR stuff for both Vince Post and trellis.
And, yeah, I mean, we have to have very, very clear communication with each other and, daily repentance. So hope that wasn't too authentic, but that's where we're at. No. That's where we're at. No, dude. It is real. It's funny because I started asking this question, I don't know, a couple 100 episodes ago. And the answer was always the same. Actually, pretty similar to yours, a little different language, but it's like, Oh, you know, I could be better, but here are some practicals that I've done.
You know? And and that's the typical answer that I get. And and I love the practicals. Of clear communication, I heard you say. I heard you say, obviously, humility and and even going as far as repenting. Those are the practicals that you're doing every single day to keep things in order. Okay. Great. 100%. But what I also heard you say was that she's helping. You're helping. You're both loving the family. You're loving the kid. Like, it's it's all in, and we're all together.
And so that's the that's the courage. I think that the listener needs to take away is that no. Is Chaz perfect in these areas? No. It's it's actually a big reason why I started asking the question. Is because I first recognized in my own situation that I wanted to be better. And so I started asking other people how they're getting better, which then drums up an amazing conversation, and we now do family mastermind cruises and trips to Mexico and all kinds of fun stuff. Sounds good. Yeah. Right?
Because it matters, number 1, 2, because nobody's talking about it. As the king as the business owner, like, I'm just supposed to win, and I'm supposed to make a bunch of money. And I'm supposed to just buy this stuff for my kids. It's like, no. I wanna do all that cool. Fine. But how do we do all the other cool stuff too at the same time, at the same pace? You know, I don't wanna I don't wanna get done here after my day and then pooed out for my kids. I wanna I wanna I wanna be ready. You know?
Yeah. You nailed that. Yeah. And how do we win the hearts and minds? Like, we just talked for 30 minutes on winning the hearts and minds of our customers. I mean, how do we win the hearts and minds of our our wife and our kids and you know, I I admired what you said before the pod too about how, like, you're trying to pour the same excellence that you have poured into other areas of business and commerce into your home home. I mean, that is. That is truly, like, as business owners.
We should be the best at that. We truly should be the best at that. We should have the best homes. The word there, you already said it, is intentional. And intention, which I've learned Chaz intentionality or the word intention is quickly followed by attention. And where our intentions are, our attention will go or should go so that things come to life. I've got I've got a another question here for you. We're gonna end on this one.
K. So I'm gonna give you a second to kinda just shake off our marketing and family conversation for a second, but I wanna know if you had the chance to whisper in the younger Ross's ear. What would you tell that guy? Oh, gosh. You know what? I have another cliche for you. I knew the answer to this immediately. It's prop, man. It's not gonna be unique, though. And that's actually it's honestly why it's Say it. And why it's common. It's not unique. Just do it. Truly. Just do it.
Yeah. I mean, that is that is what needs to happen. And I come from a fake background, you know, believe that, like, it will be provided for necessarily mean health, health, and prosperity, but it certainly means that, like, our our needs and our joy will be provided for. And if you've got a skill set you have fostered and worked at. And you have validation and proof that somebody's willing to pay for those services. You have no excuse. Not get out there and go. But let's just do it.
Yeah. I love the cliche. I love the energy behind that. What do you think that the younger Ross would say in response. But, yeah, like, but a a a ton of things, you know, but I don't have a a big enough client list, but I don't know enough. But that guy better, but I have a kid on the way, but I got 2 kids on the way, but I got 3 kids on the way. Yeah. I mean, the whole the whole spiel. It's always a butt. And, yeah, we have to fight the butts. We being I I have to fight the butts every day.
Yeah. Fight the butts. Just do it and fight the butts. Yeah. Think we've between your cliches and I think maybe you just made a new one. Just do it and fight the butts. I'm gonna bring that up on some other podcast. These the people know that one. Maybe maybe I don't know. We'll see for the parts. In all seriousness here, Ross, how can the listeners connect with you?
Number 1, if they are in the home service space and they need somebody who is authentic and can help them share their story and get real leads of or more leads of the that they really, really want. How can they find you? How can they do business with you? Or if they're just an entrepreneur, they wanna pick your brain. Maybe they're in Augusta. They wanna come check out the coffee shop. Where can they find you? Man, yeah. Thanks for asking. Head over to Fencepost, fencepost.c0. That's not.com.
Fencepost.co. If you're a home service business owner and you're looking to figure out how to grow predictably in profitably. We'd love to help you. The first step to that is letting us do a a video assessment. We'll tell you what we see from the outside. We've got some cool tools that even go beyond the site. But we'd love to take a look for you. And if you're interested in anything coffee, business related, or family, come check me out. On Instagram@vensepost.co/finsperfect.co. Yep. Love it.
We'll put all that in the show notes well. I look forward to continuing our relationship via the remodel, company of ours that Wolfe be engaging services with you. And and all the things that I'm sure will come because like mindedness is obviously here, but there's there's there's real energy harmony that comes together when when people wanna win together. And so I can feel that from you for sure. And I'm thankful that you have to share with all my listeners.
Pete. Thanks for being here, brother. Blessings on your family. Blessings on all your businesses. Thanks so much, Chaz. Thank you for listening to gathering the Kings today. I hope that you were able to pull out a few nuggets to go apply into your business right away. More importantly, though, I hope that you're realizing that it takes more to be successful than just being by yourself doing it all on your own, carrying the weight all by yourself.
What I have realized, not only in my own journey from multiple businesses and multiple different industries, and now interviewing over 2 or 300 other very successful 7, 8, and 9 figure business owners is that it's tough to do it alone. And so gathering the Kings exists to bring together successful entrepreneurs. In fact, we are putting together 1000 Kings specifically who are grateful, but not done.
We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, communities, and here's what we believe Chaz in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy. So if that relates and and resonates with you and you know that you need people around you sharp qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go to gatheringthekings.com.
I want you to take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit to 1000 kings. Talk soon.