On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. This is a time in a lifetime where a kid with an iPhone Chaz take down a $10,000,000,000 business, you know, get out there. Like you said, it costs nothing. So are the seeds. Make the content. Be authentic, post, talk from the heart. Like, there's no barrier to entry. Like, never again will we have this opportunity.
You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe featuring fellow 78 and even 9 figure business owners who have real battle scars from business and life, but have prevailed as the king that they are designed to be.
We welcome high performing entrepreneurs to the stage in order to reveal the real the good and bad decisions they've made along the way Chaz give a true and accurate picture of the journey of success and how you too can get their Through this dialogue, you will learn the value of growing your network and surrounding yourself with power players and keen like today's guest. Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in. Alright, everybody.
Chaz Wolfe, gathering the Kings, and we're back. Got Andrew Ettinger on the on the line here, bro. Thanks for gathering up with us here at the Kings. It's pleasure is all mine. Thank you for having me. It's an honor and a privilege. And Yeah, man. I come on to your show anytime you want. Dude, I love it. You're you're in Costa Rica right now. We were just kinda talking off off air. You're getting a little set up, going over there, but, dude, you're in Costa Rica, man.
Just before we jump into the business stuff, tell us about Costa Rica for a half second, please. Dude, it's amazing. It's like, it's 85 to 95 degrees, the cost of living, not having to have Amazon packages, come to my garage, you know, twenty times a day, which is total blown consumption and Sure. There's no left wing, right wing, conservative, non conservative, but let, you know, anti vax vaxx. It's just purvida.
And, you know, I can I have an awesome team and they're all empowered and they they're all well compensated and it's a culture that we created and we have a 30,000 square foot warehouse? And I know that if I do my thing from here, that the my stuff's my shit's gonna get done in Connecticut. Oh, I love it, man. I love just the perspective there, and and you get to live a life that, not many people do.
So Listen, my wife has a disease called endometriosis, and 1 in 10 women have it, but it's not diagnosed and people don't know about it. But it's a it's a feminine, you know, it's a women's disease, and it causes could see a stage 4 and there's no cure for it. It's it's it's chronic pain, and doctors don't understand it, and employers don't understand it, and husbands don't understand it. Right.
And so, you know, people think that it's a fake and, you know, it was we came down here for a week and she was in percent less pain. And my son's allergies and, you know, it's it's one of those things that you read if you read about it, 95% of the husbands leave the wives because Wow. It's all about, you know, like physical And it took me 3 years to convince my Wolfe, like, you know, because when they feel they feel like they're not good enough. And, you know, my wife's my queen.
She's on my pedestal. You know, like, I love that. She runs the roost. You know, I I do my thing. I bring the the the the bread home, and she nurtures me. She nurtures the kids. She puts my sock son when I'm like, you know, she like, I mean, I'd be nowhere without her behind every, good man is a great woman and Yeah. You know, it took me 3 years to convince her that all that other stuff is just the white noise.
It's just not important and you know, so most women almost pushed her husband's away at that point, but she couldn't get rid of me if she, you know, I love it. And so so the move there has been, instrumental. It sounds like to you guys. Yeah. And it's, you know, listen, when you're twenty years old, you said you said, oh, I Chaz 60 years left. You know, when you're fifty years old, you know, I'm turning 50 this year. You don't know if you got 5 years left or if you got 25 years left. You know?
Like, I'm 6 to a 5, 2:40. You know? I get to I'm 15 minutes from the beach. I get to swim. You know, I go down for 15, 20 minutes. I swim. I do my push. You know, it's it's I don't wanna be that guy who has a rainmaker that worked at these 18 hour days to come home and sell out his business and then not have a six and eight year old and not be able to, you know, cherish the time with them. You know? So Yeah. It's it's been life changing. You know, it's a a work life balance.
And if you don't have it, you know, it's just money's not everything. You know? If you're miserable, and you poor, you're gonna be miserable when you're rich. That's right. There's so many other factors into life. I love how, you first off, you called your wife a queen, we're on the same page there and just the other pieces to life. Some people call it life balance. Some people call it just, like, what the language that you use and gather the kings is obviously at the king stage.
You just realize there's more than just the battle. Like, there's so many other things happening inside the kingdom. Or in this case, just life, you know, like, the things that you desire, things that you want, things with the kids, and and they all work together, or they don't, to your point, And I think that we can find happiness in, in, in getting those things together.
So I'm super, kind of, creative bubble, you know, like, around me, like, what, like, you know, my wife, my kids, my my mother-in-law, you know, and I surround myself with the bubble, and it's like that I don't give a crap factor afterwards that, like, you know, like, nobody nobody can yell at me about my Wolfe, you know, and nobody can make me feel bad about my kids.
And people don't have the right to crap on other people and everybody's equal and everybody's problems are relative and, you know, no one's better than anybody else and People say I don't have time to call you or, you know, those are excuses. You know, there's no room in the world for excuses. They're decisions. Good ones. Bad ones. You love it. So I love it. Yep. You're leading you're leading us right into the show here, my brother. Yeah. I'm doing bad decisions. No. It's good. It's good.
I think that every entrepreneur listening right now desires at least some level of what you've said because in essence, I mean, obviously, you're a king in the business. Otherwise, I wouldn't have you on the show, but I wanna know what type of business you're in here in a second, but what you're what you're given to us here already before we even really know you is, you know, what what the picture of what it could be. You know? And I think that a lot of people It should be. We have to be.
Love that. I mean, we're all connected. You know, it's in in one way or the other where Chaz we realize it, like, by 1 degree separation or 2 degrees or 3 degrees. Mean, you look at the war and you look what's happening in Russia. And, you know, it's like, it's just all that stuff is just it all combines to affect all of our lives. So, you know, it's just easier to just get along or be indifferent. There's no room for hate. That's right. I love that.
Okay. So, tell us What kind of business that you have, Andrew? So I don't have a direct mail company. I have a direct mail consulting company. So, very important to us is getting to know our client, no sales pitch, our conversation. We're interviewing our client just as much as they're interviewing us. We give exclusivity We have a model. It's, you know, prospecting. It's retention. It's due radius mailers rent mailers around installs because neighborhoods are built at the same time.
So there's a good likelihood that if someone's having a problem, but their neighbors are, you see They've seen your Chaz. They see your yard sign, and then they get this piece of mail that says, we just did a job in your neighborhood. So, and then thank you cards. And then there's, you know, yard signs and all that other, you know, stuff that just comes along with it. But Sure. You know, I'd rather we I won't take a one time customer who wants to do 50,000 pieces or a 100,000 pieces.
I wanna go deep, not wide. It's all data and analytically based you know, I'm gonna find out what your capacity is. I'm gonna find out what your revenues are. I'm gonna find out what percentage of your advertising you're spending, It's not gonna be an arbitrary sales call. We we know what percentage that you should be putting into layers and you should be doing layers and anybody comes to you and tells you you're not.
We try and educate about attribution and, you know, there really is no way for someone to to give attribution because it's all going digital. You know? Yep. I'm not buying a piece if it's not four stars or less. So if you're trying to sell me a a roof or you know, an air conditioning unit and you're not 4.5 stars. You know, I'm not I'm not buying from you, and then I'm clicking on that little Google button.
So we initially would ask for a 2 year customer list and you send it to us, and we'll plot it out on a 3 d heat map. And we'll show you everything you don't know Chaz you don't know about your business. Love that. And show you where your clients are coming from, the saturation areas, We'll append data. We'll find out the income levels and the home values that your clients are coming from.
And then we can take that information, and we can find those people either in a radius of your of your business or in certain ZIP codes or where you're doing the most business and then we give Chaz all to you, and it's there's no commitment. If you if at the end of the day, you don't like what we have to say, we we typically don't even talk about price or, you know, anything like that until we're done with the thing and someone says, okay. Send me a proposal. You know? So Yep. I love it.
No opportunity in charge. Every 3 months, we do what's called matchback reports. So we want to complete transparency. We mailed 250,000,000 pieces a year. We mailed for brands like Planet Fitness and Trugreen and Terminix and Buff City soap and but we really concentrate on the individual business owner, the the blue collar guy.
So every 3 months, we're gonna match fact, every sale that you've done to whether the person received mail, what type of mail they received, when they received the mail, how many new customers they got, what their cost per customer was, what they did in total revenue, what they did in total revenue in their existing clients. Yeah. And then we do AB testing. Where you have the same controls, and we just we find the same demos in the same areas.
And we just mail to every other route, And then at the end of 6 months, you know, you mail 6, you know, we always say do something that you can go to sleep at night willing to do this for 6 months because if you, you know, like, that's Yeah. Enough to turn the needle, but not enough to cause you too loosely. Yeah. And at the end of 6 months, if I show you that you spend $30,000 in a and b has the same controls. You're doing Angie's list, paper click, radio, tell bullish in both of them.
If that $30,000,000, $350,000 net lift, fire me. Right. Yep. But it's not you know, you don't never know what part of the funnel Yep. People react to. So I think that that piece right there is where really where you and I connect so much off air, you know, when we first met was just that your perspective on marketing, which I think that so many business owners can't quite get there because it's like, I think dollar in dollar out, which is there's a role for that. There's a play for that.
There's a time for that. But that's not really what building a brand or building a big business is about. And so for the guys that are listening right now, there's 6 figures. They're trying to get to that 7 figure mark. And some of what they're doing, like you said, maybe it's a lead service or maybe they're they're doing the the digital pieces that they can track, like, I got an actual lead. I got an actual sale from this. All those are fine. But what you're talking about is saturating.
What you're talking about is being everywhere, being omnipresent, being known, Right? So talk Retention. Listen. You wanna go pay per click. You wanna do that stuff. That's fine. But it's gambling. You know? Like, I got a $49 ball. I gotta, you know, they all want the install, but when they don't get the install, they just go and they buy more leads.
But if you took all those service calls and you just mail for $5 a year, you held onto that Chaz client with $55 over 5 years, you know, and it's retention. It's a it's a people who have Get them to come back to you. List of active clients of 5, 10,000 people that are active. Right. But that's 75% of your business comes from your existing clients. So, you know, especially in the we're going into recession and we're going into, you know, or on certain times. Like, this is when you gotta step up.
This is when you gotta really, you know, be a brand and have your clients know who you are because your other choices are to maybe change your game plan and, you know, become a a discount chip, but then you lose brand identity. You know? Who are you at the end of the day in 2 years? You know? Yep. Yeah. I love that.
I mean, I just think that what you're doing in the market as far as your service goes is really practical, but from, like, a mindset perspective for entrepreneurs, is that I have to get past. It doesn't mean you get rid of the the instant gratification in marketing, the the digital, the whatever. Like, there's multiple angles to to grow your business.
What I think the mindset here that Andrew is so good at is you have to be able at the same time to hold on to all the things that you're gathering. And so whether it's lead services or a pay per click, whatever, you're gathering all these things in the boat, but then your boat has all these holes. And, and he's just thinking long term, how are you gonna be around in 2 years, 5 years? East sports fan? Of course. Play basketball for 20 years. Right.
So, okay, if you're the Phoenix Suns and you have the chance to well, let me use Facebook because it's easier for me.
If you're if you're a general manager of the New York Yankees and you have the chance to trade, you know, you're at the deadline and you're a fringe team and you have a chance to trade it away, you know, Wolfe and, you know, Waddinger and what, you know, and La Zinga, you know, if you're if you're the chance to trade away 5 of your prospects for a superstar that probably is still gonna leave holes in your team.
You're gonna do it because if you're a lame duck manager, you're not gonna be back the next year to see all these rising stars come up. Right. So there's so much pressure on CMOs these days to produce instant gratification Yes. They don't they're not even given the the the leash to build the brand. I mean, look at Terminix and Trugreen. And, I mean, when you when you go to Walmart, you you buy Vaseline. Right? Like, you know, if you need it's not Vaseline. It's patrolling gelling.
You know what I'm saying? It's Right. Like, that's what you wanna be. Like, even in a small pond, you know, and that's where you can be most efficient, have the highest margins, you know, who wants to start seventy miles out for a lead right now when you second see four people, you know, one day, and now he can only see, you know, one person. So it's, it's one of the few things left that really lets you build a brand that you can attack the bigger competitors and wear their weak.
Yeah. You know, like, you're not gonna beat them on TV. You're not gonna beat them on You're not gonna beat them on Instagram. You're not gonna beat them on paperclip. You're you're not prepared for that with the private equities and everything like that. You know? Right. 100%. Yeah. Big dollars are going up against in those in those arenas. Okay, so from your perspective, obviously, you've built an extremely successful business.
So I wanna know about things that you've decided to do or not to do inside of yours, but I also think you've got a an amazing perspective because you've worked with so many entrepreneurs in their businesses from a marketing perspective. Totally feel free as I'm asking some of these questions to give us some of the perspective that you've seen in their businesses also. And before I jump into, like, maybe good or bad decision, tell us how you got started in business.
Like, how did you become an entrepreneur? Okay. So This is actually my first business that I've actually owned on my own. I was a senior vice president of Morgan Stanley in 2000 I got paid, like, a $1,000,000 to switch over from Prudential, you know, securities. I thought I was a genius, you know, everything I picked went up. You know, I was killing it. I was I was doing enough drugs to kill a horse. I was dating all the wrong women, you know, like nobody, you know, I don't think I met my wife.
I've never had anyone love me, you know, like, literally just love me, you know, unconditionally. And, the the market crashed in 2001, and I lost all my money, but I lost all family and friends money at a $150,000,000 into management. And I was literally on the on the street, you know. I've I've I hung around for, like, 2 years in New York City, my best friend, Joe. I mean, thank he's not my partner, but, like, like, without him, you know, like, He gave me enough support. And then he cut me off.
And he said, you know, I said, Joe, I'm done. I'm I've fixed my life. And he's like, F u. I I'm the one you fixed your life. You don't you can't tell me when you fixed your life. And I got up, and I moved to Connecticut, and my soon to be ex partner put me up on his couch for 7 years. And I was making $10 an or $15 an hour, $20 an hour, and paying people back and not spending a dime. And it wasn't debt that was credit card, in 2010, my mom passed away.
And you know, it's, like, I lived with regret for so many so many years because she never got this, you know, it was always a good person, but when when I made this money and I was doing I I thought I was an asshole. You know? And she, you know, when she died in 2010, I took 3 months off of work, And, you know, from the minute she got diagnosed, like, she basically was homebound and Wow. I stayed home, and I did things Chaz you know, no sun would ever want. I mean, I was Think about doing that.
I was there to do it, but Yeah. You know, It was but she never got to see me get married, and she never got to see me have kids, and she never got to see me become successful. You know? And Right. I lived with such a regret until I got married, and we had kids, and I looked at my wife. And, man, I think I'm a good father, bro. This then my wife slams it. You know? Like, she nurtures it. She gets up and, you know, like Yes. She doesn't think. Takes care of every, like, thing.
And I realized then, like, any mother would give their life. Like, that my wife, my mom left me $22,000 and it allowed it allowed me to buy a starter house which allowed me to get off this person's couch, which allowed me to date people, which allowed me to get into shape. You know, I I I went to the gym for 4 hours a day, you know, for 6 months and I got ripped. And I I went and I went and 400 Saint First States.
And Wow. It was just it was like a game of cards, and I just I didn't wanna go on a second date. I I wanted to just find the person. Right. And it Chaz this one person who's in Staten Island. She's like a 3 hour drive. You know? So how do you date her? And she just kept going to the bottom of the list, the bottom of the list, then finally, I met up with her, and we moved in together. You knew.
You know, like, the greatest thing that ever happened and, you know, as I slowly, you know, turned our company from a $1,000,000 company to a $10,000,000 company, falling out my partner and it happens and, you know, there's a lot of resentment, but I still I don't forget where I came from and I don't forget that I slept on his couch for 7 years and Right. So as much as I think that, like, I got the raw end of the stick, I still appreciate, you know, like, that Yeah. Everything's causing effect.
Right? You know, it's a game of inches. So him pushing me out of the business and me losing my 25%. Pushed me into opening the best postcards in 2019. And was supposed to be a partner, but it wasn't on the book. So I I went to the bank and they're like, oh, well, you have $20,000 a month deposits every month, but you don't have the k 1. You don't have a 1099. You don't have a w 2. So I put my house up. I borrowed money at 3 points 13%.
And Wow. I looked at my Wolfe, and I was like, we could lose everything. And she's like, I have all the faith in the world in you. He's like, you know, whatever you do, you'll be the top guy and, you know, you'll always know how to talk. And, even though I have marbles in my mouth, and she's like, go do it. And I did it, and we went right into the pandemic. I remember on March 10th, I gave away $10,000 bonuses to we had seen people working at the company at the time.
And then 2 days later, the pandemic hit Yeah. Throughout the pandemic, we grew our business by 20% month over month to this date. So it's been, like, 20 some odd months of 20% growth, and it's it's been Absolutely phenomenal. We have 46 employees, and we don't hire debts. We don't work with debts. You know, like, you're bet Is that is that on the wall somewhere at the office? Is that on the wall somewhere? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
It's all over the place, and it's like, you know, it's we're we're there's no commissions. You know, it's all in. Everybody's all in. We're not at a 9 to 5 shop. We have more experience in these industries than anybody else. You know, we've ambassadors Chaz, you know, are available 247 like we're at top of the fields to take calls and do Zoom meetings where you offer marketing. We create an ecosystem.
Yeah. And this year, you know, our average, raise was 40% and we gave out $550,000 in bonuses So when we say that there's no, commissions, it's because I get all the leads. You know, they're all everything's inbound, you know, and they're all 85% qualified, and they're they're all into the program. And we prequalified because we're gonna be your partner. We're gonna give you exclusivity. Right.
And and the only, you know, when we're national wholesalers, the only way I can make money is if you let me participate in your business, if you wanna call the shots and and and hand me everything, not that I'm close minded to it, but you can't hold me accountable for it. Right. You know? And we have a model that works, and we have a 95% retention ratio. Of clients who run off contract that run-in perpetuity every month. Right. And Love that. Are killing it. So Love that.
Okay. Well, let's dive into some of your history here. You've given us you've set the stage as an an incredible authority, not only in marketing, but in business. And, and also might add a family. So thank you for that as well. But I'm handsome. And you're I mean, bro, this Chaz been a little Yeah. But I'm handsome. I'm gonna marry you. So who cares? Who cares? Who cares? You got the Costa Rica hat. I love it.
Okay. So Andrew, give me give me an example of a bad decision that you made along the way Chaz these guys that are listening right now, guys or gals, that can relate to that you can keep them from making the same mistake. So I would say it was at my past company where I was at technically, a 25% owner. I didn't understand leadership.
I didn't understand that, you know, how much culture meant and and what discipline means, like, you know, in running a business and, you know, it's like I said, there's no excuses. It's it's it's top bottom approach as to running a business. And if I don't set the example, and and I don't do things that I'm asking people to do, then nobody's gonna do that for me. And looking to be a blame master and and and say this doesn't work because of this. This doesn't work because of this.
I have people do $3,000,000 in business and make a $1,000,000. And I have people do $15,000,000 and do 2 make $200,000. Revenue means nothing. You know, you know, it's it's So true. Okay. So so the culture piece there, building the team, being a good example. People risk, like, understanding Like, I am no better than anyone else in this Wolfe, and nobody is any better than me. You know, I don't get awe struck from being a star. Like, You remember the Bronxdale?
When Viniro says to his son, he's like, you know, about the Yankees, and he's like, trust me, Mickey Mints, I don't care about your family, you know, and it's like Right. It it it makes a big difference, especially when you're talking about you know, the the difference of whether someone stays with you or not can be potentially the difference of whether a client stays with you or not because it's the same concept of building something that someone wants to be a part of.
And if you think that you're the stuff, it's funny. I was just on I was guessing on a podcast, just a couple of hours ago, and we were talking about this exact same thing. It's like, as the owner, if you think that you're it, then that's the bottleneck. It's the that's the pinch. But I have 5 heads of my departments. Like, I have a production head. I have a graphic head. I have an account manager at, and they come to me, but They're empowered to make the decisions.
Yeah. You know, like, how can I make decisions on things? You know, I wanna be around people who are smarter than me. You know? Like, so, you know, obviously, they want my blessing or whatever, but Sure. You know, someone tells me we need this. We need that. We need to buy this printer. We need to buy this folder. We by this. Like, that's there's a reason why they're in that position.
And if you lose that head of the department, You probably lose the five people underneath them too because when they find greener pastures, they're gonna go and say, hey, come over. Come over. Come over. We've we've lost one person. We we have forty six people. We've lost one person, and I told him to leave. He was a twenty five year old kid who who wanted to spread his wings. And I'm like, dude, you gotta go do it. You know?
Like, you know, like, why should you be stuck working for me when you have the chance to spread your wings? You know? Yeah. You wanna come back in 2 years, doors always open. You know? Yeah. Yeah. That's that's a open handed scenario too. I've had that, you know, where where someone's outgrown their Wolfe, and there isn't another role.
And and so it's like, man, I was able to partner with that person for that period of time, develop skill sets in them, lead them in a certain way, and prepare them for their next opportunity. And and it pains you in that moment to let especially if they're a good, team member, but if the next step for them is outside of your organization, then then that's okay. And you prepared them, you know, for that. And that's just being human.
Like, you're talking I don't want them to be a competitor of mine. Sure. But the thing is what I do wanna do is I wanna sit down with them and I wanna find out I wanna know the story. You know what I'm saying? Because I just wanna make sure that something that I haven't done because I need to grow as a businessman every day. You know? There's no it's like being a parent. There's no there's no playbook. You know, I have people who tell me, like, I'm like, do you do you put yard signs out?
And they're like, no, I don't put yard signs out. We're lazy. I'm like, You just did a $20,000 job. The guy's driving out, and you tell me the guy can't put a a yard sign. I mean, a yard sign's worth 1.7 clients all You know what I'm saying? Like, that's your fault. Go look in the mirror. Look at yourself straight in the face and say, this is my fault. You know?
Like, I think even just that right right there, like, that one little piece here, you know, we we obviously service all kinds of entrepreneurs, but whether it's a person in the trades who's listening, to that one tactic, or it's someone else who's not in the trades that they they know that one thing. That could be a follow-up email. Like Right. And I don't know. And whatever. Point. It's a great point. It's still super applicable.
Right. And I think that it is in the trades because it's like a fallback for me, but I mean, if for The guy was running a smoothie king, you know, if if 100%. If if I gotta wait 15 minutes to get a shake, I'm walking out the door. You know what I'm saying? Like, Yep. So Yeah. There's all those little pieces that you do to your point of client retention and then being let that be the springboard to the next person.
And so the trades person that hears you say yards yard signs like, you know, like, just one more thing or blah blah blah. But right after that, you worth 1.7 clients. You go, well, do you just do the math on that? Seems pretty easy to meet. Client, his, his name's Louis Biker, and He's a mentor, and he's he's in this home service business. And I love him to death, and I'm scared of I'm state of shitless of him as Wolfe. Just because he's like a father.
And he points things out to me when I do them wrong. And but he does it because he cares. You know, it's not doing it to lecture, but we have this system where we have these, like, PVC credit cards. They're made of 15 mil PVC. And when you're when you're leaving a home, it says $50 referral, And on the back of it, it says write your name on it. And if somebody calls and uses this card, we'll send you a check for $50. Yeah. Now I've sold millions of these cards.
You know, the the the tech puts his name on it or the whatever it is. Right. And when they get redeemed, the the you give a spiff, a $25 spiff, and he gets 50 to 60 these back a month. A 720 clients a year. Wow. I'm at 80% of my clients, so I sell them too. Oh, dude. It's just in their closet. You know what I'm saying? Easy. And it's just it's a discipline. You know? It's it's you know? Listen. I don't run my my business perfectly. I still make mistakes.
I don't I don't follow-up correctly or do, you know, or do that drip, or there's probably probably 50% of my clients don't know half the products they offer. Sure. You know? But, you know, I strive to be better. And then, you know, I guess knowing Chaz, you know, I'm screwing up is, yeah, it's half the battle. Yeah. Half the battle because then you can't you can't, just if you don't know the, the the area to adjust in. And so let's flip it over flip the coin over to the good decision.
What have you done along the way, or what have you seen done in maybe someone else's business? That was just profound, instrumental to your success. I read a Harvard Business article in 2019 from the pandemic hit. And my house is on the line. And my largest client was Planet Fitness, and they were all closed through the pandemic, and I literally had no business. And it said Empower, you know, if you think of the micromanager Empower, you can either hide or you can become the next brand.
You know what I'm saying? And I went I spent $1,500,000 in advertising I took all the trade magazines and I paid to have them polybag and I put an out shirt in them, and I did it every month, and I paid for social media, not not paying, but I paid for organic, you know, like Sure. Yeah. For people to help me build a network And Yeah. I I started talking, but never selling a product, you know, just just trying to give advice to people You know, I don't think my product's the end all and if all.
I think it's a layer, and I think you need multiple layers. And Right. You know, sometimes I vent on agencies or some thing. I'm gonna get you an 8x return, you know, and just give me Tanger. Well, you know, what's a what's an 8x return if you're working on a 20% margin, you spend a $1000 You get $8000 back. 20 percent of 8000 is 1600, you know, and then you have your overhead.
You pay taxes, like, I ramped on that because if you go to Lincoln and you type in digital experts, 10,600,000, you know, and There's no voice for my business. So maybe I give some people, some agencies, a bad rep, because there are some really good agencies out there. Of course. It's just really hard to find. You know what I'm saying? And, you know, there's in my business, there's 3¢ profit. There's 4¢ profit.
In digital and and television, there's remnants, and there's kickbacks, and there's reasons to buy this, and there's bots, and there's You know, all shit, I don't understand. Like, so I could probably monetize my 1500 clients and sell them all this stuff, but I just wanna stick in my corner. I wanna stick in that lane.
I wanna do what I do great and keep so passionate about it and and people feel my passion and they wanna do business with me because, you know, like, if you knew IBM was gonna be taken over tomorrow to a thousand bucks, but you couldn't tell your client why? 100%. How many shares would you be able to sell? Right? You know? Yeah. Yeah. I've had the same thing happen in one of my businesses that's actually associated to the podcast, the Chaz in the king's mastermind. And I love your podcast.
You've got you you have Chaz. You know? I appreciate it, dude. I mean, the have a guy like you on the stage. Yeah. No. But you make you make you make people feel comfortable and you you get the best out of them and you don't you know, like, listen to some of these podcasts and it's so monoclonal and it's so like, you know, this is this and this is this. And who's who's that? You know, we've all been webinard and zoomed out and podcast out, like, you know, like Gotta do something different.
Just like I wanna differentiate my business, you're differentiating your business. You know what I'm saying? Like, doing it differently. You know? I I appreciate that. We've got we've had a lot ton of a ton of response. And and from listeners like you or from guests like you even saying, man, like, you're you're doing really cool stuff. So I appreciate that. You know, and so for guys that come through, that are looking for, like, business coaching.
And it's like, man, although I although I could do that, not what a mastermind is. You know? And so to to your point, I just wanna stay in the lane. I wanna do what I do really, really good, which is, like, high level strategize and bring people together and And so I just think that what you're saying is so applicable to the person's business that they're listening to right now. They're in the trades. They're a marketing person. They're a franchise owner.
They're whatever they are, and they're trying to get to that that next level in business. And I'm hearing you say be passionate, number 1, Number 2, I'm hearing you say love on your people, see them as people, build a culture of where you actually take care of people. I'm hearing you say build a brand, which includes marketing different angles, layering, being in places that maybe people aren't on a regular basis, And those things, you know, like, own the mailbox, own the home.
Yeah. Is funny because I I think I told you this when we talked originally, but one of the things that I've started to do for the show, which they just came in. And so maybe maybe I need to hire your services to do this for me, but, I just started mailing out, like, a save the date to people like you who are guests on my show. Yeah. And and so, like, I don't get anything necessarily from you for being on the show, but it's the relationship.
Who knows where you and I go or what who I meet through you or whatever. And so I wanna foster those relationships and sending them something in the mail, bro. Nobody doesn't. Nobody does it. It's like and it's a treat because you get a 1,000,000, like, name the last digital display ad that you saw that you didn't click on. Right. Exactly. Name it. You can't. You can't. You can't. Yep. But you can name the five pieces of direct mail that came to your house today. Yeah. That's right.
You know, it's like, There's there's power. Right. Noise. It's overload. It's, you know, I'm it listen. It's a necessary evil. You gotta do it, but have a plan in place to, you know, to retain and to, you know, not be so concerned with today's business. I mean, yes. I understand that we need today's business. Gonna plant the seeds for tomorrow. Yeah. That that piece right there.
If we cut the show right now and only did that 30 seconds right there and that that was all that you would be known for with the Gathering, the King's podcast. I think that in itself, that one sentence makes up so much it's a shortsightedness business. Right? And some of it's due to cash flow. Some of it's due to, like, the fact that I just started this thing because I had to whatever the scenario is for the entrepreneur. But what you're talking about is absolutely huge.
If you can not be you wanna be obsessed with today. Right? You gotta get today. You gotta go get today's sales. You have to. But there's that secondary piece that's like, man, if you can have patience, if you can understand Chaz you build something you're building something that's sustainable over the course of time. It's not just here and gone. You don't want here and gone. You don't want a $1,000,000 today and then gone tomorrow.
I believe in high impact piece in advertising, but there's a comp, like, in every in every state, there's a monster, a home improvement company in Connecticut, it's this company called the Georgia. And, you know, whatever they are, a 30, $40,000,000 company, but in the nineties and 1000. They were doing advertising and the old man, and it's in the 18 86 company. I call the old man with all due respect, you know, because I'm friends with the children.
And, you know, but he did spend a $1,000,000 in television, and I would laugh. I'd be like, I always advertising for the entire industry. People get home. They're gonna type in bath creations or they're gonna type in blah blah blah blah blah. And you know what? I have a shared mailer, which just made sense for me in Connecticut.
But it's a lower impact, but they they do a page and they get 250 calls and 800,000 homes And then the guy Matt, Matt Smith, does a page of 850,000 homes, and he gets 17 calls. People wanna do business with the Georgia. They wanna do business with the company that's gonna be around to fix that roof that and, you know, and they also get $30,000 for that roof instead of 23,000. Do you do you know that you're 70% more likely to sell an existing client?
Then you are an a non existent client, like a prospect. It's like That's huge. Like, you're not going up against anybody. They're taking your advice or your friends. They're like, You've already been that they wanna do business with. Exactly. Yeah. And I think I think that what you're doing in the marketplace on how to how to help entrepreneurs exploit that, right, in a good way. Right?
And not an exploit that isn't in a bad way, but took further that relationship because they actually, as an entrepreneur, your duty. We talked about this right before we started the show. It's your duty as the entrepreneur to provide the service to your clients. And in this case, if you have something that they need that you that you just need to tell them about because they've already done business with you, then it's your duty to let them know.
And so I love I love the So we gotta and and it's also like I, you know, I'm plagiarizing this, you know, and I'm gonna do video with it. My daughter later, but it's like, you know, all for some of, like, 3 products. Offer them, like, if I go and I offer my daughter Ritz Crackers, she's gonna look at them and she's gonna be like, You know? And then if they offer an apple, but I push her a little bit and they say, come on, Karen, it's good for you.
So it's just, like, two bites and to throw it away. But then if I have a hand or a box and hers, She's gonna go. So don't offer products that you wanna sell. Offer products that people wanna buy where cost doesn't matter. You know what I'm saying? So, you know, it's it's you need to provide a solution to a problem and find out what people want instead of pushing something that you want. You know? Yep. 100%.
And so to translate that into marketing terms, just to make this super practical for the listener, Yeah. If if I if I do decks, for example, purposes, what you can help me do or what I should be able to do in my business, but you're just a tool I can use is to get in front of the people who want next. Right? So whether that's the specific type of home or specific neighborhood or whatever that you can do through your analytics tells me this is where I can hone in my effort and even money.
But here's the even better part. You do debts, but you're an exterior remodeler. So you're doing roof and you're doing gutters and you're doing siding. Right. You get in the door in debt. And now your guys have the opportunity to sell roofing and siding and Right. The other things. And now you have the opportunity to send them a quarterly mailer saying, you know, because it just doesn't work with you. You know, they trust you now.
Like Yeah. They're cross selling and, you know, like, we all think we're memorable, but we're not. Like, you know, when your plumber comes to your house, like, you don't reme and Chaz guy also does HVAC and then you go to HVAC near me and you end up using another HVAC installer. Right. Does it make sense? Like, just because you didn't keep up and you didn't you thought that that client that did plumbing with you. Right. Remember that you did HVAC, but they don't. Exactly. They don't. They don't.
They barely even remembered that you did the plumbing for them. Yeah. No. For sure. Okay. Let's transition to the, the speed round here as we kinda wrap up. Got those questions here for you. We're gonna go one word answers if possible. Yep. First question is this. If you could only pick 1 metric, your big data guy, 11 analytic metric, Net lift. Net lift, meaning once they've applied your product, how much of a boost? Is that what you mean?
Yeah. Like, if my product doesn't show that boost, then they shouldn't be doing it. Yeah. And you wouldn't you wouldn't be in business. Okay. Next question is what book would you recommend? Chaz 6 figure owner read who's trying to get that 7 figure mark. So that's the one that that the me hard, but, honestly, I would just read Harvard Business, articles. I've learned so much from them. It's a great article right now.
I'll send it to you afterwards about you know, navigating through the recession, knowing who your clients are, there are 4 subsets of clients and knowing who who your client is and which one you have to cater to. You know? Love it. Yeah. And I I think reading education, it can come in all forms. So articles are are huge. I love that. In fact, it's usually what I'm doing on my phone when my wife's like, What are you doing over there? I was like, I'm not scrolling. I'm reading. Right.
Okay. Do you intentionally network or mastermind with other entrepreneurs? Always. You know, I don't believe they're, I don't believe in in mails. I don't believe in cold calls. I don't believe in reaching it. I don't think you owe the client. I don't ever will own the client. I don't think you'll ever have the relationship. Every client of mine comes from a third party endorsement or comes from a networking event. I don't do 500 show things.
I I I work with groups that are small concentrated groups that spend a lot of money to be with certain people And I spend a lot of money to be spot you know, a sponsor and to get up on stage and just tell my story. You know? And So I work. So it's all networking. It's never none of my salespeople ever have to make an outbound call. Yep. I love that. Okay. Good. And, last question, which I think I kinda know what your answer will be, but, I'll let you answer it.
If you lost it all, Andrew, what would you do? I've lost it all before. So I would I would just do something else. I mean, as long as I can talk, I can sell. I can, you know, like, my wife said it to me, and she's she she sees what empowered it to me. It's like you could lose it all, and I have no doubt that you'd be the top salesperson at any organization. As long as it's not packed, You know? You'll be the top sales person in any organization.
Yeah. So, like, I have no fear of losing it all because, you know, I've my biggest fear of losing it all is that it's not losing at all. My biggest fear is that I'm gonna get rich but my all my employees, you know, even if they make 6 figures, they need to make 150,200000,000 you know, that they don't have enough financial education, which is something we're we're our the world is just lacking, you know, the the younger people. I'm just worried that I didn't give them enough time.
I couldn't sell my business if I wanted to. Like, I could sell my business tomorrow for 2030,000,000. I I couldn't do it because I didn't give my people enough time to make, you know, they make good money, but not enough time to make them rich. And where would I leave them? So Yeah. I'm stuck. You know? That's awesome.
I wanna I wanna retire in 3 years of my CEO, my CFO, become my CEO, be on the board of directors and go teach at a university marketing for for 10 hours a week and do sales for 25 hours a week. You know? I love it, man. I love the vision there, and you're so right. You're so right when it comes to those those moments of, just being able to see that that piece in front of you and being able to even take those steps now to to get there. So These people didn't do what they did for me.
There's no way I'd be where I am. Yeah. You know, like, how Well, and Chaz doesn't, like, super practical way you can give back. Right? Like, knowing how to not only get them money, but then teaching them how to build something for their family. When I when I did when I looked at my 401 k match, you know, like, we match 4%. We do profit sharing matching, you know, like, Somebody who maxed out was getting $30 and their 401 ks this year. You know?
But, I when I gave up bonuses this year, I told them here. You can have a $20,000 bonus, or you can have a $30,000 bonus. But if you do the $30,000 bonus, you gotta put 10,000 more into your 401 k. You know? So I didn't, you know, I made them do it. You know what I'm saying? Like Yeah. Yeah. Encouraging the right steps. That's huge, man.
And and and something that a king has to pay attention to kind of coming back to the king language is that, you know, at the king stage, it's not just about you. It's about your team, about your family, about the community that you're in, all of the other pieces that are around you that you now have responsibility for. And so I love I love that super practical thing that you're doing for your team. And, and I'm sure that you're not done by any means at all with your influence.
So, Andrew, how can someone connect with you? Whether they wanna they wanna buy your services to to help their business grow, they wanna connect with you as an entrepreneur, how do they find you? Because what I what I wanna do for the audience is anybody who who who wants an analysis of their business, who who wants to look and find out who their customer is.
Reach out to us, you know, either Andrew at the best postcards.com, Ashley at the best postcards.com, sales at the best postcards.com, go to our website, fill out a form, and we'd be happy to take your customer list plot it out for you with a 3 d heat map, get you on the phone with a data analyst, show you who your customer is, show you their their their income levels or home values and Sure. Show you who you should be prospecting to, who you shouldn't be.
Not in whether it revolves around direct mail or not. And we'd be happy to do it for for free. So any, you know, anybody who who wants to do it, we just wanna we wanna help the business. And you know, you know, you never know where your biggest client comes from. You know, when I was in the market, a $40,000 client got me a $40,000,000 So I love I love that perspective.
So just to make sure that that's super clear for the listener, if you want a free assessment, some free analytics for your business, I want you to check out the the email addresses in the website that'll be in the link below and connect with Andrew and his team, and he'll provide some an amazing He's already provided amazing value here on the show, but he's gonna continue the value, and you get the the benefit of just being a listener here. So Dude, thank you so much, for being here.
Thank you for giving of yourself. Thank you for doing all the things that you've done in business and past and all the things that you're gonna do in the future. It's an honor to know you and And, Tessa, just ask one favor. Like, you know, we we love to we're building a library and educational library on our on our web site where people who excel at what they're doing and give different perspectives.
If you'll honor me and letting me do an interview with you and talk more about you on your end so that we can share that with our followers You know? Yep. Yep. It's huge. I'd that would mean the world. Yeah. That's huge. I and just and since we're still being recorded here, I wanna just point this out to the listener. So first off, absolutely. Thank you. I'm honored. What just happened is the law of reciprocity. Right? And so, you know, Andrew's given. I've given. We've given to each other.
We wanna continue to give to each other. Give to his audience, my audience. I just wanna encourage you as a listener to go out and give, go whether it be your time, whether it be your expertise. I want you just to press into the marketplace, whether it has a dollar sign attached to it or not. I want you to go, and then I want you to sow. I want you to sow good seeds into the marketplace because a good seed's always reef a good harvest And so I just do appreciate you, man. Thank you so much.
I do one last thing, and I know I know I'm telling you, but, you know, your wife was right, man. You all we got the one more thing. I love Gary Vee. Or I used to love Gary the, and I don't dislike him, but he's hard to follow a new different, way to do business every single day. Gary V is great at doing what Gary V does, and that's bringing attention to himself. But the one thing he said is is this is a time in a lifetime where a kid with an iPhone can take down a $10,000,000,000 business.
You know? Get out there. Like you said, it costs nothing. So are the seeds. Make the content. Be authentic. Post. Talk from the heart. Like, there's no barrier to entry. Like, never again will we have this opportunity. LinkedIn is by far the most incredible thing that I've ever seen in my life for a business owner. Like, if you're a business owner and you're not on LinkedIn, taking advantage of it. You're you're missing out on maybe a once in a lifetime thing. Yep. That's huge.
Okay. Well, we just so appreciate you. I wish you absolutely nothing but success and all that you do. Okay, buddy? Thank you, brother. Thanks for listening to Gathering the Kings. We hope you got a ton of value today and learned a thing or 2 about taking your business to 7 figures and beyond. If you desire more and want a community around you to help you get there, I want you to go to Gathering the Kings dot com.
That's Gathering the Kings dot com, and I want you to apply for our next becoming a king 90 day intensive We are extremely exclusive by nature as a group. What that means that we're really wanting only the entrepreneurs who take their business and targets super serious to apply. So if that's you, you think you got what it takes to level up your business. I want you to go to gathering the king's dot com and apply. And we will see you on the other side.