The Huge Insider

In this episode of The Huge Insider Podcast, JC Chanowsky, founder of Patriot Illumination, shares his journey from pressure washing and Navy service to building a $1.2 million Christmas light installation business in Wilmington, North Carolina. JC candidly unpacks the lessons he learned since entering the holiday lighting space in 2016—emphasizing the importance of training, coaching, hiring early, and building systems for growth. He dives into practical sales strategies for service pros looking to add Christmas lights to their offerings, like leveraging existing customer databases, delivering emotional experiences, and never underestimating the power of persistence in landing commercial clients. With anecdotes, real numbers, and tactical advice, JC’s story is a blueprint for turning a seasonal service into a thriving business. Whether you’re just starting out or scaling to seven figures, this episode delivers actionable insights for home service pros looking to win the holidays—and their market. Show Notes Featured Guest JC Chanowsky – Founder of The Huge Insider Newsletter Signup The Huge Insider Podcast Downloadable Action Guide Foundations Platform Trial Offer Huge Mastermind Info Page Huge Foundations Facebook Group Transcript:  What's up everybody? My name is JC Chanowsky with Patriot Illumination in Wilmington, North Carolina, and I've been asked to talk about Christmas lights and share my story and experiences in the Christmas light industry. And if you're listening to this, then maybe you're either. Currently a Christmas light installer or considering doing it. And I wanted to just talk to you about some of the wins and struggles that we've experienced since we started doing the Christmas light install business in 2016. And when I started it, I actually attended a trade show. It was for pressure washing. Probably the one, like the huge that you should be attending. And I'll say that I didn't know that this was a service or an option. And 2016 social media was probably a little bit different wasn't as robust and. And everybody's face like it is now. So you really needed to get out there and make yourself vulnerable and talk to people and find information a little bit differently than we do today. But I was grateful for attending this event and I will say that it transformed and changed the future of my business. I was, running a pressure washing business while working full-time with the Navy. So it was really like a, not really a hobby, but it wasn't a full-time commitment. So 2016, started Christmas lights got a little bit of knowledge about it, but didn't get my hand dirty, didn't get training, was able to install a couple houses, and then finally got to do some training the year after that, which highly recommend if you're, looking to install Christmas lights or even if you are currently installing Christmas lights, have never been to a formal training. Being able to see how others are able to install differently, maybe more efficiently will really change the way you view things. We only know what we know and if. I taught myself how to do something, then that's the way I'm gonna do it until somebody shows me a better way. So that's why firm believer on constantly getting yourself out there, attending trainings, talking to people, networking 'cause. We don't wanna reinvent the wheel, but if there's easier, faster, safer, smarter ways to do things, then I'm all about it. And we're gonna jump on board and go ahead and do that. Got the training done 2019, and 2019 I went full-time. I stopped working full-time in the Navy, so I went full-time into pressure washing full-time into Christmas lights. Got my first. Coach Pat Clark was my coach, attended Sales Boost and joined Conquer what used to be Conquer. I don't know what it's now, but without those three things that happened all at once. Literally I think this was January, I signed up for Conquer Sales Boost and had Pat as my coach. I probably wouldn't be having this conversation with you today. Because who knows what path I would've been down. I was on the path of destruction, of knowing only what I know, and that is the best way to do things. That is a completely different mindset from my thought process today. But grateful for that opportunity to, be coached by, one of the greatest in the industry is Pat Clark. And like I said, I went all into my business. I started hiring people, stopped doing everything myself. I got outta my way and made plenty of mistakes along the way. I'll tell you that, that's don't sit here and listen to this and think that he did it right the first time because that's not the case. I did have fun doing it and I do have plenty of things. I look back and I'm like, that was stupid. But the Christmas light thing, it was just. It was a perfect fit for me. I loved Christmas lights. I loved installing lights at my house. So it was an easy transition, had fun doing it. And I think I'm a little different than most business owners in the fact of how much I love Christmas lights. Like they call me Mr. Christmas because I'm. Always out there in a Christmas jacket, having fun. I love hiring people and getting the right team. We've had incredible success with hiring people throughout the years especially seasonal helpers. And we've able to scale our company up to $1.2 million. And I'll say that, let's just say we started in 2019. That's when I went full time. I think at that time I was like. $125,000. So to go from 1 25 and 19 to 1.2 in 2023. In a small area, we have about 350,000 population within an hour rate drive. So obviously we did things right and I'm not gonna say we did everything right, like I stated earlier, but we had fun doing it. We're able to grow it and been grateful to be able to share the story with a lot of other business owners out there's so that they can have success and fewer pains than I experienced, to be successful one, you need to be vulnerable. And listen and just get outta your way because sometimes we think we know everything. And that was May, 2018. Like I didn't wanna listen to anybody. I knew everything. And how quickly I realized I was wrong. And once I was able to stop getting in my way and start doing the things that other successful entrepreneurs already doing, that's when we really grew. And again. To get to seven figures as quickly as we did was a huge accomplishment, not just by myself. It was because of my team and I hired the right people and I didn't hold back from thinking, what if we don't get the jobs? What if the typical what if the economy's bad and if you, what if things you're gonna continue to hold yourself back from things you could be doing today. My best piece of advice for you is one, get the training. The training is so vital and if you've got the training, go get more training and then train again. I can't tell you how many times I've been to different training events. I've been a trainer for Christmas light companies. I've trained probably. I don't know, 700 different companies in group settings and one-on-one settings. And every time I go to a training to train people, I learn from them. Even if they're not currently installing lights, they've got great marketing methods and tactics out there, sales techniques. So there's always room for improvement no matter where you're at. So I definitely recommend get the training, hire the right people, waiting till the last minute to hire an admin, to hire a, installer technician, whatever you wanna call 'em, is the worst thing to do. You want to plan ahead, and I see this as a big struggle is that they wanna wait till November when they're busy. And that point, you're busy, you don't have time to train. I wanna project for future growth. And if you're thinking about doing lights, let's say. First year, $50,000. If you're second, third year, like two 50, $300,000 is awesome. I had one guy who I was able to coach one-on-one, and he did 200, I think it was $27,000 his first year, did install on lights, didn't start installing lights until November. That's not the case for everybody. He was in a wonderful market and had marketing dollars to spend, so it was an easy transition for him with his current business that he was in. So it worked out great for him. He learned a lot, made a lot of mistakes as well. But having those numbers for first years absolutely incredible. You gotta have fun doing this. This is not the. For everybody. It's very fast paced. We have roughly less than 90 days. Let's just say you start installing lights in sometime September, so you have September, October, November, part of December, and you have to be very efficient. You have to have crews that wanna work. You have to know your pricing or else you're gonna just completely run yourself into the ground and not be profitable. You'll be broke your first year. You need to make your clients happy. This is a very emotional transaction. Christmas lights is uniquely different compared to whatever you're doing right now, whether it's pressure washing, window cleaning, if you mess up a house, pressure washing. Sally, I apologize. We missed a spot in your house, and we'll be back tomorrow. Take care of that. No problem. We'll make everything happy. Great. Go back. Take care of that. No harm, no foul. If you mess up a Christmas light install, just think about that. They spent. Let's just say our average ticket's $2,000. They spend $2,000. They come home, it's Thursday night, it's six o'clock. It's dark out. They wanna do the big reveal. The kids are outside, the neighbor's, outside mom's on Facebook going Facebook Live, and she turns those lights on and it's just a big wha Wow. Some of the lights aren't working, some hanging down, whatever it is. You're not gonna get that client back, like you just ruined Christmas for them. You can come back and fix 'em. Yeah. And they'll probably still have a great Christmas, but the experience that you deliver to them just ruined their whole, Christmas light install experience that they probably never wanna work with you. So it's really important that you get it right the first time. And let's just talk about, how are we getting clients? And this is a big question we get asked. Most of you that are listening to this probably have a current business already home service, business whatever it is. So you already have. A database and that's there. You already paid for those leads. You got those leads, acquire those leads somehow. So we wanna start there, send out emails, send out text messages, send out voicemails. They're paid for. They're there. They know they can trust you and you want to introduce 'em to your new. Business opportunity or the business that you'll be doing you don't have to let 'em know what your first year of doing it. That's fine. Especially if you went and got training. If you've been trained, then you know you've got an understanding. So you're not the expert per se, but you are a professional and you know what you're doing. You likely already have the tools and equipment, ladders, trucks to be able to get there and be efficient. So let those customers know that this is so and so with X, Y, z, pressure washing, or roof cleaning or window cleaning. And we wanna talk to you about a brand new service that we're offering to our clients. And go through the steps. We have five great. Opportunities for you. We're gonna do a free in person estimate where we'll custom design the lights to hit fit your house and we'll custom cut those lights to fit every corner angle specifically for your home. Put 'em all on a timer so they'll come on and off and don't have to worry about unplugging those lights. At the end of the night, and we'll maintain those lights for you. If anything goes wrong, we'll be back within 24 to 48 hours and take care of that for no additional cost. And the best part about this is at the end of the season in January when it's nice and cold out, you can stay warm inside because our team will be out there to take down those lights and we're gonna storm 'em in our warehouse. So you don't have to worry about moving that box around five times throughout the year. Sounds great. There's a lot of pain points that homeowners or business owners hate hanging Christmas lights for. They hate untangling lights. They hate. Have to unplug the lights every night. 'cause they don't know about timers. They hate having to take down the lights in the wintertime when it's nice and cold out. They'd rather be inside where it's nice and warm. So we need to continually address those different things every single time we talk to a new prospect or a customer. Or if you're out at a networking event, tell people about this. You never know who is going to be a client. If you're out prospecting commercial clients and they don't want you for their business, guess what? There's a good chance they own a home and they have a need for Christmas lights. Or if you're dropping off some information to a commercial property, and if you didn't leave anything, you didn't follow up on an email they'll never know how to get ahold of you. But let's just say you marry. The gatekeeper you talked to, you followed up with an email and she remembers you, you smiled, you had a Christmas jacket on. She's not gonna use your services, but she knows who you are. And now Mary is talking to her friend Jan, who works at another company, says, I've been tasked to go find a Christmas like company. I don't know what to do. Let me tell you about X, Y, z, who was just here and dropped off this thing. Let me find his email. I'll send it over to you. So don't miss out on an opportunity to take advantage of. Speaking with people and leaving your information because you just never know. And again, it might be a no today, but things change. I've got one client commercial Christmas light client took me three years to get an estimate to her. I would go, she's no, we're not interested. Go, no, we're not interested. I finally, I go, she's like, all right. Let's just talk, come meet me and gimme a proposal. So I met her. They had Christmas lights installed by another client or another business in town. It was awful. Absolutely ferocious. Like it was an embarrassment to Christmas, but I didn't say that. I said, Hey, I just wanna talk to you about different opportunities for lighting. I know you're focusing right near on this one little entrance right here, and you've got this big, massive property. Like, why are we gonna focus on this one area when we could spread those lights out? She told me, gimme an estimate for $9,000. I gave her an estimate for 15 to $16,000. About two weeks later, I met with the owner who came up here. He drove about two hours and I walked through the property and gave him my vision. And while we're walking around, he is I wanna add lights here. And for the last six years we've been doing this property at $20,000. So a few things with this one, if I took no and never came back, six years, that's $120,000. Two, if I gave her the estimate for exactly what she asked for, which is $9,000, I would've lost out on $66,000 over the last six years. So don't ever take no as a no, just take it as a no today. But tomorrow's another opportunity. And when you're talking to clients and give them an estimate, especially on commercial. I don't care what their budget is, go above and beyond that because budgets can move or they can change the following year. I'd rather give 'em options they are excited about and have 'em say no to it now and add more to it later than limit my possibilities of them ever knowing what's possible to be able to install lights. So hopefully these few tips help you and can help create some success in your Christmas life business this year. There's plenty of opportunities to get out there right now. I don't think it's too late. I don't even think November 1st is too late. Depending on what you're trying to do for this season. If you wanna make a half a million dollars, you start November 1st, probably not gonna happen. But if you wanna get started, I've seen too many businesses business owners. I keep saying tomorrow or next year or next month, whatever it is, and it's always kick that can down the road. And the longer you wait the longer you're missing out on opportunities. And there's plenty of other businesses that are just executing today. If I had to do one thing today, I would start today. Get the name out there. Get the word out there to your current prospects, start networking with as many commercial clients as you can, and be the brand ambassador, like the brand that everybody recognizes in your town. I hope this helps. If you have any other questions. Feel free to reach out to me find me on social media, Facebook, Instagram, JC Chanowsky, and I'll be at the huge, if you're attending there, I'd love to talk to you and have an opportunity to learn more about you and your business. And we'll talk soon.

Summary On this episode of The Huge Insider Podcast, host Sid Graef dives deep into the most profitable yet overlooked strategy in the home service industry: customer retention. Featuring Daniel Dixon, CEO of SendJim and a 7-figure floor coating business owner, this episode is a goldmine for service providers who want to maximize revenue by focusing on their existing customer base.   Daniel Dixon, CEO of SendJim Website Mentioned Tools & Platforms SendJim – client retention and automation platform Jobber – CRM software for home service businesses Housecall Pro – home service software ServiceTitan – field service management software Zapier – automation tool Resources (Mentioned Every Time) The Huge Insider newsletter signup The Huge Insider podcast downloadable action guide The Foundations platform trial offer The Huge Mastermind info page Facebook Group Events The Huge Convention 2025 – August 20–22 in Nashville, TN Tickets: https://thehugeconvention.com/ Transcript Sid Graef: Welcome back to the Huge Insider Podcast. It's Sid Graef and the Huge Insider is the show for home service professionals striving to break the million dollar revenue mark. If that's you, you're definitely in the right place. We want to help you skip the BS and get real wisdom from experienced business builders. So we've gathered wisdom and insight directly from seven and eight figure business owners—people running companies that do anywhere from $2 million to $40 million a year and more. And we bring you their best insights, all focused on a single topic each month. These are real owners—not armchair philosophers or fake gurus. These are the folks quietly building empires behind the scenes. This month, we're focusing on the things you must do to get and keep happy, profitable clients. Things like quality control, reviews, referrals, and long-term retention. Today, the topic is long-term retention. Once you get a customer, how do you keep them forever? Today, you're going to hear from Daniel Dixon. Daniel has a 7-figure floor coating company. He's been in the carpet cleaning industry, and now, in addition to his service business, he’s the CEO of SendJim—a client retention automation and marketing platform. But the episode isn't about SendJim—it's about how to retain clients forever. We also have a downloadable action guide to help you with a retention plan. It’s available at https://www.thehugeinsider.com. Let’s get into it. Daniel Dixon: Hey everybody, this is Daniel Dixon, CEO of SendJim. Today I’m going to talk to you about customer retention. You’ve got these customers—now how do you keep them? How do you sell more to them? And why is this important? The reason is simple: customer retention generates the highest return on investment of any marketing strategy. Selling to existing clients is easier, cheaper, and far more profitable than acquiring new ones. Think about it: they already know you, like you, and trust your company. If you delivered a great experience, there's no reason they would go anywhere else—unless they forget about you. That’s why staying in touch is essential. Let’s say your cost per lead is $45 or more through Google Ads. Compare that with $1–$3 to follow up with an existing customer through a text, postcard, or voicemail. That’s a no-brainer. Daniel Dixon: Here’s how to retain customers: Increase Frequency – Get clients to use your service more often. If they hire you once a year, can they hire you twice or more? Upsell Services – Many customers only know you for the first service they bought. Tell them what else you do—pressure washing, roof cleaning, holiday lights, etc. Stay Top of Mind – Most customers forget your business name a month later. Use automated marketing like texts, emails, and postcards to stay in front of them. You can automate all of this using SendJim. We integrate with CRMs like Jobber, Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan, and anything connected via Zapier. For example, after a job is completed, SendJim can automatically send a thank-you postcard, then a reminder in three months, then a holiday message—all hands-free. If you’re not marketing to your current customers, you’re leaving the most profitable sales on the table. Check us out at https://www.sendjim.com. Hope this was helpful—keep working hard and crushing it. Sid Graef: So after hearing that, it’s pretty easy to understand—selling to your existing clients is the most valuable sale you can make. We’ve set up a 5-page action guide to walk you through building your retention plan. Download it at https://www.thehugeinsider.com. We’ve also got more ways to help you level up your business. Visit the website for: Two free podcasts: The Huge Insider and The Huge Transformation Show A weekly newsletter with actionable insights Our Facebook community And one I’m especially excited about—The Huge Convention, August 20–22 in Nashville. This is our last year in Nashville for a while. Prices go up June 1, so grab tickets now at https://thehugeconvention.com. And for business owners over $1M in revenue, check out The Huge Mastermind. If you want time and money freedom, we teach the Freedom Operating System to help you build a business that runs without you. Learn more at https://www.thehugemastermind.com/interest. That’s it for today. Please share the podcast, subscribe, and leave a review—it really helps us out. I'm Sid Graef. This is The Huge Insider. Go take action and we’ll see you next week.

In this episode of The Huge Insider Podcast, Sid Graef takes you to the mountaintops of his hometown, Missoula, Montana, to frame today’s powerful topic: referrals. Sid shares how you can create a low-cost, high-conversion referral program by simply asking at the right times. From planting the seed during the initial call to reinforcing the ask after the job is done, Sid outlines a step-by-step strategy that took his business from just a few monthly referrals to 3–5 every week. Referrals bring in high-trust, price-flexible customers who are easier to close—making this free marketing method one of the most profitable strategies you can implement. Be sure to download the free action guide at www.thehugeinsider.com to start building your referral system today. Show Notes Resources Mentioned The Huge Insider Action Guide The Huge Insider Newsletter Signup Foundations Platform Trial Offer Huge Mastermind Info Page The Huge Convention Tickets The Huge Insider Facebook Group The Huge Transformations Podcast (Available at thehugeinsider.com) Transcript Sid Graef: Welcome back to The Huge Insider Podcast. I’m Sid Graef, I’m your host, and this is the show for home service business builders who are trying to break the million-dollar mark. And here’s why: we’ve gathered a group of experts who run seven- and eight-figure businesses, businesses doing anywhere from $2 million a year to $40 million a year. We get their best wisdom, their best insights, their best advice, and we give it to you straight—undistilled, no fluff. Just, “Here it is. This is a tactic or strategy you can apply in your business today that will make your business stronger, better, more profitable tomorrow.” That’s why we put out the show—we want to help you grow steadily, quickly, profitably. So today’s topic is referrals. That’s pretty cool. I’m going to show you around, for those of you that are watching this. Right behind me—let me step out of the way—is my hometown: Missoula, Montana. Missoula is a small to medium-sized mountain town. It’s really beautiful here. There’s a river that runs right through it over here, and mountains surround us all the way around. The iconic “M” Mountain is here—it’s got the big “M” on it for the University of Montana. Over here is the “L”—it’s for Loyola High School, a private school. And then you’ve got neighborhoods and people living off in the woods like this. It’s absolutely stunning. Let me spin this a little bit more. Also, we’ve got a lot of wildflowers going on. I’m at the top of a place called Waterworks Hill. So, why do I tell you all that? Here’s why—because this is a part of our community, and no matter where you live, people form communities. You may have a small, tight-knit community, or you may live in a big city, maybe you’re in Minneapolis, but there are community pockets all around within larger metro areas. So that leads me to the topic of referrals. Here’s the thing—people, for as long as time has existed, want to do business with those they know, like, and trust. So how do you get people to know, like, and trust you? There are a lot of ways. Usually, it’s a handshake, eye contact, a great conversation, and doing something good for someone. That’s how you start a relationship and build trust. But in a digital age, how do you build trust quickly? One of the most powerful ways to build trust and gain new customers at literally no cost is referrals. People love to refer businesses they’ve had great experiences with. They talk about great restaurants, good movies, sporting events, cool people they’ve met. So the first part of gaining referrals is being worthy of being talked about. Do business in a way that is so good, people can’t ignore you—they want to talk about you. That’s the baseline for getting referrals. But here’s the catch: people don’t refer as often as they could, because you don’t ask them. If you want to build a deliberate, focused referral program, here’s what we do: Plant the seed when someone calls to schedule. We say: “Hey, are you aware of our Good Neighbor Discount? That means if you’ve got a neighbor who wants to have their windows cleaned on the same day, we’ll give you both a $10 discount. That usually saves you $50 a piece. Sound good?” Remind them in the confirmation message about the Good Neighbor Discount. At the door, when our team shows up, they say: “Mrs. Johnson, our goal today is to do such a great job that we earn your five-star review and you’ll want to tell your friends and family about us.” That’s watering the seed we planted. After the job is done, we ask them to inspect the work, collect payment, and say: “Remember when I said our goal was to earn your five-star review and your referral? How did we do? Did we earn it, or could we do better?” We ask them to leave a review online, and we text them a link to make it easy. We give them a referral card with a QR code and say: “If you’ve got friends or neighbors who would appreciate this service, please refer them. You can scan this or take a picture and send it to your friends or post it on Facebook.” We ask: “Is there anybody in particular that really needs our service?” When we instituted that program, we went from getting 3 or 4 referrals a month to about 3 to 5 referrals a week. And that’s free money—no extra marketing cost, just doing great work and asking. And here’s the beautiful thing about referrals: Referred customers come pre-installed with trust. They’re less price-sensitive. They have a higher closing rate. So referrals are some of the best new business you can get—low cost, high quality. Whatever you do after hearing this, sit down and work out a simple, focused referral ask program. After the service is done, we also: Send an email thanking them. Send a postcard thanking them. Send a coffee card and ask again for referrals. We continue asking in our email newsletter over the following months. Because we take the time to ask, we generate more referrals and more money. That’s it for today. So what did you learn about referrals? Did you learn something valuable you can apply today? I hope so. Make sure to download our four-page action plan that helps you set up a referral program in your business. You’ll gain more customers, gain more trust, expand your influence, and make more money. That’s the deal. If you got value out of today’s show, please share it, like it, subscribe, and refer us to your business friends who might benefit. And don’t forget to check out thehugeinsider.com. It’s got all our resources, including the free weekly newsletter, and our other podcast, The Huge Transformations Podcast—interviews and stories with eight-figure business builders. We’ll see you next time.

In part two of this series, host Sid Graef is back with Nick South from SoTellUs, diving deeper into how to maximize your reviews and turn them into powerful marketing tools that bring in higher-paying customers. Nick reveals that reviews are the most trusted form of content because they serve as word-of-mouth proof that your business delivers on its promises. In fact, companies with a 4.7 to 5.0-star rating can charge up to 31% more than lower-rated competitors. But it doesn’t stop at collecting reviews—you need to get them seen. Nick explains how SoTellUs helps businesses automate review sharing across websites, social media, SEO landing pages, and even your customers' personal networks—amplifying your reputation and reach. This episode highlights how review visibility = revenue growth. Be sure to grab the free downloadable action guide at www.thehugeinsider.com to start putting these strategies to work today.   Resources Mentioned The Huge Insider Action Guide The Huge Insider Newsletter Signup Foundations Platform Trial Offer Huge Mastermind Info Page The Huge Convention Tickets The Huge Insider Facebook Group Learn more about SoTellUs. We love and use them, and asked if they could hook you up with a special offer.  Get it here sotellus.com/huge-booyah-llc/   Transcript:   Sid Graef: Welcome back to The Huge Insider Podcast. It’s Sid Graef here, and this is part two this week with our conversation with Nick South from SoTellUs, talking about the value of the review, how to maximize your reviews, and how to get more reviews. So today, I just asked him the question. I'm like, “Hey, you’ve got good reviews. How do you maximize those? What can you do with a review that is not obvious, and how do you do that?” So he shares some real wisdom, some insights, and some eye-opening ways you can utilize the reviews you’ve already got to really impact your business and make more money on the jobs that you’re doing. So with that, let’s dive in. Here’s Nick with SoTellUs. Nick South: Hey guys, Nick with SoTellUs again. So I wanted to talk about how to maximize your reviews to get higher-paying jobs. Okay, so the first thing I want you to think about is: if you get a ton of awesome, happy five-star reviews from your clients, but nobody gets to see them, what good is that doing for your business? I work with a ton of businesses, and a lot of people want to come in to get reviews. The biggest thing is they want reviews to help get found, push customers over the edge, attract new clients, and increase their online rankings on Google, their websites, and other places like that. And those are the real reasons to get reviews. It’s not just to get them to say, “Look how many reviews I’ve got.” It’s time to take those reviews and get them found. Because reviews are another form of content. But I’ll tell you why it’s the best form of content—because it’s not just something saying, “This is who we are or what we do,” or “Here’s some tips and tricks on these new things.” No, it’s literal social proof. It’s the most attractive content for a customer because it’s showing them that you are a person of your word, that you are able to fulfill the promises you give to your customers. And that’s what they want to see. You’re selling them the experience through another person’s word of mouth. That is insanely powerful. And just so you guys know, if you Google a stat, you’ll see that businesses that actually have up to a five-star rating are able to charge up to 31% more for their services compared to those who have four stars or lower. So a 4.7 to a 5.0-star rating is peak—that’s where you want to be at. And leveraging those reviews by putting them on different places is going to be dramatic for your online presence and reputation. Like for our system, what our system does is it automatically takes all reviews, puts them on your website, your social media sites. We even run SEO with them by giving every review its own landing page and backlinking them to your site. We use them to optimize your Google Business Profile in more ways than just one. And the biggest thing is getting your customer who just gave you that five-star review to instantly share it on all their different social media platforms by the click of a button. And not only do they share the review, but they’re also sharing an incentive or some kind of offer from your company. So all of their—on average—500 friends can literally see a word-of-mouth referral from their friend talking about your business with some form of incentive. Those are some easy ways to start maximizing reviews. It’s how we do it, and it has worked out phenomenal for over 8,000 businesses in 33 countries. So, hope you guys got something out of this, and I can’t wait to see you at The Huge. Sid Graef: So how cool is that? This is more ways that you can maximize the value of a review. So tomorrow, we’re going to be back with Nick, and he’s just going to give us a simple three-step process on how to get more reviews. Here’s the thing—The Huge Insider—we’re all about helping you win in the marketplace. We want to see you prosper and win in the marketplace, and we’ve got the free action guide that you can download about how to get more reviews. It’s available at thehugeinsider.com. There’s a whole bunch of other resources there like our Facebook community and the information about The Huge Convention coming up August 20th through 22nd in Nashville, and our Huge Mastermind. So download your action guide, dig in, apply the stuff that you’re learning, and we will see you next time.

In this episode of The Huge Insider Podcast, host Sid Graef sits down with Nick South, Director of Sales at SoTellUs, a review automation platform helping over 20,000 businesses in 50+ countries. Nick shares the game-changing truth that customers are willing to pay 31% more for companies with top-tier ratings (4.7–5.0 stars). But reviews only work if people see them. Nick explains how to strategically showcase your best reviews on your website, social media, and marketing channels to instantly build trust and credibility—turning social proof into higher-paying jobs. You’ll also hear about SoTellUs' tools to automate your review and referral collection process, saving you time while maximizing impact. This is Part 1 of a two-part series on leveraging reviews to grow your business. Be sure to grab the free downloadable action guide to help you implement this week's strategies at www.thehugeinsider.com. Show Notes Resources Mentioned The Huge Insider Action Guide https://www.thehugeinsider.com The Huge Insider Newsletter Signup https://thehugeconvention.com/insider Foundations Platform Trial Offer https://thehugeconvention.com/1foundationstrial Huge Mastermind Info Page https://www.thehugemastermind.com/interest The Huge Convention Tickets https://www.thehugeconvention.com The Huge Insider Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/hugefoundations SoTellUs (Review Automation Platform) https://sotellus.com/ Guest Information Nick South – Director of Sales at SoTellUs https://sotellus.com (No direct social links provided in the episode) Contact the Show Call or Leave a Voicemail (804) 600-4843 (Spells 804-600-HUGE) Transcript: Sid Graef: Welcome back to The Huge Insider Podcast. It's Sid Graef here, and The Huge Insider is the show for home service professionals who are striving to break the million-dollar revenue mark. If that's you, you're in the right place. Here’s the thing—we want to help you skip the BS, and there's plenty of it out there. We want you to skip the BS and get real wisdom from experienced business builders. We've gathered wisdom and insight directly from seven- and eight-figure business owners—people running companies that do anywhere from two million a year to forty million a year. And we bring you their best insights, all focused on a single topic each month. And these are real owners. These are the ones quietly building empires behind the scenes. This month, we're focusing on the things you must do to get and keep happy, profitable clients. These four things are quality control, reviews, referrals, and long-term retention. And today's topic is reviews. We’ve got several of the eight-figure business owners in our network that have great review processes, but they all have one thing in common—they rely heavily on automation software to get those reviews. So rather than have me or someone else talk to you about how we do our reviews, we've gotten in touch with Nick South, and he's the Director of Sales for SoTellUs. SoTellUs is a company dedicated to helping companies get more reviews and referrals. They're an automation software that handles that type of technology and a whole lot more. They’ve helped over 20,000 companies in over 50 countries to gain more reviews. So rather than me talking about my process, which is just my way of thinking about it, we’ve got the guys that obsess about millions of reviews every single day to share with you some insights on a simple process to get more reviews and the value of good reviews. So this is going to be a two-part series, and I want to introduce you to Nick South again. He's the Sales Director at SoTellUs. Let's hear from Nick. And last thing before we dive in—we’ve got a downloadable action guide for you, and it's available at thehugeinsider.com. Let’s get into it. Nick South: Hey guys, Nick with SoTellUs here again. Today, what I want to talk to you about is how to maximize your reviews to get higher-paying jobs. So now, when you get reviews and you collect them—let's say you're somebody right now who's sitting on, you know, 50 or 100 awesome five-star premium reviews from your clients—now, it's great that you have these reviews, but think about this: If nobody gets to see them, what good is that doing for you? Okay, so ponder on that a little bit because if nobody can see how many satisfied customers you’ve actually serviced, people don’t know how good you really are. So you need to find ways to maximize these by putting them in different places. Number one being your website. Every time somebody goes on your website, you should have something there that's going to get their attention—instantly build some trust. That’s what reviews will do. They'll catch their eye and, at the same time, build trust in their decision to work with you because they're going to see all of these happy customers that you've serviced in the past. There are tons of studies that show people with five-star ratings are able to charge even 31% more on jobs than those who have four stars or less. 4.7 to 5.0 is the best range you could possibly be in. And again, leveraging these reviews, putting them on your social medias, different pages on your website that are backlinking, things like that, because reviews and utilizing them—it’s just like utilizing content. But here’s the thing: everybody posts content, and it’s important—hey, it’s great—you need to post different things about who you are or what you’re doing. But what customers want to see the most is case studies, social proof, proving that you are able to do exactly what you say you can. Right? So aside from all the really cool and pretty posts and stuff like that you’re putting out there, customers want to know that you are trustworthy and that you do have other happy, satisfied customers. Okay? So those are easy ways to be able to leverage those reviews. Also, other ones would be like posting them onto your socials, tagging the customers, getting them on multiple pages. Now, think about that—about different ways you could do that. This is something that we help out with—leveraging them heavily across multiple places online. Obviously, we’d love to talk to you about it, but have a great day. Sid Graef: Okay, that’s Nick with SoTellUs, and that is one aspect of the value of having great reviews. If you've got great reviews, you can charge more for your services because people have more trust, and they will pay more for a trusted experience. Pretty cool, right? So how do you go about getting reviews? What’s your review process? You’ll learn more about the process of how to actually get reviews in tomorrow’s episode with Nick. In the meantime, download our five-page action guide that will help you execute this week's strategy. And that strategy is getting more reviews to make yourself really difficult to compete with. Get that action guide at thehugeinsider.com. And here’s the thing, man—if you’ve gotten value from this podcast, share it with your friends, post it online, give us a review, that kind of good stuff. It would really mean the world to us. Here are some other free resources and great resources for you as you level up your business: Number one is our free newsletter, it’s called The Huge Insider, and it’s available at—guess what—thehugeinsider.com. It’s weekly, it’s free, and it’s straight actionable insights directly to your inbox every single week. Next, we have our Facebook group and community, also available at thehugeinsider.com. Join our Facebook group, be a part of the conversation, ask questions to get help, help others when they need it. It’s a great community. And last is The Huge Convention. That is the ultimate event. It’s every year, it’s for home service business owners just like yourself. And this year, we’re back in Nashville, Tennessee, August 20th through 22nd. Tickets are dirt cheap right now, so grab yours at thehugeconvention.com before prices go up. And here’s the thing—the day I’m recording this, tickets are priced at $229, but June 1st, 2025, those tickets go up to $299. So if you’re thinking about going to the convention, go ahead and lock in your ticket now at a less expensive price and save a few bucks. You can thank me later, or you can just buy me a beer at the convention. That’d be cool. In the future, if you’ve got questions or you have topics that you would love to see handled, you can let us know literally by making a phone call. I know this seems kind of old school, but we like to hear people’s voices. Call us at (804) 600-4843. That spells 804-600-HUGE. Call us and leave us a message and say, “Hey, I would really love to hear this topic handled,” or if you’ve applied something you’ve learned and you have a victory story, you’ve got a big win, share it with us. We’ll feature you in the future. With that, don’t just listen—take action. I’m Sid Graef, this is The Huge Insider Podcast. We want to help you win and prosper in the marketplace. We will see you next time.    

In this episode of The Huge Insider Podcast, host Sid Graef dives deep into the critical topic of quality control—the first pillar in a four-part series on building happy, profitable client relationships. Speaking directly to home service pros and business owners scaling past the $1M mark, Sid breaks down how quality is not a fluke—it’s a system. He shares his proven framework used at Spectrum Window Cleaning, where performance-based pay, job ownership, and strategic incentives create a culture of accountability and pride. From smart hiring to random job site checks, Sid explains how aligning incentives with expectations leads to fewer callbacks, better reviews, and long-term client retention. If you’re ready to reduce chaos and scale responsibly, this episode is your blueprint. Show Notes Topics Covered: The 4 pillars of client happiness: Quality Control, Reviews, Referrals, and Retention Why quality control begins with hiring the right people Performance-based pay: benefits and pitfalls How job ownership prevents corner-cutting Spectrum’s 3-part quality system (Training, Ownership, Random Checks) How to align pay structures with performance standards Real-life incentives and consequences to drive better behavior The long-term impact of enforcing high standards   Mentioned Resources & Links: The Huge Insider newsletter signup Downloadable action guide Foundations platform trial offer The Huge Mastermind info page Facebook group for service pros 📍 The Huge Convention 2025 — Nashville, TN, August 20–22 🌐 Spectrum Window Cleaning (Business owned by Sid Graef – more at upcoming episodes)   Connect with Sid Graef: LinkedIn Facebook Group     Transcript: Welcome back to the Huge Insider Podcast. Hey, the huge insider is the show for home service professionals that are striving to break the million dollar revenue mark. If that's you, you're definitely in the right spot. If you're already over a million dollars in revenue, you get even more out of this show. So here's the thing, we really want to help you skip the BS and get real wisdom from experienced business builders. We have gathered. Wisdom and insight directly from seven and eight figure business owners, people that are running companies that do anywhere from 2 million a year to 40 million a year. And we bring you the best insights every week, all focused on a single topic every month. Real owners, no, no opinions, just experience. So here's the thing. This month we're focusing on the things that you must do to get and keep happy, profitable clients. These four things are quality control. Reviews, referrals, and long-term retention. So today's topic is quality control. Might sound boring, but it's incredibly important. So today I get to share our processes and the core principles behind quality control. So last thing before we dive in, wanna remind you, we've got a downloadable action guide for you. It's [email protected] and I hope you download it and use it. So let's get into it. Quality control. If you've got a crew that's out doing window cleaning or pressure washing or whatever your business does, and you're not on every single job site, you're growing your company, then this episode is for you. Here's the deal. Quality control is not an accident, it's a process. It, here are the underlying principles for quality control. Number one is what gets measured, gets managed, and then number two is incentivize behavior that you want. And disincentivize behavior that you don't want. So if you don't build systems to ensure your quality, you end up with callbacks, bad reviews, lost clients, and honestly, that would be your fault, even if you're not the one holding the squeegee because you are the business owner and you're the one that sets the tone, the foundation, and the direction of your company. So here's the foundation of quality. It doesn't really start with a checklist or inspection. It starts with your people. The kind of people who care. So when you're hiring, you need people that have solid character. You need people that are coachable. You need people that have attention to detail, and you need people that have a personal standard for doing great work. If you instill a core behavior, like own your work or always go. The extra mile or take pride in your work, enforcing quality becomes way easier. It's not just about rules, it's about pride. But here's the kicker. Even if your team is full of good people, you still need systems because hope is not a strategy, and growth without systems leads to chaos. So I'm gonna walk you through how we do it. It. This is how we handle it at Spectrum Window cleaning. First, our techs are on performance based pay, so this can vary for you because maybe you pay hourly or some other way. But we pay performance based. That means our techs get a percentage of the job, regardless of how fast they finish the job. So let's say it's a thousand dollars job, they finish, they get $250. That motivates them to move fast. The faster they go, the more they can make. But here's the dark side of that speed. Can lead to a technician cutting corners so that they can get more done and get faster, make more money. If you don't address it, that will end up happening. It's. It's the kind of the natural course of things. So we built in ownership of the job. So when a technician's assigned to a job, they own it from start to finish, it is their job. They're responsible to show up on time to follow the customer service scripts, to clean to our standards. They're responsible to, at the end of the job, to walk the customer through the work, and they have to double check everything before leaving, and nobody comes behind them to inspect it. So how do we make sure they don't take shortcuts? We align the incentives. Here's the incentive and the way it works. If a tech gets a call back, they own that job, so they have to go back and fix it themselves. With no extra pay. That a thousand dollars job example, their $250, that's what they get, whether there's a touch up or not. So if they have to go back out and touch up, it's gonna cost them an extra 30 minutes to an hour, depending on drive time just to go and look. Plus the time it takes to do it. So it's more important for them. It's in their best interest to do it right the first time. And this is what we repeat over and over. It's like it's better for you to just take an extra 10 minutes to check your work before you leave than spend an hour going back for a touch up. So just double check your work. And here's another layer. If they get multiple callbacks in a short window of time, for example, if they get, if they got three callbacks in a single week, they're gonna drop a commission tier for 30 days. And that hits hard. It hits 'em in the paycheck. But it reinforces that quality is non-negotiable. Now here's a little bit more of our system. It's like a three-part quality system, and at the end of the day. W. We have quality control on three main levels. First is proper training in a strong culture fit. We try to hire the right type of person, but once we hire 'em, we train, we train, we train, we train, we train, we train 'em how to do the job correctly. We train 'em the technical skills. We train them with attention to detail. We teach 'em how to inspect their work, and we teach them how to take pride in their work. Number two is what I had mentioned just a little bit earlier. Job ownership from beginning to end. Every tech is the boss of their job. There's no babysitting, but that means they own that job and they're responsible for it from beginning to end. So if they get a call back a week later, 10 days later, it's, they're responsible to go back, touch up, rec, reclean, whatever it takes to handle that job. And number three, we do. Have random site checks, our production manager, our operations manager on occasion, will drop in without warning and inspect the work while the guys are there. Or after the technicians have already cleaned and left. And that keeps everybody sharp because it's like the random check at the airport, except it makes sense. Ha ha. As we wrap it up. Here's the thing, your customers don't care really how fast the job got done. They just want to know that it's done correctly. They want their windows clean. They want their house clean. They want their experience to be great. So if you want fewer callbacks and better reviews, and a team that performs like a pro. You've gotta design your business to reward great work and punish poor performance. If somebody does great work, they're gonna rise to the top. They're going to make more money, they're going to be rewarded for it. But if they don't perform well, it's like they're gonna lose time and money by going back to fix things, or they're gonna leave your company. And either way, it's fine because you are sorting and training and working to get a high performing team, high performing individuals that. Get rewarded for doing things right, and that is going to help you build a business that has a great reputation for quality, for responsibility, and that's gonna help you keep your customers long term. And so here's the deal. Incentivize what you want, disincentivize what you don't want. That's how you build a team and a reputation that you can be really, really proud of. Thanks for listening. Okay, so normally I have somebody else record the middle part. You know, that they share their insight once in a while, and I'm, I'm really excited I get to share some of the things that we do in our company to help it better and or to help it be better, to help us build a better business. So I always ask this question, what did you learn today? What did you learn about quality control as a system, as a principle, as a philosophy? And then what are you gonna do with it? Because, the more you build it in and prepare and just drive it home, that quality is key or paramount, the better quality you're gonna have. And here's the next step for you. I. Take action. We've got everything that was covered today is in the show notes. There's transcript, all that stuff. But the most important thing is every time we do a new weekly episode, we prepare a five page action guide for you and it's downloadable and it helps you execute the strategy. It gives you the bullet points and the how tos, and that's [email protected], so the huge insider.com. And while you're at the huge insider.com, downloading your action guide, there's more ways to level up your business and they're all there. One is sign up for a free newsletter if you haven't already done it. It gives you weekly insights straight to your inbox. They track pretty closely with this podcast. Two, you could join our Facebook group and community where we discuss, we help, we answer questions. Everyone in the group answers each other's questions, and we help build each other up. We help solve problems and. Help one another, build better businesses. The next thing is the huge convention. If you haven't been, let this Be Your Gear. Every year we have the ultimate event for home service business owners and pros. This year we're in Nashville, Tennessee, August 20th through 22nd. You can still get cheap tickets. And this event is where real breakthroughs happen. It is the place for networking for education. It's the biggest trade show in the industry for. Our industry in home service, and next is a huge mastermind. If you've got a company that's already pushing or doing more than a million in revenue every year, you got five employees or more, this is the fast track to a freedom business. You'll learn and implement the Freedom operating system to get to time and money freedom predictably and quickly in your company. So that's it for today. If you find value in this, if you like this short form. Podcast where we just get straight to the point and give you insight and actionable actionable insight. How's that? That you can apply to your business now that will make a difference, that will help you make more money, more profit, give you more time and money for your, if you like this, go ahead. Share it, post a review, whatever post on social media. But we really appreciate your time listening and we look forward to seeing you next time. 

In this episode of The Huge Insider Podcast, host Sid Graef shares a powerful and practical guide to running effective team meetings for service-based businesses. With firsthand insight from leading a seven-figure window cleaning company in Montana, Sid breaks down how structured weekly meetings drive alignment, productivity, and team culture. He admits to once avoiding meetings due to perceived cost—only to learn that skipping them cost far more in missed opportunities, confusion, and team disconnection. Sid outlines his company’s proven two-meeting system: the Monday “Money Meeting” that sets the week’s tone with wins, safety reminders, and upsell planning, and the Wednesday “Training Meeting” focused on team culture, soft skills, and leadership development. The episode is packed with real-world tips and frameworks that any business owner can immediately implement. If you’re trying to scale your service business and empower your team, this episode is a must-listen. Show Notes Resources (mentioned every episode): The Huge Insider newsletter The Huge Insider downloadable action guide Foundations platform trial Huge Mastermind info page Facebook Group References & Mentions: Nashville Huge Convention 2025: August 20–22,  Core behaviors discussed for April 2025: Be on time, leave it better for the next person, lift up teammates, take pride in your work       Transcript: Sid Graef: Welcome back to The Huge Insider Podcast. Hey, my friend, it's Sid Graef here, and this is The Huge Insider, the show for home service professionals like you who are striving to break the million-dollar revenue mark per year. And if that's you, you're definitely in the right place. If you're already over a million dollars of revenue, you'll get even more out of this show. We want to help you skip all the BS and get real wisdom from experienced business builders. We've gathered insight directly from seven- and eight-figure business owners—people running companies that are currently doing anywhere from 2 million a year to 40 million a year and more. We're bringing you the best insights all focused on a single topic each month. These are real owners—not armchair philosophers or fake gurus. These are the people quietly building empires behind the scenes. Generally, they're not on social media looking for attention. They're in business, making things happen. Last month, we focused on hiring A-players. This month, we’re answering the question: what do you do once you hire the right person—once you get that A-player? The topics we’ve covered week by week are onboarding, pay structure, training, and this week—it’s meetings. Weekly meetings. How to manage and handle a meeting that makes your team more productive. You’re about to hear from me. I know, that’s kind of weird. But I have a seven-figure window cleaning company in Western Montana, and I want to talk with you a little bit about the way we handle and manage meetings to make our company more productive. Before we dive in, the last thing I want to mention is we have a downloadable action guide for you. It’s available at www.thehugeinsider.com. And with that—let’s get into it. So, here’s the question: Why are team meetings important? What is especially important about doing team meetings for the home service industry? I’m going to start by admitting my mistake. For years, I thought team meetings were dumb—that they were an expensive waste of time. People should just know what to do, how to do it. We trained them. You give them the work tickets and let them run. I only saw team meetings as a cost—ten people in a meeting at $20 an hour for an hour. That’s $200 per meeting. So I avoided them. I rarely held team meetings, honestly, because I thought I was losing money. But the reality is, avoiding those meetings cost us money. It cost us time. We lost alignment. We lost momentum. We lost opportunities. Here’s the truth about team meetings: A well-run, structured team meeting is not an expense—it’s an investment. And it will pay you dividends every day and every week in your business. A good team meeting saves time and money. Let me drop in my personal opinion—most meetings in a corporate structure are probably a waste of time, or at least not efficient. But if you handle a meeting well, regularly, with a schedule, a structure, an agenda, and a clear purpose—it makes you money. It saves you time and money. Here’s what happens with a great team meeting: It aligns everyone around the company objectives. It refreshes your team’s energy and focus. It gets everyone rowing in the same direction—which multiplies your power. Here’s our meeting structure. This is how we do it. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right way—but it’s a way that we’ve found very effective. Hopefully, it can benefit you. We run two core meetings every single week—Monday morning and Wednesday morning. Monday morning, you could call it the “Money Meeting.” It’s 30 minutes long. Wednesday morning is the training meeting—also 30 minutes long. Both of these meetings are concise, consistent, and designed with a clear purpose in mind. Monday Morning “Money” Meeting We start at 7:30 a.m. That changes throughout the year—when we get longer days in the summer, we start earlier so people can get in the field earlier. But it’s 30 minutes long. Purpose: To set up the week for maximum production, safety, and opportunity. Structure: Start on time. Every time. Even if someone texts they’ll be late—we don’t wait. We reward the people who were on time by starting promptly. Share wins around the table. It’s Monday. People might not be morning people. But hearing everyone share a personal or professional win helps generate a positive energy. Safety Five. Five minutes of safety reminders—not full training, just a refresher. For example, we might go over water-fed pole usage or ladder safety. D.O.S. — Dangers, Opportunities, Strengths. Dangers: Production managers look at all jobs ahead and call out anything tricky. Each tech is responsible for their own jobs, but this is a second layer of prep. Opportunities: Every residential job has upsell, review, and referral potential. We also remind them to ask if we can place a lawn sign. Sometimes we call someone up to practice the script. Strengths: If time allows, we shout out individual strengths or performance highlights from the prior week. Wednesday “Training” Meeting Completely different focus. It’s not to review the week—it’s for culture, soft skills, and leadership development. Purpose: To reinforce culture, build soft skills, and train the team for excellence. Structure: Start on time. Team kudos. But not just from the leader—from the team. They’re encouraged to call out great behavior from their peers. Each month we focus on core behaviors. For example: Be on time Leave it better for the next person Always lift up teammates Take pride in your work Each week, we highlight one behavior and give real examples. Soft skills or philosophical training. This could include: Reviewing our three core scripts (initial greeting, upsell, review ask). Role playing how to handle a difficult customer. Planting the seed during the greeting so we can earn the review and referral at the end. What we’ve found is that these two meetings, especially the Monday meeting, get everyone out of the weekend mindset and focused on goals. It’s powerful when the entire team is aligned and working toward a common weekly target—revenue, reviews, or otherwise. The Wednesday meeting reinforces our behaviors, builds leadership, and sharpens soft skills. Each tech eventually leads parts of the meeting, which boosts their public speaking and small group leadership ability. It creates peer-to-peer accountability and recognition. Hidden Benefits of Weekly Meetings: For the company: Maintains alignment Removes confusion before it starts Builds culture and team unity Increases productivity Reduces waste and errors Accelerates monthly and quarterly goal achievement For the team: Builds pride and belonging Develops leadership and speaking skills Encourages peer-to-peer praise and accountability For the owner: Moves the company toward running without you Empowers team members to lead Reveals real leaders—and weaknesses early Frees up your energy and time Just having a meeting isn’t enough. A meeting for the sake of meeting is probably a waste. But when you prepare, structure it, and run it with purpose—it becomes a powerful tool. Just 30 minutes a week can build an aligned, energized, high-performing team. The ROI is hard to measure—but impossible to miss. So what did you learn about team meetings? More importantly—what are you going to do with it? How can you apply it in your business? Take action. Don’t just listen to this—or any—podcast and say, “That’s neat.” Apply it so your company improves. Grab the five-page action guide to help you implement this strategy at www.thehugeinsider.com. We also have a weekly newsletter you can sign up for at thehugeinsider.com. We’ve got a Facebook group, and every year we do our big event—The Huge Convention. This year we’re meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, August 20–22, 2025. Get your tickets now at thehugeconvention.com. And if you’re doing over $1M or close, check out The Huge Mastermind. It’s the fast track to building a Freedom Business—where you go from operator to owner, using the Freedom Operating System. Thanks again for listening. If you got value from the show, share it! Post a review, tag us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok—wherever you’re active. It means the world. We’ll see you next time on The Huge Insider Podcast.  

In this episode of The Huge Insider Podcast, Michael Kaplan breaks down how team meetings, when done right, can drive culture, mission alignment, communication, and motivation across an entire organization. Instead of boring status updates, great meetings reinforce your company’s purpose, deliver key information, cascade leadership messages, and celebrate success. You'll walk away with actionable tips on how to plan your meetings with purpose, inject energy into the room (think "Black Betty" as a hype song), and engage your team so they leave energized and informed. If you want your team rowing in the same direction—toward growth and excellence—this episode gives you the blueprint. Show Notes Guest Michael Kaplan Home service entrepreneur since 2006 Scaled a carpet cleaning business to over 150 employees and eight figures in revenue Resources Mentioned Downloadable Action Guide The Huge Insider Newsletter Signup Foundations Platform Free Trial The Huge Mastermind Info Page Facebook Group Huge Convention Tickets August 20–22, 2025, in Nashville, TN  Transcript Sid Graef: Welcome back to the Huge Insider Podcast. Hey, my friend, it's Sid Graef here, and the Huge Insider is the show for home service professionals that are striving to break the million-dollar revenue mark. And if that's you, you're in the right place. If you're already over a million dollars in revenue, you will get even more out of this show. So we want to help you skip the BS and get real wisdom from experienced business builders. We've gathered wisdom and insight directly from seven- and eight-figure business owners, people who are running companies that do anywhere from 2 million a year to 40 million a year, and we're bringing you their best insights, all focused on one single topic each month. And these are real owners. They're not armchair philosophers or fake gurus. These are the ones that are quietly building empires behind the scenes. They're not on social media looking for attention. They're in business actually making things happen. So last month we focused on hiring A-players, and this month we answered the question, what do you do once you hire the right person? You've got onboarding, pay structure, training, safety, and much more. And today's topic is team meetings and the value of team meetings. So you're about to hear from Michael Kaplan. Michael Kaplan built a strong eight-figure carpet cleaning business in the Midwest, and he knows about team meetings because they had over 150 employees and they had to get everyone on the same page week after week after week. So he goes into a lot of detail about what a good team meeting needs to be successful and why it's important. You know, most businesses treat team meetings as an afterthought or skip them altogether and just assume that everybody knows what to do and where they need to be. Last thing before we dive in, we've got a downloadable action guide for you for this episode, and it's available at thehugeinsider.com. So with that, let's dive into it. Michael Kaplan: Hello, podcasters. My name's Michael Kaplan. I've been a home service entrepreneur since 2006, and I drew the short straw. So I get to talk to you about team meetings, and actually, I'm a bit of a team meeting nerd, so maybe it's not a super short straw. But most people groan and hate the prospect of having a team meeting because most meetings suck. And no offense, your meetings probably suck. Mine have too, and I've got a couple of tips here to help you think through how to make your meetings suck less or maybe even accomplish a couple of goals. So think about the tone of the meeting as much as the content of the meeting. How you deliver the message matters almost as much as the message. And similarly important, think really hard about how much you're trying to accomplish. Less is more, and the risk of overextending is real, and you'll dilute the message if you do overextend. So you've got the full team there. How are you going to set the tone? I always think upbeat. Get people kind of rocking going into the meeting. Think, you know, Ram Jam, "Black Betty" — that's always been my go-to. Have a clear agenda and don't stuff it too full, but for me, a successful meeting's going to tick all these boxes: It's going to reinforce culture. It's going to cascade a message from the leadership team. It's going to reinforce the mission. It's going to transfer information. And it's going to celebrate success. So let me unpack those real quick. On reinforcing culture: you are not in front of your whole team every day, at least not in this manner. So fill their buckets, remind them their why, why they show up, why they love each other, what's great about the company, what's special. Like it might be feedback from a customer that you're relaying. There are any number of ways to do it, but really think about what you guys stand for and how you can transfer that throughout the meeting. You want to have a cascading message from the leadership team. I'm sure there are meetings that are happening behind the scenes where you're plotting your evil plan to take over the world, and this is your opportunity to peel back the curtain a little bit and let the minions and the people who aren't in those meetings understand more about what the big initiatives are, where the business is going, and to fire them up about it a little bit. Again, filling their buckets. So you're also reinforcing the mission. You're doing the vision casting. What's the hill, and how are we going to take it? And how everyone plays a role in taking over the market, in providing better service, or whatever the elements of that mission are. You're going to do quite literally a transfer of information. You've got an opportunity for the team to learn about the health of the company. You may or may not be a team that shows P&Ls or talks about those big milestones, but you want to pass information on so that the team leaves feeling more in the know about what's going on. And you've got to be sure and celebrate success. This can take any number of forms. It could be goals and milestones hit. It can be awards won. It can be profits made. It could be big sales landed. Another good way to do it is to play off the culture and the mission-vision-values approach. I love having team members vote on who on the team best exemplifies different core values that you have. If you have your core values published and you're celebrating them throughout the year, I think it's great before the meeting to have people anonymously vote on who's doing a great job at really living each of the values. Then whoever wins, have one of the people who voted for them tell a story about Rick and why Rick exemplified core value ABC. Coming from the team to the team is cultural gold. And then you can give a gift card and celebrate that success. I think team meetings don't have to be something you trudge through. They should be uplifting. And I think that success is going to feel like you had purposeful pacing, you transferred information, you highlighted and celebrated core values and culture, you celebrated success, you cast your vision, and everyone's walking away—or most people are walking away—with more clarity and a sense of community after the meeting. So it's not rocket surgery, but it does take some purposeful planning to execute. And you've got to make sure that the fun police are not present. You've got to keep it upbeat, keep it moving, and give people an opportunity to be excitable in spite of the fact that they're sitting through a meeting. Hopefully this helped and you have some awesome meetings moving forward. Keep rocking. Sid Graef: Okay, so what did you learn about team meetings? What did you learn about the value of team meetings and how to manage one properly to get people on the same page? Because really that's one of the key components of a great team meeting, is to have your team working together as a team to have unity, to have everyone rowing in the same direction. So what's the next step? First of all, download the action guide. Everything we covered today is in the show notes, but the most important thing is download the free action guide about this episode. We put together a five-page action guide to help you execute this week's strategy and the tactics for better team meetings. And you can grab it at thehugeinsider.com. And there are more ways for you to help level up your business. This podcast is just one way that we help you to grow, and here's what else you should be plugged into: Number one is our free newsletter. It's called The Huge Insider. Cool name, right? The Huge Insider. We deliver weekly insights straight to your inbox. Number two is our Facebook group and community. We've got a vibrant Facebook group where people are helping one another with questions, helping each other to grow. Then every summer we get together at one big fine party. We call it The Huge Convention. The Huge Convention is the ultimate event for home service business owners like you. This year we're back in Nashville, Tennessee, August 20th through 22nd, and this is the last year that we're going to be in Nashville, at least for a while. Tickets are really dirt cheap right now, so make sure and grab yours before the prices go up. Tickets can be found at thehugeconvention.com, and prices are going up on June 1st. This event, The Huge Convention, if you've never been, it really is the event where breakthroughs happen. It's the place for networking, for high-level, focused business education—like how to build a better business—and the biggest trade show for our industries in the country. The next thing I want to tell you about, really the last thing I'm going to tell you about is The Huge Mastermind. I mentioned earlier in the intro that this is the show for people that are striving to break the million-dollar mark in revenue. And if you're already over the million-dollar mark, you get even more from this show. But here's the thing: The Huge Mastermind is for business owners whose business is already over a million dollars of revenue. You've got more than five employees, and it is the fast track to a freedom business because you're going to learn and implement the Freedom Operating System to get to time and money freedom quickly and predictably. So that's it for this week's episode. If you find value in this, share it, like it, give us a review, do all that jazz, you know that. And with that, that's it for this week. So don't just listen. Take action. I'm Sid Graef. This is The Huge Insider Podcast, and we want to help you win and prosper in the marketplace. I'll see you next time.  

In this episode of the Huge Transformations Podcast, Liz Trotter flips the script on traditional onboarding. Forget stuffing forms into Day One—real onboarding is about connection, clarity, and belonging. Liz walks us through how onboarding should begin the moment the offer is accepted—not the moment they walk through the door. From sending pre-start welcome kits to scheduling intentional one-on-ones, this is the people-first playbook for retaining great hires from day one. If you're tired of the revolving door of new hires or want a smoother, more human onboarding system, this episode is your roadmap. What You’ll Learn: Why onboarding starts before Day One The emotional goal of onboarding: connection + clarity What to send before their first shift to reduce anxiety How to create a first-day experience that builds loyalty What kind of conversations to have in week one to build trust Pro Tip: Onboarding isn’t a checklist—it’s how you bring people into the soul of your business. Downloadable Action Guide The Huge Insider Newsletter Signup Foundations Platform Free Trial The Huge Mastermind Info Page Facebook Group Huge Convention Tickets August 20–22, 2025, in Nashville, TN Transcript Sid Graef: Welcome back to the Huge Insider Podcast. Hey, my friend, Sid Graef here, and The Huge Insider is the show for home service professionals that are striving to break the million-dollar revenue mark. And if that's you, you're definitely in the right place. If you're already above a million dollars, you're going to get even more out of the show. So we want to help you skip the BS and get real wisdom from experienced business builders. We've gathered wisdom and insight directly from seven- and eight-figure business owners—people who are running companies that do anywhere from 2 million a year to 40 million a year. We bring you their best insights, all focused on a single topic each month. These are real business owners. They're the ones actually quietly building empires behind the scenes, so they're in business making things happen. Now, last month we focused on hiring A-players, and this month we answer the question: what do you do once you hire the right person? The first thing you do is you onboard them. And not just with a list of tasks and forms to sign, but by embedding them into the soul of your company culture. That’s exactly what today’s guest, Liz Trotter, is here to teach us. Liz is a true business rockstar with several seven-figure businesses. She owns them—she's not running the day-to-day. So anytime Liz speaks, I listen carefully and take notes. In this episode, she’s going to walk us through not only an onboarding checklist but also a deeper onboarding philosophy. Let’s dig in, and remember, there’s a downloadable action guide for this episode at thehugeinsider.com. Liz Trotter: Hey all, Liz here. I want to talk to you a little bit about onboarding today. The idea behind onboarding might be a little different than what you're used to. Most people think onboarding is just what you do on day one—uniforms, legal forms, job description talks. And sure, you need to do that stuff, but that’s not onboarding for success. Onboarding should start the minute someone accepts your job offer. You want to begin embedding them into your company culture before they ever walk in the door. That might look like sending them a job description, expectations for behavior, and even a "favorites list" to help you connect on a personal level. Clarity reduces anxiety, so the more prepared and informed your new hire feels, the better they’ll perform. Let them know how success is measured in the role—even if it’s just a brief overview. You can dive into details later, but start with transparency. Day one should include a warm welcome. Whether it’s a welcome kit with their name on it, a Slack introduction, or a name up on the board, make sure they feel like they belong. Introduce them to the team, and start giving them context around how their work contributes to your company’s big-picture mission. Schedule one-on-ones early and often. Reduce the anxiety of the unknown by telling them what to expect in those meetings. And when mistakes happen, focus them on the future. Show them that the best is yet to come. If you follow this onboarding approach, you won't just gain a new employee—you’ll nurture loyalty, performance, and a sense of purpose right from the start. Sid Graef: Okay, so what did you learn about onboarding? More importantly, what are you going to do with it? The action guide simplifies this whole process and is ready for you to download at thehugeinsider.com. As always, subscribe to our free newsletter, The Huge Insider, for weekly insights. Join the Facebook community, and grab your tickets for The Huge Convention, happening August 20th through 22nd in Nashville, Tennessee. This is the last time we’ll be in Nashville for a while, and prices go up on June 1st, so don’t wait. Get them at thehugeconvention.com. If your business is already doing over a million dollars in revenue and you have more than five employees, check out The Huge Mastermind. It’s the fast track to a freedom business. You’ll learn the Freedom Operating System and finally build a business that works for you—not the other way around. That’s it for this week. I'm Sid Graef. This is The Huge Insider Podcast. Share it, review it, tell someone about it—and above all, take action. We'll see you next time.    

Safety training isn’t box‑checking—it’s profit, people, and peace of mind. Host Sid Graef interviews Sheila Smeltzer (President, A+ Pro Services and former IWCA president) about building a bullet‑proof safety culture for home‑service firms. Sheila explains why OSHA 1910 rules matter, how a single four‑foot drop can cost six‑figure fines, and why ladder incidents alone send 200,000+ workers to the ER every year. Her framework is simple: Know the law. OSHA 1910 Subpart D (walking‑working surfaces) and Subpart I (PPE) govern most field work. Use qualified trainers. Hire or outsource a qualified person who can certify employees and document everything. Systemize it. Flag hazards in your CRM (e.g., ServiceTitan), create written Job Hazard Analyses and Safety Work Plans, and re‑train annually. Document or it didn’t happen. Clear, signed records slash liability and keep crews—and profits—intact. The takeaway: a documented, repeatable safety program protects lives and margins better than any marketing hack. Show Notes Guest – Sheila Smeltzer, President, A+ Pro Services (window cleaning & exterior maintenance, NC) – https://aplusproservices.com/ A+ Pro Serivces | (910)-754-2263 Host – Sid Graef, Huge Insider Podcast – https://thehugeinsider.com References & Links Mentioned OSHA 1910 General Industry Standards – https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1910 Subpart D – Walking‑Working Surfaces – https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1910/1910SubpartD Subpart I – Personal Protective Equipment – https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1910/1910SubpartI International Window Cleaning Association (IWCA)  Power Washers of North America (PWNA) Expert Safety Services / Safety Advocate App ServiceTitan field‑service CRM Call‑in line to share your story – (804) 600‑4843 Resources The Huge Insider newsletter signup The Huge Insider podcast downloadable action guide Foundations platform 1‑month trial The Huge Mastermind info Huge Foundations Facebook group Transcript SID GRAEF: Welcome back to the Huge Insider Podcast. Hey, my friend, it’s Sid Graef here. The Huge Insider is the show for home‑service professionals who are striving to break the million‑dollar revenue mark. If that’s you, you’re in the right place, and if you’re already over a million dollars of revenue, congratulations—you’re going to get even more out of this show. We want to help you skip the BS and get real wisdom from experienced business builders. That’s why we’ve gathered wisdom and insight directly from seven‑ and eight‑figure business owners—people running companies that do anywhere from $2 million a year to $40 million a year—and we’re bringing you the best insights. It’s all focused on one topic each month, and these are real owners. There are no arm‑chair philosophers or fake gurus. These are the people quietly building empires behind the scenes; they’re not on social media looking for attention—they’re in business making things happen. Last month we focused on hiring A‑players. You can’t build your dream without people, so you’ve got to have the right people. This month we answer the question, What do you do once you hire the right person?—on‑boarding, pay structure, training, and more. And today’s topic is safety training. You’re about to hear from Sheila Smeltzer. She owns a thriving window‑cleaning business in North Carolina and has been the president of the IWCA—the International Window Cleaning Association. She goes into a lot of detail today about what safety training needs to be successful. And it’s funny, because most service businesses treat safety training as an afterthought. They make jokes like, “Just be careful—if you fall, you’re going to be fired before you hit the ground.” Safety’s not a joke; it requires planning, diligence, and repetition so that you can keep your people safe, because there really is no window that needs to be cleaned or Christmas light that needs to be hung that’s worth having someone on your team—or yourself—get badly injured or killed. Sheila’s going to dive into it. Before we do, we’ve got a downloadable action guide for you, and it’s available at The Huge Insider. As always, I’m thankful that you’re here. Get ready to learn from Sheila Smeltzer—let’s get into it. SHEILA SMELTZER: Hey everyone, this is Sheila Smeltzer, today’s contributor to the Huge Transformation Podcast, and we are talking about a not‑so‑fun topic today, but something that is absolutely crucial to protecting the liability of your company—safety: safety standards, training, and certifications. Now, this topic is near and dear to my heart. I have served on the board of directors for the International Window Cleaning Association—I’m the immediate past president—and in the window‑cleaning industry we’re working at height, so safety is one of the primary training objectives of an organization like the IWCA. If you’re in pressure washing, the same goes for the PWNA—the Power Washers of North America. There’s training you can receive that is specific to that industry. I’m sure in the lighting industry, where you’re dealing with electrical, you have organizations—whether formal or not—that deal specifically with safety training. So it’s very important, number one, that you tap into the resources you have available. But I want to come to you straight from OSHA 1910, General Industry. OSHA is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, so they’re the holy grail; they enforce safety standards across companies like ours. We have to know them and implement systems, procedures, and training so we follow those standards. Within OSHA 1910 there are two parts most of us need to know: Subpart D (walking‑working surfaces) and Subpart I (personal protective equipment). Subpart D covers ladders, manholes, stairways, scaffolding, and rope‑descent systems; Subpart I covers PPE—eye and face, respiratory, head, foot, electrical, hand protection—and some fall protection. Let’s zoom in on walking‑working surfaces. The general rule is that if you can fall more than four feet, you’re in a fall zone. That rule applies to all industries. On a six‑foot step‑ladder, you’re not supposed to stand above the fourth rung—that’s your four‑foot fall zone. Ladder safety alone accounts for about 20 percent of fatal and lost‑work‑day injuries, more than 200,000 cases and roughly 345 fatalities a year. Training must be done by a qualified person—defined by OSHA as someone with a recognized degree, certificate, or extensive knowledge who has proven the ability to solve or resolve problems relating to the work. If nobody inside your company meets that definition, you need to hire or outsource one. Community colleges, trade schools, local builders’ associations—all are good places to find certified instructors. The second big piece is documentation. If it isn’t documented, it never happened. Should OSHA investigate after an accident and you can’t produce training records, the fines can hit $60‑70 thousand per citation. Once you have training and documentation handled, the next step is procedure. Build standard operating procedures into every job: During bidding or site assessment, identify hazards (uneven ground, roof access, power lines, etc.) and tag the job in your CRM—ServiceTitan lets us add a JHA tag. For every tagged job, create a Safety Work Plan that spells out how hazards will be mitigated. Example: first‑man‑up ladder transfer, spotter in place, stay six feet from the roof edge while cleaning. Train on the SOPs, measure compliance, and revisit annually. There are great software platforms—Safety Advocate by Mike Draper is one—to help with videos, checklists, and documentation. I could go deep on safety—we could do a whole series—but for today I’ll say this: start small, get trained, document everything, and weave safety into daily operations. If you ever have questions, look me up online; I’m everywhere. Everybody be safe, and thanks for listening. Bye‑bye. SID GRAEF: Wow—okay. So what did you learn today about safety training, and more importantly, what are you going to do with it? Remember to download the action guide; it has all the basics for building a safety program. Lean on your associations; use AI to summarize; then implement so you can keep your people safe and protect yourself from liability. Here are more ways to level up your business: Podcasts. Besides this show, check out The Huge Transformation Show for inspirational interviews. Free newsletter. The Huge Insider Weekly Insights hits your inbox every week. Facebook group. Join thousands of owners helping owners. Huge Convention. August 20‑22 in Nashville—tickets at thehugeconvention.com (prices rise May 1). Huge Mastermind. For $1 million‑plus companies with 5+ employees—details on the Freedom Path at thehugeconvention.com. Got a big win or a painful lesson? Call 804‑600‑4843 and leave a message; we may feature your story. Don’t just listen—take action. I’m Sid Graef; this is the Huge Insider Podcast. We want to help you win and prosper in the marketplace, and we’ll see you next time.

In this episode of the Huge Insider Podcast, host Sid Graef dives into the critical topic of onboarding and training new employees with insights from expert guest Liz Trotter. Liz breaks down the essential steps in creating a simple, effective training structure that’s built on clarity, consistent feedback, and hands-on experience. From setting clear success benchmarks for each training phase to offering “feed-forward” coaching instead of backward-looking critiques, Liz’s approach keeps your new hires confident, motivated, and ready to excel. These strategies help ensure new employees quickly become competent, enthusiastic contributors to your business, benefiting service-based professionals looking to streamline operations and bolster team performance. Show Notes Guest: Name: Liz Trotter Background: Nearly 30 years of experience, owns a seven-figure house cleaning business, a training business, and a large real estate portfolio. Key Topics Covered: Importance of clear benchmarks (day-by-day success criteria) Hands-on training to build confidence and competence Using “feed-forward” instead of focusing on past mistakes Segmenting training into phases for measurable progress Assigning a buddy or mentor for new hires Resources The Huge Insider newsletter signup The Huge Insider podcast downloadable action guide The Foundations platform trial offer The Huge Mastermind info page Facebook The Huge Convention Live event in Nashville, TN (August 20–22) Call in with questions or stories: (804) 600-HUGE (804-600-4843) Transcript Sid Graef (Host): Welcome back to the Huge Insider Podcast. Hey, my friend, this is Sid Graef here. The Huge Insider is the show for home service professionals who are striving to break the million-dollar revenue mark. If that's you, you're in the right place, and if you're already over a million dollars in revenue, you're gonna get even more out of this show. So why is this the show? Well, there are a lot of people online and around the world with big opinions and very little experience. There are even some fake gurus out there. We want to help you skip the BS and get real wisdom from real, experienced business builders. So we’ve gathered wisdom and insight directly from seven- and eight-figure business owners—people running companies doing anywhere from 2 million a year to 40 million a year, and some more—and we're bringing you their best insights, distilled and focused on a single topic each month. And these are real owners, no armchair philosophers or fake gurus. These are the ones that are quietly building empires behind the scenes. They're not on social media looking for attention; they’re in business making things happen. So last month we focused on hiring A-players. The whole month was about hiring. And this month we answer the question: What do you do once you hire the right person? You've got onboarding, pay structure, training, and more. So today we’re diving into training. We have a very special guest contributor, and that is Liz Trotter. Liz has been in business for almost three decades and owns a seven-figure house cleaning business as well as a training business, plus a large real estate portfolio. She’s been in the game for a long time, and she’s one of the best when it comes to onboarding and training your employees. She demystifies and simplifies the training process. But why is training for a new employee so important? Because the training establishes the foundation of how that person is going to operate and perform in your business, hopefully for a long, long time. So without further ado, let’s dive in. Meet Liz Trotter. Liz Trotter (Guest): Hey all. Liz here, and I have got some training tips for you. Now, I’m not going to tell you how to train your people—that’s up to you—but what I am going to talk to you about today is how to build some things into your training program so that you have more success, so that your people feel like they are very good at what they do. If people don’t feel like they’re good at what they’re doing, they’re not going to do good work, period. So you need to make them feel like they are doing good work. You need to also make them feel like they can do it, and that they’re very confident about how to get the job done. Now, these things sound really obvious, I know, but they don’t just happen automatically. And they don’t only happen because the person gets good at what they’re doing and then builds their own confidence. You already know that, right? There are some people who, no matter how well they’re doing, they always knock themselves, they always find something wrong. Your job is not to do that. Your job as the trainer—or to build a good training program—is to make sure that the training program is built so that it highlights what is going well and diminishes what is not going well. Now, it also has to be really clear how we are going to cut people, because with this idea of focusing heavily on what’s going well and not focusing much at all on what’s not going well, you have to have really clear-cut ways of knowing when it is time to let someone go. So the first thing is, before you ever begin training, know what training success looks like at every stage of the game. Day one—what does success in training on day one look like? Because the sooner you can cut someone, the more hassle you save yourself and the more hassle you save the person as well. You know, they had better things to do than to just waste their time trying to learn something that you can tell on day one they’re never going to be able to master. All right, so what does day one training success look like? What does day two look like? What does day three look like? And then maybe skip to day five, day 10. But make sure that those are set in advance. What are five things that they have to do well, or that you have to see in evidence? All right, that’s the first thing. Now, as far as the training: you bring the trainee in, and you’re telling them about what training is going to be. Just like I have said about other things in the past, before you ever begin training, you’ve got work to do because you have to make sure that you are setting them up for success, and you have to make sure you’re setting yourself up for success. So make sure that you know what the KPIs are, like I said, but also make it so that everyone understands clearly: what’s the end goal? What’s the timeframe that we are expecting to be done with training, and what does that look like? How will the person be performing at that point in time? Make sure that that is really clear before you ever start the training process, and you’ll have much better success. People know what they’re shooting for, so they have a lot better chance of hitting that target. All right. Your training program needs to include a few different things. I think that most people know that you have to have them do some stuff, you have to demonstrate, you have to watch—you have all of these different things that you have to do. But did you know that one of the reasons why you want to get someone doing something with their hands as quickly as possible is because neural pathways are built through hands-on experience? Did you know that? A lot of people don’t. So we, a lot of times, will have that trainee watching for that first day. You are actually hurting your training process by doing that. If you need them to watch, let them work alongside you if at all possible. Maybe they have to watch for safety’s sake or something along those lines for a few minutes, but then get them touching the thing—whatever it is—as soon as possible, and have them doing real-life work, not examples of things, not role-playing. Now, I’m not saying don’t role-play because I do love me some good role-play, and role-playing is very effective—just not in the very, very first stages. In the very beginning, you need to get their hands in there and let them touch things. All right. You have probably heard about people talking about VAK styles, right? Are you visual, are you an auditory learner, or are you a tactile (kinesthetic) learner? And a lot of times people are thinking that they’re one or the other. Guess what? That whole idea was debunked many, many years ago. What we know now is that people learn best when they have a combination of things happening. So when they’re touching things, when they’re hearing about it, and when they’re seeing it at the same time. So we want the whole thing going on when we’re in training: have them listening to something, watching, and doing. This is one of the reasons why videos in the very beginning are not your best bet. Now, do I say don’t use videos? Absolutely not. We do love some video. But let’s get some video either before they come in on that first day, to give them a sense of clarity and that feeling of calm, again. But then, as soon as you have them in your space, get them using their hands, and then you can have them watching video again afterward. Then it works really well. All right. Here are a couple more things to keep in mind with your training. Break your training up into clear phases so that everyone knows exactly what’s happening in a phase—maybe phase one, phase two, phase three, phase four. I don’t know what those phases might be. You can call them whatever you want. It could just be days: day one, this is what you’re going to learn on day one, this is who’s going to train you, this is what we expect from you at the end of day one. This is different than what I said earlier when I said you have your internal checklist of how you determine whether or not this person stays or they go. This is a list that they get, and that everyone sees, that tells the whole company where we are in the process. So we’re in phase one, and we’re learning whatever the thing is—I don’t even know what it is, right? It just depends on what it is—and what is the deliverable at each checkpoint. So phase one checkpoint is end of the day, end of day one at such and such, and what should they have learned at that time? You might have a little mini quiz, but set them up for success by telling them exactly what the answer is before you have them work through the day. Well, that makes sense. You want them to be successful in what they’re doing. You might remember in the very beginning I said you need to be setting them up for feelings of success. You want them to feel like they can be successful, that they know how to do this, and that they are confident in being able to do the thing. So you have to continually point out what they’re doing well. So tell them what “well” looks like, get them training to do it, and then at the end, ask them, “How are you doing? Show me how you do well,” whatever the “well” is. All right. Another idea is, you’re going to have them in training, but you might consider giving them a buddy or a mentor—whatever you want to call that person—just somebody that they can chat with about stuff that is maybe not directly related to training but clearly related, so that they can begin to fit into the culture of the business. All right, here’s a big one that people get wrong a lot. Remember how I said focus on the good and make sure that you’re focusing on not focusing on what’s bad? That’s not to say that you shouldn’t give immediate feedback, but what you want to do is you want to couch your feedback in the form of feed-forward, but you want to do it fast and often. The faster and more frequent you can give feed-forward information—so “Next time, let’s try it this way,” “Next time, you’re gonna have more success if you do this thing next time”—everything is in the future. People feel like they have a lot of power in the future, and they don’t feel like they have a lot of power in the past, and they don’t build confidence in the past. You build confidence in the future. Also, the faster you can give feed-forward, the shorter you have that feedback loop going on, the faster your learning speed will be. So don’t hold back on the information. Give as much as you can up front. All right, my last big tip here is make sure that you are tracking their progress the entire time. Make sure that everything has a measurement and that they can see their own measurement as they’re going. And then, bottom line is, enjoy that person. Okay, that’s it for training. Talk to y’all soon. Bye. Sid Graef (Host): Okay, my friend, that was Liz. What did you learn about training today, and more importantly, what are you going to do with that? Because I love the way Liz broke it down—it doesn’t have to be complicated. It needs to be simple, it needs to be actionable, and you need to have your people do so that they can learn and become confident, competent employees and a big contributor to your team. So here’s the question, as always: What are you going to do with it? The strategy is simple, but it’s powerful. So here’s your next step—take action. Everything we covered today is in the show notes, but the most important thing is download the action guide. We put together a four-page action guide for this episode to help you execute this week’s strategy. Grab it at thehugeinsider.com. Here are a few more ways to level up your business now. This podcast is just one way that we help you grow. See, we are committed to helping our blue-collar brothers and sisters build a better business—a business that gives you time and financial freedom—because we want you to win and prosper in the marketplace. So we publish this free podcast. We also publish a free newsletter every week of the same name: The Huge Insider. We have a Facebook group and community that is for The Huge Insider that’s vibrant, and it’s a place where people help one another to answer questions, get answers, get solutions—the works. All of that can be found at thehugeinsider.com. And every summer we host our big event: The Huge Convention. This is the ultimate event for home service business owners, and this year we’re back in Nashville, Tennessee, August 20th through 22nd. The tickets are still dirt-cheap right now, so grab yours at thehugeconvention.com before the prices go up on May 1st. This event is where real breakthroughs happen. It’s the place for networking, for world-class education, and the biggest trade show in the home services industry—specifically for most of the exterior cleaning categories of home service, power washing, soft washing, window cleaning, and also holiday lighting installation, and a whole lot more. So the next thing I wanna tell you about is The Huge Mastermind. That’s for if your business is over a million dollars in revenue and you’ve got five or more employees already. This is the fast track to a freedom business. What do I mean by freedom business? We teach you, and you will implement, the Freedom Operating System to get to time and money freedom predictably and quickly. It’s just following a step-by-step proven formula to install an operating system in your business that allows you to be the owner, not the operator. So check out The Huge Mastermind by going to thehugeconvention.com. Scroll down, you’ll see Mastermind. That’s the best way to get to it. And the last thing before we go—thank you so much for listening. Once again, if you enjoy the show, if you gain value from it, please like and share. Post us a review. And then, if you have a topic that you really want to hear about, that you really want to know more about, give us a call and leave a message at (804) 600-HUGE. That’s (804) 600-4843. Leave your question. Leave a topic. If you have a win and a victory that you would like to share, do so. If you have had a failure in business that led to a bigger success, we want to hear your story so we can feature you on an upcoming episode. So that’s it for this week. Don’t just listen—take action. I’m Sid Graef. This is the Huge Insider Podcast, and we want to help you win and prosper in the marketplace. We’ll see you next time.

In this episode of the Huge Insider Podcast, host Sid Graef and guest Jared Skinner discuss how to create performance-based pay structures that motivate and reward high-achieving employees without sacrificing quality or compliance. You’ll learn about the importance of setting clear standards, understanding legal requirements (like the 7(i) exemption), implementing base pay combined with commission, and establishing guardrails to maintain quality. By tracking performance with dashboards and scoreboards, you can “gamify” your team’s efforts and ensure everyone is incentivized to perform at their best. These insights are especially valuable for service-based business owners looking to improve profitability, increase employee retention, and maintain high-quality services. Show Notes Guest: Name: Jared Skinner Owns multiple seven-figure businesses (window cleaning, concrete coatings, holiday lighting) Topics Covered: Why performance-based pay boosts production The 7(i) exemption and legal requirements Combining a base hourly wage with commission Setting guardrails to ensure service quality Tracking and displaying performance metrics (gamification) Resources (Mentioned & Essential): The Huge Insider newsletter signup The Huge Insider podcast downloadable action guide The Foundations platform trial offer The Huge Mastermind info page Facebook Group The Huge Convention tickets and info Call in with questions or stories: (804) 600-HUGE (804-600-4843) Transcript Sid Graef (Host): Welcome back, my friend, to the Huge Insider Podcast. My name is Sid Graef, and this is the Huge Insider Podcast. It is the show for home service professionals that are striving to break the million-dollar revenue mark. If that's you, you're in the right place. Now, if you're already over a million in revenue, guaranteed, you're gonna get even more out of the show. So why do we say this is the show? There are a lot of people with big opinions and not so much experience. There's a lot of fake gurus out there, and we want to help you skip the B.S. and get real wisdom from experienced business builders. That's why we've gathered wisdom and insight directly from seven- and eight-figure business owners. These folks are running companies doing anywhere from two to forty million dollars a year. We bring you their best insights and experiences, all focused on a single topic each month. These are real owners—no armchair philosophers or fake gurus. They've done it. These are the ones quietly building empires behind the scenes. They're not on social media looking for attention; they're in business making things happen. Last month, we focused on hiring A-players. This month, we answer the question: What do you do once you hire the right person? When you get your A-player, what do you do about onboarding, pay structure, training, and more? Today, we're diving back into performance-based pay: how do you structure your pay plan to reward, motivate, and retain high performers? You're gonna meet Jared Skinner today. Jared owns a window cleaning company, a concrete coatings company, and a holiday lighting company, and they're all seven-figure companies. He probably owns more than that, and I don't even know about it. But remember, the goal here is to structure your pay in a way that is motivating to your employees and profitable for your company. This can be a tricky tightrope to walk. Everything Jared talks about is in the show notes. Just to be clear, he’s not an attorney or a tax professional—he’s a business owner speaking from experience. If there's a specific tax or legal question that comes up, talk to a professional. That said, the last thing before we dive in: we’ve got a downloadable action guide for you, and it’s available at thehugeinsider.com. With that, let’s dive into today’s topic. Jared Skinner (Guest): Everyone, welcome to the Huge Insider Podcast. Today, I'm gonna talk a little bit about pay for performance. There are a lot of different ways to structure pay scales in order to get paid for performance, and a lot of times we don't know exactly how to structure it or if there are rules for it or how it works. I kinda wanna give everyone a little bit of an overview of this structure. Just to lay the foundation: when we first started, we always paid an hourly rate. The problem I always had was employees would come to me saying, “Hey, I think I need a raise.” I'd look at their performance and say, “Man, if you would clean more windows in a day, then I can pay you more.” And they'd say, “Well, if you pay me more, I'll clean more windows.” It just seemed like this battle over and over—trying to figure out how much people were worth and how much we could pay them. We decided to shift into a performance-based pay structure, more of a commission base. Once we decided to do that, our employees instantly made an extra four to five dollars more per hour as soon as we shifted, and their production rates went up significantly. The great thing about this structure—what’s really beneficial—is that people, in a sense, are almost in charge of their own pay. They don't need to come to you to ask for a raise. When you structure the right pay system, they place themselves right into the pay structure they deserve. It was better for everybody. We did better as a company. We had way more production, and the guys were making more money. What it really does is weed out people who just want to show up and punch the clock. It’s important to know how the structure works, and there are a few legal things out there that you need to know about as well. There’s what's called a 7(i) exemption. It basically allows you to pay commission. If you pay straight commission, you don't have to pay overtime if you meet certain criteria. One is that you're in a retail or service-based business, which we are. Number two is that 50% of the employee’s pay is coming from commissions. The other thing you need to know is that, if you're paying strictly commission and not overtime, they need to be making at least 1.5 times the minimum wage in your state. If your minimum wage—for easy math—is $10 an hour, then they need to be making at least $15 an hour (1.5 times) to avoid paying overtime. You have to keep records of the hours worked, the commission earned, the total pay for the week, and whether it meets those criteria. When you get into commission-based pay and performance-based pay, keep that in mind. What we've found is that people really like it. You start to attract really motivated people, and when you show them the potential, they can get hungry and produce some really nice numbers. One thing I've learned from experience is that if you're not careful, they start to go too fast and compromise quality a little bit. You have to put some guardrails on. If you don't, they’ll do really fast work, get a lot done, but it’s not very good, and you’ll get more callbacks. So you have to learn to put guardrails on. Let me give you an example of how we do that and how we structure our pay to stay in compliance with the things I've discussed and to keep people on track. Number one, we start with giving our employees a base hourly rate. Ours is almost like a combination: it's a minimum base hourly rate—let’s say $18 an hour—or commission, whichever is more. We give them a few months to get up and going, and if they're not making more than the $18 an hour on commission after a few months, we move on and look for other people. That person doesn't really care and isn’t that hungry, so we don't want them. We have a standard, and that's where it’s set: base hourly or commission, whichever is higher. That’s not the only thing we do. To qualify for the highest commission rate, we tier our commissions—22%, 24%, or 26%. Then we have guardrails, right? Guardrails might be no callbacks, showing up on time, taking before and after pictures to prove we did everything correctly, completing your full checklist, asking for a customer review, etc. If you do all those things during the day, you qualify for your commission. If you get a callback, you don't qualify for the commission and you get the base hourly rate for the day. That’s the way we structure it to help keep people in check, which works really well because it doesn't take that much longer to do a good job and keep clients happy. If you haven't dove into performance-based pay, there are a lot of ways to structure it, but this is what we’ve learned. To recap: Your production rates for all employees are going to go up—a lot—if you do this correctly. Make sure you are falling within the 7(i) exemption. Research it and set yourself up properly. Keep really good records. We’ve had the Labor Department called on us, we’ve been audited, etc., but we have detailed records, so we were fine. Put guardrails on to maintain quality. Have a way to track it all, with something like scoreboards. When you gamify it—display production rates, upsells, and so forth—people don't want to be the worst. We have a standard: if you’re above this number, you’re in the green; if you’re below that number but above this other number, you’re in the yellow; and below that number, you’re in the red. All our technicians can see if they’re red, yellow, or green, and it really motivates them. When you start to gamify it, it makes a big difference, and it gets fun. The guys really enjoy it. So if you haven't done performance-based pay, you should definitely look into it. There’s a ton of ways to structure it. These are the ways that I've found to be most successful. Hope that helps everybody. We'll catch you next time. Sid Graef (Host): So what did you learn about pay structure and performance-based pay? More importantly, what are you going to do with it? These strategies are simple but powerful. The foundation of every successful business is key employees who do great work, who you can retain, so they can continue to perform. That cohesiveness moves your company forward. So here we go—what are your next steps? Take action. Everything we covered today is in the show notes, but the most important thing is your downloadable action guide. It’s a summary of today’s episode with bullet points and how to implement it in your company. We put together a five-page action guide to help you execute this week’s strategy, and you can grab it at thehugeinsider.com. Here are a handful of other ways you can level up your business: Join our free newsletter, also called The Huge Insider. We give weekly insights straight to your inbox, and sometimes feature trusted partners—people with a product or service for home service businesses that we’ve used and find valuable. That’s also available at thehugeinsider.com. Facebook group: Find it at thehugeinsider.com or search “Huge Insider” on Facebook. It’s a vibrant community where people help each other. We often do pop-up Q&As and ask-me-anythings with our seven- or eight-figure owners. The Huge Convention is the Super Bowl event for home service businesses. It’s a big celebration and a time to learn how to grow your business. It’s the ultimate event for home service business owners, and a place where breakthroughs happen. This year it’s in Nashville, Tennessee, August 20th through 22nd. Tickets are not expensive, but the price goes up on May 1st. You can get them at thehugeconvention.com. This is where real breakthroughs happen. It’s the place for networking, education, and the biggest trade show in the industry for exterior cleaning and holiday lighting. This year, we’re doing something ridiculous the day before the convention—on August 20th—we’re calling it Christmas in August. If you’re looking to add revenue to your business, or keep your team busy in the winter months while adding profit, holiday lighting is phenomenal. We’ll spend an entire day on how to sell, price, install, and profit from holiday lighting. Just come one day early, also at thehugeconvention.com. The Huge Mastermind: If your company’s already over a million in revenue, you’ve got more than five employees, and you want to grow and scale—like going from 1 million to 5 million or 1 million to 10 million—this is the fast track to a freedom business. You’re going to learn and implement the Freedom Operating System to get time and money freedom predictably. We generally open the doors for the Huge Mastermind once a year in August at The Huge Convention. If you want to get on the waiting list, go to thehugeconvention.com, scroll down, and hit “Mastermind.” All the information’s there. That’s it. Thank you so much for listening. Really appreciate you taking the time. If you find this podcast valuable, share it with friends, post it on social media, and leave us a review. If you have a topic you’d like to see covered, or a success story—or a failure you learned a ton from—call us the old-fashioned way at (804) 600-HUGE (804-600-4843). Leave us a message, tell us all about it, and we might just feature you on an upcoming episode. That’s it for this week. Don’t just listen—take action. I’m Sid Graef, this is the Huge Insider Podcast, and we want to help you win and prosper in the marketplace. We’ll see you next time.

🎧 Podcast Summary: “Why I Love Performance-Based Pay” Speaker: Ethan Moore, Moore Exteriors (Branson, MO) Ethan Moore explains the benefits of switching from hourly pay to performance-based (commission-style) pay for technicians. In his system, lead techs earn a flat 20% of the daily revenue from the jobs they complete. This incentivizes speed, efficiency, and quality, because techs earn more when they do more. For example, if a technician like Larry completes $1,000 worth of work in a day, he earns $200. If he becomes more efficient and completes $2,000, he earns $400. This model encourages: Efficiency: The faster a job is completed (without sacrificing quality), the more the tech can do—and earn. Ownership: Techs see a direct link between effort and income. Company Growth: More work gets done per truck and per day, increasing capacity and profits.   Show Notes: Resources: Elevate by Tommy Mello The Huge Insider newsletter signup The Huge Insider podcast downloadable action guide The Foundations platform trial offer The Huge Mastermind info page Facebook Call-in line to share wins or lessons: 804-600-HUGE (4843)  

In this episode, host Sid Graef continues with the month’s main theme: hiring. He introduces Jim DuBois, a seasoned business owner from “Squeegee Pros,” who’s spent over 25 years building a 45-plus-employee team. Jim shares his strategies for creating a company culture that naturally attracts and retains A-players, from designing compelling job ads and hosting engaging hiring events to filtering out uncommitted applicants who don’t fit his team’s mission. His core takeaway: Build a great company first, and great employees will come. If you need to expand your workforce with high-quality team members, Jim’s approach offers fresh tactics and valuable clarity on how to stand out as a top-tier employer. Show Notes Guest: Jim DuBois, Owner of Squeegee Pros (Window Cleaning/Pressure Washing, ~45 employees) Key Topics: Crafting “magnetic” job ads aimed at your ideal candidate demographics. Hosting hiring events that reveal real A-players through engagement and Q&A sessions. Emphasizing the importance of presenting a business that top talent wants to join. Using your company vision, culture, and “unique selling propositions” to attract and retain the best employees. Mentioned: Squeegee Pros (no direct link provided) WindowWashingWealth.com (Jim’s high-level coaching company; URL mentioned only in passing) Resources The Huge Insider newsletter signup https://thehugeconvention.com/insider The Huge Insider podcast downloadable action guide http://www.thehugeinsider.com The Foundations platform trial offer https://thehugeconvention.com/1foundationstrial The Huge Mastermind info page https://www.thehugemastermind.com/interest Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/hugefoundations Transcript Sid Graef (Host): Welcome back to the Huge Insider Podcast. Hey, my friend, it’s Sid Graef here, and The Huge Insider is the show for home service professionals that are striving to break the million-dollar revenue mark. So if that’s you, you’re in the right place. And if you’re already over a million dollars in revenue, you’re gonna get even more out of this show. So why is this the show? It’s not your typical podcast. It’s not an interview show. It’s not an expert-driven show. Instead, what we’ve done is we’ve gathered wisdom and insight directly from seven- and eight-figure business owners—people that are running companies doing anywhere from 2 million to 40 million dollars a year in revenue. And we’re bringing you their best insights, all focused on a single topic each month. These are real owners; there are no armchair philosophers and no fake gurus. These are the ones that are quietly building empires behind the scenes. They’re not on social media looking for attention; they’re in business, making things happen. So it’s still the month of March, and we’re wrapping it up. We’ve been diving deep all month long into hiring. If you have a big dream, you’re not gonna build it by yourself—you have to hire people to carry it out and build a team. And today, you’re gonna hear from Jim DuBois. He’s been on this show and shared with us one other time, but Jim is in South Carolina—or, well, maybe North Carolina (forgive me, Jim)—and he’s got a window cleaning company. He’s been in the business for over 25 years, he’s got over 45 employees, and they hire people all the time. They’re constantly screening for great talent. So he’s going to share his experience and how he separates the wheat from the chaff—how he finds A-players and how he sorts them out. Everything he talks about in the show is in the show notes. Everything we discuss on the program is in the show notes, and we have a downloadable action guide for you regarding this episode available at thehugeinsider.com. So let’s get into it. Jim DuBois (Guest): I’m Jim DuBois with WindowWashingWealth.com—my high-level coaching company—and Squeegee Pros, which is my window cleaning/pressure washing company. Forty-five employees make up that company. So today’s Huge Insider tip has to do with the hiring process and dialing in the interview itself. It’s a very powerful process when implemented. The problem is, so many will miss the mark on properly recruiting, and they can’t gain the needed traction to grow. The thing is, you need good employees that stay with you if you’re gonna get to the next level in your company. Most, well, they have a revolving door and they continue to struggle. They get frustrated, and some even put their hands up and say, “You know what, I’ll just go back to doing it myself.” Have you ever felt that way before? I know I have—way back in the day. So you’re gonna have to know how to find good employees, and then know how to keep them. That’s what we’re gonna talk about here over the next few minutes. And what I want you to do—I want you to imagine that I just flew out to your city, and I say, “Hey, meet me at the nearest hiring pond.” And around this pond are other service providers that are—well, they’re hiring also. And I find you, and I’m walking up to you and I’m kind of shaking my head ‘no.’ I’d say, “You know what, give me your fishing rod, and here, take mine. In fact, use my bait instead of yours. Go ahead, put the rod back in the water, let’s give it five or six minutes, and let’s see what happens.” And sure enough, your fishing rod starts to bend, your back is arching, and out comes a big fish—an A-player! Everyone around this pond, they’re looking at you and they’re saying, “Where in the heck did this guy come from, and how did he get this A-player? I’ve been coming here for weeks!” Well, this is due to a built-out recruiting system. And when you learn how to separate yourself from everyone else by doing what they’re not doing, well, you get attention—kind of like a red Ferrari in a parking lot of white painters’ vans. So when coaching business owners, I often hear them—well, they have this frustration that they just can’t find good employees to work for them. Their confidence—well, they lose it. And what happens is, as soon as they get good employees to show up, well, they think to themselves that their business will finally run the way that they want it. This is not true. You don’t add good employees and then get a great business; it’s the other way around. You create a great business, and good employees get added to it. Does that make sense? So before you even start searching for your perfect employee, take a long hard look at your business and ask if your company is a place that good employees want to work at. Because chances are, if you’re not hiring the employees you want, well, your company isn’t structured to attract the A-player. So start with your perfect employee avatar, and think about what you want in a great employee. Then think about what the employee will want in an employer. Now build your company in a way that would attract the very best employees. So that’s the baseline or the foundation. This is the crux of the whole mission of the interview (or leading up to the interview) to hire the right people. So there’s a couple of hiring points I’m gonna go through with you right now. So one, well, it’s the job post or the ad. Most, well, they do this all wrong. Their job post looks like everybody else’s. So in this example, let’s use technicians, right? So first, determine your job-position avatar—who you’re hiring, what’s the demographic. For technicians, we’re probably hiring those in their 20s, their early 30s, right? So write your ads to speak to that demographic. Speak to the A-player inside that demographic, using language that they can understand and relate to, versus saying what everybody else says. So what are we doing here? I mean, would you prefer to hire the A-player or the D or F player? Excited? And now you’re separating yourself as a company from all the other companies hiring out there in this same pond. With me so far? Now we have a magnet to attract who we want. So the second part to this is the actual interview, ’cause now you’re ready for it. We don’t do your typical interview—we do hiring events. Why? Well, one, we save a tremendous amount of time, and two, we hire who we need almost every single time, versus one-on-one after one-on-one with the no-shows and the wrong people showing up. We need people now, so you end up hiring the D-player. You hire the person you’re not really excited about, and the revolving door continues. Anyone can do a hiring event. It doesn’t matter if you’re a one-person operation or a 50-person organization. I’ve done them in parking lots, fast-food places, conference centers; you can do ’em in workspaces or at your own office if you have the space. So our hiring events at my office are not what the typical interviewee is expecting. We have music playing, we’ve got PowerPoint going on with pictures of us working, happy faces, our brand, technician testimonials. We have a basket of drinks and snacks and, of course, applications. And you might not be able to do all of this right now, but you can build up to it just like I did. So I scan the room—I’m looking to see who’s got what going on, who’s on their phone, who’s looking around. You begin to learn to read people, and you can have an assistant in the room too with a clipboard. I’ve done this—the assistant draws out the room, remembering who was sitting where, right? And then I go around the room, and I ask, “What’s your name? Where do you live? What was it in the job post or the job ad that made you come here?” We’re making notes on this, and the assistant makes these notes and continues the note-taking that I need to know for later, right, when the interviews are done. So it’s just making notes on things like who was on their phone when I was speaking, who was asking me questions, what was their body language like, what was their eye contact—were they looking to me or looking around? I often use an analogy when I’m doing these interviews—this hiring event—I start off with what I call the “bus analogy.” And I’ll say, “How many have been on Interstate 77 here in town? Ever pass those big, clean, beautiful, unmarked buses? And you wonder, who’s in there? Is it Taylor Swift? Is it 50 Cent? Is it Bon Jovi? No, that’s my bus. It knows exactly where it’s going, and right now it stopped, and the doors just opened. And there you are standing, as I decide if I want to hire you to come onto my bus or not. And if I do, you’ll come in and you’ll take a seat in the back of my bus, and every quarter, the bus is gonna stop and the doors are gonna open; we’re gonna do a performance review. If you’re doing your job well, you’ll probably move up a few rows, and if not, we might boot you off my bus. See, my bus is an A-player company full of A-player employees, and we’re looking for the right fit for you to possibly come onto my bus.” So that’s kind of what I do to set the stage—pretty much word for word, and this is kind of all memory now. I’ve had several of the D (as in David) players—D and F player types—get up and walk out of my hiring events, and that’s okay, because it’s what I want. Working here is not for everyone, and it’s okay if you get up and you use the back door to exit. You need to be on your game, or you won’t be here very long. But why? Because we’re only looking for—we’re only talking to—the A-players in the room. We’re not talking to the D-player. They know this. So the first 15 minutes, I’m not even talking about the position; I’m talking about my company’s vision—where we’ve been, where we’re going—the company mission, and how we’ll arrive at our company vision, and how the right people will help us get there. I’m talking about my company’s unique selling propositions—the things that make us different, better. This way, they can see we’re world-class at what we do. They’ll see not everyone’s going to qualify, but only a select few. And the A-player, well, they love this. The D-player could care less, and many of ’em just walk out. See, I’m framing this as not just another job, but elevating it into something that they’ve never heard before. Why? Because this is what the A-player wants to hear. Then I create engagement and dialogue during the event by asking questions while I’m going through the interview process. I’m going around the room—try it yourself and watch what happens. See, the A-players will—they rise to the top with this engagement and dialogue. You begin to see and you begin to notice the A-player and the B-player surface—they just rise above the others. And this is all strategy here. I’m also repeating the points they already saw in the job posting. Why? Well, remember, the ad is what got them there, so keep them excited during the interview process by reiterating what they read in the ad. This way they know it’s true. Thank you. Jim DuBois, WindowWashingWealth, Squeegee Pros, and hey, we’re here for you every step of the way. Sid Graef (Host): That’s a wrap on this episode. So what did you learn about hiring—specifically about the screening and interview process—from Jim? But more importantly, what are you gonna do with it? His strategy is simple, but don’t let that fool you—it is powerful. It’s powerful because the foundation of every successful business is high-performing, reliable employees—a great team. You’ve gotta have that. So here’s the next step: Take some action. Everything we covered today is in the show notes. The most important thing is to download the action guide. We put together a five-page action guide to help you execute this week’s strategy, and you can grab it at thehugeinsider.com. So, thehugeinsider.com. Here are more ways that you can level up your business. You know, this podcast is just one way that we help you to grow. Here’s what else you can plug into: We’ve got a weekly free newsletter called, ironically, The Huge Insider. You can click here and subscribe. We’ve got a Facebook group and community for like-minded business builders who want to get help and help each other. Every summer, we have the Huge Convention. Huge Convention is the ultimate event for home service business owners. It’s the largest event of its kind for home service business owners—specifically exterior cleaning, holiday light installation, and guys like you and me, right? And this year, it’s back in Nashville, Tennessee, August 20th through 22nd. Tickets are still dirt cheap right now, and you can grab yours at the link in the show notes—it’s thehugeconvention.com. Do it before the prices go up. I’m publishing this episode at the end of March for the month of April, 2025. If you click and go get your tickets to the Huge Convention, use the discount code INSIDER—all caps, INSIDER—and you’ll save 50 dollars on your ticket. That discount code will expire at the end of April. So this event, though—The Huge Convention—this is where real breakthroughs happen. It’s the best place for networking, for high-level business education. We’re not gonna teach you how to use a squeegee or a power-washing wand better; we’re going to teach you how to run a better business. That’s what it’s all about, and we’ve got the biggest trade show in the industry for our industries. The last thing to make you aware of is The Huge Mastermind. Huge Mastermind—if your business is over a million in revenue, and you’ve got more than five employees, this is the fast track to a freedom business. You’re gonna learn and implement the Freedom Operating System to get your time and money freedom back, predictably, step by step. And the very final thing I want to mention is we would love to feature you on a future episode of The Huge Insider Podcast. If you’ve had a big win, or if you’ve had a painful lesson—falling flat on your face trying to do something good, and then you picked yourself back up and learned from it—we want to hear from you. So call us and leave us a message at 804-600-HUGE (that’s 804-600-4843). It’s also in the show notes, and leave us a message. Tell us about your victory or your failure or something you’ve learned, or just tell us something you really want to learn about that we can put on a future episode. Then we might just feature you in an upcoming episode of The Huge Insider. That’s it for this week. Don’t just listen—take action. We want you to win and prosper. I’m Sid Graef. I’m your host of The Huge Insider Podcast, and we’ll see you next time.

In this episode, host Sid Graef focuses on valuable hiring insights from expert consultant Chris Dexter, a veteran at recruiting in various trades (HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and more). Chris explains how to set a hiring budget, effectively use job posting platforms (like Indeed and BetterTeam), and automate the screening process with tools such as Calendly. He also highlights creative strategies like multi-location job postings, open-house group interviews, and tapping into trade schools. The key takeaway? Building a strong hiring system—complete with a dedicated budget, scheduled phone interviews, and a clear focus on culture—will help you attract and retain the A-players you need to grow past the million-dollar mark and beyond. Show Notes Guest: Chris Dexter (private consultant with extensive hiring experience) Mentioned Resources & Tools: Indeed: https://www.indeed.com/ BetterTeam: https://www.betterteam.com/ Calendly: https://calendly.com/ Local trade schools and academies Other Key Resources (always included): The Huge Insider newsletter signup https://thehugeconvention.com/insider The Huge Insider podcast downloadable action guide http://www.thehugeinsider.com The Foundations platform trial offer https://thehugeconvention.com/1foundationstrial The Huge Mastermind info page https://www.thehugemastermind.com/interest Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/hugefoundations Transcript Sid Graef (Host): Welcome back to the Huge Insider Podcast. Hey, my friend, it’s Sier, the huge insider, and this is the show for home service professionals who are striving to break the million-dollar revenue mark. That’s you—you are in the right place, and even if you’ve already gotten over a million-dollar revenue, well, you are gonna get even more out of the show. So why do I say this is the show? This is not your typical podcast. It’s not an interview show. It’s not an expert-driven show. Instead, what we’ve done is we have gathered wisdom and insights directly from seven- and eight-figure business owners—people that are actually running companies that are doing everywhere from 2 million a year to 40 million a year. And we bring you their best insights, all focused on a single topic each month. These are real owners—there’s no armchair philosophers or fake gurus. These are the ones quietly building empires behind the scenes. They’re not on social media looking for attention; they’re in business, and they’re making things happen. So we’re wrapping up the month of March, and it’s all about our main subject, which is hiring. Today you’re gonna hear from Chris Dexter. Chris has been the CEO, he has been the owner, he has been the partner, and now he’s a private consultant. He has been responsible for hiring hundreds, if not thousands, of technicians in electrical, HVAC, plumbing—the trades, the home services. So he knows his stuff, and I asked him, “What are your best practices for attracting and then hiring A players? How do you get them to come to you? How do you sort out the A players from everybody else?” And this is what he had to say. We’re about to get started. I just want to let you know everything we talk about, or that Chris talks about, is in the show notes as well as our action guide based on this week’s episode. So with that, let’s get into it. Chris Dexter (Guest): First of all, thank you, Sid, for asking for my input regarding hiring techniques. I’ll keep it brief. When customers first retain my services for human resources counseling, hiring—you name it—I always ask ’em the same question, and I get a number of different responses, but one is overwhelming. I ask them, “So, what’s your budget for hiring?” Employers often tell me, “The most important thing we do, or the most important thing we can do right now, is hiring.” And when I ask how much their budget is for it, they typically don’t have one set aside. I’m not certain if they don’t know how to create a budget for it or if they’ve measured it in the past. I’m not certain, but I think it’s fairly easy to put together, and there are some ways to control the budget as well. Indeed can be really expensive, especially if you go with their advice. You post an ad on Indeed, and it says, “Hey, in your marketplace, you should spend $65 a day.” That’s just terrific—letting the vendor tell you how much they should charge you. I think it does work, but you certainly don’t have to take that advice. But first things first—definitely have a budget. Make this part of your scorecard if you’re keeping a scorecard in some sort of business management setting, so that you know how much you’re spending. But let’s just dive right in. Indeed is the biggest and best platform out there. You can access it for free or spend 20, 30, 60 dollars a day, and you will get results. There’s automation: responding to candidates, keeping good records, viewing resumes, et cetera. I use it all the time, and I have great results because that’s where most candidates go. However, I have found a platform a good number of years ago—it’s probably been 10 years—that I’ve been using something called BetterTeam. I have to say, no one has ever gone to BetterTeam to find a job. Job seekers don’t go to BetterTeam to find jobs. BetterTeam goes to the universe and finds people that are looking for jobs and posts for free on Indeed and other platforms. It puts your ad out there and gives you more flexibility. The number one thing I like about BetterTeam—not to rank in an order—but it’s inexpensive. A year, a year for 10 slots—10 postings—is $834 if you choose the yearly plan. I think if you bump it up to 20, which I recommend even for the smallest of companies because it’s so cost-effective, it’s probably like $1,100, something like that. But then 10 slots for $834 a year, and you can change ’em up daily. You can post for as many different jobs as you want, or you can post the same job 10 times. That brings up a technique that I use for posting. I post an ad for my customer at their business location—the actual address where they reside—and I make sure that’s in there as the headquarters, and I even put that in the ad. I let the candidates know, “Hey, here’s our location, street address, et cetera.” But I also use the other nine ads—or 18 ads, depending on the client’s choice—I’ll post all those ads, and I’ll see, “Yeah, a few of them, I got zero hits on in a day, but I noticed this ad over here on the service road next to the mall, boy, I got six candidates off of that right away the first night.” Maybe I picked something that’s close by, a different zip code but really close. And the theory behind this is that when individuals go to look for work, they go to look for work on their phone. And so what does your phone do? It pushes the stuff to you that’s closest, so it pushes a job to them that’s in their neighborhood. Occasionally, somebody will say, “The job’s in Roseville? I thought it was in Buffalo.” And then I explain to them, “No, I knew you were in Buffalo, and I wanted to make sure that I got to you. I post ’em all over the place.” But nope, it’s definitely in Roseville. It’s pretty close by, it’s only like another 20 minutes. Again, seldom have I had anybody question that, so that’s probably my number one technique as far as economics. Another thing is, definitely make sure you’re available for appointments. I include it right in the ad—I include a Calendly link. Set that up so they can schedule a 15-minute call, and make sure you make the calls. You can tell Calendly, “I wanna take six calls a day, I wanna take 16 calls a day, I want ’em to be 15 minutes long, and I want 10 minutes in between each call—five minutes, whatever it is.” So that’s super flexible, and everybody’s using their phone. Everybody clicks on it, it gets sent right to your inbox, and it takes a look at your Outlook calendar and it’s not gonna schedule over them. So technique number two: make sure that you get those right away. And again, for a great number of positions, just put it right in your ad. There’s no reason for you to scan through all of these resumes and see who’s qualified. Let them book the appointment for the 15-minute call, and you’re gonna get ghosted part of the time anyway. But I have to say, my experience just in the last few years is that if I use Calendly and the individual actually sets up the appointment, they typically are there on the other end when I call them. It’s at that point that I determine whether or not they’re a good fit. I’ve got the appointment, got it all set up, the individuals have applied, and I’ve had the 15-minute phone call. That screening is a good time to see if you want them for an in-person interview. Depending on the type of position, I’ve hired off the 15-minute phone call as well for certain positions that aren’t rocket surgery. After a 15-minute conversation, I can tell if this person has what I want in an employee: Are they engaging? Do they seem sensible, reasonable? Can they carry on a decent conversation, depending on the position? Relevant experience isn’t that relevant—I would rather hire somebody that I thought was the right person, culturally a good fit, et cetera. Other techniques—and this is Calendly, too, I think—it works well with Calendly. That is to set up a group interview, have everybody out, open house, I don’t know, buy ’em some donuts or cheeses and crackers—whatever you want to do. But I have one customer, and every Tuesday at 10:45, they have an open invitation. I use Indeed for that. I send out the invites regularly. I have 12 slots open, and we’ve had pretty good success. Eight or 10 people will show up—sometimes it’s less, sometimes it’s all of them—and we use that to screen candidates. Having 12 people in seems like a little overkill, and I would agree with that, and it can be a little more work. First of all, again, just to review: use Indeed. I think it’s great. Keep your budget low; don’t go up to 60 or 50 dollars a day. Try it out at six bucks, five bucks. I think that’s their minimum to sponsor an ad. Indeed also allows you to post the same ad in multiple locations—give it a try. BetterTeam, all one word: use them because they’re very cost-effective, super flexible, but it’s bare-bones. You don’t get a whole lot of the bells and whistles. There’s no applicant tracking system involved with it. It provides all the details. It’s best to text people. I text everybody; initially it’s gonna be emailed through Calendly, which sends it as a phone invite anyway, or as an email, or both. Gosh, what else can I tell you? As far as techniques, people say your best source of new employees is referrals from your existing employees. That’s true—ask your employees for referrals. It’s not a technique thing like Indeed or BetterTeam or any of the other sites out there. More active techniques, depending on what you’re looking for—I’m hiring for carpenters, electricians, plumbers, apprentices—I’m gonna go to trade schools and academies. There’s one that I go to all the time. I think it’s maybe 16 weeks long. Have a relationship with them. Set up a relationship with a local trade school, with one of the individuals; they’re always looking for placement for their individuals. If I think of anything else, I’m gonna include an addendum and send it to Sid. Thank you so much, I appreciate your time, and I hope you have a great day. Sid Graef (Host): That’s a wrap on today’s episode. So what did you learn about hiring and about the hiring process from Chris, and more importantly, what are you gonna do with it? His strategies are simple, but don’t let that fool you—it’s powerful, because at the foundation of every great company is a great team, and that means you’re going to have to hire. So with this episode and the previous five, you’ve got a really great survey of best practices on how to attract, hire, and retain A players for your team, which is what you need for your business to skyrocket ahead of your competition—because face it, a lot of your competition doesn’t hire anybody that does breath, anybody that can fog a mirror, as they say, and that’s not the way to build a winning team. So here’s your next step: Take some action. Everything we covered today is in the show notes, but again, the most important thing is to download the action guide. We put together a five-page action guide to help you execute this week’s strategy, and you can grab it at thehugeinsider.com. And remember, that’s in the show notes too. There are more ways that we can help you level up your business. This podcast is just one way we help you grow. You can also plug into our free weekly newsletter—also called The Huge Insider. You get weekly insights straight to your inbox. There’s no fluff; it’s just straight-to-the-point, actionable insights you can use for your business. We have a Facebook group just for you. It’s a group and a community where people want to help each other grow and solve problems. Come and join us. The Huge Convention—that’s our annual big show. It’s in August this year. It’s August 20th through 22nd in Nashville, Tennessee, the last year we’re gonna be in Nashville for a while. Right now, tickets are dirt cheap, and you can get them at thehugeconvention.com. This is the event where real breakthroughs happen. It’s the place for networking in our industry, world-class education that’s specifically tailored to the home service industry, and we’ve got the biggest trade show in the industry for exterior cleaning and holiday lighting. It’s a big deal. Last, I want to mention to you, we have a mastermind. We call it the Huge Mastermind, and this is for folks that have a business that’s already over a million in revenue, and you’ve got five or more employees. This is the fast track to making that a freedom business. You will learn and implement the Freedom Operating System to get more time and money freedom in a predictable fashion. Last thing I want to say—thanks for listening. I’d love to feature you on a future episode. If you’ve had a big win or if you’ve had a painful failure and lesson that—when you got back up and dusted yourself off—helped you build a better business, I would love to hear about it. Call and leave me a message at 804-600-HUGE (that’s 804-600-4843), and we might just feature your story on an upcoming episode. I look forward to hearing from you. That’s it for this week. Don’t just listen—take action. I’m Sid Graef. This is the Huge Insider Podcast. We want to help you win and prosper in the marketplace. We’ll see you next time.

In this episode of the Huge Insider Podcast, host Sid Graef teams up with Kyle Ray from Geek Window Cleaning in Austin, Texas, to dig deeper into hiring best practices. Their conversation focuses on crafting a compelling job ad that attracts top-tier talent, ensuring applicants fit your company culture, and implementing an effective screening process. By using tools like ChatGPT for ad creation and including small details (like an “Easter egg”) in the job listing, Kyle shows how to filter and find standout employees. From creating thorough candidate “personas” to developing interview q Sid Graef (Host): Okay, so what did you learn today from Kyle about hiring and how he manages his process? Better question is, more importantly, what are you gonna do with it? Is this something that you can take and implement in your business today to make it better so you can hire more A players? That’s the goal—to each week and every time, multiple times a week, give information straight from the mouth of an expert—someone who is actually putting it in practice. This is not theory. Take it and do it, so you can have a better, more profitable business. So here’s your next step: Everything that was covered in the show today is in the show notes, but most importantly, download the action guide. It’s located at thehugeinsider.com. You just go there, download it, and make sure that you are subscribed to our free weekly newsletter. It’s also called The Huge Insider. The same thing goes there—we’ve got actionable tips and strategies that will help you build a better business right now, and it is free. Other resources that we have for you: we’ve got our Facebook group and community, and that’s the place where, when you join, you can share ideas and collaborate with other people who are in the field in their business, working hard to make it better. You can help each other. And every summer, of course, we have the Huge Convention. This is the ultimate event for home service business owners. This year, we’re in Nashville from August 20th to the 22nd. Tickets are really, really inexpensive, so grab yours at thehugeconvention.com before prices go up. Prices do go up on April 1st, by the way. But this event is where real breakthroughs happen, and it’s the place for networking, education, and the biggest trade show in the industry for our industries. If you’ve already crossed the threshold and hit the million-dollar mark in your business, and you’ve got five employees or more, check out the Huge Mastermind. This is a place for the fast track to a freedom business. You can get more information in the show notes on that one. In the future, if you’ve got a success story, or you’ve had a great learning experience—meaning you’ve tried something, fell flat on your face, had a painful learning experience, and got back up and built a better business because of it—we want to hear from you. Call us up at 804-600-HUGE (that’s 804-600-4843). Leave a message, tell us all about it. We might just feature you on an upcoming episode. We’d really love that. That’s it for this week. Don’t just listen—take action. We want you to win and prosper. I’m Sid Graef, and I’m your host. This is the Huge Insider Podcast. We’ll see you next time. uestions that invite real vulnerability, you’ll learn to recruit “A players” who mesh perfectly with your business values. Show Notes Guest: Kyle Ray, Geek Window Cleaning (Austin, Texas) No direct links provided in the transcript. Mentioned Tools & Resources: ChatGPT or “Chad GPT”/DeepSea (AI platforms for generating job ads and interview processes) “Hire Buss” (a final filter for hiring; no direct link provided) The Huge Convention (annual event for home service business owners) The Huge Insider newsletter signup The Huge Insider podcast downloadable action guide The Foundations platform trial offer The Huge Mastermind info page Facebook community Sid Graef (Host): Welcome back, my friend, to the Huge Insider podcast. It’s Sid Graef, and this is a midweek episode. We’re gonna carry on with this month’s topic, and that is hiring. We’re diving deeper and deeper into the hiring process—how to recruit, how to hire, how to place the ad, where to place the ad, how to craft an ad that weeds out the people that you don’t want working at your company, and how to make sure your company is a place where A players want to work. This week—or today—we’re jumping back in with Kyle from Geek Window Cleaning in Austin, Texas, and we’re gonna go deeper into how they craft their ad to attract the right kind of person and his process for screening and interviewing. It’s pretty fascinating, and I hope you take notes, download the action guide, and take action. Make your business better. Please join me with Kyle Ray. You’re gonna dive back in. Kyle Ray (Guest): Hey, Kyle here with Geek Window Cleaning, and I’m gonna give y’all our tips and tricks on how we market to attract top talent to our company using online job boards, since this month’s hot topic is hiring. So let’s dive in. Yes. Before we get started, we are going to be using ChatGPT or DeepSea to help accomplish this faster. You can definitely do this on your own, but it will definitely be more of a struggle. All right, so you’re gonna go to ChatGPT or DeepSea, and you’re gonna put this as a prompt—I’m just gonna read this verbatim. You’re gonna say: “You’re a business consultant, and we’re [insert your industry, so window cleaning, pressure washing, whatever that is]. We’re a [pressure washing] company looking to win Inc.’s Top Workplace for [whatever region you’re in—Southwest, Northeast, whatever]. My current company culture looks like this…” So put in whatever your company culture currently is or what you want it to be. “Then, what am I missing to win Top Workplace? Be as detailed as possible, break some boundaries, and create a movement.” So that’s the first prompt you’re gonna put in. Then you’re gonna do the following: “I’m going to tell you about my company. I don’t want feedback. Just learn it.” You’re gonna insert everything about your company—your industry, your branding, your culture—just everything you can possibly think of so you can train this ChatGPT about your business. Then after you do that, you’re gonna put: “These are the top 50 to 100 traits of my ideal candidate.” And you’re gonna list them for whatever position you’re hiring for. This is hugely valuable: make sure you’re writing out 50 to 100 traits of what your ideal candidate is—do they like to play golf, do they like to go fishing, whatever. Whoever you want to come work for your company, you want to make sure they fit in with everyone else and enjoy the same things, because you want to be working with people that are similar or have similar interests. That will really help increase your company culture. So after you put in those 50 to 100 traits, then you’re gonna say: “Build out three to five employee personas that would identify with our company culture based on our ideal candidate traits. Now identify all the problems that these current personas face in their current workplace or previous positions.” And then you’re gonna tell it: “Look up the book ‘Building a StoryBrand’ and provide the key takeaways as they apply to my business and company culture.” Then, using everything you know about our company culture, ideal candidate traits, their problems, and building a brand story key takeaways, create an Indeed-formatted job ad that will attract our tribe and build an empire. That will give you your Indeed ad that will help attract the top people you want to come work for you. As a bonus, you can ask ChatGPT then to build out your interview process, and then ask it to insert some highlights about the company and culture, as well as some deep-dive questions that separate us from the industry and invite vulnerability. This will help you with your interview process, and this is what we run. Another thing that we do is we add a little Easter egg into the section “What we’re looking for in a candidate.” We will put “always wants more cowbell.” The people that actually read it and get the reference will laugh, and then they’ll want to apply because they want to work for a company that has a sense of humor—that’s part of our culture. And if they don’t get it, they tend to look it up, and then the same thing happens. Whenever we are interviewing, we ask if anyone caught it, and if they say they didn’t even see it or they don’t know what we’re talking about, that tells us they probably didn’t really read the job ad and just hit quick apply. We just take note of that, and we start asking other specific questions about the job ad that resonated with them and why they decided to apply and want to come work for us. This will help you narrow down quickly to the A players that you actually want to invite to come and do an in-person interview. And then on the back end of that, we recently implemented Hire Buss as a final filter. We don’t really have too much experience with it, so I can’t really say too much, but so far what we’ve seen, it seems great and just helps us get a better picture of who we’re talking to. So, hope that helps and good luck hiring.  

This episode of The Huge Insider podcast dives into effective hiring practices for growing home service businesses. Host Sid Graef spotlights Kyle Ray of Geek Window Cleaning in Austin, Texas, who is scaling quickly through a multi-pronged recruitment strategy. Kyle emphasizes the power of consistent, creative outreach, from social media messages to in-person “shoulder tapping,” group interviews, and a culture that highlights career growth and vision for recruits. He outlines how setting up simple yet systematic hiring processes—like pre-screen filters, regularly scheduled group interviews, and leveraging your current team’s network—can help bring in a constant flow of motivated applicants. Whether you’re under or over the million-dollar mark, Kyle’s tactics can help you attract and retain high-quality team members who fit your company culture. Show Notes Kyle Ray – Geek Window Cleaning (Austin, Texas) Frenzy (referral software mentioned) – https://www.frenzy.co/ Brian Gottlieb (keynote speaker at The Huge Convention; built a $150M business) Marcus Sheridan – Author of They Ask You Answer Learn more: https://marcussheridan.com/ They Ask You Answer (book mentioned by Marcus Sheridan) Resources The Huge Insider newsletter signup https://thehugeconvention.com/insider The Huge Insider podcast downloadable action guide http://www.thehugeinsider.com The Foundations platform trial offer https://thehugeconvention.com/1foundationstrial The Huge Mastermind info page https://www.thehugemastermind.com/interest Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/hugefoundations Transcript Sid Graef: Hey, welcome back to the Huge Insider podcast, my friend. It’s Sid Graef, and if you’ve caught our first few episodes, you already know this is a new show for home service professionals who are working hard to break the million-dollar revenue mark. And if that’s you, you are definitely in the right place. If you’ve already passed the million-dollar mark, you’ll get even more out of this show for sure. So here’s the deal. It’s not your typical podcast. It’s not an interview show. It’s certainly not an expert-driven show where one really smart person shares all their insight. Instead, what we’ve done is gather together a whole bunch of seven-figure business owners and eight-figure business owners—people running companies that do anywhere from 2 million a year to 40 million a year, and sometimes more. We bring you their best insights each week, and it’s all focused on a single topic. This month, we’re focused on hiring. It’s March, and it’s time to staff up for the spring rush. These are real owners, quietly building empires behind the scenes. They’re not on social media looking for attention; they make their money from their businesses. As I said, this is March, our main subject is hiring, and today you’re going to hear from Kyle Ray. Kyle has Geek Window Cleaning in Austin, Texas, and he is growing fast. One of the things he’s doing is hiring dozens of people every week, running them through a system so they can grow and scale. I asked him a couple of questions: How are you recruiting? How do you make your business a place where A-players want to come and work? And what would you do if you only had two hours a week and had to hire two A-players every single week? What would you do? Here are the answers he gave us. Let’s get into it. Kyle Ray: Hey, what’s up? Kyle here with Geek Window Cleaning, and here to answer or give my two cents on this month’s hot topic of hiring, letting you guys know what we’re doing over here. So let’s get into it. There are four different things we do for recruiting: social media, shoulder tapping, circle, and Indeed/ZipRecruiter. 1. Social media: We look for profiles that seem like the person may be a good culture fit with our company. We send them a DM to generate curiosity, invite them to come learn more about our opportunity. We also run ads targeting college-age students on Facebook and Instagram. 2. Shoulder tapping: No matter where I am—restaurants, bars, parks, grocery stores—if I see someone who looks like they’d be a good fit, I go talk to them, ask them a couple of specific questions, create the curiosity, invite them to learn more about our opportunity. 3. Circle: This is where we get a lot of quality people. Your current employees or reps can give you names of people they think might be a good fit, or connect you to someone they know. For instance, “Hey, my friend has a brother,” or whatever the case may be, so a connector. There’s a software called Frenzy you can use to make this super easy for your employees to do, but you probably don’t need it unless you’re hiring at scale. 4. Indeed/ZipRecruiter: We create job ads that speak to the people we want to hire by crafting job ads that are a bit different than a typical job ad you’d see on those platforms. Next question: How do you make your business a place where A-players want to work? We spend a lot of time building this out because retention is huge. We create curiosity in people by letting them see that this must be a different type of place to work, right? With our culture and everything we do here, it’s done during the pre-screening process and in the group interview process. We hold group interviews, show them our vision of where the company’s going, and where we came from so there’s lots of room for advancement. We’re seed-planting there for retention. During this interview, we’re casting a vision for them as well—where they can see themselves in five years. We have a five-year program that we talk about. We let them know we are servant leaders and our success hinges on their success. We’re here to make sure they’re successful. We don’t hire people; we invite them to come work with us, and we only invite people that fit our culture and our core values and behaviors. In terms of “always be recruiting,” yeah, everywhere I go, if I see someone I’m interested in talking to about joining the company, I go talk to them for five to 10 minutes, create that curiosity, give them my number, and walk away. I invite them to a group interview that we hold. If I only had two hours a week to hire two A-players a month, what system would I use? Well, we’ve already built this out, and this is exactly what we do. I spend 10 to 15 minutes looking at online applications from Indeed/ZipRecruiter, sending them all a message to run them through a secondary filter, because you get a lot of people that just click “apply.” Anyone who passes that filter is invited to our group interview that we hold every other week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and those group interviews take about an hour of my time. I also spend about 30 minutes here and there on Instagram, sending DMs to people I think would be a good fit. Again, secondary filter, invite to interview. I shoulder tap everywhere I go, and this may take an hour a week, probably. My wife really gets annoyed if we’re out in public or at the grocery store and I’m like, “Hold on, I gotta go talk to this person real quick.” But same thing, secondary filter, invite to interview. Then we also do our reps’ circles, right? Any friends they may have, or new people we’re onboarding—after they make it through our boot camps and training, we’ll say, “Hey, who do you know?” Because that’s where you can get some quality people. Sid Graef: That’s a wrap. Tell me, what did you learn about hiring from Kyle? More importantly, what are you going to do with what you learned? His strategies are straightforward and simple, and that’s how he gets results: he just devises the strategy, implements the plan, and keeps going, never quitting. It’s really powerful. Everything Kyle covered in this episode is in the show notes. Especially take time to download this week’s action guide on hiring—how to attract A-players and how to keep them—it’s going to help you build the business you want. It’s located at thehugeinsider.com, or you can go to the show notes and just click the link. We’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: our mission at The Huge Convention and The Huge Insider is to help our blue-collar brothers and sisters build a business that works for them—a business that builds money freedom and time freedom. Build your freedom business. We help meet this mission and help you achieve that in several ways: This free podcast. Our free newsletter, called The Huge Insider (notice a simple name, same as this podcast). Another podcast called Huge Transformations Podcast, which is all about stories of seven-, eight-, and even nine-figure business owners talking about how they started from scratch to very successful businesses. We’ve got a free Facebook group, a community where you can share and exchange ideas with peers also working toward their business goals. Every summer—this year, August 20th through 22nd—we host the Huge Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. This is the last year it’s going to be in Nashville for a while, so come to Nashville and check it out. You can find more information at thehugeconvention.com. Right now, tickets are still super cheap, so get yours before the price goes up. This event is where real breakthroughs happen for folks in home service businesses. We’ve got incredible keynote speakers this year: Brian Gottlieb, who built a $150 million-a-year home service business and wrote a book about the whole thing, and Marcus Sheridan, who built a $17 million-a-year home service business on the East Coast. He still owns it, and he also published a best-selling book called They Ask You Answer. He’s going to be one of our keynotes. Get your ticket to The Huge Convention. Lastly, there’s our mastermind, simply called The Huge Mastermind. It’s for folks who’ve already crossed the million-dollar mark in revenue and have at least five employees. This is where we help you go from running a great business to running an exceptional business—one that frees you from daily operations. You’ve got to check it out. Again, all of this is in the show notes. The last thing I want to mention is, if you have a story of success from something you’ve learned on the show (or otherwise), we’d love to hear from you. If you have a story of failure—where you tried something, fell flat on your face, and learned a painful lesson that set you up for future success—we’d like to hear that too. You can give us your feedback or tell your story by calling 804-600-HUGE (that’s 804-600-4843), and we might just feature your story on an upcoming episode. We’d love to do that. That’s it for this week. Remember, don’t just listen—take action. We want you to win and prosper. This is Sid Graef, host of The Huge Insider podcast. We will see you next time.

In this episode of The Huge Insider Podcast, Guest Joshua Brown, founder of Brown’s Pressure Washing, shares four key practices for making your company appealing to top talent: Define and live your core values – Align hiring, firing, and promotions with clear, purposeful values. Set and celebrate high standards – Provide metrics, celebrate wins publicly, and reward excellence. Build a leadership development culture – Go beyond training by mentoring your team for personal and professional growth. Create a sense of ownership – Show transparency, encourage decision-making, and link success to team performance. By putting these strategies into action, you’ll create a purposeful workplace that naturally attracts high-performing individuals who seek growth, clarity, and a chance to make a real impact. Show Notes Guest: Joshua Brown, Founder of Brown’s Pressure Washing Website: Brown’s Pressure Washing Additional info: pressurewashingpastor.com Podcasts Mentioned: The Huge Insider Podcast The Huge Transformations Podcast (available on iTunes and Spotify) Events: The Huge Convention (August 20–22 in Nashville, TN) Phone: (804) 600-4843 (Leave a message to share wins, lessons, or feedback) Resources The Huge Insider newsletter signup The Huge Insider podcast downloadable action guide Foundations platform trial offer The Huge Mastermind info page Facebook Transcript: Sid Graef: Welcome back, my friend. This is The Huge Insider Podcast, and I’m your host, Sid Graef. And if you’ve listened to the show, you already know that every week, what we’ve done is we’ve located seven-figure business owners, eight-figure business owners. We just ask them a simple question about the topic of the month. This month’s topic is hiring. And so we ask them specifics, like, how would you make your business a place that A-players want to come and work? How do you attract A-players? And then we let them give the answer. And the cool thing about this is, you’re getting—it’s lean. It’s husked. It’s like separating the wheat from the chaff. You’re getting 100% wheat and 0% chaff. You’re getting someone who is an expert, an experienced expert in their business. They’ve grown it to well over a million bucks a year. And they’re just going, “Oh, that’s the question. Here’s how we did it in our business.” And it is—you talk about cutting the learning curve and getting straight to the point—this is the time. This week, we actually asked that question of Joshua Brown. Joshua Brown has Brown’s Pressure Washing in Nashville, Tennessee, a multi-seven-figure operation, and they focus deliberately on leadership—like helping build leaders within the company. But we asked him, “How do you have a company that A-players want to work at? How do you attract A-players?” And this is what he had to say. So please meet my friend Joshua Brown, also known as The Pressure Washing Pastor. And I hope you take what you learn and immediately apply it and see the results that benefit your business, your family. We want you to win and prosper. Joshua Brown: Hey guys, this is Joshua Brown, founder of Brown’s Pressure Washing and Roof Cleaning, where we don’t just clean houses—we create jobs, make disciples, and serve our city. I want to talk about a crucial topic for business owners: How do you make your company a place where A-players want to work? The truth is, great businesses don’t find A-players; they attract them by being the kind of place that that type of talent wants to be at. Here’s how we do it at Brown’s Pressure Washing and how you can implement these same principles inside your business. The first thing you have to do is define and live your core values. A-players don’t just want a paycheck; they want purpose. At Brown’s, our core values are hiring humble, honest, and hardworking people and “drive it” in everything we do. But here’s the key: core values can’t just be words on a wall. You have to hire, fire, and promote by them. That means if someone doesn’t align with your culture, you have to part ways—even if they’re skilled. You recognize and reward the behaviors that reinforce your values. If you want A-players, start by asking, “Would my best team members say my company actually lives by what we claim to believe?” If not, let’s start there. Number two: Set a high standard and celebrate it. A-players want to win. They don’t want to work in an environment where mediocrity is tolerated. At Brown’s, we set clear, high standards—whether hitting that revenue target, earning a five-star review on every job, or setting the standard in our industry. But we also celebrate performance. That can be as simple as publicly recognizing the top performers in our team meetings, giving real-time feedback—A-players want to know when they’re doing a good job—or offering performance-based incentives that reward excellence. We actually give extra percentages to our best team members. If you want top talent, create a scoreboard where winners know how they’re doing and get recognized for it. Number three: Build a leadership development culture. A-players don’t just want a job; they want to grow. One of the biggest reasons high performers leave is because they don’t see a path forward. We prioritize leadership development by holding weekly leadership huddles focused on growth and business acumen, offering advancement opportunities based on leadership potential—not just tenure—mentoring employees, not just training them for a role but developing them as people. You don’t have to be a huge company to do this. Start by asking, “Am I investing in my people beyond their daily tasks?” If not, even your best hires will eventually move on. Number four: Create a culture of ownership, not just employment. A-players want to be owners of the work, not just employees who clock in and clock out. At Brown’s, we create ownership by giving team members autonomy to make decisions in their roles, being transparent about numbers—everyone knows how the company is doing—connecting their success to the company’s success through performance-based bonus pay and revenue-sharing opportunities. When people feel ownership, they show up differently. If you want to keep A-players, ask yourself, “Do my people feel like they have a job, or do they feel like they have a stake in something bigger?” In closing, making your business a magnet for A-players isn’t about offering the highest amount of pay. It’s about creating a place that top talent wants to be at. Let me recap: Define and live your core values. Be the “who” you want to see in others. Set a high standard and celebrate it. Invest in leadership development. Create a culture of ownership. If you do these things, you won’t just have to chase an A-player—they’ll find you. Hope this helps. If you want to connect, you can find me at Brown’s Pressure Washing or pressurewashingpastor.com today. Thanks for listening. Sid Graef: Ooh. Okay, great. So what did you learn from Joshua Brown? What did you learn about becoming a company that A-players want to come and work at? See, because A-players are not just concerned about the money. They want purpose, fulfillment, growth. And if you have a company that provides those things, you’re going to attract people that want those things. How cool is that? So more importantly, what you learn is—what are you going to do with it? So in every episode like this, we have a downloadable action guide. A great thing for you to do is to go to the show notes, click on the link, download the action guide, and apply what you’ve learned. Apply it to your business now so you can start to see the results. Because as we say often, we want you to win and prosper. So that’s the thing. You can find the download at thehugeinsider.com, or you can just go to the show notes and click the button. So a couple of quick things before we go. There are several ways that we work to accomplish our mission, and our mission is simply to help our blue-collar brothers and sisters build a business that serves them—to build a better business so that they can have time and money freedom. As I said before, we want you to win and prosper in the marketplace. We want you to have a better business, better family, more freedom, more time, and be able to serve greater in your community, in your area. So there are a couple of things that we do to provide information for you. One is this podcast—it’s free. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but man, we’ve got men and women that just give you the truth, and they give you actionable insights. And what’s interesting is, there are a number of people in the marketplace that charge thousands of dollars for the same information that we generously give you for free. I’m not doing that to virtue signal or say, “Oh, look how cool we are.” But just saying, look, it doesn’t matter where you start. The information is there. What matters is what are you going to do with it? So we’ve got this podcast. If you haven’t checked it out, check out our other podcast—it’s called The Huge Transformations Podcast. You can find it on iTunes and Spotify. It’s also, when you go to thehugeinsider.com, you’ll find a link to it there. That podcast is interviews with seven- and eight-figure small business owners, and they don’t hold back. They just tell you about the journey, and you can learn from every single episode. We also have a free newsletter. It’s called The Huge Insider. You can find it at thehugeinsider.com. It’s weekly, it’s actionable, and it’s no charge. Every summer, we do The Huge Convention—that’s our big event. That’s the ultimate event for home service business owners like you. This year, we’re back in Nashville, Tennessee, August 20th through 22nd, and this is going to be our last year in Nashville for a while. We’ve already secured a new location in a different state for 2026. We’ll be announcing that at the conference. Right now, tickets are dirt cheap—I mean, they’re really inexpensive—so you can grab yours at thehugeconvention.com before prices go up. And this is the event where real breakthroughs happen. It’s the place for networking, for education, and the biggest trade show in our industries. Oh, and the last thing before we go—thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for investing your time to learn so that you can grow, so you can improve, increase your business. Thank you very much. It would mean the world to us if you would post a review, subscribe, and share this podcast with your friends and business associates. We’d like to hear from you if you’ve had a big win or if you’ve had a painful lesson where you tried something, you fell flat on your face, and then you got back up and learned from it. Any of that—if you’ve learned from something that you’ve heard on this podcast and applied it and gotten a result, we’d love to hear from you. You can call and leave a message at 804-600-HUGE. So that’s 804-600-4843. 804-600-4843. So if you call and leave a message, tell us about your win. Tell us about a failure. Tell us about how you’ve applied something that you’ve learned. We want to hear from you. We might just feature your story on an upcoming episode. With that, that is it for this week. Don’t just listen—take action. We want you to win and prosper. I’m Sid Graef. This is The Huge Insider Podcast, and we’ll see you next time  

Summary In this episode of The Huge Insider Podcast, host Sid Graef discusses why they’re publishing more frequent mini-episodes, each featuring valuable insights from proven seven- and eight-figure business owners. He introduces Jim Dubois, a highly experienced window cleaning entrepreneur, who shares his strategy for getting a jump on the spring “money season.” By proactively contacting customers in January and February with special deals, loyalty rewards, bundled offers, and referral incentives, Jim ensures his company’s schedule fills up before the seasonal rush. He also emphasizes the role of office teams and sales staff in effective follow-ups, upsells, and overall customer engagement. Ultimately, Jim’s tips highlight the importance of proactive planning and marketing to outpace competitors and boost spring revenue.   This clear, action-oriented episode is especially relevant for service-based businesses and marketers seeking to maximize seasonal opportunities through organized promotion, team motivation, and early market priming.   Show Notes •Guest: Jim Dubois •Founder of Window Washing Wealth •Owner of Squeegee Pros in Charlotte, NC • References & Resources: 1. Window Washing Wealth 2. Squeegee Pros 3. The Huge Convention (August 20–22 in Nashville) 4. The Huge Insider Podcast Action Guides 5. Phone: 804-600-HUGE (804-600-4843) – Call to share wins or lessons learned   Transcript: Sid Graef: “Hey, my friend, it’s your host Sid Graef here. Welcome back to the Huge Insider Podcast. We’ve only published a couple of episodes and we’re already starting to publish many episodes that go in between our primary Monday episode. And here’s why we’re doing that. We’ve had so much good insight and feedback from seven- and eight-figure business owners that want to share tactics and strategies that are specifically related to what we’re talking about this week, we decided instead of just doing one a week every Monday, we’re doing a Monday, Wednesday, we may even add a Friday pretty soon because we’re really picking up some steam.   So here’s the deal. This is a brand-new show for home service professionals who are stuck trying to break the million-dollar revenue mark. If that’s you, if you haven’t gotten to a million yet, this is your spot. You’re in the right place. And you already know this: if you’re over a million dollars in revenue, you’re going to get even more out of the show because you’ve already experienced some of the breakthroughs and you go, ‘Oh man, I can take that tactic and run to the bank with it.’   So here’s the deal. It’s not your typical podcast. It’s not an interview show. It’s not expert-driven. We’ve just gathered up a whole bunch of our—literally a bunch of our friends that are seven-figure business owners, eight-figure business owners, and in one case, nine-figure business owners. And we ask them for insight on a specific topic and they roll, we record it, we publish it here, and you get the raw unedited version of what they have to say about how to benefit and grow from a certain strategy or a certain topic or a certain principle. And honest to goodness, I can’t think of any better way to learn and learn fast.   So I’m going to stop talking now. I want to introduce you to a legend in the window cleaning industry. His name is Jim Dubois. He gave us a short five-minute recording on how he primes his marketplace to maximize the end of winter and go into spring so far ahead of his competition that they cannot keep up. Meet Jim Dubois.”   Jim Dubois: “Hey, I’m Jim Dubois with WindowWashingWealth.com and Squeegee Pros, based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. We have 45 employees that make up my window cleaning and pressure washing company.   So today’s Huge Insider tip has to do with pre-season promos. Lots of things that we do with pre-season to kick off the season. And March, April kind of really mark the beginning of the busy season for so many, and how you prepare now determines how much revenue you’ll generate in the coming months. So I’ll break a couple of these things down with what we do at my company.   We look at spring, as most do, as the ‘money season,’ especially for exterior cleaning businesses, and the phone is about to start to ring. And the most successful companies—well, we don’t just wait for leads; we create demand. I want to take a couple of minutes and share with you what works for us, how we maximize sales, marketing, and some of the things that we do to optimize this preseason.   We do pre-booking with our active customers, aging customers, prospective customers, and we do this in January and February so that we can somewhat anticipate what March, April, and May are going to look like. And we do this simply by reaching out to our database, and we do this in multiple ways.   When we look at pre-season promotions, we really try to work hard to get ahead with pre-season deals. So we’ll do early bird discounts, and what that looks like in my company is we’ll offer a sale to get customers on the schedule before the spring rush. And the word—the takeaway here—is ‘before the spring rush.’ And we’ll offer limited-time discounts for customers who book before the peak season. An example of that is something like, ‘Book before March 15th and save 15%.’ And we’re doing this right now at my office as we speak.   We have loyalty rewards where we’ll give top customers, referring customers, an exclusive deal. We have what we call ‘prepay and save,’ where we get customers to lock in their service now with a prepayment discount. A lot of people do bundle packages; we do too, where we combine window cleaning, pressure washing—maybe roof cleaning—but at a discounted rate to increase our average job size.   Why do we do this? Well, it gets our schedule full before the season even starts.   A couple of other things that we do to get the phone ringing is we’ll do email and text campaigns, where we’ll reach out to our database with a ‘spring refresh special.’ We have referral programs, where we’ll have money-off credits when a customer refers a friend, and we get this out to our database to get the referrals coming in. So there’s a system behind that.   We have social media blitz campaigns, where we’re promoting on Facebook, Instagram, and local community Facebook groups or groups in general. We obviously have paid ads and direct mail, where we’re targeting high-value neighborhoods. It could be a message like, ‘Dirty windows? We can fix that!’ And then we combine that with an offer and a call to action. That pretty much works every time. An important side note here is we’re tracking every lead—where it came from and what that conversion percentage is.   Another thing that we do, as far as maximizing revenue for this pre-season, is our sales team and our office staff. They play a huge role in this pre-season rush—or pre-season push, might be the better word. Follow-up is everything: upsell and down-sell strategies, and job booking minimums to help us maximize our profits.   And the last thing we do is we keep our team engaged. So, you know, your office team is just as important as your field crew in this whole pre-season success that we’re trying to create. So we do things to keep them motivated. At my office, we have sales contests where we’ll reward the rep who books the most jobs in a week. We have team goal bonuses—if the team books X number of dollars in jobs for the week, everyone gets a bonus. We have morning huddles. These are little kick-starts that we do every day with a little bit of training, a little bit of motivation, and goal tracking. And then we have what we call how we kick off the season. We have quarterly events, and we kick it off in March with an employee outing, and this is kind of our way to give back and have some fun with our staff, and it gets them motivated for the upcoming season.   So if I wrap this up, a tip for you that are listening: the best and the biggest companies, they don’t just hope for a busy spring; they plan ahead, they market aggressively, they train their teams so that they can capitalize on this pre-season demand. And at my company, spring success is not based on luck, and it’s certainly not based on hope—it’s based on strategy. And this is how a multimillion-dollar window cleaning and pressure washing company stays ahead of the competition.”   Sid Graef: “Wow. So that was cool. What did you learn from Jim? Jim Dubois, the OG, squeegee pro. This guy, he’s got a multimillion-dollar window cleaning company in the Carolinas, and he’s been at it for 30 years. He knows his stuff. And so that’s why I love Jim so much: he speaks from experience, not from theory. Like, he’s been there and done that.   So here’s what I want to do. I want to, you know, I want to challenge you—or at least encourage you—to take something that you learned today in this episode and see how you can put it into action this week and apply it in your business so that you can win and prosper in your marketplace. Because that’s the whole deal. We’re not in business just to think about business. We’re in business to win. We’re in business to profit.   Our mission here at The Huge Insider Podcast and at The Huge Convention is to help our blue-collar brothers and sisters build a better business so you can have time and money freedom. That’s the deal. I’m certain you got into business because you wanted freedom, not because you wanted to be a slave or in bondage. So we’re getting the best insights from seven-figure, eight-figure, even nine-figure business owners, and we’re asking them questions, and they’re giving us their answer. And we’re just giving it to you straight. We’re not distilling it, we’re not editing stuff out, we’re just going, ‘Here you go. This is what the man said.’ And it’s worked incredibly well for them. Now I want you to take it and run with it.   So here’s a quick recap of a few things. One, we’ve got free and paid resources for you. We want to help you win in business. Some of the things we do: we’ve got The Huge Insider Podcast right here. You get The Huge Transformations Podcast, where you get stories and interviews of some of the seven- and eight-figure business builders—some of the same ones that teach on this podcast. And we’ve got The Huge Convention every August; this year, it’s going to be in beautiful Nashville, Tennessee, August 20th through 22nd. Tickets are very inexpensive. I don’t know when you’re listening to it right now, but today is the lowest price you’re going to get a ticket. Just go to www.thehugeconvention.com and join us.   We also have The Huge Foundations educational platform, and you can find that on www.thehugeconvention.com as well. That has got over 140 hours of specific home service business education and a whole lot more. Every week we have the downloadable action guide from this show. It is at www.thehugeinsider.com and you can download the action guide and put it into practice.   We also have an amazing mastermind that you do have to qualify for. You’ve got to have at least five employees. You need to be pushing or past a million in revenue. And this is where we really pour jet fuel into your business, and this is for people that want a 10X and go from a million to 10 and beyond.   So that’s it. I can’t thank you enough for joining us. I hope you learned. I hope you put it into action. And we want to hear from you. We want to hear about your wins. Here’s the cool thing: we set up a special phone number for you—804-600-HUGE. 804-600-HUGE. That last four digits are 4843, spells HUGE. You can call in, you can leave us a message, and here’s what we want to hear: we want to hear a victory story. We want to hear your win. Especially love it if you take some of the principles or strategies or tactics you learned here and apply them, and then call us up and say, ‘I did the thing that Jim taught, and this is the result I got.’ And it doesn’t have to be big—like, ‘I did the thing Jim taught, and I got two new customers, and it works.’ Love to hear that. We also want to hear what we call lessons learned. Basically, that means I tried something, I fell on my face, and it hurt, and I got back up, and this is how it made me better.   We want to hear from you. Call, leave us a message, check out the website, check out the resources we have, download the action guide.”

Summary In this episode of the Huge Insider Podcast, host Sid Graef brings you powerful hiring strategies from Brandon Vaughn, a veteran entrepreneur who grew his [Sid Graef]: Hey, my friend, welcome back to the Huge Insider Podcast. This is your host, Sid Graef, and if you've been listening to our podcast, you already know this is a brand-new show for home service professionals who are committed to breaking the million-dollar revenue mark. If that's you, you're in the right place. If you’re already over a million in revenue, you’ll get even more out of the show. So you already know—this is not your typical podcast. It’s not an interview show; it’s not expert-driven. Instead, we’ve gathered seven- and eight-figure business owners—people running companies that do anywhere from two million a year to 40 million a year—and we’re bringing you their best insights, all focused on a single topic each month. These are real operators, quietly building empires behind the scenes—not on social media looking for attention. They are in their element, building businesses and making things happen. So it’s March 2025, and this month we’re diving into hiring. A lot of you have seasonal businesses, and you know it’s time to staff up now so you can maximize your capacity to handle the spring rush. Last week, we heard from Michael Dahlke—he talked about the difference between core behaviors and core values, why it’s so important, and how that can be critical for your hiring and company culture. Today, you’re going to hear from Brandon Vaughn. Brandon started a window cleaning and power washing company as the sole employee (bought it from his dad), grew it to over 70 employees, and sold it. Then he built the Conquer coaching program—coached hundreds of small business owners—and also built Wise Coatings (which is still active). Now he’s building HireBus, a brilliant tool for hiring A-players. We asked Brandon: “What’s your best advice for best hiring practices?” Here’s what he had to say. [Sid Graef]: So in the world of hiring, there's nobody better for us to ask these questions. We've got Brandon Vaughn on, and the question is: What are the best practices for your hiring process? How do we find and hire A-players? [Brandon Vaughn]: Happy to dive in—this is one of my favorite topics. I'll share what I'm doing with my home service companies. For example, Wise Coatings has a waiting list of about 260 technicians waiting to join. There’s a major reason: we treat it like a marketing problem. Imagine your business is a product on a store shelf with many other options. How do you stand out? Most job ads are bland, generic. They don’t capture attention or describe what the opportunity is. We know how to sell a cleaning job to a customer—who our ideal customer is, marketing materials, videos—but if we don’t do that for employees, we fail. If we have no great employees, we can’t deliver. When writing our job ads, we start with a strong “who you are” opening hook—our ideal candidate profile: “You’re always working to level up in life personally and professionally. You love running toward problems…”—referencing our core values. Then we say who we are, selling them on us: “We were awarded Top 100 Emerging Franchises by Entrepreneur, one of the fastest-growing floor coatings companies…” Then we include a quick video: “See what it’s like to work here.” Future-pace them—what would it be like being part of our team? It’s about selling the opportunity. If your business isn’t big, it’s still “sexy”: a family-owned business with big dreams. Cast that vision. If it’s big enough for their dreams to fit inside, that’s how you attract A-players. Also, clean up your shop—fix the flickering light. Make it a place they want to work. Think about onboarding, training, job descriptions, so they have clarity. Second, we keep ads running all year. “Always be recruiting,” as it’s a lot of work. That’s why we built HireBus—an AI fractional recruiter that posts the job ads, messages candidates, and interviews them, 365 days a year, to build you a talent pool. That’s how we keep a waiting list. So if I have someone perpetually late or underperforming, I can tap a candidate from the pool. You’re never a hostage to a bad hire. Third, the difference between a good salesperson and a great salesperson might be $200K a year in sales vs. $1.5 million. Keep upgrading your bench. If you have a strong “always hiring” pipeline, you can be picky, release underperformers, and attract real A-players. [Sid Graef]: Great. Within that process, you built HireBus to handle it. People apply, there's a screening. What’s the outcome you want from screening, and best practices for interviews? [Brandon Vaughn]: We focus on behaviors, experience, and skills. For behaviors, we use a “right seat” score—a single-question, five-minute assessment that outputs 21 behaviors. We benchmark them for each position: the ideal production manager, salesperson, etc. Everyone takes it, we ask deal-breaker questions, then we do interviews. I like situational questions to see if they’re lying, exaggerating, or hiding something. People come in showing their best side, so we dig deeper to see if there are any hidden issues. The cool thing is, HireBus can auto-generate interview questions you should ask based on their behavior profile. You don’t have to guess. [Sid Graef]: Okay, friends—what did you learn from Brandon, and more importantly, what will you do about it? How can you apply these ideas to your business this week? Everything Brandon mentioned is in the show notes. Most importantly, download the Action Guide—we’ve created a five-page guide to help you execute Brandon’s strategy right away. Grab it at thehugeconvention.com/action. Of course, that link is in the show notes. If you want to take a look at HireBus, go to hirebus.com/huge. There are more ways to level up your business. One, keep listening to this podcast—it’s free, and the insights are priceless. You’re hearing from people at 2, 5, 10, even 50 million in revenue, telling you exactly how they do it. Also, our free newsletter, The Huge Insider, is at thehugeinsider.com. Each week you’ll get more strategies delivered straight to your inbox. The Huge Convention—the ultimate event for home service business owners—is this August 20–22, 2025, in Nashville, Tennessee. Tickets are still very affordable. It’s the best networking, education, and biggest trade show in our industry. Lastly, we want to feature you on the show. If you’ve had a big win—especially if you applied something from this show—or if you had a painful failure that taught you a powerful lesson, call and leave a message at 804-600-HUGE (804-600-4843). We might feature your story or even play your message. That’s it for this week—don’t just listen, take action! I’m Sid Graef, and this is the Huge Insider Podcast. We’ll see you next time.

This episode of The Huge Insider Podcast centers on hiring and the power of establishing “core behaviors” to shape company culture. This segment from Mike Dahlke (who owns or invests in 11 blue-collar businesses), emphasizes using “core behaviors” (akin to core values) to hire, fire, and regularly coach employees. By identifying the best traits of your top performers—and inverting the worst traits of your underperformers—you create a concise framework for consistent, behavior-focused hiring and feedback. This core-behavior method is straightforward, repeatable, and ensures everyone on the team embodies a clear, cultural standard.   Show Notes Mentioned in the Episode: Core Behaviors (or Core Values) Charlie Munger’s “inversion” concep Resources: The Huge Insider newsletter signup The Huge Insider podcast downloadable action guide The Foundations platform trial offer The Huge Mastermind info page Facebook Call-in line to share wins or lessons: 804-600-HUGE (4843) Transcript Sid Graef: Welcome back to The Huge Insider Podcast. Hey, my friend, it's Sid Graef here. If you caught our first few episodes, you already know this is a brand new show for home service professionals that are striving to break the million-dollar revenue mark. And if that's you, you're definitely in the right place. If you're already over a million in revenue, you're going to get even more out of the show. So here's the deal. This is not your typical podcast. It's not an interview show. It's not an expert-driven show. Instead, we've gathered seven- and eight-figure business owners, people running companies that are doing anywhere from 2 million a year to 40 million a year and beyond, and we're bringing you their best insights, all focused on a single topic each month. And these are real owners. These are people that are actually running businesses. They're quietly building empires behind the scenes. They're not the people that you would see on social media looking for attention. They're in business to run a business and making things happen. So this month, it's March. We're diving deep into our main subject, and that is hiring. Today, you're going to hear from Mike Dahlke. Mike owns or is invested in 11 blue-collar businesses, and they all use this framework as the foundation for all of their hiring. Let's get into it. Let's hear from Mike. Mike Dahlke: Hey, this is Mike Dahlke from Nashville, Tennessee. We own and operate and control 11 different businesses, mostly in the blue-collar trade space and home services space, and I'm sending a message about core behaviors or core values. So it's coming up to hiring season. We're getting real close to where we're going to have to really ramp up, especially in our northern climates where the snow's starting to melt, and we're going to be really, really focused on hiring. So we have core behaviors standardized across all of our organization. So most people would know these as core values. We've changed the wording just a little bit, but most people use their core values to hire and fire. Most people use them to discuss that in an all-hands-on meeting. What we do is a little bit different. We use our core behaviors at every single coaching meeting. So if you're set up on a review system where we're going to review the team member every 30 days or every 90 days, we're going to go through those core behaviors every time. Now, this is one of the reasons why we call it core behaviors and not core values. It's really hard to tell somebody in a review, “Your values aren't good,” or “You need to improve your values,” or “Your values aren't aligned with ours.” It's a lot easier to say, in a review, “This is how you're behaving in a way that's going to help us accomplish our mission and goals, and this is what you can do better.” So our core behaviors are really an outline of how you have to behave when you are a part of our organization. It doesn't mean you can't value integrity or have other values that are different than ours, but you have to behave this way in our organization. And that makes it a really, really easy hiring conversation, coaching conversation, firing conversation. So, how, if you do not have core behaviors or core values, the easiest way to come up with them is to take the top five employees that have ever worked for you or that you've worked with. If you're new to business and you're just getting started, think about a job that you had where you had excellent employees that worked with you, excellent team members. How did they behave that was so attractive to you or that you really, really enjoyed? Maybe they were ultimately responsible. Maybe they owned up to their mistakes. Maybe they were humble, hardworking, hungry, smart. What are the things that were consistent between those five? And those are things that are hopefully consistent in you as well, so that you can put them on your list of core behaviors. The other side of that is to invert it. So Charlie Munger, who was Warren Buffett's partner, one of the wealthiest men in the country, he had a famous line that said, “All I want to know is where I'm going to die, because if I know where I'm going to die, I'm never going to go there, and then I'll never die.” And so he used that philosophy of always inverting, looking at the negatives and saying, “Okay, let's just go the exact opposite of that.” So if we take a look at those inversions and say, “Okay, well, what about the five worst employees I've ever had, or the worst members, or the worst that I've ever been with? What were those core behaviors, and what would be the opposite positive of that?” So maybe they were dishonest, so that would be honest. Maybe it was that they were lazy, so that would be hardworking. So take the five that are just awesome and the five that were terrible and use that to come up with your core behaviors, your core values, if you haven't had them. Once you've got them, you can hire them and bring it up in the—you should hire people and bring it up in the hiring process: “This is how we behave,” or “This is our core values, and if you want to work for us, this is what our expectations are.” And then my very, very strong encouragement for everybody is to have one of the questions that you think through before every review: How is this team member behaving in a way that's going to help us accomplish our mission and value our mission and vision this year? How can they do better? So giving very consistent, real feedback on what they're doing well and what they can do better is awesome. So again, for core values, core behaviors, the two most important things are: get them—get them dialed in with the top five and the worst five. Secondly, use them when you're doing your hiring this spring so that you get the right people up front, and they know if they're not going to value or behave the way—that they're just not going to get what they need, or they're not going to be able to work for you in a positive way. And then lastly, bring it up in every review: “How are they behaving in a way that's consistent with these behaviors and want to make you better?” Hope that's helpful. Enjoy your spring. Talk to you soon. Sid Graef: Okay, that's a wrap for Episode 4. What did you learn about core behaviors? More importantly, what are you going to do with that information? So Mike's strategy is simple, but don't let that fool you. It is powerful. Why? Because at the foundation of every successful business is one core truth: Culture is king, and culture is predicated by core behaviors. That's how you can define it. So your next step is to take some action. Everything we covered in today's show is in the show notes, but most importantly, you can download the free action guide that goes with today's episode. We put together a three-page action guide to help you execute this week's strategy. Grab it at thehugeinsider.com. And here are a few more ways that you can continue to grow and level up your business. This podcast is just one way that we help you grow. Next, we have our free weekly newsletter—weekly insights that come straight to your inbox, also cleverly named The Huge Insider. You get that, you can sign up for it at thehugeinsider.com. We have a Facebook group—Facebook group where you can ask questions. We have a monthly Q&A. It's a pretty engaged group. And you find that at thehugeinsider.com. We have a mastermind. We call it The Huge Mastermind. Now, this is for people like—and maybe this is you—if you're pushing a million in revenue or you're over a million in revenue, you've got five or more employees. This is the fast track to a freedom business. The Freedom Operating System is a system that allows your business to run and grow without you, and that gives you more freedom of money and freedom of time. So all of those resources—and The Annual Convention, The Huge Convention—that's the ultimate event for home service business owners. This year, it's going to be in Nashville, Tennessee, August 20 through 22. All of this is available at thehugeinsider.com. Last thing before we go, we'd really love to feature you on our podcast. If you've had a big win in business, or more directly, if you've taken a concept from one of these episodes and applied it and gotten a result, we'd love to hear about it. If you've had a painful lesson or, like, a game-changing failure that ended up helping you grow into a better businessperson, we want to hear about that. We really want to hear about it. We set up a special phone number for you—it's 804-600-HUGE. That's 804-600-HUGE (4843). Call and leave us a message. Tell us about your win or your loss or your growth, and we might just feature your story on an upcoming episode. That's it for this week. Don't just listen—take action. I'm Sid Graef, and this is The Huge Insider Podcast. We'll see you next time.

In this episode of The Huge Insider Podcast, host Sid Graef spotlights the importance of maximizing revenue from existing customers, featuring insights from Michael Kaplan, an entrepreneur who grew a carpet cleaning company to strong eight-figure annual revenue before exiting. Kaplan stresses the value of upselling or cross-selling on-site, gamifying the sales process for technicians, and offering generous incentives to motivate teams. He explains that once you have already incurred the costs of acquiring a customer and dispatching your crew, any additional services sold can dramatically increase overall profitability. From creating fun, competitive spiffs to giving technicians scripts and training for door-knocking, Kaplan reveals how to turn “one job” visits into bigger revenue opportunities. Sid closes by urging listeners to download the free action guide and call in with both success stories and lessons learned from failures. SHOW NOTES Guest: Michael Kaplan Successfully scaled and sold a carpet cleaning business at an eight-figure valuation Owns/invests in over a dozen businesses in multiple service industries Key Topics & Takeaways Second Bite of the Apple Focus on upsells and cross-sells with current customers Leverage existing job-site visits to add services like power washing, gutter cleaning, etc. Gamifying On-Site Sales Offer lucrative commissions or spiffs for technicians who bring in extra work Use contests, public leaderboards, and roleplay to build enthusiasm and accountability Incentives & Profitability Large incentives can still be profitable when fixed costs are already covered Technicians benefit by earning more; the business benefits from higher average tickets Actionable Steps Create simple scripts and training Implement a structured rewards system (e.g., percentage-based upsell commissions) Track and celebrate wins publicly to encourage buy-in Resources & Links Huge Insider Action Guide: www.thehugeinsider.com Huge Convention (August 20–22, 2025 in Nashville, TN): https://thehugeconvention.com/ Call & Share Your Business Story: 804-600-HUGE (4843) More from The Huge Convention Free Newsletter & Podcast: The Huge Insider, delivering weekly tips for home service businesses Huge Insider Podcast: Featuring seven- and eight-figure operators sharing insights on topics like marketing, sales, operations, and leadership Huge Mastermind: Quarterly mastermind program for businesses already over $1M/year looking to scale and streamline TRANSCRIPT Sid Graef (Host): Hey, my friend, Sid Graef here, and welcome back to another episode of the Huge Insider Podcast. If you caught our first two episodes the last two weeks, you already know this is a brand-new show. It’s for home service professionals who are stuck trying to break the million-dollar mark. And if that’s you, you’re definitely in the right place. And hey, if you’re already past a million dollars in annual revenue, you’ll get even more out of this show. So here’s the deal. It’s not your typical podcast. It’s not an interview show. It’s not an expert-driven show where somebody just tells you all these smart things. This is the deal: we have gathered a bunch of business owners and gotten them to share their top insights. These are seven-figure annual revenue, eight-figure annual revenue, and even bigger businesses. These are people that are running companies from 2 million to 40 million dollars a year in the home service industries, and we’re bringing you their best insights. It’s all focused on one single topic each month. February—it’s all about prepping your marketing strategy and launching your business this year to its maximum capacity, revenue, and profits. These are real operators. These are people that are quietly building empires behind the scenes. They’re not on social media looking for attention. They’re in the trenches, making things happen every single day. So this is about running a better business. Okay, I already mentioned this: since it’s February, this month we’re diving into marketing strategies you can implement right now to set yourself up for a massive year. You heard from Michael Dahlke on expanding your capacity for the spring season. Last week, you heard from Jared Skinner going over networking strategies that you can use at low or no cost to build your business this year. And today, you’re going to hear from my friend Michael Kaplan. Michael Kaplan doesn’t talk much about his background in this share—he just gives actionable insight. But he’s a very astute businessman. He owns or is invested in a couple dozen businesses. He cut his chops with a carpet cleaning company that started with less than a half-million in revenue, and they grew it over several years until he sold and exited that company as a strong eight-figure business. So he knows what he’s talking about. He’s been in the trenches. He’s successfully built a profitable large enterprise—one most of us would crave to have. And he exited. So now he’s happy to share insights on what he calls “taking the second bite of the apple.” He’s going to teach you about how to maximize revenue and profits for each customer. I want you to meet my friend, Michael Kaplan. Michael Kaplan (Guest): Hello, podcasters. My name is Michael Kaplan, and we are talking marketing. It’s Q1, and we’re trying to figure out how to maximize our opportunity without blowing the budget. I know that Mike and Jared and Sid are all talking great things about customer acquisition. I’m an entrepreneur, so I’m going to color outside the lines a little bit and talk about a marketing tactic that you’re all familiar with, but it’s a little bit less traditional. I’m gonna talk about how to get a second bite of the apple with the customers you already have. My background is carpet cleaning—or, affectionately known as rug-sucking—and we were accustomed to going into a home and building a ticket through upsells. A lot of people in the huge world are focused on pressure washing, window cleaning, that sort of thing. A lot of the models tend to focus on having a sales guy go out, then having a worker, a team, a field team guy, go out and take care of the work. My pitch to you is: do not miss that second opportunity—that interface when you’ve got the guys out there sweating, doing the work. Have them be sales guys. Everyone on your team should always be selling. Sales can be a dirty word. A lot of people are hesitant to creep out a customer, or they’re shy about it, but that’s because people define sales as extracting something that’s not wanted from the situation—pushing something on a customer that they don’t need. That’s not what I’m talking about. I define sales as the transfer of benefits and enthusiasm, and there’s no better way to transfer benefits and enthusiasm than when you’re on site working. You can do show-and-tell. You can do a demo. You can give an explanation. You can get excited about something that you know will transfer massive value at a price below that value proposition. If value exceeds price, that’s our happy place. So what I’m talking about is: you’re on site cleaning windows, and you have a pressure washer in the truck, but no pressure washing is scheduled. Think about the math if you add pressure washing, say, a fence or a driveway or the front face of the house—whatever it looks like. You’re going to provide that service, and what are your costs? You don’t have to acquire the customer—you’re already there. You don’t have to drive to the house—you’re already there. You’re going to use a minimal amount of product, and you’ve got to pay for your labor. So it’s a stripped-down version of COGS, and if your COGS is normally 40, whatever the number is, you’ll see that what’s left in expense is pretty nominal. The rest goes straight toward paying your bills or to the bottom line. So you’ve got a massive opportunity to be really, really profitable, which is fun thing number one. Fun thing number two: you’ve got an opportunity to play games with incentives and probably pay more than you think is reasonable or logical to your tech—but get them excited about selling, and get them excited about their job because they’re going to make more money. Your opportunity cost—what’s your next best option? If you don’t crazy-incentivize them to sell, you get nothing because they didn’t sell that pressure washing. So think about this: you come up with a sales strategy to double the commission. Let’s get crazy. You pay your guys 25%. Let’s make it 50%. Let’s say your COGS was fully loaded—which it won’t be because you’re not going to have all of the associated expenses—but let’s say it was fully loaded at 45% before adding 25%. You add that 25%, and you end up well in the profit. You’ve got great money coming in, and your tech’s getting twice the wage. How is that not a win? Because the alternative, again, is you get zero. So you can play with commission. Imagine if you said, “Hey, I’m going to give you a commission to door-knock—not just door-hang—and do five rounds, but door-knock to try to add a job because our schedule sucks. We’ve got wide-open lanes, and you’ll be home by one o’clock, which isn’t good for the truck. We don’t want it sleeping. We don’t want you coming home early. Go door-knock, and why are you going to do it? Because I’m going to pay you 50% of whatever you bring in, or 60%. You’re already there. You don’t have to pay for radio, or postcards, or the phone operator to schedule that appointment. What if you overpay? The tech’s going to like it. You’ve got to give them scripts and coaching and training, but if they become effective, they’re going to like doing work for twice the rate, and you’re going to like that the truck’s not coming home to sleep—it’s making 30, maybe 40 percent of something. It’s taking a second bite of that apple, that opportunity where you’re already out there, you’ve got your guys out there, and you’ve already incurred most of the expense. So why not take advantage of it? Alright, so if you’re convinced that you are missing an opportunity by not selling when you’re on site—either upselling or door-knocking or doing something while your guy is at a location—or if you’re already convinced of that, the second key piece of this pie is to make the magic happen with contesting, gamifying, and creating competition for your guys to excel. Some of your team members will naturally take to scripting; they’ll be great sales guys. They’ll transfer benefits and enthusiasm and come back with an extra 500 or 1,000 dollars per day. That’s well and good, but what about the 90% of your team that doesn’t take to it naturally? You’ve got to create a context and circumstances where they can excel, and I think that’s through gamification and contesting. What I’ve had great success with—and what I encourage you to work on—is figuring out how you can make a public spectacle out of whatever your goals are for upselling and create games, create spiffs, and make them really public. Spiffs don’t work nearly as well if they’re secret, if they’re hidden, if they’re private goals. I think you create accountability by sharing those goals and getting everybody enthusiastic about it. You are the Chief Repeating Officer. Your job is to have the megaphone and the wacky waving inflatable arm tube man out there, getting excited about what you’re asking the guys to do. Give them incentive for doing whatever it is you’re asking. If you hit X, you get a prize. If you’re the top sales guy, you get to throw a dart—and you get 10 times whatever dollar number you land on—or shoot a free throw and get a hundred bucks. Create spectacle. Get them excited. Chief Repeating Officer, very public. Track the snot out of it—get whiteboards all over and highlight who’s winning, who’s not thriving—and be very public about it. Obviously, you’re going to coach up the guys who aren’t doing great; you’re going to roleplay in the morning and give everyone an opportunity to practice. If they can do it in the office, they can do it in the field. But you’ve got to create this environment where you can lift everyone up, create a shared expectation and competition, and maybe a Voxer channel—whatever it is to keep people bantering, talking, and competing. You will find that when you create a game and a contest, people will do the work for you. They’ll have more fun competing at work than they do doing most things in their life. They’re going to want to win, and you’re going to see that rising tide raises all ships. Even your guys who are timid or hated selling—when you reprogram them and teach them that selling is just getting other people excited about the benefits, then you give them the tools to communicate and the incentive and peer pressure, you’re going to see magic. This is my rant about in-home or on-site upsells. Take it or leave it, but I’ve had great success, and I’ve seen countless companies implement similar programs. They turn a fixed job with very clear costs and a low ceiling into something with a much higher ceiling once those costs are already fixed—except for labor. Who doesn’t want to pay their guys more, and who doesn’t want to bring in some extra cash? That’s my pitch for you. Sid Graef (Host): So that’s a wrap for episode three. What did you learn from Michael Kaplan? Alright, here’s something I learned: million-dollar ideas are worthless, but million-dollar execution—well, I guess you could say it’s worth a million dollars. The point of this entire podcast is to give you wisdom, insights, tactics, and strategies you can actually use. But the only benefit you get is by taking action and doing the thing. That’s why every week—like this week—we have either a one- to five-page action guide based on the episode that you can download. The link is in the show notes, or you can just go to www.thehugeinsider.com. Download your action guide and go on and do the thing. This is what I really love to see most about the show. We have these experts and experienced business builders share some of their best insights on the topic. You, as a listener, take that information, apply it to your business, and then tell us how it worked out. We’ve set up a special phone number for you to call in and let us know your successes. That number is 804-600-HUGE—that’s 804-600-4843. You can call and leave us a message. Here are the things we’d love to hear from you: What did you do with the information? What were your results? We also want to hear if you had a big fail or something you learned that helped you build a better business—we’d love to feature that on a future episode. Tell us about the topics you really need in your business right now. That might become the next topic we dive into. Here’s the thing: I’m going to be real authentic—I lost my place in my notes, so I’m finding my spot. Yes: The Huge Convention and The Huge Insider Podcast. These are two ways we meet our mission. Our mission is simple: to help our blue-collar brothers and sisters build a better business—a business that brings you money freedom and time freedom. That’s it. We are fueled by freedom, because isn’t that the goal? Isn’t that the reason you started a business? You wanted to be free. You didn’t want to have a boss. You didn’t want someone telling you what to do. You didn’t want to be limited by someone else’s opinion of your worth. You wanted to build your own thing so you could have time freedom, money freedom. That’s our mission: to help you achieve that. There are three specific ways we do that. One is through our free newsletter and podcast—the one you’re listening to now. Two is through The Huge Convention itself—our annual event, always in August. This year, it’s August 20th through 22nd in Nashville, Tennessee. It’s the place where breakthroughs happen. It’s the place for world-class business education for home services. For the best networking with other business owners at different levels, so you can learn from them and help each other, and we also have the biggest trade show in the home service industry. It’s pretty darn cool. I hope we see you there. Tickets are insanely inexpensive, and it’s always a ton of fun and learning. You’ll come away with strategies, tactics, and actionable ways to improve your business—that’s the point. The third way we help achieve that mission is the Huge Mastermind. This is for more mature, bigger businesses. We have a mastermind that meets quarterly, currently in Nashville, Tennessee. It’s for business owners whose revenue has surpassed the million-dollar mark. If you want to get to ten, if you want to 10x your business but do it without adding more chaos, it’s all about leadership, operating systems, and bigger-picture thinking. If you’re rapidly approaching a million dollars, if you’re already there and looking to grow and streamline—and you want to stop playing whack-a-mole and actually have a business that works for you rather than you working for your business—the Huge Mastermind is something you definitely need to check out. You can find all of this—tickets, the Huge Mastermind, everything—at thehugeconvention.com. Just scroll down; you will find it. I really appreciate you taking the time to listen. Call us and leave a message, give us your feedback, and I’m looking forward to meeting you in person at The Huge Convention. That’s it for this week. But here’s the deal: don’t just listen—take action. I’m Sid Graef, and this is the Huge Insider Podcast. I’ll see you next week.

In this mini-episode of The Huge Insider Podcast, host Sid Graef introduces a powerful preseason marketing strategy from Daniel Dixon, CEO of SendJim and co-owner of a concrete coatings business in Nashville, Tennessee. Dixon shares how his business uses a preseason promotion to overcome slow-season losses, keep employees working, and increase profitability. By raising prices during peak season and offering discounts for customers who book jobs during the slow months (December–February), Dixon ensures his business remains profitable year-round. He also uses SendJim to send ringless voicemails and emails to past leads, converting them into paying customers.   SHOW NOTES Guest: Daniel Dixon •CEO of SendJim •Co-owner of a concrete coatings business in Nashville, TN •Works with thousands of home service contractors across the United States   Key Topics & Takeaways   Preseason Promotion Strategy •Raise prices during peak season when demand is high. •Offer customers a discount if they schedule their job during the slow season (December–February). •Customers pay a deposit upfront to lock in the discounted rate.   Follow-Up to Convert Old Leads •Send ringless voicemails and emails through SendJim to past customers who received a quote but never booked. •Example message: “Hey, this is Daniel with My Garage Floor Guys! You had a quote with us that you never moved forward on. Right now, we’re offering an additional $400 off for work completed before [date]. Let us know if you’re interested.”   Financial Impact • Before: $40,000–$50,000 per month in lost revenue during the slow season. •After: $10,000 per month in profit, keeping employees on staff and maintaining business momentum into the busy season.   Actionable Steps 1.Identify your slow season and create a discount offer. 2.Train your sales team to present the preseason promotion when customers hesitate due to price. 3.Use automation (voicemails and emails) to re-engage past customers. 4.Track results and adjust the offer as needed.   RESOURCES • SendJim – Marketing Automation for Home Service Businesses https://www.sendjim.io/ • The Huge Insider Podcast Action Guide www.thehugeinsider.com • The Huge Convention (August 20–22, 2025 in Nashville, TN) https://thehugeconvention.com/   Call & Share Your Business Story: 📞 804-600-HUGE (4843) – Call and share your success or lessons learned for a chance to be featured on a future episode.   Special Offer: The first person to call in and share a success story will receive a free ticket to The Huge Convention.   TRANSCRIPT Sid Graef (Host): Hello, my friend, and welcome back to The Huge Insider Podcast. This is a mini-episode that’s going between our regular episodes. So you already know this is a brand-new podcast, and you get to see it evolve and grow as we move along. We just jumped in, and we’re adapting and growing and changing as we move.   One of the things we found out is that we have so many great insights from so many great seven- and eight-figure business owners that we’re not just going to be putting out one episode a week. We have an anchor episode that’ll come out every Monday, and then in between, we’ll have a sub-episode or a mini-episode. So in this one, it’s just a deep dive on one single topic, and it’s more tactical and more user-friendly—that’s not even the right word. It’s information you can take and utilize immediately.   So in this episode, you’re going to meet Daniel Dixon. He’s the CEO of SendJim. He also has a concrete coatings business in Tennessee that does very well. And you’re going to get some of his insights on how he manages his early spring, even winter and spring marketing, to maximize his revenue and fill his calendar early. So meet Daniel Dixon.   Daniel Dixon (Guest): Hey everybody, this is Daniel Dixon. I’m the CEO at SendJim. We have a couple thousand home service contractors across the United States. And I’m also a co-owner of an epoxy floor coating business in Nashville, Tennessee. And I wanted to share my preseason promotion with you that we run at our garage floor coating company, and it looks a lot like this.   So our slow season starts roughly in the beginning of December, and then it ends about the end of February. And so what we do is during our busy season, when we are super slammed, booked out two months, we actually raise our prices so that we can get top dollar for our service. And when we go on a quote, our salesperson goes on a quote, and they get pushback based on price—“Hey, you guys are too expensive,” or “Hey, it’s out of my budget,” or “Someone else is less expensive.” What we come back with is our preseason promotion, which is, “Hey, if I can book you now for our slow season”—so if we say, “As long as you do your job between December and February, we can actually give you better pricing.” And so we might take three or four hundred off that job. They pay the deposit now, and we get them on the schedule for our slow season.   So then what we will do is, as our slow season actually arrives, we will send ringless voicemails through SendJim and emails to all the open quotes that we have, or archived quotes even, and just say, “Hey, this is Daniel with My Garage Floor Guys. We’re just calling because you had a quote that you never moved forward with. I want to let you know we’re running a discount, a heavy discount during this time of the year. If you get your job done before [XYZ date], we can take an extra four hundred off your quote. Let us know if you’re interested in that.” And then that will convert a bunch of different, or a bunch more people as well.   So before this promotion, we were losing forty to fifty thousand dollars a month in the slow season. After the promotion, we are making ten thousand a month in our slow season. So it’s a huge swing, and we’re able to keep our employees, we’re not laying people off. So our employees are staying happy, we’re more equipped and ready and trained for when our busy season starts. So there’s tons of benefits, even if it’s not just financial. And then, of course, at the end of the year, our company is way more profitable because we’re not starting with a January, February very large deficit. So it’s a great program. One of the best things that we’ve figured out in our business, and I hope it’s helpful to you.   Sid Graef (Host): That’s a wrap. What did you learn from Daniel Dixon? What did you learn that you can use right now and take to the bank? There’s an old phrase that I heard: they said, “Action takers are money makers.” That’s the reason we’re putting out these mini-episodes, so you can take something from it and take action immediately. So it will impact your business positively.   We want to help you add to your bottom line. So please don’t get overwhelmed. Like, if somebody gives you five tactics on how to market, you don’t have to do all five. Take one, and then put it into operation and press the gas pedal and get some results. Test it, tweak it, and do it some more. We want you to win. Learn in business. We want you to profit and win.   So with that, that’s the end of this episode. We have set up—and I mentioned it last episode—two things that you can get your hands on right away. One is, once a week, we publish an action guide, and that matches and goes along with the primary episode for the week. So the action guide is now available at its new permanent home, thehugeinsider.com/action. You can download the action guide. It’s got more resources on it, but it’s got a summary of the primary episode, and it gives you step-by-step instructions on how to put it into action.   And the next thing—we set this up, and I’m looking for the first person to call in and leave us a message and tell us a success story or a lessons-learned story. I would love to hear a success story of somebody taking information from an episode or from the action guide, putting it into action, and then getting a result from it. It doesn’t even have to be big. You could just be like, “I tried Daniel Dixon’s thing. I did one thing. I got two new customers. I wanted to share the story.” I would love to hear that. We’d love to feature you on the show for doing that.   And then lessons learned is a hell of a way to learn from other people’s mistakes because, thankfully, we don’t have time to make all the mistakes ourselves. Sometimes I feel like I have made them all. But if you can see where the mines are buried and avoid them by learning from the mistakes that other people have made—and then just don’t do those things—you’re going to be way, way ahead.   The last thing I’m going to wrap up with is, thank you very much. Oh, I should give you the phone number to call in. We want to feature you. By hearing from you, please call in to 804-600-HUGE. So 804-600-HUGE, that’s 804-600-4843. You can call in, leave a message, and tell us your story. And then, if it’s great, if the audio quality is good, we’ll put it on a future mini-episode.   So call in. And I’m going to throw in—to sweeten the pot—the first person that calls in, since this show is brand new, and nobody’s called yet (there’s only been one episode where this has been available), the first person to call in and actually share a story of a win or lessons learned, we’re going to give you a free ticket to The Huge Convention. So how cool is that?   That’s all for now. Remember, our mission is to help our blue-collar brothers and sisters build a better business—a business that brings you time and money freedom. We want to see you win and prosper. And we do that with our free newsletter, The Huge Insider. We do it with this podcast. We do it with The Huge Transformations Podcast. We do it with The Huge Convention every August. And this year, it’s in Nashville, Tennessee. Links to everything that’s talked about, all the resources, are in the show notes. Go get them. We’ll see you in a few days.  

In this episode, Sid introduces Jared Skinner, a successful Colorado entrepreneur with multiple home service businesses (window cleaning, flooring, holiday lighting). Jared reveals simple yet powerful marketing tactics to stay productive during slow months—specifically by building relationships with realtors, home builders, and complementary service providers. Key takeaways include: How to use low-cost or free gift cards to establish ongoing referrals with realtors Why partnering with local builders can create recurring revenue streams Ways to align with complementary services for mutual promotion and expanded reach The importance of leveraging downtime to network and prepare for busy seasons Real-world examples of how a small effort (like coffee and donuts) can turn into substantial new revenue Don’t miss the free action guide from The Huge Convention, offering detailed steps to implement Jared’s strategy. Grab the action guide: https://thehugeinsider.com/ SHOW NOTES Guest: Name: Jared Skinner Entrepreneur with multiple service businesses in Colorado (window cleaning, flooring, holiday lighting) Topics Covered: Networking with Realtors Distributing branded gift cards for realtors to give to their clients as a value-add Turning a one-time introduction into recurring work Partnering with Builders Establishing relationships for ongoing post-construction cleans Securing multiple cleanings per property (e.g., final clean + touch-up) Cross-Referrals with Complementary Services Sharing marketing databases for mutual promotion Leveraging each other’s clientele to expand reach Strategic Outreach Training team members to network with realtors and builders during slow periods Reinforcing awareness of all services offered (e.g., windows, gutters, holiday lights) Resources & Tools Mentioned: The Huge Convention – Annual event for home service businesses Website: https://thehugeconvention.com Action Guide: www.thehugeinsider.com Call & Share Your Business Story Phone: 804-600-HUGE (4843) TRANSCRIPT   Sid Graef (Host): Hey, my friend, Sid Graef here, and welcome back to the Huge Insider Podcast. If you caught our first show last week, you already know this is a brand-new show for home service professionals who are stuck trying to break the million-dollar revenue mark. If that's you, you're in the right place. And if you've already gotten to over a million dollars in your business, you're going to get even more out of the show. So here's the deal: this isn't your typical podcast. It's not an interview show. It's not an expert-driven show. Instead, we've gathered together seven- and eight-figure business owners—people running companies that do anywhere from 2 million a year to 40 million a year—and we’re bringing you their best insights. It’s all focused on one single topic each month. These are real operators, the guys and gals that are quietly building empires behind the scenes. They are not on social media looking for attention. They’re in the trenches, making things happen every day. And since it's February, this month we're diving into building your marketing strategy—the one you can implement right now to set yourself up for massive success this year. So last week, we heard from Michael Dahlke on how to expand your capacity for the spring season. Today, you're going to hear from Jared Skinner. Jared owns several successful service businesses in Colorado, including a window cleaning company, a flooring company, and a holiday lighting business. He’s breaking down a low-cost—maybe even free—strategy to help build relationships in the winter that will help you dominate the rest of the year. These are things that you can do today to start building for a big win and a big success for the rest of the year. So let’s get into it. Meet Jared Skinner. Jared Skinner (Guest): Hey, everyone. Hope everyone is doing well and getting all ready to rock and roll for this upcoming busy season. My name is Jared Skinner, and I have a couple of different home service businesses. One of them is a window cleaning company, and to prepare for the upcoming busy season, we try to use February and utilize it as much as possible. What we've done that has seemed to give us traction and help us to build the future months out is use this downtime to really start creating networks and relationships with others. Let me give you a couple of examples of what we do, which can make an impact. We created gift cards for our window cleaning company—say a $35 gift card. We'd go around to all the different realtors in our area and give them a pack of 50 of these gift cards. We'd basically introduce ourselves and say, “Hey, I'm Jared, and we're with View Window Cleaning, and what we'd like to do is work with you so you can help your clients. If a client buys a home or sells a home, as a gift from you to them, you can give one of our gift cards.” They can use this gift card to get their windows cleaned or get their house washed—whatever you want to do. It’s a great gesture for the realtor to give to their client, and it costs them nothing. It’s just the relationship we're trying to build. We've given out thousands of these gift cards to realtors for their clients. Now, is every realtor going to do it and get on board? Not all of them. But we have a number of realtors who really do it, and we get quite a bit of work from that. The great thing is, all it costs us is the cost of the gift cards and our time to go out and network. That's one idea to keep you and your team busy. When our guys weren't working, if we needed something for them to do, we'd have them dress up and go out to network with the realtors, just to help us get that momentum going a bit quicker. We'd pay them to hand out the cards and do the networking. We had a couple of sharp techs who fit that mold, and they enjoyed doing it. Another thing we did is we really started reaching out to builders. We have relationships with the biggest builder in one of our cities, and we clean all the homes for them. It’s turned into a really great recurring revenue stream because every time a home is completed, we do the cleaning. Then, right before they sell it—right before closing—they do another clean just to touch everything up. We almost get a double hit on this, which is absolutely amazing. One thing I’d recommend, and that has worked for us, is to create a list of all the realtors in your area that you can reach out to. You can make gift cards for whatever value you want—$50, $100—and start to use those networks to push your product. This is a really good way to market. Make a list of all the home builders in your area or other services in the home service space and build networks. We've built networks with other contractors who do things in the home. We refer them; they refer us. You can blast each other’s databases. Maybe they can send an offer for your service to their database, and you can reciprocate. This is a great time to go out and build these critical relationships. The nice thing is, once you get them going, your customer acquisition costs are extremely low. There's a lot of profit potential that comes through developing these networks. Most people don't do it because it takes time and effort, but once you get them established, the recurring jobs that come through make it absolutely worth it. From our experience, this has been a great time of year—February is our time to go out and build these relationships and networks, and to establish those baseline recurring jobs that can come in all throughout the year. Hope that helps and hope that'll help you gather more jobs and income this year, and get prepared for the busy season! Sid Graef (Host): So what did you learn from Jared, and more importantly, what are you going to do with it? His strategy is simple, but don't let that fool you—it's powerful. You know why? Because at the foundation of every successful business is one core truth: people do business with people they know, like, and trust. If you take time to connect with others, bring them something of value, or give them a tool they can pass along to their customers that makes them look good, you’re laying the groundwork for real long-term relationships. I'll give you a quick example. A couple of years ago, we did this exact strategy. We took coffee and donuts to every property manager in our town. Some of them were already clients, some weren't. At one stop—already a client—I mentioned that we not only clean windows, but also gutters. The owner's eyes lit up. She dashed into another room and came back with a list of properties, saying, “I didn't know you cleaned gutters. I want you to clean all of these spring and fall.” That single visit turned into an extra $25,000 in revenue, just for saying hi and letting them know what we do. That's the real lesson: networking works, but only if people know what you offer. Here's the next thing: take action. Everything we covered today is in the show notes, but the single most important thing is to download the action guide. We put together a five-page guide to help you execute Jared's strategy this week. You can grab it by going to www.thehugeinsider.com—that link is in the show notes. Make sure you don't miss it. There are more ways to level up your business. Our mission is to help our blue-collar brothers and sisters build a business that gives them financial and time freedom. This podcast is one way we do that. Another way is our free newsletter, The Huge Insider, which is sent weekly, packed with actionable insights. When you download our action guide, you'll get access to it. The next way we help people win and prosper is The Huge Convention. It’s like the Super Bowl of conventions for home service businesses—the ultimate event for networking, education, and the biggest trade show in the industry. This year, we're back in Nashville, August 20th–22nd. Tickets are really cheap right now, so grab yours at thehugeconvention.com before prices go up. Real breakthroughs happen at this event. Finally, we’d like to feature you. If you've had a big win in your business—or, even better, a painful lesson or failure that led to success—call and leave us a message at 804-600-HUGE (that’s 804-600-4843). We might feature your story on an upcoming episode, using your recorded message so our audience can hear it directly from you. And that is it for this week, my friend. Don't just listen to the show—take action. They say knowledge is power, but that’s not quite true; it’s the proper application of knowledge that is powerful. Use what you learned today, use it to win and prosper, and have a bigger 2025. I'm Sid Graef, this is the Huge Insider Podcast, and I will see you next time.

The Huge Insider Podcast is a brand-new show designed to help home service professionals break the million-dollar revenue mark. Hosted by Sid Graef, this podcast brings together real seven- and eight-figure business owners who share proven strategies to grow a profitable business. In this first episode, Mike Dahlke, who built a five-million-dollar window cleaning company, breaks down his winter and spring marketing strategy. He explains how to prepare in February, use strategic offers in March, and maximize lead generation in April, May, and June. Key takeaways include: How to structure special offers in March to pull demand forward Why timing matters more than ad spend in seasonal businesses The best way to use email, postcards, and text campaigns for customer retention How to ramp up advertising with Google, Facebook, Valpak, and radio ads Cold-calling techniques to keep schedules full during peak season Mike’s insights provide a practical marketing roadmap to help home service businesses generate revenue even during the slow months. The episode also includes a free action guide with step-by-step implementation strategies. Get the action guide: https://www.thehugeconvention.com/action Show Notes Guest: Mike Dahlke Built Blue Skies Window Cleaning to $5 million per year Managed a team of 128 employees at peak Currently owns and invests in multiple home service businesses Topics Covered: Winter & Spring Marketing Strategy February: Plan marketing efforts and set up campaigns March: Offer special promotions to existing customers to fill schedules April: Launch radio, Valpak, and digital ad campaigns May and June: Use cold-calling and referral strategies to keep bookings full Proven Marketing Tactics Three-postcard and email strategy for existing customers Timing digital ads for maximum impact Using radio and direct mail to drive leads Cold-calling best practices for customer service reps Resources & Tools Mentioned Text Magic – SMS marketing tool SendJim – Automated customer engagement platform Google Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Valpak/Money Mailer – Direct mail coupon marketing importance of maximizing revenue from existing customers, featuring insights from Michael Kaplan, an entrepreneur who grew a carpet cleaning company to strong eight-figure annual revenue before exiting. Kaplan stresses the value of upselling or cross-selling on-site, gamifying the sales process for technicians, and offering generous incentives to motivate teams. He explains that once you have already incurred the costs of acquiring a customer and dispatching your crew, any additional services sold can dramatically increase overall profitability. From creating fun, competitive spiffs to giving technicians scripts and training for door-knocking, Kaplan reveals how to turn “one job” visits into bigger revenue opportunities. Sid closes by urging listeners to download the free action guide and call in with both success stories and lessons learned from failures. SHOW NOTES Guest: Michael Kaplan Successfully scaled and sold a carpet cleaning business at an eight-figure valuation Owns/invests in over a dozen businesses in multiple service industries Key Topics & Takeaways Second Bite of the Apple Focus on upsells and cross-sells with current customers Leverage existing job-site visits to add services like power washing, gutter cleaning, etc. Gamifying On-Site Sales Offer lucrative commissions or spiffs for technicians who bring in extra work Use contests, public leaderboards, and roleplay to build enthusiasm and accountability Incentives & Profitability Large incentives can still be profitable when fixed costs are already covered Technicians benefit by earning more; the business benefits from higher average tickets Actionable Steps Create simple scripts and training Implement a structured rewards system (e.g., percentage-based upsell commissions) Track and celebrate wins publicly to encourage buy-in Resources & Links Huge Insider Action Guide: www.thehugeinsider.com Huge Convention (August 20–22, 2025 in Nashville, TN): https://thehugeconvention.com/ Call & Share Your Business Story: 804-600-HUGE (4843)   Transcript: Sid Graef (Host): Hello, my friends. This is Sid Graef, and this is the Huge Insider Podcast, and this is a brand-new show from the Huge Convention, and it is specifically for home service pros who are stuck trying to break the million-dollar mark. If you've been trying to hit and break a million dollars a year, this is for you. And now, if you're over a million dollars, you're going to get so much even more from this show. So this show has a unique format. It's not an interview show and it's not an expert show. What we've done is we gathered up seven- and eight-figure business owners, folks that are doing anywhere from two million a year in revenue to over forty million a year in revenue. And they're probably not people that you've heard about. Uh, they don't like being on social media. They don't like being on stage or in front of the camera. They are quietly building empires. And they've agreed to share their insight and best strategies for business with you. So here's how it works. Every month we're going to take a topic, a hot topic for home services, something that's timely and seasonally strategic. For example, this is February, 2025, and all February long, we're going to be talking marketing strategy, how to prepare your marketing for 2025 so that you win and prosper, and each week is going to be a deep dive by one of our business experts. They're going to go into actionable strategy and tactics to help you to move your business toward that million-dollar mark or beyond and to win and prosper. And so, uh, as I mentioned, it's February, and our topic is marketing strategy. Smart moves to take now to get way ahead. So every week our expert, literally, they're just calling in and recording eight to ten minutes of their expertise on this topic. So the quality of their recording is, it's not super, but the content is crazy good. So we're going to dive into episode one. So I want you to see what I mean. First episode, I want you to meet Mike Dahlke. He's going to be diving into the winter and spring marketing strategy that he used with a five-million-a-year window cleaning company in Minnesota. And after the program is over, I'm going to ask you a couple of questions, and I want to find out from you. Definitely. I want to find out what you think. I want to find out if it's valuable, find out if you liked it, if you liked the format, what topics you want us to dive into, things like that. So without any further introduction, I want you to join me with Mike Dahlke. Mike Dahlke (Guest): Hey, podcast network, happy February. In February, we are going to focus on growing in our business, and we're really going to be focusing on dialing in our market plan specifically for the very short period of time, and then generally for a long period of time. So growing Blue Skies, we grew it to five million dollars and we had 128 employees at our peak. And then growing also multiple home services businesses. The winter is always slow for us. It was always that I always felt broke no matter how much cash I had in the bank going into the winter. I always felt broke in February, and I wanted to get revenue coming in so bad. So one of the things that was a core focus was making sure that I had the marketing plan dialed in for March, April, May, and June. In June, everything kind of slowed down. At the end of the Fourth of July, we did a reset. I would get some preliminary numbers in for August or July, August, September, October. But really going into the February timeframe, I was really, really laser-focused on making sure March, April, May, and June were great. So, a couple of things to work into your marketing plan. March, for us in Minnesota, was always super cold and, uh, was really, really not the best time of year to be marketing. If the sun wasn't out, marketing to new customers was dead. So we found out through spending tens of thousands of dollars that the sun coming out and providing good weather was more useful, more beneficial to us, for us, than getting a marketing camp going to new clients. Now the difference was, we had existing clients that were willing to, to get their windows cleaned in March. If we gave them a special offer, so we ran radio ads, we ran Valpak, we ran Google. We did all kinds of stuff in March to try to pull demand forward, and it never worked for new customers. It doesn't mean we didn't run the Google and some of the pay-per-click stuff, but we didn't do our big media buys. We were buying probably four hundred thousand dollars a year immediately at our peak. We didn't do any of that until after the sun came out. So first thing I'm going to suggest to all of my friends out there is that in March, you have a special offer for customers who buy in March and get cleaned in March. If they get cleaned in June, it doesn't help you because you're going to be so full of existing or new clients. It doesn't matter. So you're trying to pull demand out of those super busy months and put it in March, which for us wasn't super busy. February is your non-busy time. In March, you're rocking and rolling. Pull it into February. So for us, we did a 10 percent off deal. And I would suggest that in 10 percent it's not the right deal. We always had better success with 100 off, 50 off. Whatever it is for you that your good offer is, well, let's get that dialed in for March. So what we did is we sent three postcards to every one of our existing customers. And then we also sent out three emails to every one of our existing customers. And that was usually enough that we did. We didn't do the text message. We didn't do a voicemail bomb to send Jim. We kept those things in our back pocket for later, but we did do the emails and we did do the postcards. So those go out. So first week of March, we had second week of March. We had third week of March. We had. We do not market in the fourth week for that sale because it's too late by the time they book it, it's, it's not really happening. And I would say that if we were doing four hundred thousand in revenue in a year in Minnesota, we would book anywhere from ten percent, and pull that forward. So we almost get five to ten percent of our, our revenue pulled forward and out of those super busy months. Sid Graef (Host): Mike, this is amazing stuff. I really appreciate you sharing all these insights. That’s going to wrap up today’s episode. Make sure you check out the Huge Convention at https://www.thehugeconvention.com, and don’t forget to call our voicemail line at 804-600-HUGE and let us know your thoughts. Thanks again for listening, and we’ll see you next week.