Lighting for Profits - Episode 161

This week on the show we welcome Shawn Day, with over 35 years in entrepreneurship, founded Daycorp Mortgage and later Phcs, Inc., a cleaning company sold to Blue Skies Services. At Blue Skies, he introduced a groundbreaking recruiting division in 2016. Now leading Hire Lead Chill LLC, Shawn provides specialized recruiting services to home service businesses across North America. He’s also a speaker, consultant, and community advocate, involved in local initiatives and committed to positive change.

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We discussed everything you need to know to start and grow a successful landscape lighting business

Welcome to lighting for profits.

All light, all light. All light.

Powered by Emery Allen.

Get rid of your excuses.

Your number one source for all things landscape lighting.

That's where the magic can happen.

You can really scale a business. We really had to show up for each other from lighting design, install, sales and marketing. You're a scaredy cat salesman, Kurt. We discussed everything you need to know to start and grow a successful landscape lighting business.

What do you think a hippo has to do with your business, Ryan? Usually it's some weird childhood thing, some bullshit kicked your butt.

I think the key factor here is trust. Here is your host, Ryan Lee.

All, light, all light. All light. Let's go.

Ryan Lee: If you're starting or growing a landscape lighting business,

What is up, lighting people of the world? I'm excited. I'm Ryan Lee, your host of lighting for profits, powered by Emery Allen. And I, love. I absolutely love hanging out with you every Tuesday, 05:00 eastern. And, if you listen to it later, that's cool, too. So, by the way, we are the number one landscape lighting show in Utah. And, we got a great show lined up for you guys today. We got Mister Shondae and, talking about a very, very important topic that actually, I don't consider myself an expert at all. So this is one of those episodes where I'm like, selfishly, like, you have these guests on. I can't wait. Talk slower. I'm taking notes here. and just, there's going to be so much value, so much gold delivered today. We're going to be talking about recruiting. And, hopefully that doesn't scare you away, because if you're looking to hire top tier talent, this is what we're going to be talking about. Like, how do you find them and how much do you pay them and how do you. How do you do these things? Because there's those businesses out there that just seem to get it right. It's like, what are they doing? And so, by the way, if you're looking to start or grow a landscape lighting business, you are definitely in the right place. We're here to educate and motivate, to help you dominate. By the way, still asking, still begging for those five star reviews in a little bit of a competition, with, Chris Applestadt, to see who can get to 100 reviews first. I don't have Google or any. I do actually have Google, but I don't really care about those with this type of business. I'm looking for podcast reviews. So go to Apple, go to Spotify, hit the five stars, write something nice. If you got value from the show, which I'm sure you did. Look at, we're on like episode whatever it is. 161. We've had some amazing guests on here. So, by the way, guys, still, doing the strategy sessions. So, go to landscape lightingsecrets. com, click on start here, follow the steps and you can get on a call. We can break through like, what you're struggling with right now. And, I found some very simple common denominators that people struggle with that can help them move the needle. And, it's pretty simple to do. So get on those strategy sessions.

Don't sell yourself short with your customer by using budget level products

Landscape lighting secrets. com all right, we got to thank Emery Allen. They've been a big supporter of ours for several years now. And, you know, this performance matters, right? And, that's a true statement for a lot of things, including the kind of lighting use. So don't sell yourself short with your customer by using budget level products. I see too many people going on to Amazon, going onto the, to the home Depots and Lowe's. And I'm like, unless, unless Home Depot and Lowe's wants to sponsor me, right? No, but seriously, like, you go there and you buy just like consumer grade crappy stuff and install it like a professional. Like, don't do that. Okay. you know, Emery Allen, look at their VA rating. Lowest in the industry. It means efficiency. So you're going to be able to drive more lamps on a particular system, which means it saves you space on the transformer. you know, the same, you know, sorry, a lower quality lamp, same, transformer. You're not going to be able to put as many lights on there. So lots of different advantages. And for me, probably the biggest thing is just the clarity. The single source led. It looks phenomenal at night. Give your clients an experience that they're asking for, or even more. Just email tom g@emoryallen. com. and get your account set up. Mention you heard about him here on lighting for profits and he'll get you that discounted contractor pricing and, make the change today. So just email tom g@emoryallen. com. dot all right. yeah, Tom, his family, great people. So reach out to him.

Sean Day will talk about some tips that make running a business easier

okay, in just a few minutes, guys, we're going to have Sean day. And I'm telling you, today's episode, there's, there's, there's a few things in business that if you get them right, a lot of things kind of fall in place and just seem to be easier and you can get momentum. And we're going to be talking about that. Sean's got some amazing tips, some amazing things that, like, they're not difficult, right. He's going to break it down for us. That make it just so much easier to run a business. And I'm telling you, it's like dominoes. You can, you stack them up, you hit them down. And, we're going to be talking about some of those things that make business so much easier if you just get these few things in the right place. So stick around.

Chris Miller has owned several classic broncos throughout the years

And before we have them on, I want to just share this quick experience. I, don't really talk about this a lot. I don't usually talk about my, my worldly possessions with people a lot. And, but I'm a Bronco guy and, I've always been into the classic broncos. 66 to 77 are the years. I've owned several throughout the years. And, I used to drive one that didn't drive. It was like, it didn't run. It just sat there, right? And, I finally could afford a nicer one. And then I bought and sold and could finally afford a nicer one. I kept doing that. I finally, I've had this, this Bronco now it's a 1971 for maybe eight years or something like that. Its a great bronco. And so when they announced that they were coming out with the new broncos, you know, maybe five, six years ago, I was super stoked. Bought, one without seeing it, of course. And, so my wife now drives the 2021 Bronco four door. And its a great, great car. She loves it. And, recently im like, okay, lets go. It needs a facelift. Im sick of driving. I dont like driving. Just normal stuff. I want to customize it, I want to wrap it, I want to give it a lift, tires, whatever it is. And so, called around to some local shops, just went on to Google and, was looking for ratings and stuff like that. And I just want to tell you about this experience. So I call and I was amazed how many of these small shops you call. And it immediately goes to like, the phone tree system, you know? thank you for calling so and so. For, for sales, press one. For orders, press two. For accounting, press three. I'm like, do you have, do you have a lot of people calling for the accounting department? Like, what, what's going on here? Like, it's just annoying. It's just like I missed the good old days of like, can I just talk to somebody? Could someone just pick up the phone right so think about this in your lighting business. Like, are you sending them to a phone tree, or is someone answer the phone within two rings? Because this is a big deal. And, so, you know, how hard is it to get ahold of someone? Like, it was very difficult. I didn't even get ahold of a few shops because I couldn't even make it through their phone tree. And when I did, it was like, hey, sorry. You reached Chris. Leave me a voicemail. It was, like, sent to his cell phone anyway that he wasn't going to answer, so make it easy, okay? There's so many ways to win in business, and most people are doing the exact opposite. One guy even referred me to another shop. and I was like, what's. What's going on here? So I, I called the guy who's, like, the expert, right? And, he was full of industry knowledge. He. He knew more about broncos than I know, more than I know about my kids. I mean, it was, like, insane. He starts spitting off this, that, and the other. Well, you know, if you get the XC 30 and this type of lift and all, I'm like, what? I'm like, slow down. Like, what's going on? Like, I just want my bronco to look badass. Like, how much does that cost? Like, I don't care what type of techno babble you use. I don't. I, just want it to look amazing. What do I got to do? How much does that cost? What do we do? Right? And he. He was. He totally confused me with this techno babble that just didn't make sense to him. He's been doing this forever. It was just, like, easy peasy. Well, it was very confusing. So are you confusing your clients? Like, what language are you using when you speak to them? Because I promise you, what's normal to you is not normal to them. This guy thought I knew everything because I owned a Bronco. It's like, dude, I don't even want to take this thing off road. I just want this thing to be the epic mall crawler, okay? And I even told him that I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. I just want it to look epic. How do we do that? So he sends me the estimate, and it was a ton. It was about double that, I thought. And again, had I known what I was getting, like, maybe I would have moved forward. Like, I was like, I don't. I don't even know what I was getting. I seriously didn't even know, I was getting. So I decided, you know what, the price is higher than I want. Let me. Let me call around. And so, what's up, JC?

Jared Chinowski struggled with choosing wheels for his wife's new Bronco

Jared Chinowski in the house. I, decided to call around, call another shop, and, luckily get ahold of these guys, pretty quickly. And, the guy was like, yeah, ah, you need to talk to so and so. He's the owner. I'm like, perfect. I love talking to the guy. Who knows? And actually, it was just a second later, he put him on the phone. Finally, I found a guy who was knowledgeable, spoke my language, gets me through the whole thing. I'm like, let's pick out this. What about this? What about this? I'm like, I want it to look amazing. He's like, oh, you want big? We're going to put you in a seven inch lift. I'm like, whoa, that sounds a little big. Okay, maybe. Maybe that's a little too much. And so he's out. here, go to this link. Check out this picture. Do you like that? And he was able to show me really, really quickly. I'm like, yes, I want that one. It's a five inch lift. It's sitting on 37s. Like, that's what I want. I could see it, like, now I knew what I was getting, right? Here's the problem. He then is like, gives me the exact same problem that I experienced nearly 20 years ago when I bought my first truck. The same thing happened. I buy my first truck I want to lift, and then they send me. Well, yeah, we got to pick out wheels. What wheels do you want? Oh, my gosh. You send me a website, a magazine, whatever it is, with a thousand choices, dude, I'm never getting a lift. Now. How am I supposed to choose what wheels I want? There's too many. Too many colors, too many sizes, too many options. Like, just give me a few options. What. What is going to look best? I needed him to step up as the expert, as the trusted advisor, as the guide, as the helper, to help me make a decision. He did the opposite. He got me so close to, like, take my money, guys. I want so bad right now to give someone money to make my wife's, Bronco look epic. It's so hard. Please help me take my money, right? I'm begging him. And he couldn't do it. He couldn't take me across that finish line. So now I have a link of three different manufacturers, which I had 20 years ago to look through. And now I've seen some of the wheels I've had over the years, which is kind of funny looking through these things. I'm like, oh, I've already had that one. I've heard that one. I've had that one. And, it's just too many choices. So, yes, you should be offering options and choices to your customers, but definitely not this many. You know, I really needed a guide. And, are you showing up for your clients every day? Are you getting fired up? Like, what is the consequence of your customer not moving forward with you today? Okay, if I don't get a lift for my wife's car, what is the consequence? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything's fine, right? But with. When someone doesn't move forward with you, with lighting, if you guys have heard me speak in person, I talk about this stuff, like, the consequences are severe. They're going to get murdered if they don't have lighting. Okay? That's a pretty big problem. And so if you. Unless you don't care about people, like, you need to show up for them, like, what are you doing to be a better expert, to help them go down that funnel, hold their hand, guide them, lead them. Like, be there with them. Okay. And you're not going to necessarily have to make the choice for them, but you're going to help them make the choice that's best for them. Okay? So are you working on being the best version of yourself? Listen, they don't know what they don't know. I don't know. I just like the look of broncos, okay? I don't know the 446 different types of lifts out there, and I never want to know. I just want it to look amazing and ride and ride smooth. That's it.

Be the expert, be the guide and be that trusted advisor

So which one do I need here, boss? You know, I'm not going to baja. You know, I'm not taking this thing to moab and going on these extreme things. I need, like, this thing to look awesome as we're going down the road. So ask important questions and help them. Well, based on what you're saying, I think one of these two options would be good. One of these three options, okay, be the expert, be the guide, be the helper, be that trusted advisor, and don't let your clients suffer because you are a bad guide. Okay? there's a lot of bad guides out there right now. A lot of bad, trusted advisors. And you're letting people make the wrong decision. And you're the expert. Why are you letting them make the wrong decision? Why are you letting them think about it? So that they can make a decision that's uninformed. Like, you need to do a better job showing up, helping them make sure they have all the information to make an educated decision. And if all that educated or all that information points to you, then what's holding them back? What is it going to take for us to move forward today? Right? So it's frustrating as a consumer. I can just tell you right now. Can you tell, like, I'm frustrated, I'm fired up. I'm like, I just want to freaking lift guys, take my money. Right? There's frustrated homeowners right now that are saying, take my money. I just want this place to look epic. I want my backyard to just feel amazing. I want, when I drive up to my house, I want to feel like I'm driving home to luxury. I want to feel like we have an oasis for my family to hang out. I want this to be the party place. I, want to be able to have people over. And you're making it difficult for them to move forward, and that's not fair to them. You're doing them a giant disservice. So this is the importance of learning sales. This is the importance of honing your craft and getting better at being the guide, because we're truly not selling anything. We're literally helping people get what they want. You know how bad I need someone to sell me a lift right now? Like, come on, tell me these are the three wills. what do you think of that? You know, like, let's make. Let's make some decisions. Let's get it. Here's the deposit. Let's schedule a day. Let's get it done. There's so many people trying to spend money right now, and they can't because there's unqualified helpers, designers, trusted advisors, guides. Let's step up. Let's be better. Let's show up for our clients every single day. That's my rant. That's it.

We have an awesome guest coming on to talk about lighting on the show

All right, guys, it's time to. It's time to continue with the show. I told you we got an awesome guest coming on, so let's, let's get. Let's get. Let's get Sean coming on. You guys ready? I hope so. I'm ready. Let's go. There he, is. Mister Shawn day. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Thanks for having me on. Ah, man. Now I like that little monologue you had there. That was pretty. Yeah, you hit it over the man, and it's true. It's true. You sounded frustrated.

I am. Can you. Will you take my money. Somebody take my money right now, please.

I'm starting a company to broker, parts for a, Ford Broncos. I think.

Yeah, great. Like, I got you. It's like, how hard is it to give people my money? And I'm telling you, like, I see this time and time again, it's. It's. It's everywhere. It's everywhere around us. And I'm so passionate about lighting. That makes me sick because I know how lighting will transform your life. Like, if you don't have your property lit, it's just not fair. Like, you're just not going to be as happy. Like, your life is going to suck. So it's my obligation to help you understand the value of that and convince you and help you move forward today because you don't have the courage to move forward without my help, because you're thinking, it, seems like a lot for lights, but it's my obligation as the expert to show you the way, show you the light.

Absolutely. And that's, you hit. That's the thing. The expert. That's what they're hiring you for, and you are the expert. You just need to tell them, this is what I know. This is what I think you're gonna love. And that's it. I mean, that's what they're looking for, you know, and make it easy. That's what it. Amazon is so popular because when we click on things, it's so user friendly, right? How do you sell anything and everything on earth, but it only takes me about 10 seconds to find it, click on it, and buy it. That's so impressive. And then I love to your point, the expert stuff underneath, they always have what you may want to consider along with that or what others are buying with this. They just are always looking out for what they think you might want.

It's so true, man. I mean, people think it's unethical to upsell, you know, and they're like, well, I'm already having a hard enough time selling these guys a $5,000 thing, so I probably shouldn't offer them more. It's like, let them say no.

Yes.

Because a lot of people are going to say yes, and they're going to thank you for the opportunity to do so.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Well, welcome to show, man. I'm excited to have you on again. this is all about recruiting, man. This, is such a, one of my favorite topics, partially because I suck at it. Like, it's a weakness of mine. I think it's a weakness of most entrepreneurs.

Tell me about higher lead chill. What does it represent

and I, think what I want to do, maybe let's start with this first. Tell me about higher lead chill. Why the name? Because I love the name. What is higher lead chill represent?

So it came about, a number of years ago, and I just, I was starting a podcast. I was starting a new Facebook group. So we really, were just in this transition of our business. And I'm like, you know what? It's just all about leadership. It's about culture. And then you chill out, man, and it's, you're done. So it's like, hire lead them and chill. That's really all it is, you know? And the chill was originally going to be like culture, but that didn't sound cool enough, so I changed it to chill. And that's really what it is, man. When you hire, all you have to do is have the leadership and then chill. That's really all it is. It's that. It's really that simple.

I love it. I think chills way cooler than culture. And the order is important here. People, there's too many people chilling, hoping that everything else is going to take care of itself.

No doubt, man. no doubt.

Well, I love it.

Either that or they're ready to jump off a bridge because they can't stand it.

Right?

Like you said, recruiting is not always fun if you don't get it.

What's more important, marketing or recruiting? Let me ask you a question

Well, let's talk about the value of recruiting. you know, I'm big on, my passion is pricing, sales, marketing, and it's like, well, why are we talking recruiting then? And that's because it's like, I'm not passionate about it. I'm just not. But I've learned the value over it big time. Let me ask you a, it may sound like a trick question. What's more important, marketing or recruiting?

You're asking a recruiter that question. I'll say it. I'll come through the back door a little bit with it if we're going to do that. So, so what I would say is marketing. But marketing and recruiting are identical.

Love it.

And I can tell you spend, all the money you want on marketing, but if there's nobody to go out there and take care of it, then you just wasted a whole bunch of money. Because I. The best way to get customer reviews isn't begging them, isn't coming up with a strategy and how I can talk them into it. It's. They're going to give you a review when you find the best of the best of the best to go out, take care of them. The employees.

Yeah. I love it. Well, it's one of those things that, you know, especially when you're a small business, like, the number one thing that matters is money. You're just like, well, I just need to pay my mortgage or whatever. And so you're not naturally thinking, like, okay, what am I going to do for recruiting? You're just thinking marketing so that you can get sales. Right? And we've all ran into this, which is why you exist, is because we do that. And then we hire usually low quality people. We don't lead them, we don't invest in them. And then what? They last a couple months, you know, a couple of years if we're lucky. And then that whole process just is over and over and over. And then we end up putting so much effort into our people that we actually forget about the marketing and we forget about, all these customer service and recurring revenue and repeat business. And. And it all, it all does stem from recruiting. Like, this is. This is one of those dominoes that if you get this thing correct, man, business is not just survivable, it's thrivable. Like, you, you can live. This is the difference.

Ryan, talk to me about the value of a team member and a client

And so I'm really glad to have you on because I want to talk about some of the things, some of the strategies you've shared over the years and kind of what you do. Talk to me about the value of a team member and the value of a client.

Well, there's so much to go into it, but as I say, marketing and recruiting are identical. And the way that I explain it is, like, to put it in simple terms, because I'm a simple guy. And so the way I would describe it is if. If you own a, Christmas light company and you're installing lights, I look at, let's just talk residential for now, because I think that's the majority of the business. But we can talk either way. Residential. What is was a residential client? JC would certainly know, you probably know maybe around three grand. Four grand is an average ticket somewhere in there. I don't know, somewhere that's probably high.

But, let's say two grand. Let's say two grand to grand. Average. There's people that are obviously way larger, but average ticket, two k. That's.

That's what we got to generalize it.

To get the point across for holiday landscape. Probably eight grand.

Eight grand. And that works, too. So we. You've got, let's, let's say five grand to make it easy, then somewhere in the middle. So you go and you spend, you know, like, like you just said, ryan, we, nobody goes into business to be a recruiter. and love recruiting. We're marketers, we're top line guys. How many trucks do we have on the road? Right? And so that's the easy part. But you do all of that stuff. I'll come on Sunday when it's raining. Anything for that. $5,000, right? but you won't spend more than $500 or $200 boosting an add on. Indeed, to find one guy that's going to go out and produce about $75,000 worth of revenue for you.

Seems expensive.

It's that simple. It's really that simple.

Well, so let's, let's clarify this breakdown. It costs 500, a thousand. I mean, how much would, would you be willing to spend? Because honestly, in the landscape lighting business, some of these other industries you operate, they have such low tickets, the numbers are skewed a little bit in landscape lighting. These are high average tickets. So, you know, if you're doing a million dollars, you don't need a staff of 20 people. You could do that with like five or five or six people. So you're talking average team member is worth a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of revenue. Like two, let's say $200,000. Even if we say $150,000 worth of revenue, that's what each team member is worth. And that's every year, right? The client, this 5000, let's say $10,000 client, their lifetime values more than 10,000. But it's not 150,000, I promise. And like you said, we're willing to bend over backwards, show up on Sunday, answer their calls, spend money on marketing, do all this stuff. Oh, please, give us that five star review. We put all this energy into there, and we have no energy left to recruit that person. And instead, it's easier just to complain. Sean, I hear what you're saying, but, man, have you, have you been, have you seen the economy? It's hard to find good work these days, and I. I ain't going to pay. You want me to pay an entry level guy, 25 an hour? Sean, you must be crazy.

And we hear that every day. I mean, it's, you know, but we walk, we want people through it, and I, we have data, we do research in their labor market, and we'll say, well, you know, this is what others are paying. Let's go through the number. I've got a business partner named Dan Plata. That guy knows the numbers of most of the home service industries better than anybody because he does bookkeeping for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of companies in home service space. So I know the percentages. I know what your, you know, returns are on things in general. And I can tell you for sure that if you take the same mindset on, everything you do with marketing and put it towards recruiting, that's what, Ryan, you're talking about when you can sleep better at night. You know, if I lose one or two clients a year, I'm still taking the wife out to dinner Friday. I'm m still doing my weekend with jet skiing or whatever I had planned, okay? If I lose three or four employees, I'm not sleeping that night. My wife's going to be calling a lawyer sooner or later, figuring out the divorce papers. When you lose employees, when you have employee issues, that's where your joy and peace of running a business gets stolen.

Yep.

From that side of your business, you solve that side of your business, and I guarantee you you'll thrive and you'll grow and you'll be a much joyful, more joyful business owner than you are today.

I agree. It's, it's the number one thing that stresses people out and takes the wind out of people. And, like, I don't want to do this. And so then the problem is they retreat and go, screw that. And then they're just self employed again, and, and they have a really crappy boss that pays them crap and they should just go get a job with benefits, you know, like, what's, what's the point of all this?

It all starts with pricing, getting the right people, for sure

This is why I'm such a huge, huge fan of pricing. The first thing we do is we help people with their pricing, because I believe people when they say, I can't afford that I can't afford to do recruiting. I can't afford. Yeah, I'm not going to argue with you. You can't. You're broke, like, because you don't know how to run a business. So let's, let's fix your pricing, because honestly, it's like, no, you can't afford not to pay these guys. You need. You're doing a disservice to your client by hiring, an inferior qualified person. And if you can't afford to get the qualified person, then how are you the best in your area? How are you going to provide this red carpet, white glove experience? Right? So it all starts at the top with pricing so that you can reverse into these numbers and say, no, I can afford to give someone 25, 30, $40 an hour. And you're doing it as a service to your team members, not just your clients, but your team members, your whole team. And then you're doing it a service to you and your family by not allowing these people to step in and do a better job than what you are going to do on your own. So it all starts with pricing, but it all feeds into this recruiting. And I'm just, like you said, like, you get those people in place, then it's fun again, you know, like this. This whole thing is supposed to be fun. It's business, you know? and it all starts with recruiting, getting the right people, for sure.

Yeah, it does. And it's the thing also that if you're looking to grow a business and you're in the truck still, that's what gets you out of the truck. Then you can start to grow your business with other things. And there's these different purgatories. And the answer to each of those purgatories truly is having good people in place. Whether it's to get you out of the truck, whether it's to get you office help. Once you're out of the truck, have a few technicians out there, good technicians, good installers, good service technicians. Once you have all of that in place, you need help in the office. Now, what's the solution? You've got to do a JC, Va, or you got to hire admin people to help you with that stuff. Or automate. That's your three choices right there. We can't automate everything. We're in the people business. We're in the service business. You've got to serve people. Now, what do you do after that? Then you need a general manager. These are all people that you hire. And the better you get at that, and the more you realize you need to spend a lot more money, time and resources. Or outsource it. Like, that's the other answer, right? Automate or outsource. that's how you grow the business. That's literally how people grow businesses. I don't care what business it is.

Yeah, it literally is. I mean, this is the definition of business. The, trendy book of the year. Buy back your time. Yeah, that's literally what this is. Is like when you. When you look at business as a whole, life as a whole. Like, money, it. When I used to be broke, like, money was everything. Like, how do I make money? Once you have money and you hear people say it, they have money, and you're like, you're an idiot. So I'm about to say something that someone's gonna be like, you're an idiot, but, like, you don't care about money. Like, money is irrelevant. All you care about is time. And because time is our greatest asset, you know, if you ask anyone in the world, well, if someone's on their deathbed, but if you, if you ask a healthy person in their forties with, for you put someone in my situation with kids, it's like, I'm gonna give you $100 million. But you don't get to wake up tomorrow, like, they're not gonna take that deal because they value time over money. So we know that's an established truth. And when you hire people and you invest in people and you recruit specialized talent, like, you're literally buying back your time. It is the single best investment you'll ever make because you are, buying back time. And time is like, limited resource. We all have the same amount of it, which is interesting because there's people that are making $0 an hour and hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour, or millions. I'm not even sure the math on that, but lots. And, that's how powerful recruiting is. It's the one way where you get to buy back your time and allow and you get to bless someone else's life to do something that they want to do. They're excited to do, they're grateful to do.

And I mean, time isn't prejudice, right? We all get 24 hours a day. No matter how tall you are, short you are, you know, what color your skin is, what religion, it doesn't, time doesn't care. Time is 24 hours a day. And we get the exact, that is an equal playing field as anything there is. And so with that, you got to take advantage of doing things the right way. And you talk about it all the time. I listen to you all the time. Systems, processes, it's the same thing with recruiting. I bet most business owners, and I know this because I talk to them like you do, they don't have a system. You teach systems, right? You teach how to do, from a to b when it comes to marketing and installation and service. And that's what we do in recruiting. But everybody looks at it and goes, they just don't like it. They just don't get it. They don't like the no shows. And one of our core values with our company is to focus on the solutions, not the problems, because it's such an energy that just zaps your energy. It wastes your time, waste your money, waste your resources, and you've got to put the systems together, and that basically is your problem solver.

Love it.

The job market is changing a little bit right now

That's perfect transition, because I want to get into. We kind of covered high level, like, how fricking important this is. Let's get into some of the nitty gritty. There's a lot of changes right now, and I just want to pick your brain a little bit on, like, what. What are some of the things that you do different in those processes? but the job market's changing a little bit right now. Talk a little bit about that.

Yeah, it is. So we've been, right around 3.53.7% unemployment forever for. For years and years and years, right after Covid. and it was. It was pretty tight before COVID but that really, you know, change. we're up around 4.3%, I think, was July's number for unemployment. We're in August. So that's a significant change. And I've been telling people, you know, for a number of years, once we get to about 4%, the market's going to loosen up a little bit. Okay. And that's exactly what's happened. Now we're at 4.3%. And when I talk about the labor market loosening up a little bit, it's a little bit easier to get applications now. it's a little bit easier, to find those applications. There may be, depending on your neck of the woods, it could be a little bit less expensive to get those applications when it comes to boosting and sponsoring. And, I can't remember who said it or what book it was from, but something like, once you solve one problem, that just opens up a door to the next problem. And so the next problem now that's happening is really good employees are still probably have a job, so that additional application flow isn't necessarily coming from great potential, employees. So we've got to really, really screen and vet them better, than we've ever done before. Right. So the problem used to be, I just need a pulse to show up. No, I can't get anybody good to come in at all to now. I've got 115, 20,000 applications coming in. Who do I grab out of that? How do I figure out which one I need to contact and deal with, and how do. Do I get to them quickly? And that's the problem that we're starting to see now.

There's nothing more important than matching capacity and demand in home service

Okay, so, you know, I love sales. I love marketing. I love pricing. So there's the, show Glengarry Glenn Ross, ABC always be closing. And, our guy, Dan, Plata taught me ABC always be cruden. So talk about that principle. You know, I don't need to, I don't need to recruit now, Sean. I don't know, what am I going to do? I only have one technician and I, I'm barely keeping him busy. Why should we always be cruden?

Yep. There's nothing more important than matching capacity and demand, and certainly in the home service world. And, you know, matching capacity and demand. Demand is basically, how many clients do I have to go out and serve? That's our demand. Right. And our capacity is basically our employees. When you match employee and demand, like, perfectly, that's the most efficient business you're running. So that's the most profitable business you're running. All of the home service industries, lighting with super high turnover industries, they've been like that 20 years. They're going to be like that for another 30 years. I never said the word short staffed in there anywhere. Right? You didn't hear that word come out of my mouth. High turnover does not mean I short staff. So that's where the always be cruden is. And recruiting is a totally different thing than hiring. Hiring is. You came to me, you applied, we vetted you, we screened you, we interviewed you, we hired you, you accepted, you start tomorrow. That's hiring somebody. Recruiting is more of a relationship. In fact, we call our platform, we use a CRM, except it's a candidate, relationship management tool, not, not a, customer. Right. And so that's exactly what we do with recruiting. You're building relationships even though you don't need to hire right away. We've got clients, and Dan Platt is a great example. He's a client of ours. He's got like ten people that he has vetted. We've done that, all of it for him. But he's interviewed and he's been basically keeping relationships with them. He's got them watching his podcast and they're commenting. These are people that don't even work for him, but they're on a waiting list and cannot wait to work for him. Think about that for a minute.

That's killer. I mean, it, it makes sense. You know, the sports teams, everyone has a bench b, team, the C team, all that stuff. The star quarterbacks out. Okay, well, you got to have somebody. And, and, but we just don't do it because we're like, we think, oh, well, we are, we are matching demand and capacity. I can't, I can barely. Keep. Stay busy enough for this guy. But I love how you broke it apart. Recruiting is not hiring. It's getting those people ready, getting them vetted, getting them excited. And, like, how cool is the idea of a waiting list? Like, oh, man, like, we do it in marketing. Just like you said, marketing is recruiting, man. We got our event coming up. Get on the waiting list. Don't want to miss out. So same tools, same strategies.

If you're Ryan, if you're looking over and you can visually see a bench of ten employees wanting to work for you because you've already interviewed them, taught, you know, taught. Taught them, everything about who you are, your culture and your vibe and all that with the business. And you've done it in a way that no other company has done because you've got to be different. Just like in marketing, you've got to be unique. They've got to come to you for a reason. You're different than everybody else. You're better than everybody else. Same thing here, right? You're a better company to work for, and you need to prove that to them. And set and all that you're selling to them. That's all you're doing. You're selling them that I'm the best company you can work for. And I'm going to tell you, you're going to love waking up every morning and love to come to work here. And when they know that all you're doing is looking at the bench going, okay, that person there will produce 150 grand. There's another 150,000. Another 150,000. You get five or six people on the bench, guess what you're going to be doing? You're going to have a blast marketing, because you're going to start marketing the shit out of the. Out of your, marketplace. You're going to be, why wouldn't you build that schedule up now? Now, in the past three years, most home service business owners are going, whoa, whoa. We can maybe get out there in a month or two.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

We can, you know, we got to juggle this. Now. You got your a employees running around like crazy, stressing out because you're working them 80 hours a week, right? They're, they're wondering why this is going on. they're stressing out. And here's the other one I hear all the time, the c in play. You know, you need to fire him. You know, he's running. You don't even want to come to your own business because you don't even want to look at that guy because, you know, he's got the attitude or something's going on. Will he show up? I don't know.

Sean: Build your bench. It does so many things for you. If you think about it like a basketball team

You know, you don't even want to deal with that. You. When you have a bench, that guy no longer exists. That guy is no longer a problem ever for you. You will never feel out of control because some clown that you're afraid to fire because you'll be short staffed, that that whole deal is gone. You'll never experience that again.

That's probably my favorite part, because I. Dude, that's. That's what's so cool about all this stuff, dude. I'm, like, preaching to my, you know, myself 15 years in the past because I used to say things like, well, that sounds. That sounds great, Sean. You want me to hold this guy accountable? Like, I can't hold him accountable because if I lose him, then I'm back in the field. I ain't gonna go install lights. It's not like there's a pool of people over here ready to come in. It's like, well, shame on you, bro. Like, just build the bench, because then you really can. And they know, like, that's fine. We got. We got other people. It's just like, saying, like, hey, we're booked out six weeks. You guys want to think about it, that's fine. We're just not going to get it done before the holidays. So up to you guys. Like, it.

Really? You hit it over the fence, man. If you think about it like a basketball team, five people, five starters on the courthouse, they look over at the bench. Ain't nobody sitting on the bench. How hard are they working in practice now? Are they staying after doing free throws? Are they doing the. Are they running? Are they doing extra weights or whatever it is? Probably not even good ball players. Maybe not. But when they're looking over at the bench and there's five or six people ready to take their spot, I guarantee you they change.

You're totally right. Cause they do, man. They're like, what are you gonna do, fire me? Like, they know you're not gonna fire them because they know you ain't gonna go dig a trench, you know? That's awesome, man. so good. So, guys, freaking build your bench. Let's go like this. It does so many things for you. you've got some really cool strategies for, like, once. Once you start it, and I don't want to, like, I don't know how to lead you a little bit, but, share with some of those. Like, you've got some cool things you do differently. And the job description, the job ad, some, some. The ways you post, I mean, all these things matter. It's like, you know, just because you're the best at landscape lighting doesn't mean you know how to, sell it the best. It doesn't mean that you know how to do recruiting. I mean, there's, there's so many things that these small tweaks can make huge changes. Can you share with, with us, some of those?

Yeah, absolutely.

There are things AI cannot do when it comes to job descriptions

So let's start at the beginning with the, with the job description. I love AI. I use it, maybe not every day, but I use it every week, for sure. Several times a week. Okay. Love it. It could create some really sexy, cool job language for you. And we've used it, but there's a number of things AI cannot do when it comes to job descriptions. AI does not know, and it does not have the ability to go into indeed. com and find out what their algorithm is and find out what their keywords that they're looking for is. That's not something that's, that's possible right now for. Aih, therefore, if you just relied on AI, because I talk about this a lot, because this is what a lot of people are doing now, just AI do this job and they. And, okay, that sounds great. They pop it up and it's. You're, you're not going to get application flow or you're not at least going to get the maximum application flow. You should. So keywords matter and, ah, keywords matter big time. you, you use the word soda in Utah, right? So that I use pop. I don't know what the hell a soda looks like.

I think.

I don't know.

I think I used to use pop. Like, I grew up in Utah on pop, and then I moved to Texas and I started drinking soda.

Yeah.

And I just never, I just never converted back, that stuff.

Tennis shoes, sneakers. Right?

Definitely tennis shoes.

All that stuff is different. So you want to make sure whatever lingo you use in your neck of the woods, is in the, in the, where the keywords need, to be in your job ad. So, you know, AI can't do that. You need to do some homework to figure that out. There's some research you can do to do that inside of. Indeed, and some other places. So that's one thing. And then the other thing with, with job ads that I see a lot. And I used to do it, man, before I knew how to recruit years ago, I would get so pissed off and frustrated with either no shows or wasting my time. When somebody, I think worse than a no show is when they do show. And, like, in 10 seconds, you're going, there's no way this dude's going in front of a client of mine. But you waste, you waste 20 minutes of your life being polite, you know, and ask the questions. And I hate, I used to hate that. So you need to make sure that, you're not screening too much in the job ad. You know, I see these. You got to be well spoken. You've got to do this, you got to do that. There's 15 things you better do. And be like this, look like this, sound like this, smell like this. And I'm like, you know, it's a job ad. You're supposed to be attracting these people. Don't screen them in the job ad. You can screen later. And I always, you know, we go back to, it's the same thing as marketing. I guarantee you if I look on everybody's website out there that's listening to this, there's not anything on the website that says, if you're going to be a cheapskate, please do not call us. If you're going to bitch about one little thing, but everything else is perfect, please don't call. We don't do that with marketing. Let's not do that with job.

I do think that would be a good idea because somebody could really differentiate there. You know how, like, Dan has his, like, best damn bookkeeper brand. If that's your, if that's your brand, run with it, baby. I like it.

yeah, but you're right.

Like, I've actually seen people do this the wrong way where they have a form that's like, 26 questions put in your address. Oh, don't forget your zip code, apartment number, and, like, all required fields. And it's like, dude, just get the name and phone number. Like, get the lead. So they, you're actually, like, they actually screw this up in marketing, too. It's the same thing. Like, sell the vacation, like, what's going to be amazing? And then interview them and then start narrowing it down. You don't. I used to think, man, what if they find out that it's going to suck to work here? Like, and I'm like, well, wait a minute. Like, if it really sucks to work here, that's a problem with me. Like, what do we got? What changes do we have to make on our culture? Ah. So that it doesn't suck to want to work here.

That's right, man. Because there's a lot of times I'll be on with somebody and I'll be doing, I do a little homework before I'm talking to a guy, and, I'll have them on. And I'm like, man, dude, you're paying how much? Okay. And I'm looking at this. So I'll already pull up two or three of their competitors job ads, and I'll share my screen and I'll go, here's three job ads. Tell me which one you'd have your son apply for or your daughter. And if it's not yours, you got a problem. That's a serious problem. You would want your son or daughter to apply for your job over your competition's job. And it's pretty simple to think in terms of that. So what does that mean? That's got to be a job. They want a job that they sound like they're going to wake up every morning and love to come to work. And I keep using that sentence because it's something we've tested that works phenomenally well in job ads and messaging to candidates along the spectrum of recruiting. During the interview, let me tell you why you're going to wake up every morning and love to come to work. That's super potent, man.

I love that. I mean, when you're, most people fall into the trap of, like, this is the position, you know, must be able to lift 602 pounds and got to work like a slave.

Two videos that you need to create when you're recruiting

And, like, they do all this stuff, but, like, yeah, when you just, when you start describing your ideal candidate, then they start reading it going, are they talking about me like this? This is speaking to me, which is completely different than, like, blah, blah, blah. Must be willing to be a slave. Like, that's. No one wants that.

And the another gold nugget that we've tested and our clients, use all the time, and I talked about the messaging. So the job ad, you know, it's to sell your business to somebody, to want to work for you, to love to want to work for you. That's what the job ad does. So how do we message that as somebody applies and comes through the system? I highly recommend two videos that you need to create when you're recruiting. The first one is the owner or whoever may be the general manager if the owner's not into the day to day stuff, but hopefully the owner of the business doing a 45 to 52nd video. As to click here to find out why you're going to love to work for us. And who and what we're all about. And it's just a 62nd video of you not saying, this is why I love this or this. I I I had somebody do it, and they must have said the word I 50 times in 50 minutes, in 50 seconds. And I'm like, dude, you got to change this. It's, you know, you you. What's in it for you? Because they're watching it. You want them to think it's literally for them to. So that's one video. The second video is when somebody applies and you want to interview them and you either email or however your system is. We email and text, and we, It's huge. If you can have them click on something, by the way, to schedule the interview on a calendar. That's a game changer if you're not doing that. If you're doing that, you know it's a game changer if you're not. If you're not set up with calendly or Google calendar or something for be able to schedule very easily. Click day time. Done. That's a game changer. So what normally happens when somebody does that? It's automated that they get a message. Calvin Lee does it. Google. You can send an automated message to thank them or confirm something when you do that. This is the message that we recommend, something like this. Thank you, Joe, so much. We can't wait to see you Thursday at 05:00 p.m. you did awesome on the application. Can't wait to meet you and hopefully get you hired right away. Here's what to expect at the interview. And then we have. And then whatever you do for your interview. Okay. What to expect. Just give a couple things. It makes them feel a little bit more relaxed. You're going to reduce your no shows that way a little bit. The other more important thing is to have an image or a click or a link that says, find out why Joe loves working for us. One of our great employees. Have one of your employees do a video testimonial. This is a game changer. Okay. 45 seconds. 60 seconds. Top. Hi, my name is Sean. I've been working for lighting for profits now for two years. Let me tell you why. I love to wake up every morning and love to come to work. And here's the three.

That's awesome.

Here's the three. Whatever those three. And get. I don't just get the most positive sort of bubbly person. That's the guy that everybody would want to hang out with and come to work with that's the person you want doing that.

Dude, I love this conversation because you're walking the walk right now. people probably already have these sequences for marketing to a customer. And if they don't, then, wow, you just got a twofer. This is a two for one episode. How to recruit and market. You know, so like, whatever automations you build, whatever calendly things you put in place and videos make the exact same thing for new clients and recruitees. Recruiters. Recruitees. Yeah, whatever it is. so, yeah, dude, I mean, this is gold. Like, just be better. Just automate this stuff. Like, build, build this presence for people. so good.

Do not ever tell prospective employees it's a group interview

So I know we touched on it quickly, but what, what does a group interview look like? when someone comes in.

So when we send that message out after they set up an interview, and we talk about, this is what to expect at the interview, this is what we do. And by the way, this helped us out. One of our window cleaning companies and Christmas light companies in Minneapolis hire 40 technicians in one year. So this was a really good part of that. The group interviewing, number one, do not ever tell them it's a group interview. When you're emailing them and they're setting it up, even great employees might be a little bit afraid to come to that interview. So never tell them it's a group interview. and in the messaging, we say what to expect at the, ah, interview. Zero questions and zero stress. It'll be a 20 minutes presentation by the owner or manager of the company as to why you're going to wake up every morning and love to come to work for us. That message, we plow that message through and through and through, and it just gets to their soul. We've tested it. It works. Steal it, please. and so that, think about what that does to your no shows. We've figured out a way to eliminate no shows. Not reduce them, eliminate them. You will never have a no show again in your life if you send out that type of messaging with the video and I employee testimonial the why you're going to wake up every morning and love to come to work. And by the way, here's your interview. It's one you'll, you've never had in your life, I promise you. It's a presentation. It's a sales presentation by the owner of the company showing you why you're going to love to wake up every morning and love to work for us. Guess what that does to no shows. Okay, so you might have a ten or 15 people reply and schedule an interview. If you get five that show up, you'll take that every day of the week.

Right, right.

That's. That's not a no show, man. That's five really good people that want to come in. If you're in, we're not going to have time to talk about screening and vetting, but you do have to, you know, screen and vet before you do this type of group interview. when they do the application, you can do an online application, very simply, free on Google forms and Jotform and some others. So I'm backtracking a little bit. But the group interview, when they come to the group interview, I treat it like it's the biggest sale of my life, because anybody that I'm hiring that day is 150,000, $200,000 sale. That's a big damn sale. That excites me, that gets me pumped up when I'm looking in the mirror, m going, dude, you just sold $200,000 of revenue today by hiring somebody.

That's awesome.

That's. And that's what tell me otherwise. I mean, that's truly, literally what we're doing with a group interview. And so what we do is we do have a presentation, and that presentation basically is presented to the group. And by the way, if you had somebody come in and say, hey, I'm a, president of a homeowners association, and I've got about $200,000 worth of work for you, do you mind if I come to your office tomorrow? One, you probably wouldn't sleep the night before. Two, you'd probably have that office spotless. You probably have somebody at the door, hopefully yourself, groomed properly, professional looking, shaking in their hand, introducing yourself and saying, I've got fresh coffee on for you. I've got some snacks over here, a, fruit basket. What can I serve you? And that's what we do in our group interview. I've never, we haven't even interviewed them, and they've never experienced that type of first class situation ever in an interview in their life.

Yeah, that's awesome.

How much did that cost, by the way? Zero. $0.

I love it, man, because it speaks to my other side, my main brain, which is like, now I'll pretty much do anything for that 200k cell, you know? So I'm like, yeah, of course I'd clean the office. Of course I do these things. Of course I'd put pour into them. Of course I'd have a dialed in presentation that talks about how amazing we are. Instead of me going, I, hope they don't find out that, like, we're not that organized and our sops suck, you know, like, I'm gonna, like, I'm gonna do everything I can to win them over because I'm not hiring someone and having to pay them 25 an hour. I get to have somebody help us generate another 100, 5200 grand at revenue.

Yep.

That's a huge shift in mindset right there.

Different mindset. Exactly. And nothing's really changed other than your perception. Right. Which is mindset. Yeah, that's, nothing's changed around you. I mean, it's still human beings coming in looking for a job and you looking to hire somebody, but you look at it totally different when you do that. I think, I think, you'll find that you're going to start to enjoy recruiting a little bit.

I really hope people pay attention to this because I already know, I already see it, I already feel it, I already hear it. There's so many people worried about the economy right now and that it's, you know, harder to close deals at higher prices and all this stuff. And they're naturally that the easy thing that they're going to do is shut off these two things. They're going to shut off recruiting and they're going to shut off marketing. And this is the reason why businesses fell. And so many people are unfortunately not going to survive any little dip that we have because they turn off those two things. If we can convince them, you and I, to double down, to go in, lean into the recruiting, lean into the marketing, that's the only way to survive this type of thing. You can't scale back and go, well, I'll just do it myself. You know, you're one rolled ankle away from bankruptcy at that point. You need redundancy in your business.

Yeah. And, you know, everybody on social media sees that person that says, this is, I actually grew during a recession, you know, because that's the person that's been around a little bit, maybe a little seasoned, and listened to somebody like Ryan when they were younger, when they were first started out in the first couple of years of their business, and they listened. And that's when small companies go away and the companies that are investing in their people and in their business and sticking stronger their systems soak all of that up during a recession. There's actually, that's where growth comes from a lot of times is during the recession. For those that are sticking with their game plan and believing it in themselves.

Love it, man. So good.

Sean O'Neill waived $500 setup fee for this show

Well, I guess, how does someone, share your website? How do people get in touch with you? Are we, are we doing an offer? Are we doing something for people today?

Sure. so hirelead chill. com, hire lead chill. com, and I'm on Facebook all the time. You'll find me on there somehow or another if you're on Facebook at all. So hire leech Om. You can set something up with me. and normally, we have a setup fee if you use our services. But I'll tell you this, this is what I do. I mean, I'm 56. Money is not real important to me, and I love bullshit. And so I'll be calendar. I'll give you my, I'll give you my calendar link if you. You can post that, Ryan, I'll send that off to your admin or something, and they can post it up there. set up something with me. Let's talk. And I promise you this, I will not sell you a thing. I'm going to show you exactly how. We got 40 technicians with one of the companies that we own, window cleaning company, and Christmas light hanging company that we own. Okay? And I'll show you how all kinds of different clients of ours have done it. And I'll give you the secret sauce to everything if you want to seal it and implement it. I'm more than happy about that. That, man. And if you got a question about it, reach out to me. And if you've got time on your hands like that and you want to try it on your own, I'm all for it. I'll also give you some pricing at the end of it and, service options. And if you want to go with that, you're going to go with that. I'm not going to push you either way, man. I'm just going to show you. You tell me what you want from there.

Okay? Love it. So hire lead chill. com or just reach out on Facebook Sean day. And, we'll get the, if you send it over, we'll just put the, the link to your calendar in the show notes. And if you guys are having any issues, of course, reach out to me.

$500 setup fee will be waived. I'll waive this. $500 setup fee. We'll just waive that completely. Usually we cut it in half. If I do a show like this, we'll just wave it.

I love it, man.

There's a lot of setup that goes on with our system. A lot of.

That's awesome. So waived setup fee, $500. Just for being here, you guys. This is the value of lighting for profits. Sean, I appreciate you doing, that. That's cool.

Absolutely, man. I've got your back anytime you need it. You know that, man. You're doing a lot of cool things, a lot of good things, and helping a lot of people. You're legit. You are. You are legit.

Too legit to quit. All right, man, well, thanks so much for coming on here. That was sweet. Thanks for the offer. You guys. Take advantage. Go to higher lead chill. com, or reach out to Shonda on Facebook. Wave setup fee, dollar 500 value right there. so take advantage of that. And, yeah, don't forget about landscape lighting secrets.

Sean: Implement a couple of these things. The easy part is showing up and listening

All right, well, have an awesome week, Sean and, everyone else, literally, like, we just heard a lot of gold. Now it's up to you. The easy part is showing up and listening. The hard part is implementing. So take advantage of Sean's offer. Implement a couple of these things. I mean, I'm. Seriously, I got two pages of notes here. Make sure you guys go do this. It's going to make your life so much easier. So hope everyone has an awesome week. Keep moving forward. See you, Sean.

Bye bye. Thank you.