Question: How does a builder grow their business when supply chain and labor shortages limits, or reduces, the amount of jobs they can start and close?

Answer: Add $50,000 and 5% profit to every job- making more money with less clients.

In our new series called, How to Maximize Your Profit Margins, we interview Kelly Anderson from Ironwood Custom Builders. Kelly is currently marking up his jobs 56.9% and has a 12 month backlog of work. You want to listen to what he has to say.

We asked Kelly to share:

• When did he know he needed to make a change and start going after larger, more profitable projects
• How he added over $100k annually just in design service
• What were his struggles growing average sales price to $100k+ for remodeling and $600k+ for custom homes
• How he got his current production backlog up to 12 months
• What was his biggest “win” in growing his company and what was his biggest mistake
• What advice he could give to a builder trying to grow their average job size and profit margins

If you want to learn more about how Kelly grew his average revenue per job to $100k+, increased his markup from 10% to 56.9%, and achieved a 12-month production backlog, and if you’re looking for ways to grow your own business, this video below is definitely worth watching.

Builder Lead Lead Converter helps home builders & remodelers grow sales revenue and margins while navigating supply chain and labor market issues. Find out how https://www.builderleadconverter.com/

For more information about Ironwood Custom Builders- https://ironwoodcustombuilders.com

 

Transcript:

Welcome to conversations that convert today. We’re talking about how to add 50,000 in 5% profit to every job. And we’re gonna do a case study, focusing on Ironwood custom builders. So let’s get started.

Welcome to conversations that convert every week, we’ll spend about 10 to 15 minutes tackling relevant lead generation marketing and sales topics for remodelers, home improvement companies, and home builders. Conversations that Convert is brought to you by builder lead converter, your perfect sales assistant.

And now here’s Rick and Daiana. 

Rick: Hey, everybody. Welcome to conversations that convert. I hope you are well, Daiana is off today and, but, we do have a special guest joining us today and, his name is Kelly Anderson from ironwood custom builders. We’re gonna be talking about how to add 50000 and 5% profit to every job. So this is all part of our, how to maximize profit margins and I wanna introduce to you. Kelly from Kelly Anderson from Ironwood custom builders. So Kelly, welcome to conversations that convert. How are you doing today? 

Kelly: I’m doing well, Rick. Thanks for having me. Good to be here. 

Rick: Yeah. Thank you for joining us. And this is exciting for me because we’ve been working together a long time and I’ve seen a lot of changes in growth with your, with your company. So why don’t you kind of bring us up to speed or the audience up to speed? You know, who are you, how are you where you are, and what’s been your journey through life to land you here, talking to me on, on conversations that convert.

Kelly: Okay, well, again, my name’s Kelly Anderson. I’m from Salt Lake City, Utah. I, we are a custom home building and remodeling firm. I have been in the industry for about 32 years. The current company that we have, Ironwood custom builders, started in 2008. Right at the beginning of the great recession, somehow managed to work our way through that and survive. And, at the moment we typically do somewhere between 20 and 30 projects a year. Those are usually a mix of both new construction and remodels. It can vary from year to year on, on how many new construction projects we do versus remodels and then sort of flip the next year. But, ultimately everything we do is, I would bill is pretty custom. And for the most part, pretty high-end. Most of our remodeling projects are in the lower to the mid-six-figure range. Although we do have a 1.1 million remodel right now, as far as new construction, we do have half a million dollars but most of our, our new houses typically are somewhere in the neighborhood of about a million.

Rick: Well, that’s a great background. And, and I think, you know, the purpose of today’s show is, you know, talk to the guests, or I should say, excuse me, anybody that’s watching, you know, it’s like, you didn’t start there. Right. You in, in 2008, you know, you started from essentially the ground up. I know you have a lot of experience in the industry. And, but we. You’ve sort of gone through the valley and now coming back up to the mountaintop. 

Kelly: Sure. 

Rick: And so it’s one thing to be busy, but it’s not a thing to actually be making the most revenue and profit you can from every single job. And I know that’s something you’ve worked really diligently on over the 15 years since you started the company. But I, you know, the first question, I’d like, you know, you to try to answer is, you know, when did you know you needed to make a change? And started going after these larger products, projects, and more profitable projects, you know, was there a trigger point or anything that you remember? That’s like, man, I gotta do something different.

Kelly: Well, actually it’s kind of a long story. I’ll try to keep it as brief as I can, but it, but really started in 2012 I attended a seminar at the home builders association and the speaker gave a presentation called, getting rid of the tire kickers. And the whole thing was about getting rid of the people that were just curious. And, specifically, ultimately, it was about charging for your estimates and charging for your bids. And, I left that seminar with lots of questions that ultimately prompted me to contact the speaker, a gentleman named Paul Winans. Who’s, who’s actually retired now? He and I started working together, and I wanted to learn from him. How, how on earth do you charge people for a bid when everyone else on earth is doing the traditional quote-unquote free estimate? One of the very first conversations I had with him is we started to consult with each other. Was he wanted to know what my markup was? And from the time I was very first in the business cost, plus 10% was all I knew. And he kind of laughed at me. And, he, he had said early on why I would like to get you up to cost plus 50%. And I thought you were just nuts. There’s no possibility that you’re gonna get me to cost plus 50%. There’s I, I won’t survive. There’s no, put me…

Rick: Outta business, right? 

Kelly: Yeah. Well, the first step to accomplishing that is, as I first mentioned, stop, stop with the free estimates, and start charging for your bids. That’s just that’s a whole other podcast episode, maybe two or three podcast episode on, on what that did for our business. But one of the main things it does as the name of the class is titled as I mentioned, is getting rid of the tire kickers. I was no longer wasting my time on people that were just curious. You know, I could do an estimate on, on half, a million dollar, three quarter million dollar, spend hours, if not a good solid week or two, drafting the scope of work, formally soliciting bids, and going through that whole process only to submit it, to find out that we were too high or did they change their mind? What, what, what changes though, when you charge for your bids? And specifically, we don’t call ’em bids anymore. We call ’em proposals. When you charge for a proposal, there’s something very interesting that happens when someone writes you a check to give them a proposal. And I think by and large when they do that, you can make a reasonable assumption or termination that they’re not talking to anyone else. So one of the things that we sell to people is how much of someone’s best effort can they afford to give you if they’re doing it for free, which is what happens when you, you get it, your, your traditional quote unquote free estimate. So, what it allowed us to do is focus more on giving people our best effort as we’re, as we’re writing up and, and completing and preparing a proposal. But the other thing it allows us to do is it takes away the competition. And, it takes away the fear of whether am I going to be the low bid. Am I gonna be the high bid? If I am the low bid, am I too low? And if I am the high bid, am I too high? All of that goes away completely. Now there are some other parts of the process that, are required to be successful at that. But by and large, when you take away the competition, you get to a point where I’m now focused on making sure the proposal is accurate, but I’m also more focused on making sure that I am including a markup that allows us to not only survive but to thrive. 

Rick: Okay. So I, I remembered this, going back a few years here, but I remember when you and I were talking about this very thing, I think when you first started doing this and I, and we had something called like a scope and range deposit and I said, Hey, you know what? Try to get 200 bucks. And I specifically remember you sending me an email saying, Hey, I was racking my brain, how am I gonna do this? And I just went and did it. And lo and behold, they wrote me a check. And so you started with 200 bucks, but today that’s evolved quite a bit. So what do, what, I mean, that’s where you started at 200 bucks, but what are you charging today to do that proposal?

Kelly: Well, so, so actually, what, what, just to give you a little background information on. The very first time I tried to present to someone why they should pay us to give them an estimate. I totally bombed. I just completely bombed. And, and I, I knew I was bombing as it was happening, but I’m, I’m mentally making notes of where I could see the problems were. And I didn’t walk out of that meeting discouraged in any way, shape, or form, because I knew exactly what I had done wrong. And I knew what I needed to do to fix it. So I went back to my office. I revised how I was going to present this to people. And the very next time I met with someone, I got them. It was either 200 or $250, like you mentioned. And I walked out of that meeting with a 200, $250 check. And the first thing I thought to myself is that I will never, ever, ever give my time away for free again. 

Rick: Amen. 

Kelly: Now, your, the scope and range agreement, that, that was your idea on basically a first step sort of an introductory step to the process for our prospects. I probably did that for two or three years. And, I finally got to a point where I thought, you know, 200, $250 is, is fine for a smaller project, but that doesn’t make sense for something that’s mid to high six figures or even a seven-figure project. So what I did is I changed the process and the, and maybe for the people listening, I should clarify, we actually have two pre-construction agreements. The first is the scope and range agreement. Like Rick suggested. We charge a quarter of a percent of the cost of construction for that scope and range agreement. The second agreement we call the proposal preparation and design agreement. Now that doesn’t include design, but it includes us consulting with the architect on the design to make sure that we’re troubleshooting the design, and making sure that everything is being drawn as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. In that proposal preparation agreement, we charge 1% of construction. So, half a million dollar projects, $5,000. Yeah. A $1 million project. That’s $10,000. And we are now we’ve added over a hundred thousand dollars a year, probably close to 150, $175,000 a year in additional revenue. Just because we charge for bids.

Rick: Yep. Yep, absolutely. And if I, I think the way you sell this is that if the client goes with you, that will go towards the cost. No, that’s just for prep.

Kelly: Absolutely not. 

Rick: Ah, wow. 

Kelly: Absolutely not. 

Rick: So really it is a true additional revenue source. 

Kelly: Yes. And you, you, you had actually suggested that at one time. And I think I was already at a point where we were not offering to deduct that and, and, I do occasionally get people that will ask or say, now, if we actually sign a construction contract with you, is this something, do, do you apply some of this or all of it to the cost of construction? And I tell them no, that these, this preconstruction or this, this preconstruction phase, these preconstruction services are totally independent of the cost of construction. And I don’t no one bats, an eyelash at that. 

Rick: I mean, that’s so you get, I mean, that’s kind of pure profit in, in, in, in a way. 

Kelly: Absolutely. 

Rick: Cause you would’ve been doing the work anyway and yeah, now you’re getting paid to do it. I, I love that. I, I love that. So, you mentioned before. Okay. So your average sales, you don’t do anything under a hundred grand for remodeling right now and probably five or six, right in there for, for a custom home. But you had to get there. So what were some of the struggles to go from, let’s say a $15,000 bathroom to a, you know, quarter million, dollar, whole home remodel? what, what, that, that some of the growing pains that you went through? 

Kelly: Sure. Well, I, I, I don’t know you, you probably remember this, but I’m, I’m a framer by trade. And, when I first started my business as a framer, we were doing really small houses, 900 square feet, a thousand square feet, 1200, 1500 square feet. Very, very basic houses. And, I had hired a friend of mine to work for me that had been framing for a lot longer than I had and had, had, had experienced framing a lot of pretty big custom homes stuff with really large cut-up stick-built roofs and when he first started working for me, it wasn’t very long before he had been there for a while and said, you know, let’s start doing bigger stuff. He’s like, it’s, it’s kind of fun to do these small houses and bang ’em out really quick, but let’s do some stuff that when you step back at the end of the day, you look at it and go, that’s pretty freaking cool that we built that. And, I said, but I’m worried about my experience. and, my ability to do something that’s larger, and larger, I’m talking like 3000, 5,000, 8,000, 10,000 square feet. And something that he said to me that was pretty profound, that profound, that stuck with me for a long time is he said, okay, those bigger houses, they’re all the same steps by and large, they’re just more of them. And you’re repeating. And, and, and that was something that gave me the confidence to be able to go out and start framing larger houses. And, and so to your question, and to your point, you know, in the beginning, I would say that when we were doing smaller remodeling projects and, and building smaller houses, I was a little bit nervous about getting, getting into bigger stuff. And, and what, what my friend we had said to me kind of stuck with me and I realized, you know, what, a bigger custom home, a million dollar million and a half, $2 million house, it’s just bigger. It’s the same steps. Sometimes those steps are repeated. Sometimes those steps take longer. And so really what happened is just that as opportunities presented themself, themselves. It wasn’t as though we were intentionally going out, looking for those types of jobs, we wanted to do bigger jobs. We wanted to do more expensive jobs, but it wasn’t as though we, we set this, this threshold that as of January 1st, we’re no longer doing any bathroom remodels that are under $30,000 under $50,000, whatever, they just kind of slowly got bigger and bigger over time. And then I think we got to a point where we established somewhat of a reputation as doing larger, more expensive, more custom projects, which then, in turn, opened up other doors for bigger, larger, and more expensive projects to come our way.

Rick: You know, I, I, two things that picked up out of that is, you know, one is it’s, it’s a mindset it’s kind of your mindset. Right. And it’s like, well, if I’m gonna, if I’m gonna go out and do an estimate or a proposal for a hundred thousand dollars job, why am I only charging 200 bucks? 

Kelly: Sure. 

Rick: You know, I mean, so cuz I’m dealing with clientele that are, if they’re gonna write me a check for 150 grand, they obviously can write me a check for 5,000 bucks, you know.

Kelly: Sure.

Rick: To do the proposal. So you, you sort of have to have that mindset that I’m worth it. And I, and I, I like to tell the story too, is that your time is so valuable because of the expertise you bring to your clientele. Because they think, oh, I wanna remodel my house and they might think I gotta do this, this, and this. And you come in there and look at it and you say, no, we don’t have to do that. We can repurpose the space, we can do this. And you just save them 75 grand. Sure. You know, by you being in the house for 30 minutes. And so…

Kelly: And, to that, to that, to your comment, value engineering is an important process or an important part of the preconstruction services that we offer. And, I would venture to guess that in a significant percentage of the cases, our value engineering services end up saving our clients probably more than they paid us for the consulting, to begin with. 

Rick: Absolutely. Yep. And, so that’s what I’m getting at. It’s a perceived, it’s a perceived value. In other words.

Kelly: Sure. 

Rick: You have to believe in the value you bring to the table. And if you’re confident in that, in that you have that mindset, it’s going to show in your presentation to the lead. The other thing that I, that I just thought of, as I mentioned in our previous series, is like, if, if, if one of your clients is gonna refer you to one of their friends, family, coworkers, What sort of project do you wanna be known for? You know, in other words, if you’re gonna spend time on doing small projects, well, then you will be known for small projects, but you have to, as you said over time, you organically pick up those bigger projects. Because yet, what kind of project do you wanna be known for? So, you know, someone’s gonna refer to you a $250,000 remodel versus a $25,000 bathroom. And, and, and, and so it’s, it’s imperative on us to always be thinking about how do I wanna be known, you know, with my clients. 

Kelly: Sure. 

Rick: It, I gonna be known as the guy that does this type of project, or am I gonna know the guy that does this type of project? So, yeah, I love, I love that mindset. Your production backlog. We were just talking about this not too long ago, but just give everyone tell ’em right now, how far out you are from your next available start. 

Kelly: So I, I do have a couple of opportunities at the end of 2022. However, if I don’t sign another job for 2022, we are completely covered. We make money. We are in excellent shape for 2022. And for the most part, we are telling people right now that we are scheduling projects for the first quarter of 2023. 

Rick: Yeah. So essentially 11, 12 months out. 

Kelly: Yeah. 

Rick: You are for production backlog, and you know what you know, what’s so cool about that, is that from a psychological standpoint, people want what they can’t have. Right? 

Kelly: Yes, they do. 

Rick: Why would anybody buy a new car right now? It makes no sense. Cars are, the prices are through the roof, but people know they can’t have a new car. So what do they want? They want a new car. And, you know, I just heard a statistic the other day that like, in 2019, 2% of new, of new car buyers were paying over MSRP. And, last year it was 82. Paid over MSRP. So it’s just human mentality. So when you have a backlog, people automatically think like, wow, you’ve got something I need. So I’m willing to wait and, and. If you can really quickly, you know, we just did that database reactivation for you in January. And I remember seeing it was a remodeling lead and he described the project after, after we did the reactivation, I saw him describe project to you. It was probably 2, 3, 4, 500,000, our project. It was a big project, the whole home. And I remember you say, you reply it back to him and said, Hey, we’re booking into 2023 right now. And his response was, I think it was like, that’s. So…

Kelly: Like, I, I, we, we’ve actually been telling people since November of 2021, that we were scheduling projects for the first quarter of 2023. And I have very few people that, that an eyelash or even blink at that. Some, people say, well, I need to start sooner. And I usually just say, well, you know what, call around. If you’re able to find someone, that’ll do it sooner. Great. If not give us a callback. And, and I have had two. I lost you there. 

Rick: Oh yeah. You’re back though. Sorry, you broke up a little bit. You said you had two or three people. I think that did call back after you told them. 

Kelly: I’ve had a couple of people that called back and said that they were after speaking to a few other builders that they were, they would be interested in waiting. So, I mean, I probably can’t take all the credit for having the backlog. I think part of, it’s just a product of the environment that we’re in right now, and everyone’s, everyone’s got a lengthy backlog. But for the most part, very few people call and even hesitate even the slightest bit when I tell them what our lead time is. 

Rick: Yeah. And, it’s when you follow a slot schedule and understand how many starts you can do, how many project completions are closing, you can do each month and you stay disciplined to that. It-it’s urgency through scarcity. And, you know, you people see, you have a backlog. They’re like, well, you must be doing something right now. I agree with you that the market is hot. But one thing I will say right now is that because the market’s so hot, a lot of builders have just been really lazy with their responses and they’re follow-up. And I know you are diligent. I was actually just going through your account today. I’m like, there are no open conversations. There are no todos that haven’t been completed. You’re really diligent and getting back to people. It’s crazy as it sounds if you just simply respond to people in a reasonable timeframe, and by reasonable, I mean like same day, timeframe and get back to everybody. You, you get a lot of people that go like, wow, okay. I’ve got somebody actually responding to me. And instead of me going out and trying to reach out to six other builders where four of ’em don’t even bother to return my call or return my email. I’ve got someone here that’s very responsive. It might be worthwhile exploring a little bit deeper. So just having that process in place is, is huge.

Kelly: Well, and I, I, and, and, and the amount of business that we get just simply because we return calls and show up to meetings is crazy. I mean, for two years now, I’ve been meeting with people that I’m hearing all the time. We’ve been trying to call someone for weeks or months. We’ve had appointments with other builders and they don’t show up. And so, you know, I think part of the name of the game for a lot of this is to push that lead time out as far as you possibly can. And so, you know, if, if you have a 6, 9, or a 12-month lead time, right now don’t get complacent. 

Rick: Exactly.

Kelly: Keep, keep telling people, keep, keep, keep scheduling those appointments and, and letting people know what your lead time is because if your lead time right now is six months, I hate to say it the six months is gonna come and go pretty dang fast so, so why not focus on pushing that lead time to seven months and then eight months?

Rick: Yeah. 

Kelly: And then 9 months and then 10. and if you talk to someone that doesn’t wanna wait that long, so what. 

Rick: Yep, absolutely. Next, I had a conversation earlier today with another builder and he’s like, well, geez, you know, we, we can’t do another start until let’s say September on. Maybe it was, it was August, September, something like that. And I said, you know, the, historically the conversion rate is when somebody goes into design is you’re gonna get 90% of ’em not on the 10 are gonna go. There’s always that 10% that falls out. And I said, why would you not be overbooking yourself and doing backups to your slots for, so when you do have a cancellation that you don’t have an empty slot, which is so precious because it’s like you, you can’t literally do more jobs because of the screwed up supply chain in, in the labor market right now. So have a backup that also allows you to pick and choose. 

Kelly: Sure. 

Rick: So like…

Kelly: Absolutely. 

Rick: Yeah. You wanna get that higher-revenue job? It’s like, if I keep backlogging myself, something comes up. It’s like, you know, at some point you might say, you know what, I’m sorry, Mr. Client, we’re not gonna be able to do this bathroom or we’re gonna have to put him on the back end because I just gotta. $300,000, you know, remodel or, or a $700,000 custom home, you know, fall on my lap. I’m gonna go after this and try to build that one and let the other one go and, and, you know, that’s being disciplined with your, with your opportunities right now. 

Kelly: Well, that’s, that’s another huge, huge, huge advantage to having the preconstruction agreements is that it allows you to much more efficiently manage your production schedule. And, manage what’s in the queue and figure out when what your future availability looks like. You know, we have our, our future production schedule on a spreadsheet, just very basic, but, but each job’s highlighted and just shifting stuff around and, and adding stuff to that as new jobs come in. It’s, very very convenient to have that in front of you and be able to see what it looks like, and then be able to give someone the next person to call is an accurate, accurate idea of when you can really start their project. 

Rick: Yep. Yep. So couple more questions here, I guess. This is where the rubber meets the road, you know, before we wrap up, Biggest win. So biggest, you made a decision that was like the, Hey, this was a super good decision, you know, looking back on. So what was the biggest win in your decision to grow your company? And then conversely, like, oh, what was the decision you made? Like you wish you could take back, you know, that maybe was the biggest regret or mistake?

Kelly: Sure. So, the biggest win is, is, the Paul Winans that I was mentioning that, that we consulted. Him, him slowly getting us up to a 50% markup. We are actually right now at a 56.9% markup. So that is by far the biggest win. The biggest loss or, or maybe even failure, I think is, probably growing a little bit faster than we probably should have. Starting in 2020, and 2021, and then when the pandemic hit, not react as quickly as we should have to all of these outside variables that were impacting, impacting our business. We did finally get around to fixing some of the issues and some of the things we’ve incorporated new policies that are going to be permanent. So that when, and if these shortages ever go away, yeah. Those policies will still stay in place. So that better protects us. And honestly, it better protects our clients as well. and then if we ever find ourselves in either this type of situation or something similar, next time around. We should be much better prepared.

Rick: So this is like unforeseen circumstances as it relates to supply chain or labor shortage, something like that. Yeah. 

Kelly: All of it. Yeah. 

Rick: Yeah. You know, that’s an important point you make too. I, you know, the first thing I, I was just gonna point out is that you say, oh my markup’s 56.9%. It’s like, okay, everyone, who’s listening to this. Take note, know your numbers. You gotta know your numbers and are you making money? How no, you, you’re not making enough money, I think is what you’re saying. And, number two, the worst-case scenario you wanna be in is where you’re midway through a project and all of a sudden something comes back and your client is not expecting this huge markup. And now you gotta go take the bad news to ’em and you know, where are they gonna get the cash? If they’re, if they’re trying to pay cash for it, or if they’re financing, if they’re, you know, they’ve already got an appraisal done, that’s a huge, huge problem for you and them. And that, of course, that puts a tremendous stress on the relationship where now you’re back peddling, trying to, you know, put out the fire and, and, and, and now you’ve got a million dollar project, which you potentially have just created somebody who’s not only gonna not refer you, but maybe it’s not gonna speak poorly of you because of what happened.

Kelly: Sure, sure. 

Rick: So, what advice would you give? So if I’m a builder right now, I’m starting out or I’m doing small jobs. I want to grow. I want to add that 50,000 or more per job. I want to raise my profit margins, you know, 5%, 10%, 15%. What advice would you give somebody? 

Kelly: Well, two things, one, absolutely 100% charge for your bids. Come up with a system that allows you to provide value to your prospects and in turn your clients that justifies them investing for our one and a quarter percent to give them a proposal. Again, there are just so many, so many benefits to, that approach that just, it would take you and me, another two or three podcasts to cover all those things that are by far the first thing. Stop, stop giving away, free estimates, stop giving away your time. 

Rick: Yeah. 

The second thing is if you want to grow, grow slowly, grow controlled, have a plan, and take awfully detailed notes on all of the things that start to happen. As you start to scale up because you’re going to see problems that you didn’t anticipate. Anyone that’s read the e-myth knows that a, a, a important part of growing a business is to work on the business, not in the business and when you’re growing, you need to spend an awful lot of time working on the business so that you’re paying attention to, like I mentioned, these, these sort of things, if you will, that start to happen that are unplanned, that are a result of growth. Because regardless of where you’re at right now, every time you go up to the next level, there are going to be things that arise that you hadn’t planned for, that you hadn’t thought about. 

Rick: Yeah. 

Kelly: That you need to be quick on your feet and be able to sort of restructure, reorganize, your policies, your procedures, the way you handle things so that as those things arise, you are, you are again quick on your feet and able to work your way through them as quickly and efficiently. And, of course, lots of times lessons are expensive. So as inexpensively as possible. 

Rick: Yep. Absolutely. And I would, I would add to that a, a couple of things and, and you’ve essentially said this, but maybe haven’t verbalized it is, you understand your niche. Understand what, and where are your strengths. You know, the projects that you enjoy doing, the projects that are profitable for you, understand what is not and being, you know, I think you need to stay disciplined in turning down the work that is just not right for you and you, you know 

Kelly: Sure.

Rick: Because the first time you do, do that, where you actually say no to a live client, that’s ready to pay you money. That is scary. I mean, let’s just face, it that’s scary for, for anybody, but once you’ve done it. And you see the benefits of it by being able to focus on those jobs, that you are good at, that you are making money at, that you enjoy doing, it makes life so much easier.

Kelly: Sure. 

Rick: And, because those, yeah, those clients can oftentimes become, you know, warranty nightmares too, right? Where the job never ends. And you, you, you can’t get ’em off your back. 

Kelly: Yes. 

Rick: So I, I’d say, I’d say do that. And then also from a growth stand. I think that’s really important to understand too, is like the, your lead source, you know, these leads that are coming from where do you get your best leads from, and then just focus on getting more leads like that and, you know, eliminate where you’re your, your poor quality leads are coming from, and cuz that’s a waste of time besides a waste of, of money, you know, you’re following up with these folks. 

Kelly: Well, I think, you know, most of my leads are coming from you. So… 

Rick: What did you say a year, a year backlog?

Kelly: That’s right. That’s right. 

Rick: Yeah. Well, Kelly, it’s been awesome. Hearing your story, you shared some really wonderful nuggets here for some, for wisdom, for anybody trying to get where you are, and congratulations. I know it’s, you know, it’s still a challenge, but you’ve obviously come a long way in 15 years. So congratulations on, on your success. 

Kelly: Thank you. Thank you. And, I appreciate your help as always. 

Rick: Well, I’m, I…

Kelly: You are a part of that. 

Rick: I love to partner with guys like you and, and just watch you grow and take off and, you know, you still gotta implement it. I can only, you know, give some suggestions, but, we’re gonna talk a little bit more, offline, but, for everyone here today, thanks for watching. We really appreciate it. And we’ll be back next week with another episode of conversations that convert.