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Remodelers & Rock Bands – Both Get More Profitable With Age

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Set Your Sail Now… And You’ll Like Where The Winds Take You

By Rich Harshaw

On February 12, 1981, the rock band Rush released what would become its most commercially successful album ever, Moving Pictures.

Given the fact that a huge percentage of both remodeling contractors and Rush fans are white men in their early 40s to mid 50s means there’s a pretty good chance you’re familiar with Tom Sawyer, Red Barchetta, Limelight, and YYZ.

The album—that band’s eighth—was certified 4X platinum, which means it sold over 4 million copies in the USA alone. The band immediately kicked off a tour where they played 84 shows in less than 5 months.

I was 12 years old at the time and wasn’t a big fan just quite yet (that would come a few years later); however, my older brother and several of my good friends made their way to Reunion Arena in Dallas to see the show.

Price of a ticket? $10.00. This ticket stub below is a GREAT seat… 11 rows up and less than 30 feet back from the stage.

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Keep in mind: We’re talking about one of the most popular bands in the world at the time, at the very apex of the whole “arena rock” era and you could buy GREAT seats for ten bucks.

That’s the same year that major labels raised the list price of most (vinyl) albums to $9.88. So in other words, you could see the band live for roughly the same price as the album.

I wonder if Rush ever imagined that those EXACT SAME long-haired, pot smoking teenagers (not me!) that made them ten-dollars-at-a-time millionaires would still be filling arenas and making them multi-millionaires 34 years later?

Because that’s exactly what has been happening for the last decade-plus—including now.

On Monday I attended the Rush concert at American Airlines Center in Dallas with my brother, my cousin, and a friend, and joined roughly 10,500 other hard-core fans who paid an AVERAGE of $73 each to be there.

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This is what $764,883 looks like. Notice the lack of pot smoke.

Our seats were NOT as good as the 1981 ticket stub shown above, and they were $96 (over $120 with “fees”). And I was upset that I could not access the better tickets for $127 on Ticketmaster (ie, the Devil).

A little online research shows that a ticket that cost $10 in 1981 is the equivalent of about $25 now. That means Rush is essentially charging THREE TIMES the money for concerts in 2015 than they were when they were Rock Gods in 1981. And you had better believe that the best seats were selling at a multiple of 5 to 10 times the 1981 prices.

All of which got me to thinking: what an enormously brilliant business model!

The more time passes, the more passionate their fan base becomes… and (this is the kicker), the more affluent their fan base becomes so they can afford to—and gladly—pay more money for the service.

And believe it or not, it’s a business model you can emulate in your remodeling business.

The three major keys are hard work, harmony, and longevity.

Hard Work: Lots of people have talent, but very few work their ever-living guts out to become absolute masters of their trade. Ask anyone that knows anything about music—regardless of style preferences—and they’ll tell you that nobody is better at their respective instruments than the three members of Rush are at theirs. Check any list of best drummers of all time, best bassists of all time, or best guitarists of all time, and you’ll always find Neal (#1), Geddy (#2), and Alex (#26—blasphemous!) as a de facto three-man Mt. Rushmore of excellence.

What about you? Are you satisfied with being good—and not too concerned about being great? Are you willing to put in the long hours and tedious practice to become absolutely awesome and rake in those home improvement leads? Are you constantly examining what you do, reinventing your company, and pushing yourself to new and better things? Are you questioning the status quo—both in your industry and in you company—and constantly trying to find a way to reach higher ground?

This would be a good time to review that clip of Will Smith talking about talent vs. hard work.

Harmony: Simple truth: your business can’t make millions of dollars a year 40 years from now if your business does not exist 40 years from now. Assuming you’ve got the talent and have put in the hard work, your company’s biggest threat is lack of harmony inside your company.

Rush jokingly refers to drummer Neal Peart as “the new guy” because he joined the band in 1974, just after the release of their first album, and 2 weeks before their first US tour. Somehow, amazingly, this group has managed to stay together for over 40 continuous year now—and from all appearances—they genuinely seem to like each other. They have extremely divergent personalities (especially Peart), but they have manage to find a way to stay together.

Needless to say, this is a rarity.

I’m only 20 years into my business (including my current contractor marketing company), and I’ve already experienced my share of bad partnerships and nasty business divorces. But I’m also proud to say that my right-hand man has been firmly by my side for 14 years now—through plenty of thick and thin—and things continue to get better and better at Monopolize Your Marketplace.

What about your company? Are you easy to get along with? Do you forgive and forget? Do you allow room for divergent opinions and input from your closest employees? Everybody wants and needs a leader—but at the same time, people have to feel respected and want to be heard. If you keep finding yourself in bad relationship after bad relationship (personal or business), you may want to look in the mirror and see if you can identify the source of the problem.

Longevity: A highly successful mortgage broker friend of mine was giving career advice to a 21-year old kid who was considering getting into that business. I’ll never forget his words:

“Young guys get into this business every year with dollar signs in their eyes—then quit a year later. They can’t compete with me, and they can’t ever figure out why. But the reason is simple: I could shut down every bit of advertising and marketing I do and still outsell you 100 to 1. My phone rings 10 times a day—365 days a year—with people who have known me, been referred to me, gotten loans from me, and liked my services for the last 20 years. There is simply no way you can compete with my 20-year history.”

Amen.

Rush has not lost their touch. Their new music is as creative as ever. But they haven’t released a new album since 2012—and only 2 in the last 10 years—yet they still packed the arena on Monday. They’ve had over 40 years to get known, to be adored by fans, and to simply KEEP SHOWING UP to work.

Of course, longevity won’t be an option if hard work and harmony are not mastered; but if they are, you can look forward to a long, rich future in your business. Your home improvement leads and prospects will continue to pile up… they’ll become your customers who keep coming back over and over… and they’ll be willing to pay whatever price you are asking. They’re refer their friends. They’ll sound excited when they call. And they’ll smile when they write the check.

Getting old doesn’t have to mean losing your edge. If you play your cards right, there’s a ghost of a chance you’ll just keep getting better and stronger too.

Free Lead Generation Audit: We’ll conduct an in-depth audit of your company’s home improvement website (if you’re in a different field, that’s okay too) and lead generation activities, then spend 90 minutes on the phone with you discussing our findings… and conducting an Identity discovery session. This valuable marketing insight is worth $4,500, and is yours for FREE—if you meet the conditions.

© 2015 – 2016, Rich Harshaw. All rights reserved.

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