About a year ago I got a call from a former client—the owner of a $65MM exterior remodeling company.

Something was a “little off” in his sales presentation. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was, so he wanted me to take a look at it.

A couple days later, he flew to my home office in Texas with his top two executives, and paid me $15,500 to let them give me the sales presentation, and then have me give them suggestions to make it better.

Over the course of 6 hours, I identified two or three dozen (mostly) teeny-tiny adjustments that I felt, collectively, would move the needle.

After the meeting, I typed up the notes and created a 17-page document that gave an analysis of all 48 pages of their iPad pitch book, and where the changes needed to occur… as well as specific things the reps should say as they talked through any particular slide.

All in a day’s work.

What impressed me most about this was the owner’s willingness to open up and ADMIT he didn’t know everything.

The guy was doing $65MM a year and he made his VP of Sales sit there and listen to ME.

In other words, he’s open to suggestion. He values an outside opinion. He wants to double- and triple-check his own thoughts—and the thoughts of his staff.

Which is a characteristic I see far LESS OFTEN in far smaller companies.

In this post I’m going to cover four bad habits that you might have picked up along the way that could be hampering your ability to “make the jump” to $10MM.

Bad habits that you probably don’t even realize that you have.

It’s kind of like going to the DMV to renew your driver’s license… only to realize that your vision has gotten bad in the last few years. The change happened so slowly, however, that you didn’t even notice—until you had to take that eye test. Then when you get glasses, you can’t believe how much you’ve been missing.

Don’t worry, I’m not trying to beat you over the head here.

But at the same time—there are reasons why companies stagnate in this industry in the $2- to $5MM range. To make the jump to $10MM, you have to be willing to critically examine EVERYTHING.

I think the first bad habit is pretty clear from the opening story:

Bad Habit #1: Not Willing To Take Advice

Obviously, not everyone has an opinion worth listening to. But for starters, I’d seek out advice from companies that are bigger than yours. From people who have been there, done that. Both inside and outside the industry.

But it could also be consultants, trainers… or even your own employees.

Recently I sat in a meeting with one of my $10MM+ clients. We pulled their top 2 sales people in and grilled them for a full hour about what they are experiencing while selling in the home. I asked them if they thought THIS would help or if THAT would make a difference. These two guys combine for $4MM a year in sales—their opinion is worthwhile.

You get the point.

Bad Habit #2: Only having ONE Go-To Marketing Tactic

Most people grow their companies by having success with one (or maybe two) marketing tactics. It could be direct mail… or home shows… or telemarketing… or newspaper.

I don’t mean that they don’t TRY other things. And I don’t mean that they don’t have some success with multiple things.

What I mean is their bread and butter is usually just one thing.

Which is dangerous in two ways: First, what if that one thing quits working for some reason? The home improvement industry is littered with guys who crashed when the telemarketing rules changed. And other guys who flamed out when newspaper quit working. Or who are struggling to hold onto the glory days of canvassing.

And second, it’s dangerous because it’s usually stagnating. You do your “thing” as much as you can do it—but that “thing” can’t generate $10MM worth of business. It maxes out at $2MM. Or $4MM. Or whatever.

To get to $10MM, you’re going to have to have more than one thing. If you’re open to suggestion about new things, then you’re killing two birds with one stone.

Bad Habit #3: Losing Focus

Man, this is common. You try to add sales by selling and installing something other than what you’re good at selling and installing.

I’ve seen it a hundred and one times.

It goes like this: “Hey, we have this customer base, but nothing else to sell them. What if we started selling X, then we could get more sales from the same customers!”

It makes so much logical sense that it’s hard to refute. And it’s not like it’s a death sentence to try to sell something new. Staying completely stagnant isn’t necessarily a virtue.

But the way to get to $10MM is simple: Raise your prices so you’re the highest in the market, make sure you’re really, really good at delivering on your promises… then find a TON OF PEOPLE TO BUY IT.

That’s my real expertise: showing you how to find a ton of people to buy what you are good at selling—at very high prices.

If you try to sell some other thing, inevitably, you’ll be kind of crappy at doing it. And people will notice. And that’s a problem.

I’d recommend critically examining what you already sell and NARROWING it, if anything. FOCUS. Be genuinely world class at what you choose to focus on.

Bad Habit #4: No Reverence For Leads

Leads are the lifeblood of any company. But, of course, you know that.

Except I’ve seen a lot a lot a lot of remodeling companies who don’t respect their leads at all—even after spending a fortune to generate them.

How does this bad habit manifest itself?

1. Failure to use pre-positioning to price condition, pre-sell, and gain prospect trust.
2. Failure to follow-up on cancelled appointments.
3. Failure to follow-up on sit-no-sales.

Instead, it’s easier to just shrug your shoulders and generate more leads. Why spend time and effort doing the 3 things above? In the case of #1, they’re going to buy from you anyway, right? And in the case of #2 and #3, they don’t want to buy from you anyway, right?

WRONG and WRONG.

I’ll cover all of these bad habits—and explain how much money you are losing—in my upcoming 2-day seminar in Dallas (April 26 & 27). I’ll show you exactly how to solve these problems, and how to increase sales by about 10% to 15% by simply respecting your leads.

At $10MM, that’s an extra million dollars in sales. Or more.

There are more bad habits—but I’m out of time to write them, and you’re probably out of time to read them. But I’ll cover this in detail in my upcoming course “Make the Jump to $10MM.”

I hope you’ll join me. Read more about the seminar here.

Happy Marketing!

P.S. What does the marketing budget of a $10MM company look like? I’ll show you in my next blog post.

Click here to read more posts in my “Make The Jump” series:

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Raising your prices is the easiest and most crucial factor in building your remodeling company to $10MM.

It’s also the scariest part.

If you think your prices are already high, you’ll still probably need to raise them again.

As a rule of thumb, you need to be shooting for a 3.5-to-1 ratio of price to cost.

In other words, if the hard costs (materials, labor) are $5,000, you should be selling it for $17,500.

I fully realize that most of your other competitors are selling that “same job” for $5,000 to $10,000.

I put “same job” in quotation marks because we both know that most of those jokers are only putting $3,500 of cost into it. They shortcut everything… from material quality, to quality control, to installer ability. They couldn’t care less.

And they’re probably only marking the job up by double, or less. They’re selling $3,500 job cost for $5,000 to $7,500.

As long as they can afford to take their wife and kids to Applebee’s on Friday night, they’re good.

Even your higher quality competitors who DO spend $5,000 on the cost only have the stones to charge double, or maybe a little more—$10,000 to $12,000.

Question: Are any of them doing $10MM in sales?

No, they are not.

If you remember my first email the other day, I gave this simple (and mandatory) 3-step formula to get to $10MM:

1. Sell awesome stuff that people genuinely love.
2. Charge high prices.
3. Use TV advertising.

We’ll talk a bit more about #1, selling awesome stuff that people love, in an upcoming email. It’s crucial.

But I promise you this:

If you’re not a high price, high-quality provider in the market, you’ll never get to $10MM.

You won’t even have a chance.

I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt: I’ll assume that you offer exceptional quality and service to your customers. And if you don’t now, you’re at least committed to doing so in the near future.

After all, step 1 is to “Sell awesome stuff that people genuinely love.”

But even if you do, chances are high that you’re not selling at the coveted 3.5-to-1 ratio.  Here’s why:

Your sales people are scared to death that they will lose the sale!

They’re CHICKEN!

-They have that terrified look in their eyes.

-They already struggle to close at the prices you already have that they already think are too high.

-They are SURE that if you make them ask for even MORE money, the customers won’t just say NO… they’ll actually laugh in their faces! Or get mad. Or kick them out of the house!

Meanwhile, Disney World charges $325 for a 4-day pass, even though I can buy a full one-year Six Flags pass (good at 13 different parks) for about $80.

Do you think the gal at the ticket counter at Disney World gets all nervous, starts sweating and stammering, and apologizes when asking for $325 per person for a 4-day pass?

Are you kidding me?

That’s because Disney World is committed to selling awesome stuff that people genuinely love… and because they have massive brand authority, thanks to decades of (wait for it)… being on TV.

I’ll convince you to get on TV in some later emails. It’s non-negotiable if you want to join the $10MM club. I can also give you some pointers on providing a Disney-like experience.

But most importantly, I can help you raise your prices. Here’s how:

1. Be better than everyone else. It’s not that hard. The majority of your competitors suck. I mean that, and you know it’s true.
2. Clearly articulate how you’re different and why you’re better in all of your marketing. This is harder, but I can help you do it. You’ll learn how in my class.
3. Spend a ton of money on TV to get people to believe it. I can help you do this, too.
4. FIRE EVERY SALES PERSON WHO IS AFRAID TO ASK FOR THE SALE AT YOUR NEW, HIGHER PRICES.

That’s right, FIRE THEM.

In my experience, you cannot remediate cowards. There’s a good chance you’ll have to fire your sales manager, too.

I know you like some of these people; you’ve become friends with them.

But I promise you they are in the way of your success.  Not all of them.  But a lot of them are.

You might have to handle some of the sales calls yourself for a while. Hopefully YOU believe in your pricing (and your awesome products and service).

You might have to take 2 steps back to move 10 steps forward.

You might have to gut your entire sales team if you really want to get to $10MM. They don’t just hand out $10MM in sales to anybody.

Don’t worry. Selling for ultra-high prices is not hard when you have the right product and you do the marketing the right way.

That’s the heart and soul of my new seminar.

I really hope you can join me for it. If you’re serious, that is.

Meanwhile, in my next email, I’m going to give you PROOF that people are just begging to pay higher prices for your products and services. You’re actually insulting them by asking an average price.

If you want a sneak peak, check out this book on Amazon.

And/or you can check out more about my “Make the Jump to $10MM” 2-day seminar I’m holding in Dallas in April.

I’ll be in touch.

P.S. If you’ve ever been to Disney World and thought it was worth $325, email me. I’d love to hear your experience.

Click here to read more posts in my “Make The Jump” series:

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In my last post, I promised I would tell you how to raise your prices, even though you’re probably CHICKEN to do it.

I’ll actually get to that in my next post.

But first, I need to address some important questions I got from readers after my first couple of emails. Here they are:

•    Why would I want to grow my business to $10MM? I make plenty of money now.
•    I’ve been in business for 22 years and I’m only at $3 million—sounds like you’re selling magic beans.
•    Nobody in this market does $10MM—I don’t think it’s even possible.

I already answered the reason WHY you would want to grow to $10MM in a previous post. The short recap is:

You can afford to do everything right in your business, and you have enough money to buy pretty much whatever you want.

How’s that for motivation?

But if you don’t want to run a $10MM company, that’s your business. Nobody’s putting a gun to your head to do so.

As for the “is it possible” question, it depends:

If you’re running a roofing company in Coffeyville, KS (shout-out to my 91-year old grandpa, population 10,295), you probably can’t do $10MM. There’s probably not $10MM total in the entire town including change in the couch cushions.

But if you run a remodeling company in any city of any size at all, it’s not only possible—it’s practically inevitable if you just follow the formula I gave you the other day:

1.    Sell awesome stuff that people genuinely love.
2.    Charge high prices.
3.    Use TV advertising.

Think about it for a minute. How much business is there, IN TOTAL, in the city where you sell stuff?

If there are two companies doing $3MM, five companies doing $2MM each, and 100 smaller companies doing $15MM in combined sales, that’s $31MM.

You only need to capture a third of that.

Yes, if you take a full third of the sales in your market, other companies are going to suffer and go out of business.

But what do you care?

You’re already better than them, right? Good grief, if you don’t think so, why are you even reading this?

You already genuinely offer the best value in the marketplace (not price—VALUE), right?

Then it’s not a sack of magic beans. It’s just math.

The business is already being sold. Why not just sell most of it yourself?

Remember a few days ago, I told you about a company I helped take from $40MM in sales in 2011, to $130MM in sales last year?

Some of that growth came from spreading into new markets.

A lot of it came from OWNING the markets that they’re already in.

They have over 20% market share in 4 of the counties they service, including an astounding 37% market share in the county they’ve been in the longest.

And because they follow the 3-step formula (great products, high prices, TV advertising), they are the most expensive company in the area—by a long shot.

Don’t tell them it’s magic beans. It’s calculated; it’s systematic; it’s expected.

Do yourself a favor. Don’t let anyone else define you. You can do whatever you want. And if that includes growing your remodeling or home services company to $10MM in sales, then go for it.

I’ll teach you how to do it in my new seminar, “Make The Jump To $10 Million” being held in Dallas on April 26 & 27.

To find out more, click here.

Happy marketing!

P.S. Don’t worry, I promise to show you how to raise your prices even though you’re probably CHICKEN to do it in my next post.

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Click here to read more posts in my “Make The Jump” series:

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Yesterday, I read a story about some teenagers in Washington state jumping off a tall bridge that runs across the Columbia River.

Judging by the pictures, I’d say it’s a good 50 feet from the bridge to the water.

The news article says, “Officials soon learned the kids were just trying to cool off by jumping into the water.”

Yeah… I don’t buy it.

As a father of six kids between the ages of 11 and 23, let me tell you the real reason these teens were risking serious injury and cold-water shock…

They were trying to look cool, not cool off.

I guarantee this is what happened: One of the teens thought it would be awesome to cannonball off the bridge.

The rest of them, wanting to fit in and keep their “cool kid” cards, followed suit.

I mean, let’s be real.

If they wanted to cool off in the water, they could have—you know—walked into it directly from the shore.

Instead, they dove into it from five basketball hoops high.

Now, if you’re thinking, “Man, teenagers are dumb,” know two things:

1. You’re right.
2. While YOU aren’t dumb, you’re guilty of the teenagers’ same “follow the leader” behavior.

Simply put, not much holds more power and influence over a person’s decisions than social proof.

You might not jump off a bridge because your friends are doing it, but you—like all seven billion humans on this planet—base many of your decisions on what others are doing.

Social proof is why we wear certain clothes, drive certain cars, and eat at certain restaurants. If we see enough people partaking in something, we want a piece of that pie, too.

That’s just the way that gray lump of matter between our eyes is hardwired.

This is why good online reviews—and lots of them—are required for you to attain true success as a contractor.

Don’t believe me? Consider this…

New research shows 90% of people now read online reviews before contacting a contractor.

Out of those folks, 86% (!!!) of them are influenced by a single negative review.

I’m no math whiz, but that means virtually every person who considers contacting you looks at your online reviews first.

And of those people, virtually every person is going to think twice about contacting you if you have a bad online review.

Simply put, people don’t want to waste their money and feel like chumps. That’s why a bad review of your company will make a larger impression on them than a good one. It’s Psychology 101.

Do you know the best way to stop the effects of bad reviews?

A)    Having an avalanche of great reviews to offset the few negative ones.

B)    Not have any negative reviews, period.

MYM Online Reputation Management (ORM) can help you achieve both.

Our Online Reputation Management solution contains a sophisticated customer-review funnel that generates a wealth of positive reviews for your company.

On top of that, it can also intercept negative reviews before they get posted for the world to see.

This gives you the opportunity to resolve the unsatisfied customer’s issue, potentially preventing them from leaving bad online feedback about you.

MYM ORM also monitors 170+ review websites. This includes the “big boys” like Yelp, Google, and Facebook, as well as local review websites of your choosing.

You’ll be alerted anytime your customers leave online reviews about you—good or bad. You’ll no longer have to fear if there’s a hidden bad review somewhere out there that’s hurting your reputation.

Go ahead, take the plunge into ORM with your fellow contractors.

The water’s fine.

P.S. How much do you think 750 glowing online reviews would increase your sales? And how the heck do you even get 750 online reviews? I’ll let you know tomorrow.

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