Jun 3, 2024
In today's episode, Mike sits down with Stephen Spence, who runsProject Map It. Project Map It is an interactive map that showcasesall your previous work and lets customers search by area, projectcategory, or even product type. You can easily embed the map onyour website, enhance your web presence with SEO, and showprospective customers your company's presence in theirneighborhood. An extremely useful tool in an age where technologyand business are becoming evermore intertwined. Stephen talks abouthis journey of getting started with Project Map It and the manystruggles he faced along the way.
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00;00;02;08 - 00;00;25;17
Mike & Stephen
Okay, Steven Spence, project map it. How you doing, man? MikeSterns Acsend digital. I'm good.
00;00;25;20 - 00;00;43;04
Mike & Stephen
Yeah, yeah. My friend. You see, we did a jersey swap. We're gonnado a little signing afterwards. You know, something like hold up.Yeah, yeah, we're going to do that, and it's going to be great.Thank you for coming. I'm very excited to be here. We're excited tohave you bracelet with open arms. I mean, you get the conciergewhite glove service, like all of our clients, right?
00;00;43;05 - 00;00;59;27
Mike & Stephen
As a partner, we can pick you up from the airport, bring you in.yeah, it's good stuff. So, shout out to roofer. you know, if you'relooking for clean and pristine proposals, roof measurements,instant quotes, like anything you can to make your business better.Even a CRM hit up the team, a roofer down in the description.
00;00;59;27 - 00;01;19;13
Mike & Stephen
There's going to be a link. You click it, you let them know I sentyou. You'll be happy you did. Monday. We yeah. We love roofer.We're partnered with roofer. Yeah. We don't have many partners. wehave a couple of project map it. we have roofer, and, I see that,like, a lot of companies, it's kind of just, a money grab,right?
00;01;19;17 - 00;01;39;06
Mike & Stephen
Like, hey, sponsor this and we'll do this and we'll promote you.And I have a hard time doing that because I want to be alignedethically as far as efficacy of whatever it is I'm sponsoring, Iwant to know that it works. I want to know that they're going toprovide the same type of experience for my customers that a sonaims to provide every one of our customers.
00;01;39;08 - 00;01;59;23
Mike & Stephen
So so, you know what? With that we have I think we're I think wehave like 13 partners, of which we really work with, probably sixof them, like hardcore. And part of that, just our bandwidth. We'rea small company, right. So we don't I don't we now I am now able toutilize my time a little bit more to work with our partners.
00;01;59;23 - 00;02;20;20
Mike & Stephen
However, with what you just said. We do not do any kind of a repshare with any of our partners. We co market, we send customers topeople we partner with, people that we know that are either goingto help our contractors, leverage and use project mapping easierlike certainty ABC supply, SRS distribution. That all just helpsthe contractor.
00;02;20;22 - 00;02;36;09
Mike & Stephen
and then we have partners like you, you know, you're our go towebsite, full on marketing agency that we send people to. but yeah,no, Rob shares, I, I agree with you. It just gets muddy. You startsaying, hey, I'll give you X amount if you send me referrals andcrap like that. I don't like it.
00;02;36;11 - 00;02;54;23
Mike & Stephen
Yeah, I appreciate that. What, have you talked to any of thecustomers that have had us do any work for them? yeah. Responsiveroofing. Ron Hilliard is a stud. I love the guy. Ever since I methim, the very first time on our first demo call. Ron, Ron loves youguys. I was just checking out the website before we started this,and?
00;02;54;23 - 00;03;18;24
Mike & Stephen
And it's a slick looking website, man. The aim to please. You'redoing good stuff, which I. This which is why I've been through, Ithink, 3 or 4 other marketing agencies in my six years. And when Imet you however many years ago now too, there's been a couple ofyears. You were three years, at dinner with TC Bakker, and, we weretalking about acquired taste, but once you acquire it, you can'tget rid of it.
00;03;18;28 - 00;03;39;27
Mike & Stephen
Look, folks, I'm not for everyone, okay? I attract some, I repelothers, and you know what? I'm okay with it. I used to try toplease everyone, and then I said, f*ck it. Are we allowed to talkabout this? Yeah, yeah. So, like, we had dinner with T.C. Bakker.You remember that, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And. And the first fiveminutes you were giving it to the the lady waitress and I.
00;03;40;00 - 00;03;54;28
Mike & Stephen
And I was sitting pretty much right across from you, and I'm tryingto figure out it was the first time I really met you. Like, is thisguy, like, just an asshole or is he joking? And then eventhroughout the dinner, like, the acquired tastes happenedthroughout the dinner, like at the beginning, I was kind of like,what?
00;03;55;01 - 00;04;10;28
Mike & Stephen
What's going on with Mike? Everything. I can't tell if he's jokingor not. And then by the end I'm like, this dude is is authentic andgenuine as you can get. Yeah. And I think, I think she had asimilar learning curve. Like I wasn't being explicitly an asshole,but I have a dry sense of humor. You do?
00;04;11;00 - 00;04;29;02
Mike & Stephen
and I find it fun. Okay. And some people do. Some people don't. Butwe left her a nice tip. She was smiling. We did? Yeah. And, we hadgood food. The service was good. Yeah, yeah. And we, you know, it'sfunny because in that meeting we had talked a few months beforethat. I'm big on accountability.
00;04;29;02 - 00;04;45;08
Mike & Stephen
Core value number one is accountability at the end. And, you know,seven, seven I were we were exchanging conversation and it was ascreen share. So we had had a screen share a few months earlier.And she said, now that I imagine, you know, now that we're able tofinally speak. And I was like, well, hold on a second.
00;04;45;08 - 00;05;02;10
Mike & Stephen
I was like, you know, we we talked before, we talked in depthbefore on a screen show. So. Oh, yeah. And I'm like, I don't think,I think I reached out to you and like, we never then reconvene.Like, what happened? He's like, oh, man. And we started to and wetalked through it because communication is super important.
00;05;02;12 - 00;05;19;06
Mike & Stephen
Okay I was at no no excuse what Mike said. What you said, rightthere is 100% truth. I did forget that we had a screen share. It'sall that was also going through a very dark time in my life when wehad that screen share. And, you know, I was empathetic to that. Ithink you were.
00;05;19;08 - 00;05;56;12
Mike & Stephen
You know, it's, you're a friend of mine, I think. I think it'simportant. I think it's important for, you know, any any healthyrelationship that has any chance of sustaining the test of time atthe foundational level. You know, everybody expects something fromsomebody, right? And what those expectations are, they vary fromrelationship to relationship. If you think about with a casualfriend, with a partner in life, with, with a partner in business,with employer, employee, like there's always like these built inexpectations and like I think the more explicit they are and themore accountability there are to those expectations, the better thelikelihood that relationship has of succeeding over time.
00;05;56;14 - 00;06;17;14
Mike & Stephen
Can I I actually want to speak to that. But before I do, I havesome some props here. I only have one, but I do have a swim capthat you're more than welcome to wear. So if you want to wear it orI can wear it. and then I also have some swim goggles. And I madesure to get my sons red ones because it matches the sand.
00;06;17;17 - 00;06;36;05
Mike & Stephen
So last time we spoke, what was the thing one of us or both of ushad was one gap. My kids would not give me two swim caps. Okay, sowould you like to wear it? Since that's your show or would thatwould that make your hair look bad? Because my hair always looksbad, right? It might f*ck up my hair, but you know, I've been dyingto drop the line.
00;06;36;05 - 00;06;52;11
Mike & Stephen
I think it's I'm glad that. Are you not entertained? Yeah. And Ithink this would be the perfect opportunity to do that. Okay. Thereyou go. I'll tell you about since you're doing that, I'll do thisat least for a little bit. Until Christian says, Steve, you looklike an idiot. You can take those off. Now, full disclosure, I'venever put on a swim cap before.
00;06;52;12 - 00;07;10;17
Mike & Stephen
Yeah, well, I haven't either. So you're going to be the first. Whyaren't you a swimmer now? Yeah, I I'm a good runner. I was alacrosse player. Lacrosse? That's right. Cross guy. So I think theystart at the front like that and they just pull all the way back.It doesn't have to be perfect. Oh, yeah. You rock it much betterthan I do,
00;07;10;19 - 00;07;28;08
Mike & Stephen
How's it feel? You don't have to go over your ears. But theswimmers, do. You? Look. You look like. Not over the years. Oh, youcan hold it up. You. You can hear me. I'm like this. Are we good?And we're back. So back to what you were saying? about built. Youtook it off. Well, yeah, I was just.
00;07;28;09 - 00;07;44;07
Mike & Stephen
Yeah. Oh, well, I'll wear it the whole time. You said you wear itthe whole time. I have to throw it. I mean, that be bad for thepodcast. Are those prescription, those glasses. Those are those,aren't you. Yeah. You know, I was I say I could throw on the redglasses, add some flare. But I do want to wear the got the goggleslook good.
00;07;44;10 - 00;08;02;17
Mike & Stephen
So, I got a message for you. You did much better. I don't know howto do it. I got a message from a guy. I got a message from a guy onLinkedIn. Well, just. I don't need to say names and and, And I.That's nice. That's all good. Yeah, yeah. All right. How's my hair?Kristen?
00;08;02;21 - 00;08;23;26
Mike & Stephen
Yours looks good. so I got a I got a message from a gentleman plast night, and you told me I had to wear it the whole night. Takeit off, I love it. Got a message from this guy. you were talkingabout building relationships with new, new partners and stuff likethat. Yeah. got a message, said, hey, you know, I listened to yourpodcast with leap, and I really liked it.
00;08;23;29 - 00;08;48;22
Mike & Stephen
In fact, funny enough, I heard you mention engage, which is anothergreat partner of ours. And, we just pushed engage out to our dealernetwork, and I would love to talk to you. Oh, no. I'm sorry. Wrong.Running around. That was another LinkedIn guy. Two messages. Solast week this gentleman texts this guy, message me on LinkedIn andbasically said, hey, we have this program that does roofmeasurements.
00;08;48;25 - 00;09;06;28
Mike & Stephen
We'd love to chat with you. And I said, sure, I'm always up for adiscovery call. I messaged back, I said, here's my here's my emailaddress, here's my phone number. Feel free to give me a call. Andin my inbox like five minutes later, I got a calendar invite for aday like he picked a day. I didn't like that.
00;09;07;01 - 00;09;28;10
Mike & Stephen
And because he's assuming, I said give me a call or whatever, itscreams entitlement. It does like like, hey, here's the day youdidn't ask me like, hey, when are you free? You know, it's justthat was the first that was the first kind of interaction I hadwith beyond the messaging and LinkedIn. And so I canceled it and Ijust I email back, said, sorry, I can't make it that day.
00;09;28;13 - 00;09;44;02
Mike & Stephen
And so instead of him saying, hey, any and he called me Spencertoo. By the way, my name is Steve Spence, not Spencer. it's newnickname. Spencer. No, no. Yeah, not at all. I hate it. So you'reprobably a little too young. You won't give me your age, butSpencer for hire was a big show back when I was younger.
00;09;44;02 - 00;10;00;28
Mike & Stephen
And people would call me Spencer, and I hated it. Got it. So he'sbeen calling me Spencer this whole time, too. And I'm just thinkingto myself, dude, you were. You were starting off on the wrong foot.Like you want to form a relationship with me. You can't even say myname, right? And secondly, you keep scheduling these meetings and Icancel the meeting.
00;10;00;28 - 00;10;17;18
Mike & Stephen
I got a the meeting was supposedly yesterday, and I canceled it. Heemailed me yesterday. Hey, sorry I can't make the meeting in time,I rescheduled it. He didn't even see that I canceled the meeting.So that guy is not ever going to get any of my conversation,business or discovery call again. Sure. Yeah. The the entitlementof.
00;10;17;24 - 00;10;33;09
Mike & Stephen
Okay. You want to meet? Well, here's the date and time we're goingto me. And I'll just assume even though you're running a businessfree, you're going to make sure that you're available. Yeah. It's,it's a needless power play, I would say. I was a teacher for 20years, and I got to be honest with you, like, names were veryimportant to me.
00;10;33;17 - 00;10;49;28
Mike & Stephen
Yeah, we had a we had a young lady from Africa. Didn't speak a lickof English. Come into my math class one day and on the paper EJsaid her name, although I'm was her name, but it was hard toenunciate and I asked her. I said, how do you say your name? Shegoes mayowa for short. Yeah.
00;10;49;29 - 00;11;07;06
Mike & Stephen
I said, how do you say the whole name? I mean, she didn't. Youunderstand what I'm saying? She finally, I think, understood. Shesaid Ola Ola y mayowa. And so I literally spent like the rest ofthat class, just walk around in my head quietly saying all over my,all over my, all over my own. Because names are important.
00;11;07;06 - 00;11;22;24
Mike & Stephen
I was called Stephanie by teachers when I was in school because myname is spelled with this. Like, come on, man, names are important.And when I'm on calls all the time, the first thing I say is Idon't. I don't know how to enunciate your name. I want to make sureI'm saying your name right. And people appreciate that manrelationships.
00;11;22;24 - 00;11;43;17
Mike & Stephen
The details matter. Devil's in. The details matter. Yeah. I am abig believer in small details. Can make a big difference inanything. Yep. You know, I, I got a message I had reached out toDavid Carroll dough marketing. And that's my guy, by the way. Atthe time we hadn't had much of a relationship. I was like, hey, Iwas interested in, you know, doing some of these mailers orwhatever.
00;11;43;20 - 00;12;07;21
Mike & Stephen
And he responded with a calendar link. So when we got to talking, Iwas like, I was like, you know, a little bit of a power play tosend a gala link. You don't acknowledge the message, just drop aKelly link and I think that's more of a me thing. Right? I thinkthat's me being, an opportunity for me to grow, maybe where it'slike, you know, you're saying you want to you want to talk aboutsomething, somebody sending you a link to schedule some time, likethat's fair.
00;12;07;24 - 00;12;23;13
Mike & Stephen
The other side of me is like, you know, hey, how's it going? So wetalked about it. We communicated, and he's like, never even thoughtof it like that. Communication. I don't think it's a mike thing. Ithink I think that is a I think the way you felt about it is theway everybody should feel about, to be honest with you.
00;12;23;14 - 00;12;47;19
Mike & Stephen
Yeah. I think it's also so I think it's great that you talk to himabout it. And he acknowledged it. Yeah. And that's the thing. Likeespecially in business, there's so many moving parts. Everyone's sobusy like within, you know, my job my team job and and everythinglike that. And your roofing company and your your admins and yourproduct fulfillment and project managers, there's so much stuffgoing on that without proper context, like we can't just assumewhat people are thinking.
00;12;47;19 - 00;13;05;09
Mike & Stephen
We can't assume that like, hey, this dude is being malicious ortrying to power play me because he just responded with a calendly,right? Like David was probably busiest because he runs a verysuccessful company. There's a lot of things going on. It's like,let me just make sure I get this link out where it's like me. I'mlike, okay, maybe you're being sensitive, right?
00;13;05;09 - 00;13;30;08
Mike & Stephen
And we don't know. I was stuck in traffic yesterday, and, there'sthis woman, this she's, you know, she's going like 20 miles an hourand the speed limit is like, 35. And, you know, Everett, big guy atsix months, 20 pounds, he's teething. He's in the backseat. He isscreaming and crying. And in the moment I became furious that thislady is driving so slow.
00;13;30;10 - 00;13;48;23
Mike & Stephen
Because all I want to do is get my son home, maybe get him someTylenol. You know, as a parent, I don't love my son. You know, inthe back sounding like he's in anguish right? So, you know, my myinitial response was like, can you just f*cking go, lady? And Iwanted to like, blow the horn. But I thought about it like, shedoesn't know.
00;13;48;23 - 00;14;01;05
Mike & Stephen
Yeah, she doesn't know that I've got a screaming six month old inthe back of the car. Right. She's, you know, for whatever reason,she's going a little bit slow, and it's not that big of a deal atthe end of the day. And she's old. She may have been old. She wasdriving slow. I don't know that she was old or not.
00;14;01;05 - 00;14;17;13
Mike & Stephen
I didn't look, but I was just trying to work on being situationallyaware and like, not being so triggered by things that areinconsequential in life. I agree with that. That's that's myopportunity for growth. And I got to focus on that every single daybecause, you know, some things they they just really f*cking strikea nerve.
00;14;17;15 - 00;14;39;26
Mike & Stephen
Oh, I also just drove from the airport with you. So I am fullyaware of how you drive and driving 20mph is. Oh, okay. Oh, you'regonna cut that and I'm just going to leave it. It was a fun ridethough. It was. There's nobody that takes their job more seriouslyand works harder than the folks that are sitting, waiting at thearrivals gate.
00;14;39;28 - 00;14;57;06
Mike & Stephen
and when you're pulling up and you're trying to pick someone upfrom the airport, they are the most zealous individuals, rigid,process. I mean, as soon as they see that you pull up, they cometap on your window. You can't be here. And now you got to justifythat this guy's literally walking through the door, and it'sokay.
00;14;57;09 - 00;15;10;15
Mike & Stephen
Like, no, they have to be outside. You have to do a lap. It'scrazy. They do a good job though. Yeah, they're doing their job andthey're doing it well. And for that I appreciate that. And I likethat you just use the word process. I mean I think that'simportant. I've never heard you use that word before.
00;15;10;17 - 00;15;32;12
Mike & Stephen
Yeah. Something new I learned I saw it on TikTok. So yeah. So Ilearned that processes are important. And in the absence ofprocesses, sh*t doesn't get done. but, you know, I also find havingprocess isn't enough, right? A lot of the times people fall into afew different buckets and it causes points of friction andbreakdown, within their business.
00;15;32;12 - 00;15;55;28
Mike & Stephen
And, you know, they don't have processes, right? That's the firstproblem. Or they have processes. They're just sh*tty processes orthey're not. They're not the right processes for where they're ator nobody's managing and holding accountable their team to thoseprocesses. Right. Which you could have the best processes for the,you know, the most contextually relevant processes for where you'reat in business.
00;15;56;00 - 00;16;24;21
Mike & Stephen
But if nobody's making sure that people are following thoseprocesses, what the f*ck are we doing? Right? Or and or as peoplegrow, the need for iteration or changes, those processes typicallycome into play. And, you know, we have processes that don't matchour growth. They were built when we were at 2 million. Now we're atnine, and they have to be revisited to make sure that consistently,we're functioning in a way that's going to deliver the optimalcustomer experience, deliver the least amount of friction to ourteam.
00;16;24;25 - 00;16;52;04
Mike & Stephen
When you Duvall's, and get sh*t done so that our customers arehappy, our employees are happy. because if that happens, you'llhave lower churn, higher retention of your employees. You havebetter reviews, right? and I think that's often overlooked is likethese small breakdowns that happen in your business, whether youhad a half million, a million, 2 million, whatever is the symptomis like someone being unhappy or production taking long, even ifthe customer isn't unhappy with it.
00;16;52;04 - 00;17;12;21
Mike & Stephen
Like there's there's glaring issues, symptoms of these issues. Butthe issue is the breakdowns and those breakdowns becomedisproportionately more impactful as you scale. Right? and cause alot of people a lot of headache and a lot of heartache. And themore people are subjected to that on the employee side, the lessthey're going to enjoy doing their job.
00;17;12;23 - 00;17;32;08
Mike & Stephen
So I can talk to that. I need to take this off. Can I take this?This things give me a I don't know how my children do it. So, I,I'm in exactly those those shoes. I'm, I'm walking in those shoesright now. Right. We're a small we were a smaller company for thefirst three years. We were talking about humble beginnings.
00;17;32;08 - 00;17;50;07
Mike & Stephen
And we can get into that if you want. We're going to. But, we'vebeen growing right quite a bit over the last year and a half. Andbefore it was just me. Yeah. And then I had me and Perla and I wasable to train Perla slowly enough because business wasn't coming inso fast. That. Right. So Perla, Perla is like me.
00;17;50;07 - 00;18;07;15
Mike & Stephen
She knows everything about the company. But then we started hiring.We have. We've hired 3 or 4 since, four since. And what werecognized quickly was a we're not leveraging our CRM the way wecould with automations and efficiencies and stuff like that. so Ispent I mean, it took me a good three months to figure out how touse HubSpot the best way.
00;18;07;15 - 00;18;25;11
Mike & Stephen
And we finally dialed it in, and we're still dialing it in rightnow, but we're much better. And then the other thing I learned is Ididn't know how to I knew how to do everything. But when we hirednew Customer success manager, for example, that customer successmanager had to be trained. And so we didn't have any like playbookto train them.
00;18;25;16 - 00;18;43;12
Mike & Stephen
So we've built all that out. So we are finally at a point where ourprocesses are at least at the scalability where we are right now.But we might have to hire 3 or 4 more people in the next month. Arewe going to be able to evolve those processes? We will a lot moreefficiently than before because we've put some stuff intoplace.
00;18;43;14 - 00;19;00;27
Mike & Stephen
Yeah, I mean, I've dealt with a lot of that and it's an ongoingprocess. Right. you've got a lot to focus on when you're running abusiness. A lot of things that you saw coming up, probably manymore that you didn't see coming. Yep. My biggest challenge and Italked about this. I was in Detroit with Eric Renault, and we shotsome content at MGM on draft day a couple weeks ago.
00;19;00;27 - 00;19;16;28
Mike & Stephen
But my biggest thing was getting the sh*t out of my head ontopaper. Right. So then you can look at it, you can make you canorganize it in a way that makes sense to somebody that's neverworked in your business before. Right? As a new hire day one, thisis what you should expect coming in as far as your roles andresponsibilities.
00;19;16;28 - 00;19;39;12
Mike & Stephen
And this is exactly how you execute that it it it's a transparentstart, which makes it a lot easier for them to become integratedwith the team and to do their job effectively and just have abetter baseline line. Yeah. Starting point. Like for us, we have wehave five in the states and two onboarding or two people that helpus onboard that are in Argentina.
00;19;39;18 - 00;19;56;21
Mike & Stephen
Yeah. And our entire team is great. But we started over the lastthree months affectionately calling it superpowers. Like, what isyour superpower? Yeah, like I was a teacher for 20 years, so for meto build out a nice engage demo deck that we use as a sales deck ispretty easy for me because I was a teacher.
00;19;56;21 - 00;20;14;02
Mike & Stephen
I know kind of how people work, how minds work, how people learn,and visualize and stuff. but funny enough, it's not funny. but oneof our new employees, we started in December, Pat Martinek, he wasa kid I used to coach in lacrosse. He was the hardest worker backthen on my team. I coached him for six years.
00;20;14;04 - 00;20;32;18
Mike & Stephen
He's one of the hardest workers right here. Project map. And nowhe's proven himself, that has extreme dyslexia. I did not know thatwhen I hired him. Not that that would make a difference. But, youknow, I quickly started realizing, like his emails were pretty. Hewas struggling with getting his words on paper, on emails tocustomers, and his job was customer success.
00;20;32;18 - 00;20;59;20
Mike & Stephen
So he had to be able to communicate effectively with with ourcustomers. Long story short, people with dyslexia might haveproblems processing numbers and and letters and writing and readingand stuff like that. But you know what they're great at? They areamazing at processes. Yeah. Everything else. So like when we'retalking about how to build these processes into our into our, intoour company, what's the best way to onboard a customer?
00;20;59;22 - 00;21;15;15
Mike & Stephen
What are the best strategies when you're selling and things likethat? When we have our weekly meetings, and I have a question thatI put to the team like, hey, this isn't working out, how can wemake it work better? Guess who always has the right answer atmartech? Like that's that dude super power. He can't processletters and numbers.
00;21;15;15 - 00;21;36;18
Mike & Stephen
They mix up and and he's not the best writer. He uses Grammarly tohelp kind of combat that, which was great. He figured that out onhis own. but man, that that dude super is everything else. Yeah.And that's, you know, I'm glad he's making it work. I mean, I, youknow, confusing like, that's got to be challenging for him.
00;21;36;18 - 00;21;57;03
Mike & Stephen
And but he's using he's proactively using tools to help minimizethe impact that that would potentially have on him professionally.Right. Every disability there's some stronger ability. Yeah I haveI have ADHD. I mean, I was fed Ritalin for like ten years when Iwas a kid. That became problematic before I started using likecalendar and technology to hedge against that.
00;21;57;03 - 00;22;16;19
Mike & Stephen
Like if I had to operate based off of like a notepad with dates andtimes, I would miss every f*cking meeting with you guys that youknow, we're supposed to have. So I'm grateful that we have thingslike technology, a Google calendar, reminders, CRM to where I cancategorize my life in a way where some of my shortcomings don'tbecome the shortcoming of one of my clients campaigns.
00;22;16;19 - 00;22;39;18
Mike & Stephen
Right? Yeah. and to your point, where it's like a cape and aKryptonite, that's like the Kryptonite side. The cave side is, Imean, bro, I mean, I'm productive. Yeah. I mean, I'm up earlygetting sh*t done, getting sh*t knocked out, and I get a lot ofstuff accomplished. Now, with that being said, I might do 79 thingsin a day and maybe 14 of them.
00;22;39;18 - 00;23;00;24
Mike & Stephen
I left at 80% because I get distracted, right? Yeah. So I have asystem as far as like how I'm opening up tabs on browsers andthings to do. A recap to be like, okay, did everything get donethe, you know, so on correctly, yeah. I tell you, I'm like, I'mbroken, you know, so I'm just playing my slice in life when I'mgolfing, I'm slicing in life I'm slicing, and I'm not fixing themechanics of it, but I'm addressing the symptom.
00;23;00;25 - 00;23;14;05
Mike & Stephen
So I'm just going to aim left because I know the ball is comingback. Right? And if I am left is going to land in the fairway. I'msure I'm going to lose 30 yards on my drive. I'm okay with that. Iknow that I'm not hitting out of behind a f*cking tree. You're soyou're such a you're such a good wordsmith, man.
00;23;14;05 - 00;23;29;15
Mike & Stephen
That was well said. But thanks. That analogy is great, by the way.I suck at golf, and even when I try to play my slides on the golfcourse, I f*ck it up. But it's working better in life than on thegolf. My grandfather always said, slow back, swing your hit itstraight every time. So I don't hit it far, but I hit itstraight.
00;23;29;18 - 00;23;46;12
Mike & Stephen
Yeah. So at the time, one of these times we'll have to go play somegolf. Yeah. Basketball. First Stephen challenged me to a basketballgame. So in challenge, I just thought it'd be good content. It'd befunny. Get Christian out there to videotape. You beat my ass 15bucks. So we got some content of picking him up at the airportdrive, and then we had a conversation.
00;23;46;12 - 00;24;05;12
Mike & Stephen
Now we're in the studio, as you heard from schoolboy Q in theintro. I'm just sitting in my studio. Anyhow, we're going to go tothe basketball court after and maybe we'll play some pig. Maybe weplay some 21, maybe it's just one verse one. call your own fouls.Yeah, 1V1 and I will foul I don't because I he's a hack.
00;24;05;12 - 00;24;22;29
Mike & Stephen
Ladies and gentlemen he's a hack. That's okay. So we're going toI'm gonna. You've never seen a guy who's five foot eight worth thepost like me. I'm telling you right now. So more awesome contentcoming in that regard. I'm five, six and three quarters. I'veshrunk a half inch, and I work with those pretty well, too. I mean,these are words at this point.
00;24;22;29 - 00;24;38;11
Mike & Stephen
We're going to have we're going to have actual data and actualvideo to go off, and we're going to have shot percentages takenversus made. Oh hell no. We're going to have pain points. We'regoing to we're going to see who's going to be dominant in the post.I would actually like to do like a charity basketball thing.
00;24;38;11 - 00;24;52;16
Mike & Stephen
So it was kind of a few years back. Shout out to my guy Tim Brown.I played against him, I think kind of wrote it. I got thrown on tolike a team that they had for it was like a roofers and recoverytype deal. Yeah. And I gotta tell you, I'm not great at basketball,but I balled out that day.
00;24;52;16 - 00;25;06;19
Mike & Stephen
I mean, I was in the deep three like nobody's business. It was alot of fun. And I think that, you know, if we get a bunch of peoplefrom the industry to put together an event, that would be fun,contribute some money, you know, let's all come to a consensus onwhere we could donate some money to and have a good time.
00;25;06;21 - 00;25;22;00
Mike & Stephen
Yeah, I like it. I think it builds the fibers of the community, youknow, stronger. And we help some people along the way. Yeah. Andthere be a lot of good content out of it. It would be a lot offunny content, I think out of it, getting a bunch of contractorstogether to, play some basketball, full core basketball.
00;25;22;00 - 00;25;36;24
Mike & Stephen
But I mean, back, you know, maybe a year, year and a half ago,Anthony, Mark, Raph and I, we were on a podcast. He he has clearcut exteriors out of, out of Minnesota. Shout out to my guyAnthony. Yeah. I said, Dimitri and Tim Brown. It's an open invite.Like, you want the smoke? We'll pull up.
00;25;36;29 - 00;25;54;24
Mike & Stephen
I'll pull up to Minnesota. My guy Anthony and I, we could we couldgo against the Minnesota boys, see what's what on the court. Ithink it would be a lot of fun. You know, we could do a friendlywager that we donate to to the charity of the choosing of thewinning team, right? Yeah. Whatever. Yeah, that offer stillstands.
00;25;54;26 - 00;26;10;29
Mike & Stephen
So you guys never played it? We never played. I thought you weregoing to say I never heard back. Maybe they were scared. Theyweren't scared. I mean, I'm five foot nothing. Come on. if you'refive foot nothing, I'm five foot. Negative. Nothing. Is that adouble negative? So, major, five foot something. Yeah, like a fivefoot something, a five foot.
00;26;10;29 - 00;26;34;11
Mike & Stephen
Some look at you, but I'm sure you. You're telling me I'm thewordsmith? You're string savvy fella right here. Savvy fella. So wementioned humble beginnings. I mean, what was the inspiration forProject Map and where did it start? How did it start? I mean, giveit to me. Give it to me. yeah, I'm pretty humble. So I was aspecial education teacher for 20 years, taught math and, coachedlacrosse.
00;26;34;11 - 00;27;02;02
Mike & Stephen
I'm big lacrosse guy. I live in Maryland. So, you know, that's abig hotbed for lacrosse. So I was the high school lacrosse coachfor 15 years at the at the high school I taught at for 15 of those20 years. one of the one of the alumni of the guys that I coached.Yeah. Matt, that coach for years saw me ten years later, and said,coach, we need to get together and I need to talk to you about anew software that I've built.
00;27;02;02 - 00;27;29;04
Mike & Stephen
I think you'd be great. So we met for about three months on andoff, and he hired me. So I was the first ever employee at ProjectMap it. I left a 20 year teaching career making about 90,000. I wasgetting my I got my certification for to become an administrator.So the literally my 21st year, I was hoping to become, principaland assistant principal to start and then, as it usually takes you,if I was good enough at that, maybe I'd become principal then.
00;27;29;04 - 00;27;52;03
Mike & Stephen
Superintendent. No, but, aim for six hours, guys. If you. If youhit the moon and you're still up. Yeah, yeah. I might have f*ckedthat saying up, but it's all good anyhow. So. So I left a 20 yearteaching career, and it wasn't long after I started a project map.It that we realized quickly that at that point in time, thereweren't thousands of people signing up like we thought there wouldbe.
00;27;52;04 - 00;28;18;27
Mike & Stephen
Yeah. So, the owner, Matt, he owns a roofing company, which was hisinspiration, built a great product. Yeah. he he continued on withhis roofing company, and I was kind of left with sort of stranded.Yeah. A guy that taught 20 years of, math to high school students.All of a sudden, in this world of of contractors not knowing a lickof like, what certainty don't score.
00;28;18;27 - 00;28;42;06
Mike & Stephen
And all these different things were, and trying to grow thecompany. So I had about $125,000 saved up in my 401 K. in an overthe course of three years. That was pretty much depleted my firstyear salary. A project map it I think was $37,000. So I sat at myhouse and worked my ass off and and tried to get one customer at atime.
00;28;42;06 - 00;29;05;06
Mike & Stephen
And for many months I was paying myself $3,000 a month, and then itbecame 5000. And then we're at a point now where the company issustainable. We have some really big partnerships. People arereaching out to me instead of me begging other people to help bringleads in for us. So it's been it's been a, you know, I always say,I don't know, there's definitely signs for humble beginnings.
00;29;05;06 - 00;29;22;19
Mike & Stephen
But, you know, I've just come from the old school cloth of workingreally hard. Yeah, I think there's no one in in our company or noone that knows me that would say Steve doesn't work hard. So Iworked hard, worked many, many hours, probably at the beginning,probably 70, 80 hours a week. Now it's probably down to 6070.
00;29;22;19 - 00;29;42;04
Mike & Stephen
I work on weekends and stuff, but, we're sustainable, we'regrowing. We have partnerships that are going to probably help usexponentially grow here in the next few months, and life is good, Ilove that. I mean, it had to be nerve wracking. More so for youthan Matt. you know, Matt knew he had a fallback plan, right?
00;29;42;04 - 00;30;08;11
Mike & Stephen
You could just get right back in the roof, and he has a greatroofing type. Still, I think, whereas, you know, you leave a 20year career, I'm assuming based on the prerequisite to become, youknow, certified and have a degree to be able to teach high schoolmath, right. I would assume you feel a lot more vulnerable, becauseif it doesn't work out, your employability is a lot more a road tothat is more challenging than just hopping back into your roofingbusiness.
00;30;08;11 - 00;30;26;21
Mike & Stephen
I did not want to go back into teaching at all. So I mean, okay,how come? I was I loved teaching when you're in the classroom. WhenI was the sage on the stage, I was in front of the kids sellingcurriculum. That's why I'm a good sales guy, right? Like I soldcurriculum to high school kids for 20 years.
00;30;26;21 - 00;30;50;06
Mike & Stephen
Yeah. my last five years, I was, a department chair, and I was notin the classroom. And, you know, I didn't handle things super wellas a leader of that department. In the beginning, I jumped right inand started trying to make changes, which was a learning lesson onmy end. I wrote to a lot of people the wrong way, and, honestly,that that helped me at least get a taste of what a pseudo adminposition would be.
00;30;50;08 - 00;31;11;05
Mike & Stephen
And it's just kind of thankless, man. I just feel like no matterwhat you do as an administrator, since that was my path, teachersweren't going to really like you and I, and I have a personalitythat I. I don't like it when people don't like me. like, I needaffirmation. I don't anymore. I've worked a lot of a lot on thatwith my therapist over the last two years.
00;31;11;07 - 00;31;28;18
Mike & Stephen
So I know a guy you can talk to. I talk to him every Friday. Infact, tomorrow I've got my my one hour appointment. But point beingis I just realized it wasn't for me. And when I left, I did 20years, 15, in the classroom. And I loved those 15 years. The lastfive years was a great learning experience and I definitely hadgreat memories.
00;31;28;18 - 00;31;45;10
Mike & Stephen
But yeah, no, I don't I didn't want to go back into teaching, andthere were certainly multiple times that came to me and said, we'regoing to close down project mapping. And I had to beg them now,like, if he closed down the project, map it in that first year, Iwouldn't have had a job, you know, now, if Project Map it closed,which it won't.
00;31;45;17 - 00;32;08;13
Mike & Stephen
Don't worry everybody. But if it closed, I mean, I have I think Ihave other opportunities because I've made a name in, in theindustry. Yeah. So I'm not as concerned obviously now. But we'resustainable in the, in the company's growing. So I'm, I'm justreally proud of that. Right. Like my second career I'm really proudto know that I, along with the team that I'm closely working withright now, we're growing and making making strides.
00;32;08;13 - 00;32;27;08
Mike & Stephen
So it's fun to be a part of that. Yeah. And I think, I thinkthere's something to be said about the baptism by fire approach,right? Being thrown into something that you have not muchfamiliarity with at all, or in an essence completely ignorant to.Right? Totally 100. But I don't mean ignorant to be like, a termthat denigrates Stephen, right?
00;32;27;08 - 00;32;47;08
Mike & Stephen
Like I was just, you don't know, right? 100% ignorant. So you comeinto the situation and, you know, I mean, the most dangerous man isthe one with nothing to lose, right? I was me, you're in there andyou're like, oh, we got to f*cking make this work. Yeah, right. Sowe're going to scratch and claw Chris. And cue the Al Pacino speechfrom any given Sunday halftime.
00;32;47;15 - 00;33;02;00
Mike & Stephen
When he talks to his team, you don't have to kill. That's fine. butI'll tell you what I mean. That is a speech you know, that that fewminutes that he talks about. Are you familiar with it? Yeah. Yeah,yeah, yeah. we scratch and we claw for that inch. Bad impression.But go check it out.
00;33;02;00 - 00;33;20;13
Mike & Stephen
You could drop a link in the description. yeah. That's, I mean,it's remarkable. I mean, even as early as a a year and a half ago,I mean, it was when Pearl and I were just working together, the twoof us. It was like a pearl. You need to sell two moresubscriptions, or we need to sell two more subscriptions to pay thebills.
00;33;20;15 - 00;33;40;29
Mike & Stephen
Yeah, we're not like that anymore. That's good. We've got reservemoney in the account, and life is good. I love that for you. Yeah.Thank you. So, what's the growth plan? Are you guys going to bemarketing? Are you going to be focusing on acquiring customers bydirect marketing and advertising to the roofers or contractors? Areyou guys really leaning in on the partnership side?
00;33;40;29 - 00;34;01;15
Mike & Stephen
Is it a blended approach like what does that look like? It's ablended approach. We certainly have only relied on partners andcold emails and stuff like that. You know, we've got about 6000people in our database and we send out, you know, cold emailcampaigns, which brings in some good business, to be honest withyou. Yeah. we've locked in the cold email system pretty good.
00;34;01;17 - 00;34;20;26
Mike & Stephen
We use crossbeam with our partners, which is a way just to seemutual mutual companies that that work with us or our prospects ofeach. So that helps. We we've started over the last three months totry to do paid ads and stuff like that. So we are rebuilding ourwebsite now to be launched within the next 30 days.
00;34;20;28 - 00;34;42;19
Mike & Stephen
this is building it. So one of good question. Ascend Digital now,one of the owners of Project Map it, we're a partnership of five.He is a marketing guy and he's branched off a little bit, from his.So he and his partner Carly are building it. So shout out to Ryanand Ali. So we're actually building it right into HubSpot, which isour CRM.
00;34;42;19 - 00;35;05;22
Mike & Stephen
Yeah, we're just trying to get everything in one spot. So we dolike the analytics are there. So you know true. What is it one ofone truth source. What's it called. Single source of truth. Singlesource okay. So everything in HubSpot, so marketing's going there.We just hired a new social media person. that's going to be doingthat for us.
00;35;05;22 - 00;35;23;00
Mike & Stephen
So that's going to be pretty nice. We're going to be posting fivedays a week, doing some video editing and stuff like that. So we'rehoping to use social media as a platform to, to gain leads as well.So we are going after our own leads now. So it will be a hybrid. Inthe past it's been more cold emails and calls, partnerships.
00;35;23;03 - 00;35;44;26
Mike & Stephen
Dude, I think the relationship partnership route is like for ourcustomer is the most underutilized and undervalued component ofrunning a business. You know, if you think about it like it doesn'ttake much for roofing contractors. There's so many other differentcontractors that you can refer business with. You guys are allselling the same people maybe at different times.
00;35;44;26 - 00;36;01;17
Mike & Stephen
Yeah. Because somebody, you know, furnace takes a sh*t if you havean alliance with that Hvac company and they notice there's a coupleshingles in the yard, or there's a few shingles missing on theroof, it's an easy conversation because they've already garneredtheir trust to say, hey, we've got a great company. They're they'revery they're authentic. They're ethical.
00;36;01;19 - 00;36;17;12
Mike & Stephen
Have them come take a look at this. This is probably why you'd wantthem to come take a look. and just being focused and locked in onbuilding and developing those relationships consistently over timeand developing new ones, it could be such a great source for leadsfor a roofing company. And a lot of a lot of guys don't do it.
00;36;17;12 - 00;36;38;02
Mike & Stephen
Some of you know, some will do it. some do it with just likeproperty management companies because they've got like thecomplexes, the apartments, things like that. But, may having thosestrategic relationships with industry adjacent verticals, I guess,is could be so powerful. And like you just said, you've leaned intothat and it's been very fruitful for you.
00;36;38;02 - 00;36;56;09
Mike & Stephen
So it helps with any business. I don't care if you own a f*ckingsalon, you own a roofing company, a marketing agency, or you sendus two companies. And literally, I mean, I don't even have to demothem. It was like a text message in a five minute phone call.They're like, yes, I'm me up. If Mike Mike stern says, I needproject map it, I need project map it.
00;36;56;16 - 00;37;12;05
Mike & Stephen
And we and we have those, you know, I think, you know, we have wehave very close relationships with all of our customers. I feellike we do a really good job with customer service. We check in onthem. They know that they can call or text me anytime, even on theweekend. I'll probably respond, so there is that.
00;37;12;05 - 00;37;30;04
Mike & Stephen
But you know, we also have under a thousand customers, whereas someof these huge industry leaders that are in the software world thatwe're partnered with, you know, they don't they have thousands andthousands. So their bandwidth is a little harder to be like, yeah,let me introduce you to Steve Spence. But I do think it is underutilized.
00;37;30;06 - 00;37;49;02
Mike & Stephen
And honestly, it's been the main reason we've grown is because ofwe don't under utilize it. Yeah, we like I don't know if it's thatwe pride ourselves on our tight relationships with our corepartners or if it just that's the only we haven't had paid ads yetor anything like that. So it's all I could lean on anyway.
00;37;49;05 - 00;38;12;28
Mike & Stephen
Well, it's it directly affects especially for like our sharedcustomers, it affects their profitability. Right. Because if you'reif you're having to spend money instead of time. Yeah. Like there'sa cost per acquired job. And that directly impacts what you'regoing to make from that job. Whereas if you know, you do five jobsfrom Google Ads or you do five jobs from a referral partner,there's significantly more profit when you're not paying out,correct?
00;38;12;28 - 00;38;33;10
Mike & Stephen
$200 a lead to Google ads, sir. And you know, if you can build abusiness where you've accomplished everything you want, you knowyou can provide for your family, you can do everything that youneed in life, and you don't have to spend money on Google ads ormarketing, like, do that. Like it's all good, like and like I saythat I encourage people to do that right now.
00;38;33;13 - 00;38;52;03
Mike & Stephen
Like I always say, I'm like, I'm the fat kid, right? That alwaysran with a garbage bag to make weight on Saturdays for football. Solike, I like cookies. And I think of lead source as anopportunities as cookie jars. Right. So like referral relationshipsis one of them. Google ads, another one SEO, Facebook trade shows.Right. Like like our customers roofers have all these differentopportunities.
00;38;52;06 - 00;39;13;03
Mike & Stephen
Go with the ones that make the most financial sense for you as faras keeping your company profitable while accomplishing the growththat you want. And that might be you have three different cookiejar as you want. Maybe it's only one. Maybe it grows into five, youknow? So we have a really close relationship with certainty. somaybe dangerous me talking about.
00;39;13;03 - 00;39;32;16
Mike & Stephen
But you know what? I'm a transparent guy. I really don't care. Sowe're hoping to have a really a deeper relationship with certainty.And as a smaller company with fewer, like, right. We don't have 140employees. Yeah. Like some of these software companies that are ourfriends, that are our partners. We've got five in the states. Youknow, it's not big.
00;39;32;20 - 00;39;55;06
Mike & Stephen
So like it's one of those things where I could I could put all ofmy energy on a relationship with somebody that we have a closerelationship already with like certainty. But all my energy on thator I could have six different relationships with othermanufacturers. And, now I'm being spread thin right now, I'm notgoing to give certainty as much attention and love, because I haveto give some love to everybody.
00;39;55;08 - 00;40;11;11
Mike & Stephen
Right? And so for me, it's almost like, hey, why don't you and I'mnot putting all my eggs in a basket, but why don't we really growthis one relationship with this manufacturer so that theirterritory managers or their sales reps get to know us on a on apersonal level, we get to know them on a personal level.
00;40;11;13 - 00;40;27;19
Mike & Stephen
Now it's like, hey, we've seen project. I've been presenting forcertain team all over the United States over the last six months,and I've gotten to meet a ton of territory managers. It's been sofruitful. They they finally know who we are, right? And they'relike, oh sh*t, like Project Map. It's awesome. This is a nobrainer. I'm going to find my contractors tomorrow.
00;40;27;21 - 00;40;42;00
Mike & Stephen
So and it just makes sense, right. For somebody that's small andit's kind of one of those. It's kind of like the same analogy, youknow, focus your own attention to focus your attention on one. Andit'll be more fruitful than having to focus on 15. Yeah. Yeah, Ilove that. I'm glad it's working out for you. It is so far.
00;40;42;03 - 00;41;15;14
Mike & Stephen
So project map, we throw it on, throw it on a website and like thisis my take on it. And it's funny because we, we developed a wayless sophisticated. We we developed a way to try to accomplish thesame thing in a way less sophisticated way. Years before we met.Right. So, we built a website and we did like, API with Google Mapsand did like a pinning project where it was just showing the pinsbecause I'm like, I want people to know that if they're looking forthis contract and then this area, that they're going to be morecomfortable because they've already done work for them, like we'vetalked about this.
00;41;15;16 - 00;41;38;12
Mike & Stephen
and I mean, it sucked. It was good. It was it was better thannothing. It was. Yeah, it was better than nothing. Butcomparatively to like what you guys have available, objectively, itfailed. so Project Map is really cool because if we're pushingpeople, I mean, I've got I've got clients that use it on everysales call their reps, you know, if they're out there, they'rethey're pulling it off.
00;41;38;12 - 00;41;55;12
Mike & Stephen
They have whether it's in engage or they pull it up on the websiteand they know that, hey, we've done 11 projects within a, you know,a half mile radius, a mile radius. It's like, hey, by the way, likeyou're all your neighbors chose us. You could even take that a stepfurther and your neighbor shows us, and you know, this person atthis house, look at the review they left for us.
00;41;55;19 - 00;42;18;07
Mike & Stephen
If you're doing a really good job getting reviews, you can followme for more tips on getting reviews, by the way. But, you know, andyou can cross-reference. And I mean, that just builds such like, aformidable, impenetrable close with that customer. If everythingelse in your sales process is dialed in, it's like that one thingthat could really push them over the top, be like, it's a reallyeasy decision.
00;42;18;07 - 00;42;34;14
Mike & Stephen
You told us where you see why we're good company. You told us youunderstand why we install things the way we do. You told us youunderstand the value in our warranties that we offer, why we offerthem. You told us all these things, and the fact that you findvalue in all the reviews that we have, and, you know, we're showingyou that everyone else in your neighborhood has made the rightchoice.
00;42;34;18 - 00;42;50;07
Mike & Stephen
You know, you you want to be the one that has to worry about thecontractor disappearing. I don't want that for you. In goodconscience. I can't walk out of here without you saying yes, orgive me a really good reason why we're not your contractor today.Yeah, you did a good job there. Would you buy I? Would he buythese?
00;42;50;07 - 00;43;11;19
Mike & Stephen
And even even if you were at a higher price point than the othertwo contractors that came out to my house, I'd still use you.Social proof is a really important aspect of sales nowadays,especially because the trend of the people that are buying thosefixer uppers that are asking for new roofs, new windows, whatever,are the digital natives kids, younger people that grew up withiPhones and iPads in their face?
00;43;11;19 - 00;43;27;07
Mike & Stephen
They're vetting you. They're looking you up online. They're lookingat your Google reviews. Yeah. So now if I give them a tool thatshows like, oh, by the way, there were 11 houses. If I just zoomedinto my, my neighborhood and I see that, you know, my roofingcompany did 11 jobs. Yeah. I'm going to pick you. Yeah.
00;43;27;09 - 00;43;51;29
Mike & Stephen
Especially if we can show them all the great reviews we got withthe jobs. Yeah. Right. And so like, what is the talk to me aboutthe process? If I'm a roofing company, I'm like, you know what,project map it f*cking let it rip. We're doing it. How challengingis it? Because if we're you know, the idea is we can get photosright of these completed projects and show them the beautifulsiding that we install, the Hardie siding or the the new shinglesthat we install through certain tiered.
00;43;52;00 - 00;44;13;06
Mike & Stephen
I think it would be a landmark, if I'm not mistaken. They've got anexcuse. But you know, we're showing and we're showcasing this. Butwhat is the what is the lift for the contractor to get to thatplace where all these things are on their website showing theirpictures, and imagine it had to be very challenging now. So sincesince you are mainly roofing, are you only roofing for websitemarketing?
00;44;13;09 - 00;44;32;20
Mike & Stephen
Layer 9,595%. So we'll talk roofing because we're probably rightaround the same, right? 90% of our customers are reverse, so itactually can be real easy. In fact, we had a customer the other daywe were trying to sell and they're like, wow, I think it might takea month. And I said, we can actually get you done in three daysbecause of X, Y, and Z, because we have what's called aninterview.
00;44;32;22 - 00;44;49;10
Mike & Stephen
Once we sell them, we talk to him for five minutes just about thestrategy of getting them up and running as quickly as possible,because as a company like we want our customers to get up, you workwith contractors. You know, sometimes contractors don't respond toyour emails or tax or they're busy. As busy as crap, right? Theywould rather do anything but talk to him.
00;44;49;13 - 00;45;08;00
Mike & Stephen
Talk to us. so with that said, when I tell a customer like, heyman, we can get you on board and your map can be embedded on yourwebsite in three days. They're like, what? I thought it would takelike a month or two. Nope. So we have good partnerships and somepseudo integrations with the biggest thing, right?
00;45;08;00 - 00;45;25;16
Mike & Stephen
If you are mapping platform includes three things. Reviews yourfavorite thing. Right. So we can bring in all the Google andFacebook reviews, and showcase them on the map. So reviews pins ona map and photos. Out of those three things, the hardest is gettingthe pins on the map because it requires an import of aspreadsheet.
00;45;25;21 - 00;45;44;03
Mike & Stephen
Or you can manually, like add a thousand pins, which nobody's goingto do. Yeah. So we started working with companies like ABC supplyand SRS distribution so far. and what they can do is we could whenwe talk to the roofer, we'll say, where do you order your suppliesfrom? And eight out of ten times it's one of those two, right.
00;45;44;07 - 00;46;06;09
Mike & Stephen
ABC and SRS okay. We can get that. All the deliveries that that SRSor ABC set that delivered to the houses that you order materialfrom and use that spreadsheet. Like what? Yeah. You just fill outthis form so we can get those spreadsheets pretty easily throughABC or SRS. With those two, we do shingle branding, color andsiding, brand and color.
00;46;06;11 - 00;46;23;14
Mike & Stephen
And then, CRM, we're very familiar with all the different CRMs. Youcan always export a spreadsheet from a CRM. It's not hard. It takesfive minutes. And if they give us their login credentials, we cando it for them. And they're like, oh, I just need to give you mylogin links to leap. Okay. Yeah. And we take it, we take it fromthere.
00;46;23;19 - 00;46;43;05
Mike & Stephen
The only thing a CRM doesn't spit out on a spreadsheet is theshingle brand and color. Right. And our map, which was a littledifferentiated, piece than what you had when you did the maps foryour customers is that we have a filter button. So now if a salesrep is looking for that certainty landmark more black, they canclick a filter that says more a black.
00;46;43;05 - 00;46;58;17
Mike & Stephen
And the map is going to change to only show pins that have moreblack roofs. Right? Yeah. And I love that. as opposed to themlugging around the shingle board if you can. But a CRM doesn't spitthat information out, right? Your, you know, they only spit outlike it was a roof job or a siding job.
00;46;58;20 - 00;47;14;05
Mike & Stephen
Well, plus, you know, I found and we talked about this in the past,I found the more that I can take off of your plate as thecontractor, the less anxious I am, the better I feel, because youguys get busy and you might not be the best at responding inemails. And it's okay. Nobody is expecting anyone to be perfecthere.
00;47;14;07 - 00;47;36;09
Mike & Stephen
So if we can bypass the need for someone at your company to beresponsible for A, B, C or all the above, let's do that. Let's godirectly to the manufacturer. They have all the information weneed, and they have more information than what we would get fromyou exporting it from the CRM. That's a brilliant workaround to beincredibly efficient and make it as easy as possible for thecontractors to to utilize the the product effectively.
00;47;36;09 - 00;47;57;01
Mike & Stephen
So that gets the spreadsheet taken care of. Right? We can handlethe spreadsheet. That's not as hard as you thought it was. Mr. andMrs. Roofer. Yep. Second thing photos. We have a direct integrationwith company cam. Again we know how to get into any CRM anddownload a photo and then upload it to project map it. So what ourcompany will do is we'll spend two hours free service to loadphotos will connect.
00;47;57;01 - 00;48;12;29
Mike & Stephen
If you're using Company Cam, which like seven out of ten people arealways on company name. So then you give us access to come back andwe'll connect company cam to Project Map. It will spend two hoursloading photos for them. Or if they give us access to their CRM,we'll spend. Somebody just gave me a ton of, iCloud photos.
00;48;13;03 - 00;48;39;18
Mike & Stephen
Yeah. By address. So we'll spend two hours loading photos. Thattakes care of the second piece. And syncing your Google reviewsliterally takes five minutes. You log into your Google Businessprofile and boom, they come in. Yeah. So to get onboarded isactually very simple. you heard it. Give me a call. Easy peasy.Very simple. Yeah, I like I said, I have I have customers that useproject map it and their sales team are consistently referencingweather.
00;48;39;18 - 00;48;57;27
Mike & Stephen
Like I said, they implement into an engage. pitch stack or theyjust use the website. It's, it's a game changer. And I appreciatewhat you do, and I appreciate you coming here and dropping someknowledge and sharing some experience with us. Man. That's, That'sincredible. Before we wrap this thing up, do you have anything youwant to ask me?
00;48;57;29 - 00;49;26;12
Mike & Stephen
Oh, man. Nothing. What? What process in your company? I always liketo ask this. You know, you being the the leader of your company,which I know you have multiple leaders, but for people that arestill growing like myself and like you, what kind of advice wouldyou give other business leaders or entrepreneurs when it comes tobuilding your team?
00;49;26;14 - 00;50;11;09
Mike & Stephen
so I'll give a disclaimer that I don't think that, you know, I'mthe most qualified to give the best advice on this because I'mstill young entrepreneur myself. I think what have you learned?I've learned that it's I would much rather turn away opportunitiesin the event that we will have challenges fulfilling that andlosing out on those opportunities and taking the time that I needto get the right people in the right seats that I'm confident aregoing to consistently do the job the way that I want it done, theway our customers expect to have it done, then to hire somebody tofulfill a need based on us signing somebody and
00;50;11;09 - 00;50;28;00
Mike & Stephen
not having the means to fulfill it. I'm very I'm very hyper focusedon that. We've had several instances where we've shut down salesand we had to turn people away. Shout out to Eric Renault. He wasone of them. He can attest to it. And he reached out to me like ayear and a half, two years ago.
00;50;28;00 - 00;50;47;11
Mike & Stephen
And I'm like, we're not in the position to help you. I gave himsome some guidance as far as how I would make the decision to shootsomebody else. And it came full circle, and eventually we were ableto to connect and do business. But we we weren't in the position,from a human capital perspective, to invest what we would need to,to give him the best quality of service that people come to expectfrom ascend.
00;50;47;14 - 00;51;20;17
Mike & Stephen
So for me, that's the biggest thing is, you know, it's it's okay.We talked about it. Another piece of content we shot. Not everycustomer was your customer. Even the customers that are. Thetiming's not always right. Yeah. And, if that's the case, like hirein anticipation of the need. If you can. If not, it's okay ifyou're booked out for weeks on production and you're going to startlosing opportunities because of it, it's okay to take a step back,and take a look at like, how do we how do we create a situationwhere we could still sell more in the future but not bebottlenecked on production or where we're overworking?
00;51;20;17 - 00;51;43;13
Mike & Stephen
Because because that's another thing, right? That's putting stresson all your current team members when they're overworked. Andthere's just there's too much food on the plate. Yeah. It's youknow, in theory, as a business owner, it's a good spot to bebecause revenue revenues loaded up and you've got opportunitiescoming in. But also it you know, it can cause some significantissues with your employees internally because you're asking them topick up the slack of and then on top of what they're already doingfor customers too.
00;51;43;17 - 00;52;02;23
Mike & Stephen
Oh yeah. Yeah. Usually, usually at some point it'll lead todissatisfaction from the customers because, you know, you know, thefirst things to go are like typically like quality control. Right.Like we don't have we usually have a project manager at every jobsite. You know, that comes by a couple times a day. He only made itthere once or in the two day install.
00;52;02;23 - 00;52;21;03
Mike & Stephen
Right? I mean, look at Boeing. They were the first ones to cutquality control. We might want to cut that. I don't know. We mightbe able to roll with it. Yeah. You know yeah. Quality control isreally important, especially when you're flying 40,000ft in theair. so that's one thing that I would say is has been important tous.
00;52;21;03 - 00;52;46;18
Mike & Stephen
And it's really been a focal point for me as we continue to grow,is making sure that we have the resources. The folks within thecompany aren't overworked to a point where they hate their f*ckinglife, because that's not good for anybody. Yeah, I appreciate that.You know, I've learned we really and I and I've, I feel like I'vealways learned this or always felt this way, but I learned, Ithink, through my interactions when I hired Pat because I noticedPat's emails stunk.
00;52;46;21 - 00;53;05;07
Mike & Stephen
And I like I wanted to get mad because that's not my kind of emailthat I would write. Like, we we provide good customer service. AndI didn't get mad. And Pat shared with me his issues with dyslexiaand stuff like that. We came up with a solution. So for us it's,you know, we pride ourselves on helping each other out, right?
00;53;05;07 - 00;53;20;17
Mike & Stephen
Like if there is something we just, you know, Ashley, just went onmaternity leave. They just had a baby girl yesterday. it's notgoing to be this morning. Shout out to Dawson. Yeah, I've beentexting with Pete a little bit here and there. So, we're down aperson right? So we're all. We all know that.
00;53;20;17 - 00;53;43;12
Mike & Stephen
We're picking up the slack. We aren't going to try to kill it onleads. Like, I know that sounds horrible, but we don't want to overwe don't want to overextend ourselves. Well, we can't give customerthe customer experience they deserve as well. But being a lifelonglearner man like you're going to be, you're like, as a leader, youremployees are going to fail and tie back are always says it putpeople in uncomfortable situations so they become comfortable.
00;53;43;15 - 00;54;01;06
Mike & Stephen
Right. So you know brand new guy Eric started in March. He's likeit like today he got his first week early, sold somebody and he'sin charge of onboarding that person with Perla support. But he'sgoing to be crapping himself, right. Like he's nervous as crap. Butthat's okay. We want you to be nervous. We want you to be alifelong learner.
00;54;01;11 - 00;54;16;11
Mike & Stephen
And it's okay if you mess up. That's our big thing. Yeah, and Iappreciate that perspective. You know, I had somebody that reachedout this morning. He submitted a form about a week and a half agoto have us do, like a discovery call intro call. And he submittedit again today and I called him. I'm like, look, man, I'm reallysorry.
00;54;16;13 - 00;54;48;29
Mike & Stephen
You know, for the delay, you know, we typically try to beexpeditious with getting out, you know, speedily type deal. I thinkit's important people feel valued when you respond to them. And Ididn't even acknowledge the first one. Right. And that's that's mybad. But I communicated I express, as I said, as much as we lovegrowth and opportunities to work with new people like ourallegiance, and our main focus is on our primary clients that ourclients and customers of ours, I said, so it's been a f*ckingcouple weeks and that's not an excuse that doesn't excuse me notacknowledging you are getting back to you, but I just want to setthe
00;54;48;29 - 00;55;02;19
Mike & Stephen
stage at like, you know, we'll be very cognizant of not lettingthat happen again. And I am sincerely apologetic. But he's like,dude, it's all good. I and I can appreciate that as somebody whowants to be a customer of yours. So he's not going to be a customerof years, he is going to be a customer. Yes.
00;55;02;20 - 00;55;22;21
Mike & Stephen
Yeah. Cool. He was just saying he could appreciate that because whyhe's not a customer now that that little bit is focused. Lifelongcustomer. Right. Exactly right. Because I'm when he's on the otherside of an he is a customer. He knows that I'm we're not going to,you know, skirt or cut corners or skirt out on his campaign to makesure we're, you know and if signing new class, if you take care ofyour customers, your customers go nowhere.
00;55;22;21 - 00;55;37;11
Mike & Stephen
I had a customer the other day. He was charged for his yearly emailme, why the hell am I getting charged? I didn't approve this and Isaid, we're too big now. We're like, we can't get your permissionverbally. You get you get an email saying you're going to becharged. You know that you're going to be charged.
00;55;37;11 - 00;55;53;18
Mike & Stephen
If you don't, you should know your annual. I said, I'm sorry. I'llrefund you right away. Yeah. He's coming back right away withinfive minutes. You know what, Steve? You've always been good to me.I want to see you be successful. Just keep us for another year. Youguys are good enough. And I know, I know, a couple of mysalespeople, are using you for sure.
00;55;53;20 - 00;56;08;14
Mike & Stephen
So, you know, you build those relationships. And honestly, man, wewe joke, we didn't joke about it, but because I think it's true,like, there are two things when we talk to people, whether it's ona lead or a training, the first thing we always say on a on a phoneconversation or a demo is, do you have a hard stop?
00;56;08;16 - 00;56;24;20
Mike & Stephen
Or I respect your time. Do you have a minute to chat right now? Andwe want to make sure we're saying the person's name, right? I knowit sounds funny, but it goes so far and we do not. We are notpressure sales. We don't pressure. It's okay if you see value inproject map it. Awesome. We're here for you when you're ready tostart.
00;56;24;23 - 00;56;40;25
Mike & Stephen
If you do, if you don't see it, that's fine too. There's a hundredthousand contractors out there. We'll be okay. Be okay. A lot oftimes that actually that river. It's not reverse psychology onpurpose, but a lot of times it you know, people will really, trulyappreciate and want to do business with you because of thatattitude.
00;56;40;27 - 00;56;58;10
Mike & Stephen
Follow them for more sales training. Well, that's all the time wegot for today, folks. I am very grateful for you coming out makingthe trek up to Buffalo. Hopefully it's everything you hoped for andso much more. And, you know, take a look for that basketballcontent because it's coming. hey, I promise you, it's going to be15.
00;56;58;10 - 00;57;10;00
Mike & Stephen
Nothing you but that's. And we gone
