Business Development on THE EDGE

Welcome to Conversations on the Edge with Tom and TJ, where Generation X and Millennial talk about Restoration, the Edge version 3 and the world. All right, so we're going to get started here and I'm joined here today with Tim Miller, he's a good friend of mine, with Business Development Associates and welcome to our podcast number 14, I think it is, I don't know what we're up to now, it might be 15. I think you're number 15. Yeah, I don't have a real schedule for, there's like one a month, started out, it was like one a week, and then it was like one a month, you know, because it's not like I have, you know, millions of people following and listening and stuff. So we just have some fun, we're going to talk today with Tim about a lot of different things. We always throw in some life stuff, some business stuff, and then of course we'll talk about our upcoming Business Development class that will be in Cape Canaveral in June. And so I believe June, the 11th and 12th. Sounds right. So we always start out with something fun, exciting, not necessarily related to anything, but your life. So tell us something that's going on in your world and then I'll tell you some stuff that's going on in mind. You probably tell by the screen in the back what's the highlight of my week. I think I'll bet, I wish I was down there to see it. Yeah, so I think probably one of the biggest things going on for me is I had a child fairly late in life, I was 47. And so my son is about to turn 18 and yesterday we were up at Michigan State doing the college tour, which is where he's going to end up going to school. And it's really a bittersweet thing. I'm super excited for him. He's excited. It's going to be a great experience, I think. And yet, my little baby is about to fly the coop. So there's a lot of mix of emotions. So I guess a kind of a life stage change for me. I'll be an empty nester. And I'm also really grateful too. I had to work really hard to save money for him to be able to, I didn't want him to have to go through the burden of having student loans if that was possible. And so over the last six years, I've been on a distinct savings plan and I made it. My ex-wife has to cover half of it, but I've got my half covered. So I'm really excited about that. Hey, you know, a lot of happy mills put him. Put him through. That's right. That's awesome, Jim. And I don't have any kids. I've raised a couple, but I was joking with people that come through my class. Most of them are the age of what my kids would be if I had some. So I'm kind of living my life bicariously through the through the through the through the millennial generation that is is part of our training course and everything. But for me, you know, of course, I love, I love, you know, the fact that we get to have a little conversation here. You know, I always look to talk into and very excited to continue our relationship working together with our business development class. And but my highlight of this week, of course, is Artemis, too, that just went up and he's in it's, let me pour it. See if I can pull it out. And and so that was that's an actual picture that I removed the background out and stuck in there. But very, very excited about that. I mean, talking that's, you know, it's, it's an amazing thing because you know, we weren't here back into 60s in the late 50s, you know, when they were, you know, or why not late 60s when they when the Apollo program was a long so we didn't, you know, get to see it, see that. But this was really, really close. So we're probably, they estimated about half, half a million to a million people came out to watch. Wow. And just really cool, you know, it's like, all right. So now we get to go back to the moon, you know, all those people out there that don't think that we ever went to the moon. We did go to the moon. Yes. And and you will see because afterward, because Nick's, one, heads there, they're trying to figure out if it's next year or 2028, we're going to land on the moon. And so it's either late next year or early 2028. And we'll be back on the moon and we were going to create a colony up there. And and then all that, you know, everybody that says we never been there before will, you know, because everything is still up there. You know, because it doesn't deteriorate in space. So, you know, as it gets hit by asteroids or something, you know, so it's going to be sitting up there dusty. You're going to have the flag. You're going to have, you know, part of the limb will still be sitting there, you know, where they launched, launched off to go back up into the, the, the, the, the section of the Saturn V that was circling the moon. And we're in this exciting thing is we're going to be doing some very similar things. We're going to have a space station that will be, will be circling the moon. We'll be one of the things that we're going to work on. They're going to take an asteroid and put it in orbit around the moon so that we can test, test certain mining operations on asteroids, because there's a, there is a lot of minerals on asteroids that are not found here on, on earth. And so for everybody out there, if you're wondering why Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are in the space industry, it is because of that. It's not Mars. It is minerals that are on these asteroids because these guys are very wealthy and they like to control. And so there's nothing more than they would love to find the next minute life changing mineral. And then they would own it. So there's a reason why they're, why they're doing all this in it, but it's exciting. You know, you know, as long as the economies can, can, can continue to feed the space industry with, with, with money, because it takes billions and billions and billions of dollars. And, and if you remember what used to happen, whenever Congress got in and they needed to save money, it was always space and education. They got cut. You know, and that was, and it got cut. And we felt it here and we would see it here because, you know, we've been wanting to go back to the moon for a long time. But there was a, there was a significant amount of time between, you know, the late 80s and now. Right. You know, where the, the public wasn't really behind the, you know, financing that anymore, because if you remember towards the end of the Apollo, people were, people, the public was like, all right, so what are we, what are we paying for here? What are we? You know, we're up there with doombuggies and stuff. What why? And so the public has a very short attention span. Yeah. And there's a lot of time, you know, even right now with, with mosques, you know, with, with SpaceX. You know, there's a, there's a launch out here almost weekly. Right. And, you know, most, some, a lot of us, you know, live here, you know, we, we should go out every time there was lunch. Now it's like, you know, you're in your office and you hear rumble, it's like, oh, there must be a lunch. Because there's 150 of them a year. Right. And that's only going to increase. And I know, once SpaceX gets their, their moon rocket going, they're going to be going to the moon. We're going to have our Artemis going to the moon, which is United Space Alliance or United Launch Alliance, which is Boeing and, and, oh, shoot. You know, the big names, the big, lucky, all those big names have been involved. They're, they're that group. And then, and then of course, you have Bayzo's and, and the new Glenn rocket, which they've had two successful launches here off the beach with the new Glenn rocket. And they're going to be putting people up on the moon sometime in the next, you know, 18 months also. And so really exciting times, you know, here on the Space Coast, I know for some people that They're like, "Eh, what?" But I just think it's really cool. I think it's, you know, for me, when you look at that rocket, and you think that there are people on that, and 'cause that's the most powerful rocket ever built. And these SpaceX rocket is right there with about the same height and everything, just monster rockets and the New Glenn is that way also. And so you're gonna have those three organizations going to private and in one government. And then you have the Chinese. You know, the Chinese are, they've had a probe up on the moon now for well over a year. And so I actually had well over five years now because yeah, on the dark side of the moon, you know. And so who knows? They might have found some things out. You know, at the same point about the public and being engaged, I took your advice on the last trip down there and went to the Kennedy Space Center. There is, I don't think I've ever been as inspired about what our country accomplished a long time ago too. I mean, our technology has moved so much further, but it is an amazing, amazing thing. If you want to feel amazed and see what a dedicated determined group of people can do, go to the Space Center and spend a day there. I can't wait to go back. It was just amazing. - Well, and the fact that you'd be mentioned that because that's for me, you know, I'm probably out there, I'm my annual pass and all that. And I'm out there for five times a year. - Wow. - And I go, you know, when people are in town, I take them there. It never gets old for me because it does exactly that for me when I get there. I'm just like, if I need inspiration, I take my computer out and I'll just sit out there in the middle of the, you know, the tours are going by. And I'll be sitting out there, you know, with my internet. And working in, we've done a couple podcasts out there also. And I do commercials out there. And so it's just, it is inspiring, you know, what we are capable of. And sometimes I get frustrated because we, you know, we could be doing so much more than what we are. - 100% agree. - You know, we're so, you know, and I'm not anti-war or anything like that. I mean, there's bad characters that need to be dealt with in this world and we know that. But it's like, you know, let's, there we should be, I think we're behind, you know, and so as humanity. - Yes. - I don't think we progress as much as we tell ourselves that we have. - But you really may, but maybe. - Yeah, I mean, well, yeah, you know, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. And when we didn't really move along, you know, that much, you know, we have this little device, right? And it's awesome, disruptive, but, you know, you can check your emails, you can get your in-costing contact, which, you know, you've been a business development a long time to him and you know, there was a day where you didn't answer the emails on a weekend. - That's right. - I remember payphones, okay? (laughing) And I've checked my emails twice already, you know, today. - Uh-huh. - And, you know, but it's just that constant contact now that we have and I don't mind that. I kind of like it, but there are times where, if I'm on the road, and I've made my, the business for today is good. This stays in the hotel room. - Amazing discipline. Well, well done. - Well, what I found was, is there's an amazing thing. That happens. And, you know, I traveled by myself a lot, you know, in all the, in this world. So there's an amazing thing that happens when you sit down and I eat at the bar and when you sit down and you just look around. And a lot of times, you know, with everybody traveling and everything, if you're in one of those, if you're in a hotel bar, for example, everybody's gonna be on their phone. - Right. - And an amazing thing happens when you strike up a conversation with the bartender or any of the people that are working there, all of the sudden, in about a half an hour, if it's a good enough conversation and you're kind of engaging, all of a sudden, the phones are down and people are communicating. And it's just a funny thing how that, you know, how that works. But, you know, it's just where we become really dependent on it and I, and that worries me because if something happens and you don't have it, what do you do, you know, how do you find your way around? Do you have a map? Do you have a map? (laughs) - Absolutely. - I have an Atlas and much of it. So I have to remember how to read it. - Yeah. (laughs) - But, you know, we have, we have had some great technology breakthroughs but I really think that we should be, we should be further along than we are. But, that being said, you know, that's my, that's my soapbox. - Right. - Running for president. A job that I would never want. - Yeah. - We do a lot worse. (laughs) - Well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. All right, so to me, talk to us, and we talked to, you know, we've talked a little bit about technology and where we're at. And it has really had, you know, an effect. And I'll tell you how what I've seen. And just over the last few months, you know, in the training arena. And of course, we have a couple of things that are going on right now. We have what I call a restoration recession of sorts. Some guys are doing well. Some guys aren't, you know, some of the biggest companies in our industry, you know, in 2025, we're down 55% on top line revenue. And you know who these guys are, you know, they're, you know, billion dollar companies. And so we have that in combination with chat GPT. And everybody is, you know, in it's, in it's great. I love the direction. I don't know where it ends. I don't think Terminator is, I'm beginning to think that Terminator was not fiction. (laughing) Or Iroba. Iroba. So, you know, I, that one's like, okay, I can see that, you know, where everybody's got their own personal robot. But so with my training, I've noticed, and is, you know, attendance is low. And, but, and, you know, it's because of the restoration recession, but I think there's also a lot with chat GPT where you can, you can type in whatever you want to know and it will write up procedures for you. Now, I know, you know, people like IRC or C, and, you know, most of my stuff that I don't want out in the public is behind a paywall. And I think IRC has done that. Otherwise, I mean, you can just Google and, and you can probably find out everything that's, you know, without paying to go to an IRC or C class, you can probably put it into chat and print out the procedures. Okay. And so I'm thinking that that has a little bit to do with it. And then, you know, I, in the economy overall, I think people are just pulling back a little bit. - Sure. - You know, on spending. I know in my world, you know, I'm, you know, we were just talking about you're saving for, you know, for your son in college, you know, I'm, I'm prepping for the next entry into the housing market because I'm refusing to buy high. I did that once in 2006 and I will never do that again. And we're in a high market. - Right. - Now real tears would love to tell you, "Oh, it's never coming down. You gotta buy now." It's definitely, yeah, they told me that in 2006. - Right. - 2008, I couldn't sell anything. (laughs) And so, so I'm doing, I'm doing what you know, you know, I'm putting you know, a little, [BLANK_AUDIO] you know, funding over here for, for, you know, when, you know, the next, the buying opportunity happens, I want to be ready. Yeah. And so I'm cutting back on spending. And so I see that happening. And I wanted to see what your thoughts are on that. What do you see happening in the world of, you know, we're both consultants. Right. And how does, how does AI affect our consulting business? And what do you think the future is that on, on our consulting business? Personally, I think it's a short-term thing. I think people are, they, they gravitate to that shiny object. Sure. And the minute they're not, the minute they don't like that shiny, shiny object anymore, they move on. And, and to me, personal training, you know, in person training, I should say, is the most effective. Right. You know, and I know there's a lot, I have online courses, you have online courses. And we really have them there just for the people that just, they can't make it to a live class. But I think you, you, you would agree. I mean, you're, you're best when you're, we're, we're a relationship. You know, we're humans, we're, relationship based. And so, it's best when we're one on one. So, can you hear thoughts on where you see all this going because it is relationships? How do we tie all of this together? Okay. So it's a very kind of wide-ranging question. So, I'm not sure that AI is having the impact on the, on my business, in particular, which is hiring, training, and managing salespeople. There's no question that when I talk to restores or prospects, oftentimes they have used AI to kind of cobble some things together and they're, they're trying to, you know, you know, have some sort of sales program that are utilizing AI to develop. And one of the things that I'm grateful for, honestly, is that our industry is pretty unique. And so, AI does not have a grasp on what it really takes to be successful in direct selling for most restoration companies, where AI is going to be profoundly important. And something we're working on this year is to create chat agents that are based on our content. And we've created ungodly amounts of content over the years. And so, but, but I completely agree with you in terms of training. So, we do our training through a learning management system. So, people go online and take a module in our course. But we then have a live meeting with our trainer. And our training programs are, you know, four weeks long, because you cannot train somebody to deliver an elevator speech virtually. Is they have to roleplay it? They have to be under the pressure of a real-life situation. They need a trainer who can hold them accountable. So, I think probably some of the things that have happened in terms of the restoration industry. And I work with some very large companies. And I work with some very small companies. And we we're doing a lot of work now with franchise owners and their groups. And so, you have a lot of, you know, from startup to a couple million, three million. And then working with, you know, 20 million to a hundred million dollar companies. So, I kind of see this from two different perspectives. The first thing that I think is really impacted the business is the private equity roll-ups. There has been massive consolidation. I don't know what maybe it's over the last 10 years. But it's accelerated to the point where there's just an enormous amount of consolidation. And so, you've got these companies that now, you know, might there might be 10, 5 million dollar companies that now, you know, are one conglomerate. And so, one of the things that's happened is a greater degree, I think, of sophistication in the sense of these companies recognize the need for an outside sales program. And so, they they can hire people, they can hire sales management. Most of the time, they still don't understand how to successfully execute that. But the, the, the, because most restoration sales is still features and benefits driven. You know, we're this big. We've got this many guys. We're all certified. We're going to give you great customer service. But those are not differentiating qualities. And so, the, the person that, and especially this has been the case in the commercial arena, right? Because, you know, last 10 years, every restore wants more commercial business, okay? Well, but now you've got way more sales people, all saying the same things. And so, how do you get a foothold? How do you get a commitment? How do you get to be somebody's go to restoration partner? So, I think that that has crowded the market. I think that private equity, I mean, I can't say this is a general rule, but private equity often, let me say it that way. I'll use a marketing weasel word for you. Often does not improve the performance of an organization. And I've talked to many, not just one or two, where, you know, a private equity rollup might have, I don't know, 15 different brands. And after the acquisitions are all done, one is performing and 14 are losing money. And it's because private equity, God bless them. These guys, I mean, I know they're highly educated. But I think they understand our business. And our business is not the same as, you know, any other home services business. Our business has a lot of moving parts. It's very complicated. You have to really understand it. And so, I think you've got a lot of people throwing resources at the challenge, but not necessarily accomplishing the result, which is more direct business, whether it's, you know, the commercial market, which is, you know, what, 19 or 20 different sudden verticals, whether you're trying to work with insurance agents or plumbers and related verticals to that. But what we are seeing is, and I'm really grateful for this. I think we are in a restoration recession. There's been a lot of changes. You know, the carriers have been beating on, on, on the agency world. For decades, you know, not to recommend restoration companies. The constant downward pressure on margin, which whether it's legitimate or not, I'll leave that to smarter people than I, but I think we both know. Let me just say I was cracking up when I saw the CEO of State Farm, essentially making the same complaint to Illinois regulators because they're based in Illinois about the unfairness of Illinois, expecting them to, you know, operate their business in a more competitive way. And I just laughed because it's the exact same thing that, you know, we would complain about about the adjusters, you know, knocking down our invoices without any legitimate reason for doing that. So, funny how that, how that works. Yeah. Okay, so, so I think we've got, you know, the insurance company tough, tough, tough as always, not getting any easier. The market is more crowded with perhaps more sales people, but not necessarily more good sales programs. But what we can see is that direct sales programs absolutely work. They still work quite well. Now that we have so many clients that we're working with, we've got a data set that is giving us very, very good information about, and I'm not shilling for my program, but that's what I teach. We're starting to see that we can get very, very good results now. It's not, it's not a slam dunk, it's not a guarantee. There's several factors that are really important. And I'll just touch on real quickly because I don't want to go beyond what you really ask. You've got to have an owner of the company, or if you're talking about a multi-location, large company, general managers that are totally bought into the idea, we are a sales organization. So the next thing that's got to happen is the company needs to understand what needs to happen on the back end from the administrative or the operational side to support the sales program. Because salespeople have to make promises out there. That's to be a value proposition that is meaningful to the people that you want to do business with. So, but if the salespeople say, "Oh yeah, we do this, and we do this, and we do this," but operations has no idea. That will not work in the long run. And another thing that is something that I will be also finally putting the finishing touches on in 2026, the ability to close jobs in the field is a massive, you know, since we're talking on old stuff. Remember, Hrossboro talking about NAFTA. You'd hear this great sucking sound of jobs going south of the border. Well, there's a great sucking sound of millions and millions of dollars going down that black hole of people who are going out to sell jobs that they might be brilliant estimators. They might be brilliant project managers, but they are not trained in a sales methodology to help them close the job. And so, if you're not fulfilling the promises of having good salespeople, the good program, and you're not closing the jobs, well then the whole thing tends to fall apart. Because salespeople want to earn commission, companies want ROI on their sales program. And so, you've got to have all these pieces of the puzzle going together, working together. So, and I think one other thing that I'm seeing too is after all of this consolidation, there's another wave, right? Like, we've been around a long time. And so, you know, a lot of the people that you and I would have known as some of the larger more sophisticated restoration companies, they don't exist as independent companies any know. They've been rolled up. And so, but now what you see, you know, nature of hordes of vacuum, I guess. Now these, there's this next wave of entrepreneurs, whether they're franchises or independence, they're coming in to fill the gap. And just like it was before, they don't know what they don't know. And so, they learn the hard way. And so, one of the things that I'm finding is that in this particular market, there's a big demand for what we do. But there's got to be a system and a program and a process and it's got to be proven within the, to the degree that it can be proven, you know, with the qualifications that I just made. Because really, I think a lot of people get into the restoration business and they get to maybe, you know, half a million dollars in sales. And that's usually a point where an owner can be making some kind of, you know, but to get to the next level, they probably can't get on TPAs, even if they wanted to at that point, they're not, you know, established enough. They don't know what to do. And digital advertising, which is of course, speaking of great sucking sounds, the amount of money that's being brought to that, right? That's really the only game in town. I mean, in terms of anything relatively productive and fairly easy to execute. But even that in a given market, there's only so many leads that Google can give you because that's all they have access to. And those Google leads are not sustaining. They're one off. Yeah. So, these got a wet house. They go to Google, they find you great. But that's not a plumber who's going to keep recommending you or a property manager who's managing 600 units who's going to be calling you once a quarter. So I think we're in a very transitional time. And in the overall business cycle, we are absolutely in the maturing market, you know, part of that curve. So there's a lot I don't know what's going to happen. But AI is going to make it easier, I think, to reinforce training. Because I think that's another key is people come out of training and then they go out into the field. And even if you're managing them, there's not the repetition and reinforcement unless they have a problem that their coach can identify. So being able to have a quick five minute refresher once a week, and that's something that and then being able to ask AI further questions about that topic. Like, what did you mean when you said that, I think, is going to be probably a massive enhancement? Yeah. Because you were talking about the chatbot, and where you have all of the data that you put in. And I'm going to follow up with you after this over the next few weeks because that's because I'm wanting to add that to my online training, where they can just ask a question. And my developer isn't quite there yet. So I've got to create a solution and then go to my developer and say, all right. So here's what we can do. So I'm going to follow back up with you because I'm a big believer that AI can be a massive support system for restores, for the general public. It can be a resource that we've never had before. We've had Google, we've had all these things that we never had before. You know, prior to this, this is that old. This is 2010 when this puppy showed up. Amazing. And that wasn't that long ago. I know we're old. So to the younger kids out there, 2010 was a long time ago. Right. So, but we can find out whatever, we find out whatever we want to find out. And if we have a question, it's like you just type it in now and there's an answer. Now you got to look at the answer and make sure that it's not. Right. Rich. Because there isn't really a garbage filter that's going on with information. It's not, you know, it's, but for us as, you know, for your business and for my business, I think there's some great opportunities. And I am just now kind of getting into, because I was waiting for some of my more aggressive guys that have been in AI now for, you know, over a year or two years. And I wanted him to tell me what works, what doesn't. I was trying to eliminate the learning curve. I just want to go right to our, this works. Boom. Let's do it. And so, you know, I want to, you know, like we were talking earlier offline was, you know, recording, you know, conversations and, and then, you know, there's, you can get your notes written for you of that conversation that you had, you know, in a meeting, you know, is, you know, very important. You know, for, if we're recording, though, we want to make sure that we, we are letting everybody know that we're recording. And so there's no, no issues there. But in your, in our personal world, I know I've, I've got a couple books in my head that I want to write. And, and so I'm, it's what I'm going to do is actually write it, you know, through, through audio, and, and see how that goes. And then just edit it. Instead of doing all the typing, right. I'll just edit through it and, and add in and remove and then have the editors look at it and all that kind of stuff from publishers and whatever. And we'll be talking about that too because you, you've got a couple books out and I'm, I'm going to venture to that world. One, one, they're not going to be really related to the restoration business. Well, I guess one might be. Yeah. Yeah. But it's going to be the kind of the fun side of stuff. It's going to be kind of not really things that, you know, it's not a self-help book by no means, but it's going to be a fun book. Okay. Yeah. So it'll be all the fun little stories that I have because everybody that knows me, knows that I'm a, I'm a storyteller. I've got lots of stuff in there and I've been blessed, I've been all over the world in some crazy situations, some good situations, some bad situations. And so I kind of, you know, I guess if nothing else, just to write it so that it's, it's, you've completed that, you know, it's like, all right. I always want to do that. Now, we did it. You know, I don't know if it's actually would actually make any money and then, you know, because I think a lot of, a lot of books that people do, they kind of do that for that. It's just something they always wanted to do. Sure. And they do it. It's not a really a money maker, but, you know, it's, but I don't know. I don't know. It's kind of like podcast, you know, you know, it's, I do this because I like having conversations with my friends and learning more and always want to be on that, and on that edge of, all right. You know, what's going on out there in the world? What do you, you know, and so, but I do think that, you know, with AI, you know, from my training point, at that point, the consulting side, the restoration recession network currently and has, has affected that too because people are just, they're pulling back. They don't have as much money and even PLRB last week was relatively quiet. It's a slower, smaller crowd, but you have other things going on in or two, you know, four hour waits at the airport and all those kinds of things. And so I'm curious to see how, how RIA is going to be in Savannah because Savannah is not in fact, you don't, you know, it's not an international airport or anything coming in there too. So I'm curious to see how that, how that's going to be attended. I'll be there with a booth. You're going to be at RIA this year. It will be there. Good. Make sure you come see me. I'm going to, you'll, I'll have, you weren't with us when we had Clay Anderson at our December class. And that was, that was really cool. We should have actually just had you come in just so you could meet Clay and talk to him. We may have him back this year for, because this is your Ken, the week that we're scheduled to be in in here in Cape Canaveral for the business development class, June 11th and 12th. We'll talk more about that at the end here, but that class is on my 10 year anniversary for our large swaths mastery. So it will be 10 years that week. Can't believe it. And so we got to get, we got to get some people in the class. We're putting a place for everybody's listening to the business about the business. in the class is one of our favorites. Tim is one of our headliners. He headlines day two. We have Jack working thing. We was on day one and I fill in the gaps and we also have Jeff Carrier who is a restoration ERP who come, you know, there's one of the most important pieces of marketing that you can do and services that you can do for your client is an ERP. And some of the biggest jobs, you know, like we know we did the World Trade Center in '93 that's still the largest project ever done. That was an ERP job, you know, and it wasn't, back then it was a DRP, this disaster recovery plan. And we signed them up three months before that job. Wow. So everything that we go over in the class, we deep dive into some pain points, everything that we get into is directly related to business today. And one of the things I'm doing because I've been preaching diversification this year. You know, when we're going through a little slow time in restoration, it's time to diversify. And so with my clients, with my consulting clients, because my consulting is on a different angle than yours. Yours is on the sales angle. Mine is operations. Okay. And I've always been an operations guy. Not really a sales guy. I can sell, but I'm not, I don't, you know, I'm not, I don't wake up in the morning, you know, thinking about what I'm what I'm going to sell today. And so I'm more of procedures and methodologies and things of that nature. And how do we actually do what we what we sold them we said we were going to do, you know. And and so I've plumbing is a big thing for for restores to add to their, to their revenue stream. And and one of the things that I'm working on with with Jeremy Neal out of the Panhandle here in Florida is a program to where restores can actually add roofing to their revenue stream without having to start a roofing company. And so we have a network of installers, roofers, roofing companies that actually do the work. And so how the program works is the restores just simply has to train on how to do roof inspections. You know, using typically using a drone, you know, go over. And then that information then is sent to the corporate office, corporate office creates the estimate. And so on the and then there's a revenue that a profit split with with the restoration company. So you get you get a majority of the profit without having to do the work. That's great. And so without having to do the roofing part of it. So you don't have to have the insurance all that we have all of that. All of those things were in place. The licensing, the the, you know, workmen's comp, all of that stuff. And so we're trying to give them the easy button. There's no real such thing as that. But so we're we're diversifying. And have you seen restoration companies do a lot of diversifying over the last few years and have noticed a lot of them are, you know, the one Tom Plummer franchises, you know, a lot of guys are buying, buying those and working with their with their business. Have you seen a lot of diversification? I've seen it for sure. You know, when it comes to the plumbing side, I think one of the ones that I saw most closely up front or most close to to the action. So to speak, the the guy had a restoration business that had encountered a bunch of storm work and grew very, very quickly about 400% growth in a year. And of course, what I used to tell people is listen, if you're a million dollar restoration company that gets a $3 million storm surge bomb, you're still a million dollar restoration company. Yeah. You know, and so I didn't know him when that happened. And so he and he bought up one of the franchises that you were mentioning. And then when the business contracted again to a more normal pace for what he was doing, he was in big trouble because you start living on, you know, that $4 million or $5 million cash flow. Yeah. And one of the things that you have to be careful of, I think, when you're diversifying. And this is what I saw happen to him. He was actually trading the restoration work, which he was having a hard time getting for plumbing jobs, which he could get because selling plumbing is a lot easier than selling restoration. Yeah. But the average job that he's selling is $600. versus the average water loss, which is $5,000. And so it's hard to be two things, right? This is a challenge of marketing strategy. If you're going to do it, I think it's very important that you conceptualize it as divisions of the company. We did a lot of work. Actually, I thought was really good about how to each have each of those to stand on their own, but also where do they overlap? And how does the plumbing enhance the value proposition of the restoration and vice versa? I don't think it worked the way that most people thought it was going to work. When I first read about one time, I was like, wow, this is a great idea. But I think the one-time idea in and of itself, it's strong. I mean, it's got to. It's easy. It's simple to understand, it's simple to sell. And I think that how to mesh that with the restoration business was a bit of a challenge. Now, as somebody else along the same lines, a guy who has been in the restoration business a very long time, he is actually going to be doing plumbing, HVAC, electrical and restoration. He believes that the golden age of restoration is over. I don't know. From what I am seeing with my work with a lot of small restoration companies who, most of them are mitigation only companies, or they're starting to build relationships where they can be full service companies. And they are able to do just fine focusing on that specialization. The other thing that I would say too is, it was so common for years that carpet cleaners went into the restoration business. Carpet cleaning, generally speaking, and please, I hope I don't offend anybody, carpet cleaning is just not a great business, in my opinion. I mean, it can be a good business if you're like a one man or two man gang and you're just looking to make a living for yourself and you're that high service kind of guy. But generally speaking, carpet cleaning is selling today for about the same price it was 20 years ago. Well, there's an thing to it, unless you're doing like you're just the numbers, like you have the quantity, is what you have to have. You have to have a lot. Well, I work with a guy out in the Northeast, I'm sorry, the Northwest, the Pacific Northwest, who built a million dollar carpet cleaning company, then got into the restoration business, built that up really quickly and sold the private equity and he is. As I know, retired from our industry. Yeah, really smart guy. But I think, but anyway, the point is in terms of diversification, now what I've also seen. And again, these have to be managed really carefully. We built a program for a company that wanted to do just basically renovation work. So their main focus on the restoration side was commercial, multi location company in the tens of millions and probably somewhere in the 50 million dollars on any given year. But they saw a lot of opportunity because they had all this project management expertise. But they still needed a way to go out and get that work. And again, just like you're thinking about, I think with the roofing, you have to be really wise about this, because on awful lot of those renovation companies are working on margins like 20% gross profit. And you've got to know how to make that work. And so like a paper contractor, like a paper GC, right? Your overhead has to be extremely low, very lean, and you have to be really good at managing. But yes, I think a lot of companies are trying to figure out how do we diversify? It is a marketing strategy and differentiation problem. And I think. One thing with roofing though, it does, the roof gets paid first. The insurance companies always pay the roofer first, because they have to mitigate the loss. So it has to be tarped. And the roof has to be done. Then they screw around with the restoration companies. But the roof that they typically don't mess around with. -Oh, what I love about-- -Oh, I'm sorry. Get an open rep. -You know what I'm talking about, The Roofing. I think it's a better fit. for a full service restoration company. It totally makes sense. Like, yeah, we also do roofing. Oh, yeah, I thought you did. You said you're full service, you do reconstruction. And it's big dollars, which means that, depending on how, even with the margins split, the dollars are still pretty good. And it's money that most restores will leave on the table. Yeah. So I know, I think this is a really interesting idea. Well, and then the plumbing, the plumbing side of it, what I've seen work. It's not a lead generator for restoration. It's a separate business altogether. To where it's just a separate revenue stream. It's not helping your mitigation work really in any way shape or form. And so the guys that I have that are really being successful at it are doing big projects. They're doing commercial jobs. And these are, you know, you have to dial it in because you're going to be doing competitive estimating, and, you know, which everybody in business should be able to estimate competitively. Right? And so a lot of restores, you know, they have what they, they're throwing numbers at the wall a lot of times. And so that's a whole another whole another podcast. But, but, and so those, I think if you keep them separate, and so it's like, they're not there to support your restoration business. They're there to support your business. That's exactly right. You're over your overall business. Because I think that the, the, there is some part of the golden age of restoration that is over. Or ending because you have, if you look at this, the deductibles today, as compared to, you know, 20 years ago. Sure. Here in Florida, you know, God boy. I mean, you can have 20,000 already deductible. Right. And if I have that on my house, and I have damage, well, you know, if I'm just the average homeowner, I might get up my chat GPT said, boom, what do I do with water damage? Boom, boom, boom. Here's my, here's my instructions. Now I'm going down to office or home depot. And, or lows, I'll be fair. Those home depot tractor supply will throw you in there too. So, you know, I'm, you know, do it myself because that's I'm going to do that myself anyway. And, you know, just me. Right. But the average, because the average, you know, homeowner, you know, our business is very young. It's, you know, the restoration business is, you know, 1980, 1979, 878, you know. And again, that's out to us. That's, that's, you know, not that long ago. I know the older, the younger kids are like, damn your old. But, and, and, but I think that the, the, the, I lost my train or where I was going with that. Where, where was I? Timmy with that. Okay, so let's see. We were talking about CHECG PT being able to do that. Yeah, I'll deduct the votes of the water. Yes. And so now, you know, being this young industry, a lot of, you know, they're, I forgot family members but still don't understand what the heck I've been doing for 40 years. Right. And, I mean, that's true. I, I'm with them and they introduced me to someone that's a friend. I have to explain what I do. Right. And, and, and, and, into the general public, you know, the restoration world, you know, to the general public, they don't know really, you know, what's surpro or bell for, you know, what, what are they? You know, you know, they only know because, you know, they talk, you know, they had a water damage or something came up. But in the general life, I mean, it's not like they really, truly understand who we are. Right. And so the AI portion of that could, that could be a big big thing. That's a big point. Yeah. Because, you know, people are just like this, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, okay. How do I take care of water damage? What do I do with mold? I got mold. What should I do? Boo, boo, boo, boo, boo. And, and, and chat GPT will write out your instructions and give you a laundry list of what you need to buy at home depower lows. Yeah. I mean, I know it's not that simple. But, yeah, I mean, there's no question that people will do it. I think that also presages a, a shift that restores have to have to be thinking about. I mean, when you get into more self-pay work, it's a different world. And, you know, I mean, regardless of what you think about how the insurance companies try to manage costs, the fact that there is an insurance industry that pays restoration companies is a massive boom to our business. And, I think even though there's a lot of work that can be and should be and is being done by people like Ed Cross, trying to hold, you know, insurance companies to the same rules that everybody else is supposed to play by, you know, that's a long slog, right? And, I think it's going to be powerful in helping people estimate and defend estimates much more effectively. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, yes, if you're talking to a homeowner, and now it's not about your, you know, your $1,000 deductible, now it's the entire cost of the job. And so, even more so, the ability to estimate accurately, as you've said, to be really focused on, how do I do this in a way that is the best overall value for the customer where the price point is tolerable, but I can still make money. And then you still need the sales skills to close that deal in the home. It is amazing to me how many people think that selling a restoration job is, okay, Mr. Jones, we're looking at, you know, $3842 and 17 cents. Should we get started? And, you know, that's not going to cut it in this brave new world. So, I think you're right. I think that a lot of people will look at that. A lot of times, now of course, I'm old too. So I look at what Jeff tells me about how I do something myself. And I'm old enough to know, yeah, that is not something I should be tackling. So then I ask how much for a professional to do this. Well, and a lot of things too that can play in there too, because when the restorers started in this business, the turning point, the tipping point was when the insurance carriers realized that, and we can clean this stuff, we can, we don't have to tear it all out and replace it because it takes a lot longer to do that. - To dry it, it's amazing. - Yeah, we can dry it out and all that stuff. And so what's happened now is made, so it was all general contractors prior to restoration companies. And there might be a factor of that reaching back in there too, because if I'm Mr. Homeowner, and I've got a $10,000 deductible, and I've got to do this myself, then I might not be thinking about a restoration company. I might be thinking about a construction company. - Rip it out and replace it. And so that would maybe coming full circle there, I don't know, I'm trying to read the tea leaves on everything that's happening and it's almost impossible. - Right. - You know, I'm wrong a lot more than I'm writing. So, but I do think there's some really, there's some dynamics that are at play right now. And I think everything that we have talked about today is at play. And if restores are not paying attention and they are not doing their homework, and get involved with AI, get started on it. I've got my toe in the water, but this year is my AI year. And so I'm just about there, we're creating these new businesses and stuff, so that has delayed my AI stuff, 'cause it's like, all right, so we're diversifying or trying to make money. And so, and so this is, I'm gonna be doing the same thing the restores need to be doing it. So, I try to be one of those guys to him that I practice what I preach. And if I tell you what works, what does it, it's probably because I found out myself, what does it just like for you? You know, we've been around long enough to where you have that experience level to where it's like, okay, it's just natural. And it will be for the younger generation when they get to be our age too. But I have, we're up against it now Tim, and I gotta tell you, I, it is, pleasure talking with you and what I want to do is just talk a little bit about our upcoming class and when I finish everything, there'll be a banner at the bottom of our deal that will have the class on, you know, for the whole podcast. This, the class that we have June and here in Cape Canaveral, you won't see Artemis, Artemis, you'll see probably, let me see here, you'll see, you won't see Artemis, but you might see a rocket, you know, and so we have a great class, you know, Tim, Tim brings the rubber meets the road guy. And so when we're doing our training, and Tim is up on day two, this is a two day class, this one where it's just a strictly two days, Tim is going to give you the nuts and bolts, you know, what you need to do on a daily basis. And then of course, Tim is also available for, you know, if you want to, you know, hire him on, you can have him on your team, have his team part of your team, and they can take you to where you want to get to. So, joining us June 11th and 12th, I think I have the dates right on that, I get the 13th and there for some reason, but I think the 13th is on Saturday, but 11th and 12th, I have a part in there too where we drill down deep into your pain points, and we go into a lot of the stuff that we've done in the past, and how you can plug that in. And Tim, tell us some, tell us what your thoughts are on our classes, I think this is the fourth year. That sounds right. Four or five. Maybe, yeah, maybe five. I think the class is terrific. So there's a lot that you're going to get. The first day is Jack, and Jack is a consultative sales trainer, and you know, it is amazing to me, people throw around the term consultative sewing all the time, but very few people really practice it. And it is so important to understand that, because otherwise, if you don't really understand consultative sewing, you're just showing up and throwing up, right? And you're not differentiated, you don't ask smart questions, you don't lead the prospect to the right conclusion, and you're going to get a power pack day with Jack of pure consultative training, which is how I learned to sell many, many moons ago, and I'd still how I sell today. And, you know, selling has kind of that dirty word, where really selling should be a communication process where you find out if a prospect has pains or problems or challenges or always that you can solve, and if you can, you have a conversation about whether that's a mutually beneficial relationship. It's not like, you know, Tim Man or, or I can't know, I'm not ready to have stuff, right? So it makes selling more scientific and allows you the freedom to build the relationship, which is the business that we're in. So, and then my portion of the program, of course, is what you just said, Tom, and that is it's very much a rubber meets the road. You know, we've been training restoration companies for 23 years to go out and build their own direct business. And so in a four-hour program, it's pretty wide-ranging with a lot of information you're going to come away with. You know, I don't hold anything back. I'm giving it all out. And so, what does the value proposition look like? What are the type of salespeople that you want to have? What are the prospecting activities supposed to look like? How does an ERP get incorporated into this? I mean, there's just tons and tons and tons of stuff that I think can be very, very useful, whether you're building your own program or evolving or developing your own program, or you want to learn more about it and say, okay, well, maybe it makes sense for me to work with somebody who can facilitate this for us. And then Jeff also, Jeff Carrier, with Restoration ERP, this is really the premier piece of technology that supports these commercial programs. You got to have it. And Jeff is doing some amazing things with AI actually in terms of making ERPs easier to create, which has always been a bottleneck. And so, AI wizard that's going to walk you through building the ERP because the quicker you can get one built, the quicker it's installed, that has historically been a real problem. And Jeff is doing a lot of other things too in support of commercial marketers. And so, I think you've built a great team, if I do say so, myself. And of course, Tom, what you bring to the table is a depth of experience that I don't know if anybody can match up with. And listening to you talk about, you know, Tulane or the World Trade Center, or, you know, these jobs in the Middle East, I mean, it's amazing. And the resource too, with the edge software and your consulting ability, I tell people all the time, if you get a massive loss, the first thing you do is call Tom, okay? Because you don't want to lose it and be, you want to make sure you make money on it. And so, it's a really great opportunity to take a couple days away. I've seen, I think, three or four rocket launches now that I've been down there. I know I like to take a couple days in addition when I can. It's a great class. So, I can't recommend it enough. I really enjoy it too. And of course, we have our, we have our staking beers cook out where we go up, we cook out by the pool. The chef brings out the grill and we grill up some rib eyes or some, whatever you want to, if you want, if you want to put some, whatever fish you want to put on there, we can do that. Chicken, fish, steak, whatever. And the biggest big potatoes that you have ever seen. Yeah. And I still don't know where they get them, but it is a great event. Worth every penny. The team, as Tim said, is a really, really diverse team and a good training team. You're going to learn much, everything that you're going to learn, you can put to work immediately. I'm a big, keep it simple, stupid guy. And so, my part of it, I go into the things that have worked for me, for the companies that I've worked with, and what I see working now, and how it all plays together, because we always have to remember that this isn't rocket science. Now, you see Artemis behind me over here. Out of the way. There you go. Yeah, it's hard to get that direction right when it's behind me. But when you see Artemis right there, that is rocket science. And we're not doing that. Yeah. Thank goodness. We're not doing that. We're cleaning, drying, and restoring, and ripping out and replacing. And it is really important for us to always remember that, you know, don't over complicate things. Don't make things harder than they are. We're not launching rockets into space. We were cleaning up after disasters. And we want to do it profitably. We want to do it to where it works for the client. It keeps them in business. It keeps them in their home. That is the reason why we're in this. And yes, it is profitable and everything that comes with doing a great job. And so what you'll learn is how to get how to find those opportunities, how to keep those opportunities continuing to come in. And Tim will get into, you know, how to get your sales team together and how to keep them. Because that's one of the hardest things is getting the good sales team together and then keeping them. And so, to me, I'm going to just tie it up unless you got anything else. I want, you know, please join us here in Cape Canaveral, Florida, June 11th and the 12th. It's a two-day class this time. We cut a day off. And it's going to be jam-packed. You're going to learn a lot. You're going to have a lot of fun. And you might even see a rocket while you're here. And you'll, we might even have a couple of the surprises built in there too. All right. Well, Timmy, it has been a pleasure. Thank you, my man. On this, this is Easter weekend. Thank you for, you know, taking the time. I really appreciate it. And I look forward to seeing you in June. Actually, I'll see you in R.A. and in Savannah. Okay, terrific. Look forward to it. Our buddy. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Cheers. Thanks for listening to Conversations on the Edge with Tom and TJ. Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And if you like what you hear, leave us a review. Join us next time for another Conversation on the Edge.