Ryan Paul Adams - Featured On

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Focusing on Production and Ignoring Your Marketing is Dangerous

I was consulting with a potential client today on one of our Free Strategy Sessions. Things were going really well and we were able to identify some key areas of his business that needed attention. At one point in the call he actually stopped and went silent for like 10 seconds and I wasn't sure if he was still on the call....finally he comes back on and says in kind of a solemn voice

"Ryan - no one has ever revealed to me the things that you just did. No one. I have been doing this for a long time and have hired a few consultants along the way to help me and they never mentioned any of this. This makes perfect sense to me and I can see the potential now. I really wish I had known this 10 years ago." 

It is for those simple "ah ha" moments that I do what I do. I firmly believe that I can change my little piece of the world by helping remodeling contractors figure out complex marketing and business problems. And it is not just about making more money it's about living a better lifestyle. With more marketing comes more awareness and infiltration in your market which drives leads, then jobs. More jobs means money, which in turn hopefully cash, and with cash comes the ability to hire, and hiring (employees, contractors, outsourcers, freelancers) frees you up to systemize your business and get more freedom to live your life. 

But like most remodeling businesses, my potential client is wearing too many hats. I could tell he was getting overwhelmed and all the gears in his head were spinning a bit. He couldn't fathom adding anything else to his plate right now even though he did not have enough jobs lined up and he was not making anywhere near the kind of money he wanted to be making after all these years in the business. While he probably needs to charge more for his services, he also desperately needs more business. 

Running a remodeling business is tough. I know this and you know this. But you aren't ever going to improve your situation without first figuring out your marketing and new client acquisition strategy. I typically do not send lengthy email replies like the one I am about to share, but I really felt a connection with this prospect and I sincerely want him to succeed (with or without me involved).

Why Marketing is The Key to Getting Out of the Chaos of Your Business - My Letter to My Prospect

I understand you are struggling on the production end of things and we can certainly help you figure some of this out. While we cannot solve all of your biggest problems on the production end, but having us involved solving some of your other big marketing and business problems will certainly help you in a big way. 

As part of our systems we include consulting and we can help you get in place the missing pieces you need to take your business to the next level. Some of these things are included, some of them you will pay extra for depending on what you need.  You don't just need more advice and consulting, you need people that can actually get stuff done for you and help you drive new business each and every day. 

This is priority #1 and I know it feels like putting out the other fires should be your top priority but it isn't and until you have complete control over your marketing and new business generation side of things, you will continue to run yourself in a lot of different directions. 

Why? Because if you are not marketing and driving new business, and focused on new client generation, you are not using your entrepreneurial hat. You are still operating as a technician. When you get control over your marketing and make this a priority your business will change and so will your life. But without this focus and a good team behind you that can hold you accountable, I am afraid you will be in the same position you are in 2 or 3 months from now. What is really going to change for you in the next 3 months? 

It sounds backward, but you NEED to focus on your marketing and make this a priority whether you do this yourself, hire someone in-house, or hire me and my team. Production is really secondary…or at least the effort spent on both need to match up somewhat. Production is important but it is not the most important thing (believe me I know what you are going through as I have struggled with this for years!). You will figure out the production end as you continue to work through the jobs and we can help you build some systems that will make things easier in the short term and the long term. 

Right now you are so bottom heavy with production issues and lack the lead flow and cash flow to hire the right people. If you don't get more jobs and more revenue, how are you going to solve your production end issues?   Typically you need cash to solve this problem and I don't typically recommend that you go out and borrow a lot of money to do this unless you have a great plan in place and really need this to grow fast. Your cash increase from marketing is what is going to solve your production issues, not the other way around. 

If you can simplify your service, I know you can find good people who can follow instructions to get the production end of things done. And with a couple more $50k or even $200k jobs, you would be able to hire some additional great people and develop better systems. 

Think about it...how can you solve your production issues without new revenue? You need to do what you feel is best and that is part of being the boss. Making tough decisions isn't easy but its part of our job as leaders to do this. You have some options here, but whatever you do, please don't ignore your marketing any longer. Do something today to make it better and over time your business will change forever. 

I am here if you need some help and I see a lot of potential for your business. If you want my help, I know I can get you to where you want to go if you are willing to put in some effort and stay in the fight.

Sincerely,

Ryan

I am not perfect and I make mistakes and there are infinite things to learn in this industry. But I know the above to be true because I have personally done it both ways in both my remodeling business and in my marketing consulting business. When I was failing and really struggling it was because I was not focusing on marketing and getting new jobs lined up. 

Need some help figuring out your strengths and weaknesses in your remodeling business? 

You are probably losing over a million dollars per year or more from bad marketing or NO marketing. Let me help you figure out what to do next with my Free Marketing Strategy Session. I also have a couple of additional bonuses I want to put in your hands as well. I am not sure how long we can offer this so sign up today to get on my schedule. Click here to find out more....

The Old Ways of Doing Business Are Dead…and Why You Need to Shift to Survive

The opportunity to absolutely dominate your local remodeling market is still wide open in every major geographic area across the US and Canada, yet so many remodeling businesses struggle immensely each and every year. This is partly due to the fact that up until this point, most of the sales and marketing "gurus" have completely ignored this industry and have focused primarily on other markets. It is partly due to the fact that most remodeling businesses focus (or get lost in) on production and largely ignore marketing.

Is this a result of a lack of good information or is it a result of poor mindset? 

After spending over 15 years in this industry and meeting countless remodelers, home builders, and contractors, I think I know why so many other consultants have ignored this industry. Somewhere around 95% (my estimate) of remodeling and home improvement oriented businesses refuse to focus on marketing and instead focus on production. Therefore, the vast majority of smart marketing and sales experts have given up on this industry or didn't even attempt to help. Is the remodeling industry too stubborn to change? Or is it something else that is leading to a bottom heavy industry?  

It starts with every remodeling business shifting from a production related mindset (getting the jobs done) to a client generation and business building mindset. A shift needs to happen NOW and this will begin with focusing on marketing first, instead of on selling and production. You can't sell a job that you don't have a lead for, and you can't produce the work if you don't have the job. It all leads back to getting your marketing strategy and marketing funnel in place first. This does not mean you ignore your existing clients and jobs; however, you must free up some of your time, effort, and money to focus on marketing moving forward or you put your business at risk.

Seems backwards huh? I thought so too and struggled with this for years and years in both my marketing business and my remodeling and home building business. I spent so much time being the technician and worrying about production that my sales revenue had serious ups and downs. This type of business was not a business at all - it was a frustrating "job" disguised as a business. 

Every time I focused my efforts on marketing and being more entrepreneurial, I could increase sales 25%, 50%, and even more in a very short period of time. Something had to change and that change had to come from a better mindset. You MUST shift to focusing on marketing with everything else being secondary if you want to survive and grow a real business. When you have a marketing funnel and sytem that produces real jobs, you have cash, and when you have cash you can hire good people to solve other problems. 

Big Players Are Entering the Remodeling Market and Are Gobbling Up Market Share

My biggest concern for the small-medium sized remodeling and home improvement business is that there are bigger and better companies entering the remodeling space each and every year who are marketing focused and go after each market very aggressively. They are entrepreneurial and marketing focused companies that can quickly put you out of business if you do not make some changes. And you can't sell a prospect that doesn't exist so focusing on selling ahead of marketing doesn't make any sense either.

Scott DeGarmo said it best in an issue of "Success Magazine"

"The big money goes to those companies with superior marketing operations. Entrepreneurial companies of today must evolve from being sales oriented to being marketing oriented in order to now win the consumer."

Now, I don't want to be all doom and gloom here and this isn't meant to scare you, but you really do need to put a plan into action sooner than later and shift your focus now. The days of being the only one in town that does what you do is over. More choices exist than ever before and with search engines making it so easy to research, qualify, and validate a business faster than ever before, you must have exceptional marketing above all else. Relying solely on architects, designers, and referrals for business is extremely dangerous for the future of your business, but this should be part of an overall marketing system.

Most remodeling businesses do not have exceptional marketing. Most remodelers don't have anything that even resembles a marketing message or a plan of attack. I get it...they are busy. Busy putting out fires every day and sixty and seventy hour work weeks are the norm. They wonder why they do what they do each and every day and pray for an easier way. There are answers to these problems and the only viable way to get real freedom in your business and survive is to grow. Or make the business so simple that it can run and thrive without the owner, and the service is such high demand that people constantly seek you out every day for those services. 

Billions in remodeling and home improvement services and products are sold each year and growing a very steady rate. If you honestly believe in yourself and the service you are offering, shouldn't you be looking to get as many of the "right" NEW clients as you can possibly handle? And if you cannot afford $1,000, $3,000, $5,000 or more to invest in marketing and to make people aware of your business each month to acquire new remodeling clients, isn't that a problem you need to solve sooner than later?

Inside Your Business vs Outside Your Business

You can't spend all of your time developing the inside of your business (production, sales, and systems) and neglect the outside (marketing). At some point the inside and outside of your business have to match up and preferably the outside will grow larger than you can handle. And when it does, watch out! But right now you are probably all lopsided and bottom heavy when you need to be top heavy, working towards figuring out the bottom as you go. You can have the greatest service in the world but if no one knows about it, you are in BIG TROUBLE

Most remodeling businesses deliver a great service but struggle to delegate to others on the production end. You cannot do everything yourself and there are plenty of smart, skilled people out there that can help you get projects done. If you are making lots of mistakes and finding it difficult to hire, simplify your services so that you can succeed now. If you are struggling on the production end, your services are too complicated and you will continue to struggle. That will not change over night. Stop doing what you are doing and start making some changes.

In the meantime, get a marketing system in place that can start moving you towards steady growth and profits so that you can hire better people to help you through your problems. You cannot grow if you do not have new projects and you cannot hire the next project manager or "internal" staff unless you have steady revenue flowing in all the time. The answer is Marketing Marketing Marketing! 

You are losing over a million dollars per year or more from bad marketing or NO marketing. Let me help you figure out what to do next with my Free Marketing Strategy Session. I also have a couple of additional bonuses I want to put in your hands as well. I am not sure how long we can offer this so sign up today to get on my schedule.
Click here to find out more....

Feel Like a Prisoner to Your Remodeling Business?

Do you ever feel like you are going insane trying to run your remodeling business? Stuck? Chained? A prisoner? You are certainly not alone as most business owners tend to feel more alone, isolated, and stuck then those that feel liberated. 

Being an entrepreneur is freaking hard! There are typically NO short cuts to getting it right. You have to work through some (a lot) stuff before you find your way and if you make it, it typically takes at least 5 years to really figure things out. If you want some freedom in your business, you need to start developing some systems to accomplish this to take the complexity out of what you are doing.

Ask Yourself Some Important Questions About Your Business

1) Do you work more than 40 hours per week?
2) Are you doing the jobs of more than 3 people? 
3) Do you have all the prospects you need to grow and thrive?
4) Are you able to turn those prospects into new clients?
5) Are you able to weed out the "problem" prospects before you take on the job?
6) Do you have any idea what your numbers are weekly, monthly, quarterly?
7) Are you able to keep up with the changes and regulations and stay in front of it? And communicate this with the people doing the work? 
8) Do you have a trusted group of advisors you can turn to for answers?
9) Do you find yourself repeating yourself over and over again and you and your staff make the same mistakes?
10) Do you feel that no one else on your team wants to succeed anywhere near as much as you do? 
11) Do you have trouble remembering exactly how you did something the last time and you or your team ends up doing something slightly different each project?

Odds are, if you can relate to most of these questions, you are running into some business model complexity issues. It shouldn't be this draining and this hard at this stage in the game. 

Complicated Businesses Fail. Simple Ones Thrive.

I firmly believe that complicated business fail where simple ones thrive for most entrepreneurs. If you want complicated, be prepared to raise a lot of capital getting your business going and that is not easy to do in the remodeling world. I am not against complicated, but you really need some special things to make complicated work. Complicated businesses with lots of services have lots of issues that need attention. 

Everything you do needs a system behind it if you stand any chance of getting a break and getting some freedom from your business. If you offer too many services, with too many different products, it's very difficult to create systems for all of this. It can be done, but it takes a lot of effort and extreme organization to get it right. If you can simplify and weed out those services you aren't the best in the world at and focus in on 1 or 2 core services, you stand a much better chance of systemizing and getting a break. 

Stop right now and build a checklist/system for something in your business. Develop a process for how you would strip a roof, or frame a deck, or remove a window. It's not easy to communicate very specific knowledge like this in a way that others can replicate and follow. But it is 100% necessary if you have any desire to stop repeating yourself, reduce mistakes, systemize, and scale.  

The problem with most entrepreneurs is that we make it way harder than it needs to be. We think that by trying to be everything to everyone we will make more money. That couldn't be farther from the truth and it took me a long time to figure this out even though I was given the same "keep it simple" advice early on in my career. 

My advice is to look at your business as if the ultimate goal is to sell it to someone who has NO clue about your business. If you can create a remodeling business that can be sold to a business person with desire, not specific knowledge about remodeling, that's a business that has value. 

Or, look at your business as if the ultimate goal is to "franchise" it. This doesn't have to be the actual goal but it should be how you start looking at everything you are doing. Could you package your business today or 5 years from now and sell the opportunity to 100 other entrepreneurs. My guess is that most of you probably can't right now, but with some simplifications, systems, and focus you probably could. Or at the very least, sell your business 1x and cash out. 

Your business can't be a job disguised as a business. You can't be the technician (person doing the work) and have a real business. If you love doing the work that is one thing and you should keep doing it, but you probably won't ever get free of your role/job in your business. Freedom in your business will only come when you have something that runs without you. That is the ultimate goal for every remodeler and is very possible if you can simplify and streamline. 

Systems, Systems, Systems. Build one every day and soon enough you will have one for everything you do.

Need more help growing your remodeling business? Take advantage of all the FREE resources I have on www.RyanPaulAdams.com and download my "3 Killer Ways to Grow Your Remodeling Business" today.