Full transcript9 chapters · 7,710 words
00:00Cup of noodles and sleeping on the carpet to save cash
Idan Shipzear: We went to 99 cent store and I think for $10, we bought enough. I call the noodles that comes in this small cup. I forgot.
Tyler Martin: Oh, cup of noodles.
Idan Shipzear: So we basically this is the only thing that we ate for a long period of time. I mean that night that we went there to the flooded house and we charged $600, we celebrated by going and by eating Chinese food. So we were super frugal, Like we slept on the carpet with towels for a long period of time, because we didn’t really have a choice and we were very disciplined mindset.
Narrator: Welcome to Profit and Grit with Tyler, where blue-collar owners and insiders spill the real story behind their hustle, building businesses that thrive through sweat and smarts. We’ll dig into their journeys, from scaling chaos to growing the bottom line, with lessons and grit that pay off big.
Narrator: Here’s your host, the blue-collar CFO Tyler Martin.
Tyler Martin: Hey, welcome back to Profiting Grit with Tyler. Today we’ve got Aydin Schweizer. He’s the founder of 911 Restoration. This is a nationwide franchise with over 120 offices specializing in water, mold and fire damage mitigation. Aydin moved from Israel to the US with just $1,000.
Tyler Martin: That’s it, $1,000. And he built a multi-million dollar business from the ground up. In this episode, he shares his incredible journey of resilience, grit and growth, offering valuable insights on entrepreneurship, customer experience and team building. Stay tuned for an inspiring conversation and team building.
Tyler Martin: Stay tuned for an inspiring conversation. Hey, aydin Schweizer, welcome to the Profit and Grit Show with Tyler. Nice to have you. Thanks for having me. How are you doing? Thanks for being on here. You know, the way I’d love to start is I’d love to learn a little bit about you professionally what you do and then part two to that is maybe something about yourself personally, if you’re willing to share it.
Idan Shipzear: Yeah, absolutely so. On the professional side, I’m the founder of 911 Restoration. That’s one of the companies that I started over the past 20 years. Now Today, 911 is a franchise system. We have about 120 offices around the US, rolling to Canada, and we do water, mold and fire damage mitigation.
Idan Shipzear: That’s the business side.
02:25Landing in the US from Israel with $1,000 and no plan
Idan Shipzear: On the personal side, as you hear my accent, I’m originally from Israel, moved here around 2000 with about $1,000. Yeah, today, married three kids twin girls 15 years old and a boy 14 years old teenager in the house. It’s crazy times and beautiful times and, yeah, just enjoy life Very cool.
Tyler Martin: So so many things I want to talk to you about, but let’s start with your entrepreneurial journey. So you come over here with a thousand bucks, Did you know once you came over here? Hey, I want to like have my own business, or were you just, I just need to make money.
Tyler Martin: What was your thoughts when you first came over?
Idan Shipzear: So yeah. So I had to make money, because that’s really everything I had. So I didn’t really have a choice. But I didn’t really come here thinking I want to start my own business or I want to build a company. I just came here from, you know, I mean in Israel.
Idan Shipzear: In the movies we see America. Money grows on the trees, everything looks so easy and beautiful. It just got here and don’t worry, we’re going to find something. So that really was the idea of the end company. I knew I’m not going to go to school, I’m not going to go to university back in Israel.
Idan Shipzear: So it was like you know what, let me just pack a small bag of clothes and come here.
Tyler Martin: Wow. And so how does this journey? How do you get to the point where you’re running your own business?
Idan Shipzear: A thousand bucks doesn’t go too far. So so how does it? How do you get there? So we somebody was nice enough and gave us a job as a carpet cleaner. So we clean carpet for the first year. So we’re like five guys one bit of apartment.
Idan Shipzear: We kept costs very, very low, crazy low, and yeah, so clean carpet saved every dollar that we made. And at one point, when we kind of discovered the water, mold and fire damage industry, we just started buying equipment slowly. So we bought the first blower and then another one and dehumidifiers and really keep investing everything back into, you know, any piece of equipment that we need to really be able to do the type of work that we want to do.
Tyler Martin: Wow. So when you said you found out about restoration business, was this?
04:28The $600 flood job next to a $15,000 restoration crew
Tyler Martin: As you were carpet cleaning, someone just brought it up to you, or how do you suddenly learn about this niche?
Idan Shipzear: Yeah. So as we clean carpet, one day, about eight months in or seven months in, we got a call for a flooded house and we didn’t know anything about water damage or any of it. We just went out there with a carpet cleaning machine and we extract the water and we thought that that’s what you’re supposed to do when houses flooded.
Idan Shipzear: Right, and we extract the water, we charge $600. I’m like, wow, that’s great. But as we’re almost done, and then another company came in and they brought in blowers and humidifiers and cutting the walls and pulling the carpet, and we’re like, okay, what’s going on here, what these guys are doing, so then we recognize and another thing is that we realized that they are charging about $10,000 to $15,000.
Idan Shipzear: So now the $600, it’s great, but it’s not as great, right. So we saw that. And the other part that we recognize at the same time is the homeowner is really going through an emotional disaster, but they’re not really paying attention to it.
Idan Shipzear: They are so busy or creating even a bigger mess. And we just kept seeing the same behavior again and again and again, right. So after we got the first phone call, a month after, we got the same type of situation and then again and at that point I’m like, okay, I see an opportunity here, this is a great business, and I see another opportunity here on the customer experience side, and this is where we start buying equipment and learning more about the water damage and got certified and went through the process of being able to offer it as a service.
05:59From 250K to 3 million after learning Google ads overnight
Tyler Martin: Wow, and so I think, if I understand you correctly, you had been talking before we started the show. You got up to 3 million. Was that all in the restoration business? Take me through that. How do you get to 3 million? That’s a nice size, small business.
Idan Shipzear: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So. Once we understand that this is what we want to do, the water, mold and fire. This is where we stop working for the carpeting company, we kind of worked with him a deal and we took part of the company with us.
Idan Shipzear: At that point we averaged about 250K a year. Then one night went out for dinner and as a meeting, I’m hearing two people speaking about Google AdWords advertising on Google. I don’t think it was even Google AdWords and I’m like, okay, what Google advertising?
Idan Shipzear: How it works. I need to figure this thing out. So I went back home that night, spent hours trying to figure out how to put an ad on online, set up an ad. I didn’t even have a website. I just put my phone number there instead of putting the URL for the website.
Idan Shipzear: 24 hours after I got my first phone call and then every day we start generating calls. We grew from 250 to north of 3 million in about a year and a half a year and eight months, something like that. So that was part of it, but at the same time we did so many other things just to generate more work.
Idan Shipzear: I remember one night we’re just sitting there with a fax machine we wrote on just blank paper. We can help with water and mold and fire and everything else that you need, and we just fax it to every management company in the area, right?
Idan Shipzear: So just doing everything that we can just to generate more work, wow.
Tyler Martin: So it sounds like you know you were capital constrained because you just come over to the country. I mean you had a thousand dollars. Now you were running, you know, doing odd jobs at first, making a little bit of money, plowing it back into the business.
Tyler Martin: How did you have that discipline? Because to buy equipment it’s not cheap. So what were I mean you guys? What were you like? Living on beans and rice basically the whole time?
Idan Shipzear: I mean you must have been pretty frugal. We went to 99 cent store and I think for $10, we bought enough. I call the noodles that comes in this small cup, oh, cup of noodles cup of noodles. So we basically this is the only thing that we ate for a long period of time.
Idan Shipzear: I mean that night that we went there to the flooded house and we charged $600, we celebrated by going and by eating Chinese food. So we were super frugal, like we slept on the carpet with towels for a long period of time, because we didn’t really have a choice and we were very disciplined.
Idan Shipzear: I grew up in a farm, like I understand what it means to work hard, right, and also yeah, so we had the discipline and we didn’t really have a choice. It’s not like I was able to. You know, six months in, if something is not working well, I can call my parents hey, wire me some money.
Idan Shipzear: This option wasn’t really. I knew that they probably would do it if I need to, but they’re going through their own thing as well, right, so we just have to do it and we every we’re very disciplined that every time that we finish a project, we knew exactly how much money we’ll spend on gas, how much do we need to spend on different things, how much do we need to pay commission or something else for the company that we work for and we just try to save everything that we can.
Tyler Martin: So you were doing some type of I’ll call it back of a napkin type math accounting where you were projecting out what your expenses, your revenue, would be, where that would leave you guys in terms of cashflow and payment. Is that what you were basically doing?
Tyler Martin: Yeah, always.
Idan Shipzear: Wow. We always have kind of a running number and have like a note okay, this week this is how much we sold, this is how much. The cost of living, the cost of gas, this is where I need to be. This is my break-even.
Idan Shipzear: Above that number. I know that I can save a certain percent Above a higher number. I know that I can save 100% per percent. So we always kind of run the numbers in our head.
09:56Waiting two to six months for insurance to pay
Idan Shipzear: It’s like at one point can we start buying equipment, right? And then we just broke it down into and we set up our own goals. We said, okay, our goal is to get to a point that we have 10 blowers in two months.
Idan Shipzear: Like, okay, how much money we need to make, how much we can save, how much we can invest in buying equipment. I’m just doing the same thing again and again and again.
Tyler Martin: Wow, Now, restoration are most of those jobs. Does the insurance company pay you? So isn’t there a little bit of a lag between when you actually do the job and when you get paid, or yeah?
Idan Shipzear: So that’s another challenge, right? Oh yeah, absolutely so, yeah, it’s. It can be anywhere between two months to sometimes six months. Wow, yeah, so it’s really understanding the cost of doing the work, right. So, cost of generating the work, the lead, the conversion of lead to job, right, the cost of performing the work, the lead, the conversion of lead to job, the cost of performing the work, and then all the steps that need to fall into place to make sure that I can collect the money in X amount of time.
Idan Shipzear: And how can I carry that cost over the next 60 days, or six months sometime?
Tyler Martin: Did you guys just wake up one day and you’re like, hey, we’re doing restoration work now, forget about the $600 carpet jobs. Or were you kind of like towing between the two as you were getting the restoration fully going?
Idan Shipzear: Yeah. So we’re towing between the two. My goal once I understand the restoration business great business to be in I’m like, okay, I need to start doing less of the carpet cleaning because there is a point in the business that you that you understand.
Idan Shipzear: Okay, I need to start doing less of the carpet cleaning because there is a point in the business that you understand, like, where do I put my effort in If I’m going to keep doing more carpet cleaning type of job for $100 or $200 or $300, what’s the cost of opportunity here?
Idan Shipzear: Yeah, Right. So I’m saying like, okay, I know I want to generate more restoration type of work, but if I’m going to spend most of my time answering phone calls and going and running around doing $150 type of job, it’s going to be very hard for me to make that leap, Right?
Idan Shipzear: So start in our head. I’m like, okay, I’m going to limit the amount of carpet cleaning I’m going to do, I want to make sure that I’m going to have enough time spending marketing for the restoration type of work. And then, whenever the restoration work came in, this was great, right.
12:07The job descriptions and accountability he wishes he had
Idan Shipzear: So we just did as many as possible.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, yeah. So if you had to reflect back, now that you’re where you’re at now, is there anything you learned from your entrepreneurial journey where you’d go wow, I would have done this different early on, or I would have approached this different. Anything stand out to you?
Tyler Martin: More on the building our team.
Idan Shipzear: Okay, that’s, that was a big challenge because we we needed to build our team pretty fast, right, and I didn’t. You know, I didn’t go to school. You know I didn’t learn how to build a business, so I learned a lot of things as we grew.
Idan Shipzear: So, holding people accountable, having a plan in place right, getting away from everything is in my head, right To put it on paper, understand how it looks like, learning how to bring the team together I think there’s a lot of learning there. Job description I mean for a long time, like I don’t need job description, I only have five people working for me, it’s not a big.
Idan Shipzear: At one point, like no, I need a job description. People need to understand what they do, they need to understand what I’m holding them accountable for. And it’s also good for the people that are working on my team. Right, just having more clarity, because in the beginning it’s like you’re running around like chicken with no head, like I have so many work.
Idan Shipzear: Like a lot of businesses coming in. I have people everywhere. I don’t really have structure in place because and that’s what I see a lot I see it every day with all of our franchisees right, you going from. You know a business owner, you’re doing everything.
Idan Shipzear: You don’t really plan everything, right, you’re just running around. You think that everybody understand what’s going on in your mind. A lot of business owners believe that their team can read their mind and understand what is it that they need to do? Right, right.
Idan Shipzear: So if I would go back now, this is one of the things that I would change, because growing the business that fast I mean fast for me, for a small business, it was a pretty good jump forward. Fast for me, for a small business, it was a pretty good jump forward.
Idan Shipzear: But losing 10%, 20% just as a leakage, it’s a very easy thing to happen and we’re not even aware of it, right? So that was a big part of our growth.
Tyler Martin: Wow, on that line of building team, good team, solid teams, you mentioned the word accountability. Do you have any certain criteria? So, job description, accountability, what else do you think is involved in terms of building a great team?
Idan Shipzear: Oh yeah, first of all, clear goals, right? And then key metrics of how are we going to reach those goals. So, for example, I want to get to a million dollars by the end of the year. Okay, how are we going to get there?
Idan Shipzear: So how many leads do I need to generate every month? What’s the conversion per lead? What’s the average per job? Right? And then making sure that everybody is clear on how are we going to get there. So at one point there was the company goals and there was the goals for each department, and each department hang their goals on their department area.
Idan Shipzear: So everybody can see everybody’s goals, everybody can see everybody’s job description and everybody understand how we hold everybody accountable. The same thing with me as a CEO. So the same thing that I did with everybody in the company, I did it with myself as well.
Idan Shipzear: So everybody can walk into my office, buy my office. Here is my goals, right. So that gives clarity and accountability. But accountability from the place of helping my team advance, right, I think I mean at one point I build I still do an advisory board around me, just so I have more people that look into the business from the outside and hold all of us accountable, right.
Idan Shipzear: So I have more people that look into the business from the outside and hold all of us accountable. So I think it’s a key metric. So, job description, business plan, you know we are on a monthly, on a biweekly basis We’ll have a quick meeting so everybody knows how everybody else are doing and who can help who.
15:56Building an advisory board that tells him where he’s wrong
Idan Shipzear: That’s another very, very important part, because sometimes when you sit with all the department, if we don’t have that level of clarity, people sometimes will feel that they live on their own island, right? No, we just do the marketing, we just do the customer service, we just do that right.
Idan Shipzear: So very often I’ll get everybody to sit together so people understand how each activity affects everybody else, right, right, so you mentioned advisory board.
Tyler Martin: What’s your advisory board like? Is this people? Is this part ownership, or are these just colleagues? Are these people that in the community that you trust? How did you form your advisory board?
Idan Shipzear: So I’m based on where I want to be as a company.
Tyler Martin: Okay.
Idan Shipzear: Right. So let’s say I want to grow, let’s go through the paths right. So I wanted to grow from 50 offices to 80 offices. Okay, so I meet somebody that have that experience. But I want one person is expert in franchise sales and I want another person that expert in operation and I want another person that expert in developing brand right.
Idan Shipzear: So I’m finding people based on where is it that I want to be? Because once you work with people that already did it many times I mean it’s part of their, it’s in their nerve system, right. Or them is like, okay, we already did it 10 times, we can help you.
Idan Shipzear: We know exactly how it’s supposed to look like. Right, so we’ll meet with them on a quarterly basis and present a plan, get everybody to go over what is their goals and key metrics, and basically it’s kind of advisors, right, hold everybody accountable and making sure that we’re moving along the way.
Tyler Martin: Are those paid roles generally just for the audience, like benefit, maybe someone that’s thinking about starting their own advisory board for their company? Do you pay for those roles or how do you structure that? Yeah, okay, okay, yeah.
Idan Shipzear: Use rides. There’s great people out there, usually older, right? Yeah, 60, 70. And they love, they would love to do it. And it’s not that expensive to put people in place. And yeah, I’m just. I found great people that just want to be part of something.
Idan Shipzear: They’re excited to see another company growing. They want to work with entrepreneurs. So it’s yeah, it’s not that hard. You just need to think about it and be very clear who is the people that you want to bring on and why, and really understand that they’re aligned with your goals.
Idan Shipzear: And another part is I made sure that you know a lot of people, especially when you’re the owner of the company. No, you’re done, You’re great, You’re done, this is amazing, this is wow, Well done. And I’m like okay, that’s not what I’m paying you for.
Idan Shipzear: I need you to find holes, I need you to find where I’m wrong, Right? So I always make sure that I have the people that have really that attitude of telling me things just like straightforward, like you done.
Tyler Martin: Listen you’re off. Okay, I appreciate it Cause that I see it as an opportunity for me to evolve and grow and improve. Yeah, that’s great. That’s a real open mind. Now, what did you say? Rise r is r y z, is that how you spell it?
Tyler Martin: The what? Oh, I thought you mentioned a website. You can find them on. You said find advisory no, it is everywhere.
Idan Shipzear: You can find them on linkedin you oh, oh, got it.
Tyler Martin: I’m sorry. No, I didn’t even have a website, I just, yeah, I just got it got it, I’m sorry.
Idan Shipzear: No, I didn’t use any specific website, I just yeah, I just based on their experience?
Tyler Martin: Yeah, so you reach out to do you actually kind of identify potential partners and then or advisory members and you actually reach out to them? Yeah, wow, very cool.
Idan Shipzear: Yeah, very simple. There’s no. Yeah, I found very overly, it’s easy.
19:21Hurricane Katrina and the accidental slide into franchising
Idan Shipzear: I mean, it was easy for me. I have this mentality like if I want to find somebody or get somebody on the phone, I’ll get somebody on the phone. Right, it’s going to take me a day, a week, a year. I’ll find a way to get somebody on the phone.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, you make it happen. Basically is what you do. So, hey, I want to switch gears. So it’s awesome You’ve gone. You went from this small business multimillion dollar small business now to this empire, basically, where you have all these franchises. I’m dying to know the story, because franchising generally is a pretty complicated thing.
Tyler Martin: Here you come over from the country, you’ve got $1,000, you start with nothing. You’re doing carpet cleaning. Then you happen to figure out this restoration business which, oh, by the way, is very lucrative, has great profit margins. How do you get to now being a franchisor and taking on franchisees?
Idan Shipzear: So the end of 2005 is when Katrina happened in New Orleans. It was devastation. So I went there like I want to have a new experience, see how we can help people. There’s so much work. I got there. Devastation did whatever did? I mean? I sent there three crews ahead of me.
Idan Shipzear: I joined them a few days in. We brought a lot of equipment, big truck, everything. There was so much work to do and the thing is, because there was so much work, there is many other restoration companies that came in from all around the country.
Idan Shipzear: So now there’s a lot of work where all of us are in a different area, so we’re not really competing with each other because it’s just work for everybody, and at night we just like there was an area that everybody parked their RVs and everything.
Idan Shipzear: So we got to interact and meet a lot of other restoration company owners and one of the things that I noticed is and again, I’m brand new to the country I came here, I barely spoke the language and I’m sitting there and I’m meeting people that have been in the industry for 10, 15 years, 20 years, and a lot of them are averaging, you know, around $400,000, $500,000, $700,000 in revenue and I’m like what’s wrong here?
Idan Shipzear: I’m brand new here. I got to this number, why they’re stuck at that number. And as I spend more time with them, I noticed that they are super passionate about the trade. So they will spend hours talking to me about the blowers, humidifiers, how they set up the van and all that, and the only thing that goes in my mind is strategy, sales marketing.
Idan Shipzear: How do we grow? Where is my next clients? And on and on. I’m like okay, that’s interesting. At the same time, I also I knew that I’m generating a lot of lead through online lead generation. So if I can do it in LA, I can do it really anywhere else.
Idan Shipzear: I’m like, okay, maybe there is something here. So I start asking them what if I can help you now frost a million dollar, because I can help you with leads and I can help you with strategy and we can talk about really how to develop a unique customer experience.
Idan Shipzear: So I started building some relationship in New Orleans. I came back to LA when we were done there and, like you know what, I’m going to give it a try. And I just told them look, we’re going to work out a license agreement, a referral agreement.
Idan Shipzear: I didn’t think about franchise at all. I thought about the opportunity that how can I do? One plus one equal five. That was the only thing that I had in my head. So I did one worked very, very well, then two, then four.
Idan Shipzear: At one point I had about 10 license agreements out there and the lawyers that wrote the license agreement for me told me like Idan, you cannot keep using the license agreement, you’re becoming a franchise. I’m like franchise, what do you mean? What’s the difference?
Idan Shipzear: I never thought about franchise. I only focus on adding value. That’s the only thing I wanted to do and collaborate with great people. So I’m like okay, so let me look into the franchise. So we spent about 12 months trying to figure out franchise agreement and FDD and how it’s going to work, and now I need to organize everything and build department in a certain way.
Idan Shipzear: So everything matched. So it took some time to do it and we became a franchise legally by the end of 2007. We started franchising around 2009. Yeah, so this is really how we became a franchise.
Tyler Martin: Wow, and how many franchisees do you have now?
Idan Shipzear: So we have about 120 owners, we’re covering more than 300 territories.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, Wow. So I’m sure when you started out so you were generating leads off like Google AdWords or whatever, probably a little bit different than it is today in terms of competition and lead generation. Is that something still that you offer your franchisees, or is it more of the system of how to follow the?
Tyler Martin: You know how to write the follow the right process and stuff like that?
Idan Shipzear: Yeah, it’s, it’s all of it. Yeah, so we still have lead generation as part of it, but the lead generation become kind of like a secondary thing because a lot of it is the system how do I build the business, who is my clients?
Idan Shipzear: How do I set up a company, how do I operate a company, accountability job this all of it is part of it. And also, you know, we we’ve been developing the brand now since, basically since 2003, 2004. Right, so we have a brand name.
Idan Shipzear: We were known, starting to be known, really, so that’s one. And also we’re training them on how to generate leads locally. Right, so business development who do I need to go to talk to, like, where is the marketing materials? And on and on. And then we have also national account.
Idan Shipzear: Right, so we build relationship with large companies that own a lot of real estate or manage a lot of real estate. So it’s how to start a business, how to build a business, how to scale the business, and then the three lead generation silos right, so it’s online, locally, national account as well.
Tyler Martin: Got it, wow. So what do you see now as you build your franchise and sounds like keeps getting bigger? What are your biggest obstacles in terms of scaling Like? What keeps you up at night, in terms of your next steps to get where you want to go?
Idan Shipzear: Yeah, so really going. So it took us a while to really build the company to a place that now we can scale it right, okay. So now, with the place that we can, really I want to jump from 120 to 250 location pretty fast now, right.
Idan Shipzear: So really taking my sales team and building it up, at the same time really focusing on bringing more national accounts. So this is the two areas that we’re really focusing on and I mean we just finished a big jump forward in the sense of really our brand and the customer experience.
Idan Shipzear: Because for me, it’s always go back to customer experience. Right, I can market all day, I can stream all day. We’re great, we’re great, we’re great. But if we’re not providing a unique customer experience, we’re going to see a rise and then we’re going to see a fall.
Idan Shipzear: Right, so in the past two years, we really own the customer experience part, the communication, bringing the right platform into the business, bringing a lot of AI to different departments so we can be a lot more efficient. There’s the support level, the customer experience level.
Idan Shipzear: So now for us, it’s really like, okay, how we make this big jump forward and bringing the right franchises in. That is another big part Really identify who is the right franchisees. Empathy is a big part for us, and we also sell exclusive territories, right?
Idan Shipzear: So I don’t believe in just, you know, selling licenses and whoever the strongest will win. We really want to find the right partners. I want them to have the sense of this is your business, this is your area. You need to take care of it.
Idan Shipzear: We need to do it together here, right so for us to identify the right franchisees with the right attitude that have the right experience to really build a good business. So, now that we want to grow faster, we need to be very high here and make sure that we’re following the right process.
27:01Why they award franchises instead of selling them
Tyler Martin: So is it fair to say then you have franchisees apply to you and you sometimes don’t think they’re the right fit. Really, does that happen a lot Like all the time, wow.
Idan Shipzear: We’re not selling franchise, we’re awarding franchise. The process is an education system, right? So my goal for somebody that comes in I want to know more about you, but I also really want you to understand what you’re getting into, right? Some people have the idea yeah, I’m going to buy a franchise, I’m going to pay the fee, I’m going to buy and then I’m just going to sit and wait for just my people just going to call me.
Idan Shipzear: It’s like, no, you need to put some work in it. There’s a collaboration piece. Yes, your phone will ring because we have other like the online and the brand and on and on. But we want to build a business. We don’t want to just sit and be passive, right?
Idan Shipzear: So we want to make sure that when people join us, is the people that can build a team, that people will follow, people that people want to work with, right, it’s very, very important. So, yeah, we buy. I think we’re saying no to most people, right, if you really look at the numbers.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, I love that mindset of you’re not buying a franchise, you guys are awarding a franchise. It really kind of turns the table in terms of how a franchisee would look at the opportunity.
Idan Shipzear: Yeah, because at this point I mean it works right. We see so many people being successful in our system. I mean it’s a great business, the system works. We’ve been doing it for a long time now. So now it’s for us and we understand the difference when we don’t.
Idan Shipzear: Look, it’s not a good day when we bring somebody in and then he’s not doing well and it’s, and I mean it’s really bad day if we need to close the business. Right, I mean we don’t because also think about his side. He put all the time in, he put the investment in, and on and on and on.
Tyler Martin: We want to see people being successful right, so it’s important that we bring the right people in now. Have you, have you guys designed I know there’s, like you know, packages like Jobber for home service type businesses Did you guys have you developed your own software for tracking leads, clients, quotes and all that?
Tyler Martin: Is that an in-house thing?
Idan Shipzear: you guys have done, yeah, so we develop our own CRM system, dispatch system. We have a whole system that measure. So we have unique phone number, unique landing pages for online lead generation and then also unique phone number per location and we measure all.
Idan Shipzear: From where did we receive this lead? It was converted, what’s the total amount? How did we work with the lead? What was like? So we really build the entire system so we can have more control and visibility. It’s also it was very important to me that because, knowing all the AI and the advancing technology in here and in, I want to make sure that I have the ability right to bring in fast enough different features so I’m not dependent on a third party and then I need to wait for them and on and on.
Idan Shipzear: So there’s a lot of things that we can do in the, in the backend, really getting more insight into the business right, because it is the details make a big difference For sure. We want to understand how much we spend to generate, how much work and it’s converted well, and how long it got us to get paid, and on and on.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. So I want to go back. I’m just about ready to wrap up, but I do have one last question I want to get into. You know you’ve talked about customer experience a lot and having a certain level of uniqueness, and I know there’s people out in the audience because I’ve heard this before where they’ll say I’m just doing hardwood floors.
Tyler Martin: I mean, there’s nothing unique about doing hardwood floors. Or I’m doing restoration work. There’s 30 other people in my community that do the same thing as me. There’s nothing unique about it. But you have this passion when you talk about it like you’re different.
Tyler Martin: So can you give us some insider tips? Or how do you break away from that mindset of it’s just the same as everybody else and create that uniqueness that you give a special customer experience?
Idan Shipzear: Yeah, of course, because, for example, if I put wood floors in right, I’m not just putting floor, I’m creating new environment for the homeowner. Right, they have a dream, right, if they’ve been saving for so long because they want this new, beautiful floor, I’m not just putting wood floor in, I’m creating a beautiful environment.
Idan Shipzear: But when somebody goes through a disaster, he doesn’t care about my blowers or humidifiers or how I cut the wall. They’re going through an emotional disaster. Think I wake up in the morning. I’m a mom with three kids. I walk up, I’m walking downstairs, my house is flooded, I need to make sure.
Idan Shipzear: Like, okay, I need to feed my kids, I need to take them to school, how I’m going to pay for it, how much it’s going to cost me. There’s so much worry. I want to be the. I want to represent a fresh start for them.
Idan Shipzear: I want, yes, you’re going through a disaster right now, but I got you right Because I’m listening to you and I understand what you need as a customer, but I also understand what’s the good that will come out of it, and that’s the only thing that I really communicate and work with my client.
Idan Shipzear: If they want to know more, yeah, we can explain about the equipment and on and on. But I understand that from my client perspective, I mean something else. For them, it’s not about drying their house. Yeah, drying the house is secondary. In our mission statement we have nothing about the actual trade, the actual service that we do.
Idan Shipzear: It’s all about what we want to represent for people. What do I want? How do I want to add value to people’s life? So you know, handyman, roofer, don’t look at what you actually do, look at what it means to the client, right?
Idan Shipzear: And when we think about it this way, I’m like okay, where is the biggest pain point between what we do to our client? Communication is a big thing, right, they worry about it. Don’t want to see that. They worry enough because their house is flooded, the last thing that they need to worry about when are you going to show up?
Idan Shipzear: Do I know what’s going on? Did you speak with my adjuster? How is it going to work? So I said, okay, let me take the level of communication now to the next level, because I understand that in their life, this is a very, very important part, right?
Idan Shipzear: So I always do something that I whiteboard in front of me. And we drew the customer right, so we do a mom and a dad and the kids and what their hobbies and what they like and what they think about, what they don’t care about, and on and on and on.
Idan Shipzear: It’s like okay, how can I add value to that person at that moment that they’re going through that disaster? Right, and we use it for communication, we use it for marketing, we use it to understand buying cycle, right? So the last thing is, of course, you have to provide good work.
Idan Shipzear: I’m taking that is of course, but then at that point you work with people. Just really pay attention to the words that they’re using, the way they think about what they do, what it means to them when you’re done and this is what you need to be it’s also, it’s much more fulfilling to build a business when you think about it from that standpoint to ah, I just put floors in.
Idan Shipzear: Okay, for how many years I can do it? It’s not that fun, but I’m creating new spaces for people. Okay, now it’s getting more interesting, now there’s more inspiration to it. Now, when we talk to our team, I don’t talk to them about the trade, I talk to them about what it means for people.
Idan Shipzear: Like, listen you, for example, if I sit now. I know you asked me a question. I’m giving you a long answer. No, it’s great. It’s good Okay. So with my customer service people like I’m, so when you ask them what they do, they’re not just answering the phone call every day.
Idan Shipzear: They are helping people that going through a disaster and making sure that they have the best service provider showing up in their house so they have a better future. Okay, so this is what I do. I’m not just answering the phone call. You see, even for himself, it means more Make sense.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, it’s like a whole other level. I mean, I’m sure some people are going to pass right by this and not really absorb it, but there’s just so much depth to what you’re saying. It’s like a whole nother level of thinking. I mean, we’re emotional creatures.
Tyler Martin: So once we kind of connect on the emotional side of people and understanding that I don’t care what it even like. You know, many years ago I used to tax returns. It wasn’t a tax return. That why people hired me. I mean they needed to get that done.
Tyler Martin: But they hired me because they perceived trust. They perceived that they could rely on me getting it done. They knew they were going to go to response at any hour of the night, oftentimes if they had a problem, and that created value and with that value, allowed me to probably charge five times more than the person next to me.
Tyler Martin: And they were happy to do it At least most of them. Obviously, some were that wasn’t my market and they’d go somewhere else, but the ones that were yeah. So it’s yeah. I mean there’s just so much gold in what you’re saying. It’s just like it’s next level stuff, absolutely yeah, cool, okay.
Tyler Martin: So hey, your website is 911restorationfranchisecom. 911restorationfranchisecom. I’ll put that in the show notes at thinktylercom when we publish the show. If people wanted to reach out to you. Is there anywhere else or anything else you want to add? That I didn’t cover.
Idan Shipzear: No, we’re good. Linkedin will be a good place. I’m more active on LinkedIn. So, yeah, and my name is unique enough. Sorry, idan Speiser, I’m just going to come up.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, it’s an easy one, and then if people, if there is someone out there, hey, maybe this is a trade I’d want to do.
Idan Shipzear: What’s the general profile of someone that would potentially be a good foot as a franchisee, Somebody that have more of the kind of business development mindset, people that are okay with getting out there, with building a team, with being in front of people.
Idan Shipzear: This is where we see the most amount of success. Now, it doesn’t mean that this is the only thing right, Because we have great people that only care about operation but then they hire the right people, Got it. But overall, entrepreneurs we see people that like to get things done, get it done.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, I hear you. Okay, well, hey, thanks so much for being on the show. You have so much wisdom today. I really appreciate it.
Narrator: And hopefully, maybe in the near future, you can come back again. Absolutely, thank you. Your hustle doesn’t stop here and we’re here to help. Subscribe to the podcast for more inspiring stories from trade owners who are building businesses that thrive through sweat and smarts.
Narrator: If you want further help, head to yourbluecollarcfocom to schedule a meeting with Tyler, or if you have a story you think would help, you can apply to be on the show. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next time on Profit and Grid with Tyler.
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- Make It Extraordinary in the Trades with Jacob Lawson
Tyler Martin works with owners on the numbers behind these stories: home services accounting help from a fractional CFO for home service contractors.
