From painting empires to mastering self-sabotage with Jacob Ransom

they uh did not manage

didn't care to learn how to manage

and didn't have the humility

to admit that when they were wrong

drove it off a cliff

and this has been a

like you know

you look at on the other side

you're like

why in the world would anyone do this

welcome back to the pursuit of purpose

my name is Chris Keefer and I am here with Jacob Ransom

who is the the owner of two painting companies

and a marketing company called Ransom Digital

thanks Chris

happy to be here

yeah go ahead

tell us so obviously the painting companies

nothing special

I assume we're a residential or commercial painting

correct yeah

residential only

okay for those yep

and why are they two separate companies

my mind immediately goes

why not have one in multiple locations

so one of them

we are scaling to multiple locations

the second one is a partnership

um with a guy who's starting up locally

so our first one is out of Baton Rouge

uh Louisiana

the other one is locally here

and that is a different brand

so they're sharing a lot of resources

but it's under a different brand name that the uh

the partner wanted to go under

and then Ransom digital

what is the uh

what is your niche or specialty in Ransom digital

Branson Digital was started out of a need

so I started and sold my first painting company

shortly out of college

um when I moved to Tennessee from Michigan

that one was in Michigan

I sold to my partners and moved to Tennessee

and there was a huge need that we saw

um we had gone a lot of different routes

but basically it just kind of was a

um they call it an accidental agency so

uh basically

I just started helping some friends on the side

while I still had my first painting company

because we were using social really

really well

it was working really well for us

and you know

obviously that is a huge need in the industry

there's not a lot of skilled people in that

in that direction

I come from a background in that stuff

so it definitely was a easy thing for us to implement

in that company

and then when we moved

I originally went to start another painting company

but I already had three or four

uh clients that was helping just on the side

this was at the top of 2020

um so when we moved out here

all of the subs were

it was 2020

it was like the big rush right

so every single sub we talk to is like

booked out for a year

it's just something that was a phenomenon

based on our location

um so basically I was like

either I could start from scratch and start training

people from scratch

or we could just go with the

marketing company and just keep going

if that ever fails

I can always fall back on the painting

and it's been over 4 years now since then

that's awesome

and so primarily Facebook and Instagram

I assume yep

so I'm the expert in the the

the pay media side of things um

I don't even try to play in the Google side um

it's also my opinion that the

Google site isn't the main strength for painting um

so that's why we spend

you know the 80

20 perido principle

we spend 80% of our time there

on terms of what's working the best so um

my question or the reason I reached out to you was

I saw I connected with you through um

some painting Facebook groups that were a part of

so I don't know

I probably um

for listeners

I don't talk about what I do often

but I'm just gonna give some quick context for your

probably like

you know who is Chris Keefer that said hey

come on my podcast

um but I was the marketing

director for Webfoot Painting and Webfoot

Concrete Coatings for uh

three years

and I got you know

deep into that world of having to market and

sustain leads

and the business grew um

base doubled while I was there

and we were

opened up different markets and what not

and in that whole process

I'm an engineer by education

and I loved automation

and like from a marketing standpoint

I've been doing marketing for seven

years prior to going to Webfoot and um

I I ran a small agency

and so I knew the

the marketing really well

but I've always been like a very dated driven

analytical marketer

um and so I think that's one of the things that was

successful for me in that role

but what I what I loved

way more than the marketing was

eliminating the need for data entry in the business

so I in my time at Webfoot

had you know

automated out a whole bunch of different processes

and just like

connected all the apps together

and so in a nutshell

what I tell people

is that at bullying automation

what we do is

we take the 5 to 9

applications

that a painting company needs to run their business

that don't talk to each other

out of the box

we linked them all together using no code tools

and then when necessary

custom API calls and what not

and just eliminate

all the data

so that's who I am but

and that's how I found you and got connected with you

but the thing that stood out to me about you was this

extends into your personal life as well

I feel like

there's certain people that I've come across

that do a great job on their personal page with posting

and just like

interesting

posts that are thoughtful

it's not um spammy

there's like uh

like I'm just looking back at some that I

that I saw you posted one on like

hey I'm getting a package tomorrow from Jesse Eitzler

guess what I got

like the there's

you have this craft of

like making something that like

draws me in

I'm like oh okay

so there's thought behind these things

it's not just like

my obligatory

daily post on Facebook

but there's some time

spent in there

and I saw another one of

you know planning out your goals

and how 10 x is this

it has really helped in it and

help you clarify the waste

and the stuff you don't need to do

that's what I'm

observing or seeing in you

I'm curious if you could give me the background on like

where does that come from

were you born with that

was that something that you Learned

through trial and error

was there pain that

drove you to that

but yeah talk to me about how

Jacob got to where he is today

cause you appear

from Facebook

in my interactions with you

to be a very thoughtful um

intentional person

thank you for the

compliments um

yeah that's all

just storytelling

so ever since

like I was a kid

that's just

um that's always been my

my interest

as one of the kid

I was one of those kids that

uh wrote a lot

in middle school and high school um

obsessed with

uh films and things like that

just in the storytelling idea

I went to film school

so that's what my degrees in

is in the business side of film

so I didn't go in

wanting to be a director or

anything like that

instead I went in and I

I majored in the

production side

um and then uh

my my minor

or like the secondary

there was in uh

screenwriting

so I understood

that um I'd

I wanted to

based on the way that

I'd sought to understand the industry

based on the way the industry operated

I understood

the person who actually made the decisions

actually was responsible for

the quality of films

and things like that

was actually the producer

so I sought for that position

I didn't necessarily

care about notoriety

and want to be famous

all the stuff

like a lot of the other people there you know

want to be a director

they want to be famous and

work on cool stuff

I wanted to be a maker um

with that in mind I

I actually went on to work on a Bruce Willis film

some other cool stuff

I quickly found out that it was

exactly like the corporate world

it was like

just grind for the next 20 years

and maybe you might be able to do something cool

I was like this is too boring

I don't wanna do this

so I moved back to Michigan and my cousin at the time

had just moved back in the town

he had apprenticed under a master painter for the

past two years while I was at college and um

so we started Mark uh

painting company together

I was like I understand the business side of stuff

cause each film is basically just an LLC

that you set up

and I I love uh

the marketing side

and we can bring in the

the storytelling aspect into that

which I knew this is kind of getting to

the answer of your question is like

um the best advertisements

are advertisements people actually wanna watch

so even with our

my posting for instance

uh that is the No. 1 way we get

our leads for our business

is through my personal Facebook page

um and it's directly correlated to the post that I make

and while everyone else is just out there shilling

their stuff right

they're just pushing

pushing pushing

pushing um instead

if you just start to tell a story

you connect with someone on a human level

you can make a significant difference

not just in people's lives

like your content itself becomes quality

and valuable to people

but also um

it positions you and presents you in a way that

build a story in someone's mind

and the story I'm building is that I'm thoughtful

I'm an expert at what I do

and you should trust me with your stuff right

that's the story I'm building in

in your mind

does that make sense

mm hmm totally

kind of around about way to put it but yeah

that's awesome

so I saw that you said that

um like well

I guess I would say

when did you

like approach

the marketing side of what you're doing seriously

cause I would say from what you just told me you went

you saw a film school or like

the film industry wasn't for you

you go into painting

when was the like

how many years ago was like

the decision or the intentionality of like

I need to make sure that my

I'm gonna say it in my own words

my online brand

or personal brand or reputation is going

or is being built into the way that I wanted to be

which ultimately serves the goals that you have

when was that

like a decision to intentionally create um

I don't think it's necessarily even a commitment to it

I think that I'm just so stubborn

that I refuse to do it any other way

um to me it's the most authentic

and it's just what came natural

uh to me because that's also what I respond to

right I love that

tell me a little bit more

when you say uh

authentic and it came natural

what do you mean by that

I have I'm it's impossible for me to like

fake it with someone

right now this

this became a challenge for me

when I actually work to grow a business

cause then you have

employees and like

you can't just be super

you know necessarily

full front with everyone around you

I've Learned that over time

how to better present those things but um

you know I'm

I'm not one of those people that

and I know a lot of people in the

painting industry

as well as other industries are like this

they they hate the idea of coming across

as a salesman

they hate the idea of coming across as a uh

it's like a lot of people say

like a used car salesman or something like that

somebody's just pushing stuff and

creeping in on people instead

um so I guess it also comes to the idea of like

I just want to be liked

hmm and I know that if I come up to you

and I'm just like

drilling you

drilling you

drilling you

harassing all the stuff

like people don't like you very much

and if there's a way

that you can increase your business

while also becoming more well liked

in the marking industry

we call this brand right

but on the personal level

like where people actually like

just enjoy you um

that's the way I wanted to go

I didn't wanna do it the other way

I guess I just care about what other people think

to a point where I didn't wanna destroy

that for a quick return

does that make sense

mm hmm mm hmm um

as far as topics for today

I'm gonna let you kinda pick the theme

but you would put in marketing

painting companies and faith um

well I guess I

I'm I'm very intrigued

I'm a Christian

I am I'm drawn to people that willingly and

and publicly state

uh deeper um

things in life like faith

tell me a little bit about why

what is the

what are you passionate in terms of faith

and why was that something you like

oh I'm interested in talking about this

yeah so um coming from a really

coming from a Midwestern uh

more what's interesting

I think about me is I've

I've gone through almost every single sect of

of it I was raised

um Calvinist

I was saved in a Armenian

uh church and I spent a

significant amount of time in pentecostal churches

so I charismatic so I've

I've been exposed to almost everything in the spectrum

um in terms of ideology and

and how to approach these things

and I think one thing for me that kind of stands up

is the idea of uh

abundance for me

so based out of my own personal stuff

coming from a place with with very

very little money

um the relationship to money

has always been significantly interesting to me

because I I don't uh

my wife will tell you this

like I have a

I really just don't care about money

and sometimes it shows poorly because I spend poorly

but at the same time

if things cost me money or

or money has to go out

I really just don't care

um but to me

money's always been in a lever of

showing more of who you are and the ability

to make an impact on the world around you

I went into

some of the Jewish mindset around money

and talk to a rabbi about this stuff

which is really interesting but um

just how money is

is woven into the Bible culturally

it's really interesting to me

but the idea that we're supposed to be Christians uh

we're meant to be kings and priests

and we're supposed to be super poor

has never connected with my brain

hmm like I've never been able to reconcile these

you know what I mean

I I know exactly what you mean

and so I'm like

well I I don't come from necessarily prosperity gospel

just like I've been

I've been exposed to prosperity

been exposed

I was raised in the poverty gospel

which was like

money is the root of

you can start getting things like that

it's like things are getting exposed

when you start looking into it

money is the root of all evil

it's like no

it's the love of money is the root of all evil right

like you start looking to these these

these key things

um they're used a lot of times uh

uh by people heard pressing one side or the other

and there's

the truth is

is a gray point in the middle of it right

it's probably a little bit more personal

um and for me uh

I felt like a part of my

my passion but also kind of my mission

is the idea of family legacy

and I cannot get around the

a scripture that says uh

the righteous man

leaves an inheritance for his children's children

and it's like

how do you get around this

it's in the proverbs right

how do you get around that

say that again

there are righteous man leaves an inheritance

for his children's children

yes so it's in Proverbs alright

I probably tell you the exact one but um

a righteous man leaves inheritance

for his children's children

how do I get around this

you know what I mean

and of course

then at the same time

you have opposites

and so there's

there's always

or I wanna I

this is super easy

I wanna go deeper into this

you're saying

how do you get around it

as in you're

you're saying

I guess I don't see

that's a statement of like yeah

so it's saying

you need to be a good steward and get like

die with like

leaving your

the way I would say it is

leaving your kids

and they're in the next generation

in a better place than

you were in

is how I would

pretty do that

but what are you saying is

the contradiction in your mind

well contradiction is

you know the idea of uh

like the story where Jesus says that uh

it's easier for a

I don't remember exactly what

it's basically called

the eye of the needle

and to go through the eye of the needle of course

then you actually look into that

and there's a door called the eye of the needle

and you're like oh

so it is possible

doesn't mean for people

I mean yeah

it is possible

it just hard

now actually

I think what I what I

I remember learning about that was

a camel could go through the eye of the needle

but it had to bow

it had had to shuffle through on its knees

and so the whole point was

a camel could go through the cortical eye of the needle

but it had to submit

it had to bow

it had to lower itself

and so it's easier

for one thing

than it is for a rich man to lower himself

that's basically what it is

it doesn't mean it's evil

to have money right

oh so you're saying

the idea of like

if money is evil

then how is it that

I'm supposed to leave an inheritance

yes you you start to clap okay

right and then you also have to pair

with the 11 talents

and it talks

it's basically the principle that

he who's given an

opportunity or something

cause it could be

a story and allegory for multiple different things

but someone who's given

an opportunity for something

and they squander it

or they hide

it is actually like

the language is aggressive

it says he's sent to hell

yeah we're not doing anything

right meanwhile

the dude who took

took the talent

and did the most with it

made the most

and it's literally using money as the

example in the

the parable

of the 11th talent

he is seen as the most worthy

but what's interesting to me is there's the

the core break is everyone else did something with it

the one person who didn't and the person who hid

literally was viewed as evil

so there's this idea of potential and being

I believe how much money you have doesn't matter right

but rather the idea of stewardship

and taking care of what you've been given

right so to me

I look at it like this

we were born in the

my opinion the

one of the richest nations on the

the world right

in the world

in my opinion

the most opportunity

not just in the world

but in human history hmm

so you're born in one of the richest nations

where even our poorest is viewed as like

mega wealthy in another

in a third world country right

even those who are considered poor in our country

and then also

we have the most

opportunity for the common man known in human history

this is what's been given to me

does that make sense

oh totally so to me

it's like I wanna be someone who takes that

and I wanna utilize that

yeah right I wanna make

I want you to keep going

but this was from as long I mean

probably the time when I was in high school I

I put together that my uh

so my favorite Spider Man quote

um to whom are uh

I'm now gonna

I almost quoted the Bible

to whom much is given

much will be expected

but with great power comes great responsibility

and that to me I'm

I was I've always been like oh

that's it's right in line with the story of the talents

and everything and I do

I feel very similarly of just like

uh the drive and like

I guess it to me

it's like the motivation

or the way I think about it is just like

there's a balance in my life of being absolutely

content or not a balance

it's like a contradiction or paradox

of being absolutely

content and fully loved and appreciated for just me

like I don't need anything

I don't need to prove myself

which is I'm saying

like what I

what I'm saying the ideal

not that I'm perfect at this

but I am perfect and loved exactly as I am

and I don't need to do anything else however

I've been given a lot

and I need to go do the most that I can

you know and um

but all the while staying detached and removed and not

um idolizing um

stuff you know

but I do think that

I feel like you're you

you are bringing up something that

in my opinion

is always frustrated me about um

non not just churches

but non prophets in general

I feel like the people that are in the churches are

in the non prophets that are running these

that basically

all of a sudden

you have a non profit

so you can discredit business principles

and I'm like no

you still have to make money

you still have to be like

I was just in a meeting at our Parish council yesterday

and there is a speaker that's well known

coming in to give

to talk to parents

and they're like

you know they wanted to offer it for free

and I was like

I am so against free stuff

because you don't value stuff that's free

you know and how

it's like almost an insult to the speaker

to just give away tickets to his thing

even if a donor paid for it

it's like we need people to pay and be invested

and um so anyways

I I feel like it's the

uh there is

it's an interesting balance

because I totally get what you're saying

and then I feel like

I think that you're hitting on

I guess is in summary

a big misconception

that people are drawing a line of like money bad

less money good

it's like no

it's the I like that you drew a distinction of

it's the love

of money that is bad

money is just a tool and as a

as a Christian

we should be

finding out how to acquire it and deploy it

and use it for the betterment of ourselves and our kids

and our community and everything yeah

I I pray that like God doesn't give me um

first of all

you've heard that the idea of like

God doesn't give you more than you can handle

it's not in the Bible anywhere

No. 1 right

it's not true

but the idea is that goes both ways right um

I uh the idea is that God will give

those who can handle a little more right

and if that's the way

I feel like I've been set on to that track

because I've noticed

every time I've done a good job in handling

stewarding what I have

I'm given more

and it's just like every single time

every year it just compounds right

and so my goal is not to increase my coffers

or the amount of money I have

my goal is just to handle what I'm given

to the best of my ability

that's it if I was given a tiny

tiny bit my

my goal doesn't change or a lot right

I've just noticed that as I have

grown in my ability to steward um

relationships

health wealth

right all those things

I'm given more

does that make sense

like that is entire

I think thesis of this and how it works

specifically for business for me is literally

just the fact that we live in a super rich nation

that works off of like business thrives here

it would be very

very hard to do this

and I would say almost impossible

to do this in another country

like good luck doing in a country where the

the government owns all of the businesses

you wouldn't have that ability right

the opportunity that that person is given

would be different from the

opportunity that was given to us

yep in a capitalist society

so I'm just making the most of what I have in the

in the context of which I have it

does that make sense

totally yeah I mean

I'm I'll take it even a step further for myself and say

this podcast

for example

um I I my wife and I have about a year and a half ago

we were made aware of just utilizing

virtual assistance or overseas talent and um

then like happy

who edits this podcast

who does a killer job

like I am aware

you're making me remember

realize the

like for someone for

in his situation or in his country

to have a podcast and then find someone else that can

edit at a lower cost

to make it feasible for me to do a podcast right

cause I'm running a business

I don't have time to edit my own podcast

but it's like just realizing

like to your point

that I'm in a situation and a environment that is

I'm given the opportunity to make a

podcast and put out positive content into the world and

impact people and change perspectives or whatever

and it's like

I gotta do something with that I gotta

I'm motivated by like

I'm in this situation

if I was in another country

I probably wouldn't have the time

and it would cost way too much to hire an editor

because I can't use the arbitrage of just you know

the way that the economies and are

what are set up internationally

to help leverage that

so I think that's a super

it's a good reminder yeah

started taking this direction but yeah

and now a quick word from our sponsor

which is Bullion Review

Bullion is a review software that my wife and I own

and we sell this software to home service businesses

so I know there are many different people

that listen to this podcast

but if you know someone

an electrician

an H back business

a painting company

maybe a coffee stand

someone that is providing service to customers

and get found online by customers

we would love to talk to them

this is a review software

that is the highest converting

review software in the home service space in particular

and if you're wondering what that means

if you have 100 clients in your business

the typical business gets between 1 to 2%

of those customers

so for every hundred

they would get one person

or two people to leave them a review on Google

other review softwares get between 3 and 5%

and the bullion review software

gets 20% of your customers

to leave you Google reviews

and these are

fantastic Google reviews

with lots of words

keywords that are gonna help with SEO

pictures stories

the names of your employees or so

if you wanna learn more

check out Bullion review.com

and now back to the episode um

what is the I don't

not sorry about anything

I think this is good

what else what else is on your mind

what did you come to

uh what do you like talking about

where should we spend our last 20 minutes

yeah I mean

this is the stuff I love to talk about right

um we could get into the tactics and things like that

if we want to um

but I think for me

I love the idea that the

the podcast is called

pursuit of purpose

because last year I wrote

that was what was on my board right

our mission is

is the pursuit

of purpose uh

and to reach our potential

hmm right my mission has changed since

since then but um

I'm I'm wholly obsessed with that idea um

in terms of pursuing

your purpose and

and realizing

your potential

and for me uh

based on what I've seen uh

over the past couple years

if if people just understood the

opportunities and the

the ability

like just the

opportunities that they've been given

um in the context

of what the

rest of the world really has

I feel like they would

treat what they have differently

so I work with a lot of business owners who um

we just had another guy go out of business

it was 100% his fault

he just mismanaged

like this is what I've

I've come to know is

over the last few years

100% of the guys who

whose business

struggled or failed

they all had the building blocks

of a successful business

all of them

if if another person

had been swapped

for them with that

particular business that they had

at the exact time

the business

would have been fine

hmm but because they

yes they uh

did not manage

didn't care to learn how to manage

and didn't have the humility

to admit that when they were wrong

drove it off a cliff

and this has been

like you know

you look at

on the other side

you're like

why in the world would anyone do this

and this idea

for me has been illuminating

the fact that the majority of people

just aren't aware

you know what I mean

um of what they have

and necessarily

even what they've been given

um to take it serious

right and so

I think that's also one of the reasons why

people who come up with

not a lot tend to do better

is because they

they remember like

I've been homeless before

I literally lived in a car before

you know what I mean um

and I remember that on a constant

constant daily basis

and so it keeps you grounded

you know what I mean

totally 100%

um I guess I'm

I'm curious what this brings up

if there's anything else

sure I did a lot of mission

work in the last

uh 12 months

like personal mission

like what is our purpose

and then also mission

for bullying

the company and my

it's funny my podcast

when you talk about purpose

my the first company I started was

6 months after I graduated

from college

I tried the engineering

world hated it

and started this

production company

which at the time was just basically like

Chris bought a drone

and wanted to like

use technology

and I thought that it would be a cool business to try

so that's what I did

but I remember

spending so much time

trying to come up with a name

and a mission

and like a tagline

and so it was called

Sky Studios

Video with a purpose

was our tagline

and so I've had

this purpose

thing was there

but I didn't

I didn't have a broader mission

at that point

but that was just always kind of in the background

purpose you know

and then I started this

podcast about five

four years ago

or five years ago

and I've been inconsistent

up until about 12 months ago

again when I've like

honed in on like

what am I doing

why am I doing this

but I called the

podcast the

pursuit of purpose

like I think

it was a month into doing it

and I was like okay

so the pursuit of purpose

but my mission now

which I have

like distilled

and been able to clarify

is to champion

the relentless

pursuit of purpose

and to me the thing that's motivating

to me about that is because

in order to be a champion

you have to actually win

championships

and and then

championing

something is

being the example

inviting other people along

to do the same thing

and pursue that together

and then the relentless

piece is like

there's always more like you

you're not like

you don't get to 40 or 50

and be like

found the purpose

all done you know

it's like no

you can show up differently at home

as a husband

with your kids

like in business you can

uh it never ends

um and then obviously

the pursuit of purposes

that is logical

but that's my personal mission

I'm curious

you said your mission was

pursue purpose

or something like that last year

do you have a personal mission

or a mission for the business

that you could share

um a mission for the

so we've actually started to Segway

this year uh

out of Ransom Digital

and much more

into the painting companies

right so we do have a mission for the painting company

um which is

it's kind of crude

but we literally

explain this

when we hired our

our PM she's like

what's your guys

mission I was like

so our mission

with our painting company is to ruin the expectations

uh for homeowners

for contractors

moving forward

hmm completely

destroy their expectations

just ruin their experience with other

contractors

because they're not gonna

be able to provide the experience that we provide right

that's our mission

I wanna destroy the expectations

of as many people as possible

right um that's

that's literally our mission with

uh uh Swift

um with Ransom Digital

our mission has become uh

become a painting business

millionaire

factory hmm

we wanna be

considered synonymous with the idea of

hyper growth

in the painting industry

in the painting world um

specifically

for those that are uh

uh painting

entrepreneurs right

those are for

sort of the

the mechanisms

cause these

these are just tools

to me right

I think that's

one thing I've done

over the past

is I've kind of

separated uh

the idea of reaching my personal mission

through the businesses

um because rather um

I want to set them up to operate

so that even others

can can uh I

I don't want them to be extensions of me

I want others to be able to champion it as well

does that make sense

mmm hmm mmm hmm

and we may adjust it

in the future

but last year

it was pursuit of

perch a purpose

right yeah and

to reach our

potential and I

a wave of tackling that in

but that has become

my mission right

which is to

pursue purpose

and reach my own

potential yeah

love that um

and so that just shines

through the others

if that makes sense

it always could change

but that's what

it is right now

um the one of you

I love the uh

goal for Ransom Digital

my question

and this is just from my experience

in working with companies

as you said

it's always the leader

that determines the

success of the business

right like you

you switch out

the operator

or the owner

and the business

is going to be a completely different

organization

within a few months because

of the person

leading it so I

I'm obviously you

it sounds like you crush

the Facebook

and paid marketing world

what do you do

though because

if I come to you

and I've got a hundred

thousand dollar

painting company right now

that's what I did last year

and I wanna get

to a million

or 1.5 or 3

or whatever it is

you you know

because you

you stated it

that it's not like

you crushing

the Facebook

ads is like

what 10% of

the problem

it's a core problem

but I don't I mean

I'm just picking a

small number

because the massive

obstacle in

scaling is scaling

the individual

and helping

them grow internally

mentally like teach

giving them

the resources

but what are you doing

or have you thought

cause this is kind of

it's not like you

you need to

but in my opinion

in order to be the

marketing company

that is synonymous with

hypergrowth

painting companies

you gotta have an arm

or a training

a partnership

with some other

entrepreneurs

that are really solid

on the how do you

manage a team

and people and

create processes and

and what not

cause there's

so much more to

the business

than marketing

marketing gets it rolling

it'll get the

phone ringing

and the leads coming in

but then you've got

the sales processes

and the sales

training and

how do you manage the work

and keep up customer

expectations

and all that stuff

so what is obviously

you're doing it

in your own

painting business

but do you have

plans or already

structure to provide

your marketing

clients with

the other resources

that they need

to be successful

yeah so we um

I don't like

even the term agency

we're not an agency

we're more like an agency

consulting firm

so even at the very

very beginning

um before I even knew

what an agency

was supposed

to be doing

I was just helping

my friends with

their stuff

I spend the

majority of time

just consulting

people and coaching them

but I'm not a coach

people ask me

like so are you

like a coach

or like cause

they'll hear from

actual clients

like what we help with

and the clients are like

if you're asked

one of my clients

what we do for them

they would tell you

we run their ads

but that's where

it just gets

started right

we also have a

call center

and we'll get in

time in a second

um we also coach

them with sales

we also coach

them with hiring

we also coach

them with uh

operating the business

and decision making

and strategy

um they'll just say

we do all of

these things

but then someone

come to me be like

sounds like

you have like

a coaching program

or something like

I'm not a coach

I have no interest in being

a coach hmm

um I'm a coach

I love that you

what you said

about the champion

I'm a coach in the way

this is I'm

do not think

I'm the Michael Jordan

but in the way

that Michael

Jordan coached

those around him

there's an actual coach

of the team

I'm not a coach

right I wanna

be a player

as you said

actually there's a better

term for now

which is a champion right

that champions the team

and is able to

provide a blueprint

for those around them

in terms of what

they need to do

to hit the same

goals hmm right

if you're working on Michael

Jordan's team

you're gonna

see how he practices

you're gonna see how he

approaches things

and you're gonna

ask him how

he's doing things

and he's gonna be able

to tell you

and you're gonna learn

off of that

he's not your

coach right

yeah that's what

we kinda do

so in terms

of the actual

practical part

we charge for

advertising

that's it and

we charge for

appointment setting

we give everything

else for free

everything else is for free

on top of it

we have the community

we have our uh

we provide uh

consulting for all these different things

so specifically

can I get into a little bit of like

how we would actually grow a company

how we would

we would get in with that

so if you came to me and you're at 100 k

which we've taken people who have been pre

revenue before zero dollars and make account

uh we know the blueprint to be able to get you to 2

7 figures as

as quickly as humanly possible

the speed in which you do so

and the likelihood of you hitting that

is completely based on you

and how you operate

right if you uh

if your characteristics and your skills don't line up

it's gonna take you longer

but we can tell you what you need to do

to gain those skills right

it's just a math problem for me

it's just a strategy game

actually referred to as a game

um that you just need

you can do it over and over again

right it's kind of like we've

we've played the strategy game

we know how to get past the first level

with our eyes closed

but if you hand the controller

over to someone who's never played the game before

in their entire life

they're still gonna be trying to figure out

you could be sitting next to them

telling them exactly every single step they have to do

but if they're still trying to figure out how to jump

and how to shoot or whatever

they're still gonna have a hard time yeah

right so that's as close as we can get um

but what we do is we believe and we have done

I've identified that

the easiest way to grow a painting company is to first

make sure you don't have to worry about acquisitions

so uh if you know

do you know who Brian Gottlieb is

yeah I do he actually just heard him speak at um

the Pentec National Dealer Convention in

just like a month ago

he's hopefully

he said he was gonna be on the podcast

but we're still trying to coordinate with his schedule

but continue yeah

he'd be a great one to get on

so I had made a post talking about how you are

at least in the beginning

you are a sales marketing company

if you have a paying company

you're not a paying company

you're a sales marketing company

that's how owner needs to approach it

he hopped in

and corrected me and he's like

in order to really grow to scale

cause he has right uh

selling his

his company for 9 figures um

you need to become

you eventually need to become a sales and

training company

hmm not sales

a training and coaching company

yep right you become a training company eventually

um and after chatting with him

it's it's correct

like you in the beginning

you are a sales marketing company

so to us the first step in the very beginning

is make sure that you're uh

acquisitions is made up of three core categories

you have your leads

your lead gen

which is a sales activity uh

your booking

so your appointment setting

which is a sales activity

and your sales course is a sales activity right

true marketing doesn't come into later

which is for US brand and top of funnel um

uh but the first thing we would do is stand up uh

to stand up a quick growing uh

painting company in fact

this is the exact

blueprint we're using to open up our new look

we're opening up a second

or I'm sorry

third location this year

uh for our larger painting companies

opening up a second location

uh under that brand

this is the exact method that we're doing to

hit a million dollar run rate

at least we're opening about halfway in the year

so we're gonna end the year about 500 k

the next year should do

probably 1.5

um but it is

the first thing we need to do is get the lead solved

once leads are solved

we then solve a booking rate

once we solve booking rate

we then solve sales

and from that

you can go to 2 to 3 million relatively easily right

if you don't hit that

it's purely because there's something wrong with

with operating right

there's something wrong with management

and growing the business um

not everyone can do that right

that's what I'm saying is

I've had clients who've been given

all of the building blocks that have been working

statistically are working metric wise and by KPI wise

they are all working

but they just mismanaged them

so even if you're thrown onto or behind the

the wheel of a

of a Lamborghini or a

a fast race car

doesn't mean you're gonna be able to actually race it

hmm right yep

they may not be able to actually handle the vehicle

yeah right that's the next thing we have to solve for

we try to solve for that earlier on but yes

first thing we do is just uh

I basically say you

I need to make sure that

you just don't have to worry about leads ever again

yeah uh you can trust that you're gonna convert

a high amount of them into

appointments

cause you have a system for that

and you have a system that set up

to where you can actually sell

which means you have to sell

not based on price

but based on value

hmm which is not how it's done in the painting industry

the standard for the painting

industry is you sell on price

so we do everything differently

than how most painting companies grow right

that's awesome

if you can solve those things

you're not able to charge the margin you need to grow

for instance

our painting company under Baton Rouge

we just got our numbers in

for the last quarter of last year

and we averaged a 65% gross

profit margin

at a 54% close rate

about a 2,000 dollar nsli

which is extremely high marketing

like a 3.8 hmm

we budget for 10

on marketing

but we're just severely undershooting

that's awesome

we're not we're not making

what's the name of that company

it's called Swift Painting

Swift painting

in Baton Rouge

yep um and those numbers are kind of unheard of

in our industry

and anyone who is operating

anything at those kinds of numbers

either they're stuck because they have over optimized

I'll even get into something else

that's really interesting about that

they have over

optimized at a really small level

to where they

squeeze the juice out of every single tiny little thing

and they've been able to get the numbers

to that point

we haven't had to optimize anything

nothing is optimized in our company

right in fact uh

in December our

our clothes rate went down

because half of

our leads that came in were from past clients

we did our database reactivation

in December

our clothes

rate is lower

with past customers

than it is with first time customers

because we've developed an offer that is so good

that we literally close a higher number

first time customers than we do past customers

that is the opposite of what's taught

talked about

and what people think that they need to accomplish

in the painting industry

does that make sense

totally I've got a couple of follow up questions

I'm really interested on is

sure nsli I think

and I can't remember if I saw you post this

but is funny

because when I was at Web Foot

I didn't know the term N s L I

but I quickly found like

I came to it

because our sales team

we're trying to predict how many leads we needed

and so I was looking at what our clothes rate is

and what our um

average job size was

and I had this idea of like

what if I just multiply

clothes rate by

average job size

which by the way is N s

I didn't know it

and I was like

oh I could just have this one number

and then I could take our

revenue divided

by this number

and so I called it

this is the value

per sales qualified

lead that we get

so I called it VPS

and so it became like

in our business

VPS VPS VPS

and then later

I was at like a conference

with some other

sales trainers

and they were mentioning NSL

and I was like

hey that's VP

that's VPS and I was like

dang it I it's like one of those

ego things where I was like

I thought I had

invented a new term

as on in my little Silo

you know silly me

like it was so obvious

that obviously

there's another name for it

but the reason I bring that up is I think

N s L I or bps

if you know

if you were taught that by Chris uh

is the most

critical number

because it gives it's like

it's a measuring

stick to compare

uh sales reps

against each other

cause the before

you had like

oh I have really high

average job size

it's like yeah

but you close 30%

and the other guys like

I close 70%

it's like your

average job

size is garbage

you're not making any money on your projects

so it's like

if you use the NSLI instead

now you've got

one metric to just say this the

the bonuses are paid out

not on close rate

but on NSLI

and you have to hit a 18 NSLI or 19 nsli

and you get a bonus

and then when you do that

it's the most miraculous

thing because your marketing

team can say

what's our revenue

1 million / 2,000 nsli boom

there's our lead goal

for the year

it's like everything

it's like to me

once you see it

you can't unsee it

and for the painting

companies that are still doing like

I just I wish

that sales managers

would get rid of clothes

rate and um

average job size

because it's just

it's just complicated

it's adding two metrics

when you could just do one and

and erase all that

and then you know

that if marketing hits

marketing the lead

the lead goal

and sales hits

NSLI guess what

you hit your revenue

now you just need to produce the damn work

and you're good

you know so anyways

that's my rant

because I've gone

exactly I've gone

deep down that rabbit

hole before

and I think it's a

I love that you

the way you spotted that off

I was like oh

I can I can be friends with Jacob now

cause I don't have to

waste energy

arguing on this topic yeah

um anything else on that

or were you the one that said

NSLI is critical

or did it like

I think I feel like you had said

the most important metrics

and you listed a couple

or maybe you asked

what are the most important

but what would you say

in your mind

from a sales and marketing

perspective

is there something more critical than that

there's nothing more critical

than NSLI I again

like you said

I also love NSLI

because it incentivises

it incentivises

squeezing the most

out of every lead

so there's also this idea in industry that

our estimates

take one and a/2 to 3 hours yep

when I just said that

if there's anyone

here listening

who owns a painting company

like your butthole

just puckered

you're like oh

I could never do that

like you're wasting

so much time

you know all the stuff like

like who cares

if your clothes are tie

like you're not gonna get enough

through that

immediately

just all the stuff

it's like I would rather have one sales guy

do two to three appointments a day

then having to do five

appointments

a day with a uh

even a lower

clothes rate

yes okay the

revenue make

end up on the on the uh

the higher side

but here's the thing

we're squeezing

every lead that comes in

so you need double the amount of lead

flow that I do

to hit the same

revenue numbers

which means

just me making

this one change

all does save us on

Eric would does

produce better

in terms of sales

but it also immediately

reduces our marketing

spend because

we don't need

we can spend

half the amount

as you totally

because I'm

I can make the same

revenue out of a lower

number of leads

if you incentivise

for close rate

then these guys

are only gonna

wanna work with

the people who are easiest

to close yep

instead of training

for how to close

the most number for the

highest amount

that also means

they're not incentivised to upsell

they're not

incentivised uh

to 100% agree with everything

to go for larger projects

like it's just

it's just a

no brainer yeah

I love that

um alright so keeping

an eye on time

I wanna move

to the wrap up

questions uh

3 book recommendations

okay so you did

tell me about this in the

in the beginning

but again I have these on my

my desk so I'm gonna

show them to you

it's not because I

I prepped this

um the first one is

how to fight a hydra

talk to you about how

I like storytelling

um this is an allegory

so it's how to fight a hydra

face your fears

pursue your ambitions

and become the hero

you're destined to be

uh if you want basically

Jacob's mindset in a book

it is this like

how I press world

it's a tiny book

it fits in the palm of my hand

and you can read it in like 2

3 hours right

and it's an allegory

of facing adversity

uh choosing to do

what other people don't

to accomplish

what other people won't

hmm right uh

there's that

in a a mindset

or in basically

wrapped up into a book

it's an allegory

so it's a story

right love that

the next one is

the mountain

is you by Brianna

Weast West W I E

s t this uh

is a phenomenal book

this started

me people ask like

how did you

get to this point

um I would a largely

blame this book um

because it is uh

the subtitle for it is

transforming

Self Sabotage

into Self Mastery

so learning

how much we

self sabotage

how to identify that

in yourself

and how to swap it for

self mastery is

for me it's vital

if you ever

want to be able to pursue

your potential

you're gonna learn that

the biggest

enemy is you

so if you can

start to master self

you need to first

identify how

you naturally

self sabotage

that book will show you

how to do that

it's gonna allow you

to actually

become a player

in the game

in the last one

I love this

because of the

way we were

operate business

which is uplifting

service by Ron Kaufman

it's a phenomenal book

covering how to give

how the best companies in the world

if you wanna learn how to make your company

actually have the customer

experience that is equivalent to like the Rolls Royce

of your industry

if you wanna learn how to do that

that book will show you how to do it hmm

I heard a guy say who's training his team said

it's impossible to train your team to give white glove

service if they've never experienced it before

most people in the painting industry

think that they're high end when they've actually never

ever purchased in their entire life or done anything

with high end businesses

so they don't even know what high end means

they've never experienced it right

they've never flown first class

they've never been

you know what I mean

they've never gone through a tailor

when in like a luxury anything

like they don't actually know what it looks like

so how can you give that service

uplifting service is

is a really great way to

without you having to go do all of that's gonna help

like your mind come up with the idea of

this is how the world's best operators

a craft customer journeys and customer experiences

that allow them to be the best in the world

hmm uplifting service

that's amazing love it um

favorite movie

it changes so I'm a film student

so I have a top 5 right at the top right now um

is actually the most recent Godzilla

Godzilla minus 1

is it called

Godzilla minus 1 yeah

I did not know that it

why would you say I've never

I haven't even thought about that

is that like really recent how

yes I saw a couple weeks ago

probably uh

why can't I find I'm only bringing up the 1998 one

Godzilla minus 1

yeah just came out ah

okay there it is

I have to I have to spell out minus 1

yes um sweet

so good movie

recommend it

recommend it

it's a fantastic monster movie

it is uh if you're a fan of actual filmmaking

like I am a good storytelling

no fluff no

no politics

like just a good old fashioned movie that is

well told with fantastic

images and fantastic sound design

that is a phenomenal movies

probably one of the best Godzilla movies

I'm a huge fan of the monster verse

I hate the uh

multiverse um

but I'm a huge fan of that

so that's probably my No. 1 right now

love that um

and what is the

your recommended method for people to reach out to you

if they wanna get in touch

yeah if they wanna get in touch

the best way to contact me is

either through my Facebook uh

account which most people probably either uh

are or aren't gonna be able to do

the next way is through email

so Jacob at Ransom digital.com

fantastic um

well Jacob this is super fun

thank you for taking the time to come on and

discuss faith and marketing and painting and all that

so look forward to seeing you around

and are you going to be at PCA

I'm not our baby's doing mid to late February

so I won't be there

is this the first one

this is my fourth

fourth nice

we have four kids

be fruitful and multiply baby

yeah what's that

be fruitful and multiply

fruitful and multiply

I love big family

so I said yes sir

that's awesome

well thank you

Jacob for your time and we'll be in touch

awesome thanks Chris

thank you so much for listening

my name is Chris Kiefer

and my mission is to champion

the relentless pursuit of purpose

and what that means to me is to be an example

a champion someone that is in the trenches

working and showing and winning and trying and failing

in how to pursue a deeper and more meaningful life

with the people that I love

with my kids

with my friends

with our family

and also just be a champion and example of

entrepreneurship and following my passion

and doing what I believe I'm called to on this earth

and so if that inspires you in some way

please share this episode

if you want

like subscribe

share whatever

do all the stuff

means the world to me to get this message

and get these guests that I have out there

and if you're interested in

in any of the book recommendations

or looking up other episodes of the movie list

you can visit my website

Chris Kiefer dot com

for all the details on the show

and also check out the bullion review software

as well as the bullion automation consulting

company that I own for home service businesses

so thank you so much

and we'll see you on the next episode