My guest on this week’s program is Tony Hoty, a marketing and sales leadership expert in the home improvement and remodeling industry.
I was very pleased when Tony agreed to appear on Radio Free Enterprise because, even though only a small fraction of my audience is in the home improvement industry, what Tony teaches can have a profound impact on any company of any size in any industry.
Effective marketing and sales are essential to the success of every business. And yet, for many business owners, marketing is a mystery and sales is a dirty word.
My introduction to a true sales culture came immediately after the dot-com collapse. My tech startup had folded and I found myself with a six-figure lifestyle and a zero-figure income. I had a family to feed, a mortgage to pay, and bills piling up.
Out of desperation, I took a job as a salesman for a home improvement company and, though I started out very slowly, by the end of the year I was the top producer in the company and had completely turned my fortunes around.
What I learned about the power of a professional sales culture is what Tony Hoty is all about.
More information: https://TonyHoty.com
What follows is a computer-generated transcription of our entire conversation. Please excuse any typos!
Frank Felker 00:23
Thank you, Dude Walker. Yes, indeed I am Frank Felker. Welcome back to Radio Free Enterprise. My guest today is Tony Hoty. Tony is a marketing and sales leadership expert in the home remodeling and improvement industry. Tony, welcome to the program.
Tony Hoty 00:41
Thanks for having me, Frank.
Frank Felker 00:43
I am very excited about Tony coming on the program. I appreciate your willingness to share some time with us. Because I find that so many companies, so many business owners don’t seem to have enough of an emphasis on sales and marketing. And I’ll tell you what I mean. For all companies, an effective and successful marketing and sales program is a critical success factor. And yet, it’s been my experience that for many business owners, marketing is a mystery and sales is a dirty word. They just can’t seem to get all ginchy when they think about being too salesy.
Well, I had a baptism by fire myself, that changed my whole perspective on this. Back at the end of the dot-com era my dot-com that I had founded, crashed along with the rest of them. And I found myself with a six-figure lifestyle and a zero-figure income level. And I had a family to feed and a mortgage to pay and bills piling up. And literally out of desperation, I took a job as a salesman for a home improvement company. And even though I started out very slowly, I ended up after eight months, I was the Top Producing salesperson in the whole company. And what I learned from that was such an education that I ended up writing a book about it, called The Greatest Job You Never Thought Of, Sales.
It completely turned my financial fortunes around 180 degrees. And it gave me an entirely new perspective on what a powerful and focused sales culture can do for any company. And so what I’m hoping that will come for you, as our viewer and listener to this show, from our conversation with Tony today is to take a new look a fresh perspective at your own marketing and sales efforts. And think about what you can do to ratchet them up dramatically.
So Tony, I’d like to start with this. Even though probably only a small percentage of my viewers are in the home and remodeling and improvement business. The lessons you have to share can fit any company as I’m stressing. But I would like to start with tell us about the companies that you generally work with, what do they do.
Tony Hoty 02:58
So generally speaking, I work with home improvement and remodeling businesses, as you mentioned, you know, roofing, siding replacement windows is a big, big industry for us. We call them replacement contractors, you know, projects that can be done in one to three days, you know, for example, a one-day bath or walk-in shower transformation. They like projects that can be done in one to three days, As the old saying goes, fish and guests stink after three days. So, you know, they like to get in and get out, you know, turn the profit, keep the customer satisfaction level high. And turn, you know, turn the dollars, and keep moving.
Frank Felker 03:43
Great. Okay. And I know and we’ll talk about this later that you also have on occasion work with companies totally outside of the remodeling and replacement industry. But we’ll talk about that later. Now, I want to kind of go through this from almost like a chronological standpoint or almost like the customer’s journey of working with a home remodeler. And it starts with marketing. And by that I don’t necessarily mean lead generation. I want to get to that next. There’s a lot of things that you talk about and I’ve seen in your blog and things that you have on YouTube and so forth, about elevating the remodeler’s brand, particularly in a local area. What sort of things do you encourage your clients to do on the marketing side?
Tony Hoty 04:32
Yeah, you’re exactly right Frank, I mean marketing really it exists in every aspect of your business. So you know every opportunity any customer facing scenario really is marketing. You know you show up to your customers home if you’re in an attractive wrapped company vehicle and you’re using installers that are well uniformed, and they’re they have drop cloths, different things like that. neighbors are going to see that. And that’s a form of marketing. So it’s just doing things in a high level. And just always, you know, really trying to have that brand to do justice to your brand, and everything that you do. And some of it’s very simple.
Frank Felker 05:21
Well, and you know, for example, just one particular tactic that you use is radius marketing. Can you tell us what that means in your industry?
Tony Hoty 05:32
Yes. So, you know, we believe very, very strongly that, you know, the simplicity of the four R’s, that’s repeat business, referral, business, radius, marketing, and online reviews. And that’s really, you know, consistent in almost all businesses, you know, trying to get repeat business, from your existing customer, why spend money on chasing new dollars, when you can, you know, just do more business with a customer that you already have, you’ve got that relationship established, they’re willing to pay more, if they’ve done business with you already. referral business, everybody loves referrals, that’s a very cost-effective form of advertising. And again, you know, if you’re referred, you’re going to command a higher dollar. And you’re going to be less difficult in closing the business.
So for radius marketing, and in the Home Improvement industry, home remodeling, it just makes sense to do some radius marketing, in tight proximity around your job sites. So just celebrate the installation that you’re doing for your customer, put a yard, sign out, do some door hangers, do some direct mail, potentially get on Facebook, and some of the local community pages and advertise the fact that you’re working in the neighborhood, get face to face, go out and introduce yourself to some of the neighbors nearby. And then lastly, after you have done an excellent job for your customer, you deserve the five-star review, right go out and, and really get your customer to share their experience go on offense instead of waiting for reviews to come in. And you know, in some cases, those are always the best. When you sit back on defense, you know, go on offense, and collect those online reviews give your customer a voice.
Frank Felker 07:22
As you say the advice you just shared can work for any type of business, literally b2b b2c, here in our area B to G, in the Washington DC, or I guess they’re government contractors everywhere. But all these types of things can help drive sales, or certainly drive brand awareness and make your company top of mind for people. Now, the next step along the path is to get people to actually ask for a price a price, quote on a job to generate what was called in the industry a lead? What sort of advice do you offer to your clients in terms of creative ways to generate leads?
Tony Hoty 08:05
Wow, that’s, that’s such a broad question. There’s just so many ways to make a lead, you know, you know, there’s in the home remodeling industry, we kind of look at it as in two different ways. Number one, there’s inbound lead generation, meaning, you know, you put your advertising out there into the marketplace, and you field, the inquiries inbound, that could be from television, could be from radio, it could be from the internet, there’s just a variety of ways that people could contact you from some marketing messages that you have out in the marketplace. And then there’s what we call outbound which, that is where you really take your message to the marketplace, in some form of person-to-person marketing, could be calling on the phone could be, like I said, knocking on the door and introducing yourself. It could be a home show trade show fair festival event, community event. And you know, it could be an in store or retail program inside one of the big box stores or grocery stores or hardware stores. So there’s just a big, you know, opportunity to generate leads a variety of different ways. And, you know, they come from those kind of two categories, outbound and inbound. What we see which kind of fascinating is companies, you know, in our industry as well as other industries, they tend to be really strong at one or the other. They’re either really good at making inbound leads from advertising, or they’re good at being aggressive and getting out there and beating the streets and that’s what their background is, and that’s what they’re used to. So you just kind of have to understand that both worlds exist out there and you can generate leads a number of ways.
Frank Felker 09:49
A couple of points I’d like to underline right here. One is it’s important to be driving leads one way or the other, inbound outbound inbound, and it just it’s been my experience. It’s not necessarily so much in the home improvement industry. But in other industries, and particularly with smaller companies, that people don’t seem to put enough focus on marketing, that they’re more focused on whatever it is they do they, they do roofing, they bake bread, they fix bicycles, whatever it is that they do, rather than realizing that driving sales and developing new client relationships is just as critical, if not more critical to the success of the business. Now another thing is, and I’d like to get your sort of 40,000-foot view on this is that you need to track your marketing and lead gen efforts to see what’s working and what isn’t working. What’s sort of their needs, sort of back of the napkin, ideas that you share with your clients? How do you recommend that your clients track the effectiveness of their advertising and marketing?
Tony Hoty 10:51
Yeah, that’s so critical. Just knowing your numbers, you know, the numbers don’t lie. And so you know, knowing what is working for you, and what’s not working for you. And so you have to keep track of that, in this day. And age, there’s just so many opportunities to do that. There’s just a number of incredible CRM software’s and different types, and a lot of them are industry specific. Others are just kind of generic, that can be used across a number of industries. But you know, basic numbers, knowing how many calls you have to make an order to schedule an appointment with someone how many appointments you have to run, to know, you know, that you’re going to be able to get a proposal in front of them, and how many proposals you have to give to know that you’re going to close the sale. Those are the kinds of basic metrics that are absolutely critical and essential to any small business.
Frank Felker 11:45
And, you know, the company that I worked for, they tracked all of that stuff, it was amazing. And as I say, it was a great education. To me, it was a great eye opener. They knew what the average cost to generate a lead was from they did newspaper and radio primarily at that time. They knew what the closing percentage was for each of their salespeople. In other words, for every presentation they made, if they made 10, how many were they able to turn into projects. They also had an interesting statistic they called average value per lead issued, which meant for every salesperson that was issued a lead, on average, how much revenue did they generate back for the company. And they even had a thing and I think this is an important level of detail that this company took that other companies can do even if they’re doing only like online marketing, which had to do with Yeah, will you set an appointment? Did but did you set an appointment, which meant that the salesperson actually sat down with the homeowner and made a presentation. Now, the analogy and online marketing is there’s all kinds of different little ways that buddy can lose, get lost out of a sales funnel, you need to keep track of all of them. Now, are there any particular numbers? You know, I just rattle off a whole bunch of different statistics? Is there one number, or any group of numbers that you find are the most predictive for a company’s success in that tracking?
Tony Hoty 13:17
Yeah, so you mentioned one of them, you know, it’s referred to by a number of different acronyms in our industry and other industries. But basically, it’s revenue per appointment. That is a huge, hugely important metric, because it helps you to decide so many things, you know, who am I going to give these appointments to, you know, in essence, marketing dollars are spent to create appointments, right to get face to face with our prospects. And so all of our advertising, all of our marketing dollars are going towards that effort. And we need to know, should I be giving these appointments to this salesperson? Or should I be giving them to that salesperson, if you have multiple salespeople? And, you know, if you’re just doing the sales yourself, you know, you need to know, typically, if I spend X amount of dollars advertising to generate an appointment, you know, how much am I getting in return? That’s my ROI return on investment. That’s the name of the game.
Frank Felker 14:18
Sure. Okay, let’s um, you know, because we could spend a lot of time on every one of these steps in the process, and they’re all critical, but we only have so much time to work with, so I’d like to move forward to the actual sales activity. And again, this is where I’ve seen a lot of business owners kind of just fall apart, that they feel as though that it is anything they do that they feel is salesy, or you know, use car salesmen is the word that used a lot and I use the word sales man, instead of salesperson because it has that extra, unfortunately negative effect on people who are not sales oriented, but what else I recently had Bob Burg on Radio Free Enterprise whose bestselling author and he talks about what a service, being an excellent salesperson, a professional salesperson is, what is your take on sales as a profession, I refer to it as the world’s most valuable profession, and how it’s not at all what most people think it is.
Tony Hoty 15:23
Amen, I couldn’t agree with you more. You know, the first thing I often share with salespeople, or even individuals that are out generating leads either way is I like to share how that chain of economy gets started by what they do, you know, in the home remodeling industry, if you knock on the neighbor’s door across the street, you might be a little tentative or reserved about doing that. But if you’re able to connect with them and sell another project, so much good, so much impact occurs, as a result, you know, the salesperson is going to earn a commission, the company is going to earn a profit, you know, the installers are going to have more work, the administrative staff is going to stay busy as a result of the work you’re doing, you know, the manufacturers are going to receive an order, you know, for all the materials and etc. The delivery drivers that deliver the materials to the job site, there’s just so much economy that results from a salespersons efforts.
And if that doesn’t give you, you know, the inspiration to get out there and have a positive impact on your community and the world around you. I don’t know what will know. But you have to maintain a cert, you have to maintain a servant’s heart, really, I think that also helps change, you know, the paradigm a little bit in trying to solve problems for your customers, you know, in the home improvement business, you know, again, we see that the neighbors may have a leak or leaky gutters, you know, peeling paint, rotten wood, we notice these things while we’re working on our customers’ homes, we notice it on their homes, we notice it on their neighbor’s homes. And it’s important for us to bring it up and to serve them and let them know that we can solve that problem, we’ve identified a problem. And so having that servant, outlook is really important as
Frank Felker 17:20
well. I agree completely. I thought I had coined this term. And then I found out it was from Zig Ziglar. So clearly it was predated me. But the term that I use often is sales is not something you do to someone, it’s something you do for someone, they’ve asked for you in this case to come to their home, and talk to them about a problem they have, you have specialized knowledge about solutions for that problem that they can choose from, you also are in a position, as you said, to get the wheels of industry in motion, get that material delivered, get the installers out here working on their home, and get it turned around quickly. For me, what really made the difference for me was how deeply I believed in the quality of the service of the company that I worked for. If I hadn’t believed in that, then I would never have been able to sell it I have not, you know, try to jam something down somebody’s throat? What’s your take? Can you give me so sort of the Tony Hoty take on that belief in the value that you represent?
Tony Hoty 18:26
Yes, sir. You know, conviction is the word I like to use, you have to be convicted, you have to really, truly believe in the company and their core values, you have to believe in the product or service that you’re selling. And you have to believe in yourself and your ability to, you know, create the right experience for the customer, you know, ask the right questions. So that you can get to the root of their of their problem so that you can understand their goals and the outcome they want for their project. So that’s really what it’s about is is kind of focusing on the consumer in that regard, so that you can, you know, you can deliver what they’re looking for, in the end.
Frank Felker 19:10
Real quickly, and then I’ll move away from the sales aspect a little bit. But in terms of training, let’s say green horn salespeople, there’s always a dichotomy. You might want to hire somebody who’s experienced salesperson, but they’re going to do things their way and not necessarily your way. Or you might want to bring in somebody who’s green, who will learn and implement your system, but they don’t have as much experience and may not have as much initial success. What what’s your take on that? Do you have any preference between those two?
Tony Hoty 19:44
Yeah, so I do have a preference. I prefer to really focus on the individual, you know, it’s about people and it’s about process. So you know, having the right individual with the right core values, the right ambition, you know, really Having, you know, the right fit for your organization. And that could be someone with sales experience, could be someone who’s never sold before, could be someone who’s sold in another industry. So I think it’s really by having the right person first. And then of course, having them on the process, you know, following the process, you have to have a clearly defined sales process, everything from how you like to, you know, generally greet the customers to how you evaluate and assess their needs, how you demonstrate your product, how you go through and explain your pricing model, and how you ask for the business. So, you know, when you have the right people, and you have the right process, you usually get that third p which is profit.
Frank Felker 20:48
That’s great. So I take it that part of what you do for your clients is help them formulate and implement their sales process. Is that correct?
Tony Hoty 21:00
That’s correct. We do it more. So on the on the front end on the marketing side of things, putting good processes in place for answering inbound phone calls, you know, you know, the easiest way for us to generate a new client is to do a little secret shopping or a little mystery shopping. We’d call and record, you know, phone calls to our clients’ offices all the time. And then we see that, you know, things can get mishandled or there’s opportunities that are falling through the cracks. Oh, that’s insane. Those are things that we do to help clients and really coach them on best practices for handling inquiries on the front lines. You know, everything from, again, greeting people in outbound marketing efforts, whether it be on the telephone, face to face, but a lot of these processes are in marketing. And some of them, of course, are translate right over into sales as well. You know,
Frank Felker 21:56
it’s interesting that you mentioned that, as far as leads not being handled well. Because so many times in a variety of businesses, the owner thinks we need more leads, we need more leads, we don’t have enough leads. And it turns out that they have bungling at least half of the leads that they have coming in right now. And this is a great way to demonstrate how what you do applies to virtually any business. I worked for a period of time with a guy who consults to and focuses on marketing solutions for cosmetic surgeons. And I can’t tell you how many leads they lose because they’re not handled well. Once the person calls and makes an appointment. Great. Nobody follows up. Nobody confirms the appointment. Nobody even seems to notice when the person didn’t show up. You know, and how much did you pay $500 for that lead? or How much? What was the average cost per lead, and it just went down the drain? Right now I’m working with a law practice, where I did a very long discovery call with the guy, he wanted more leads, wants more leads. He called me because he wanted what he called online marketing. Turns out, he’s losing over 50% of the leads that are coming in right now. So instead, what I’m doing is I’m training his staff, how to better handle the leads that come in and use the CRM that they already have in place. So I mean, it I think that’s an a very important point for viewers and listeners to consider. Do you really need more leads? Do you do you run into that frequently, where they actually have as many leads as they need, or whether they do or they don’t, they’re just not handling them? Well,
Tony Hoty 23:30
more often than you could ever imagine, it’s in a lot of times, the bigger the organization gets, the more attrition there is with leads the layers of you know, of management and just diluting the message over the telephone game. In school when we were young, you know, you would whisper to the person next to you a phrase and they would whisper it to the person and by the time it got around the room, that phrase was butchered. And so the same can happen in an organization with just even answering the phones, because they don’t get the training that they need. And that’s the front lines, that’s, you know, where the leads are coming from there, they’re being fielded by those individuals on the front lines, it’s so important that they are well trained and that they do understand what best practices are. You know, we talked about the difference between qualification which a lot of people think they’re doing and crucification you know, you’ve got a qualified leads, not crucify leads, and we see oftentimes leads crucified.
Frank Felker 24:37
Let me ask you then since and we just did touch on how what you do can apply to virtually any business. You told me a couple of stories of other businesses you’ve worked with, what sort of services could you offer to XYZ company or what sort of industries outside of home remodeling and improvement Do you feel you can help?
Tony Hoty 25:00
really feel from based on our track record that, you know, we can work with virtually any business, because we subscribe to universal truths, you know, proven practices that apply to anything, you know, a lot of people fail to understand, for example, that, you know, marketing and recruiting are virtually interchangeable. You know, when you are marketing a product or a service to a consumer, you’re doing all the same things that you’re doing when you are marketing a job to applicants. And they just don’t always connect the dots, but they’re virtually identical. And so we take the principles that have proven to be true in-home remodeling, and home improvement. And we’ve been able to help people in countless other industries that really don’t resemble each other in any way. But those principles govern they’re so strong that they transcend any industry.
Frank Felker 25:59
That’s great stuff, Tony. Now, the COVID crisis has been terrible for a lot of industries. But from what I’ve been reading, and a lot of cases for remodeling and home improvement, it’s actually been a bit of a boon. I don’t know if that applies to exterior things like replacement windows and that sort of thing. How what what has the impact been on your industry?
Tony Hoty 26:22
So overall, the impact has been very positive, you know, there’s two sides to every industry, and that’s supply on one side, and then you’ve got demand on the other side. So demand is way up. Right. And that’s great. We love it when demand is up, but the supply sides, but that’s because of COVID. So, you know, although people are generating more leads, making more sales, it’s gotten a little bit complicated. We’ve got long backlogs of work, we’ve got customers calling and wanting things done tomorrow, when they can’t be done for weeks. So, you know, there’s a number of challenges. But overall, it’s been very good to the home remodeling industry. You know, the key thing is the contact rate, right? So people are home, they’re available, they’re at their home. And so the COVID contact rate has been very kind to home remodelers.
Frank Felker 27:18
Well With that in mind, a whole new thing is sort of arisen, you know, back, back in my day, you know, we went and talked to people and across the kitchen table. And but nowadays, this idea of zoom meetings and virtual sales calls have has come to the fore, what what’s going on with that? Is that now the majority of sales calls are, it’s still something new. Where are we at with that? Well,
Tony Hoty 27:43
you know, the home remodeling industry has always been a little bit slow to adopt technology. And for one reason or another, you know, although there are plenty of people out there that are doing, you know, zoom meetings and taking advantage of all types of virtual opportunities. You know, it really isn’t the majority at all. It’s still getting there and seeing the project, seeing what’s required. Understanding the customer’s needs is vital, and so on getting face to face is still very, very important in the home improvement industry. And that’s why I think you see so many people taking advantage of technology where they can, but still trying to have that personal connection, number one, and again, getting your eyes on the project number two, so you can really solve the problem for your customer.
Frank Felker 28:33
That’s good. I like that. Well, we’ll see what happens, you know, if we get out from under lockdown, and so forth, maybe we’ll be able to meet more in person more easily. But going forward, I think it’d be interesting to see how effective a virtual sales presentation might be relative to in person. That’s and that’s what it’s all about is can you still get the projects, if you’re not sitting right in front of them. It’s hard to it’s hard to say I guess time will tell. Well, Tony, we’re just about out of time, I wanted to ask you, how is the best what’s the best way for people to connect with you if they’ve been listening and watching and thinking you could help them with their company.
Tony Hoty 29:17
So social media is a great place to do that. You can find me on LinkedIn, Tony Hoty to NY h o t y on the website is my name.com TonyHoty.com. And same thing on Facebook, we’ve got Tony Hoty Training and Consulting, that’s our fan page and my team, very qualified talented group and myself would be happy to assist anyone that may need some direction with lead generation or some guidance in that area.
Frank Felker 29:48
Appreciate that.
Frank Felker 29:50
Now, one last thing I always like to ask my guests before we go. Is there any question that I have not asked you, or something that’s come to mind as we’ve been speaking that you’d like to share before we sign off?
Tony Hoty 30:04
I think you did a great job. Frank, I think we covered a lot of ground today. And, you know, you know, leads are the name of the game. You know, it all starts with the inquiry. It all starts with the lead. And so the more you have and the better you handle them, the better off you’ll be.
Frank Felker 30:23
Tony Hoty, thank you so much for joining me today.
Tony Hoty 30:26
My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Frank Felker 30:28
Thanks again to Tony. And thank you for joining us. Until next time, I’m Frank Felker saying I’ll see you on the radio.
30:37
Forgiving your entrepreneurial sins with a gentle wave of his microphone. Here’s Frank Felker.
