Ein Vertriebskanal reicht, sonst bleibst du pleite

0:00We sell junk removal and demolition to commercial property managers. Uh we currently do 1 million a year. Uh would love to be at uh 10 million a year. What's currently stopping us is knowing uh which sales uh channel to focus on. I know it's important that we pick one, capitalize on it, and I'm wondering how much time, energy, or volume do I spend on one while [snorts] I determine if that's going to be our channel or not, and know whether to leave that one or focus on that one.

0:25>> Yeah. So, I'll give you two answers to that question. So, before I answer it, I'm going to do the first thing though. Really the second thing first. Um so, why what do you do currently right now to get customers? >> Uh right now it's been mostly referrals. >> Okay. So, you can't do more referrals because there's nothing for you to do besides do a good job. Okay. That's fine. Um if referrals is the way you're getting business, what ways have you begun or you haven't started doing sales channels yet?

0:51>> Uh so, I uh we've started to lay the framework for doing uh email uh cold outreach as well uh simultaneously with LinkedIn outreach, and then also uh converting some of our social media efforts into a bit of outreach as well with people who are engaging. >> Mhm. >> Uh so, those are some of the things that we're >> Like ManyChat and then DM and then more >> Yeah, yeah. Uh more more manual for now while we get the uh the flow going, and then also um I'm in a networking BNI, so that's

1:16>> Yeah. I would prefer you stick with one of them and just do more in that thing. And so, if the question is how do I So, the original question was how do I know which one to pick and how long to stick with it? So, I think I will reject the premise, which is that one of them is going to work. Like you will make one of them work. And so, you could make any of them work. And so, I would take the hypothetical extreme of is there a business that acquires other businesses' customers in each of those different channels in your market?

1:51>> Uh I'm I'm not sure. >> I'll bet there is. Uh there are are some junk removal people who do it via social media and they take it that way. Some people probably do it via LinkedIn. Some people do uh cold outreach. All three of those are super repeatable channels that anyone could run. So, all of them can work. My recommendation to you would be the one that you have the highest overlap with existing skill set. Between you and team.

2:17So, if you and or your team have more knowledge around social media stuff, then be like, just double down on social media. If it's I have uh you know, we're better at kind of the outbound motion, then I would say go do the outbound motion via via email. If it's like, well, we want to boost these things, it's like, well, why don't we just send more emails? You know what I mean? >> Got it. I guess if you had to just say one, like let's irrelevant to what the team has >> Which one do you have the best skill set uh and

2:46>> To be honest, I just don't have the skill set and I guess networking is number one. Like in when I'm in person with people, I'm doing the best. >> Okay. So, so hear me out then. Wild idea. So, you do networking stuff and so if I said, I want you to spend 4 hours a day to find every local community-based related event with 20 people or less or 50 people or less in it that have people who are similar to your avatar. Would you be able to do that?

3:12>> Yes. >> Okay. So, why can't we do more of that? >> We can do more of that. >> Okay. So, how many of those events do you currently go to? And I'm guessing you get customers from when you go there, right? >> Uh yeah, they they compound over time. Uh we go to uh currently a few a week and then we're meeting one-on-one with a lot of people we meet. >> Afterwards, right. So, I would say, all right, well, then what would it take for us to go to like several a day? That would be my first kind of like risk-adjusted move.

3:38Because the other things you haven't done yet at all. So, it's like, how do I go from one to three just like this year? I would do that. Cuz then it'll free up more cash flow because the issue that you have right now, especially like in the in the in the swamp that you're in right now. Um you basically until three-ish million dollars a year, which is why it's so painful, everyone here has to learn everything. You've got to learn it all because no one who's really good you can afford to pay.

4:04>> Mhm. >> It's just the math. That's why it's so tough, right? So, it's like let's say you have a two million dollar business and you run 20% margins. Um or let's give you a better margins. Let's Let's give you Let's give you 30% margins, right? So, you got $600,000 a year. Now, some percentage you're going to keep in the business, you're going to reinvest, whatever. So, it's like you might have 400 350-ish of like net free cash or whatever you want to call it. You probably don't live for free. So, now we got to eat that out. So, it's like okay, there's $200,000 left maybe.

4:32You can bet 100% of your profit on one person who can come help you do this or you just have to basically work double time. Both of those are fine. It's just different preferences around risk. Um and if you've never gone above that, then pattern recognition of what that first hire looks like is tough. The reason that Who here is on their second business or beyond? Can you raise your hands? Okay, most of you. Um So, of the people who raised their hands, who here's second business grew faster than their first business?

5:01Almost everyone. And the reason for that is because your pattern recognition is better, right? Like you The first time you ever hired your first sales person, you're like, "I don't know what these people look like." And then you hire five of them and finally you're like, "Ah, this one's one." And then from that point going forward, you're like, "Okay, this is what a good sales person looks like." As you scale a business, you have to do that across every department across every level. So, first you learn what an SDR looks like. And then you learn what a sales person looks like. And then you learn what a sales manager looks like. And then you learn what a And what a closer looks like. And what a closer manager looks like. And what a uh director of sales. Then a VP of sales.

5:29Like you have to learn what each of these are. And at every level, you just fail a bunch of times until you get it right. And you're like, "Ah, that's what it is." And so, fundamentally like the the the further along a business you'll get, the more you will feel like you are assembling businesses than you are really building them. >> Mhm. >> And so, to ladder to your question, um I would just do way more of the thing you're currently doing um as my path of at least getting to one to three. It's probably super profitable for you as well.

5:55Um, and then I would invest more of those resources into um learning one of the other channels. >> Got it. All right. Thank you. >> Cool. You bet. >> If you are a business owner and you are not growing as fast as you'd like, I'd like to give you a free gift. So, my team and I put together the $100 scaling road map, which is basically 200 hours of us looking over all the portfolio companies we've had and what stages of growth they went through and more importantly where they got stuck and how they got past it. And so, we broke it in these 10 stages and we made this little kind of quiz thing where if you put in your business information, it'll tell you where you're at and the most important part for you, what to do for each of functions of the business across product, marketing, sales, customer success, recruiting, IT, human resources, and finance. And so, no matter what you're struggling with, someone else has already struggled with it and solved it. And so, I'd like to give you this thing absolutely free. You can go to acquisitions.com/roadmap, plug in your business information, and if you want us to actually help you deconstruct the business and you're trying to scale, we'd love to help you out. On the thank you page, you can just book a call with my team and we will look at the business, see if we can help, and if we can, we'll invite you out to Vegas and we'll do this in person live.