How much is a crm for a small business ? ‪@LeadFuelCRM‬

How much is a CRM for a small business? Most owners are shocked when they add it all up.
I sat down with my business partner Shane to break down what a CRM really costs, what you're actually paying for, and why most small business owners end up with 5 different tools that don't talk to each other.
Here's the math most people miss. A typical local service business is paying for:

• Email tool: $50/mo
• Text/SMS tool: $40/mo
• Booking calendar: $30/mo
• Review software: $50/mo
• Funnel builder: $97/mo
• Website hosting: $30/mo

That's $297/mo for tools that don't connect. Plus the time you waste jumping between them.
Lead Fuel CRM puts it all in one place:

• Full CRM Suite — $197/mo (everything: CRM, automation, texting, email, AI receptionist, reviews, invoicing, scheduling, social planner)
  
  
• Website Pro — $97/mo
• Review Fuel — $50/mo

We built this for local service businesses. Contractors, plumbers, electricians, HVAC, DJs, photo booth companies, auto detailers, event pros. Real people who don't have time to learn complicated software.

I built a photo booth company to 800+ events a year and a community of 5,000+ business owners. Every tool I tried was either too simple to work or too complicated to use. So we built the one I wanted.

Ready to get started? 👉 https://leadfuelcrm.com

Grab the free report here 👉 https://leadfuelcrm.com/free-report 

Transcript

Welcome And Why Lead Fuel

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back, man. We are doing our podcast, Next Level Business Podcast. It's just me and you today, bro. Just us. Boys are back. I am Shane Mara.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

This is Josh Pather.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Yeah, and today we're going to talk about lead fuel.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

I love lead fuel. We're going to go deep on lead fuel. We're going to we're going to get into businesses and how they're losing leads, how they're missing the mark on their marketing side. And this is going to cover everything about that.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

All right. It's going to be interesting.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

All right.

Scaling Breaks People And Systems

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Now, lead fuel, you didn't come in as a software guy, bro. You scaled a photo booth company. You did about 800 events a year. You got on the manufacturing side. What broke first as the business grew?

SPEAKER_00 0:45

The business grew. The people broke first. That was the hardest part.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

They always do.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Yeah, people will be your biggest problems. That's what Ty Lopez said. But yeah, the people and the systems, right? Multiple systems. Everything we talk about today is going to be talked about lead fuel because it solved so many problems that I needed it to solve when I got started because we were using 15 different applications. So I remember whenever we were booking 800 events a year, we would use Google Doc, download it, convert it to PDF, upload to write signatures, what we used to call, which is a cheaper version of DocuSign. And then we would send them the contract through that. Then we would send an invoice through PayPal and pay 4% fees on that. I remember one year it was $90,000 that we paid through PayPal. So fragmented systems like that added more staff to the office, which increased cost as we grew. Yeah, the average is at least around five to ten is the average between social media, one for invoicing, one like GoDaddy or Wix for their website. Maybe a CRM, maybe not a CRM. But they're getting frustrated. And if you're a husband and wife team, if you have three people,

The Hidden Tax Of Too Many Tools

SPEAKER_00 2:15

four people on your team, you're sharing logins, right? That's really annoying because someone could come work for you for two weeks and then leave. And now you got to change your passwords and you got to update all your staff and everything. So that gets, I mean, how much time you're wasting on that?

SPEAKER_01 2:30

And more times than not, you have all these different systems that you're using. You forget you even have them because you don't use them.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

And you forget to update the password.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Then you got somebody that finally comes in there, they add it all up, like, oh my gosh, we're paying a thousand dollars for all this stuff. We're only using three things.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Yeah, and you've upgraded along the way, you know, because they're they'll get you in, oh yeah, it's only 20 bucks a month. And then as you grow, you know, you want to add more users, it's gonna be another 20. It's gonna be another 20 to add more storage or more features. And then next thing you know, you're paying a couple hundred dollars for something that started off as twenty dollars.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

So I know you you have HUDS HubSpot, but you also had a lot of other things. Like, what were the list of the things you had? And then you switched over to lead fuel, and how much money did you actually save?

SPEAKER_00 3:14

So we saved about two thousand dollars on that, probably probably more than that. That's crazy because the phone system alone was a couple hundred dollars, and then that barely integrated with HubSpot, and then with HubSpot, that was about eight hundred dollars itself with a maximum amount of users, and then not including any of the other modules that they sell.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

And that's what they're notorious for. Everything you gotta add on, you gotta add on everything else, and the greatest thing about lead fuel is it's all in one.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

It's all in one. Everything in one place, your website, your email marketing, text messages, email follow-ups, email automation. Never before have you been able to do this all in one place.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

I love it. I love lead fuel. I'll be honest with you. Everywhere I go, all these businesses that I work in, I try to get everybody signed up on lead fuel. And I've got a couple of them signed up, and we use it every day.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Every single day.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

And one thing that amazed me, like, you know, your business, you had a ton of leads. What'd you have? Over 20,000?

SPEAKER_00 4:20

50.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

50,000. 50,000. 50,000 leads. Yeah. You can manage that in this.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

So if you have a ton of leads, a ton of contacts in there, or if you have just a few, like this thing covers it all.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Most other companies, they they cap you at the amount of contacts that you have. Plus, there's a limit to how many times you can contact them, and then text message limits. So there's a lot of limitations with it. And the more the more bigger you get, the more it's gonna cost you. You know, I don't feel like you should be penalized because there's really not much of a cost for these companies. They're just penalizing you for growing.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Yeah, they want to make money, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

All right. What's the number one thing, marketing mistake that you see these local businesses make?

What An All In One CRM Solves

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Man, everybody hired a guy that they knew and took their money. Everybody did that. Sadly, I'm working with a lady right now. She's like, she paid someone, you know, a couple hundred dollars to make a website. Never got it, never got it, you know, halfway done if they get it.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Three reasons why they didn't get it.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Three reasons why the cat, the dog.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Out of town, out of town, the tires. Somebody got sick.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Somebody got sick. It never ends. It's an infinite amount. So that's the number one mistake. What's what I'm seeing right now is I'm I'm actually training a lot of people to do stuff on their own. So I have a call next week with someone where I'm gonna teach them how to do Facebook ads. They paid me a couple hundred dollars for one-hour session of how to teach them Facebook ads. And I'd rather do that and show them how to do it and then they can go off on their own and and do it. Because they don't have to pay someone $500. Because that guy that you're paying for $500, he's got 10 other customers just like you. Now, if you were that guy, who would you how would you know how much time to spend with each customer?

unknown 6:01

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Go to the one that pays the most.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Yeah. Because one of the one one of the 10 is paying you more than that. And that's where all your energy goes. And it's unfortunate we see that every single day.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Walk me through what a lead should experience in the first five minutes after they fill out a form.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

After they fill out a form, they should get a text that should have either a misspelling or it should have like an abbreviated. So instead of saying Y-O-U, it should just say you. It should be like they're getting a text from a friend. Because what I see every single time is everybody's going to Chat GPT, and ChatGPT is going to give you this long paragraph, and they're like, oh my God, this looks so cool and professional. And then they're pasting it into the automation. And then they think that when people see that it's gonna look, it looks cool and they're gonna be so blown away. And it's the opposite. People are not responding, it's getting flagged, and you're not gonna achieve anything. So after they get the text, they should get an email with the same principles on it. And then after that, if you can, I told another one of the clients, send them a video. So record a video. So she owns a gym locally, and I said, Hey, record a video for yourself in the gym. Say welcome. I've been trying to reach you, give me a call back or something like that. Make a generic so you can text it manually to each of the leads.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

And make the text conversational.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

And make it conversational. Now, this is not gonna work if you're doing a hundred leads, but this podcast is not for those people. This is for service-based businesses that are starting up, you know, under a million dollars or say, trying to get past that seven-figure mark. You can still do that. This will take you a little bit extra time, but it compounds and it works extremely well because nobody else is willing to do it. Because everybody thinks AI is going to do everything for them, and everybody wants to automate everything. And all those businesses now are suffering because they realize AI is not at a point to be able to take that over, and people don't like it.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

One thing I like about kind of the transition that you've made is you used to do everything online. And now you're in the local community, just crushing it. You're part of all these different groups, but you're making a name for yourself in the community, but it's exactly what not only what you need, it's exactly what they need. Tell me about how you're hitting and connecting with people locally. Because that's what these service businesses are going to do too, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

They got to connect with the local people to get business.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Well, there's two options. When they sit down to like, how do we grow our business? You can you can hire a guy, right? And and realize in six months that you've spent maybe $3,000 with this

The Most Common Marketing Ripoff

SPEAKER_00 8:40

person. And you probably got, if you're lucky, you can break even, right? If you have extraordinary luck, if you're blessed, it will say, if you're blessed, then you'll be profitable. And if you're the normal person, you're most likely lost all of it. So if you take that versus finding some local networking that you could do and then do one-on-ones with people, building that trust, building that trust with someone. So if you're an HVC person, you can network with a realtor, you can network with someone who also serves, does home services and form those partnerships. But take that person out to dinner and buy him a nice steak dinner and spend $100. Because if you do that 10 times, now you got 10 people, and maybe five of those people will work out and they'll send you one or two referrals and then you can build it up like that. But at least you are you sat down with that person for one hour, you've built a relationship with them, and that compounds over time.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

You had a great line today. I heard you say it. You were talking about I'd rather spend 3,000 taking 30 people out to dinner and getting to know them. Yeah, that are going to be business customers of mine, or more than likely it's going to be a huge conversion rate, right? Versus spending three three grand at with Mark.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Oh, Marky.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Oh, Marky. He's the one that makes all the money.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

He's the one making all the money. But it's so cool to boost a post and it's so lazy because we can sit on the couch.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

But it's so hard to build trust nowadays. It seems like it's getting harder.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

It's harder, yeah. Because just getting a lead, it's certainly half the battle, right? So once you get the lead.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

He doesn't trust you. He's maybe maybe watched a few videos, but he doesn't really know who you are.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

And there's so much value in just sitting down with somebody across the table, man to man, and building rapport with them.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Yeah, just having a conversation. People are missing that conversation part, and AI is not going to replace that. And even Ty Lopez is saying, like, hey, he posted the other day, host a business dinner once a month, and you'll have more business than you can handle.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Love that idea.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Yeah. I mean, we're going to start doing that like a grouped dinner, you know, like multiple people, not one-on-one.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

So do lead fuel.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

So lead fuel, yeah. Right now, new office. Yeah, let's come start the office. Yeah, let's talk about the business center. So, business center is gonna be real cool right here, located in Royce City. You can come and rent an office. We're gonna have 10 by 10 private offices available, and we're gonna have lunch and learns on there. You can get help with your CRM, your website, your email marketing, text marketing, all that stuff in one place. A lot of speaking events are gonna happen, a lot of community partners. So it's gonna be like a co-working space slash business hub for business owners.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

It's almost like a mastermind group when they walk in. You know, part of the best part about being a mastermind group is you got a problem that needs to be solved. Bring your problem to the lead fuel center. Yeah, and it will get solved.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

So, for example, Shane's gonna be there once, maybe twice a week if we can get him on this side of town. But he you can come in and speak to him, right? He's a banker for 20 years and you can talk to him about banking stuff. We're also partnering up with Home Bank, and we have a lot of other business services that's gonna allow you to grow your business network, lower your costs, and then get coaching and really give you the best chance of successful business.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Yeah, and I'll give you a plug. Like if anybody has a marketing question, which everybody does, it's the hardest part of business. How do I grow my business? How do I get sales? You're the guy on that, man. I've I've watched

The First Five Minutes After Opt In

SPEAKER_01 12:10

you for you know 10, 15 years. You are a master of the marketing side. So all those people that need help, lead fuel center is gonna be the perfect place for you to come in and get help on that side.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Right. And no, nobody oversees, we're doing it right in person. And when you get to bring your laptop and come, right? Plug in, we're gonna get it done right now.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

No homework, no later, nothing. It's gonna get done immediately.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Yeah, and here's another plug like, you know, I've I've done CFO work for you for a long time. And one of the things I can always say is you're one of the best business owners I work with. And it is because as soon as we sit down and you know, you ask me to maybe brainstorm with you or come up with an idea, right after we have that idea, you're like, okay, let's execute it right now. And normal business owners, six months later, they're they're finally getting around to it, maybe 30 days, but that they don't execute quickly. You do. And there is there is there's a strength in executing quickly. So bring those ideas in quick, let's execute them fast.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Yeah. So if you're a type of person that takes long to make decisions, just understand if you come with that question, we will push you to get it done immediately.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

Everybody needs pushing, everybody needs accountability, man, to grow.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

You do, they do, you do. That's what it's gonna be about, and it's gonna take be a place to grow. And you can have your own office space over there now.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

In that environment, like that's that's the kind of environment you want to have office space in.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Yeah, we'll also have a podcast area too.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Because business owners just feed off each other when they're around each other, yeah. And that's that's the best part about a mastermind, and it'll have that feel there. All right, back to some of these deep questions, man. So, what should a service business automate first if they've never automated anything?

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Review collection and then invoices or invoice follow-ups, and then also asking for referrals.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

How are they gonna automate that?

SPEAKER_00 14:05

So, we do have a review collection tool inside of Lead Fuel. You connect to your Google business page, you it also connects to 50 other review platforms: Thumbtack, Airbnb, Trustpilot, any other platform that has reviews. And so once the job is completed, you can click a button, it'll send them a review link. You can also upload all of your contacts on there.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Yeah, like if you're just catching up, right? Yeah, like if you're just now doing it, but you've got 100 customers, you can blast that to 100 customers.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Yeah, so Art, we brought him on a couple months ago.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Oh, that's a great story.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

So he was at 40 reviews and struggling to get reviews, and nobody has time to ask customers reviews, or you forget. So we took his customer list, we put it into Lead Fuel, and we we texted and emailed all his customers, and he's sitting at 140 reviews now, and we got that within 60 days.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

And what I love about Art was he he didn't necessarily know what to do on Lead Fuel, like he signed up for it, yeah, and you had to help him, but you had to go in there and help him with the Google reviews and say, Look, dude, we're doing this. Yeah, and the results were amazing. He was blown away.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

He was blown away, and it's already helping his business, it's helping his business tremendously because I mean he's the highest rated now.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

It's a hundred five-star reviews that he got added in a short period of time, short period of time.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

And who's gonna be able to compete with that, right? Unless you're using leap fuel.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Yeah, and I got another guy, I've got an electrician guy. He just started his new electrician shop. And as soon as we imported all of those customers in there, it f it blasted a text to all of them. He got nine within the first four hours.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

So he went from not existing to having nine five-star reviews.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Shea loves to blast a database.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

I love blasting databases, man. All right, reviews. How do you actually get these customers to lead them consistently?

SPEAKER_00 15:58

That's where the automation comes in. So the cool part about lead fuel is that it'll actually keep texting them every week until they leave a review.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

So it'll annoy the hell out there.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

It'll annoy them. And it works because it works. We've seen it work with art, it worked for us. You know, we're work we just crossed over 50 reviews on our on our profile. Nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

What would you say to the owner who says, I get all of my business from referrals, I don't need this.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

We actually get we get that. We do get that. Well, we need to know how's he keeping track of everything.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

And as soon as you ask him, what do they say?

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Oh man, I got this. You know when the R-man starts.

Local Networking That Beats Ads

SPEAKER_00 16:40

As soon as the R-man starts, then I already know. But yeah, it's usually spreadsheets. Spreadsheets. Spreadsheets, red, yellow, and yellow. Spreadsheet. Red, yellow, and green on the spreadsheet. Yeah. Nobody opened it. With 56 tabs.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

They updated those once three years ago.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Yeah. Nobody's opening a spreadsheet anymore.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

And that's the last time they updated their spreadsheet.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

It's crazy. I love when they say that. Oh, yeah, I do a spreadsheet. Okay. When did you update it last year? Yeah. That's been a minute. All right. Where should a small local business spend their first 500 in marketing?

SPEAKER_00 17:12

First 500 in marketing. So let's just, I don't have one platform, but let's say if they go below it on Facebook ads.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Which they normally do.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Most of the time, if they do it themselves, it's probably going to be done incorrectly. So they'll just waste it.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

So if they try to boosted a few posts.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Yeah, they boosted a few posts. Nothing. I mean, it's just free money that comes back. Nothing comes back. Then they then they say it doesn't work.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

That's how Mark makes 60 billion in a quarter, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Yeah, by the way. Let's try Google Ads. Same situation. Confusing. Yeah. Tedious to set up.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

It's confusing.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Almost impossible for someone to do that.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

You gotta know what you're doing to do that right.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Yeah. You gotta know. So those two are out. So then we're back to taking the taking the guy out for to dinner. So five five people, identify five people and tell them you want to take them out to dinner or lunch or whatever and get them a nice steak dinner. I would say that. I mean, if we're looking through all the odds for someone that's just that the average business owner.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

What makes a service business website convert versus just looking nice? It's a big one.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

That's a big one.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

A lot of a lot of a lot of like if it's a husband and wife team, usually the wife designs the website. And just like she designs the house to look beautiful. It's pretty. It's pretty, but is it functional? No. It's not.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

You you literally just go there most of the time, and you you've educated me on this, right? The funnel model versus a modern day website, the the modern day, or shouldn't say modern day, the old what school website was just visual only. You can't really do anything. They might have a phone number, you might call, you might, you probably won't. Yeah, but that's it. But you know, the funnel model with the new modern website has a form on it.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Yeah, it has a form. Most of the people who built their own websites, and there's a lot of like open space, the spacing is all off, the size of the pictures off. That's as soon as I look at a website, the first second I can tell. So the spacing, the size of the pictures, the quality of the pictures, I mean, we're just seeing some terrible stuff. And then you see the contact form hidden on the fifth page, and you need that on the home page, and you need the problem solved on the home page too. So if someone is trying to figure out, hey, how do I, you know, my my water heater is leaking, right? Oh, we can fix water heaters. You know, we'll call you in five minutes. Fill out this form.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

I love the form. Yeah, the form. When you fill that out, it goes right into your CRM. Right into the CRM notification on your phone and through your PC on email. You know, you set it up where you get both of those. You get notified immediately, so you can jump on that lead.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Yeah, and attach it.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

All of it's from having a better website.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Which is what we do first at lead fuel.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

That's what we do first. Yeah, we get you to get the website situated once we get that. Most companies see the biggest benefit when we fix that up first.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

What made you build lead fuel instead of just telling people which tools to buy?

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Well, telling people which tools to buy, they're still gonna go mess it up.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

That's the common thing.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

Yeah, that's a common thing. We'll mess it up. Because if you're if you're Mike and Tim, Timmy, you're under a car, you can you can take a whole Dodge Ram 159098 apart. And do it.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Impressive as hell.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Impressive as hell, right? We see this firsthand. But but if I were to tell him, hey, go build a website, you can use a GoDaddy or Wix, and you can do it, man. It's easy, it's easy. He doesn't have time, he got a wife and kids at home. He's been under a car all day. He doesn't know.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Inevitably, he hits that roadblock and he throws up his hands.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

And he quits.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

Yeah, because he can't figure out how to resize the image or how to put you know his logo up there, and then it looks like crap. And then he's wondering, well, why is my website not working? Why is it not generating any leads?

SPEAKER_01 21:18

90 days later, you're having that same conversation

The Lead Fuel Business Center Plan

SPEAKER_01 21:20

with him.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Yeah. We see this all the time. Building your own stuff, focus on what you do as a business owner, but leave the other stuff to the right person.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

That's a good point, man. You've had 15 years of getting technology right. And so all of the experiences for me, watching you, it's like all of this is culminated into this moment where you get everything in one place done by the guys that know what they're doing at an affordable price.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

At an affordable price.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Yeah. Like none of this is expensive. Because you got to, as a business owner, you're paying for this stuff anyway. And so you you're not going to pay a lot, but you're going to get all the stuff that you need in one place done right by the people that know how to build it and make it happen.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Yeah, that's the that's the main part here is that with Lead Fuel, you're getting the group of people that know exactly what to do. My staff is trained, they've been with me for a long time. And I'm giving them guidance on how websites are built, what to put, where to put them, and how to get the most out of your website, how to set up things in a way to make your business more efficient. And then I'm using all the tools for our own business too. So that's something, you know, it's like you go to the Toyota dealership, but the sales rep's driving to dodge, you know, what's happening here. So we're using this to grow our own business. And you can see us doing it, and then you can go do the same exact thing to grow your business.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Yeah, and at the end of the day, you know what business owners need because you've been at business so long.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Right. I didn't just wake up and start doing this.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

Yeah, you know the guy that's just you know, you just built an Instagram page and and you're like, okay, we're open for business, let's go. Entrepreneur got 15 years of bio.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Entrepreneur and bio, as Wojo would say.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

You got 15 years at this, man. So you you know what you need, and it's exactly what all these other business owners need.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Exactly. Yeah, it's a big difference when you're just spending other people's money or you just hired the kid in the basement that never had a uh head.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

He's gonna give you business advice.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

He's gonna give you business advice. No, you should do this, you should automate the whole thing. That doesn't work in Rockwell County, I'll tell you that much. Yeah, right. I witnessed it firsthand. We were sitting with that guy, he got a phone call, his customer was complaining that uh there it's all AI and he wants to she wants to speak to someone real. Yeah, it's there to help you, but not all the customers like to interact with it, right? So, what are you gonna do? Lose money or pick up the phone and actually talk to someone and automate all the back-end tedious work, the review collection, follow-ups, reminders, payments, that type of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

What's the first thing a business owner should do this week to stop losing leads?

SPEAKER_00 24:03

They should take all their old leads and a reactivation camp them. So they should let's say if I was running a duck cleaning company and I over the years I've collected, let's say, 500 leads, right? Maybe some of them converted, maybe not. I would upload all the 500 to lead fuel and then send an email campaign to them and give them an offer like, hey, we're we're running a uh summer special, end of the month special, where we'll do you know, half off or whatever it is that you do. That's I mean, if we just do that today, you'll make money today.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

That's a great idea. Yeah, you know, if you had a three percent conversion rate and you sent out 500 leads, hit the hit the database, Shane loves it. Mass blast.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Mass blast.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

All right, who is lead fuel not for?

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Lead fuel not for. That's a good one. Yeah, it did. Yeah, who is it not for? We've had some customers it's a tool that you have to use, and it's you're not just gonna sign up and then start making millions of dollars. You have to use the tool. It's like having a treadmill. You gotta get on the treadmill for it to work. Just buying it's not gonna do anything, right? So with lead fuel, if you don't learn the software, if you don't log in, we have a lot of people that don't want to log in. Like you have to log in, you have to manage the contacts, you have to create your sales pipeline, you have to work your pipeline until the deal is closed. Send in voices, it's all in one place, and it's getting easier now. And pretty soon you'll actually be able to run the whole CRM just from a chat. So you can tell it, hey, send Stay C, you know.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

That's the power of AI.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

It's built in. Yeah, that's built in.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

But this is AI, this is cutting-edge AI. People want, you know, they're like, oh, we need AI in our business. This is AI in your business.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

Yeah, this is AI in your business. So it's not, it's not gonna be for someone who's desperate that thinks they're just gonna sign up and make a lot of money or get a lot of leads right away. You know, we're really clear on that. It's gonna help you improve all these areas, which gonna overall improve your success at business. But you have to log in, you have to show up with the calls, you have to learn the system, and you have to use it.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Yeah, and I always say like the best thing you can do is log into this thing. When you first start your work day every day, log into lead fuel and work out. Like do everything you were normally gonna do, but do it inside lead fuel and go outward instead of the other. Like instead of like doing all the business you're gonna do all day long, and then maybe you come back to your CRM at the end of the day and update one or two things. No, open it up when you first start the day and do everything you can inside here, but you're working outward with it open and then you doing the business.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Yeah, a lot of people, I don't understand how I mean, yes, you can do a lot of stuff on your phone, but I mean, give 30 minutes in front of your laptop to go over everything, make sure you're organized, and the app is really good too.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

The app is amazing, the app does so much of exactly what you can do on the PC.

Automate Reviews Invoices Referrals

SPEAKER_01 27:25

So when you get that lead and you get a notification on your phone, you call the lead immediately, but you can also go into the app and start updating information about that person, yeah, even while you're on the phone with them.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

And it's getting better and better every day, too.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Yeah, and I will say for the people that don't actually use it, it's like having this nice car that you don't bother getting in and driving.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Yeah.

unknown 27:47

Right?

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Like if you don't know how to drive, but you got this awesome car. But if you stand in the house and just look at the car, yeah, you're not gonna see the value of the car. It looks cool. It looks cool, but if you're not getting in the car and physically learn how to drive the car and then drive in the car, but when you do learn how to drive that nice car, look at the doors that it opens. It's very similar to this. Like once you learn how to use this software and use it well, it's incredible the power of it.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Another great powerful tool is the social media planner. So you can go connect all your social media platforms: Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Google Business page, LinkedIn, and then you go to the CSV planner, you download the file, open up Claude. We like to use Claude around here, upload the file into Claude, and then tell Claude, hey, can you schedule out 60 days of content? And here's my website, go learn about it and make the content for me. Claude will go out, search the content, come back, format the CSV file. You can download that file, upload it into the planner, and your cont your 60 days worth of social media content is done.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

And you did this.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

I did this, yeah. We're doing it right now. You can go look at our social media. Yeah, that's all automated.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

It's all done. Well, you manually do it on Oh, if you hire a social media manager, it's 500 a month at the base.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

Easy.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

Yeah. And it and the work can be, you know, not great.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Yeah, because they 500 is not enough for them to live on.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

So they've got to go have you know 20 other clients just like you. Right. And we're back to the same problem of you get the you get the the ass end of that deal, and you're you're struggling to get what you really need. Right. How do you know if your marketing is actually working? What numbers should an owner watch every week?

SPEAKER_00 29:33

That's a good one. That the marketing, you should watch the amount you're spending, the amount of leads. And then out of those leads, how many people are converting? And another one that's a little bit more advanced is the click-through through rate, which is out of the amount of people that saw your ads, how many of those people clicked it? Because if that click-through rate is very low, that means the ad is not relevant.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Where do you see that?

SPEAKER_00 30:05

So that's going to be inside any any advertising dashboard. So in in Facebook and in Google. So the click-through rate is very important because if it's high, that means hey, you're serving hot dogs to hungry people. But if you're serving vitamins to hungry people, it's not going to work. And your click-through rate will be low, which means that you're targeting the wrong people. So if you look at each number, it's going to tell a story. And then you can do the same thing with the dinners. You take a guy out to dinner and you can write his name down. Hey, I took him out in April and he didn't bring me a damn lead. So that's to chuck that up as a loss. And then maybe you go out to dinner again to make him pay for it. Get a full refund.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Yeah, but you may be good friends after that, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Yeah, you got a friend. Yeah. And that compounds over the years.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Without a doubt.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

So how much is that worth? A lot more than Mark's ad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

What's a realistic cost per lead for a local service business and how do you lower it?

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Realistic cost. I'd say $20 to $50 is good for a local service business. How to lower it? How to lower it? You run retargeting ads. So retargeting ads is if you can tell Facebook, it works very effectively on Facebook. You can tell Facebook to target people who have interacted with your business on Facebook or on Instagram. And if you show your ads to them, they're likely more likely to fill out your form. So you'll get a cheaper lead. And so let's say someone it came across your Instagram and they didn't buy from you or didn't message you. They see another ad from you. That's touch point number two. The second ad is going to be cheaper, and then that then they can convert on that second ad. And so that that would be the

Spend The First 500 Smarter

SPEAKER_00 32:10

cheap, that would be the fastest way to. It looks very unprofessional, and they're going to call someone else right away. So in that instance, set sign up for lead feel. We have an AI agent that can answer the call, book an appointment, reschedule an appointment, or cancel an appointment right away.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

So whenever you So this is like a mixed missed call text back feature.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

No, that this is an AI answering service. Missed call is if the call's missed and they get a text.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

But you can do either one and you can do both, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:29

Yep.

unknown 33:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

What's the difference between a lead problem and a sales problem?

SPEAKER_00 33:37

The salespeople are always gonna say it's the leads.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

Always.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

Always 100%. You can bet on that one. 100% 100% of the time. So we know that. We know that part of that.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

You had a lot of sales guys.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

We had a lot of sales guys. They always blame the leads. Yeah, they always blame the leads.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

None of them worth a damn.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

None of them worth the damn.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

That's the that's the gist of the story.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

They always blame the leads. So lead problem means that you don't have enough leads. Is it a bad lead? I don't know. I don't know what I mean. A bad lead is if you sell something for $5,000 and the customer only has $700 and their credit is terrible, which we faced a lot of those problems. And you know, the lead is bad in that situation. Do they want to still do business with you? Then it's your job to go and figure out how to get them financing. So that would be something to look into on the lead side of things. Sales side, what's a sales like? What's a follow-up like? 100% of businesses fail on that part. Nobody follows up, nobody calls back, nobody responds, nobody picks up the phone. None of that stuff. So it's all relative to that particular business. Because at the end of the day, people have whatever problem it is that you solve. Are they gonna solve it with you? Are they gonna go somewhere else and solve it? And how easy it

Build A Website That Converts

SPEAKER_00 34:55

is. Are you gonna make them call back? Are you not available? Are you gonna ask them to sell you? You know, 20,000 in zells.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

How do you feel about cheap customers?

SPEAKER_00 35:05

Cheap customers.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

The ones that want to make you do a ton of work and then they want to complain about the price.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Yeah, they always end up canceling. So we just set them free ahead of time.

SPEAKER_01 35:17

Yeah, you do you actually do, I've I've seen you do this numerous times.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

And we give you a full refund.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

You can identify that quick.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Yeah. The first red flag is I want to talk to Josh right now. If my team is not doing a good job, that's one thing, which I they've trained very much not to do that. But when they say I want to I want to talk to Josh right now, no, we're gonna cancel your account and give you a refund. Don't don't come back.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

Because like it's not just you're being mean, right?

SPEAKER_00 35:47

Yeah, don't be mean.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

I mean, what's it it's because they're gonna be a problem.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

They're gonna be a problem. Yeah, you you have these expectations.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

High expectations.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

High expectations. We're already doing so much.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

I mean the amount of whatever they're paying.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Nobody you can go and get a website, custom website done that we're gonna go send 20 emails back and forth, we're gonna do all the integrations. I mean, we spend hours on these websites. We should be charging thousands of dollars for that. But we're not, you know, we're trying to help the business owner because you got 500 other things on your plate, and then you want to be rude to us at mean.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

How many times should you follow up before you give up on a lead?

SPEAKER_00 36:27

I would say 10 times. Not give up, but then after the 10 time, you they still on your email list and they're still getting emails. Email drip campaigns. Email drip campaigns.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

How often do you send those?

SPEAKER_00 36:38

Once a week, once every two weeks, like that. There's not really a figure, you know, but too much. There is a too much. Like I think Grant, you know, pushed that point for everybody, and he started sending too many. You send too many emails every day. Ten emails a day is too much.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Oh, I still get text from his crew at least once every other day, probably every day.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

Delete, report to spam. Delete, report to spam.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Yeah, I don't know how he does it. He still gets around it.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

Okay, how does AI fit into a small business's follow-up without making it feel robotic?

SPEAKER_00 37:19

So without making it feel robotic. Yeah, that's you should just use the AI to send the text, but the text should be written by a human. Ideally, like a teenager is what you want. You want, you know, nothing capitalized,

Reactivate Old Leads For Cash Flow

SPEAKER_00 37:35

nothing capitalized, okay. You'll get more responses from that, people trying to correct you than you will ever people trying to pick up your call or return your call. That's funny. And if you get on the phone with someone, oh man, you guys, did you know you had a run-on sentence? Oh, I didn't know that. How's your HVAC doing? Do you need a new filter? Well, maybe. Yeah, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

That's funny. All right, text, email versus phone call. What's actually getting responses right now?

SPEAKER_00 38:08

Text is getting responses. Text from an iPhone. I give all my staff iPhones so you you don't show up in the filters, and then phone call after that, and then video if you can. But it is getting more difficult. It is getting way, way more difficult because there's so much spam that's happening right now.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

Alright, if I ask you, we'll we'll leave it on this. If I ask you why do people need to sign up for lead fuel, what separates it from the others? What are you gonna tell me?

SPEAKER_00 38:49

We're we it's ran by people who ran businesses before. That's the main difference. A lot of firms or agencies or stuff like that, they the business that they ran was the agency. And so I feel like the people who have run their own business before, learnt all the skills and all the failures and all the ups

AI Follow Up Metrics And Closing

SPEAKER_00 39:15

and downs, make very good marketing people because you know exactly what to look for, and you can come from a business owner standpoint. The if you go hire the big agency, right? Me and you were on those calls back in the day. The biggest agencies, the top marketers in the world we've hired. They promise the moon. They promise the moon, right? They make a fancy presentation.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

Man, do they sound good on the phone?

SPEAKER_00 39:37

And they sound good, right? How's it going? How you doing? How's your mama and right? And then at the end of the day, like, hey, we need results. Oh, well, we'll get with the team and and we'll follow up with you on the next call. And the next call is 30 days out. So you're on a 12-month contract paying $3,000 a month, and you get five calls with them. So that means you only have five opportunities to correct any mistakes that happen. I mean, uh 12 opportunities to correct any mistakes. And heaven forbids they're way off track.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

And you're never talking to the main guy that signed you.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

Oh no, you're 17 layers deep.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

17 layers away. They got an account manager, then a manager for them, and then the supervisor and the team leader. That's yeah, that's who you're dealing with. So you're not gonna get all that with us. We're gonna we ran businesses, we're gonna tell you the best way, most efficient way, and we're gonna help you with that. And if you need help, we're there along the way. But don't be mean.

SPEAKER_01 40:31

Or you politely be told to spread your wings somewhere else.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

Spread. Spread and fly off.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

Anything else you'd like to add?

SPEAKER_00 40:38

That's it. Check out leadfuelcrm.com and we're looking to help you grow.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

And if you're in Rockwall, definitely come and see this guy.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

Yeah, business center is going to be in Royce City. If you can go to leadfuelcrm.com, scroll to the bottom, you'll see the Lead Fuel Business Center for more info on that.