The Future of Roofing Estimates with Travis Harvego of Roofle

Mission Control Podcast

On this episode, Mike has on Travis Harvego from Roofle. The guys discuss the future of estimates! Travis worked his way up in the contracting industry for over 10 years, so he knows what contractors need! That's what led him to start a software that generates roofing estimates right on the website of the roofing contractors.

Roofle allows you to get high-quality leads and sales of customers who are actively looking for a roof. Roofle takes out the middleman and sales pitch.

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Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: So, yeah, so

Travis Harvego: Hahaha

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: you've got this big fucking smile on your face. What are you smiling about, Travis?

Travis Harvego: Always, I'm always smiling. That's

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I know,

Travis Harvego: why, yeah, always.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: yeah.

Travis Harvego: I'm smiling because you finally invited me to do some content. That's why I'm smiling.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Okay, that's fair.

Travis Harvego: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: About that smile, I said at SRC when we got trapped for like five days in an ice storm, because that's what happens when I travel. Shitty weather follows me. It's the life of a Buffalo New Yorker. I said that smile, I don't know if you're happy to see me, if you want to stab me. It's a very good poker face and I admire your ability to disguise your emotions, so well played sir. It's great to have you on.

Travis Harvego: Thanks for having me.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, so let me ask you a question.

Travis Harvego: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: What do you call an angry carrot?

Travis Harvego: mad vegetable.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Steamed Veggie.

Travis Harvego: Steamed veggie. Alright, got it.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I wouldn't

Travis Harvego: Close.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: land

Travis Harvego: No,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: with you. It's okay. You can't win

Travis Harvego: yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: them all, folks. If there's

Travis Harvego: No,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: a lesson learned

Travis Harvego: can't

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: today...

Travis Harvego: win them all.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: If there's a lesson learned today that Travis is kind of a jerk and won't give you even a pity laugh and that not all your jokes will end, so it's fine. So what's new? How are you? Bring me up to speed. We haven't spoken in about a month and a half.

Travis Harvego: Yeah, well yeah, when was the last time I saw you? What was the last event I saw you at?

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: It was SRC, I think.

Travis Harvego: Yeah, SRC was the last one?

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, that was two months

Travis Harvego: Yeah,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: ago, wasn't it? Two and

Travis Harvego: I

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: a

Travis Harvego: think

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: half?

Travis Harvego: it was in February, wasn't it? January, February, something like that, in the middle of the winter, somewhere.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Time flies.

Travis Harvego: Time flies when you're having fun, for sure. Yeah, so yeah, we've been... I mean, I've been traveling every week pretty much, or every other week for the most part, but at some sort of event or show pretty much every other week. As you know, the conference season pretty much has came to an end, ended like the end of March. There's a couple of events happening over the summer or the spring, but summer events like the Atlas Tour and, you know, GF Tours and, you know, OC things, you know, things like that that they're doing, they're putting them for their contractors. Some of those smaller events are just one day events that we go to. But mostly been traveling for the most part, just going out there and, you know, going to these things, talking to contractors and educating them on kind of what we're doing and then kind of on the, you know, the sides of, you know, what we're working on. The biggest release that we just did was integrating financing into our platform. so that homeowners can now come into the platform and basically get pre-approved for our financing. So that was one of the newest features we just released last month into our platform. So that was one of the more you know exciting things for us. Now when a customer can come to you know basically a contractor's website they're now able to see a price and then once they have a price they're able to get pre-qualified for financing just like that with a couple of clicks it's all pre-qual.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Oh.

Travis Harvego: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: So for those of you that don't know, one, I'm awful with intros.

Travis Harvego: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: So this is Travis with Rufle. Explain, get 30 second pitch. What exactly does Rufle do?

Travis Harvego: Yeah, so Rufle has the ability to embed technology onto your website. So we embed the technology onto your website, where then the homeowners can come to your website and then be able to get an instant price right there on your website. So they type in their address, they get an instant price on their roof. They can shop from, you know, eight different products that you select. Anything from, you know, specifically shingles or tile or even roof rejuvenation or tarping or repairs or whatever it is. You can be very specific as far as what you want to offer. And then from there they can also get pre-qualified now in financing if they want as well. So it's all about essentially, you know, top of funnel is really kind of what we're talking about as far as being able to bring contacts into your website. So if you're driving traffic and that traffic has an intent to come to your site to find something, this is another way to get that conversion, you know, on your website because that traffic is specifically looking for some sort of price. Maybe they're just shopping, maybe they want some sort of ballpark, or maybe they just want, you know, to come there and say, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, I have no idea what this is gonna cost because I haven't done a roof in 25 years and now I have an idea because I'm trying to budget or save or whatever. Or they're just like, hey, I don't wanna deal with talking to 25 contractors before I get a price and now I can go ahead and get one right here. So that's what the technology does for contractors.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: longer than

Travis Harvego: So we

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: thirty

Travis Harvego: saw

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: seconds

Travis Harvego: so far.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: but that was a very well thought out and very well articulated explanation so for that i'm grateful let me play devil's advocate here

Travis Harvego: Yep.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: There's so many things that go into a roof price. How do we know if there's five layers on the roof or not? And how do you price that out from, you know, Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and wherever your servers are located? How's this gonna spit out an accurate price?

Travis Harvego: Yeah, so that's a great question. And so we get asked that all the time when we talk to contractors. So the way that our technology works is everything is based off of areas. So you're allowed to set a pin somewhere on an area. So we give you essentially pins or an MSA or a city. And from those pins, that's where you're able to set that price. So let's say you work in 25 different markets. You then take that assigned pin to that market that you work in, and then you're setting the products and prices based off of that market. at 550 a square in this market, that a pin or whoever searches within that area is going to pull from that pin or that pricing in that area. So everything is very specific to areas of the country because we do work a lot of contractors that service, you know, 50 different markets that are larger contractors and they have different prices for each market. They do have different products for each market. So you're able to set products and pricing based off of those markets. Now when it comes down to multiple layers or things like that, currently, essentially They start with essentially their base price. They say if it's a one layer up and over, whatever as far as house, this is what the price is gonna be. If you have an additional layer, the cost will be this. If you have decking, the cost will be this. Those are not things that we know until we actually come out to your house and inspect or until we actually do the tear off or construction of the house. So you're making the homeowner aware that the price that you're seeing here includes these items or these things are included in the price. And then these are things that could be potential things be an additional cost that have not been put into the price currently. So that's how that they're able to lay those out to the homeowner that they understand that there may be additional costs upon further inspection or upon actually doing the job. Because a lot of times, because I don't people know this, but I was a contractor for 12 years. So did a lot of roofs, I mean, thousands of them to where there's many times to where I sold a job and thought it was only one layer. But then we tore off the one layer and there was drip edge that was hiding the other layers. All of a sudden then we had three layers plus wood shake and all these things that you couldn't because things were hidden or whatever. So a lot of times you really don't know everything about that project until you actually do construction, but at least you're giving them some sort of price or some sort of idea as far as what to expect to pay by being upfront and honest with them as far as showing like here's what you can expect to pay.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: in so i had a question so in your sales process when you were a contractor would you preemptively discuss the potential of a change order taking place with your customer would you wait till the time where it was manifested that hey now we have a talk because it's a class three grand more x y and z happened

Travis Harvego: Yeah, so typically every time that I would do a sales pitch is that I would say essentially that if there were any Unforeseen things that would be additional to this I would let them know that they would be but I'll do the best that I could upon my inspection to say There should not be any because I'm pretty sure I caught everything but there are some things that may come up Such as like rot on decking like we don't know we tear this off You could have some soft spots up there and we would have to replace those pieces if we do You can see here in my contract that we charge $50 a sheet for that replacement for things like that. So essentially it's like I'm letting you know that I'm pretty sure I got everything but right here in our contract it does state here if there are additional items here's what the cost is going to be ahead of time. So it always lay out to them that they would understand what that cost would be if it were to come up for those items.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So it's similar to the way you'd position a change order or the prospect of a change order to a customer in a sales pitch is what you guys are doing on the interface of the technology, yeah?

Travis Harvego: correct yeah yeah

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Spoiler alert, the shit works, folks. I have clients that have Rufo. I have a lot of clients that have Rufr, Ruf-R, jury's out. However y'all say it, Richie, hit me up. Let me know how to pronounce it.

Travis Harvego: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: We've used an InstaQuo technology that we developed. And I get a lot of pushback. It's like, ah, it's our lowest conversion from the submission to a signed job. And for me, that's not a bad thing. right because instead of you know if there's twenty opportunities that don't get back to you after they submit their information for the past thirty days think about how much time energy and effort if they didn't get that price that your sales team would have to put into going to an opportunity that was fucking dead the entire time never intended to buy from you just kicking tires everyone tells me i don't want fucking tire kickers so that don't get upset when people find ways to eradicate or or at least mitigate the amount of tire kickers that you're going to have uh... like that's a tremendous asset and and typically i think an overlooked aspect of this type of technology

Travis Harvego: Yeah, and especially like look at the hurricane that just happened in Florida. So that's where we saw that come into play a lot. So Hurricane hits in Florida, have a lot of contractors down here in the Florida area working in the hurricane. They're like, we're getting 700 calls a day. Like, how do we know who to go to, who not to go to, how to do this? They were sending everybody through, you know, their website because a lot of these claims here in Florida were not covered by insurance. So they had bad insurance, they didn't have insurance at all. So essentially a lot of them became retail jobs. Like now they have to come out of pocket, lots of money, and they have no idea what it costs. And essentially by, instead of, you know, to figure out who to send my reps to, they're basically pre-qualifying all their customers to say if that price looks like something that you're willing to pay, sounds good, we'll book an appointment and send you out there. So they're doing a lot of that pre-qualifications, probably similar to some hailstorms, similar to the hailstorms that recently just came through. They're getting hundreds of calls. They only have five reps at the time. How do they know who to send to, who not to send to? They wanna be able to get to the customers that they wanna get to, who are the ones that are actually interested rather than these tire kickers that are like, you're gonna spend 10 hours of going to the house quoting, following up for customers that had no intention at that time or could not even afford, you know, to be able to buy the project. So again, it all depends on however you look at it. You look at it and utilize it within your business because again there are, you know, places to be able to utilize it and be more successful and there's places to where, you know, maybe it's not the best place to be using it for that type of customer. It's all about the intent of the traffic or the customer that you're trying to get.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, and also guys, you know, this type of technology isn't going to, you know, bring you a thousand more leads. So you got to bring traffic to the website in order for them to actually use the technology. Worth noting.

Travis Harvego: Yeah, worth noting.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: So the other thing that we found, you know, we've been using this type of similar technology, as far as like the instant quoting and conditional logic, like if it's metal and you live here, we condition the price at 500 a square, whatever. And what I found is that we, the benefit of being able to be flexible based on the time of year and the demand for your services is huge, right? If you guys are booked out two months and it's like, you know what? The only way that we're going to book anymore is if we hit X margin in order to get to that margin, we need to be at this price per square. Um, you know, so the rest can go somewhere else, right? There's nothing wrong with that at that time and supply and demand. So you raise your price. Um, and then that's going to, that would deter some people, right? It would be a repellent to those that are like, I don't want to pay X amount of dollars, but for the ones that do, you're being more profitable. And conversely, if you just need to get your reps in front of people, get them opportunities, whether it's to. whether new arrest and they need to get better at sales and they just need that exposure that face to face interaction or you just got a bunch of fucking savages where you know the bill close at sixty percent and every every call if they want ten calls

Travis Harvego: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: are closing six of them i was getting out for as many people as possible so you put you know you've got the minimal viable price for a roof that you would install it don't be a jerk about it uh... You put that in there and it's like okay. There's less sticker shock as a result of that So you'll probably get more appointments now you can have the opportunity for your salespeople to do their salesmanship, right?

Travis Harvego: Yep, yeah, we hear that all the time, like, oh, this guy here typically closes that. 80% on these leads is only at 20% of these leads. And it's like, they're probably a different type of lead. They're different type of person that you're going to see compared to someone's over here. So again, it's all about as a company, if you're able to break a lot of these things down and understand as far as what reps should be going here, go doing this, where are these leads coming from? What type of lead that they are? Is it a referral or where do they come from? I mean, all those are very different. So as a company, and a lot of times we look at it and we say, okay, let's break it down by lead source as far as how you do by lead source. dive into on this to be able to look at all the different data. I mean, at the end of the day, most times the contractors want to be, they want more leads. That's what they say. But not every lead is treated treated the same. Like every Angie leader contacts can be different than any other lead that's out there as far as sales reps that are getting. So that's a deep, deep, deep conversation to get into as far as you know, what contractors should be doing and how they should be managing their business and looking at everything compared to, you know, what someone we're actually doing now. So

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, and it comes down to

Travis Harvego: It's...

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: documentation, right? You

Travis Harvego: Yep.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: know, if you wanna try to understand what your lead cost is on Google or specifically through the InstaQuote or Angie, like you have to have that shit documented. Somebody's gotta be documenting that, whether it's at the inception of the initial contact, which probably should be, whether it's just, if you're using things like UTM parameters and tracking through your different web assets, or if it's your sales rep or if it's a culmination of all that, you wanna be able to at the end of the year, you know, plug in a few keystrokes and try to understand those things. And I'm going to put out a challenge. Anyone who has a rep that outside of repeats and referrals can close above 75%. I want them on the show. there's a big difference

Travis Harvego: Right?

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: between a cold internet lead right no matter how high intent is and google and things like that there's a big difference between somebody on the google saying i need a roofer for me that's the best intense in the highest likelihood that you're gonna get a close a qualified opportunity uh... versus somebody who you already have they know i can trust you they already believe in have confidence in you based on social proof and you've done a roof of their dad and say okay creating closes a person i mean it's your job to fuck up at that point right So that's my challenge. I'm eager for somebody to slide the DMs because I want somebody on the show that can close cold leads at, you know, even above 70%.

Travis Harvego: You know it's coming. You know it's coming. I'm not going to see where it's coming. I close at 70% and it's OK, let's go through your CRM and look at it. It's like, well, realistically, they're taking these leads and they're burying them into the CRM and

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Hahaha

Travis Harvego: labeling them as something else, as unqualified. They were unqualified.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah.

Travis Harvego: So they shouldn't go against my close rate. I can already see it coming.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: yeah well you know what that would be that the great content i'd be happy to go down that rabbit hole

Travis Harvego: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: but you do you have to be transparent we're big on transparency around here so there would have to be some semblance of transparency to where you know you can back up with data empirical data that this is truly the case and i then you gotta give me free reindeer sierra to make sure and vet that information it'll be fun i promise and uh... if you're wrong you buy a new website

Travis Harvego: You're just gonna give me your login and password to your CRM and give me access to all your leads and data and you know let me do my digging and we'll figure that out.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: And I'll get back to you. All

Travis Harvego: Yeah, I'll get back to you.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: right. So, all right. So we covered roof full you've been, you were in construction, roofing specific for 12 years. Yeah.

Travis Harvego: Yeah, roofing restoration.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Roofing restoration. Okay. I mean, what else, dude? I say it all the time. I'm big on journeys.

Travis Harvego: Mm-mm.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Like, cool. We're at this destination now, but how'd you get here? What else? Tell me some cool shit.

Travis Harvego: Yeah, yeah, I mean, so how I got here was, yeah, I graduated from college in 2009 in construction, and obviously there was nothing in construction at that time, right? There was just nothing

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, tough

Travis Harvego: going

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: time.

Travis Harvego: on. You know, yeah, it's something like people talk a lot about backgrounds, right? And I'm one person where it's like, you know, people, you know, are you going to go to college or not? And there's a big battle right now between like go to college, don't go to college, go in the trades, go to right. It's like that battle right now. You can make more in the trades, which I believe that you can. It just takes the right human. And unfortunately, right now, a lot of humans, the ones that I know that are coming up right now in high school, they're not exactly active. They're not exactly like go getters. on their phones, not interacting with humans, you know, and to be in business and to be in the trades, most times you have to interact with humans. Most times if you're going to be in the roofing space, unless you're actually doing the physical work or a plumber or electrician, you have to interact with humans. So I hope that they're out there and I hope that they are, but I think it's just most people's nature just to go ahead and go to college. But you know, for me it was kind of like, you know, go to college, not go to college. What do you do? Well, you know, obviously, you know, chose the path to, you know, to go and went for construction. Well, right one, wrong one, not really sure. But everyone knows the nine was a major recession. There was just not much happening in construction at that time. So that was when I since I went into canvassing and door knocking. So here you go you got a college kid and you know they're canvassing and door knocking which you know people either they have it or they don't. You really got to be a people person. You got to get them to on the door and you got to have a hold of conversation and keep them open at the door to keep it going. And then really from there just kind of work my way up within the organization from all the way from the bottom all the way up at the top and held pretty much every position within the organization you know from up to top. So I've pretty much learned all the aspects of construction and I say roofing, but also restoration. I mean, there's siding windows and doors and things like that, other things as well. But basically, and then do with residential remodeling, pretty much held every single position, you know, higher trained, managed all the different positions within the, within the, within the industry. So, which obviously has helped me, you know, to this point, as far as now just understanding everything about the industry and even in insurance too, as well, like even getting a, an adjuster's license, you know, knowing works and things like that which obviously you know comes into play now as well. So just having that well-rounded background within the industry but for the most part pretty much been you know within the industry ever since I started as far as in the workspace has been in you know some sort of roofing slash restoration. But then all of a sudden boom I'm also now I'm in the software space.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: It's you,

Travis Harvego: So you

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: huh?

Travis Harvego: go from construction to software and all of a sudden now you're got to be the software tech savvy person out there. I mean, I definitely can do it. But all of a sudden then go from construction to software, it's a whole different world. But it's fun. It's different. It's a change. You go from dealing with, you know, homeowners on a daily basis, to now working with contractors, you know, which is great, because I love working with contractors, because again, I was one for a really long time. So I understand their pain points and everything that they go through within a business. And then all of a sudden, we've now become consultants. So now we're consultants. So since we go in and we talk to contractors every single day, and they're like, hey, this concept that you keep talking about is new, and we don't really understand it. So can you come and consult us about how this whole thing is gonna work and how we can set up our business to make these things happen and all these things? Well, then it's like, well, from my past experience just running a successful construction company for so many years, you start to give them other tips and also now it's like, oh, I'm a consultant. I'm like, but it's weird because in this space, now you can go ahead and hire somebody to come into your business in this space and train you on how to run your business properly. 10, five years ago, that didn't exist. You couldn't go out there and hire all these consultants that exist today. They weren't out there. I mean, now you can probably name 10 of them at the top of your head, the people that you can hire from sales to management to business development to all these things an issue within your business now, there's somebody out there that you can hire to come into your business and train you on how to do it well. So all of a sudden now, roofers who used to be labeled as these old-school guys, right? These rough, rough, roofing type guys are now these business savvy guys that are hiring consultants to come into their business to help grow their business and teach them things about their business. So yeah, it's been kind of an interesting, you know, way. But I guess, I mean, for me, it's been helpful in the said I've lived it for so many years and done it for so many years within that space and understand as far as you know the different parts of growing a business and not just only from just sales reps or whatever but even like the financial part of it and the accounting part of it and all those things like that to where you know being a part of that day in and day out like how important that is to know what your numbers are as a business so that you know as far as budgeting you know setting budgets and things like that so that you know that when there's tough times of the year that you're gonna be fine it's not just worrying about what number shows up in your bank account so different things that we get into when we're having a conversation about not only teaching about what's to come in the industry, number one, like what's going to happen in the industry five years from now? What does the industry look like? Like what's going to be happening? Well a couple things. We have these PE firms, these roll ups happening, day in and day out. I'm sure people have heard about them, right? There's just people coming in and buying up all these companies that are becoming large, large, large, companies with a lot of money behind them. So

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Mm-hmm.

Travis Harvego: what's gonna happen? So there's that whole piece, you know, is there only gonna be 25 roofing companies in America within five years from now, and everyone else is just gonna be a couple of non-pop shops here and there. Like what exactly does that look like? Well, who knows, right? We'll see, we'll find out what happens with that. But then also you talk about technology. You know, what's happening in the, in the technology space, you know, in the roofing with the whole advanced AI things that are happening, everything else out there, you know, this space is kind of the one that's been kind of untouched, you know, for so many years to where it's kind of still kind of in the ice ages, the old days to where it hasn't really evolved as far as technology wise. And we're starting to see a lot of that come into our space now to where things are starting to really, you know, advanced. And so that's why when we start talking about, you know, what we did at Rufle.com being able to sell e-commerce to does this look? How does this work? Because we can see this is a wave of the future. We can see that a lot of the consumers that are going to be coming, these millennials that essentially don't like humans, we know that they don't like to interact with humans. They want to be on their phone. They'd rather be swiping than actually having a conversation with the homeowner or I'm sorry, a human. And so from there they say, okay, well, what does it look like? You know, and then we start talking about different things that we did and what we saw as far as, you know, trends that, that, you know, they do like such as like most of our business came in between nine and midnight, you know, so a lot of the is because the consumers were available during that time because they had to put the kids to bed or whatever it may be that they were on the couch at the time to search then. Well, night and midnight, how many times do the roofers go into homes when they're actually available during those times? It's just all about the convenience for the consumer. All those different things, you know, as far as teaching these contractors and how to run their business better. Like when we go in and we talk to a contract and I say, okay, when Elite comes in, how fast do you contact them? And we have a range from three seconds, to seven days and anywhere in between there. So then we start talking about, OK, well, what's that process look like? Some people are like, the lead comes in, I write it down on a sticky note, and I put it on my sales rep's desk. And I tell them to go to the house within three days to go talk to this person. That's my process for a lead. It's like, all right, all right. So then

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: At

Travis Harvego: we're

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: least

Travis Harvego: talking

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: there's

Travis Harvego: about,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: a process.

Travis Harvego: you know. At least there's a process. I give them credit, right? At least there's some sort of process in place. But then we start talking about speed to lead, which obviously is a big thing, because if a consumer is shopping for something, they wanna get back, they just want a call back. I don't know if you've shopped for things online lately, I don't care if it's a kitchen remodel or whatever you're doing, but I've done it recently. And it's hard to get a call back these days. It is very hard to have somebody actually call you back to set an appointment.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Last thing I shopped for were a couple Lululemon t-shirts.

Travis Harvego: And I'm sure you just went ahead and bought those online without a human even involved. I would imagine.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, and I,

Travis Harvego: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: do I like people, do I not like

Travis Harvego: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: people? I don't know, jury's out. Depends on what day you ask me. Did you play baseball?

Travis Harvego: Uh, no, I didn't play baseball, no.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: never played baseball

Travis Harvego: I mean, Little League. Little League? Yeah, Little League, yeah,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: so i wasn't wrong

Travis Harvego: yeah,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: perfect

Travis Harvego: yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: so there's a lot to unpack within that uh... lot of you know you said five ten years ago nowhere near as many consultants in the the ability to connect with people that can make an impact in your business is it wasn't there and it's gotten significantly easier uh... i will say also be careful when you hire consultants and and that who you're going to work with because For all the great folks that are out there, if we can name 10 really good ones, there's a thousand really shitty ones that are, whether they're just not good and they're trying their best, or they're outright malevolent. So, I'll put that disclaimer in there. I've seen it firsthand all too many times. And

Travis Harvego: Yeah,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: especially

Travis Harvego: we've

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: watch

Travis Harvego: all heard

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: out

Travis Harvego: about

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: for those

Travis Harvego: them.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: marketing agencies.

Travis Harvego: They're the worst. They are the worst. They're the biggest ones you got to watch out for. Definitely. They're like the used cars salesmen I guess. You know they're kind of compared to that or similar to. You have to watch out for.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What can I do to get you in this car today?

Travis Harvego: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I'm a selling out right out from under you. You ever see, do you ever see the Badger marketing that used car salesman for the Badger? What's the name of the company? They're out of like Colorado, it was years back, but they had a whole marketing campaign around like, they were, it was a car dealership and they're like, we're not used car salesman, but it was like a Badger and like a tweed coat. like suit coat and he's like, he's just saying all the typical shit. Like I just said to customers when they come on the lot, like there's a woman that comes onto the lot and he's like, all right, so here you go. This is your rear view mirror. This is where you're going to put your makeup on. And when your husband gets here, we'll talk about what's under the hood.

Travis Harvego: Hahaha

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: And they created an entire marketing campaign around all the tendencies and kind of exaggerating some of obviously have used car sales people. And like they were used car sales or cars or car dealership. It was pretty. freaking funny. You should check it out. That's great.

Travis Harvego: I should, I actually lived in Colorado for 12 years. I don't remember that commercial.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Hold on one

Travis Harvego: So.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: second. We're gonna do a live search here.

Travis Harvego: search.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Johnson Automotive.

Travis Harvego: Okay.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, so check it out. Just type in used car sales badger and you'll see it.

Travis Harvego: I'll need to.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: And for

Travis Harvego: I'll

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: all

Travis Harvego: need

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: you

Travis Harvego: to.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: watching, you're gonna love this. Take 30 seconds. And then make sure you comment below, hit that, mash that like button. Okay, so you guys have kind of evolved into being a consultant. It's funny, I've kind of done the same thing. I've worked very closely with roofers for almost a decade. And you learn a lot of stuff when you actually take an interest in what your clients are doing and how their businesses ran and what's going on and what struggles they're facing and how you can help solve some of those issues and how some of the things that you're solving relate to the other things that you're not solving and, and trying to find that fit to make things better. And, uh, I had went and done a sales training for, for one of my clients with a sales team and, you know, one of my other clients was like, well, I don't mean to offend you, but what exactly qualifies you to go to a sales training?

Travis Harvego: Hehehehehehe

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I was like, well, I used to sell a lot of shit.

Travis Harvego: Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Before Ascend, I was a salesperson. I was a top salesperson at a big company. But, you know, a lot of the times it's misses on the fundamentals, right? It's not earth shattering shit when you look at somebody's company or you look at a sales process and it's like, there's so much work that needs to be done to fix this. A lot of times it's just the fundamentals. And it's like, dude, If you're boxing and you're missing the fundamentals and when you throw a punch, you're not bringing your hand back to your face, you get punched in the face. It's going to be a problem, right? You know, you're probably gonna get knocked out. Um, and a lot of the times it's those small things and some of the times it's more nuanced and things like that. But, um, I don't know if you're selling a roof or you're selling girl scout cookies or websites. I mean, ultimately sales and sales and sales, right? You know, what people need the desire and your ability to articulate how important it is and, and really. even if they don't know that they need it, your ability to show them that they need it and create that value that wasn't there, I mean, it's all the same, isn't it? Or is it not? Do you agree or disagree?

Travis Harvego: I mean, I do, but one of the biggest things that I see in a lot of construction companies or roofing companies or whatever sales organizations is they try to make their top salesman the sales manager.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Ah, yeah,

Travis Harvego: I see that so many

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: yeah.

Travis Harvego: times.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yep.

Travis Harvego: It's one of the biggest blunders that they could possibly do

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yep.

Travis Harvego: in their business, because he's good at sales, so he's going to train the rest of them on how to sell. And it's like most times they don't actually know what his process is, because I bet you 90% of the time, that guy's just selling referrals. Why? Because he's been at your company for 20 years, and he knows everybody in the whole world that he gets. He doesn't even knock a door. He doesn't even take a lead. He just goes and sells referrals all day. He's like, let's make him the sales manager. It's like, that's a pretty hard process to train. That takes time. You're trying to, so it's, what I do a lot of times is if I'm gonna promote someone I'm gonna look in at as far as have someone be a trainer, is I'm gonna record or I'm gonna watch how they sell, or I'm gonna go through their process of however they sell to say, this person has a process in place that's actually trainable. To be able to take other people and say, here's what I do, instead of saying like, I don't know, I just go out there and sell, guys. Go ahead and just go sell. This is what I do, just come and watch me. And it's much different to where, if you were able to have a process in place it down and say, here's what I do, whether it's a 10 step or however that you do it, but you can say this is essentially what I do, then you can train it. But a lot of times people just say, he's a good sales rep, so I'm going to make him the trainer. And it's like, he doesn't even have a process. He just goes out there and sells referrals all day long.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, and that's a really good point, and I couldn't agree more. And also, a lot of those top salespeople, it's in their head. Like you said, there's not a process. And for most salespeople, in my experience, you need a script, you need a baseline, a starting point, a framework for them to learn. And like the really good ones find really good ways based on their personality, their interactions with customers to tweak a lot of that shit into their own and it becomes completely different but much more effective than what most people would be able to do. But that's going to be a small percentage of people that can do that that have that skill. Like those are going to be your your 20% that do the 80% right? when it comes to sales and you're gonna have a bunch of guys you know maybe they do eight hundred thousand maybe do a million and you know the other guys at three it's like it's okay that they're doing a million uh... but what are you doing to consistently try to make a better uh... yet making your best sales guy at the sales it's interesting in court when i was in corporate america you know i've worked a few jobs in corporate america a lot of the times the trainer if you sent them out on a sales call and i i've been in other positions not sales where there's trainers and they were really good at training but if you like I was in collections, if you put them on a phone with a customer, there's no fucking way. Theory and practice are two distinctly different things with vastly different outcomes potentially, right? So everyone's like theoretically, like this guy can sit in a classroom and he could teach me anything. It sounds great, it sounds like he knows what he's talking about. Fucking throw him in the ring after talking about how to throw a hook and the guy gets knocked out immediately, right? It's like, Bill Belichick can't go run that post corner. I'm sure he could show his receiver how to do it though. Talk to him through it. Um, yeah, that's interesting. I'm glad you brought that

Travis Harvego: It

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: up.

Travis Harvego: is. It is, yeah, because a lot of times you have great trainers who actually were salesmen at one time, and maybe they were not the best salesmen, but they were able to actually do it, and they were that middle of the road guy or whatever, but he had a great process that was trainable to where, yeah, maybe he's not gonna train everybody to be a rock star, but he's gonna train a lot of decent guys, and a few of those are gonna become rock stars, because they're gonna take it to the next level, beyond whatever he trained them at. So yeah, I totally agree with what you're saying, because I've seen plenty of those trainers who are like, they can train great, but you put them in that spot to actually go do it, maybe they haven't done it in a long time, maybe they're so focused on with training that you put them in it and they're like, uh, they didn't do so well. But they're able to train it fantastically because what they're training on is essentially most times it's a process. As far as teaching somebody and how to do something to start somewhere, here's where you start and here's where you finish. And here's how

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah.

Travis Harvego: however you finish.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: What have you seen in your experience in being in the industry and working with folks in the industry? What are some of the biggest impediments to their opportunity to grow?

Travis Harvego: I mean, I would say a lot of things is really investing back in their business. I mean, a lot of times people need to put things back into their business. A lot of times, you know, and again, it's changed a lot in the last couple of years. I think we're getting better at it, but back in the day, it was always new trucks, bigger wraps, better boats, you know, more houses and things like that, instead of putting it back into your business and making your business better. But I think it's all about, you know, having a sales process and keeping your guys. See, we look back years ago and every year, that the roofers would have a new sales staff because they would all leave in the winter and then you have to hire all new guys. So they never had any sort of foundation to build on. It was always new guys all the time. So if you're able to get a sales staff in there and able to build your company by putting things back in your company, like we're talking about hiring people that are experts to come within their business so that they can actually come in and you can actually have a foundation of four guys and the next year you have eight guys and the next year you have 12 guys, the next year you have 16 guys because you've been able to keep those guys around because you're investing back into them. Not only that, but you're building a great culture within your organization. If you have great culture, people will want to come work for you. I mean, there's so many times you look at social media now and people are influencers on social media doing all these things. People are going to say, I want to go work for them because they have fun. Like I may not make as much money over there, but they have a lot of fun. And I'll tell you what, when you can show up to work every day because you have a lot of fun and you enjoy the people that you work with, I compare it a lot to, remember back in high school, right? So if you actually went to high school Sometimes you wouldn't go or sometimes you would go, right? But if you went to high school, you went there to do what? Hang out with your buddies. That's why you went there is because your buddies were there. Right, so you treat work a lot like that. To where like you want to go to work because you wanna go see your friends, right? You wanna go hang out with your friends. You wanna go have a good time. So if you can build up like that great culture and so that you wanna keep people around, that's how you're gonna be able to grow and scale as far as an organization. And the same thing with sales reps. You have to invest in yourself. Like when I came into, into software like I didn't know anything about software. Like I was a roofer. Like I didn't know anything about it. How do you know about it? How do you know what to do? You have to train yourself. You have to invest in yourself to learn. You have to go read. You have to go, if there's great podcasts out there or things to go listen to or go read, you have to invest into yourself. You're never gonna grow if you don't invest into yourself. You have to make yourself better. So if you're a consistently $1 million sales rep and so you just can't get yourself over that hump, but what's gonna make you do better? What do you need that's gonna make you do better? Is it more self-generation? Is it more cold calling? You're not getting enough leads or whatever it is You have to look at it and then be able to make yourself better And if you're not doing well because your closing rates lower Well go out there and there's plenty of things out there now that you can do to make yourself better I think a lot of people just get so reliant on the company needs to help me other people needs to help me They're quick to blame other things instead of looking at themselves and say there's so much so many resources out there now that you can go to to invest in yourself and to make yourself better because I'll tell you what, if you can go out there and read books and you learn things from these books and you can implement them every single day within your life, and I don't care if it's work or it's personal or whatever it is, it's gonna make your mind better to where you're going to be better. Because if you show up to an appointment and your mind is clear, your mind is good, you're positive, you love yourself, you have that great positivity as you go into there, you're just gonna naturally start to close better. Because you feel that much better about yourself and you're growing as a person. That's kind of a two-part question. It was business and personal, but

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: So yeah,

Travis Harvego: anyway.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: so go watch Eat, Pray, Love. No, I'm kidding, that was good, I like that. And I agree with that as well. I've recently done some shit where I've been doing the sauna before and after my workouts, and I take a cold shower afterwards, I feel fucking great. I equate it to a hard reset of my phone or computer, right? My mind and body's like, you get in the shower, it's not great when you're doing it, it's like fuck. But afterwards, I get out, I get dressed, I'm like, God damn, I feel great. And now you're ready to slay the day. That's it, we're gonna go kill it.

Travis Harvego: Let's talk about ice baths real quick. This is a trend right now. So hold on, I remember years ago, wasn't it like the ice bucket challenge? You remember

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah,

Travis Harvego: that? Was that back in COVID?

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: the

Travis Harvego: Was that?

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: ALS, that dude, that was like 2014.

Travis Harvego: Oh, that was that long ago? Oh boy, time flies. But anyway, so there was the ice bucket challenge, right? And then now there's like these ice baths. Everyone's jumping into frozen lakes, they're taking cold showers, and then they're doing saunas, you know, and things like that, right? Like that's kind of like the trend, right? So something that I've not been able to get myself onto or something like that. So I hate the cold. So I moved to Florida to get away from the cold. So now it's warm all the time here, right? So the ice bath mindset is about, what I understand is basically resetting your mind, kind of waking you up for the day, right? You have the sauna, the ice bath, you know, type of thing. Is that really what it's all about as far as that?

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, so for me, I do the sauna because I feel great when I do it. So specifically, I do it before my workouts because I feel tight as shit as I get older. Right. Especially like if I'm going to go hit the heavy bag, my shoulders are tight and I'm like, ah, and I got to stretch for 15 minutes, whatever. So it's like when I go in the sauna and I'm in Buffalo, so it's cold as shit. right uh... i get my card out of the jim and say okay i go in the sauna and i stretch yes i'm sitting in the sauna and i get deeper in the stretches so there's more benefit i feel i don't i don't know i'm not a not a scientist and a doctor but i feel as if the the the warmer your muscles are the deeper in a stretch you go the better it's going to be as far as you being limber and ready for that workout uh... and then afterwards and just uh... to decompress and i feel great uh... and it almost makes you feel like i've done more because you're sweating more Right? You feel more accomplished is like a secondary benefit of this.

Travis Harvego: It's a mental

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, exactly.

Travis Harvego: thing, right?

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: You're tricking

Travis Harvego: You

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: yourself.

Travis Harvego: think you worked harder. Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, it's fine. Like people talk about placebo effects. Who gives a fuck? If it makes an impact on you, whether it was a placebo or a real impact, who cares? Slay. So now you go into the cold shower and it says, I don't, dude, I don't know. And Demetri called me a woman because I didn't do an ice bath. I did a cold shower. Whatevs. uh... but i'll tell you what when they go to the cold shower like it be you like an infant i get to win in their face you blow when in an infant's face and what do you do right like that's what you know when that when that you know when i when i go there it hits my back like uh...

Travis Harvego: Heh.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: and in there's something about it there's something about it where it's like you know it's going to suck in a more k with its sucking but it's only going to be a couple minutes and it's fine and it's like that one thing I was listening to Rogan, he's like, you can't defeat it, right? Like if you go into an ice bath, right, and you stay there for too long, like, I think you'd die, right? You only do so long in an ice bath before it becomes unhealthy. So for somebody who's competitive in like the challenge of doing that and just getting like wildly uncomfortable, I try to do that in every other instance of my life to try to grow. So why would I not do it when, you know, in the situation of a sauna and an ice shower or a cold shower. Why not?

Travis Harvego: Yeah,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I don't like the cold

Travis Harvego: Matt.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: either.

Travis Harvego: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I just, we, we just, uh, we're, we're going to have a house down in Tampa that we got retreat to from February to May every year because, uh, I've had enough. I'm done

Travis Harvego: Mm-hmm.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: with the blizzards and Buffalo. Bye.

Travis Harvego: I don't blame you. I don't blame you.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah. You won't be too far from me, right?

Travis Harvego: No, it's like an hour and a half. Yeah,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Meet you halfway, we'll go to like

Travis Harvego: yeah,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Panera or Qdoba,

Travis Harvego: yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: go grab some lunch. Somewhere

Travis Harvego: It's

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: real

Travis Harvego: so funny,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: fancy.

Travis Harvego: it's so funny because everyone's like Florida, it's like, but Florida is huge. I mean, it's so long, right? And skinny, and there's so many major towns. We were like, I'm going to Orlando. I'm like, gonna be right next to you. I'm like, eh, it's like a two hour drive. But like,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah.

Travis Harvego: yeah, it's not too far. I mean, you know, I mean, it's not that

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Fresh

Travis Harvego: far, but.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Kitchen is my favorite restaurant in the world. Have you had it?

Travis Harvego: Have not.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Oh, shame on you, sir.

Travis Harvego: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Next time you're in Tampa, Orlando, I know they have them all over there, so. We're so

Travis Harvego: I'll have

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: good,

Travis Harvego: to

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: so

Travis Harvego: look him

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: good.

Travis Harvego: up.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: When I was down at the roofing process, I went with Eric Reno, we went to Fresh Kitchen for some lunch. I found it on accident. Guess how I found it, guys? I was at a hotel somewhere I had no fucking idea where I was, right, I was new to the area, and I Googled. Food near me. Bing. I find this little thing. I look at the reviews. I'm like, oh, fantastic. They can be trusted. Went there. Chef's Kiss was amazing. Google works. Sorry. Get a little excited about the Google sometimes.

Travis Harvego: Hahaha

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Let me ask you some tough questions. And I want you to be honest. I don't want any pushback. Thus far, what is your favorite event that you've attended as it relates to roofing?

Travis Harvego: Um, my favorite event?

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: and

Travis Harvego: Um,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: why.

Travis Harvego: yeah, I mean that's a, um... Two different ways you can answer that. Favorite, you mean like my personal favorite because it was fun or my favorite because like there was just so many people or it was just, I mean fun is different aspects. But I'd say like the best one was, probably the one that I just went to was the Atlas one. It was at the Minneapolis, it was at the US Bank Stadium. And I'm a massive Vikings fan, which again, that Vikings-Bills game, ooh! Man,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Okay. Cut!

Travis Harvego: that was,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Hahaha!

Travis Harvego: I think I still have some gray hairs from that game. That was an intense game.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, you got gray

Travis Harvego: But

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: hair,

Travis Harvego: yeah,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I have hypertension,

Travis Harvego: yeah,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: it's fine.

Travis Harvego: yeah, yeah. So yeah, it was at the Minneapolis, it was at the US Bank Stadium, is where it was at, where it was held. So we got to basically do everything right there in the field, you know, at the stadium, which is pretty awesome event. I mean, there wasn't a ton of contractors, like 200 and some contractors that were at the event, but it was just very different. an event to go to because it was just a total different perspectives you know because I mean there's there's events and then there's like conferences that are like straight conferences you know to go to I think the one that I was was just very different to be at a stadium like that and have access to basically the full stadium go in the locker rooms and things like that to where it's like you know you're there and you know for me being a big Vikings fan you know it was probably much better you know than maybe for some other people because you know I'm just a big fan but outside of that I think it's you know this is feel, you know, altogether. Because again, I've been doing so many events and they've been so many conferences, right? Speakers and keynotes and just like three days of, man, events when you're a vendor. I mean, there's keynotes, there's set up, there's take down, there's talking for 12 hours a day. I mean, it's fun, but it's a different type of fun, you know, that

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: fucking

Travis Harvego: you're having.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: exhausting.

Travis Harvego: Because I love talking to people, it's exhausting. And

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I'll

Travis Harvego: then if

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: say

Travis Harvego: you're

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: it.

Travis Harvego: doing it back to back, yeah, it's exhausting. Like in March was, we had four events in March all month long. It was back to back to back to back. I mean, I only slept in my own bed for two days that whole month. Like two days the whole month out of 31 days. I guess it was just so many events and it gets exhausting. So I think for me as far as fun, my favorite, you know, definitely those. And there's a couple more that are coming up here that are gonna be pretty cool at different stadiums that I've never been to before. That'll be pretty cool as well. So it's just, it's different, a different type of feel, different type of vibe.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: What about, how do you feel about, you know, I see all these people, dude, I get it, we're marketing agencies, everyone hates us, whatever. But I see a lot of people that like to demonize, I made a post about this on social media. And then I look at it and, you know, I wonder to myself sometimes, I don't see the same level of scrutiny for some other folks that are in the game, whether it's, you know, People selling courses, coaching, consulting, and I'm like, I feel like somebody's had a bad experiences here. Why do you, why do you feel like there's a disproportionately high scrutiny? Do you feel there is towards marketing agencies and why is that?

Travis Harvego: I mean, I think there definitely is. And I think it's something because marketing agencies, you can measure them. The metrics are there. And I think that a lot of marketing agencies come up there and they hype a lot of things up. And they say, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, I'm going to do all these things, we're going to do all these great things. Then it comes down to it. Then they can say, we didn't see any of those things that you said that you were going to do. And then they can also go back and track all those things to where it's like, when you hire other consultants, such as like sales or whatever, it's like, there's so many other factors that are involved. Like, did you have the right sales? people in that class and there's just so many other things you know within the organization where things can change or I think it's just that marketing it number one it's kind of like the forefront right now as far as everyone that's looking at because everyone wants more leads everyone wants more leads they want more appointments is really what it comes down to and I think that unfortunately possibly fortunately for a lot of good marketing companies out there you know that they they they pitch them and they're truthful with them as far as what to expect and what they're gonna see and how much time it's gonna show the results and people say I see great results. Well, there's other ones out there who pitch a big game, don't give realistic expectations when they go out there and say, hey, to change your website around, to have all this SEO, you know, crazy machine that's gonna get all this organic traffic, it's gonna take you six months to a year or two years, and they're looking at two to three months and then they get a bad rap. So I think it's, you know, I think it's one of those things out there to where the consultant part of it is just not there yet. I think it's so very, I'd say new, to where they haven't been able to measure. or have the metrics in place to be able to measure it. So I think that that's where you kind of get the view. And I mean, we hear it, you know, I mean, all the time, I hear it all the time. It's like, hired microagency, they said they were gonna do all this stuff. They spent thousands of dollars on SEM and I saw five things of return. And it's like, well, there's so many things to unpack with that statement that I'll just leave it at that. Like, because there's so many things that you can dive into. You know, it's like, where they spend the money, how, where are the pages, where they drive the traffic. Like, did you work with them? Did you tell them how you, there's so many things that go into it, where it's just like, as a contractor, you can't just say, here's 50 grand, just go spend it wherever you want to,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah.

Travis Harvego: and have no involvement. And then at the end,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Don't

Travis Harvego: come back

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: bother

Travis Harvego: and say,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: me.

Travis Harvego: yeah, at the end, come back and say, you spent 50 grand and you got me five leads, you're fired. You know, this person sucks. You know, I think there's just, there's so many things that go into that statement. Ultimately that's really how I feel as far as why

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Hmm,

Travis Harvego: that exists.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: interesting. Yeah, there is a lot that goes into that, I agree. I'll agree with that, sir.

Travis Harvego: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: What's your favorite and least favorite thing about the industry?

Travis Harvego: Ummm... favorite thing about the industry is that you know it's one of those industries that is it's a lot of fun. I mean this has got to be one of the most fun industries out there. I mean it's got to be. I mean we have

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: It's gotta

Travis Harvego: a lot of fun.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: be.

Travis Harvego: We have a lot of fun. I mean

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah,

Travis Harvego: we do.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: no

Travis Harvego: What

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: doubt.

Travis Harvego: the shows we go to I think that there's great vendors out there. There's great people in the industry you know that get along you know whether they're competitors or not they all get along and they all like to have fun. I think it's one of those industries to where you know it's just it's different. It's almost like it used to be the Wild West notice some of these conferences and you'd be like, wow, this is a conference and I see that there? Like, this is crazy. But it's starting to become more professional. It's becoming at a more professional level with a lot of these organizations to where it's becoming that way. Definitely. But I think the least part about it is, number one, you can make a lot of money. We all know right in the roofing industry you can make a lot of money, and

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: at release

Travis Harvego: I think

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: their

Travis Harvego: that

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: part of it

Travis Harvego: Well, let's just say it this way, is that people like to say that they get screwed a lot. And I think that there's always two sides of the story. People want to badmouth people all the time. They want to badmouth the people that they work for or whatever and say all these things without putting the true story out there behind it. Because again, if there's potential for money involved, then people want to go out there and they want to say bad things about other companies or worse people. It's just like, why can't we all just get along? Why do we have to go into this whole post on social media, cause this big ruckus as far things that are happening. It's just like why can't we just go about our day? Why do we have to do this? Because most other industries you don't hear about that stuff. Those things like don't really come up as much right? So I think that that's the thing and I think obviously social media plays a big part in those things but you know it's the noise. Sometimes it's just the noise I guess I would say is a bad thing and again I started with the whole money thing is because when there's a lot of money involved you draw in some questionable characters when there's money involved and sometimes when those questionable characters get involved they like to throw some things out there against other people that you know are somewhat true but not true as well. So

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Sure.

Travis Harvego: it does create a lot of noise in the industry.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: yeah i'll take that one step further and to say in life in general you know that that he's of the ease of the transfer of commute of information and the way we're able to communicate so quickly with so many people uh... it's had some negative unintended consequences uh... i think pretty significant ones to in in our day-to-day lives The fucking toxicity on social media in general is just like, god damn, can't we, let's be positive. Let's have a nice positive post here and there. But then you get into what folks post and people's expectations based off what they see posting. I mean, I've got a daughter and it's like you think about what these. what the younger generation, what they idolize and what they see and it's like, if I don't have this perfect image, like what is that doing to our younger generations, like self-esteem and all these things. It's like, fuck Travis, I don't wanna

Travis Harvego: Social

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: go down that

Travis Harvego: media

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: route.

Travis Harvego: is the root of, I would say, a lot of evil, not all evil. evil to where I think personally social media has done a lot to society. Society where yeah the younger generation look up to people so much and like they have to be perfect like everything has to be perfect then they also you have the negativity side out there where people can post anything negative at any point in time to where hundreds of thousands of people are going to see it and then have that negative mindset because they posted something negative it's just yeah it's it's one of those things to where sometimes you have to just shut off social media for a few days

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah.

Travis Harvego: hours and waste hours of your time on something because of something maybe negative that was posted or whatever it may be to where you've been consumed. Instead you could have been doing so many other things in your life that

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Right.

Travis Harvego: could have been much, doing much more things to improve yourself or whatever it may be. Instead you're trapped in the social media thread

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: See you next

Travis Harvego: of

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: time.

Travis Harvego: negativity that you just keep going back and back and back, so yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, and it's like, you know, people pile on. It's easy to do, right? And there's that aspect of like, lack of accountability for when things are posted on social media versus like having a conversation when we're at a conference or when you're out with a group of people at a bar or whatever, it's like, you know, you remove that accountability and... things tend to unfold a bit differently, right? It's a very interesting, it's fascinating to me, and equally troubling. So, yeah, that's a...

Travis Harvego: It's, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Right.

Travis Harvego: it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah.

Travis Harvego: it,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Ha.

Travis Harvego: it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah.

Travis Harvego: it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: And if you try to hold me accountable, I'll just block you. It's fine. Bye. Yeah, that's,

Travis Harvego: Hahaha

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: yeah, fucking social media. What else? You got questions for me?

Travis Harvego: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I have answers, not many, but I'll do

Travis Harvego: Yeah,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: my best to

Travis Harvego: what

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: answer any questions

Travis Harvego: have

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: you

Travis Harvego: you

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: have.

Travis Harvego: been up

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Oh,

Travis Harvego: to?

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: man.

Travis Harvego: I think one.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Well, been working, working, working, working. I'm going on a cruise with my family this weekend through the the Caribbean the Caribbean. I don't know

Travis Harvego: Nice.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Caribbean I say Caribbean but And then we are we're closing on that house the aforementioned house on May 1st, so I will be down

Travis Harvego: Nice.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: there Getting things together. We're gonna Airbnb it during

Travis Harvego: Nice.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: the off months that we're not there so we were lucky to find a place that we wanted that didn't have like an HOA or at least restrictions so that we can Airbnb it and

Travis Harvego: Yes.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: that afforded me the opportunity to say, you know what? This isn't a terrible investment. I'm gonna do it.

Travis Harvego: Mm-hmm.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: In theory, right? Last time I invested in a property, and there was a theory where I was gonna cash the like three grand a month. I had to evict the tenant, and then

Travis Harvego: Hahaha

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I put like 20 grand into refurbishing and renovating the apartment, and then squarely thereafter, we were doing finished work, and there was old electrical called knob and tube. start smoldering because he'd up on one of the rafters and fire department came and busted everything up and spread everything down and that was a month before coven and you could get building permits in new york and then uh... her permits for the job or whatever and uh... you know that's a three years it took three years to get these two units uh... so instead of cash on thirty thousand dollars a month as losing like a thousand dollars a month so again theory and practice those are two different things folks take if that again

Travis Harvego: Hmm.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: if there's a takeaway from this that's it So hopefully this one works out better, round two, right? And then, yeah, just hired a couple people here for Ascend and I'm excited about their future here and getting them assimilated into our culture and our team and what else, what else? I think that's it, I think that's it, yeah.

Travis Harvego: Yeah, you know, no big plans for the summer

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: No, I want to continue to learn how to be a well-adjusted adult. Work-life balance and all these elusive concepts that people tell me about. I want to learn how to actualize some semblance of them. You got the answer? No?

Travis Harvego: Not yet,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Not

Travis Harvego: not yet, someday soon,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: yet? Listen, work

Travis Harvego: someday

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: it on

Travis Harvego: soon.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: it.

Travis Harvego: Yeah, right, working on it, working on it, working on it.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: You gotta put the work in, all right?

Travis Harvego: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: And eventually, even if, I tell people, I wanna move, I'm not gonna get the needle to perfect or anything. Maybe we can debate how close to perfect you could be, but I just wanna move it just a little bit away from imperfect, a little further away, right? Every day. And if I could do that, or at least say I did my best to, it's a good day. Yeah.

Travis Harvego: Yeah, I think that's everyone's tries for. Yeah, everyone wants more of that work-life balance. But like I said, sometimes when the work is fun, it becomes also then kind of a hobby because you do enjoy a lot of things that you do in it, which you gotta take a step back and again, look at yourself and work on yourself to say, hey, it's not really the hobby I should be doing because I'm doing it so many hours a day and I need to go look and get more into this other hobby that I enjoy doing. So, which for me obviously is putting, fishing, things like that. So that's something that I want to do. definitely get more into as you know for us there are slow seasons coming up so when I say our slower season means like a lot of the trade shows are done and a lot of our contractors are busy you know working they've sold jobs and they're busy building their jobs right so it's a slower times in the summer than it is you know in the you know winter or the you know the traveling of the event you know type of season so definitely gonna have more time coming up to do more of that you know

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: like it yet i think i think

Travis Harvego: Got

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: a lot

Travis Harvego: to.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: of people don't business like struggle with that because like you said especially when you're building something you're building something great you're having success and now it's more of a hobby than working you never work a day in your life you love what you do well you know at what point do you take a look at it's like well okay year one i've got to put in fifteen hours dates i gotta wear all the hats here to i'm putting in fifteen hours day because i'm i've got rid of some of the has been really love what i do some do a little bit more than i you don't need to they what point do we say okay well maybe we should dial it back a little bit right me maybe i should delegate a little bit more and spend more time with my family cousin theory i mean we could we could be so concerned with work for the next twenty years and then you know you get to a point where it's like i don't understand why my family's me

Travis Harvego: Hahaha

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: i've done this for them uh... you know i i don't know i can't imagine what that feels like but i don't imagine that it would feel good and i don't want to be in that situation so I've been trying to be intentional about, okay, let's less screen time on the computer, phone devices, and work hard, and when we're not working, unplug a little

Travis Harvego: Right.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: bit.

Travis Harvego: Right.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: That's okay. Things will be fine.

Travis Harvego: And I get into the habit of comparing this hobby to some of my friends hobbies. So one

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Mm.

Travis Harvego: of my friends, he builds chairs and picnic tables. That's his hobby. So he works with wood and builds them and then he resells them to customers. And I'm like, well, okay, let me compare your hobby to what I enjoy to do. Building a business is much similar to building a picnic table. You gotta have the legs, right? So you have your employees and the things like that. So I'm always trying to compare, to be like, okay, I'm justifying why I enjoy. doing this over what what other friends have have for hobbies so I need to get out of that mindset definitely.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: It's easy to do. And that's the shittiest part about being a good salesperson is you're equally susceptible to selling yourself on a bad, on a bad idea or, or just justifying something that isn't the optimal outcome for you. I did it during COVID. I hadn't drank in years, like three and a half years. And I was like, you know what? I'm older now, more mature. I'm in a way better head space. I'll have a glass of wine, dude. I drank for like fucking six months straight. every day. Right? And it went from a bottle of wine to a margarita to a bottle of Tito's every day. And it's like, okay, yeah, you couldn't have been more wrong. This is clearly just you closing yourself. So, good news. It's been like two and a half, almost three years since I drank. Never gonna drink again because I just know that it's not for me. I've always struggled with moderation. I'm not a moderate guy. Sorry. I'll tell you how I feel. And it's usually one way or the other. And oh well.

Travis Harvego: It's either all or nothing, right? It's

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, yeah,

Travis Harvego: all

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: unfortunately.

Travis Harvego: or nothing.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: So working on that in therapy too. This was great, dude. It was a long time coming, and I'm sorry that our schedules precluded us from linking up and doing this piece of content prior, but I'm sure there's more to come at some point in the near future. I had a lot of fun today, and I'm incredibly appreciative for y'all that are listening to this and for you, Travis, for joining.

Travis Harvego: Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes we gotta get together and share road stories because I got a few of those as well. Being on the road with some of these knuckleheads, there's always some funny stories to share with going to some of these events. So we gotta do the behind the curtain of on the road with some of these vendors because there's definitely some funny ones to share.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, fuck yeah. Please do tell. We'll talk off air. Peace.

Travis Harvego: Yeah.