Learn how to build a better sign and print shop from a few
crusty sign guys who've made more mistakes than they care to admit.
Conversations and advice on pricing, sales, marketing,
workflow, growth, and more.
You are listening to The Better Sign Shop podcast with your hosts, Peter
Unis, Michael Riley and Bryant Gillespie.
We jump into the episode.
I'd like to give a shout out to our sponsor, G C I Digital Imaging
Grand Format Printer to the Trade.
We talk a lot about outsourcing on the podcast and the importance of having a.
Good partners and G C I Digital Imaging is a good partner to have.
Owner TJ Beak and his team focus on providing killer customer service just
the way grandmother used to make it.
If you're interested in learning their approach to business, hop
back into the archives to episode nine where the guys and I interview
TJ about customer experience.
So if you're looking for a high quality trade printer for banners, wraps,
and other printed graphics that your customers throw at you, check out
GCI Digital imaging@printgci.com.
Alright guys, welcome back to the next edition of the Better Sign Shop podcast.
Apparently we need an IT guy, so if you're out there, you are it.
You know how to rework audio and.
Technological equipment, please hit us up because we are
struggling to get it together here.
But as always, I am joined by my friends and co-hosts, Peter, the
sign Shop, Yoda Uni's up y'all.
How are you, Pete And hey Peter, Mr.
Magic Mike, the Corll King.
All right.
Is that what we're settling on?
Is that, is that cool for you?
Are you good with that?
It's, it's,
it's better than the sign, Jimmy Chaga.
So, yeah, I'm cool with it.
We're gonna roll with the Corll King Magic.
I, I agree.
I agree.
It's it better than the sign Chimichanga.
If it was my nickname, I would want it to be Magic Mike, the Corre King.
It's a pretty badass nickname.
Really?
I mean, like, I feel like some street cred.
Was it right?
Like, yeah.
Yeah.
I'm gonna get you one of those standup like poles.
That you would like a tension mount between the, the floor and the ceiling.
Maybe we would get you on one of those fail videos where you spin
around and just fall and like take out your whole bookcase or something.
Uh,
you know, if you send me a stripper pole, I will.
I'll
be on it.
Let's do it.
Oh, goodness.
Oh, I, it feels like it's been a couple weeks since we've all been together.
Uh, we don't have a ton of time to catch up here because we've
experienced technical difficulties, but anything important you guys
wanted to share before we jump right into our guest for this week,
who is our guest this week?
I'm glad you asked.
Our guest this week is Brad Rapon.
He is the owner of Trade Wraps.
It's a wrap shop in Virginia.
And, uh, for whatever reason, he is also decided to build his own CRM system
and sell it to sign and wrap shops.
So curious to grill him about that a little bit as well.
I think it'll be a very interesting conversation.
Sounds
fascinating.
I I'm looking, I'm looking forward to it.
I'm looking to, I I love a guy that's, that has new tech or a new, or a new
SAS program that's, that's clearly exactly what we need.
Is more tech here.
More tech.
We can't even figure out three microphones and a headset.
Why,
why are we interviewing somebody about tech when we
can't figure out our own tech?
It's a, it's a, a great question.
Uh, okay, let's, let's solve like, why do
I only hear you in my left ear?
Can we
solve that first
before we get into wrap software?
Can we get into like, why I can't hear you right.
Basic
audio
settings on your computer.
I mean, seriously, we need to be better at this.
We stop at this.
It's cuz Mike is on Windows.
That's, that's all it is.
Oh,
well, I, I, I kind of went over to the dark side two years ago
and I never looked back a hundred percent Windows a hundred percent.
I was a PC user my entire life.
And then when Corll Draw decided to introduce the Mac version,
I was like, I'm jumping shit.
I'm
out.
That was the only thing holding me to a PC was Carell Draw.
Just, I just never needed to ever
use a Mac.
And then they introduced Carell for Mac and was like, That's, see, I, Mike,
I'm out.
Mike hates the Corri Mac version though.
He said it wasn't as good.
Yeah,
I I do too.
It's not nearly as good as the PC version, but it get you, you can get
by, you can get by if the PC version's
far better.
Yeah.
I, I tried to make the switch to a Mac a couple years ago and for the same thing,
like, cool on a PCs available or for Mac is available now I'm gonna switch.
And it was like the biggest nightmare of my life.
I think I'm the first person in Best Buy's history to ever like, return a MacBook
Pro.
They
looked at me like, we know how to do this.
Yeah.
Sorry, I'm getting, man.
You know
when there was this one time, there was this one time you mentioned
Best Buy, so I used to work for Best Buy like way back in the day.
I was using Corell Draw and I was selling, I was in the PC
department and I was selling, uh, computers, like compact computers.
That's how long ago this was?
Oh, yeah.
Nice.
Oh, I was selling compact computers.
Right.
And you know, like there was like the Mac and the app, and
I was like, when is Carell Draw ever gonna come out for the Mac?
And it was like, never, never.
This will never happen.
I mean, it was like,
there's this guy, uh, what's his face?
Uh, Joe Diaz from Diaz, Shar.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
He
was
a, he's like a big, uh, he was like
a big mentor to me in, in the design world.
And he tells me, I, I saw him in Atlantic City one day and he
is like, it'll never be on Mac.
Don't ever have to worry about it.
It'll be a,
it's a native PC app.
And I'm like, all right, well,
so I'm telling, I'm telling myself that maybe I should just buy a Mac
and like remote desktop into my pc and then I get the best of both worlds.
Or, and then somebody introduced me to Parallels and I'm like, I could
run Windows n Mac on a MacBook, uh, um, windows N you know what?
Whatever the name of the operat system was on a Mac.
And I'm like, that's
awesome.
That's my
winning ticket.
That though, led to me saying, let me try it.
Let me make this $2,000 investment.
And I ended up returning a Mac PC myself a week later.
Or a Mac, excuse me.
A Mac.
A Mac computer.
Uh, at that time it was the, uh, the, I don't know, it looked like
almost like a little pancake.
It was like a piece.
Mm-hmm.
It was like, I forget what it was called.
MacBook or something like that.
I can't remember exactly what it was called, but I returned
it.
So, there you have it.
You, and you are not the only one to ever return a
Mac to, to Best Buy for
Corll.
Draw
reasons.
I feel a little better than that.
Corll wasn't the only reason, but
it was my only reason.
Oh, I
hated it was, it was just awful.
All right, let's, uh, off the soapbox, that was cool that you worked at Best Buy.
I had a buddy that worked at Best Buy.
We got this suite discount on like the TVs and stuff.
And
do you man, I worked at Radio Shack Circuit City
and Best Buy.
That's the, that's the back.
And we still can't, we still can't figure out the headsets.
Right.
All right.
Let's bring on the guest know.
We're back with our guest, Brad Rapon, the owner of Trade Wraps
and Torque c rm, the hottest news CRM for the sign and Wrap market.
Brad, happy to have you on, man.
Thanks for joining us.
Well, thank you for having me, gentlemen.
I'm happy to be here.
Yeah.
So for everybody listening out there who may not be familiar, why don't
you give us some of your backstory?
So
some backstory on me, you know, obviously my name's Brad Rapon.
Uh, I've been in the sign business before, uh, I've had a sign shop, failed
miserably, started trade wraps, so that's where I am right at the moment.
So we have a, you know, 13 year vehicle wrap company doing
commercial wraps and thriving there.
Looking to expand even more through that venture.
You know, obviously I have created a software called Torque crm, and now we're
promoting out to the sign and wrap world.
Okay, so let's start at, let's start at the very
beginning there.
There's a lot to unpack.
Okay.
Uh, with, with, with being as transparent as you
can, tell us about your first experience in the sign business and why you got into
the business and what led to, you said it failed, so what led to those failures?
What were the failures and what led to them?
So, you know, like, like anybody who's probably been in the signed world or,
you know, 90% of us actually come from.
A trade, right?
So we all like worked in the sign business and then started a sign shop.
There's a small percentage out there that just go in and buy a sign shop.
But I was one of those people that, um, I'm a designer by trade, so like
my first design job was designing tombstones, uh, which I absolutely loved.
And they were using Omega composer and a plotter to uh, do the tombstones, do
the sand blasting for the tombstones.
Mm-hmm.
And I wanted to, I guess, show people more of my portfolio to be more commercial
rather than be like, Hey, let's go down to the cemetery and check out my portfolio.
You know, that's always a good one.
Right.
It's
a tough sell to
be honest.
Like Yeah.
Right.
So I jumped into the sign world because the sign world at the
time was using, you know, a mug, composer or something similar to it.
And, uh, plotters, which I was familiar with.
So I wanted to do more commercial design work, so I got into a couple
sign shops, bounced around a little bit.
I learned lots.
Uh, ended up managing a couple sign shops and then just felt like I peaked and I
always wanted more and very ambitious.
So I started my own sign shop.
And the problem with that is, is that we all start a business because we're
good at doing the art of it, right?
Doing the work.
But what I was terrible at and what I didn't know that I know
now is I was terrible at business.
I was terrible at everything else besides like actually, uh, doing the
signs and managing a small sign shop, which I wa at the time, even saying
managing a sign shop, looking back at that, I even wasn't even a good leader.
Like I wasn't a good manager.
I wasn't a good leader.
So ultimately
that's what, what was the name of your first side shop?
Oh
God, it heard to even say it honestly, it was called impact signs.
So it was terrible.
Impact signs,
signs that
make a impact.
So something like that.
Creating solutions that
hit hard.
Honestly, I, I've heard worse.
At least it wasn't.
No, I've heard, I've heard Brad signs.
It's like, honestly, that's what I was expecting.
I was expecting like baldhead signs or Brad signs.
Signs and tombstones.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
No, there was plenty of those around here.
There was like a lot of people with names and then signs and I didn't want that.
So I tried to make like an actual, like company, but I
didn't know anything about it.
So all I was terrible at it.
And I failed.
I did it for two years, struggled massively, and like I failed miserably.
And, um, it was definitely a blow to the ego.
More details.
Like what, what, what two years into it, like what was the, the point where
you're like, this is not working at all.
Like,
well, I think after like my first year, um, of struggling so bad, I was kind of
conflicted with should I give up now?
Or should I keep pressing and strive for success?
Like, and I kept just like pushing and pushing cuz I just wa I was determined
not to give up because I feel like if I gave up, especially at that time, like,
you know, in my younger years there, you know, I was heavily into martial arts.
So everything I did was, I was very headstrong.
I was very confident what I did, if I took on something, I finished it to the end.
And this was just one of those things that I was, I was losing, you know,
I wasn't making good enough sales.
Um, I wasn't being profitable.
I didn't understand business itself.
Um, anytime I tried to get help with it, it just went down a backwards way.
So Did you detail that employees Pretty much at the time?
I did have some at the time.
Yeah.
I wouldn't say anything crazy.
Like I'd have like a guy working in the back with me,
maybe a designer at the time.
I've tried to hire salespeople.
Always failed miserably on that sense.
So I wasn't a good manager.
Um, I wasn't a good leader.
I wasn't good at business.
Actually, looking back at it, I wasn't even good at selling signs apparently.
So, so it was just a, and at that time in my area, so I'm up in near the DC area,
so there was, at that time there was just a lot of sign shops popping up too.
So it was like, back in the, the franchise days, there was a lot
of franchises that popped up.
And so there was a lot of those things happening.
So there was a lot of options for people, and it was a race to the
bottom, and I was one of those people.
All right, so like, let's
put a date on it.
I, I hate to like date ourselves here, but like,
let's see,
9, 8, 7.
So this is like 2007.
Okay.
Right around that time,
right before the, uh, housing crash.
Yeah.
And that, that played a part in it too.
But obviously I'm not one of those guys at this point who used
those types of things as excuses.
But there was a lot going on at that time.
A lot of people were pulling back in business, so like, trying to sell it to
businesses would got to be very difficult.
Um, and obviously the people who were in the game longer, who had a better
customer base, and I, I have weathered the storm before, definitely knew how
to navigate those waters that I didn't as like a little jet ski in a big ocean.
So, so after that, after that massive failure, I bounced around doing, uh,
vehicle wrap installations for a while and eventually started trade wraps.
And this was like my second.
My second chance at doing it right.
And the reason why I did that was because everybody in around here all did signs,
but they all had like a specialty.
So like everybody did everything, but like this guy did channel
letters and like this guy did banners, but nobody was doing raps.
They all said they did raps, nobody was doing raps.
And again, I'm one of those people that's hardheaded.
So if it's hard, I feel like I should do it because nobody else is doing it.
So I started down the wrap game and with my design background, I wanted
to be, you know, the, the shop that did the better designs, the better
material, and the better installs.
So, and we focused heavily on commercial vehicle apps.
Nice.
Go for it.
Mike.
I you're deep in thought.
Well, after, after failing like that sign business, I think we
all kinda consider the sign the.
What made you wanna get back on the horse and try again?
You know, essentially in the same, same business, same
industry,
you know, was it like to prove, to prove yourself
that you could do it?
Yeah.
Um, yes.
Uh, it was, you know, before I felt like I peaked and I just jumped in.
I didn't know anything.
And obviously it's kinda like, uh, your, your education, right?
People go to college to learn stuff.
That was pretty much for my college right there, like massive failure.
And I learned a lot from that failure, which as long as we're learning from
it, it's technically not a failure.
At the time, it definitely felt like a f failure, like it huge blow to my ego.
Like, uh, looking back at it, you know, nowadays, like talking about anxiety,
depression and stuff is pretty normal.
Back then, I was probably massively depressed through all that stuff,
you know, feeling like a failure for everything that we did.
So getting back on the horse, it was definitely more of a, I can do this
and I want to do it differently.
I wanna build an actual business, not just, I guess the place to
get something done or to, to try to just be creative, like I wanna
build like an actual business.
And it was something more specialty.
It was a little bit harder to sell at the time because around
here there weren't a lot of people getting like vehicle wraps done.
There were a few.
So it was definitely more of a challenge to go that way.
And yeah, I did have that chip on my shoulder to get it done.
That's still what drives me today, honestly.
It's like I, I still look at that as it's still something that's there
that I do not want to go back to and I can't let that go, honestly.
So what did
you do differently, like the second time around?
Like was it like from the start, like, Hey, I'm gonna like totally
go 180 of where I was previously, or like how, like what was the.
Hey, I'm gonna give this another shot.
Like what were the next steps that you took to actually like, Hey, I'm
gonna build a business this time.
Like I'm gonna do this differently.
So that's, that's, that's a great, great thing to ask.
So the way I kind of, the way, the way it kind of shaped up was, so when
I first did my first business, right, I went out, I did the right thing,
got the loans, lots of loans, got the printers, got got, got everything right
to just do a whole like shop startup.
This time around I was gonna start leveraging other people's printers
and buy the material from them and kind of start off slowed.
Cuz I honestly, I still didn't even really believe in myself at that moment.
Right?
Um, it was more of like, hey, I had people asking for wraps to be done, you know?
Cause they would see me doing it at other people's bays and then they would
be showing it off to their friends.
And then their friends have businesses and they're like, well,
hey, why does this one look so good?
And why don't mine look that way?
And I'm like, well, because I'm doing it, you know?
So it kind of just became like, still I was in between a bunch of stuff.
So it kind of just became, hey, well I'm gonna go get the prints made and then
I'm going to install them at your bay.
And so that's kind of the soft space there.
So I didn't have to have any loans.
I could install it really quick.
Um, with quality, I could do the design myself, put the graphics on and
then get paid right after it's done.
So it was a way for me to kind of generate cash and start paying off
some of my debts that I occurred.
In that process.
I ended up meeting somebody who, it was an HB business owner and
we ended up partnering on this.
And it was really start off just to wrap his vehicles cuz
he had so many to get done.
And so he kind of wanted to have his own in-house crew there.
Oh wow.
Wow.
And so it was a way for me also to offset that risk and depend
on his, uh, business knowledge.
And during our course of doing this, you know, Just because you
own one business doesn't mean that you can run another business.
So I learned a ton from him.
But running a vehicle wrap shop or a sign shop, like an
HVAC C shop, just doesn't work.
So we had to restructure on some things, and I took over learning more
about leadership, learning more about business and those types of things.
And it wasn't until probably like five years in that I actually
did that, like five years in.
It was like, the goal for me was to be like, I just wanna
get to a million dollar shop.
Right?
If I got to a million dollar shop, I would feel successful.
Especially after failing miserably, right?
Yeah.
Pretty common.
So being a million dollar shop, I would feel successful
for everybody, I think in the industry.
Like, Hey, what was that?
If I, I said, I think it's a pretty common thread for most people in the industry,
especially like the smaller shops, like, Hey, if I hit a million dollars in
sales, like everything's, it'll be gravy.
Like everything
will be fine.
Yeah, and let me touch on that too, because this, this
was, this was huge for me.
So I had that same mentality, right?
If I hit a million dollars in revenue, I will be successful.
And so what I ended up doing is I ended up putting everything on my back
and pushing and pushing and pushing.
Yes, I was hiring people, yes, I was training people.
I still, at this point, was probably not a good leader.
Oh, I definitely was not a good leader.
I was definitely way better at selling than I was before.
And I had a great customer base, so I ended up just putting everything on my
back and pushing and pushing and pushing to get to that million dollar mark.
And I hit it.
And when I hit it, I'm li I feel like I'm standing there, I'm tired, I'm
exhausted, and I'm looking at everything and absolutely nothing is different.
Nothing.
And I felt failure creeping in again because I felt like in
my head, if I hit that number, things are gonna be different.
And it wasn't.
It wasn't different at all.
And I'm looking at like the employees that I have had at the time.
I'm just like, these people hate me and I hate them.
Like, what am I actually building here?
What am I actually doing?
And I said, well, maybe if I try to get 2 million, maybe
things will be different then.
And then I thought about how much more work that would be and
how exhausting that's gonna be.
And that's when I realized that I had to actually change my approach to
everything and start learning more about business and leadership training and
bringing the right people on to help me actually move this business forward.
Cuz it can't all be me.
It can't all run through me.
It's gotta run through other people to actually be scalable.
So I spent a lot of time doing that and since then I've definitely
created some massive processes and training in my business that has
definitely helped scale massively.
So everything's going good.
Now
that's, uh, I guess hindsight is 2020.
Like you see very self-aware now, which is a a hundred percent a good thing.
Uh, like at that moment of.
Like, Hey, this is, I hit that $1 million mark and it just didn't feel great.
Like, what were, what were the next like steps that you took
after you realized like, Hey, I've got to make a big change here.
Like, what was like the first one or two steps?
So I remember sitting in this office where we're at, and so I recently
had a daughter at that time.
And you know, I'm still working super late, I'm busting my ass, working
weekends, working nights, and I'm sitting in here and I'm just like, my daughter's
never gonna know who the hell I am.
Right?
And so that was one of the pivotal chains I needed cuz I needed
to actually duplicate myself.
So I started just like thinking like, look, I just need to learn more.
I mean, I, I, I don't consider myself like book smart, but
I can learn anything, right?
So I just started like googling, like I.
Business classes or seminars or something just to like, just get me something.
Um, I ended up going down, ended up signing up for Tony
Robbins Business Mastery.
I went down that path, learned a ton.
Ended up hiring coaches to help me.
Business coaches in general.
Ended up hiring specialty coaches in certain areas that I needed
more, more specialized help with.
Like I hired a fantastic hiring coach, which definitely helped
my game on hiring people.
Highly recommend that cuz that is a skill, definitely a skill that everybody
needs to know cuz it is a skill.
So just massive personal development.
And the biggest pill that I had to swallow that most people do in this case is that,
especially when it comes to like your team and stuff, how many times do you
guys hear everybody say like, oh good.
Help's.
Hard to find, can't find them.
Everybody in
the sun industry
says, I need, I need people can't find them.
And if I, if I bring them on and I train 'em, they just leave right?
The biggest pill you have to swallow is that the reason why you're having trouble
attracting the right people, keeping the right people is because of you.
It's leadership.
It's not, it's not the hiring, it's not the employee market or the pool, it's you.
And that was the biggest pill I had to swallow is cause I had to go through
some massive personal development on my end as far as learning my personal
growth on who I am and how I can treat others better and be a leader for them,
to give them all the tools necessary to be the best version of themself for me.
You guys are nodding your heads, Pete, a way for you to like jump in where you at?
How much
I'm taking so many notes,
taking so many notes.
Uh, no, no.
In all honesty.
Um, being a business consultant, being a franchise consultant,
And a sign shop consultant.
There's a lot,
there's a lot there that resonates with me on multiple levels.
So the first is, is
that you wrote, you said
something, you know, just because you open up one business doesn't
mean you should open up another.
And that one and that one kind of, I'm not gonna give you too much
pushback, but I do want, we do want you to know I disagree with that.
Okay.
Well, and no, well, let's, lemme clarify.
It's not to open another, you can't open another, right.
It's just that just because you're successful in one industry doesn't
mean that you're automatically going to be successful in another industry.
If you're applying the same principles as that one.
If you can apply business principles, that's different story.
Okay.
That I will agree with then thank you for clarifying that because Yeah.
You know, look, you, first of all, tremendous kudos to you
for being open and honest.
You must be real comfortable with your past in order to talk about
this in, in a public setting.
So kudos to you for sharing that story.
Hopefully there are
some,
Uh, sign shop.
In fact, I actually know some of them.
I actually know a lot of sign shop owners that have very little business sense.
Okay.
And a lot, it's, it's.
It's not something to laugh at.
Don't laugh.
I, I'm not, don't laugh.
No, I'm
just, I'm just laughing.
It's not something
to
laugh at because I, I, you'd be
surprised.
You'd be surprised.
It's true.
Hold on a second.
You'd be surprised with how many people get into this.
We, we talked about it before on another podcast or two, like the Emith method.
Mm-hmm.
How many people think that they can get into business because they think they
could do it better than their boss?
Like, that's not, that is not a reason to get into business.
So I, I, kudos to you, Brad, for, for mentioning that, for bringing
that up because you are a victim of
what most people try to do, you know?
And, and the fact is, is that you have the wherewithal to actually acknowledge
it, learn from it is the key to it.
And then that's what's leading you into this next, uh, venture of yours, which I'm
really excited to hear about by the way.
But
nonetheless,
you have stopped, first of all, your journey to getting into trade wraps.
I have a quick question there.
How did you get
that name?
Well, it came because, um, my partner at the time gave it that name.
Um, and that was because we were doing, he was in the H V A C realm.
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
So he's in trades.
So the idea, the idea was to go after the trades.
Right.
Okay.
And that's, we've done that very strongly.
And it's been, it's been good.
So your great relationships, so you are, yeah.
You
go from impact signs, which, but you know, listen, it's a good name.
It's not the worst name I've ever heard.
And you go to trade wraps, which is very niche.
You're talking about one service for one type of industry.
Now, I'm not saying, uh, the trades is not one industry.
The trades is multiple industries, but it's a vertical that is blue
collar trades, you know, it's, it's, uh, electricians, plumbers, HVAC
painters.
It's pretty drain cleaning,
right?
Those are, those
are some significant trades there.
So you, you, I've actually was talking about this with someone, with one of
my consultant clients the other day.
Uh, I was actually pointing them in this direction, uh, basically saying
like, Hey, this is a great opportunity for you to get additional revenue.
You want to go after these markets?
Because guess what?
And I, and I, this is exactly what I told him, so I'm going
to hope for your, uh,
opinion on this statement here.
Definitely.
I said, I said to him this week, I said, Damien, you can find clients
where your business thrives when they, when their business expands.
Yes.
It's a very interesting vertical because you said that your, you started
this with your partner who said, I just want an in-house wrap company.
Like they need to expand their fleet to grow their business,
and every time they expand their fleet, it's more revenue for you.
So tremendous, tremendous kudos for getting into that business.
I'm familiar with a couple of companies that are in this space
that do it in a more national scale.
Do you do
national work or are you focused more
on like regional mom and pop kind of companies?
Well, our main focus is definitely our local market.
I like to dominate where I can, local domination is what we call it.
And we do work nationwide.
And you do work nationwide?
Yeah.
Do you, do you ta,
do you tap into like a nationwide installer
network to do your Yeah, we've, we've created our, or we've
created our own over the years.
Um, just meeting people and reaching out to them and figuring
out which ones are the best ones.
Trust me, just cuz they have certifications doesn't mean
that they're the best, but we're looking for the honest people.
Right.
So there
could potentially be companies, sign shops that don't really get into
the rap game too much, but might have an opportunity here for you
to design.
Print and then also get it, uh, installed and sourced locally in their market.
At a, at a, at a trade rate, I'm assuming that you would do some
sort of wholesale work as well,
is that correct?
Yeah, we can do some of that, yeah.
All right.
So there's a lot of
sign shop owners out there that would love to tap into that kind of market.
Uh, so where can they find out about
trade wraps?
Oh, you can find us online@tradewraps.com.
That's for sure.
We try to be everywhere as much as possible, but, um, you know, going back
to your comment about expanding with a company, um, I always like to say like,
the riches are in the niches, right?
So specializing your shop, it doesn't have to be wraps.
It doesn't even have to be like, um, even the type of
customer that I'm chasing after.
You could look at your shop right now and.
You could just say like, look, if I'm offering a vast array of services,
how can I narrow that field so that I can be more specialized in this,
that way that I can turn it out faster and be the expert in that field.
Like there's a guy around here, like he's just, he's the banner guy and
that man just has banners material on his printers at all times.
He buys massive rolls of banner, so he gets it at a good, at a
good rate, and he's just cranking out banners all day, every day.
Now he'll do anything else for you, but he's known as the banner guy.
And like for me, if you ask me to make you a sign, we're gonna
say, sorry, we don't do that.
Yeah.
The ability to say no.
Uh, I think that's tremendous.
We've talked about that a lot of times.
Even going back to that.
That pod they had podcast episode that we did with Maggie.
Like that amazing way that she told no to her clients when I was
like, still fascinated by that, that's still in the back of my head.
But,
you know, that's great
that you're a niche shop.
Um, I think that you took a ga well, you took a risk, naturally.
You took a risk getting into business.
That's a risk naturally.
But you took a, you took a risk getting into a business with a partner
that you may not know that well, and you built a relationship with this
individual and you grew a niche shop.
And now how many vans do you typically
wrap a week in-house?
Probably,
probably like 15 to 20.
Wow.
That
is a, that is a lot.
That's tremendous.
Yeah.
That's great.
So how, how large of a team do you
have now?
We have four installers, four full-time installers, and we
got two in training right now.
Do you do your training
internally
or do you outsource your training?
Oh, 100% internal.
Excellent.
Wow, that's awesome.
I love that.
I, I love
that
what you've built here is very rare in the industry, but I wish more
and more people would
do well, like you mentioned the EMyth, right?
Mm-hmm.
And that's a fantastic book.
If anyone has not read it, stop whatever the hell you're
doing and just read that book.
I swear to God.
Like I remember reading that and I thought the guy was over my
shoulder, like looking at me.
And what I take away from that book in itself, which was a massive
start to everything else that I was doing as well, is the fact that we
are, we're artists out here trying to use our craft to make money.
And until we learn how to duplicate ourselves, we really
don't become a business.
You guys have probably heard of Osais Cashflow Quadrant, right?
Yeah.
I've heard of, dude, we're
dumb.
We don't, we don't know what that is.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah.
Speak.
So, okay.
Robert, Robert Kiyosaki is another author out there that has, he's
the Rich Dad Poor Dad book.
Yes.
I was gonna say, and he's also a book called, yeah.
He's also got a book called The Cashflow Quadrant.
Right.
And the premise of the Cashflow Quadrant is you got a quadrant, right.
And the, the top square is employee who swaps their time for
money, and the employee's always trying to get to self-employed.
And the self-employed is still swapping their time for money because they
always, they have all the risk, but they're the ones actually in the
business still working every day.
So if they get sick or they get injured, they're not making income that day
because they're not leveraging people.
The self-employed need to be going to the business owner quadrant,
which is where the business owner is.
Someone who leverages people for money.
Not their time.
And then the business owner's trying to get to, uh, the investor quadrant,
which is leveraging your money for money.
And so, so many people probably even listening to this are still stuck
in that self-employment quadrant and it's hard to get out of that quadrant.
But the only way to do that is to create systems and processes for yourself.
And that's what like the Emith talks about is agreed.
Creating the systems and processes to duplicate yourself
and to streamline your business.
I always compare everything that I do now to like, I mean,
look at Chick-fil-A, right?
They do chicken.
You want it on a, on a bun, you want it in strips, you want it in nuggets.
You want it fried or grilled.
That's it.
It's your options.
Specialized chicken, we could even argue whether that's even
the best chicken sandwich.
Doesn't matter.
It's how they make other people feel and they streamline their process.
It doesn't matter if that they got a three rings around the building
for a drive-through, they're still slinging chicken out the door.
Local Chick-fil-A
is extremely busy at all times.
I, yeah, the story resonates with me.
I get so frustrated when the kids want Chick-fil-A.
It's right by the interstate, so it's like 20 minutes.
I mean, it is very fast.
Like compared to like, if you go to like the, another drive through Chick-Fil-A
runs a lot faster, but the Lion's always longer, so I I feel you there.
Yeah, well they're, they just, they made a niche, right?
They said we're doing chicken sandwiches and chicken stuff and
they systematize it so well that yes, they have like a franchise.
You should always be building your business as if you were going to sell it.
So why not build it like in a franchise model to where it's that, I don't wanna
say that dumb, but it's that easy, right?
I love this guy.
I love
this guy.
I think this guy is tremendous.
He's speaking my language,
he's speaking my love language.
I,
I wanna ask you a question, Brad, that I think, like Peter and I have asked
this many times to like other owners that we've talked to and even on like
some of our group coaching calls, like on like the trade wrap side.
Why would a plumber do business with you versus I I'm sure there's plenty
of competitors inside your market now.
Like
I, you know, I love that question.
I get that a lot.
Um, and it also, when it comes to sales, I get that a lot too, cuz
people actually ask that question.
So like anyone, we all have competition.
I don't care if it's the cheapest guy in town, the most expensive guy
in town, I be completely honest, I am not the cheapest guy in town,
nor do I ever want to be, right.
Price is only a factor in the absence of value.
So that's what we strive for.
So if you're gonna use me as a, as a plumber to use me over somebody else
would be that I understand your business.
I understand that every hour that that vehicle is off the
road, you're losing money.
So I have a streamlined process to get your design done, to get your prints
made, get your vehicle here in and out as quickly as possible to get on the
road making money for you so that I'm not just another one of your headaches.
I want you to focus on your business and grow your business.
How was that Pete?
So,
no, I'm gonna more vehicles.
I'm gonna ask you a un even
tougher question now.
Okay.
They're never tough.
Hit me.
Couple
of weeks back.
We had a special
guest on this, on this show who was also in your line
of work.
Okay.
Mr.
Dan
Antonelli from
Kick Charge.
Oh yes.
Yeah, I've worked with him a couple times.
Yeah.
Okay.
So.
Um, let's, let me ask this question as in only, the only way I know
how, why would I pick you over
him?
Oh, plain and simple.
I'm not a design firm.
Oh, well then I'm not giving you my business.
Right.
I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a wrap company that does wraps.
Dan is a design firm.
Love it.
Love the answer.
So do you have, do you have any designers on your team?
Yeah.
No, we definitely do.
We're able, so this is the big difference between like what he does and what we do.
Right?
So Dan does very, very well at shaping.
We, we exchanged all the time.
We're at the same trade shows and everything.
So he does, has done a very good job at creating branding, right?
And that's what he does.
If you want branding, that's gonna be your guy.
But not everybody wants branding.
So if you'd want us to do vehicle wrap design for you, not branding,
vehicle wrap design for you, we can help you in that dynamic.
But either way, you can even bring your own design to us after you
get the design done from him.
We're here to print and install for you nationwide.
Okay?
Fair enough.
Yes, you're right.
Not everybody needs branding, especially from a franchise perspective.
Like you mentioned earlier, they already have it established,
right?
Yeah.
I mean, people should have good branding, don't get me wrong.
But not everybody wants to go through that process and I'm not, and again, and
I'll and, and to that, I'll tell you why.
Cuz when I first started out with trade wraps, I was actually.
Similar to Dan where I was, I was probably a little bit more snooty.
I was like, you know if cuz I'm a designer first, right?
Right.
So I was like, well if I don't, if I don't do the design, I'm not gonna
do your rap because I can't have you driving around with a shitty design.
You know?
And back then, like the designs that people love, the H V A C
world, were like the fire, the ice and throwing a lion too, why not?
Right.
So, or a bald eagle or some shit like that.
Right?
So it was like these atrocious designs, right.
And I would just be like, I'm not doing that for you because I didn't
design it and I didn't put my spin on it and that kind of stuff.
Right.
And I remember there was a day that, it was a morning, I was sitting at a
stoplight here and I was struggling that week I was in survival mode.
And I recently, a couple, about a couple weeks before that, I turned
away a guy who wanted fire, ice and some other shit in there, right?
And I'm like, nah, I'm not doing it.
And I see four van wraps go through the intersection of of,
of that company.
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
And I had to, I made a decision at that point like, am I in the design
business or am I in the wrap business?
Because I could have done those wraps and gotten paid today.
So I just let people know how I feel.
Like I'd be like, look man, this is a great design or this isn't a great design.
It's up to you to let us change it for you.
Cuz we have some customers that are with us that are massive companies.
They've done massive amount of work's, gotten hundreds of vehicles from us.
And I'm, in my opinion, their design is definitely not the best design.
But they still grow and they still buy vehicle wraps from us.
So am I gonna turn them away?
No, cuz I'm in the wrap business.
So that's the big difference between us.
I
see.
And, and you wanna know something?
That last statement is pretty much it.
It spells why you're, why you have been successful in this next venture here.
Because once you realize, and, and trust me, I, oh, I was right there with you.
I didn't wanna do a wrap if I, if I didn't design it.
I think any, there are a lot of us out there, I think even maybe
the majority of us don't wanna do a wrap if we don't design it.
Okay.
I mean, because again, who wants to put that People are seeing
that come outta your shop, you're putting that on your portfolio page.
People, you're putting that on your social media.
Do you really want to show off, like
text everywhere and
you know, like, let's put your email address on the wrap.
Like, no, like, just, just no, just no.
Leave it alone.
Like I, yeah, I, I've been there.
I know exactly what you're saying.
And to tell you the truth.
I think the industry that you chose to be in the trades is what led you down
that decision, because you are right that HVAC company, Hey, guess what?
They're only focused on one thing too, and that's growing their business.
Mm-hmm.
And there's more and more people, and I actually know this more than
most people, but I, there's more and more people looking for HVAC
work and looking for plumbing work.
And if they grow another vehicle or two a year, who gives a crap
what their wrap looks like?
That's business.
That's money in your pocket.
Yeah.
You know, I don't like the way that Neighborly announces their wrap on,
you know, whatever brand that they're putting out these days or whatever
brand, like One Hour Heating and Cooling.
Or Benjamin Franklin, I think Benjamin Franklin's got one
of the ugliest reps out there.
Right?
But who the hell, who
the hell cares when they have 500 locations and each location
having four, five trucks?
Who the hell cares?
That's business.
So for
that, my printer, my printer's print blue.
That's right.
They, they
sure do.
They sure do.
All right.
So trade
wraps.com.
That's how our viewer, that's how our viewers, our viewers and listeners can,
can, can get in touch with you here.
Check it out.
If you ever in need of, of any type of wholesale printing and wrap and
install, go see Brad over@tradewraps.com.
Now, let's get over that and let's get onto this new thing here, and
I'm so eager to hear all about it.
Now that we've heard a lot of your journey, tell us how and why you
got into developing this unique tool
and software for yourself.
Well, you know, like I'm always trying to be the best at what I do, right?
And whenever there's a problem in my business, and I'm sure other people
can relate to this, but whenever there's a problem here, I can always
drive it back to communication.
Right.
There's some form of communication was not done properly, or we didn't
communicate properly, customer didn't communicate properly, and
that's why we have a problem.
So I've grown my business up until this point been what I feel like is successful
enough, but it's, it's not enough.
Like it needs to go more.
But communication still is always a thing.
And I've never had a CRM before.
I've had a, I've had a software forever.
I have like the old school series to do all my production work and
thank God we're moving on from that.
But I have, I have the old school series for all my production work,
but I've never had an actual crm.
So like, if I, what's wrong with that Old, old school series?
What's wrong with old school series?
I mean,
how long ago has it been since it's 1995?
How many years is that?
I know almost 30.
30.
Like that's, that's the technology is 1995.
It looks like Windows 95.
Man.
It's, it doesn't, doesn't integrate with anything.
So anyways, sorry, Sears, um, still like, so I've never, it's, I've never
had an actual cr just pile on the
lawsuits, man, just pile on the defamation lawsuits here.
I've never had an actual CRM that would actually like, be able to quantify doing
sales and communicating with my customers.
Like I've looked at things like podium so that I could like text
back and forth with my customers.
And I think Podium wanted to charge me like 600 bucks a
month or something to do that.
And so much more per user.
And that's only for like texting and reputation management, which isn't
a bad option, but it's just another software that we have to log into.
And I got tired of adding all these additional software.
So what we've done is, um, I started working on a CRM for myself.
And creating that for trade wraps.
Because when I look at other CRMs that are out there, they're
geared towards like tint shops.
They're geared towards like car manufacturers and they kind of do some
of this, but they don't do this and then they kind of do this, but then
they want to charge you a hundred dollars per user over here and just
racks up a high bill real quick.
So started going down that journey.
Um, I found somebody else, his name is Brett Knott, he's down in Florida.
Um, he's in the rap and tint game as well and he was doing
the same thing for his shop.
We were comparing notes and um, started kind of working
together on some stuff there.
And then through the people that I coach, cuz I do my own business
consulting, business coaching, uh, for people in our industry.
Um, they were asking me like, what CRM are you using?
And I'm like, oh, I'm kind of making my own.
And they we're like, Hey, can we buy this?
And so we ended up making it into a business and we're calling it Torque, C
r M, which is uh, T O R Q, torque crm.
And so what this does is it brings in all your two-way texting, your recorded
phone calls, your emails, any of your social media conversations, whether
it's Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and even a web chat, a
live web chat all into one inbox.
And then on top of that, it helps, you know, manage your pipeline, automates
everything else that you're doing, um, helping you make sales that way through
the pipelines and the automations there.
And it replaces about $2,000 worth of subscriptions cuz it even has
built in things like, uh, email campaigns, social media planners,
blog posting, tons of stuff here, man.
Uh, you can make your own websites in it.
Um, web chat features.
And more really, like we're integrating all the AI stuff in there as well.
It's fantastic.
It's been a fantastic tool for my business and the people that are using it right
now are having so much fun using it.
So
it like, getting into software is like a different jump, is it, is like
a completely different industry and like I've, oh, I've, I've been here.
Like, did you have any like, apprehension about this or was it
just like, Hey, like the people that I'm working with or coaching
are like, Hey, they need, this was,
well exactly that.
So yes, I had apprehension with it.
Like anything, right?
Like I have, I do, so I do coaching, I have real estate and I have this,
so I have my hands full already.
So to open up another business was like, do I even have time for this?
This what I want to do.
Numbers look good.
But the main thing is, I get to help people.
Like that's why I do coaching in the first place is because I get to help people.
Cause I wanna be, the guy I wish was there for me.
So the driving force for this was to put this out there for it's easy, accessible
for anyone else who's starting their business and can actually control their
communication with their customer and actually have them help 'em do sales.
Like why not increase your sales game?
Make more money.
Yeah.
I would, I would argue, yeah,
that, like, I, I agree with you that 99% of shops that I talk to, like the
communication, even just like after they've taken an order, is not, not great.
Like after the sale, it is a good place to like fix your communication.
But, but even prior to the sale, like how many shops out there aren't getting
back to leads within like 24 hours, let
alone just a couple of hours?
Oh yeah.
So I've, I've built in automations to actually do that.
So as like a lead comes in, for instance, any, when a lead comes in from any
junction, it then it's on a timer, right?
And to, if my salespeople don't sell it within this 24 hour period,
then it automatically starts following back up with that customer.
You know, we have built in power dialers for you to like go down and
call a bunch of people at one time.
We have automatic reminders that will go out and this is all
customized to you and your business.
That's what I like about it cuz like your business, my
business, we're all different.
Even a wrap business to a wrap business, we all sell differently.
We do things differently.
And a lot of these CRMs you have to buy and then you have to morph
your business around what it can do.
This one morphs to you.
And so it's all completely customizable there.
So like we used to have a problem with like having people drop off on time,
their vehicle on time, which really messes with our schedule when we're
trying to get people out the door.
So now we have automations built in to where if we put you on our
install schedule, it sends you confirmation texts and email.
And then it reminds you the day before text and email to drop off.
There's dropoff instructions, there's clicks to the funnels that
actually tell you what our dropoff policies are, that type of things.
Um, then there's follow-ups after that.
So in doing that, we've definitely increased our dropoff on timeness.
I guess we haven't really had any problems since implementing that.
How, how
long were you running this in your own business before you were like, Hey, let's
spin this out, or, or was that like the intention from day one of like, Hey, we're
gonna spend this out into its own thing?
The intention from day one was definitely not to spin it out.
Um, it was definitely to build it for us.
To use it for us.
Um, and even now, whatever I do to it, I'm building it for the
betterness of, of me, honestly.
Everybody else just kind of gets those benefits of whenever I'm trying to do
some new feature with ai, like we have conversational AI coming out soon.
This is gonna be huge.
But building it that way has definitely been, was built for us.
And then of course to give to other people as well.
Yeah, I, I think there's a lot to be said for that of like,
scratching your own itch.
Uh, and I could see why that would be valuable.
Like if you've got a working model for a wrap shop as working well for you, like
90% chance that it's gonna work well for another rap shop in a different location.
Yeah, no, it definitely has.
You know, everybody, we had, all the people that I was coaching, we had come
and do a beta test with us for a while and they got massive success with it so far.
And I mean, like I said, the, the best form about it to me
is the communication part.
It does so much more, like it does a much on the marketing
side, but the communication, the reputation management is fantastic.
So now when somebody says, like for instance, I'd be like, Hey,
did you call that guy back?
Yeah, totally did.
And I'd be like, did he really call that guy back?
Yeah, totally did.
What'd they say?
Oh, they said, uh, no thanks, like they don't want it.
Well now I can go and listen to the conversation and I can give them critiques
so I can see one if they actually really did call the customer back or if they
did text the customer or they did email.
Cuz we can all see the same information going back and forth.
Nice.
So
like even, even like the out outbound calls are recorded
and tracked inside the system.
Yep.
So it's definitely helped for training as well.
So like, you know, having salespeople onboard and I think for them, even just
hearing their own voice and how they talk to customers, they've definitely been
upping their game, but also then I'm able to give them pointers back and say, Hey
man, like try this this time instead of like talking like this, talk like this, or
you gave 'em the wrong information here or you gave 'em the right information here.
So we can definitely do some coaching based off that too.
Nice.
What um, how long were you guys in like development for this?
I asked for my own.
Purposes, cause I've got like a couple of, of software
projects in the works right now.
Is it no CRM though?
Is it ever outta, is it ever out of development?
It's, it's never not, but it's never done.
Yeah.
How long do
they take you guys to get to the point where like, Hey, this is
working well for us, let, let's take it and launch it for other people?
I'd probably say about six hard months.
Six hard months.
Lots of nights, lots of weekends.
Um, even still now, lots of nights and lots of weekends.
We rolled it out to our beta team.
It definitely was not smooth with our beta team cuz they were so eager to get it.
I kept trying to push it off and they were, they were just
like, Brad, I want this now.
Like, I need to use this now.
And I'd be like, Hey.
And you know, of course I'd be telling 'em like, Hey look, I just made this.
Like, it's so cool.
I didn't, wasn't meaning to tease them with it, but like, it was
probably coming off as a tease.
And so they're like, just, just give it to me.
Just give it.
Definitely our first couple people that we onboarded was disastrous, but you
know, obviously we learned from that.
We move on.
Okay.
How many people
do you have
on the platform now?
Um, I think we're about up to 30 right now, so we're still just
getting started with everything.
So we have about 30 users on the platform and obviously we're looking to expand
and help everybody else any way we can.
We have reviews coming in for it, which is great.
We're still working on perfecting even our own website.
Um, but we just, we're getting so much feedback from what the people want and we
wanna still keep working on the product itself and keep continuing to grow it,
add more features, that type of thing.
Okay.
What does, uh, what does your pricing look
like, Brad?
So we have like three different tier pricings, like most things.
So we have like a basic, if you just wanna use it just for communication, like if
you just wanna use the texting and all the forms of communication with the recorder,
phone calls, you can create your own automations and those types of things.
You're looking at 1 97 a month.
And then if you want some of our templates, you know, like if you
wanna jumpstart and have us come in and install like commercial rap
templates, um, personal rap templates or tint stuff, if you guys do tint,
like we got templates for that already set up, then you're probably looking
at, um, 2 97 a month right there.
And then we have our hire two package, which is 3 97 a month.
And that's like us coming in and actually building it out, all custom for you.
And there's a setup fee involved with that one.
It's about $3,000.
Depends on like how big of a shop you are and how much customization you want.
But the big thing here that I love that I wanted to add to this, that I
actually absolutely hated for other CRMs, we don't have a user limit on there
and we're not charging you for users.
So if you have a shop of 10 people right now and they all need to
be on this platform, that's what your monthly fee's gonna be.
It's not gonna be.
I like that, you know, oh, it's $200.
It's, it's not this low.
Like, hey, it's $99 a month, but then it's, you know, a hundred
dollars a month after that for every user you put on there.
Yeah.
I like that.
Right.
Just like having been on the other side of that, like paying per
user e especially when you've got different roles within a shop, right?
You, you, ideally you want everybody on your team to be in
the same platform, but mm-hmm.
Some of those people are gonna use that more than others, but it's
still like, I feel like some, some platforms penalize you based on that.
Yeah.
Well, like one of the best automations that we made we're
actually one of the simplest ones.
How many of you guys have a missed call?
Yeah.
Every single day, right?
So if you think about what your average ticket is, right?
If you miss a call, that's whatever that average ticket is.
So for me, like the average vehicle wrap for me is about 4,500 bucks, right?
So if I miss a call, that's an easy 4,500 bucks right there that I'm missing out on.
And I used to never know if somebody actually even called them back.
Right.
So that could just be lost sales right there.
So what we have is you have an automation built in to where it can tell if that is
a new person calling in and there's a 50 50 chance that it's like somebody trying
to sell you a car warranty or Right.
Or business funding.
It's a $4,500 sale.
Right.
Or to whatever your average ticket is.
So we have it, so if it misses the call, it texts them back and
it starts to engage with them.
It's like, Hey, thanks for calling trade wraps.
Sorry we missed your call.
How can we help?
And it just starts a texting conversation.
And what it also then does is it assign for me, it assigns it to a couple
salespeople and then they have to return that call just in case it was a landline.
They have to re actually call that person back within 24 hours.
Okay.
I
curious, since you brought up text messaging like.
On the wrap side, like trade wraps, like how, how much business do you guys do
through text messaging now versus email?
You know, I absolutely love it because I, you know, so I'm big on,
we sell business to business, right?
And so I used to see all these people out there that were like, yeah, texting back
and forth with their customers and stuff.
And obviously that would have to be done on your phone.
So I either have to give everybody phones or they're using their personal
phones, which you definitely don't want.
Yeah.
Talking to your customers and then you have no access
to any of that stuff, right?
And still makes everything flow through you.
So I actually thought that, hey, no, we're business to business.
Like they don't want to text, they want to email.
That's more professional, right?
I gotta be honest, ever since we started texting people through this
platform, they have been so much more responsive through texting.
Like we could just text somebody right now and they're just
so quick to get back to us.
Whether it's an estimate, whether it's taking a payment, whether it's just like,
Hey, you're dropping it off today, right?
Oh, yep.
On my way right now.
It's been fantastic.
The rate of business, like actually even like our web chat, right?
Have you guys ever used a web chat on your website before?
Uh, on the Better Sign Shop website?
Yes.
On any website, right?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right.
Usually it's like a portal and it's like a sell whole separate
app you have to log into.
Oh, and it's like a portal, right?
And then like once you, once you go onto it, they're usually gone, right?
And if they're gone, then you kind of miss out on it.
So what this does is it creates a form, so the web chat actually draws
them into a texting conversation.
So, Gotcha.
And so now if they walk down the street or they're in another country, whatever, like
we can still have our communication here.
So the texting has definitely upped our game big time.
Nice,
nice.
I, Mike and I harped on this.
Hey, how long ago was it, Mike?
We did the shop management software episode where we just
waxed for like an hour and a half.
But like for anybody out there, I, I just want to get your take on it of like the
cost of building your own system versus like buying something that's already made.
Like, talk to me about that side of it.
Like, I think you're in like a unique position because you've actually built
it, you started building your own system and now you're selling that system.
But like, well, and this is maybe six hard months and then, but like I, for everybody
that's out there thinking of like, Hey, we're gonna build something ourselves.
I, I wanna deter them from that because too often it's like they don't, they
underestimate the, the effort involved.
I'm gonna, I melted my brain for six hard months.
I'm still melting my brain.
I'm, like I said, I don't consider myself like book smart, but I
can learn anything but this.
That's a whole realm that I had no idea what the hell I was doing
and there was a lot of trial and error with it, that's for sure.
I definitely pissed off some of my customers trying stuff out.
Definitely had some of that go on, but you know, it's, I when
it's just like how I talked to my plumbing and H V C customers, right?
I got very good at understanding what value is on how to skip time.
Like the big thing for us is we need to condense time.
We need to stop thinking about swapping time for money and
get those results faster.
That's why, like I said, I hired plenty of coaches in my day now and some
of them were very specialized into.
I'm just gonna go ahead and hire a hiring coach, right?
And he's gonna teach me everything I need to know about hiring
and just get that done, right?
Instead of going to a general business coach or going to a school, like,
we're just gonna go right there.
So I'm at the point now where like, I understand value very heavily.
So if I have the opportunity just to buy something already done, that
gets me to what I want to get to faster so I can focus on growing my
business, I'm totally down for it.
It's just the value has to be there and if the value's there, I have
no problem spending the money.
That's a great answer.
So for all the, the smaller guys or even some of the larger guys
that are still stuck in that box in your head that I have to do it,
let go, grow your business, focus
on one or two things at a
time.
Yeah.
And six.
And like, so one of the features that we put in there was, um, you
guys never used Kajabi before.
Mm.
I've heard of it.
No, I don't.
It like the, like an online learning platform type of
deal.
Yeah.
So at some point in time you guys are probably paid for a class and you had
to show up to these, like online class and it was like a video and some text
below on how to do whatever, some supporting documents, things like that.
It was probably built out of something like Kajabi.
So we put that in here as well.
And so like in six months time, like you're talking about like building
yourself in six months time, could you, instead of building out a platform for
yourself, could you actually take that six months and apply it to building training
for your customers or for your, in your employees to help further your business
forward and have onboarding a lot faster?
That's where I put my effort on.
Agreed.
Cool guys, do you, do you, Pete, Mike, do you have any questions on the, the
signage thing before we wrap this up?
Or, I'm sorry, not the signage thing, but the tort, uh, the CRM thing.
I have a
mission for Brad.
Not really related work, but
So, sounds like you started out your career not being much of a business
person, kinda hating the business side of things and making a lot of
mistakes there, but seems like now you're kind of a business geek and
you really, really seem to enjoy it.
Do you, are you enjoying the business side of the industry more now or do you
miss days where you were just sitting there making cool shit all day long,
not dealing with the business at all?
That's a, that's an excellent question because if you asked me years ago that
question, I probably would say, no, I want to go back and do my art right.
I wanna wrap a vehicle or design something.
You ha if you've started a business, you owe it to yourself or, and it also
depends on whatever your vision is, right?
If you want to, if you want to be self-employed, you
should just go ahead and.
Work for somebody else.
Cause otherwise there's too much risk involved being self-employed and
you get none of the upside benefits.
Like you don't, so you might as well just go work for somebody else.
So if you're not gonna jump to that business quadrant, then don't.
But your vision has to be what you, what you're trying to accomplish.
And for where I wanted to go, what I wanted to take and bring up the
people that I wanted to bring up, it requires more than just me.
And so it was hard for me because I am, I am a very artistic person, so
details on art side are great, but like numbers and data and all that
kind of stuff is super boring to me.
Straight up, honestly.
Right?
Super boring.
But I've had to learn to be that guy to understand what growth is.
And so that's not my natural tendencies, but I would say yes, I do love
business more because I understand it more and the more, and it's never
something that I'm fully done learning.
And the more I learn about it is the more that I can push home how I'm gonna
actually drive this business forward.
Yeah.
There was a, there was another podcast I was listening to.
I can't even remember the podcast now, but like, just a week ago,
that tells you how bad my memory is.
Or it could be that I've got three little girls that it put
all these gray hairs on my head.
But I was listening, like the thing that I took away from the podcast, and
this person was like, successful in buying like, super boring businesses,
like plumbers that were trying to retire and, and just mm-hmm.
You know, totally away from tech and like, anything remotely crazy exciting.
Uh, but they, they said, uh, this, this is what really stuck with me
was like, if you're gonna be in the game, learn to love the game.
Like, just, just playing the game.
Uh, and it like, it, it reminded me of kind of like a, like the Michael Jordan,
like, uh, The, the documentary and stuff.
And I can remember when I watched that of just like how competitive that
guy was with, with just everything.
And you know, I think there's something to that of being able to
like, get yourself up for whatever it is that you're, you're doing.
Like just, just being able to keep yourself interested in the game.
So even if you don't necessarily enjoy it at first, like keep yourself in
the game, keep playing the game until you know you've got that respect or
you, you've got that fire for it.
And like, strikes me, you have to become obsessed.
Like you're that type of guy of like, hey, like I hated all this
stuff, but like now, like Mike said, you seem like you enjoy it.
Uh, at least you enjoy talking about it.
Um,
well, of course.
And, and I watched that documentary as well and I definitely
had big takeaways from it.
Um, That I could apply in business as well.
And the key takeaways from that is to become obsessed, right?
But one of the key points of that is, even in Michael Jordan's situation there, who
you are today is not who's gonna get you there or where you're trying to go, right?
So we need to change who we are to get where we're going.
So if you're trying to grow an actual business, and you wanna be a business
owner, you need to be that person now.
So like when Michael Jordan was trying to go for that next round of championships,
he had to be completely different.
There was a, they did a whole segment on like, oh, they made a big deal.
He's lifting weights now.
He's never lifting weights up until that point, right?
Like, he's lifting weights now.
He has to be somebody different to actually achieve them.
He has to attract different people, right?
So that's what we have to do in business as
well.
Well said, well said.
So, uh, as we transition to a close here, Brad, like what's,
what's the future for you?
What's the future for me?
Well, uh, future for me is to continue to, I just, I can't stop growing,
you know, I gotta keep growing.
Everything.
Like taking trade wraps to another level is where I'm at right now.
Um, I wanna get torque into as many hands as possible to help
their business as much as possible.
And I just wanna, conti, continue to keep contributing out there.
And
a like the last question I got, which is always a tough one, what
do you wanna be remembered for?
Ooh, what do I wanna be remembered for?
I wanna be, like I said in the beginning here, I want to be the
guy that I wish was there for me.
Cuz when I was down and feeling, thank you, thank, when I was down and feeling
like after that million dollar mark I told you, I hit that plateau of, I
hit the million dollars and there was nothing there for me and nothing changed.
I was very lost.
And I thought I was gonna creep back down this whole failure route again.
And when I looked around, like I'm very envious of the H V C plumbing
industry cuz if you, and I wanted to start one of those businesses today.
There are plenty of coaches, there are plenty like kind of businesses in a box to
help get you up to where you need to be.
And it's, I'm not gonna say it's easy, but they have a lot more resources
than like what our industry has.
And specifically even just my, like the, the wrap industry.
Like there's not a lot of people out there that have systems and processes down to
grow and train installers and businesses that are actually business oriented.
Right?
And so I had to go outside of that.
So I wanted to be the guy that I wish was there for me.
Yeah.
Well said.
It was very nice.
Nice sentiment.
Cool.
Been a great conversation.
I've, I've really enjoyed, um, like hearing you talk about your journey.
Uh, if people are interested in torque crm, is it, what's the website?
How can they reach out?
The website is toric crm.com.
It's t O R Q cm.com.
You can definitely click on the link there and, uh, schedule a demo.
We'll do a live demo for you.
Um, again, or if you just wanna have a conversation, you know, I'm
always down to have conversations with people cause I'm always trying
to grow and give back as well.
Excellent.
Well, Brad, we uh, appreciate having you on, man.
I really appreciate you taking the time out.
Been enjoyed.
Well, thank you again.
Thank you gentlemen.
Thanks Brad.
Take care
bud.
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