The LFG Show
Talking with movers and shakers who grew up with nothing and worked their asses off to achieve success. Let's 🤬 Go!!!!
The LFG Show
School’s for Fools? | Keith Regan on Home Direct Marketing & Why Trade Schools Make Millionaires
Join Our Community At thelfgshow.net #NoMoneyNoHoney 🐻🍯
🎥 Ready to dive into the future of the home improvement industry and discover why skilled trades are the new gold rush? This episode of *The LFG Show* is a must-watch! Keith Regan, a seasoned pro who’s seen it all—from yellow pages to digital dominance—joins us to break it all down.
Here’s what’s in store:
🔧 Why trades like plumbing, HVAC, and roofing are **minting millionaires** and reshaping career paths.
💡 How private equity is transforming the game, offering **business owners profitable exits** while highlighting the growing demand for skilled labor.
📈 Insider tips on **scaling your business**, leveraging AI, and building partnerships that drive growth.
🌐 The resurgence of websites as dynamic tools for engagement and achieving **high lead-to-appointment conversions**.
Keith shares personal stories and pro insights, giving you the keys to unlock success in this evolving industry. Don’t just survive—**thrive** in the home improvement game!
🚨 **Looking for high-performing leads?** 🚨
Visit [leads.homedirectmarketing.com](https://leads.homedirectmarketing.com) to see how **Home Direct Marketing**, a Connection Holdings company, can deliver top-notch leads for roofing, HVAC, plumbing, and more. Your business deserves a partner that gets results!
👉 **Subscribe now** to *The LFG Show* and join the LFG community at [thelfgshow.net](https://thelfgshow.net). Let’s build, grow, and dominate together because remember: **#NoMoneyNoHoney** 💸
💬 Drop a comment and tell us your thoughts on this episode!
📲 Hit that bell icon to stay updated with more powerhouse content.
#TheLFGShow #TradeSchoolSuccess #HomeImprovement #LeadGen #AffiliateMarketing #Entrepreneurship #SkilledTrades
We'll see you next time, all covered. We're talking to guys with cash in for billions with a, b and the best thing is we're just getting started. So hold on tight. We're about to crank it up a notch. Get ready for next level networking and masterminds within the LFG community. Scare money, don't make no money or honey. Hit the subscribe button, drop a like, leave a comment and let's fucking go. Day number two roof con. We're ending with this thing with a bang. We're talking with the vp of biz dev at connection holdings and home direct marketing keith hey thanks for having me man.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Great to have you on here. Keith has been in the home improvement space for a very, very long time. How long has it been?
Speaker 2:Shit, dude, you're making me sound old man. I started selling yellow pages back in the day in home improvements.
Speaker 1:Wow, what was it like? What were the vertical subcategories?
Speaker 2:You know what Mostly plumbers, HVAC companies and kitchen and bath became big and then, fortunately, I got to sit on the other side and run a couple of home improvement companies myself.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, oh yeah, you've seen it. So what do you think has been the change and the space from? I mean, what year was this? By the way, when you first started, I was 96, 98.
Speaker 2:Oh, it was 96, 98.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, yeah, yeah yeah, I thought I was just like 2005, 2008.
Speaker 2:No, no, I was a kid selling yellow pages man. I left college, went right into that shit.
Speaker 1:Wow, so it's been like 28, 30 years, man that's crazy. So you know there was. I want to show you the article in the Wall Street Journal where they're talking about the new class of millionaires. It's not the tech guys and AI guys, which is a lot of them. They send home improvement HVAC, plumbers, roofing 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to tell anybody out there. Send your kids, don't send them to college. Send them to trade school Roofers, plumbers, electricians Think about this Electricians. Right now, with EV coming so big, I want my kid to go to school, become an electrician. Everyone's going to have an e-big charging station, even if they're not solar. It just makes sense.
Speaker 1:That's a bold statement you said, but you know what? It's true, because I'll tell you what happened. We live on the beach in Miami, right? My mother-in-law somehow got sand in her sink two months ago. I don't know. The sink wouldn't work. So my wife calls a plumber. Guy fixed the thing in two or three minutes and listen, that was great. He fixed our issue. How much do you think we paid for that? For a sink yeah, Four yeah you're pretty accurate, it was $480.
Speaker 1:Now, don't get me wrong. I mean, we're in Miami, everything's over, it's crazy. But $480 for three minutes worth of work, I'm like my God man no-transcript did it herself, took like an hour she did. She's like I'm not paying 500 this time. But the point is though, it's true. I mean there's uh, there I was talking with ed pain you know about, you know what he's doing. The roofing industry roofs in a box. But skill it's called skilled labor is what it is. You know that that's skilled in the, the, the crafts is what it is.
Speaker 2:It's like a dying art in america now no, I think what's happening now, like I had a I'll leave the name out, but I had a plumber out in california that I used to do business with and he, he was just smart business guy. He immigrated from mexico, didn't go to, didn't go to college, didn't finish school, but he used to drop his kids off in the plumbing truck at a school with professional basketball players. You know what I mean. He'd be like they're going to see how dad made his money. When you ask what's changed, I think there's a difference where it's not chucking the truck anymore.
Speaker 2:These companies are getting. They're coming to conventions like this, they're getting educated. They're doing things like EOS and stuff like that. They're educated. They're doing things like like eos and stuff like that. They're doing these, these kind of getting brought together and learning best practices, and then they take them back and it's like you go into, you go into. Guys might maybe had five or six trucks two years ago. Now he's got a war room, 50 trucks, 20 different tvs, dispo reports going, comparing today to yesterday, today, this, this date to last year, this date, and they learned. It's pretty wild.
Speaker 1:They're operating like a real business right, yeah 100%, and that's what the article was talking about in the Wall Street Journal, how these guys they're making good money, they're making a few hundred thousand a year, but the business is kind of like a mess and they're nonstop working. They can't enjoy their weekend. So what's going on is private equity. These hedge funds are putting a lot of money into the space and they're they're, they're giving them like a six X, eight X exit, and now they're they're selling the company for three. They're going to check for three to 5 million and they still get to be part of the company. So they get a nice salary and they get. A second bite of the apple is what's going on. You know I'm in Arizona, right? You?
Speaker 2:can't live without an HVAC. All these companies they build this reoccurring monthly revenue model. Venture capital comes in. They'll buy it at 25 times the monthly. And you see a guy, that's you know cool dude you went to high school with maybe didn't go to college ran an HVAC company. After five or six years of working for somebody else. Now you see him right in the hall. He's saying oh, I just sold my company for 15 million. I got two years left with the company and I'm consulting for somebody else.
Speaker 1:It's it when you say that article, it's true, tradesman, probably all generation of millionaires. Yeah, it's the. That's really the American dream at the end of the day. But I think a lot of the younger generation, you know they're, they're accustomed to being on the phone. You're doing the work that way instead of getting their hands dirty and doing what they got to do. But if you go back and it's good for the economy at the end of the day, if we can get back to that, think about the manufacturing boom that happened in America. Right, I know we had a tech boom. The tech boom was good. It was good in the sense that, yeah, it created jobs and made people. You know, it helped improve our lives.
Speaker 2:But then people the so because I got a bad name. You know, you think of a plumber crack. You don't think of the plumber, that's true. Yeah, you don't think of the plumber going out to morton's every night. Yeah, you know what I mean, but that's where they're at there is a new endeavor called roofs.
Speaker 1:In the box it's just man from day one.
Speaker 4:It's taken off when I first started getting in the roofing industry, what was happening was my fixed costs were always there, and so for me I was looking at how can we, kind of one, save on these costs? And then, two, how do I not lay people off during down times? But also maybe even the ability to pocket more money during the slow season or even the peak season. Since we've done this before, like with our Legion companies where we have virtual staffing and from Argentina or Columbia, I'm like why don't we do the same thing in the construction business? Now, once we figured it out, we reduced their fixed costs by 70%, and so now during the downtime they have real, seasoned, veteran type of players, but during the uptime they pocket. 70% of their operational costs are now going back in their pocket, and then, when it's time to scale, you have the back end prepared, already ready to go to help them lift off.
Speaker 4:Depending on what state you're in, you're averaging about 12.5% percent on what you pay out on taxes, insurance, like all the different insurances that you have to pay out, right, so, yeah, you don't have to pay out unemployment, you don't have to pay out bike insurance, medicare, social Security the things that business owners have to eat. Roofs to Box is not just limited to roofing or home improvement companies. You can use it for any services, right? You can use it for it. We use them internally for data cells, for hygiene, for analytics.
Speaker 1:It doesn't even matter what the vertical is like business in the box at the end of the day, pretty much yeah, let's talk about home direct marketing and what you're seeing work with with the clients there I think so.
Speaker 2:Here's what's cool. I I've dealt with a lot of different industries, right, but home directs focus mainly right now on bathroom remodel, like wet surface type areas. You know what I mean it's like for, like plumbing, you don't need permits. These guys are in and out in three days. They get funded like that. It's quick. You know windows, roofing, siding, gutters, basements, flooring, those type of things. It seems like the businesses are more educated. You know what I mean. They they use robust crms. A lot of them use sales for daily dispositions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, service.
Speaker 2:Tighten that. Oh, you see, over here a lot of them are using these crms where they could spit out dispositions automatically. Yeah, some of the industries. It's hard to get somebody to give you a dispo report. Yeah, and then what's great about these companies is they won't just give you, like, lead to appointment and then a sale. They'll give you what happened in between the journey. Was it confirmed? Did it demo, did it?
Speaker 2:You know what's the lead to sale where, as somebody that's providing a service with a lead for them, I can, if I can get into the weeds, I can say hey, you know what, in Texas you're killing it because your reps are sitting there appointments. But let's say, in Louisiana you got a high confirmation but a low demo. What's going on there? Is it the people there or what's happening different? So you could actually, as a lead provider you don't want to be the guy that they just look at and say, hey, give me the lead. I make an appointment and here's what it costs for me to sell it. I can get back in and say, okay, if my lead's bad, I'm going to work with you on it, but if you've got a bad sales rep, I'm going to point it out to you. You know what I mean. So it's like it levels the playing field and you become an extension of that business instead of just being like some guy slinging leads on the side of the road.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that, so you're like a true partner rather than just another lead vendor.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, no, people have an ego. They don't want you to tell them how to run their business. I don't want to be told either, but when you could point out a hole. You know what I mean when someone's saying my cost per acquisition on a roof in Texas is so much higher than it is in Louisiana, and then you're like well, your cost per sale is also higher, so your sales price is higher. Of course, your cost per acquisition is going to be higher. You know what I mean. Interesting it's, it's different because you do feel like you're a part of that business and that stickiness gives you a customer for, you know, five, seven years until they decide to grow it and sell it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know so what do you think makes a difference between success and failure with, uh, with a lead, lead partner, like home direct marketing and and an actual buyer a roofing company or a bathroom remodel company, I think I think you know, like, as someone providing that service, I know right off the bat, within the first week, I'm like this isn't someone I should have brought on.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. I'm like I'd rather just cut it, call it a day, because there's not, there's lack of communication. Um, on the flip side, what's successful is those people that give you a dispo report. They look forward to that weekly meeting and it's, it's a ballroom. It's a little bit of a battle. You know, hey, I did good but I could do better here. And you gotta, you gotta take your lumps because it's just like you work for that company. But I, I don't know, I, I get into it, I kind of geek out on it. You know, yeah, it's fun. Yeah, you sit, you sit on an airplane, you're looking at a dispo report and you're like dude, I just found the hole. They got it. They got a weak confirmer because the appointments are getting confirmed but not demoing in this market, and in this market they got a different confirmer and they demo. So that confirmer needs help.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. Yeah, I think it's going one step above right and finding those little gaps that they're not seeing. At the end of the day, whether that's director of marketing or you're dealing with the president of the company, whoever's dealing with that lead gen side, they're busy, they're wearing a million different hats, right, so they're not going to see the stuff that you can actually see, because maybe they're worried about I got to, you know, take care of this, or this fire I got to do. I got payroll coming on tomorrow, so they don't have the time to actually sit down. But, like you're saying, if you're on a plane and or you're just spending, you know, I know you allocate a certain portion of your week. What's going on? They can make that adjustment. Then you're like a real, true partner. They can grow.
Speaker 2:No, and a lot of the companies. You know the owner, like you said, they're wearing a ton of different hats. Sometimes they're even out in the field, even if it's a regional or national company. But the thing is like they'll sit there and they'll look at my spend, my cost per acquisition, and if their internal team team's not sharing what's happening in between, I kind of feel it's up to us right, because with that spend and if it's not bringing in an ROI, then they're like what the hell are we doing business with this guy for?
Speaker 1:And that's a true partnership in the sense that you're looking out for their best interest.
Speaker 2:Their best interest is your best interest, your best partners will bring you to their shows and if they're in a dealer network, like some of the water softening companies or some of the roofing companies or some of the bathroom companies, they'll they'll bring you to their president's club shows and let you speak. Yeah, you know they'll endorse you. They, some of them will even do co-op. Yeah, like, hey, use this guy, we'll give you a discount. And it's just all of a sudden you're like not only am I part of this company, but this guy brought me to a brand.
Speaker 1:Now I'm. They gave me a whole audience, and that's the way it should be. You do a good business. They got your back. They want you to succeed because you helped them succeed or you did something of great value to them.
Speaker 2:No, and then you could take the ups and downs with them, because then it's like hey, that Coca-Cola rule 70% goes to what works, great, 20% is like the newest stuff and 10% you throw shit against the wall, right. So when the market goes differently, when you hit a market like COVID and people thinking everything's going to go down, they start experimenting. And in the home remodeling business dude, I don't know what the boom was. I think people were just stuck in their house for so long. Home remodel went through the roof. People were buying bathroom remodels left and right. You know what I mean? Yeah, you don't want someone in your house, but you're letting them come in to do your bathroom that's how crazy it was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's true, we're in the midst of that, and what I love about it is that it's not a matter. If it's a matter of when you're gonna replace your roof, you have to do something with your windows or your water heater, so it's just, it's just a boom right now and I'm I'm, I'm very happy. I know you're happy, we're happy to be part of that boom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no and I keep wanting to look at, like you know, we have verticals that we're really strong in and we're excited about, but I keep looking at the offsets right, like I love the plumber that comes to the house and fixes something and then he's like, hey, I'm going to do a free analysis and check out. You know, I want to look at see how your water heater is doing. I'm like that you said he comes in for the sink, you spend four, 50. If that guy would have looked all around your house.
Speaker 1:I would have found something else, definitely. I know a lot of you guys. You know a paper call. A lot of you guys have call centers. We got AI in the house. We've got Neil Billick. He's the founder and the CEO of all rise AI. They're doing big things. I'm a user of this service.
Speaker 3:We are coming in immediately for X-ing contact rates for clients. What we found in my BPO when I ran it and deployed the AI was we had 30 second wait times before the deployment between connections and my guys were making about 500 connections a day times 30 seconds. We were wasting 250 minutes a day per head in a call center.
Speaker 3:that's four hours half their day or half their wages being spent on them waiting for a call. The reason your wait times highs when you're calling out you have an abandoned rate. You have to stay under of 3%. That's programmed in your dialer.
Speaker 1:If the AI is weeding, that out, and I think that's the benefit. It's collapsing timeframes helping your top producers produce, which is what you want them to do. People are afraid AI is weeding that out, and I think that's the benefit it's collapsing timeframes helping your top producers produce, which is what you want them to do.
Speaker 3:People are afraid AI is going to replace call center agents, and it may, but right now, use it to maximize your human resources. So, leveraging it for the tools it can be to do exactly what you're saying. Let the humans do what they can do best. Let the AI get cursed out.
Speaker 1:What's working right now with let's take roofing, for we're at RoofCon right. What's working for roofing advertisers right now? Roofing companies, no, I think.
Speaker 2:Web leads. Right now we're seeing anywhere from a 24, depending on the company, right, Because it's all up to them speed to lead and everything but 24 to 28,. 29% lead to appointment, which everything but 24 to 28, 29% lead to appointment, which is solid. You're talking one out of four turning into an appointment. These guys are really solid. Most roofing companies. They get in the door. Their teams are good. When they book an appointment, they know who's coming, when they're coming, why they're coming, Both homeowners are there, there's motivation, they're there to do a service and they close them. So roofing companies are killing it with us. They love it.
Speaker 2:Bathroom. I love bathroom companies because it's if you get and I don't want to say this to the wrong audience, but you get the husband and wife together, yeah, that wife's gonna look at the bathroom a lot more than the husband. And we're seeing, we're seeing if the wife and husband together closing. This is what the guys are telling me like get me appointments where both, both decision makers are there. No single legers, no, no single ladies. And you know it's it.
Speaker 2:We see in bathroom there's a big movement Like people have the hall. You know hall bath. You got like a tub and a shower. You're not going to have guests taking a bath in your living room, you know, right off your hallway. So they're converting those to just walk-in showers. A little bench seat Takes them two days, one day to do it, they're paid quick and they're stoked. So bathroom, bathroom's great. Yeah, and I'm seeing the same thing, man. I'm seeing like, on average, if it's good company, 25% lead to appointment. Bathroom windows, roofing, Flooring I'm excited about. I didn't think flooring was going to be a big, big vertical, but there's a lot of demand for it and it's just Once you get these guys in the house, it's keeping up with the Joneses. Every time one of my companies says they sit an appointment, one out of two is like my neighbor just had it done, 100%. You know what I mean. That's why we filled out the form. My neighbor had it done.
Speaker 1:That's what it is. We also have gutters right siding. There's so many different subcategories within the vertical, which is amazing.
Speaker 2:Dude, I sat on a plane the other day and I just drew on a piece of paper the outside of a house and I'm like holy shit man gutters siding windows roofing, you know I mean the landscape in front. There's so many things. Turf our turbine is big now. Yeah, turf is great, and because it's an energy efficiency too, there's a lot of states that are giving you back rebates on the term. I didn't know that, yeah yeah that's crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it saves you on water, right? So the state, some of the states, will give you. I don't want to quote numbers, but people are like yo I went and got turf and I got money back on my taxes.
Speaker 1:I'm like well, that's good to me, man, that's awesome. Now, what about paper calls?
Speaker 2:inbound calls, inbound calls to me and we're trying to stay ahead of this. Right, I think that's the future of this. I watch this one for one thing going on and everybody's, everybody's scrambling. We were looking at it a year ago, right? So with the one for one, we're like we got that, we got that covered. But there's nothing better than just getting somebody on the phone and having a conversation, and when inbound calls, you always get a buffer, right. So it's not like someone someone calling and saying hey, I just I saw your website and I wanted to look for a job. You're not paying for that. Yeah, you know what I mean Exactly.
Speaker 2:If you get somebody on the phone and you got the right partner one out of two is booking an appointment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's where the future is. Yeah, especially with this, we're talking about single opt-in, whereas a new regulation you have to only on their marketing partners page only. You got one person, not even marketing partners of that. There's an opt-in page where you can say I'm ABC Solar's going to contact, or ABC Windows is going to contact you, abc Roofing. There can't be anyone else contacting us. So it should end a lot of what they call the lead gen loophole less phone calls coming to you less annoying phone calls We'll see what happens.
Speaker 2:More quality, yeah.
Speaker 1:More quality. Yeah, the quality should get better. So I think it's an exciting time If a roofing company, a windows company, bathroom siding, whatever there's going to be like a gold rush for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think people are going to focus back on their website, right, yeah, instead of a website just being hey, I'm buying leads, but I got this website that's an online brochure. They're going to get back into like, hey, if I can get people in the site, how long are they going to stay? Traditional marketing, correct In. I'm going to tell you what with what I'm getting on web leads. We're adapted to the one-for-one. We're doing the right thing, yep, but 25% lead to appointment up to 28, 29. I'll take that all day long.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's great. The feedback has been amazing. Yeah, it's good stuff. So, guys, you heard it from Keith.
Speaker 2:How can people find out more about you? Oh, they can go to and you can just reach out, reach out.
Speaker 1:You see more of Keith 2025 on a lot of these shows. You know you did a great job with Convo Swann's stage at the show in Atlanta Heard good things.
Speaker 2:I couldn't make that one. I heard good things, I was laughing the whole way. I had a good time. It was fun.
Speaker 1:Well, I think what it is too. Man, you've done this Like amazing. You're talking someone's been three decades in the industry and you're not talking to a newbie. Someone has been doing this six months a year, two years like you've been there. You've been, you've gotten your hands dirty.
Speaker 2:You know what they're going through man and uh, and you're a real student of it. My biggest thing was going from legion to actually running these companies and having to learn the cadences, the kpis, everything like that, and then being able to talk to someone and they're like they don't know if I ran a company for a month or five years, but they're like, holy shit, you speak my language exactly.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. It goes a long way, gives trust, and it's not just that we actually look, walk the walk, you walk the walk at the end of the day. So good stuff, guys, hit them up. We're talking about the home. Boom, let's go. Thank you.