Dennis Oz: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Remodeler Success Podcast, where we dive into the world of countertops Kitchen and bath remodeling and covering the latest trends and solutions that are shaping the industry. I’m your host Dennis Oz and i’m super excited about today’s episode. We have a very special guest joining us today, someone who’s deeply involved in the world of Kitchen and bath remodeling, countertops, manufacturing and whole remodeling businesses, and he has a lot of knowledge and experience to share. Today, we’ll be chatting with Tom Coby. Tom, welcome to the show. 

Tom Koby: Thanks for having me dennis 

Dennis Oz: Can you start by telling us about yourself and what you do? 

Tom Koby: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, We’re obviously in the the software space uh, so we’re uh, we’re software entrepreneurs, but the the business itself is Uh, is and always has been solving the problem of homeowners, uh, and kitchen and bath dealers and fabricators being able to get pricing for, uh, for installation, uh, fabrication, material delivery, everything out the door.

Uh, so at the end of the day, we do lead generation, visualization, and quoting for the kitchen and bath industry. 

Dennis Oz: It’s pretty exciting. We’re going to talk about each of them today, but let’s start with the industry problems. What do you think are the biggest problems that the whole remodeling industry, kitchen and bathroom, and countertop manufacturing industry is facing right now?

Tom Koby: Uh, well, at a high level, we went from, uh, our cups overflowing with business and work through COVID to now, uh, reality has, uh, has hit back and, uh, and these businesses are having to remember how to market again, remember how to, uh, get their salespeople to be hungry again, to go out there and chase business like we did before COVID.

Aside from that, uh, there is a never ending, uh, uh, challenge with, uh, with installers and getting more folks into the trade. Um, that deficit continues to grow, uh, so, um, we just need to get more folks into, into the trades. 

Dennis Oz: Also there is another problem with that. I believe that we need to talk about a little bit, which is not our expertise, maybe, but the experienced workforce is really important, and sometimes we are talking to kitchen and bath showroom owners and also manufacturers, countertop manufacturers. They are sometimes having a little bit of hardships to find experienced workers. So we have some challenges, that’s for sure. But considering these problems, how does, Quote Kitchen and Bath help solve them?

Tom Koby: Well, that’s a great question. Um, so, so first off, um, you know, any, any good Um, business is not relying on a single source of leads or a single source of revenue, right? You’re, yeah, you’re doing referrals. You’re, you know, uh, maybe doing direct mail, maybe doing outbound calling, maybe doing digital marketing on Facebook or, or whatever. Um, so we’ve got all these different marketing lead sources COVID we got. Really, uh, it easy. And so one of the things that we’re finding is that you’re having to do more with less. And so when you think about doing more with less, sometimes that means that, you know, we’ve had to make that unfortunate decision to Maybe let some of our teammates go or downsize.

Um, but in the meantime, you still got to generate business. You still got to get, get folks excited to do business with you. And so our visualization and lead generation tools go a long way to make sure that your website is working as hard as it can. Uh to generate as many leads as it can and a great example of that that most folks can Uh can understand is you know, the average website that has a form on it and you’re sending facebook Advertising to a website that maybe they can look at some pictures and you know Some testimonials that that they all know that you wrote and then we put a form in front of them that says, you know Fill out this form to get a quote Um, that’s not exciting to a lot of folks.

And so that’s what leads to conversion rates of forms on websites, usually being in that one to two, maybe 3%. Um, when our visualization and lead generation tools, uh, are on one of our 3000 dealers websites, they’re going to convert on average in that 14 to 19% range. So when you talk about doing more with less.

Uh, you’re making that website work harder. You’re making those media dollars, uh, that you’re spending on Facebook or Instagram or wherever, you’re making them work harder, um, so that you can, you know, help generate, uh, business and help generate cash flow, um, so that you can get back to growing again.

Dennis Oz: Great. Those are great features and great benefits. This is a podcast and it’s not really possible to share screens and do a quick workshop over here, but I’m still wondering, uh, why do kitchen and bath remodeling companies and countertop companies need strong quoting software? What cool benefits does Quote Kitchen and Bath offer?

Tom Koby: Well, so, um, I don’t know about you, but most customers that I talk to, uh, have terrible imaginations. Uh, they aren’t very good at, uh, uh, thinking about what something will look like. Um, and, uh, as Frank, one of our partners, always says is the customer is asking themselves three questions, right?

They’re asking, how much is it going to cost? When am I going to get it? And, and, and what’s it going to look like, right? And so we can answer all of those with technology, either self service with the customer, virtually through technologies like zoom, like we’re on right now or you’re in the home and technology facilitates that and helps, helps folks with their imagination.

I think about like, you know, whether it’s my wife or her friends or folks in the design community, we’re, we’re good at collecting things, whether it’s pinning things on Pinterest or tearing pages out of magazines, but how do you turn pins and pages? Into something that you could imagine spending 000, 100, 000 on.

It’s very difficult and, um, and to be able to go through some of the tools that are out there in the market, you know, whether it’s 2020 or any of the more complex CAD software. It takes a lot to get to something where you can actually see what it’s going to look like, understand roughly what the budget is and what’s it going to cost.

Um, and then obviously based on how busy you are, um, you know, we’ll determine how, how quickly you get it. So, so if I had to like order those features, it would be. 3D photorealistic visualization where you can change how a kitchen or a bathroom looks right on your website with no app so they can go right on your website and kind of design a kitchen of their dreams where it’s just You know, you click it, it does the thing.

Um, sometimes they’ll call it whizzy wig, which sounds kind of funny, but it just means what you see is what you get. And for the average customer, Hey, I clicked that. Oh, it highlights. I can change the color of the cabinet or the color of the countertop. And so when their imagination starts. running, they get ideas.

Um, and, and if you can then add in some pricing to that and add the ability for that customer to save that design, I don’t know about you, but if I’m a salesperson, would I rather get a form filled out on a website or a design that a customer already did that has a budget and has colors and materials where they’re already kind of Closing themselves. 

Um, and it’s kind of a rhetorical question, but, um, those are, those are the big features that, um, that our, our dealers get excited about because those leads close so much higher. Um, I’ll give you a quick example. So we have our tools on, I can’t mention their name, but let’s just say one of the major home improvement retailers.

Um, there’s only only a few of them. So do do the math. Um, and we’ve run that program for about four years and 50% of every single job that that home improvement retailer sells. starts in our visualization and quoting tool. And then subsequently, after that 50% that goes through the self service lead generation, the other 50% get quoted either in the store through our tool or virtually over zoom like this through our tool.

So in the end, And every single job that goes through that Home Improvement Retailer starts in one of our visualizers, uh, and quoting tools. 

Dennis Oz: That’s amazing. I always remember the days that I was designing kitchens and yes, you’re right. Some CAD tools get really complicated like catalogs, different cabinets, different countertop styles. They are not preloaded there. There are some catalogs they need you to download. So many different things. But, it’s just like, not giving you the 80 20 rule. You just need the 20% of the things in order to convince your customers. Yeah. These tools are offering like 100% of all, whole thing. Yeah. Maybe like, especially some of the softwares that we used in the past. You need to be expert to create beautiful things. But here folks, we are talking about convenience. We are talking about like these fast rendering. We are talking about fast quoting and giving the [00:11:00] price on the spot without creating so many spreadsheets or putting down the prices on a scrap paper, then offering them in an unprofessional way. We are talking about like an unique and robust quoting strategy here. That’s very important. In addition to this one, let’s talk about some results here. Do you have any stories of kitchen and bathroom countertop, any kind of remodeling businesses that saw good things that experienced good things happen after using Quote Kitchen and Bath?. 

Yeah. 

Tom Koby: That major home improvement retailer, um, we sourced 50% of all of their leads, uh, right when they launched the program four years ago, but that’s not the most exciting part.

Uh, to me, the most exciting part is there was an overall 25% lift in overall growth. Of the entire program. Um, and so when you think about, uh, you know, what 25% and lift means to the average kitchen and bath dealer, it’s a big deal. Um, that’s the difference, but it’s the difference between cashflow and having to go borrow money.

Um, you know, it’s the difference between having to let a kitchen designer go and, and keep them on. And earlier you talked about, you know, kind of the complexity of a kitchen and bath design, and this is a little bit of a tangent, but I think it’s important. I was talking to a cabinet manufacturer the other day, and they said out of a hundred designs, that they have done for their cabinets in 2020.

About 30% of them will close into business. And on one hand, you could say, Oh, it’s a 30% close rate. But my mind goes the other way and says, so you’re telling me that 70% of the time of my most expensive resource, which is my kitchen and bath designer, 

And, and it got, it got us all thinking, we’re like, what if you could cut that in half? What if you could have other tools that were much quicker and got the customer to put a deposit down and get them to stop shopping because it gave them the ideas and the visualization and their imagination to be able to see?

What it would look like how much it would cost and when can I get it? What would that do to your cost structure on your cabinet designer side or even as a cabinet designer? How many how many cabinet designers like to come up with a design that never gets sold? I don’t know about you But like if i’m closing less than 50 i feel like the majority of my work is just being thrown thrown away Um, so so hopefully that was a helpful, uh data point one other one i’ll mention is we have a A large fabricator.

Um, and I’m, I’m sure you’ve got fabricators that listen to the show and, and they’re, they have [00:14:00] wholesale programs. Right. And so they’re trying to build dealer programs. And we’ve got folks that have five dealers and we have folks that have hundreds of dealers. And when it comes to managing the shop, that’s one thing.

And a lot of them have, you know, uh, more aware and, and slab Smith and all these, these, these tools. But when it comes to managing your channel partners, your dealers, and being able to quote at scale, the difference when you are building a dealer program where they have to come to you and get a quote. And that customer leaves the showroom before they, they get a quote versus empowering all of your dealers with all of your pricing, all your visualization, all your lead, basically all the tools I’ve been talking about.

Imagine taking those tools and giving them to all of your dealers for free. And they’re now able to quote in real time and you create these feeder lead pipelines. So [00:15:00] you’re, it’s, it’s really, you know, it’s a virtuous cycle cycle. I’m helping you kitchen and bath dealer generate more quotes, generate more leads because I know that the more kitchen and baths you remodel, the more countertops, um, I’m going to sell.

And we have, uh, one dealer in, in mind who. Um, it right out of the gate, his, his close rate went up double digit percentages and his overall throughput, his overall growth of the program, um, through his dealers went up, uh, double digit percentages. And it comes down to what you talked about earlier, speed and being able to get that quote before the customer leaves, um, and, and scale, um, being able to support all of those dealers because it.

You know, my dad used to say, um, you can get all the attaboys in the world that you want, but all it takes is one aw shit, and you lose all those attaboys, and most of the kitchen and bath dealers I talk to have a side fabricator that they go to when, when they need to get something else, and so. Um, with our, with our fabricators, they know that once they get a dealer and they put the dealer on these tools, those tools end up helping both of them so much that that, that dealer is not going to go anywhere. 

Dennis Oz: Right, exactly. Well, we have to look at in two different, let’s say angle. First, you talk about the cabinet manufacturers. It’s super easy. Because cabinet dealers also want to move their products through the dealer. And if they give them convenience, that’s going to create a great convenience for both the dealer and the customer and also the wholesaler.

So the software world, it’s magic guys, if you can create this magic with the correct way, it’s going to benefit whole parties on that process. It’s literally magic. And also another angle is the customer side. Let’s say if you’re a kitchen designer and if you’re a kitchen dealer and trying to sell different things, [00:17:00] like different cabinets, convenience is money. Time is money. If you do fast, if you do like your customer has a window to sell that project. If you are spending like half an hour, 45 minutes to give a price for an L shaped or like a U shaped kitchen, you are losing money on table. Don’t do that. Be smart. That’s why these kind of magic tools are helping us to reshape the industry.

So, uh, that’s, that’s very important. one more thing that I also would like to ask you. I was looking the Quote Kitchen and Bath website and, YouTube videos. The whole content insists on showing prices on websites. Can you tell us why and how it helps both the customer and the competition?

Tom Koby: So, well, I’ll start off with first, not all of our 3, 000 dealers put pricing, uh, on, on the website. Now, go back 13 years when we started [00:18:00] this business. Um, we started it as Granite Fabricators Direct, and we were the very first company to ever put labor, material, and pricing online. And everyone told us we were crazy.

And now, you know, look where we are. Look at all the, all the, the major retailers, Ikea, all of them, they, they all do it. So first off, you don’t have to. Um, now the reason you would want to is if you want to get better performance. From lead conversion. And so don’t let me be the one that tries to convince you that you need to put pricing on your website.

I let the data talk. So if you want to have that debate, happy to, to, to, to talk through that. But there there’s, there’s two different ways that you can generate leads through visualization. Um, and you’ll see them in our partners. One is, uh, is what we call locking mechanisms. And, um, I won’t tell all the kind of secret sauce of how we do that on the, on the podcast, but reach out to us if you want to see how that works.

And the other is with. Uh, basic pricing and what I mean by basic pricing is it’s giving, uh, the customer just enough to be able to do it themselves, but not so much that it gets scary, you know, they’re not getting into like. You know, what type of plumbing disconnect do they have to do? What type of, you know, uh, you know, what’s, what’s underneath the existing, you know, the, the existing counter that’s there, those are, those are kind of scary things, but from like, uh, the basics, what’s the shape?

What edges do you like? What are those things look like? What colors do they look like when you combine those cabinets with those, those, those countertops with, you want to give them just enough. To be willing to hit save and give you their information and the beauty of what we do when they save it is we’re actually going to verify that mobile number that they provide to make sure it is an actual cell phone number from the customer so that when your sales team goes to call them.

You know, it’s a legit phone number, but more importantly, when you have that conversation with the customer, it doesn’t start from scratch. It starts from an informed perspective about the beautiful design that they came up with. The colors that they chose, you know, were they, were they looking at, uh, at, uh, at, uh, Ubatuba or were they looking at, uh, you know, uh, Calcutta courts of some, some sort, right?

So you’re getting an idea of like, what’s their style, what’s their budget. And now you can have a conversation that doesn’t feel like a sales pitch, if that makes sense. It feels more like. a virtual design consultation and so We’ve taken it a step further, as a matter of fact, with our V5 products, which are rolling out literally this week, where we actually have built in the entire, what we call co selling layer into our quoting and visualization tools, meaning you can hop right into, uh, almost like a zoom call right through the quote.

So that customer can go from getting ideas to getting a quote. So now you’re almost in a virtual design center where they’ve got virtual reality, 3d, even augmented reality, which is the, the, the real kind of like frontier right now, where you can put a QR code up while we’re doing our co selling with them in real time, they can hold up any, any modern phone and scan that QR code.

And they can go and look at the cabinets in their actual kitchen, just like they were looking, you know, at it and in, in real life. And so that was a really long winded way of saying pricing is one of the three questions you have to answer before someone’s going to open their wallet. And that is, what is it going to cost?

When can I get it and what’s it going to look like? And the quicker that you can answer those questions in a way that makes them feel comfortable enough to invite you into where they eat and spend time with their family, the better. And so the more tools you can provide before they have to invite you into their home. The more times you win. 

Dennis Oz: Maybe we should underline that the kitchen is where all family members just meet together, right? This is a very important space guys. This is the most important space in your house. As kitchen designers, you are creating these spaces and you are shaping people’s lives. So if you do that effectively, if you do the best way, that will also create a great referral flow for you, for your business as well. It’s going to create a referral traffic for you. People will start talking about you and you will be getting more and more business. This is that important.

Because you are not just shaping construction over there, you are shaping lives. That’s the bottom line of we are talking here today. But still I would like to continue, let’s talk about a little bit of customization and like the tools that you offer. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to share screens here, but let’s talk about how does Quote Kitchen and Bath can give accurate cost estimates let’s say while considering the each project special details because some project has L shape. Some others is U shape. Some people like Ubatuba, just like you said, and surprisingly still 30 per square foot guys. I don’t know your pricing, but I still see 30 per square foot of Ubatuba over there. But, um, some people. Would like to go like a really kind of a unique quartz models, something really unique. Some other people would like to go with the double tone kitchens or different, could be staggered look. How do you guys address that in the app? 

We’re going to need a longer podcast. I know. Sorry about this question folks.

Tom Koby: I’ll try to make this this kind of straightforward. So, um, so we have two types of, uh, of, of dealers. Um, when you, when I think about kitchen and bath dealers and fabricators. We have, uh, the group that is, um, is not showing pricing, not quoting. They’re only using us for lead generation using the locking mechanism I was talking, talking about, uh, earlier.

And with someone like that, it’s not a big deal, right? Cause yes, they’re changing configuration and layout, but we’re not getting into pricing. Those are customers that we could literally turn on. You know, same day, next day, once we find out, okay, you, you know, you’ve got Cambria, Caesarstone, MSI, you know, whatever.

We have all those product catalogs already loaded into the, all the scenes. And so we just go and check all the boxes and they’re ready to go. Now, when you get into quoting, this is where we started 13 years ago and I’ve never been in an industry where there is more different ways that businesses price what they do.

Um, and, and it’s not a surprise. You’re taking a piece of stone, of solid surface, and you’re beating it up into shape, uh, to, to put it in someone’s home. And so, we’ve seen… Everything. And so we’ve had to build the system in a way that allows us to handle any, any type of pricing. And, and the reason I bring that up is to set up kind of the expectation that when we bring on a dealer who’s actually doing pricing takes about three to four weeks.

And what, and sometimes guys are, you know, they’ll come on board. They’re like, wait, you mean, I can’t get started for three to four weeks. And like, we can, if you don’t want it to price it accurately, but once they start kind of thinking about all the complexities of their pricing and they start working with our team and our team speaks.

Kitchen and bath. We all come from the industry and once they start kind of unpacking like how much complexity is to their pricing, they quickly realize like, okay, here’s my pricing. Go make the magic happen. And then usually three to three weeks or so later we’ll come back. And we’ll have their, their, uh, quoting environment ready to show to them.

And so we’ll show it to the owners. Typically first, they’ll take a pass at it. The real gauntlet that we have to get through is the sales team. And so then we’ll set up a meeting with the sales team and, you know, we put on our bulletproof jackets and get our shields because sales folks. Well, anybody, we don’t like change.

Change is hard. Change means I gotta, I gotta do something different. And so what we do is we’ll actually present the tools to the sales team, just like they were a customer. And we let them poke holes in it and beat it up and try to find things to break. Things always break. And then we go and we clean them up and that’ll be that last week of getting it finished.

And then, and then they’ll go through and they’ll try to. Kind of beat it up one last time. So I’d love to say that we had some like secret magic, you know, crazy AI that, that can do it, but some of you guys price things so crazily that even AI can’t figure it out. So it takes working with our team and, and each one of our tools are literally custom tailored.

Dennis Oz: That’s great to know. And yeah, the customization is one of the most important things, especially when you’re talking about complex kitchen design projects, that might be a really big, uh, necessity. And, uh, it’s great to hear that you guys are kind of looking at it really seriously. So with all your experience Tom, with all your experience and understanding of the challenges, What advice would you give to a kitchen and bath dealer or counter manufacturer?

Uh, these companies looking to improve their succeed in today’s competitive market. We can look at in two ways. Let’s talk about the new guys and startup ones that is just starting, right? And let’s talk about the ones that has already created their teams and designer teams and trying to take their business to the next level.

Tom Koby: Okay. Uh, if I was a startup and I, I talked to every week, I get a call or a demo that I’ll get on. And it’s someone that says something to the effect of I’m getting ready to leave who I work for now. And I’m starting my own business, the technician who leaves and starts their own their own business. And, um, and so they’re trying to yeah.

Get it all put together, right? Like I got to get a website, I got to get a Facebook page. I’ve, I’ve got to, uh, start to generate leads. I’ve got to go get business cards. Well, if I’m making business cards, I probably need a logo. You’re right. You go through all these things. And so he, my, my, here’s a couple of recommendations.

One. Earlier I joked a little bit about AI. Take it seriously. Really take AI seriously. There are tools, just get on, get on Google, get on ChatGPT, however you’re, you’re, you’re searching these days, and look for logo generators. Look for, um, Website copy generators that’ll help you write the website copy. If there’s one thing that, that you should be excited about, aside from going out and being an entrepreneur and starting your own business is that there is never in the history of this business been more tools.

To help you write the words that sound good and and make the things that look good Um, including us obviously i’m i’m plugging ourselves. We’re not the only player in the market We like to think we’re we’re, you know world class But look for these tools to put together Um, and, and I, I know it’s hard not to come on these podcasts and not, you know, be self serving or promote your own stuff, but we build, we build the things that we see that we would want for our businesses.

And so one of the things that we’re just launching right now is what’s called a WordPress. Theme and a WordPress plugin library. And if you’re not familiar with WordPress, they power about 40% of the internet. So about 40% of maybe more. Yeah, it’s like almost every site that I see lately from a fabricators built on WordPress.

And so what that allows us to do is we can take that person who’s in startup mode. And we will actually take our WordPress theme and plugin and give them a website in a box. In a matter of like three weeks and and and it’s because we have so many of these these startups that are coming to us saying hey I went and found a web developer or I went and I found this guy and it’s like they have no idea what they’re doing and and and if you if you call the wrong person you can spend a lot of money really really quick and so for us like I’m happy to share the price for 2, 500 you can in two to three weeks Have a website that looks like a Caesar stone or American standard.

And so now whether it’s us or someone else, I’m just saying, use the tools, AI for generating your logo and coming up with your business name for writing the words tools like us to make your website look great. But if I was to give one bit of advice, actually two from a marketing perspective, one would be.

Um, it was advice that was given to me and it’s so easy to forget it. The time that you have to absolutely spend on marketing is when you don’t need marketing. And that’s really hard to remember because when the, when the, the, when the rain’s coming down, you’re not thinking about the dry times. And I guarantee there’s a lot of you that are listening right now that we’re making money hand over fist during COVID and you weren’t doing marketing and you’re feeling it now.

Now, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do marketing now. You absolutely should. You need to find a good agency to help you with things like Facebook. You know, start with something like Facebook or Instagram. Um, that would be like my first toe that I would dip into marketing. Um, the other is, um, your reputation is everything.

Everything when you’re a young business, um, even when things go wrong, whatever you can do to make it right, you do it. Even if you lose money, because it’s way harder to get somebody to talk about the good things. It’s so easy to get somebody to talk about the bad things. And all it takes is a couple of bad reviews when you’re that little.

And it’s really hard to, from a referral standpoint, it’s really hard to recover from that. 

Dennis Oz: And let’s add this one, Tom. This industry is, unfortunately, some homeowners doesn’t really show any mercy when they are giving you a review, folks. If you just make quick, simple mistakes for a thousand, hundreds of thousands of dollars of projects, you may get a one star review really easily seriously, much easier than any other industry because People are like really stressed without being kitchen for many many days and the stress level could be really high when they’re considering your service that’s why you have to be really careful and You cannot avoid one star reviews. That’s what I always say, Tom. You cannot avoid that. You have to bury these one star reviews with the good ones. So that’s what Tom is just saying here is, Tom, what you say over here is super important. The reputation is everything when you’re getting started, especially on our startup mode. You’re absolutely right over there.

Tom Koby: You know, I, um, yesterday was our, our 15th anniversary and we went out to dinner.

Dennis Oz: Congratulations. 

Tom Koby: Thank you. And we haven’t killed each other yet. So that’s, that’s a good thing. So. Uh, so we, we, uh, beautiful meal. Um, but when we had made our reservation, uh, we had let them know it was our anniversary. And, uh, right when we sat down, they, they hand delivered, uh, a card.

And it was a handwritten happy anniversary card that was written. You could tell it was written that day. I will tell people to go there and I will write about that in reviews. Think about just something as simple as that. We talked earlier about this is where people break bread. It’s where they visit with their family.

It’s where they cry. It’s where they love. It’s where like all the amazing things happen in your life around your kitchen. Whoever in your office has the nicest handwriting, a handwritten letter, when you finish that countertopper job and leave it sitting on the counter, I’m telling you, it’s such a little thing, but it’s the thing that gets, probably the wife, I’m not trying to, you know, pick, you know, husband or wife, but probably the wife’s going to open it and say, that’s really sweet of them.

Thank you for inviting us into your home. Thank you for allowing us to build the kitchen of your dreams. I know it may sound corny, but I’m telling you, like, I’m talking about this card today. Um, and, and it just, it’s those little things that make [00:36:00] the memories that, uh, gets the person to refer you. And I tell you, someone will show that card to their neighbor or their friend and say, this is how, how good this, uh, this contractor was.

Dennis Oz: Great. That’s amazing. I think we forgot to talk about the, the ones that is already have like the team in place. Yeah. I think we focused on the ones that is just starting in the startup phase. Can we talk about little more on the… The companies who has at least their team, uh, I know the owners are always wearing a lot of hats. They have to look at the big picture at the end of the day, but at least talking about like some of the companies that has their team in place. And they’re looking forward to take their business to the next level. Let’s say, what are your advice to these people, especially when you consider quote kitchen and bath capabilities and also features.

Tom Koby: I’ll, I’ll repeat one from the, the startups. Uh, and that is you absolutely need to market when you don’t think you need to market, always be marketing. Um, just like the, don’t forget that. Um, Open up new channels. So a lot of guys I talk to the the oh, I do a direct through retail. Oh, I only go through wholesale.

Um, if you’re looking to unlock the next level It’s probably not going to come into the channel that you’re already in because you’ve probably squeezed that fruit dry I’m not saying you can’t and you can absolutely grow in an existing channel But if I was to to bet between investing in an existing channel that i’ve worked in before Versus going after a new channel.

I’ll go after the new channel for a couple reasons one It gives your team something new to rally around, new to focus on, new problems to. It gets you out into the market meeting partners that will help you in those channels. And I am, uh, like, I’m super bullish on partner led and partner driven growth.

Our biggest customers, our best customers, our most profitable customers have a mix of retail. Wholesale, which is basically indirect. Um, they get into related services, for example. You’re selling countertops. How hard is it to sell sinks and faucets? Very easy. As a matter of fact, we just did a partnership with Moen.

I sorry. They’re going to kill me for saying that, uh, American,

American standard and Lixil plumbing fixtures where our dealers can buy those products at 50% off of list. Cheaper than going to Ferguson or [00:39:00] whoever. And we do that because we know you’re already in the home. And the hardest part is getting in the home. The hardest part is getting the lead. And so if you can add on, uh, protection plans like with Granite Gold.

If you can add on, uh, uh, your sinks and faucets. If you can partner with someone that’s in flooring or cabinets and send them referral business and do a revenue share of 10% on that referral business. Partnerships and new channels and opening adjacent services or related products and services. Those are the three areas where I see our fastest growing customers making their investments, uh, with their team.

Um, and the, the kind of the, uh, the how you do it, um, is really where, uh, we’re You know, you need to sit and plan with your team, right? Like [00:40:00] who’s going to be the project manager who’s, who’s going to be on the hook for making sure that the things get done, because if you don’t do those things and operationalize it and make a plan, the business, we call it the tornado of the business is going to keep sucking you in.

And you’ve got to dedicate time to whatever that new, that new channel or new product or new partnership. 

Dennis Oz: Great, folks. You have showroom there, and I’m sure that you have a great revenue stream and that’s why you have some marketing dollars in place to spend. So you have to spend them very wisely. Good marketing strategy is. It’s really, it’s a big necessity when you’re bringing this traffic to your, to your website or a single landing page. And now imagine this, you have this landing page without any app or something like this, people are going there and you’re giving them a great visualizing tool that they can play around, they can [00:41:00] switch things, they can create the kitchen that at least at the part of like this first step on the your kitchen remodeling process. Now think about that. They created something that really like, do you think that I’m going to go somewhere else? Do you think they will fight for extra discount? So we are talking about bigger profits and we are talking about bigger revenues with bigger profits, let’s say. So these magic tools will always be on your side. They will be on your side to help you increase your revenues and increase your profits when you’re trying to sell your products. Of course, some of you guys have sales teams in place. Some of them you’re just starting from there, but we talk about that as well. But yes, try to make the most out of these magic tools, just like Quote kitchen and bath offered here. I believe that you definitely need to give it a shot after listening, tuning into this podcast.

Well, Tom, let’s talk about, like, your final thoughts and your final words if you would like to share something before we finish, because if someone tuned into this podcast, if they really want to give CodeKitchen and Beta a shot, what is the best way, how can I, what’s the best way to kind of go there and kind of sign up?

Let’s talk about this.

Tom Koby: Yeah, so parting thoughts. Um, I think Uh the outlook of kind of like overall economy consumer spending Unemployment like all those things are in a good spot. You hear a lot of noise on uh on the news, um We’re in a good spot We’re just not where we were in covid where people were throwing duffel bags of money at us And so we’ve got to let that go.

Um And the number one area I’m seeing what I’ll call with my own, you know, folks that I work with in my inner circle, you know, we’ll call it mental flabbiness. So you think about, you know, you, you, you eat too much and you, you know, you get a, you know, a little something around the belly or whatever, that same thing happens in our mind, we get that, that, that mental flabbiness.

And it happens when things are easy and now it’s not that things are hard. They just feel hard because it was so easy. Um, and so I was talking with one of the largest fabricators in the, in the country the other day, and he was just going off about his sales team, about how lazy they are and how he can’t get them to generate it, you know, to send another email.

So like having that conversation with the sales team about like. Hey guys, time to get on the mental treadmill and start sharpening your tools. One example I’ll give if you don’t have chat on your website or you don’t do Facebook messenger or, or like with us, we’ll do texting from our website. We’ll do virtual consultations from the website.

The salespeople should be doing those. And I see, I’ve heard from so many salespeople that are like, ah, that’s not for me, it is for you. Uh, the world is changing. COVID made everything go virtual. And customers want answers now if you don’t answer a lead within five minutes If not real time the odds of conversion drop dramatically Like over 70 percent reduction in conversion if you don’t engage with a customer in five minutes 

Dennis Oz: And this is a harvard business review the Like and it’s it’s a it’s a they they made this one They tried a lot of calls what we are seeing here guys.

They are scientific facts. They are not based on our own experience. Tom, go ahead. Sorry about that. 

Tom Koby: No, you’re totally right. And with technology where it’s at, like you don’t have to build this stuff yourself. We have a whole suite of virtual selling tools that connect right into their cell phones.

So literally just like their buddies texting them something to look at whatever, you know, you get a text from the website and like. I don’t know about you, but like most salespeople I know are coin operated, right? Like they want to go make money. And so you got to get number one, you got to get them on the mental treadmill, but then you need to give them the tools to be able to virtually prospect, virtually sell, and kind of fill the gaps between the in home selling in the, in the in showroom, uh, selling experience.

That kind of covers both the questions of like, where’s, where are things at, you know, kind of in the industry. And I think I dovetailed in kind of like how some of our tools kind of fill into, into those opportunities. Um, if, if you want to learn more about how we think about, um, you know, getting sales teams on that mental treadmill, uh, happy to.

Talk through what, uh, what some of our other, our other partners are doing. 

Dennis Oz: Tom, thank you so much, uh, for sharing your experience and also your knowledge with us. Folks, that was another episode of Remodeler Success Podcast. We’re gonna see you next time. Goodbye.

If you would like to generate more leads, please visit rtamarketing. com to get a copy of the book Remodel Your Digital Marketing, an integrated online marketing guide for kitchen and bath remodelers. This has been another episode of the Remodeler Success Podcast. Thanks for listening.