431 $4.7M from Marketing: How Builder Funnel Helped a Local Custom Builder

Speaker A: Hello and welcome back to Builder Funnel Radio. Today I've got a special episode for you. We had a client of ours recently join another podcast, and they had a great conversation over there. And so, uh, we wanted to share that conversation here on Builder Funnel Radio. I think you'll really enjoy the conversation. And without further ado, let's dive right in.

Speaker B: Welcome. It's the Remodelers on the Rise show, folks. I have a, uh, gentleman who I've gotten to know over the last 13 minutes. His name is Jimmy Moore. Jimmy, say hello to the people.

Speaker C: Hello, people.

Speaker B: Hello, people. Across the fruited plains, Petra Custom Builders in Boulder, Colorado. And what we all need to be reminded of as business owners, as business leaders is there's a difference between kind of being prepared for meetings and things that you're doing and kind of flying by the seat of your pants. And I will admit there's times where I'm kind of sort of prepared and I'm kind of flying by the seat of pants. But when we are fully prepared, then we do our best work. So that's just a reminder already, a takeaway from the episode today of Work Hard to not just be prepared, but to be really prepared. Now, Jimmy, he's. I, I'm already picking up, this man can just show up and he's going to share some wisdom with us. He's going to share his story with us. But my team prepped help helped me prep, and I was prepped where I even saw, oh, Jimmy's. I, I learned about his life a little bit. Even said on your thing that you're a golfer and you like to also shoot skeet and stuff. But we also realized that formerly you were a pro remodeler. 40. Under 40. But this man, folks, had a birthday yesterday. He's no longer under 40. Does it feel to be to settle into your 40s, sir? How does it.

Speaker A: What's.

Speaker B: What's different about settling into your 40s, huh?

Speaker C: That's a good question. I am constantly reminded that physical shape and additional intentionality around diet and exercise is so important because it's important to me to be a dad. And there has been seasons of my life where the business has taken and consumed more of my time than I would say I'm proud of reflecting back on. But lessons learned from that is circling back to being intentional and disciplined about what things are most important to me. And I have four kids of my own, plus three stepsons, so seven total. And as I get older, it is that constant reminder of where I need to Be the most disciplined and intentional as it relates to me physically, mentally. Because at the end of the day, you know, not to get too deep, but speaking at my funeral someday, I, I would love for people to be like, he was a great business owner and man. He left a legacy behind through Petra Custom Builders. But at the end of the day, like, uh, as long as they talked about me being a great dad and husband first, I, I'll take, I'll take it all. And so 42 means I have to do that much more as it relates to the intention around diet and intention around exercise. That's what it means to me.

Speaker B: See, we're already off to, we're off to an interesting start. You never know what you're going to get on the Remodelers on the Rise show because primarily what we're going to do today is talk about just a little bit of Jimmy's story of the business. I want to talk about his core values and that side of things. I want to talk about the market he's in and how he's been able to kind of brand himself there. And then in the second part, we're going to talk about the marketing side of things. In particular, they've, they've worked really closely with Builder Funnel and that side of things. So I want to talk about the marketing and lead generation and that side. But before either of those, I want to dig in and linger a little bit more on intentional and disciplined. Define, let's stick with intentional.

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker B: What does that, what does that mean? Just give me kind of the short answer that comes to your mind of, uh, well, does it mean to be intentional?

Speaker C: Good question. To me it is about focus. And you know, you've mentioned the core values. And so the, the, those two things, intentional and discipline, play very much hand in hand. One of our core values, intentional thought and action. And so that closely pairs with another one, exercise discipline. And what it means to me is at the end of the day, we are going to have successes, we're going to have failures, right? We're going to fall short. We're going to be the benefit of things that are in our control. We're going to be the benefit of things outside of our control. And so what intention means to me is it's not about always doing, quote, unquote, the right thing. It's about being committed and operating with some convention, conviction towards a thing, right? And then the discipline component is just the following through of that. So at the end of the day we can work with, uh, quote, unquote mistakes. But the key is, if a mistake is made, can I come to you and say, hey, what happened? And you, as long as you have the ability to say, well, you know, here's the information I had, here's what I tried to do. And at the end of the day, this is why I made this call. It's like, perfect. We can deal with whatever consequence that is because we can grow from that.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: What I struggle with is when it was like, I don't know. So, you know, it's action versus inaction, and action we can work from, we can grow from. Inaction leaves us in a place where it's hard to grow. And so intention to me, and discipline, you know, it's. Obviously, you picked up on both those things, but they, they, they, while they're absolutely independent, the dependence on each other of those two things, they play off each other.

Speaker B: And I don't care if your name's Jimmy or Kyle or Sally or Sue, whoever's listening to this, each one of us, because today is a new day, has to examine and take a peek at what we need to be intentional about today. It is a moving target. Each day is different. There's some days that Jimmy needs to lean in heavier on the home front. There's some days he needs to lean heavier on the dad front. There's some days where it's like, look, you guys are actually going to get the quote, unquote, short end of the stick today, because I'm dealing with some things on the business front. That's life. That's what we're all. Whether you're a business owner or not, you're all dealing with it. But that idea of I want to be a person who wakes up and focuses on how I can. How can I be intentional on that? And then I'm going to leave the second part. So even that, that should be a takeaway. If you're listening to this, by the way, you're listening to a podcast so that you can get ideas that you can implement into your life and business. So we could probably end this podcast in about two minutes because we already gave a bunch of good stuff here. But. But just go through a week where you're really intentional. If you're really intentional and you start looking at the different areas of your life, you might crack a book open that you've been putting off because you're more intentional. You may send a thoughtful text to a family member or spouse or a kid because you're being a little bit more intentional, because you're being a little more intentional, and you care about your team and company culture. And that's what comes to your mind when you finally slow down enough to consider what you want to be intentional about. You might pull one of your employees aside who has been working their face off and you haven't even talked to them about it, and look them square in the face and say, thank you. Oh, intentionality is so amazing. And then let's just recast this word discipline as not necessarily a negative connotation. You're either gonna be disciplined about things or you're not. You are going to be the person who is consistent and disciplined on, um, things that you are intentional about or you're not. And if you're not being disciplined with things that you, quote, unquote, say you wanna be disciplined about, well, don't complain about the results of that. Figure out what you need to be intentional about. Figure out what you need to be disciplined about. And don't look at the word discipline as like you're getting smacked all the time and you're going to get your hand smacked. If you don't do it, we're all going to mess up. But on the whole, if you can just be pretty consistently disciplined about the things you care about, oh, there's good results that come from that. We do not need to be perfect. We do not need to knock it out of the park every day. Thank you for sharing those.

Speaker C: Jimmy. I love what you just said. And, and to piggyback off of it, one of the things that we talk about around here a lot is, you know, everybody, I think, has seen, um, on some kind of motivation board somewhere. You know, the. The 10 things that require no talent, right? Showing up on time, you know? Well, to me, that's what discipline is. It's like discipline's not dependent on talent. Disciplines dependent on a choice. Right? And that's why, again, you'll see this in the core values, like, they all stand independently, but they, it. They really do, um, tie together dependently a lot. And, and so to be disciplined, like, you don't need to be talented to make a choice that you're going to be on time, right? You don't need to be talented to make a choice that you're going to, you know, engage in that one task that's now been on your list for a couple of days now. And it's. You don't want to do it. But it's not a matter of are you good enough or talented enough or no enough. It's just A matter. It's just one of those tasks you just got to dig in and do. And so I just appreciate that feedback and that perspective on discipline as it relates to, like, at the end of the day, it's just one of those internal choices that, like, you can justify and argue with yourself about all you want, but at the end of the day, the discipline is just that outward action of, like, that internal conflict and battle that you have on. On, uh, we all know what those things on our lists are, you know, and discipline is just like the outward display of, like, I won that battle.

Speaker B: Yeah, I like that. Another phrase I use for it is like, you were talking about that item, and this is a Jim Rohn quota personal development guy from the 70s and 80s of eat your frog. Most important thing you need to get done that you're most likely to put off. Eat that frog. That's just prioritizing, and that's just discipline. The other thing we got. And then we got to move on, man. We got to get into a little bit of your story. Then we got to get into this. Geez, who's hosting this thing? We're going down this Deep down this rabbit trail, but it's too good to just skip through. Um, the other thing I would just. Just. I'll put the exclamation mark on the end. Can we please stop building up our definition of what a good or bad day looks like? This came to me, it was about a year ago, and my wife. I think we met for lunch, which was a season of being more intentional with that, which we have not been intentional lately. And actually that's a good reminder for me. And she. I think she said, how's your day been? And I immediately said, uh, it was a late lunch.

Speaker C: I remember now.

Speaker B: And I'm like, I don't know. I meant to get this done today, and. But, you know, I did get a call back, and that person signed up for peer group, which was really cool. Had a good conversation with so and so client of mine. Bailey and Cassie are kind of kicking butt today, but there's just, I got to do this. I got to do that. Basically, my punchline at the end of it was like, it's been kind of a crappy day. And she goes, that sounds actually like a really good day. And I was like, oh, no, you're right. But we, like, we build up what a good day is. We build up, what if I'm not perfect with my diet? Intentionality. And if I didn't work out and if I didn't do this, that it's a bad day. Oh, shut up. Lower, lower that down a little bit. And there's more peace that comes from that and frankly probably more progress as well. Jimmy, how did Petra get started? What was kind of your vision behind it? Give us kind of the three, four, five minutes. This is kind of where it was and this is a little bit of, kind of how it evolved and where it is today. Maybe even a little bit more than five minutes. But give us kind of that story. Some of the main reasons you started, some of the main things that have happened that have helped you grow and a little bit of where you're at today. And also, did you, did you know that Petra means rock or stone in Greek?

Speaker C: I did. I didn't know that.

Speaker B: I didn't know that before this.

Speaker C: Well then buckle up, man. Let me tell you where Petra came from. And I'll even get into where the name came from. Mhm. I'm a guy that has a story like a lot of the guys that, that you work with in construction, right. Like we're blue collar guys that kind of have uh, a little bit of a rebellious chip on our shoulder and we think we can do things better than other people and that's why we can't work for other people because we always think that it's like, you know, we can do it better. Right. And so it came to a place where, you know, growing up, like I had sports and I had, I had construction. Right. Like I did my summer jobs as different construction jobs and I was, I was in sports. And then I, I got through school and I was working for a big commercial gc. It was going well. I was, I had, I had somewhat quickly been promoted up to being a superintendent. So I was in my 20s and I think that, you know, again, kind of going back to that, that rebellious, that chip, you know, it's like I, uh, I just, I loved every time somebody would show up looking for the superintendent. Right? That's me. They double take. And, and, and that was before that

Speaker B: whole long gray beard thing you had going.

Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. I didn't have the gray. That's exactly. It was very much just natural hair color then. No wrinkles, no gray. So. So yeah, and so uh, but I, I, I liked that. I like the fact that it was like, you know, I've worked hard, I've earned what I've had and I'm good at what I do. And, and you know, people's perspective on that or initial judgment was it typically wasn't one of like, oh, you know, congratulations. It was more. It was. There was always a little bit more. Uh, yeah, but I, it was commercial and I, I really was getting tired of the very. Just transactional. And I, I don't want to say cutthroat, but like, there isn't. There wasn't very much. It's. It is, it is very transactional. It's like, you know, it's black and white, or at least as black and white as you can be. You're do. You're. It's like I'm investing the same amount of. Of thought energy into what I'm doing for somebody that what they're doing in that commercial world typically isn't something for them. Right. It's a school or it's a business or it's. The key is like, does it look good enough and does it serve the purpose and is it in line with expectations enough for me to then ultimately run whatever that business out of that building it? And it just wasn't fulfilling. It wasn't as fulfilling as I felt like construction could be. And so that's when I decided to. I was, uh, doing all kinds of side work and, you know, I finished basements for people. And, and when you, when you finish and you turn over the keys to a school, it's like, whatever, right? Good job. You did it when you said you were going to do it. And we don't have a bunch of liquidated damage charges that we're going to fill. You know, it's like you finish a basem for a person and it's like you. There is. There is fulfillment there because you're directly seeing the impact, uh, absolutely. Like you've positively impacted somebody's lifestyle. And so that's what kind of led me to decide, all right, like, I want to. I want to. I want to start this, and I want to do it on my own. I felt like.

Speaker B: Pause there. Super interesting. A couple things. One, it was the fulfillment part that's a good reminder for all of us to consider. To consider that you're doing work, make sure that work is fulfilling you. And what you just said there, I think a lot of. And you probably go through this. I go through this when I'm helping clients. And I think a lot of people listening to this probably go through this of, uh, you know, when you hand the keys over of that new basement or that new kitchen and how that's going to impact their lives and the beauty of it and the enjoyment of it, that's really fulfilling. I Think a lot of us, if we're honest, we're like, oh, right, it's supposed to be fulfilling. But I think a lot of times we're going through the motions and we've done it so many times that we get a little numb to it. Hey, unnumb yourself, folks. You're doing cool work, you're doing fulfilling work. You're impacting people's lives. Have you considered how many trade partners you're helping and who you're employing? All of us pay attention to all the cool things that are going on and we might enjoy and feel a little more fulfillment in what we're doing as a result of that. So I love that that was the start of your business. And the fact that you're still bringing it up means you're still chasing that fulfillment in a good way day in and day out. So you started it there and then, and then that was kind of the impetus for going, carry on.

Speaker C: Yeah. So the, and, and I think you'll see, you'll see kind of that theme of fulfillment. And I know that you've dug into the, to the mission and vision and you'll see fulfillment list in there too. But anyway, it's like that's where I decided that I wanted to give it a try on my own. What I believe one of my greatest God given gifts is, is leadership and construction just happens to be that vehicle in which I can ultimately honor God. Back to what I feel like has been bestowed on me as it relates to what that gift is like. I feel like I've said this all along. It's like if I, if I was a cook, if that was what my summer jobs were or whatever. So it's like I, I don't feel like by any means I have like this gift to construction. I feel like I have this gift of leadership, of people. And so part of what that transition looked like was, you know, I don't know what Petra is going to be. I have an idea of how it's going to start, but I knew that I didn't want it to be my name. I didn't want my name to be in the, in the business because I wanted to create. You know, I obviously I didn't have kids or anything at that time, so. But I knew I wanted to create something that lasted longer than just what my involvement was. Right. Whether that was, I knew I was going to have kids someday and my kids have it, or I sold it to, um, you know, a handful of the employees or somebody bought it. But either Way. So when I was starting to come up with a name, um, I knew I didn't want it to have my name in it. I'm sitting in church one Sunday, and they're specifically talking about Matthew 16:18. And, you know, God says to Peter, on this rock, you will build my church. And for some reason, I don't remember exactly what h. Why he said, by the way, you know the Hebrew word for rock is Petra, right? But it was like. And so it was just, it was, it was cool because it was a specific building reference, right? Biblically speaking, I knew what Petra Jordan was because at the time, I, uh, mean, Indiana Jones there, they had a, there was a scene of the movie through Petra. Like Transformers had a scene of the movie through Petra Jordan. So, like, there was this other component was like, okay, here's something that was built that has withstood the test of time. There's this biblical reference to something being built. And so the, you know, that's what, that's what Petra was. That's where Petra came from. I thought it was, I thought it was cool.

Speaker B: And then you didn't even listen to the rest of the sermon because you started jotting down Petra.

Speaker C: I was already. That's so true. My mind had shifted off and it was all about Petra.

Speaker B: That's right. That's all right. You can go back the next Sunday and get, and get some more.

Speaker C: Exactly. Exactly.

Speaker B: Yeah. So I want to take, I want to take this a couple, couple. Go ahead, Please finish that.

Speaker C: Actually, I was just, you know, it was just, it was. And so that was the start. Like, the start was, what is this? What, what opportunities do I have to exercise this gift of leadership? And I, it wasn't about me, right? Like, this wasn't about, like, look at what I'm doing or I've done. Which is why I didn't want my name specifically. Not that I feel like there's anything wrong with that at all. I just, it was just kind of part of this bigger vision around this thing that I ultimately knew nothing about.

Speaker B: Interesting.

Speaker C: Meaning, like, starting a company, right? Like, I, I, I knew I could. I, I knew I was. Had a gift of leading people. I knew I was, in my opinion at the time, pretty good at construction. And so I knew I was going to head off into this unknown direction. And the, the only thing I knew at that point in time was I was putting a lot of faith in a lot of things that I had no control over and that I didn't want it to be about Jimmy Moore. I Wanted to be about this thing that was going to be greater than all of us.

Speaker B: And what year was that?

Speaker C: 2011.

Speaker B: And as you're, as you're sitting, and as you're sitting here in 2026, what does the company look like?

Speaker C: There's 20, there's 22 of us. Of those 22, four of the first people I ever hired still work here, which I'm, I'm proud of because those are guys that have obviously stuck by, by me, by Petra, through thick and through thin. Right. They've seen the, the best of me, they've seen the worst of me and they've still, you know, chose to stay on board. So I think that like, if you were to ask me what are some of the things about Petra that I'm most proud of, like that usually is right around the top of the list because again, it speaks to something much greater than me. We, annual revenue wise, we're. Over the past few years we've sat right around that 12 million dollar mark. I think over the past like five years it's been anywhere between 10 and 12. We, our best year ever. I think we finished at like 12.96. Like it was like so close to like just getting over it. But we, you know, and choked down 30 things. You know, we could have made it work, but. And so we have a couple of project managers, we have four superintendents, we have five carpenters. We have a, we have a kind of a unofficial cabinet shop. Right. A couple of our carpenters love being building the shop and so that we do all kinds of custom woodworking there.

Speaker B: And what percent is custom homes versus remodeling?

Speaker C: Well, if you think about it from a standpoint of like revenue, it's like 50, 50 as it relates to like job number of jobs, it's like 75, 25. REM. Remodeling.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker C: You know, the custom house is obviously especially where I'm at.

Speaker B: You know, it's like yeah, revenue wise it's about 50. 50.

Speaker C: Yeah. But, but job, job number of, job wise, it's, it's. We build a couple houses a year, give or take. And um, and everything else is, is remodeled. Like we primarily do pop tops, additions, whole uh, house remodels. We don't, we don't do a lot of like kitchens or baths or things. You know, ours are a little bit on a, on a bigger scale. We won't.

Speaker B: But so, so there's, I mean we could talk, we could talk for three straight hours. We don't have time for that. So we gotta, we gotta pick and choose. I could talk about, whoa, you went from that sitting on, sitting on that Sunday to where you're at now. And we probably could unpack your understanding of financials over that time. And I need to dig into that and pricing and sales process and marketing leadership. I wanna, I wanna focus on two things. One, I wanna just briefly hit on that leadership topic and then I want us to move into kind of the marketing side, in particular the marketing side. But let's spend, let's spend a couple minutes just on the leadership side. Something that really jumped out of me as you were talking was, you know, one of my gifts is leadership of people. And almost going back to some of that early talk we did of this podcast, I've always been hesitant to try. A phrase that I like to use with my kids is, hey, when. Especially when I hear them being a little egotistical. Hey, we're humble and hungry.

Speaker C: Humble.

Speaker B: Our hunts are humble and hungry. And usually it's met with yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But hopefully the seeds are planted in there that, that will continue to be a mode of operation for them. But I've always been hesitant to be like, you know what? I have a gift of fill in the blank. I think there's like. But as I go, as I get older, I'm like, you know what, There are things that I'm gifted at. And you even said God given gifts. There's things that we are endowed by our creator, that I am really talented at this, this is how God made me. There's other gifts that we have developed and frankly for all of us, there's things we stink at and we maybe ought to just let it be and not focus on that. Give me your best ideas related to whether leadership is God given or not, whether I need, whether it's just a gift and I'm naturally good at it, like people have in various things, or I need to develop it. Give me your top couple things. This is what makes a good, great leader. This is what makes a great leader. What comes to your mind for that.

Speaker C: So dog on it.

Speaker B: We could spend a whole podcast on this, but we got to keep this bar brief. Darn it.

Speaker C: So, so what I'll do is I'll, I'll touch on what you said as it relates to like that internal battle, right? So another one of our core values is confidence with humility, right? And in order to be confident, right, you have to have an understanding of who you are, what you're good at. But at the same time, We're a student of life all the time, right? And so the second that you stop pursuing growth, now you're starting to flirt with that ego, that pride that's going to get you in trouble. And so relentless forward momentum rfm, right. Our top core value that applies to everything. Just what is it look like to constantly be pursuing something? And so when I talk about my gift being leadership, I think there is a confidence that comes along with that because I do truly believe that it has been a gift. Right. I didn't just decide that I'm like going to be a really good leader. And the reason that I think it's something that I can confidently embrace is because being a leader is really hard. Right. And I can tell you right now, like, what does leadership mean to me? I'll tell you in one word. Service. Okay. Like, in order to be a quote unquote, good leader, everything we do is about how do we serve those that we have been entrusted with to lead. Everything that I do and the choices that I make, especially as it relates to the pack, right? We, we, we, we at Petra are a pack.

Speaker B: Um, so a little playoff, some kind of Colorado, you know, like a Out

Speaker C: west type thing or what it could be. And, and, and someday, if you want to know the, the story behind that, I will take up the rest of the time if I talk about, you know, listen, you, you touched on it at the very beginning and it's true. Like, you're, you're talking to a guy who has spent a significant portion of his life diving into personal growth, right? And so the pack comes from a rabbit hole that I went down at one point in my life where it just became this thing. And then somebody commented on it and then I just thought we can be a team or we can be a pack. And a pack is our thing, so that's what we're going to do. And it means something to all of us. But also it's not so abstract that people don't know what we're talking about if I refer to us as the patent. But again, it's service, right? It's all about being a servant leader. And what does that look like? And understanding that the responsibility that I have at the end of the day, just like the leader of a household, the same replies to the leadership of a company as it relates to, like, listen, like, I'm not always, uh, it has to be about service because I have to have grace, right? Like, because for as good as we can reflect back on calls and decisions, I've made. There's that many ones that I would take back in a heartbeat. But the reason that we all still here is because of the people and their commitment to this thing and, and the alignment of values and mission and vision. And at the end of the day, our vision for Petra is about fulfillment. And my job is to provide an environment that has the opportunity for fulfillment, but it's not going to be given to anybody. Right. We're all going to be working for it. And that's where again, I feel like you have to be intentional about what servant service looks like because I'm not here to give anything to anybody. Right. My job is to provide opportunity. And as long as we are a like minded group of individuals, that's all we're looking for and we're going to take advantage of that opportunity and we're going to do it together. And so that's, that's it. That's like, what? And that's why I say it doesn't matter if it's a remodeling company or if I was a cook or I ran a software company. It's like the same thing.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's good. The, the core values. And I'll just read them out because you've touched on several of them. For people listening, relentless forward momentum exercise, discipline, confidence with humility. Intentional thought and action. Open and honest relationships. Reminder to the remodelers listening to this. When you put your core values clearly out there. There we go. Results. R I, S E. I got them too. And you live by them. And everybody in your team knows that those are your core values. Boom. He's got them right there. It makes the standards much more clear and the expectations much more clear. So that should be a takeaway. If you haven't gone through that exercise, do it. And then what a good summary of leadership. It's about service. It's not about me trying to get them to. Next time you're whining about an employee and about how they're not doing this, can you just go stand up, go look in a mirror and look at yourself and say, I'm, um, this person's leader and this person's acting like a knucklehead and this person's not doing this and this person not doing that, or what can I do to serve them? What can I do to serve them? And I liked how you built that out from home and, and, and work. If my wife and I are not getting along well and I like to say to myself, you know what? I. Part of my Role as a husband is to. Is to lead her. Is to lead my family. However that, you know, however you guys. Everybody views that, I view it that way. And you know what? I can either be selfish or I can be of service. Oh, that should be a. That should be a T shirt or something, Jimmy. I can either be selfish or. Or I can be of service. That's another definition of leadership. Doggone it. We're going to keep moving on. I have a guest. I have a feeling you're going to be a guest again here, Jimmy, whether you like it or not. Marketing. Oh, you want it? Did you want to add something else?

Speaker C: Here's what I'll say. All right, here's. Here's. Here's one thing that I think is worth saying. Interviews, conversations, whatever, trade partners who are. Who are branching out and want to start their own business. People, they come and I have conversations with them and it's like, what do I do? Right? And I tell people this all the time. Understanding your vision, your mission, but specifically your core values are the single most important thing that I think a young business owner can invest into. And I'm not going to say it's more important than, like, your actual business plan, but, you know, uh, everything is all energy and focus is intention is around, like, how, what am I going to do? How am I going to make this business work? Right? And it's like, well, I can tell you right now, unless you are committed to being a sole proprietor your entire life, your business is ultimately going to be successful or fall short based on people. Um, and if you don't have the definition of what those people need to do and be and operate, you're not going to find the right people just by chance. And when you do find the right people, if you don't have definition of what that. That. That thought and action looks like, you're just going to end up wherever it is that you end up. And so Hilson Merrill, who, Who I haven't taught, I mean, uh, he's a guy that was in a remodelers group of mine 10, I don't know, 12 years ago out of Nashville.

Speaker B: Hey, that's what. That's what old men start saying. I don't know. It's been a decade or two. This is.

Speaker C: There's.

Speaker B: I'm 42 now.

Speaker C: Right. Does that. That put me in the old man?

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm 43, so I know. Yeah, that's. That's an old man comment right there.

Speaker C: They came to Petra in. In a part of a remodeling group. And I remember I felt like I had things pretty flushed out. And he sat down and he asked everybody, all the guy. I think There was like 10 of us at the time, you know, and they did their interviews with all my team and everything. And. And that was like the wake up call for me is intentional thought and action. Right. It's like, well, uh, are we all on the same page? Are we all aligned? It's like, of course we are. Like, we, we meet all the time. It's like. But aligned around what? And it was like, us, you know, like us. What are you talking about? And so let's move on to marketing. But the takeaway there being like, listen, don't overlook the importance of having mission, vision, but specifically core values actually defined on paper, tangible, so people can see them and they can read them and understand that you are going to have a culture. You can either be a part of defining what that culture is, or you can be a victim of whatever ultimately it is defined for you. And I can tell you right now that.

Speaker B: Do you have a mic? Do you have a microphone in your hands? Because if you do, you can drop it because you kind of. It was kind of like a mic that was a little bit of a mic drop line. It was almost as good as my. You could either be selfish or of, uh, service. That one was pretty good, Mikey, that last one that you just hit on about the culture. You're gonna have a culture either way. Good.

Speaker C: Yep. You don't get a choice. And so you can either be a part of actively leading it or you can be a victim of what it becomes. And so I. It's just one of those things that, like, I would be. It would be a mistake not to have at least said, listen, do you want any piece of advice as it relates to where you're at in your business, whether you've been doing it for one year, five year, 10 years, 20 years, if this isn't something that you have, that you've intentionally made, that you have posted for people to see, and that in all conversations you have conversations of praise, conversations of criticism, you're not pointing back action towards alignment or being out of alignment with these things, ultimately you will find yourself someday a victim of something that you did not intend because there was not the right focus.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: So to speak, in the right things. And that's again, servant leadership. Right. I serve us by constantly being a reminder to who and why we are who we are. It's awesome.

Speaker B: That's awesome, Jimmy. I try to Be a pretty straight shooter. So I'm just going to put a. Put a straight shooter out here. Builder Funnel, you know those guys. Builder Funnel is an annual sponsor of Modelers on the Rise. Danielle and Spencer, I've known them for a long time. And instead of being like, uh, so here's how this all happened, people, is as part of the sponsorship, we're like, you know what we find to be helpful in our sponsorship? We try to blend, creating content that's helpful for our audience along with kind of mentioning the sponsor. That's brilliant. Isn't it supposed to say, yes, he's not in the head?

Speaker C: I'm shaking my head, yes, but for those that don't have video, yes, I completely agree.

Speaker B: He was shaking his head. So that's what we try to do. So then we said, hey, Builder Funnel, for, for the little. For the podcast where we want to talk about your services. Do you have a, uh, do you have a client that has been through your services, have been seeing some good results, and we can talk about their experience with Builder Funnel. Oh, and then Jimmy, we just started going down all these other rabbit trails and we had a wonderful conversation and now we got to pivot to talking about Builder Funnel and the marketing and kind of the process with that. And it sounds like a few years ago you were kind of looking at things going, all right, I got to maybe start to take the marketing side a little bit more seriously. I got to be a little bit more, oh, there's the word again, intentional about the marketing side of things. Talk about kind of that process where your mindset was there and then talk about kind of how that process has been with Builder Funnel and some of the results from it.

Speaker C: The shift came, uh, say, you know, a handful of years ago where Petra started as a general contracting company and then has over time evolved into a design build company. And so starting from general contracting, we had leads come in through referrals and word of mouth all the time. But the majority of our work came from relationships that we had built with designers and architects. It was, it was fine. So it's like we quote, unquote, marketed, but, like, really we were operating based on relationships. And as we started to embrace the design component of it, we were just off. We're operating in, like, parallel paths where we had our design build work and we had the work that we did from, from architects and designers. And I ultimately got to a point where, like, don't get me wrong, we still have relationship with architects to this day, and we're more than happy to build anything for them that, you know, we have the opportunity to do so. But I also kind of felt like it was a little bit of a,

Speaker B: uh, you know, one of a dance too.

Speaker C: Yeah. Oh yeah, I know, I know. Believe me. So when we decided, like, listen, I owe it to these designers, like I owe it to this team to continue to facilitate not just the, uh, not just enough work for them to stay busy, but like enough work for it to sustain. Petra. Right. So we had gone back and forth over a few years with uh. So at that point in time I had like, you know, five, six million dollars of revenue. I needed to, to grow into that with stuff that we were getting on our own, not just coming from, you know, other companies. And so we'd, we'd worked with probably three or four different quote, you know, quote unquote marketing companies over the years.

Speaker B: That website, digital marketing type thing.

Speaker C: Exactly that. And, and every one of them sounded good. Right? You know, you, you sit down and you know, they're giving you their pitch and it's like, okay, this is exactly what we need. I was familiar with Builder Funnel from the days of remodelers Advantage, at least you know, an idea of what Builder Funnel was. And so a couple years ago I would have, it would have been good for me to remember exactly like why. What specifically happened that made me reach out to them?

Speaker B: Um, Spencer's good looks.

Speaker C: I, Well, I probably because I always get Spencer's emails for the last 15 years from just being on the, you know, the mailing list or whatever. And so it was, it was, it was one of those things.

Speaker B: It was his relentless forward momentum of marketing that finally got you.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that's a much better way to put it than his good looks. I've never met the guy in person, but that's probably not the first thing that comes to mind. Kind of like my grave.

Speaker B: Here's a singer. I like that one. I mean, Spencer and I have a similar hairline and stuff. So we talk about that.

Speaker C: You work with what you got.

Speaker B: That's right.

Speaker C: So we started working with them. We met with them and they outlined a plan.

Speaker B: But pause there. You don't remember specifically what it was, but I think there's a lesson there, even for all of us, of like, you know what it was the consistency of marketing. But even more than that, marketing is building know, like and trust. So if you are creating content and you're putting content out there consistently like Spencer and Builder Funnel have done for years, and, and you're putting out there of, like, I'm creating content to help my ideal client. And the more I just continue to help and guide and show myself as an expert and give them good ideas, eventually it's kind of like, all right, timing and value is aligning, and here we go.

Speaker C: That's exactly right. Like, I got to a point here. Here's what it was. We'd worked with all these marketing companies, okay. And finally I just got to a point where it was like, surely there is a marketing company that just does what they do for us, right? And it was like, actually there is, and I've known about it all along. And so there is a component of it. I. I absolutely agree with there. There was just. There's the consistency of your brand being out there. Right? Sure. And so it was like kind of one of those things where things align. Kind of like the. The PETRA thing, right? Like, I'm m looking for something, and because of consistency of information, like, it's like, oh, yeah, finally, you know, the light bulb goes off, and so I sit down and I. I have that initial meeting with them, and they outline this plan. And for me, it represented it. It represented a significant marketing investment and marketing. I'm sure most people can kind of understand at least my pain in marketing from a standpoint of, like, it's really hard if you spend $50,000 in marketing. It's like, I have a hard time believing that all $50,000 of that was, like, giving me exactly the return I wanted it to on everything. It's like, if we go out by the 8020 rule, right? There's probably only 15, 20 grand of that. That's like, really doing the heavy lifting. And it's really, really, really hard to tell what it is, which is which, because my job isn't to be a expert in marketing. My job is to find the people that are the experts, Whether that's like my CFO or my general manager or my superintendent's. Like, I've done my job well when I find the resource that can do what they do for PETRA better than I can. And so obviously, I got that very. I got that sense when I initially had that meeting with. With Builder Funnel that there was a component of. I think confidence with humility is a good way to put it to tie it to petra. But what. What I took away from it was really just like an unapologetic path of, like, if you want your marketing to be successful, this is what it looks like now within this, there's all different kinds of options, but it Wasn't they were doing for them to me what I want us to do for other people. Which is like there's confidence with humility but there's this unapologetic approach to like listen, we know what it takes to be successful. We've done this for people we've been around for you know, a very long time and this is what it looks like. And so I, we made the commitment to, to go all in. We initially um, were working with, with Kayla, um, who has since promoted up, which is no surprise to me because Kayla was super impressive to me every time we met. Uh, we're working with Claire now. I would hire Claire in a second to be set to work sales and account management for me. I, I just think that my experience with. Outside of, outside of the actual marketing return. The most impressive part about Builder Funnel is the people. Right? And that matters to me obviously because I think that the most impressive, successful part about Petra is the people. And so, but uh, like I know that you're probably looking for me to be able to give you like, like legitimate numbers and data and, and I have some of that to some extent. But like what I can tell you is um, we just had our, our quarterly recap meeting like last week. So some of this stuff is actually pretty fresh on my mind. So far this year we have generated More leads by July 20, actually technically by the end of June than we had the previous year before we started with Builder Funnel. In total the number is it's give or take 200, 200 annual leads two years ago. And as of June 30th we're like at 207. I mean, you know what I'm saying? And so it's like how long have

Speaker B: you guys been working together to.

Speaker C: This is, this is into year two. Yeah, like this is actually technically it's just over our second year. We started in February two years ago. So we're like, we're m. Like 27 months or whatever and they told us, they told us like listen, this is, this is a year long commitment in order to then get to the part to where we start doing our thing, right? Mhm. And so, so yes it's been two years but we're, we're a year, we're now a year into like the uh, we've resulted, our dues, we've made our investment, we've given them the time that they told us up front they needed to start to develop the, the brand recognition and presence and, and obviously like foothold that, that they need in order for us, which, by the way, even throughout that first year, everything was still increasing. Right? It wasn't like they were doing nothing. It just wasn't like. And so now, uh, we talk about, like, return on marketing investment. Okay. And we, they, they have their way of measuring return on investment, right? 10 times, 15 times, which is, which is great. And it all depends on like, how you actually measure that stuff. But I can tell you from a guy who sits in this seat that, that values numbers because numbers are important. But there are things that I value more. And here's what I value more is that I have an expert team of people that will listen to me. They will tell, they will. We will have spirited conversations when spirited conversations are needed. Right? But they will also say, okay, if that's what you want, that's what we'll do. And that's what was needed. Right? Like, I don't have, uh, it's not a comp. It's a company that with or without me, is going to be just fine. Right? And so they tell me what it is I need to hear. They answer hard questions when I ask hard questions. They extend grace to me when they have to explain to me the same thing every three months. Because I, I can get sidetracked back onto like, why, why aren't we doing this? And it's like, dude, we've, we've talked about it.

Speaker B: We've been, we've been down this road before. Yeah, exactly. So they, they have a way of measuring roi. How have you measured ROI at your pipeline? Quality qualified leads and just straight up pipeline, you're seeing great results.

Speaker C: Yeah, so, so my pipeline right now, when I look at where it's at, when I look at like marketing qualified leads and sales qualified leads, a, uh, marketing qualified lead being like, hey, this person that reached out to us is asking us to do the. One of the types of jobs that we do. Uh, right. Somebody that calls in for a window replacement or a bathroom remodel or just a kitchen remodel. That's not. We don't classify those as quote unquote, a marketing qualified lead. And then to be a sales qualified leads means we've had that initial phone call and it's like, okay, not only now do we have the type of job we're looking for, but we have alignment and at least the prospect. Right. Shared vision of like, who we are, why we do what we do, how we do what we had to do, and understanding that there are equal expectations on them as a prospect and, or a client in order for this whole thing to be successful. And so our we have probably as many sales qualified leads now as we did a couple years ago of just marketing qualified leads. Mhm. And so the pipeline is full. And when I look at the pipeline like what will keep me a client of Builder Funnel regardless of 10x5x20x100x return on investment is when I look in my pipeline, if we can. If I'm constantly looking at the pipeline and, and Petra is not only sustaining but has as much growth opportunity as we want to have and uh, all I have to do is actually sell say half of what's in my pipeline. Like we're good. Nothing else needs to be said. Right. Like I don't. The numbers matter. But that's what matters to me more is like sure, do I look at my pipeline and everything's going to be fine with Petra as long as I sell everything that's in the pipeline. It's like well that's not very comfortable.

Speaker B: That's risky. Right? That's risky.

Speaker C: And we've been there.

Speaker B: And then, and then as far, yeah. As far as even the 80, 20, as you're studying it, as far as what you're paying attention to, what do you think is kind of the service, the part of their service that seems to be moving the needle the most Obviously a good marketing program is a combination of a lot of things. It's a combination of the content writing of the opt ins, of building up an email list to stay in touch with previous prospects clients. It is the paid ads, it is SEO. It's now the AI side. Is it a combination of the whole package or have you seen certain aspects of it really be the part that feels like it's moving the needle at 20% that might be move turn it into the 80.

Speaker C: I know that it would be super great for me to be able to say like this is the specific thing that Builder Funnel does for us, that that really moves the needle. But it's not, it's. It is, it's the collaboration with Builder Funnel and it's their willingness to, to be the experts but also understand that there is a partnership with Petra and that we are unique in a lot of our own ways and we have our unique expectations and so they're not trying to get me to fit into their box. They're trying to get their expectation like what they know works to work for us as Petra, as if they were on the staff of Petra because we have very specific expectations on, on like what our brand looks like and what our voice looks like. And, and I've gone back and forth many times with them over like, we want to say this for SEO. And I'm like, I don't want to say that because that's not. Would never come out of any of our mouths like that. Right. And like they've gone out of their way to still take who we are and what our voice is and then still maximize it for the actual things that they needed to be maximized for, for successful marketing. And so what I'll say is that it's not about any specific thing. It's about the package that comes along with Builder Funnel because we've had success in all of it. We've had leads come in from social media, we've had leads come in from the blogs, we've had leads come in on the paid ads, we've had paid ads start to dry up. But then there's other things that come in. And so it really is the package that Builder Funnel provides.

Speaker B: Good. And then if I'm a marketer, if I'm a remodeler looking at marketing and I'm going, when I look at the price of it and the investment of it, what say you to that?

Speaker C: It's that it's not the price, it is absolutely the investment. Because what I can. So. So last, it'll be more like generality. So. So, um, what I can tell you is last year. So last year was. It was, it was our partial. It was our first partial year after like that initial investment. Mhm. 40. Technically 47% of the revenue. We did over $10 million last year. But just to make the numbers really easy for people, $4.7 million of the $10 million of revenue we did came directly from Builder Funnel. So is there a cost to marketing or is there an investment into marketing? Like you, you as a business owner can make your own choice how you want to view that. I obviously know how I view it. And I can tell you right now that if I tell you, hey, is a hundred thousand dollars worth 4.7 million too? I think everybody would say yes. And I'd be like, okay, cool. Because just so, uh, you know, it's literally half that the investment I made into that. Right. It's like I can make it sound like I could, I could pitch it in a way to where you like, I would totally spend 100k to get 4.7 million. And I'm like, well, that's great, because just so you know, it's not even close to that good. So Is it a cost? I don't think so. And I mean, do you view salaries as cost? Right? Like it's like. I don't think so.

Speaker B: No. That's good. That was a, that was a pretty convincing little, uh, story to shared there and it was a good story. And it's the thing that I've learned about you over the last hour, Jimmy. Is I just talking to somebody? That one, that service thing that you talked about earlier, I'm just kind of hearing that throughout of how you talk and how you roll and it's just reinfresh. It's a reminder for all of us. Let's all just be straight shooters. Let's all just tell it like it is. I'm guessing you're somebody that shares your warts, uh, you know, and shares your bad parts and shares your good parts and it's just refreshing. Like be. Be. I, I just, I just felt like I had a very good inkling of somebody who's passionate, somebody who's honest, somebody who's worked hard on being inspiring to those around and is keeping the focus on the people around him. You've said it in a variety of ways versus yourself and there's a lot to learn in amongst that. Um, in addition to that, we heard core values. In addition to that we heard intentionality versus discipline. In addition to that, we heard some marketing. And um, to put a cap on the marketing side, uh, it is hard. It is easy if you've been in business for 10, 15 years to generate a certain amount of work from repeat and referral work. If you're doing a good job, it's easy for that. It is hard to develop a pipeline of projects that's coming from straight up marketing and advertising. That's where we need to partner with people who are strong with that. You've partnered with builder Funnel. And the other beautiful thing about marketing is now if that 4.7, let's say represented 30 new clients, those 30 clients are now in your previous client realm of things. They have a whole network of folks now. You've strengthened your repeat and referral work. So there's an argument to made even if I'm break even ish on my marketing investment, it's actually when I take a longer term view of it going to be a uh, crazy net positive, let alone if standalone that is already profitable. So keep that in mind as you're looking at your business, as you're looking at investing in marketing. Jimmy, that was a lot of fun. If you were to leave everybody with, with a Final thought, tell them your website address so you can go check that out. And then if you were to summarize any one thing that we shared or something else that's coming to your mind, what would that be, sir?

Speaker C: So, Petra, custom builders.com I think that what I can summarize or like just kind of speak to like, hey, if you take one thing away from the podcast, marketing is absolutely something that needs to be viewed through the lens of an investment. It's, I, believe me, I viewed it as a cost for a long time and I limped through leveraging relationships and word of mouth and signs and all of those things matter. All of those things are all very much a testament to you doing what you do and serving very well. And they're incredibly important. But like you said, there's so much more to this and I would so much rather be in a position where we get to just continually raise the way that we vet clients.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: Because we've all been in those situations where it's like you're gonna do a job because at the end of the day, like you need that revenue to do the job. And for businesses, especially business owners, like, the burden of that really falls on your people. Right. They're the ones that then have to go deal with, you know, design has to deal with those clients for months

Speaker B: and months and months.

Speaker C: And construction has to deal with, we

Speaker B: took a bad client, we uh, took a project that's not our wheelhouse, it's clunkier, lower margin, the whole thing.

Speaker C: And so the investment into what certainly what Builder Funnel has done for me, but has done for, for so many people for so many years is what has allowed us to just continue to take our view, our perspective, our vision for what those ideal clients are and then just continue to refine that more and more and more. And so even over the past couple years, our, our goal of PETRA over the past couple years has, has not been growth in terms of revenue, it's been refinement in terms of like, process. Because, um, we could get into many conversations and debates over like, what plateaus and benchmarks require, what amount of people. And you know, but I believe that right now where we're at in that 12 to 13 million dollar mark, we're at that place where now taking that next step to 15 and then beyond requires, uh, kind of another step and investment into some infrastructure and people and roles. And so instead of just going to that, the last two years have specifically been about refinement of, of process, so to speak. And what Builder Funnel has done for us outside of just the leads is because of opportunity of the leads, has allowed me from a sales component, a sales component to really refine who's a client who makes the cut to even be a prospect for us.

Speaker B: And that, that's the dream of marketing.

Speaker C: And so, so to me it's like, listen, we've, I've said it, I'll say it again, I'll say it if I talk to you in one year, five years, 10 years, like invest into culture because culture is happening and being defined through the actions of everyone that works for you and with you, whether you like it or not. And if you're not being intentional about defining what that actually is, then it's something that's happening to you. And I promise if you're not being intentional, if not the whole thing of your culture, there will be parts of your culture that you absolutely hate. And so please, please, please invest in the culture. That way you can actually stand a chance to vet clients because you understand what it is you're looking for and where you need that alignment and like mindedness in trade partners, vendors, suppliers, homeowners, Builder Funnel, right? If you don't know what it is that you're, you, uh, it's like how are they going to find you leads that work for you if you can't even define what those leads are? Right? And so to me it's, to me it's just that, and like I said, it's, I, I, I should reach out to Hilson after this because it's been a long time, but maybe Hilson listened to this and I can just sit here and say, hey man, thank you for everything that you did for me and for Petra.

Speaker B: Yes, he could listen to, he could listen to this, but put down your to do list yet this week, reach

Speaker C: back out to him. Being intentional about, I was going to

Speaker B: say, could you, could you be intentional about that? Maybe, maybe for the first time in your life, Jimmy, show a little discipline, huh? Huh? Couple that intentionality with discipline.

Speaker C: Follow through. Yep.

Speaker B: Yeah, that was wonderful. Thank you so much for being generous on here and for sharing just a smattering, uh, of wonderful thoughts.

Speaker A: Hey, I hope you enjoyed that conversation. If it inspired you to have a conversation with Builder Funnel and see what it would be like to partner with us, to work with us over the long haul. We are not quick fix marketers. We are growth partners. And so if you do want to see what that would look like, have a conversation about it, just head over to builderfunnel.com you can book a meeting. We'd be happy to chat with you today, talk about your business goals and just see if we're a match. And if we are, that's great. And if not, I think that you will learn a lot just from a few conversations with our team. So with that, head over to builderfunnel.com, we'll see you next time here on Builder Funnel Radio.