Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast we're talking with Jose Camacho, who has a really great business helping people remodel their bathrooms from their 5,000 square foot showroom in Miami.
We talked about a lot of the potential he has in the before unit for different target audiences, and it's going to be a good exercise for you to hear how we go through the process of selecting one.
The big opportunities though maybe in the during unit and after unit and the conversation developed as we talked about each of these.
I think you'll find this one very thought-provoking for your own business.
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Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 161
Dean: Jose.
Jose: Dean. How are you?
Dean: Hey, I'm so good. There he is.
Jose: Are you in Florida?
Dean: I am in Florida. Are you in Florida right now?
Jose: I'm in Miami, yes.
Dean: You got away with the hurricane?
Jose: I did, I did. Nothing came in.
Dean: We didn't even get anything. So we got away ... We had no rain, nothing.
Jose: Nothing. So how are you? Good?
Dean: I'm good. I'm excited to chat today. We've got the whole hour here to hatch some evil schemes. I want to hear all about what you're up to. I read about your ... Just the short info that you sent. But I want to hear the whole story.
Jose: Right. So I have a bathroom showroom in Miami, Florida. I have it now for three years. It's a new showroom, new business. So no existing clients. Right now, my clients, I'll say that 50% are end-user, like anyone that has a house and wants to remodel a bathroom or two. The other 50%, I'll say that it's someone related to ... I don't know. It could be an interior designer, some kind of decorator, a TC. Although, TCs don't buy much from me. More designers, I think. That's about it. The reason that I have the bathroom showroom is because this is what we have been doing in Colombia.
As you can see from my accent, I'm not from here. I'm from South America. We have had this business in Colombia for like 30 years. We decided to open it here to ... Well, basically because for us, South Americans, to come here to Miami, like easier and everything's better.
Dean: Yeah, you know, a funny thing is we have one of my real estate ... A realtor in South Beach, she says the thing that her foreign buyers love so much about coming to Miami is that it's so close to America.
Jose: Right.
Dean: You feel just like you're at home. So it doesn't matter.
Jose: Right.
Dean: That's funny.
Jose: That's it. So my thing is that I was the buyer over there in that company for 13 years. Now I'm doing like a little bit of everything, because the showroom here is little. All of my clients, I got organically with no referrals. It was hard at the beginning. Right now I'm trying to get a handle of it. I want to maybe like look for a predictable way of getting clients and getting my process organized. Because at the beginning I was just like learning, you know?
Dean: Yes, I think that's a great idea. So what do you do right now that would give me a sense of what's going on right now? How big of a business is it? What kind of volume do you do? What kind of advertising do you do now? Anything like that?
Jose: It's like a 5,000 square feet showroom. One of the different things that we do from regular showrooms is that 50% of our product, we bring with our own label. 50% of our product, we buy here from other brands, such as Bristol, Delta, Moen, brands that you know here.
Dean: Yes, okay. So do you manufacture in Colombia and bring here?
Jose: No.
Dean: Okay.
Jose: No, I buy like Oiam, bring a lot Portugal, China, everywhere.
Dean: It's private labeling, right.
Jose: I wish I could do only this, but at the beginning I had to do a little bit of everything. Now I'm trying to push more my label, because it's more efficient to do an order, let's say, for 100 faucets, instead of one by one, you know?
Dean: I gotcha. Then that's kind of the thing that people kind of go with an established brand, in a way, when they're thinking about that, sometimes. Right?
Jose: Yes.
Dean: Yeah, so to get that, establish your brand in their mind, that makes sense. Tell me about the designers and the contractors, or the people that you work with. What's the arrangement with them?
Jose: Okay, so right now, from what I see, is that the industry's changing a little bit. Because you have the internet, and you can buy from big websites like Amazon or Build.com if you know what you're doing. So if you know about faucets, if you know about toilets, if you know about everything, you can do it there. So the trade is not relying that much on showrooms unless they go like to a higher level. So the interior designer that is buying a faucet that is on the $500 range, maybe he'll go to a showroom and look for it. But if he's searching for $100 faucet, he's going to buy on his own on Amazon.
Dean: That's really the thing, right? Any kind of physical things like that, now especially with any of the sites. You can have anything delivered anywhere. So you're right. The role of the showroom is different now than it has been historically.
Jose: Yes, if you ask me why clients come to my showroom, I'll say one, because they like to look at things instead of seeing them online. Second, is to help them put together a whole quote or a proposal of two or three bathrooms. You can get everything for them in one order, and you can advise them in what style should they buy, and what price range ... Or what can they get with their budget. And also because of the things that I have. It's available for them now, and it's easier for them to return. When you buy these faucets or whatever it is that you're buying from any website, some things are hard to return. Especially like toilets, vanities, like big volume items. They're hard.
Dean: Yeah, so the advantage would be for them that it's easy to just pick it up right there, drop it back off right there if they need to.
Jose: Yes. So I have some kind of inventory of my products, and some of the things that you can buy here easily. So it's convenient for the clients. I help them to put together a proposal. You were asking more about my numbers. Right now, it's a 5,000 square feet location. Three of us working here in the showroom. We are doing more or less a million in sales, with a gross profit margin of 50%. That's because I have my own label. My own label products, the cost is like 20 or 25%. But when I do like the other products that are sold everywhere, the margin is only 20%. When you combine them together, you get this mix. I do ...
Dean: That's why your is so important to you because it brings it all up.
Jose: Yeah. That's about it. I do no advertising whatsoever, because every time we do something, I feel that is more or less like what you were saying on your Eight Profit Activators. When you get a brand out, but you don't get nothing out of it. So I always say, "You know what? I'd rather give this value to my client instead of wasting it." But I have no experience in marketing. So that's why I'm reaching out to you.
Dean: Okay. What's the average ... When somebody's coming to you, what is the average purchase that they're making with you? Are they buying all of the elements? Or are they buying one particular thing from you and buying things from somewhere else? Are they buying all of the bathroom in one place? Or how does it ... Is there a typical scenario?
Jose: Yes. So if you see my ... I use Shopify, by the way. So if you see my POS system, it says my average sale value is $1,000, more or less. I have clients that buy everything for a bathroom. That could be around from $1,000 to $3,000 for their three bathrooms. That could be around $10,000. Or that they just buy ... Like they just moved here, and they don't like what whatever they have in their home, and they just buy like little stuff. They're renting, so they spend like $200.
Dean: I gotcha. Okay. So the average is the $1,000. So there's probably a good opportunity to raise that. What would be your dream come true? What would be really ... Like, what's the home run for you, in terms of the idea client or customer experience that you're looking for?
Jose: So my ideal client right now is the one that is not so much price-oriented and wants more of advice, and values advice and values their time. Because a homeowner may purchase everything on a website, but they have to see 10 videos of YouTube on how to buy stuff. So usually young people are not my ideal clients. Usually my good clients are maybe homeowners that they own one or two homes.
Dean: Do you find ... Is there a good ... If $1,000 is kind of the average, or median, of all the people that bought. Is it weighted that there will be more people in actual ... Like more people under $1,000 than over $1,000. Are there fewer people who ... If we were to rank your clients over the last 12 months from each individual client, we rank them by how much money they spent, how much would the top client spend? What would be kind of the breaks there?
Jose: Well, one thing is that I don't have like premium, luxury items.
Dean: Right, I get it.
Jose: My thing is to have like affordable luxury.
Dean: Yeah, and that's the thing. I guess what I'm getting at is that this affordable luxury package where people are buying a tub, and sinks, and faucets, and toilet, all of that compared to somebody coming in buying one or two items from you kind of thing. How often are people coming in and buying all of the elements that they need from you for ... Like the complete bathroom?
Jose: I'll say 80% of the time, because usually things match. Like the shower fixtures has to match with the faucet, and usually the faucet, they want it to match with the bathroom accessories. Then the toilet doesn't have to do anything with it, but sometimes they say, "You know what? I would rather save some time." They say, "Show me a toilet." Then they say, "Show me a vanity." They save time getting everything together.
Dean: I like it. Where are they coming from? How wide a geographic area are you?
Jose: So they're coming from ... I would say like a 20 mile radius. Maybe a bit more.
Dean: Yeah. Where are you located? What part of Miami is your showroom?
Jose: I'm in between Brickell, which is downtown more or less, and Coral Gables, that is the traditional area of -. But my location is on a neighborhood that you find no businesses around. So I'm conveniently located, but I don't get a lot of foot traffic.
Dean: Right. It's the destination traffic, right?
Jose: Yes, but I'm on Coral Way. So that avenue, it gets a lot of traffic from people from Coral Gables that go to Brickell every day to work, many, many, many cars.
Dean: That's awesome. There's many homes in Coral Gables, and there's many homes in between that area, too, right?
Jose: Yes. Single family homes.
Dean: -. So if I'm looking through the potential target audiences here, would be people who live in those homes. Probably there's a high possibility that homes in transition, like when people are moving into a new home. That's part of the process, I guess, right? They're buying the new home and now they're going to do some renovations. Do you find that a frequent thing? Or people who are remodeling a bathroom and a house that they've lived in for several years, and they're just updating or doing remodel?
Jose: I see both, but I guess that most of it comes from people that are buying a new house and they want to do something to it before they move in. Or maybe they buy the house and they just ... They put like $100,000 on it, and then they sell it, because some homeowners that buy their houses, they'd rather buy a house that is renovated, instead of them having to with their own money the $100,000 to get the remodel. Do you know what I mean?
Dean: -. I think that's awesome, that that could be a possibility, too. Is that using some trigger data, like when new homes, as soon as they come on the market, to connect with the homeowner and/or the realtor, to start that process, because they're in contact with people, right? So if you're starting to give people some options of what they could do, or planting that seed, joining that conversation if it's already in their head. How much of your business is real estate agent-driven?
Jose: I'll say almost 10%. Maybe less.
Dean: But enough that you recognize that there's a few realtors that that's a source for them?
Jose: Yes.
Dean: Part of the thing that ... This could be ... I'm just looking for wide swaths of potential target audiences for you. Each one of these could be an independent thing. Like if we look at using real estate agents as a opportunity, if you treated maybe the real estate agents like the designers, in a way where they are able to pass on and preferred pricing for their clients kind of thing. If you were to bring some of them on as a designer sort of thing. What type of arrangement do you have with designers?
Jose: So usually they have a 20% discount. So they can usually, depending on the designer, they will give that discount to their clients, because they're gaining their fee. Or some clients, what they do is that they give like a whole value to the renovator, and they just say like this, "I'll do this for $100." They just do everything they have to do, and they have to buy their own stuff and do whatever they need to do.
Dean: Yes. I love it. So when you think about that now, that could be a really interesting opportunity there. If you think about how all of the real estate agents within that 15 mile radius of where you are there, or especially even just in that Coral Gables or in Brickell, or wherever it is, that that could be a really nice profit center. I know for sure, you could set something up like that. Because a lot of times, realtors are in a situation where maybe the house needs updated bathrooms, but the sellers are not that interested in doing it, because they're leaving and they're going to leave it for the new buyers to come in. Some of the real estate agents are showing houses to buyers that need an updated bathroom, but they don't want to do it because they would rather buy something that's already done. So you're in this kind of Catch 22 situation, where it's like they want it done, but the sellers don't want to do it.
If they knew that they could put together ... If I were thinking about this as giving the realtors a toolkit to sort of put together a, "We love the house, but it needs new bathroom", and to have some options like "selected based on this bathroom" kind of thing to put with it, that might be a nice advertising thing for you to do. Right?
Do you do design consultations? Or does anybody in your studio do design consultations?
Jose: Yes, but they are free.
Dean: Yes, free. Perfect.
Jose: Because no one pays for this.
Dean: Yes, I get it. So that could be a perfect thing, where if there was an opportunity to do ... Based on pictures of that ... Do people bring in pictures of their bathroom and measurements or whatever? Or do you go to their homes to do it?
Jose: No usually, they bring the things that they have, and with the information that they give us, we prepare something. The most important thing there, when we ... So if I see what you're saying is way back, like the before unit that you're working there is very different from what I usually get ... Because usually when I get my prospect inside the showroom, that's when I try to give them the value of educating them right there. I show them. I have some questions that I need to ask them to see when are they doing their project, what type of budget do they have, what is it that they want, what color are they doing everything, what do they want. Because many times, they don't know what they want. That's where maybe the prospect likes me and likes what I say. They say, "You know what? Please do me the whole proposal." So that's more or less the way it works. But when you tell me to do it so ... Like before they have intention, sounds a little bit ... Well, I don't know. You know?
Dean: Well, the interesting thing is that if you start the timeline ... Like if we go back, and we'll just explore that one target audience. It's a high probability that somebody buying a home is much more likely than the general population to redo some component of the bathrooms when they move in, or that it's done in the process of the sale. But in the realm of that transaction, there's a higher probably that a bathroom's going to be redone than just a home that somebody's living in right now. Would you say that's fair?
Jose: Yes.
Dean: Yeah. How much more of a probability would that be? Is it 50% more likely? Is it ... I just wonder if we took-
Jose: Let's say a realtor has a house that they're selling. I see them telling their client ... I don't know, because I don't see them telling them, "Hey, you know what? You should do your bathrooms again", because they're going to lose some time to sell it. You know? So maybe they won't try to sell that idea at the beginning, because what they want to do is sell that home-
Dean: I agree with you 100%.
Jose: ... in under two or three months.
Dean: I agree with you 100%.
Jose: Which should be the right thing, because that's the moment where they can get maybe more money for their home, no?
Dean: Well, it could be, because this is part of the thing is that, especially in areas where there are maybe older homes, or homes that have been established, are there, and they redid the bathrooms. They were perfect in the 90s, or whatever, but they're perfectly -, and they're still functional and perfectly good, but it's not the current style. When you look at that, even any time in the 90s is over 20 years ago now.
So when you start to look at your bathrooms needing to be updated. Sinks, faucets, fixtures, all of that. If a house is sitting on the market, and the sellers are not getting offers, and the realtors hearing from the feedback from people looking at the house that, "Oh, it's just going to need too much work. They need to redo all the bathrooms and redo the kitchen, and all this stuff." That's the way the realtors hear it, from the buyers. Because the buyers are used to, especially in a place like Miami, having access to going into new homes that are completely done with brand new stuff. They want to be in an established area like Coral Gables, but they would also love for it to be brand new things.
So some of it, with some creativity ... So I used to, in my listings, when I was a real estate agent in Toronto, I had a little binder that I would keep in the house, that was the, "I love the house, but ..." binder. In it, we would have ways to show people what could be done. I love the house, but it needs new carpet. So I had a section in the binder from a carpet dealer in Georgetown, in - where I was, that showed how much ... Just to give people a sense of how much it costs to redo the carpet, because people are always going to overestimate how much things cost. But if they knew that with this amount of money, here's what you could do, it makes it kind of like, "Oh, that might be a good idea." So we had that with the painting, with the carpets, with the bathroom, with the kitchen, with the heating. Anything that was expensive that somebody might need to or want to replace, we would have the binder as a reference binder to show people what it costs to do stuff like that. You know?
Jose: Yes.
Dean: So if I were thinking this now through from your ... If I were coming to kind of take over the marketing here, and look at the one target audience, I'd just work backwards from the facts. That there are some number of real estate agents that we can know the number of. Let's say there's 5,000 real estate agents in Miami, and that there are 1,000 top ones that are working in that 15 mile radius where your showroom is, or in Coral Gables in some of those areas. That would be narrowing it down to kind of finding the real estate agents that are the active ones in that area. Some number of those either know who you are, and have used you and been into your showroom, and the majority of them may not know who you are, and may not have been into your showroom. Do you think that's likely?
Jose: Yes. Now my question is why do you think it's better to have realtors ... Or do the marketing to realtors instead of the homeowners who are selling or buying?
Dean: I think both. I think both in combination. That if we're looking at it that the realtors are the access to all of that ... Like one real estate agent is going to have multiple clients during the year that may or may not be ready to do a bathroom. Compared to one homeowner, is somebody who may or may not redo their bathroom right now. But they've only got the one house that they're looking at.
Jose: The realtor has many.
Dean: But the realtor has many. They're high probability. They're going to be involved in that conversation. Because I can tell you buyers will go through the homes and they'll say, "I love this one, but man, we'd have to redo the bathrooms. I wonder how much that's going to cost." If the realtor is equipped and able to kind of do a basic idea with people, and say, "Look, you can do a basic bathroom for this amount of money. You can do a luxury bathroom for this amount", to give people kind of like small, medium and large budget sort of arrangements kind of thing.
So they're a knowledgeable person who's in on that conversation, and can then steer people towards you. We may put together a guide, like a bathroom planning guide, or a bathroom costing guide, or an idea guide, that's specifically geared to people buying homes so they get a sense of you kind of sharing with them what to take into consideration when they're trying to decide what they need to do with the bathroom. Now they know you, and they like you, and they trust you, and we've got the opportunity that now when it's time to do the bathroom remodel, it's, "Come on into the showroom, and let's show you the different options of what we have." And you get as a client of Jason, you get whatever preferred pricing. That's a nice thing.
The realtors are going to feel good about that because they get to look like the hero, and you're helping them really turn a situation into a positive, where it's not an issue. Somebody might just say, "Ah, let's go look at other houses." But if they knew that they could look at this house with eyes of the bathrooms are perfect, that that might turn it around.
Jose: What is the realtor getting in return?
Dean: What they're getting is the ability to offer their clients this preferred pricing. They're getting happy clients. Or you could do it where you split the ...
Jose: - fee?
Dean: Split the referral fee, so that they clients could get 10% off, and the realtor gets a 10% bonus or something. However you figure, however you work it out. They would have to disclose that. So they would be more likely inclined to want to have something that they could pass on to their clients.
Jose: Why do you think clients ... I'm sorry. Why do you think it's better to do marketing to the realtors and not to interior designers?
Dean: Well, interior designers would be great, too. I'm looking at the ... This about selecting who each of the best target audiences may be. If we all the way from every home owner in Coral Gables, could be a potential target audience, in older homes where they may be thinking about doing bathroom remodels. That would be one target audience, trying to get get people directly.
The real estate agents are a high frequency with people in the transactional part of buying and selling, where it's more likely that over the next 30, 60, 90 days, that somebody's going to remodel a bathroom. You could also get new movers lists. As soon as somebody moves into a new home, we could mail to them. There's so many opportunities, so many different types of these things. The contractors and designers would be another target audience that you could select.
Part of the process is just kind of outlining and selecting who are all of these possible audiences, and then figuring out what would be the best possible thing for that.
Jose: Because I was trying to go back, like filling out your score card. The first one is so hard, like trying to pick one client. Like I'm right there, like I'm a newbie.
Dean: Right. So I just want to make sure that, you know ... What I often say to people is that this ... Profit activator number one is select a single target market. That's where people get tied up. They think that what we're saying is that you have to limit yourself forever and always to just this one audience, and we're going to forget about everybody else. That's not what we're saying at all. We're saying is select means we're going through a process that we're choosing that these are the people that we want to try and attract. Now, we're going to set up a blueprint specifically for that target audience. Because as soon as you move on to Profit Activator Two, it depends on you having selected a target audience, because that's going to drive, "How do we get real estate agents to raise their hand?" We're going to compel real estate agents differently than we're going to compel designers, and differently than we're going to compel home owners, and probably differently than we're going to compel investors or condo owners or builders, or whatever.
Jose: Yeah, I like that.
Dean: Yeah, so it's not that we're going to limit you always. We're going to try and get all of them. I always say to people, we want to think like Proctor and Gamble. Proctor and Gamble has 23 individual billion dollar brands. So we can have 23 different target audiences, each doing a million dollars in business. Right?
Jose: Sure. But now do you think ... Because what I like about everything that you say, and I have been listening to lots of podcasts that you have. I want to ask you do you see that I could maybe aim differently or do something differently? I don't mean to scale, but I want to have a small company, but I don't want to be running ... Just to do all this marketing or thinking about this, it means I have to get away from the operation. It means that I'm not selling, and when I'm not selling, my business doesn't sell as much. So do you see a way that I don't have to market this business, but maybe like to focus it differently? Do you know what I'm asking a little bit?
Dean: Yeah, I do. You're in the exact situation that ... This is why. This is the exact dilemma that really we treat the before unit differently than the during unit and the after unit. So right now, within your business, your every day is in the during unit. You're in the showroom, you're doing the selling, you're driving sales, you're driving fulfillment, you're making sure everything's running smoothly, everybody's getting what they want, you're solving all the problems, you're putting out the fires, you're responding to new business, and you're very busy. Right? The perception is now that, "In order to focus on the marketing, I've only got so much time in the day. I'm going to have to reallocate some of that time to the marketing, and that's going to cost me time in the during unit." You're absolutely right. That's what happens.
That's why we, as much as we can, think of and treat the before unit like a separate business, outside of your business, and treat it as a supplier to your during unit.
Jose: A supplier.
Dean: Yeah, so imagine if there was a supplier that you could call up and say, "Send me over 10 new bathroom renovation clients this week", and 10 new people showed up in your showroom. That would be what you're looking for. Because I have 100% confidence that if they show up in your showroom, your current process will be able to take care of them. Is that right?
Jose: Yes.
Dean: Yeah. So what's your name sales process? Like right now, you're not selecting a single target audience. You are being selected at random.
Jose: Yes.
Dean: Right? Your people are selecting you, and you're responding, reacting, to whatever they come in with. It may be a designer, it may be a builder, it may be a real estate agent, whatever it is. They walk in the door, and you help them. It wasn't anything you did that you can point at that brought them in, because you told me you're not doing any marketing, really.
Jose: Yes. So yes and no. The only thing I'm doing is ... But I don't get anything out of it, is that I have a person helping me with social ... You know like posting Facebook and Instagram.
Dean: Yeah, social media. Right. Yeah.
Jose: Like pictures of products that I have, and they do like paying Adwords to promote a local bathroom showroom.
Dean: Well, that's marketing.
Jose: That's it. Yeah.
Dean: Let's talk about that. Do you get co-op money from any of the manufacturers that you carry?
Jose: No.
Dean: You don't get any ... Have you looked into it? Or seen if any of it is available? Do you carry the name brand stuff too?
Jose: No, because the whole thing is to try to not promote brands.
Dean: Okay, so you're ... Okay, so boutique stuff.
Jose: Right. It works better if I try to not sell all the brands. Like try to do only the brands that are helpful. Because as I said, there's no fee for designing clients. The whole process of selling bathroom fixtures is much more efficient when people do it online, because the website supports it better. You don't have to have a human being doing the proposal. So I was also thinking, do you think I am in a right business to be here for 10, 20, 30 years? Or is it disappearing?
Dean: Well, listen you can. The good thing that's going for you is that you can't digitize showers and toilets. Whiskers and shaving and makeup removal and all that stuff ... The bathroom is a safe haven in this digital thing that's coming here. Everything is being digitized, but you can't digitize a toilet. So there's no way to disrupt the bathroom. Not like normal, where everything can be digitized kind of thing. People are still going to need toilets, and they're going to need sinks, and they're going to need showers. That's not going anywhere. So fundamentally, it's the right thing. Houses are not going anywhere, right? This is all like internet-proof kind of thing. You've still got to physically do those things.
Jose: But the buying process, do you think it will change?
Dean: It has changed. It's already changed. But you can ride along with that change. I don't think that that's going to be a problem. People still ultimately want to touch and feel and see and experience. That's why people ... As much as the real estate industry has been disrupted, people still want to actually see the home, and see the yard, and see the neighborhood, and do all of these things.
Jose: Yes.
Dean: Yeah.
Jose: I agree with you.
Dean: Yeah, I agree 100%, that you're not in an industry that's going away.
Jose: You don't see it either that I should be also riding the wave, like doing e-commerce, right?
Dean: Well you are, and you could. It's all possible. But I think that there's still big opportunities for ... There's a lot of the local ... All of the installation, all of the actual bathrooms are within this 15 mile zone of you. You know?
Jose: You're right.
Dean: I think there's something to that. You have to sort of think about the holistic approach to it, that somewhere else there's somebody having this same conversation, wondering, "How do I get more bathroom business?" But it's all local. You're not going to do ... I think there's lots of room for that here still.
Jose: What about the labor? I just supply fixtures. Should I be like partnering up? Or should I be offering installation?
Dean: You could. I mean, when you want to think for ... What is really great is that people ... What is it that people really want? If we can lean on and lean into the desire for the best bathroom in the fastest amount of time with the least amount of disruption at the great price, that's really where it all comes down to.
Jose: Those were four good questions.
Dean: Well those are fundamentally ... Jeff Bezos very famously has said people always ask him what's going to change in the next 10 years. He says, "I don't know, but nobody ever asks me what's not going to change in the next 10 years." He said, "I know that what's not going to change is that people are going to want as wide a selection of products as they can get. They're going to want to get them at the lowest price, and they're going to want to get them as fast as they can. Everything that Amazon does is leaning into that, to make it the best choice for people there.
So if we take what's not going to change about the bathroom in 10 years is that they're still going to be local. You're still going to install your bathroom physically in the house that you live. You're still going to want a wide selection of options. You have more stuff available than you have in your showroom. Right? You've got everything. The advantage that you have, and what I might lean into is the opportunity to maybe stage your bathroom, or to see the fixtures or the things or ideas like ... How do you have your showroom set up right now?
Jose: So I have a little bit of everything. I have a section where you can see some faucets, but I do have them also like on a -, where you can see the vanity, the mirror, the toilet, the faucet, the shower. So I have them both. When you're selecting the shower, you see 20, but you also see them on a bathroom.
Dean: Yes, perfect. So I think that that ... Making that within that 15 zone, if you can really make this the hub where people can come and make it like anybody who's planning a bathroom, they'd be crazy to not come there. I would certainly be looking at after the lead generation part of it, when you're in the Profit Activator Three and Four, then I would definitely be doing bathroom workshops and educational workshops. Almost like recycling the - to show different ... Almost like model homes, almost like a parade of homes, but a parade of bathrooms. You know?
Jose: Yes.
Dean: There's a lot of exciting things that you could do that way. We haven't even talked about your after unit yet. Do you get a lot of repeat and referral business?
Jose: Yes, that's most of what I get right now. But it's not predictable, also.
Dean: Right so there's a real chance to orchestrate that. It is what it is right now. If we were to overlay the whole blueprint of the eight Profit Activators on your business right now, and we look at the last 12 months, some amount of all of the business that you got ... And you probably have access to all of these stats through Shopify. Do you run all of your commerce through Shopify?
Jose: Yes, the POS and the ... Because everything is in one unit, so I don't have to do it two times.
Dean: Perfect. So you probably have access to your data that you would be able to say, "In the last 12 months, we have had 2,032 individual customers, and of those, 482 of them were repeat clients. 102 were referred by somebody." That's all knowable and you're probably not measuring like that. You're probably not doing anything to move those dials, to increase the amount of repeat business and to increase the amount of referrals, which are all opportunities for you.
Jose: You're right. Now, my before unit is something that I have to do, right? Like me [crosstalk 00:56:07].
Dean: I mean, it wouldn't necessarily be the first place that I would go.
Jose: You would start with the third?
Dean: No, I start with the during unit first of all. If I look at ... One of the things is what would be all the strategic opportunities that you have to .... What I would call your bathroom multiplier index. I would look at and see ... If you were to individually look at the experiences, look through from the moment somebody comes in to see you till you ring up the cash register, and they've bought whatever they're going to buy, there's probably an opportunity to have other things that they could buy, or other ways that they could enhance the experience, or enhance their purchase, or raise that number of your average ticket from $1,000 to $2,000, or to $1,500, whatever it is.
There's lot of those opportunities. We don't know what they are yet. That's really where you would look at your current situation and look at the metrics, and see where those opportunities are. If you're looking at it that they refer somebody, or that you give somebody a gift card to give to someone else, or you, in conjunction with a bakery in Coral Gables, that when people move in, you get their bathroom done, that you give them some cupcakes or something to have a bathroom warming party, to have some of their friends come over and see their new bathroom kind of thing, and have the opportunity to give them a gift card to use in your showroom, if they're going to do it. Because anybody who redoes a bathroom, they're going to be showing it off to their inner circle within the next 30, 60, 90 days. "Oh, we just did the bathroom. Come take a look. Oh, you've got to see our new bathtub. It's so amazing."
Jose: You're right. One more thing, Dean. I know that we're close to the hour now. Well, first of all, thank you because I like everything that you always say. I like how you make your life, everything that you do about it. So I admire you very much.
Dean: Oh, thank you.
Jose: What should I do next? I was thinking in doing the Orlando [inaudible 00:59:33] weekend.
Dean: Yeah, definitely. In two weeks, I've got one coming up. In two weeks, or three weeks. The 23rd, 24th, 25th. You're just like three hours away.
Jose: I know. This is very close to me. Would you say this is the next step?
Dean: Yes. I think that would be-
Jose: Or what would you say the next step?
Dean: Yes, the reason I would say that is because it's three days to go deep in, really. We've had a one hour conversation, and it's been like drinking from a fire hydrant. We only get to kind of go through the surface. But imagine spending three days where we focus only on applying the eight Profit Activators specifically to your business. It's a small group. It's just 12 people.
Jose: Yes, because right now I feel that everything that you say, I have to do. But I see that it's not easy to execute.
Dean: Exactly. Yeah. That's where now the good news is the thing that's really helped with the ... Because of the digital stuff is that all the execution of this has been commoditized. I don't mean commoditized in a negative way. What I mean is that it's become purchasable, off the shelf. You can buy execution. You can buy through a company like Get Leverage. You can buy somebody doing the marketing for you, so you focus your attention on the during unit from the moment people walk into the showroom, and just getting more people into the showroom. You could outsource the after unit.
Once we create the blueprint, create what it is that you want to do ... You don't have to learn how to do it. We can find a who to actually do the most valuable things.
Jose: Do you do this retreat how many times in Orlando? In case I can't make it in two weeks. When is the next time?
Dean: Next one is December.
Jose: Oh wow. All right. I'll try to do this.
Dean: That'd be great. Yeah, if you can come in two weeks, that would be awesome.
Jose: I hope so, too. The thing is that my mother-in-law has something that she needs to do. She actually lives in Orlando, but I think ... Well, she has some medical stuff to do and my wife has to be with her. So I have to take care of the kids. I want to go. I really want to.
Dean: Okay perfect.
Jose: Thank you, Dean.
Dean: Awesome, it's been great. Yeah, we'll stay in touch and let me know.
Jose: Thank you. Thank you.
Dean: Okay, thanks, Jose.
Jose: Have a good one, bye.
Dean: You too, bye bye.
There we have it. Another great episode. Thanks for listening in. If you want to continue the conversation, want to go deeper in how the Eight Profit Activators can apply to your business, two things you can do. Right now, you can go to morecheeselesswhiskers.com, and you can download a copy of the More Cheese Less Whiskers book, and you can listen to the back episodes, of course. if you're just listening here on iTunes.
Secondly, the thing that we talk about in applying all of the Eight Profit Activators are part of the breakthrough DNA process. You can download a book and a score card, and watch a video all about the Eight Profit Activators at breakthroughdna.com. That's a great place to start the journey in applying this scientific approach to growing your business. That's really the way we think about Breakthrough DNA, as an operating system that you can overlay on your existing business and immediately look for insights there.
So that's it for this week. Have a great week, and we'll be back next time with another episode of More Cheese Less Whiskers.