Ep 163 - Bonus Episode - "RIA, LET'S GO!"

0:00 What's up, dude? Well, we got a special episode. You and I were Bloodlights Media Partners again for RIA. And this is a show that we are always eager to participate in. And part of what we did last year, too, was a podcast episode leading up to the show to just kind of unpack what goes on there and so forth. And this year, we got Mark Davis. I know. That's so rad. I mean, listen, not to downplay last year, I think we had Katie Smith and Jeff Moore on the show, and it was rad. It's awesome. And Mark Davis, the ever entertaining and inspiring serial entrepreneur. Anyway, it was really fun. It was great. And of course, he's on fire because he sees the long-term value. He's experienced it. Yeah, he's been through so many iterations in the industry.

0:41 It's just so his storytelling is really fun. It's great. And he gets into it. And we do talk a lot about the RIA. And for those of you that are unfamiliar with RIA, they are really kind of the industry association, right? That kind of brings all of us to the same watering hole. And it's a great source of networking in our industry and becoming more so every year. Last year, they sold out a record number of new members. Yep. I think they're continuing to grow. Hotels, I think at least the first hotel nearby is sold out. It's a great conversation. It's worth tuning into. And if you've been thinking about going to the RAA convention this year, well, you're going to get all the deets. You'll get a lot of reasons too.

1:22 But sign up for it. Quit dragging your feet. Bring your team. Bring your leadership folks. Bring your salesperson. It's great networking. Great overall ed. So here we go. Let's hear from Mark Davis. Wow. How many of you have listened to the Head Heart and Boots podcast? I can't tell you that reaction, how much that means to us. Welcome back to the Head Heart and Boots podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Brennan. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead. This new camera angle makes my arms look smaller than yours. I'm noticing that and I really appreciate it. I thought you did that on purpose. No, I don't. I didn't. And I am not happy with it. Well, my man, I think based on the last time that we had you on the show, I think that we probably will get some thrills and frills having you on yet again.

2:12 So, Mark, thanks, brother, for hanging out with us today and talking about RIA, of all things, actually. It's my pleasure. Thank you. So you're on the road all the time. Where did we capture you today? Today, I'm in Dallas, back in Florida later today. Was supposed to be actually in Philadelphia. You know, that's just what happens with things. Supposed to be three cities this week. But you know, part of it is our company slogan is on the move. And the reason it's on the move is it's a mindset. That's just kind of how we are. I personally have been on the move in restoration since 1996. because when I first got into the business, even though it was in Denver, there was Hurricane Fran that hit in Wilmington, North Carolina in October of 96.

2:57 And there was an adjuster that said, what are you doing here in Colorado? There's a storm in North Carolina. And I thought to myself, wrong place. Yeah. So anyway, I've been on the move following the storm work, you know, for almost 30 years. Unbelievable, man. Unbelievable. Well, I think to get things kicked off, I mean, obviously, RIA has a major event right around the corner that we want to draw some special attention to. But before we do that, there's probably at least two people maybe that are listening the show that maybe are not familiar with who you are and the role that you have currently with RIA. So let's start there. And then we've got a couple of questions that we want to dig into with you. Okay, well, thanks. Well, I just grew up in a small farm town in Nebraska.

3:39 I never heard about property restoration. I went to the University of Nebraska. I got a job out of college, and then I wanted to own my own company. I didn't have any money, but we were introduced. I had a business. I had somebody I wanted to be in business with. I'm 27. We ended up buying a restoration company, and that was in 1996, with no experience, with really no money. We borrowed all the money. And the only way we were able to do that, the seller loaned it to us. But in essence, that little platform company was a member of DKI at the time. And what accelerated my own personal, like I didn't know anything about restoration. I didn't know what Xactimate was or even how to spell adjuster with an E or an O. I just didn't know. But being a member of DKI, we went to then a meeting and the meeting had all the DKI members from US and Canada.

4:24 And then it had all the training. that was going on. And then they had some carriers there. This meeting happened within two weeks of us buying Rocky Mount Catastrophe and entering the industry. It was actually in Puerto Rico at the El San Juan. And I just remember thinking to myself, wow, we're only two weeks into this. We don't know anything. And these people have been in for 10, 20, 30, 40 years. Frank Heaton at that time, I think had been in for 40 years. And anyway, When I think of how that catapulted our knowledge, even our vision, like even what you think of what can be possible, Okay. I was a small little independent in a suburb of Denver in Arvada, Colorado. So that was our restoration world. We were members of the predecessor of Crawford's contractor connection.

5:07 It was called Prism. Oh yeah. Little old Chase Sutherland started it and USA was their first carrier and little old Rocky mountain cat was a Prism contractor doing USA work and farmer's work. And so that's, That's what we bought into basically was Rocky Mountain Cat. But then when I went to the DKIME, it's like, whoa, wow. This industry is huge and it's fragmented and there's so much opportunity and there's all these smart people that know. So when I think about RIA and if I was at any level, I could be a small independent. If you, for example, if you are a small independent or if you are even part of a large multinational roll up with private equity, or if you're a franchise at any size, I'm The value that is there.

5:55 It's not going to just reach out to you and grab you and say, here's the value. You've got to invest your time. Okay. And you get in your car, get on a plane, come to West Palm Beach, register first of all, and then engage. Because there is so much knowledge and people are so willing to be helpful. And the curriculum and the classes, we spend a lot of time developing who can be the best subject matter experts on the topics that matter for restorers at any level, anywhere, honestly, around the world. It's U.S., it's Canada, it's Australia, it's... It really is applicable in those markets, but in a way that is such a game changer. You know, part of it is for a restore to not go.

6:37 Well, I'm busy. You know, we got busy with the California fires or we got busy with this. That's what a lot of people say. Or I really can't afford to go. I honestly believe, okay, no matter what stage you are in your development as a restore, you can't afford not to go. And the momentum that RIA over the past five years, okay, really, I mean, Katie and Mark Springer and Christy and Jeff Moore and Ben Looper, the investment, if you will, of all those individuals and many more, and their volunteering of their time and of their resources – to make the industry better. Because, you know, you might think, okay, let's say you have never been to RIA and you're thinking about coming. You're like, well, why would they want to teach me?

7:19 They're all in the business. Why would they want to teach me if I'm competing with them back in my market? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nobody thinks that way. I can tell you right now, no one, rising tide raises all ships. If restorers are more consistent in their estimating, are more consistent in their paperwork, are more consistent in dealing with TPAs, and how to handle consultants and that sort of, if we're unified and consistent through training and through education and through doing it the right way, okay, is that that elevates everyone and it makes the industry better. That's right. And so that's why I honestly believe that if you're even thinking about it as a restorer, you got to push yourself over the edge and you got to register.

8:00 And the other reason is this is not about trying to create a sense of urgency because it's a real. Yeah. We sold out last year. Yeah. Okay. And this year, yeah, we sold out and we're going to sell out again this year. So this is really a matter of this. And thank you for doing this because this is really a calling to say, please don't miss out because if you don't pull that trigger and register, you're going to be looking at 2026. And we're going to expand to the venue again for next year because we keep selling out. Yeah. Knock on wood. That's a beautiful thing. But if you're even thinking about it, please, please motivate yourself to at the end of watching this to go online and register for the RA conference in West Palm Beach, April 28th through the 30th. Okay.

8:41 I want to piggyback on what you said, and I think your example of DKI is really awesome. The networking is really where it's at because, yes, there's really great learning. And every year, I think we've really enjoyed the RA, the breakout sessions, the general sessions. And of course, Brandon and I have been able to be a part of some of that. But the networking, one of the things that we've noticed, because we've gone to many of the different conferences, and obviously you over the years have been to probably everything at least once. And... Most of the other conferences really focus on a particular niche of the industry. And I think one of the things that we've noticed and I think is part of the big value of RIA is that RIA is really a collective of the whole industry.

9:24 Right. And something that we also noticed last year, and I know you were privy to, obviously, ServPro was there in a prominent way for the first time in quite a while. There was a lot more franchise folks last year. And I think that just stood out to me as another example of the industry very quickly and aggressively over the last few years because of the work of all the people you mentioned. and the focus on growth is now representing more of an entire cross-section of the industry. And so when you show up there, you really get a chance to network with everybody from the big boys and girls to brand new startups, right? Other small franchisees, large franchisee groups, et cetera, et cetera.

10:04 We had some of our clients there that run very big Servpro enterprises. And we also had clients there that are still working on their first 2 million bucks. And so I agree with you, I think. Exactly. The opportunity to swap stories and ask questions of people who are four, five, six steps ahead of you is, in my view, one of the biggest opportunities. You know, I'm wondering, Mark, like as part of this conversation, I think that a lot of people that hear the term RIA, right? Like I think many of us that have been in the industry for a few minutes, there's some kind of gut response or reflection on what that group means and the value proposition that it potentially provides for folks.

10:44 And I know that sometimes it's easy to consider that everyone that's engaged with RIA or only those that can get value from RIA are the big teams, the bigger restorers. A lot of the names you mentioned, for instance, the leadership team currently, These are all entities that have fairly large companies that they've built over the years. I think we often forget that they didn't start huge, right? Or they're part of the larger enterprise or platform entities, right? And so we make this assumption. It's only for the big guys. It's only for X, Y, and Z. You have this rich history. And guys, if you guys don't know Mark Davis or much about what you've had the honor and the opportunity to create in your time in this industry, go back and listen to a previous episode where we just get to rap about your battle stories because I think they're phenomenal.

11:37 But here's what I want to highlight and get you tracking on is you've literally been through all the paces. You've had the small independent. You've been part of this larger franchise mechanism. You've built a very large, commercially focused, successful national responder. You've literally worn the hats. You've literally seen the industry mature. And you've been in a place where you've participated at every level. With that kind of vision and that kind of backbone and experience, what is it that you're seeing happening inside RIA? What is going on that gives you so much confidence to not only volunteer your time, but to put your name on the line and say it's worth participating in?

12:23 What's going on? What are you seeing? Why is it important to us? The growth and the momentum of RIA and quite frankly, the excellent leadership that's been there before me. I mean, Mark Springer and Katie and Ben, I just can't say enough about them and Jeff Moore. They're bringing relevance to the RIA. And what I mean by that is that means with the consultants. So you may be at any size level, but let's say you land your first million dollar commercial job and you're like, wait a minute. I got the exact estimate ready to go, but the adjuster said he wants any T&M. Yeah. What? Are you prepared for that? So part of this is, and I'm going to use another example. Let's say you complete the million dollar job and you submit the invoice and you've never been through one of these meetings with one of the consultants like JS Held or Young & Associates or MKA and they're all good companies and they're doing their job.

13:10 They're part of the ecosystem. And they are not the enemy. And so part of this is also understanding the mindset because you'll hear some people say, oh, the consultants know they're part of the ecosystem. They're not going away. So what you need to do is you learn, you need to learn how to manage that. How are you going to learn it if you don't have mentors or if you weren't going to some classes or talking to other restores? The networking, as you mentioned, the networking is definitely number one. Because there's so much education that comes through the networking as well. But the examples are countless as to how the RIA now drives value. A, because there's real relevance. We're the trade association for restoration.

13:50 That's what we are. And for years and years, and I've been doing this for 30 years, RIA was good, but not driving near as much value as it could. That was recognized by predecessors before me. They've fixed that. Yeah. That's why now we're selling out the convention. That's why now our AGA, which is our government affairs, where we're actually writing white papers, and we even are working with lobbyists to protect the rights of restorers in states and in provinces all across North America. I mean, those are the sort of things you may think, well, how does that affect me? It affects all of us because we're all in the restoration ecosystem. But when you think of, and we mentioned earlier, regardless of where you are in the restoration sphere, of companies, whether you're, there's a large independence, small independence.

14:36 And even if let's say you're a large independence, that means you've been successful. Well, that's great. I'm always learning. So part of it is you, no matter where you are, you never stop learning. Okay. And so you'll go and then at any level. And I also recommend that owners bring their general managers or bring their top estimator because there's a, there's great training and networking opportunities. you know, there is well for the team. It isn't just for the owners of the restorers. And that's one thing you'll see. Once we see a lot of this now, and part of why it's selling out is because the curriculum has gotten so value-driven that like where there's real, wow, takeaway power. I mean, when we have the TPA panel, You have multiple TPAs up there and you get to ask them questions. You get to meet them.

15:16 You get to see how do we get on your list and you, the networking at the event afterwards. And there's access to all the speakers. It's just something that when you think about the value of it, you know, because I, okay, well I can't afford the time or I can't afford the dime. I mentioned earlier, you can't afford not to the membership alone. Um, pays for itself. If you look at the benefits that we have with the various vendors and other things of RA membership, if you can just follow any of them, the membership itself is paid for. Okay. That's an absolute mathematical fact. And people at the RA will walk any interested restore through that math. And that's a, that's a simple equation. So that's a no brainer. Okay. Yeah. Then it's a matter of, okay, can I afford to not go?

15:56 That's always an individual decision. Yeah. But all we can tell you is that those people that have, are making the effort are coming back again. And that's why we're selling out because, you know, and so this message is not to try to get our convention full. It's going to be, this message is for those restorers who are on the fence, who haven't, you know, made the decision or not, it's really an encouragement to do so before it's too late because you won't have the opportunity. And again, we are going to expand the venue for next year, but this is for 2025 and it's, it's really going to be spectacular. I think this term that you've used several times, this idea, this ecosystem, there's something interesting about that. Because I think what happens is we get so entrepreneurs in general, we get so laser focused on the things right around us that are in our immediate path because we're so consumed by the tyranny of the urgent.

16:49 that we can lose sight of the fact that there is this responsibility that we have as business owners and business leaders to be considering about what happens tomorrow. And the farther out on that horizon line that you can begin spending thinking time, if you will, or strategic processing... It's amazing what fundamentally changes in your business. So I have a point here. So hang with me. Yes, sir. We watch these teams that have become so large and so influential in our ecosystem, in the industry. And I think what we forget is that part of that happening... happens because people began to look farther out on the horizon and started anticipating the things that were coming down the pipe.

17:34 And that's what allowed them to grow, to scale, to reach these heights of success that many of us are still on the path towards. And so I think part of what I'm hearing you say too, is that we have a way to have future influence on the ecosystem that we are all living and building our businesses in. And this is not totally aspirational, but I really do believe that RIA is in the strongest position to help begin unifying those voices so that we can have that future impact on the ecosystem that our companies are living in.

18:14 And I think in some ways you've witnessed it and participated in it. Now you're playing a role in helping lead it. But do you have like, is there any knee-jerk response to that perspective and what we're doing? Oh, yeah, because it doesn't happen overnight. See, that's what we call baby steps. When you're moving the needle just a little bit, and that's what RIA has been doing for the last six years. It has been moving the needle gradually. And again, back to where everyone benefits is, there isn't one... benefit of going to RIA. There are multiple. And one of the most exciting that really gets me exciting is the carrier task force that we developed last year.

18:55 And Mark Springer has just agreed to take it on. If you think about this is carrier task force, that means our trade association for restoration industry. Okay. RIA now has an incredible leader in the industry. Who's going to be representing our trade association. So every restore, okay. in a carrier task force where we're talking to the carriers, meeting with them. Do you know how hard that is to do to actually meet with carriers now? It was hard before COVID, but once COVID happened, it became even harder. I mean, one of the largest insurance companies, I'm not supposed to name them, but they don't even have the headquarters anymore there, you know, because it's like, well, everyone's working from home. Okay. And so how do you go see somebody at home?

19:36 It's a little harder to do. And so, If you think about a carrier task force, that isn't just program work, you know, residential. That's light industrial. That's commercial. That's large loss. It's all of the above. And so, you know, when you think, well, what does that mean? I'm just, if I'm just some, no, no one, there's no such thing as being too small. I started super small. I own the Pure Clean franchise system. Okay. We bring in about 60 new franchise owners a year that start revenue at zero. And literally we at Pure Clean, we pay for 70 of our new franchise owners a year. We pay for their first year of membership in RIA. We cover it for them.

20:17 Yeah. Because we believe so much in the value that we want them to come to convention and experience it. Okay. And then they have the option, you know, to renew. And we have a very high percentage of those renewing for the second year and the third year and that sort of thing. And so when we're going to continue to do that because we just, and again, why are we doing that? Because the startup, the smaller one that's looking at time and money as far as budgeting, how do you do it? And that's what I say to them. I'm going to make it easier for you. We're paying it for you, right? Because you just need to come. And the thank yous and the feedback and the impact that it's having on their businesses right away, out of the gates early on. It's also never too late. Let's say you've been in business for 20 years. I've been doing this for 29 years. And even though I was early involved in RIA back in the early 2000s, I had taken some time off, busy growing the businesses, didn't just quite see the value.

21:05 Well, that has changed dramatically. And it doesn't matter what level you are. You're always learning. And I am getting incredible takeaways for our companies from the value of the networking. Okay, great. among restorers, around carriers, among consultants, among TPAs. It's so impossible to even quantify how incredible the return can be because everyone's going to see it differently. Somebody might go and get that little nugget or get this little nugget, or you might go with an expectation of one thing and you come away with two other ones. I can't predict what it's going to be except RA convention is full of nuggets of goodness that are going to literally, that will fit different.

21:45 different restores at different levels. And AnswerForce. We tend not to give the attention to our call intake that I think we really ought to have as restorers. And of course, one of the biggest challenges we have with our call intake, whether it's an in-house receptionist or a service like AnswerForce, is what do you do when your receptionist goes out to lunch? Well, AnswerForce makes that very easy to solve for, right? They're 24-7. You have a receptionist or a call intake person that's out for maternity leave, out on vacation, etc., etc. AnswerForce has a solution to all of those things. And I think, too, it also solves for us having a very consistent, repeatable call intake process. We all know how important that is. 100%. And the cool thing is actually we just hung out with these guys and they let us know, let us in on some big feature updates that have recently been pushed through the system.

22:33 So first, verified contacts, right? So verified contacts, basically it allows the system to understand that this is a repeat caller. And then it allows them to auto capture and fill those details as part of the intake process. So smoother, more professional intake. Much easier to kind of give that client that impression. Hey, this isn't the first time you've called, right? Yeah, and we'll listen to the rest of these sets because I think they're super applicable to our commercial opportunities. So specialized scripting, okay? This is great because this is everything from holiday shifts, after-hour shifts. I mean, you name it. There's different reasons, right? Or different layers of the cake, if you will, just based on what's going on in terms of call volume, what's going on time of day. And so with specialized scripting, the script then will match that.

23:16 And so it's shifting live, if you will, along with that kind of richer context of what's actually happening in the business. Then this other thing, I thought this was super cool, is dedicated phone numbers. So going back to that repeat client or that key client or customer, we now can associate a specific phone number to them. And so what happens is, is they get received very uniquely, right? So I can imagine creating a custom script for that client. We now can recognize a repeat caller and autofill and speed up their intake. And then on top of that... there's a specialized number that's dedicated to them. So you really get to marry up that professional service offering, right? That we're promising, if you will, during the prospect.

23:58 And right from the jump, if you've got a commercial client with specific needs or specific expectations, build that into the script at call intake. Wow. Yeah, it's super powerful, super powerful. Another one is just access to information wherever you are. So I don't know how many of you are already currently using AnswerForce. You should take it seriously in terms of getting a demo and checking them out. But if and when you shift over to them as a partner, the cool thing is now is that you've got access to all this data, all this information on the go from anywhere on your mobile device. And so you can literally check inbound, outbound calls. You can listen to recordings. So yeah. actively coach the team kind of like midstream, right? And so again, just a ton of efficiency, a ton of automation, and just higher levels of customization coming out of AnswerForce.

24:43 And it is so stinking affordable. This isn't just for big multi-million dollar companies. This is for you that's still working out of your home shop, your garage. And it's also for you that are running a $25 million operation with four locations. It's just, it's pretty extraordinary. They work with some of the biggest companies in our industry and many of the smallest ones as well. So, okay. Actionable. So guys, we have talked about our friendship and relationship to these guys for a long time. Many of you know, in the recent probably year and over the last several months, just this hyper focus on the efficiency and quality. and quality of our estimating, right? Like at the end of the day, our cashflow is heavily impacted by our team's skill and competency around writing a really comprehensive sheet and really making sure that the scope is accurate.

25:30 And one of the powerful things that Actionable has is their actual Xactimate profile. And this profile is a live AI tool that's monitoring you as you write the estimate. And as you're implementing specific line items, it's helping you be sure that, that you've really taken into full account all the individual elements and line items associated with this element of the scope that you're trying to accomplish. And I'm not going to highlight any specific teams, but we have heard robust numbers from teams using this. We're hearing everything from 5%, 6%, even 8% top line growth, specifically from the quality of their estimates increasingly. I remember when they rolled this out to you that one of the use cases or part of the value that they were trying to hit on is the ability for us to bring up a new estimator quickly up to the standard and competency and the results ultimately of the more experienced estimators on the team, right?

26:27 So this is an incredible onboarding and training tool to get somebody up to where they're very, very competent and producing quality estimates just that much faster. Way faster. And just one last thing I kind of want to hyperindex on is they have just an absolute boatload of white papers and F9 supporting notes. And so this is something that you could participate in being a member with Actionable Insights. But guys, we all know that getting our estimates approved in that negotiation phase is hard right now. It just feels like every carrier is significantly understaffed. They're fighting for error. We're fighting for error. And anything we can do to reduce that friction is better. And so the better we are at providing really good support for what we're calling out in our scope and why we're calling for it, the better.

27:11 And so these white papers, these F9 support notes are super powerful. Man, it's been a little while, but we've been kind of refueling the relationship with CNR quite a bit lately. And that's been good, man. I think both teams got so dang busy. We had a tough time kind of locking in and getting some face time together. But the team over at CNR has been great for our industry, you guys. You know, we've often referred to Michelle as a friend of the industry. She really is keyed in on giving us what we need in terms of tools, communication, intel on the industry. And so we just continue to encourage you guys, participate, make sure that you're receiving your quarterly copies and that you're getting all the online content that just comes in boatloads from their team.

27:54 So CNR Magazine, guys, pay attention, make sure that you're participating and getting your intel from that team as well. Liftify, bro. Yeah. Liftify, you know, it's interesting. Yesterday, I was just seeing one of our clients was getting awarded their 750 Google Review trophy. And they were already talking about hitting 1,000. 1,000. That's right. Which somebody has done. Yes. One of our clients has done it. It's remarkable. And I think the most remarkable thing that people are discovering, and we're seeing this every single day with our clients, is that when you start upping the volume of Google reviews you're getting consistently week after week, the recency, when you're getting the recency dialed in and just meaning every week you're adding Google reviews to your profile, dramatic jumps in organic reviews.

28:41 phone calls and lead gen. And of course, who doesn't want that? Every single one of us, including Floodlight, we want that. And that's why we've indexed on, we use Liftify to build up our Google reviews. So it's a simple turnkey service. They've really created a process for capturing the most quality Google reviews from the jobs that you're already getting. So if you want to get more work, grow your revenue just off of the existing work you're already getting. Liftify is a big part of how to do that. And it's simple. It's very, very cost effective. From our experience with Liftify and what we've seen with our clients, significantly better value and better results than many of the other platforms that some of you might already be trying.

29:21 So if you're not happy with the number of Google reviews you're getting, you need to reach out to Liftify. And I think as a point of reference, it's worth us saying. Liftify expects 20% to 25% conversion. So think about that within your own numbers. If you're doing 1,000 jobs a year, you should be adding 200 to 250 Google reviews to your profile every single year. If you're performing under that, You owe it to yourself to reach out to liftify.com forward slash floodlight. You know, one last thing to add to that as part of their kind of more recent integration of AI or advancing that integration of AI. One of the big focuses for their team is gathering more live project data and analytics for you guys. And so really what this is focused on is equipping all of us to create better customer experiences.

30:06 So not only are they keyed in and driving Google reviews for us, but now they've actually turned the corner and began developing toolkits for us that use Liftify to actually be getting information that can help us modify our service delivery to create better client experiences. Midstream. Super powerful. Midstream. We're talking mid-job. Yeah. Wow. Super powerful. All right. Liftify.com. All right, guys. Thanks for hanging out with us. Let's get back to the show. I think another thing that gets me kind of fired up about this is I just thinking about in my personal experience, professionally and personally, where I've had an opinion about a group that I have some role or function in or maybe a lack thereof.

30:51 I never lack the opinion. I'm always able to have a thought of what I feel and think about how successful or what level of influence that organization is having. But one of the things I've learned over those years as well is it's hard to have an opinion or it's easy to have an opinion, but it's hard to make any change if you don't participate. Yeah. And part of me is looking at the momentum that RIA has established over the last several years. And I'm just thinking to myself, keep the flywheel moving. Like the more members, like when that membership reaches 5,000, 10,000, 15,000 people, it's that are all unified, right, behind some of these leaders that we've voted in to represent us, if you will.

31:36 And they're at the table with the biggest decision makers and the biggest influences on our ecosystem. It's just very difficult for me to see how you lose. if we're able to participate at that level. And I don't see another platform or another way on the horizon for us to have that level of influence with our individual voices if it's not somehow under the RIA flag. Maybe there's a different road there, but man, I can't imagine one faster than the one that's already building momentum behind RIA. This is definitely the train you want to be on. If your quest is to become a better restorer and find ways to grow your business, to help be a better leader, to know how to navigate the changes in technology, we didn't talk about that, software, technology, AI, the way things are moving so fast.

32:41 The speed of changes is now at a tempo that no one has ever seen before, and it's going to keep increasing, which means we all have to stay on top of our game. Otherwise, our local competitors are going to pass this up. It's really more about at least staying even. And so from the standpoint of, and I don't know the impacts of AI, I'm going to be one of those active participants at the convention sitting there on the front of my seat, being a sponge, taking in what the experts that we're bringing in to the convention are going to be, you know, educating us with. Yeah. Yeah. Mark, do you mind if we pivot a little bit here? I think anybody who wasn't sold on RIA is probably very, very sold at this point.

33:22 Whatever you'd like. But I think here we have such a cool opportunity with you to just drop some nuggets here for the restorers that are listening to this podcast as well. Stuff that they can take into this next week. I'm curious. You know, obviously this last year was a difficult year for many restorers, right? I mean, claim volume was down. Storm activity was down. different maybe than previous years for a lot of restorers. And I know you have such a sales oriented philosophy of how you've built your businesses. Remember in the previous episode that we did with you, you just talked about the internal sales culture at Rocky Mountain Catastrophe of the whiteboards and stuff and where we at, where stuff coming from, and just a very, very strong sales orientation throughout your career.

34:06 And now with you at the helm of Signal and Pure Clean, I'm really curious to hear just what is your strategic outlook? this year with both of those brands, you have the residentially focused side with Pure Clean and then obviously the commercial industrial on Signal side. Where are you guys seeing the growth coming from and what are you focusing on in terms of the growth levers this year? As you look at the Pure Clean network, how are you guys leading that network in terms of where's the growth gonna come from and how are we gonna go take it? And then maybe also on the commercial industrial side, how are you guys looking at this year? Yeah. Well, even though claim volume was down across the industry, and we certainly felt it at Puriklean regarding certain accounts, and at Puriklean specifically, we have three of the five largest carriers under programs.

34:57 So we're getting direct assignment every week from three of the five carriers. carriers. Two of those three claim volume was down for 2024. And the other one was up, but I think that was a little bit of an anomaly. But overall, we still had growth in the system. And most of that was because 75% of the revenue of our franchise owners is driven by them, not by our program work. And so that's what we call grassroots marketing. The thing that we spend a lot of time on, even though, look, if I was a Pure Clean franchise owner, I would love it if Pure Clean headquarters sent me more direct assignments. Of course, yes. And we work on that. But from day one, we train and educate our Pure Clean franchise owners to know that You've got to go out in your local market.

35:38 You've got to get that business and you've got to harvest that business. And we really enhanced our training on how to actually do that. And this training, that means grassroots. It wasn't at our headquarters. This is where we went into various regions. We would have regional meetings with not just the owners, with the business development reps. Okay. Maybe even the GMs, maybe even the estimators, because the business development component is not the BD's response. You can't say as a restore, oh, where's our business development? It is the entire organization. Your lead carpenter is amazing at business development because when he's delivering relentless customer service to the insured, they're going to report back to their carrier, to their broker, to their neighbor, you know, all those sorts of things.

36:20 So we did still see growth. Knock on wood in 2024, when I know it was a little more difficult year. Now in 2025, we see, and it isn't just because of the California fires, but we see that claim volume is up all across the country. Actually, we had, you know, the cold snap already in the Northeast and another one's coming this week. So, We already feel like 2025 is going to be better already. And then at Signal, where Signal Restoration just does commercial work, we do large projects. And we had several of those in 2024. So we had a nearly record year in 2024. And we already know that we're going to have even better than 2025 based on some of the large projects. But they were not hurricane-driven.

37:00 So Signal's focus is with the brokers that handle large commercial industrial manufacturing type losses. And it's just been the last few years we've been getting more than our, I guess, fair share of the market in those. But again, a lot of that has to do with our business development. But just as much of it has to do with our production, in my opinion, because we're doing a really good job. We're reducing severity for the carriers. Now, that statement I just made, I didn't know what that meant. Here's just, I'm going to go back to the RA thing again. To even understand how an adjuster thinks, you'll learn more about that as a restorer. if you get involved in the RA at any level, because, you know, some people will say, well, gee, doesn't the adjuster know that that roll of duct tape is a lot less than that than on your TNM rate schedule.

37:47 Yes. The adjuster knows that. The adjuster shops at home Depot. Also, that isn't what they're trying to do. They're trying to adjust this claim. Okay. Mitigation, for example, what, we know that we've got relatively healthy margins in mitigation. Okay. Now there's always margin pressure and that sort of thing. And I remember 28, not 29 years ago when I got in the business, I'm like, Oh, I wouldn't want the adjuster to know our margin. The adjuster knows the margin. You don't have to hide the margin from, you don't disclose it, but you, You don't think they know? The insurance companies know what they want you to do is do a good job, get out there, follow the SLAs, the service level agreements, deliver relentless customer service to their clients so they can get a renewal and reduce the severity of the claim so you get out there quickly so they can close the file and the claim's over.

38:31 But again, that sort of understanding of how the claims process works didn't, Just, I didn't wake up with it. It came through learning, education, networking, you know, with other restorers. Yeah, there's almost level of maturing and sophistication that has to just come over time. And I think what we're kind of the whole point of a lot of this is you got to find some watering hole that you can trust. to help facilitate some of that growth and maturity. And I think it's pretty fair to say that right now, and this may not have been the case forever. You know, I've been honest about this before, that in the past, I wouldn't have said this and meant it.

39:12 But in the current state, the RIA really is one of the safest watering holes for us. go to on a consistent basis. There's a lot of really sound minds that are auditing the content that's coming and going through those events. It's not happening in some isolated box where no one can't see the validity or the trustworthiness of the content and the teaching that's coming from the RIA right now. And I think that unification, like, look, it's easy and I probably can by default get in this category faster than some others. It is very easy for us to put up defenses and start segregating ourselves from others because we're concerned that somehow they're going to learn or understand something that we have some self-proclaimed ownership of, which is just a load of garbage really at the end of the day.

40:06 I think there's just this reality that losses are not going away. populations are going to continue to grow and boom. Those populations are going to require infrastructure and that infrastructure is going to require support. I think this is one of the epitome of industries where we can say it's okay to come in and say, there's enough work for everybody if we just keep maturing, getting better, keep unifying behind some of this messaging so that we all get to play a game that we're enjoying. I mean, that's the other thing. It's like, I've watched several industries, Mark, of all people, I know you've seen these, where there was just this rapid race to the bottom because everything they talked about was just competitive pricing.

40:52 And it's like, once you start having groups unifying around scope, intention, quality, all of our prices get to maintain. Instead of us all racing to the bottom of the barrel, We get to protect that money because we're an educated team. We're an educated industry and service provider. I mean, you've had to have seen and experienced that firsthand with all your endeavors. Oh, education is number one. Yeah. The one thing, and this is important to manage people's expectations, we definitely never talk about price because we wouldn't want it to ever be viewed as like it was a... some sort of a pricing co-op or something like that. But it's all about understanding, estimating, and even how the insurance companies are thinking.

41:36 And that's when I think about AI and the threat to AI. Well, the robots are not going to be able to go into Mrs. Jones's basement. Okay. And I'm just telling you, there's a lot of things that technology can do, and that's going to happen on the claims side. It's going to happen on claims processing. It's going to happen on estimating. It's going to happen on speed of the claim processing, the technician. At least that's my vision. I don't know. I don't see how, because all the houses aren't the same. You got stairs, you got this, you got that, you got, I mean, it's like how many ramps. So at least we know, I think, I believe anyway, that the restoration industry restores that we're safe, at least for now, from this AI technology infusion that's about ready to really change our industry.

42:19 But again, if you're not staying on top of that, you're Okay, from a competitive standpoint, I mentioned it earlier is whatever those processes may be that the carriers are looking for, if you don't keep up with them, you're not going to get the assignments, whether it's from the TPA that you're a part of or that your local marketing of the agent that you've gotten to know that wants to refer you to business. Still, things have to follow certain SLAs and you got to follow. So that's what I'm saying is staying on top of it so you don't get left behind because the train's moving faster than ever before. You know, another thing I actually really like talking about this for some reason. You know, another thing that hit me on this man is I'm watching so much content come out right now around culture and around hiring, firing, retaining great talent.

43:02 And I'm thinking to myself, like, what are some of these cost effective ways, right, that we come up with, that we share with our clients, that we share with some of our audiences? around where we can get more traction around stickiness of employees and retention and, you know, kind of creating confidence and competency in our workforce. And again, I'm going to hammer on this dead horse, like, let them go to RIA, let them attend these events and participate in some of the stuff going on. And I think this goes back to your PuroClean example of, Your team members will come back from this and realize, wow, I'm part of this entire world that I had no idea existed until you somehow recruited me into this business.

43:45 I'm surrounded by a high caliber and mix and diversity of people that when they're just sitting in your little local shop, it's hard for them to identify with. So it's like an extension of your training. It's an extension of them understanding what you're a part of and what your organization has the opportunity to be a part of. Like, I think there's another, you know, high value thing for us to consider is get some of your leaders and some of your top echelon, at least give them exposure and see what it does for their competence and confidence. And at minimum, you're going to reap a benefit from that perspective. Yeah. You know, Brandon, I agree with you to such a degree that one of my favorite quotes from a mentor of mine when I was in my early 20s, he said to me right before, you know, I went off and bought Rocky Mountain Cat, my first ever company.

44:36 He said, Mark, you can't make this about you. If you want to be successful, you need to focus on building the organization. organization and then the organization builds the business. And if you think about that comment as it relates to RA, if it's just the owners, the restorers going to the RA, how is the organization, other than that, that means the onus is totally on that owner to go back and transfer all that knowledge to the team. Why not try to bring your lead estimator or your operations manager or whatever that might be? Because The value there is incredible. And again, the take home. You want to be able to harvest all these nuggets that we talked about and then bring them back to your local market, into your organization, and help drive that value within your organization.

45:20 And again, RIA is continuing with now with regional meetings. You know, it's not just a convention now in the spring. You know, we're having these regional meetings that make it easier for Restorers to just drive, okay, and make it also easier for them to bring, you know, some of their key team members for some of this ongoing education. So again, we're going to continue investing in more of those regional events to make it more accessible to more people in the Restorers organization. I love that. I love that. It's awesome. Yeah. So we've covered a lot of great ground. One more time though, and not at Mark Davis pace. Now I'm asking you, Mark, you've got to deliver this at the rest of the world pace. And that is when is the event and where is the event?

46:05 It's April 28th through the 30th of 2025 in West Palm Beach, Florida. So if you think about that, And I happen to live in Florida. April is a great time to go. Now, we want you to come and participate. But the good news is you're coming to paradise and the weather is going to be fantastic. And if you wanted to play a little golf or go fishing or bring your spouse or your kids or your significant other, well, you can drive two hours over to Disney afterwards. So part of this is find a way to get there April 28th through the 30th. You will not regret it. Yeah, agreed. And our team was going to be there. We're looking forward to it. And guys, just in case it hasn't been clear, and this is, you know, Chris and I are always very diligent about being transparent in the relationships and the partnerships that we participate in.

46:53 We're not paid by RIA. There is absolute zero formal affiliation from contract, negotiation, money, any of that. We are part of the restoration ecosystem. And what our team has witnessed and experienced behind the scenes, meeting the leaders, listening to the leaders, hearing their plans and the vision that they're casting for how they want to influence our industry and support us as a whole. We believe in it. And that's why we keep partnering with RIA. It's why we keep asking their leadership to come onto the show and have an opportunity to talk about what the RIA is doing. We are believers and we do actually absolutely think that the more of our voices, the more that we get connected in this organization, the organization will become even more beneficial to all of us.

47:44 It's like we can't lose if we participate, but we can if we don't. And Mark, dude, we really appreciate you coming on. We know that every minute in your life right now counts. So thanks again for hanging out with us and taking some time to chat about the upcoming RIA event and how we can engage, man. Well, thank you, gentlemen, because you are a very important part of the restoration ecosystem. You both are. You do a phenomenal job. 167 episodes. So if any of you guys haven't seen them, go back. You guys are really, really incredible. And I would suggest again, okay, this goes back to restorers. There's got to be so many nuggets within those 167 episodes that they could share with their team member.

48:28 So anyway, keep up the great work, guys, because you're really making a real serious impact. Thanks, brother. We appreciate you, man. Appreciate you guys. We'll see you. We'll see you at West Palm Beach. Yeah, we'll see you in Florida, baby. For sure. Okay, take care. All right, everybody. Heath, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart, and Boots. And if you're enjoying the show, but you love this episode, please hit follow, formerly known as subscribe, write us a review, or share this episode with a friend. Share it on LinkedIn, share it via text, whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.