Business | How Clay Clark Helped Jon Kelly to Grow His Business from $2,000,000 to $8,000,000 In Annual Revenue + How We Turned $24,607 Advertisement Investment Into a $3,532,537 Result + Why Weekly Coaching Is the Anecdote to Drifting

Well Thrive Nation on today’s show, we’re going to give you a lot of encouragement because we’re going to introduce you to an actual human who’s not a hologram who’s had massive success. Jon Kelly, welcome onto the ThriveTime Show. How are you, sir?

Oh, man. Doing great. Great. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me on.

You’re welcome. And you’re welcome. Now, now where are you based, sir? And what’s the name of your company?

So we’re out of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The name of the company’s Kelly Construction Group.

And is there,

Our office is really in Walker, but Baton Rouge is the closest city, if you will.

What’s the website people can go to if they want to verify that you’re not a hologram?

Kellyconstructiongroup.com.

And how long has Sean worked with you or have we worked with you within a business coaching relationship?

I would say like mid 2018 to 2019 early. Is that right, Sean?

Yeah, May 23rd will be our five-year anniversary.

Wow. Now, a lot of times people get together, I see a lot of businessy people, they get together, businessy and they kind of a businessy environment and they talk about visions and dreams, but they don’t actually execute and produce results. Not that they’re bad people, it’s just they talk in circles, they have ideas, but they don’t execute. What kind of a growth Sean has Jon Kelly been able to see with his company over these past five years? Has he grown by 4%?

Oh, it’s a massive percent. I had him go ahead and open up his tracking sheet here because I know our listeners really appreciate the hard numbers and we’ve been tracking with Jon Kelly since we very first started with Kelly Construction Group. Can you tell us, Jon, where were your revenues at the end of the year in 2018?

Yeah, at the end of 2018, we were probably just below that $2 million mark. And I think the question was how much have we grown? This last year, we were right at the $8 million mark so, and in that few years we’ve got up to around $8 million a year.

So from $2 million to eight million. Now, Sean again, is eight million more than two in your professional opinion?

Professionally, I have to say it is. I think it’s roughly in the neighborhood of four times as much. That’s like 400%.

Okay. And so again, and Jon Kelly’s not a hologram, he’s a real guy. We mentioned his website. So now the question is what are the things that you guys have done together? Because the way that a coaching relationship works much like a hiring a personal trainer. I mean, you could pay the fee, hire a personal trainer, but if you never show up for the workouts, it’s hard to get any results. Much like buying groceries, if you don’t put them in your car and take them home, it doesn’t benefit you. You guys have worked together to achieve a lot of success. What kind of stuff have you guys worked on together, Sean?

I was looking back at the very first week of notes and we were working on the Google presence right off the bat. I know Jon loves it when I bring up his Google reviews every single week, but he is the highest and most reviewed general contractor in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. So Google was a big piece initially and we’ve developed that into additional marketing we can talk about today too, but we have the numbers for Google. We did a deep dive before this show today to determine what our return was with the Google marketing. Can I share those numbers here?

Share those numbers. Surely you shall share.

Surely I shall share these numbers. So these are all numbers that Jon dove back into his leads to find, but we’ve spent about, and correct me if I’m wrong on any of these, Jon, but on Google, we have spent total dollars towards that marketing $24,607. Does that seem right?

Yes.

Okay, cool. So then out of that we brought in $3,532,537 worth of sales.

Whoa. How much did you invest in the Google advertisement?

That was $24,607 were invested.

Yep.

And we made 3.532 million with 537 on top of that. So 3,532,537. We got very specific.

Wow. Okay. So I got to ask this, Jon, I’m going to pull this up. This is a diagram, you maybe have seen this before, maybe you have it. I’m going to pull this up here. This is sort of how the linear approach that we sort of look at your business behind the scenes here. And this could be, if anyone wants to download this, you can go to thrivetimeshow.com/millionaire and you can download this from page five of my newest book, How to Become a Millionaire, but establishing revenue goals. Do you have those clear Jon in your mind as far as, you don’t have to share them, but I mean do you have clearly in your mind goals for your company now?

Yes, we do. And that’s something we kind of revisit yearly, I guess, if you will.

Now as far as the numbers to break even, a lot of times people hear a big number. If you’re maybe new to entrepreneurship, you hear a big number like, wow, this guy’s awesome. He probably wears gold-plated shoes. But then if you’ve been self-employed, you’re probably going there’s probably a lot of expenses there. So the numbers to break even, why is that important for you to know how much sales you have to do just to keep the lights on?

Yeah, if you want to make money, you got to know what it costs to do the business, right? Because you got to make sure you make at least that. So yeah, we know the breakeven number. And again, that’s something that we look at often in our meetings.

Now the number of hours you’re willing to work, one thing about you that’s always been fun is you’re just a kind person. Sean’s always bragging on you behind the scenes. You’re just a nice guy and it seems like you’re a committed guy. People love you and you probably have hours that you work hard, but you also know when it’s time to spend time with family and that kind of thing. Was that something you guys had to work through together or have you, because we have some clients that work a four-day work week and someone that works six. I mean, has that been something, John, that you’ve kind of had to kind of figure out in your own life, the rhythm that works best for you?

Yeah, absolutely. I think I tell Sean this from time to time that it’s like I never answer an out-of-town number. So whatever day he called, somehow we connected. It was an out of town number, but I answered and caught me in a stage of burnout for sure. I was kind of wore out with everything that was happening with the business. And he said all the right stuff, like basically, Hey, we can take this grind and make it something you can enjoy. And we started doing that. So early on I was working tons of hours. I still work kind of whatever hours it takes, but we’ve been able to put some pieces in place. It definitely gets me on a lot more regular schedule, even get to slip out of here and do some stuff I want from time to time. So yeah, we look at hours and like I say, early on I was working crazy hours. I still do whatever it takes, but we definitely got that dialed back to a lot more controllable number now.

Now bragging on Sean and you both because it’s a really is a win-win relationship. Coaching is kind of a bizarre thing because I in my own life I hire an accountant. Now for full disclosure, I use a company called CCK. I hope that my recommendation of them doesn’t hurt their business, but I work with CCK and the reason why we pay them thousands of dollars a month is because I want my numbers to not drift. Just like you’re driving a car. If you’re driving a car and you go, you say, wow, I’m in the shoulder. You don’t want to drift. And the purpose of coaching is to repetitively go over the same things every week and to make sure that a business owner isn’t drifting. And what I found is people like yourself that embrace that, you kind of like maybe, I don’t know if it’s the accountability or if it’s just the steering or the course correction. Could you maybe talk about the importance of going over those same repetitive core action items every week?

Yeah. No, I think accountability is the biggest thing, Clay, just because it’s important stuff. But as a business owner you get really bogged down with just everything that’s going on and those are some of the easiest things to neglect. So having Sean there every Friday keeps me a little bit on point. That’s not to say I get it right every time, Sean, but I do my best effort and,

Yeah.

It’s good to have that accountability. And we look at it week in and week out and since we have continued to look at it, we are able to stay on point way better than we have in the past.

And that website again, Sean, what’s the website we need to go to check it out there. Kelly,

Kelly Construction Group.

Group. Okay, so I’m going to pull this up so people can see it’s Kelly Construction Group.

You’ll want to go to the second one there because there’s two Kelly Construction Groups. There’s only one in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

A lot of confusion. Got to rise above it.

Type in,

Here we go.

Type in kellyconstructiongroup.com.

kellyconstructiongroup.com, group.com.

That’s K-E-L-L-Y, not E-Y.

K-E-L-L-Y. Typing it in. A lot of struggles. You got to keep your finger on the home row here, folks. Kellyconstructiongroup.com.

Oh, yeah.

Clicking enter. Waiting for it to happen. Fill the [inaudible 00:09:02] working. There it is. Okay, so when we go to the website, we see the website, we see, okay, that’s the result. Okay. But we go back here to this page. Your unique value proposition. You guys work together on figuring out what it is that you do that sets you apart from the competition. Your gallery clearly showcases what you do. How is that helpful for you to have somebody sit down with you and figure out, okay, what is your niche?

Yeah. No, that’s big too. And obviously I wouldn’t say that we have a really tight niche, but where we try to excel is just we know where construction companies struggle and we try to make sure that we’re good everywhere they’re not. And I think we do a good job doing that. That’s kind of our approach.

And you guys do wonderful quality construction. People love you. Now improving the branding, what we found with you, and I remember these discussions coming up is you had done a great job for a lot of people, but there was no proof online that that was true. So it was like you had great people that said great things about you, but we couldn’t prove it. So we had to take the proof of testimonials or actual clients that loved you and we didn’t say, here’s a gun to your head, say positive things about Jon Kelly. No. It was more of like, okay, you’ve worked with Jon. Can we get you on video to just share about your success working with him? How has that impacted your business? Having actual clients that you’ve actually done real work for be testimonials on your website.

Yeah, that is really good. I mean, it’s nice to be able to just point somebody to the website and say, look hear from some people that we work for. They’re not just taking our word for it. We have real life people on video in different settings talking about our company. So it’s been a really good feature to have.

And it’s an honor to work with someone like you. This is a true story, Sean. There was about three weeks ago, I was working with a guy and he wanted to become a client. And I was telling him, I said, well, the first thing we want to do when we work with you right away, we’re going to go through this system. We’re going to go through these 14 steps. We’re going to establish your revenue goals, we’re going to help you figure out your break even numbers. We’re going to figure out the hours you want to work, the unique value proposition. We’re going to help you improve your branding. He’s fired up. And I said, and then we’re going to have to call your former customers and get objective reviews on both Google and video. And he says, I got to be honest, that’s not going to go well for me.

I go, why? And he’s like, well, I mean you see, I’ve got a lot of people who are upset with me right now. I’m like a lot. He’s like, oh yeah, that’s part of the problem. See I started some construction jobs, didn’t finish them, true story, didn’t finish them, took payment, didn’t finish them. So I’m kind of trying to change the name of the company, kind of doing a 180 kind of a, and that happens sometimes. So again, that’s why we only take on a certain number of clients because we want to work with high quality people here. It’s a real thing. Now, creating a marketing stool, a three-legged marketing stool, a way to get customers that is sustainable, that doesn’t involve you running around hucking business cards at Chamber of Commerce events. Jon, how helpful has that been knowing that you have search engine optimization happening every day, reputation management happening and those ads running, how has that helped you focus on your main thing, which is doing great quality construction?

It helps a lot. I mean, our background was a lot of public bid. We didn’t do a ton of marketing. So this three-legged marketing stool really helps really get a lot of leads through the door more so than we’ve had in the past by a lot. So just the comfort of knowing that we’re not just sitting there waiting on a public bid schedule to come out and see if we can bid. We have some other good jobs coming in that we can bid.

Yeah. Yeah.

I wanted to pile on that. [inaudible 00:12:47] awesome numbers. The numbers guys. Go for it. All right, so the Dream 100 system is another one of that three-legged marketing stool we’ve implemented with Jon and his total spend. He’s buying cookies and dropping them off to architects. It’s amazing what those cookies do, right Jon? Those cookies brought in $5,128,077 worth of sales.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait, The Dream 100 has brought in how much?

Dream 100 are $16,089 we spent.

$16,089. Okay. Expenses. Yep.

We brought in $5,128,077.

Of income.

Yes.

Dream 100 income, which again, if you look at the number and you go, man, 16,000, is that smaller than five million?

That’s a 3128.47% return on marketing investment with that system.

Now I want to pull this up real quick. If you go to Thrivetimeshow.com/doesitwork, we have examples of real people we’ve worked with and we try to archive and document the proven systems so that people can know that they do work. Oh, look at him. There he is.

There he is. That was right after we started right there. He’d had a few million dollars worth of work coming through his office for the Dream 100 and got him fired up to keep going.

So what would you say, Jon, to somebody out there that says ah, the Dream 100, reaching out to my ideal and likely buyers and my ideal referral sources on a monthly or weekly basis and dropping off to them $16,089 of cookies over a five-year period of time. That’ll never work.

Yeah, man, I’d say you got to do it. It’s unbelievable actually. And it’s worked great for us and we’ve really got a name out there, not even based off our work, but just based off of cookies but.

Now Jon, I got to ask you, because this is something I deal with a lot and I’m not being disparaging of any clients, I’m just being very clear because this is a real thing. I used to work back in the day with a church and I worked with this church and I helped them grow dramatically. I think they’re still listed as a testimonial somewhere on our website. And the pastor at one point, he says, Clay, I’ve decided I’m not going to do coaching anymore. I’m going to go, I’ve got my cousin, they’re going to come in work with me and we’re going to do, I said, it’s fine. Because we have so many people that reach out and so I’m not going to hold somebody as a hostage if they don’t want to be a client anymore.

Well about, I don’t know, four months later he’s going, Hey, can we talk? I said, what’s going on? I said, man, the Dream 100 is not working. The website’s not ranked anymore, the ads aren’t on, everything’s falling apart, man, can I come back? And I go, we only take on 160 clients. So I don’t know that I have a spot for you, but maybe we could in a few months. But I did give them a teaching moment and I said, as I was telling you, growing a business is planting a garden. You have to pull those weeds every week. You can’t just do it monthly. What would happen if you transitioned into monthly coaching or bimonthly coaching or quarterly coaching or, well, you have these, a lot of programs that do the quarterly, and I only know this because people call me after they’ve spent $30,000 on a quarterly coaching program. What would happen if you didn’t have that weekly touchpoint there?

Yeah, it wouldn’t work because there’s a massive amount of stuff to keep your fingers on. And without somebody like Sean asking every week, Hey man, how are we looking on this? What are we doing here? Get behind real quick. So I don’t see it working. If it’s weekly is about as small a window as you can give it.

Yeah. Now and this,

A larger windows you can give it, I guess really.

This is interesting. When I used to charge five and 6,000 a month to work with clients, I used to do daily check-ins with every single client. And the reason why I switched to a weekly format was daily my clients were all growing, but I think they got to a place where they all wanted to physically assault me. They were all like, we’re growing man, get off me, man. So but on the weekly gave us that healthy space and gave the client enough room. But now we move on to these systems, the sales systems. You got sales scripts, you got recorded calls, you got one sheet, you got a lead tracker. Can you talk about the importance of having written down documented scripts and a lead tracking system so you know where leads are coming from?

Yeah, for sure. I mean the systems just save a lot of time for me. Everybody’s not coming to me asking how you do this, how you do that. We kind of have a system spelled out for most of the things in our business at this point. And then that lead tracking is just important. Just you getting so many leads and doing so many different things that hard to stay on top of it. So having that lead tracking page there where we can see one, where our leads are coming from, two, what leads are out there that we need to take care of. It’s big. It keeps us on track, keeps us moving in the right direction of what we’re bidding and what jobs we actually have in progress and all that so.

Now I’m going to skip through a couple of the boxes. Again, you can go to thrivetimesshow.com/millionaire and download all this and you can watch it, look at it for free on page five. But we’re going to go to the human resources. The big thing that Clay Stairs does, that Sean does, that all these wonderful coaches do is they make sure that you’re not in a spot where you can’t find good people. Because that’s one of the biggest things I hear. People say, ah man, I would love to do the system, but I can’t find good people because in Louisiana right now, in Oklahoma this time of the year, in Minnesota with the weather, California with all the hipsters everywhere, but Boston since Brady left, it’s been tough. There’s lot of, but we have a hiring system that we teach. Could you talk about the importance of the idea of never stopping recruiting, hosting a group interview, just constantly looking at new people? Can you talk about that, Jon?

Yeah, as you mentioned, good people can be really hard to find. So without a continuous search, it’d be really difficult to fill a position you need. But we’ve been doing this recruiting that you guys taught us. We’ve hired close to nine people. I think it’s around nine people at this point through that system. Everybody’s stuck with us. So we’re getting quality people. We literally lost one person that we’ve hired through this system in the past five years. So it’s really important. It gives you high quality people and people that stick. And then like you say, you continually looking for talent. So when somebody does pop up, you try to take advantage of it.

Now in my dad’s, shifting gears, my dad’s funeral, he died of Luke Gehrig’s disease several years back. And when he died there was a finality to that and that was pretty rough for me. It was just, wow. Leading up to that though, discovering he had Lou Gehrig’s disease. One of the things I said was I told my wife, I said, I’m going to call everybody that knows my dad and I’m going to see if I can fly them out to talk to him so that they could tell him what he means to him, while he is alive. And that way my dad could hear it because when you have Lou Gehrig’s disease, everybody stops by and says, are you okay? And they don’t know what to do and it’s this tough process.

But people a lot of times don’t hear the positive things about themselves until someone moves on or something. And I would just love because you guys have a really cool win-win relationship and Sean is always running around here bragging on you. I want to ask you, Sean, what has made Jon such a great client to work with? Because I mean, he’s just salt of the earth. We absolutely love him. What makes him so great to work with?

Jon’s just a very kind soul as you mentioned earlier. He’s always got a good attitude whether things are going great or not, he’s able to smile his way through it. And when it comes to his team, he does a great job with a mixture of being that accountability force and also being that good kind of morale family guy at the same time. But he really takes this all very seriously and whether he likes hearing what I have to say about what the numbers are telling me or what his performance is like, he always takes it to heart. He doesn’t fight me on any of that. And he’s here to grow for the sake of his F6 goals and his family’s goals. And he’s just an honest, diligent guy and that’s a rare enough thing out there.

Now, Jon, I always hear Sean bragging on you, so it’s kind of a one-sided thing, but for anybody out there that’s thinking about reaching out and scheduling a one-on-one consultation to see if it’s a good fit, what’s it been like working with Sean? I mean, week after week for five years. A lot of people don’t know people for five years. Think about that. Most people do not know people for five years. You guys have worked together every week, you’ve gone through a lot of stuff together. What’s it been like working with Sean?

Yeah, Sean’s a great guy. One thing about Sean, he practices what he preaches. He’s very diligent. He stays on schedule. If he says he’s going to do things, he does them. Same thing for your team. He says, Hey, we’re going to get the team to do this. Team does it. So it’s nice to see you guys are doing what you’re telling us to do. And it was, I can see it working on your side. We see it working on our side. I think one of the big benefits that you guys have done for us is kind of pushed us to the next level on a few things. We were kind of standing at the edge of the cliff, if you will like, for hiring people, for marketing and those few things. And when Sean’s been able to push us to go ahead and make those hires and go ahead and start doing that marketing and those things have paid off well for us.

Well, what would you say to anybody out there that’s contemplating. They say, I’m thinking about coming to a conference or scheduling a one-on-one consultation. Who would not be a good fit in your mind and who would be a good fit there, sir?

Well, somebody that’s willing to dig deep and take a few slaps across the head when you’re not doing something right, but overall, anybody just willing to really get in and work and it’s going to take somebody that’s willing to trust something that they may not know to be true, but to lean into you guys for that and take your word for it and do what you’re telling them to make it happen.

Jon, thank you for carving out time from your busy schedule. And again, folks, you can verify he’s not a hologram. That’s kellyconstructiongroup.com. And if you’re listening now today and you happen to be in his service area, I believe that that Jon, you no longer service Ecuador or Brazil or the Nordic countries, Antarctica, that’s out of the picture anymore. I think you and Sean focused, you’re no longer working with South Korea and Australia. What is the service area that you’re focusing on? There’s somebody listening right now that’s in that area. What is the service area that you’re focusing? What city or what area?

Yeah, we’re in the Baton Rouge, Louisiana area.

So if you’re in the Baton Rouge, Louisiana area and you need construction and remodeling, that’s the services you provide, correct?

Yes.

Okay. But if you’re in Ecuador, you’re looking for that, he’s not your guy. It’s not a match.

In Ecuador, he doesn’t that anymore.

Its not a match for thatch.

We got out of that business.

Jon Kelly, thank you so much, brother. Have a great day.

Thanks Jon.

All right, thanks guys.

Bye-bye.

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