Jamie Adams: [00:00:00] The best place to get revenue is to generate leads. And the best place to generate leads today, more times than not, is through having a good strategy for search and specifically for
Wyatt Smith: Hello.
Wyatt Smith: And welcome back to another episode of Untapped with UpSmith. Uh, we are grateful to be joined today by Jamie Adams from Scorpion. Jamie, welcome.
Jamie Adams: Thank you. Good to see you, man. How you been?
Wyatt Smith: I’ve been great. I mean, it’s been so excited looking forward to this conversation. It’s a really fun to be able to have a chance for our listeners to learn from you and, and all your experiences and helping companies grow great businesses.
Jamie Adams: Oh, I’m excited to be here, man. I love what you guys are doing. So, uh, yeah, thanks for, thanks for inviting me on. It should be a good time.
Wyatt Smith: Totally. Well, the feeling goes [00:01:00] both ways. Uh, we always love to start these conversations, Jamie, with just having folks learn a little bit about the person behind the mic and so would love it.
Wyatt Smith: If you just spend a few, few minutes, few seconds, like sharing about your story Uh, start with what you’re, you’re focusing your time on now, and then go take us back in time about how you got there.
Jamie Adams: Sure. Sure. So I’m a chief revenue officer at Scorpion. Um, and Scorpion is a company that helps, um, service based businesses attract, acquire, Um, retain and grow their customer base through digital marketing.
Jamie Adams: And at the end of the day, we’re really trying to do is help businesses grow revenue through marketing. And, um, I’ve been at the company now for 10 years, um, which is crazy to think about. Um, previous to that, I was in another, uh, digital marketing company, um, called, uh, reach local. Um, I was one of the earlier sales employees at that company.
Jamie Adams: Was there for about eight years and then previous to that was at Deloitte consulting for about three years and um, Previous [00:02:00] to that I was in college um And played tennis a couple years in college at the University of Memphis. I’m a D1 tennis player Um washed up now, of course And then kind of dating back before that I grew up in a really small town in north Louisiana I’m from a town called Coushatta, and it’s about 40 miles south of Shreveport, nestled right on the Red River.
Jamie Adams: Um, a town of about 1, 500 people or so. So I’m from a really, really small rural area. Um, most of the local economy was, uh, was, you know, built on small business owners. My My grandparents were both my grandfathers were both small business owners. Um, both started out as farmers Um one went on to play professional baseball for a lot of years.
Jamie Adams: I got pictures of him in the background here What a world series with the Braves. So that’s kind of cool But um when he finished his career, he came back and started a farm a horse farm My other grandfather was a farmer, um ended up owning a concrete business Um, [00:03:00] so yeah, I just grew up in a really small town of small business owners and I think you know candidly, that’s That’s been a big driver of, of why I’ve worked in the industry that I’ve worked in for a lot of years now, reach local.
Jamie Adams: And of course, the Scorpion is, you know, most of our customers are small business owners, um, not all in small rural communities, right? Mostly in bigger cities now, but still small business owners. And, and I just love helping them grow their business. I love seeing how that transforms people’s lives. And, uh, yeah, so I think that’s from, that’s the genealogy working from where I am today, like backwards.
Jamie Adams: So
Wyatt Smith: That was awesome. Well, so when Jamie and I first got connected, we bonded over both being kids from small towns in the south, Alabama, and also grew up son of a farmer. And I have the, the, the horse and the desk behind me as a bit of a hat tip to my dad and the, and the life he built as a, a man who built things with his hands and still done, um, I, I’d love to learn from you, Jamie, about, you know, An experience as a kid that shaped your perspective on the skilled trades [00:04:00] sector and, and builders in our country anything that you, that probably stands out in your mind as a seminal moment.
Jamie Adams: Yeah. I would say the seminal moment is my inability to do any of those things. Um, so it’s, it’s funny, man. Like I, I, um, I’m, I’m a little bit of a, a little of a black sheep in my family. I would say my dad and I both are. So. Um, again, most people, most, most men in our family are very like handy. Um, one of my grandfathers was a builder.
Jamie Adams: As a matter of fact, my, my dad’s dad built the house that I grew up in that my parents still live in. So he was a contractor, um, my dad, like somehow, like it skipped my dad and I like that, that, that, uh, ability to, to fix anything, um, and to be handy. So it’s, it’s odd that, you know, where, where I kind of found passion and success was candidly just in business.
Jamie Adams: To start and then sales and marketing and while I can’t do any of [00:05:00] those things that, that the companies that I help the most can do well, um, I do find a lot of satisfaction in, uh, being able to help them grow their business and focus candidly on the stuff that they do really, really well, which is, um, You know, starts out actually doing the work, right, being in the trades, doing plumbing work, doing HVAC work, um, doing electrical work, right?
Jamie Adams: Like, they do those things really, really well. And candidly, they hire companies like, like Scorpion and they, they come to, to look for my expertise, right? Because I can actually help them generate more business to enable them to do the things that they do well. So probably not the answer you’re looking for, but that is in fact the truth.
Jamie Adams: So as a matter of fact, I’ll tell you a funny story. Okay. Um, that’s kind of timely. Um, today, I, I got home late last night from dinner with, um, one of the guys on my team here in Dallas. And, um, and when I got home, I noticed my, my, one of my HVAC units in my room that cools my bedroom wasn’t cooling very well.
Jamie Adams: So, [00:06:00] I immediately went online, wanted to book an appointment online last night. And found a, actually went to one company here in town that I won’t mention because I don’t want to call anybody out. But I went to book online from their Google, my business profile, and when I went to click book online, it just gave me a bunch of plumbing jobs.
Jamie Adams: And I was looking for an HVAC, right? Eventually went to another company, um, here in town, found their profile, booked, booked an appointment online, just basic AC repair. Anyway, long story short, great experience. Technician comes out, sends me a text message when they’re on their way. But I was talking to him this morning and I was like, he was asking me all these questions when he showed up and I was going, man, I don’t know any of this stuff.
Jamie Adams: And he’s like, yeah, that’s why you hire me. Right. I can come in and do this stuff so you can go do what you do. And I was like, yeah, speaking of doing what I do, let me talk to you about like how I can help you with marketing. Right. So, but yeah, I mean, I think that that’s, um, that, that’s kind of the, that was the pivotal thing.
Jamie Adams: I mean, it just happens, stands out all worked out, but I just honestly [00:07:00] grew up in a situation where I didn’t know anything about how to do anything with my hands or anything handy. And it just kind of so happens that. Now I just derive a lot of satisfaction being able to help companies focus on that and I help them get new customers.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah, I love that. My, my dad would probably joke that I was a not so skilled worker when I was working for him, but he was a pretty tough boss or so.
Jamie Adams: Well, my, my dad was, my grandfather was the one that was joking with me because neither my dad nor me got that, got that skill, unfortunately. So, right.
Wyatt Smith: Well, I, I would love to share more about Scorpion and the work you guys do.
Wyatt Smith: Every contractor I chat with has this challenge on growing leads and growing opportunities. Yeah, and it’s a tough market right now. There’s consumer demand. There’s sustained high interest rates. It’s, it’s definitely put a dampening effect on, on their growth. So help, help listeners understand Scorpion’s mission and how you guys work and serve people.
Jamie Adams: Yes. I mean, I think ultimately our mission can kind of be distilled [00:08:00] down to like, we want to help out, we want to help our customers run their best business. And more specifically run their best business through running their best marketing, right? And at the end of the day what you know I think what I’ve found that just has remained true and i’ve been in this industry now for almost 20 years, right?
Jamie Adams: And one thing that i’ve found that has remained true is that At the end of the day, most business owners in kind of the local home services, residential services space, they want to focus on running and operating their business. They don’t want to go build an expertise in house and learning how to be a professional marketer.
Jamie Adams: Right now, I would say certainly over the last few years, You know, candidly is like, can’t miss private equity money is entered into the space, right? You do find more of these businesses hiring professional marketing staff in some way shape or form but they still need a company like us to kind of help with kind of getting the basics right and Helping them kind of push the ball forward helping them build bring best practices in on what’s [00:09:00] happening in the industry So yeah, I mean at the end of the day what we’re trying to do is You Come in, help, help a company understand what they’re really trying to accomplish when they think about marketing, right?
Jamie Adams: Some of them want to grow rapidly, right? They’re, they’re, they’re just a newer business and they need to attract a bunch of new, uh, new customers that they want to continue to grow. Some of them have a good install base and they don’t want to be as aggressive, but they do want to show up well professionally online.
Jamie Adams: So if someone’s doing research, right, they’ve got a great website. That kind of helps differentiate them relative to the competition. They’ve got good reviews online. And I think more often than not, like what what’s happening in the market now, you mentioned in the market market softening, right? Like we went through those COVID years where.
Jamie Adams: Everybody was kind of growing fairly rapidly without having to invest much or think too difficult, too, too, too detailed about marketing. Now they’ve got to be a lot more strategic, right? If they want to grow both top line and they want to continue to maintain good EBITDA margins, right? They’ve got [00:10:00] to be thinking about, you know, they’ve got to be thinking about every dollar out and how that equates to, Actual revenue.
Jamie Adams: And I think one of the things that we’ve been able to do, um, pretty uniquely in the last year specifically, um, is we’ve been able to tap into partnerships with companies like ServiceTitan, right. And ServiceTitan is a tool that a lot of contractors use to run their entire business on, right. It’s their dispatch function.
Jamie Adams: It’s the technician tool that. Technicians using the field. What we’ve done is we’ve actually we’ve actually integrated with ServiceTitan so that we can actually show when we’re when we get hired to run marketing for a business and we’re driving leads into their website through Google ads or organic search or being or Thumbtack ads or any of these places.
Jamie Adams: We can actually follow that lead all the way from when they call the business or schedule online all the way through the transaction and ServiceTitan. And we can show contractors now kind of dollar in, [00:11:00] um, our dollar invested in marketing and then dollar out in terms of revenue. And so I think, you know, for the first time ever, we’re really helping contractors move to a more kind of predictable revenue model like an e commerce business does.
Jamie Adams: Right. So long answer, but I mean, at the, at the end of the day, like our mission is to help contractors, like, again, get a better handle on how much they’re investing in marketing and how that’s actually equating into revenue, because at the end of the day, that’s going to help them run their best business.
Wyatt Smith: I love it. Yeah. Jamie’s been generous, uh, demo the product for me before, and that some of the dashboards that you as a contractor can see around here’s the marketing spend that I invested, here’s the flow through of new leads that it generated for me and here’s how that then showed up in our P and L. It’s really cool.
Jamie Adams: Yeah, and I think what, what is, what is, you know, not to interrupt you, but I think what it’s also doing is it’s kind of a, one of my, one of my really good longtime friends and he actually is a, is a sales guy on my team, you know, he, he, he, [00:12:00] he, he describes, um, what we’ve been able to do is, is kind of help people move, help contractors move to facts instead of feelings when assessing their marketing.
Jamie Adams: Right. Because at the end of the day, right, if, if we’re able to show you that you’re investing. X dollars a month with Scorpion through different solutions that we offer and advertising channels that we can drive for you like Google ads and LSAs and Bing and Facebook. And we can actually show you end to end that every dollar you put in these channels.
Jamie Adams: What the revenue coming out of those channels looks like it eliminates this well I don’t feel like I’m getting very many leads or I feel like the you know The old Glengarry Glen Ross the leads are weak, right? Like the leads are weak now to know the leads aren’t weak The leads are good. Here’s the actual data that shows you Right.
Jamie Adams: What’s being produced in terms of new customers and revenue. So, and I think that’s a, that’s a good place that I think any business manager or owner wants to be in. Right. It’s like, can I [00:13:00] get data that helps me eliminate some of these feelings I may have and actually turns the actual, the data is becomes factual and helps me make better decisions.
Wyatt Smith: I think it’s, it’s super inspiring. Our team at UpSmith, we’re building software to help drive productivity of, of trades businesses, mostly through the report.
Jamie Adams: Right.
Wyatt Smith: Told our team about it. Like, Hey, look, if you put a dollar in, into our software, we want to be able to show you that there’s 10 more dollars generated on better conversion rates, better applicants.
Wyatt Smith: And that flow through is so important for people looking to do more with less.
Jamie Adams: No doubt. Like you said, especially in times where the market’s soft, Right. Every dollar counts, right? You really want to get visibility into look, if I can get 20 X in one channel and there’s still, there’s still opportunity in that channel.
Jamie Adams: If I double down there, I can still. You know, keep that, you know, I can, I can still continue to get that, that ROI before I hit that law of diminishing return. Well, why wouldn’t I do that if I’m also investing in a channel that’s given me [00:14:00] three X? Why wouldn’t I take the money from the three X and put it back into the 20 X?
Jamie Adams: Right. Right. And that’s, that’s the type of thing that we’re able to now help contractors start to see. And we’re actually using a lot of really interesting technology that we’re developing to do some of that optimization automatically.
Wyatt Smith: Would you put yourself in the shoes of an owner and just help us think through like lead generation as a, as a concept?
Wyatt Smith: Because I think for a lot of people, this is a, Not a new thing. They’ve heard of it before, but like getting an expert’s perspective on it is super valuable.
Jamie Adams: Yeah. I mean, look, I think, um, you know, when you’re a small business owner, um, every dollar counts, right. If you think about marketing and advertising, every dollar counts.
Jamie Adams: So, um, You know, I think every every business ideally should think in terms of like a brand, right? Like how do I actually grow my brand but that can be an expensive endeavor, right? Like if you you know growing your brand to me is like first of all, you need to get a really clear vision on You know, what’s your vision, mission and purpose are, you need to be able [00:15:00] to articulate that visually and through content.
Jamie Adams: Um, you know, you definitely have tools today like Tik Tok and, and Instagram, where if you, you know, if you got the right personalities and the right type of content plan, you can get viral and that can blow your brand up. Right. But, but for most people, like growing your brand means big, big dollar investments in things like broadcast and TV and billboards and things of that nature can be expensive to do.
Jamie Adams: So. If I’m a small business owner, you know, and, and, and by the way, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve managed some and, and I’ve actually started my own business, um, with some friends of mine, you know, look, when I think about like lead generation, I want to think about kind of bottom of funnel first, right? So if you think about the typical kind of marketing funnel at the top, you’ve typically got awareness, right?
Jamie Adams: That’s where you invest in kind of your brand and making people aware of who your brand are or brand is. The next stage is that middle layer of consideration. Right. That’s kind of once people are aware, they’ve got a need, then they start to think [00:16:00] about you because you’ve invested in that awareness dollar, that, that awareness bucket.
Jamie Adams: And then there’s the purchase bucket, right? Which is kind of the last mile where people are in the market. They’re doing research. I actually think that most contractors is most of all business owners need to start from the bottom of the funnel, right? Where do people go? Where do the consumers go when they’re ready to buy?
Jamie Adams: And today. Right. They go to still, and they’ve been doing this for 20 years. They go to search engines like Google, right? And they tell Google, I’m looking for a plumber near me, or I need an HVAC repair guy near me or gal near me. Right. So when you think about lead gen, start at the bottom of the funnel, right?
Jamie Adams: Have a plan for how can I get in front of people on Google in my local area at their point of need? Right. And you can do that through running Google ads or LSAs. You can do that through establishing your Google profile, um, getting reviews, um, early and often from your customers on your Google profile, because that’s going to help you show up in the local [00:17:00] map section.
Jamie Adams: And then of course, you know, your website and look, man, websites, I get it. It’s a boring, unsexy thing to talk about, right? Like if there’s one thing that we do at Scorpion that I don’t love talking about, it’s like building websites. But look, at the end of the day, your website is the one asset of your business that you control end to end digitally online, right?
Jamie Adams: It’s a hundred percent yours, right? You control how it looks visually. You control all the content. You can build a Facebook business profile. You can build and should build a Google My Business or Google Business profile, but those have to fit into a template. Right? There’s very little modification you can do to that template.
Jamie Adams: It all kind of looks the same. You can put in pictures, but that’s pretty much it. Your website, you control end to end, right? So, if I’m a small business owner, I’m getting a really great website that clearly differentiates me from my competition, right? And helps me tell my story. And I’m making sure that I’m doing the right things to capture people at Google, specifically, when [00:18:00] they have a need.
Jamie Adams: That’s where I start with lead generation.
Wyatt Smith: I love the insight around starting at the conversion point and working backwards. I think that’s a really good one around what are the things that you want your customer thinking, experiencing through that end to end journey. And I really love the insight about, Hey, you control your online presence.
Wyatt Smith: You control how people experience you at your website. There’s other things in your online presence that you don’t control, but that one, that is completely within your strike zone.
Jamie Adams: 100%. 100%. And look, I think at the end of the day, like as you start, as you start growing revenue through leads that you’re generating through that bottom of funnel work, right?
Jamie Adams: When you’re capturing people, when they’re at Google, yeah, look, what you should do over time is you should continue to grow your marketing investment as a percentage of your revenue. And then you should start to invest more money in that mid funnel. Like you should do videos for your website and videos you can launch on a YouTube channel on your Instagram page or on TikTok.
Jamie Adams: You should think about, hey, where does broadcast [00:19:00] and billboards perhaps play a role in my marketing, right? But like. You got to kind of crawl, walk, run your way there, especially if you’re a smaller business starting out. And in order to invest in those, you know, awareness kind of channels, like I mentioned, you got to have revenue to start and the best place to get revenue is to generate leads.
Jamie Adams: And the best place to generate leads today, more times than not, is through having a good strategy for search and specifically for Google.
Wyatt Smith: Our company’s mission is to help combat skilled worker shortages across the United States. We see this one of the bigger challenges that our country faces.
Jamie Adams: Amen.
Jamie Adams: Yeah.
Wyatt Smith: You’re working in this area every day and efficiency and how you serve leads as they come in is certainly top of mind for lots of people. How do you see skilled worker shortages impacting your customers? And what are the ways that it shows up?
Jamie Adams: It’s been a challenge for as many years as I’ve been spending in, in, in, uh, in this space, I mean, obviously I think we hit kind of a tipping point where it was a massive challenge during.
Jamie Adams: You know what I’ll call the, the COVID years, um, you know, that ’20 [00:20:00] to ’22, early ’23 stage, still a, still a massive challenge, right? Um, I think there, there’s a few things, right? One, I think obviously, um, there are fewer people entering the trades, right? Younger generations are fewer of them. Um, what’s fascinating to me is like, I don’t, I don’t know still to this day if, if, um, if contractors have done a great job communicating, um, how great of a living you can make in this skilled trades business.
Jamie Adams: I mean, I was just talking to the technician, um, that I was here earlier today. He’s been at his company, um, Um, I’ll just give a shout out to the company’s Cody And Sons here in Dallas, Texas. He’s been at that company for four years. His brother’s been there for eight years. And I asked him, you know, Hey, what’s kept you there?
Jamie Adams: And it’s like, Hey, well they invest in training. They, um, they take care of our employees, right? Like. Those things, um, clearly make an impact if somebody’s been at a company for 48 years, but I [00:21:00] don’t know that most companies in the, in the space still have a great, um, a great system for attracting employees.
Jamie Adams: And then once they’ve attracted them and gotten them to choose them to actually put them through a systematic kind of training and onboarding. That make them feel valued and cared about. And like, it’s more than just a paycheck and a job that it’s a place that they can actually grow in their career.
Jamie Adams: They can get better. Um, you know, so I think there’s a lot of opportunities still for businesses to do a little bit better in a more systematic job of those things.
Wyatt Smith: I love that insight. I, it reminds me of something you said earlier around how important your, your brand is because that’s, you’re checking to everybody, not just customers.
Wyatt Smith: It’s also your workforce. An observation I have is that a lot of the challenges around skilled worker shortages are felt in the middle of the curve and on the lower end of the curve and performance, meaning that high performers tend to retain high performers. It’s a place where people want to work in [00:22:00] cultures that are high performing and winning and investing in them.
Wyatt Smith: And so. Retention numbers look really strong at the high end. And I think there’s an insight that’s embedded in there back to your, your encouragement around, think about your brand, think about how you project yourself to your customers. Cause it, your, your prospective teammates are seeing that too.
Jamie Adams: Yeah, a hundred percent.
Jamie Adams: 100%. Um, Yeah, look, I, I think, um, I was just going back and looking at the confirmation, um, email that I got when my technician was on the way, right? And it’s like a full bio. His name’s Mike. He’s, he grew up in the trades. His dad was a, um, was, his dad was an HVAC guy. His brother also works at the company, right?
Jamie Adams: I mean, like, Um, I think little things like that, um, that his employer, um, again, the, the business here in Dallas is Cody And Sons, you know, Mike, the technician knows that I got that text tech tech. I mean, like that makes him feel human. Like he’s not just a [00:23:00] number, a cog in the machine there, right? Like they’re, they’re promoting him right to, to me, their customer.
Jamie Adams: And I think little things like that, right. Make you. Make you feel value. They make you feel like you’re not just kind of, you know, checking the box on your day in, in, in work. You actually are proud to work for a business like that. So kudos to companies like Cody And Sons that are seemingly doing it.
Jamie Adams: Right.
Wyatt Smith: That’s great. And kudos to Mike for delivering this morning.
Jamie Adams: He did, man. He did. He, he, you know, I tell you what, I didn’t, I didn’t like handing to my credit card at the end, but, uh, At least I felt like, you know, it was a good experience and he explained to me what he was doing and why I was doing it and the impact it’s going to make.
Jamie Adams: So, yeah, I mean, um, yeah, kudos to Mike.
Wyatt Smith: How would Scorpion think about something like that record of data for Mike’s is it to your house, your relationship with Cody A Sons, and then helping Cody And Sons on extending that relationship with you for the future? What’s the way Scorpion approaches [00:24:00] that from a digital marketing standpoint?.
Jamie Adams: Yeah,
Jamie Adams: I mean, I think one, I mean, it, it experiences like that, like it’s scale show up in data, right? So, you know, how do they show up in data? Well, um, one way that we track, right. Is every lead that we would generate for a business, right. We actually are tracking the lead and then what percentage of those leads actually get turned into dispatched appointments.
Jamie Adams: Yeah. Right. And then what percentage of those appointments turn into actual closed jobs and revenue, right? And we can very a very very quick look and glance at like the graphical representation of that flow Would show you right like if your percentage of dispatch jobs to revenue is 30 percent Right, there’s work that people like Mike on your team need to do Right to provide a better experience to get someone to say yes, I’ll I’d like to do this job with you Right the companies that are closing those at like 70 percent 80 percent [00:25:00] right?
Jamie Adams: They got a bunch of mics on their team most likely, right? And so I think like that’s one way right again that shows up just very very visibly in the data right at scale right the other way is Um, is online reviews, right? So again, what happened as soon as I mean, no, no, my, my, Mike was parked right here.
Jamie Adams: Um, I’ve got a window right here. So Mike was in my driveway here and no sooner was Mike backing out of my driveway where I got a text message right from Cody And Sons saying, Hey, hope you had a great experience. You know, and hope that Mike did a good job, would you mind leaving a review on our Google profile?
Jamie Adams: Right? So, yeah, so a business’s reviews and, um, the star rating of those reviews and how often their customers are mentioning technicians by name, right? Like, so those are other ways that we help, help businesses identify the efficacy of their technicians in the field.
Wyatt Smith: We think often about ways to [00:26:00] then get that information back in Mike Sands and what are ways in which recognition rewards can drive behavior.
Wyatt Smith: And it’s interesting that there was an assumption a lot of our customers had when we started working with them, that it’s really all about pay. It’s a tie to commissions or. Some type of special performance incentive. And like, that’s going to be what will motivate the behavior. And those are important, but oftentimes if those don’t happen right away, or if, if, you know, it’s a little bit unclear how to connect it back to whatever the behavior was that was being rewarded in the first place.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah. Super low impact flip it focus on recognition. Even in the absence of incremental pay, huge impact because of how closely tied it was to affirmation that, Hey, you did the right thing. Mike, you’re like, you know, Jamie had such a great experience that, you know, he, he’s talking about it to other people because of how you had, how you served them, that’s very powerful.
Wyatt Smith: And showing that is really good insight.
Jamie Adams: Completely [00:27:00] agree. And I mean, I know, look, I mean, I know some businesses, um, some business owners that, um, that run like competitions, right? Internally, you know, they’ll, you know, hey, like any, anybody that gets, you know, any technician that gets mentioned most in our Google reviews over the course of a period of time gets a bonus or gets like an award, right?
Jamie Adams: I mean, it doesn’t, like you said, it doesn’t always have to be in the form of money. It is just taking a moment to recognize, you know, The type of behavior and the type of performance that you want, and then recognizing that in some way, shape or form publicly, I mean, that certainly influences, I think people in, in all, in all aspects of business, right?
Jamie Adams: Not just contractors. I mean, I see the same thing with my sales team, right? Like see a good, uh, a salesperson, you know, running the play the right way, delivering a great experience. Obviously winning deals and revenue, but that’s an output of doing the right thing, right? Sometimes just a simple shout out to that person in a slack channel a company slack channel, [00:28:00] right?
Jamie Adams: It means more than maybe even like The little bump in commission or bonus that they would get so don’t get me wrong salespeople want commission and bonuses too, right? But but to your point, I mean, I think the the recognition goes a long way and that’s what keeps people Engaged in your, in your business and wanting to do the right thing for your customers.
Wyatt Smith: I love that insight. We we’ve been helping lots of companies run contests. Many of them focused on sales related objectives. Can you get a higher rate? Can you get a bigger average ticket size? It has been interesting to watch the way that those competitions can, can go off the rails is when you don’t have a way to automate the process of recognizing people.
Wyatt Smith: And so I just did the right thing. I did the thing I was being coached and encouraged to do crickets. And maybe you put a check mark on the whiteboard. Maybe you made a note that you’re going to fall up onto the next, you know, company all hands meeting, but gosh, such a missed opportunity when you had buy in, you had the person do the thing you wanted to see.
Wyatt Smith: And then, [00:29:00]
Wyatt Smith: and so
Wyatt Smith: I love the insight you had earlier about the power of integrations with other providers who, who are making a big impact. We’re also a ServiceTitan partner and Being able to use that system of record as the trigger for when a good things happens and given recognition for it and tracing through the return on investment that comes from that.
Wyatt Smith: I love that Scorpion does that. I think a lot of other companies that integrate with big systems of record, like ServiceTitan or others can learn from that too.
Jamie Adams: Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I mean, I think it’s, it’s, um, you know, every, all of that is like, obviously in service, right. Of, of giving contractors better visibility.
Jamie Adams: Right. That whole facts, not feelings, like perspective. Right. Like how can I actually get, um, better usage of data from the investments I’m making in my field service management platform. Um, in my marketing, um, in my marketing investments, like how can I actually leverage data between those to make better decisions?
Jamie Adams: So [00:30:00] yeah, I completely agree. And I think the, the, the, the man, I mean, especially like as, as, uh, as Google gets more expensive to advertise on, cause it is right. Like every dollar counts. So that integration helps.
Wyatt Smith: I’d love to do quick lightning round. So I asked you a couple of questions. We’d love to get your response to them.
Wyatt Smith: This is always fun to learn from people. Okay. First is a book recommendation about something that led you to change your behavior in some way. What would you say?
Jamie Adams: Oh man. Um, okay. Well, this is actually quite easy. I was gonna, I’ll just be, so this book here, let’s go. Um, this is the best, This is the best book I’ve ever read in my life.
Jamie Adams: Um, outside of the Bible
Wyatt Smith: for those who are listening, not on the, on the video, this, he held up Dale, uh, Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. So share a little about that, Jamie,
Jamie Adams: look, I mean, there’s, I think it’s chapter three. Um, um, it’s [00:31:00] chapter three or four. I’ve read this book so many times. It’s like crazy, but there’s a, there’s a line arousing the person and eager want, he, you can do this has the whole world around him.
Jamie Adams: He who cannot walks a lonely way. And the whole premise there is the, is the way to influence people is to talk about and give them what they want and show them how to get it. And the, the whole, the whole premise of, of this, I mean, this shifted my mindset on sales and marketing. Um, yeah, I think a lot of people, certainly salespeople, um, you know, you fall prey to like, look, cause there’s a high pressure, right?
Jamie Adams: I mean, in sales. You know, you’re if you’re not selling something right, your job is at risk, right? So I think the way that the nationally people that salespeople, um, and by the way, what’s funny about this is like HVAC technicians, plumbers, they’re salespeople, right? Like the whole idea is get you in, get them into the home so they can actually sell you more than what you called them about in the first place.[00:32:00]
Jamie Adams: Right. So this applies across the board to guys like me that are selling B2B, like marketing software and, and, and, uh, and, and HVAC contractors. But I think the way that most people think about sales is just to talk about like your product, right? Talk about like, Hey, this is what we do. This is how we can help.
Jamie Adams: This is like, and not really approaching it from the lens of what does the customer actually really want. What pain are they having and then helping them like articulate that and translate that into, Hey, you told me this is like what you want. And this is the challenges that you’re having. Let me show you a path to that through working with us.
Jamie Adams: So, um, How to Win Friends and Influence People like help me, um, shift my mindset and how I approach sales. Like very much from a, let me pitch you my product starting point to let me help understand what it is you’re after. And based on what it is you’re after, let me see if my product is a good fit for that or not and then help kind of guide you towards that.
Jamie Adams: So, [00:33:00] yeah, that’s, that’s how I’d answer that question. On a more personal basis, because I read a bunch of, I read a lot. Um, there’s a, there’s a, a great book, um, by a guy named, um, uh, named Donald Miller called Scary Close that, um, that changed a lot about how I think about my personal life. Um, so that’s, that’s another one, but, but on the business front, um, for sure, How to Win Friends and Influence People.
Wyatt Smith: Those are
Wyatt Smith: great ones. Thanks for sharing. I productivity hacks, things you do that allow you to produce more and have more output and be your best self.
Jamie Adams: I would say, um, this is not really, I don’t know if I’d call this a hack or not, but it’s certainly like a revelation. It’s like double down on the things that you’re really, really good at.
Jamie Adams: Like focus hard on those things and, and then hire for and lean on people for the things that you’re not, instead of like spending time trying to compensate for the things that you’re not good at for the longest time. Like [00:34:00] It would frustrate me that like, I’m, I’m, it is my role as chief revenue officer.
Jamie Adams: I run sales and I run marketing here. Right. So like, and I’ve been, I’ve done consulting in the past, but like part of, part of what I need to make better decisions, right. Is like, I need to be able to like, look at data and again, going back, you know, talked about facts, not feelings. Like I’ve got to do that in my own world too.
Jamie Adams: Right. Like I can go build, like I can go cut up Excel and build pivot tables and like, right. Right. You know, fairly complex, not super complex formulas. But that takes me like hours upon hours, right? Like, why wouldn’t I just give that off to like a really great analyst that can do the same thing, like in 20 minutes, and then also kind of give me pointers on, Hey, this is what you should look at.
Jamie Adams: So, I mean, I would say that like, I’ve, you know, the more I progressed in my career, I’ve just learned to do a better job of like. I’m really good at certain things and I should take ownership and I should really, you know, Use my time focused on those things and I should just hand off the other things that are important to my job [00:35:00] And that are critical critical to the success of the company relative to my role But I really should just lean on other people who are really good at those And lean on their expertise and then just help and use that as a guide to make a decision Um other other things that I I would say that are like more simpler is um that have been kind of learnings for me over the years Um, one, I try not to look at email past nine o’clock at night, and I know nine o’clock may be late for some people.
Jamie Adams: I used to look at email like until like 12:30 or one, um, and it would just give me heightened amounts of anxiety. Um, so like there are periods of time, like we’ve got a board meeting, we’ve got a big customer meeting coming up, right, where I have to violate that, right, but large in part, I don’t look at email past nine o’clock.
Jamie Adams: Um, I try to get up really early in mornings, like I try to get up between five and six a. m. And start my day by not grabbing my phone and looking at email, but instead like getting up, reading a little bit. Um, I, I, I don’t usually meditate if I’m being honest with you. I [00:36:00] know that’s a popular thing, but I mean, I do try to like spend time, um, praying and just thinking about what I’m grateful for.
Jamie Adams: Um, so that’s been a, a, like starting the day on my terms instead of starting the day on, you know, Jumping up and immediately getting bombarded by email and like reacting to the day instead of like setting a path for how I want my day to run. That’s probably helped me sleep better at night. Um, so yeah, those are, that’s what I’ve got to offer in terms of productivity acts.
Jamie Adams: I don’t know if those are good or not, but maybe they’ll be helpful for somebody out there.
Wyatt Smith: There’s a lot of wisdom there. Uh, it’s the second time this week that delegation has been near the top of the list.
Jamie Adams: Okay. Well, good. I’m not the only one. It’s not an original thought. Not that I thought that it was in the first place.
Wyatt Smith: No, there’s, there’s, uh, quantity is a proxy for, uh, quality in that sense, right?
Jamie Adams: I know this is your podcast, but I, I’d be curious, like, what are, cause I just am interested, like, what, what, how would you answer that question? What are some productivity hacks that you, that are, that have served you well?
Wyatt Smith: The one that was not the [00:37:00] case in a younger version of my life, but is definitely now is around sleep.
Wyatt Smith: I’ve become a big, um, believer that, you know, you gotta be your best self. And, um, I was in this sort of state, stay at, stay above five, stay alive camp for a long time. Uh, so it’s not like I’m like getting all, you know, crazy mess, but just getting to the right hours, I think that it helps your body, uh, recover.
Wyatt Smith: It helps you manage stress differently. It helps you be your best self in front of your kids and your spouse. And, um, that’s a really important one. And then I’d say one that’s, that’s more aspirational for me is compartmentalization. I’d be able to say like, this is the most important problem to solve right now.
Wyatt Smith: And then I can switch and not ruminate on that problem in the same way. Yeah. I found myself, you know, caught late at night thinking about a problem we’re trying to solve or a relationship that I want to go better than it’s going or a conversation I wish I could redo. And so, um, getting better around that is also high on the list.
Jamie Adams: Those are, those are great. Thanks for sharing.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah. Thanks for asking.
Wyatt Smith: I curious [00:38:00] about recommendations you have on other podcasts, things you do to, to tool up, I know you have a personal one. We’d love to hear about that and other recommendations you’d offer to listeners.
Jamie Adams: Yeah. I mean, I listened to a lot of, I listened to a lot of podcasts, watch a lot of like YouTube videos.
Jamie Adams: Um, I’d say the most consistent ones I love All In. Um, I don’t know if, if you’ve, if you’re familiar, but yeah, great. You know, kind of for. Um, kind of, I’d call them Silicon Valley tech guys. But you know, the conversations they have are really more, um, just kind of, um, uh, I would just call them like current events based, right?
Jamie Adams: So they’ll talk about politics, they’ll talk about business, they’ll talk about, um, the economy. Um, but I’ve, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve, I love that podcast. I listen to it every week. Um, I love Acquired. I don’t know if, I don’t know if I’m late to that game or not. Have you, are you an Acquired guy? Do you know that one?
Wyatt Smith: They do such a great job.
Jamie Adams: Oh my God, man. Have you listened to one on with Howard [00:39:00] Schultz and Starbucks yet?
Wyatt Smith: That’s a good one. Yeah. And that was a premonition of the turnover of their CEO. I mean, he, he kind of. On the podcast, he doesn’t think it’s going the right direction, which is, oh man, sure. A pretty big shot across the,
Jamie Adams: I’m getting like, I’m getting, I don’t know if it’s like cool or not.
Jamie Adams: I don’t like getting like goosebumps. Like there were so many gems in that podcast. I mean, so yeah, I would say like if you’re listening to this. Go listen to Acquired, the Howard Schultz episode. It’s like over, almost four hours long. So, I mean, obviously I didn’t do it in one setting, but, man, I love that podcast.
Jamie Adams: Look, I mean, I would be lying, I love Joe Rogan. Um, I don’t listen to every Joe Rogan podcast, but, you know, I’m not a big MMA guy, so I don’t listen to any MMA stuff, right? But, um, I love, like, the variety of guests that he has. Um, I would say those are probably my favorite.
Wyatt Smith: What’s that? You’re a Survivor guy.
Wyatt Smith: I’m guessing. That was that.
Jamie Adams: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I love, um, you know, just kind of more casual and fun. I love SmartLess. It’s like the [00:40:00] Jason Bateman. Okay. Um, and like a couple of other, I can’t remember the other two guys will. And uh, anyway, kind of three actors and we’ll, Will Arnett maybe. Is that his name?
Jamie Adams: Um, and one other guy anyway, comes out on Mondays. It’s just a good kind of funny, like, you know, um, You know, just lighthearted, you know, mindless. You can listen to it kind of in the background, mindless. So, and then the one that, the one that I’ll just give you, like, that’s like the most, the most embarrassing, I’m not embarrassed, but like, um, I’m a huge, I’m a huge music fan, but specifically I’m a huge rock music fan from like the eighties and nineties.
Jamie Adams: So there’s a radio show on Sirius XM. Called, um, Trunk Nation, Eddie Trunk. He’s like been a DJ. So it’s like a talk show where all he does is talk about like eighties and nineties music and have like guests on from that era, from those errors. And I love, I listened to that. Like, that’s like my, my morning workout or evening walk and run [00:41:00] show that I listened to quite a bit.
Jamie Adams: So, uh, yeah, that’s,
Wyatt Smith: I love it. You are a full prolific consumer of podcasts. This is great.
Jamie Adams: Oh, I
Jamie Adams: do. I don’t, I don’t watch much TV, man. It’s like, honestly, like. The majority of, of kind of casual, like content consumption I do is, is, is large in part podcasts. And like I said, that, that cheesy 80s music radio show.
Wyatt Smith: The really cool thing about the Howard Schultz story and the Acquired podcast for, for somebody like me listening to it was just go back in time. Like it was not baked in that it was going to work. And there’s something really inspiring about like understanding that the problems that people as entrepreneurs encounter are.
Wyatt Smith: Uh, evergreen as it relates to the, you know, the ambiguity you’re trying to work through.
Jamie Adams: Yeah.
Wyatt Smith: And what I really love about his story and it comes just with others too, is, is this focus on having a really clear mission and having a really clear understanding about why, and then being very open and like opportunistic as, as things come your way to run after them [00:42:00] in the context of the bigger why.
Jamie Adams: Yeah.
Wyatt Smith: And I think that there’s lots of lessons in all walks of life that people can take from that through, through stories of people who’ve been. Able to generate an impact through history. Yeah. Well, you brought that up.
Jamie Adams: Yeah. And I mean, I, you know, just, just to stay on that, that, that particular episode.
Jamie Adams: I mean, I think there are a couple of things about it that I really, that stood out to me, one was like early on how methodical they were and systematic they were about the markets they entered into in the order by which they, they entered into them, like the decision criteria. Cause like, I mean, you know, I don’t know at the time when Starbucks was blowing up, I was, um, I was living, you know, and I was in Memphis for a bit in Tennessee and then back home and all of a sudden just like you’re in Memphis and all of a sudden there’s a Starbucks, right?
Jamie Adams: Like, but going back and listening to Howard Schultz, you know, those early, those early days where you started in Seattle and then like, okay, what’s the right time to enter into LA, right? What’s the right time? Yeah, exactly.
Wyatt Smith: Decision. Yeah.
Jamie Adams: [00:43:00] Exactly. So I thought that was fascinating. And I, and I, you know, also, and I, and I kind of knew this cause I read Howard Schultz book a few years ago, but just the intense kind of focus on the barista, right?
Jamie Adams: Like the actual employee, the frontline employee. Right. And it seems to me like. Um, a great takeaway from my point of view is that, you know, in the ebbs and flows and kind of the ups and downs of, of, of Starbucks over the years, kind of the common thread of, of when things kind of get turned around is when there was like maybe a shift in focus away from the barista, right?
Jamie Adams: And, and like, maybe the focus was some financial metric driven initiative. Right. And then Howard Schultz kind of gets brought back in. Right. And he kind of re centers the focus on the barista. Right. And it’s, to me, it was just, It was a good lesson and like, Hey, look, you got to make tough business decisions, right?
Jamie Adams: Some of the things like, you know, he had to make some tough barista decisions, right? Like you had to fire a bunch of people, right? Because [00:44:00] in order for the business to survive, you just had to take that action, right? But. But beyond taking that action for the people that are there and they’re on the bus, we need to focus on how do we make them successful?
Jamie Adams: How do we take care of them? Because if we do that, they’re going to take care of the employee, the, the, the customer. And I, I think that’s a great lesson for any business, right? I mean, I think that that’s, um, that’s certainly been a great lesson for us and, and, and the rest of our leadership team here at Scorpion is like, there’ve been times where like, we’re focused on how do we make more sales and how do we drive more revenue and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Jamie Adams: Those things are critical to the success of the business. But at the end of the day, if we create a really great place for people to work and we’re helping them develop in their careers and their skill sets, like we have to trust that they are going to then go get us new customers and grow revenue.
Jamie Adams: Right. So I think that was just a really good lesson and a good reminder when I was listening to that podcast. So
Wyatt Smith: that’s great. Last question I got is how can people get connected to you, learn about it, help you, [00:45:00] um, be in your orbit? What are, what are places you direct them?
Jamie Adams: Yeah, I mean, just, you know, um, to, to find out more, obviously, um, about Scorpion, you can go to scorpion.
Jamie Adams: co. not com. We tried to buy scorpion. com from an industrial oil and gas company for like decades, and every time we try to do it, um, they, they hike the price up. Um, so we’re scorpion. co. Um, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. Just, just search Jamie Adams Scorpion on Google and my LinkedIn profile will show up.
Jamie Adams: Um, I’m on Instagram. Um, you know, I’m on Facebook. I’m a little bit selective about who I let friends with me on Facebook, but, and then I’ve actually got like a, um, a, um, um, kind of a side project. It’s a podcast called The Dependence. Um, And, uh, you can search Spotify for The Dependence Podcast or just Google The Dependence Podcast and it’ll pop up.
Jamie Adams: But I’m really just, I’m using it as a way just to talk to random people and kind of thematically I’m just trying to, to kind of draw out how the [00:46:00] dependence that we have as human beings on other people, on things, on God, can either have a positive or negative influence on our lives. Um, so I’m just having a lot of conversations with different people in different walks of life.
Jamie Adams: Um, recorded an episode with my business coach earlier this week. Um, so that was kind of cool. Um, but yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s how you can find me.
Wyatt Smith: That’s awesome. Well, I’m excited to check that out and grateful to you sharing wisdom on how to help contractors grow their businesses. Check out Scorpion.
Wyatt Smith: Uh, co to follow Jamie, uh, and thanks so much, Jamie, for, for being a good friend here to the UpSmith team..
Jamie Adams: Yeah, man. And like grateful for you and the kind of your company and like your, your mission too, I mean, I think. Look, I mean, at the end of the day, um, while the market may be a little bit soft for contractors today, it no doubt is going to get heated again at some point in the future and at the end of the day, it’s competitive out there and if you want to stand out, right, you’ve got to invest in your people, you’ve got to make sure that they’re trained, um, and that they’re doing more than just, you know, [00:47:00] collecting a paycheck from you because they can do that in any number of places.
Jamie Adams: So I think that what you guys are doing at UpSmith is really awesome, man, so keep, keep, keep going there. So.
Wyatt Smith: I appreciate it. Alright, well catch us next time on the Untapped with UpSmith podcast and until then, signing off. Thanks Jamie.
Jamie Adams: UpSmith, not uptick. I don’t know where I got. Got up, up uptick, so.
Jamie Adams: Alright, take to you soon, Take care man.
Wyatt Smith: You nailed it. See you man. Bye. Be well.
