The Six Hidden Leaks That Are Bleeding Your Business Dry
Welcome back to Freedom to Exit! In this episode, Lani Dickinson and tech wizard Jeana DeShazer dive deep into the six hidden leaks bleeding your home‑services business dry.
From missed calls and lazy web chats to weak reviews and lack of automation—they reveal real-world examples, hard stats, and proven fixes to plug those costly holes and reclaim your time (and profits).
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Website: https://www.stealthfreedomtoexit.com
Transcript
>> Lani Dickinson: Welcome back to the Freedom to Exit podcast. I'm Lani
Speaker:Dickinson, your host and I am so excited to be joining
Speaker:you with Jeana DeShazer the tech
Speaker:wizard. And we are in episode
Speaker:two of our launch of the toollt
Speaker:empire and book solid radio. So
Speaker:today we're going to talk about. Well,
Speaker:on the last episode we said the five hidden links
Speaker:and I said links, the five
Speaker:hidden laks. But as we got
Speaker:started Gina said, but there're six. So
Speaker:we'renna over deliver over episode one.
Speaker:And the PA magnet is actually going to be six
Speaker:hidden leaks. So today we're going to talk about the six
Speaker:hidden leaks that are bleeding your business dry.
Speaker:We're building the tool belt empire and booked out radio
Speaker:for people just like you who are really great at
Speaker:what you do. The handyman, the painter, the home
Speaker:service pros that are out there just killing it for their
Speaker:clients, but simultaneously maybe killing
Speaker:themselves, struggling to build the business,
Speaker:working too many long hours trying to run it on texts
Speaker:and little post it notes and
Speaker:coffee in the drive through and early mornings and
Speaker:late nights and missing baseball and ballet and all
Speaker:of those things. But today we're going to talk about how you
Speaker:can start plugging the leaks that will grow
Speaker:your business autom. Magically.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: There you go.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: And first up is
Speaker:missed calls. Missed calls means missed
Speaker:money, right? Here's the thing. if
Speaker:the phone rings and no one answers,
Speaker:going to voicemail, that's where leads go to die. And you have
Speaker:to understand this, if you're fine with things going to
Speaker:voicemail, here's some stats for you that
Speaker:will make you change your mind on that. 98
Speaker:or 99% of voicemails
Speaker:never get listened to, much less
Speaker:answered. And the reason is
Speaker:you have 5 minutes
Speaker:247 to respond to an
Speaker:inbound question about
Speaker:your service. If you
Speaker:don't answer any kind of an answer within
Speaker:5 minutes 24 7, they don't care if you're sleeping,
Speaker:then they are already googled. Five of your
Speaker:competitors who have a website, which is
Speaker:Gina is going to talk about with a web chat widget, and AI
Speaker:answering the phone, all of those things.
Speaker:Now, the reason I say 247 is you might
Speaker:not know this, but 40 something
Speaker:percent of Googling happens
Speaker:after 6pm why we go to
Speaker:bed, the world fades
Speaker:away and only the problems remain in our
Speaker:heads. So we reach for our phone and we start
Speaker:Googling. So
Speaker:missing phone calls and having them go to
Speaker:voicemail, that's not the
Speaker:business, that's going to grow your Business.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: Know I had a refrigerator problem one time.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: You did?
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: Yeah. Started calling people. I
Speaker:had a ah, guy on his voicemail
Speaker:say you can leave a message if you want, but
Speaker:I'm not going to listen to it. He
Speaker:actually said that I'm too busy, I'm not goingna
Speaker:get your voicemail. I was like okay
Speaker:and went to the next one. Ok, Colin. Until I found
Speaker:one.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: Well the biggest problem is they don't return the
Speaker:calls, period. I'm talking about, you call later and
Speaker:it's too late. But the truth is. See you.
Speaker:I've got 47,000 examples of home
Speaker:service people who just don't return the calls. But.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: Let's talk about websites and chat widgets and
Speaker:how that creates trust.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: You would think that today, in today's time, we've
Speaker:had websites around since what, I don't know, how long have they
Speaker:been around? Internet age?
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: 80S.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: 80S? Yeah.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: I mean those weren't great ones.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: No, no. Some of them still look like they're from the
Speaker:80s. We see you and it
Speaker:needs to be updated. but there are still people out
Speaker:there, believe it or not, that do not have a website.
Speaker:And so the first thing that people
Speaker:do when they want something, they Google, like you
Speaker:said, repair, handyman, whatever. You're
Speaker:googling it and you look and
Speaker:I always want to go to their website and see if it's
Speaker:a 1980 website.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: Are they real people?
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: Are they real? Have they been
Speaker:working on their website? Is it updated
Speaker:or does it say still say copyright
Speaker:2000 at the bottom 25 years
Speaker:ago. They haven't touched the website since. And
Speaker:so website is definitely necessary, it doesn't have to be
Speaker:big. I think that's the mindset
Speaker:that I don't have time and I got to build this huge
Speaker:website. You don't have to. One page, that's
Speaker:it. One page tells what you
Speaker:do, who you are, all those things that people
Speaker:are looking for. And the next thing, the first thing I
Speaker:do when I go to a website is I look down at the right hand
Speaker:corner, right where the web chats
Speaker:are already at, are always at
Speaker:down there. And I click on it and see if I can ask
Speaker:it questions. If you can get that
Speaker:web chat to answer questions for you,
Speaker:the percentage of them converting, converting
Speaker:as just goes through the roof.
Speaker:So those little things like
Speaker:that that you think it's gonna take me
Speaker:forever, but it's not.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: But Gina, you're a tech words wizard, they already know that. So
Speaker:tell us a story about a real client who installed A chat
Speaker:widget and was like, oh my God, you weren't
Speaker:lying.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: I know you I know, I know. I'I got
Speaker:several that say things like that that are just blown
Speaker:away by just that one thing. putting it on
Speaker:their site and even just the simple
Speaker:ones that just collect name. And so
Speaker:here's a quick little automation that I do a lot. Put a chat
Speaker:widget on there, it asks for their name, email,
Speaker:phone and their problem or their question. And
Speaker:it automatically then text that
Speaker:to the business owner and it says, hey,
Speaker:get back with them. You have a hot lead, lead, hot
Speaker:lead, get back with them. And
Speaker:it automatically also texts the
Speaker:person that just put the information on
Speaker:there and said, hey, we got your message. We'll get back with
Speaker:you know as soon as possible. By
Speaker:end of day, however, we wan toa say it. And then that
Speaker:person knows. Oh, okay, they're paying attention,
Speaker:they're paying attention.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: And this does meet the requirement of what I was saying
Speaker:about miss calls, miss money. That actually starts the
Speaker:conversation. So that's enough to keep
Speaker:the person on the line. You can't do it m tomorrow but you got
Speaker:toa get in there.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: Right? Well, it's the same thing with the missed call. We can
Speaker:set up an automation that when call you missed that call.
Speaker:They automatic and it's happened to me automatically got a
Speaker:text that said, hey, sorry, missed your call.
Speaker:What's going on? How can we help you? And I just start. Cause
Speaker:no one wants to really talk on the phone.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: Yeah, not me.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: Nobody wants talk on the phone. I talk.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: How many times do I say get me to bullets and send me
Speaker:a text.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: That's right. That's right. No one wants to talk. They want to text
Speaker:or they're at work and they can't. But
Speaker:I gotta schedule this repair or whatever you.
Speaker:And so I started texting back and it became a texting
Speaker:conversation. We solved it all right there and bam. I was happy.
Speaker:They were happy.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: Yeah. So yeah, I already
Speaker:jumped the gun on number three. I mentioned it back
Speaker:in number one. No follow up equals a cold
Speaker:lead. So I talked about that. have you
Speaker:ever sent something and they said, oh, they'd think about it. And then
Speaker:there's crickets. We like to say be backs, don't be
Speaker:back most of the
Speaker:time. This isn't a lost job. It's too much time in the
Speaker:follow up they found somebody else. So I already
Speaker:sprung that one on them in number one spng that
Speaker:leak. I sprung that.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: Good.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: All right, so number four.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: Number four is your Google Business
Speaker:profile. We talked about Googling someone'said
Speaker:Google use is now a verb.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: Ye. Noun. It'probably a. I'm gonna
Speaker:it.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: You wanna Google it. It's what you tell people. Google it. You.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: No, we never said I'm Yahoo in it.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: No, no. Goog. It's always Googling it. Always Googling
Speaker:it. And so, they Google it.
Speaker:And if you're not there
Speaker:they question, are you a real business? Are you still in business?
Speaker:And so the importance of having
Speaker:a Google business profile and having
Speaker:it working for you because
Speaker:Google wants that to be an active site. It's almost like
Speaker:in social media or its own little
Speaker:website because they want you updating
Speaker:it. And so there's a lot that we're going to
Speaker:unpack later in a session about Google business.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: Full episode on Google.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: That's how important it is because there's so many pieces.
Speaker:There's the reviews piece, there's
Speaker:the, Just questions and answers.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: He just sprung a link.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: I did, I did. There's a bunch in there. There's
Speaker:a bunch in there. So having that optimized,
Speaker:getting one. If you don't have one step number one and
Speaker:then optimizing it and continually.
Speaker:I know you think that's a lot of work
Speaker:'you hire people for that. That's why you hire
Speaker:us. But it'also can be put on
Speaker:automation.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: Ye. Game changer.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: Ye.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: So the leak she sprung was leak number five, which
Speaker:is reviews. No social proof. Yeah, great
Speaker:job, nice lead in. Even if your work is
Speaker:amazing,
Speaker:no reviews on your site
Speaker:is going to kill it. Right? People don't trust
Speaker:even their family. I have data. I wish I'd looked
Speaker:these statistics up before we talk today,
Speaker:but we have data that says people trust.
Speaker:And it's a big number, like 75%
Speaker:or something. I totally don't know the exact number,
Speaker:but big number. People trust
Speaker:Google reviews more than they trust a recommendation from
Speaker:a family. Maybe it was 45%. It's a high number.
Speaker:Like you don't trust your family more than a Google review. Isn't that
Speaker:wild?
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: I have an importance of Google reviewing. Example.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: Okay, let's go.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: My husband and I were moving. We decided to get a
Speaker:moving company. Okay. We had a lot
Speaker:of it stored because we had to move temporarily. But anyway, long
Speaker:story, and he hires
Speaker:this company and we sa there on moving
Speaker:day. No moving company.
Speaker:We called them and they say, well,
Speaker:you weren't first on our list today. Well, that's
Speaker:the first mistake. And so the other job's
Speaker:taken a little longer we may not get to
Speaker:you till tomorrow.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: And you're moving.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: And we're moving. We have to be down to our new
Speaker:house because they're dropping our pod with all the rest
Speaker:of our stuff there. And HOA says you can only
Speaker:have a pod there for 24 hours. So it just.
Speaker:Anyway, long story. But anyway, I get
Speaker:on there and I google them.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: By the way, that's back to the husband in the honey doew list. But
Speaker:that's a different. We already covered.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: Yes, did, so I googled them. Oh my gosh.
Speaker:The reviews were horrendous. They were
Speaker:awful. And I looked at my husband and said, did
Speaker:you ever think to read
Speaker:the reviews? No. I was
Speaker:like, you never get to hire anyone
Speaker:again. Again. Ever.
Speaker:Which probably didn't make you our audience'men.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: But you know, this is the other side of it. Right.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: Anyway, so that's we'a good example of reviews
Speaker:and getting good ones and not just to
Speaker:get, a five star. So even if you're like at 4, 6,
Speaker:4.6 or something to get up to a five star,
Speaker:I think we were looking at the stats of the day. It takes like
Speaker:50 or 65 stars to
Speaker:move that 4.6 up.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: So the good news is the tool belt
Speaker:empire has the numbers to be able to do that and they
Speaker:provide the quality work. They just need our systems to get that
Speaker:happening.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: That right.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: The other thing that was mind boggling to
Speaker:me about Google reviews is
Speaker:96% of consumers refer to them. Your
Speaker:husband's in the 4% that don't. That is true.
Speaker:And the people, it's
Speaker:like 20% of people, if
Speaker:there's no reviews, they won't even consider the business.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: That's true.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: And if there are no responses,
Speaker:and the responses have to be within, not
Speaker:necessarily one minute, but within a few
Speaker:hours. And they have to be, they have to kind of feel
Speaker:authentic. Not just like, than. Thank you.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: Thank you for that good review.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: Thanks. Good talk.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: No, and, that kind of leads into the next
Speaker:le. is no automation equals no
Speaker:time freedom. If anyone knows me, you know, I am an
Speaker:automation crazy
Speaker:woman.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: And I am a time freedom crazy woman. So this,
Speaker:this is us.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: if I could automate everything in my life, I
Speaker:would like my lights come on at a certain time at night
Speaker:and go off in the morning so I don't have to worry about flipping
Speaker:on my outside lights and turn them off. Our Airbnb
Speaker:needs that.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: By the way, if you are the person who installs that,
Speaker:we can help you grow your business for sure.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: But automations keep you from having to do these things
Speaker:manually.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: And every minute you're spending doing
Speaker:an yourself is a minute
Speaker:you can't be making more money
Speaker:or spending time with your family.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: Yeah, I had a client, it ties into the reviews. We had
Speaker:a client, we reviewed. I mean we
Speaker:automated the responses to the reviews.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: Hm.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: And they're really amazing. It's A.I. don't let
Speaker:A.I. scare you. But it's amazing the responses.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: By the way, you're the guys who AI is not going to
Speaker:replace.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: That's actually part of that is true.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: Why when we talked about launching the toollt
Speaker:empires like you know,
Speaker:the handyman, the home services, the painters, the
Speaker:plumbers, all these
Speaker:people, that's you who make it all work and come together
Speaker:seamlessly. AI is not going to take your job
Speaker:away. But it may grow your business, it.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: Will grow your business. But the saying is AI is not going to
Speaker:replace you. But companies who use
Speaker:AI will replace you.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: Y.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: Exactly. now I lost
Speaker:my train of thought. But anyway, automations, it
Speaker:will save you tons of time. Oh, I was, I was talking about the
Speaker:reviews, the automated reviews. she told us that it
Speaker:has saved her like up to two hours a
Speaker:day because at the end of the day she would go
Speaker:home, sit down, go through all
Speaker:of her stuff.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: And start blink, blinking,
Speaker:cursor, you gotta.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: Look at the reviews and then you got to think of a response that's going
Speaker:to be decent. And then. So it's taken her a long
Speaker:time and now it automatically
Speaker:answers them for her within 5, 10 minutes of the
Speaker:review. And look, she looks at them to make sure they
Speaker:didn't go wonky or something because you know, AI can give you
Speaker:crazy and you can always edit it, but
Speaker:she's like, that's time that I got
Speaker:back in my life every night to spend with my
Speaker:family at night.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: And what's more common than somebody who
Speaker:takes the time to answer them is somebody who says
Speaker:am I going to go collect the cash from the
Speaker:client that owes me? I got to make
Speaker:payroll. So cash is going to win. Am I going
Speaker:to miss another baseball game? Am I
Speaker:going to try and squeeze in one more
Speaker:thing? Because you know, I've got some goal
Speaker:and suddenly responding to reviews falls to the
Speaker:bottom.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: Well, here's another deal of missing a ballgame.
Speaker:How many guys do you see at a ballgame
Speaker:that are there in body, but
Speaker:they're off over here in the corner on their phone
Speaker:answering questions or keeping their business
Speaker:running?
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: Do they feel horrible about it. Yeah, I, finished
Speaker:my master's degree
Speaker:from the soccer sidelines. I mean, I
Speaker:was there, right?
Speaker:So if you feel like
Speaker:you've got all your leaks covered, we want to interview you.
Speaker:And if you don't feel like you've got them all covered,
Speaker:whether there was five or six, if
Speaker:you feel like you don't have them covered, we built a guide that
Speaker:walks you through exactly what they are
Speaker:and how to fix them step by step. It's called
Speaker:the six hidden leaks in your handyman and home services
Speaker:business that are bleeding your business.
Speaker:Or something like that title may change because that
Speaker:didn't sound too fun. But it's free, it's simple, and
Speaker:you can grab it today. The link will be down in the show
Speaker:notes. While you're there,
Speaker:grab your free Google your business profile
Speaker:audit. So that'll be a link to
Speaker:schedule a profile audit with, Gina, the
Speaker:Google my business tech wizard pro.
Speaker:That one thing alone can double your
Speaker:visibility online. It cannot be taken for granted.
Speaker:And we'd love to help audit your profile and get you where you
Speaker:need to be. And the truth
Speaker:is, most people don't even set it up right. They even
Speaker:struggle to get the address approved.
Speaker:>> Gina de Shazer: Correct.
Speaker:>> Lani Dickinson: That's no laughing matter. So
Speaker:in the next episode, we're going to talk about what happens when you
Speaker:only use one or two pieces of a system,
Speaker:when you're using this much of this much
Speaker:that's available, and why that leaves you
Speaker:stuck on that hamster wheel roller coaster we've been talking
Speaker:about. Until then, start plugging the
Speaker:leaks. Schedule your Google audit.
Speaker:Download the, how to fix the leaks.
Speaker:You guys are the expert at the leaks, and I can't even get the name of the
Speaker:thing out. The six hidden leaks in your
Speaker:business that are bleeding you dry.
Speaker:And as always, we're so grateful that you've joined us,
Speaker:today, and we're looking forward to the next
Speaker:episode. We may even be in different clothes and in a
Speaker:different location, any
Speaker:location. If you watch a lot of my podcasts, the background
Speaker:changes all the time because my great
Speaker:podcast crew, we just go
Speaker:wherever we are. Where are we today? New
Speaker:Jersey. Sometimes we don't know. We're in New Jersey
Speaker:today, so download the guide.
Speaker:Schedule your call. As always, subscribe,
Speaker:share this with people who need to hear this information.
Speaker:And we're so grateful that you're here today. Thank you so much.
