Charles Craggett built his first CRM for $100, basically for lunch money, and turned that into a full marketing automation agency that helps blue collar businesses stop losing leads before they even pick up the phone. In this episode, he breaks down why most trades businesses are unknowingly paying for leads they'll never close, how speed to lead can make or break your revenue, and why he ran his entire business from a Muay Thai gym in Thailand for a month.
Episode 17: The Real Reason Your Marketing Isn’t Working with Charles Craggett
You don’t lose deals because of bad marketing. You lose them because you’re too slow to respond. Attention spans are shorter, customers expect instant answers, and some businesses are still using older marketing models. Charles Craggett, digital marketing expert, joins Save to Zero hosts Zach and Mike to talk about what it really takes to stand out in a crowded space.
Charles looks at digital marketing from a practical angle, focused on getting you more leads. Truthfully, your leads don’t want to wait anymore. If someone fills in a form and doesn’t hear back quickly, they’re already talking to someone else. Charles breaks down how simple systems like instant text responses, fast follow-ups, and clear processes can massively improve your conversion rate.
Our conversation also digs into visibility. It’s not enough to have a website and hope people find you. You need to show up where your customers are already looking, whether that’s Google, social media, local search, or even newer AI-driven search tools. Charles talks through why this creates momentum over time and why that kind of consistency leads to better results.
We also chat about what happens after the sale, where referrals, reviews, and repeat business kick in. Charles shares how small changes, such as asking for referrals or staying in touch, can turn one job into many.
Finally, Charles shares his thoughts on outsourcing, working with overseas contractors, and the importance of clear communication for good results. He also offers a practical view of AI, not as magic but as a tool that can help you learn faster, think more clearly, and build skills when used well.
“In business, you’re just a professional problem solver. So, that’s just another problem to solve.”
“Being cheap is a race to the bottom.”
“I think that we’re at a point where people just want you to get to the point.”
Charles Craggett is the founder of Become The Authority, a marketing automation agency based in Cleveland, Ohio. He has a background in sales and marketing and now focuses on bringing a systems-based approach to marketing to local service businesses.
When Charles is not running his agency, he enjoys training in Mixed Martial Arts and spending time with his family.
Find Charles Craggett on Facebook and Instagram
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[00:00.1] All we had to do was implement some good lead capturing software and then run some halfway decent ads on Facebook Marketplace. And the ads that this was before I really knew how to run ads, get a designer or anything like that.
[00:16.4]
What I did was I went into Canva, I got a picture of a casket and I put a red thing across the top of it that just said, attention seniors selling final expense life insurance that's designed to cover burials.
[00:37.8]
So did it work? Yes. Oh, there you go. It worked. Amazingly, most people think saving money is the answer. But the truth is, saving only gets you to zero.
[00:54.7]
Join Mike and Zach as they flip the script from saving to earning, from zero to unlimited potential. Welcome to Save to Zero. Hey everybody. Welcome to episode number 17 of the Save to Zero podcast.
[01:12.2]
Today we are very lucky to have on Charles Craggette. He is in a mastermind with me and he is a marketing automation expert and he is going to share some information on that and he's going to talk about not trying to save money, but trying to grow.
[01:29.9]
Because that's what it's all about, right? You can only save to zero, but you can grow infinite. If you don't believe me, look at Mr. Musk. He is growing infinitely, for sure. And other than the fact that my buddy here, Charles, has an ugly hat on and that he has photobombed me at events before, I think he's pretty much a good guy.
[01:49.3]
So, for the most part, Charles, you guys, welcome, buddy. Making it so easy for me. I'm good. Thanks for having me on, you guys. I appreciate it. Absolutely, man. So I just did your intro, but, Cyril, clearly I didn't do it justice.
[02:06.3]
Tell us a little bit about your background. Just kind of give us a 50,000 foot view and we'll see where this goes for sure. I'm Charles. I am the owner of Become the Authority. We're a marketing automations agency. We just noticed there was a, big disconnect when it came to marketing and systems, especially with people in the trades.
[02:32.1]
So we decided to, number one, tailor our marketing towards getting leads for people like plumbers, electricians, people like that. Right. But we noticed the major issue is that what happens when a lead comes in?
[02:48.2]
How are you guys managing it? Is someone getting a phone call? Are we sending them a text message? Are we booking their appointment immediately or are we reaching out five hours later? These were concerns that a lot of business owners had because they didn't have a standard procedure on how they dealt with new people.
[03:05.9]
They had some Leads going to this email, some leads going over here, some coming through the website, some just on their smartphone. So we were like, let's build the automated system side of this as well. So we build custom CRMs for all of our clients to better handle customer intake, and just walk them through that journey of going from brand new person who's just getting exposed to your business to repeat referral customer who's sending you referrals and leaving Google reviews on your behalf.
[03:42.8]
Wow, that is a lot to unpack and that was very cool. No, you hit on something there that, I heard Alex Hermozi, who I listen to all the time now, talk about and he said it's the speed to lead. Yeah, one, hundred percent.
[03:58.7]
How quickly are you getting to that lead and how long are you letting it sit there? Because when it comes down to it, and clearly you can correct me if I'm wrong here with this being the Amazon age where sometimes you get same day delivery and you want stuff right away.
[04:14.6]
If you don't get to that prospect very fast, they say the heck with you and they're moving on to the next six people that show up. Am I right or am I wrong? No, you're 100% right. Especially in this age where you're incentivized to move to the next person.
[04:31.5]
Right. Like the, the sites are set up, okay, well, here's the next person you can talk to. Here's the next person you can talk to. Here's the next person you can talk to. So if you're still clicking around after five minutes, after I've submitted my information on a website, I'm just going to go talk to someone else.
[04:49.5]
Especially if I'm a plumber or an electrician or something like that. I don't have five hours for you to shuffle around before you call me. I'd like to get my toilet fixed. I think it started with Amazon and then people I think got impatient and it spilled into everything else.
[05:08.2]
Like if you buy something on a website that's not Amazon and it says it's going to take three days to get there, you get annoyed. And I think it's just bled into everything else. And it's interesting because I found out in the last couple of months that Alex Hormozi has taken on a partner.
[05:25.8]
And he said, kind of on a side note, the reason he took the guy on is because Alex said, I've never built a billion dollar business, he's built two. But that a side note, I heard him on his podcast, he has his own podcast, his partner and I don't remember his name off the top of my head.
[05:43.6]
I'm going to have to remember it for the next time. But what he said was that he actually has stopped watching YouTube shorts because he found out it was decreasing his attention span. Interesting. And this is a brilliant guy. And he said I actually had to stop watching them.
[05:59.9]
So to go along with what you said, Zach, that Amazon started it where we want stuff right away. It's affecting everything. It's just amazing. So Charles, give us kind of an overview of how it looks because that sounds like a very sophisticated system.
[06:15.6]
And I was, my second company was blue collar. I had a restoration company. We used to do 250 jobs a year, give or take. And our system was not automated by any means. Give us an idea from a 50,000 foot view what that looks like for a blue collar guy. So it looks like, number one, making sure that you're extremely visible online, whether it's on social media, Google, the AI search engines, Google, my business, et cetera, you need to be visible online, right?
[06:49.2]
So that's step one. Now step two is lead capture. Right. Because someone clicks on your website, gets to your page, gets to your social media, whatever they're interested in working with you. How do we capture their information? Well, we need to have a simplified form that gathers all of their stuff and that immediately sends them a text message that confirms, hey, we have your stuff.
[07:15.1]
That at least lets people know the ball is rolling. Right. Next, depending on who the client is, some clients, they want the full automated experience and will actually implement an AI agent that will call the customer and attempt to book the appointment.
[07:33.1]
But in other situations, just the text message letting them know that we're coming is enough. And the text message actually prompts them to start answering all of those common estimate questions that you need before you book an appointment. So whether we're calling them, whether they're talking to a chatbot, whatever the process of the booking is happening, once, the booking happens, whether they close the deal.
[08:02.1]
If they close the deal, cool. We move on to the next thing. If they don't close the deal, they're put into lifelong follow up. And once you're in my funnel, you're never getting out. You are going to send, you, I'm in funnel house, you are never getting out.
[08:20.2]
So text messages, emails, they're periodic, they don't have to be spammy, but it's important just to let People know, especially if you're a local service business. Right. Like, perfect example. I work with a roofer. We just had a major storm here in Cleveland.
[08:36.5]
So we immediately changed up a lot of the messaging that we were sending out to people to reflect the storms that just happened in this area. It's like, hey, if you need us to come and take a look at your roof, etc. Right. You know, that's, that's important and it shows people that you aren't just like churning things out.
[08:55.6]
It means you are paying attention and we're here to service you and help you. Right. So if they don't close, they get lifelong follow up. If they do close, that's wonderful. We're still not done with you yet though. Once. Because your toilet may leak in the future.
[09:13.3]
Yeah. So once, once the job's completed, they immediately get a text message and an email just saying, hey, thank you for your business. We'd love it if you could leave us a Google review pro tip on this.
[09:28.4]
We don't send them right to the Google review page. What we do is we send them, to a mock landing page that has one to five stars. And if they click anything below four stars, it just sends them to a little thing where they can air out their grievance directly to us.
[09:47.1]
And it doesn't go to Google if it's anything above those four stars. We send them right over to Google, they leave a review and then we're still not done because they still get newsletters and text messages from us prompting them to potentially give us referral business or repeat business.
[10:05.1]
And the beauty of this is that when you're highly visible and you've got your systems built out like this, it compounds. You get more and more people into the list and then you can also take that list and feed it back into the advertising platforms to make them perform better and lower your overall lead cost.
[10:26.8]
That is cool. Yeah, yeah, Seriously, there's a lot there. People think you just make a phone call and that's it. And you've got this whole system built out so that you can keep them front of mind awareness. You respond quickly, so you got the speed to lead, you got the front of mind awareness, and you're on top of what's going on in the local market.
[10:50.4]
Like you said, we had a weather event come in, so now we need to contact people for the roofers. Oh, that's brilliant. I love how you say you ask for referral business too, because I think a lot of people think, oh, I did this guy's roof, I'm not going to see him again for 25 years.
[11:08.0]
And you write him off and he's done as a client and it's pretty cool, the referrals or leaning into storms and things like that. I think it's a great way to get repeat business from existing clients. That's huge. I think where my strength in this comes from is my background prior to opening this agency was actually in insurance sales.
[11:29.9]
Okay. And, and I was going out and physically seeing people and stuff like that. But you have to actively, sell people, right? And a lot of times my sales team that I was training, they would be like, you know, well, I can close them, but it just doesn't seem like I'm really getting enough.
[11:47.8]
And it's like, well, did you ask them if they have any family or friends? Did you? You know, yeah, if, if this person needs life insurance and they've never gotten it before and they're in their 40s and they've never thought about this before, it's very likely that the rest of the family has also never thought about this.
[12:07.5]
So it's time to go ask those people for referrals. And we were able to increase our year over year close, rates, by 20% just by asking for more referrals. So we know that referrals are huge. And that's why it's like, hey, you need to double back.
[12:24.5]
If you did a great job with their roof, they have neighbors, they know other homeowners, incentivize them to a certain degree and then they turn into a sales team for you. That's fantastic. Now when you set up there, I'm going to switch gears a little bit.
[12:40.9]
When you set up the CRM without letting out the secret sauce, because you know, we have as many listeners as Joe Rogan does. So without letting out the secret sauce to your competitors, are you setting up a custom CRM in GHL or some other well known platform?
[12:58.2]
So we're using Go high level primarily. But as it relates to most of our trades businesses, we tend to integrate it with another CRM called Jobber. House Call Pro is another good one too, but I'm more privy to Jobber.
[13:19.2]
The reason why is because the Jobber CRM is more operational in its functionality. You can use it to assign, you can assign your workers to this particular job. You can optimize their route. If they have a series of appointments they need to hit that day, all of that can be done Inside of Jobber.
[13:40.8]
So what we typically teach the business owner to do is to operate inside of Jobber. And then we set up automations to where Go High Level and jobbers speak to each other. So whenever they execute a certain function Inside of Jobber Jobber, all of the marketing and et cetera happens inside of Go High Level.
[14:01.0]
That's amazing. How long did it take you to set up your model and get it to actually work? Because that's a lot of moving parts and pieces you've got going on. That's a ton. Yeah, I mean, it is a little more like sophisticated in scale.
[14:18.1]
And we're not looking to just work with every Joe Schmo with a truck. Right, right. We're looking for serious operators who have already kind of put the effort in to lay things down. But as far as marketing and automations and everything like that, I've been doing this stuff for close to 10 years now, from my time in insurance running my own agency.
[14:46.1]
But, as far as locking in the model, the business has been open about two years now. So the first year was just kind of like, I don't know what I'm doing, I have no idea what I'm selling, I don't know who I'm helping, I don't know what I'm setting up. I, I was only building CRMs for people.
[15:04.6]
And the first CRM build I did was like a hundred dollars. I didn't even know how to charge it or anything like that. He just reached out to me, he's like, hey, can you help me set this up? And I was like, yeah, just, I don't know, buy me lunch or something, I'll do it. But he got so much so, such good results from just that CRM that I set up for him that I thought to myself, you know what, this could be a business.
[15:32.7]
Now I know that I have to sell this for more than a hundred dollars, but this could be a business. And so that's when I started getting in the weeds, meeting more, owners like yourself, joining some of the networking groups and stuff like that, and just like understanding the process of how do you price something, how do you value stack something?
[15:55.5]
You know, this was my first business that I've ever built by myself from the ground up, with no other real, like, footing. This is like completely my idea. And so we just kind of went from there. So I would say the first year was just kind of locking in on what I was doing.
[16:12.6]
Once that was knocked out, I was able to really go aggressively, with kind of pushing premium offers to larger business owners, which is where I wanted to be at. Sure. Well, I think it's really smart that you won't work with just any Joe Schmo.
[16:31.6]
Because what I find happens is if somebody spends money on something and they don't put effort into it, they blame the something and they don't blame themselves for not putting the effort into it. Exactly. Yeah, you actually hurt your reputation by dealing with people who aren't quality people to begin with.
[16:51.9]
So that makes complete sense. Have you had issues with getting blue collar people on board? Like, I know stereotypically they could be kind of slow to want to adopt technology. Have you had issues with that? Yeah, 100%. But you know what, in business, you're a professional problem solver, so that's just another problem to solve.
[17:15.5]
So for me, I realized that I could sort of bridge the gap because for a lot of blue collar guys, they've either been burned by agencies before or they've just never invested in this stuff and they don't really know where to get started, what's a good deal, what's a bad deal, et cetera.
[17:33.7]
Right. And then there's also the people who, they have all these different pieces of software, but they're not very tech savvy, so they don't know how to make sure that their systems speak to each other. So we're able to come in with a really unique proposition where it's like, hey, look, we're going to handle all your marketing.
[17:54.8]
All of that is good and fine. But I noticed that your internal systems, are also a mess and the marketing cannot perform at its full capacity. You won't get the, that you're looking to get out of running these ads if your system is crap.
[18:11.2]
So let us come in and show you how to clean up your system, how to use these softwares, tighten everything up so that when you start spending money on these leads, you're actually getting the returns that you're supposed to get as opposed to sitting there like, oh, these leads are so expensive.
[18:31.2]
That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Why get a bunch of leads if you don't have the back office to handle it? What's the point? And most of them don't. And that's why they feel that they've been burned by marketing agencies. And they feel like they've been burned by. But it's like, hey, yeah, maybe that person was overcharging you and they weren't helping you close deals.
[18:52.2]
But your systems were not built out to close deals in the first place. And so usually my first test of whether or not this person is going to be a good fit for my agency is when I tell them that, like, hey, so your systems are crap.
[19:13.8]
You must get quite a range of responses to that question, So some people are. They're like, dude, I know. I need you to walk through. Like, what do you mean? Explain it to me. Some are very curious and receptive. Others are like, I'm never gonna talk to this guy again.
[19:34.1]
But. But again, I think to myself, I'm targeting blue collar businesses that are at least at half a million in revenue per year. I'm looking for guys that want to grow. They're potentially thinking about exiting or just going large.
[19:54.8]
Like, these are operators that I want to work with. So an operator wants to fix the system errors, you know, so that they appreciate the candor. Whereas somebody that's ego driven or trying to save every penny and, you know, all that other stuff or whatever, they're gonna.
[20:15.2]
They're gonna feel offended by that and they're not gonna want to work with me, and that's fine. I think that exclusion is actually one of the best marketing tools you can have, like, because it tells you, hey, I'm not your guy if you're looking for this, you know.
[20:31.3]
Right. Oh, I agree. Zach, what's my favorite line from one of our people in Florida? What's the cost? Well, there's a couple. Yeah, okay. Okay. Yep, yep. What's the cost? Yeah. Whenever you explain anything to him, the words out of his mouth are, what's the cost?
[20:48.7]
And that's it. And as soon as he hears a number, he's done. And he won't listen to anything else. It doesn't matter what it does for you, what benefit you get out of it. The value. Nope, doesn't matter. Cost. What's the cost? Those are conversations. I just.
[21:03.7]
I don't even have them. I tell people, I'm like, hey, I think we're fundamentally misaligned. Because if, do you want to solve your problem or do you want to hold on to the little bit of money that's in your bank account that's going to slowly trickle away unless you solve this problem.
[21:21.7]
And a lot of times people value your service at what you price it. Like, if you tell somebody, I'm going to build this whole CRM for you and I'm going to do all this stuff, you're going to get all these leads, and I'm Going to charge you 50 bucks. My first thought is, well, how good can it really be? Exactly.
[21:39.1]
Yeah, that scares me. I know if I was going to get a roof and I had three people come to bid it, I always knock out the lowest bidder right up front because I know that what they're going to do nine times out of ten is low bid.
[21:54.1]
And they're either going to do shoddy work, shoddy quality, or they're going to come back for the, change order. Yep. So I want people who are aligned in their price. Then I can compare apples to apples. And ultimately, do I just need to flip a coin?
[22:09.2]
Do I like this person better? Whatever the case may be, and what's my connection with them? So being cheap is a race to the bottom? Yeah, it's 100% a race to the bottom. And trying to put your pricing around that is also a race to the bottom. It's not something that I do.
[22:25.9]
I'm like, you can, you can shop at Walmart or you can shop at Louis Vuitton. Both of these places sell clothes, but only one of them is Louis Vuitton. I like to think we're a Louis Vuitton kind of kind of agency.
[22:41.6]
And would you rather have 10 clients or. And have them, you know, they pay you a thousand bucks a month, or would you rather have five that pay you 2,000? You can do less work, you can focus more on them, and you make the same money. What's easier? And that's exactly my model. I'm like, I would rather have five, 10 guys giving me anywhere from two to $4,000 per month versus I've got to chase a bunch of people around for 500 to $1,000 per month.
[23:09.0]
It just sounds exhausting. It does. Just hear me about it. So you said something interesting earlier. You were in sales and you had your own agency for, insurance. And I suspect it was life insurance, since that's the analogy that you used.
[23:25.5]
Yes. So how did you learn the tech side? Because that's a completely different side of the brain. It really is. That's a great question. No, you're right. I love you guys to death when I say this insurance is notoriously an old white dudes game.
[23:43.3]
So, sure, as long as I can make basketball jokes, we're good. Yeah. So with that being said, when they say white men can't jump, they're not kidding. Have you ever white cat try and jump?
[23:59.6]
It's not gonna happen. I can get at least 4 inches off the ground. He's not Going any higher than me. So, no, it's all good. With that being said though, there was such a, there was a lot of slowness behind innovating things and trying new stuff and things of that nature.
[24:24.0]
Right. But the beauty of working in sales, sometimes when you have the numbers, you can be a little bit of a cowboy because you're bringing in revenue for the company. I was very much a cowboy. So, I found I.
[24:40.4]
When Covid happened, we, went from going out to see people to having to sell people over the phone. And they hooked us up with this really rinky dink phone system. We were still trying to sell to people who had submitted a lead by mail.
[24:59.8]
So that means this thing is like two weeks old and I'm trying to call them. This is in 2020. You called them? You didn't write him a letter. So we're trying to call these people. They're like, that was three weeks ago. I don't know, you know, so, so I was like, hey, I'm going to build out my own system.
[25:22.4]
I'm like, me and my agent, I'm like, I'll, I'll use my own money. I remember talking to them about this at an agency owners meeting. I'm like, look, I will, I will pay for it. I don't need any additional support from you guys in order to build out this framework, this system.
[25:41.7]
I'll test the SE CRMs, I'll test the advertising. I'll do this, I'll make sure it's compliant. Etc. Like, you've already shown me the advertising guidelines. I'll make sure our ads don't fall into that stuff. And, and I just got to work.
[25:58.7]
So I wound up stumbling across go high level. And I was like, oh, this thing is amazing. I, I need to start running my whole agency on this. And sure enough, we did, fast forward. We wound up still being able to hit record breaking numbers in the middle of a global pandemic.
[26:19.7]
I was like, okay, cool. So all we had to do was implement some good lead capturing software and then run some halfway decent ads on Facebook, Marketplace. And the ads, this was before I really knew how to run ads, get a designer or anything like that.
[26:39.3]
What I did was I went into Canva, I got a picture of a casket and I put a red thing across the top of it that just said, attention seniors. We were selling final expense life insurance that's designed to cover burials.
[27:01.1]
So did it work? Yes. Oh, there you go. It worked amazingly. Oh my God. That's funny. The. The. The first quarterly meeting after those ads went live and a bunch of people had seen them, they.
[27:20.0]
There was the offense, there was the irritation, and they're like, this can't be working. And then they put our numbers up on the screen. It's like, it's working because, guys, we can. We know what we sell. I mean, I.
[27:35.6]
I'm someone where I know we can do all the sales tactics and wrap around it and all that other stuff, but it's like, I think that we're at a point where people just want you to get to the point. Yes. Yeah. Don't tell me that you're coming out here to give me my free burial guide or my free roofing inspection or this and that or whatever.
[28:00.3]
It's like, hey, look, you've got a problem, I've got a solution, and let's talk about it. Yeah. Do you want it or not? I appreciate that. Now, I gotta tell you, that goes back to Hormozi episode. And I'll try not to bring him up one more time in this.
[28:15.4]
I love Hormozi. No. And he talked about having a gym. He said, you know, if you're starting out and your gym is hot and it smells, say that in your advertising. You can say, listen, my gym is small, it's hot and it smells, but, man, we have the best classes out there.
[28:36.2]
Give us a shot. Yes. And that's it. He actually says he wants to be the most FTC compliant person, out there. This is what you're getting. This is what you're getting. Yeah. Yeah.
[28:51.4]
There's no bait and switch here. The place smells and it's hot, but, man, are you going to be ripped when you're done? If you take 30 days of our classes? No. Okay. I can put up with that. I'll deal with that. Thanks. Because now you believe everything. After that, you believe everything they tell you because you told them the bad stuff up front.
[29:06.8]
Yep. And see, when you. When you fully understand your ideal client profile, then you can speak to them like that. Right? Because I know a lot of people personally. I'm a real. I. I'm a gym goer. I train mma, Right.
[29:22.6]
But I know some bodybuilder guys in my circle. They love those dingy back room, back of a warehouse, we're lifting chains and rusty weights kinds of gyms. They love that stuff.
[29:38.0]
You know, they don't. They don't want to be at A Planet Fitness. So when you put that in the ad, it's like, hey, look, if you're sick of this Planet Fitness nonsense, come join us in the back of this warehouse and we'll get after it. You're gonna not. You're gonna find your ideal clients and they're gonna be loyal to you.
[29:55.7]
You. Yeah, that's a great way to feel. Interesting. Yeah. It's funny you say, that, because when I was in college, my first year, first two years of college, I went to the gym a lot. And it was a boys club that had a small men's division upstairs.
[30:10.8]
And there were no women. There was no tight spandex. It was just a bunch of smelly, sweaty guys working out. And I benched 115 pounds more than I weighed when I max out because, you know, you get in there, there's nothing else to do but listen.
[30:26.1]
Yeah, right. You're not gonna hang around like Planet Fitness and eat pizza when you're done. She rolls in pizza. Yeah. Yeah, that's funny. So where are some of the places that you go to meet people that would be potential clients for you?
[30:45.3]
I know you said you do some networking, so, I've recently joined a couple of networking groups. Deal, Makers Alliance. I go to real estate events around my city because typically where real estate people are, there are contractors there.
[31:03.1]
And Smart Yeah, I like to stay in contact with a lot of people who are in the real estate space. They can consistently introduce me to people. I've got a light affiliate program going where if someone refers me a client, they'll get a, percentage of their upfront initial retainer, and then they'll get an ongoing monthly for referring you.
[31:31.1]
Yes, that's one. So it can stack up pretty well. I've got a couple buddies that are, You know, they get treated to lunch every month or so because of me. You know, so stuff like that is our. Is my main thing.
[31:46.8]
And then doing podcasts like this, I recently started getting heavy on, on the podcast scene. It's just been helping a lot. With the, additional authority, they can look up and find more information about me online. That's excellent. So have you ever considered going to, like, the, Building Contractors association, the bca?
[32:08.9]
Because what they will generally do in your area is they'll have a remodeling part of it as well. That's part of the bca, and that's all remodelers. And those guys are definitely, I think, in your wheelhouse. Now, do you work, I take it, because you are. You're working you're working on the computer and stuff like that with the apps that you could do this anywhere in the country.
[32:30.7]
You could theoretically do it anywhere in the world. Yeah, yeah. And I've, I've taken advantage of that a few times actually. Just recently I actually spent a month in Thailand kickboxing. Nice. And, and I was able to run the business completely remote.
[32:48.1]
I had to wake up at 2:00am to be in America PM. But it was worth it. I was in Thailand so. But yeah, you. Theoretically yes, I could do it from anywhere in the world. The only caveat I have for that right now is that I do offer an in person social media service.
[33:10.5]
Me and a videography team actually come out to job sites and everything like that once a month, and help them record content and then post it on their behalf. So we'll film it, edit it, post it and like I said, we're just big on max visibility.
[33:28.6]
So we know that if we can stack a bunch of wins for you in a variety of different channels, all funneling down into one place, you're gonna get the results that you're after, you're gonna exceed those results and as a result we're going to be sticky.
[33:48.6]
You know, it's, it's going to be worthwhile to continue working with us. Then you factor in all of the custom automations that make their software speak to each other. They're like, man, what did we do before Charles got here? Because I toot my own horn. Seriously though, that's pretty amazing you hit on something.
[34:07.0]
Because I know there are a fair amount of people out there that will help you with your social media and they work on that. But you're not only doing the front facing, you're doing the behind the scenes stuff too. So you're pulling it all together in one location.
[34:22.8]
Because for me that's one of the things that annoys me is when I've got to put all the pieces together and this person has to talk to this person to talk to this person. You got everything under one roof. Now I can come to one place and tie it all together. Someone in the dma, called it a fractional CMO model and that's probably a good way to describe it.
[34:44.7]
I hadn't thought of it that way, but that's exactly what I do. If you have any concerns about any realm of your marketing, you come and speak to me, Charles, and I'll handle my team, you know. Well, you said something about the DMA have you made a connection with the guys at Blue Collar Millionaire?
[35:04.5]
I'm in the group. I haven't been to any of the events or anything like that, but I just became aware of them maybe in the last three months. I've just been poking around on Facebook with them. Okay. Well, they have two levels, from what I understand.
[35:20.6]
I don't know deep detail about the levels, but I believe there are two. I think there's a free and a paid. And, as you said before, the free is generally not worth it. You got to pay to get your worth out of it. But both Kevin Marin and Chris Garrison are great guys to know, on a professional level and on a personal level.
[35:40.6]
They're just really good guys, and they care a heck of a lot about what happens in their community. They put out some great content. And, I know Kevin just sold his, blue collar business and, Was it the Gutter King?
[35:57.4]
And then you got Chris, who's doing multiple different things, but I know he has a restoration company. He and I connected because I had one for 13 years before I smartened up and got out of it. But, yeah, so let me talk about the personal stuff.
[36:12.7]
Tell me about this MMA and going to Thailand. Did you bring your family with you? Did you go on your own? What's around that? No, I went solo. I had always wanted to go over there. I love Muay Thai, I love kickboxing. And that's what they do over there.
[36:29.0]
They drink, smoke, and fight every day. And I was like, you know what that sounds like It'll be fun to Melly gyms with no standard.
[36:40.3]
But it was absolutely beautiful. Woke up every morning at 5am, walked over to the gym, trained for two hours, come back, eat some chicken and rice, do some stuff on the computer, nap, go back and train again from like 5 to 8pm, nap again, then wake up and do some work.
[37:01.3]
Because I'm doing stuff in America and might have to talk to some people. But it was great. I mean, and I. I'm, at a point now. I don't. I don't have children or anything like that yet. So traveling and just kind of figuring out where I want to be and.
[37:20.3]
And what the world looks like and everything like that, been huge for me. So I've just been doing a lot of traveling the last couple years. Fantastic. Give me a couple other countries you've been to. I went to St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, been to the Bahamas recently.
[37:40.0]
At this point hit maybe 25 out of the 50 states. Checked out Korea, Thailand, spent a month in Mexico working on my boxing. Yeah, so that's awesome.
[37:57.5]
That's awesome. Yeah, so it's pretty cool. My next one I was looking at doing is Columbia. Okay. Fantastic. Good for you, man. That's exciting. Awesome. Well, had I known that you were into mma, I wouldn't have given you so much grief.
[38:14.4]
Now I'm gonna have to be nice. You better watch out, Mike. You better watch, Mike. You should have been watching out before that. I'm like, don't let the camera fool you. I'm like a. Good. Foot taller than Mike.
[38:31.7]
Oh, easy. And then at the event it's like, dude, what the hell? In your business, Charles, is it just you? Do you have any assistance? Like, how do you have things set up on your side? Good question. Yeah, so we use, and it comes back to the, the save to zero kind of mindset.
[38:53.4]
I'm huge on outsourcing. So for our social media, I've partnered with a media production team. They handle all of the social media and everything like that. I just kind of, I just show up and ask the questions and kind of guide people through the content days.
[39:14.6]
And if I don't have a contractor helping me out with it, I have some sort of AI agent that I've built to manage it or some sort of automation that handles it. Perfect example, if we onboard a client, once they fill out their initial document, all of that information is taken and it immediately creates their go high level account and it starts the process of, training a mana spot on all of their information so that, and then we go in and we refine that mana spot and it helps with a lot of the individual fulfillment.
[39:56.4]
Brilliant. I love it. Do you have any offshore employees as well? I've got a couple people in Pakistan that helped me with a few things and one guy in India that'll run through a brick wall for a chicken biryani for me.
[40:12.1]
So I love that dude. He's awesome. That's fun. So for people who aren't familiar with offshore employees and aren't sure where to start, how did you go about finding them? So in this case, I found those guys on Fiverr and I wound up actually lucking up because they were quality, contractors.
[40:37.3]
One is a graphic designer, one is an automations builder for when I get the automations that I have no idea how to build, I'm like, yeah, is above my pay grade. I know we can do it. I just don't know how. So he helps me out, and then I've got another person, that does, like, some light video editing from time to time for me.
[41:01.7]
But I found all of these people on Fiverr. I think that Fiverr can be a great resource for finding good people. But you have to be very clear with your expectations. You know, a lot of people are like, oh, well, well, you know, I need someone to make me a logo.
[41:19.3]
Okay, well, what color is the logo? Do you want it to be large? Do you. You know, what kind of business do you run? Like, you have to think to yourself, you're communicating with people whose English is their second language. Yeah, they're really just there to fulfill a service.
[41:36.1]
Right. Like, you're the visionary of your company. You should know what it looks like. They're there to execute. So you have to delegate correctly. And if they come back and they just kind of give you half of what you thought you were going to get, you have to look at yourself and say, did I ask for the right stuff?
[41:57.0]
So it's also a matter of communication. And that's why. And it's the same thing with AI. AI is really a great measurement of how well you can communicate and delegate tasks. Because if you don't have the literacy and understanding of how to actually delegate a task or how to properly delegate a task, there's no way you can talk to an AI bot and say, hey, can you help me do this, this, this, this and this, because you don't even know what it is that you want.
[42:26.8]
It's a great point. That is an excellent point, man. I love that. Yeah. Interesting. Everyone's gotten frustrated with AI before, and, I mean, sometimes, yeah, you tell it to do the same thing over and over and it just can't get it right. But sometimes you get frustrated because you're having a hard time articulating what you're trying to do, and then it's not giving you what you want.
[42:46.0]
Of course it's not. Because one of the. One of the pro tips I tell people with AI is that if you don't know how to do something, you can actually ask AI to walk you through how to do the thing. I was like, how do I.
[43:01.9]
I remember when I first downloaded Manus, I was like, tell me how to connect this software with you. What is the best possible way for me to do that? And it was like, oh, you could do it like this, you could do it like that.
[43:17.6]
You could do it like this. I was like, great, let's, walk me through option one. Like I'm five is literally what I told the bot. And step by step, we went through the process of connecting my software with Manus and teaching it the right things that it needed to know.
[43:36.6]
It actually, I made it interview me. I'm like, ask me all of the things you need to know to fulfill the task. And it proceeded to interview me and ask me questions one at a time. I filled out in graphic detail what I needed done it, sent me a project brief, I approved it, and then Manus was off to the races doing what I needed it to do.
[43:57.7]
Yeah, we've been very happy with Manus over the last couple months. I love Manus. Game changer. Yeah, you just kind of blew my mind a little bit because I have run into some problems with it, and you just pointed out to me I'm not asking the right questions. I'm not giving it the proper information. It's my fault.
[44:13.1]
It's not Manus fault. Yeah. Because Manus is highly intelligent. It's highly intelligent. And the use cases for it, people are still actively discovering use cases for it right now in real time. Right. I don't doubt that.
[44:28.6]
Yeah. Okay, well, we've taken up almost 45 minutes of your time. Before we log off, I wanted to thank you very much for coming on. What is a good way for people to get a hold of you? And we'll put the stuff in the show notes.
[44:45.6]
Okay. If you want to find me on Facebook, you can just search my name, Charles Craggit. I'll be sitting there next to a tiger. It's true. Yeah. If, if you want to follow me on Instagram, it's Charles nwm.
[45:07.9]
And, if you're interested in working with me, if you've got a trades business and you're looking to tighten up your stuff or clean up your marketing, you can go to www.getjobflowsystem.com. that's the name I gave our framework as the job Flow Framework.
[45:26.5]
And we' marketing and systems audit for you where we'll try to contact your business, show you all the areas where you're probably losing leads, and create a custom marketing and systems proposal for you, that you can either implement yourself or hire us to do.
[45:44.8]
Awesome. Fantastic. Yeah. Getjobflow.com getjobflow Put that in the show notes. Fantastic. Yep, it'll be in the show notes. All right, Charles, thank you very much for your time. This was a blast. I really enjoyed it. It. I appreciate you guys having me on.
[46:00.4]
Thanks again, guys. Absolutely.