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  • Stop Losing Bids: One Inbox, Auto Follow-Up for Trades

    Stop Losing Bids: One Inbox, Auto Follow-Up for Trades
    Aug 4 2026
    Marisol lost a full master bath job — herringbone floor, zellige shower — because the estimate sat in a notebook in a truck that wasn't with her. Eric argues the problem isn't discipline; it's a system built from four inboxes and a whiteboard nobody opens. In this episode: The "I lost another one" text: how a broken saw and a borrowed truck cost a signed zellige master bathWhy leads coming from Facebook, personal texts, the shop line, and referrals create four inboxes no one can run cleanThe real cost of losing two to three measured jobs a month — leads you already paid for with your timeWhy "follow up harder" fails: decision-making is the most expensive thing you do all dayInstant-reply texts from a number that looks like yours, sent in under a minute whether you're on a roof or asleepAuto pings at 48 hours and soft customer check-ins written once in your voice, then forgottenThe roofer case study: two crews, one job a week lost, fixed with three ordered movesThe five-stage measure-to-quote board: Contacted → Measured → Quote Sent → Won/Lost, plus keeping your personal number personal Subscribe: workingsmarter.jgiebz.com Full transcript Eric: So you texted me last week and the message just said "I lost another one." And I knew EXACTLY what you meant, but for people listening... tell me what happened. Marisol Trevino: Okay so, a woman calls me on a Tuesday. She wants a full master bath redone, herringbone floor, the whole shower in this beautiful zellige. Nice job. I go out Thursday, I measure everything, I write the numbers in my notebook, I tell her I'll get her a price by Monday. Eric: And Monday comes. Marisol Trevino: Monday comes, and I'm on a job in Portland, the neighborhood not Oregon, and a saw goes down, and one of my guys cuts his hand, not bad but bad enough, and by the time I get home it's Wednesday and the notebook is in the truck and the truck is at my cousin's because he was borrowing it. Eric: Oh no. Marisol Trevino: And I remembered her on SATURDAY. Saturday morning. I called, she was very nice, and she said they'd already signed with somebody else. Eric: How much was that job, roughly? Marisol Trevino: It would've been one of the bigger ones this quarter. I don't want to say the number because my husband listens to these things now, but... it hurt. Eric: And this isn't the first one. Marisol Trevino: Eric. It is not the first one. It's not the fifth one. I lose two, sometimes three good ones a month like this. And the crazy part is I HAD the lead. She called ME. I went out. I did the work of measuring. Eric: Right, you paid for the lead with your time already. Marisol Trevino: Exactly. The marketing worked. My referrals work. Facebook works. It's the part AFTER that's broken. Eric: Okay so before we get into what to do, let me just say back what I'm hearing, because I think a lot of folks listening are nodding right now. You've got leads coming in through, what, three or four channels? Marisol Trevino: Facebook messages, texts to my personal phone, calls to the shop line, and referrals which usually come in as a text from whoever referred them saying "hey my friend's gonna call you." Eric: Four inboxes. Marisol Trevino: Four inboxes. Eric: And then the estimate lives in a paper notebook in a truck that sometimes is not with you. Marisol Trevino: When you say it like that. Eric: I'm not making fun, I'm just... this is the thing I want people to hear. The problem isn't you. The problem is the SYSTEM is four inboxes and a notebook. Nobody could run that clean. Marisol Trevino: My husband says the same thing. Nicer than you though. Eric: Fair. Okay. So here's what I think is actually going wrong, and then I want to walk you through what we did with a client who had basically your exact situation, different trade but same shape. Marisol Trevino: Please. Eric: The thing that's going wrong is not that you're forgetting to follow up. It's that "follow up" is a decision you have to MAKE every single day, on top of running crews, on top of your kids, on top of the saw breaking. And decision-making is the most expensive thing you do all day. Marisol Trevino: Huh. Eric: So the fix isn't "try harder to remember." The fix is you take the follow-up decision off your plate entirely. Marisol Trevino: Okay, but how, because I've tried spreadsheets, I've tried a whiteboard in the shop... Eric: Yeah, and those all put the work back on you. Every morning you have to LOOK at the whiteboard. Every morning you have to open the spreadsheet. Marisol Trevino: I never open the spreadsheet. Eric: Nobody opens the spreadsheet. So here's what we do at the agency, and it's what we set up for this client I'm gonna tell you about. We run everything, and I mean everything, through one all-in-one ops platform. It's the platform we use for our own business and for clients. All the inboxes feed into it, all the follow-up runs out of it, and the estimate lives in it. Marisol Trevino: One place. Eric: One ...
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    11 Min.
  • Working Smarter - August 04, 2026

    Working Smarter - August 04, 2026
    Aug 4 2026
    Practical business automation, AI tools, and productivity strategies for entrepreneurs and small business owners. Cut through the noise and work smarter — not harder. New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.
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    5 Min.
  • How Reilly Overhead Door Stopped Losing After-Hours Garage Door Leads

    How Reilly Overhead Door Stopped Losing After-Hours Garage Door Leads
    Jul 30 2026
    Marcus of Reilly Overhead Door in Wichita walks through how a single missed after-hours call at his kid's baseball game cost him an $800 spring job — and the simple ops playbook that plugged the leak. A candid conversation about why speed beats quality in home services and how a notebook-in-the-truck system finally hit its ceiling. In this episode: Marcus's origin story: nine years from a pickup bed to three techs and two vans at Reilly Overhead Door in WichitaThe 7:15pm broken-spring call that rolled to voicemail — and the 9am competitor who booked the jobWhy homeowners with broken springs call three companies minimum, and the fastest text-back winsStep 1: A 10-second missed-call auto text that sounds human, not "your call is important to us"Step 2: Turning every missed call into a tracked lead so you can finally see after-hours volumeStep 3: A five-column Kanban pipeline — New Lead, Contacted, Quoted, Booked, DoneWhy the customer-facing FAQ, pricing sheet, and SOPs live in Notion while calls and calendar live in the ops platformStep 4: The follow-up nobody does — the "let me talk to my wife" leads that quietly disappear Subscribe: workingsmarter.jgiebz.com Full transcript Eric: So it's like seven fifteen at night, phone rings... Marcus Reilly: Phone rings. Broken spring, garage door won't open, guy's car is stuck INSIDE the garage. Eric: Oof. Marcus Reilly: Yeah. And I'm at my kid's baseball game. Third inning. I don't even hear it. Eric: You don't hear it. Marcus Reilly: I don't hear it. Phone's in the truck. So it rolls to voicemail, and my voicemail says, you know, "leave a message, we'll get back to you first thing." Real friendly. Eric: Sure. Marcus Reilly: I call the guy back at seven thirty the next morning. Seven thirty ON THE DOT. And he goes, "oh, hey, yeah, thanks, but I already got somebody coming at nine." Eric: Someone else got him. Marcus Reilly: Someone else got him. And that's a spring job, that's an install, that's probably eight, nine hundred bucks out the door. Gone. Because I was watching Little League. Eric: And how often was that happening? Marcus Reilly: That's the thing. I didn't KNOW how often. That's what killed me. I'd see the missed call in the morning and half the time I wouldn't even bother, because I figured, well, they already found somebody. Eric: Right. Marcus Reilly: So for anyone who's, you know, just picking this up, I'm Marcus, I run Reilly Overhead Door out in Wichita. Garage doors, springs, openers, the whole deal. Started nine years ago out of the bed of my pickup, and now we're three techs, two vans. Eric: That's a real business. Marcus Reilly: It's a real business. And the leaks were killing me. Eric: Okay so let me play back what I'm hearing, because I've seen this exact pattern probably a hundred times with home service guys. It's not that your marketing is broken. Marcus Reilly: No, the phone rings. Eric: The phone rings. That's the hard part. You already did the hard part. The problem is what happens in the sixty seconds AFTER the phone rings when nobody picks up. Marcus Reilly: Yeah. Eric: Because a homeowner with a broken spring at seven pm is not gonna sit and wait. They're gonna call the next three names on the Google list. Marcus Reilly: They're calling three. Minimum. Eric: Minimum. And whoever answers first, or whoever gets a text back first, wins. It's not the best company. It's the fastest company. Marcus Reilly: That's hard to hear but yeah. Eric: It's hard to hear but it's freeing too, right? Because you don't have to be better. You just have to be there. Marcus Reilly: Huh. Eric: So how were you tracking any of this? Like, missed calls, callbacks, none of it? Marcus Reilly: Uh. Notebook. In the truck. Eric: Okay. Marcus Reilly: Don't laugh, man. I had a system. Eric: I'm not laughing, I'm... I'm laughing a little. Marcus Reilly: Fair. Eric: But look, that's most guys. That's most guys at your stage. The notebook works until it doesn't, and then you hit a ceiling and you can't figure out why the business feels stuck even though you're busier than ever. Marcus Reilly: That was me exactly. Busier, more stressed, not really making more. Eric: Right. So here's what we did, and I'll walk you through it the way we did it at my agency, because we run this same playbook for a lot of trades clients. We use an all-in-one ops platform, it's the thing we run the agency on, and the first thing, the very first thing, is you have to close the after-hours gap. Nothing else matters until that's closed. Marcus Reilly: Okay. Eric: So step one. Missed call, auto text back. Within about ten seconds. Marcus Reilly: Ten seconds. Eric: Ten seconds. Homeowner calls, you don't pick up, they get a text on their phone that says something like, "Hey, this is Marcus at Reilly Overhead Door, sorry I missed you, what's going on with your door?" Marcus Reilly: Just like that. Eric: Just like that. Human. Sounds like you. Not "your call is important to us." Marcus ...
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    11 Min.
  • Working Smarter - July 30, 2026

    Working Smarter - July 30, 2026
    Jul 30 2026
    Practical business automation, AI tools, and productivity strategies for entrepreneurs and small business owners. Cut through the noise and work smarter — not harder. New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.
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    6 Min.
  • Client Retention for Salon Owners: Spot Drifting Regulars Before They Ghost You

    Client Retention for Salon Owners: Spot Drifting Regulars Before They Ghost You
    Jul 28 2026
    Marcy runs a three-chair salon in Green Bay and tracked 240 active clients out of a paper appointment book and her own memory — until a standing color client quietly disappeared for six months. We rebuild her system from scratch. In this episode: The grocery-store balayage moment that exposed a six-month-gone regularWhy client loss isn't a cliff — it's a drift from 5 weeks to 7 to 10 to goneAuditing the cracks: paper book, personal texts, Instagram DMs, and Square all holding pieces of the same clientStep 1: get every active client (last 9 months) into one platform with just two fields — last visit date and typical rebook cadenceStep 2: build one "overdue regular" automation that texts in your voice at week 7 — "hey Jen, want me to hold your usual Thursday spot?"Why the save window for a drifting regular is roughly two weeks — and no solo operator can watch it for 240 calendarsStep 3: keep a Notion page per client for the human stuff data fields can't hold (divorces, impulse-bang warnings, small-talk preferences)Reframing "I'm bad with memory" as a math problem you outgrew, not a personal failure Sources: Conversation-only episode — no external sources cited. Subscribe: workingsmarter.jgiebz.com Full transcript Eric: ...six months. SIX months you didn't know she was gone. Marcy Hollenbeck: Six months. And she was a standing every-five-weeks color client, Eric. Every five weeks for like four years. Eric: And what tipped you off finally? Marcy Hollenbeck: I ran into her at the grocery store. She had a fresh balayage that I did not do. And she got all weird and said "oh hi Marcy" and kind of speed-walked past the yogurt. Eric: Oof. Marcy Hollenbeck: Yeah. Oof is right. Eric: Okay so back up for people listening. Tell me about the salon. What are we working with. Marcy Hollenbeck: So I have a three-chair salon in Green Bay. I opened it eleven years ago after cutting hair in my basement for way too long. It's me, two other stylists, we do color, cuts, some extensions. Mostly women, mostly regulars, mostly word of mouth. Eric: Love it. And how were you tracking clients before all this? Marcy Hollenbeck: Tracking is a generous word. Eric: Uh oh. Marcy Hollenbeck: I had a paper appointment book. Like a physical, spiral-bound, Barnes and Noble appointment book. And then everything else lived up here. Who's due, who's overdue, who I need to call, who tips weird, who hates small talk... Eric: All in your head. Marcy Hollenbeck: All in my head. Which worked fine for like the first eight years honestly. Eric: Sure. Marcy Hollenbeck: But then we got busier and I got a second kid and my head just... stopped being a reliable filing cabinet. Eric: Okay so let me play back what I'm hearing, because I think the grocery store lady is actually not the real problem. Marcy Hollenbeck: Okay. Eric: You didn't lose her at the grocery store. You lost her the first time she pushed her appointment from five weeks to seven weeks and nobody noticed. Marcy Hollenbeck: Oh. Eric: Because a regular doesn't leave in a straight line. They drift. Five weeks becomes seven, seven becomes ten, ten becomes "I'll book when I need to," and then they're just gone. And if the only place you're tracking that drift is your memory, of course you miss it. You've got scissors in your hand. Marcy Hollenbeck: Yeah. Yeah I literally have scissors in my hand. Eric: Right. So the problem isn't that you're bad at retention. The problem is you have no early warning system. Marcy Hollenbeck: That's exactly it. I feel like I've been describing this to my husband for a year and he just says "get a computer, Marce." Eric: Well, he's not wrong, but "get a computer" is not a plan. Marcy Hollenbeck: Thank you. Eric: So can I walk you through what we did with a client of ours who had basically the same problem? Different business, same shape. Marcy Hollenbeck: Please. Eric: So at the agency we run everything on this all-in-one ops platform. It's the thing we use for our clients and honestly for ourselves. It's a CRM, but it also does the appointment booking, the text messages, the email, the pipelines, all of it in one place. That's the important part. One place. Marcy Hollenbeck: One place. Because right now I have the paper book, I have my personal texts with clients, I have Instagram DMs, I have a Square thing for payments... Eric: Right. And every one of those is a place a client can slip through. Marcy Hollenbeck: So many cracks. Eric: So many cracks. Okay so step one for you would just be getting every client into the platform with two pieces of info: last visit date, and typical rebook cadence. That's it. Don't try to migrate eleven years of history. Marcy Hollenbeck: Oh good because I was already panicking. Eric: Don't panic. Just active clients. Anyone who's been in in the last, say, nine months. Name, phone, last service, how often they normally come. You can do that in an afternoon with a glass of wine. Marcy Hollenbeck: I like this plan ...
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    13 Min.
  • Working Smarter - July 28, 2026

    Working Smarter - July 28, 2026
    Jul 28 2026
    Practical business automation, AI tools, and productivity strategies for entrepreneurs and small business owners. Cut through the noise and work smarter — not harder. New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.
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    5 Min.
  • Working Smarter - July 28, 2026

    Working Smarter - July 28, 2026
    Jul 28 2026
    Practical business automation, AI tools, and productivity strategies for entrepreneurs and small business owners. Cut through the noise and work smarter — not harder. New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.
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    5 Min.
  • Stop Losing Warm Leads: Automated Follow-Up for Contractors

    Stop Losing Warm Leads: Automated Follow-Up for Contractors
    Jul 23 2026
    If you're a contractor who nails the in-home estimate but watches leads go cold in a folder on your passenger seat, this episode is for you. We break down exactly why warm leads die—and the 90-second driveway habit that fixes it. Why a "dropped ball" is a system problem, not a character flawThe real reason leads die: the 12 inches between the kitchen table and the truckWhy spreadsheets and CRMs become just another chore for solo operatorsThe 90-second driveway form: capture name, number, address, quote, and one note before you pull awayHow an automated text sequence follows up on estimates without you touching itWhy the sequence stops the moment a customer replies—no accidental four-text nightmaresWhen the platform hands the conversation back to you so the human relationship stays intact Sources: No external sources cited in this episode. Subscribe: workingsmarter.jgiebz.com Full transcript Eric: So you're driving home from Fort Wayne, it's what, seven at night? Marcy Bollinger: Seven, seven thirty. Sometimes later if the last one runs long. Eric: And you've got a truck full of samples, a notebook with a quote you scribbled at somebody's kitchen table… Marcy Bollinger: And a coffee that went cold three houses ago. Yeah. Eric: How many of those a week are you doing right now? Marcy Bollinger: Five, six a week. Twenty plus a month. Kitchens, backsplashes, some shower remodels. Eric: And of those twenty, how many turn into an actual job? Marcy Bollinger: Honest answer? Maybe eight. Maybe nine on a good month. Eric: Okay. And of the ones that don't, what happens? Marcy Bollinger: Nothing happens. That's the whole problem. Nothing happens. Eric: You don't call them back. Marcy Bollinger: I mean to. I always mean to. I get in the truck, I say, Marcy, tomorrow you text the Hendersons, you text the lady with the herringbone thing… Eric: And tomorrow you're on a job at seven a.m. Marcy Bollinger: I'm on my knees on a subfloor by seven fifteen. And by the time I remember, it's Thursday, and the lady with the herringbone already hired somebody else. Eric: Right. Marcy Bollinger: And the worst part is, half of them WANTED me. Like, we clicked. They liked the samples. They said, we'll talk it over this weekend. And I just… vanished on them. Eric: So let me play something back to you, because I want to make sure I heard the real problem. Marcy Bollinger: Okay. Eric: You said you lose about half your warm leads. You didn't say you lose them because your price is too high. You didn't say you lose them because a competitor is better. You said you lose them because you don't circle back. Marcy Bollinger: Correct. Eric: So the thing that's broken isn't your quoting. It isn't your work. It's the twelve inches between the kitchen table and the truck. Marcy Bollinger: That's a really nice way of saying I drop the ball. Eric: No, I'm saying you don't have a system. There's a difference. Marcy Bollinger: Huh. Eric: A dropped ball is a character flaw. A missing system is a fixable thing. And you're running a three-person install crew, you're the estimator, you're the boss, you're the bookkeeper probably… Marcy Bollinger: And the one who buys the doughnuts. Eric: And the doughnut lady. Of course you're not following up. There's no version of you that has time to follow up manually. Marcy Bollinger: Okay. So say that's true. What do I do? Because I've tried the sticky notes. I've tried a spreadsheet. My nephew set me up on some CRM thing last year and I logged in twice. Eric: Yeah, that's the other trap. People throw a tool at it and the tool becomes another chore. Marcy Bollinger: Another chore. YES. Eric: So here's how we think about it at the agency. We run everything on one all-in-one ops platform. Quotes, texts, emails, calendar, the whole thing. And the reason that matters is not because it has more features, it's because the follow-up happens without a human touching it. Marcy Bollinger: Without me touching it. Eric: Without you touching it. You do the part only you can do, which is sit at the kitchen table and be Marcy. The platform does the part you were never gonna do anyway. Marcy Bollinger: Which is what, specifically? Eric: Okay, walk me through what happens right now when you finish an estimate. Physically. Marcy Bollinger: I write the number on a carbon-copy pad. I tear off the top, hand it to them. I keep the yellow one. I put the yellow one in a folder on my passenger seat. Eric: And that folder goes where? Marcy Bollinger: Eventually to my kitchen counter. Eventually to a drawer. Eric: Right. So the lead dies in a drawer. Marcy Bollinger: The lead dies in a drawer. Eric: So step one of the fix, before any software, is the yellow slip cannot be the system. The yellow slip is a souvenir. Marcy Bollinger: A souvenir. Okay. Eric: What we did for a client who's basically you, but he does gutters, is we set it up so at the end of the estimate he pulls out his phone, opens one form, types the name, the ...
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    11 Min.