In this episode, Jan Gierlach shares how he and his partner Wesley made their high school passion a full time amazon consulting business, Hometown Industries.
They serve retailers and brand owners to help them better sell on Amazon and other third party market places. They also consult with and provide high level insight and software to investment companies that are looking to acquire amazon companies. Enjoy the episode!
In this episode, Jan Gierlach shares how he and his partner Wesley made their high school passion a full time amazon consulting business, Hometown Industries.
They serve retailers and brand owners to help them better sell on Amazon and other third party market places. They also consult with and provide high level insight and software to investment companies that are looking to acquire amazon companies. Enjoy the episode!
In today's episode, I share with you Jan Gierlach and his story starting Hometown Industries. So Jan and Wesley, his partner, started selling on Amazon as juniors in high school. They sold product using FBA, and then they dreamed of going into business together, which eventually happened with their agency Hometown Industries. They serve retailers and brand owners to help them better sell on Amazon and other third party marketplaces. They even consult with and provide high level insight and software to investment companies that are looking to acquire products in that space or companies in that space. It's just really impressive what he's accomplished and I'm excited to share with you kind of how his mind works, and some of the insights that I got from today's call. So without further ado, here is our episode.
VA Intro:Welcome to the venture anyway, build your podcast. Insights from the trenches by those who are busy building. When I finally embraced what I was really good at, it kind of felt like an adventure. Yeah, I really would have done a lot differently.
Dale Majors:Alright, hello, everyone. Today on the Venture Anyway podcast, I have Jan Gierlach. And Jan is with Hometown Industries and Amazon Services Company, and Jan and I know each other, we're gonna have a great conversation today. And I'm excited to kind of share Jan with the world and give everybody a glimpse into what he's doing his journey, what he's doing well, maybe what he needs help with, and just have a good conversation. So excited to have you Jan.
Jan Gierlach:Yeah, Dale, I'm excited to be here. Cool.
Dale Majors:Do you want to give us a quick intro into what you do? Maybe what made you choose? You know why to start Hometown Industries? And what your experience has been thus far?
Jan Gierlach:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I'll start kind of with a broad overview of what it is that we do in the first place. So we're an E commerce agency, service provider. So the way I think of it is, it's essentially our job to help businesses understand the addressable market for their products online. And then the best ways to capture that market share. So to do this, like you mentioned, we're primarily leveraging online retailers, Amazon being the biggest one, but also Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe's, eBay. And then we're also leveraging, you know, paid advertising platforms to drive traffic accordingly. So think Google and Facebook are the biggest ones there. So that's kind of what we do in a nutshell, you know, we are, as you know, Dale, kind of taken, I think, a bit more of an analytical approach than is common in some of this marketing space, where we are trying to understand truly like, what is the market size? Who are the competitors? And you know, assuming certain variables, you know, how much market share can a brand capture? So I, you know, I think that's a pretty good overview of what it is that we do, you know, as far as what you know, caused us to get started in the first place. I don't know if I have a super compelling answer, I've wanted this. I wanted this for so long, I kind of even you know, you kind of start to forget with enough time of why you wanted something in the first place. Some background, my co founder and I, Wes, have known each other since we were 10 years old. And so in many ways, it's just kind of like a childhood dream, that I'm just sometimes I have to kind of check myself because I can't believe that we're actually we're actually doing it, you know, in the stage that we're at. So yeah, just something I've never wanted anything else. This has been something that it truly from the earliest of ages that I've been super fixated on as a goal and, you know, haven't really looked back, then I've certainly had other jobs and gained experience and other things. But this was always, you know, our North Star, you know, since we were really young and going into high school, we started selling online ourselves and building that is sort of a baseline of expertise. But this has always been, you know, what we wanted to do?
Dale Majors:Wait, so when did you start selling?
Jan Gierlach:We were, uh, we didn't, you know, we didn't start until it was maybe junior year of high school. We did our first like, inventory by Yeah, so we, you know, we did our research and then, you know, it's that model that's very, very, I think well understood online, you know, just for sourcing products overseas, and, and shipping that stateside, and that's when we first started selling.
Dale Majors:Yeah. Love it. What did you sell first? Online?
Jan Gierlach:Oh, man, the first thing we ever sold was, you ever go to those restaurants like a diner and you see the, the holder that has the special like the daily special on the side? They're sort of they're basically acrylic, plastic picture frames. Okay. And that was the first the first thing we ever we ever sourced. And, you know, we learned just so much through the process, you know, the first batch shows up and, you know, you got inventory that's broken and busted, and you have to, you know, pack and prep everything get it sent into the fulfillment centers, but that was the first item we ever sourced. And we just learned a ton through that process. And the second item was, was a paper towel. holder. So again, nothing too, too crazy. They're just you know, it's standard, you know, run of the mill paper towel holder you might find in any kitchen.
Dale Majors:And you were doing all of that on Amazon FBA through FBA.
Jan Gierlach:Yes, yeah, we were leveraging. That's how we learned entirely about Amazon, FBA platform, all of that.
Dale Majors:Okay. So I've known you for a while, you know, we use your services. And I know that you're young, but even on this call, I said, What are you 26? Or whatever? And 23? So high school wasn't too far ago, say, no, no, it's not yours. And now, that's awesome. And and, you know, a marketplace like Amazon changes, so much. So to be you've really been living in Amazon for six years or so, then.
Jan Gierlach:Yeah. And we've seen that evolvement firsthand. You know, I can't, when we first got started, it felt like Amazon was just sort of starting to phase out. And by phase out, make the platform more difficult for sort of hobby sellers. You know, when we first got started, it was big. And I think to some extent, it still is, but this whole idea of retail arbitrage, you know, you go and you try and get these clothes out sales or do these buys and, and, you know, list products that way, I'm really small scale. And they were already sort of starting to think the platform is starting to change and be geared up for this is going to be a place for renowned, huge international brands, or brands in the works that becoming that. So we saw that evolvement happen firsthand where Amazon started to make it far more difficult. And the platform started to evolve, sort of beyond or make it more difficult for some of the resellers that have done historically, quite well.
Dale Majors:Yeah. Okay. Cool. Well, no, and I think it's important for everybody to know, you got your degree in computer science, right? And something computer programming, it's of some sort.
Jan Gierlach:Yes, I should, I should be fair, to my alma mater, I did not I did not finish my degree. So I don't want to I don't want to say I have this credential when I in fact, do not. But I have completed the vast majority to a computer science degree at college.
Dale Majors:So full disclosure, I'm seven classes away from getting an actual degree to so no, okay. degrees.
Jan Gierlach:Yeah, I'm about to round up. But I just I don't want to I don't want to potential when I don't have that.
Dale Majors:What about, what about, so, but you learned that technical skill, you've programmed, you're building programs within your company, that's one of the things you're doing? What, uh, what, what about Wesley? Did he get a degree he did he go to school?
Jan Gierlach:He went to school as well, both him and I did not finish he was kind of on an accounting track, I believe. But Wes is, he's a data scientist. So that's sort of been, as you know, our foray into this market is, you know, I'm a sort of an engineer, software engineer by trade. I've worked in that job before. And Wes is an accountant and data scientists. So he has kind of those are the tools, you know, in our tool belt that we were kind of using to apply to this industry. That's kind of how we came to it was just, we're both really fascinated and obsessed with like, what are these larger, like market trends. And Amazon is just this ecosystem that contains an endless amount of markets for consumer product goods, and you can study those markets and learn so much.
Dale Majors:I think entered it from from the outside in and having worked with you guys, I think that's one thing that you a lot of people try to do Amazon consulting to do what you're doing. But I think where you've done a great job is having a good partner that is very different from you and in in adding and bringing a complementary skill set. So yeah, that's awesome.
Jan Gierlach:Yeah, I mean, none of this would have been possible with without, yeah, well, Wes and I, he definitely, I like to think we have complementary skill sets that it really worked out for us to do what we have so far.
Dale Majors:Yeah, I love it. Awesome. Yeah, and that's a good as I look back, when I was building my business, I probably took 80% of the credit, especially near the end. But as I look back, I was 50/50 partners with my dad, and he was the steady, you know, consistent accountant type that kind of balanced what I did. And more and more, as I'm further away from that, I realized how blessed I was to have a good partner, that, you know, that I could trust implicitly that that cheered me on, you know, that we were really we worked really well together. And a lot of that was, you know, I think thanks to him, but that's awesome. So tell me, you know, maybe highlight in your business, a recent obstacle that you had to overcome? Can you think of one?
Jan Gierlach:Yeah, that's a great question. And every every day is a recent a recent obstacle in some shape or form, I would say, you know, in the relatively recent history of our business, as you know, Dale, we are no, we're experts in understanding, you know, direct to consumer and how to essentially captured you know, how to sell more consumer products, you know, directly to consumers. But the other part of what we do is we're ultimately selling that to businesses. So we're doing b2b sales. And I would say, you know, When we were first getting started, we didn't have really much of that that b2b sales experience, you know, we knew a lot of these platforms, we knew how to, you know, understand these markets and capture more market share. But we know we had first sort of relied on, we would use outsource, outsource sort of sales resources, like STR as a service type of type of groups. And that was fine to certain extent, but you know, what we found is they actually had a hard time doing like lead generation for us. So actually being able to reliably and consistently find these, you know, SMB type businesses that we were able to serve as an add a ton of value for. And so we we had to kind of come together and the team, Wes and I, and figure, okay, like, how are we going to are going to how we're going to deal with this, because the, the groups that we're using to potentially leverage this, it's just not working out. So we built a proprietary tool that does, like lead generation on our behalf. So I'm immensely proud of that. It's been a wonderful sort of obstacle that we have tackled successfully so far, where basically, we just kind of built it ourselves, and it goes out and, you know, leveraging the polls, you know, information directly from Amazon sorts through that. And then, you know, we kind of have a database that we're essentially building out of all of these companies. And, and from there, we're able to sort of track and target which, which companies we think would benefit the most from a service provider like us.
Dale Majors:Yeah. Love it. So you used to use what you said an SDR?
Jan Gierlach:Yeah, there's all sorts of wonderful services out there. And the groups we work with did a wonderful job, but they're their role is to essentially, you know, find companies so to lead generation, and then, you know, act as that, you know, that SDR to go out, you know, reach out to that, that prospect and then ultimately book a meeting with you.
Dale Majors:So is that sales development rep? Is that what SDR stands for?
Jan Gierlach:Yes, yes.
Dale Majors:Yeah, outside sales, helpers to bring in potential clients, and finally leads, and then that's where you would take over to sell it
Jan Gierlach:Exactly, exactly. And we've since taken like full ownership of the whole of the wholesale cycle. So we're doing, you know, every aspect of that now.
Dale Majors:Wow, I love it. You're your first priority, you have a pretty great, really low churn rate of clients.
Jan Gierlach:Yes.
Dale Majors:Right. Haven't you had in the 20s of clients or whatever it was, and never lost any?
Jan Gierlach:We are, Well, I that was odd. For a long time, as we've as we've grown, we have lost, you know, several clients. But I would say our our industry standard, like churn rate is off the charts. And I know that because we have done contract work for other service providers, especially when we were first getting started westernize. So we were brought in by some pretty large groups and brought into manage their accounts, on their most high profile accounts. And we could see, I mean, they were churning clients at probably 30% a year. And so a big initiative for Wes and I is, you know, how do we just keep that churn as low as possible? That that was something that, you know, for every sort of subscription model business, I can speak, at least for myself, you sometimes entered naively think like, oh, like, every, every additional MRR I generate, that's just that's just infinite, you know, that's just going forward in perpetuity. But, you know, in reality, as you scale beyond, you know, to a certain level of MRR, there's just, there's just a hole in that bucket, and you are going to lose clients. But I think we've done a wonderful job of keeping churn really, really low. I mean, I would I would need a, you know, I would only need, you know, essentially, I think one hand to count the number of clients we've turned and the amount of time that we've been in business and clients that we've served. So I think that's a pretty, you know, gotten the industry standard level. That's, that's pretty exceptional. And I think we have a novel approach to like how we achieve that in the first place? No, our sales cycle part of it is doing this pretty all inclusive analysis, analysis, an audit of a business, and seeing, okay, realistically, what's the growth potential here, and we come up with a milestone. So a lot of you know, in my experience, especially having worked for those service providers on a contract basis, now, they'll come in and potentially save you, like, they'll promise any growth model, they need to sort of close the deal. But with Wes and I's experience, we thought that was kind of short sighted, like if, if you and I are entering into this, you know, service provider type relationship, and we are not in agreement on like, what successes, then that is doomed to fail from the very beginning. So we've turned business away as a result, you know, which is hard to do. Because you know, it's so much work right to get in front of someone you get on their calendar to have that meeting. But you do the analysis, you do the audit, we have our process. And the numbers of the numbers. It's sometimes people say, Hey, you have to be a lot bigger for us to work with you. And it's hard to, you know, say Oh, but maybe we could do this. Maybe we could do that. But we stick by it. We stick by the numbers, we say all right, sorry. We should work together
Dale Majors:That that's actually one of the things that I liked most about you. And as I've told other people, I've given you a couple referrals and as I've told these people, like hey, I know these Amazon guys, they do this, whatever, they'll just give you a straight shot. You know, they'll just I love how straight you are with people. And because that's pretty rare to find in these marketing agencies actually need you to have Bateman Collective is one that does paid search. Okay, you know he does Google ads, Brandon Bateman he was in one of my other mastermind groups, I need to introduce you to him, because he's actually very similar to you guys in that. And and and I've not met many marketing agencies that do it that way. And I think that's why I've done so well. So that's awesome. Well thank you. So you have this sales problem, you
Jan Gierlach:Yeah, yeah, it's been a huge part of how we've fixed it, I think it's really important to recognize that if you didn't have good retention, that you're you know, the sales thing is really just a never ending treadmill, you know, that won't fix the problem. And I think for you guys, that's exciting that you that you step that up, because with your good intention, or with your good retention, you know, should be a winning combo. But a lot of people try to sell too soon. So you know, and don't. And it's hard chicken in the egg, right? You need to sell and get clients, but I love the focus you've put on retention. how we built the business for sure.
Dale Majors:Awesome. Well, cool. So tell me what's a what's a, like a day in the life? For you as an agency owner?
Jan Gierlach:Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, I'm not I'm not sure you know, how interesting it will be the sound probably like a typical workday. You know, as far as Wes and I have segmented our responsibilities, he's definitely heavy, heavily focused on on the upside. So, you know, he is the premier expert on all these platforms, and overseeing all the work that gets done on client accounts. So he has a whole, you know, wonderful team, that's, you know, working with him to make that happen. But he's largely overseeing, you know, the kind of the operations portion of the business the day to day. And then we're, I'm, you know, pretty much spending a lot of my time is on, you know, the business development side. So I have a wonderful salesperson, we hired Jeff, who I work with, so him and I are in close contact throughout the day. And so kind of the day will kick off and we have our CRM, which is tracked, you know, all of our, all of our outbound for that day, or all the current conversations that we're having, rather, and who we kind of prioritize, okay, based on that, who's who's the most interesting to talk to, who do we really want to follow up with. So, you know, going over that, with him reviewing sort of those goals, we get a lot of business through some other like third party services, as well. You know, basically aggregators of job postings, we have a really good system where we basically go out and we, we search for people who are posting for jobs, and we kind of come in and say, Hey, like, I, you know, you're posting for this specific role. But we're a service provider, we have this service, I think it'd be a great fit, and probably more, maybe even more cost effective than what you have.
Dale Majors:That's interesting.
Jan Gierlach:So we go through that a lot together. There's typically some meetings, a, hopefully, a good day, a lot of meetings. So actually, the day will be usually filled with, basically, you know, pitches, so people who have agreed to meet with with us and our company, and Jeff and I will take those calls, and essentially pitch our services explain more about the business. So it's kind of a hodgepodge of all the things you might think of when associated business development going over who we're currently talking to you managing all the follow ups. Checking in, we again, it goes back to that tool that we built, that is doing all this lead generation for us, a lot of work goes in on my side for like, all the software that's involved in that. So maintaining that going in tweaking things accordingly, and making sure everything's running smoothly there. And then yeah, just just also checking the rates, you know, we're sending out a good amount of, you know, emails every single day. But all the things you might think of it as far as that's concerned with business development, usually a good bit of meetings throughout the day, oh, and the more the better, because that you know, more people are meeting with, the more opportunities, I have to get out in front and pitch our services and what we're all about, if I can finish all of that, then the thing I really love to do, and not that I don't love business development, because I love I love meeting new people. But at any part of outbound sales, you know, you sometimes people aren't happy to hear from you. So that's, that's not always fun. But if I can finish all those sort of tasks related to that, my work is then kind of split between, we have some clients that we do web work primarily on the Shopify platform for so then I will sort of go in and do whatever we're responsible for as far as working in maintaining those ecommerce sites. And then when it comes to again, as you've touched on our kind of key differentiators and competitive advantages is in a number of software tools that we're actively working on and developing. So what I love too, is I can get through the whole day or a lot of the tasks that I have set out set aside and then actually get to get to programming. You know, get getting the right software on these tools that in many ways I kind of view you know the longevity and success of us as an organization, we'll be kind of the, the maturing and growth of these tools, because not only do they make us better at what we do, and make us better at account management and the services we provide, but our ultimate vision and goal is to actually sell those as standalone solutions to other service providers, like, like us, or even other sellers out there. Yeah. So that's kind of the ultimate vision and much of the goal behind what we're doing in the development there.
Dale Majors:So that's what, uh, you know, because the, the agency model can be tough. Right, so work, you're, you're always hustling, you know, I guess two things, I'd love to take a step back. And then also maybe dig in a little bit more to what you said. With, uh, you know, as you're hustling and business development all the time, maybe speaking a little bit to how you keep your sanity and wits about you being in that because it's hard, you know, maybe a little bit routines. But first, stepping back, at the very beginning of the call, you said, you know, you help people leverage marketplaces. And through an analytical approach, right, you're leveraging it happens to be Amazon today is the main marketplace, right? That you guys are focusing there, because that's where the crowd is. But at some point, you would, you know, if eBay took off again, or if Walmart took off in a bigger way or whatever else, you would help people leverage those marketplaces. So it's not so much about the marketplace, but about just leveraging marketplaces in general.
Jan Gierlach:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're, we're pretty much agnostic as to what the marketplace is, to your point happens to be Amazon right now. But I'm incredibly bullish on third party retailers. Beyond Amazon, Walmart, obviously, is the one that's pretty well known. But I often I think what has less awareness right now is how big homedepot.com is becoming.
Dale Majors:I hadn't heard that before.
Jan Gierlach:Yeah, homedepot.com is picking up a lot of traction. So we're incredibly bullish on some of these other third party retailers. And we're going to be poised to take advantage of those and understand those at a very deep level when they when you're definitely the larger market starts to realize like, well, you know, there there are massive opportunities here.
Dale Majors:So in any other retailers, or people that may be listening to this, they'll have to will, you know, you're having these conversations all the time, right. So you're looking for companies that want to be on marketplaces more will share your contact info at the end of the call. But that's yeah, that's a big, anybody really with the catalog could benefit from a conversation with you guys?
Jan Gierlach:Yeah, I absolutely.
Dale Majors:So your long term picture is software. That's a long term kind of hope and dream of, we're going to end up with some great software someday.
Jan Gierlach:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, to your point, read the agency model is it is tough, it's a, it's a business model that we've definitely made work in a way that I think is scalable, and sustainable, which I love. Because I think in many cases it can't be. So I'm certainly proud of what we've built so far there. But I also, you know, view the agency model is one of the other benefits, or there's several other benefits is we are building just an incredible team right now. You know, Wes and I've been so lucky and fortunate, I don't really know how I think mostly through luck, to convince some really talented and incredible people to work with us. So we're kind of we're building this incredible team that is very dynamic and flexible, very skilled. And so we're in a great position to, you know, eventually, you know, buy our own business one day, you know, a consumer products company that we can owner, as you and I have talked about running in exchange for equity. So there's all these sorts of tangential benefits the agency model, what we're getting, we're getting, we're first getting to meet a lot of wonderful people like yourself and many others, and then we're getting exposure to a lot of other businesses, we're building out these skill sets and these core competencies that I think we can leverage to do, you know, much more than what we're doing right now, as far as you know, okay, we're coming in to manage the account. But no, we're also in a position where, you know, if we had the, the the resources or wanted to buy a business and run that consumer products company successfully, I think we absolutely could. Yeah, and I don't know how we can achieve that if we had or just a pure, like software type, you know?
Dale Majors:Absolutely. Well, I think I know why people work, you know, knowing why, you know, we've known each other for a little bit, I think, I think one of the things you do really well is just maintaining a humble, you know, curious open attitude of and it's it's easy to work for people like that, you know, that have those attitudes and attributes that you have that you're embodying, and you guys are smart. And there's a lot of agencies that wouldn't want to take the risk of running one of these businesses because then you really have to kind of prove your worth.
Jan Gierlach:Yeah, you have to be really good at what you do.
Dale Majors:You get what you do. So I love the confidence and your ability to back that up. So that's, that's amazing. Awesome. So to kind of final question one or two questions? If well, going back to what I was saying, what do you do in in, you know, 30 - 30, 60 seconds? What do you do to stay sane outside of running an agency?
Jan Gierlach:Oh, yeah, that's a great question. Well, as you know, Dale, I'm a big cyclist. So I think, yeah, it's become abundantly clear, the longer we do this, that the name of the game here is endurance, you know, it'd be so easy to get burnt out in a pretty short period of time, if you're just nothing but work all the time. And I do think you know, to be to be fair, I think Wes and I work a lot of hours, I think that's fair fair to say, what I would say, as we grow, and we add, you know, so many wonderful and competent people to the team. Now that work feels more that that additional hours we're putting in, it feels like, it feels like it's something that we don't have to do if we didn't want to. So I really wanted to, I can be done by 5, you know, and call it a wrap. If I want to work beyond that, like I often do on different projects, because because I'm excited to and I want to not because like holy cow, here's a client deadline that we have to hit or there's there's gonna be problems. So that's been a wonderful, I think, maturing as a business, but also just also understanding like, look, I'm still putting in these hours, but it's, it's because I want to and if I need to change that I absolutely can. Yeah, you know, as you as you know, from you know, being me being in the group with you, you know, the cycling is a big component. But just, you know, exercise in general, you know, that has been really key this is, there's no other way to put it that this is stressful, you know, the day to day of running any business there are, there are obvious stresses involved. And so you need something outside of work to counteract to counterbalance that. So for me, you know, that's been, it's been an exercise, I'd say, primarily, and just I just moved to a new city, I just moved to Austin, Texas. So exploring that city, you know, with some wonderful friends that I have here is but also a wonderful way just to, you know, get you know, get out, get my head out of work and look at and do different things. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's a great question. I don't I'm trying to also, I'm not very good right now. But I'm trying to learn more, like cook more, learn more recipes. So just developing skill sets and things outside of work and other activities recently picked up kayaking. These are the things that are ultimately what keep me sane, I think and keep that healthy balance between work and what you're doing outside of it.
Dale Majors:I love it. You know, I just read Master, I believe, by Roger Federer, the geography by Roger Federer, really good. And one of the things that they that he mentioned was his ability to play and excel in the sport for so long, was they talked about his consistency and self care and some of the balance that he has, yeah, to be able to deal with all of that stress. He goes to new cities, and he learned, you know, he learns, he loves to learn new things and be open and, and just have a little more balance. And one of he had this, I'd never heard this thought expressed before either. He had this coach, right. I've heard it in different ways, though, and not in sports. But he had this trainer, who like psychologist early on that told him that, if he can be if he can feel like his life has purpose, and is kind of figured out that he'll be able to be much more present on the court, which I thought was really interesting, too. So I think, as I've been listening to your story to like, hey, we build products to leverage this, you know, long term story as software, I think that from the outside looking in a lot of that your ability to create and maintain momentum and excitement and keep building is you do have a pretty good long term roadmap, at least in the direction you want to go. And then you guys can just put your head down and work.
Jan Gierlach:Yeah.
Dale Majors:Not all businesses are, you know, I think be really grateful that your business is at a point right there where you can be bringing new people on growing scaling with a clear path. Because a lot of people, it's hard to find that clear path, sometimes it takes a lot longer than - even in my coaching, I feel like I've taken it's taken maybe four years to more clearly identify the path. And I don't even know if I'm there yet. But that's awesome. So to wrap up, if you could like snap your fingers and have, you know, fix three different problems in your business, just by saying, you know, waving your magic wand and saying this problem, solve that problem solve that problem, like, what kind of things would change in your business? And I asked that to also think like, there are other people outside, you know, in my network and your network that probably that may have those answers are the tools to help you do that. So as you kind of put that out there, you kind of open yourself to maybe other people stepping in and helping you solve them.
Jan Gierlach:Yeah, that's a great question. Um, you know, I when you said off the top of my head, I think of something that's just so important that is also so not fun is creating these sort of SOPs and the documentation type stuff. And that can be, I think sometimes people can come to that too soon, it can kind of almost be a prison, when you're first getting started out and you're figuring stuff out, it's like, Okay, why don't we write down a process and we're still creating it. But we are getting to a stage now of maturity and development and just sighs as a team, that I think that is a direction that we're making active. We know, there's room for improvement there, and we're actively sort of working to address that is, as we increase the headcount and staff size, where it's like, we just have to have documentation for everything, for everything that we're doing. And, you know, each time we get a little bit better at onboarding and training, but I think that is, you know, as you try to scale beyond a certain, you know, headcount and size, those things are just of the utmost importance. Otherwise, there's real problems as you start to add more people. So I don't think in any way, it's like an issue for us too much yet. But if we start if we keep hiring at the rate that we are, and I expect, we will continue to, it's just on the documentation side, having those SOPs everything in place, all those processes really ironed out. And I knew that his work that's never really fully done. You know, you're always sort of tweaking that. But I'm adding to the structure that we already have their I think it's something
Dale Majors:Cool, I love it. What other what other things?
Jan Gierlach:Man, off the top my head, I'm thinking magic wand, hmm, just wave it. And it's, it's done.
Dale Majors:Wave it, and it's done. A lot of times, you know, they say that they say that proper identification of the problem is like, a lot of times, yeah, 80% of the work, right? Say, but a lot of times we get so bogged down into the business that we don't think, man, if I could just solve this problem. Wow, that would be amazing. And then kind of that the dilemma of who not how a lot of times as business owners, we get caught up into, like, how can I solve this, instead of thinking, who could help me solve this problem? With SOPs, there are a lot of people who specialize in, you know, in, in creating procedures, I'm actually meeting with a coach for four hours today, that creates curriculum for people, you know, helped me create a you know, she's I'm she flies in here in a couple hours, I'm gonna pick her up at noon, she's gonna help me write out more structure into how to manage the group calls that I do and some of the coaching and whatever. But that's something that I'm just not naturally not very good at. So thinking who could help me with this? Not so much. Oh, how can I do it? Most problems have been solved already.
Jan Gierlach:Right, Right.
Dale Majors:So if you can, if you can think of something, we can talk about it otherwise, maybe that's homework for you to say, you know, what are those things that if I could magically solve that I that I would do?
Jan Gierlach:Yeah, it's you know, and sort of related to the SOPs. And I don't know, if I view this, well, I don't know, maybe problem is too strong a word. But maybe goal is better. And that's for Wes and I to have more of a step back from the day to day of like client management, and always be there as a resource, of course, for you know, our staff and in training and all of that. But, you know, I think definitely, as we add more people and grow something that we are trying to get to a place where we would feel comfortable doing it's like, all right now the clients don't interact really too much with us at all. So it's completely managed, you know, by the team. And of course, we're an integral part of the business, of course, we're behind the scenes, in making sure things that are done the way that we want them to be. But when it comes to that, that day to day that that time it takes right to like have to be interfaced that point of contact with a client, I think definitely our goal for Wes and I especially with him, is to get to a place where he is no longer the point of contact for any client in particular. And maybe I sort of view the SOPs as part of achieving that goal, where it's like, good, we have really solid processes and structures in place, then there's less of that need.
Dale Majors:As I'm hearing you maybe a simple way to, you know, clarify that is, you know, if you could quantify, look, we we are engaging with clients on the front end, three hours a day and two hours a day for Wes or whatever. Love to, you know, what's the next step and how we could get down to 30 minutes a day? Yes, you know, and just to say, what would that world be like and create that, you know, as you as you talk with your employees around? A lot of times, it's just, you know, proposing a really good problem, and then everybody can come up with the answers. You know, if you were to say to your team, I'm interfacing with clients for three hours a day currently, how could we bring that to 45 minutes? Yeah, and just posing it to them and having them kind of CO create that and how long when did you start your business? Why did you guys start serving clients?
Jan Gierlach:Well, yeah, it's there's two parts of that, you know, we, we've been selling online since 2016, I would say for all intensive purposes, for when in the current incarnation of the business model we have now, essentially, maybe two years.
Dale Majors:That's awesome. Cool. Good for you guys. How can people get a hold of you?
Jan Gierlach:Yep. So the the best way I would say as far as socials go would be would be LinkedIn can find me on LinkedIn. I'm sure you'll attach something in the show notes Dale, but yes, my first name, J-A-N hyphen Edward, my last name, Gierlach, G-I-E-R-L-A-C-H. And then we also have a website, I would really encourage people to check out hometown-industries.com. We have we have a blog. It's actually something. And this is sort of also related to the previous question a little bit, which is, you know, something we're trying to get better at what you do a wonderful job of Dale is putting out content, I think we have, we have a unique approach for this space. And I think we have information that's worth sharing. But I don't know if it's a combination of probably skill or confidence or, or a bit of both putting that content out there, and sharing that with more people. So we're trying to get better at that. So I'd encourage people to check out the blog and hoping to put more updates on there on a more regular cadence because I think we have things of value that like to share with with everyone.
Dale Majors:Awesome, cool. Jan, you're great. Appreciate you sharing your journey with us. And I'm excited to you know, continue to see keep growing. So thank you.
Jan Gierlach:Well, thanks for having me, Dale. And I yeah, I'd like a chance to plug Dale here. I'm a part of Dale's coaching group, which has been very instrumental for me and just helped me prioritize a lot in my my personal life and my business. I would highly recommend it to anyone who sort of thinking about like, hey, I need some accountability. I need a way or a curriculum to you know, up my skills and increase you know, what I'm doing in my personal life and in my business, so, I'm gonna plug that for Dale, because I don't know if you do it himself.
Dale Majors:Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Well, cool, everybody. Thanks for listening. We will see you on our next show.