Dominic Rubino is interviewed on how to estimate kitchen remodel jobs for profitability and competitiveness

Hey there guys. It’s Mike Goldstein with Crushing with the Kitchen Remodeling podcast where we take a deep dive and we look at the world of kitchen and bathroom remodeling and cabinetry businesses.

Now, today we have a very special guest with us, Dominic Rubino, a business coach who works with cabinet builders millwork companies among others and he helps them improve their business and improve their profits. And one way he does this is really by helping teaching business owners how to estimate their remodeling projects, how to, how to generate more profit while also being priced competitively in the market. And we’re going talk to Dom and learn all about how to properly estimate just after this.

We have with us today, like I said, one of the foremost experts in the business coaching world for those in the cabinet space, those in the mill workspace, and the home services space. Overall, we have the one we have the only, the legend, the myth. We have Dominic Rubino with us.

How are you Dom? I’m good. Thank you. I’m glad to be on your show. Oh, thank you so much for having me, you know, I mean, I’ve had the pleasure of actually being on your show um from time to time talking about local SEO. I’m so excited though to have you here to really educate my audience on really the, the right way to go about pricing their jobs, the right way to estimate so that they aren’t given away the farm, you know, but they’re also not overestimating so much that they lose business um with, but with all that said, you know what I mean? I gave you a little bit of an intro here, but for those of you those of us who don’t know who Dominic is, shame on you by the way, if you don’t. But for those who don’t, um who are you? What is it that you do? So?

Good question, Mike, thanks.  I don’t know who I am anymore. No. Do you know what? I am a business owner and I love working with other business owners to show them how to work smarter, not just harder. And Mike, you’ve been on my podcast, which is called of All Things. And nobody should be sipping their coffee right now because when you hear the title of the show, you’re going to spit it out your nose. It’s called Cabinet Maker Profit System. And uh it sounds, it’s pretty specific, but that’s who I serve. I serve cabinet makers, architectural mill workers, people in the closet industry, uh furniture makers, anybody in finished wood trades.

And then I have another podcast. I’ve got two because you know, why not? Uh the other podcast is called Profit Tool Belt. And you know what’s interesting is I know you deal with a lot of home renovations. Experts, guys that do kitchen remodeling, they’ll listen to both podcasts because they get different guests and different experiences. But that’s what I do in, in the world is that, and that’s the, that’s the little space on the wall I occupy. I work with business owners who want to learn how to work smarter. Not just harder all the time. Well, that’s, that’s great, you know, and there’s so many of our audience who I think fall right into that, into that niche. Um So I think you’re the perfect person to talk about this where, you know, you’ve been there, done that in terms of being a business owner, you’ve done that now from an outside third party view as a coach.

So Dom, let me ask, when you’re talking to your clients, when you’re talking to people who you’re trying to teach and coach and, and help them expand their business, how do you help your clients strike a balance between generating profits and pricing competitively in the marketplace?

Well, that actually, that’s a really good question because the only person that has that answer is the marketplace, right? And so one of the things that we look at, right, you only know if you’ve priced high, if the world is telling you that now there are some things we have to watch for because of course, when we’re dealing with homeowners, let’s, let’s assume that we’re speaking right now to the residential market, not the commercial one. People are going to come back and say, well, you’re out to lunch, your price is way higher. I could get the same product at IKEA or I could get some, we’re not talking about apples to apples there, right? But if you price yourself and you’re winning every reasonable deal, you’re in front of your price, too low. If you’re winning 80% of the jobs you’re in front of, you’re simply priced too low. It means you’ve got room to raise your prices. Now, can I just add one more thing, Mike, please? Do you know who gives me the most grief about raising prices? Do you think it’s the, the consumers or do you think it’s the business owners? Oh, for sure. I mean, the business is because they’re afraid they’re not going to get a job. That’s right. They’re afraid they’re not going to get a job. And right now as, as, you know, and I think everybody else listening knows there’s just never been a better time to be in our trade. Hands down, hands down in the history of kitchen cabinets and the history of remodeling never been a better time to be in the business. And so right now is the time to push the boundaries and try to just try increasing your prices a little bit and see what happens. And if people still buy that, then you look around and you go, well, that worked, do it again. It’s, it’s funny to say that I, I was having a conversation with a client of mine who was in the flooring space, um, just the other day and I, and, you know, I was asking him, you know, about his profit margins. Well, you know, I mean, they’re not great but I’m, I’m getting lots of lots of work. I said, well, what’s your clothes rate? And he said, well, I’m closing about 85%. I said 85%. Well, let me ask you this. Do you think maybe if you raise your prices a little bit that maybe your profit margins would go up? Yeah, but I’ll lose work. And I, and I asked a really simple question. I said, if you, and let’s just take an extreme example, if you double your price tomorrow and you lo and you only close half as much business, what happens to your profit margin? Well, it goes up and what happens to the amount of money that you have coming in the, the revenue but it doesn’t change. So why would I want that? And, sometimes it’s, you got to get through your head just because the revenue isn’t changing. You’re only doing half as much work to make the same amount of money. So now if you can do the same amount of work, you know, your revenue is going to double. This is, this is actually why you’ve been on my podcast a couple of times because this is the level of business owner conversation that I find people crave, right? Because when you’re, let’s just let’s just use and just say that the trade is cabinetry. It doesn’t matter if it’s closets, architecture work or renovated, just say cabinetry for a sec, we tend to get ourselves in the mindset while I’m a cabinet maker, I’m a really good cabinet maker. I want to learn more about the tools for cabinetry. And there’s this trick I learned and, and you get into the technical side, but you forget that you’re actually a businessperson who just happens to be a cabinet maker. And that’s why you and I can come along with the perspective of, hey, listen, let’s take a step back and look at what you’re really trying to accomplish here. You’re not actually trying to build cabinets; you’re trying to run a company that builds cabinets and gets paid for that. And who wouldn’t want to do less work for more pay? Yeah, I mean, and that’s, that’s so, you know, on point, you know what I always ask people is what business are you in? And they tell me, oh, I’m, I’m a kitchen re modeler. I’m a cabin. I said, no, you’re a marketer. You happen to sell kitchen modeling services. You’re in the business of marketing. And it’s, I mean, it, you know, and sometimes you, you know, it’s great when you see that light bulb go off and they, ah, you’re right. Hey, can I, can I just be a little bit, uh I want people to remember this. Well, we talked about conversion rates. He said that, that flooring gentleman has an 85% conversion rate, right? So that’s like if people don’t understand the word conversion rate. That’s cool. I could explain it using a baseball analogy. It’s like at bats, right? You got a 30% if you hit three out of 10. So if you sell 8.5 out of 10 deals, you’re in front of you, you’re an incredible athlete and you walk around thinking you’re the best. Well, but you’re playing against kids softball team, right? Or you’re doing something wrong in your business. And so let me, I want to challenge everybody out there who’s got a high conversion rate. Who’s saying you don’t understand Dominic, you’re full of it, Mike, you don’t understand. I want you to think about any other industry that has a conversion rate of around 100%. That’s drug dealers. And you know what? So aside from anything illegal, no other industry has conversion rates of 100%. You shouldn’t be aiming for that. You need to go back. You’re either leaving money on the table or you’re doing something wrong. Yeah, I think that that makes a lot of sense and taking that kind of looking, looking at the industry that you, that you serve more than any others, looking at cabinet makers, cabinet builders, no work companies.

What are some of the most common mistakes that you see them making when they’re estimating um, projects?

Well, first of all right, now, you know, I said this is the best time in the world ever to, to be in the cabinetry industry, everybody’s busy and if you’re not busy. I apologize, but a lot of people are super, super busy now. And so they’re trying to answer every single bid request that comes in without top grading them without saying, well, some not all requests are created equal, right? I need to put my focus in energy into the jobs that line up with how my shop is, set up, what I really love doing and I can do profitably how my people are trained and what we can deliver and install. I know some people do supply only. But you know what I mean? All of those things have to line up as if you’re lining down a rifle barrel. And if they don’t, if that job that you’re looking at right now doesn’t line up perfectly, don’t estimate it or at least, don’t estimate it first. There’s a time when you’ve got to put everything down and go home and hug your wife and kiss your kids. So spend the time on the profitable jobs, which, you know, I’ve got, obviously as a business coach, we have systems around that. You got to figure out what those jobs are. But once you do focus on those and ignore the rest with confidence, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, and, you know, at the end of the day, what are mistakes mean, the mistakes mean that you left money on the table. Um, so taking the mistakes in a kind of a side when you’re, when you’re working with people who are gonna go out to someone’s home, when you, you know, when they’re there or they have been someone coming to the shoulder and what not, what are some of the key factors that you think that, you know, K models and cabinet builders should be considering when they’re estimating those remodeling projects. What, you know, the things that outside of just the obvious, what does it cost? What is my labor cost? What is my material cost? What are the other key factors? I’m gonna take this in a direction you didn’t expect if you’re going out to somebody. Is that ok, please? Because I time management is such a big thing, right? You’re a business owner, you literally not juggling all the balls, you’re juggling chisels, sharp things, right? It’s there’s so much on the table. So make, first of all, I want you to make sure you’re going to the right opportunities. What is the right opportunity look like? Well, number one, you’re talking to the decision maker and number two, all decision makers have to be present. So let me just use a modern like what we just gonna generalize this a husband and wife, couple, if I go to an appointment where only the wife is there or only the husband is there, I’m probably not going to win that deal. I need both decision makers there. Understanding that one person is a decision maker and one’s an influencer. And anybody that has a piece of paper in front of them, please write that down. There’s a decision maker and there’s an influencer. And if you really want to get a laugh out of this, think about your own house, think about when you and your wife or you and your husband are sitting there making a decision on travel or some other trade. One of you is the decision maker. The other one’s the influencer. It’s the same when you walk into that house. So make sure you have that down, Mike. It sounds like you had a point there. No, I was just saying. So what you’re saying is make sure the wife is there and the influencer is there. Well, clearly you are a fly on the wall at my house. Yeah. Yeah, but you got, so you have to make sure of that. So let me ask you this though. Is this I think is a question that a lot of people would come back and they say, ok, I, I I prepped, I got all I have all my my information. I got my books. I’m, I’m ready to go. I’m all, I’m all pumped up. I get there and only and only the husband is there. What do you do then? Do you say I’m sorry, you know, we, you know, do you turn around? What is it that you do in order to, to, to prep the people to make sure that they’re going to be there. So that’s a judgment call that you have to make on the spot. But let’s say that only the husband there is the wife isn’t there. I want to. So we’re now talking about the sales qualification process which is not where everybody thought I was going on that answer. Right. But if we look back at the core issue of the problem, if you’re working too hard for the money you’re making, let’s go find a way for you to work smarter. Right. So now we’re in the sales qualification part, part of the conversation. So the situations in front of us where only the husband’s there, the wife is not there for 100 normal reasons. Right? She’s doing something else with the kids or she’s gotta go take care of her own family. So have that conversation, but find a reason, find a reason to come back when the wife will be there or you’re not gonna win that deal. Now, I do have to put a little star above this. Do you want that deal? Like is it the right kind of, you know, not all deals are the same, but if you love doing $80,000 custom kitchens or if you love doing $40,000 kit, whatever your number is, it doesn’t matter, there’s no better or worse. Right? But if that job is your job, like you could do that job all day, you know, you make money, you love doing it. You feel proud doing, that’s the job you want. Then go back, find a reason to come back and say, you know what, I’m gonna sketch out some initial plans. But your wife Cindy, she really needs to see this because I want to make sure I got some things right. There’s questions that you and I might answer that she, she needs some perspective on. So I’ll say to the husband, what does the calendar look like within three days? I don’t know if anybody can see me, Mike. Why do I say we have, I have to be back in their house in three days. Why would that be important? Well, you know, they’re gonna lose that emotional, you know, need to, you know, it’s no different than when you, when you’re running an ad and someone clicks on that ad. You, you got five minutes. If you don’t talk to them in five minutes, you’ve lost. It’s the same here. Yeah. And, and so the saying in professional sales is this time kills deals, time kills deals. There’s a reason somebody’s asking you for, you know, this quote on their kitchen cabinet, they’re no window shopping for kitchen cabinets. People don’t window shop for windows either but, but you gotta keep that momentum going. What’s that? Yes, it’s not an impulse buy. We’re not selling candy bars, right? Yeah. So get in front of them in three days. So that you can review an initial set of plans and I know you’re restarting the sale. But if you want that deal, that’s how you get it. And I have, I actually have one particular client who does this really, really well. And what they have done, what they do is when that situation does happen is they come, OK, so we’re here for our measurement meeting and they come in and they take all the measurements and say this is fantastic, right? So we’re gonna, now we need to reschedule to come out. We gotta go back. We’re gonna put some, you know, we’re gonna put this, this together for you and come and make a presentation now that we have your measurements so we can look at the material cost and all that to make sure you’re getting, you know, that is genius. That is genius. So they changed the playing field, they show up, not all decision makers are there or maybe the kids are sick or there’s an emergency things happen, but then you change the outcome of the meeting and you say perfect. We only need 15 minutes for a quick tour. I’ll do some measurements and we’ll arrange another time, but you find a reason to come back. I want to serve these people as best I can, I can’t do it standing on one leg. I have to have a solid foundation. Yeah, for sure. So one of the things though that I think people also look at a lot when they’re estimating jobs is kind of obviously the profit is, how much money am I gonna make on this? Um And, you know, something that I don’t think it comes up as much now as it did in, during the pandemic, but you, you know, prices do fluctuate not as quickly, I don’t think now. Um, but how do you know, what do you tell your people when they’re estimating? How do you account for unexpected expenses that might arise during the project? Um, to ensure that your profit margin is still profitable? So you have to look at profit as an expense that you read profit first. Yeah, that’s a thing actually, Mike. Mike MZ has been on my show as well. Um So there’s, there’s actually a calculator that I take my clients through. Like it’s a one page chart you fill in a bunch of boxes and out of the bottom, spits the number and that number is what it costs you to flick on the lights in your company. January 1st at eight oh one. What does it cost per hour to run your business? But what it includes are things that people typically overlook. And I want to make sure that that is as long as you do this exercise once a year you’re up to date, but you got to include things like the burden rate, you know, you and I might think we’re paying somebody, I’ll just pick a number to $453 an hour, just whatever. Well, I’m actually not paying him or her $25 an hour because there’s the soft costs associated with that person that has to go in your pricing. But the other one that has to go into your pricing is what net profit do you want at the end of the year? And so I have a really simple calculate if anybody wants it, I can share it. But it’s a simple calculator. You just fill in the little boxes and out of the bottom, spits your number and your number is gonna be $95 or 100 and $10 or $82 whatever your number is. But as long as you calculate your overheads including labor, including profits using that number on a per hour basis, then you’re on the right path. Now, obviously, now you’ve got to do materials, which is the problem that we had during the pandemic is material prices were fluctuating and we had to have clauses like substitution um or because things were late or not available, but you’ve got those costs and then you got materials off. You go. So it’s interesting that you, you bring up 22 things right now that obviously come into every job which are materials and labor and what is it? You know, what am I paying hourly? What am I paying for materials? What do you say to people? Though, who are in, you know, and, and let’s go a little further outside the cabinet space into the pure home remodeling kitchen, remodeling an industry where typically we’re estimating a job that isn’t even gonna start for 3 to 6 months. And then once you start it, it might take another five months to complete. How do you take into account the, the likelihood that your labor cost is gonna change, that your material cost is gonna change between now. You know, and let’s say, you know, right now it, it’s, it’s May 10th or something like that. And, you know, and you’re probably not gonna finish that job until sometime in December, maybe January of 233. What, what is the best practice that you give people when they’re estimating that material cost in that respect? I, you know, it’s, it’s so funny you ask that question just this week. One of my coaching meetings was uh a 33 and three home renovator. So a 33 and three home renovator is we’re gonna sell three deals this week or this month, we’re gonna start three jobs this month. We’re gonna end three jobs this month. It’s a simple metric that I use. So it, it helps me define how we’re gonna help them go through their growth path right now. They didn’t start as a 333. They started as like a 225. don’t know. Right. You know, truthfully because the owners of that business just built it out of pure work at like will and determination. It takes a while to get there. But what we used to get there was tracking really simple basic numbers and like just let me add this, I’m not talking about tracking accounting numbers. If you call accounting a category, then that category would only be one number. There’s a bunch of other categories. We have to track, they’re really simple to track, but you can’t track everything. You have to know what to ignore, you have to know what to focus on and that gets you the growth path. Sure. And you know, when, when you look at this too, I mean, one of the other things I know going, going back to what we talked about the beginning of this is, you know, pricing in order to, you know, to close. Um and you, you want to price obviously competitively. Um but at the same time, you don’t want to pressure yourself out of a job and you don’t want to pressure yourself out of the out of the market. So what do you advise clients on pricing their services to remain competitive in a really crowded marketplace where, you know, you’re not the only, you’re not the only game in town? Yeah, you are, I’m sorry, but you are. Do you want to, you don’t want to know why you are just do this as a test at your own home right now. Go call the trades person and call, ask him to come by and give you a price first. They’re probably not gonna show up if they give you a price, it’s gonna be on the back of a credit on the back of a, of a business card. It’s gonna look like, you know what? And so when a homeowner says to me because I’ve been in the trades too. Right. That’s how I, I think we all started there. You know, Dominic, thank you very much for your price. We’re gonna talk to two other companies so that we get a really good sense of what the price is gonna be. And in the beginning I would like, I, oh my God, they’re gonna price me. I better price us to win it. And then what I found out is I was getting phone calls back. Uh Hi uh Dominic. You know, are you, can you come by again and have another look, I’m like, oh, what happened to the other two guys? Yeah, they didn’t show up. Yeah. Uh so you know what? You are the only provider in the market who cares enough to have a process? So let me start there, right? But the other thing you could do if you truly are worried, it’s gonna cause more work for you, which is not what I want, but you can give people a good, better, best option. Now people listening are like, look, Rubino, we’ve been through this I’m already busy now. You want me to price three different ways? No, I don’t. I said you could give people a good, better, best option. So Mr Goldstein. Mr and Mrs Goldstein. What a lovely home. I understand why you want to do a Renault or cabinets. Can I just ask you, have you had friends who’ve done a kitchen renovation that looks like what you’re gonna do and you’re either gonna say yes or no. So choose one of the answers, Mike. Sure. Oh, ok. Who was it that did a kitchen Renault? There’s the Smiths, the Smiths? Oh, a neighbor of yours here. Same neighborhood. Absolutely. Right down the street. Oh, fantastic. I don’t know them. But do you know what they spent on their rental? Uh, as a matter of fact, I do, they spent about $2300,2000. Ok. 230 let, let me ask you, Mike is, does 240 seem high to you low to you or just about? Right. You know, I, I, I thought that was a little low, to be honest. Did you see the quality of the finish they had there? Like, how did, how did that make you feel? You know, now that you mention it, it, it, it was a little shady, you know, it, it didn’t really, it didn’t really speak to me. What, uh, I mean, since we’re having this discussion, what didn’t you like about their Renault? Maybe I can take that as notes. Yeah, that’s and then Mike’s gonna give me 245. We’re gonna have a nice discussion around that. Do you, do you see what we just did there? It’s called bracketing. It’s called bracketing. So I found out from Mike, what he thought was reasonable. It, 3159083 grand. Now, let’s do the same thing where you don’t know, we’re gonna do that same demo again, guys, a role play. Um, and, and this, in this case, Mke is gonna say he doesn’t have a friend, he doesn’t know anybody. He has no idea on the pricing except truthfully he does and we’re gonna find out in 2315908 seconds. Um, so let me here, let’s start the role play. Hey, Mike, as we’re looking at this job, can you just give me a sense of what you think the budget is gonna be for this? You know, I really have no idea. I’m just looking for a fair price. Yeah, I guess that’s true. When was the last time you did a kitchen? Renault? Never. Never. Right. Ok. Yeah, fair enough. I mean, I do them all the time but that’s a totally fair answer. So let me ask you this in your mind or in your heart. Do you, where do you think this is gonna fall? Is this a $278 job? A $40,000 job or a $300,000 job? You know, it, it’s, I, I would think it’s probably a $30,000 job and I mean, I, that seems fair to me. Yeah. And then, ok, so we’re in that, that kind of range and then in the $30,783 job, do you want like premium or are we just trying to build a basement suite for somebody? Like where do you, do you want to be on the higher end of 30 low end of 40? Do you want to be on the low end of 20 You know, 25? Where do we need to be? No, I, I, I want to make sure that it looks nice. That’s, you know, the money right now is, I don’t know what it’s worth. I, I know that I, I don’t want to pay more than I have to. Oh, yeah. Well, and I don’t want to build more than we have to, but you also don’t want me coming back and saying Mike Goldstein here is a $300,000 kitchen Renault and now we’ve wasted everybody’s time. But if I’m understanding you right, it’s got to be in that 30 to maybe 40 and it better be really nice to be 45. Is that right? Ok. Well, let’s see what we come up. I don’t even know yet. We’re taking measurements today and there you go. So now I’m sorry, Mike, I cut you off. Say it again. No, I said that let’s get started. Let, let, let’s see, let’s see where we go. So did uh let me stop. Do you think that is what the audience is looking for in that answer, that kind of direction. Absolutely. It is, you know, it’s, it, you know, what you’re doing is I think you’re showing people, it’s, it’s estimating is not just giving a number, it’s not just looking at a spreadsheet, but it, it’s, it’s sales. Um, and at the end of the day, you know, you, you can come, you know, you can come in just like what I do with, with marketing. You know, when I come in, I can say, listen, I can, I can build you a million dollar website. But if I don’t have anybody come to that who cares about a million dollar? It’s the, it’s the same thing with homes. Listen, I can build you a million dollar home. But, uh, you know, you don’t really want a million dollar home. You want to show off a million dollar home. So, yeah. Yeah. And now, and now you start getting them thinking about, yeah. You know, I, I want to be the envy of the neighbor or I don’t care, I don’t care about these people. I just want to have something that’s comfortable. Just give me a bottom line price and the more you get to know your client, the more you get to know your customer, I think. Yeah. Well, and, you know, this does go to, to the, you know, we’re calling this, the sales process, but I’d like everybody to remember this is actually the process for helping somebody buy because sales is something I do to you buying is something that we do together. So Mike, you hit on something so critically important and that it’s a, such a simple question. I want everybody to write this down even though you can remember it if you’re walking your dog listening to this. The question is why. So if I come into your house, Mike and you say, hey, we need new kitchen cabinets, I’m gonna look around, I’m gonna go, do you mind if I just ask you a question? It’s gonna sound dumb. Why you have kitchen cabinets and then one of the two, maybe the husband or the wife is gonna go, are you kidding me? Or it’s about time or we finally deserve this or they’re gonna say something? Why? And now I have to say, well, why do you finally deserve this or why do you need this basement suite renovated? And then you hear my mother-in-law’s moving in and then you lock your heels to the ground and you say, huh? What is your mother-in-law gonna expect out of this kitchen in the basement? It’s no longer about the cabinets. Is it? It’s, it’s about the life situation and it’s, it’s, what is it, what is it the seven? Is that the uh the book I think I read at one point. Yeah. Yeah. So you nailed it, Mike. It’s why do you want to do this. Do I want to do? I have an ego that I have to have a better kitchen kitchen than the Smiths or whatever. Right. But I need to know that. Yeah. Sure. So let’s, let’s bring it back just for a minute, John, if I can to, you know, back into pricing because at the end of the day, you know, the pricing still is what’s gonna affect the profit margin and for our, for our audience here, honestly, what they really care about is how much money they make and what’s what’s going into the, into their pocket. Not, no, not the the vanity, how much money does do I show? But what do I get? So, you know, if we can, what strategies are you talking to your people about, you know, right now to help them keep their costs down without sacrificing the quality or without sacrificing the profit margins. You know, it’s, it, it, it’s such a good question because when I, obviously, when I start with a new client, it’s a different conversation than when we’re, you know, we have momentum and then it’s a different question when they really want to grow and scale. But one of the very first things I do with people is I know this is gonna sound boring, but I gotta say it is we go back and we do a line by line review of the overheads and now people go, we just looked at the overheads. No big deal. Yeah. But did you do it with somebody who is, you know, a business coach cares but they’re still, they’re seeing the forest, not the trees. Right. And, but you find the craziest things in the overheads, like you’re still paying for a cell phone from somebody you let go three years ago. Well, the cell phone company is not calling you. Right. It’s like the gym membership in your wallet. Like, oh, well, I’ll go next month anyways. We find things. So we have to know the overheads because we can’t figure out where to save money until we know where we’re spending the money. The other thing I have to add and this is a soft one that has a hard implication is quite often, especially in manufacturing, like we’re doing is we’re wasting time in the shop and that costs money or, uh, quality issues or is causing go backs or sending out incomplete product like the kicks, don’t go out with everything else, what a waste of time and money. And so there’s lots of little, you know, I call them finding and fixing your eight profit leagues, but there’s a lot of opportunities that can be uncovered. Right. And we, we know when you’re looking at those profit leagues, you know, one of the other things I, I find is that people set their prices and then they, they kind of take that set it and forget it approach. Um, but you know, how do you recommend that people, they, you know, they, you adjust your prices as the market changes over time because that, that I think is one of the biggest things. I mean, right now we look at inflation, uh, you know, the cost of spaghetti sauce went up. Why shouldn’t the cost of home remodeling, you know, go up at least at that same level. Right. Yeah. No. Listen, when it comes to pricing, you have to do something that’s called questioning your estimating assumptions, which I get. It sounds, sounds totally boring. I mean, I, I’m here to make it sound more exciting and to build a little mini project about it. But we, you’re, you’re right, we have to question the assumptions that go into our estimating because things happen, the cost of goes up, the cost of adhesive, the cost of abrasive, maybe they go down maybe the best company with the best price. You know, a vendor is not actually giving us the best service and that’s causing us to have to send our guys over to, uh, just say Home Depot, you know, just send, you have to send somebody off to bring the stuff back. Well, so your actual cost isn’t right. So, of course you’re not making money because you’re wasting time and you’re wasting energy and it’s burning your heart. That, that, that’s, that makes a ton of sense to me. And, you know, I, I hope, I think it should, everyone was listening here. Um, and you know, don, you’ve really given us a lot to think about today, you dropped just some real knowledge, uh, for those people who, you know, who are listening in, you know, they, maybe you’re in the market for a business coach, maybe you realize that you need that outside person to come and take a look and, and tell you, you know, not what you’re doing wrong but telling, you know, where there are opportunities. Um how would someone get a hold of you? You know, where do they find you? Sure. Yeah. And you’re right, Mike. It’s nobody’s doing anything wrong. We’re just trying to find ways to do things better. So, uh the, the good news is if you can’t find me on the internet, you’re not looking, but you can go to, you can go to the website, which is cabinet maker profit system dot com and go to the podcast forward slash podcast and just look it up. You can also look up my name, Dominic Rubino and you’ll find all of my, my social. Um You can find me through Mike’s website. Mike’s been on my show. How many times now? M 23, maybe three. Yeah, you’ve been on there a bunch because you’re my go to guy for S E O in this industry and by the way, I’m gonna plug Mike here. Every person I refer to Mike gets the results. So that’s why we keep being on each other shows because when it works, keep using it. Right. Sure. And now do you, I know you’ve talked a lot about kind of estimating. Do you mean do you have any kind of um documentation or something? You talked a little bit before we talk about that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that’s, that’s a one page download. If somebody wants it from me, just text me. The easiest way to get me, Mike is text me. So text me. Um if you want, it’s called the go back report. There you go, Mike just put on the screen. It’s called the go back report. Um So just send me a text message to 315908 78 53 just say the word. Go back. If you say the word, go back that I know what you’re asking for. You’re asking for the go back report, which has two names. It’s actually called the Go Back or the one hour calculator. That’s where we figure out your, your profit margins, your labor rate, your burden, rate your overheads. All of the things that go into estimating plus materials and materials are gonna fluctuate as they need to because this guy wants Walnut and this guy wants melamine doesn’t matter. That’s just how you build your pricing. But once you have the go back report, I call it pricing for profits with clarity. That’s fantastic. Well, to, again, I want to thank you for, you know, a for the offer to my listeners that that’s really very generous of you. Um But beyond that, just for all the information that you shared with us, I mean, I think I feel like, you know, myself as well as everyone here that we’ve gone to a little uh certification course on how to price properly and we’re all ready to go out there and now increase our prices. We’re getting ready to look at our expenses. We’re getting ready to listen to why somebody wants to have a, have a new kitchen, why they want to have new cabinets. Um We, we, we now know that we don’t go out unless both decision makers or at least all decision makers have to be there. You know, you, you put this in, you really dropped some great bombs. Um So for those of you who, you know, found interest in this, you know, please like, please share this this video, please share, you know, please share this with your friends. Um But you know, next week, if you tune in, we’re gonna have, we’re gonna have another great session. We’re gonna be talking actually about Facebook ads and how to create a targeted audience. I, we’re gonna be talking with Josh Wheeler, uh who is one of the foremost experts in uh in Facebook ads and to be perfectly blunt and transparent, one of my business partners. Uh So I let people know that um But don thank you so much for being on the show. Really appreciate it. Gonna have to have you come back, you know, very soon and, and learn a whole lot more about just how to make those businesses much more efficient. I love it. I, any time like I’m here to help. Thank you. Thanks so much. All right. Bye everybody.

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