Adapt or die

In 2011 I started my first ?successful? business.

My brother and I were fixing rock chips in windshields. We were fixing a lot of them.? We were fixing them at car washes and gas stations.? Sometimes in the freezing cold.? I remember once going to take a drink of my energy drink and it had frozen over.

We were in the trenches.

We kept pushing and hustling and eventually we were operating out of 9 locations.? We had several employees and things were going pretty good.? We were making more money than we ever had and we had big dreams of making more.

The windshield repair business was really good to us.? We fixed thousands of windshields, had thousands of happy customers and a good income.

We felt capped though and wanted to scale bigger.? We knew we had something special with our business model and felt it could help a lot of people.? It’s a great business and it’s always in demand.? We wanted to help others succeed in the business as well.

That?s when we came up with the idea to create a windshield repair training course.

I sat at my computer and started creating slides on how to run a windshield repair business.? I covered everything.? How to set up your entity, how to get registered with the insurance companies, how to get locations and find employees, how to do the actual repairs and what equipment to use.? Everything, top to bottom, how to run a windshield repair business.? Then I started recording the videos.? I sat in my little home office and recorded my screen while going through the slides.? It took me forever to finish it but eventually I had a training course on how to start your own windshield repair business.

We reached out to our windshield repair equipment supplier and he agreed to start white labeling our equipment.

Now you could come to us and get your equipment and training and start a windshield repair business.

We started running paid ads on Facebook, we posted ads on business opportunity sites, ran an ad in a magazine, and posted in classifieds.? Pretty soon we had a few customers and few testimonials.

That’s when things started to really go…

We ended up spending about $250,000 on Facebook lead ads which turned into around $1.6million in sales.? We had an ad out, people would submit their info, and we would immediately text them a link to a video that explained the windshield repair opportunity in detail.

After that, if they were interested, they’d text us back and we’d schedule an appointment and sell them the course over the phone.

Again, we knew we were on to something.? Selling through text messaging.? It was amazing, people would read our messages and if they were interested they’d message back.? We were sending and receiving around 1000 text messages everyday.? Our calendars were booked solid with appointments.

Again, we knew we had something special.? We knew we could take this to the next level.? We knew if this worked for our business it would work for many others.

That?s when we decided to start CHIIRP. We wanted to show others how effective selling through text messaging could be.

We put together a dev team and a friend put in some cash to fund the start up.

6 months in we had a functioning product and we were ready to start beta testing.? We took the same approach we did with our other businesses.? Bootstrap.

We founds some local businesses to test with and soon had some testimonials.

We started generating leads online and texting them.? If they were interested they’d text us back.? We’d get on the phone and sign them up for CHIIRP.

Now here we are, 12 months in.? We are approaching $500,000 in annual recurring revenue and we are helping hundreds of businesses become more efficient in their sales process.

We have real estate agents, solar companies, mortgages companies, ecommerce businesses, insurance agents, gyms, call centers, lead gen companies, marketing agencies, chiropractors, dentists, trampoline warehouses, you name it!? We even have a guy who makes high end knives and sells them through texting!

Through all of this, the number 1 most valuable skill I’ve learned is the ability to generate a lead online and turn that lead into a sale.

Having this skill makes us unstoppable!? It really is simple:

Generate Lead –> Nurture Lead –> Close Sale –> Make Customer Happy
Generate Lead –> Nurture Lead –> Close Sale –> Make Customer Happy
Generate Lead –> Nurture Lead –> Close Sale –> Make Customer Happy
Generate Lead –> Nurture Lead –> Close Sale –> Make Customer Happy
Generate Lead –> Nurture Lead –> Close Sale –> Make Customer Happy
Generate Lead –> Nurture Lead –> Close Sale –> Make Customer Happy

That’s what we do at CHIIRP.? We help businesses sell more through text messaging.? We’d love to help you too!