What if your business isn’t struggling because you’re bad at what you do—but because the right people can’t find you, trust you, or reach you fast enough?

On this episode of Built to Scale, Maggie Olson sits down with Jonah Bautista, CEO of Atlanta Pro Network, to unpack how service-based businesses can turn visibility into actual revenue through smarter local SEO, faster lead follow-up, automation, authority building, and scalable systems.

Episode Summary

Jonah Bautista helps home service contractors become easier to find, easier to trust, and easier to hire.

After years of helping e-commerce entrepreneurs build and scale businesses across platforms like Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Shopify, and Etsy, Jonah shifted his attention toward the home service industry—where strong relationships, local trust, and operational systems can create a major competitive advantage.

In this conversation, Maggie and Jonah explore why great work alone isn’t always enough to grow a business. They break down the importance of Google Business Profile optimization, local search visibility, AI-powered discoverability, CRM automation, speed-to-lead, authority building, and the systems that make a business more valuable and less dependent on the owner.

They also dig into one of the biggest challenges entrepreneurs face as they grow: becoming the bottleneck in their own business.

Timestamps

00:00 - Why referrals can become a ceiling

02:01 - Meet Jonah Bautista and Atlanta Pro Network

03:45 - Why Jonah focused on the home service industry

06:31 - The best contractor vs. the contractor winning the work

08:58 - What actually matters for visibility today

10:04 - Why websites and Google Maps are foundational

12:08 - Using CRM automation to create more revenue

13:15 - Why business owners need to think about their exit

14:50 - Building a company that can eventually be sold

16:12 - Creating systems that reduce the owner’s mental load

18:20 - Speed-to-lead: where businesses lose revenue

20:12 - Using automation and AI to respond faster

21:09 - The Atlanta Pro Network one-contractor-per-market model

24:02 - Why local community and trust still matter

26:11 - Building authority through PR, content, and backlinks

28:03 - Why being “too busy” can actually be a systems problem

28:52 - Jonah’s idea for tracking how business owners spend their time

30:54 - Why the owner is often the biggest bottleneck

31:25 - The simple checklist habit that transformed Jonah’s productivity

33:55 - One thing contractors can do this week to become easier to find

34:31 - Google Business Profile optimization

36:31 - What “Built to Scale” means to Jonah

38:09 - Delegation, systems, and breaking through revenue ceilings

39:38 - Where to connect with Jonah Bautista

40:58 - Final thoughts

About Jonah Bautista

Jonah Bautista is the CEO of Atlanta Pro Network, where he helps home service contractors improve their visibility, authority, lead generation, and business systems.

Before focusing on the home service industry, Jonah spent approximately six years running an agency that worked with e-commerce entrepreneurs across major platforms including Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Temu, Shopify, and Etsy.

Today, his work focuses on helping service businesses strengthen their online presence, improve local search visibility, automate lead follow-up, create stronger operational systems, and ultimately build businesses that can grow beyond the owner.

Connect with Jonah Bautista

• Website: AtlantaProNetwork.com
• Social Media: Search Atlanta Pro Network on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and other major platforms

Next Episode

Stay tuned for more conversations on Built to Scale with entrepreneurs, operators, and experts sharing the systems, strategies, and lessons that help businesses grow without creating more chaos for the people running them.

Subscribe & Share

If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to Built to Scale wherever you listen to podcasts.

And if you know a contractor, service-based business owner, or entrepreneur who is great at what they do but struggling with visibility, leads, or capacity, share this episode with them.

What if the reason your business is not growing isn't because you're bad at what you do, but because the right people can't find you? And I think this really happens all the time, especially in service-based businesses. You can find the best contractor in your market. You can do incredible work. You can even take care of your customers, build a business almost entirely through referrals, but eventually.

Referrals alone can become a ceiling. And I personally know this firsthand from building a photography business as well as building a yoga business, and then shifting into the online space. I have ran businesses based on referrals. Amazing. Like Chefs Kiss cannot say enough good things about that, but it can become a ceiling. Now, just because

Being good at what you do and being easy to find, easy to trust, and easy to hire are, you know, you could consider those different things. Now, even when you do get someone's attention, there's another question underlying here. And that is what happens to that lead after they find you? Do you have the systems that follow up that stay connected and actually turn that opportunity into revenue?

And that's exactly what we're going to dig into today with today's guest. So Jonah Bautista. Yeah. Jonah Bautista is the founder of the Atlanta Pro Network, where he helps home service contractors become more visible to build authority in their markets and to really create the systems that turn visibility into actual business.

Jonah, I am so excited to have you here. Welcome to Built to Scale. I would love for you to just give us a little introduction to who you are and what you do.

Absolutely. I appreciate the intro. so as you mentioned, my name is Jonna Bautista. I am the CEO of Atlanta Pro Network. we've been doing this. Honestly, I've been in the the business marketing space for a very long time, you know, running businesses since I was a kid, honestly. but being able to help entrepreneurs, investors, small business owners, medium-sized business owners essentially structure and scale their companies has been not only a a focus.

within our within whatever business models that we develop, but also has been a major passion of mine as well. Yeah, so actually came from yeah, thank you. Yeah, actually came from from running an agency for about six years where we were helping e commerce entrepreneurs specifically and we're helping them to start scale, you know, run e commerce businesses on like every single one of the major platforms, you know, Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Timu, Shopify, Etsy, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Mm-hmm.

But yeah, we would take them from having nothing to having a six to seven figure business, you know, within a matter of one to two years, just using the strategies that I now implement on home service contractors instead. So yeah.

Yeah, I love that. And I think it's such an interesting industry, the home service industry, because you know, a lot of those people working in that industry, they're so good at what they do. But oftentimes, and I hear it here locally as well with friends who have service businesses is like the tech. I don't want to be in charge of the tech. I hate the tech. And so I'm curious, what did you see happening in?

Mm-hmm. Yep.

the home service industry that really made you lean hard into the Atlanta pronoun.

Yeah, so it actually started out with a a few like friends, you know, friends that I have that they were like, Hey, I need help with this, you know, can you help me with X or Y? What do I do about Google Maps? You know, I'm spending all this money on advertising, like, how do I improve X, Y, and Z? Right. They know my history as a as a business owner and they wanted to get my expertise. And granted, you know, I'm not trying to get rich off my friends. Yeah, so you know, I'm I'm sitting here helping them out with X, Y, and Z. At the end of the day, it's like, okay, after I'd worked on

Right.

few different projects for a few different people and saw dramatic results in a short time frame, I was like, okay, this is something that I can definitely help more and more people on. Right. Home service specifically, I chose because not only is it a it's a highly, highly in demand industry, right? It's one of the few things that it's gonna take AI at least five to twenty years, you know, to to take over. So, my job on the other hand, who knows, but yeah but but their job,

Right.

Yeah, their job is very personality based. It's very, you know, like in-person handshake, you know, like relationship based, which is also the other advantage. You know, it's like, okay, yes, AI is coming for for many of of people's jobs and and understandably so. I mean, you know, if it's faster, cheaper, better, yada yada, yada, I get it. But at the same time, like, how do we insulate ourselves from that? How do we make the relationship so advantageous that people are willing to

to take the the time or the money or you know whatever it is to have that trust factor with another human being as opposed to with a computer, right? and yeah, the home service industry, like I said, because it's so relationship based and because they're not super big fans of tech, they're much more inclined to want to to shake those hands, to, you know, to to build those connections and to keep a relationship for many, many years to come. So

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's really important, the relationship piece. you know, because we've all we've all been there. You need to have some sort of service done. And you have great service, you're like, my gosh, I can't wait to tell all my friends. You have bad service, and you're like, my gosh, I can't wait to tell all my friends, right? Like just even just case in point what we were talking about before we hit record with, you know, me having to call everywhere for all of the health stuff, right? Like

Yeah.

That's super annoying to me. Like now I'm going, I I will absolutely tell everyone about that. And that and that's just human nature. But I'm curious what surprised you when you started looking at the difference between the quote unquote best contractor and the contractor who was kind of like actually winning the work? Because sometimes those aren't like the same thing.

Absolutely. And that's a that's a really great question because I feel like that's kind of the the specific way that we help people. So we get people that come from, you know, they're doing anywhere from two fifty to three million, you know, a year on average, right? Which for many businesses, right, that's a nice little chunk of money. That's like, wow, you're you know, you're doing well for yourself. Compare that to the guys that are winning the number one spots in some of these categories. I mean, you're talking

10, 15, 20 million, you know, like much more dramatic numbers that literally just a change in their in their code, whether it be their website or the map pack or, you know, whatever, can end up actually beating some of these guys out, right? In a relatively short time frame. Traditionally, SEO has been known to take a very long time. You know, it's like you're expecting anywhere from six to eighteen months before seeing some real impact, you know, especially compared to some of these major franchises that have been doing it for 10, 15, 20 years, you know. but because

Yeah.

With the age of AI now, and because with the age of being able to to see the back end of how these bigger franchises are are structuring, you know, their the stuff that's invisible to customers, you know, just the the the communications that they have with Google and with all the other AI softwares, we can essentially design it in a way that they can see impact even within a couple of weeks. You know? Yeah, it's pretty incredible. We've actually got in the suburban market, especially.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, wow.

We've got a few different clients that, you know, they're like Woodstock, Georgia and Canton, Georgia. Like we tr we try to focus our efforts mostly in the Atlanta area. We have some national clients as well, but you know, most of everything that we do is in the Atlanta area. but we're actually able to dominate some of these markets, you know, from beating out guys that, like I said, have twice the amount of reviews, twice the amount of of tenure. but because our guys are doing great work, they have the reviews to show for it. You their their clients write their reviews in a way that Google totally understands and recognizes.

Mm-hmm.

and their website is designed in a way that Google recognizes, as well as Chat GPT and Claude and all these other ones. it's made it to where they've literally doubled, you know, their call revenue within just a single month. So yeah.

Yeah, that's amazing. That's amazing. So what do you feel like actually kind of matters today, right? Like you can do website, there's a Google Business profile, there's reviews, organic search, video, paid ads. Like how do you like where do you I guess kind of like take someone if they're like, all the things. Ha, what do I do now? Right? Like what what what's what matters?

Right, right.

That's a great question. So essentially foundationally. Okay. Foundationally, we have a essentially a starter pack. The starter pack is like, hey, first we're gonna do an audit, see what's going on inside of your business. What do you actually need? Where are you struggling? we'll go and review your your socials, your website, your SEO, your AI visibility, your advertising strategies you're using, you know, all this nice. Most stuff is is done by API. So the client doesn't even necessarily have to to give us all that information.

Mm-hmm.

They literally tell us a couple of factors about their business. And then we have the research team that essentially goes and gathers all that information for them. because you know, every business owner is busy. They don't want to spend an hour in your onboarding. they want to, you know, to be able to knock it out in 15 minutes and then move to the next task. So we get that audit knocked out. It essentially gives us a number of different scores, right? And we are able to see, you know, what's what's broken, right? What's gonna be the biggest impact on their business. For most people, it ends up being their website and their Google Map Pack.

Yeah. That's

Those are the two biggest sources of revenue that they're probably missing out on because those two things essentially are going to tell every other software, you know, like I've mentioned all the AI software is Google, Bing, you know, et cetera, it's gonna tell all those exactly who's doing what, who are they serving, and where are they serving them? Right. If you have those three pieces of information that are extremely easily visible on your on your website, you know, within the coding.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

within the schema, within the FAQs, within your Google business profile, with all all these things, if you're answering those questions effectively, then it is incredibly much incredible. I'm sorry, it is way easier for these platforms to be able to promote you higher and higher and higher within the listing versus the guy that's doing amazing work but nobody can find him.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's so fascinating. And I think, you know, I guess maybe this is true in other industries, but I feel like it might be a little more prevalent in home services where people are they are scared of AI. And, you know, like I don't ever really see AI taking over, fixing my broken air conditioning unit. like I'm pretty sure AI is not going to come out here and dust that thing off.

Yeah.

Right.

Right, or you know, like clean it or replace a part. Could it like be connected somewhere and be able to give, like, some sort of like, you know, like with a car to be like plug this thing in and here's what the error code tells you? Yeah, sure, but there's always gonna be that human element. so you know, I think it's very interesting how hesitant some home service owner, business owners are to like having.

Right.

No.

Having and using AI, but realizing that AI is actually just going to help them be a little bit more discoverable, right? And be able to be like more visible so that the great work they're doing can actually increase their revenue.

Uh-huh.

Right. There's actually a really important strategy too that a lot of these business these, you know, smaller business owners haven't implemented yet. And it's any kind of automation. Right? Being able to have a system like a CRM in place that will track all of the people that have contacted them, will track every single customer that's ever made a purchase, be able to tag them based on the conversations, be able to organize them based on location. Like it's all these things essentially help to streamline that front end process so that way.

Mm.

Every couple of months, you know, three months, six months, you know, whatever it is, they're able to send out one little message or, you know, or a little mini newsletter updating people about whatever's going on or promotion, et cetera, et cetera, and be able to capture hundreds of thousands of dollars more work over the course of the year with no extra effort on their part. It's higher quality of service, a more efficiently run business. It increases their exit value, you know, so when they're actually looking to sell their business one day in the future.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Now they have all that data, all that history and all those systems in place that make it way more valuable. I mean, these are these are simple little changes that when you have the right team in place to be able to set it up right, then it's it's a no-brainer at that.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I I think that, you know, you talked a little bit about like that exit strategy. So my yoga business, I closed it in 2020 at the kind of end of COVID, right? End of 2020. And something that I was not prepared for was the exit. I had no clue. Like no one in my 20 years of owning businesses, no one had ever prepared me to exit. And

Mm-hmm.

Closing that business really made me realize something powerful was that I didn't know the value of my business at that point in time. So when I tried to sell it, I was like, I don't know how much to sell this for. and ultimately I decided not to like sell the business. so I think it I think that's interesting that nobody really prepares business owners for that.

Exit, right? You get into business and you're like, yeah, I'm just gonna do this for the next 30, 40 years. Great. But like what happens when you get to retirement age or you're thinking about, like, you know, like I just can't, like, I don't want to do this anymore. I'd like to sell it. so I'm I'm curious for you, like when you connect with someone and you're kind of walking through all of this stuff, do you have that exit?

Right.

Conversation with them? Is that part of your workflow where you're like, well, this is going to help you in the future for when you're ready to exit? Do you have that conversation?

Yeah, so I'll definitely ask them what their goals are, you know, first and foremost. So it's like, hey, how long do you intend on doing this? Right? Is this a, hey, I'm gonna be, you know, twisting pipes until I'm I'm seventy nine years old, you know, or whatever. Like that's cause that's totally reasonable too. or is it that you are an entrepreneur, you see the value of building a brand, and you know that, hey, I'm gonna build this brand, I'm gonna get it to a certain level and then I'm gonna be able to sell it and then build another one and do it over and over and over and over.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Yeah.

you know, generating seven, eight figures, however much, you know, over the course of that time frame. But that is a qu that is a conversation that we have. Say first off, what is your goal? Right? Because most people in these industries, that's essentially their strategy. It's either like it's one of those two things. if it is at one point to sell it, which you know should be the goal of any business owner, I would think, is to be able to make money off of all the labor that you've done for the past however long setting up this system, then yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, that's that's one of the things that we would we would establish. You know, it's like, okay, these are the certain pieces that you want to have in play, you know, and well functioning. So that way when you're ready to sell it, it's literally just a matter of an investor saying, okay, all I gotta do is basically flip an on-switch or just turn a key and the whole thing is running for me at the same revenue level that it was running for you. And I'm not having to take on any extra workload because, you know, I know that that the system's already built, right?

Mm.

And that's honestly the real goal of any business owner. It's not so much to just provide a good service. Yes, you are providing good service. Yes, we're building relationships, but it's really how do I build functional systems that solve a problem for a community.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And I think when you have those systems that can function and function well, it also takes a lot of the mental load off of the business owner, right? Or whoever's running the ship. Because everyone is gonna come to you. If you're the business owner and you've set all this stuff up and things are not running well, people are gonna say, Hey, this don't work. This doesn't work either. Here's this, right? Like

Yeah. Right.

People are not and I I found that in the yoga studio, right? When I had direct report, like when I hired people, they were very quick to tell me, Hey, this doesn't work, that doesn't work. And I'm like, Okay, well, can you fix it? Like, I don't I don't know what to do, right? Like, I don't know, the heat broke one day and one of my teachers walked in and they were like, This thing is hanging down from the ceiling. And I'm like, no. What do I do? And they're like, I don't know.

Yeah.

no.

Yeah.

And I'm like, no, it's me. I have to fix this, right? Like I have to figure that out. But you know, I think there it'll take a day because I'm in Wisconsin. But, you know, like that's that's I think what business owners don't necessarily always understand is there's there's multiple sides to the business. There's the client-facing side, and then there's like the the internal side of like

Yeah.

I know a guy, send him over for you. I'll be like

Ha ha ha

How the business actually works and runs and functions so that the client side can continue to work. so I'm curious where where do you, like knowing both of those sides, where do you see contractors losing the most revenue like after a lead comes in, right? So the client a client, potential client comes in, says, Help, I need this.

Right. Like for the contractor or multiple contractors who are receiving it, like what happens? Like, where do people lose revenue there?

Yeah, that's a so essentially the most important thing that I could recommend to any entrepreneur that has any if they have their their number, their email, their, you know, a web chat, anything that's out there on the internet for someone to contact them with is speed to lead. Okay. We're all busy. We're all running businesses. We're all, you know, mi some of us don't have a whole sales team that's ready to go at any at the drop of a hat.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

But being able to respond back to somebody within five minutes or less, even better if it's 60 seconds or less, is gold. Right? When a person is, they hop onto Google or ChatGPT or whatever, and they're saying, hey, who's the best, you know, electrician near me? You know, or who's who's got affordable rates near me, or whatever whatever question is that they're asking, right? They're gonna go to that first person that's recommended to them. They're gonna click on it, they're gonna do a little research. I like what I see, you know, whether it be their website or whatever other information is available online.

And they click to message or to call. Right? If they're not getting a response within the first couple of minutes, they're moving to the next person on the list. Right? A hundred percent. Always. Because to the customer, they have a problem to solve. It's like, hey, this is a problem. I need it fixed now, right? Who's gonna do it? Who's gonna give me the information I need? Who's gonna come out with an estimate as soon as possible? Who's gonna get this pr this thing fixed to where I don't have to worry about it anymore? Right.

yeah. one hundred percent. A hundred percent. Yes.

Mm-hmm.

And if the first two guys they contacted didn't do it, they'll keep going down that list until they find that solution. And sure, you can call back two or three hours later, you know, once you've actually gotten time. But if you're if by that point they've already gone through a couple different heads, someone's already come by, given them an estimate, you know, they don't even need you anymore. So that one factor, which can be controlled by a person, but can also be done by automation, right? just by having that CRM that I was discussing in place.

Right. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

It's going to automatically respond to that person within 30, 60 seconds if you don't do it first and say, hey, we received your request. We're going to be right with you. Or it can go ahead and start the consultation process. Hey, can you tell me a little bit more about what's going on? You know, how long has this been going on for? You know, what how is it affecting you? Like where what's your zip code? You know, that sort of information. Sure, we can be there X, Y, and Z date because it has your calendar connected to it already. And then being able to actually say, yes, this is an emergency or no, this is not an emergency, and being able to book that appointment automatically.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think that, like when we think about AI and all the things AI can do, like having that automation and that level of just connection with a customer who has a problem that they need solved yesterday. you know, like that is where I think AI can really shine to be like, Yep, I'm gonna answer you right away and I'm gonna connect you and I'm gonna make sure that this person, you know.

Mm-hmm.

gets to where they need to be. So I'm curious I'd love to discuss a little bit more about scaling the Atlanta Pro Network. now I noticed that you are one contractor per trade per market model. And I'm just curious, I would love to know more about like why did you decide to go that route?

Yep.

Yeah, so and I'm sorry, I seem to have a little bit of a technical difficulty here. Are you are you seeing my video okay?

It's okay. Yeah, I can see your video. Yep.

Okay. Yeah, there's a pop-up saying like it's struggling a bit. so basically, if I if you come to me and you say, Hey, I own a yoga studio and I would love to have more customers, and then the girl next door who also owns a yoga studio and also wants more customers, I'm essentially having to split every single lead that comes in through that area. I'm having to split them in two different directions, which then dilutes my effort and my labor.

Mm-hmm.

and your benefit and your experience. That's not fair to anybody. You know? we made it a really strong point, you know, in the very beginning, we said, hey, if we're gonna do the work, we're gonna do it well. We wanna make sure that anybody that trusts us with their you know, with their business and with their their marketing strategies, that we're able to feed them as much that they can handle. You know, and whatever once they get to a bottleneck that they can't handle it, that's we move to the next stage. You know, we say, okay, now we work on, you know, more structure, more support, more, you know, labor SOPs.

Mm-hmm.

you know, that sort of stuff to be able to take even more of that workload off and distribute it out. But yeah, we're not going to sit here and and divvy up entire, you know, zip codes of people to multiple contractors when, you know, we want to make sure that you're able to get as much benefit as possible.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think I love I love that. It feels more it feels more exclusive, but it also feels like, wow, you really care about like what is happening with the clients you're bringing on. So essentially those clients can take care of their clients, right? So it's kind of that ripple effect of like, we're really kind of almost bringing it back to like old school where it's like each community has

Mm-hmm.

there's the certain people that do those things really well. you know, I think that is also something really cool that is kind of coming out of this like AI age is that, you know, like people are kind of going back to like, well, who is actually in my area that I can like, like who do I need to care about? Right. Because people are like, AI, no, but that's actually kind of bringing the community together in a way, I feel like.

Mm-hmm.

Mm. Yeah, I a hundred percent agree. So

yeah. So I'd love to talk about like what's next for you. Yeah. yeah, yeah. Yep. Yeah.

Can I raise an important point to to what you're describing? And this can actually tie into it as well. So I have one client who he owns a business directory, right? It's a local, you know, like hyper local even, you know, business directory in Atlanta that mostly focuses on the East Atlanta side, but it they they encompass, you know, the entire metro area as well. but he essentially holds events, you know, he holds networking meetings, he holds you know, like neighborhood block parties, he holds

Okay.

all sorts of different strategies, but the the main part of the business model is essentially being able to allow for local contractors and local services to to connect with the community in a very human way, you know, through like Facebook groups and and events and things like that, right? the people that found themselves attracted to this community also have the same mentality that you were speaking of, you know, where it's like, hey, like who's around me? Both, you know, my the businesses, but also like my neighbors.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

That can give me good recommendations on who to work with. They trust the opinions over the community versus Google, right? so yeah, I'm seeing more and more of a push in that direction. You know, the the more digit digital, you know, we become, there's also the the it's almost like an equal pendulum swing that people are wanting to work more local.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Yeah. And I think like there's so I think there's so much power in in really in both of those, right? Especially as we move into the future, like who knows what's coming next. But you know, the I think as as people's businesses grow, and I'm curious for you about, you know, like what's next for you or like how you're growing, what you're doing, also how you're working with your clients, because like

Your client who does all of that like connection and stuff like that is like that's so cool. I'm curious, you said you're building an authority program, right? Around finding some genuinely newsworthy stories. kind of inside of these contracting businesses. Where did that idea come from? I love it.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah. So every single person that, you know, that's doing business in the especially with a local community, they're reliant upon trust. Right. People need to know that you are the person that is able to do what you say you can do and that other people believe in you as well. Right. Now, obviously reviews, testimonials, all that stuff, they they can be super, super helpful. They are super helpful. but having any sort of PR, any sort of authority-based pieces, conversations like this, you know, where we get to to talk about

Mm.

Hey, what do you know? You know, what are you good at? You know, that sort of stuff. And then being able to spread that as far and wide as possible, but especially within the local community, those types of things definitely help to solidify those beliefs. they also act as backlinks, you know, so they act as like authority based pieces that that essentially every single one of these different platforms like Google, et cetera, they essentially see that as like, okay, not only do the people love you.

Mm-hmm.

But this person that has a lot of authority or this company that has a lot of authority also loves you too. So yes, you know, we're gonna put you above the the other guy that has no authority at all. You know, nobody knows who he is, right? He may do the best work, but if nobody knows who he is, does it really make an impact? Is he getting those calls?

Yeah.

Yeah. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And I think that's super important for people to realize, especially, you know, if you're a business owner who might be a little hesitant to update your website or opt into a new type of software or, you know, things that might put you out there a little bit more. You know, like the cost of that can be like how can I be trusted more in my community? because

I mean, I don't know any business owner who doesn't want more business, right? They want to keep money coming in.

Yeah. I have met a few like that though. They're like like I'm swamped. I'm like, I get it, dude. But that's not necessarily the problem. It's not necessarily that you have too much business. It's more so that you don't have enough structure. You know?

Yeah.

Right. Yes. Yeah. And I would argue that all day long. Like, yeah, you're swamped, but also like how many hours are you spending on admin without realizing that you're spending all those hours on admin? I mean, I see that all the time in the online space as well, right? Like people will tell me, I'm so swamped, I could never take on more clients. But like, okay, so for every one client hour you're spending three to five, sometimes even ten hours of

Right.

Right.

Mm.

overhead, like why would you not want to get rid of some of that overhead time?

Yeah, absolutely. We've actually got this genius idea that we want to implement. I just had it yesterday and I'm probably giving somebody a million dollar idea. But so we we're like, hey, what if we got these metaglasses, right? Which I know that a lot of people are kind of like, I'm not so sure about the meta glasses, but using them for a very specific purpose, right? You put them onto a business owner and you basically track all of his activities for a week, right? All of his business activities. What are you actually spending your time on?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

You know, what's taking up the majority of your day, what is extremely laborious, that we can essentially then take that information and find the ideal candidate, the ideal recruiting candidate to be able to take some of those responsibilities. You know? Now we've just re Dude, right?

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. my gosh. Yeah. Like that's that's such a great, like, I feel like that would be so valuable for people to realize. Number one, it would give business owners like an insight into like, every day at one thirty I pick up my phone and I scroll for 45 minutes. And then I wonder where the day has gone or why this task didn't get done. Right. And I I feel like that could be

Right.

Right, right.

I mean, it might be a rude awakening for some people for sure. I mean, like myself included, right? Then that's probably one of the reasons why it's like, I don't even want, I don't wanna know. I don't want that to track because like I probably don't want to know those answers. But what a great way to also use that data then to, you know, potentially help people hire others to take on the things that are taking them forever. Like it just gives you a new way to

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Look at bringing people into your business. Like I let it be known that your idea was heard first here on the Built to Scale podcast, right? Like trademark, copyright, it was here first.

Mm-hmm.

Copyright.

Right. Yeah, I mean 'cause that's that at the end of the day though, that's that's literally oftentimes business owners are their own biggest bottleneck.

one hundred percent. Yes.

You know? It's like, I know how to do it right. I know how to do it best. You know, I have to be the one that actually goes out and does X, Y, and Z. He's like, Yeah, sure, there's a reason that you got to where you are, right? But until you're able to replicate yourself, then you're just in your own way.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm curious for you, what is a like system or habit or process that has had a big impact on your business?

the biggest system process or habit. honestly it's the simple stuff, you know, it's little things that that it's like we all know that we should do, you know, but then hadn't actually implemented it. And once you do implement it, it makes a world of impact. but being able to implement just a a functional checklist, a visible checklist that I can literally see every single day. And anytime that I feel distracted or feel confused or feel overwhelmed.

You go back to the list. Even if it's every 30 minutes, even if it's every 30, come back to the list because it brings you back home and it orients you. Update your list every single day, you know. So obviously you're accomplishing tasks on that list. You know, the highest priority things go first. The the quick wins, you know, are great dopamine boosts for when you're you're essentially like feeling overwhelmed by a big project. It's like, okay, how do I break that project up into smaller steps?

Mm. Mm-hmm. I love that. Yeah.

To where I can go and and check that box and be like, yeah, I did it, you know? yeah. So I I tradition Yeah, I traditionally used thankfully not as much anymore, but I used to play a lot of chess, you know, like speed chess, right? towards like one minute games, crazy fast, you know, it's it's you know, high strategy and speed and you know things like that, right? Generally good for you. But when you end up playing like a hundred games a day, it's probably not the best for you, you know. You know? So

Yes. Awesome.

Yeah. Yep.

Yeah.

my gosh.

Your business takes a toll when you do that. Don't do that, guys. so yeah. but basically I realized what I cause I went and broke it down, I was like, what am I actually what hole am I trying to fill with this with this game? Right. Like it's there's strategy, there's competition, there's, you know, those dopamine responses, there's, you know, the feelings that you get, you know, just when you when you accomplish something, right? And so it's like, how can I can I take those strategies and re implement them?

my gosh.

Hm. Yeah.

back into my business to where it actually has an impact not only in my real life, but also on the entire community. Right.

Yeah, that's really powerful. Yeah. I love that. I could never play. I could never play chess that fast. I can I can barely play chess. I mean, like my four year old and I will play, but he just likes to move the pieces aro around the board. So Yep. Yeah, yes, literally. Especially after we've watched Harry Potter, right? Like he thought that was just like so cool. But

Yeah.

He's making the horse talk to the castle be Yeah.

That's so cool.

So I'm curious, what's one thing that a contractor or service-based business owner who might be listening here, what's something they could do this week that is gonna make their business easier to find or buy from?

I'm sorry, you broke up just a second. Can you repeat that question for me?

Yeah, so what's one thing a contractor or service-based business owner who might be listening right now, what's something they could do this week to make their business easier to find or easier to buy from?

So if you're if you don't already have a Google Map pack, if you're not already on the Map Pack, if you're not you don't already have business profile, that is the absolute hands down very first thing that I would do. Right. It's a relatively fast process. now Google has gotten stricter over the years. So I mean they do make you do a little video walkthrough of your facility. even if you work at home, they want to see you like record a video of you walking in the door, unlocking it, going to your your home office.

you know, your laptop open, and something that day basically shows that you own the business, a utility bill, that has your business name on it and address, that sort of stuff, right? Obviously if you own a shop, it's a lot easier because it's a publicly v visible location. that you can you get a signage on the door, blah, blah, blah. But hands down, if you don't already have that, that is the most important thing you need to do. If you do already have that, then optimizing it would be the next most important thing to do. So there are tools out there that you can find for free that you can literally

Like GMB everywhere, right? Google My Business everywhere. it's an application that you can install into Chrome and an extension that you can install into Chrome that'll essentially allow for you to see what every single one of your competitors is using to to describe their business, right? To essentially categories, service locations, you know, anything that's essentially making them appear higher in the in the map pack versus you. So you can take that information.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

And as long as it's it's truthful, you want it to be, you know, in integrity, you can use that same information within yours and be able to replicate some of the experiences that they're having. Right. Yeah, it's super easy, literally again, could take you 10 minutes to do. the software is free, at least for the first couple, couple of uses, and then they want to charge you like 20 bucks or whatever. but yeah, but it's an incredibly affordable tool to be able to to have potentially increase your your call volume, you know, 10, 20%.

Cool. Yeah.

depending on how high you're jumping up in those stats.

Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. so as we're wrapping up here, what so this is something I ask everyone who's on the podcast. what does built to scale mean to you?

I think we've really been hitting that on the head today, right? It's like it's like if you're if you're just kind of haphazardly running a business where you're just going day to day and just, you know, you're doing a good job, right? You're still servicing clients, you're still, you know, like doing quality work and everything, because obviously we all care about that. many of us do. But if it's not built to scale, then you're going to hit those bottlenecks. You're going to struggle. You're going to come to a point where your quality is going to start diminishing. You're

Yeah, yes.

Mm-hmm.

Quality of your work, your quality of life, your time with your family, you know, all these things that essentially are preventing your business from truly being able to reach the levels that it's supposed to. I don't know if you've ever seen these, these, I don't know if you want to call them memes, but or like reels or whatever, these different entrepreneurs where they'll show a 10K a month business owner and a 50K a month business owner, right? And then breaking down

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, it's like I spend, you know, hours and hours every single day making sure that every single every single client service is is absolutely perfect versus the 50k business owners like I build structures that essentially make sure that my team knows exactly what to do, they know how to d how to to approve, you know, certain things without even having to bother me, and they know what types of things that I need final final thumbs up for. You know, it's like once you've reached a certain level of

Yep.

Mm.

Of being able to relinquish some of that responsibility and trust the people that you're hiring, right? You have a quality hiring process and you're able to delegate those responsibilities. That's where you're really gonna find yourself being able to start hit 50K, 200K, you know, whatever a month. right now, my top client is I think his record month we just hit last month at 386 K in the in one month. Yeah, which is amazing, you know? Yeah, he's currently.

Wow. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

on track to do more than than he ever has in his entire life. Right? Yeah. You know, with just simple changes. So

That's amazing. Cool. Right. Yeah. And I think a lot of people assume that in order to like level up, right, to get to that next level, they have to do something that's like so complex. Or they have to, you know, install some complex funnel or do all these different AI things. And I mean, really, all the things that we've talked about today.

Are very easy for people to do, right? Like updating the maps, making sure SEO and now GEO are on your website, right? Like updating that stuff is not terribly difficult. so I think that is something that, you know, if if people are listening, I would say do that. But if they need help, like there's always help available for that kind of thing.

Yeah, for sure. And if they're in the home service industry and, you know, and they l ask questions or I mean really we can answer questions for almost anybody, but we especially know that industry in particular, you know, they're always welcome to contact us, you know, reach out at Atlanta Pro Network dot com. we'd be more than happy to to provide some consultation or some d sense of direction and and if it's something that a project that we want to take on, then we can discuss that further.

Yeah.

Yeah, awesome. So is there anywhere else that people can connect with you? So we'll drop I'll drop all this stuff into the show notes, all your links and stuff that you've given us. but other than your website, is there anywhere else where people can get in contact with you?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I mean, we're on all the socials, you know. I mean, that's it's actually kinda funny. I do talk about like how important, you know, being out there and all that stuff is and social media is still one of those things that I'm such a control freak. I wanna be all like, I gotta be it's gotta be the perfect video. You know, so so we don't really as much as we should. But yeah, we do have teams that essentially can manage some of that stuff for us too. So we may start doing more more carousels. Carousels are great, you know, for for being able to produce a lot of content relatively quickly.

Okay.

But yeah, I mean you can hit us up on any of the socials, Atlanta Pro Network. You know, it's branded across YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. but hands down, the best place to find information is gonna be the website. Yeah.

Perfect. Awesome. Well, Jonah, thank you so much for being here today. This has been such a great conversation. I've really enjoyed just kind of getting diving in deep with you today. I think this has been such a cool way to connect with someone else who is also doing similar things to what I do. so for everyone listening, again, make sure you like, share, subscribe.

all the things. Share this with someone who you think could use the information we talked about in this episode. And we'll see everyone on the next episode.

Awesome. Thanks, Maggie.