How a Hollywood Editor is Eliminating Contractor Chaos (feat. Gil Vaisman)

A 70% close rate.

This guy edited Hollywood films for more than a decade, and now he's built a contracting business that closes 70% of prospects.

Here's his playbook.

Gil's not a contractor who learned sales.

He's an outsider who looked at this industry and said things are broken.

So he's built what he calls a non committal dating process.

And he uses AI to model new business ideas in a single day that would have taken him a month otherwise.

His job, in his words, is to get into trouble, find new revenue streams, diversify, keep moving.

And he's got a $300 loss leader that he calls his Costco hot dog.

The engine behind it all.

It's behind that 70% close rate.

Do you want the anti contractor playbook?

Let's get into it.

Welcome to beyond the bid.

You're listening to Beyond the Bid, the show by GO First, where we share the systems, strategies and practical AI for builders.

Keep listening to learn how to win more of the right projects, boost profitability and scale.

Beyond the Bid.

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There we go.

Welcome in, Gil.

Welcome to Beyond the Bid.

So stoked that you're here.

I'm happy to be here.

like we should have recorded everything we've talked about up until now.

That's always how it goes.

it's always like fun, good stuff, you know, that's like always organic and casual before you hit the big red button.

but yeah, in any case, for those who haven't met you yet and those who are just tuning in, can you give a quick background of, who you are and what goad is all about?

Yeah, absolutely.

So we're based in Los Angeles, and been doing ADUs exclusively since 2020, pretty much since we got incorporated.

And I, personally come from a, background in Hollywood.

I've been working as a reality Television Editor for 10 year career and developed a plan B just in case the freelance economy wasn't going to be as friendly to me.

And also having a ceiling.

When you're a freelancer, you have 52 weeks a year that you can work with and you have an hourly rate, so you have a cap and how much money you can make in terms of, being a freelancer.

And I wanted to take kind of like the top off of that and start leveraging other people's times, to, to try to make more money.

So I've always wanted to start a business and I got into construction.

Like now instead of telling stories, I'm building ADUs.

And now you're just telling a different story.

it's a different story.

It's, it's still pieces that you need to put together.

You know, like it's related in a way.

And so started with a business partner.

We have a good relationship where like he is, he is in charge of the production of the product and I'm in charge of bringing business in.

So it's, it's, it's a good in, in terms of like, I leverage his expertise.

He's been a builder for 20 years, knows what to do.

And I bring my marketing and my storytelling expertise into sales and marketing, which are the same thing in my opinion.

And, absolutely.

And yeah, you guys get connected.

Well, he used to work.

He built my first Adu in 2017.

He built, he helped me remodel like some old apartment building that I, that I invested, for my mom, like 12, 13 years ago.

he helped, we did flips together.

He was my builder.

Like he was Kind of like this unlicensed handyman.

Like amazing guy, very honest.

and, and we always had a good relationship and I've always trusted him and he's always trusted me.

And then we decided like to go into business together.

Cool.

Why, why adus?

I'm not in people's homes, I'm outside the home.

So it's a little bit more freeing.

I also wanted to provide a service that is change order free.

Meaning I'm going to be giving you a price that is transparent, that includes A to Z, no surprises.

I make all the assumptions beforehand and there's no, there's rot behind the wall, there's termite damage, your plumbing needs, an upgrade, your electrical is, is outdated.

I find none of that stuff because like I'm going into old garages where I assume the conditions are going to be bad and I budget for that.

So it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a product that aligns with that vision of clean cut beginning.

This is the price you're gonna give.

Not, not a change order.

That's going to come from unforeseen situations.

And the ADUs allow me to do that.

That makes perfect sense.

Yeah, yeah, that's a, that's a pretty cool strategy.

yeah, especially just for risk mitigation.

Right.

Like you're always going to have more or less an ample supply net new clients who, who are interested in this, who want to expand on their existing garages or just want to build out, you know, a standalone adu.

Absolutely.

And and the macroeconomics of it work.

I'm not sure if it's going to be around in 20 years, but like at least 10 years we should be seeing a nice movement of people adding ads to their property.

So in that I do feel confident like 10 years, 10 years for life of business is plenty in my, especially a construction business.

man.

Yeah.

So maybe we can talk a little bit about like the, the process that you guys kind of deploy.

like what, what does that usually in when you, you know, first meet somebody who's interested in ADU or, or who's you know, pretty adamant about what they want.

So our process has shifted a lot through the years.

Like initially we wanted to do like A to Z, get you signed up like for our entire suite of things.

Do a design, build, contract and get people like to commit.

Now we have evolved and we have changed and we do a very non committal process.

Basically we'll take it one date at a time.

You're going on a first date, that doesn't mean we have to go on a second date.

We only go if we keep, if we keep liking it, then we'll go to dinner.

And so the way we do it right now is we have what I call my Costco hot dog, my lost leader, which is a $300 design development package that is, that gives you an on site appointment, that gives you a sketchup of a design that you discuss with a designer.

And we go over a rough sketch of a floor plan that's going to be custom tailored for you for $300.

You get to know what you can build in your property.

You get a sketch, you get a professional opinion and you get a lot of value for it.

And it's a way for them to start seeing our process, how we work.

if they graduate from that, if they decide that we're still a good fit and we still like each other and would like to go on a second date, then we sign them for a submittal of plans.

We make those that sketch into a full architectural plan.

We add engineering, we add title 24 which is energy requirements here in California.

We submit that to the city and we start talking about selections and what they want in order to make that adu, possibility.

And then like from that process they're free to shop around those designs with any other contractor they want.

It's just a design that they can take to any contractor and and, and, and, and and ask for bids.

And we are also a bid provider at that sense.

And, and then we provide a build bid which is taking this plan and making it into an adu.

We give them scope of work and then we try to get them to sign for a design build process.

It's not really a super profitable business up until they sign that contract bill.

Right.

But our, our, our conversion rates are outstanding.

Yeah, I was going to ask about that if you, if you kind of keep stat stats on what the conversion rate is from that loss leader.

I would say from the loss leader.

we're, we, we have about a 70 conversion rate all the way to doing the.

So people that agree to pay the 300, like 70 of them end up building with us.

Wow, that's amazing.

Yeah, I feel like that's really good.

That's outstanding.

and, and they're free to shop around and some of them don't even go for other bits or like we trust you guys, our pricing is transparent.

From day one, from the day that we're giving people the $300 bid, we're giving them estimates on how much we believe it'll cost.

And then as they move on and as they become more specific, our range, which is going to be something from 150 to $250,000 at the beginning, then we start narrowing it down, and then at the end, it's a concrete number that, like, we stand by and we'll complete everything for that.

For that number.

Nice.

Yeah, that, that definitely makes sense.

In terms of the.

What usually goes into the.

The estimate.

You said kind of everything at that point.

Like, their selections, the, the scope are more everything.

So we work, we used to work based off an allowances, and that allowance process ended up costing us a little bit of time with, the back and forth an allowance is basically, you go shop for something, but like, we pay for it and then we'll bill you for it.

So it's kind of like this backwards process that, like, I felt like it was creating some unnecessary friction.

Yeah.

So what we did was we custom made a catalog of eight different kitchens, eight different bathrooms and eight different, floors with doors with everything in three different price ranges.

So three price ranges, two at the bottom, which we call the standard, three of the premium, and three at the luxury.

Cool.

And, we budget them for the standard and we include everything.

So, you know, like for, for this much, you'll get to the bot.

You'll get to the finish line with everything included.

Except appliances, because appliances, at the end of the day, like, budget $5,000 for appliances.

You should be good.

And some people, if they don't like the catalog, if none of these things make sense to them, some people are very particular.

There's, there's just, like, they're very specific in what they want.

We'll just do, build an installation type of bid where they control 100% of the materials.

We don't mark it up.

They, they purchase for the materials, and we'll just install them and we'll give the same love.

It's a $3 a square foot floor.

Like, laminate as if it's dollars a square foot hardwood floor.

Well, we will install it with the same care.

Nice.

Wow, that's interesting.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense too.

What about.

So you said your role is more like business development.

like top of funnel, middle of funnel.

Yeah, now it is.

Now it is.

now.

Yeah, it's been, it's, it's been, it's been evolving.

So I still do sales, I still consolidate my numbers.

Every Monday I sit down and I will.

Now we'll do the.

The.

Which is very menial bookkeeping, which is like transferring the numbers from, from the credit cards and the bank accounts, putting them into the software that gives me a picture of where we were at all the time.

And I do this weekly.

I still do sales, I'm still closing the sales.

I'm not there the whole process, but I am there at the close.

And other than that, my job is to get into trouble, to find other avenues, find other ways and come up with ideas and how to grow, diversify and keep my employees busy.

I don't want them to have too much free time.

Absolutely, absolutely.

So maybe we can dive into that a little bit.

Like what kind of troublemaking you get into?

man.

Like I get.

So right now I have two, two things that like I'm focused on or like, I'm lying to you.

I have like five things I'm focused on, but like one is marketing.

I'm starting to develop a personal brand, instead of.

Because like I want to get into single family homes.

I want to be part of the rebuilds in Pasadena, in Altadena and Pacific Palisades.

So while I have a great brand, Goadu works great for ADUs, people don't understand that our skillset translate to also building single family homes.

And so I need to launch a new brand which is Weissmann Construction, which builds single family homes.

So I'm developing that brand.

But in order for me personally to promote Goedu and Weisman Construction, I need to promote myself as a brand.

And actually people do care like what I have to say.

And so I'm more active in my own personal social media.

That's on one end.

and especially with your background in Hollywood.

Right?

man.

And like I've lived in four countries.

I grew up in Colombia, then I moved to Israel when I was in high school.

I did film school in Spain.

I started my career in Spain and I've been in the US for short of 15 years now.

So like, yeah, I've been around the And so that, that's like the other thing.

And then like just diversification, you know, like things like.

Latest idea came from my business partner.

He tells me like, we need to diversify.

Like I've been looking into documentaries about billionaires and they all say the word diversification.

And we just happened to had like rented a dumpster from this company and it was like $550.

I'm like, well what do they do?

They just park the dumpster there, they haul it, throw it away.

We know how much it costs to throw the rubbish away.

But like so now my idea, and now I'm like diving into AI, looking for names of brands and for SBA loans and going to buy some dumpsters and gonna buy some trucks and finance them and start.

You're giving all these ideas, feeding all these ideas to Chad or Gemini or some AI model to say hey, I want to diversify, I want to add more offerings.

Like how can we make this happen?

I basically went and I asked, okay, here's the idea.

I want to start a dumpster rental business.

How much money do I need?

When will I recoup my investment?

My plan is to buy a new truck.

My plan is to hire a driver.

My plan is to go into a loan.

What type of interest rates.

And it gives me like the breakdown of exactly.

To break even, I need to be like renting this dumpsters 20% of the time.

To break even.

I'm like, I think that's achievable.

at 60% you're almost kind of like doubling your cash flow.

And then like, and then knowing how I am, I like to reinvest a lot in the business.

I'll probably take those proceeds and save them and try to expand.

But like it also gave me the idea of starting a small geographical area.

Don't try to take over the entire of LA county.

Start by one or two cities.

Like focus on a small geographical area.

Do a lot of B2B sales, a lot of contacting contractors, that are, that are actually building.

Tell them like use me, I'll be I'll be faster.

I'll answer the phone.

Like I, I'm reliable and not necessarily price.

They're looking for, they're looking for reliability and, and no hassle.

You know, like contractors deal with a lot of headaches.

Like if you, you can remove headaches and make something more efficient and just like, hey, you can rent it by sending like creating systems like incorporating technology into something where like right now you're having to call the phone.

Maybe you just want to send a text, maybe you just want to go into an app and book it in the calendar and so providing all those facilities which the software exists, to do that.

Like I think there's ways to break into it.

Yeah.

One of the companies I worked at in the past, one of the offerings was actually Dumpster Rentals and they just used Google Maps and just drew a box on Google Maps to know exactly where to place the thing.

Then they would send that to the, the driver.

Awesome.

It's things like, you know, that was what, eight years ago?

Something like that.

And, and yeah, it's amazing just what you can do with just off the shelf or free tech nowadays.

Yeah.

No, and now I already researched that.

You need a GPS tracker per Dumpster to know exactly where they're at.

And their software that includes AI for route efficiency.

It tells you exactly what's the most efficient way to cover your route.

in order to minimize, you know, time.

The time equals money.

So like I'm like.

First thing I do, I jump into my, my, my AI and start asking it questions and it's, it's amazing what it can do, man.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

It's.

I would say that's like the, the valuable part of AI, is just helping you define and like refine your strategy, you know, and get into the nitty gritty of hey, I, I like The time to time from idea to production can be so fast because it can just be like I have this idea, I want to expand my offerings.

You know, let's make this happen.

Absolutely.

No, and I already have a plan of action.

It gave me like a two month plan of action from idea to launch.

These are the things you can do before you start spending the money.

because there's a lot of moving elements.

But like it, it.

Absolutely.

And even it helped me come up with, with financing solutions and an idea of the interest rates and how much it's going to cost per month.

Like yeah.

Things that like it would have taken me.

I, I did in one day what would have taken me a month.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

It's so fast.

So that's really exciting though.

Kind of expanding the offerings.

yeah, I mean it's related and unrelated.

I've always thought of diversifying things that have to do with my business.

Meaning things that I'm in direct contact with.

Like At some point I wanted to get into the gutter business because like I hire rain gutter business.

So like I didn't end up pursuing it necessarily.

But this one, I also like that the barrier of entry is is a little higher.

Like you actually need some capital to get into it.

Yeah.

So that is something that, like, I have the luxury of being able to do it with the business debt and not, and not my personal debt.

Because like, once you have a business that's been established for five years, that's proven to be profitable, that has the.

Not, that has the numbers that like lenders only give you money when you don't need it, when you really need the money, when you're in a crunch, they're no good because you're too risky.

But like when you're, when you're flowing with cash, the, the, the line up to, to give you money, it's, it's backwards.

But like, like the system favors the winners.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Everybody's always risk adverse and Yeah.

So it makes, it makes sense at least from that, that regard.

But, that's cool.

So, I, I can absolutely see that kind of tying into Goadu and, and Weisman Construction.

So you are, you're going to be busy.

That's, that's a lot of moving parts, but really exciting like, initiatives going on.

Yeah, absolutely.

Like, don't think I'll ever retire.

Like, if I'm honest.

I had, I, I had a moment in, in my life.

I had a business.

It was short term rental arbitrage.

I would rent an apartment.

And I would sublease it in Airbnb.

Double, triple the rent.

yeah.

On a monthly basis.

It was very profitable.

and I remember I had like someone doing the management of the apartment itself.

Like someone doing the cleaning, someone doing the customer service.

Someone was on the app answering to people.

I had a pricing tool, everything was fully automated.

And I was like sitting there in my yard depressed.

Like I had nothing to do.

And all of this idea of like reaching financial freedom and having all this, like all of a sudden I reached it and the purpose went away.

Yeah.

And for me, that, that, that purpose has to be something that like, has to be that fire that like, keeps burning and you keep doing and keeping like getting into trouble.

Like, at least I'm speaking for myself.

I have a personality that like, I can't just settle and say like, okay, I made it.

I triumphed.

I have nothing to do.

Like, I'll, I'll go into depression if I'm not like constantly looking for more ideas or more things to do or more things to start.

Like, it's a bad place for me to be.

I'm, I'm right there with you.

I know that feeling.

And yeah.

Growth Is everything.

Absolutely.

So like that, that's why like.

And also my, my philosophy when I, when I go into a business is try to be obsolete in my own business.

So have a business like that doesn't need me like being useless in my own business.

That's the ultimate goal.

I'm not there like, like I'm not, I'm not at a position.

I still do sales, I still a lot of things.

I still, I'm up to date in the day to day operation.

I'm talking to my people on a daily basis.

I'm still engaged, but probably not out of necessity.

And, and that's something that like allows me to take time off when I need to.

Which.

Yeah that's, I would say that's like the best case scenario.

Right.

Is to, to like design your, your business strategy so that you know your, the company is still growing, it's still maximizing the offerings.

But you're, you, you're just focused on strategy.

You're just focused on operations and you can have you know, a team of directors or managers or however you want it lined up.

Just that kind of report to you.

So you're not micromanaging ever or you're not managing everybody and everything in the business.

You're just focused on kind of the vision of it.

Absolutely.

Knowing because I made all the mistakes.

Like I've micromanaged people.

I've been like, like all of the.

Or all of them.

Every mistake you can make, I've made it.

And I try not to make the same mistake at least three or five times.

But like.

sure, ideally I only do it once.

Yeah, absolutely.

So that's an interesting point too.

Like you have Goadu, Viceman Construction, the dumpster rental.

that's.

Which is just an idea at this point.

Yeah.

But you know, it could come into.

I agree to have the name.

Yeah.

So like how, how do you manage that?

How do you manage these?

One, the ideas.

But two, like when they actually form.

Right.

Because they're, they're all different.

They all require different, different things from you.

Google Calendar is a big friend of mine.

It's not in the Calendar.

It doesn't exist.

Yeah, that's, that's key.

And a lot of lists, a lot of priority lists.

Knowing like what to prioritize and not necessarily chase the shiniest object at any given time.

So someone wants my attention is like is, is this like, is this something we need to talk about now or can we talk about it in a week.

Like, like, is this a now problem or later problem?

Absolutely.

And rarely is it a now problem.

Rarely.

Like once you, once you really.

Unless I'm Like some businesses are more day to day, more kind of like.

But like if it's a now problem, you should have someone ideally dealing with that problem and then you jump.

Someone should be in place like to be able to deal with that problem.

So for example, in my line of business, if someone busts on a pipe and then we have a big flood, like a pipe burst, which happens.

Like I'm not the person you need to call.

You need to call someone else.

You know, like you need to call the city to shut off the main valve.

and there's a person, there's a project manager that is in charge of that.

So like at the end of the day, any emergency doesn't require me.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

Always have working to have backup systems or systems in play for that don't just involve you fixing it.

Yeah.

Like everybody panic.

You did what?

my God.

Well, so one question I always like to ask too is know, do you have one tool or one piece of advice or one workflow, something that's really changed the game for you recently that you know, you documented or you didn't document, but just something that comes to mind that has really like left us a significant impact in your business.

tools like I, I don't think you can go into any industry without a software.

Yeah, I think that's universal for every industry nowadays there's software tailor made for every single industry that are gonna check every box because someone was doing the work and they saw a problem in the marketplace and they thought of a solution.

And like someone has walked through your path before.

Like unless you're a startup or doing something where you might need something proprietary, most of the things have been invented.

So I would say have that software, have that tool.

Big shout out to jobtrad.

from my point of view, another tool that I use for if you're a contractor out there, Company Cam is a great, great little simple app to take pictures and but like unlimited storage, easy to add subcontractors to it.

Like I, I want everybody snapping pictures at the end of the job day.

And and, and, and, and it, and it keeps a record of everything and it's easy to navigate.

And then you can look specifically like I've had clients tell me you damaged this concrete.

And then I have Company Cam and Company Cam shows that we had pictures before we worked there and the concrete was cracked.

And so like, leave me alone.

Such a smart CYA to have a tool like that just there just on that.

Like, think of the amount of money it saved me on this one case instead of having to redo an entire sidewalk, which would have cost me thousands of dollars.

so company can paid itself off for, for its lifetime just by that example.

yeah.

And I know the dumpster rental is just in the idea phase right now, but that same thing, like sidewalk damage because of a dumpster happens all the time.

So being able to document the existing conditions before you put the rental out there, huge.

No, you're right.

So company camera is going to be in the, like, take a picture before, take a picture after you put the dumpster.

Just like, like Amazon does it.

Amazon is taking pictures.

They drop your package.

They can take a picture like before the porch pirates come by, that, you know, it's there.

I mean it's, it's, it's smart systems like snap pictures all the time.

I agree.

so like, I would say like have a software like, and you don't need to reinvent it.

Use the tools that are out there.

It's going to make your life easier.

Yeah.

couldn't agree more.

So Gil, like, I feel like we could just talk all day about this.

But, for those who are interested in goad or just want to get connected with you, how can they find you?

super easy.

Like I'm available.

I'm not that important.

like look like you can look me up, find my socials, slide a DM or you can go into goadu.com.

if you're interested in like doing an ADU project, just click get connected, schedule an appointment.

One of our team members will be showing like we go into your site, we'll tell you you're going to get a lot of value for that free consultation.

You'll know how much it costs, how long it takes to build it, what we can do in your lot.

Like, we'll get you all those answers.

so to demystify everything.

And we can do that on the over the phone.

like this, this idea of expecting us to show up and do this dance and having to run from one place to the other because you just want to see a contractor.

Hold your horses, talk to someone first.

It's going to be good.

You might not even be able to do something like So it's always good to have that, that initial phone conversation.

like, like if.

If you, like, really want to get in touch with me, it's super easy.

Like, me on, on Facebook, Instagram.

And, if you want to get in touch with Goadu, we want you to get in touch with us.

So we're available.

We'll drop the, the links to both your profiles and Goadu in the show notes too, so people can make it, find it that way.

super easy.

But thanks so much for coming on.

I really enjoyed this convo.

No, man.

too bad it felt short.

But, hopefully listeners got a lot of value from this, and that's my hope.

Yeah, absolutely.

We always try and make them short and sweet around the 30 minute mark.

So I think.

I think we, we did our job, hopefully.

Awesome.

But.

Well, we'll talk soon.

Gil, enjoy the rest of your day.

All right, thank you, Grant.

You too.

Bye.

Bye.

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