161: How to 3x Your Sales via… Menu Pricing? The New Flat Rate System to Increasing Sales 📈…

161: How to 3x Your Sales via… Menu Pricing? The New Flat Rate System to Increasing Sales 📈…

Background on Rodney Koop & Danielle Putam of The New Flat Rate:

Rodney Koop is the Founder of The New Flat Rate and Danielle Putnam is the President. Rodney has been in the industry for 40+ years and a business owner for over 3 decades. Danielle has experience in everything from business development and management to operations and technology. Therefore, she handles the day to day operations, marketing, advertising and quality control for The New Flat Rate.

The New Flat Rate is an Automatic Add-On Selling System, better known as Menu Pricing. This system was designed for HVAC, Electrical, and Plumbing companies. It will integrate perfectly with the customer’s service software, and help improve their billable hours.

Rodney is most passionate about his wife, 9 children, boating and, more recently, four-wheeling in the mud. As for Danielle, she loves to help companies grow, turn ideas into action plans, snowboard and soak up the sunshine.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

[2:41] Rodney Koop is the CEO and Founder of New Flat Rate. Danielle Putnam is the President of the company. They are a software company that provides a menu pricing system for the residential contractors and buyers.
[4:33] In 1984, Rodney took a job as an electrician. He worked hard and got promoted through the ranks until he became an estimator and eventually into the management department and the Board of Directors.
[9:57] While working as a project manager in his early years, Rodney could see how the company he was working for was losing money because of mismanagement and dishonesty.
[11:10] Being critical of the mismanagement and dishonesty in the other company division, Rodney decided to leave the company. Starting his own business was not the reason why he resigned.
[14:15] After resigning from his job, Rodney didn’t have enough money and had 5 children at home. He went back to becoming an electrician and his only thought was to survive at that time. By the end of that year, money was no longer a problem and things were easier for them.
[17:57] In the first four years of running his electrical business, he was earning good money from industrial work. However, in 1994, things started to go downhill.
[24:57] In 1998, Rodney’s contracting business made about 1.2 million dollars but it turned out that he was losing money.
[29:04] Rodney talks about his huge debt problem in 1997 to ‘98. He considers it the toughest financial time in his life.
[36:06] Rodney believes in the power of negotiating. He recommends The Secrets of Power Negotiating by Roger Dawson, which made him an expert negotiator and got him through many difficult times.
[39:33] Here is the timeline of the different businesses that Rodney put up from 1990 to 2000. In the 2000s, he focused on the HVAC business.
[42:47] When they were in the HVAC business, their technicians were encountering a lot of resistance from customers when it comes to pricing and upselling. During this period, the idea of the New Flat Rate program was born.
[51:15] Rodney sent an email to marketing legend and mentor Jay Abraham regarding his new idea, which proved to be a game changer for his HVAC business. It was Jay who recommended the beta testing of Rodney’s new pricing system.
[1:00:29] After the success of the beta testing, Rodney offered Danielle to become president of the company.
[1:09:37] Danielle points out the importance of having a list of potential customers for their new product.
[1:18:20] Both Danielle and Rodney explain how the company makes money and the price rate and monthly fee of their pricing system product.
[1:26:26] There never was any big fights or arguments between Danielle and Rodney because their different personalities blend well with each other.

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Fabulous 4 Questions (Answers from Danielle Putnam):

📖 📚 Favorite Book(s)? The Hard Thing About Hard Things – Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz
🙌😎 Favorite Amazon.com purchase? Matching outfits for my 4 year old and 2 year old daughters
🌱💸 Favorite Tool that's GROWN your Business? Zoom – We use Zoom for all of our training and meetings, allows us to scale
💭💡 BIGGEST Challenge keeping your Business from GROWING? Keeping the main thing the main thing – maintaining focus every day and saying no to distractions

Fabulous 4 Questions (Answers from Rodney Koop):

📖 📚 Favorite Book(s)? How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling by Frank Bettger & Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got by Jay Abraham
🙌😎 Favorite Amazon.com purchase? Too many to think through, but I am always excited when I get a new book from Amazon.
🌱💸 Favorite Tool that's GROWN your Business? The Paper Tiger – Find anything in your home, or office, or garage or shop in 5 seconds, guaranteed.
💭💡 BIGGEST Challenge keeping your Business from GROWING? Delivering the message in a way that is understood by the prospect. Opening the prospect’s mind so they see that this is the answer they have been diligently seeking.