Intro: 00:02

Welcome back to the Response Drivers podcast, where we feature top marketing minds and dig in to their inspiring stories. Learn how these leaders think and find big ideas to push your results and sales to the next level. Now let’s get started.

Rick Rappe: 00:19

Hey, I’m Rick Rappe, host of the Response Drivers podcast. Here I dive deep with marketing experts and innovators to learn how they approach targeted marketing and use data driven strategies to acquire and retain customers. We’ll talk about what’s working, what’s changing, and how we can stay ahead in evolving marketing landscape.

Response Drivers is brought to you by RPM Direct Marketing. RPM helps companies develop hard hitting, direct mail, creative and utilize advanced testing and targeting methodologies to reach customers and prospects. Our goal is to fully optimize your marketing performance to drive more sales and exceed growth expectations. RPM delivers smarter, more profitable direct mail solutions so you can turn your direct mail programs into a predictable, efficient sales channel. Check out rpmdm.com to learn more.

My guest today is Tony Rodriguez, a marketing and business development leader with more than 20 years of experience building demand and generating leads. He also creates partnerships that drive growth. His career has spanned major brands like Macy’s and Momentum Solar, and today he leads marketing and business development initiatives at Current Home. Today, Tony brings a unique perspective that blends retail field marketing partnerships, customer behavior, and AI powered lead generation, all with a strong belief that great marketing starts by genuinely understanding people. I’m excited to dig into what he’s learned about creating demand, turning leads into customers, and where marketing is headed next. Thanks for joining me today, Tony.

Tony Rodriguez: 01:53

Yeah. Thanks so much for the invite. Exciting. I love talking to stuff.

Rick Rappe: 01:57

Well, before we talk about marketing, can you take us back to the beginning of your career and talk a little bit more about how you got into marketing?

Tony Rodriguez: 02:06

Yeah. So I actually, I was an engineer, a mechanical engineer, and I was at the University of Delaware, and I was working as a bartender at TGI Fridays, which most people know Fridays. And I didn’t love what I went to college for. I liked the data part, but I found I found there wasn’t a lot of creativity in the field that I was in at the current time. So I was looking for something different to do, and a job opportunity opened up at Fridays to be the marketing, a marketer and the marketing manager for the stores.

And so a friend of mine convinced me to put in an application for the job. Now I have no marketing experience, no background, no resume for it. But the one thing I did do was I had worked at the store for a long time. So what I decided to do instead of putting a resume in, I actually created a playbook for TGI Fridays, which, oddly enough, I think I still have in my attic somewhere. I think I’ve saved it.

It is? Yeah, I’ve saved 28 years old. But what I did was I interviewed all of the regulars. I interviewed the customers, regulars. We talked about things they like, they don’t like changes they want to see made, how they felt about food promotions.

And I put it together and I submitted it as my resume. And lo and behold, I beat out, I think it was 86 different people for this job that I guess at the end of the day, I wanted to being qualified for. But on paper you wouldn’t think so. And I started off with just one. They were.

It was the job was actually for 30 stores and they were they weren’t confident I could handle 30. So they gave me one, which was fine. And it took a little time, but it went from one store to all 30, then to the East Coast. And then I became the youngest award winning award winner of the highest award in company history. I think at 21.

And and it was all because all of the marketing techniques and images and products and all the things that I ever created all came from talking to people. And, and when I started in that field, it was interesting to me because I found it was less complicated than people made it out to be, you know, outside of school and going to classes and doing all these projects. A lot of it just came down to how much do you talk to the people that actually transact at your business? So and how much do you are with them and you talk to your staff. So everything from uniform changes to drinks we would make to deals, we would have came from conversations.

So it was definitely me, I think in one part, realizing very early on and in a good way, I wasn’t the smartest person in the room I didn’t know a lot about marketing, which probably was a huge benefit to me because that forced me to find to rely on other, other people instead of myself. And then, you know, over time gained confidence in what we were doing. And then when I really started understanding that how marketing really works and what, you know, if you’re starting from the true customer and building up how much of an advantage that was. Started doing that for a long time. I was offered a position in corporate.

I had to move to Texas for that, which even though I’m a cowboy fan, which I hate admitting on anything recorded, there was a part of me that just couldn’t move to Texas at such a young age. So I stayed here in the northeast, and a friend of mine convinced me that in marketing you should also learn how to do sales. So I left TGI Fridays and started a lead gen company and taught myself how to do door to door sales, and which is the hardest sale there is to do. So I go from having no marketing experience to Experience of diving right in to no sales experience going door to door. And, you know, over time, those skill sets and those conversations, those.

Interactions with people really helped me to ultimately be where I am today. Where, you know, looking back now, you know, I’m a VP of marketing. I’ve worked with everybody from the Yankees to Home Depot. I’ve created lead gen programs for people. But you know, when people and I, I’ve done motivational speaking and speaking in front of people, but everything to me always comes back to people.

Do you interact with customers? Do you interact with your staff? How far away are you from the ground floor at any level? You know, if you could, if you can really think about those things, it’s really amazing how much you can accomplish in a marketing position. And you know, when you look about now, and I’m sure, you know, it’s probably a talking point for a lot of people when you think about AI and all the things that are coming down the pipe, all those things are great.

All those tools are great and data is great also is fantastic. but it all. It pales in comparison sometimes to really talking to people and really getting their true emotional reaction and response to what you’re doing, or the programs you’re trying to put back in place, or getting real feedback from people. So it’s been a cool journey. I would tell you that when I was going through it, I used to be really people used to be like, oh, are you you go door to door.

And I’d be like, no, I’m an entry level marketing person because I was always afraid. And now I look back in time, and I remember how formative that time was for me to, you know, just have to force myself to talk to customers, force myself to knock on a door, force myself to enter, interact with people.

Rick Rappe: 07:29

What were you selling? What were you selling? Door to door.

Tony Rodriguez: 07:32

So what we’re doing is promotions. So companies would want to test if promotions would work. So would a ticket promotion work? Would could they could they open up a location of Papa John’s in a neighborhood that people would be receptive to it? Right.

So some part of it was selling things. Some part of it was doing surveys. So you were just forced to talk to people, especially to talk to people who probably didn’t want to talk to you. So, you know, so you, you know, you had to learn to break barriers or turn negatives or turn to overturn objections. But I think when I just go back to the basics of it, there’s a lot that you can learn in classes and courses and schools and all that stuff has been helpful and beneficial to me, but nothing has been as impactful as literally shaking somebody’s hand and talking to them and understanding where they’re coming from.

And also, and I mean this in a really good way and stealing a lot of really great ideas, you know, I mean, you, I’m sure you have your favorite restaurants or places to go, and so do I. And if anyone ever stopped and asked you, you could probably give your favorite restaurant an amazing tip on how to be better, right? But how many times do you get asked? And so I’ve taken that at every place I’ve been Momentum, including, you know, Macy’s now Current Home. And yeah, it’s just what I’ve fallen in love with in this marketing world very much those people.

Rick Rappe: 08:54

Interesting. Well, that such sound advice for understanding the mind of the consumer first and understanding their needs and then building your marketing based on those insights, that’s really, really helpful. So would you say that that that starts with research and starts with just talking to people? I mean, as you’ve gone and had bigger and bigger opportunities and bigger and bigger companies that you’re working with, I mean, do you do a lot of consumer focused research first to base your marketing off of, or is it more just like talking to people?

Tony Rodriguez: 09:29

I am old school. I go into locations, I talk to customers. I shake people’s hands. There’s a there’s a huge benefit to obviously customer research, right? Surveys, all those things are great and they fill in a lot of gaps.

They make the process shorter and more efficient, but what they can’t tell you is why. Right. Okay. So 50 people picked red and 20 people picked black. And, you know, you could see the data, but but why did they pick red or why did they pick black or why did they like this?

And I think the why is the emotional part that really brings marketing together. You know, anyone, anyone can read a research paper and do a survey and say that, oh, okay. Well, this demographic of people like this the most, and we should just make an ad and serve it to those people and it should be about this thing. Okay. That’s fine.

But if you don’t really understand the thought process of the customer, then you’re really not going to be as successful as you think. And so like, I was just talking to a big box retailer a couple weeks ago, and they had called me and inquired about some consulting stuff. And, and I said, you know, I, I can’t, I wouldn’t be able to do it remote. I said I could do it remote in theory of like meeting the people and giving them feedback. But you’d have to fly me into places to meet the actual customers and go into the stores and see the interactions and witness what goes on.

Otherwise, I don’t know how valuable my feedback would be. And it was really interesting. And one of the C-suite people said to me, oh, at your job title level, you still go down and meet entry level people. And I was like, yeah, they’re the whole basis of your business. Like, if you can’t see them, interact with your customer and be in the store and shake their hand and talk to them about their experiences, how can you get any better with your staff?

Just tells you about it. So it’s kind of interesting when I see people kind of shy away from that at certain levels as we get, you know, higher in our careers. And I am the opposite. I love to be in the trenches. And, and I think that’s the most value of anything.

So to your point, yes. I don’t mind the research data on customer analysis. All stuff is great, but I still want to put it to the test. And I and I often do this, and I think this is also valuable technique. I pretend I’m the customer, you know, I mean, I have slight biases, of course, but I’m a customer in a lot of ways in a lot of places.

And, you know, so are you. And so is everybody. So what, what do you look for when you shop in Home Improvement? Right. What do you look for when you shop in dot, dot, dot.

I just, I just had a person here giving me a garage door quote. And, and I, you know, I could go outside and tell the person I’m in sales and marketing and I know this works. And, but I just sat back and I just was like, this is a good lesson for me as a customer. Like what does how, what is this experience going to be like for me as a customer? And then I remember being like, what can I take out of this?

Even though it’s not solar or home, Technically, what we do occur at home, but there’s still like maybe she maybe it was a lady. Maybe she does something we don’t. Is there things in her presentation that we could steal? So I like pretending to be the customer as well. I think those are super beneficial sometimes.

Rick Rappe: 12:53

Yeah, yeah. Early in my career, I was very heavily involved in marketing for AT&T and we would do we were driving leads into call centers and 900 call center reps, massive volume of calls coming in every day. But call monitoring and listening to the conversations between the customer and the rep was super valuable for us as marketers to learn again, what what were people objecting to? What were they thinking? What questions were they asking?

All of those things were super important. And then we also did focus groups with the call center reps themselves, where they could talk about what they learned and what they thought was going on in the mind of the consumer. And all of that was really valuable for our, our creative concepts and like developing, you know, developing the creative appeal that would, that would resonate with people and things like that. So yeah, it totally makes sense. So you mentioned Momentum Solar.

And I think that was another a big part of your career where you really scaled that company. Tell me a little bit about your experience with Momentum Solar.

Tony Rodriguez: 14:05

Oh yeah, I got, I got it was great. I got hired as the only outside hire, like into a new department. So I remember meeting with that company and they were like, hey, just gonna give you a heads up. Nobody’s probably gonna like you when you start. So.

So I just want you to know now you’re on an uphill battle. And so they were trying to get a department off the ground, which was retail lead generation. They had failed at it numerous times, and they decided to look for an outside hire to maybe come in and offer a different perspective. And so I did. So I went in with myself and at the time, four managers and 12 total people in the department.

And I think the year I started there, well, the end I started at the end of it was 2018 and they had just done, maybe, I don’t know, $200,000 in sales in the department, which in solar is nothing. It’s not even a blip what somebody could do. And so I started in December, I, and when I started, they asked me like, what’s your plan of attack and what are you going to do? And I said, nothing, I will, I will do nothing for the first two weeks that I’m here. And I said, I just want to meet everyone.

I want to I just want to talk to everybody. I don’t want to come in and put anything in place. I don’t want to make any assumptions. I want to talk to the staff. What was their job like?

What was their experience like? What was their previous managers like? What did they think worked well? What did they think they didn’t? I actually interviewed other departments Because a lot of times when you take these jobs, you find out that your department’s siloed, right?

Like you don’t have the connection that you want to other departments. So the first two plus weeks, I, I just was a fly on the wall. I’d interview people, I’d meet with them. And, and, you know, when I did that, I was able to find holes. I was able to find mistakes.

I was able to help the staff make some changes that they wanted to see so that I would get buy in. You know, I met with the managers and we built the, the lead gen program together so that I got their input. So they didn’t feel like it was just me pushing it on them. I remember I met them for eight hours and refused to leave the room until we all agreed on what the platform was going to look like. And, you know, because as a person in, in, in leadership, you know, you want a unified front with your management staff and what you’re presenting to people.

So you want buy in from everybody. So it was very important to get their feedback and, and, you know, and talking to them and we went from I went from five stores and really no sales and 12 people to the first year was 25,000,090 million, then almost 300 million, and went from 12 people. I think the end of my reign, there were 660 ish people in 11 states. So yeah, we just we just grew. And then the first year that my, the I, the award I won, which I appreciate the most, was the top culture of any department, which is, you know, largely what you, you know, people want to know how you’re successful at these things.

And is it the marketing or how you approach it and what your pitch and is your pay structure? You know, sometimes it’s just the culture you build. You know, you build a company culture where people don’t want to leave the team. They’re truly invested. They feel like the you, you’re in it for them just as much as they understand.

They work for you, you know, and in doing that, we’re able to build like a massive department, which was great. Unfortunately, the the ownership there unwound the department through their financial woes, which you know, you can’t control all the time. So there they went. They took a very different path. So it allowed me to actually come aboard Current Home, which is fantastic.

But you know, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a good lesson in building anything. Every company I probably worked for at some point, I think I built it from nothing, whether that is really any department I’ve worked for or job I’ve had, and even my, you know, the podcast I currently own, you know, we started from two dudes on a microphone and now I have the number one podcast in the world for self-help and self-improvement back to back years. So wow, it’s, it’s largely because we just go into it with, with completely any opportunity open, talking to people, gathering as much knowledge, building the culture we can. And then just, you know, taking our time and growing things, you know, one step at a time. And then you look back and you go, oh, yeah, remember we had 12 people.

Now we have 660.

Rick Rappe: 18:27

So that’s amazing. That’s amazing growth. I want to ask some more questions about this because I, I want to dig into this a little bit more. Well, first of all, let me ask you what, what’s the name of your podcast?

Tony Rodriguez: 18:39

Oh, it’s called Advice Unfiltered with Chris and Tony. So we are, we started a, we are a live show actually, which most people don’t do. Actually, nobody in the country does. We were the first live show that happened to be a podcast, and we made a whole show about people mental health. It’s actually about lifestyle, fitness, dating, relationships, everything that people could go through.

And, and in just our first year, we won the signal award, two awards for the top podcast for self-help and self-improvement. And then this year, we won the top podcast for dating relationship advice and overall health and wellness. So, and our, you know, we just actually, I just spoke in New York at the podcast movement awards and, and I’m a judge for two different podcast associations now. So but all from person who’s never done a podcast, right? So, so it’s kind of the same thing when we’re building any of these things.

I, I just, I think I got lucky, I know it goes full circle to the beginning. I got really lucky going into a job at TGI Fridays where there was little expectation and tons of upside. And I like, I like that, and I think that’s kind of where I keep landing in places where things are broken or things have never worked, and people are just about to give up on something. And then I come in and then I’m like, oh, this is exactly where I like to be. So and it’s kind of worked out for, you know, in, in the long run for sure.

Rick Rappe: 20:09

Yeah. I think you’re, I think you would have been successful probably anywhere based on everything that I’m hearing from you, because I hear that you have a curious mind and a creative mind and you’re very much, you know, listening and trying to figure out where the issues are. And then creative solutions and it. I think you’re I think you’re going to be really good at. No matter what you try.

Tony Rodriguez: 20:30

Well, I appreciate I, you know, I, I, I, I have these meetings and interviews now and, and things are great and like, you know, bigger companies and it’s so interesting. And I, you know, as we’re talking about it, you know, it’s just, it’s the answer sometimes is so simple. The work put into getting the answer may be a little bit difficult in terms of having to meet people and shake hands and talk to so many people and take the time. But ultimately, it doesn’t matter how many tools we have or AI that makes. And I love AI because I’m in that world and how great it is and efficient.

It can make things and help you. But like I said, it still doesn’t take away the fact that I said to some, I said exactly what I said to somebody the other day, you have to get out your office and get on a plane and go down to go down into your store. And I was explaining to somebody, I said, you know, I said, look, I said, you know what’s more important to an entry level person outside a bonus, and they were like nothing. And I was like, that’s not true.

I said, if you were to go down to a store and say thank you to entry level staff or retail staff or cashiers or clerks, and just tell them how much you appreciate what they do, and wanted some feedback and wanted their advice on stuff. Those people wouldn’t quit. Those people would feel so valued that outside of just a bonus and opportunity, which I always think is key in a lot of companies that don’t provide enough of us. A lot of it is just as simple as being like, let’s talk to the customer or the staff or the people. Let’s find out what they’re feeling like.

And also let’s take some of their suggestions and let’s implement them because, and I know you know this, how many times have you seen a company and they hire an outside consulting firm to try to figure out what their issues are? Right? And then the and then they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on doing this. And you could have just gave me the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I would have gave you the same answer, but much better and probably easier. And your staff would have appreciated it more.

But yeah, I just, you know, I just, I don’t know, I think it’s so simplistic sometimes that we try to make it more complicated than it needs to be.

Rick Rappe: 22:38

Yeah. Your, your Momentum Solar story was, was very interesting. And I want to, I want to come back to that. Yeah. What were some of the tactics and some of the things that you put in place that you think besides culture?

I mean, I know I understand culture is so important and the culture that you’re talking about of connectedness and where you’re coaching people one on one and, and, and giving them, making them feel like they’re part of the team. I mean, that’s all so important. I get that for sure. What were some of the other sort of marketing tactics that you put in place that led to that kind of Explosive growth at Momentum Solar.

Tony Rodriguez: 23:21

Well, I think first off was because, you know, when we want to sell somebody something. Well, I’ll take solar as an example. It was because that was, you know, Momentum’s core business. You know, we’re so quick to want to sell people solar, right? Oh, you should go solar.

You should go solar Solar’s main solar’s the best. And then you meet me and you go, well, how do you love solar? And I go, I don’t know. Like, you think it’s the best. I’m like, I’m not really sure.

And they’re like, well, what do you mean? You work in solar? And I and, and I think what made us really successful was me being the customer. I don’t have solar on my house. So when I got there, I remember being like, all right, let’s, let’s think about this.

Let’s think about the industry. Let’s think about what it means, what it is, what it does, and let’s figure out how we can market this. Right. And I think what happens is if you step back from solar, what you realize is that the core of it is a lot of people don’t know how it works. A lot of people are afraid of like the technology part of it.

If you watch the News Solar’s either the best thing ever or it burns your house down, or it’s it’s amazing, or you don’t get tax credits or one administration loves it and the next one hates it, right? So you fight all these things and what you realize is the customer just needs some education. And they also want some honesty about whether it fits or doesn’t. So instead of pitching people solar, what we started pitching people was, hey, you know what? Hey, my name is Tony.

I’m just here with Momentum Solar. Just out of curiosity, we’re just looking for a few people that maybe are struggling to pay their bill and just don’t know if there’s another solution. And so that was always my take was like, hey, I don’t know if solar fits for your house. I don’t even know if it could work for you. I don’t know if your house sits in the right direction.

I don’t know if you use enough electric. I don’t know any of those things. But what I do know is if you’re struggling to pay the bill, there are other options, but I still can’t tell you if that option works unless we actually come out and take a look at your house. And when we come and take a look at your house, what I promise you is we’re not going to sell it to you because we can’t. What we can do is show you if it works and if it works and you think that it’s it fits for you financially, then what I could do is help guide you through how to make that a reality for you.

But at the end of the day, if we sit down and it’s not a fit for your home, I promise you I’m not going to sell it to you. And we started looking at the honesty of what marketing could be, right? So do we sell solar? I guess technically, yes, but it still doesn’t mean that you can just roll up to somebody and say, hey, you’re struggling with your bill, you should buy this. You know, you bypass so much of the what the customer needs to be educated.

They need to feel like they’re being heard. They need to feel like it’s a solution, not they’re being sold something. So when you in my world as a lesion expert, I have to train the staff and create the scripts that ultimately are the in for the sales team. So so not only do I talk to the customers about how to approach it. The other thing that I do, I’ve done with every single company I’ve ever worked for, I’ve done the in-home sale.

So I’m one of the very, very, very, very few people probably in the country that have done the lead gen and been in the home for every company I’ve worked for as a sale. So I’ve, I know what the experience is like. I’m a canvasser. I’m a door to door person. I’ve been in a store, I’ve worked every single event.

So I’ve been the employee, I’ve talked to every customer, and now I’ve been in every home as a sales rep. So and I know what the customer is afraid of and I know what they’re. And I know one call closes and how long it takes. And so I purposefully put myself in the shoes of every step of the process. I’ve owned a call center before.

I’ve wrote scripts, I’ve done direct mail. So it’s so because I choose to go and learn those things as a student, as a complete. I don’t know anything I as much knowledge as I have right now. If you took me into a new business and told them, hey, you’re going to create lead generation scripts for, I don’t know, garage doors, I’ve never sold garage doors. Right.

I would tell the company I won’t create the script until I meet with the staff and I go into a home because I want to see what the presentation is like so I can make this process seamless, right? What we tell the customer on the front end has to match all the way through the process for the customer, right to the sale. So in solar, what becomes the big piece of it is stop selling people the pipe, dream of what it could be. And instead, let’s just try to help people find out if it could help them change their lives, their utility bill, save them money, and then if it can, what you’re doing is you’re providing a tool that makes their life better, instead of like an old used car salesman just selling somebody something so that you can make a commission on it. Right?

So I think, you know, tactic wise, you gotta put yourself in every part of that journey, but you also have to break down the, the customers itself, what their fears are, their anxieties are. And then I like to build the marketing based on that. Right? So in California, we’re, you know, we’re currently, you know, people, people are always saying solar’s a scam. Like people get sold that message, right?

And I, I don’t run from that message. I think it’s I instead of being like, no, it’s not a scam. And you fight people and all this stuff, you go, just take a break, rest, relax for a second. Why do people think that? Okay, what’s because utility companies tend to push that message out.

It’s like, oh, it’s fine. It’s okay. Like that’s a that happens, right? The news, the, the utility companies get this message out, and then you turn around and say, I said to somebody the other day, I said, hey, can I ask you a question? I’m not going to defend.

There are really bad solar companies have been out there. There’s people that have probably sold people stuff they don’t need. Right? So I can’t tell you every solar company has been great, just like we can’t say it about every company. But I said to the homeowner, I said, if I sold you a dream that I was going to provide you a service.

And for 11 straight years, all I’ve done is raise your bill every single time and never asked you if it’s okay. Would you feel like you’ve been scammed? And they were like, yes. And I’m like, well, that’s what your utility company has done for 11 straight years. Like, and it’s not that’s not like me selling you anything.

It’s just telling you a fact. Like you may have never thought about it because we just open a bill and we pay it. But have you ever stopped and opened the bill and actually been like, wait, I’m paying more again, who okayed this? And even in new Jersey, which, you know, Momentum Solar operates in, a lot of people don’t know on the back of utility bill, There’s a solar tax that you get taxed as a as a regular person with electric bill that funds solar. So I used to always joke with people.

I’m like, you know, you’re paying for it already. Just turn your bill over. Then people would see it and I go, well, look, I’m not telling you you should do it. But if you’re getting charged for it anyways, shouldn’t you at least see if it’s a fit? So, you know, so I, I, I say all that to go back to the fact that, you know, when you’re really creating a marketing campaign or all those things, I still always go back to looking at the fears, anxieties, educational piece, the emotional piece of what drives a person to make a decision in your field.

And I think it’s very important that that has to be a core centerpiece of whatever, whatever your marketing channel is or whatever you’re trying to create.

Rick Rappe: 30:55

Well, I think you’re doing an interesting thing with the questions that you’re asking. And what I’m hearing is you’re getting people to maybe let their defenses down just a little bit and open up their curious mind and, and like question some things that they’ve and you’re kind of going around those objections that they’ve thrown up just to, to, to block the conversation. Which is a great way to start the start of an interaction. And, and yeah, I mean, I was recently sold something by a door to door to door salesman, a young man who came to my door and he was just very genuine and trustworthy and like, just wanted to have a conversation. He wasn’t really trying to push things on me too much, but he got me curious and I was like, and then once you get me curious, I’m like, I’m gonna sit there and listen to everything, you know, that you’re telling me.

And, and, and once I was open to it, it became obvious. I mean, he could, he could lead me through the thought process all the way to the, to the close. And that’s where it worked. Great. So yeah.

Tony Rodriguez: 32:02

You’re right, the, the defense mechanism part is just human nature, right? You’re a stranger going up to somebody. I did this test, and you appreciate this. I did this test to prove a point. One time in a retail location for a lead gen program I took.

I was training somebody and I said, do you want to see something really cool? And I said, I took a $20 bill. And I said, let’s go up. How many people do you think it’ll take before someone takes this? I’m going to walk up to strangers and I’m just going to hand them $20.

How long do you think it’s going to take for someone just takes the money. And they were like, oh, immediately. And I was like, you think? And they’re like, yeah. And I said, I bet you it takes a little bit of time before someone takes it.

And when they take it, it’ll be really reluctant. And if I’m right, you owe me lunch. And they’re like, sure, deal. And I think we must have hit, I don’t know, 30 plus people before somebody took it. Because even when a stranger comes up to you and hands you money out of nowhere, What’s your first thought?

You’re like, wait, what is this? Right?

Rick Rappe: 33:05

Like, what’s what’s the deal? What’s what’s the catch? What’s the do I have to do? Yeah.

Tony Rodriguez: 33:10

Where’s the cameras? Right. Like, what’s going on? We’re always defensive about anything that comes into our space that we’re not understanding. So you can’t sell anybody anything unless you get lucky and just happen to land on the person who needs solar want or whatever your product is, right?

And you open a door and you say, solar. And I go, I’ve been waiting for you all day, which never which happens once in a blue moon, right? So yeah, but once you, but you’re not doing it, you’re not taking down someone’s defenses in a way that like I do it in a way where I’m genuinely honest about it. I honestly don’t know if you can go solar. I honestly don’t know if it’s going to make your life better, I just don’t.

But if you’re struggling with something already, isn’t it okay just to see if there’s another opportunity that helps you. And I think that’s the key is that part. It’s like, I’ve been sold, I’ve been, I’ve been sold stuff where people you can tell are doing the slick sales thing, right? And they’re doing all the things and they’re checking all the boxes and they’re saying all the right things, but they’re not doing it because they really, honestly care about it. They’re just doing it at the end of the day because they’ve been taught how to say this thing.

And that’s kind of how it works. I, when I say to somebody, I genuinely mean it, like I, I don’t, if you’re not struggling with your bill, then solar shouldn’t even be in a conversation. Like your life’s good, like awesome, like, right? Bills are getting paid. You’re fine.

Electricity is getting delivered. You got no problem with it. It’s great. It’s like if you got a great car, why buy another one? If you’re if you’re good, right?

It’s not broken down, doesn’t need to be fixed. So there are people that have been like, well, I’ll, I’ll look into it. And I’m like, yeah, you’re. And I tell people, I’m like, no, like, not to be slick and pull and I’m taking something away and they want it. I just tell people like I’m honest with them about it because there’s there’s enough I go into these things and, and this is definitely something from a direct mail response, you would know, you know, the percentages of people who are going to take by or open their, their what they are, what they are, right.

That percentage is there. So I don’t think about all the knows or the percentages that don’t count. So if you tell me that two out of every 100 people will sign up for something I have to do, then I just go find those two people. I don’t worry about the other 98, right? Like I’m not, I’m well, but.

Rick Rappe: 35:30

You, you, you, you understand that the you’re understanding that your, your product and your company is solving a particular problem and you are clear about what that problem is. And so you’re filtering that 100 into how many, how many people actually have a problem with their bill. And you know, that that’s the problem that you can solve. And, and I think that’s where, like you said, the other ones don’t count almost, right? Like they, They’re they don’t have the problem.

So getting clarity. And the other thing is, I feel like a lot of companies that I’ve worked with, they feel like, you know, their brand is so great. They should have a, they have something for everyone. Yeah. And it’s like, no, you don’t need to have something for everyone.

Just have clear, have a clear understanding of what the problem is that you’re trying to solve and make sure that you talk to those people. That’s, well, that’s a big part of what we do with direct marketing and direct mail as well as obviously we target the right people because that’s a huge, a huge part of a successful direct mail program. Yeah. Well, this is so interesting. Tell me a little bit more about what you’re doing these days with AI in marketing.

Tony Rodriguez: 36:45

So AI, if we’re all in a good way. What’s happened in AI is Current Home. And so I’m always a curious learner. So once I started to become a thing, I just went and started taking courses on my own for prompt engineering. So it’s kind of how I’m built.

I always think of myself as a as a constant upgrading of a resume. So I knew going into, let’s see, 2024. Yeah, 2024 that AI was becoming a thing and that I didn’t want to become the old man who gets phased out of all the new tools. All right. So I was like, all right, if this is the next wave of stuff, social media, podcasts, AI, I’m gonna learn it.

I’m gonna go in and, and be a student again and learn it all. And I went back and started doing classes and courses, and then we started using it for ad creations and, and data analytics and making efficiencies in what we do. And I mean, now, you know, now 2026, it’s, you know, AI agents who speak like people and can help schedule, but I, I use it every day in every form or function of testing its capabilities to see where it can help us as a company and make the customer journey a little better. So for instance, I just was working on This week Spanish. If you are in a home improvement company, it it you would know.

And you’re especially in the marketing or sales, there are so many Spanish speaking people here in United States. And what you learn in sales really quickly is that when you are selling something to a specific type of community or culture, it’s definitely in your favor where they feel like if you’re really trying your best to be part of that. So what I mean by that is Spanish speaking, Spanish speaking people who have trouble speaking English are so are so excited when a salesperson goes into the home and can actually speak Spanish and the communication barrier is not there, right. And they and they have an opportunity to clearly understand what’s going on and they feel so comfortable and so appreciative that the odds of you closing that deal are much higher than if you go in there and you just say, hey, I only speak this one language and you’re going to have to figure it out on your end. Right.

And unfortunately, in the home improvement sales space, a lot of companies don’t have many Spanish speaking sales reps. So it’s a little bit of a challenge for a lot of companies, even though that market is so great and especially for Current Home, because we’re in Southern California, which is a huge Spanish speaking population. So one of the things that we’re working with AI now is we have a good contingent of contingency of staff who speak Spanish, which is great, but a lot of times ads are in English. You know, booking processes are in English. So now just using AI to help make those, you know, translate those things into Spanish that actually make sense, you know, helping the agents be able to book people in Spanish, set appointments up, help them learn as much as they can in their native language, which helps the process so much.

And it sounds trivial to some people because they’re like, oh, well, a lot of people speak Spanish. Not as much as you would think when it comes to the physical job of selling something. And, and whether that’s just because of, you know, the industry itself or how people get into sales. So, you know, using these new tools now to be able to help take an ad and make it in any language and have the agents be able to book in any language and be able to let a person know, hey, it might be a day or two before we get back to you, but it’s only because we’re going to send an actual real. A person who speaks Spanish completely speaks your language out to your home so you feel more comfortable.

And that’s the kind of things I love about AI, where I think that’s the thing that helps us the most. And there’s a lot and you know, there’s a ton of stuff with data. And I run a, you know, AI does all these amazing things where I can run a recruiting port, a recruiting report every month. I do this actually every Monday of every company in Southern California. What ads they place, what, How much they’re, what their salary is, what their commissions are, what their job postings are like.

That stuff’s great for like analytics. That stuff’s amazing. And, you know, so many people are getting into that part of the AI that helps them gather that data and really quickly and efficiently put it into something that’s manageable so you can digest it. But I am looking for ways it can help us help people feel more comfortable in a sales cycle. So that’s like something we’re working on now.

And then there’s just other things that are getting better and better and better every day, whether it’s video creation, ad creation, you know, I mean, I use it for pretty much everything. I would think. Now, the one thing I will say is, and this is because I’ve, you know, been in space for a minute now, it doesn’t replace me. It doesn’t replace my expertise in what I do or my particular vantage point on something. So it may go through my emails, but you, you still have to be very comfortable that you have to take what you’re given and review it.

Take a look at it. Make sure it makes sense. You know, some people I know, just like, hey, I will write every email and send it out. Okay, well, it is probably not the best thing to do. So, you know, there is some things that are kind of nice to be personable about or, you know, to make sure your real voice and tone and I’m aware I can do all that stuff, but there’s some point where I still want to stay connected to the process.

So I look at AI and I say, I have I look at me and I say, what do I bring to the table from a human perspective? And I look at AI and say, how can this help amplify my skill sets? And what can we do together where I can take my actual experience with a customer, which you can’t, you can’t mimic in any form or fashion with the hundreds of thousands of people I’ve met talk to. Shook hands with salt in her face. What would it mean to say you have a high bill and put it on paper and see the emotion when someone can’t afford to pay their bills are two very distinct things once purely human ones.

Data driven. Right? So the AI tools right now are just helping us kind of filter through all that. But mainly my hope is it helps us help people go through the sales cycle a little bit easier.

Rick Rappe: 43:01

Yeah. I hear you and your, your descriptions that you’re very connected to the mind of the consumer, and you’re also connected to the mind of the salesperson and what’s going through their mind in terms of making the process work flow smoothly, making it easy on them, making sure they understand the mind of the consumer. And AI is a powerful tool, but I can see how it could easily break your connections to those things and give you, you know, just sort of cloud the cloud, your vision a little bit and, and not give you as much insights, which the insights are what you have that are so powerful in terms of making decisions and building new, creating new ideas with creativity. It all makes sense to me at least. Hopefully it makes sense to everybody else.

Tony Rodriguez: 43:55

Well, you know, in time, you know, it’s, well, we’re not going to have much of a choice at some point. I mean, I’ll be honest. You just go, yeah, I get into a lot of unwanted conversations about AI and whether, you know, in terms of is it going to end the world or is it going to be a tool for humanity? And, and look, I, I don’t dismiss any of those things or any of those points, but when I wake up today, I have to deal with the reality of today. And the reality of today is there’s these tools that are out there that if you use them right, can make work life much better.

And as a person who works seven days a week, and I say that because of the podcast and my personal, you know, everything we do outside of regular work, you know, if you want to have a good work life balance, there’s part of these efficiency tools that you really should get to learn because it does allow you to, you know, a lot of people to hear that statement and go, oh my God, seven days a week. What I mean by that is some of that is for me personally, whether that is my love for going to the gym, whether that is the podcast, the community we built, the coaching we do consulting, people working occur at home. I love all of it. I love life, I like doing all those things. But also I can probably only do them at this point because I have AI tools that do take some of the heavy lifting off your plate, right?

And then it kind of makes it a little bit easier to make sure you have a little bit of a balance. But you know, like I said before, don’t I? As many times as I’ve told a CEO, get out of your office and go say hi to an entry level staff. Because if you don’t know what it’s like to walk in one of your own stores and be a shopper, then you don’t. Then it’d be the same thing as me saying, AI does everything for me, and I stopped having a connection to what I do.

right? Like it’s kind of the same thing, but the digital version. So I still think as many emails as it writes for you or, or presentations that it puts together. Do you stop and go through it and really read through it and, and have a like, oh yeah, this is actually what I would say or this totally makes sense in there, right? Or this is, this is exactly what I would write.

Or do you just do it and send it off. And then you become disconnected to everything in which at some point I say about everything, at some point I’ll catch up to you. I don’t know when, but it will. So yeah.

Rick Rappe: 46:11

Yeah, sometimes I use AI right now as a, a thought partner, almost like or a, I approach it with curiosity, asking questions and it, you know, it’s going out. It’s not, it’s not as good as talking directly to one person, but it’s kind of like going out and talking to a lot of people, right? Because it’s going out and doing research and coming back to you with answers. So sometimes I’ll ask it like, what are people concerned with when they think about solar? And it’ll come up with a list of ideas and I can kind of say, oh, interesting.

I didn’t, you know, it’s like I’m walking around talking to people, but almost with talking to AI, I don’t know if that’s as valuable as talking to people. Probably not.

Tony Rodriguez: 46:52

But well, I’ll tell you, I’ll.

Rick Rappe: 46:53

Tell you it’s a little bit of a shortcut. Maybe I don’t know.

Tony Rodriguez: 46:56

No, no, but I think what it is is you look, it’s two different things, right? I only say this because I do it. So I have Claude, I have all of them managed Claude ChatGPT, two of every subscription to everything. I use all of them because it’s part of the learning curve for me about what’s out there. The new one I’ll dive into is the Grok bots thing, and see what I can do with an army of an army of people that and agents.

But when I, when I, I’ll go in the backyard after a long day and I’m trying to work out a project in my head. And so like we’re building out this coaching community that we’re building out. And you know, what it is, is first of all, my wife would probably rather go through surgery than sit there and listen to me talk about work all day, so I’m not gonna do it to her. And but what I’ll do is I’ll go sit in the backyard and I’ll, I’ll put Claude on and I’ll talk to it. And I think what’s interesting about that is I feel like and you know, I have two settings for Claude.

I have the normal setting. And then I have the ability for it sometimes to be. I want it to push back, right? Because when I settle in on an idea, it’s a little bit that I want it to push back, which is kind of cool. But talking to Claude or AI in the conversation mode that you’re talking about reminds me of taking a long drive in a car and talking to myself because I will.

I’ve. People have saw me at a. People have pulled up next to me who have known me at a traffic light and seen me talking to myself, and what I’m doing is. And I’ve been caught numerous times and I’m walking through scripts in my lead gen game and my lead gen job. So I literally be sitting there being like, hey sir, how you doing today?

And I’m like, oh, I’m good. How are you doing? Great. Hey, by the way, did you hear? And I actually will say it to myself, and then I’m finding gaps.

Hey, maybe that doesn’t sound right. I’m playing these things out and I’m talking to myself and having these conversations because I like talking the ideas out loud. Because I think when you hear them, they process a little different than when they’re stuck in your head. So I think the AI tool is super valuable in that, because it gives me a person that’s clearly smarter than me by 100,000 million times. So what’s nice about that is it’ll, it’ll give me a real nice conversation.

And I’ve actually and it just happened today, actually, I was talking to it about something and I, and it gave me a price point. And I said to it, I said, you know, I said, I understand where you’re coming from. I said, but I disagree. And I think that when you look at the value at the top of the funnel versus where you’re at, I don’t know that that’s the right price and here’s why I would justify it. And then it came back.

It was really funny. And it was like, you know, I never thought about it that way. And we had this back and forth conversation. And that’s what I, I value that because it also helps me work through my own ideas without boring somebody to death. And, and a lot of times it’ll, it’ll give me back something I just didn’t think about.

And then I, and then I always say, hey, thanks. Let me, let me, let me get back to you. Let me process this for a little bit. And then we’ll pick up this conversation. Right.

But I think what you’re describing isn’t so much replacing. I think, again, it’s just another way to what what I or you might do in our office or in the car or somewhere, and we’re just trying to talk through this project. And now we have a buddy who doesn’t care if we talk to him about it, and it’s not bored by the conversation.

Rick Rappe: 50:27

So yeah, and when you’re managing a lot of salespeople out in the market, I, I bet, I bet that having AI monitor actual sales conversations and provide reps with instant feedback on what they could be doing better is probably on your list of things to work on. Yeah, we use, I know we do that in the in call centers and things like that, where it’s listening and it can coach people and score people on different attributes, different metrics and things like that.

Tony Rodriguez: 51:01

The we use really, I think a lot of sales teams use, which is a really cool AI tool. But what I do with it is I’m reminded, and this is where it goes back to me being in a home. I, I’ve been a sales guy in a home, so I know that you could give the script to everybody. And there will be people who look at the real recordings and want to know that you hit the script. Exactly.

I don’t generally use it for that because everyone develops a style over time. I mean, I think that you need to hit the key bullet points, and a lot of sales organizations want you to keep it in a certain order. And that’s totally fine. I totally get that. But everyone’s got their own little flavor spin to how they like to put on it, right?

So when I’m doing it, like I just did this, I did a deep dive a couple months ago and I pulled every recording of every sales person and I was looking for three. I was looking for three key words. Well, I was looking for a few key words. One was partnerships because at the time, well, currently even now we have some really great partnerships. So I was looking for the word partnerships partners and then the names of the specific partners.

That’s all I wanted to know, and I wanted to know who mentions them the most in their sales presentation. Because in sales, a lot of times in home and you’re in a home improvement company, most people don’t know who your company is. They heard about you, they might saw you somewhere, but a lot of people don’t know who Momentum Solar is. I mean, they know Wawa or maybe you’re in Seattle, so no Starbucks or, you know, or you know what the food store or whatever it is, but home improvement companies, that’s that’s generally because they looked you up, right? So I know that people struggle with that concept.

So when you say, oh, we’re Momentum Solar, we’re partners with BJ’s and we’re partners with the Yankees and we’re partners with Make-A-Wish, and we’re partners with the New York Giants. All of a sudden you’re like, oh, I now have more trust for you because I know those companies, right? So I did a deep dive and I went through and I’m not, you know, I’m just not trying to bust anybody’s, you know, any I’m not trying to bust anybody for their sales techniques or put them on, you know, put them on the spotlight. But the number one sales person we have, she by far mentions our partnerships in almost every sales visit, there’s a clear correlation between the fact that she was doing it every visit, every time, every time she went in a house, somewhere in her sales pitch presentation was the conversation about other companies that trust us. And that number falls off dramatically.

And if you’ve ever done in-home sales, you know this. You can teach everyone everything you want. And two weeks later, most people are back doing it the way they were doing it before. It’s just it’s pretty funny how that works. But the people who really are successful do well.

You know, they take what you said, they hear it, they integrate it into their system and they use it. And she and to this day, she has been the number one salesperson in our company for probably 4 or 5 straight months. And, you know, and then, you know how this happens. Then people go, I wonder what she’s doing. I wonder what her technique is.

I should go on a ride along with her. Like you don’t have to. I’ll give you the AI recording. She mentions our partnerships and sponsorships in every appointment, every time, no matter what. It always comes up.

and if you don’t do that, then there’s no reason for me to let you ride along with her because you’re already not doing the things that she’s doing right. So there’s no magic fairy dust. She’s not the greatest salesperson on earth. She’s very consistent in the things that she knows matter. So AI has been really great for those things.

And of course, look, if you’re in sales, you know, those recordings are great for other stuff. Like did the person really give a presentation? Did they just go in and ask for a credit score and leave like so? You know, you can it’s a good tool to make sure your sales team is doing what they want to do. But I think what’s better, or just as equally as valuable is your top sales people.

What are the 2 or 3 things they’re doing in their presentations that you can not only tell your staff they’re doing, but you can show them by a recording and in clear black and white data that she is doing it 94% of the time and you are doing it 30. So the reason she makes more money than you is for these 2 or 3 little things that you should learn to do. And that has been so helpful in sales.

Rick Rappe: 55:36

Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. I feel like I could talk to you for hours and hours, but I also know that we probably need to wrap up pretty soon. So I’m going to ask you one last question and then we’ll wrap up.

If you were mentoring someone who’s just starting out in marketing today, what advice would you give them on how to be successful in marketing?

Tony Rodriguez: 56:02

I just tell them, I wonder whatever job they’re doing. You know, I said this to my son. My son’s not in marketing. He’s going to be, he’s going into the union. But we were just talking about the world in general.

And I, I would tell this to anybody, marketing sales doesn’t matter. Whatever you whatever you like to do. You have more information at your fingertips than any person in human history. You literally can learn anything at any point and never go to school. You can go to YouTube.

You can build a whole new. Somebody on YouTube has built a whole car from scratch. You could go watch that person do that now. I say that and of course, you know, somebody will say, oh, well, you can’t be an astronaut. Putting all the extremes aside.

You have the ability, capability and tools to do anything you want in life. The only thing that holds you back is you and what you’re afraid of. So if you’re in marketing and you’ve never used AI, you got to break the fear and learn how to do it. If you’re in marketing forever and you don’t talk to customers or your staff gotta, you gotta start doing it. The thing that holds you back is the thing you’re afraid of that already exists and you know it.

So if you’re just getting into marketing, don’t be afraid of all these people telling you that all these AI tools are going to take your job. That’s not true. The best marketers in the world in the next ten years are going to be people who know how to use the AI and their personal experiences and the people they meet and merge those things together. Because if everything else is equal, then everybody’s going to use AI and everyone’s going to make the same generic ads with the same generic messaging, with the same generic marketing, the same generic AI created images. But if you take the time to really learn the business and the people and the customers and talk to the staff and talk to the people that work at your business, and you can take the human element and add it into that messaging and look for the emotional places to make connection.

You will win. And it’s the next people that are willing to do that, that are going to make the most money. And I know that for a fact, because when I am an award winning photographer, I was a photographer of the year. In my very first year, I learned how to do it on YouTube. I bought my camera on QVC and I learned a bunch of classes for free.

And when I went and got certified as a professional photographer, I had already learned all this stuff. So I aced out of every exam and I became a photographer. And I’ll never forget somebody said to me, oh my God, the iPhone is coming out and the iPhone has a camera in it and the cameras are getting so good, you’re never going to need a photographer for anything ever again. And I go, I don’t. You’re never, you’re never gonna see a film crew.

Everyone’s gonna be shooting everything on iPhones. And what you realize is if you were a great photographer, you looked at that and said, know what that means is everybody’s gonna love photos. And if I can think outside the box, I will be able to find a way to sell the world for something photography related at a, as opposed to a few people, because now everyone’s going to fall in love with pictures and the quality of them and taking pictures of memories. And here we are X amount of years later and I still see people with regular photographers at weddings and I see people really cool, have a businesses that take pictures of puppies and kids and, you know, and you still go to a film set and it’s still regular equipment. But the cool part is now you as a photographer, I can use my iPhone for certain things.

I can use those tools, but it still didn’t replace me as a person. Right? So yeah, I like.

Rick Rappe: 59:37

What you said at the beginning of that was you, you said something about, you know, obviously not letting fear hold you back from trying these things. And that’s been a recurring theme for me on this podcast. Surprisingly, talking to marketing people and especially in their early days, the really successful ones, they would do things kind of like you did at TGI Fridays, where they did something that was to, to get in to an amazing position. Yeah, they just kind of like ignored the fear that they might fail and they just take a big step. Take a big swing and do these big things when they’re, you know, young getting into amazing roles.

And my friend Bill Fritsch got an amazing job at Disney. That he shouldn’t have gotten. And it was a similar story to yours at TGI Fridays just because he was persistent and he just knew that it was he was gonna figure it out. And, you know, it wasn’t he didn’t have all the answers to start with, but he didn’t let fear stop him from trying. Right.

Which is such a big thing. Most a lot of people do that.

Tony Rodriguez: 1:00:50

So what’s the worst that’s gonna that’s why I tell people about the podcast I have. When we started, I told my wife this. She goes, what do you what do you think you’re gonna get out of it? I go, I don’t know. I go, here’s the thing, I don’t know.

So I said, what I’m gonna do is do it for a year. And my hope is that we’re successful, right? My hope is we learn a business. What I hope to get out of it, though, even if we fail, because I will be better educated in how that business works and how you put a show together. So even if you try for something and you fail, I bet you the lessons you learned and the skills that you learned in failing will be just as important to you.

Of all those times you took a chance and you succeed. So it always will work out. But just get past your fear. There’s your. As my friend always says, you’re floating in a blue marble, zooming through space.

What do you have to be afraid of at this point? Just ask the question.

Rick Rappe: 1:01:46

Yeah. That’s good. Good advice. If people want to get Ahold of you, how should they reach out and get Ahold of you?

Tony Rodriguez: 1:01:54

Oh, you can just find me on LinkedIn at Tony Rodriguez everything’s there. Current Home podcast, awards, websites, all that stuff is there. Yeah, just reach out to me, DM me. I’m one of the very few people in this industry that likes me. I usually answer most messages to people.

I usually take most meetings. Even though I know I’m being sold something because I always think to myself, what if somebody pitching me something that I just didn’t know existed and I could learn from this meeting? So if you meet, want to talk, shoot, you know, talk shop, you know, shoot the breeze, let me know. I’m always around.

Rick Rappe: 1:02:33

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being our guest today, Tony, and we really appreciate that. And we’ll let you go. Talk to you again soon.

Outro: 1:02:43

That’s a wrap for this episode of Response Drivers. Thanks for tuning in. If you found today’s insights valuable, make sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you’re enjoying the show, we’d love it if you left a review. Got a question or a topic you’d like us to cover? Just drop us a message at responsedrivers@rpmdm.com. Until next time, keep driving response and making your marketing work smarter.