Digital Marketing for Contractors
A podcast for home improvement contractors to help you crush your lead goals and take your business to the next level. Join us each episode as we give you powerful insights and practical tips on the best digital marketing strategies to help you grow your home improvement business.
Digital Marketing for Contractors
SPECIAL GUEST: Aging in Place - Tapping into the Home Access Market with Ross Gaskin
In this episode, Janet Mobley and Meredith Medlin chat with Ross Gaskin, VP of Sales at Health at Home, about the fast-growing “aging in place” market and how contractors can seize this opportunity. Ross shares insights into home accessibility trends, common contractor mistakes in barrier-free bathroom installs, and why selling grab bars could be your ticket into larger remodel projects. If you're a contractor looking to diversify your services or add meaningful value to your bath remodels, this episode is packed with practical advice, product knowledge, and business-building tips.
Want to find out how we can create a custom digital marketing game plan for your contractor business? Schedule a call with us at fatcatstrategies.com.
Welcome to Digital Marketing for Contractors, a podcast for home improvement contractors to help you crush your lead goals and take your business to the next level. Join us each episode as we give you powerful insights and practical tips on the best digital marketing strategies to help you grow your home improvement business. Let's get started.
SPEAKER_01:As America ages, more homeowners are choosing to stay in their homes longer, but that takes more than just good intentions. It takes smart, safe renovations that help people live independently. In this episode, we are joined by Ross Gaskin, the VP of Sales at Health at Home, to talk about how contractors can get educated, certified, and involved in the booming home access market. So today, I'm so happy to have Ross join us, and I'd like to welcome everybody back to another episode of Digital Marketing for contractors. My name is Janet. I'm one of the owners here at Fat Cat. I'm joined by Meredith, a co-owner and the lovely and talented operations manager, website manager. Meredith does a little bit of everything here at Fat Cat. So Meredith, say hello to our audience.
SPEAKER_02:Hello, happy to be back. I'm super excited today. We get to talk about aging in place and the whole market around that. And we're super excited to have Ross with us. So, you know, We're going to let you guys know a little bit about him, Health at Home, and the aging in place market as a whole.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so Meredith, as you said, we are joined by Ross Gaskin, the Vice President of Sales at Health at Home, which is a company that helps homeowners live safely and independently for longer by making smart, accessible modifications to their home.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. And, you know, it isn't just about safety. It's about dignity, comfort. And for our listeners, it's also about a growing business market. So, yeah,
SPEAKER_01:there's a what do they call it? A silver tsunami of seriously, I think calling it a silver tsunami of boomers. that want to age and place in their home. And in order to do that safely, they're gonna have to make modifications, which is a great segue to welcoming Ross. So Ross, welcome to the show and tell us who you are, what you do, what is Health at Home? What do contractors need to know about Health at Home and the products that you can offer them?
SPEAKER_04:First of all, thank you guys for having me. I really appreciate the invite. Uh, yeah. And so for health at home, we sell aging in place, uh, products for people that are trying to stay their homes for longer. Um, we focus primarily on the bathroom, but we do have, um, some products that go outside of that. Um, you know, this is a really big category that, um, that I don't think is really getting the focus it deserves, especially with the number of people, like you said, the white tsunami coming through,
SPEAKER_01:um, silver tsunamis, whatever it's called.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Silver tsunami, excuse me. Um, Yeah, that's becoming, it's just a much bigger part of the market than people realize. And for Health at Home, we really help with the shower specifically, making sure that people have a low threshold or barrier-free showers, as well as grab bars and shower seats. And we work with showrooms, but we also work with contractors directly. You're
SPEAKER_01:not working directly with homeowners, right?
SPEAKER_04:No, we're not. We're only
SPEAKER_01:business to business. You're servicing the business. It's a business to business relationship.
SPEAKER_04:Correct. And so we've been in this space since about 2008. And the original owner has since passed, but we've really grown what it is that we offer. And the way I look at it is we have kind of two different areas that we focus on is we have more people that are going to be showroom. And we see a lot of people that are downsizing that had the big house. They're tired of it. Just a heat and cool the thing for, you know, using rooms over to use any room anymore. And Hey, I want to have everything be accessible for when that time comes, but I just want to make sure it doesn't look like a hospital. Um, so we have nicer finishes like matte black and gold. Um, but then we also have a category that's more, um, going to be a lot more government work, going to be the VA. There's a lot of state programs. Just about every state has some form of program they work with. And then there's also insurance programs. And so we really cover that gambit between kind of wants and needs and anything in between.
SPEAKER_01:So when you say you're supporting showrooms, these are open to the public showrooms for people to come in and look at fixtures and grab bars. And are those showrooms also doing the installation?
SPEAKER_04:No, so most of the showrooms we deal with are going to be plumbing supply showrooms, and it's for someone to come in and select things that they want. So, hey, you know, I want something from Delta, but I have a– I want this gold finish, and, hey, I also want a nicer grab bar or a shower seat, and then that would be something they would talk with the showroom consultant about, and they would purchase through us. They would order through the showroom or the distributor, but they would ultimately get it from us. Got it. That's just a little nicer category that we deal with with Matt Black and things like that. And we do a lot of that across the country.
SPEAKER_01:Are you ever selling to individual contracting companies that are doing the bath remodels where they buy their product through you?
SPEAKER_04:Yes and no. We do work with a few different franchises across the country that we have a national contract. we have national deals with, um, that is a growing market that we're seeing that we're actually getting more and more involved in. Um, we deal more with just accessories on that side. A lot of them are going to have their own things that they supply. That's going to be one of their very big main generator, uh, um, revenue generators. Um, but a lot of the accessories and things like that, we can help provide for that for them for specifically for the aging in place category.
SPEAKER_01:Cool. So, um, Speaking of aging in place, what have you seen in this marketplace with folks wanting to stay in their home and make it more accessible? What are some insights that you've seen working in this industry about the size and the shape of the market and the trends that you've seen?
SPEAKER_04:Well, first off, in terms of the actual population shift, it's really interesting to see. between 2024 and 2027, 4.1 million people are going to be retiring or turning 65 or older at that point. It's about 11,000 people per day. So it's a very big growing market. And the problem that we deal with is that we see a lot of contractors that are taking things that they know and trying to just, they assume it works for everything for accessibility. And there's a lot of, especially nowadays with the internet, there's a lot of really cheap products out there. And so, you know, to have, to have, so what we do is we actually can help um, contractors and say, Hey, here are the products that you need. And are you asking these questions of your customer? Because a lot of people are going and saying, Hey, you know, having a, um, a low threshold shower, that's not a big deal. They can get, you know, three inches is nothing. Well, if that person is going to be in a wheelchair
SPEAKER_03:and
SPEAKER_04:right. And making sure you're asking those questions of your, uh, of your customers to make sure that you're giving the best, um, possible results to not only help them now, but also long-term is something that we help contractors with in terms of kind of changing their shift, changing their thinking and shifting to not just finishing the job, but also how we can provide assistance down the line for them as well.
SPEAKER_01:So not only are you able to provide them with products, but you're able to help them on a consulting front, help the contractors position themselves and their services to best serve that aging in place market.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. I mean, that's, that's a lot of what we do. Um, we've had quite a few contractors that, um, maybe they want to bid somewhere and they're like, Hey, you know, this is my first time doing that. And there's a lot of things that, um, can be very, very easily overlooked. Um, just about. So one thing is when you're setting a barrier free pan for a shower, a lot of contractors, um, they're used to setting a multi-piece shower unit that has a much bigger, um, threshold to get in. Now, what's nice about that is, so if I'm doing tile, in order to get the proper pitch, it needs to be a quarter foot, quarter inch per square foot to get that pitch to the drain. With a barrier-free pan, actually, that actual tolerance is a lot less, and so if that pan is not leveled correctly, then you can do an entire job, and at the very end, the shower's leaking and it's nothing to do with the product, it's the fact that your contractor didn't take the time to level the pan. And whenever we start, I always joke myself, I'm like, I'm gonna sound like a broken record, but please, please, please level, level, level. If you just get that right, we can fix walls, we can fix the other things, but if the pan's wrong and you put all your valve grab bars and everything in and you get your trim all set in, And you put the water in and it starts going out of the shower. That's no good. Right. And that's not a manufacturer defect. Not to say it can't happen. It's
SPEAKER_01:an installation problem.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Not a product problem.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And from there, you're going to have to take everything out. And the question becomes, hey, can I take that out and still reuse it? Or am I having to buy everything again? And then that's going to affect your margins and other things for you and can really hurt you financially. Right.
SPEAKER_02:And do you guys have any sort of program that, you know, your health at home employees go through your team members to help when you're talking to contractors? Or do you just know these things off the top of your head? Like, what does that look like?
SPEAKER_04:So a lot of these things we know off the top of our head. We actually developed a new shower system that we're currently working with a few state programs across the country. And we actually are requiring that they sit down with us. We had an installation video that we send them, but we actually require them to sit down with us to watch it. Cause we've gotten some calls on things where some, somebody goes, Oh, I'm having a problem with this. And like, you, didn't watch the video so now we make them sit down and we go through and it's not only to help them it helps us not to be fully transparent oh yeah yeah we just want to make sure that they have a good experience um for their first time and um you know and this is true of anything but when something's new like this taking a little time up front to understand the process of process of installation and materials that you're working with um Everyone wants to rush through it so quickly, but if you slow down and take that time, it can save you so much time in the back end. It can make your customer happier and make your life easier, make my life easier. But that is something that we are requiring. And if we need to, if they're local, we have some people out to actually help with installs in the past, but that's not something we normally do.
SPEAKER_01:And local is where? Remind everybody. Oh,
SPEAKER_04:sorry. We're in Charlotte, North Carolina, but we do cover the whole country. But obviously, we're going to do more on the East Coast than West Coast.
SPEAKER_01:So run through the list of products that a contractor could purchase through Health at Home. I've heard hands, grab bars. What kind of stuff can we get from you?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so we do grab bars, grab bars, valves, shower seats, handheld slide bars, shower heads, barrier-free pans, barrier-free multi-piece showers. We have different types of wall paneling. Then we have different shower systems like you see behind us. And the things that we use are all tried and true. There's always something cheaper out there that you can get that's gonna be, We've really found in this category, and we do walk-in tubs, we have found a lot of when something seems too good to be true, it normally is, and that's why we have a really high retention rate with our customers. Once we have somebody, and as long as they continue to do aging in place, rarely do they leave us for other vendors just because of the services we provide, and all the materials we use are tried and true, and we're not We're not going to give you some super cheap wall paneling from China or somewhere that you're going to have issues with. And especially when you're dealing with some of the people and some situations that we're in, having good materials when you see some of these homes that are getting these bids for the VA and state programs, they don't always have a lot of money, but we really want to make sure that we're providing that good product because It's so important that It's installed correctly with good product because if there's any issue with water leaking out anywhere or anything like that, it can cause mold and mildew and really damage their health even more. And so that's a really big concern for us is making sure that we have quality and that we help our contractors through the whole process.
SPEAKER_01:I'm not familiar with any of the state programs or any VA programs. So most of our clients, you know, all of our clients are home improvement contractors. It's about half and half. Half of our clients are like roofing site exterior windows the other half are interior and most of those are doing one day bathroom remodels
SPEAKER_03:yeah
SPEAKER_01:now they're installing our clients are installing you know a system from like a big household name yeah um you know it's a it's a luxury bath or it's a jacuzzi system um and they're not trying to um to have that funded through any sort of state program or VA program. It's just homeowners who are paying for it, either financing or paying for it out of cash. I think what you're describing is some program that offers assistance to people that want to modify their home, and you're trying to maintain compliance with that. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, just more on the state program side. It's just they don't have The amount of money the state's giving them from a VA perspective, or there's other grants and things that they can give them, they just don't get that much money. And so we're helping stretch that as far as possible. But one thing you touched on, just to shift gears with you, is we actually work a lot with those different programs. Or excuse me, not those programs, but we work a lot with different franchisee models. One thing we do a lot of is our shower seats and our grab bars. And we actually started kind of on a weird path to that because when we started, we were doing teak seats. And a lot of these guys, I actually had somebody call me today from one of the ones you mentioned. And it's really funny because we started with teak seats and that's what everyone knows and they use in their showers. And teak's great. We sell it and I don't have any big problem with it. But we actually developed new shower seats using an HDPE material. It's a high-density polyethylene material. It comes in 16 different colors, and then we also have more finishes. We have matte black, gold, brushed, stainless. And what's nice is our shower seats are– the ACP material is similar to, like, a Trex decking material.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_04:So you can put bleach on it. You can put any abrasive cleaners on it. And the reason I started is we were selling shower seats, and every once in a while we had a call and someone would say, hey, you know, this teak seat is, you know, defective. We say, okay, so let's go ahead and return it. We get it back. And then we'd look at the, one of the panels and you'd see a big spot on it clearly where they just poured bleach or something
SPEAKER_03:on it. And,
SPEAKER_04:and so we'd replace it. And so we actually started looking for different material. Um, and that's where we came up with this new material and it's, um, it's actually made from recycled milk cartons. So it's a green material. Um, but we use it quite a bit. And, um, some franchise models that I think you're referring to across the country. And it's been really nice. It has a 500-pound weight capacity because it's made of stainless steel. And having the nicer finishes that match Kohler and Delta and Moen is really nice. And Matt Black has been something really nice that I think some of your customers might be interested in or some of your clients might be interested in.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so for listeners out there, if you're already doing bathroom remodeling, if you're already doing some aging in place and you don't have the kind of variety for accessories or seats that you might be getting from your primary dealer or if you're in a franchise network, it sounds like Health at Home can provide you with different colors, different materials, different accessories, different
SPEAKER_03:Maybe
SPEAKER_01:even some alternate shower pans, some alternate wall systems to provide your customers a wider variety and can help you, the listener, diversify where you get your products from.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. We've been doing this a long time and And I'm sorry for jumping around you
SPEAKER_01:a little bit. No, this is what a podcast is.
SPEAKER_04:Rabbit
SPEAKER_01:holes, trains of thought.
SPEAKER_04:But, you know, another thing that I noticed a lot that we deal with a lot that we've either someone's had to do multiple times or we've had to replace is if someone is doing a tile shower and they're doing a mud bed or something to do a true barrier-free shower. One thing that I teach a lot of our contractors is is about education, not only from us to them, but from them to the customer. And one of the big things we see is our contractors do very well because they take the time to explain to their customers what they're using and why they're using it. And I think that's a really big part because I've seen contractors that are really good contractors, but maybe not as good as talking with their customers. And I've seen the reverse of that where maybe not the best, but they're very good, very personal and friendly. And that's such a very big part. And for us, with material that we use, we see guys that are cutting floor joists and they're taking things that, Mud beds are great. If they're done properly, you don't really have issues with them, but Schluter is a really big one that's a great company that a lot of people are going to be familiar with. We have a system that's called VIM, V-I-M, a system where you don't have to cut or notch your floor joists. You get a 10-year parts and labor warranty, and it was actually designed by a tile contractor and a plumbing contractor that were using a lot of things out there and didn't like that they had to cut a floor joist and didn't like that warranties didn't include labor. So if they got, you know, if they did everything right and something messed up, they're like, okay, here's a bucket of waterproofing. They're like, okay, well that's not helping the contractor. And so once you educate your customer on things like that and saying, Hey, I'm going to go through and I had a guy, He goes, hey, here's what I'm going to use. I'm going to be a little bit more, but 10-year warranty, things are going to drain better. Here's everything that you're going to get with it. And that education was so important because the next person that came in was going to do the job for less. But then when the homeowner goes, well, hey, are you going to cut my floor joists? And the contractor went back.
SPEAKER_01:They educated the homeowner about what to ask.
SPEAKER_04:Right. And just having that level of education where the homeowner's like, well, you're going to tell me about that? And they're like, well, no. Well, technically, you need an engineer to come in and look at the floor joists and make sure it's braced up properly. But the contractors, a lot of times, aren't going to tell the homeowner they did that. And so that case, they immediately went back to the person that was like, here's what I'm going to do and why I'm going to do it. And I think that's a really important part that a lot of contractors don't always do. And that's something we like to help our contractors with.
SPEAKER_01:So if I was going to translate that into layman's terms, me being the layman here. Sure. It sounds like you have products that you can sell to contractors that allow them to offer barrier-free showers to their customers that don't do anything to negatively impact the structure of the home. It's easier to install better product with a better warranty. Is that a fair summary?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And there are some great products out there. Schluter has come out with something that's fairly... Schluter? Schluter, which is a... Schluter, yeah. They have some great products. But, you know, get in the weeds of that a little bit. But, you know, just examples of, you know, things that we use and then taking the time to also educate our contractors has been really important. And it's been really helpful. And also to hear back from them. You know, we developed a new shower system that we use with state programs, but we actually got with our contractors and like, hey, what is it that you guys want? And what is it that you're not getting? And that was a big, that was a big process of getting everything done for them. And it's been really helpful. And, you know, something else that we've also done is we'll take on products. If we have somebody that goes, look, I'm doing, a bunch of jobs with you guys, but every time I'm having to go somewhere else to buy this, well, we can go ahead and we can put it in our warehouse for you to make it easier to do one-stop shop where we can have everything for you. So you're not sending your guy to three different locations where you're paying them, you know, half a day labor just to go to different stores. Right.
SPEAKER_01:So tell me a little bit about your distribution network and warehousing. If you're in Charlotte and somebody's in Oklahoma and wants to buy from you, how does that
SPEAKER_04:work? We just ship it. So we palletize everything we go through and it just depends on what they want because we have so many different things that we offer. It just depends on what they focus on and how we can help them. Yeah, we just ship it.
SPEAKER_01:What you're saying is that same story holds true that if they start to buy from you and you can provide more items on your line card, then they're not paying guys half a day to run around to three different plumbing suppliers to pick up.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So perfect example and something else there.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. With our new shower system that we provided, um, what's nice is we actually put, um, we put the nails, we put everything in there. So when they get it, um, that was one thing that our contractors told us is that, Hey, if I have somebody subbed out for this job and he gets the job and goes, Oh, I'm missing a bucket of screws or nails or whatever. And then if I'm in the middle of nowhere, I'm going to Home Depot or somewhere to pick up a thing of screws. And then that way we can go ahead and just make it a little bit easier for you. And then we can put everything in one order. We didn't reinvent the wheel with that, but
SPEAKER_03:it's
SPEAKER_04:an example of listening to our contractors with trying to fix things that are problems for them.
SPEAKER_01:This kind of reminds me of an Ikea. Everything's in box. When you're done, you're going to have a desk.
SPEAKER_04:You don't sell everything, but for the shower, we got you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, for a shower.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. But no, this type of work is getting more and more important. And The thing that we get, I touched on it earlier, but we get so much of is, hey, I really want to have everything be accessible, but I don't want to look at it like a hospital. And there's so many products out there that can do that. And it's interesting. We've seen a fairly decent shift in some of our products, like our shower seats. We sell more of those that have nothing to do with accessibility. That's now it's more of, Hey, I don't want to have something that's going to be cold. If it's tile, it's going to be cold. It can leak. There's more grout. I just want to, I want a bench for me to sit down. A lot of times I didn't think about this until we started selling it. Yeah. A lot of that. I always joke. If you want to have a shower beer, it's a good time to sit in there in the shower.
SPEAKER_01:Some days you're just too tired to stand up.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Just got done with a workout or something, but it's been very interesting to kind of see. The other thing that's interesting to me too is also that you don't realize how fast some of these things can happen. Unfortunately, you know, we do deal with some younger people where they've had issues and let's say it's not too serious that somebody was playing football and they hurt their leg. And man, for me to get over that, to get over the bath, just to have a grab bar on the other side was so important. It can happen a lot faster than you think. And there's other things that we talk to our customers about that even if you're doing a shower, hey, you don't have to put vacuum for the full shower, but charge a little bit more and do the full shower That way you're making a little bit more money. And if somebody ever needs it, they can put a grab bar wherever they like, even if it's something they don't want right now. And just little things like that can go a long way for
SPEAKER_01:helping. A bathroom remodel.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So I don't know if this is something that you do, but it's worth asking the question. If there are contractors out there right now that they're doing remodeling jobs, but they haven't really gotten into this aging in place market yet.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:What advice would you give them? How do they get started?
SPEAKER_04:That's a good question. Yeah, we'll reach out to us. We'll help you. We're a great starting place. We deal with it all the time. Use good materials. Talk to your customers. I find most people will tell you what they want. You just need to make sure you're taking the time to listen and ask questions. I know a lot of us just want to take time hey, this works over here, so I'm just going to do this for every job and take a little time to find out about any conditions or things they have can go a long way. Health conditions. Yeah, and I will say I did have a very specific example. A customer of ours, which we're seeing more of this, is that there's people out there that go, hey, I just want to have a grab bar installed. Well, he's made an entire business out of that, and what I mean by that is He goes in and it's almost like a loss leader. If he's going in to install one grab bar, okay, but now I've gotten you into the house. This is what I specialize in. And a lot of times people that are doing this can't find a contractor they need to go through and make sure that everything's installed correctly. And so he uses that one grab bar to get in and he's done almost whole home remodels and done a ramp, a shower, everything just because that one person needed a grab bar and then once he got in there and started talking to him um he did all this other stuff and then there's also little things like hey i keep other grab bars on my truck so while i'm here i can add another one by your toilet i can add one by your stairs and that one grab bar had turned into what his entire business is today it's very interesting
SPEAKER_01:wow so it sounds like if there's a contractor out there that's not currently doing any modifications to help people age in place They might just start by offering grab bars.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Well, it's really interesting because I understand, look, if I was a contractor, I don't know if I want to go out to do one grab bar. So there's a shortage of that. But if you look at it from a different perspective of, hey, this is getting me a qualified customer that I know needs this, rather than me going out for a quote, I'm actually going to get paid on this grab bar. And then look at it from the chance of an opportunity more than anything to say, There's so much more here that I can do.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Look at it like if somebody was motivated to have a grab bar installed, they most likely have other needs that you can satisfy.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And a lot of times they just can't find somebody. And, you know, I get everybody wants to do the bigger job and that's great. But do the one grab bar, get in there, talk to the customer, see what their issues are. And you'd be surprised just because they just need to find somebody, and they're, hey, I don't want to do a whole sales program, but hey, now that you're here, and do you do anything else? Oh, what are you looking for? Oh, I need a ramp. Oh, I need a full shower remodel. There's a lot of different opportunities there, but I don't think people realize that, but it's been really interesting to see this guy's business grow over time. Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:that's fascinating. He's
SPEAKER_04:doing very well.
SPEAKER_01:What about, you mentioned ramps. I mean, what about things outside of the bathroom?
SPEAKER_04:So we don't get into Rams. That's a whole, that's a whole nother
SPEAKER_01:ballgame. Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. But the, um, but there's a lot of times they're not too complicated. There's, there's a lot of good companies out there. Um, there's a lot of people that we work with that actually have specialized and focused on Rams and, um, Kind of the same thing with the grab bar. They're there doing the ramp. And then while they're doing the ramp, they're saying, hey, can you guys help me with anything else? And they've started doing bathrooms using the same kind of idea. Like now that we're doing the ramp and you guys do other stuff and there just isn't enough people out here that are doing this. And so when they find somebody that's doing one thing, they don't know where else to go. And so if they feel comfortable with you, it's a great business opportunity for someone to open up, but they just need to let their customers know that they can do those things.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Yeah. So if someone was going to expand into modifications to help somebody age in place, is there any kind of training or certification that you would recommend contractors look into?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, there are some different ones. Yeah. That's
SPEAKER_03:what
SPEAKER_02:I
SPEAKER_04:was thinking of. We actually just had our head of operations. She just got her CAPS certification. They're great. They actually do a very in-depth look about aging in place. I think it's a great experience. To me, I think it's more about finding the right materials and using good materials and to kind of Pivot from that, walk-in tubs. There's some really cheap ones out there. We actually, as a company, didn't sell them for a while because we couldn't find something with the quality that we wanted. And I think there's more opportunity out there. I mean, you've seen a lot of other really big companies like Safety Step got bought for, I think, over$200 million. And they're kind of driving it in the market for walk-in tubs. And there's great opportunities out there. outside of those franchise models. But same thing, if you're there for that, if you talk to somebody else and say, hey, while we're here, we can do some grab bars, there's easy things you can add on.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, Ross, what to kind of bring it all together. What is one thing that you wish every contractor understood about accessibility work?
SPEAKER_04:It takes... It's very quick to learn, but it is different. And so take the time, use good materials. You know, it's upsetting. We've seen jobs that we've gone in and we've had our contractors replace because, you know, hey, I'm a contractor, I know what I'm doing. And so they, again, they just took something that they knew and they just, they took it and they put a, you know, a square peg around hole. And if you just take a little bit of time to kind of look through what you're doing, there's a lot of people out there that do supply this stuff. Even a lot of, I get a call from a lot of showrooms and supply houses that they don't focus on this all the time. And so we can be, we're a resource for them. And, you know, no one wants callbacks and I want to move on to the next job too, which is why we also only sell good products too. But take the time to do that. And if you are doing it for the first time, take a little more time to make sure you're doing it right. I can tell you, DePan's a very good example of something that I just absolutely hammer with my contractors that I'm telling you, if you take a little more time and get this right, you make everything else so much easier in the back end. And just please take those minutes to do that. You won't regret it.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Fantastic. Well, for anybody listening who is looking for a new supplier and some resources about aging in place, tell our listeners the best way to get in touch with you. How can they find out more about Health at Home and how can they get in touch with you?
SPEAKER_04:So they can go to healthathomeinc.com. We, I'll apologize in advance, we're updating our website. It was supposed to be updated, but that got pushed back. But yeah, And then also you can look me up at Ross Gaskin on LinkedIn and then give us a call. This is what we do. We'd be happy to go through. If you have a whole team of people, we can do a video conference. We do them all across the country with all the different materials that we have. Give us a try. Again, we have a really high retention rate. I think because of that, we're not trying to just sell as much cheap crap as we can, excuse me, as we can out there. And so we do have a really good retention rate with our customers and they're very happy. And we'd always love to meet some new people and bring on some new customers.
SPEAKER_01:Fantastic. So that's Ross Gaskin, G-A-S-K-I-N.
SPEAKER_04:G-A-S-K-I-N, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And we'll put these links in the show notes as well. You can look up Ross on LinkedIn or you can go to healthathomeinc.com. to see the products that they carry. Or
SPEAKER_04:you can email me and you'll see our price book on there and just know that's list pricing. So that's not what contractors get charged. And on top of that, the other thing we've done is as long as you're borrowing our products, we're not too worried about it. We can actually change our price book and digitally make it so it has your company's names and logos on it so that it looks like everything's coming from you directly. And
SPEAKER_01:you do that for your contractors?
SPEAKER_04:We'll do it for them. We're not going to print it. If they want a physical copy, we'll provide ours. But if they want it with their name and logo on it, we can make it so everything looks like it comes from them. But yeah, that's another service that we provide for them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's awesome. So if you are doing some bathroom remodeling, that means you could go in and send a customer an email with a PDF of a price list of all the products and you didn't even have to make that brochure. You
SPEAKER_04:guys make it. Yes. We'll just take all our stuff off it and put yours on. Yeah. It's been really successful with a lot of our customers.
SPEAKER_01:So Ross, it sounds like you're making it easy for contractors to look like heroes in the home.
SPEAKER_04:Trying to, um, I'm big on I want to make things easier for people. Generally, people, if they have an issue with something, they're always going to revert back to what's easier and what they know. And so, you know, anything we can do to kind of help that process. And, you know, we are a midsize company, so we do have the ability to to kind of adjust on the fly, which has been really helpful. It's something we can help provide our customers.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome. Awesome. Well, Ross, thank you so much for your time, for talking to our audience. And, you know, we really appreciate everything, all your insights. And we're super excited for our audience to connect with you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And to our listeners, if you've enjoyed this episode, don't forget to hit subscribe, leave us a review and share this episode with a contractor or friend who needs to hear it. Ross, thanks again. And we'll catch you later.
SPEAKER_00:Digital marketing for contractors is created by Fat Cat Strategies. For more information, visit fatcatstrategies.com.