How to Reach Your Ideal Customer with David Caroll of Dope Marketing

Mike has David Caroll of Dope Marketing on the show this week! David shares it all; his childhood, turning his life around, starting multiple businesses, and his most important; being a father & husband.

David also shares his super unique approach to his marketing method that is data proven to be optimized every time.

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[00:00:00] David: I'm not a big guy on regrets. I'm a big guy on lessons and learning from experience.

[00:00:04] Mike: What is the methodology? How does it work? How does it impact people's business?

[00:00:09] David: Who do I target? What do you sell? What do you do? What is the pain that you solve, and how much does the person's house cost that you can do that for?

[00:01:10] Mike: And we live. Welcome back, episode four, the Mission Control podcast. I'm your host, Mike Stearns. Here we got David Carroll with Dope Marketing. David, welcome.

[00:01:20] David: Thank you for having me, my friend.

[00:01:22] Mike: Yeah, no doubt, man. So for those of those that do not know who is David Carroll?

[00:01:28] David: Who is David Carroll? Uh, I am a, uh, I'm a father of four.

Uh, grew up in, uh, grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. Um, twin cities, born and raised. Um, ex knucklehead. Went to like nine high schools, Uh, got in some trouble growing up. We'll talk about that later in the interview. Um, started my first business when I was 25. I started a cleaning company here in the Twin Cities, Uh, power washing, gutter cleaning, holiday lighting.

I've had that for 13 years. Uh, have been phased outta that business for about six years now. Uh, does seven figures. I don't even run the marketing there anymore. We have a, we have an agency do that. Um, but cool business, uh, seasonal. It's like eight months outta the year. Can't really power wash here in in Minnesota in January doesn't work too well.

We had a Christmas light sets that business, uh, like five years ago. One of the better decisions we made there so that thing's kind of automated, started a data business 10 years ago. Like I'm a huge. Do we get to swear on your podcast? Yeah, sure. Great. Cause I can't help myself, so I'm a huge fucking nerd.

Um, I like data and spreadsheets and thick glasses and boring shit. And, uh, so I've had a data business for 10 years and now I was coming of the motivation behind Dope Marketing, um, CEO and founder of Dope Marketing, which does, uh, automated direct mail to the neighbors of your jobs to get you, uh, to get you more jobs from the right people.

So, home service, background, data nerd, direct mail junkie, father, husband. I like movies from the eighties. Um, I like hanging out with weirdos like Mike Stearns at trade shows. Um, yeah, I'm the most simple, complicated guy you've ever met in your life.

[00:03:16] Mike: Got it. I like the way you worked that in there. So you had touched on something that I feel like there's some digging in to be had.

Um, Acts and uncle had junkie. I feel like there's a lot unpacking there. So for those interested digging, talk

[00:03:28] David: about it, digging into be had, So my background, um, grew up, uh, I, uh, selling drugs since I was like 14. Um, didn't come from some like horrible household or anything like that, like middle class, upper middle class.

Uh, parents were married three times each. I got seven brothers and sisters. Uh, my mom and my dad had me and my little brother. So I grew up with like, older brothers and sisters and stuff like that. And, uh, I just, uh, I liked, I figured out at a young age that I really liked to do what I wanted to do all the time, regardless of the repercussion or what anyone else said.

Sure. And so I had family out from California. Uh, we were bringing, I was 17 years old, count a million dollars in a hotel room, um, scaled pretty quickly in the realm. That side of life. And, uh, right before my 21st birthday, uh, I got, I got robbed for like 150,000. Uh, these dudes broken this house I was managing when I wasn't there.

Figured out who it was, kicked their door in, hit one of 'em with a pistol. One of his buddies was hiding in the closet. I got stabbed four times, dropped my gun, got hit with it. That doesn't feel that great. I did figure out that night that I was knife proof. So that was, that was a nice, nice thing to uh, to accomplish silver lining.

Um, yeah, right. Gotta, gotta, gotta get together. So, um, I woke up in the hospital. I'll never forget this detective Barbara, Moe, I saw her on first 48. Um, she's standing on over my bed with a line with me circled with signatures next to it. It's like, You've been in some trouble in your life, but never anything like this and you look like a monster.

So you can tell us who was in this house with you. Cuz the guys I went in there with, uh, ended up getting stabbed. They left me in there, they ran away. I ended up having a great negotiation with the guy and his friend who, uh, I hit with a gun. They were gonna take me to the hospital. I ran off. Didn't think that was a great idea.

Passed out cause my lung was collapsed. That wasn't a great thing either. But when I woke up, the lady's like, You can talk to us or you can go to jail. And I'm like, Yeah, tough guy. Gangster Dave, take me to jail. Yeah, go in front of the judge. I'm in there for a couple months or whatever. I forgot what bail they were fucking around.

But, uh, go in front of the judge and they were like, uh, basically you can take, uh, you can tell you can take eight years and one felony, you can take four years and four felonies or you can tell us who you're with. Take a year in a day in the workhouse and uh, and your felonies will be expunged from your record.

I said, Fuck you. Give me the gimme the four years. Did that, uh, did like 38 months, ended up violating when I was in the halfway house. Went back for like nine months, and then I got out right when I was around 25. Went back to like the same type of lifestyle for a while. Um, and what do they say in like, sobriety?

Um, which I, I actually now recently, uh, I I, I just cracked like a hundred days of, uh, not drinking quance. So we'll talk about that in a little bit. But sobriety, they say getting sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I was sick and fucking tired of losing six figures off of doing what I was doing.

Sure. And so I was like, What the hell do I know how to do? And the only job I had ever had in my life, I worked like Arby's. When I was 16 for two weeks, I got a job at a gas station to have like a paycheck so I could get an apartment when I was 18. But they, they got me at, my buddy got me a job at a window cleaning company when I was in the halfway house the first time before I got sent back.

I was like, What do I know how to do? Let's start a fucking window cleaning company. And so fast forward 13 years later, that thing is still cranking, moving, running. Um, but that kind of was my, was my path getting me to here. I will never be the guy that's like. Felons are great business owners. No felons are people that can't get fucking jobs that have to go start businesses cuz no one will hire 'em for the good shit.

You can do sales, but if you wanna go like be an entrepreneur and do some shit, um, usually with a, with a record like mine, like some of you watching or some of your family members or friends or whatever mm-hmm. , um, business owners usually can come from bad decisions that you made previously. So I was kind of new that I was an entrepreneur.

Um, I always kind of had that feeling, but I'll never be the guy that's like, you sold drugs so you're good at running a business. Like, those are two very opposite, opposite things. And not only do I have lumps from making bad decisions, I have lumps from learning that shit also.

[00:07:31] Mike: Yeah. So it seems like, you know, there was a lot of negative consequence and repercussions that maybe you didn't consider when you're younger.

I mean, I know that I've made my fair share of bad choices and plenty still to come down the pipe for sure. Probably today. Yeah. Uhhuh in about 30 minutes. No. Um, but I think it's also, I think in taking the path that you have taken, I think there's a lot of good that has come out of that, you know, as like an unintended consequence as well.

A hundred percent. I would agree with that. So what do you feel, the path that you've taken, what do you fe