February 25, 2025 • 50 mins
Unleash the potential of your trades business with insights from Tom Casey, master advisor at Best Postcards and acclaimed contractor, as he cuts through the noise of self-proclaimed marketing gurus. Discover how to differentiate hype from reality, and why adopting a pragmatic, BS-filtered approach is essential for successful marketing in the trades industry. This episode promises to unpack the significance of staying consistent in training, marketing, and investment while making informed decisions based on purchase cycles to drive business growth and sustainability.
Explore the diverse marketing and purchase strategies unique to different service sectors like HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and pest control. Tom discusses the distinct cycles and demands of each, highlighting how understanding these nuances can refine your strategic branding and customer retention efforts. Learn why building a known, liked, and trusted brand is fundamental, and why relying purely on digital marketing is not a long-term solution. By crafting a holistic approach, you can effectively manage budgets and create lasting customer relationships.
Crafting compelling marketing messages is no easy task, but this episode provides valuable insights into the psychology of buyers and the art of clear, concise communication. Tom shares how to avoid the pitfalls of generalist agencies and the importance of a singular, memorable point in advertising. Embrace the power of aggressive guarantees and exceptional service to foster a strong brand identity that stands out in a competitive market. With Tom's wealth of experience, this episode is a treasure trove of strategies to help you dominate your market with consistency and focus.
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From the Yellow Chair is powered by Lemon Seed, a marketing strategy and branding company for the trades. Lemon Seed specializes in rebrands, creating unique, comprehensive, organized marketing plans, social media, and graphic design. Learn more at www.LemonSeedMarketing.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Oh, what's up?
Lemonheads, welcome to anotherepisode of From the Yellow Chair
.
I am Crystal and listen, I'vegot a real SOB in the virtual
lemonade stand today and I can'twait for you to hear the
conversation that we are goingto have all about marketing.
He comes from the trades.
(00:23):
I think he kind of knows whathe's talking about here.
We're going to talk aboutmessaging.
It's going to be a great timetogether, really pushing you to
think about how you're doingyour marketing.
Let's sip some lemonade.
Well, joining me in the virtuallemonade stand today is the
real SOB, which is the son of aboss.
(00:45):
So, technically, I'm not a son,I'm a GOB, a girl of a boss.
But I've been in this same boatas Mr Tom Casey, the master
advisor at Best Postcards andalso America's most awarded
contractor.
The 2022 Contracting BusinessHall of Fame entered into that,
(01:06):
and so, tom, I just always liketo ask our guests why should
anyone listening today care whatyou have to say?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Besides my good looks and good nature, because I've
got the experience of been there, done that, I probably paid the
tuition on many, many lessonsthrough all my time of Odin
businesses.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Well, I mean, how do you feel about what's all going
on right now?
You know I was thinking today,you know we have and I'm kind of
going off script of what I justtold you I was going to do but
you know my brain kind of goesto you're from this.
This is definitely not yourfirst rodeo.
Tell me how you feel right nowabout, like all these
influencers that are callingthemselves coaches, and you know
(01:48):
all these companies there'stons of marketing companies like
how are you feeling about thelike that, Even the social
landscape of of our industry?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
now, from someone that's been in this mix for a
while, that's a really goodsubject and could go like a lot
of different ways.
A good subject and could golike a lot of different ways.
My approach is always realityover theory, like practicality,
pragmatic, being pragmatic, andI think having more voices is
(02:15):
great.
I think the fear right now thatI see, or maybe the worry, is
that we've been kind of struckwith this guru-itis.
Everybody's a guru and whetherit's flashing fancy washes or
private planes or fancy shoes orI don't know whatever it is, I
think at the end of the daythose can be shiny objects to
(02:43):
distract us when really we're inlike a blue collar salt of the
earth business.
Right, we're fixing heating andair, we're fixing plumbing,
we're fixing electrical,whatever our trade is, we're
climbing in basements and atticsand crawl space.
There's a practicality to ourbusiness and I think, just like
in other industries, the getrich quick schemes usually get
(03:05):
the person selling the schemerich and not the people trying
to get rich.
So I love it.
I love the perspective.
I think we can all learn fromeverybody.
But you know, there was a timebefore things called cell phones
and computers and we had tolisten to cassette tapes from
guys like Doc Rusk and JimAbrams and you know they didn't
(03:27):
have the internet, they didn'thave Google.
They built businesses just onsolid principle and I think the
more things change, the morethey stay the same, particularly
in this industry.
So the idea right now is we gotto like take a pause and just
kind of run it through like ourBS filter.
I used to always say when I tookmy people to trade shows all
right, turn on your BS filternow, because some people are
(03:49):
going to be saying a lot ofstuff, but you got to use your
brain to kind of work through.
Does it make sense?
And the fear or the worry Isaid about the guru-itis and
there's a lot of good guys andthere's a lot of maybe not so
good guys is each of us has tomake things our own.
Just because you do somethingin your business that crushes it
(04:20):
for your business doesn't meanI can just plug and play to my
business or my market,particularly marketing things,
right.
They don't go the same based onweather patterns and a lot of
things.
So I love it.
But I'm also apprehensive Don'tgo hook, line and sinker
without doing a little bit ofthinking, a little bit of
talking.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Oh yeah, and I have that same philosophy.
It's one of those things that'smy most hated thing, that I
love because I love all theinformation.
I love to be able to filterthrough and keep what I want to
keep and throw out what I wantto throw out.
But I do work with so manycontractors and I watch them
like hook line and sinker, takethe bait of what they have been
(04:59):
sold is a silver bullet.
So you know, even even clientsof limited life, they'll be like
, oh, I found a different agencythat's going to do this and so
we're going to pull all of this.
And so I'm like, okay, Justbecause of one little audit or
or things like that.
So I've really learned to like,like you said, filter through
all the information that's outthere, Because they're the only
(05:20):
silver bullet that I've beenable to find that really helps
grow your home service businessis consistency.
Consistency in training,coaching, answering the phone,
marketing, spending.
I mean all of those areinvesting.
All of those things are thepower of consistency, and so it
led me right into this.
(05:40):
The purchase cycles, which thisis an interesting topic that
not a lot of marketing companiesreally get into, but they
should.
We should be like hyper-focusedon the power of purchase cycles
and home service marketing, andso I just thought maybe we
could break down the concept ofpurchase cycles, their
importance when it comes tomaking smart decisions and you
(06:02):
know, it's a much more importantconcept that I think we give
credit to.
And so I thought like kind ofyou know level set us here, like
exactly what are purchasecycles, what are we talking
about when we say that, and whydo you think they're so crucial?
Speaker 2 (06:16):
So I would agree with you.
I hear no conversations goingon about it.
So when I talk to people it'skind of a mind blowing moment
because they've never heard thisbefore.
But when we talk about it it'sgoing to make complete sense to
people.
And the reason it's critical isif you don't understand this,
then your marketing and yourmessaging will probably be wrong
and you'll be wondering whyit's not working.
(06:38):
So purchase cycle basically ishow often is the client or the
prospect in the market to make apurchase?
So there are short purchasecycles, like something that will
happen less than 90 day cycles,say, like food or clothes or
things along that line.
And then there are longpurchase cycles.
(06:59):
If anything, there's more than90 days.
The 90 day barrier is kind oflike how do people remember
things and think about things?
Long purchase cycle things willbe things we sell, like heating
and air and plumbing andelectrical, and even within the
long cycle there's a couple ofdifferent periods.
And the way that kind ofcrystallizes short term long
term concept is everyone islistening.
(07:22):
Imagine you get something in themail and you get a coupon for
$2 off a large cheese pizza andyou get a mailer for $1,500 of
instant rebates off a newheating and air system.
Which one are you hanging onthe fridge?
You're keeping the pizza couponbecause you're going to have a
cycle.
You actually want pizza.
(07:43):
The $1,500 is not going tomotivate somebody.
We can't convince somebody insomething in a short-term tactic
to make a long-term purchase,and so getting this wrong
creates like tons of strategies.
And what I see happen and youprobably see more so is people
(08:03):
say I tried radio once, I trieddirect mail once, I tried that
once and it didn't work.
And the thing is, yeah, ofcourse it didn't work.
I bet it didn't because you youattack it as I'm going to run a
radio campaign for 30 days andget a bunch of work.
That's a short term strategyfor a long term problem.
I mailed my customers twice ayear and they didn't call Bad,
(08:27):
bad strategy because you'retrying to short term, that are
long term purchases that makesense.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Oh, yes, yes, and you know so.
I love direct mail.
I'm a huge direct mail person.
I'm actually.
I love messaging, but I tell mycontractors all the time the
biggest mistake that contractorsmake is not having a realistic
expectation of what they'reabout to do.
So there's nothing wrong withsending like a newsletter twice
a year to your team, to yourclients.
(08:54):
You just have to understandwhat and have clear expectations
of how that is going to perform.
If you're just doingspecifically things to build
your brand, it's probably notgoing to have this huge
immediate ROI, but it's aboutconstantly chipping away and
building up that brand presenceand that brand recognition for
those people.
And so you're right, like themessaging on there matters,
(09:16):
consistency matters, thestrategy behind the mail plan,
as far as when it drops, andheck heck any marketing you know
, and so many people just throwthose things at the wall like it
didn't work.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I'm like there was no time, nor did we have clear
expectations yeah, the firstthing, if I you know, you say
right, you're talking to me likewhat's the marketing budget and
there's like people coulddebate, you know, are the new
business, old business, smallbusiness, large business, like
uh, they got a.
Then the second question I haveis how are you going to split
it between long and short-termfocuses?
(09:47):
And that usually is wherethere's a stumbling block,
because they want to go right todigital mail media.
But there's got to be someconsideration of what are our
sales activation tactics.
On HVAC, what's the averageacross the country?
Probably the average time peopleneed an HVAC service for a
repair three to five years.
New system 10 to 15 yearsprobably, maybe longer in
(10:10):
certain parts of the country.
Plumbing every three, fouryears.
You need a plumbing call.
Water heaters every eight orten years.
These are long purchase cycleproducts and if we're always
trying to run a special, have acoupon, get somebody to do
something that they don't wantto do.
The other thing is nobody wakesup this morning and says I hope
I got to buy a new water heater.
It's a grudge purchase and it'sbeing triggered by an external
(10:33):
event, like I have no hot wateror there's a flood in my house,
I have to buy a water heater.
You can't like mail or Facebookor anything to get there.
That's going to activate themor convince them.
The event has to happen.
So I see that as a big mistake,getting too imbalanced on the
short term, always runningspecials, always trying to get
(10:56):
we need leads, we need leads andnot understanding farming
versus hunting.
Right Marketing is farming,planting seeds, nurturing the
seeds, fertilizing, watering,weeding to get the harvest, and
it takes patience.
You're right.
You got to make sure ascontractors.
This is not a one month one anddone.
This is like a 12 month plan.
(11:17):
This is a strategy and we haveto have the right tactics for
the right situation.
The way I kind of think aboutit is like maybe a playbook.
You don't run the same play onfirst and 10 as you do in fourth
and two.
You know you don't run the sameplan when it's third and eight
as you do with third and one,and so we have to have the right
(11:40):
tactics and the rightdistribution.
And to me, marketing if it's an8% or 10% of the top line
revenue, it's a huge number.
It's one of the biggest numberson our P&L, and so I think we
should look at it not as anexpense.
I think we should look at it asan investment.
And if I tell you how would youmanage your 401k or your
retirement account?
You would have diversity, youwould spread the risk, you would
(12:02):
look at how the whole portfolioperforms.
No one is going to go in andkind of churn their stocks all
the time in their retirementaccount.
Why?
Because it's a long-termthinking.
We're like I'm saving this forwhen I retire, so over time it
will ebb and flow.
As long as I'm on a trajectory,the marketing investment to me
should be the same thing whenwe're thinking about long term
(12:24):
versus short term tactics.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yeah, and I use the term marathon approach, you know
.
So it's so much aboutexpectations.
So many people just will callme and say, oh my gosh, I got to
have leads right now.
And I'm like man, once you arein that bad of place, like it's
really hard to have things thatinstantly make people's air
conditioners break or theirwater heaters bust Right, like
(12:46):
it definitely takes a lot ofintentional brand building to be
to have consistent lead flowfor sure.
Well, how do you think thesecycles differ for like HVAC
versus plumbing versuselectrical, or even you know now
that you know that, even likepest control and things like
that?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Great question again.
So HVAC has the shortest cycle.
Typically is plumbing, becauseplumbing breaks more, there's
more obvious fixtures in thehouse that can go wrong or
drains and the equipment doesn'tlast as long.
So typically plumbing servicesevery two to three to years,
maybe two to four years on acycle where, like the equipment
side of plumbing is like eightto 10 years.
(13:23):
Hvac is about every three tofive years for a service call on
.
Some climates say 10 to 12years for equipment replacement,
others like 15 to 17 years.
And electrical electricians arethe ones who are like the Maytag
man a little bit.
They don't.
People don't have a lot ofelectrical breakdowns the same
as they do plumbing or heatingand air.
So service calls there might beevery five, six years and you
(13:47):
know when it's time to do anupgrade every 15 or 20 years.
So electricians in particularhave to be very strategic.
Pest control is a littledifferent.
Pest control is a subscriptionservice.
So when I see people there youknow pest control is all about
gaining that customer and mostof them make a mistake that
they're not paying attentionwhen they're leaking them out
the backside.
So pest control people are inthe market every two or three
(14:11):
years to change theirsubscription service because
somebody disappointed them, notfor price, but the technician on
site didn't do things he wassupposed to do.
I was literally in a meetingwith a pest control company last
night and that was like yourguys are not wowing the
customers on the service.
So their cycles are shorter andthey don't really have a large
(14:31):
install thing, even if they domosquito systems.
It's like a one and done period.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
They make their money 40 bucks at a time.
That's what I think.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah, it is.
They got to just focus on theright messaging to attract a
long-term customer.
They want to attract somebodywho's going to be there longer
and that's usually throughdifferentiating through service
and sometimes having a lot ofservices.
So if you have to call a lawnguy, a pest guy and a termite
guy or whatever a mosquito guyin four companies and the more
of those you can bundle together, the more attractive it is to
(15:02):
the homeowner.
As long as you're good at allof those things You're not like
mediocre at any of them Doesthat make sense?
Speaker 1 (15:09):
My brother and sister and I started a pest control
company about a year ago now andwe just, I mean, we just went
really hard branding and peopleare like how do you afford this?
And we're like, man, how do youafford not to?
Because it's just you're, youknow you're picking up stepping
over dollars, dimes when you'rejust chasing that fast lead and
so you know it really takes alot of dedication to understand
(15:31):
like the sales cycle or thepurchase cycle is very different
for these different things.
And you know, when contractorsignore this concept whether it's
through, you know, justignoring it altogether concept,
whether it's through, you know,just ignoring it altogether but
mainly when they just, you knowagain, I keep using this term
(15:52):
throw things to the wall to seewhat sticks.
I probably see that statement onmore intake forms for Lemonsie
to support these clients.
I see that like I just throwthings to see what works and
there's a lot of fun to that,like marketing is.
I think marketing is funbecause it's like a puzzle and
everybody's puzzle is a littledifferent, like what worked for
them doesn't work for them, oryou know that price point.
You're constantly pivoting andmoving those puzzle pieces.
But again, understanding likethat you have to work really
(16:16):
hard years sometimes, a lot oftimes before clients actually
need to make a purchase with youthat you'll look up and be like
why have I?
You know, I'm always chasingthis little bitty bottom of the
funnel, the marketing funnel,that little bitty funnel piece.
Then I am chasing the people atthe top of the funnel, which is
just awareness.
You know, people making surepeople are aware.
(16:37):
So how do you feel about that,like, when contractors really
just maybe ignore these purchasecycles, how can it really
impact their branding budget ortheir marketing budget?
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Well, I think that most contractors are that.
I need leads now, especially asdigital.
You know, digital was a boostin the arm for a lot of people
for a bit, but now reality iscoming, coming to roost.
As far as digital with, there'smore competition.
It's bloody water, right, it'snot clean blue ocean, it's
bloody water, Everyone's fishingit and I don't believe you can
really build a brand and paid.
(17:08):
You always got to participate,you got to be on Google.
I'm not saying I'm ananti-digital guy, but you can't
build a brand through paid,because people going to paid
have no brand preference and thegoal of marketing to me, of all
marketing any type, is to beknown, liked and trusted.
(17:32):
How do you become known, likedand trusted in your market?
You've got to have strategy.
The people who make the mistakeof always needing leads.
It's like a cycle of a dogchasing his tail.
Whether they get on paper crackand they can't get off of it
and it was working great, nowit's not working.
Whether they try to do likecoupon mailers buy now cheap.
You can train your customers towait for sales because you
(17:53):
always offer sales.
It's just the what you'reputting out there.
I think, the mistake a lot ofus make as contractors is we
forget we're contractors and wehave this like momentary moment
of insanity and we think we'remarketers.
So I was talking to somebodythe day volume.
I said, um, let me, you're.
(18:15):
You're a contractor, so let meask you a question.
I rate this customer Idescribed to you on a scale from
one to ten, ten being amazing,one being, oh my god.
They call for an estimate whenyou get there.
They've already done all theirresearch on Google, they know
all about SEER value and theyhave model numbers they thought
about and they know, you knowthey've done some research, they
know how much the units cost,they know what components they
(18:39):
need and don't need.
I don't need a thermostat.
And, by the way, they have acousin, a brother, somebody on
their mother's side, three timesremoved, who can do it really
cheap.
Tell me, is that customer a 10or a one?
They're like a negative, two,right, they're just.
Nobody wants this customer, Isaid to this contractor.
Then why are you that customerwhen it comes to your marketing
(19:04):
decisions?
Just like you're the expert atheating and air, plumbing or
whatever, shouldn't themarketing company be the expert?
And I'll put a PS If they'renot, fire that marketing company
.
They're the wrong oneAbsolutely.
And so they got to be carefulof that.
And it also comes on sometimeswhere you can have an agency
(19:27):
that's really competent but youcan have an agency that's really
a sheep in wolf's clothing.
They're a digital company.
Oh, and, by the way, we can dodirect mail.
Or, by the way we can dowhatever or we're a branding
company and now we're doingcopywriting.
It's really hard to do that, um, because really you're trying
(19:47):
to make the digital sale or thebranding sale or whatever sale
under the guise of we can doeverything for you, so that you
dilute it.
You become a jack of all trades, a master of none.
So if we want to do ourmarketing as contractors, we're
probably going to limitourselves.
And I can look and you can lookit up.
I can look at your Facebook andtell, oh boy, this is bad.
I can look at your website andgo, oh, this is not good.
(20:08):
I can look at anything you doand be like you're meddling and
that, and that kind of leads tothe messaging right, most of the
messaging that these guys, uscontractors I'm one, I'm a
reformed, I'm like a recovering,like I'm a recovering marketing
anonymous guy, um, but we tryto like show up and throw up.
(20:28):
We try to like say everything.
We try to, you know, think howwe would buy.
We're're not our customer.
I would never use financing Meeither, by the way, but my
customers seem to love it.
They use financing for a lot ofthings in their lives.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Oh yeah, contractors themselves.
They decide.
All the time I have to tellthem, like, get out of your
customer's pocketbook.
Odds are that you're not evenyour exact target market, tom.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
I'm so sorry, hold on , somebody's knocking on our
door Hold on one second.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
I'm so sorry.
So you know that leads intothat messaging that we talk
about too.
You know I try to tellcontractors one of the biggest
mistakes they also make.
Yesterday, for example, we weredealing with a client this
happens to be a billboardexample, but along the same
lines this client messages usand was like hey, I want to do a
(21:21):
billboard, will y'all help me?
And I want to do it about mymembership club and I want you
to list all the perks of mymembership club.
And I'm like on a billboardwhen you're going 80 miles an
hour.
So you know, and so themessaging can be as clear, like
as shallow as those types ofconversations.
But also around that purchasecycle that we were talking about
(21:47):
.
You know, and you made themention of the two dollar pizza
coupon versus fifteen hundreddollars off a system.
You know, really thinkingthrough number one, how do you
differentiate your messagebetween everybody else in the
market?
But also how does the messagematch what you're asking them to
do but also have a long shelflife, and so messaging, I just
think it's game changer.
You really can see thecreativity come out in
contractors as well when itcomes to their messaging.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
For sure.
I think that messaging to meit's a couple of high level ways
I think about.
It is one Marketing isunderstanding the psychology of
the buyer, right.
So is your onsite process too,right.
Whether it's a service call ora sales leader or install, the
customer already has thingsgoing on in their mind and they
have value systems and they makemoney decisions in a certain
(22:33):
way.
And so how do we understandthat and then gear messaging
around that?
If we can get tap into theconversation already happening
in the customer's mind, ourmessaging will be more, will
resonate better, right?
One of the issues you kind ofalluded to with some agencies
and also some organizations whoare all well-intentioned and a
(22:55):
lot of gurus in gururitus land,is they have experienced, a
certain way, a lot of people inagency world and in organization
world, their marketing group ortheir marketing people, don't
have real world home serviceexperience.
They're coming from the airlineindustry or the travel industry
or the hospitality industry andthose are different buyer
(23:18):
psychologies, not grudgepurchases, not external
triggered events, short-termpurchases versus long-term
purchases.
So the messaging sometimes isoff kilter and we trust them, we
believe in them.
But we still got to think aboutwhat's happening in the
customer's mind.
Contractors are desperate forleads so they yell, sell, sell,
(23:38):
sell, buy, buy, buy, deal, deal,deal.
That's not a message.
That's not a message.
That's just like being a usedcar salesman.
When it comes to messaging, Ialways tell people close your
eyes and think of an image of arhinoceros.
What distinguishes a rhinoceros?
That one giant point, themessage in any single marketing
(24:04):
piece, a billboard especially,has to be a single memorable, a
single compelling point.
Don't put your phone number onit, don't put a qr code on it.
You got to get your brand andone compelling or memorable
message.
(24:24):
One thing if that thing couldbe a distinctive thing about you
, that would be amazing.
So a billboard that says when,when your AC breaks, we get
there fast Done.
It's like I get it in thepsychology when my AC breaks.
What do I want?
I want someone to get here fast.
You know that type of a message.
(24:47):
A message that says clogged,drain 123 or it's free, like
something basic.
And I'm just sort of wingingoff the hip here.
Don't get clever in yourmessages, don't get cute, don't
assume that the inside joke willbe known by the prospect seeing
your message.
You know there was a poolcompany that ran.
Is your wife hot?
(25:08):
Yeah, that was kind of whatever.
I think it's super cheesy, butis that in the mind?
Is that really the thing thatthe woman of the house who's
probably doing initial callingand reaching out it's like, yeah
, I want to have a guy come tomy house who wonders if I'm hot?
Like that's a terribly wrong,clever message that might
(25:29):
resonate with some people butdoes it with the psychology of
your buyer.
And the other thing withmessaging I see, and you
probably see, is I want to talkabout we do heating and air, we
do plumbing, we do duct cleaning, we do all these things.
Now you just watered down thatmessage unbelievably, and so the
brain is a part of the braincalled Broca, and Broca's job is
(25:51):
to like protect right, it's tosay I don't need this
information.
Protect, it's to say I don'tneed this information.
This is scary information.
I want to just keep you fromusing your brainpower to get
bogged down in this distractinginformation.
So the messaging that reallyresonates is something that
surprises the broken part ofyour brain.
(26:11):
It gets through.
It gets past the goalie.
You're not going to get pastthe goalie with a bunch of like
white noise.
We do everything.
Quality three generationstrusted.
Yeah, trusted, that's all.
Broke is going.
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope,nope, nope, nope.
But if you said something likewe're open late every day,
(26:35):
broker goes, wait a minute.
That's not a message.
I see all the time related to aproblem.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Right, right.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
And that can get by by the goalie there.
So, um, if you think about themessage, the other sin.
I see, and you probably see aswell, people want the marketing
to sell and close the job.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Yes, they don't want to have any part to really play
in it.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
No, they want to say people call up and say I've got
a bag of cash, please bring anAC, I'm ready to go.
The marketing's job is just toget the phone call to come in or
the lead form to come in.
Then the rest of the process.
Marketing is like the fuel, butyou've got to start the engine
and get the engine rolling andproduce all the rest of the
things right.
(27:21):
So in messaging you shouldn'ttry to make the messaging close
the deal.
It should get them to move tothe next step, which is call,
click, scan, do something toreach out that make sense.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Oh yeah, and you know , all the time I see people that
just want to.
They just don't grasp that.
And so it's like you know what,like I'm just not, I'm not
making any money, and I'll, I'llgo open their dashboard inside
of their own CRM and say, well,um, you have 50 calls, um, you
(28:04):
only answer 20 of them.
So it's not that we're notworking.
Uh, the marketing's not workingis, you're just not answering
the phone and it's not.
They're like well, but thisisn't working.
And so so many times I have toliterally go show them where
it's not working and then, uh,where it is working.
And then sometimes you can say,hey, you know, I want to see
(28:25):
when we're not generating calls,but I need to trust that the
calls that we are generating,like you paid a lot of money for
that lead yeah so it's.
it's very much a partnership.
Our job is like bring it to youyour job, I'm the pitcher, but
you got to be the batter.
You know you got to hit theball and I see that a lot with
just I don't know what the wordI want to use is and like
(28:47):
because ignorance is not theright word it's just like their
attention to that is not therethey're so focused on.
You know they're all trying tomake money.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
The business as a machine has to be like marketing
creates the lead.
The call center, csr,dispatcher they've got to
convert and book the lead.
Then dispatch has to scheduleand get that lead run.
The field has to actually dotheir work in a wow fashion to
get a review.
Then you know, counting's gotto do their job.
(29:22):
All I say it's like gears.
All these gears are meshingtogether and if one of the gears
sputters out, the wholebusiness machine sputters too.
Um, and so is it.
Is it unawareness?
You know most of us roadtoolboxes into business so we're
really good at fixing things.
We don't want no numbers.
Hey, that phone man, thatphone's a pain in the butt.
What?
What I hate to see on the phone.
I was helping somebodyyesterday.
They had auto attendant.
I'm like could you put up abigger FU to your customer than
(29:43):
auto attendant?
Like that's, we can.
They're like well, we got thismany calls but you know most of
them hung up they got autoattendant and they need to.
They have an emergency.
They're having literally likeoh shit, day.
Yes, you're making them gothrough a phone tree, it's, it's
.
That doesn't add up.
(30:03):
And so if we start to havethose conversations I had it
yesterday and I'm like so why doyou?
Because we get all thesesoliciting calls, all these
things, and I'm like so whatyou're saying is you're going to
penalize your customer becausepeople are calling you.
What if you just empowered yourcall tech to just say I need to
(30:26):
disconnect or I'm sorry, I'mgoing to hang up and just don't
engage.
They're tying them up becausethey're really good on the phone
.
Just hang up the phone Ifthey're rude enough to call me
during business hours to sell meand keep me from talking to my
customers.
It's not rude to hang up onthem.
So we're trying to solveproblems the wrong way and
somebody might have told this acertain thing.
But on the messaging side, youknow, I love this with plumbers
(30:48):
particularly.
So a plumber wants to marketand I go what kind of plumber do
you want to be?
They go well.
I want to be a plumber Well,they go well.
I want to be a plumber.
Well, there's lots of differentkinds of plumbers.
You can be a new constructionplumber.
You could be like a waterheater, water filtering,
conditioning plumber.
You could be a drain plumber.
You can be like a Mr Fix-Itplumber.
And my plumbing.
(31:09):
We did all of it.
But my marketing had to focus onwhat type of what thing I want
to call for.
If I need more drain calls or Iwant to build more drain calls,
then I'm going to do drainmarketing and messaging.
If I need water heaters, likewe ran, we've done this program
for a lot of plumbers same daywater heater.
We guarantee we'll change yourwater heater the same day, seven
(31:33):
days a week, including holidays.
The number one water heatercompany in most markets is
actually Home Depot, so theyhave same day water heater.
So learn from your market.
And I just remember walking tohome people one day to get
something I had to get for thehouse and I was like the message
was so simple Water heatersinstalled same day.
(31:55):
Sometimes the best message orthe best way to sell a horse is
a sign that says horse for sale.
So the messaging has got to bethat one point.
What's going on in the buyer'smind?
What is the trigger that'sgoing to make them need my
services?
And let's cater the messagearound that Branded direct
response.
We got to get our brand outthere because we got to be known
(32:16):
, liked and trusted, but themessage has to be something that
resonates too.
So we're balancing the brandingwith a direct response, and
that's where the long and shortterm also come in too.
But it's always sell, sell,sell, rebate, buy.
Our brand is there, but we'rebeing branded as annoying, yes,
or what is the flavor of themonth.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
You know, constantly having you know these different
offers going.
You know I lean into thissometimes about.
There is a lot of power inunderstanding what else your
competition is doing in themarket and some people stay so
offended and so, like you know,I'll see people post on Facebook
all the time and say, well,keep copying us.
I'm like you spent more timemaking that post.
(32:59):
Like, move along.
Like, if you're lookingbackwards you're certainly not
rolling forward.
So, and if I'm not gettingkicked in the butt, I'm not in
the front.
So you know, I just keepplowing along.
But there is power in knowingwhat is happening in your market
and not ignoring those thingsthat are changing and just being
fluid with your offers to wherethey're.
(33:19):
They're meeting the homeownerwhere they are and it's just
that one big thing.
But so many contractors are notwilling.
They're not willing to committo this one thing.
They think they can make it offof referral or word of mouth
(33:45):
and so they don't see aninterest in changing to a full.
You know, 7 am to 7 pm, sevendays a week, no overtime charges
or guaranteed day install,guaranteed same day install,
because you know what they do.
They make all their processesaround the outliers and not
around the fact of what wasmostly going to happen, and so
we just live in fear I say thistoo, like progress over
perfection.
Get out there and start makingthese offers, making these
aggressive promises, and thenman deliver, knock those out of
(34:07):
the park, and that is how youdifferentiate between you and
private equity that's in yourmarket, kicking you in the
throat every day, you know.
So, just trying to trying toget, trying to get there.
Well, I want to kind of leaninto this last thing and I know
we're kind of going long here,but I loving this conversation.
You know you bought and sold,do I understand?
Like five companies.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
So I I founded, exited five companies.
I didn't buy any.
I always started from scratch.
No customers, no employeesperfect, perfect, okay.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
And so tell me, like, is this, this how you approach
your marketing for your company?
Is this, you know, brandedfirst.
I I like to encourage peoplefrom Living Seed like I want us
to think brand forward.
So the first thing that we dois we put our brand forward in
everything that we do, becausewe're building long-term
relationships, we're buildingthese raving fans.
(34:57):
I can dilly-dally down here inwhat you call paper crack, which
cracked me up earlier.
You know I want to leteverybody else run on that
hamster wheel.
Every once in a while I'll jumpon it for a little bit, but my
favorite thing is when I canjump off because my branding has
just pushed us forward.
When I see people hard andheavy in PPC, it lets me know
that they're pretty, pretty weakon their branding.
(35:19):
And so is that the philosophythat you took with these five
companies.
What were those five companies?
Speaker 2 (35:26):
I had Climate Engineering in Connecticut,
which was a contractor of theyear back in 2001.
Climate Partners in Connecticut, summit Services in Hilton Head
, south Carolina, dr EnergySaver, which is a franchise
company nationwide, and thenGriffin.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Service in Jacksonville, Florida.
So different markets as well.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
At one point I was Connecticut, south Carolina,
florida.
I was bouncing back and forthand running them remotely.
One thing you know when I builtthe business, I built it with
the end in mind and I didn'twant to.
I didn't have office in any ofmy my companies, like I needed
to be a business person and mybackground is trades.
(36:07):
I wrote a toolbox in as a steamfitter.
Been there, done that, been oncall, done all the work.
It was my favorite job being atechnician.
Actually being a businessperson is harder, but I built my
business on branding.
And so how to be different?
I don't think today you can beunique.
Back in the 90s you could haveUSPs and all these things, but
with information and thehomogenization of everything,
(36:32):
you've got to have somethingdistinctive.
And so, whether it is you'relike hey, we're open early, we
open early and we're open late,kind of thing.
Or you know seven days, sameprice, you know never over time
charge, those are distinctivethings, and the easiest way to
be distinctive you nail it iswith your promises.
You know, and the really bedistinctive, come up with a
(36:55):
really badass name for yourpromises, right?
Like that you can own the nameEven if someone tries to copy it
in your marketing, right theygo oh no, you're copying Crystal
.
Crystal's got that lemon seedguarantee, you know type of
thing you know.
But what people are afraid of onthe guarantees is well, what if
I have to honor one?
And so I illustrate it bysaying if I said to you if you
(37:18):
could sell 50 more HVAC systemsthis year by guaranteeing
putting a meteor guarantee onyour system If your AC gets hit
by a meteor, we'll replace itfor free and give you back all
your money Would you give thatguarantee to sell 50 more jobs?
They're like, of course, why?
Because you're not going to gethit by a meteor, like it's not
(37:40):
going to happen.
So in the next day, installguarantee.
How can you mitigate the risk?
Can you have portable ACs?
Can you have flexibility, likeflex discounts?
Hey, if we have to rescheduleyou, our guarantee is we'll give
you $500 credit.
Can you say if you getrescheduled, you get a free IAQ,
(38:05):
you get a free water filter.
There's ways to mitigate theguarantee.
And the best part about thoseguarantees you already know this
.
Most of your competition don'thave the guts to make them.
So they're really easy to bedistinctive.
Because when I talk to peoplelike I can't guarantee same-day
service.
When we get busy, we can't dosame-day service.
Well, of course not the.
(38:31):
You have to have a consequenceagainst you if we don't get
there today.
This is what we're going to dofor you.
We're going to give you a freetune-up next season.
We're going to give you a wavethe diagnostic fee.
We're going to give you 25 or50 off the repair.
There's a consequence.
People understand that.
If it's just gimmicky, peoplesee through that.
They're smart, we're smart, andso I think that transparency is
big and that's how we built ourbusinesses.
We always started with directmail.
(38:52):
Heavy branding, really focusedon the neighborhoods we wanted
to do and we focused on theneighborhood.
We mailed them, we did a job,we mailed around them with
radius mailers, we hung doorhangers, we put yard signs.
We just went and tried to be Icall it 10 mile Titan.
We want to just own 10 miles ofthis place and just be the guy,
and that's goes to the reachright.
(39:16):
Some people like I'll mail10,000 people twice a year.
Well, that's 20,000 people.
I'd rather mail 1500 people 10times this year or 20 times, you
know, 12 times this year, andjust own my 1,500 people Way,
way, way back in the day, jimAbrams and John Young had a
thing called Victory Village andthat was it.
You just keep mailing these same1,000 people every single month
(39:37):
and it worked.
We just expanded on that idea.
And if you're owning that idea,what we did then is focused on
schools and sports teams andcommunity events and fears and
just became the guy they know,like and trust by being local.
Of course, as you scale, thenthe next we want radio
(39:58):
billboards are amazing too.
Both of those are superaffordable for the amount of
frequency that people see andhear the message.
For the dollars, if you canafford it, kick butt solutions.
Tv if you're going to get in tv,you know you got to be like
really there.
We, we got in tv as ourcompany's got bigger in scale.
But we had to have the budgetto have that frequency and
(40:18):
initially we did tv.
We couldn't afford like everyday, so we just owned a day.
We own the, the morning show onTuesday and Wednesday kind of
thing where we can just bedominant for that period of time
.
And all of this marketingdoesn't make a hill of beans if
you don't deliver.
So the alignment you weretalking about of here's our
marketing message.
We started with what we'regoing to do to be awesome and
(40:40):
then we figured out how to tellthat story, then we delivered on
it.
And the temptation that wefigured out how to tell that
story, then we delivered on it,and the temptation that we
didn't fall to, we didn'tover-promise and under-deliver.
We under-promised and thenover-delivered.
Surprise and delight I wouldpost it.
The other day and one of thethings like you have to surprise
and delight your customers withsomething.
And it used to be able to belike oh, we wear floor savers.
(41:02):
Oh, we bring your garbage cansin.
Oh, I brought your newspaperfrom the street.
That's not doing it anymore.
You've got to do something elseto surprise and delight.
And so then you do get word ofmouth.
You get good reviews.
You know reviews are likerocket fuel for your machine.
You can't scale your business byword of mouth alone.
You can get you know.
(41:25):
If you can leverage that socialmedia.
You can leverage that on directmail.
You can leverage that someplaceelse on your website.
If you're a salespeople canleverage it on site with, like
video testimonials.
But you can't scale a businesson word of mouth.
And I think that some peoplethink they do.
So we need word of mouth, weneed to wow these people, but
it's not going to build ourbusiness.
We're going to build ourbusiness by fueling it with
(41:46):
marketing.
Marketing is the only way togrow your business.
Period.
You can't be efficient.
Efficiency grows your business.
Efficiency can increase yourmargin.
Raising prices, you can growyour business.
Quote unquote.
So like if there was a priceincrease of 12% this year and
your business grew 12%, youdidn't grow your business.
Train grew your business.
Carrier grew your business grew12%.
You didn't grow your business.
Train grew your business.
Carrier grew your business.
(42:06):
Right, so you're going to needto have marketing do it.
So we just believe in that.
We committed a marketing budget.
We developed long-term andshort-term strategies.
We defined our territories.
Then we used the data to tellus what's working, what's not
working.
Another thing which I don't know.
I'm going to go on a limb here.
You may or may not agree withthis, but I didn't track a
million things.
I wasn't like put a trackingnumber on every single thing.
(42:29):
I looked at my marketing budgetagain as an investment
portfolio.
Sometimes tech is up, sometimestech is down.
Sometimes blue chips up,sometimes blue chips down.
In any given period of time.
I knew how many calls and leadsI needed.
I knew my marketing budget and,at the end of the day, if I had
the leads I needed and I was inbudget, did I really care?
In the micromanaging side, whatworked, of course, over time?
(42:53):
Hey, this thing is notgenerating anything.
I can redeploy that moneybetter.
But I wasn't herky-jerky andlike I did mail it didn't work.
I did a billboard it didn'twork.
I did something online itdidn't work.
I was willing to say am Istaying within my 8% budget?
And I got all the calls andleads that I need.
That was different and I thinksome guys, that's how digital
(43:15):
sells, right?
Digital's like it's completelytrackable.
Well, it is sort of wink wink,but it's also bullshit.
You're getting last clickattribution.
Google is the toll booth.
Yeah, you get off the ramp.
You're gonna pay the tollcalled google, so you get all
the credit.
Somebody told me last weekgoogle is my best lead source.
I'm like, no, it's not.
It's not, it's where they'regoing yeah because of something
(43:40):
what sent them to google.
And my goal in my marketing wasalways to be I wanted people.
The measure of success was theytyped my name into the search
bar, not a generic term.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
Oh, 1,000%.
So I love trackability.
Again, it goes back to what Istated at the beginning.
It's about the expectations ofthings.
So I kind of put my, I put mytracking where people have given
us and said they'll say this isgoing to generate all these
leads.
Well, that's fine, let me put atracking number on it.
So at the end of the day, Ialways try to utilize tracking
(44:12):
numbers to help us have someinsight.
I tell people that we are notgoing to be pushing and pulling
extremely off of trackingnumbers.
It's simply a direction thatthings are working, because
point of acquisition how youtruly earn a new customer
probably has many more touchpoints than the actual phone
number that they called, and soreally getting your headset
(44:33):
right around how that's going towork is where the difference
comes into play here.
Because you're right, like wesee so many people that just
rock a boat.
That doesn't need to be rocked,they just need to sit still and
kind of ride out a storm.
But we're jumping ship.
I mean the moment that anythingchanges.
We're changing.
I mean ask anybody anybodythat's listening right now to
(44:55):
this podcast if you've had morethan two or three website
providers over the last three orfour years.
You're the problem.
Odds are you are the problembecause you haven't given
anybody time to be successful.
If your social media is notperforming and you're blaming
all these social media creators,odds are it's not them, it's
you.
Just because of expectationsnot being set clearly, overly
(45:18):
tracking things, putting so muchstock in that I mean, right now
there's a whole business that'sbuilt around.
How fast they can change uh,everything, and so I guess I'm
just a little bit on the oldschool side, like you.
Like I love being consistentlybranded in my market and staying
flexible, staying focused andjust keeping the customer at the
(45:40):
center of all of our decisions.
Like every time, like, but howdoes the?
How does the consumer think?
How do we?
You know they may not get allthe you start telling everybody
that you're giving away a airpurifier x 1000 uh, two of them.
Uh, people, do you got to tellthem what it solves for them?
You have to tell, you have togive them that it's a solution
(46:00):
to a problem.
They may not even know they hadum and so well.
Well, tom, thank you so much.
Like I just really enjoyed thisIf you had to give a new home
service company owner.
You know, a couple of pieces ofadvice.
What would those be?
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Always start off with understanding.
We're not curing cancer andwe're not solving world peace,
we're fixing plumbing and airconditioning.
So let's not like forsake allof our values and our family and
the reason we went intobusiness in the first place.
If we start that, that'sdefinitely sort of like even on
my team, when it's the heat ofbattle, everything going on, I'd
(46:40):
be like remember everybody notcuring cancer, not solving world
peace, so kind of keep rightperspective there.
I also would go back to kind ofthe guru-itis.
Don't get caught up inguru-itis.
Find somebody that you know andtrust, just like you want your
customers to do, and then listento them, collaborate with them,
have healthy debate back andforth, ask a lot of questions
(47:03):
and understand why Crystal istelling you this.
Why is tom saying this?
You may not agree, you don'thave to agree, but you should
always start first with help meunderstand, not if I give you
this money, you'll have a magicbeans.
I also think that um stayingfocused on a game plan, whether
it's a marketing plan or the wayyou execute those plays so your
(47:24):
marketing is one set ofplaybooks like offense, then
your call centers and other setof plays like defense and your
field operations is like specialteams.
They each need to have playsand if you assume you hired an
experienced guy, you assumewhatever and you don't go verify
it, you don't make sure it'shappening.
Talking to somebody yesterdaylike we always do this and I'm
(47:44):
like, well, I actually talked totwo of your managers and two of
your branches and they told meyou don't ever do that, let's
talk into the big boss, likeyou're assuming something.
You're not like measuring.
I also always operate mybusiness and do no harm, do no
harm to the customers, do noharm to the vendors, do no harm
to the employees, harm to thevendors, do no harm to the
(48:06):
employees, like if we just are,operate with good old fashion
common sense and good neighborlytype of stuff.
And the end of the day, for themarketing, figure out with
whoever your marketing peopleare, and it could be a team of
people.
I had an SEO guy, I had a payper click guy, I had a direct
mail guy, I had a radio guy andI made them all work together
(48:28):
because we're on a team now, butit was basically what can we be
famous for?
What can we be known for?
So when somebody has thisproblem, they go.
Those are the guys known, likedand trusted.
And if you that you could, aone truck could do that, a five
truck could do that.
Electrician, a plumber, apainter, a pest guy, you can
(48:50):
become known for something, butit can't be quality, integrity,
these these vagaries.
It's got to be something thatmatters.
Who, oh who's the company thatdoesn't charge overtime on
weekends?
Boom, oh.
Who's the company that's openlate?
Boom.
Who's the company that haswater reviews the next day?
Boom.
(49:10):
Those are the types of thingsJust become famous and it's
going to be scary, becauseyou've got to commit to it, yeah
, and you can't compromise it.
And so when you're like I needleads and I'll become all things
to all people.
Don't do that.
Yeah, stay with it.
Work with your marketing team,crystal.
How do we do this?
(49:31):
How do we keep leveraging this?
How do we spread it across allof our messaging?
If you do that, I think thoseare all simple things.
None of those should be likemind-blowing to anybody.
They're all like duh.
But doing them is the hard part.
The consistency you said in thebeginning consistency of doing
simple things over and over andthen tweaking and adjusting as
(49:51):
the market shifts is going to bethe formula to success
absolutely well listen.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
I have really enjoyed these insights on.
I love the purchasing cycles,conversation, the messaging and,
of course, building the brand.
You know that's our jam here,so I think it's invaluable to
contractors that are at anystage of business.
And so, tom, thank you so much.
We'll have all of your contactinformation in the show notes.
And, guys, thank you forlistening to another episode of
From the Yellow Chair.
(50:17):
We hope that you've enjoyedthis.
We'd love for you to leave us areview, follow us on all of our
socials and, hey, if you'relooking for expert guidance,
lemon Seed would love to be yourtrusted source, as Tom
mentioned, for strategy andbranding and all things just
helping you dominate your market.
Thanks for sipping lemonadewith us today.
Until next time, see you later.
Oh, what's up?
Lemonheads, welcome to anotherepisode of From the Yellow Chair
.
I am Crystal and listen, I'vegot a real SOB in the virtual
lemonade stand today and I can'twait for you to hear the
conversation that we are goingto have all about marketing.
He comes from the trades.
(00:23):
I think he kind of knows whathe's talking about here.
We're going to talk aboutmessaging.
It's going to be a great timetogether, really pushing you to
think about how you're doingyour marketing.
Let's sip some lemonade.
Well, joining me in the virtuallemonade stand today is the
real SOB, which is the son of aboss.
(00:45):
So, technically, I'm not a son,I'm a GOB, a girl of a boss.
But I've been in this same boatas Mr Tom Casey, the master
advisor at Best Postcards andalso America's most awarded
contractor.
The 2022 Contracting BusinessHall of Fame entered into that,
(01:06):
and so, tom, I just always liketo ask our guests why should
anyone listening today care whatyou have to say?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Besides my good looks and good nature, because I've
got the experience of been there, done that, I probably paid the
tuition on many, many lessonsthrough all my time of Odin
businesses.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Well, I mean, how do you feel about what's all going
on right now?
You know I was thinking today,you know we have and I'm kind of
going off script of what I justtold you I was going to do but
you know my brain kind of goesto you're from this.
This is definitely not yourfirst rodeo.
Tell me how you feel right nowabout, like all these
influencers that are callingthemselves coaches, and you know
(01:48):
all these companies there'stons of marketing companies like
how are you feeling about thelike that, Even the social
landscape of of our industry?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
now, from someone that's been in this mix for a
while, that's a really goodsubject and could go like a lot
of different ways.
A good subject and could golike a lot of different ways.
My approach is always realityover theory, like practicality,
pragmatic, being pragmatic, andI think having more voices is
(02:15):
great.
I think the fear right now thatI see, or maybe the worry, is
that we've been kind of struckwith this guru-itis.
Everybody's a guru and whetherit's flashing fancy washes or
private planes or fancy shoes orI don't know whatever it is, I
think at the end of the daythose can be shiny objects to
(02:43):
distract us when really we're inlike a blue collar salt of the
earth business.
Right, we're fixing heating andair, we're fixing plumbing,
we're fixing electrical,whatever our trade is, we're
climbing in basements and atticsand crawl space.
There's a practicality to ourbusiness and I think, just like
in other industries, the getrich quick schemes usually get
(03:05):
the person selling the schemerich and not the people trying
to get rich.
So I love it.
I love the perspective.
I think we can all learn fromeverybody.
But you know, there was a timebefore things called cell phones
and computers and we had tolisten to cassette tapes from
guys like Doc Rusk and JimAbrams and you know they didn't
(03:27):
have the internet, they didn'thave Google.
They built businesses just onsolid principle and I think the
more things change, the morethey stay the same, particularly
in this industry.
So the idea right now is we gotto like take a pause and just
kind of run it through like ourBS filter.
I used to always say when I tookmy people to trade shows all
right, turn on your BS filternow, because some people are
(03:49):
going to be saying a lot ofstuff, but you got to use your
brain to kind of work through.
Does it make sense?
And the fear or the worry Isaid about the guru-itis and
there's a lot of good guys andthere's a lot of maybe not so
good guys is each of us has tomake things our own.
Just because you do somethingin your business that crushes it
(04:20):
for your business doesn't meanI can just plug and play to my
business or my market,particularly marketing things,
right.
They don't go the same based onweather patterns and a lot of
things.
So I love it.
But I'm also apprehensive Don'tgo hook, line and sinker
without doing a little bit ofthinking, a little bit of
talking.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Oh yeah, and I have that same philosophy.
It's one of those things that'smy most hated thing, that I
love because I love all theinformation.
I love to be able to filterthrough and keep what I want to
keep and throw out what I wantto throw out.
But I do work with so manycontractors and I watch them
like hook line and sinker, takethe bait of what they have been
(04:59):
sold is a silver bullet.
So you know, even even clientsof limited life, they'll be like
, oh, I found a different agencythat's going to do this and so
we're going to pull all of this.
And so I'm like, okay, Justbecause of one little audit or
or things like that.
So I've really learned to like,like you said, filter through
all the information that's outthere, Because they're the only
(05:20):
silver bullet that I've beenable to find that really helps
grow your home service businessis consistency.
Consistency in training,coaching, answering the phone,
marketing, spending.
I mean all of those areinvesting.
All of those things are thepower of consistency, and so it
led me right into this.
(05:40):
The purchase cycles, which thisis an interesting topic that
not a lot of marketing companiesreally get into, but they
should.
We should be like hyper-focusedon the power of purchase cycles
and home service marketing, andso I just thought maybe we
could break down the concept ofpurchase cycles, their
importance when it comes tomaking smart decisions and you
(06:02):
know, it's a much more importantconcept that I think we give
credit to.
And so I thought like kind ofyou know level set us here, like
exactly what are purchasecycles, what are we talking
about when we say that, and whydo you think they're so crucial?
Speaker 2 (06:16):
So I would agree with you.
I hear no conversations goingon about it.
So when I talk to people it'skind of a mind blowing moment
because they've never heard thisbefore.
But when we talk about it it'sgoing to make complete sense to
people.
And the reason it's critical isif you don't understand this,
then your marketing and yourmessaging will probably be wrong
and you'll be wondering whyit's not working.
(06:38):
So purchase cycle basically ishow often is the client or the
prospect in the market to make apurchase?
So there are short purchasecycles, like something that will
happen less than 90 day cycles,say, like food or clothes or
things along that line.
And then there are longpurchase cycles.
(06:59):
If anything, there's more than90 days.
The 90 day barrier is kind oflike how do people remember
things and think about things?
Long purchase cycle things willbe things we sell, like heating
and air and plumbing andelectrical, and even within the
long cycle there's a couple ofdifferent periods.
And the way that kind ofcrystallizes short term long
term concept is everyone islistening.
(07:22):
Imagine you get something in themail and you get a coupon for
$2 off a large cheese pizza andyou get a mailer for $1,500 of
instant rebates off a newheating and air system.
Which one are you hanging onthe fridge?
You're keeping the pizza couponbecause you're going to have a
cycle.
You actually want pizza.
(07:43):
The $1,500 is not going tomotivate somebody.
We can't convince somebody insomething in a short-term tactic
to make a long-term purchase,and so getting this wrong
creates like tons of strategies.
And what I see happen and youprobably see more so is people
(08:03):
say I tried radio once, I trieddirect mail once, I tried that
once and it didn't work.
And the thing is, yeah, ofcourse it didn't work.
I bet it didn't because you youattack it as I'm going to run a
radio campaign for 30 days andget a bunch of work.
That's a short term strategyfor a long term problem.
I mailed my customers twice ayear and they didn't call Bad,
(08:27):
bad strategy because you'retrying to short term, that are
long term purchases that makesense.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Oh, yes, yes, and you know so.
I love direct mail.
I'm a huge direct mail person.
I'm actually.
I love messaging, but I tell mycontractors all the time the
biggest mistake that contractorsmake is not having a realistic
expectation of what they'reabout to do.
So there's nothing wrong withsending like a newsletter twice
a year to your team, to yourclients.
(08:54):
You just have to understandwhat and have clear expectations
of how that is going to perform.
If you're just doingspecifically things to build
your brand, it's probably notgoing to have this huge
immediate ROI, but it's aboutconstantly chipping away and
building up that brand presenceand that brand recognition for
those people.
And so you're right, like themessaging on there matters,
(09:16):
consistency matters, thestrategy behind the mail plan,
as far as when it drops, andheck heck any marketing you know
, and so many people just throwthose things at the wall like it
didn't work.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I'm like there was no time, nor did we have clear
expectations yeah, the firstthing, if I you know, you say
right, you're talking to me likewhat's the marketing budget and
there's like people coulddebate, you know, are the new
business, old business, smallbusiness, large business, like
uh, they got a.
Then the second question I haveis how are you going to split
it between long and short-termfocuses?
(09:47):
And that usually is wherethere's a stumbling block,
because they want to go right todigital mail media.
But there's got to be someconsideration of what are our
sales activation tactics.
On HVAC, what's the averageacross the country?
Probably the average time peopleneed an HVAC service for a
repair three to five years.
New system 10 to 15 yearsprobably, maybe longer in
(10:10):
certain parts of the country.
Plumbing every three, fouryears.
You need a plumbing call.
Water heaters every eight orten years.
These are long purchase cycleproducts and if we're always
trying to run a special, have acoupon, get somebody to do
something that they don't wantto do.
The other thing is nobody wakesup this morning and says I hope
I got to buy a new water heater.
It's a grudge purchase and it'sbeing triggered by an external
(10:33):
event, like I have no hot wateror there's a flood in my house,
I have to buy a water heater.
You can't like mail or Facebookor anything to get there.
That's going to activate themor convince them.
The event has to happen.
So I see that as a big mistake,getting too imbalanced on the
short term, always runningspecials, always trying to get
(10:56):
we need leads, we need leads andnot understanding farming
versus hunting.
Right Marketing is farming,planting seeds, nurturing the
seeds, fertilizing, watering,weeding to get the harvest, and
it takes patience.
You're right.
You got to make sure ascontractors.
This is not a one month one anddone.
This is like a 12 month plan.
(11:17):
This is a strategy and we haveto have the right tactics for
the right situation.
The way I kind of think aboutit is like maybe a playbook.
You don't run the same play onfirst and 10 as you do in fourth
and two.
You know you don't run the sameplan when it's third and eight
as you do with third and one,and so we have to have the right
(11:40):
tactics and the rightdistribution.
And to me, marketing if it's an8% or 10% of the top line
revenue, it's a huge number.
It's one of the biggest numberson our P&L, and so I think we
should look at it not as anexpense.
I think we should look at it asan investment.
And if I tell you how would youmanage your 401k or your
retirement account?
You would have diversity, youwould spread the risk, you would
(12:02):
look at how the whole portfolioperforms.
No one is going to go in andkind of churn their stocks all
the time in their retirementaccount.
Why?
Because it's a long-termthinking.
We're like I'm saving this forwhen I retire, so over time it
will ebb and flow.
As long as I'm on a trajectory,the marketing investment to me
should be the same thing whenwe're thinking about long term
(12:24):
versus short term tactics.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yeah, and I use the term marathon approach, you know
.
So it's so much aboutexpectations.
So many people just will callme and say, oh my gosh, I got to
have leads right now.
And I'm like man, once you arein that bad of place, like it's
really hard to have things thatinstantly make people's air
conditioners break or theirwater heaters bust Right, like
(12:46):
it definitely takes a lot ofintentional brand building to be
to have consistent lead flowfor sure.
Well, how do you think thesecycles differ for like HVAC
versus plumbing versuselectrical, or even you know now
that you know that, even likepest control and things like
that?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Great question again.
So HVAC has the shortest cycle.
Typically is plumbing, becauseplumbing breaks more, there's
more obvious fixtures in thehouse that can go wrong or
drains and the equipment doesn'tlast as long.
So typically plumbing servicesevery two to three to years,
maybe two to four years on acycle where, like the equipment
side of plumbing is like eightto 10 years.
(13:23):
Hvac is about every three tofive years for a service call on
.
Some climates say 10 to 12years for equipment replacement,
others like 15 to 17 years.
And electrical electricians arethe ones who are like the Maytag
man a little bit.
They don't.
People don't have a lot ofelectrical breakdowns the same
as they do plumbing or heatingand air.
So service calls there might beevery five, six years and you
(13:47):
know when it's time to do anupgrade every 15 or 20 years.
So electricians in particularhave to be very strategic.
Pest control is a littledifferent.
Pest control is a subscriptionservice.
So when I see people there youknow pest control is all about
gaining that customer and mostof them make a mistake that
they're not paying attentionwhen they're leaking them out
the backside.
So pest control people are inthe market every two or three
(14:11):
years to change theirsubscription service because
somebody disappointed them, notfor price, but the technician on
site didn't do things he wassupposed to do.
I was literally in a meetingwith a pest control company last
night and that was like yourguys are not wowing the
customers on the service.
So their cycles are shorter andthey don't really have a large
(14:31):
install thing, even if they domosquito systems.
It's like a one and done period.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
They make their money 40 bucks at a time.
That's what I think.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah, it is.
They got to just focus on theright messaging to attract a
long-term customer.
They want to attract somebodywho's going to be there longer
and that's usually throughdifferentiating through service
and sometimes having a lot ofservices.
So if you have to call a lawnguy, a pest guy and a termite
guy or whatever a mosquito guyin four companies and the more
of those you can bundle together, the more attractive it is to
(15:02):
the homeowner.
As long as you're good at allof those things You're not like
mediocre at any of them Doesthat make sense?
Speaker 1 (15:09):
My brother and sister and I started a pest control
company about a year ago now andwe just, I mean, we just went
really hard branding and peopleare like how do you afford this?
And we're like, man, how do youafford not to?
Because it's just you're, youknow you're picking up stepping
over dollars, dimes when you'rejust chasing that fast lead and
so you know it really takes alot of dedication to understand
(15:31):
like the sales cycle or thepurchase cycle is very different
for these different things.
And you know, when contractorsignore this concept whether it's
through, you know, justignoring it altogether concept,
whether it's through, you know,just ignoring it altogether but
mainly when they just, you knowagain, I keep using this term
(15:52):
throw things to the wall to seewhat sticks.
I probably see that statement onmore intake forms for Lemonsie
to support these clients.
I see that like I just throwthings to see what works and
there's a lot of fun to that,like marketing is.
I think marketing is funbecause it's like a puzzle and
everybody's puzzle is a littledifferent, like what worked for
them doesn't work for them, oryou know that price point.
You're constantly pivoting andmoving those puzzle pieces.
But again, understanding likethat you have to work really
(16:16):
hard years sometimes, a lot oftimes before clients actually
need to make a purchase with youthat you'll look up and be like
why have I?
You know, I'm always chasingthis little bitty bottom of the
funnel, the marketing funnel,that little bitty funnel piece.
Then I am chasing the people atthe top of the funnel, which is
just awareness.
You know, people making surepeople are aware.
(16:37):
So how do you feel about that,like, when contractors really
just maybe ignore these purchasecycles, how can it really
impact their branding budget ortheir marketing budget?
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Well, I think that most contractors are that.
I need leads now, especially asdigital.
You know, digital was a boostin the arm for a lot of people
for a bit, but now reality iscoming, coming to roost.
As far as digital with, there'smore competition.
It's bloody water, right, it'snot clean blue ocean, it's
bloody water, Everyone's fishingit and I don't believe you can
really build a brand and paid.
(17:08):
You always got to participate,you got to be on Google.
I'm not saying I'm ananti-digital guy, but you can't
build a brand through paid,because people going to paid
have no brand preference and thegoal of marketing to me, of all
marketing any type, is to beknown, liked and trusted.
(17:32):
How do you become known, likedand trusted in your market?
You've got to have strategy.
The people who make the mistakeof always needing leads.
It's like a cycle of a dogchasing his tail.
Whether they get on paper crackand they can't get off of it
and it was working great, nowit's not working.
Whether they try to do likecoupon mailers buy now cheap.
You can train your customers towait for sales because you
(17:53):
always offer sales.
It's just the what you'reputting out there.
I think, the mistake a lot ofus make as contractors is we
forget we're contractors and wehave this like momentary moment
of insanity and we think we'remarketers.
So I was talking to somebodythe day volume.
I said, um, let me, you're.
(18:15):
You're a contractor, so let meask you a question.
I rate this customer Idescribed to you on a scale from
one to ten, ten being amazing,one being, oh my god.
They call for an estimate whenyou get there.
They've already done all theirresearch on Google, they know
all about SEER value and theyhave model numbers they thought
about and they know, you knowthey've done some research, they
know how much the units cost,they know what components they
(18:39):
need and don't need.
I don't need a thermostat.
And, by the way, they have acousin, a brother, somebody on
their mother's side, three timesremoved, who can do it really
cheap.
Tell me, is that customer a 10or a one?
They're like a negative, two,right, they're just.
Nobody wants this customer, Isaid to this contractor.
Then why are you that customerwhen it comes to your marketing
(19:04):
decisions?
Just like you're the expert atheating and air, plumbing or
whatever, shouldn't themarketing company be the expert?
And I'll put a PS If they'renot, fire that marketing company
.
They're the wrong oneAbsolutely.
And so they got to be carefulof that.
And it also comes on sometimeswhere you can have an agency
(19:27):
that's really competent but youcan have an agency that's really
a sheep in wolf's clothing.
They're a digital company.
Oh, and, by the way, we can dodirect mail.
Or, by the way we can dowhatever or we're a branding
company and now we're doingcopywriting.
It's really hard to do that, um, because really you're trying
(19:47):
to make the digital sale or thebranding sale or whatever sale
under the guise of we can doeverything for you, so that you
dilute it.
You become a jack of all trades, a master of none.
So if we want to do ourmarketing as contractors, we're
probably going to limitourselves.
And I can look and you can lookit up.
I can look at your Facebook andtell, oh boy, this is bad.
I can look at your website andgo, oh, this is not good.
(20:08):
I can look at anything you doand be like you're meddling and
that, and that kind of leads tothe messaging right, most of the
messaging that these guys, uscontractors I'm one, I'm a
reformed, I'm like a recovering,like I'm a recovering marketing
anonymous guy, um, but we tryto like show up and throw up.
(20:28):
We try to like say everything.
We try to, you know, think howwe would buy.
We're're not our customer.
I would never use financing Meeither, by the way, but my
customers seem to love it.
They use financing for a lot ofthings in their lives.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Oh yeah, contractors themselves.
They decide.
All the time I have to tellthem, like, get out of your
customer's pocketbook.
Odds are that you're not evenyour exact target market, tom.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
I'm so sorry, hold on , somebody's knocking on our
door Hold on one second.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
I'm so sorry.
So you know that leads intothat messaging that we talk
about too.
You know I try to tellcontractors one of the biggest
mistakes they also make.
Yesterday, for example, we weredealing with a client this
happens to be a billboardexample, but along the same
lines this client messages usand was like hey, I want to do a
(21:21):
billboard, will y'all help me?
And I want to do it about mymembership club and I want you
to list all the perks of mymembership club.
And I'm like on a billboardwhen you're going 80 miles an
hour.
So you know, and so themessaging can be as clear, like
as shallow as those types ofconversations.
But also around that purchasecycle that we were talking about
(21:47):
.
You know, and you made themention of the two dollar pizza
coupon versus fifteen hundreddollars off a system.
You know, really thinkingthrough number one, how do you
differentiate your messagebetween everybody else in the
market?
But also how does the messagematch what you're asking them to
do but also have a long shelflife, and so messaging, I just
think it's game changer.
You really can see thecreativity come out in
contractors as well when itcomes to their messaging.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
For sure.
I think that messaging to meit's a couple of high level ways
I think about.
It is one Marketing isunderstanding the psychology of
the buyer, right.
So is your onsite process too,right.
Whether it's a service call ora sales leader or install, the
customer already has thingsgoing on in their mind and they
have value systems and they makemoney decisions in a certain
(22:33):
way.
And so how do we understandthat and then gear messaging
around that?
If we can get tap into theconversation already happening
in the customer's mind, ourmessaging will be more, will
resonate better, right?
One of the issues you kind ofalluded to with some agencies
and also some organizations whoare all well-intentioned and a
(22:55):
lot of gurus in gururitus land,is they have experienced, a
certain way, a lot of people inagency world and in organization
world, their marketing group ortheir marketing people, don't
have real world home serviceexperience.
They're coming from the airlineindustry or the travel industry
or the hospitality industry andthose are different buyer
(23:18):
psychologies, not grudgepurchases, not external
triggered events, short-termpurchases versus long-term
purchases.
So the messaging sometimes isoff kilter and we trust them, we
believe in them.
But we still got to think aboutwhat's happening in the
customer's mind.
Contractors are desperate forleads so they yell, sell, sell,
(23:38):
sell, buy, buy, buy, deal, deal,deal.
That's not a message.
That's not a message.
That's just like being a usedcar salesman.
When it comes to messaging, Ialways tell people close your
eyes and think of an image of arhinoceros.
What distinguishes a rhinoceros?
That one giant point, themessage in any single marketing
(24:04):
piece, a billboard especially,has to be a single memorable, a
single compelling point.
Don't put your phone number onit, don't put a qr code on it.
You got to get your brand andone compelling or memorable
message.
(24:24):
One thing if that thing couldbe a distinctive thing about you
, that would be amazing.
So a billboard that says when,when your AC breaks, we get
there fast Done.
It's like I get it in thepsychology when my AC breaks.
What do I want?
I want someone to get here fast.
You know that type of a message.
(24:47):
A message that says clogged,drain 123 or it's free, like
something basic.
And I'm just sort of wingingoff the hip here.
Don't get clever in yourmessages, don't get cute, don't
assume that the inside joke willbe known by the prospect seeing
your message.
You know there was a poolcompany that ran.
Is your wife hot?
(25:08):
Yeah, that was kind of whatever.
I think it's super cheesy, butis that in the mind?
Is that really the thing thatthe woman of the house who's
probably doing initial callingand reaching out it's like, yeah
, I want to have a guy come tomy house who wonders if I'm hot?
Like that's a terribly wrong,clever message that might
(25:29):
resonate with some people butdoes it with the psychology of
your buyer.
And the other thing withmessaging I see, and you
probably see, is I want to talkabout we do heating and air, we
do plumbing, we do duct cleaning, we do all these things.
Now you just watered down thatmessage unbelievably, and so the
brain is a part of the braincalled Broca, and Broca's job is
(25:51):
to like protect right, it's tosay I don't need this
information.
Protect, it's to say I don'tneed this information.
This is scary information.
I want to just keep you fromusing your brainpower to get
bogged down in this distractinginformation.
So the messaging that reallyresonates is something that
surprises the broken part ofyour brain.
(26:11):
It gets through.
It gets past the goalie.
You're not going to get pastthe goalie with a bunch of like
white noise.
We do everything.
Quality three generationstrusted.
Yeah, trusted, that's all.
Broke is going.
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope,nope, nope, nope.
But if you said something likewe're open late every day,
(26:35):
broker goes, wait a minute.
That's not a message.
I see all the time related to aproblem.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Right, right.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
And that can get by by the goalie there.
So, um, if you think about themessage, the other sin.
I see, and you probably see aswell, people want the marketing
to sell and close the job.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Yes, they don't want to have any part to really play
in it.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
No, they want to say people call up and say I've got
a bag of cash, please bring anAC, I'm ready to go.
The marketing's job is just toget the phone call to come in or
the lead form to come in.
Then the rest of the process.
Marketing is like the fuel, butyou've got to start the engine
and get the engine rolling andproduce all the rest of the
things right.
(27:21):
So in messaging you shouldn'ttry to make the messaging close
the deal.
It should get them to move tothe next step, which is call,
click, scan, do something toreach out that make sense.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Oh yeah, and you know , all the time I see people that
just want to.
They just don't grasp that.
And so it's like you know what,like I'm just not, I'm not
making any money, and I'll, I'llgo open their dashboard inside
of their own CRM and say, well,um, you have 50 calls, um, you
(28:04):
only answer 20 of them.
So it's not that we're notworking.
Uh, the marketing's not workingis, you're just not answering
the phone and it's not.
They're like well, but thisisn't working.
And so so many times I have toliterally go show them where
it's not working and then, uh,where it is working.
And then sometimes you can say,hey, you know, I want to see
(28:25):
when we're not generating calls,but I need to trust that the
calls that we are generating,like you paid a lot of money for
that lead yeah so it's.
it's very much a partnership.
Our job is like bring it to youyour job, I'm the pitcher, but
you got to be the batter.
You know you got to hit theball and I see that a lot with
just I don't know what the wordI want to use is and like
(28:47):
because ignorance is not theright word it's just like their
attention to that is not therethey're so focused on.
You know they're all trying tomake money.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
The business as a machine has to be like marketing
creates the lead.
The call center, csr,dispatcher they've got to
convert and book the lead.
Then dispatch has to scheduleand get that lead run.
The field has to actually dotheir work in a wow fashion to
get a review.
Then you know, counting's gotto do their job.
(29:22):
All I say it's like gears.
All these gears are meshingtogether and if one of the gears
sputters out, the wholebusiness machine sputters too.
Um, and so is it.
Is it unawareness?
You know most of us roadtoolboxes into business so we're
really good at fixing things.
We don't want no numbers.
Hey, that phone man, thatphone's a pain in the butt.
What?
What I hate to see on the phone.
I was helping somebodyyesterday.
They had auto attendant.
I'm like could you put up abigger FU to your customer than
(29:43):
auto attendant?
Like that's, we can.
They're like well, we got thismany calls but you know most of
them hung up they got autoattendant and they need to.
They have an emergency.
They're having literally likeoh shit, day.
Yes, you're making them gothrough a phone tree, it's, it's
.
That doesn't add up.
(30:03):
And so if we start to havethose conversations I had it
yesterday and I'm like so why doyou?
Because we get all thesesoliciting calls, all these
things, and I'm like so whatyou're saying is you're going to
penalize your customer becausepeople are calling you.
What if you just empowered yourcall tech to just say I need to
(30:26):
disconnect or I'm sorry, I'mgoing to hang up and just don't
engage.
They're tying them up becausethey're really good on the phone
.
Just hang up the phone Ifthey're rude enough to call me
during business hours to sell meand keep me from talking to my
customers.
It's not rude to hang up onthem.
So we're trying to solveproblems the wrong way and
somebody might have told this acertain thing.
But on the messaging side, youknow, I love this with plumbers
(30:48):
particularly.
So a plumber wants to marketand I go what kind of plumber do
you want to be?
They go well.
I want to be a plumber Well,they go well.
I want to be a plumber.
Well, there's lots of differentkinds of plumbers.
You can be a new constructionplumber.
You could be like a waterheater, water filtering,
conditioning plumber.
You could be a drain plumber.
You can be like a Mr Fix-Itplumber.
And my plumbing.
(31:09):
We did all of it.
But my marketing had to focus onwhat type of what thing I want
to call for.
If I need more drain calls or Iwant to build more drain calls,
then I'm going to do drainmarketing and messaging.
If I need water heaters, likewe ran, we've done this program
for a lot of plumbers same daywater heater.
We guarantee we'll change yourwater heater the same day, seven
(31:33):
days a week, including holidays.
The number one water heatercompany in most markets is
actually Home Depot, so theyhave same day water heater.
So learn from your market.
And I just remember walking tohome people one day to get
something I had to get for thehouse and I was like the message
was so simple Water heatersinstalled same day.
(31:55):
Sometimes the best message orthe best way to sell a horse is
a sign that says horse for sale.
So the messaging has got to bethat one point.
What's going on in the buyer'smind?
What is the trigger that'sgoing to make them need my
services?
And let's cater the messagearound that Branded direct
response.
We got to get our brand outthere because we got to be known
(32:16):
, liked and trusted, but themessage has to be something that
resonates too.
So we're balancing the brandingwith a direct response, and
that's where the long and shortterm also come in too.
But it's always sell, sell,sell, rebate, buy.
Our brand is there, but we'rebeing branded as annoying, yes,
or what is the flavor of themonth.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
You know, constantly having you know these different
offers going.
You know I lean into thissometimes about.
There is a lot of power inunderstanding what else your
competition is doing in themarket and some people stay so
offended and so, like you know,I'll see people post on Facebook
all the time and say, well,keep copying us.
I'm like you spent more timemaking that post.
(32:59):
Like, move along.
Like, if you're lookingbackwards you're certainly not
rolling forward.
So, and if I'm not gettingkicked in the butt, I'm not in
the front.
So you know, I just keepplowing along.
But there is power in knowingwhat is happening in your market
and not ignoring those thingsthat are changing and just being
fluid with your offers to wherethey're.
(33:19):
They're meeting the homeownerwhere they are and it's just
that one big thing.
But so many contractors are notwilling.
They're not willing to committo this one thing.
They think they can make it offof referral or word of mouth
(33:45):
and so they don't see aninterest in changing to a full.
You know, 7 am to 7 pm, sevendays a week, no overtime charges
or guaranteed day install,guaranteed same day install,
because you know what they do.
They make all their processesaround the outliers and not
around the fact of what wasmostly going to happen, and so
we just live in fear I say thistoo, like progress over
perfection.
Get out there and start makingthese offers, making these
aggressive promises, and thenman deliver, knock those out of
(34:07):
the park, and that is how youdifferentiate between you and
private equity that's in yourmarket, kicking you in the
throat every day, you know.
So, just trying to trying toget, trying to get there.
Well, I want to kind of leaninto this last thing and I know
we're kind of going long here,but I loving this conversation.
You know you bought and sold,do I understand?
Like five companies.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
So I I founded, exited five companies.
I didn't buy any.
I always started from scratch.
No customers, no employeesperfect, perfect, okay.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
And so tell me, like, is this, this how you approach
your marketing for your company?
Is this, you know, brandedfirst.
I I like to encourage peoplefrom Living Seed like I want us
to think brand forward.
So the first thing that we dois we put our brand forward in
everything that we do, becausewe're building long-term
relationships, we're buildingthese raving fans.
(34:57):
I can dilly-dally down here inwhat you call paper crack, which
cracked me up earlier.
You know I want to leteverybody else run on that
hamster wheel.
Every once in a while I'll jumpon it for a little bit, but my
favorite thing is when I canjump off because my branding has
just pushed us forward.
When I see people hard andheavy in PPC, it lets me know
that they're pretty, pretty weakon their branding.
(35:19):
And so is that the philosophythat you took with these five
companies.
What were those five companies?
Speaker 2 (35:26):
I had Climate Engineering in Connecticut,
which was a contractor of theyear back in 2001.
Climate Partners in Connecticut, summit Services in Hilton Head
, south Carolina, dr EnergySaver, which is a franchise
company nationwide, and thenGriffin.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Service in Jacksonville, Florida.
So different markets as well.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
At one point I was Connecticut, south Carolina,
florida.
I was bouncing back and forthand running them remotely.
One thing you know when I builtthe business, I built it with
the end in mind and I didn'twant to.
I didn't have office in any ofmy my companies, like I needed
to be a business person and mybackground is trades.
(36:07):
I wrote a toolbox in as a steamfitter.
Been there, done that, been oncall, done all the work.
It was my favorite job being atechnician.
Actually being a businessperson is harder, but I built my
business on branding.
And so how to be different?
I don't think today you can beunique.
Back in the 90s you could haveUSPs and all these things, but
with information and thehomogenization of everything,
(36:32):
you've got to have somethingdistinctive.
And so, whether it is you'relike hey, we're open early, we
open early and we're open late,kind of thing.
Or you know seven days, sameprice, you know never over time
charge, those are distinctivethings, and the easiest way to
be distinctive you nail it iswith your promises.
You know, and the really bedistinctive, come up with a
(36:55):
really badass name for yourpromises, right?
Like that you can own the nameEven if someone tries to copy it
in your marketing, right theygo oh no, you're copying Crystal
.
Crystal's got that lemon seedguarantee, you know type of
thing you know.
But what people are afraid of onthe guarantees is well, what if
I have to honor one?
And so I illustrate it bysaying if I said to you if you
(37:18):
could sell 50 more HVAC systemsthis year by guaranteeing
putting a meteor guarantee onyour system If your AC gets hit
by a meteor, we'll replace itfor free and give you back all
your money Would you give thatguarantee to sell 50 more jobs?
They're like, of course, why?
Because you're not going to gethit by a meteor, like it's not
(37:40):
going to happen.
So in the next day, installguarantee.
How can you mitigate the risk?
Can you have portable ACs?
Can you have flexibility, likeflex discounts?
Hey, if we have to rescheduleyou, our guarantee is we'll give
you $500 credit.
Can you say if you getrescheduled, you get a free IAQ,
(38:05):
you get a free water filter.
There's ways to mitigate theguarantee.
And the best part about thoseguarantees you already know this
.
Most of your competition don'thave the guts to make them.
So they're really easy to bedistinctive.
Because when I talk to peoplelike I can't guarantee same-day
service.
When we get busy, we can't dosame-day service.
Well, of course not the.
(38:31):
You have to have a consequenceagainst you if we don't get
there today.
This is what we're going to dofor you.
We're going to give you a freetune-up next season.
We're going to give you a wavethe diagnostic fee.
We're going to give you 25 or50 off the repair.
There's a consequence.
People understand that.
If it's just gimmicky, peoplesee through that.
They're smart, we're smart, andso I think that transparency is
big and that's how we built ourbusinesses.
We always started with directmail.
(38:52):
Heavy branding, really focusedon the neighborhoods we wanted
to do and we focused on theneighborhood.
We mailed them, we did a job,we mailed around them with
radius mailers, we hung doorhangers, we put yard signs.
We just went and tried to be Icall it 10 mile Titan.
We want to just own 10 miles ofthis place and just be the guy,
and that's goes to the reachright.
(39:16):
Some people like I'll mail10,000 people twice a year.
Well, that's 20,000 people.
I'd rather mail 1500 people 10times this year or 20 times, you
know, 12 times this year, andjust own my 1,500 people Way,
way, way back in the day, jimAbrams and John Young had a
thing called Victory Village andthat was it.
You just keep mailing these same1,000 people every single month
(39:37):
and it worked.
We just expanded on that idea.
And if you're owning that idea,what we did then is focused on
schools and sports teams andcommunity events and fears and
just became the guy they know,like and trust by being local.
Of course, as you scale, thenthe next we want radio
(39:58):
billboards are amazing too.
Both of those are superaffordable for the amount of
frequency that people see andhear the message.
For the dollars, if you canafford it, kick butt solutions.
Tv if you're going to get in tv,you know you got to be like
really there.
We, we got in tv as ourcompany's got bigger in scale.
But we had to have the budgetto have that frequency and
(40:18):
initially we did tv.
We couldn't afford like everyday, so we just owned a day.
We own the, the morning show onTuesday and Wednesday kind of
thing where we can just bedominant for that period of time
.
And all of this marketingdoesn't make a hill of beans if
you don't deliver.
So the alignment you weretalking about of here's our
marketing message.
We started with what we'regoing to do to be awesome and
(40:40):
then we figured out how to tellthat story, then we delivered on
it.
And the temptation that wefigured out how to tell that
story, then we delivered on it,and the temptation that we
didn't fall to, we didn'tover-promise and under-deliver.
We under-promised and thenover-delivered.
Surprise and delight I wouldpost it.
The other day and one of thethings like you have to surprise
and delight your customers withsomething.
And it used to be able to belike oh, we wear floor savers.
(41:02):
Oh, we bring your garbage cansin.
Oh, I brought your newspaperfrom the street.
That's not doing it anymore.
You've got to do something elseto surprise and delight.
And so then you do get word ofmouth.
You get good reviews.
You know reviews are likerocket fuel for your machine.
You can't scale your business byword of mouth alone.
You can get you know.
(41:25):
If you can leverage that socialmedia.
You can leverage that on directmail.
You can leverage that someplaceelse on your website.
If you're a salespeople canleverage it on site with, like
video testimonials.
But you can't scale a businesson word of mouth.
And I think that some peoplethink they do.
So we need word of mouth, weneed to wow these people, but
it's not going to build ourbusiness.
We're going to build ourbusiness by fueling it with
(41:46):
marketing.
Marketing is the only way togrow your business.
Period.
You can't be efficient.
Efficiency grows your business.
Efficiency can increase yourmargin.
Raising prices, you can growyour business.
Quote unquote.
So like if there was a priceincrease of 12% this year and
your business grew 12%, youdidn't grow your business.
Train grew your business.
Carrier grew your business grew12%.
You didn't grow your business.
Train grew your business.
Carrier grew your business.
(42:06):
Right, so you're going to needto have marketing do it.
So we just believe in that.
We committed a marketing budget.
We developed long-term andshort-term strategies.
We defined our territories.
Then we used the data to tellus what's working, what's not
working.
Another thing which I don't know.
I'm going to go on a limb here.
You may or may not agree withthis, but I didn't track a
million things.
I wasn't like put a trackingnumber on every single thing.
(42:29):
I looked at my marketing budgetagain as an investment
portfolio.
Sometimes tech is up, sometimestech is down.
Sometimes blue chips up,sometimes blue chips down.
In any given period of time.
I knew how many calls and leadsI needed.
I knew my marketing budget and,at the end of the day, if I had
the leads I needed and I was inbudget, did I really care?
In the micromanaging side, whatworked, of course, over time?
(42:53):
Hey, this thing is notgenerating anything.
I can redeploy that moneybetter.
But I wasn't herky-jerky andlike I did mail it didn't work.
I did a billboard it didn'twork.
I did something online itdidn't work.
I was willing to say am Istaying within my 8% budget?
And I got all the calls andleads that I need.
That was different and I thinksome guys, that's how digital
(43:15):
sells, right?
Digital's like it's completelytrackable.
Well, it is sort of wink wink,but it's also bullshit.
You're getting last clickattribution.
Google is the toll booth.
Yeah, you get off the ramp.
You're gonna pay the tollcalled google, so you get all
the credit.
Somebody told me last weekgoogle is my best lead source.
I'm like, no, it's not.
It's not, it's where they'regoing yeah because of something
(43:40):
what sent them to google.
And my goal in my marketing wasalways to be I wanted people.
The measure of success was theytyped my name into the search
bar, not a generic term.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
Oh, 1,000%.
So I love trackability.
Again, it goes back to what Istated at the beginning.
It's about the expectations ofthings.
So I kind of put my, I put mytracking where people have given
us and said they'll say this isgoing to generate all these
leads.
Well, that's fine, let me put atracking number on it.
So at the end of the day, Ialways try to utilize tracking
(44:12):
numbers to help us have someinsight.
I tell people that we are notgoing to be pushing and pulling
extremely off of trackingnumbers.
It's simply a direction thatthings are working, because
point of acquisition how youtruly earn a new customer
probably has many more touchpoints than the actual phone
number that they called, and soreally getting your headset
(44:33):
right around how that's going towork is where the difference
comes into play here.
Because you're right, like wesee so many people that just
rock a boat.
That doesn't need to be rocked,they just need to sit still and
kind of ride out a storm.
But we're jumping ship.
I mean the moment that anythingchanges.
We're changing.
I mean ask anybody anybodythat's listening right now to
(44:55):
this podcast if you've had morethan two or three website
providers over the last three orfour years.
You're the problem.
Odds are you are the problembecause you haven't given
anybody time to be successful.
If your social media is notperforming and you're blaming
all these social media creators,odds are it's not them, it's
you.
Just because of expectationsnot being set clearly, overly
(45:18):
tracking things, putting so muchstock in that I mean, right now
there's a whole business that'sbuilt around.
How fast they can change uh,everything, and so I guess I'm
just a little bit on the oldschool side, like you.
Like I love being consistentlybranded in my market and staying
flexible, staying focused andjust keeping the customer at the
(45:40):
center of all of our decisions.
Like every time, like, but howdoes the?
How does the consumer think?
How do we?
You know they may not get allthe you start telling everybody
that you're giving away a airpurifier x 1000 uh, two of them.
Uh, people, do you got to tellthem what it solves for them?
You have to tell, you have togive them that it's a solution
(46:00):
to a problem.
They may not even know they hadum and so well.
Well, tom, thank you so much.
Like I just really enjoyed thisIf you had to give a new home
service company owner.
You know, a couple of pieces ofadvice.
What would those be?
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Always start off with understanding.
We're not curing cancer andwe're not solving world peace,
we're fixing plumbing and airconditioning.
So let's not like forsake allof our values and our family and
the reason we went intobusiness in the first place.
If we start that, that'sdefinitely sort of like even on
my team, when it's the heat ofbattle, everything going on, I'd
(46:40):
be like remember everybody notcuring cancer, not solving world
peace, so kind of keep rightperspective there.
I also would go back to kind ofthe guru-itis.
Don't get caught up inguru-itis.
Find somebody that you know andtrust, just like you want your
customers to do, and then listento them, collaborate with them,
have healthy debate back andforth, ask a lot of questions
(47:03):
and understand why Crystal istelling you this.
Why is tom saying this?
You may not agree, you don'thave to agree, but you should
always start first with help meunderstand, not if I give you
this money, you'll have a magicbeans.
I also think that um stayingfocused on a game plan, whether
it's a marketing plan or the wayyou execute those plays so your
(47:24):
marketing is one set ofplaybooks like offense, then
your call centers and other setof plays like defense and your
field operations is like specialteams.
They each need to have playsand if you assume you hired an
experienced guy, you assumewhatever and you don't go verify
it, you don't make sure it'shappening.
Talking to somebody yesterdaylike we always do this and I'm
(47:44):
like, well, I actually talked totwo of your managers and two of
your branches and they told meyou don't ever do that, let's
talk into the big boss, likeyou're assuming something.
You're not like measuring.
I also always operate mybusiness and do no harm, do no
harm to the customers, do noharm to the vendors, do no harm
to the employees, harm to thevendors, do no harm to the
(48:06):
employees, like if we just are,operate with good old fashion
common sense and good neighborlytype of stuff.
And the end of the day, for themarketing, figure out with
whoever your marketing peopleare, and it could be a team of
people.
I had an SEO guy, I had a payper click guy, I had a direct
mail guy, I had a radio guy andI made them all work together
(48:28):
because we're on a team now, butit was basically what can we be
famous for?
What can we be known for?
So when somebody has thisproblem, they go.
Those are the guys known, likedand trusted.
And if you that you could, aone truck could do that, a five
truck could do that.
Electrician, a plumber, apainter, a pest guy, you can
(48:50):
become known for something, butit can't be quality, integrity,
these these vagaries.
It's got to be something thatmatters.
Who, oh who's the company thatdoesn't charge overtime on
weekends?
Boom, oh.
Who's the company that's openlate?
Boom.
Who's the company that haswater reviews the next day?
Boom.
(49:10):
Those are the types of thingsJust become famous and it's
going to be scary, becauseyou've got to commit to it, yeah
, and you can't compromise it.
And so when you're like I needleads and I'll become all things
to all people.
Don't do that.
Yeah, stay with it.
Work with your marketing team,crystal.
How do we do this?
(49:31):
How do we keep leveraging this?
How do we spread it across allof our messaging?
If you do that, I think thoseare all simple things.
None of those should be likemind-blowing to anybody.
They're all like duh.
But doing them is the hard part.
The consistency you said in thebeginning consistency of doing
simple things over and over andthen tweaking and adjusting as
(49:51):
the market shifts is going to bethe formula to success
absolutely well listen.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
I have really enjoyed these insights on.
I love the purchasing cycles,conversation, the messaging and,
of course, building the brand.
You know that's our jam here,so I think it's invaluable to
contractors that are at anystage of business.
And so, tom, thank you so much.
We'll have all of your contactinformation in the show notes.
And, guys, thank you forlistening to another episode of
From the Yellow Chair.
(50:17):
We hope that you've enjoyedthis.
We'd love for you to leave us areview, follow us on all of our
socials and, hey, if you'relooking for expert guidance,
lemon Seed would love to be yourtrusted source, as Tom
mentioned, for strategy andbranding and all things just
helping you dominate your market.
Thanks for sipping lemonadewith us today.
Until next time, see you later.
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