Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
what's up, lemonheads
?
Welcome to another episode offrom the yellow chair.
I am crystal.
I'm riding solo today all theway from.
I'm actually sitting in thisreally cool lobby in this hotel
in houston, texas, and I've beenmeeting with contractors for
three days now and I just havesomething to say.
I have some opinions to sharewith you, guys.
You may not like it, so ifyou're one of those that like,
(00:24):
don, like your toes stepped on,you might want to scrunch them
because let's sip some lemonade,all right.
So here's what I've discoveredover the past few days.
(00:46):
Most of you know me well enoughto know how much I love,
absolutely love and adorebranding and the importance of
foundational processes that getyour company ahead of the game
and really winning long term.
So don't get me wrong I love agood short term strategy, but I
really think there's power inthe combination of both the
short and long-term plan.
(01:06):
So many contractors that I'vemet over the past few days what
their goal is always is justrunning to lead generation.
And hey, I get it Like I'm abusiness owner too.
I understand the importance ofyou know revenue and having
money to do something, but, guys, it takes money to make money.
It takes.
It's really extremely hard tostart a business with zero
(01:27):
dollars to support your owndreams, your own vision.
So we need to do what we needto do to have a solid foundation
, so that we're not building ahouse on a deck of cards that
can fall at any moment.
You know, some of you likethree little pigs one little
huff and puff and they're goingto blow your whole house down.
And we just I have just such astrong passion about helping
people understand the importanceof marketing, advertising, pr
(01:51):
and branding.
It is a fun hamster wheel ofexcitement to sit on, but it
also can really wear you down ifyou don't have a plan and a
strategy.
So here I wanted to share withyou guys some of the things that
people have told me.
If you don't have a plan and astrategy.
So here I wanted to share withyou guys some of the things that
people have told me.
So I met with a guy who has aterrible name, the name of his
company.
It's hard to pronounce, it'shard to spell.
(02:12):
And I tell him hey, you knowyou are asking me for my
professional advice.
The name of your company is notgonna help you be successful.
Well, I'm not really willing tochange that?
Okay, not really willing tochange that, okay.
Well then, our conversation isprobably done, because I'm
telling you that you're notgoing to be set up for success
with that and I'm a brand expertEmily is a brand expert, lemon
(02:33):
Seed we know how to build brandsand we're telling you this is
not going to work, this is notgoing to be successful.
And don't get me wrong, let metalk out of both sides of my
mouth here.
There have been terrible brands, like logos, that are very
successful companies, and I willgo on record to say it is not a
brand alone that buildssuccessful companies.
(02:53):
It is a part of a puzzle.
It takes I use the three-leggedstool emoji, our emoji example
all the time because it takes acombination of operations, sales
and marketing for there to be asuccessful company.
So you can get by with anunfortunate brand, but that
would mean you're doubling downon all things operation and
(03:15):
you're cleaning up your ownfront porch here, and I really
don't feel like that was thecase.
As a matter of fact, I feellike that this particular client
is so stuck in their ownopinions of what their brand is
and they're stuck to it thatthey're like I don't care what
any of the experts say, I don'tcare that y'all seen this fail
and not be successful.
So my advice to him was this Atthe end of the day, you can keep
(03:38):
your name and you can do whatyou want to do.
It makes your life 10 timesharder.
It makes your life harder.
Can you do it?
Absolutely Do.
I want to see you be successful, a thousand percent.
But what I want to tell you isyou are taking the road less
traveled.
You are taking the hardest roadpossible to success.
And then the next thing out ofyour mouth will be like why do
these three and four year oldcompanies, why are they already
(04:00):
doing $20 million?
I want to say hello, becausethey follow proven, tried and
true strategies and then theythrow in some guts, some push,
some risk, and you know that'sthat's where success is met.
So listen, I've seen fantasticbrands fail miserably because of
bad operations.
It truly is a team effort.
It truly is the process ofbeing a great communicator, a
(04:25):
listener, an implementer and aleader.
And so that was the first thingI came across.
The second thing that I've comeacross is literally Lemon Seeds'
smallest package to work withus is $1,750 a month.
$1,750.
You get access to three people,not including myself or Emily.
So you get a strategist, youget a marketing coordinator, you
get a graphic designer.
If you're on social media, youget a social media partner or
(04:47):
social media content creator.
And guys.
He looked at me and was likedang 1750.
And you know what it remindedme of?
I saw this emoji on I am stuckon emojis right now, so excuse
me.
I saw this meme on TikTok theother day that said people that
argue with you over $50 arepeople that are probably going
(05:10):
to be the biggest clientstruggle.
So again, I want to be veryclear that I'm not hating on the
contractor that's strugglingfor cash flow.
That's not where I'm comingfrom.
Where I'm coming from is whenpeople don't place any value on
the importance of a consistentcoach on the marketing side of
your business.
You know some of you pay morethan in that and, just like you
(05:31):
know fitness training andnutrition coaching and things
like that, and it's the samething.
Like you've got to, you've gotto understand what you're
getting in that package.
You've got to understand whatit takes to run the marketing of
your company and, honestly,there is a lot of power in a
strategy first approach.
Some people just start out withwell, I got a website, and I'm
(05:53):
like fantastic, what's yourstrategy?
Well, what did your digitalcompany tell you their strategy
was?
I don't know, I don't make mymeetings and so I get it.
I want to say this, though, thatwhen you are the first person
that wants to balk at pricing,you know there is something to
be said for trusting the process.
And when you trust theprocesses, it's not easy, folks.
(06:15):
It's not easy to do anythingthat's worth winning at.
You know, it is scary.
Sometimes it's trivial,sometimes like how are we going
to measure success?
I mean, and sometimes I've hadto tell people you know you're
going to go three months withlimited marketing before you're
like okay, I'm starting to seethis come around, because
marketing is a long-term game.
(06:35):
If you're looking for a quicklogo design, go look on Fiverr.
You're going to get what youpay for, right.
But you need something quick,go look there.
Limit Seed does not brandpeople to just give you a logo.
We want to help you create atrue holistic, total brand, and
those things can't be done cheap.
We want to do them at expertlevel, at professional level.
(06:55):
So you know I can just get onmy soapbox about this.
Guy was so offended that ourservices were that.
But then the next thing out ofhis mouth but I don't know what
to do about my website companyand I don't know how to follow
all this AI stuff.
And I want to do direct mailbut my logo is not any good and
I don't know what creativemessaging to have.
And I want to say, yeah, so myteam knows all of those things,
but you're not willing to trustthe process and you're not
(07:16):
willing to be risky.
A better statement to me wouldhave been you know what?
I'm not financially prepared todo that yet, but let me start
working on getting financiallyprepared to do that so I'm not
(07:37):
here to again.
I've been in your shoes whereyou don't have a lot of cash,
but what my point is here isit's all about making the
preparations to be successful.
You know, many of you know howpassionate I am about my
relationship with Christ and theLord and I'm a devout Christian
.
You know my pastor was talkingone time about tithing, you know
, and like giving giving moneyto keep the church in operation
and giving money to missions andthings like that, which we have
a very modest church withmodest salaries and things like
that.
We want to give back a lot toour community and to help people
(07:57):
come to know the Lord in thatsituation.
But you know, one of the thingshe said is it's not about
tithing right now, it's aboutpreparing to tithe.
Are you doing what it takes toprepare yourself, to get ready?
So no, january might not be themonth where you start, but you
know what might start it is comeMarch.
You're ready because you arefinancially preparing for that.
So that was one thing Idiscovered.
(08:18):
The other thing I discoveredfrom contractors at this show
well and honestly, from everyshow is just the straight up.
I've already tried that and itdidn't work out of things.
Well, you know, I thought aboutrebranding, but I don't think
it's going to make that big of adifference.
Okay, well, I've already donedirect mail.
It didn't work.
Well then, when I startedasking pressing questions, I was
(08:41):
like come to find out it's notas clear cut as they thought it
was.
So the first thing I say is oh,you've tried direct mail?
Tell me about that.
Yeah, I sent a postcard out onetime to about 400 people and
nobody called.
Yeah, so you have no brand, youhave no social media presence,
you've done nothing before andyou sent one card one time.
Yeah, no one called, because noone knows you.
(09:02):
Direct mail performsexponentially better when you
are hustling on other aspects,other sides of your marketing
plan.
That's why it's called amarketing plan.
That's why you have advertisingtactics plural because it takes
a holistic approach to getoverall success.
And the better you're doing atbranding and the better you're
(09:22):
putting your name out there, themore your paid tactics are
going to perform better.
Ask any digital company whatwould make me perform better is
if you had better branding right.
So don't get down in the weedsof well, I tried that and it
didn't work.
You know, maybe you tried thewrong digital company or the
wrong spend, the wrong admessaging, the wrong graphics,
(09:44):
the wrong audience.
I mean, there's so many littlepieces that could have been
wrong that you've got to just goback.
You know, marketing is a.
It's like a fight that neverends, but you're constantly in
there because there are somepunches that you really land and
there's some punches that youmiss, and there's sometimes.
You just take it in the jaw.
You know, like dang, that sucks.
But guys, the people that arewinning this game for home
(10:07):
services right now are thepeople that are out there
pushing hard.
They're not over capital,they're not what do you call it?
They're not over invested inother places where they have no
money to win and lose.
And those of you that are juststarting out that maybe you're
listening to the podcast if youwant a tried and true strategy
like how do I start my businessand make money, get on social
(10:27):
media because it is free, andtalk and talk and talk all the
time posting free content andthat's how you grow your
business and lead aggregators.
If you want to just go thatroute e-local, a&g, all of those
things sure go.
Make a run at it.
You will realize that thequality over the quantity will
(10:48):
eventually become more important.
But hey, I understand you gotto have some money to make money
.
But this is why I encouragepeople if you have not started
your business right now, pleasemake sure you have money to
actually market your business,because when you have to start
from scratch, it's just a harderhill to climb.
So I just encourage you to planaccordingly for your marketing
(11:08):
Plan, accordingly for what youneed to spend and then, last but
not least the last thing that Iwant to talk to you guys about,
which this one just shows meagain that we still have so much
room to grow.
I watched a company that reallyneeded to rebrand.
I watched them basically giveup on themselves because they
(11:30):
knew they couldn't get theirteam on board.
They're like I don't know, likeI'll never be able to win my
team.
I'll never be able to.
I'll never be able to do this,I'll never be able to do that.
And it was so much defeat andthey were so jaded and, honestly
, what happened when I looked upis they were in their own way.
They are in their own way.
They are sabotaging themselvesbecause they won't just pull
their bootstraps up and go towork.
(11:52):
So today's encouragement, guys,is for you to just pull your
bootstrap up and go to work.
Trust the process of branding,trust the process of strategy,
put strategy before tactics andtrust the professionals to
really win the day for yourmarketing strategy.
You have time now to kick off anew year or do great things in
this next quarter that arecreative and on brand and are,
(12:16):
slowly but surely, an organizedapproach to growing your
marketing budget and those ofyou that have a lot of budget.
Let's go.
Let's get riskier.
Let's get braver.
Let's start really offeringsome cool things that make
people stand up and payattention.
It's a great day to do that.
It's a great time to start it,and I can't wait to see some of
(12:39):
you grow.
As most of you know, limit CMarketing is a full service
marketing agency that helps youwith your strategy.
We are your marketing coach.
We are not a website company.
We do not do any of thosethings in-house.
What we are is a vendorfacilitator, organizer and
marketing coach.
We're here to help you.
We're here to get you creativeand we can definitely help your
home service business grow.
I cannot wait to talk to youabout branding.
(13:01):
If you're interested in a brand, I'm here for you.
Call me, talk to me.
Let's get something on thebooks where we can look through
what your options are.
If you really love us, you knowwhat would help me the most is
a good review on our podcast andsharing on our social media.
Love you, guys.
We hope you're killing it thisweek.
Thanks for sipping somelemonade with me again.
I'll see you soon.