January 7, 2025 • 30 mins
What if AI could revolutionize your marketing strategy and boost your customer lifetime value? This episode features the insightful Eric Thomas, founder of Rival Digital, and marketing expert Sarah Gerardo, as they share their predictions for 2025, exploring the future of AI in marketing for trades like HVAC and plumbing. Together, we discuss the challenges and opportunities AI presents for smaller companies and the importance of maintaining a strong brand, simple website, and effective customer relationship management.
The conversation takes us on a journey through the evolving role of AI tools like ChatGPT, illustrating how they can enhance efficiency and creativity in marketing strategies. But despite the tech-forward focus, we emphasize that the key to success still lies in a customer-centric approach. We share real-world advice for businesses, particularly contractors, on addressing foundational issues like call center performance and customer experience before rushing into AI integration. Our discussion brings to life the story of a contractor who struggled not due to a lack of leads, but because of operational inefficiencies, thus painting a picture of where practical priorities should lie.
In a surprising twist, we also explore the resurgence of traditional marketing and community engagement. As the digital marketing landscape becomes more saturated and costly, the renewed value in joining local chambers of commerce and hosting community events becomes apparent. Through analogies that liken marketing to baking the perfect cake, we underline the necessity of blending brand awareness, call-to-action, and customer cultivation. Plus, we touch on the exciting potential of smart HVAC systems and influencer marketing to enhance customer experience through predictive maintenance and personalized services, showing how these strategies can set contractors apart in the post-COVID era. Join us for an enlightening episode that blends traditional wisdom with futuristic foresight.
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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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We'll see you next time, Lemon Heads!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up, lemonheads ?
Welcome to another episode ofFrom the Yellow Chair.
I am excited to be basicallykind of live, I guess, from the
Roofing Process Conference herein Marco Island.
Your view is us.
Our view is actually abeautiful ocean, so I'm excited
to be here today with theTrademark Podcast.
We are going to be talkingabout all kinds of cool things
(00:23):
that are predictions for 2025marketing, so I can't wait for
you to hear this episode.
Let's sip some lemonade, allright?
(00:44):
So you two dynamic duo make upthe trademark podcast, so I'll
start with this every time.
Why should anyone care what youhave to say?
So tell me a little bit aboutyourself and what you've been
doing, who you are.
I nominate Eric to go first.
All right.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Hello listeners, my name is Eric Thomas.
I've been on the show before.
I can't remember what episode,but it was a long time ago.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yes, it was.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Way back in the day.
Founder and president of RivalDigital, host of the Trademark
Podcast, dad, husband, all thegood things why they should
listen to me I'm not sure thatthey should, oh well, but it
would be really cool.
I I feel like I have somepretty decent insights to bring
to the table.
Been doing marketing in thetrades now for about seven and a
(01:30):
half years, both kind of clientside and the franchise world,
and then and then now, you know,with rival digital, supporting
HVAC, plumbing, electrical,garage door companies.
Yeah, I've got a book comingout in the new year which I'm
excited about and which I guessgives you a little credibility
for talking and well, we thinkyou're great.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
You do great things.
We share several clients.
You do a great job for them, sothank you.
And then the prettiest one atthe table, that's at the
furthest back part of the table.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Go for it, sarah.
So I'm Sarah Gerardo, and I ama marketer in the trades.
I have been in the trades for along time over nine years now
marketing over 20 years.
Why you should listen to me, Idon't know.
(02:22):
I like to talk about marketing.
I have a weird passion thatannoys people, but it's also
what I like to talk aboutmarketing.
I have a weird passion thatannoys people, but it's also
what I like to talk aboutabsolutely we.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
We did our we.
You know we're talking earlierand we're like we could have
just kept talking right umalways so I forgot we were
recording, yeah yeah, so I uhsome of the things that we were
talking about earlier thatreally resonated with me and
that's why I said, oh, I gottaget you guys on this podcast is
I have a lot of listeners thatmaybe they're not huge companies
like they're smaller companiesreally trying to get started and
(02:52):
the idea behind all of this AIand automated home and smart AC,
all of that life, is a littleintimidating to them.
Yeah, and so you guys werebringing up some great thoughts.
So I just wanted to kind ofstart with and maybe I'll kick
this off to Sarah, you knowwhere, what are you?
What are we seeing is beingpredicted in 2025 as far as
(03:12):
marketing, just marketingtactics, strategies, things like
that.
She had a great chat, GPTprompt earlier, but I just want
to, I want to kind of getstarted Like where do you think
things are going to go in 2025?
You know what?
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Like I mean, it's going to be the same thing.
You're going to need a brand,right Like you're going to need
a strong.
I know a girl, yeah, I know acouple of people.
You're going to need some sortof website, whether it's AI
based or a landing withsomething simple.
Graveldigitalcom yes.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I also know a guy for that.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
And you're going to need a CRM or ERP to put your
customer information in Right,and if you've already have your
customer information, you'regoing to want to use that to,
basically, you know, market tothem because those are your
cheapest leads and they have thelongest customer lifetime value
, right.
And so that good old, that goodold LTV, cltv, yeah, so, um,
(04:13):
it's the basics, will always bethere, but the difference in
2025 is the innovation part.
Right, ai has been here for avery long time, but now we are
pushing forward with it at avery rapid pace.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah, it feels like it just came out of nowhere,
like in your mind, like you'veseen AI.
But all of a sudden you're like, oh crap, you know I better
start evolving.
I call it the blockbuster idea,Like, please don't let me be a
blockbuster, you know, we'relike you look up and you're like
I am totally irrelevant.
Yeah, you look up and you'relike I am totally irrelevant,
especially if you're a marketerand you're listening.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
you have to evolve with all of these things Most
definitely, and so the role ofmarketing is just completely
changing, and the role ofadvertising is changing as well,
and so the cool thing about itis it's not scary, it's how
innovative you can get with itand how you can do your job
faster as a marketer, and evenif you're wearing 20 different
(05:09):
hats like you, can producethings faster with automation,
and it helps you become moreefficient.
Right, that's the goal inbusiness Become more automated,
which makes me more efficient.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Well, and access to things that you don't always
have access to.
So you know, I was thinkingabout this the other day my kids
, I made a joke and I said wedon't use your card catalog in
your head and my kids were likeand I was like y'all don't know
what a card catalog is.
I'm sorry I forget that I am 43years old, um, but you know it
goes back to like look how much,like, so much information is
(05:45):
like at your fingertips.
And so you know honestly, likeyou want a marketing plan,
askchat, gpt, they'll give youone.
What most people aren't goingto do is go implement it, which
you made this statement earliertoday.
Sarah was like, hey, I willgive you the whole plan.
Like, let me see, I'll lay outthe whole strategy for you.
Eric might say this is exactlywhat I need you to do, and
people are going to go.
(06:05):
Eh, I don't know.
Yeah, because only I forgetwhat number you said, but like,
a very small percentage ofpeople actually put something
into action.
Yes, so in 2025, if anything,just like, do something.
Yeah, take action.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
So where do you think we're going to go on the
digital side?
Like that's real scary topeople.
Yeah, you know I've done allthis work building SEO and now
like now Alexa, and everybody'sgot to know my name as well.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Like, how is that going to work?
Yeah, just go on chat GPT andjust type in home and then chat
GPT, since latitude andlongitude coordinates for your
house.
I'm just kidding, that's not.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
The drone comes down and you're like no, no, no, no,
no.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, hello, eric, eric, son of Philip.
Oh my gosh.
I think on the digital side itis scary because there is
uncertainty.
However, the thing that'sconstant is that there are human
beings that have questions andthey need the answer to
something.
And the goal of search nomatter if it's Google or Bing or
(07:01):
Yahoo or ChatGPT or Perplexityor YouTube the goal of search is
to take someone's query andprovide it with the answer, and
they find that answer bybuilding up a database, an index
of information, and whensomeone searches that query,
they go, search the index andthey return a result and they
hope that that's the mostrelevant result.
So, really, I think, if yourcore focus is on running a good
(07:23):
operation, doing everything forthe customer first, humanizing
your brand and just having thecustomer in mind, and everything
you do, from your contentmarketing to your branding, to
your customer experience, ai inthe digital world because it's
(07:46):
going to take all of those datapoints from across the web that
says lemon seed marketing is acompany that does branding and
strategy for home servicesbusinesses and it's going to
tell the person searching it.
Here's what I found.
Yes, so I don't think it's asscary as it needs to be.
I do think what is moreimportant than for some
contractors, what's moreimportant than for some
contractors, what's moreimportant than worrying about ai
(08:08):
is worrying about your callcenter, worrying about your
brand oh preach.
Worrying about your pricing.
Uh, like I don't if you're, ifyour booking rate is lower than
85 percent, like, and especiallyif you're in like 70 65 percent
and like if it's bad and you'reover here, like what does ai
mean for my business in 2025?
(08:29):
Ai means nothing until you getthat call center fixed.
So I would say, like blockingand tackling has to come first,
like the baseline requirementsof running a successful business
marketing, finance, sales,operations, what until those are
figured out, I I wouldn't beworrying too much about AI and
your digital advertising.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
I have contractors that are like I need to launch
e-commerce and I'm like youcan't even sell when they call
you, when they call you to booka call you're like, oh, I mean,
one time I was dealing with acontractor and this was so sad.
He was like man, I'm just notgetting any leads.
And I was like, yes, you are.
Like I see the lead, I see theactual phone calls.
Well, come to find out theywere only booking like 25% of
(09:09):
them.
Because he was like, and he wasvery adamant, well, my team
doesn't start my, we don'tanswer the phone till 9am and
I'm like, eh, like negative, andthen we take an hour lunch, so
from 11 to one, we just let itroll to the answering service
and then we closed it for.
So I was like, so sorry, you'renot wanting to do business and
you're certainly not for thehomeowner.
(09:29):
Like I'm not even home betweennine and four, like I have no
idea that it ain't working, youknow, and so.
but he realized like if you justtook the existing leads that
you were getting and actuallybooked them, more revenue yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
What I think some ways that folks can use, you
know, ai in regards to digitalmarketing is.
I see it all the time where,like, I'll go on a website for a
contractor, then I'll go to aFacebook page, I'll go on to,
maybe, their Yelp page, I'll goonto their Google business
profile, and every single placehas a different message.
(10:08):
Yes, and it's like, why is that?
Well, it's because the the, theflavor of the month when they
were setting up their Facebookpage was.
You know, this was theirmessage.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Their cousin's daughter did the.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Instagram page.
Yes, their cousin's daughterdid the Instagram page.
Uh, their cousin's daughter didthe Instagram page.
The guy in the basement withCheeto dust on his fingers made
their website.
Oh man, and so there's all thesedifferent flavors in their
marketing.
So something that we've beendoing to help folks just maybe
not to get a perfect message,but just to get a consistent
message is have the otter, theAI note taker, hop onto a Google
(10:46):
Meet and just interview thecontractor.
And the contractor can do thiswith someone internally.
Get on Google Meet, invite Fredfrom firefliesai, let them
record it, sit there and justinterview them Like hey, when
did you start your business?
What's your name?
Where are you located?
Why did you start your business?
What does your family have tosay about this?
Do they support you?
(11:07):
What's your goal in three years?
What's your goal in five years?
What does your team say whenyou know, just interviewing on
my basic stuff, take thetranscription, throw it in the
chat GPT and say now, summarizethis and provide me with top
line messaging for my brand.
And usually what it gives youis not a professional brand
messaging, but it's at leastsomething that's like consistent
(11:27):
, Standardized.
It's standardized Lemon.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Seed was born from this.
Literally like when my brothercalled me in 2014 to come back
to the family company, he waslike I feel like I'm kind of out
of control with our message andour brand and I don't know what
to do and and I need somebodyto come in here and do this, and
that's literally how Lemon Seedwas was born.
Like I don't do websites andthings like that, because I know
the importance of a consistentmessage and I don't care what
(11:53):
vendors you're using.
If you're not a good partner tothem and you're not focusing on
keeping your brand consistent,you're going to naturally be at
a disadvantage for performance.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Yeah Well, I don't think a lot of contractors know
to keep their brand consistent,right, like, your message needs
to be consistent.
Your brand needs to beconsistent, like.
It needs to show up Like ifyou're just getting started.
That's the easiest way to getinto a marketplace is to have a
consistent brand, and it's notjust in like how you show up as
the people you hire, it's theway you go out to calls, and if
(12:27):
you have someone in your familyanswering your phone calls for
you, it might be time to thinkabout how AI can answer phone
calls for you.
Now there are a subset ofcustomers that don't want to
deal with AI.
There are ways around that.
Right, you can have an intromessage that says you know, if
you don't want to speak to AI,we do have AI to make our time
(12:49):
more efficient.
But if you don't want to speakto AI, press two.
So it's an IVR of letting themknow who they can speak to and
they have a choice in theoperations.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yeah, yes, that's good.
But, again, it's about being asautomated and efficient as you
can be, and so when you start acompany, it's building that
technology stack that reallyhelps you make sense that you're
(13:18):
going to use right off the bat.
I was sitting on a panel at amanufacturer show and one of the
guys was like what do y'allthink?
So, mind you, I had met allthese contractors less than two
million dollar contractors,right On average and I was
sitting in the room and Ithought, man, so many of these
guys gave me an email that waslike hot dad Eighty nine at AOL
dot com.
(13:39):
So I was like we're not readyfor e-commerce.
We're not even have it.
We don't even have an email youknow, so that's one thing that I
want to encourage, likeeverybody that's listening, Like
I want to encourage people likeyou just have to know where you
are in the journey.
So you can even be a largerevenue producing company, but
not really ready for e-commerceor these AI integrations, even
(14:01):
like smart home style stuff.
You really need to get yourfoundational pieces, which would
be brand your online presence,even, I consider, even like
social media.
Those things are, to me, sofoundational.
Now, Then you start layering onthe cool stuff, but what you do
is you set yourself up forfailure when you're like you
know what.
But what you do is you setyourself up for failure when
(14:22):
you're like you know what.
Let's launch e-commerce wherepeople click and try to buy
equipment online and then let mesend a guy that is at a 20
percent closing rate.
Like it's just a recipe fordisaster.
You're going to waste money,You're going to waste time and
it'll just make you disheartened, you know.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Yeah, and I think, like, if you're going to
implement quick ways to theconversion, right, the
conversion needs to happen atthe speed of search.
And the speed of search ischanging because there are
multiple searches going on Right.
There's LLMs that aredeveloping search models, and
then there's Google, which is aI'm not going to bore you but
(15:00):
basically, like it's speed tolead.
And when you think about that,when someone clicks, that's a
conversion.
That means, like it's going toeither go to your call center or
they're going to click to takean action.
Right, and that click, like, itmatters so greatly that you
(15:20):
train your operational side ofwhat that means.
So, if they're calling to get aperson on the phone, then
you're going to train a CSR howto do that.
If they are clicking to make apurchase online, you are going
to train that technician on howto install it and to get out
into the home and to keep thatconversion alive.
(15:42):
Yes.
So, yes, e-commerce may not besomething that you implement
without the training and thesystem Correct.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
A preparation of some sort Right, you know, because I
have several contractors thatare using like contractor
commerce.
They're using people like thatto sell their memberships and
just make it a little easier ofa transaction.
So I do think the customerexperience, the customer journey
(16:13):
with our company, is veryimportant that we're not really
paying a lot of attention to.
So using an AI tool for bookingonline scheduling programs and
things like that, I think reallyare going to be really
important next year.
They're already important, butfor those of you that haven't
launched some of those things, Idefinitely think there's a good
opportunity there.
So you know, the other thingthat I wanted to chat with you
guys about is the local, likelocal side of things.
(16:37):
Y'all know that's like where myheart is.
It's been like Moots on theGround, girl of Style Marketing.
I'm just like really likepounding the streets basically
and working with nonprofits andworking with chamber of
commerces and things like thatShaking hands and kissing babies
is what I call it and howimportant that's going to be,
because I think that, naturally,people are going to start
considering all of thosethoughts, right, all of those
(17:00):
interactions.
I didn't know what you guysthought about that.
Do you feel like that's goingto be a trend coming back.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
It's crazy that it's even considered a trend.
It should be like a baselinerequirement to running a
business, in my opinion.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Business 101.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Join the chamber of commerce.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
It's crazy Get everything out of it.
It's crazy and like this iscoming from the digital guy like
it's crazy that people overpivoted so hard to digital
marketing that by joining thechamber of commerce and hosting
a community event, you're seenas a disruptor it blew my mind.
Yes yes, we see folks likestephanie and david postel
crushing it with their communitymarketing.
Everyone's like, oh my god,they are something else, like
(17:39):
they're crushing, and it's like,guys, guys, what they're doing,
everyone should be doing.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yes, I mean in 2014, and I know I keep going back to
this, I'm like an old personBack in my day, but in 2014,
what I did is I knew that therewas no home service company,
much less a heating and airconditioning company, and I just
literally started being active.
I literally took the brand and Iput it in front of people,
started being active.
I literally took the brand andI put it in front of people,
(18:04):
whether they liked it or not.
I just said, hey, here we are,and we were sponsoring all kinds
of things because all I wantedto do was shake hands and kiss
babies all the time, because topof mind awareness is how you
win that long-term game.
Um, so there are short wins,which is where I think the
digital piece came in.
Is everybody started on thislike, oh, you need speed to lead
, you need leads, leads, leads,and people got desperate.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
And so they just were like okay, and they didn't have
the time, energy or finances tosupport anything other than
digital.
So then what happened?
When their search volumedropped?
Everybody was like I don't knowwhat to do with my hands.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah, I don't know what to do.
And it got like ubercompetitive too Like.
It got like uber competitivetoo Like it was at first,
digital marketing was like thisis half the cost of traditional
advertising and there's so muchmore opportunity out there, like
when Facebook ads first started.
I mean you could gosh, youcould go on Facebook ads and you
could boost a post for 50 bucksand make a hundred thousand
(18:59):
dollars off of it.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
And people still think that works like that.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah, that yeah, well , naturally it just got
oversaturated and um andeveryone just pivoted so hard
from traditional advertising andyou know, brand marketing to
performance marketing, digitaladvertising, stuff like that,
and um I just go back to.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
I use this analogy too all the time like making a
cake.
So my husband makes a deliciousseven-up cake that his grandma
taught him to make, his auntmakes it, and this cake is.
It's phenomenal.
But you know what it's made of,basic stuff.
There's no like fancy ganacheshot.
It is flour, sugar, butter andyou know, really, it's all in
(19:37):
the baking and all of that.
And so I use that all the time,like if you were to say, give
me a piece of cake, I'm notgoing to hand you a scoop of
flour.
The cake that you want is acombination of the vanilla, the
egg, the flour, the meal, all ofit, and the 7-Up in his case,
and it's a combination of allthe ingredients at the right
(19:58):
time, baking at the righttemperature.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
That make that cake good.
That's the thing.
Also is like the time and thetemperature.
So many business owners,they'll get all the ingredients
and then they'll, instead ofputting it in the oven at 350
for 15 minutes, they try to putit in the oven at 1400 degrees
for one minute.
Yes, and they're like why is mycake burnt?
(20:21):
Correct?
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Why didn't it cook?
I slid it past the oven.
Why is it not?
Speaker 2 (20:24):
baked this was.
I thought this would be quickerif I, if I tripled the, the
temperature and I could decreasethe time it would be quicker.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
But then it gets burnt yes, and I think I think a
lot of you know sarah's donethis before.
You've seen this before.
You know it really is a.
It's a balancing act, like whenyou look your marketing team,
it is people that are trying tolike how do I shift?
Where do I shift so that I staybalanced?
Marketing is not.
I can just I'm like sorry, I'mfixing to get search made.
(20:51):
Marketing is always evolving andso it's a game.
You literally have to play thegame.
Sometimes you really win,sometimes you're like stuck in a
rut, but you just have to keeptrying and keep being motivated.
But it is a balance of brandcall to action and existing
customer cultivation and I justthink we're missing it.
So last little thing so, onthis whole smart AC stuff that
(21:15):
we're seeing Right, what do wethink is the best way to
approach marketing?
That and we talked about this alittle bit on y'all's podcast,
but I love what you said aboutthe influencer marketing piece,
like I thought we had a goodconversation around that and I
think I think that's great.
What do you think homeownersare?
How do you think homeowners aregoing to respond to that new
(21:37):
like dollar in my business bigbrother drama.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Yeah, I mean, like I think, as time goes on, we're
always in the homeowner'sbusiness, right, like it's
predictive maintenance, it's wewant to monitor the whole home,
yeah, and it's such a win for usas contractors because it's
data collection yes, Right, andthe more data we collect, the
more personalized of anexperience the customer can have
(22:03):
.
So we can say hey Eric, yourHVAC system is just running out
of control, right, like there'ssomething going on.
Let's come out there and checkout what's going on.
Maybe we need to add acapacitor or like whatever.
Yeah, but like customers wantthat, we just have to teach them
what they want, correct.
(22:24):
Correct we have to educate them.
We have to educate them.
We have to provide value withwhat we're selling and we're
like, hey, we're not here tolook inside your home.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
We're not here to do that.
We're here to provide safetyand security for your loved ones
.
Well, and now, you know, usedto people were home more.
Right, they were home more.
That's what happened duringCOVID, right, everybody went
home.
So then they were like, wait aminute, it's hot over here and
cool over there, like we gotissues, yeah.
But now people are back outmore and so I don't know.
Like I travel a lot, my lot, mykids are always gone.
(23:04):
So, knowing that someone waswatching, like hey, girl, like
your unit's running, um, I find,I find some peace in that.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
I think the older demographic.
We need to work a little harderto educate them, like would you
like to know anymore.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Well, yeah, think about like the widows, right
people that don't have a trusted.
Maybe their kids don't livenear them and so they don't know
what's going.
There's so many facets likeways that we could go after that
that I definitely think it'smore about educating the
homeowner.
Like you don't even know youneed this yeah you know, they
don't know what they don't know,right, um, but they do.
Like you know, I live in easttexas and so a lot of times
(23:31):
people are like you know, that'sbig brother.
I don't want people listeningto me.
I'm like people are listeningto you, whether you like it or
not yeah you forgot to opt out.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Yeah, you didn't even know that there was an opt out.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yes, yes yes, we are, we are seeing everything you do
everyone blindly accepted theterms and conditions of all
these softwares and websites andstuff for two decades and then
suddenly we're like hey where'sthat?
Speaker 2 (23:52):
business.
Where's that data going?
Yes, yes, how doesGPT know thelatitude and longitude of my
home?
I wonder why.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Well, I know that's and it is a little eerie, you
know, to people, but Idefinitely think, going into
2025, it's going to be importantto be cognizant, working with
your, your digital provider,like are, are you helping me be
ready to voice for search?
Are you, am I getting there?
You contractor, you don't haveto know it.
You got to have a trustedpartner that you know.
But also, like, get involved inyour communities, start doing
(24:24):
local things.
Even if it's once a month, youjust intentionally do something
and then talk about it a littlebit, just tell somebody about it
and then, on these newinnovative things that you feel
like are coming out, that mightbe a little like they make your
head spin.
I'm like sarah, like just starteducating people on what they
are, um, and maybe like, giveyou, put one in your own home,
(24:44):
put one in your parents home,things like that.
Those that's who yourinfluencers will be your own
technicians yes, your own team,yeah, right, so, um.
Last question that I like to askeveryone if you had to give a
brand new contractor one pieceof advice for marketing and
they're probably going to betotally different what would
your piece of advice?
Brand new contract I'm gettingstarted.
What should I do for marketing,eric?
(25:06):
You go first Brand, new Brandnew.
Yes, like I just started, I'mready to go.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Invest day one in a good brand, even if that means
taking out a line of credit.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Tell the truth.
I paid him to say that, butthank you.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
I'm dead serious.
You can worry about the websitelater.
Make it on Wix at first.
You can get a nice website inthree years from now.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
but it's that big of a game changer.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Buy nice, or buy twice is the way to say it, or
buy once, cry once.
There's all different things,but you'll end up and I'm only
saying this because I made thismistake as well, and hundreds
and thousands of contractorshave made this mistake is they
get started real quick.
I need a logo.
Next thing, you know, you knowI need a van.
Next thing, you know I need toget a second van.
(25:51):
Next thing you know, I need athird van and some uniforms and
a CSR, and they're all wearingthis logo and all the different
icky iterations of the logo.
And then suddenly you're at fivetrucks.
You know, million, five, 2million.
You're just like maybe mybrand's my brand now isn't what
I need it to be.
And then you invest then.
And well, now you got to.
There's so much moreconsiderations.
(26:12):
You're rewrapping trucks,you're changing your name.
You're changing your name,which requires then an SEO
company to fix the SEO.
Three years or however long ofSEO you've had going in some
instances, 20 plus years forthese contractors you have to
get a new website at that point.
You have to get a new domainname.
You have to change all youronline listings.
It's messy, super messy whenyou're five, 10, 15 years down
(26:36):
the road to undo all that.
So I would just say from dayone hire a professional branding
agency to help you come up witha name, a tagline, a logo, the
colors, van wraps, van wraps,all of it.
Even if you don't need the vanwrap, get the van wrap designed
for something and just yourbrand story Like, what is your
story?
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Like, don't take a brand off of a shelf.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Like something and just your brand story.
Like what is your story?
Like?
Don't take a brand off of ashelf.
Like, get a custom brand thatsays who you are, who you want
to be.
Yeah, well, we made thismistake.
You know, when we, when westarted rival, we started it and
then, like it was like threedays before our first day in
business, we made a logo on likecanva and it was like it was
like a spartan helmet and itsaid rival digital and it was
like orange and black, and itwasn't until like a Spartan
helmet and it said Rival Digitaland it was like orange and
black.
And it wasn't until like a yearand a half down the road I was
like, wow, ceo Warrior has thesame colors along with the
(27:25):
Spartan helmet.
So people got us confused withCEO Warrior.
We had the same colors as Rhinoat the time, so people got us
confused with Rhino.
So we were like non-existent tothe world.
We just had like it was justEric.
It was Eric and then he had thislogo that looked like two
different companies.
And so, you know, two and ahalf years into it, we had to do
like I was like we need torefresh our logo so we can try
(27:46):
to stand out.
Luckily, we didn't change thename, but we changed the logo
and the colors, and thatrequired a huge overhaul.
Just online, All of our booth,all of our print materials, all
of our swag, everything had toget dumped.
And I didn't dump it out, Idonated it, uh.
But we had to get everythingremade and redone and it was a
lot more work than it shouldhave been had we just hired a
(28:08):
branding agency up front to makeus a proper you know uh brand
identity.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
I love it.
I love it.
I couldn't agree more so Sarahit's because she's a branding
company.
Absolutely.
Um you don't have to have LLCin your name.
That's it, that's it.
That's your token right there.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
I'm just leaving it at that for small businesses.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
I mean, that is true, they, this is what I hear from
them, that is true, I hear thisall the time.
They'll come to me and theirname will be like last name
mechanical, mechanical, yes, andI'm like okay, so I'm like
mechanical, so you work on likeall kinds of machinery, and
they're like no, I'm like well,that's what this says right, so
(28:52):
that's the other thing.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
That's the other thing.
When you're naming yourselflike it's a keyword search,
right, so no thing.
When you're naming yourselflike it's a keyword search right
.
So, no matter what you'renaming yourself like, we are the
trademark.
Okay, that is a hard trademarksearch to do, and we spelled it
with an.
E Okay, wow, we are different,um, but it's a different search,
(29:15):
like we could have done alittle bit better about what
we're doing, um we could havetaken the advice that I just
ranted about.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Cool name.
It's just like we can, we havework to do, but we wanted to get
out quick and scale.
Well, just like any smallbusiness, they want to get out
quick and scale and they're like, look, we have this skill.
So you can't say, hey, don't bewho you are right now, because
they're taking action andthey're starting.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
But you know, having a good brand starting out is the
way to go, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
That's what we're saying, absolutely.
You can drop your LLC into youknow?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, Don't name yourself I totally respect the
ready fire aim approach of likeyoung.
I totally respect the readyfire aim approach of like young
scrappy startup companies, forsure, yeah.
But yeah, it cracks me up aboutthe LLC thing, cause it's like
I don't know, for I think forsome like small business owners,
like that's a flex.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Yeah, like I'm registered.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Thomas mechanical LLC .
Speaker 3 (30:11):
And stop using mechanical.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
I know I'm like I don't know what it is Me,
neither I'm like it's terrible,I don't know what it is Me
neither.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
I'm like, homeowners don't get it.
And HVAC, like I mean, somepeople know what that is.
Roofing that's.
I know that that's roofing.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah, Head control.
Things like that are a littledifferent.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
So yeah, I mean we could All right, yeah, we'll
stop, I'll stop there, we'llcome back for part two,
absolutely.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Well, thank you so much for watching and listening
to another episode of from theyellow chair.
We would love a review, a share, something hook us up, but
thank you for sipping lemonadewith us all the way from Marco
Island.
Have a great day.
What's up, lemonheads ?
Welcome to another episode ofFrom the Yellow Chair.
I am excited to be basicallykind of live, I guess, from the
Roofing Process Conference herein Marco Island.
Your view is us.
Our view is actually abeautiful ocean, so I'm excited
to be here today with theTrademark Podcast.
We are going to be talkingabout all kinds of cool things
(00:23):
that are predictions for 2025marketing, so I can't wait for
you to hear this episode.
Let's sip some lemonade, allright?
(00:44):
So you two dynamic duo make upthe trademark podcast, so I'll
start with this every time.
Why should anyone care what youhave to say?
So tell me a little bit aboutyourself and what you've been
doing, who you are.
I nominate Eric to go first.
All right.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Hello listeners, my name is Eric Thomas.
I've been on the show before.
I can't remember what episode,but it was a long time ago.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yes, it was.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Way back in the day.
Founder and president of RivalDigital, host of the Trademark
Podcast, dad, husband, all thegood things why they should
listen to me I'm not sure thatthey should, oh well, but it
would be really cool.
I I feel like I have somepretty decent insights to bring
to the table.
Been doing marketing in thetrades now for about seven and a
(01:30):
half years, both kind of clientside and the franchise world,
and then and then now, you know,with rival digital, supporting
HVAC, plumbing, electrical,garage door companies.
Yeah, I've got a book comingout in the new year which I'm
excited about and which I guessgives you a little credibility
for talking and well, we thinkyou're great.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
You do great things.
We share several clients.
You do a great job for them, sothank you.
And then the prettiest one atthe table, that's at the
furthest back part of the table.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Go for it, sarah.
So I'm Sarah Gerardo, and I ama marketer in the trades.
I have been in the trades for along time over nine years now
marketing over 20 years.
Why you should listen to me, Idon't know.
(02:22):
I like to talk about marketing.
I have a weird passion thatannoys people, but it's also
what I like to talk aboutmarketing.
I have a weird passion thatannoys people, but it's also
what I like to talk aboutabsolutely we.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
We did our we.
You know we're talking earlierand we're like we could have
just kept talking right umalways so I forgot we were
recording, yeah yeah, so I uhsome of the things that we were
talking about earlier thatreally resonated with me and
that's why I said, oh, I gottaget you guys on this podcast is
I have a lot of listeners thatmaybe they're not huge companies
like they're smaller companiesreally trying to get started and
(02:52):
the idea behind all of this AIand automated home and smart AC,
all of that life, is a littleintimidating to them.
Yeah, and so you guys werebringing up some great thoughts.
So I just wanted to kind ofstart with and maybe I'll kick
this off to Sarah, you knowwhere, what are you?
What are we seeing is beingpredicted in 2025 as far as
(03:12):
marketing, just marketingtactics, strategies, things like
that.
She had a great chat, GPTprompt earlier, but I just want
to, I want to kind of getstarted Like where do you think
things are going to go in 2025?
You know what?
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Like I mean, it's going to be the same thing.
You're going to need a brand,right Like you're going to need
a strong.
I know a girl, yeah, I know acouple of people.
You're going to need some sortof website, whether it's AI
based or a landing withsomething simple.
Graveldigitalcom yes.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I also know a guy for that.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
And you're going to need a CRM or ERP to put your
customer information in Right,and if you've already have your
customer information, you'regoing to want to use that to,
basically, you know, market tothem because those are your
cheapest leads and they have thelongest customer lifetime value
, right.
And so that good old, that goodold LTV, cltv, yeah, so, um,
(04:13):
it's the basics, will always bethere, but the difference in
2025 is the innovation part.
Right, ai has been here for avery long time, but now we are
pushing forward with it at avery rapid pace.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah, it feels like it just came out of nowhere,
like in your mind, like you'veseen AI.
But all of a sudden you're like, oh crap, you know I better
start evolving.
I call it the blockbuster idea,Like, please don't let me be a
blockbuster, you know, we'relike you look up and you're like
I am totally irrelevant.
Yeah, you look up and you'relike I am totally irrelevant,
especially if you're a marketerand you're listening.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
you have to evolve with all of these things Most
definitely, and so the role ofmarketing is just completely
changing, and the role ofadvertising is changing as well,
and so the cool thing about itis it's not scary, it's how
innovative you can get with itand how you can do your job
faster as a marketer, and evenif you're wearing 20 different
(05:09):
hats like you, can producethings faster with automation,
and it helps you become moreefficient.
Right, that's the goal inbusiness Become more automated,
which makes me more efficient.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Well, and access to things that you don't always
have access to.
So you know, I was thinkingabout this the other day my kids
, I made a joke and I said wedon't use your card catalog in
your head and my kids were likeand I was like y'all don't know
what a card catalog is.
I'm sorry I forget that I am 43years old, um, but you know it
goes back to like look how much,like, so much information is
(05:45):
like at your fingertips.
And so you know honestly, likeyou want a marketing plan,
askchat, gpt, they'll give youone.
What most people aren't goingto do is go implement it, which
you made this statement earliertoday.
Sarah was like, hey, I willgive you the whole plan.
Like, let me see, I'll lay outthe whole strategy for you.
Eric might say this is exactlywhat I need you to do, and
people are going to go.
(06:05):
Eh, I don't know.
Yeah, because only I forgetwhat number you said, but like,
a very small percentage ofpeople actually put something
into action.
Yes, so in 2025, if anything,just like, do something.
Yeah, take action.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
So where do you think we're going to go on the
digital side?
Like that's real scary topeople.
Yeah, you know I've done allthis work building SEO and now
like now Alexa, and everybody'sgot to know my name as well.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Like, how is that going to work?
Yeah, just go on chat GPT andjust type in home and then chat
GPT, since latitude andlongitude coordinates for your
house.
I'm just kidding, that's not.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
The drone comes down and you're like no, no, no, no,
no.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, hello, eric, eric, son of Philip.
Oh my gosh.
I think on the digital side itis scary because there is
uncertainty.
However, the thing that'sconstant is that there are human
beings that have questions andthey need the answer to
something.
And the goal of search nomatter if it's Google or Bing or
(07:01):
Yahoo or ChatGPT or Perplexityor YouTube the goal of search is
to take someone's query andprovide it with the answer, and
they find that answer bybuilding up a database, an index
of information, and whensomeone searches that query,
they go, search the index andthey return a result and they
hope that that's the mostrelevant result.
So, really, I think, if yourcore focus is on running a good
(07:23):
operation, doing everything forthe customer first, humanizing
your brand and just having thecustomer in mind, and everything
you do, from your contentmarketing to your branding, to
your customer experience, ai inthe digital world because it's
(07:46):
going to take all of those datapoints from across the web that
says lemon seed marketing is acompany that does branding and
strategy for home servicesbusinesses and it's going to
tell the person searching it.
Here's what I found.
Yes, so I don't think it's asscary as it needs to be.
I do think what is moreimportant than for some
contractors, what's moreimportant than for some
contractors, what's moreimportant than worrying about ai
(08:08):
is worrying about your callcenter, worrying about your
brand oh preach.
Worrying about your pricing.
Uh, like I don't if you're, ifyour booking rate is lower than
85 percent, like, and especiallyif you're in like 70 65 percent
and like if it's bad and you'reover here, like what does ai
mean for my business in 2025?
(08:29):
Ai means nothing until you getthat call center fixed.
So I would say, like blockingand tackling has to come first,
like the baseline requirementsof running a successful business
marketing, finance, sales,operations, what until those are
figured out, I I wouldn't beworrying too much about AI and
your digital advertising.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
I have contractors that are like I need to launch
e-commerce and I'm like youcan't even sell when they call
you, when they call you to booka call you're like, oh, I mean,
one time I was dealing with acontractor and this was so sad.
He was like man, I'm just notgetting any leads.
And I was like, yes, you are.
Like I see the lead, I see theactual phone calls.
Well, come to find out theywere only booking like 25% of
(09:09):
them.
Because he was like, and he wasvery adamant, well, my team
doesn't start my, we don'tanswer the phone till 9am and
I'm like, eh, like negative, andthen we take an hour lunch, so
from 11 to one, we just let itroll to the answering service
and then we closed it for.
So I was like, so sorry, you'renot wanting to do business and
you're certainly not for thehomeowner.
(09:29):
Like I'm not even home betweennine and four, like I have no
idea that it ain't working, youknow, and so.
but he realized like if you justtook the existing leads that
you were getting and actuallybooked them, more revenue yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
What I think some ways that folks can use, you
know, ai in regards to digitalmarketing is.
I see it all the time where,like, I'll go on a website for a
contractor, then I'll go to aFacebook page, I'll go on to,
maybe, their Yelp page, I'll goonto their Google business
profile, and every single placehas a different message.
(10:08):
Yes, and it's like, why is that?
Well, it's because the the, theflavor of the month when they
were setting up their Facebookpage was.
You know, this was theirmessage.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Their cousin's daughter did the.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Instagram page.
Yes, their cousin's daughterdid the Instagram page.
Uh, their cousin's daughter didthe Instagram page.
The guy in the basement withCheeto dust on his fingers made
their website.
Oh man, and so there's all thesedifferent flavors in their
marketing.
So something that we've beendoing to help folks just maybe
not to get a perfect message,but just to get a consistent
message is have the otter, theAI note taker, hop onto a Google
(10:46):
Meet and just interview thecontractor.
And the contractor can do thiswith someone internally.
Get on Google Meet, invite Fredfrom firefliesai, let them
record it, sit there and justinterview them Like hey, when
did you start your business?
What's your name?
Where are you located?
Why did you start your business?
What does your family have tosay about this?
Do they support you?
(11:07):
What's your goal in three years?
What's your goal in five years?
What does your team say whenyou know, just interviewing on
my basic stuff, take thetranscription, throw it in the
chat GPT and say now, summarizethis and provide me with top
line messaging for my brand.
And usually what it gives youis not a professional brand
messaging, but it's at leastsomething that's like consistent
(11:27):
, Standardized.
It's standardized Lemon.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Seed was born from this.
Literally like when my brothercalled me in 2014 to come back
to the family company, he waslike I feel like I'm kind of out
of control with our message andour brand and I don't know what
to do and and I need somebodyto come in here and do this, and
that's literally how Lemon Seedwas was born.
Like I don't do websites andthings like that, because I know
the importance of a consistentmessage and I don't care what
(11:53):
vendors you're using.
If you're not a good partner tothem and you're not focusing on
keeping your brand consistent,you're going to naturally be at
a disadvantage for performance.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Yeah Well, I don't think a lot of contractors know
to keep their brand consistent,right, like, your message needs
to be consistent.
Your brand needs to beconsistent, like.
It needs to show up Like ifyou're just getting started.
That's the easiest way to getinto a marketplace is to have a
consistent brand, and it's notjust in like how you show up as
the people you hire, it's theway you go out to calls, and if
(12:27):
you have someone in your familyanswering your phone calls for
you, it might be time to thinkabout how AI can answer phone
calls for you.
Now there are a subset ofcustomers that don't want to
deal with AI.
There are ways around that.
Right, you can have an intromessage that says you know, if
you don't want to speak to AI,we do have AI to make our time
(12:49):
more efficient.
But if you don't want to speakto AI, press two.
So it's an IVR of letting themknow who they can speak to and
they have a choice in theoperations.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yeah, yes, that's good.
But, again, it's about being asautomated and efficient as you
can be, and so when you start acompany, it's building that
technology stack that reallyhelps you make sense that you're
(13:18):
going to use right off the bat.
I was sitting on a panel at amanufacturer show and one of the
guys was like what do y'allthink?
So, mind you, I had met allthese contractors less than two
million dollar contractors,right On average and I was
sitting in the room and Ithought, man, so many of these
guys gave me an email that waslike hot dad Eighty nine at AOL
dot com.
(13:39):
So I was like we're not readyfor e-commerce.
We're not even have it.
We don't even have an email youknow, so that's one thing that I
want to encourage, likeeverybody that's listening, Like
I want to encourage people likeyou just have to know where you
are in the journey.
So you can even be a largerevenue producing company, but
not really ready for e-commerceor these AI integrations, even
(14:01):
like smart home style stuff.
You really need to get yourfoundational pieces, which would
be brand your online presence,even, I consider, even like
social media.
Those things are, to me, sofoundational.
Now, Then you start layering onthe cool stuff, but what you do
is you set yourself up forfailure when you're like you
know what.
But what you do is you setyourself up for failure when
(14:22):
you're like you know what.
Let's launch e-commerce wherepeople click and try to buy
equipment online and then let mesend a guy that is at a 20
percent closing rate.
Like it's just a recipe fordisaster.
You're going to waste money,You're going to waste time and
it'll just make you disheartened, you know.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Yeah, and I think, like, if you're going to
implement quick ways to theconversion, right, the
conversion needs to happen atthe speed of search.
And the speed of search ischanging because there are
multiple searches going on Right.
There's LLMs that aredeveloping search models, and
then there's Google, which is aI'm not going to bore you but
(15:00):
basically, like it's speed tolead.
And when you think about that,when someone clicks, that's a
conversion.
That means, like it's going toeither go to your call center or
they're going to click to takean action.
Right, and that click, like, itmatters so greatly that you
(15:20):
train your operational side ofwhat that means.
So, if they're calling to get aperson on the phone, then
you're going to train a CSR howto do that.
If they are clicking to make apurchase online, you are going
to train that technician on howto install it and to get out
into the home and to keep thatconversion alive.
(15:42):
Yes.
So, yes, e-commerce may not besomething that you implement
without the training and thesystem Correct.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
A preparation of some sort Right, you know, because I
have several contractors thatare using like contractor
commerce.
They're using people like thatto sell their memberships and
just make it a little easier ofa transaction.
So I do think the customerexperience, the customer journey
(16:13):
with our company, is veryimportant that we're not really
paying a lot of attention to.
So using an AI tool for bookingonline scheduling programs and
things like that, I think reallyare going to be really
important next year.
They're already important, butfor those of you that haven't
launched some of those things, Idefinitely think there's a good
opportunity there.
So you know, the other thingthat I wanted to chat with you
guys about is the local, likelocal side of things.
(16:37):
Y'all know that's like where myheart is.
It's been like Moots on theGround, girl of Style Marketing.
I'm just like really likepounding the streets basically
and working with nonprofits andworking with chamber of
commerces and things like thatShaking hands and kissing babies
is what I call it and howimportant that's going to be,
because I think that, naturally,people are going to start
considering all of thosethoughts, right, all of those
(17:00):
interactions.
I didn't know what you guysthought about that.
Do you feel like that's goingto be a trend coming back.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
It's crazy that it's even considered a trend.
It should be like a baselinerequirement to running a
business, in my opinion.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Business 101.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Join the chamber of commerce.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
It's crazy Get everything out of it.
It's crazy and like this iscoming from the digital guy like
it's crazy that people overpivoted so hard to digital
marketing that by joining thechamber of commerce and hosting
a community event, you're seenas a disruptor it blew my mind.
Yes yes, we see folks likestephanie and david postel
crushing it with their communitymarketing.
Everyone's like, oh my god,they are something else, like
(17:39):
they're crushing, and it's like,guys, guys, what they're doing,
everyone should be doing.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yes, I mean in 2014, and I know I keep going back to
this, I'm like an old personBack in my day, but in 2014,
what I did is I knew that therewas no home service company,
much less a heating and airconditioning company, and I just
literally started being active.
I literally took the brand and Iput it in front of people,
started being active.
I literally took the brand andI put it in front of people,
(18:04):
whether they liked it or not.
I just said, hey, here we are,and we were sponsoring all kinds
of things because all I wantedto do was shake hands and kiss
babies all the time, because topof mind awareness is how you
win that long-term game.
Um, so there are short wins,which is where I think the
digital piece came in.
Is everybody started on thislike, oh, you need speed to lead
, you need leads, leads, leads,and people got desperate.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
And so they just were like okay, and they didn't have
the time, energy or finances tosupport anything other than
digital.
So then what happened?
When their search volumedropped?
Everybody was like I don't knowwhat to do with my hands.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah, I don't know what to do.
And it got like ubercompetitive too Like.
It got like uber competitivetoo Like it was at first,
digital marketing was like thisis half the cost of traditional
advertising and there's so muchmore opportunity out there, like
when Facebook ads first started.
I mean you could gosh, youcould go on Facebook ads and you
could boost a post for 50 bucksand make a hundred thousand
(18:59):
dollars off of it.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
And people still think that works like that.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah, that yeah, well , naturally it just got
oversaturated and um andeveryone just pivoted so hard
from traditional advertising andyou know, brand marketing to
performance marketing, digitaladvertising, stuff like that,
and um I just go back to.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
I use this analogy too all the time like making a
cake.
So my husband makes a deliciousseven-up cake that his grandma
taught him to make, his auntmakes it, and this cake is.
It's phenomenal.
But you know what it's made of,basic stuff.
There's no like fancy ganacheshot.
It is flour, sugar, butter andyou know, really, it's all in
(19:37):
the baking and all of that.
And so I use that all the time,like if you were to say, give
me a piece of cake, I'm notgoing to hand you a scoop of
flour.
The cake that you want is acombination of the vanilla, the
egg, the flour, the meal, all ofit, and the 7-Up in his case,
and it's a combination of allthe ingredients at the right
(19:58):
time, baking at the righttemperature.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
That make that cake good.
That's the thing.
Also is like the time and thetemperature.
So many business owners,they'll get all the ingredients
and then they'll, instead ofputting it in the oven at 350
for 15 minutes, they try to putit in the oven at 1400 degrees
for one minute.
Yes, and they're like why is mycake burnt?
(20:21):
Correct?
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Why didn't it cook?
I slid it past the oven.
Why is it not?
Speaker 2 (20:24):
baked this was.
I thought this would be quickerif I, if I tripled the, the
temperature and I could decreasethe time it would be quicker.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
But then it gets burnt yes, and I think I think a
lot of you know sarah's donethis before.
You've seen this before.
You know it really is a.
It's a balancing act, like whenyou look your marketing team,
it is people that are trying tolike how do I shift?
Where do I shift so that I staybalanced?
Marketing is not.
I can just I'm like sorry, I'mfixing to get search made.
(20:51):
Marketing is always evolving andso it's a game.
You literally have to play thegame.
Sometimes you really win,sometimes you're like stuck in a
rut, but you just have to keeptrying and keep being motivated.
But it is a balance of brandcall to action and existing
customer cultivation and I justthink we're missing it.
So last little thing so, onthis whole smart AC stuff that
(21:15):
we're seeing Right, what do wethink is the best way to
approach marketing?
That and we talked about this alittle bit on y'all's podcast,
but I love what you said aboutthe influencer marketing piece,
like I thought we had a goodconversation around that and I
think I think that's great.
What do you think homeownersare?
How do you think homeowners aregoing to respond to that new
(21:37):
like dollar in my business bigbrother drama.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Yeah, I mean, like I think, as time goes on, we're
always in the homeowner'sbusiness, right, like it's
predictive maintenance, it's wewant to monitor the whole home,
yeah, and it's such a win for usas contractors because it's
data collection yes, Right, andthe more data we collect, the
more personalized of anexperience the customer can have
(22:03):
.
So we can say hey Eric, yourHVAC system is just running out
of control, right, like there'ssomething going on.
Let's come out there and checkout what's going on.
Maybe we need to add acapacitor or like whatever.
Yeah, but like customers wantthat, we just have to teach them
what they want, correct.
(22:24):
Correct we have to educate them.
We have to educate them.
We have to provide value withwhat we're selling and we're
like, hey, we're not here tolook inside your home.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
We're not here to do that.
We're here to provide safetyand security for your loved ones
.
Well, and now, you know, usedto people were home more.
Right, they were home more.
That's what happened duringCOVID, right, everybody went
home.
So then they were like, wait aminute, it's hot over here and
cool over there, like we gotissues, yeah.
But now people are back outmore and so I don't know.
Like I travel a lot, my lot, mykids are always gone.
(23:04):
So, knowing that someone waswatching, like hey, girl, like
your unit's running, um, I find,I find some peace in that.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
I think the older demographic.
We need to work a little harderto educate them, like would you
like to know anymore.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Well, yeah, think about like the widows, right
people that don't have a trusted.
Maybe their kids don't livenear them and so they don't know
what's going.
There's so many facets likeways that we could go after that
that I definitely think it'smore about educating the
homeowner.
Like you don't even know youneed this yeah you know, they
don't know what they don't know,right, um, but they do.
Like you know, I live in easttexas and so a lot of times
(23:31):
people are like you know, that'sbig brother.
I don't want people listeningto me.
I'm like people are listeningto you, whether you like it or
not yeah you forgot to opt out.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Yeah, you didn't even know that there was an opt out.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yes, yes yes, we are, we are seeing everything you do
everyone blindly accepted theterms and conditions of all
these softwares and websites andstuff for two decades and then
suddenly we're like hey where'sthat?
Speaker 2 (23:52):
business.
Where's that data going?
Yes, yes, how doesGPT know thelatitude and longitude of my
home?
I wonder why.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Well, I know that's and it is a little eerie, you
know, to people, but Idefinitely think, going into
2025, it's going to be importantto be cognizant, working with
your, your digital provider,like are, are you helping me be
ready to voice for search?
Are you, am I getting there?
You contractor, you don't haveto know it.
You got to have a trustedpartner that you know.
But also, like, get involved inyour communities, start doing
(24:24):
local things.
Even if it's once a month, youjust intentionally do something
and then talk about it a littlebit, just tell somebody about it
and then, on these newinnovative things that you feel
like are coming out, that mightbe a little like they make your
head spin.
I'm like sarah, like just starteducating people on what they
are, um, and maybe like, giveyou, put one in your own home,
(24:44):
put one in your parents home,things like that.
Those that's who yourinfluencers will be your own
technicians yes, your own team,yeah, right, so, um.
Last question that I like to askeveryone if you had to give a
brand new contractor one pieceof advice for marketing and
they're probably going to betotally different what would
your piece of advice?
Brand new contract I'm gettingstarted.
What should I do for marketing,eric?
(25:06):
You go first Brand, new Brandnew.
Yes, like I just started, I'mready to go.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Invest day one in a good brand, even if that means
taking out a line of credit.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Tell the truth.
I paid him to say that, butthank you.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
I'm dead serious.
You can worry about the websitelater.
Make it on Wix at first.
You can get a nice website inthree years from now.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
but it's that big of a game changer.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Buy nice, or buy twice is the way to say it, or
buy once, cry once.
There's all different things,but you'll end up and I'm only
saying this because I made thismistake as well, and hundreds
and thousands of contractorshave made this mistake is they
get started real quick.
I need a logo.
Next thing, you know, you knowI need a van.
Next thing, you know I need toget a second van.
(25:51):
Next thing you know, I need athird van and some uniforms and
a CSR, and they're all wearingthis logo and all the different
icky iterations of the logo.
And then suddenly you're at fivetrucks.
You know, million, five, 2million.
You're just like maybe mybrand's my brand now isn't what
I need it to be.
And then you invest then.
And well, now you got to.
There's so much moreconsiderations.
(26:12):
You're rewrapping trucks,you're changing your name.
You're changing your name,which requires then an SEO
company to fix the SEO.
Three years or however long ofSEO you've had going in some
instances, 20 plus years forthese contractors you have to
get a new website at that point.
You have to get a new domainname.
You have to change all youronline listings.
It's messy, super messy whenyou're five, 10, 15 years down
(26:36):
the road to undo all that.
So I would just say from dayone hire a professional branding
agency to help you come up witha name, a tagline, a logo, the
colors, van wraps, van wraps,all of it.
Even if you don't need the vanwrap, get the van wrap designed
for something and just yourbrand story Like, what is your
story?
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Like, don't take a brand off of a shelf.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Like something and just your brand story.
Like what is your story?
Like?
Don't take a brand off of ashelf.
Like, get a custom brand thatsays who you are, who you want
to be.
Yeah, well, we made thismistake.
You know, when we, when westarted rival, we started it and
then, like it was like threedays before our first day in
business, we made a logo on likecanva and it was like it was
like a spartan helmet and itsaid rival digital and it was
like orange and black, and itwasn't until like a Spartan
helmet and it said Rival Digitaland it was like orange and
black.
And it wasn't until like a yearand a half down the road I was
like, wow, ceo Warrior has thesame colors along with the
(27:25):
Spartan helmet.
So people got us confused withCEO Warrior.
We had the same colors as Rhinoat the time, so people got us
confused with Rhino.
So we were like non-existent tothe world.
We just had like it was justEric.
It was Eric and then he had thislogo that looked like two
different companies.
And so, you know, two and ahalf years into it, we had to do
like I was like we need torefresh our logo so we can try
(27:46):
to stand out.
Luckily, we didn't change thename, but we changed the logo
and the colors, and thatrequired a huge overhaul.
Just online, All of our booth,all of our print materials, all
of our swag, everything had toget dumped.
And I didn't dump it out, Idonated it, uh.
But we had to get everythingremade and redone and it was a
lot more work than it shouldhave been had we just hired a
(28:08):
branding agency up front to makeus a proper you know uh brand
identity.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
I love it.
I love it.
I couldn't agree more so Sarahit's because she's a branding
company.
Absolutely.
Um you don't have to have LLCin your name.
That's it, that's it.
That's your token right there.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
I'm just leaving it at that for small businesses.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
I mean, that is true, they, this is what I hear from
them, that is true, I hear thisall the time.
They'll come to me and theirname will be like last name
mechanical, mechanical, yes, andI'm like okay, so I'm like
mechanical, so you work on likeall kinds of machinery, and
they're like no, I'm like well,that's what this says right, so
(28:52):
that's the other thing.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
That's the other thing.
When you're naming yourselflike it's a keyword search,
right, so no thing.
When you're naming yourselflike it's a keyword search right
.
So, no matter what you'renaming yourself like, we are the
trademark.
Okay, that is a hard trademarksearch to do, and we spelled it
with an.
E Okay, wow, we are different,um, but it's a different search,
(29:15):
like we could have done alittle bit better about what
we're doing, um we could havetaken the advice that I just
ranted about.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Cool name.
It's just like we can, we havework to do, but we wanted to get
out quick and scale.
Well, just like any smallbusiness, they want to get out
quick and scale and they're like, look, we have this skill.
So you can't say, hey, don't bewho you are right now, because
they're taking action andthey're starting.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
But you know, having a good brand starting out is the
way to go, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
That's what we're saying, absolutely.
You can drop your LLC into youknow?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, Don't name yourself I totally respect the
ready fire aim approach of likeyoung.
I totally respect the readyfire aim approach of like young
scrappy startup companies, forsure, yeah.
But yeah, it cracks me up aboutthe LLC thing, cause it's like
I don't know, for I think forsome like small business owners,
like that's a flex.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Yeah, like I'm registered.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Thomas mechanical LLC .
Speaker 3 (30:11):
And stop using mechanical.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
I know I'm like I don't know what it is Me,
neither I'm like it's terrible,I don't know what it is Me
neither.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
I'm like, homeowners don't get it.
And HVAC, like I mean, somepeople know what that is.
Roofing that's.
I know that that's roofing.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah, Head control.
Things like that are a littledifferent.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
So yeah, I mean we could All right, yeah, we'll
stop, I'll stop there, we'llcome back for part two,
absolutely.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Well, thank you so much for watching and listening
to another episode of from theyellow chair.
We would love a review, a share, something hook us up, but
thank you for sipping lemonadewith us all the way from Marco
Island.
Have a great day.
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