Tracking Marketing- How do I Know if my Marketing is Working?

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Ready to transform your contracting business? Crystal, co-founder and lead strategist at Lemon Seed Marketing, breaks down the three essential mindshifts that separate thriving contractors from those constantly struggling with marketing frustrations.

First, you must recognize that you already have a brand whether you're actively managing it or not. Your logo, customer experiences, reviews, and market presence collectively form your brand identity. The question isn't whether you have a brand—it's whether you're controlling it. Crystal debunks the myth that effective branding requires mascots (though she admits to loving them), explaining that consistency across all touchpoints is what truly matters. Whether it's your distinctive color scheme, memorable tagline, or unique visual elements, successful branding demands intentionality rather than leaving your reputation to chance.

The second critical mindshift addresses a common contractor pitfall: expecting immediate, measurable returns from every marketing dollar spent. As Crystal colorfully puts it, "scared money don't make money." The most successful contractors approach marketing as an ecosystem where multiple strategies work together, rather than isolated tactics with one-to-one ROI. This requires patience and sustained investment—ideally 7-10% of revenue, not the insufficient 2% many allocate. Crystal warns against cutting marketing budgets when immediate results aren't visible, explaining how this creates the very lead droughts contractors fear.

Finally, Crystal delivers the uncomfortable truth many contractors need to hear: you must actually run your business like the boss you are. Stop allowing team members to dictate what marketing initiatives they'll support or which upsells they'll offer. By setting clear expectations, creating proper incentives, and knowing your key performance metrics, you establish the foundation for sustainable growth. Without these elements, you're simply "driving a spaceship blind"—orbiting aimlessly without the ability to land.

Are you ready to shift your thinking and transform your approach to marketing? Listen now and start building the legacy business you've always dreamed of creating.

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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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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
What's up, lemonheads ?
Welcome to another episode ofFrom the Yellow Chair.
I am Crystal co-founder andlead strategist here at Lemon
Seed Marketing, and this is ourpodcast where today I'm going to
talk about three mind shiftsthat I think contractors really
have to make to understand howmarketing is going to work, how
it affects their business andhow overall marketing is nothing

(00:33):
to be afraid of.
So, whatever you're doing, graba spot where you can listen in,
listen intently, and let's sipsome lemonade, All right.
So I've really been thinking,as I've been, you know, pitching
Lemon Seed services to othercontractors over the last couple
of months.
One thing that has really stuckout to me is normally, within

(00:55):
like the first five minutes ofour conversation, I can tell if
this contractor is really goingto be able to do what I'm asking
them to do, and I hate thatbecause I'm like man.
I wish that Limit Seat couldserve every single person and
technically we could everysingle person that had the right
mindset right, that had theright idea about how marketing

(01:15):
works, what our strategy is,because so many times I watch
contractors have the wrong ideaabout how marketing should work,
their expectations are unclearand, honestly, it just spirals
for them and they end up hatingeverything, like their digital
provider, direct mail doesn'twork, their team sucks,
community sucks their brands andeverything feels terrible.

(01:38):
And I've discovered I've kindof narrowed it down to three
things that I think everycontractor needs to know as they
approach marketing.
Because no matter what you haveto be in the marketing game,
there's no ifs, ands or butsabout it.
And if you're like, well, Idon't spend any money on
marketing, you're stillmarketing.
You're still driving aroundtrucks, you're still telling
people, they're still referringpeople All of that is marketing.

(01:59):
Advertising you may not bedoing, but marketing you're
definitely doing, whether youlike it or not.
This is why I preach like youwant to control what's being
said.
So let's talk about the threemind shifts that I think
contractors need to make.
Number one realizing that youare a brand, whether you like it
or not, whether you intended toor not.

(02:20):
The logo, how you make peoplefeel, the reviews what you're
doing is a brand.
So you have a couple of options, right, like you could
definitely lean into whateveryou have now and start owning
the market in that.
And some of you might be likewhat the heck does that even
mean?
Crystal?
Like what do you mean go builda brand.

(02:41):
What does that mean?
Well, that means that you areintentionally putting your logo
and your colors and yourtaglines everywhere that's
possible.
You are intentionally engagingin social media content that
builds you as authority.
You make sure that your look andfeel is the same across all
platforms.
So what's on your direct mailcard is the same, that's on your
website is the same, that's onyour social is the same, that's

(03:03):
on billboards or communitymarketing, like what do you call
it?
Banners across fences.
Those are how you build a brandShaking hands, kissing babies,
petting dogs, making sure mylogo looks the same for you
every single time you look at it.
Because remember my favoritething to remind you all, while I
love all of you and you are allvery important to this world,
we're not nearly as important aswe think we are when it comes

(03:25):
to choosing us for business.
People don't really care whatwe do for work unless we benefit
them.
Well, odds are, if you're inhome services, you only benefit
them at a certain time in theirlife, certainly not every single
day.
And so you are a brand.
You have a brand.
So you can either choose to letthe market dictate who you are.
Or you can start controlling itthrough social media content,

(03:47):
through the way you write youremails, through the way that
you're presenting your logo andmaking sure that your
technicians look nice, makingsure the trucks don't pass
funeral processions, making surethat people don't smell like
cigarette smoke, making surethat you're putting out content
that is good and wholesome andtrue, making sure that you are
being visible in an intentionalway.
That's how you build a brand.

(04:07):
So this idea that, well, I don'treally have a good brand, you
have a brand.
You may not have a good one,but you have a good brand.
And here's anothermisconception you do not have to
have a mascot to have a goodbrand.
Listen, you're talking tosomebody that loves I love a
good mascot.
Okay, I'm not gonna lie toy'all.
I love a good costume, mainlybecause I know how much easier
it makes all of your othermarketing when we have a hook.

(04:29):
So if you're a roofing companythat has a very modern name and
a roof as your mascot, it's hardto be like oh, saddle up, you
know, or settle down or buzzinto or any of the fun little
plays that we can have off ofyour brand.
It's a lot harder for that.
So mascots make my job easier?
Okay, they make our marketingjobs easier, but it's not to say

(04:51):
that that's the only way to doit.
What you want is somethingthat's a unique identifier to
you.
So it could be a color, itcould be an icon, it could be
the way your wording is thetagline, a vanity phone number.
I mean, I see all kinds ofthings every single day, and
that's why Lemon Seed's goal isto tell you we can build brands
of any kind, but they need to beauthentic.
And then we need to just reallytell the story about who you

(05:13):
are.
So stop thinking that you don'thave a brand.
Odds are you don't have a.
You're not controlling yourbrand or your identity, but you
definitely have one.
So that was my number one shiftSwitch your brain into
recognizing I am a brand.
I can control the brand I needto be branding, okay.
Second mind shift that I thinkpeople need to make scared money
.
Don't make money, okay.

(05:34):
So we have to wrap our brainsaround the fact that you're
either going to be one of twotypes of contractor especially
when you talk with Lemon Seedright, you either are.
Let's go party like a rock star.
I have no fear.
I'm ready to move this mountain.
Let's go.

(05:54):
Those contractors are the onesthat are with us the longest.
They're open to the ideas,they're open to the fun side of
marketing and the risky side,and they don't expect an
individual ROI off of everysingle tactic that we're
spending.
What they do love, though, isand we can show them quite often
, if not all the time, howcollectively their marketing

(06:16):
budget and strategy has growntheir business.
So you have to stop looking atthings as one-for-one
correspondence.
There are some advertisingtactics that definitely have
one-to-one correlation between Ispent the money and I made the
money, but really, where youfind ultimate success is when
you have lots of marketingtactics and things deployed and

(06:37):
working together that ultimatelydrive overall, new customer
acquisition and customerretention.
So that is the secret sauce.
So once you shift your brainthat I've got to spend some
money to make some money andit's not always immediately
measurable and, like you wrapyour head around those
expectations, that is where Istart seeing companies move the

(06:58):
needle If they're like well,okay, here's $1,300.
I need to see a 10 times ROI inthe next month?
Okay, well, let me go ahead andbreak your heart this.
I cannot name one specifictactic.
If someone calls me and says,crystal, I got to launch a
tactic right now.
What's going to drive leads?
I have questions.
I have questions like okay, arewe?
What is the weather that we'relike?

(07:19):
Do we have weather on our sideor not?
How long have you had yourdomain name?
Are you active on social mediaalready?
Are you emailing your existingcustomer list already?
Do you have a maintenanceprogram?
You know why I have to ask allthose things?
Because, honestly, you shouldbe doing these things
consistently every single monthand not waiting till the ship is
sinking.
Before you're like you know,what I probably should do is get

(07:39):
some of this water off the boat.
Some of you wait until you'relike God, I have no leads at all
.
And then, honestly, when I lookback, I'm like oh, so why did
you cut your spending in halfthree months ago?
Yeah, it wasn't working.
Okay, so you are now feelingthe residual fallout of things
that you canceled months ago,because that is how marketing
works.

(08:00):
The majority of your marketingis exponentially growing.
Marketing, right Like it, growsin its value month over month
over month.
Consistency and frequency arewhat builds marketing.
So you're right.
I don't really have a solidanswer for it.
I need leads.
Right now.
I guess you can go jump overthere with Thumbtack and Angie

(08:21):
and HomeAdvisor and get in theMMA ring and start beating each
other up with every othercontractor chasing those leads.
But what I want to tellcontractors is we need some
patience, we need budget and weneed people that are risky and
willing to go and pivot when weneed to pivot.
If you are not that style, thenyou are naturally going to face
a bigger battle because you'relooking for something that
doesn't exist.
So you're out there hunting forBigfoot and accidentally, he

(08:42):
walks by your screen every oncein a while.
So you'll get some glimmers ofhope of things that work.
But listen, very, very fewmarketing tactics are designed
to work immediately Text blast,ringless voicemails and out
outbound calling.
If you're looking for those,those three things are your best
bet, right?
So you should be utilizingmarketing pro or chirp or
something that's aligned withyour crm to grow your freaking

(09:03):
business.
But I'm just going to tell you,if you get off of that hamster
wheel and start focusing onlong-term branding and building
your marketing strategy, that iswhere you're going to see
success.
So again, my number two mindshift was scared money, don't
make money.
And I just again, you got to bewilling to invest in marketing.
This 2% stuff is not it.

(09:25):
I recommend you need to bespending between 7% to 9%, if
not 10%, of your marketing goalin advertising dollars every
single month, pushing andpulling what's working and
what's not working.
Buy, lean into that.
If you're wanting to reallygrow and you're going into a new
market, give me 12 to 14percent for 12 months and let's
see what happens.
But most of you just need to puta little hustle in.

(09:47):
You're not willing to hustle,you're not willing to make your
team hustle.
And that leads me right intonumber three.
Mind shift that you have tomake is shocker.
You are the boss, contractors,you are the boss of the company.
Run the company, setexpectations, Do not continue to

(10:07):
allow the prisoners to run theprison Terrible example there
but you don't want to continueto allow your team to hold you
hostage and to tell you whatthey are and are not going to do
.
The last time I checked, youwere the boss.
You were the ones that weremaking sure everyone got paid,
and so the fact that some of youallow technicians and

(10:28):
installers to tell you that theyare not going to do things
blows my mind.
I would rather be in a truckbefore I allow people to tell
you.
So when we say, hey, we reallythink you need to do a loss
leader program like let's get inhomes with a low barrier of
entry, meaning it's notthreatening to the homeowner

(10:48):
tune up, can your team flip itover to a maintenance club?
Well, they don't really like tosell maintenance club, I don't
care.
How do we incentivize them andmotivate them and equip them to
sell memberships, to upsellequipment, to upsell water
filtration, to upsell, totankless, to upsell?
How do we motivate them to doit and stop allowing them to

(11:08):
tell you what they are and arenot going to do?
You need to set expectationsclearly and up front.
It controls your culture.
It controls your brand.
It controls all of theimportant pieces of growing a
business, and so you must.
It controls all of theimportant pieces of growing a
business, and so you must, asthat third mind, shift guys.
You have to run your business.
You have to know your pricing,know your numbers.

(11:29):
I talk to contractors every dayand I'm like okay, so what is
your average ticket?
We really don't have access.
How do you make any decisions.
How are you holding anyoneaccountable when you don't know
that?
I know my numbers at Lim LemonSeed because I know the
importance of knowing them.
Knowledge is power, and whenyou're driving a spaceship and
you're driving it blind, you'regoing to end up lost in outer

(11:51):
space and never able to landbecause you're just circling,
you're just orbiting.
So I just encourage you like,land this ship, drive the boat,
be the boss and build yourmarketing.
So, hey guys, these are threemind shifts that I think you
could do to be a better marketer.
Own your business, own yourmarketing so that you can grow
and you can build the dream andthe legacy that you've been

(12:12):
dying to build.
So thanks for listening toanother short little episode of
From the Yellow Chair.
This was 12 minutes of me justencouraging you to be the best
that you can be, but alwayscontinue slipping some lemonade
with us.
We.