June 3, 2025 • 21 mins
Crystal discusses why many contractors feel their marketing is random and ineffective, and provides practical solutions for creating a strategic, cohesive marketing plan that aligns with business goals.
• Marketing without strategy leaves contractors feeling unsettled and disorganized
• True marketing encompasses branding, advertising, content, and community involvement
• Many contractors have advertising plans but lack comprehensive marketing strategies
• Reactive marketing happens when you scramble for leads instead of planning ahead
• Plan marketing at least one quarter at a time with themes, tactics, budget, and creative elements
• Average ticket values and conversion rates must be tracked to evaluate marketing effectiveness
• Successful marketing requires both consistency of message and frequency of delivery
• Brand-forward (not tactic-forward) approaches create recognition and trust
• Different marketing tactics serve different purposes and should be measured accordingly
• Tracking and measurement systems prevent wasting money on ineffective marketing
• Marketing is "a game of chess that you sit down and never get to get up" - always evolving
If you've enjoyed this episode of From the Yellow Chair, please leave a review. If you need help creating an organized marketing strategy, contact Lemon Seed Marketing to work with Crystal directly.
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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'm Crystal and we are talkingtoday about why your marketing
feels random and, mostimportantly, how to fix it.
And so I know that many of youknow, from the Yellow Chair is
the podcast for Lemon SeedMarketing, where we talk about
(00:20):
all things branding and strategyand community involvement and
advertising that we can for yourhome service business, and
Lemon Seed's job is to help youbring that to life.
So we are passionate passionateabout understanding your
marketing, understandingstrategy, and today we're
digging in deep.
So grab your lemonade and let'ssip some lemonade, all right,
(00:53):
guys.
So today we are going to dig indeep as to why your marketing
feels random.
Why do you feel like you'rethrowing spaghetti against the
wall and like you think it'ssticking?
You don't really know, crystal.
I hear that all the time onsales calls, people get on there
and they're like I mean, Ithink I'm doing a good job.
I mean my business coach toldme this, or I heard y'all say
this, but I don't really knowwhat's working and I'm not
creative.
I'm way, way, way.
I hear it.
(01:14):
I hear it all the time.
So right now, I thinkcontractors feel as if they're
doing marketing but they aren'treally seeing the results.
They don't feel settled, theydon't feel organized, and I
think it's because you guys arelacking real strategy.
You're lacking a true marketingplan for your business that
involves all of the pieces sothe branding, the advertising,
(01:38):
different tactics,differentiation of content, your
actual allocation of budgetbeing done correctly.
You're just lacking realstrategy and I know that this
weighs on you.
I know that you wake up like Idon't know what's happening.
I'm going to have to lay peopleoff and I'm telling you this.
We're going into a season forthose of you that are HVAC
(02:01):
contractors that are listeningwe're going into a season where
weather is going to give us afalse sense of security because
we may, we should listen.
I live in East Texas and ifit's as hot as it's been so far,
it's going to be a hot one, andagain, the only people excited
about that are heating and airconditioning people.
But for my plumbers, my pestcontrol, my roofers, my you know
power wash companies that arelistening all of you you know we
(02:24):
don't want the weather to be anexcuse or a validation for why
we are performing.
We want to make sure that wehave a very healthy strategy
that is powerful and open tointerpretation so that we can
pivot when we need to pivot.
So let's jump in a little bitand let's talk about our mindset
(02:44):
.
So one of the biggest thingsthat I think contractors do that
hurts them is their mindset isI'm spending money.
I should be able to measure itdirectly.
We all know like say it with mefriends we cannot measure every
form of marketing.
We can kind of get a direction,we can see impact, but to
measure dollar for dollar isextremely hard on lots of
(03:06):
tactics and a lot of times whenyou're seeing true measurability
, it's not even true point ofacquisition, meaning it's not
even where you actually gain tothe customer.
A lot of times it's where thecustomer chose to actually click
, which, for those of you thatdon't care that much, that's
good enough, right?
My boss used to say that's goodenough for the girls I go out
with.
But at the end of the day here,what my goal for you is to
(03:29):
understand that when we have areal strategy and we have a real
plan, we have tracking in place, all of a sudden you just have
a better confidence.
You just have a betterunderstanding of what the heck
you're doing.
But so many of you right now arelike this is me, this is me.
I have a website, I'm listeningto my coaches, but do I really
(03:49):
have a strategy?
So let's talk a little bitabout some like key talking
points that I really wanted tofocus on today and the mindset
of teaching yourself to be opento trying things and measuring
everything as a whole.
So this whole two plus twoequals five idea.
(04:11):
So my premise behind that isyou know, independently, certain
advertising tactics may notappear to be working, but when
you layer them all together,you're killing it.
So that's kind of where thatcomes from that mindset that,
(04:31):
okay, marketing is marketing,it's always changing, it's
always pivoting.
I can be flexible, I can knowwhere my dollars are going and I
can have expectations, as longas they're realistic
expectations.
So we're going to talk aboutcreating a cohesive and
intentional marketing plan thatactually supports your business
goals and not everybody else's.
So one thing that we're goingto do we're going to start
telling ourselves we are not allthe people in social media, we
(04:52):
are not every contractor, we arenot in all of their markets.
We don't operate the same.
Every company deserves theirown strategy, their own brand.
Nothing cookie cutter.
If you can buy it off the shelf, odds are.
Remember.
I want you to think about thisif marketing could just be
bought off of a shelf, theneverybody would be doing it, but
(05:13):
people won't do it.
People won't do what it takesto grow your business.
So let's, let's get into it.
So signs that your marketing isreactive and not strategic.
Um, looking up and being like,oh my gosh, I don't have the
boards filled for next week.
You know I need calls today.
Well, are we going to havetimes of the day when, times of
the year that we need more callsand it kind of comes in waves,
(05:34):
like maybe weather really smacksus, you know, or rain comes in
or something.
So we need to have a strategicplan.
I say the bare minimum is aquarter at a time.
So you should be looking atthree months at a time, at all
times, of what your marketing is.
What am I doing this month, nextmonth and the month after that?
What is my campaign?
What is my strategy withtactics?
(05:55):
What is my budget?
What is my creative lookinglike?
Where am I putting it?
Have I communicated with myvendors?
What is my call scripts looklike?
All of those things are yourstrategy to the actual.
So you know, one of my biggestpet peeves right now theory,
well theoretically.
Well theoretically can likekick rocks, because
(06:17):
theoretically lots of thingsshould work.
Theoretically, budget should besimple to do, but in the
practicality of it all it's not.
It's not super to read, it'snot super to understand, it's
not super to build, it's supereasy to build out.
Practicality comes down to youjust getting in the trenches
with your marketing.
That's what it comes down toyou getting in the business.
(06:39):
You know Lemon Seed was builtfor this as that counterpart
that's in the trenches with you.
You know so, like everybodyelse, all your vendors are like
on the outside of the trenches,like, hey, so we're doing a good
job, just keep digging downthere.
But we us up here, we'rekilling it right, we're killing
it for you.
And you're down here likeshoveling poo and you're like,
(06:59):
okay, whatever you say, well,lemon seed, I was like man, I
want to be down in the trenches.
I don't really want to beshoveling poo, but I'm here to
be down in the trenches with you, of like, let's get these
vendors under control, let's seewhat's working.
Let's make sure that we'recasting vision for what our
campaigns are so that we arestrategic and not reactive.
Don't y'all get tired of that,like I know I do, even at
(07:20):
LemonSea.
I get tired of okay, I gottaget more leads, I gotta get more
leads.
How do I get more leads and Ireally am always working on
building out a constant,consistent flow of leads and new
customers but also, how do Imake the most of those existing
customers?
And so I really want you tounderstand the purpose of a
strategy.
So if you can't tell me rightnow what is your marketing
(07:41):
strategy, and if it involvesonly your website company, only
your paid ads, that's a simplestrategy.
But that's not a cohesivemarketing strategy.
That's an advertising plan.
That's not a marketing strategy, right?
The difference betweenmarketing and advertising is
marketing is the sum of all ofyour advertising and your brand
and your involvement withcommunity, and all of those
(08:03):
pieces together is how you'remarketing your company.
Advertising is well, this iswhat I spend on PPC, seo, direct
mail.
Those are advertising.
So many of you have anadvertising plan, but you do not
have a marketing and brandingplan.
So that's the first thing thatI think we really could do.
Of why your marketing feelsrandom is because it is.
(08:24):
You're, just like you know,flying blind.
You know throwing darts in thedark, whatever little analogy
you want to use there.
So that was number one.
You'd be looking for signs thatyour marketing is reactive and
not proactive or strategic.
So get strategic.
Number two how can you alignyour marketing with your revenue
goals and capacity?
So I have good news and I havebad news, right.
(08:45):
The bad news is it takes moneyto make money, and scared money
don't make money.
So when you're sitting backlike how did this guy move into
my market and just dominate mein like two years?
Well, he spent more money thanyou, friend.
The odds are he spent moremoney than you.
He got more intentional thanyou and he went.
We went for the jugular, which Iain't got a lot Like.
I hate to admit it, but it'skind of my jam.
My jam is to kind of, you know,get in the weeds.
(09:09):
I'm here for it, I'mcompetitive and I'm driven.
I tell you right now thatscared money don't make money,
meaning we've got to get outthere.
We've got to set a budgetthat's aggressive.
If you're like I can do 2% of myrevenue goal and you're doing a
million dollars, we don't haveenough to do much with.
You might as well put all ofthat into one tactic.
(09:29):
I'm not telling you to dream upmoney that doesn't exist, but
what I am telling you is themore you can invest in a
complete marketing strategy.
So notice what I said thereinvesting in a complete
marketing strategy, notnecessarily a different
advertising tactic.
Right, we need to invest instrategy of coordinating all of
(09:51):
those different vendors.
So does your website vendor andyour PPC vendor and your social
media vendor and your directmail vendor and your radio
vendor.
Are they all talking?
Is someone coordinating all ofthat together, and are we
working on what our revenue goalis?
So if our revenue goal for nextyear is $5 million and that's a
(10:11):
big lift over last year, a 30%lift over 2024, then odds are we
need to get more aggressive.
We need to know what our costper lead is, but more than that,
I want to know what youraverage ticket is on service,
your average ticket on repair orrepair and service.
I want to know what youraverage ticket is on install
because, listen y'all, I hate tobreak it to you, but we're a
team in this thing, so, like youand I, we're like doing a
(10:34):
three-legged race, lemon Seedand the vendor.
We're in a three-legged race.
Just, some of y'all don't wantto give me any of your leg and
y'all are like, just carry me onyour back, marketing, I'm going
to jump on your back and yourun finish line when really what
I need, what Lemon Seedspecifically, and what your
marketing needs, is that balance.
I mean, that's really what Ineed.
(10:54):
Is that balance of that thirdleg there, that of that
three-legged race, reallyhelping me push no jokes there?
I know some of y'all have yourmind in the gutter, but listen,
you need to run your race and soknow your revenue goals, know
your capacity.
No lie, no lie.
I'm going to tell y'all whatcontractors tell me.
Contractors right now will sayI need more calls, crystal, I
(11:17):
need more calls.
And I'll say, okay, what if wedid an outbound strategy?
You know what they're going totell me.
Well, but my CSRs are too busyto dial out.
Okay, hey, I need more plumbingleads, okay, well, so let's do
a water heater, let's do a drainclearing, a drain cleaning.
What do we want to do?
Well, I really don't.
I mean, my plumbers are likethey're working till four and
(11:37):
five o'clock every day, okay, so.
So something is wrong.
Either their average ticket istoo low, your call count's too
low, or we just don't havecontrol over capacity.
But all of that comes into playin the overall success of your
revenue growth and the growth ofyour company.
So again I go back to like youof your revenue growth and the
growth of your company.
So again I go back to like youcan't just get on marketing's
(11:58):
back and whip it all the way tothe finish line of the Kentucky
Derby.
We got to be like we've got tobe a partnership here.
You know, you and yourmarketers, whoever that is for
you.
You got to be a partnership andyou got to all be going at it
together, going at that samegoal together.
And so I think that is anotherway that your marketing and just
feel super random is you don'thave a goal, you're not tracking
goals, you're not tracking youraverage ticket.
To know, hey, this advertisingtactic generated 30 leads.
(12:20):
That doesn't feel like a lot.
But if I would have hit myaverage ticket and my average
conversion?
So let's say I'm flipping, youknow heck.
Let's say some of you areterrible at this game and you're
looking, you know 10%.
So five calls.
And if you sold half of them.
Let's say you're only closingat 50% you would have sold two
and a half systems, that which,most of the time, should have
made your money back, at leastnot counting all the extra
(12:40):
things that you get themembership agreements and things
.
So you got to be able to backinto that stuff, okay, the other
thing that I think we can do tohelp our marketing feel more
organized and not so random iscreating that marketing roadmap,
that what are going to be mypromotions?
This is what people love aboutLemon Seed most of the time.
What is my theme, my campaigns,my promotions, what platforms am
(13:03):
I putting it on?
Some of you are like you knowwhat I'm going to do today, this
, or y'all are only doing onething.
So you only got to worry aboutyour PPC.
Oh, of course.
So I don't believe in anythingelse, I just do PPC.
Or will I kind of do socialmedia?
Odds are you don't, odds areyou don't do it.
So when we really get in thereand we start creating an actual
(13:28):
roadmap like again, rememberthose quarters at a time, or
three months at a time go aheadand plan out what your theme is
going to be Like you're hey, youknow, am I?
Do I have a dog mascot whereI'm going to say, fetch savings?
Do I have a lightning boltwhere I'm like, charge up your
comfort this summer, right, likewhat all can I say?
Am I a plumbing company thathas a mountainscape and so I'm
(13:51):
going to be playing off thismountain man thing?
What are the creative piecesthat you're going to put out
into the market?
So that's important.
What kind of promotions is agift with purchase?
When they purchase a new systemof any kind Water heater, new
re-pipe what do you do for thosepeople?
So, when they get a new systemfrom you, are you doing a gift
with purchase?
Like here's your new ringlessor a smokeless fire pit, here's
(14:13):
a new TV, here's a vacationvoucher, here's all kinds of
stuff that you could do likegift with purchase?
Is it around financing?
What are your promos?
Make it make sense for yourself.
And then, what platforms?
Like, where the heck are yougoing to do this?
So one day I had a client tellme yeah, I mean, we ran this
(14:36):
promotion on financing andnobody did anything.
So I was like, okay, well,where was it?
Well, it was on my website,okay.
Where else?
Well, nowhere else, okay, Idon't know about y'all, but I do
not go peruse heating and airconditioning and plumbing
websites and roofing websites atnight for fun to go see what
your offers might be Something,y'all.
A website is like a landingspot, right.
(14:58):
So something, somewhere reallyneeds to drive me there.
It could be my search enginesearch, but is it direct mail?
Is it something I see on socialmedia?
Is it a flyer?
Is it a referral?
Is it an email that I got?
What is it?
But something's got to send methere.
So many of you are just notdoing enough of that to where
you're not even bringing anyawareness to who.
(15:20):
You are, right, so that may bea reason.
You have no roadmap, nostrategy, no themes, no promos,
no platforms.
You just don't feel organized.
So that's another thing, right,that's another one.
Like, I'm not organized, I'mloosey goosey out here and I
just do what feels good.
Well, you know what doesn'tfeel good Not having a
consistent lead volume, thatdoesn't feel good.
(15:41):
Not hitting revenue goals doesnot feel good.
The other reason that you guysmay be feeling like everything
feels random is your messaginglacks consistency and frequency.
There's two things that aregoing to make us win with our
advertising dollars.
Consistency and frequency.
How much can we do it and canwe make sure that it's the same?
So for those of you that aredoing Facebook ads or you're
(16:02):
doing radio or you're doingtelevision or you're doing
direct mail frequent andconsistent messaging, frequency
and consistency.
So I had a client the other daysay hey, what do you think
about this radio campaign?
So they were buying radio thatwas like two a week or something
and they were like man, this isgreat.
I was like this is not great,it's not frequent enough.
(16:24):
Now we can fix the consistentmessaging, but frequency matters
.
How many times people interactwith your brand definitely
matters.
So don't forget that's magicy'all.
That is a magic piece of yourcontent being consistent across
all platforms.
Like, don't sleep on that, Don'tsleep on that, right.
And then another thing is manyof you are tactic forward
(16:47):
instead of brand forward.
So y'all know Lemon Seed'swhole strategy, our whole entire
strategy around how westructure marketing plans, is
brand forward, meaning we'regoing to put our brand out there
and everything that we say do,how we comment, what offers we
have, everything is branded.
And so you've got to make surethat you're thinking about your
(17:09):
brand and then your ad spendBecause, remember, marketing is
the sum of all of those thingsadded together.
So don't skip out on that.
Don't skip out on yourmessaging and your brand being
included.
All of a sudden, you're doingthings that are way off brand.
Your colors aren't matching,you've got wild graphics,
everything's very.
Some of y'all also think thatyou need to put every piece of
(17:31):
content that you know of Like wetake American Express and
follow us on Facebook and we are, you know, veteran owned and
operated.
You think all of that has to goon every piece.
It clutters it up, and sopeople can't.
They don't know what whatinformation is important.
They don't know how to pull it.
They don't know what whatinformation is important.
They don't know how to pull it,they don't know how to absorb
it, so they just like scrollpast it or throw it in the trash
(17:52):
.
So don't overcomplicate thosethings.
Be solid with your brand.
If you've got a call to actionand then put tracking on it
which is the last thing I wasgoing to mention about why you
feel like things are randombecause you have no tracking in
place to measure success, youget lost in the weed with these
vanity metrics of clicks and allthese things.
Listen, trust me when I say youwill do yourself a favor when
(18:17):
you start setting clearexpectations and boundaries for
how your marketing per tacticshould perform.
How I measure success for abillboard and how I measure
success for PPC drasticallydifferent.
How I budget for Google LSA andhow I budget for a billboard
and how I measure success forPPC drastically different.
How I budget for Google LSA andhow I budget for a billboard
campaign drastically different.
And so you have to starteducating yourself enough or
partnering with people that areeducated enough to help you
(18:41):
understand how to be cognizantof a reasonable expectation for
performance.
So I need to have clearguidelines because you don't
want to wake up and be like,literally again, things that
contractors say I could do awhole episode on this.
But things contractors say Ilaunched a billboard two weeks
ago, no one's called me, yeah,so that wasn't the expectation,
(19:05):
that wasn't how it should work.
Billboards are designed to justexpose, constantly exposing
people in your market to yourbrand.
But again, set clearexpectations and you will set
yourself up for success.
So tracking numbers, monitoringyour organic growth so the more
branding that you do, the moredirect keyword, the more direct
(19:26):
searches your company shouldhave Meaning.
If the name of my company isCrystals, heating and Air and
I'll launch a billboard campaignand I'm doing over the OTT, I'm
doing radio, I'm doing socialmedia, I would assume that
people searching my name they'rejust looking for my phone
number.
I'm growing, that's growing in,so you know back in the day if
we could have recorded how manytimes your name got searched in
(19:46):
the phone book.
That's what we're trying tobuild now.
And listen, ai is coming in andeverybody's all scared and
doing all this stuff.
I think user experience and Ithink user generated content and
I think really personalizingyour messages and your brand is
where you're going to win thisgame.
So I wanted you guys to walkaway today knowing what were
(20:09):
these key things that made youfeel so disorganized.
So if you start feeling likeyour marketing is reactive and
not strategic, if you startfeeling like it doesn't align,
like you don't know if it'shelping you hit goals, you don't
know if you're at capacity, youneed guidance there.
You need a business coach,right?
Also, creating a 12-monthstrategy marketing roadmap that
(20:30):
really helps you feel organizedwith your advertising tactics
Again will make you feelorganized and not so random,
making everything centeredaround your brand and the
campaigns that support yourbrand, instead of just wild
spending and messaging.
Get a lot more intense withthat, intentional with that, and
then measure, measure, measureand don't just measure with your
(20:51):
heart.
You're not making a cake withyour grandma.
Measure with actual, truenumbers and metrics and you
really will win the game there.
So, guys, I really encourage youtoday start building a brand
with purpose.
Start feeling more organizedwith your marketing.
Organized does not always meanthat we're going to win, but it
means we'll know when to pivotsooner and we'll be able to move
faster and more quicker, if youwill, towards success.
(21:16):
But listen, it's a game ofchess that you sit down, you
never get to get up.
Marketing's ever evolving andalways changing.
So here's the good news I wouldlove to work with you.
If you have been consideringlike I need a marketing coach,
someone to help me get organized, someone to help me feel solid
and help me navigate through,like I'm getting a new website
and I want to launch socialmedia, or I've got a new brand,
(21:36):
I just don't know how to launchit, call your girl.
We're excited to work with you.
So if you've really enjoyedthis episode of From the Yellow
Chair.
Please go, leave me a review.
Thanks for listening.
We will catch you next time.
Bye.
What's up, lemonheads ?
Welcome to another episode ofFrom the Yellow Chair.
I'm Crystal and we are talkingtoday about why your marketing
feels random and, mostimportantly, how to fix it.
And so I know that many of youknow, from the Yellow Chair is
the podcast for Lemon SeedMarketing, where we talk about
(00:20):
all things branding and strategyand community involvement and
advertising that we can for yourhome service business, and
Lemon Seed's job is to help youbring that to life.
So we are passionate passionateabout understanding your
marketing, understandingstrategy, and today we're
digging in deep.
So grab your lemonade and let'ssip some lemonade, all right,
(00:53):
guys.
So today we are going to dig indeep as to why your marketing
feels random.
Why do you feel like you'rethrowing spaghetti against the
wall and like you think it'ssticking?
You don't really know, crystal.
I hear that all the time onsales calls, people get on there
and they're like I mean, Ithink I'm doing a good job.
I mean my business coach toldme this, or I heard y'all say
this, but I don't really knowwhat's working and I'm not
creative.
I'm way, way, way.
I hear it.
(01:14):
I hear it all the time.
So right now, I thinkcontractors feel as if they're
doing marketing but they aren'treally seeing the results.
They don't feel settled, theydon't feel organized, and I
think it's because you guys arelacking real strategy.
You're lacking a true marketingplan for your business that
involves all of the pieces sothe branding, the advertising,
(01:38):
different tactics,differentiation of content, your
actual allocation of budgetbeing done correctly.
You're just lacking realstrategy and I know that this
weighs on you.
I know that you wake up like Idon't know what's happening.
I'm going to have to lay peopleoff and I'm telling you this.
We're going into a season forthose of you that are HVAC
(02:01):
contractors that are listeningwe're going into a season where
weather is going to give us afalse sense of security because
we may, we should listen.
I live in East Texas and ifit's as hot as it's been so far,
it's going to be a hot one, andagain, the only people excited
about that are heating and airconditioning people.
But for my plumbers, my pestcontrol, my roofers, my you know
power wash companies that arelistening all of you you know we
(02:24):
don't want the weather to be anexcuse or a validation for why
we are performing.
We want to make sure that wehave a very healthy strategy
that is powerful and open tointerpretation so that we can
pivot when we need to pivot.
So let's jump in a little bitand let's talk about our mindset
(02:44):
.
So one of the biggest thingsthat I think contractors do that
hurts them is their mindset isI'm spending money.
I should be able to measure itdirectly.
We all know like say it with mefriends we cannot measure every
form of marketing.
We can kind of get a direction,we can see impact, but to
measure dollar for dollar isextremely hard on lots of
(03:06):
tactics and a lot of times whenyou're seeing true measurability
, it's not even true point ofacquisition, meaning it's not
even where you actually gain tothe customer.
A lot of times it's where thecustomer chose to actually click
, which, for those of you thatdon't care that much, that's
good enough, right?
My boss used to say that's goodenough for the girls I go out
with.
But at the end of the day here,what my goal for you is to
(03:29):
understand that when we have areal strategy and we have a real
plan, we have tracking in place, all of a sudden you just have
a better confidence.
You just have a betterunderstanding of what the heck
you're doing.
But so many of you right now arelike this is me, this is me.
I have a website, I'm listeningto my coaches, but do I really
(03:49):
have a strategy?
So let's talk a little bitabout some like key talking
points that I really wanted tofocus on today and the mindset
of teaching yourself to be opento trying things and measuring
everything as a whole.
So this whole two plus twoequals five idea.
(04:11):
So my premise behind that isyou know, independently, certain
advertising tactics may notappear to be working, but when
you layer them all together,you're killing it.
So that's kind of where thatcomes from that mindset that,
(04:31):
okay, marketing is marketing,it's always changing, it's
always pivoting.
I can be flexible, I can knowwhere my dollars are going and I
can have expectations, as longas they're realistic
expectations.
So we're going to talk aboutcreating a cohesive and
intentional marketing plan thatactually supports your business
goals and not everybody else's.
So one thing that we're goingto do we're going to start
telling ourselves we are not allthe people in social media, we
(04:52):
are not every contractor, we arenot in all of their markets.
We don't operate the same.
Every company deserves theirown strategy, their own brand.
Nothing cookie cutter.
If you can buy it off the shelf, odds are.
Remember.
I want you to think about thisif marketing could just be
bought off of a shelf, theneverybody would be doing it, but
(05:13):
people won't do it.
People won't do what it takesto grow your business.
So let's, let's get into it.
So signs that your marketing isreactive and not strategic.
Um, looking up and being like,oh my gosh, I don't have the
boards filled for next week.
You know I need calls today.
Well, are we going to havetimes of the day when, times of
the year that we need more callsand it kind of comes in waves,
(05:34):
like maybe weather really smacksus, you know, or rain comes in
or something.
So we need to have a strategicplan.
I say the bare minimum is aquarter at a time.
So you should be looking atthree months at a time, at all
times, of what your marketing is.
What am I doing this month, nextmonth and the month after that?
What is my campaign?
What is my strategy withtactics?
(05:55):
What is my budget?
What is my creative lookinglike?
Where am I putting it?
Have I communicated with myvendors?
What is my call scripts looklike?
All of those things are yourstrategy to the actual.
So you know, one of my biggestpet peeves right now theory,
well theoretically.
Well theoretically can likekick rocks, because
(06:17):
theoretically lots of thingsshould work.
Theoretically, budget should besimple to do, but in the
practicality of it all it's not.
It's not super to read, it'snot super to understand, it's
not super to build, it's supereasy to build out.
Practicality comes down to youjust getting in the trenches
with your marketing.
That's what it comes down toyou getting in the business.
(06:39):
You know Lemon Seed was builtfor this as that counterpart
that's in the trenches with you.
You know so, like everybodyelse, all your vendors are like
on the outside of the trenches,like, hey, so we're doing a good
job, just keep digging downthere.
But we us up here, we'rekilling it right, we're killing
it for you.
And you're down here likeshoveling poo and you're like,
(06:59):
okay, whatever you say, well,lemon seed, I was like man, I
want to be down in the trenches.
I don't really want to beshoveling poo, but I'm here to
be down in the trenches with you, of like, let's get these
vendors under control, let's seewhat's working.
Let's make sure that we'recasting vision for what our
campaigns are so that we arestrategic and not reactive.
Don't y'all get tired of that,like I know I do, even at
(07:20):
LemonSea.
I get tired of okay, I gottaget more leads, I gotta get more
leads.
How do I get more leads and Ireally am always working on
building out a constant,consistent flow of leads and new
customers but also, how do Imake the most of those existing
customers?
And so I really want you tounderstand the purpose of a
strategy.
So if you can't tell me rightnow what is your marketing
(07:41):
strategy, and if it involvesonly your website company, only
your paid ads, that's a simplestrategy.
But that's not a cohesivemarketing strategy.
That's an advertising plan.
That's not a marketing strategy, right?
The difference betweenmarketing and advertising is
marketing is the sum of all ofyour advertising and your brand
and your involvement withcommunity, and all of those
(08:03):
pieces together is how you'remarketing your company.
Advertising is well, this iswhat I spend on PPC, seo, direct
mail.
Those are advertising.
So many of you have anadvertising plan, but you do not
have a marketing and brandingplan.
So that's the first thing thatI think we really could do.
Of why your marketing feelsrandom is because it is.
(08:24):
You're, just like you know,flying blind.
You know throwing darts in thedark, whatever little analogy
you want to use there.
So that was number one.
You'd be looking for signs thatyour marketing is reactive and
not proactive or strategic.
So get strategic.
Number two how can you alignyour marketing with your revenue
goals and capacity?
So I have good news and I havebad news, right.
(08:45):
The bad news is it takes moneyto make money, and scared money
don't make money.
So when you're sitting backlike how did this guy move into
my market and just dominate mein like two years?
Well, he spent more money thanyou, friend.
The odds are he spent moremoney than you.
He got more intentional thanyou and he went.
We went for the jugular, which Iain't got a lot Like.
I hate to admit it, but it'skind of my jam.
My jam is to kind of, you know,get in the weeds.
(09:09):
I'm here for it, I'mcompetitive and I'm driven.
I tell you right now thatscared money don't make money,
meaning we've got to get outthere.
We've got to set a budgetthat's aggressive.
If you're like I can do 2% of myrevenue goal and you're doing a
million dollars, we don't haveenough to do much with.
You might as well put all ofthat into one tactic.
(09:29):
I'm not telling you to dream upmoney that doesn't exist, but
what I am telling you is themore you can invest in a
complete marketing strategy.
So notice what I said thereinvesting in a complete
marketing strategy, notnecessarily a different
advertising tactic.
Right, we need to invest instrategy of coordinating all of
(09:51):
those different vendors.
So does your website vendor andyour PPC vendor and your social
media vendor and your directmail vendor and your radio
vendor.
Are they all talking?
Is someone coordinating all ofthat together, and are we
working on what our revenue goalis?
So if our revenue goal for nextyear is $5 million and that's a
(10:11):
big lift over last year, a 30%lift over 2024, then odds are we
need to get more aggressive.
We need to know what our costper lead is, but more than that,
I want to know what youraverage ticket is on service,
your average ticket on repair orrepair and service.
I want to know what youraverage ticket is on install
because, listen y'all, I hate tobreak it to you, but we're a
team in this thing, so, like youand I, we're like doing a
(10:34):
three-legged race, lemon Seedand the vendor.
We're in a three-legged race.
Just, some of y'all don't wantto give me any of your leg and
y'all are like, just carry me onyour back, marketing, I'm going
to jump on your back and yourun finish line when really what
I need, what Lemon Seedspecifically, and what your
marketing needs, is that balance.
I mean, that's really what Ineed.
(10:54):
Is that balance of that thirdleg there, that of that
three-legged race, reallyhelping me push no jokes there?
I know some of y'all have yourmind in the gutter, but listen,
you need to run your race and soknow your revenue goals, know
your capacity.
No lie, no lie.
I'm going to tell y'all whatcontractors tell me.
Contractors right now will sayI need more calls, crystal, I
(11:17):
need more calls.
And I'll say, okay, what if wedid an outbound strategy?
You know what they're going totell me.
Well, but my CSRs are too busyto dial out.
Okay, hey, I need more plumbingleads, okay, well, so let's do
a water heater, let's do a drainclearing, a drain cleaning.
What do we want to do?
Well, I really don't.
I mean, my plumbers are likethey're working till four and
(11:37):
five o'clock every day, okay, so.
So something is wrong.
Either their average ticket istoo low, your call count's too
low, or we just don't havecontrol over capacity.
But all of that comes into playin the overall success of your
revenue growth and the growth ofyour company.
So again I go back to like youof your revenue growth and the
growth of your company.
So again I go back to like youcan't just get on marketing's
(11:58):
back and whip it all the way tothe finish line of the Kentucky
Derby.
We got to be like we've got tobe a partnership here.
You know, you and yourmarketers, whoever that is for
you.
You got to be a partnership andyou got to all be going at it
together, going at that samegoal together.
And so I think that is anotherway that your marketing and just
feel super random is you don'thave a goal, you're not tracking
goals, you're not tracking youraverage ticket.
To know, hey, this advertisingtactic generated 30 leads.
(12:20):
That doesn't feel like a lot.
But if I would have hit myaverage ticket and my average
conversion?
So let's say I'm flipping, youknow heck.
Let's say some of you areterrible at this game and you're
looking, you know 10%.
So five calls.
And if you sold half of them.
Let's say you're only closingat 50% you would have sold two
and a half systems, that which,most of the time, should have
made your money back, at leastnot counting all the extra
(12:40):
things that you get themembership agreements and things
.
So you got to be able to backinto that stuff, okay, the other
thing that I think we can do tohelp our marketing feel more
organized and not so random iscreating that marketing roadmap,
that what are going to be mypromotions?
This is what people love aboutLemon Seed most of the time.
What is my theme, my campaigns,my promotions, what platforms am
(13:03):
I putting it on?
Some of you are like you knowwhat I'm going to do today, this
, or y'all are only doing onething.
So you only got to worry aboutyour PPC.
Oh, of course.
So I don't believe in anythingelse, I just do PPC.
Or will I kind of do socialmedia?
Odds are you don't, odds areyou don't do it.
So when we really get in thereand we start creating an actual
(13:28):
roadmap like again, rememberthose quarters at a time, or
three months at a time go aheadand plan out what your theme is
going to be Like you're hey, youknow, am I?
Do I have a dog mascot whereI'm going to say, fetch savings?
Do I have a lightning boltwhere I'm like, charge up your
comfort this summer, right, likewhat all can I say?
Am I a plumbing company thathas a mountainscape and so I'm
(13:51):
going to be playing off thismountain man thing?
What are the creative piecesthat you're going to put out
into the market?
So that's important.
What kind of promotions is agift with purchase?
When they purchase a new systemof any kind Water heater, new
re-pipe what do you do for thosepeople?
So, when they get a new systemfrom you, are you doing a gift
with purchase?
Like here's your new ringlessor a smokeless fire pit, here's
(14:13):
a new TV, here's a vacationvoucher, here's all kinds of
stuff that you could do likegift with purchase?
Is it around financing?
What are your promos?
Make it make sense for yourself.
And then, what platforms?
Like, where the heck are yougoing to do this?
So one day I had a client tellme yeah, I mean, we ran this
(14:36):
promotion on financing andnobody did anything.
So I was like, okay, well,where was it?
Well, it was on my website,okay.
Where else?
Well, nowhere else, okay, Idon't know about y'all, but I do
not go peruse heating and airconditioning and plumbing
websites and roofing websites atnight for fun to go see what
your offers might be Something,y'all.
A website is like a landingspot, right.
(14:58):
So something, somewhere reallyneeds to drive me there.
It could be my search enginesearch, but is it direct mail?
Is it something I see on socialmedia?
Is it a flyer?
Is it a referral?
Is it an email that I got?
What is it?
But something's got to send methere.
So many of you are just notdoing enough of that to where
you're not even bringing anyawareness to who.
(15:20):
You are, right, so that may bea reason.
You have no roadmap, nostrategy, no themes, no promos,
no platforms.
You just don't feel organized.
So that's another thing, right,that's another one.
Like, I'm not organized, I'mloosey goosey out here and I
just do what feels good.
Well, you know what doesn'tfeel good Not having a
consistent lead volume, thatdoesn't feel good.
(15:41):
Not hitting revenue goals doesnot feel good.
The other reason that you guysmay be feeling like everything
feels random is your messaginglacks consistency and frequency.
There's two things that aregoing to make us win with our
advertising dollars.
Consistency and frequency.
How much can we do it and canwe make sure that it's the same?
So for those of you that aredoing Facebook ads or you're
(16:02):
doing radio or you're doingtelevision or you're doing
direct mail frequent andconsistent messaging, frequency
and consistency.
So I had a client the other daysay hey, what do you think
about this radio campaign?
So they were buying radio thatwas like two a week or something
and they were like man, this isgreat.
I was like this is not great,it's not frequent enough.
(16:24):
Now we can fix the consistentmessaging, but frequency matters
.
How many times people interactwith your brand definitely
matters.
So don't forget that's magicy'all.
That is a magic piece of yourcontent being consistent across
all platforms.
Like, don't sleep on that, Don'tsleep on that, right.
And then another thing is manyof you are tactic forward
(16:47):
instead of brand forward.
So y'all know Lemon Seed'swhole strategy, our whole entire
strategy around how westructure marketing plans, is
brand forward, meaning we'regoing to put our brand out there
and everything that we say do,how we comment, what offers we
have, everything is branded.
And so you've got to make surethat you're thinking about your
(17:09):
brand and then your ad spendBecause, remember, marketing is
the sum of all of those thingsadded together.
So don't skip out on that.
Don't skip out on yourmessaging and your brand being
included.
All of a sudden, you're doingthings that are way off brand.
Your colors aren't matching,you've got wild graphics,
everything's very.
Some of y'all also think thatyou need to put every piece of
(17:31):
content that you know of Like wetake American Express and
follow us on Facebook and we are, you know, veteran owned and
operated.
You think all of that has to goon every piece.
It clutters it up, and sopeople can't.
They don't know what whatinformation is important.
They don't know how to pull it.
They don't know what whatinformation is important.
They don't know how to pull it,they don't know how to absorb
it, so they just like scrollpast it or throw it in the trash
(17:52):
.
So don't overcomplicate thosethings.
Be solid with your brand.
If you've got a call to actionand then put tracking on it
which is the last thing I wasgoing to mention about why you
feel like things are randombecause you have no tracking in
place to measure success, youget lost in the weed with these
vanity metrics of clicks and allthese things.
Listen, trust me when I say youwill do yourself a favor when
(18:17):
you start setting clearexpectations and boundaries for
how your marketing per tacticshould perform.
How I measure success for abillboard and how I measure
success for PPC drasticallydifferent.
How I budget for Google LSA andhow I budget for a billboard
and how I measure success forPPC drastically different.
How I budget for Google LSA andhow I budget for a billboard
campaign drastically different.
And so you have to starteducating yourself enough or
partnering with people that areeducated enough to help you
(18:41):
understand how to be cognizantof a reasonable expectation for
performance.
So I need to have clearguidelines because you don't
want to wake up and be like,literally again, things that
contractors say I could do awhole episode on this.
But things contractors say Ilaunched a billboard two weeks
ago, no one's called me, yeah,so that wasn't the expectation,
(19:05):
that wasn't how it should work.
Billboards are designed to justexpose, constantly exposing
people in your market to yourbrand.
But again, set clearexpectations and you will set
yourself up for success.
So tracking numbers, monitoringyour organic growth so the more
branding that you do, the moredirect keyword, the more direct
(19:26):
searches your company shouldhave Meaning.
If the name of my company isCrystals, heating and Air and
I'll launch a billboard campaignand I'm doing over the OTT, I'm
doing radio, I'm doing socialmedia, I would assume that
people searching my name they'rejust looking for my phone
number.
I'm growing, that's growing in,so you know back in the day if
we could have recorded how manytimes your name got searched in
(19:46):
the phone book.
That's what we're trying tobuild now.
And listen, ai is coming in andeverybody's all scared and
doing all this stuff.
I think user experience and Ithink user generated content and
I think really personalizingyour messages and your brand is
where you're going to win thisgame.
So I wanted you guys to walkaway today knowing what were
(20:09):
these key things that made youfeel so disorganized.
So if you start feeling likeyour marketing is reactive and
not strategic, if you startfeeling like it doesn't align,
like you don't know if it'shelping you hit goals, you don't
know if you're at capacity, youneed guidance there.
You need a business coach,right?
Also, creating a 12-monthstrategy marketing roadmap that
(20:30):
really helps you feel organizedwith your advertising tactics
Again will make you feelorganized and not so random,
making everything centeredaround your brand and the
campaigns that support yourbrand, instead of just wild
spending and messaging.
Get a lot more intense withthat, intentional with that, and
then measure, measure, measureand don't just measure with your
(20:51):
heart.
You're not making a cake withyour grandma.
Measure with actual, truenumbers and metrics and you
really will win the game there.
So, guys, I really encourage youtoday start building a brand
with purpose.
Start feeling more organizedwith your marketing.
Organized does not always meanthat we're going to win, but it
means we'll know when to pivotsooner and we'll be able to move
faster and more quicker, if youwill, towards success.
(21:16):
But listen, it's a game ofchess that you sit down, you
never get to get up.
Marketing's ever evolving andalways changing.
So here's the good news I wouldlove to work with you.
If you have been consideringlike I need a marketing coach,
someone to help me get organized, someone to help me feel solid
and help me navigate through,like I'm getting a new website
and I want to launch socialmedia, or I've got a new brand,
(21:36):
I just don't know how to launchit, call your girl.
We're excited to work with you.
So if you've really enjoyedthis episode of From the Yellow
Chair.
Please go, leave me a review.
Thanks for listening.
We will catch you next time.
Bye.
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