In this episode of Local Marketing Secrets, Danny Leibrandt sits down with Marko Sipilä — one of the most respected young voices in home service marketing. Marko started his first agency while still in high school, and by his early 20s, he had already scaled it to seven figures. Today, he leads Coding Launch, an agency focused on concrete coating contractors, and HVAC Quote, a cutting-edge SaaS tool helping HVAC companies increase website conversions through instant, transparent pricing.
Danny and Marko dive deep into the strategies that fueled his explosive growth, from the power of niching down to how he uses Facebook ads to drive serious revenue for home service businesses. Marko shares why most local marketing fails, how to think about customer acquisition costs, and how smart contractors are using tools like HVAC Quote to boost lead generation by over 45%.
They also explore the evolving role of AI, especially tools like ChatGPT, and how local businesses can harness them to solve problems faster and make better decisions. Marko even opens up about mindset — including the importance of who you surround yourself with and how to hold agencies and teams accountable as you grow.
If you're a local business owner or marketer looking for honest, battle-tested insights from someone who’s built multiple million-dollar companies from the ground up, this episode is for you.
Marko Sipilä, Founder of HVAC Quote:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/markosipila12/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marko-sipila/
Coating Launch: https://coatinglaunch.com/grow/
HVAC Quote: https://hvacquote.ai/
Danny Leibrandt, Founder of Pest Control SEO:
Facebook: https://facebook.com/DannyLeibrandt
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/dannyleibrandt/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DannyLeibrandt
Website: https://dannyleibrandt.com
Pest Control SEO: https://pestcontrolseo.com/
Local Marketing Secrets Platforms:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LocalMarketingSecrets
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1TCL0LhZbsJS6mzanqnnT1?si=224075c9fbda42f5
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/local-marketing-secrets/id1741176782
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/e0bb5254-5d6c-4940-8211-085157cc1239/local-marketing-secrets
Podcast Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to Marko Sipilä
03:28 The Power of Niching Down in Business
08:41 Learning from the Right People
12:06 Utilizing ChatGPT for Business Growth
19:01 Key Performance Indicators for Home Service Companies
23:26 Leveraging Facebook Ads for Home Services
29:24 The Power of HVAC Quote Tool
39:10 Balancing Traditional and Digital Marketing
44:07 Embracing AI in Home Service Marketing
#markosipila #hvacquote #coatinglaunch #concretecoating #facebookads #chatgpt #localmarketing #localbusiness #homeservicebusiness #homeservicemarketing #homeserviceadvertising #localseo #localadvertising #seo #marketing #podcast #business
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey there and welcome back to Local Marketing Secrets.
I'm your host Danny Lebrandt andtoday I'm with Marco Sipola.
Marco is one of the most respected young voices in home
service marketing. He Co founded an agency in the
home services space and scaled it to seven figures and now runs
Coding Launch, a specialized agency helping concrete coding
contractors dominate their markets.
And he also now runs HVAC Quote,a SAS company that helps HVAC
(00:23):
companies convert more leads on their website.
Marco's journey is pretty wild. He he started his agency in high
school, built it to a multi $1,000,000 business by his early
20s, and now he has a new mission, helping local service
businesses grow through battle tested data-driven marketing
systems. In this episode, we're diving
into the exact strategies Marco used to scale so fast, why most
(00:46):
marketing, why most local marketing fails, and the mindset
shifts that helped him go from burned out to building smarter.
So if you're in the local space and want real honest insights
from someone who's been in the trenches, this one's for you.
Now, without further ado, Marco,welcome to the show.
Yeah, absolutely, Danny. Well, first of all, appreciate
you inviting me on to to the podcast here and super honored
(01:09):
and blasted to be part of your journey.
Absolutely. So glad to have you here at
Markup. So first, let's dive back to the
beginning of your journey. Tell me about like starting in
high school. What was that and how do you
grow so fast? Yeah, I mean, you know, starting
out in in high school and going through college, I didn't want
to go the traditional route. You know, my mom was pushing me
to go medical, medical, medical.And nothing wrong with medical,
(01:33):
you know, degrees or careers. But for me it just, you know, it
just never settled well with me.And so, you know, I wanted to
look for an alternative route and I started working with some
local companies just cold calling like local businesses
and basically saying, Hey, I'm going to college.
Hey, I build your website for you guys or can I redesign it?
Or you know, hey, can I help youguys with your SEO or whatever?
(01:54):
That's kind of how the first, you know, couple clients started
out. And from there we just kept
building and building. And then we found our niche.
We started focusing on just concrete, just concrete coatings
and epoxy, which is like the epoxy people that you know, put
down in their garage floor. Or if you're looking at like the
commercial industrial site is, you know, polyurethanes, you
know, Polaria's and, and, and urethane cement, stuff like that
(02:17):
for commercial coatings. But we've started focusing on
just that industry and that's where we kind of started to
explode our growth and and and grow the business.
I don't think I've seen anyone else do that.
Niche. Why'd you guys choose that one?
You know, back it's probably, I don't know, four or five years
ago now we are working with a local painting company, like a
(02:38):
residential painting company. So we had clients in every
industry, you know, lawyers, plumbers, HVAC, garage door
flooring, you name it. And there was this local
painting company that did about $5,000,000 a year in revenue in
Phoenix, AZ. And this painting company wanted
to, you know, they had an epoxy side.
(02:58):
It was kind of like a little side gig where they did epoxy
and so we started marketing their epoxy side because they
wanted to get more jobs on that side.
And that's actually the first time we ran an ad for the epoxy
industry and it did very well. We liked it, we picked it up
quickly and it, you know, it riches are in the niches as
everybody talks about. And so we figured out that this
(03:21):
is probably a good industry to just kind of go, you know,
Hammond. And so that's what we did.
Interesting. Yeah, Talk to me a little bit
more about niching down. I know you're a huge proponent
of niching down. It's never just home services.
Like you guys have the specific HHVAC quote tool, HVAC quote
tool, you have a fencing marketing book, you have the
coding marketing book. Like why is picking one niche so
(03:43):
important? You know the biggest thing when
you're growing any business is having like focus, right?
And so if you're going to be theJack of all trades or the
handyman, for example, like the handyman analogy where the
handyman is like he could do roofing, he can do plumbing, he
can put together your water heater, he can put siding on
(04:05):
your house or whatever. But he's truly not the expert in
all of those things. Because if you're going to be
good at something, you have to have focus.
You got to be good. You know, a couple things to be
really good at and be the best and be confident that you can go
to market and say, hey, we're the best type of company for XY
and C. So like if I were to start, you
know, a, you know, roofing company, for example, in
(04:28):
Arizona, I would focus on the one or two roof systems that are
really popular and I would focuson just that and get really good
at it and get good at repairs, get good at replacements for
just those services. Why try to do everything,
especially in the beginning whenyour company is smaller and
you're in that like startup feel?
And so same thing applies for anagency.
(04:49):
If you're going to start a marketing agency and want to
grow to seven figures or multiple 7 figures, it's always
best to focus on a niche and become the expert in that.
So for us, we're the expert in concrete coding marketing.
People just kind of know that we're the go to marketing agency
for the concrete coding industry.
They see us online, they see us in the events, they see us at
(05:12):
the conferences, they see us in e-mail and social media and all
these different platforms. And so it's, it's now become
like a household name in that industry.
Now it is a small industry. It's, you know, people talk just
like all these other ones, you know, just like H FAC.
Like for the tool, the software company we we developed and
launched this year, it's an H FAC specific tool.
(05:33):
So it's tailored towards H FAC companies.
We've listened to what H FAC companies want and need and
we've provided a solution for that specific type of person.
So there really is a ideal client profile for each service
that we offer because we want tofocus on that.
We want to grow within that thatindustry.
Yeah, definitely. No, I'm glad you related that
(05:55):
back to home services because I feel like a lot of people talk
about in the agency space now they'll say, you know like me, I
have you know, pest control, SEO, I'm only pest control
companies and other people like yourself.
You might be concrete coding andsomeone else might be lawn care,
garage door, whatever it is. But home service people also
need to keep this in mind. Like stop trying to provide
every service. Stop doing plumbing, electrical
(06:16):
8 track. Like just pick one and be the
best of your area. And I feel like that's a really
good nugget that people could pull from right away.
That's like stop being a Jack ofall trades, right?
A Jack of all trades, the masterof none.
Yeah. You know, to be great at, you
know, what you offer, you need to do it for enough time.
And there, you know, there's a time equation, like when you do
(06:37):
it for enough time, put enough energy into something, you can
get great at it. And so if you focus on
advertising for just one industry, kind of like yourself
with pest control, it's like nowpeople realize like, hey, you
really do have credibility in this industry and you manage,
you know, millions of dollars inthis industry specifically.
And so you have it comes with a lot of credibility, but also
confidence that you're the best.Yeah, something I've been
(07:00):
thinking about recently too regarding niching down and also
just having maybe other competitive advantages is that
this will actually be the way that you can show up in chat PT
effectively. That's if you are just like,
let's say it's an agency like ours and you are just general
home service marketing. Well, there are plenty of many
big home service marketing agencies out there.
(07:23):
But if the, if someone was to search, you know, hey, who's the
best person for SEO for pest control or who's the best person
for marketing for pest control, then you can reasonably expect,
I mean, you know, how many otherpeople are doing marketing for
pest control or doing, you know,concrete coding for Chicago?
Like there's not too many. So you can, you can niche down
there, but once you start doing everything, then you kind of
(07:44):
will show up for nothing. So it also applies to SEO too.
Yeah, 100%. I mean ChatGPT is just like any
other search engine and it's going to search the Internet and
search different sources and to get it's answers.
And so if you're focused on an industry, you're focused on a
niche and it's easier to like rise in the ranks and, and
(08:06):
basically get more traffic. I mean, you're able to leverage
that traffic to sell more business or scale, get more
clients and, you know, take yourcompany to the new, you know, to
the next level. Definitely.
So something I just find so impressive with what you've
done. You're 23 right now, you've
already grown several $1,000,000businesses.
And I feel like that there are guys that are, you know, 4050
(08:28):
sixty still haven't reached that$1,000,000 mark.
So can you give some initial advice here?
Like is there a certain mindset switch or why are so few people
hitting $1,000,000? Yeah.
I mean, you got to look at, I was looking at the data the
other day, I think it was like 3% of businesses in America
actually do $1,000,000 in revenue and that's $1,000,000 in
(08:49):
revenue. Like you could do $1,000,000 in
revenue and spend a million too and make $0.00.
But you know, I'd say like for, you know, what I've done and you
know, where I'm trying to go, I mean, we've really gone nowhere
compared to where we're trying to go.
And so it's all mindset thing. Like how far are you trying to
take things? And, and also like, it's the
people you're around, you know, like the five people you're
(09:11):
around, you're a product of yourenvironment.
And so, you know, when I hang out with people like Dennis, you
and, you know, the owners of bigmanufacturing companies and you
know, like if you're in those rooms and you learn from people
that have done it that are olderthan you are and have more
experience and can lead you in the right direction, that's
ultimately what it comes down to.
(09:32):
And you want to be a sponge of those environments because that
way you're able to learn from the things that they have
already done. And you don't need to make the
same mistakes along the way. Obviously it's, you know, you'd
be stupid to think that you're not going to make any mistakes,
but as long as you don't make the same mistake twice.
And you know, you learn from those things, you take them as
(09:53):
lessons, but you also learn fromother people that have walked in
your shoes. You know, so if you're trying to
grow, you know, a roofing company to $1,000,000 a year or
or greater, like figure out how to talk to people that have done
that, not just growing any company, but growing a roofing
company like you're trying to grow and learn from them.
(10:14):
Or, you know, my brother's goingto start a gutter company.
He want, he's going to want to talk to people that have grown
multiple $1,000,000 gutter companies.
Those are the people he wants totalk to.
So you can figure out the economics, how to set up your
financials, how to price for profit, how to hire, how to
create incentive programs for your employees, what to do in
(10:38):
the winter months when it gets slow.
Like those are all the things that he's going to want to learn
from people that have done it. And so that's my advice for
people that, you know, they're looking to grow a business or
get to $1,000,000. Like what industry are you in
who has done it? Learn from them.
If you're trying to grow an agency to $1,000,000, well, you
know, go to seven figure agency.I mean, Josh Nelson of 7° Agency
(11:00):
has done a phenomenal job of teaching and coaching agencies
across the country. I think they've probably grown
like 100 companies to $1,000,000a year over the course of, you
know, the last six years or whatever they've been doing
this. And so, you know, learn from
people like that. That's my advice.
Definitely. No, that is really good advice.
And yeah, I totally vouch for Josh as well.
(11:21):
Yeah, that I think last time I talked to him, he's grown over
137 agencies to $1,000,000 a year, which is just insane.
So, yeah, I mean, in that way, you don't have to reinvent the
wheel. Like everyone trying to figure
it out on their own. And they are like flabbergasted
that they are not growing, that they're not seeing the growth
that they want. And I, I can like in, in some
respects see like, OK, I want tolearn it on my own.
(11:45):
You know, I kind of like going through the trenches figuring
out things. OK, we'll, we'll try this out.
But really, if you are ambitious, if you do truly want
to grow, find the people that have already done it.
Like it, it sounds so simple, but like, get in contact with
those people. I guess that, that's a, that's a
follow up question. There is.
How do you get in contact with those people?
Yeah, I mean, the first thing isis, you know, understanding
(12:08):
your, your industry, understanding your niche, you
know, like the Internet is, the Internet is, is so wide nowadays
that you could go to ChatGPT andsay, I am a, you know, roofing
company and XY and Z and I'm looking to bro, who should I
talk to? And I'm sure he'll give you a
list of answers of, you know, consultants or coaching people.
(12:30):
Now, don't just believe whateveryou see there.
Obviously do your research and, you know, figure out who the
right person is to to lean on, but there's going to be a lot of
like paid options. There's going to be a lot of
like free options. And so, you know, paid options
would be like coaching programs,consultants, you know, people
that have walked the path or like books, for example, you
could buy from Amazon. Or you know, free options might
(12:53):
be like podcasts like this or you know, YouTube videos or free
webinars or even just getting toknow somebody personally and
having a relationship with them directly and being able to like
leverage that as long as it's not hurting them.
Like it needs to be a mutual thing.
And so it can't be like your direct competitor.
Most of the time you're not going to be able to learn from
(13:14):
your direct competitor. But let's say it's somebody who
runs a roofing company in another state, you know, and you
want to learn from him and how he grew to $1,000,000.
Well, I'm sure he's willing to pour into someone like yourself
and, you know, be able to learn from from someone like them.
Definitely no, that's a good point earlier as well.
Is that it? It doesn't even have to be an
(13:34):
actual relationship. It can just be reading someone's
books, watching their podcasts, all that stuff.
And you're also mentioning chatsBT, which I feel like a lot of
people, especially guys in the trades really aren't a take,
aren't taking advantage of chatsBT just doing simple things like
that. I'm curious, how do you use
chats BT in your day-to-day life?
Like how do you use, utilize it and make the most of it?
(13:55):
Well, I would say most emails I send or analyzed by Chat GPTA
lot of people like I could be a very direct person.
So I need to have ChatGPT like not make it so direct.
And so, you know, I'm not a mad person when I send emails, but I
want to make sure it comes off right in the right tonality.
So I use it in that regard as well.
(14:16):
I just used it before coming on this call to create a quarterly
plan for Q3 for one of our bigger clients in the B to B
space that we work with. I use it to essentially
everything. Like I'm just going through a
couple of things this morning that I used it for and it's like
absolutely everything. I mean, just before coming on
here, I was going to go get lunch and I was looking for
(14:37):
places that serve tacos that don't have seed oil in downtown
Phoenix. OK, So I looked at there was Bad
Jimmy's downtown, Taco Guild, Pala downtown, the Fry bread
House downtown. So like, you know, chat CPT is
awesome. You're able to use it to do
pretty much everything, grow your company, figure out the
(14:58):
best restaurants that don't haveseed oil.
Like there's so many things you could use chat CPT for.
And it's become a habit for me to use it.
And I'll just be sitting in like, for example, a bunch of
guys will be talking business ortalking, you know, in the living
room or whatever and you'll justpull the phone.
Let's let's ask the AI what it thinks you know, because it's
(15:19):
probably a much more correct than any of our conversations,
you know? Yeah, no, there's been times
where I've been hanging out Dennis, which, you know, we're
both close to Dennis, where we just talk with chat BT for over
an hour. It's it's we we just have it
playing out loud and we'll be like, oh, hey, well what about
this? And have you considered this?
We're like, oh Dang, we actuallyhaven't even thought of that
either. So yeah, no, I'm using it all
(15:40):
the time too. It's basically a superpower of
like some people would come to me if like, you know, how did
you release a book or how did you do these things?
It's like anything that I don't know now I'm just asking chat
PT. It's like there's no excuse for
not knowing anything now. Yeah, and, and I usually like,
you know, if it's something thatsomeone asks me, I'll usually go
(16:01):
get the answer for them using and then they'll think I'm
really smart when I'm not really.
I just relay information. That's it.
Yeah, no, at, at the very least when, when I get kind of a
complex question, I'll, I'll double check with Chat BT.
I'll be like, I think I know theanswer, but just let me, let me
check. OK.
Maybe it's going to add like a little bit more on top of what I
was going to say or maybe, maybea slight change.
(16:23):
But no, I, I usually like if I'mthe consultant, Chat BT is the
consultant of the consultant. It's pretty funny.
Yeah, yeah. And now it's analyzing, right.
Like obviously you need to like know what to believe and it
might make things up or whatever.
So you got to, you got to make sure that what you see on there
is, is actually factual. So you need to have a little bit
(16:43):
of like industry knowledge. So that way you can like pick
and choose what's what to believe, you know, and what to
take action on. Otherwise it'll hurt you.
Do you like have you guys experimented at all with showing
up in chat BT do you have any advice there?
I know it's super early and mostpeople are still focused on
Google, but I'm curious. Yeah, we're, I mean, we're a
(17:04):
marketing agency. We're focused more on the paid
ads side of things. So we, you know, managed
millions of dollars in, in advertising spend on Facebook
and Google and stuff like that. So we've kind of moved away from
the SEO space over the last like3 or 4 years.
And so, you know, I have an SEO background, but I wouldn't be
probably the right person to asklike how to how to show up on
(17:25):
better results there. I can tell you it's based on
signals. So the more signals you have,
the higher likelihood you're going to rank on there.
But also looking up like if, if you're trying to rank for
something like reverse engineer,like if I were to try rank for,
you know, best home services marketing agency for Facebook
ads, if you were to go search that on ChatGPT and you see the
(17:48):
companies that are on, you know,the top three or whatever, go
figure out why they're ranking there.
Like you could literally ask theAI, why is this company number
one? Well, it'll tell you a list of
reasons, you know, Oh, they're, you know, vetted by fortune.com
or they're vetted by Gary Vee orwhatever.
So like, you know, there's get like it'll give you a list of
(18:09):
things and reasons why they're there.
And also you look at the signalslike look at their website.
Why, why is their website ranking for these big time
keywords when yours isn't? Or why is their website ranking
for this long tail keyword and yours isn't?
And there's you can look at backlinks.
You could look at the different signals that they have that you
don't have. And that's usually why you're
(18:32):
not number one and they aren't. Yeah, no, that was a really good
point actually of asking chats BT you know, maybe you ask who's
the best plumber and Chicago or whatever and say, OK, why did
you tell me that? You know, Joe's plumbing is
number 1 and Dave's plumbing is number 2.
Like that's actually super valuable that people, people can
start to do that versus Google. I mean, the results are just the
(18:53):
results. They are becoming more
personalized. But that was a really good point
there. I want to pivot a little bit
here. I know you are super big into
KPIs. We want to make sure we want to
know what's our CAC, you know, what's our revenue like, all
these different things. What are some of the top KPIs
that we should be looking at forhome service companies?
(19:15):
Yeah. So you want to look at the
entire sale cycle. So if you look at a home service
company, the average home service company is going to be
like A1 service, kind of like project work.
So basically you're going to have your advertising cost and
most companies are going to have, you know, throughout the
(19:35):
entire funnel, you're going to have your cost per lead, which
is like the first like contact point.
So like if you're spending, you know, $10,000 a month in
Facebook ads, like what does it cost to acquire like somebody
who's actually interested in what you offer?
So maybe that's 30 bucks or 40 bucks or whatever, right?
You got to figure out where you're comfortable paying for
(19:55):
that lead. And based on the quality of that
lead, is it actually worth it? And then the next thing you look
at, it's like, OK, out of all those leads we got, how many
appointments did we get? How many appointments did we
acquire from those leads? And then you figure out, you
know the cost. So if you spent $10,000 and
maybe you got, let's say 100 appointments, well, every
(20:19):
appointment cost $100 in AD spend to acquire.
OK. And, and, and now this is really
going to tell you whether the economics work out for, for your
company, because if you're not closing, like let's say your
average ticket is $2000, if you're not closing, you know,
50% of those appointments, well then you're just paying way too
(20:41):
much to acquire that customer, you know, And so you got to
figure out whether, you know, what does it cost to acquire a
lead? What does it cost to acquire an
appointment and what does it cost to actually acquire that
client? And if it's any more than 10 or
12%, then you need to figure outhow to, you know, become more
profitable on that on that marketing channel.
(21:02):
How can you become more profitable in the marketing
channel? Like what are some of the the
top ways you guys have improved profitability?
You know, some things, you know,some channels just are not meant
to be optimized to be better. Like if you have a billboard in
a certain place of town and it'sjust not cutting that, well,
maybe you just got to get rid ofthe Billboard, you know, unless
you think that the creative on the Billboard or something could
(21:23):
be improved on it. But if it's a Facebook ad and
historically in your industry, people run Facebook ads, well,
it's probably a person running the ad problem versus the actual
platform itself. And so usually if you're working
with an agency for Google ads orwhatever, and you know, in this
(21:46):
industry, it's very prominent that people run Google ads for
HVAC or plumbing or pest controlor whatever, and it's not
profitable for you, Well, it's not a platform problem.
So don't get mad at, you know, Google or Facebook or whatever.
You should be more focused on, OK, who's actually running my
ads and why are they doing it that way?
What's their philosophy? And do they have a good track
(22:06):
record of doing it? But in our experience, let's say
something's not working or something's not as a fit, you
know, effective as it should be.Well, there's a couple things
you're going to want to look at.You know, you'll want to look at
the entire sales cycle, like areyou running like for Facebook,
are you running lead form or you're running conversion API
ads? Are you sending traffic to a
(22:26):
landing page? And then just setting
expectations properly, like if we're running landing page ads
or costly, it's going to be higher.
It's just this, you know, if we're doing lead form, our cost
leads going to be lower, but you're going to have a lower set
rate as well. And so you got to make sure that
you're realistic with the different types of ads you're
running. But usually the fix, Danny,
(22:49):
usually the fix for like optimization is, is just in the
ad account. It's creatives, headlines, copy
funnel offer. Like what are you doing that's
that was working and why is it not working anymore and
optimizing things? Yeah, no, I know you're a huge
proponent for Facebook ads. I was just watching a podcast
you were on and you said that ifyou're under $1,000,000 a year,
(23:12):
you should be spending a lot of money on Facebook ads.
So talk to me more about like how we can use Facebook ads for
home service businesses. Is it all bottom, bottom of
funnel and like creating a greatoffer?
Just talk to me more about Facebook ads.
Yeah. So, you know, probably what I
was referring to is in the concrete coding industry, like
if you're under $1,000,000 a year, it's, I mean, Facebook is
(23:33):
going to be the best platform for you.
And you know, that's only because you know, it's going to
be the cheapest way to acquire new clients than any other
platform other than like door knocking and just old calling
people. And so if you're going to run
any sort of ads, do Facebook before Angie leads, HomeAdvisor,
(23:54):
Google website, any of that other stuff.
I mean, I've seen concrete floorcoating companies go from zero
to seven figures a year just running Facebook ads.
And now is it smart to only do that?
Well, probably not. You should start doing some
other stuff then. But the point is, is you're able
to grow dramatically using Facebook ads if it's done
correctly. But for other industries, I
(24:17):
mean, obviously, like if I'm an HVAC company, you know, now that
we launched the software and HVAC side, like if I was running
an H FAC service company and residential, then I would have a
website, I'd get Google guaranteed going LSA, like local
service ads and start running your Google ads.
I would do that before I run Facebook ads because that's like
(24:39):
for H FAC and plumbing and electrical, like it's more of a
need and people are searching onGoogle for that service versus
like concrete coatings is more of a want.
It's a luxury service. And so Facebook works really
well for them. Facebook can also do fantastic
for HVAC but it's more of like asecondary like platform I'd
focus on. Awesome.
(24:59):
OK. So it it does depend on the
industry. I'm glad you cleared that.
Up. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. And talk to me specific
specifically like maybe give me an example of a killer ad again,
like is it, are you giving it a,a crazy offer?
And is it a video? Is it a photo?
Like what are what are ads that perform really well?
On Facebook, you're saying, So with Facebook platform, you know
(25:22):
the biggest thing you're shooting for is you're trying to
get the person to click through.That's ultimately what you want
to happen is someone to see the ad and be like, aha, I want that
or I want to learn more about that.
And so they click on it. If you can get your cost per
(25:43):
click as low as possible, OK. If you can get your cost real
quick per click as low as possible while still maintaining
relevance and where you're not misleading anyone.
Because if I had an ad where it said claim $10,000 for free,
everybody would click. I mean, not everybody, I mean,
(26:06):
because it's unrealistic, but like it would people would
you'd, a lot of people would click, right.
And so if we had an ad that had an offer where it talked about,
you know, getting your concrete coatings done and it's a summer
promo and it's July 4th and we have this offer and we have a
beautiful garage floor transformation or maybe HVAC,
(26:26):
you know, HVAC, hey, it's this summer, you know, it's
summertime, make sure that your AC is working or whatever.
Like, yeah, maybe you have a tune up ad, right?
Like you're, you're trying to acquire a click for as low as
possible while still maintainingrelevance.
And so you don't want to put anything in your ad that's going
to like mislead people or push them in the wrong direction or,
(26:47):
you know, confuse them. But you want to have a very
clear still what you do, but youknow, get a cheap click because
that way your cost per cost per lead is going to be lower and
the rest of the funnel works outbetter.
Awesome. And how targeted are those ads?
Like should you do just, you know, one ad for a big city or
I've heard some people also liketarget neighborhoods with What's
(27:07):
your strategy with targeting? We do broad for the most part,
so you know, just targeting homeowners across the entire
county or service area that theyoffer for HVAC companies.
Like everybody has an AC unit ontheir house for the most part in
America. And so like, you know, you can
(27:27):
target pretty much anybody who has a home that has a heartbeat
because at some point they're going to have to replace their
HVAC unit. And Facebook actually does a
fantastic job of finding the homeowners anyways.
And so if you just give it a broad targeting in your ad
copies about HVAC in your images, has an HVAC system on
it. And maybe you're doing the
(27:48):
instant quote tool where like people are able to click on it
and get a quote for their HVAC system.
Like that algorithm, Facebook isgoing to find the right people
to show the ad to. And sometimes you're going to
have to reboot it or change the ad copy or whatever.
And that's just basic optimization.
But Facebook for the most part does a lot of the heavy lifting
(28:08):
versus like 10 years ago or 15 years ago, it was more media
buyer heavy where it actually required more work to, to run
ads in Facebook. I mean, even if you look at
Google nowadays, I mean, HVAC companies are able to go to
Google local service ads and runtheir own ads.
Like you don't even have to hirean agency to run local service
ads and manage like to get hundreds of leads.
(28:29):
And if you're in a metro area and you have a lot of Google
reviews, like you're no longer having to pay these massive
agency retainers, you know, obviously you want someone to
look at and keep an eye on it. But as far as the optimization
heavy, it's not so much anymore.Yeah, no, local service ads have
changed the game. I I consider that like an owner
(28:49):
friendly platform where you know, the website, you don't
even want to touch that. It's just crazy.
Google ads still fairly complex,Facebook ads, fairly complex
local service ads, just not really much to do.
I mean, like you collect reviews.
I mean, you can add some custom photos, maybe you add or remove
a city, add or remove a service,add or remove a service like,
but there's not too much to do. So yeah, I'm definitely a big
(29:11):
proponent for face or sorry local service ads as well.
And yeah, you mentioned your HVAC quote tool.
Talk to me more about that of like, First off, how'd you get
started with that and how's thatgoing?
Yeah. So HVAC quote is basically an AI
powered instinct quote tool for HVAC and plumbing companies.
(29:32):
Hundreds of companies are starting to use this tool.
And basically what the tool doesis it gives the homeowners what
they want, which is the price. And so as a contractor, you're
able to go in the back end and configure your pricing.
So that way when you put your pricing on your website or you
put your pricing in your marketing materials, homeowners
(29:53):
can actually get a range price, like a price like what it's
going to cost to replace their actual unit.
And it's going to give them a range, a good, better, best
option. And so that way you're not
misleading and you have pricing transparency.
That's where this industry is going.
A lot of HVAC companies across the country are looking to put
(30:16):
transparent pricing on their website to essentially win over
their competitors. You know, and if you're in the
HVAC industry and you're not putting your price on your
website and maybe you're scared to or whatever, maybe you have
like the sales where you come out there and you want to like
change the price all the time and basically be a little bit
slimy about it. Well, this industry is moving in
(30:36):
the right direction with ethics and pricing transparency.
And so a lot of HVAC companies are doing that.
But also, homeowners want to know, I mean, our generation,
we're both in our 20s, our generation, If you want a home
in our generation, you want to know what it's going to cost to
replace the HVAC system before you call someone.
You know, it's less work. You don't have to call someone
(31:00):
and call someone out there. If you like the price and you
like what they've showed you on your website and the
installation process, then the next thing is, well, let's book
an appointment then, you know, but at least now you have an
idea as to what it's going to cost.
And the other thing is, is what we're seeing so far is a 45%
increase in leads. And so just by putting this tool
(31:21):
on your website as an HVAC company, you're getting 45% more
leads right off the bat. Because when you have it on your
website where it says instant HVAC quote, instead of like
filling out this long form and not getting anything, a lot of
homeowners just bounce off your website and go to the next site.
And so when you have this tool on there and it says instant
(31:41):
HVAC quote, people click on it and they fill it out and all of
a sudden these companies getting45% more leads, some are higher,
some are dramatically higher. 45% is a conservative survey
that we've we've built out. And then the other thing that
we're saying is that you have a much higher close rate on the
appointments that you actually get from this tool.
(32:02):
Because Danny, if you're a homeowner and you're getting a
quote for, you know, your, your HVAC system and you see, oh,
it's going to be, you know, 12 to $13,000 for my HVAC system.
And then you call that company to come out there.
When you get a quote that's in between that range, you feel
very comfortable moving forward because you already knew the
(32:23):
price or at least a range beforecalling them out.
And so you have a lot more trustin that brand.
Now if that company came out andthey said it was going to be
$16,000, now you're like, wow, that was misleading because
online you said 12, now you say 16.
And so that's why it's importantto set your pricing, configure
(32:45):
it, and, you know, be able to becompetitive in the marketplace
and land more jobs. So in a nutshell, that's kind of
what the tool is used for. Yeah, awesome.
No, OK, that, that makes sense, especially for HVAC because it's
such it's so high tickets that Ican see some people like I
don't, I just cannot pay 30 grand for an HVAC system.
(33:05):
OK, you know, 10 grand or five grand or whatever it is.
OK, I can see that you displayedthat at least you're not like
sleazy and you're saying come tothe house.
But I guess to push back on thata little, how can you know how
much it's going to cost? Like is it based on the the size
of the house or how does that work?
Yeah. So our software essentially will
(33:26):
read your address. So you'll type in your address
in there and it has data on basically all zip codes and home
addresses across the country. And so it, it knows the square
footage of your home of like thethe the prospects home and
you're able to like enter in andbe able to select the type of
(33:47):
system. So for example, most homeowners
know whether they have package or split systems or mini splits.
And so like the homeowners can be like, oh, I have a package
system, OK. And then here's my address.
And then based on that, OK, thenit selects the tonnage.
And so the homeowner doesn't know the tonnage of, of their
(34:09):
system. That's just foreign language for
homeowners. And so they do know their square
footage though. And so they will select their
square footage of their home, which is going to basically
categorize them into what tonnage their system is going to
be. And so that's actually how it
calculates the price is the contractor will select the price
per tonnage just like they have in their CRM and Servicetitan or
(34:32):
house called Pro or their price book.
And based on that, the homeownerselects the square footage and
then it gives them a quote rangebased on sort of that
information. Yeah.
OK. That makes sense.
I'm I'm curious. OK.
So first I want to ask about conversion rates.
So that you said there's a 45% increase.
(34:53):
What is that typically from and to?
So that's like conversion rate of like 5% up to seven or what?
What does that look like? Yeah.
So you're getting 45% more leads.
So let's say on your website you're getting 1000 hits every
month, OK, And their conversion rate, let's say they're getting,
you know, 5% of those leads, 5% of those website visitors are
(35:18):
actually becoming new leads. They fill out the form on the
website, right? That's 50 leads every month.
That comes out to about 1.6 per day.
If you were to increase that by 45%, we're talking 73 leads a
month instead of 50. And so on a daily basis, that's
(35:40):
2.4 leads. So essentially, it's almost
double the amount of leads you're going to get just by
having this tool on your site because homeowners are looking
for the price when they come to your HVAC website, they're
looking for the price, they're looking for.
What is it going to cost to replace my unit?
I don't want to talk to anyone. I don't want to book with
anyone. I want to know what it's going
(36:01):
to cost and so when they fill that out and you educate them on
your good, better, best, we havethree different options where
the good is, you know, cheaper. The best is the most expensive
unit, but it's going to be more efficient.
It's going to be higher efficiency, it's easier to
install, it is more expensive, but it's a better unit and it's
going to cool your house better.When you educate the customer
throughout that journey, they trust you, they respect you,
(36:23):
they like your brand. And also if your pricing is
consistent with what you actually are when you come out
there, you're going to close a lot higher rate of them as well.
And so it's really a win win situation.
I mean, we have clients across the country selling, you know,
10s of thousands of dollars morein replacement jobs than they
were before. First Choice Mechanical, which
(36:45):
is a client local in Phoenix, AZ.
They're they're selling over 100grand a month from this tool,
just the tool itself. And so, you know, really if you
maximize, you use it right and you put on your site, you're
essentially leveraging all the current traffic you're already
getting on the site. You would already get those
leads, but now you're just getting more of those good
(37:06):
leads, you know? So that's kind of how it works.
Awesome, and I know it's just for HVAC, but do you see a tool
like this working for other services in the home services
space? Yeah, there is other tools.
I mean, you look at roofing, there's a company called Roofal
Roofer. There's different companies in,
(37:26):
in different industries that arealready doing this a little bit.
I'm sure there's certain industries that don't have
something, but I believe most industries are going in this
direction. Roofing, they've been doing it
for a while now. You know, HVAC it's, it's kind
of a newer roofing. A lot of companies have already
been doing online pricing. And so I think this is where the
industry is going. A lot of people are doing it.
(37:47):
And if you're an HVAC company and you don't have something
like this, I would ask yourself,like, why do I not want my
pricing on my website? You know, what am I most afraid
of happening? OK.
And, and I will tell you that there's companies much bigger
than yourself that are doing it,and they're selling a heck of a
lot more replacement units than you are.
(38:08):
And so this is kind of where theindustry is going.
And it makes sense for any otherindustries too, you know,
roofing, plumbing, plumbing for water heaters.
And we have that tool built intoours as well.
But yeah, like roofing all theseother high ticket industries
that you're able to actually create the price online because
(38:28):
some industries are different, like remodeling, it's hard to
like come up with a price because they were modelling
projects really depending on what the homeowner wants.
And so, you know, for things like roofing, HVAC, water
heaters, you know, stuff like that where it's more more fixed
products, it's easier to come upwith price online.
(38:49):
Awesome. I'd like to switch gears here.
I'd like to ask you about comparing essentially
traditional marketing versus digital marketing.
Where do you fall on that? I know you're more of a digital
marketing guy, but do you think there's still a place for
traditional marketing? And how should you disperse your
spending on both of those? Yeah, 100%.
(39:09):
So, you know, traditional marketing actually works very
well, very, very well. And you know, I've had a lot of
people, you know, say, you know otherwise on that.
But I will tell you that if you're going to start a new
company today, you should obviously do both.
I'd probably put myself, I'd probably put more of my eggs
(39:31):
into digital marketing because that's what I'm good at.
But all the traditional marketing efforts work very well
as well and they work good in contingent.
So like if you have your Facebook ads running and your
Google ads running and your online stuff doing, but you
don't have any traditional marketing, well, they're just
finding you online. They don't actually see you in
person too. And so if you have your
traditional marketing efforts and you're doing mailers and
(39:52):
you're doing TV radio and you you have all the stuff out there
and you're going to the conventions and the local home
shows and stuff like that, but you're also running ads, it
actually has a better effect because now your ads are going
to convert at a higher rate. And you know, if you, if you
didn't have the traditional marketing, your ads are going to
(40:13):
convert at like let's say an average of 3% or 4%.
If people are so familiar with you because of the traditional
marketing ever say you've done, then your ads are going to
convert at a higher rate than than not.
I've seen this happen in many industries where, you know,
businesses will contract us to, to like run their ads for their
(40:34):
actual business, like they do AB2B business where they sell
the businesses. And so a lot of those companies
have like a very good reputationin their industry and they've
done things traditionally where they've, you know, people just
known about them from the eventsor they've maybe done mailers to
every company in the area or whatever.
And when they run Facebook ads, it just works way better than if
(40:55):
you were to launch a new business and run Facebook ads.
And that proves my point that ifyou do the traditional
marketing, you're going to have a much higher success rate with
your digital marketing, which isultimately going to grow your
company even more. So I would do both.
I don't think 1 is better over the other.
I think if I had to choose one, I would do digital.
But if you know, if I were to grow a company all over again, I
(41:16):
would do both. Yeah, awesome.
Yeah. Now, this is something that I've
heard from you a lot is taking the Omni channel approach and
that this is, I, I feel like a lot of marketers are saying this
nowadays that especially I, I come from an SEO background of
even people in the SEO space, they're not saying it's dead,
but you have, you can't just putall your eggs in one basket.
You have to diversify, you know,circle into social media,
(41:39):
everything regarding digital andthen even things regarding
traditional as well. So kind of playing off of that.
Is there anything that you'd saymaybe you can hold off till
later? Like I think radio is definitely
1. You know, I talked with Jim
Clout, who's like a top radio guy.
He said honestly, radio is only for companies doing over $10
million a year, maybe billboards, maybe even SEO.
(42:00):
Is there anything that you'd saylike hold off until $1,000,000
or so? Yeah, I mean, if I were to
start, you know, concrete holding company all over again,
I would I would run Facebook adsto about $1,000,000 a year, get
a website up, start running Google ads at about $1,000,000 a
year and start kind of going omnipresent STO Google,
Facebook. And then at that maybe $1.52
(42:23):
million level, I would start doing, you know, mailers.
I'd start hitting neighborhoods with mailers.
I would start doing some TV advertising and radio marketing,
but I would probably keep 60% or70%, probably more, you know,
more of my budget into the digital stuff.
That's tried and true from my experience because that's what
(42:43):
I'm good at, right? So you got to look at what
you're good at too, Like from your experience, like maybe
you've had a lot of success withTV or maybe you've had a lot of
success with certain home shows and there's a home show every
other weekend or whatever. Like focus on what you're good
at and you know, as long as you're confident with it
winning, then then I would do that.
Awesome. And what are you tracking with?
(43:04):
Do you use go high level or do you use something else for, you
know, all your funnels and CRMS and such?
Yeah. For like for our clients or
internally for our business? Yeah, yeah.
For clients. For clients, I mean usually
they're on ACRM like server stayin or house call pro or you know
drip jobs. One of these CRMS, they
basically have source tracking. So whenever a lead is generated,
(43:25):
it goes into the CRM, it tags itas Facebook, Google, LSA,
whatever platform it is. And so that way you can pull a
report and be like, oh, we sold,you know, $200,000 last month
from Facebook, or we sold, you know, $140,000 last month from
this home show. So most CRMS have tag tracking
(43:45):
or source tracking, and that's the best way to do it.
Awesome. Cool.
What? What are the last questions I've
got for you? Marco is where do you see the
future of local marketing, home service marketing?
Is it going to change much with all this AI stuff?
And are there going to be robotstaking over just like overall,
what is your consensus of what'sgoing to happen over the next
few years? Yeah, Over the next few years, I
(44:07):
would say, you know, AI is goingto become more prevalent.
As a marketer, you're going to want to continue to adopt and
adopt the AI and start using it in your business because if
you're not, your competition is,I don't think contractors are
going to like figure out how to like and want honestly to have
(44:27):
the care and want to like do allthis themselves.
I still think there's going to be agencies that need to work
with contractors, but you're going to want to become as
efficient as possible. And the way you do that is by
staying on top of the trends andeverything.
And so you know, whether it's, you know, VO3 with Google or
it's captions or using AI to, you know, with your e-mail
(44:49):
marketing or you know, whatever it is, figure out how you can
leverage AI to better, you know,do your services with your
clients. And you'll probably need less
people. You'll probably be more
efficient and it'll probably be better than with the people that
were doing it before anyways. And so figure out ways to do
that. And as a business, if you're a
(45:10):
home, home services company, then you don't figure out how to
use the AI yourself. Just like kind of we were
talking about Danny today, like with with ChatGPT, like, how can
you make your life easier with this?
You know, how do you get the answers to your questions
faster? How do you solve complex
business problems using AI? You know, if there's a big
(45:32):
decision you have to make, then I would feed all of your
thoughts into chat GPTO. Do the voice version where you
can turn on The Voice and just talk to it for 20 minutes about
whatever decision you have to make.
And if it's a big decision, then, you know, put some effort
into it. Have the AI help you make that
decision and, you know, point itat the right directions, you
(45:54):
know, give it the right context so it knows what what you know
what's what as well. But those are things that I'd
recommend for, you know, contractors or even agencies
looking to to grow. Definitely.
I totally agree. Now as we wrap up, I have one
final question for you, Marco, that I'd like to ask all my
guests is what is your final message to home service owners
(46:15):
or even potentially local marketers?
What is your message for them? What do they need to know?
What do you want to tell them? Yeah, home service companies.
I mean, if you're an HVAC company, you definitely want to,
you know, pursue online pricing transparency, any home service
company, look into something like that.
Look for your industry, look up and see if there's an instant
(46:37):
quote tool for your industry, because that's going to
instantly be able to generate more conversions for for your
home service company. And then the last thing I'll
leave you guys with is, is, you know, as businesses, we want to
keep people accountable. And so, you know, something I'm
super big on is, is what is, youknow, what are things that you
(46:59):
should be holding your marketingagency or maybe software
companies accountable for when you hire them, especially
marketing agencies. When you hire a marketing
agency, what are what are the five point things that you
should follow to hold your marketing agencies accountable
and be able to grow your company?
Because it's not about them, it's about you and why you hired
(47:20):
them and how to grow your company.
And you know, you want to followthose steps to maximize that the
efforts that you're hiring and, and you know, there's a reason
why you hired the marketing agency.
Don't forget why you did. And don't just spend money down
the drain. Just spend it.
You want to make sure that you hold your people accountable,
just like you hold your employees accountable.
(47:42):
Do the same thing for your agency and and grow your
company. So that's the last thing I'll
leave, leave them with. Awesome.
So you have to get HVAC quote ifyou're an HVAC company, that
will be in the description below.
And you have to keep your peopleaccountable, whether that's
people on your staff or whether that's the agency you hired or
maybe there's some freelancers or VAS or whatever that may be.
So awesome. I think this is a great show.
(48:03):
Marco, thanks so much for comingon.
And where can people find you and connect with you on social
media? Yeah, absolutely.
If you just I have a Facebook profile and probably the most
active on on Facebook, just search my name Marco Sipola or I
think it's Marco Sipola 1/2 is like the profile.
So shoot me Adm on there, message me anytime.
(48:25):
I'm pretty active on on Facebookfor the most part.
And you can find us at HVAC quote dot AI.
So it's dot AI, HVAC quote dot AI for the HVAC software as
well. So appreciate your time, Danny,
and thanks for inviting me on here.
Awesome. Definitely.
Yeah. OK, so both those links will be
in the description and anything else you'd like to plug or
mention? No, that's it.
(48:47):
Cool. Alright, thanks so much Marco.
This has been a blast and hope to have you on again sometime.
Awesome.
Hey there and welcome back to Local Marketing Secrets.
I'm your host Danny Lebrandt andtoday I'm with Marco Sipola.
Marco is one of the most respected young voices in home
service marketing. He Co founded an agency in the
home services space and scaled it to seven figures and now runs
Coding Launch, a specialized agency helping concrete coding
contractors dominate their markets.
And he also now runs HVAC Quote,a SAS company that helps HVAC
(00:23):
companies convert more leads on their website.
Marco's journey is pretty wild. He he started his agency in high
school, built it to a multi $1,000,000 business by his early
20s, and now he has a new mission, helping local service
businesses grow through battle tested data-driven marketing
systems. In this episode, we're diving
into the exact strategies Marco used to scale so fast, why most
(00:46):
marketing, why most local marketing fails, and the mindset
shifts that helped him go from burned out to building smarter.
So if you're in the local space and want real honest insights
from someone who's been in the trenches, this one's for you.
Now, without further ado, Marco,welcome to the show.
Yeah, absolutely, Danny. Well, first of all, appreciate
you inviting me on to to the podcast here and super honored
(01:09):
and blasted to be part of your journey.
Absolutely. So glad to have you here at
Markup. So first, let's dive back to the
beginning of your journey. Tell me about like starting in
high school. What was that and how do you
grow so fast? Yeah, I mean, you know, starting
out in in high school and going through college, I didn't want
to go the traditional route. You know, my mom was pushing me
to go medical, medical, medical.And nothing wrong with medical,
(01:33):
you know, degrees or careers. But for me it just, you know, it
just never settled well with me.And so, you know, I wanted to
look for an alternative route and I started working with some
local companies just cold calling like local businesses
and basically saying, Hey, I'm going to college.
Hey, I build your website for you guys or can I redesign it?
Or you know, hey, can I help youguys with your SEO or whatever?
(01:54):
That's kind of how the first, you know, couple clients started
out. And from there we just kept
building and building. And then we found our niche.
We started focusing on just concrete, just concrete coatings
and epoxy, which is like the epoxy people that you know, put
down in their garage floor. Or if you're looking at like the
commercial industrial site is, you know, polyurethanes, you
know, Polaria's and, and, and urethane cement, stuff like that
(02:17):
for commercial coatings. But we've started focusing on
just that industry and that's where we kind of started to
explode our growth and and and grow the business.
I don't think I've seen anyone else do that.
Niche. Why'd you guys choose that one?
You know, back it's probably, I don't know, four or five years
ago now we are working with a local painting company, like a
(02:38):
residential painting company. So we had clients in every
industry, you know, lawyers, plumbers, HVAC, garage door
flooring, you name it. And there was this local
painting company that did about $5,000,000 a year in revenue in
Phoenix, AZ. And this painting company wanted
to, you know, they had an epoxy side.
(02:58):
It was kind of like a little side gig where they did epoxy
and so we started marketing their epoxy side because they
wanted to get more jobs on that side.
And that's actually the first time we ran an ad for the epoxy
industry and it did very well. We liked it, we picked it up
quickly and it, you know, it riches are in the niches as
everybody talks about. And so we figured out that this
(03:21):
is probably a good industry to just kind of go, you know,
Hammond. And so that's what we did.
Interesting. Yeah, Talk to me a little bit
more about niching down. I know you're a huge proponent
of niching down. It's never just home services.
Like you guys have the specific HHVAC quote tool, HVAC quote
tool, you have a fencing marketing book, you have the
coding marketing book. Like why is picking one niche so
(03:43):
important? You know the biggest thing when
you're growing any business is having like focus, right?
And so if you're going to be theJack of all trades or the
handyman, for example, like the handyman analogy where the
handyman is like he could do roofing, he can do plumbing, he
can put together your water heater, he can put siding on
(04:05):
your house or whatever. But he's truly not the expert in
all of those things. Because if you're going to be
good at something, you have to have focus.
You got to be good. You know, a couple things to be
really good at and be the best and be confident that you can go
to market and say, hey, we're the best type of company for XY
and C. So like if I were to start, you
know, a, you know, roofing company, for example, in
(04:28):
Arizona, I would focus on the one or two roof systems that are
really popular and I would focuson just that and get really good
at it and get good at repairs, get good at replacements for
just those services. Why try to do everything,
especially in the beginning whenyour company is smaller and
you're in that like startup feel?
And so same thing applies for anagency.
(04:49):
If you're going to start a marketing agency and want to
grow to seven figures or multiple 7 figures, it's always
best to focus on a niche and become the expert in that.
So for us, we're the expert in concrete coding marketing.
People just kind of know that we're the go to marketing agency
for the concrete coding industry.
They see us online, they see us in the events, they see us at
(05:12):
the conferences, they see us in e-mail and social media and all
these different platforms. And so it's, it's now become
like a household name in that industry.
Now it is a small industry. It's, you know, people talk just
like all these other ones, you know, just like H FAC.
Like for the tool, the software company we we developed and
launched this year, it's an H FAC specific tool.
(05:33):
So it's tailored towards H FAC companies.
We've listened to what H FAC companies want and need and
we've provided a solution for that specific type of person.
So there really is a ideal client profile for each service
that we offer because we want tofocus on that.
We want to grow within that thatindustry.
Yeah, definitely. No, I'm glad you related that
(05:55):
back to home services because I feel like a lot of people talk
about in the agency space now they'll say, you know like me, I
have you know, pest control, SEO, I'm only pest control
companies and other people like yourself.
You might be concrete coding andsomeone else might be lawn care,
garage door, whatever it is. But home service people also
need to keep this in mind. Like stop trying to provide
every service. Stop doing plumbing, electrical
(06:16):
8 track. Like just pick one and be the
best of your area. And I feel like that's a really
good nugget that people could pull from right away.
That's like stop being a Jack ofall trades, right?
A Jack of all trades, the masterof none.
Yeah. You know, to be great at, you
know, what you offer, you need to do it for enough time.
And there, you know, there's a time equation, like when you do
(06:37):
it for enough time, put enough energy into something, you can
get great at it. And so if you focus on
advertising for just one industry, kind of like yourself
with pest control, it's like nowpeople realize like, hey, you
really do have credibility in this industry and you manage,
you know, millions of dollars inthis industry specifically.
And so you have it comes with a lot of credibility, but also
confidence that you're the best.Yeah, something I've been
(07:00):
thinking about recently too regarding niching down and also
just having maybe other competitive advantages is that
this will actually be the way that you can show up in chat PT
effectively. That's if you are just like,
let's say it's an agency like ours and you are just general
home service marketing. Well, there are plenty of many
big home service marketing agencies out there.
(07:23):
But if the, if someone was to search, you know, hey, who's the
best person for SEO for pest control or who's the best person
for marketing for pest control, then you can reasonably expect,
I mean, you know, how many otherpeople are doing marketing for
pest control or doing, you know,concrete coding for Chicago?
Like there's not too many. So you can, you can niche down
there, but once you start doing everything, then you kind of
(07:44):
will show up for nothing. So it also applies to SEO too.
Yeah, 100%. I mean ChatGPT is just like any
other search engine and it's going to search the Internet and
search different sources and to get it's answers.
And so if you're focused on an industry, you're focused on a
niche and it's easier to like rise in the ranks and, and
(08:06):
basically get more traffic. I mean, you're able to leverage
that traffic to sell more business or scale, get more
clients and, you know, take yourcompany to the new, you know, to
the next level. Definitely.
So something I just find so impressive with what you've
done. You're 23 right now, you've
already grown several $1,000,000businesses.
And I feel like that there are guys that are, you know, 4050
(08:28):
sixty still haven't reached that$1,000,000 mark.
So can you give some initial advice here?
Like is there a certain mindset switch or why are so few people
hitting $1,000,000? Yeah.
I mean, you got to look at, I was looking at the data the
other day, I think it was like 3% of businesses in America
actually do $1,000,000 in revenue and that's $1,000,000 in
(08:49):
revenue. Like you could do $1,000,000 in
revenue and spend a million too and make $0.00.
But you know, I'd say like for, you know, what I've done and you
know, where I'm trying to go, I mean, we've really gone nowhere
compared to where we're trying to go.
And so it's all mindset thing. Like how far are you trying to
take things? And, and also like, it's the
people you're around, you know, like the five people you're
(09:11):
around, you're a product of yourenvironment.
And so, you know, when I hang out with people like Dennis, you
and, you know, the owners of bigmanufacturing companies and you
know, like if you're in those rooms and you learn from people
that have done it that are olderthan you are and have more
experience and can lead you in the right direction, that's
ultimately what it comes down to.
(09:32):
And you want to be a sponge of those environments because that
way you're able to learn from the things that they have
already done. And you don't need to make the
same mistakes along the way. Obviously it's, you know, you'd
be stupid to think that you're not going to make any mistakes,
but as long as you don't make the same mistake twice.
And you know, you learn from those things, you take them as
(09:53):
lessons, but you also learn fromother people that have walked in
your shoes. You know, so if you're trying to
grow, you know, a roofing company to $1,000,000 a year or
or greater, like figure out how to talk to people that have done
that, not just growing any company, but growing a roofing
company like you're trying to grow and learn from them.
(10:14):
Or, you know, my brother's goingto start a gutter company.
He want, he's going to want to talk to people that have grown
multiple $1,000,000 gutter companies.
Those are the people he wants totalk to.
So you can figure out the economics, how to set up your
financials, how to price for profit, how to hire, how to
create incentive programs for your employees, what to do in
(10:38):
the winter months when it gets slow.
Like those are all the things that he's going to want to learn
from people that have done it. And so that's my advice for
people that, you know, they're looking to grow a business or
get to $1,000,000. Like what industry are you in
who has done it? Learn from them.
If you're trying to grow an agency to $1,000,000, well, you
know, go to seven figure agency.I mean, Josh Nelson of 7° Agency
(11:00):
has done a phenomenal job of teaching and coaching agencies
across the country. I think they've probably grown
like 100 companies to $1,000,000a year over the course of, you
know, the last six years or whatever they've been doing
this. And so, you know, learn from
people like that. That's my advice.
Definitely. No, that is really good advice.
And yeah, I totally vouch for Josh as well.
(11:21):
Yeah, that I think last time I talked to him, he's grown over
137 agencies to $1,000,000 a year, which is just insane.
So, yeah, I mean, in that way, you don't have to reinvent the
wheel. Like everyone trying to figure
it out on their own. And they are like flabbergasted
that they are not growing, that they're not seeing the growth
that they want. And I, I can like in, in some
respects see like, OK, I want tolearn it on my own.
(11:45):
You know, I kind of like going through the trenches figuring
out things. OK, we'll, we'll try this out.
But really, if you are ambitious, if you do truly want
to grow, find the people that have already done it.
Like it, it sounds so simple, but like, get in contact with
those people. I guess that, that's a, that's a
follow up question. There is.
How do you get in contact with those people?
Yeah, I mean, the first thing isis, you know, understanding
(12:08):
your, your industry, understanding your niche, you
know, like the Internet is, the Internet is, is so wide nowadays
that you could go to ChatGPT andsay, I am a, you know, roofing
company and XY and Z and I'm looking to bro, who should I
talk to? And I'm sure he'll give you a
list of answers of, you know, consultants or coaching people.
(12:30):
Now, don't just believe whateveryou see there.
Obviously do your research and, you know, figure out who the
right person is to to lean on, but there's going to be a lot of
like paid options. There's going to be a lot of
like free options. And so, you know, paid options
would be like coaching programs,consultants, you know, people
that have walked the path or like books, for example, you
could buy from Amazon. Or you know, free options might
(12:53):
be like podcasts like this or you know, YouTube videos or free
webinars or even just getting toknow somebody personally and
having a relationship with them directly and being able to like
leverage that as long as it's not hurting them.
Like it needs to be a mutual thing.
And so it can't be like your direct competitor.
Most of the time you're not going to be able to learn from
(13:14):
your direct competitor. But let's say it's somebody who
runs a roofing company in another state, you know, and you
want to learn from him and how he grew to $1,000,000.
Well, I'm sure he's willing to pour into someone like yourself
and, you know, be able to learn from from someone like them.
Definitely no, that's a good point earlier as well.
Is that it? It doesn't even have to be an
(13:34):
actual relationship. It can just be reading someone's
books, watching their podcasts, all that stuff.
And you're also mentioning chatsBT, which I feel like a lot of
people, especially guys in the trades really aren't a take,
aren't taking advantage of chatsBT just doing simple things like
that. I'm curious, how do you use
chats BT in your day-to-day life?
Like how do you use, utilize it and make the most of it?
(13:55):
Well, I would say most emails I send or analyzed by Chat GPTA
lot of people like I could be a very direct person.
So I need to have ChatGPT like not make it so direct.
And so, you know, I'm not a mad person when I send emails, but I
want to make sure it comes off right in the right tonality.
So I use it in that regard as well.
(14:16):
I just used it before coming on this call to create a quarterly
plan for Q3 for one of our bigger clients in the B to B
space that we work with. I use it to essentially
everything. Like I'm just going through a
couple of things this morning that I used it for and it's like
absolutely everything. I mean, just before coming on
here, I was going to go get lunch and I was looking for
(14:37):
places that serve tacos that don't have seed oil in downtown
Phoenix. OK, So I looked at there was Bad
Jimmy's downtown, Taco Guild, Pala downtown, the Fry bread
House downtown. So like, you know, chat CPT is
awesome. You're able to use it to do
pretty much everything, grow your company, figure out the
(14:58):
best restaurants that don't haveseed oil.
Like there's so many things you could use chat CPT for.
And it's become a habit for me to use it.
And I'll just be sitting in like, for example, a bunch of
guys will be talking business ortalking, you know, in the living
room or whatever and you'll justpull the phone.
Let's let's ask the AI what it thinks you know, because it's
(15:19):
probably a much more correct than any of our conversations,
you know? Yeah, no, there's been times
where I've been hanging out Dennis, which, you know, we're
both close to Dennis, where we just talk with chat BT for over
an hour. It's it's we we just have it
playing out loud and we'll be like, oh, hey, well what about
this? And have you considered this?
We're like, oh Dang, we actuallyhaven't even thought of that
either. So yeah, no, I'm using it all
(15:40):
the time too. It's basically a superpower of
like some people would come to me if like, you know, how did
you release a book or how did you do these things?
It's like anything that I don't know now I'm just asking chat
PT. It's like there's no excuse for
not knowing anything now. Yeah, and, and I usually like,
you know, if it's something thatsomeone asks me, I'll usually go
(16:01):
get the answer for them using and then they'll think I'm
really smart when I'm not really.
I just relay information. That's it.
Yeah, no, at, at the very least when, when I get kind of a
complex question, I'll, I'll double check with Chat BT.
I'll be like, I think I know theanswer, but just let me, let me
check. OK.
Maybe it's going to add like a little bit more on top of what I
was going to say or maybe, maybea slight change.
(16:23):
But no, I, I usually like if I'mthe consultant, Chat BT is the
consultant of the consultant. It's pretty funny.
Yeah, yeah. And now it's analyzing, right.
Like obviously you need to like know what to believe and it
might make things up or whatever.
So you got to, you got to make sure that what you see on there
is, is actually factual. So you need to have a little bit
(16:43):
of like industry knowledge. So that way you can like pick
and choose what's what to believe, you know, and what to
take action on. Otherwise it'll hurt you.
Do you like have you guys experimented at all with showing
up in chat BT do you have any advice there?
I know it's super early and mostpeople are still focused on
Google, but I'm curious. Yeah, we're, I mean, we're a
(17:04):
marketing agency. We're focused more on the paid
ads side of things. So we, you know, managed
millions of dollars in, in advertising spend on Facebook
and Google and stuff like that. So we've kind of moved away from
the SEO space over the last like3 or 4 years.
And so, you know, I have an SEO background, but I wouldn't be
probably the right person to asklike how to how to show up on
(17:25):
better results there. I can tell you it's based on
signals. So the more signals you have,
the higher likelihood you're going to rank on there.
But also looking up like if, if you're trying to rank for
something like reverse engineer,like if I were to try rank for,
you know, best home services marketing agency for Facebook
ads, if you were to go search that on ChatGPT and you see the
(17:48):
companies that are on, you know,the top three or whatever, go
figure out why they're ranking there.
Like you could literally ask theAI, why is this company number
one? Well, it'll tell you a list of
reasons, you know, Oh, they're, you know, vetted by fortune.com
or they're vetted by Gary Vee orwhatever.
So like, you know, there's get like it'll give you a list of
(18:09):
things and reasons why they're there.
And also you look at the signalslike look at their website.
Why, why is their website ranking for these big time
keywords when yours isn't? Or why is their website ranking
for this long tail keyword and yours isn't?
And there's you can look at backlinks.
You could look at the different signals that they have that you
don't have. And that's usually why you're
(18:32):
not number one and they aren't. Yeah, no, that was a really good
point actually of asking chats BT you know, maybe you ask who's
the best plumber and Chicago or whatever and say, OK, why did
you tell me that? You know, Joe's plumbing is
number 1 and Dave's plumbing is number 2.
Like that's actually super valuable that people, people can
start to do that versus Google. I mean, the results are just the
(18:53):
results. They are becoming more
personalized. But that was a really good point
there. I want to pivot a little bit
here. I know you are super big into
KPIs. We want to make sure we want to
know what's our CAC, you know, what's our revenue like, all
these different things. What are some of the top KPIs
that we should be looking at forhome service companies?
(19:15):
Yeah. So you want to look at the
entire sale cycle. So if you look at a home service
company, the average home service company is going to be
like A1 service, kind of like project work.
So basically you're going to have your advertising cost and
most companies are going to have, you know, throughout the
(19:35):
entire funnel, you're going to have your cost per lead, which
is like the first like contact point.
So like if you're spending, you know, $10,000 a month in
Facebook ads, like what does it cost to acquire like somebody
who's actually interested in what you offer?
So maybe that's 30 bucks or 40 bucks or whatever, right?
You got to figure out where you're comfortable paying for
(19:55):
that lead. And based on the quality of that
lead, is it actually worth it? And then the next thing you look
at, it's like, OK, out of all those leads we got, how many
appointments did we get? How many appointments did we
acquire from those leads? And then you figure out, you
know the cost. So if you spent $10,000 and
maybe you got, let's say 100 appointments, well, every
(20:19):
appointment cost $100 in AD spend to acquire.
OK. And, and, and now this is really
going to tell you whether the economics work out for, for your
company, because if you're not closing, like let's say your
average ticket is $2000, if you're not closing, you know,
50% of those appointments, well then you're just paying way too
(20:41):
much to acquire that customer, you know, And so you got to
figure out whether, you know, what does it cost to acquire a
lead? What does it cost to acquire an
appointment and what does it cost to actually acquire that
client? And if it's any more than 10 or
12%, then you need to figure outhow to, you know, become more
profitable on that on that marketing channel.
(21:02):
How can you become more profitable in the marketing
channel? Like what are some of the the
top ways you guys have improved profitability?
You know, some things, you know,some channels just are not meant
to be optimized to be better. Like if you have a billboard in
a certain place of town and it'sjust not cutting that, well,
maybe you just got to get rid ofthe Billboard, you know, unless
you think that the creative on the Billboard or something could
(21:23):
be improved on it. But if it's a Facebook ad and
historically in your industry, people run Facebook ads, well,
it's probably a person running the ad problem versus the actual
platform itself. And so usually if you're working
with an agency for Google ads orwhatever, and you know, in this
(21:46):
industry, it's very prominent that people run Google ads for
HVAC or plumbing or pest controlor whatever, and it's not
profitable for you, Well, it's not a platform problem.
So don't get mad at, you know, Google or Facebook or whatever.
You should be more focused on, OK, who's actually running my
ads and why are they doing it that way?
What's their philosophy? And do they have a good track
(22:06):
record of doing it? But in our experience, let's say
something's not working or something's not as a fit, you
know, effective as it should be.Well, there's a couple things
you're going to want to look at.You know, you'll want to look at
the entire sales cycle, like areyou running like for Facebook,
are you running lead form or you're running conversion API
ads? Are you sending traffic to a
(22:26):
landing page? And then just setting
expectations properly, like if we're running landing page ads
or costly, it's going to be higher.
It's just this, you know, if we're doing lead form, our cost
leads going to be lower, but you're going to have a lower set
rate as well. And so you got to make sure that
you're realistic with the different types of ads you're
running. But usually the fix, Danny,
(22:49):
usually the fix for like optimization is, is just in the
ad account. It's creatives, headlines, copy
funnel offer. Like what are you doing that's
that was working and why is it not working anymore and
optimizing things? Yeah, no, I know you're a huge
proponent for Facebook ads. I was just watching a podcast
you were on and you said that ifyou're under $1,000,000 a year,
(23:12):
you should be spending a lot of money on Facebook ads.
So talk to me more about like how we can use Facebook ads for
home service businesses. Is it all bottom, bottom of
funnel and like creating a greatoffer?
Just talk to me more about Facebook ads.
Yeah. So, you know, probably what I
was referring to is in the concrete coding industry, like
if you're under $1,000,000 a year, it's, I mean, Facebook is
(23:33):
going to be the best platform for you.
And you know, that's only because you know, it's going to
be the cheapest way to acquire new clients than any other
platform other than like door knocking and just old calling
people. And so if you're going to run
any sort of ads, do Facebook before Angie leads, HomeAdvisor,
(23:54):
Google website, any of that other stuff.
I mean, I've seen concrete floorcoating companies go from zero
to seven figures a year just running Facebook ads.
And now is it smart to only do that?
Well, probably not. You should start doing some
other stuff then. But the point is, is you're able
to grow dramatically using Facebook ads if it's done
correctly. But for other industries, I
(24:17):
mean, obviously, like if I'm an HVAC company, you know, now that
we launched the software and HVAC side, like if I was running
an H FAC service company and residential, then I would have a
website, I'd get Google guaranteed going LSA, like local
service ads and start running your Google ads.
I would do that before I run Facebook ads because that's like
(24:39):
for H FAC and plumbing and electrical, like it's more of a
need and people are searching onGoogle for that service versus
like concrete coatings is more of a want.
It's a luxury service. And so Facebook works really
well for them. Facebook can also do fantastic
for HVAC but it's more of like asecondary like platform I'd
focus on. Awesome.
(24:59):
OK. So it it does depend on the
industry. I'm glad you cleared that.
Up. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. And talk to me specific
specifically like maybe give me an example of a killer ad again,
like is it, are you giving it a,a crazy offer?
And is it a video? Is it a photo?
Like what are what are ads that perform really well?
On Facebook, you're saying, So with Facebook platform, you know
(25:22):
the biggest thing you're shooting for is you're trying to
get the person to click through.That's ultimately what you want
to happen is someone to see the ad and be like, aha, I want that
or I want to learn more about that.
And so they click on it. If you can get your cost per
(25:43):
click as low as possible, OK. If you can get your cost real
quick per click as low as possible while still maintaining
relevance and where you're not misleading anyone.
Because if I had an ad where it said claim $10,000 for free,
everybody would click. I mean, not everybody, I mean,
(26:06):
because it's unrealistic, but like it would people would
you'd, a lot of people would click, right.
And so if we had an ad that had an offer where it talked about,
you know, getting your concrete coatings done and it's a summer
promo and it's July 4th and we have this offer and we have a
beautiful garage floor transformation or maybe HVAC,
(26:26):
you know, HVAC, hey, it's this summer, you know, it's
summertime, make sure that your AC is working or whatever.
Like, yeah, maybe you have a tune up ad, right?
Like you're, you're trying to acquire a click for as low as
possible while still maintainingrelevance.
And so you don't want to put anything in your ad that's going
to like mislead people or push them in the wrong direction or,
(26:47):
you know, confuse them. But you want to have a very
clear still what you do, but youknow, get a cheap click because
that way your cost per cost per lead is going to be lower and
the rest of the funnel works outbetter.
Awesome. And how targeted are those ads?
Like should you do just, you know, one ad for a big city or
I've heard some people also liketarget neighborhoods with What's
(27:07):
your strategy with targeting? We do broad for the most part,
so you know, just targeting homeowners across the entire
county or service area that theyoffer for HVAC companies.
Like everybody has an AC unit ontheir house for the most part in
America. And so like, you know, you can
(27:27):
target pretty much anybody who has a home that has a heartbeat
because at some point they're going to have to replace their
HVAC unit. And Facebook actually does a
fantastic job of finding the homeowners anyways.
And so if you just give it a broad targeting in your ad
copies about HVAC in your images, has an HVAC system on
it. And maybe you're doing the
(27:48):
instant quote tool where like people are able to click on it
and get a quote for their HVAC system.
Like that algorithm, Facebook isgoing to find the right people
to show the ad to. And sometimes you're going to
have to reboot it or change the ad copy or whatever.
And that's just basic optimization.
But Facebook for the most part does a lot of the heavy lifting
(28:08):
versus like 10 years ago or 15 years ago, it was more media
buyer heavy where it actually required more work to, to run
ads in Facebook. I mean, even if you look at
Google nowadays, I mean, HVAC companies are able to go to
Google local service ads and runtheir own ads.
Like you don't even have to hirean agency to run local service
ads and manage like to get hundreds of leads.
(28:29):
And if you're in a metro area and you have a lot of Google
reviews, like you're no longer having to pay these massive
agency retainers, you know, obviously you want someone to
look at and keep an eye on it. But as far as the optimization
heavy, it's not so much anymore.Yeah, no, local service ads have
changed the game. I I consider that like an owner
(28:49):
friendly platform where you know, the website, you don't
even want to touch that. It's just crazy.
Google ads still fairly complex,Facebook ads, fairly complex
local service ads, just not really much to do.
I mean, like you collect reviews.
I mean, you can add some custom photos, maybe you add or remove
a city, add or remove a service,add or remove a service like,
but there's not too much to do. So yeah, I'm definitely a big
(29:11):
proponent for face or sorry local service ads as well.
And yeah, you mentioned your HVAC quote tool.
Talk to me more about that of like, First off, how'd you get
started with that and how's thatgoing?
Yeah. So HVAC quote is basically an AI
powered instinct quote tool for HVAC and plumbing companies.
(29:32):
Hundreds of companies are starting to use this tool.
And basically what the tool doesis it gives the homeowners what
they want, which is the price. And so as a contractor, you're
able to go in the back end and configure your pricing.
So that way when you put your pricing on your website or you
put your pricing in your marketing materials, homeowners
(29:53):
can actually get a range price, like a price like what it's
going to cost to replace their actual unit.
And it's going to give them a range, a good, better, best
option. And so that way you're not
misleading and you have pricing transparency.
That's where this industry is going.
A lot of HVAC companies across the country are looking to put
(30:16):
transparent pricing on their website to essentially win over
their competitors. You know, and if you're in the
HVAC industry and you're not putting your price on your
website and maybe you're scared to or whatever, maybe you have
like the sales where you come out there and you want to like
change the price all the time and basically be a little bit
slimy about it. Well, this industry is moving in
(30:36):
the right direction with ethics and pricing transparency.
And so a lot of HVAC companies are doing that.
But also, homeowners want to know, I mean, our generation,
we're both in our 20s, our generation, If you want a home
in our generation, you want to know what it's going to cost to
replace the HVAC system before you call someone.
You know, it's less work. You don't have to call someone
(31:00):
and call someone out there. If you like the price and you
like what they've showed you on your website and the
installation process, then the next thing is, well, let's book
an appointment then, you know, but at least now you have an
idea as to what it's going to cost.
And the other thing is, is what we're seeing so far is a 45%
increase in leads. And so just by putting this tool
(31:21):
on your website as an HVAC company, you're getting 45% more
leads right off the bat. Because when you have it on your
website where it says instant HVAC quote, instead of like
filling out this long form and not getting anything, a lot of
homeowners just bounce off your website and go to the next site.
And so when you have this tool on there and it says instant
(31:41):
HVAC quote, people click on it and they fill it out and all of
a sudden these companies getting45% more leads, some are higher,
some are dramatically higher. 45% is a conservative survey
that we've we've built out. And then the other thing that
we're saying is that you have a much higher close rate on the
appointments that you actually get from this tool.
(32:02):
Because Danny, if you're a homeowner and you're getting a
quote for, you know, your, your HVAC system and you see, oh,
it's going to be, you know, 12 to $13,000 for my HVAC system.
And then you call that company to come out there.
When you get a quote that's in between that range, you feel
very comfortable moving forward because you already knew the
(32:23):
price or at least a range beforecalling them out.
And so you have a lot more trustin that brand.
Now if that company came out andthey said it was going to be
$16,000, now you're like, wow, that was misleading because
online you said 12, now you say 16.
And so that's why it's importantto set your pricing, configure
(32:45):
it, and, you know, be able to becompetitive in the marketplace
and land more jobs. So in a nutshell, that's kind of
what the tool is used for. Yeah, awesome.
No, OK, that, that makes sense, especially for HVAC because it's
such it's so high tickets that Ican see some people like I
don't, I just cannot pay 30 grand for an HVAC system.
(33:05):
OK, you know, 10 grand or five grand or whatever it is.
OK, I can see that you displayedthat at least you're not like
sleazy and you're saying come tothe house.
But I guess to push back on thata little, how can you know how
much it's going to cost? Like is it based on the the size
of the house or how does that work?
Yeah. So our software essentially will
(33:26):
read your address. So you'll type in your address
in there and it has data on basically all zip codes and home
addresses across the country. And so it, it knows the square
footage of your home of like thethe the prospects home and
you're able to like enter in andbe able to select the type of
(33:47):
system. So for example, most homeowners
know whether they have package or split systems or mini splits.
And so like the homeowners can be like, oh, I have a package
system, OK. And then here's my address.
And then based on that, OK, thenit selects the tonnage.
And so the homeowner doesn't know the tonnage of, of their
(34:09):
system. That's just foreign language for
homeowners. And so they do know their square
footage though. And so they will select their
square footage of their home, which is going to basically
categorize them into what tonnage their system is going to
be. And so that's actually how it
calculates the price is the contractor will select the price
per tonnage just like they have in their CRM and Servicetitan or
(34:32):
house called Pro or their price book.
And based on that, the homeownerselects the square footage and
then it gives them a quote rangebased on sort of that
information. Yeah.
OK. That makes sense.
I'm I'm curious. OK.
So first I want to ask about conversion rates.
So that you said there's a 45% increase.
(34:53):
What is that typically from and to?
So that's like conversion rate of like 5% up to seven or what?
What does that look like? Yeah.
So you're getting 45% more leads.
So let's say on your website you're getting 1000 hits every
month, OK, And their conversion rate, let's say they're getting,
you know, 5% of those leads, 5% of those website visitors are
(35:18):
actually becoming new leads. They fill out the form on the
website, right? That's 50 leads every month.
That comes out to about 1.6 per day.
If you were to increase that by 45%, we're talking 73 leads a
month instead of 50. And so on a daily basis, that's
(35:40):
2.4 leads. So essentially, it's almost
double the amount of leads you're going to get just by
having this tool on your site because homeowners are looking
for the price when they come to your HVAC website, they're
looking for the price, they're looking for.
What is it going to cost to replace my unit?
I don't want to talk to anyone. I don't want to book with
anyone. I want to know what it's going
(36:01):
to cost and so when they fill that out and you educate them on
your good, better, best, we havethree different options where
the good is, you know, cheaper. The best is the most expensive
unit, but it's going to be more efficient.
It's going to be higher efficiency, it's easier to
install, it is more expensive, but it's a better unit and it's
going to cool your house better.When you educate the customer
throughout that journey, they trust you, they respect you,
(36:23):
they like your brand. And also if your pricing is
consistent with what you actually are when you come out
there, you're going to close a lot higher rate of them as well.
And so it's really a win win situation.
I mean, we have clients across the country selling, you know,
10s of thousands of dollars morein replacement jobs than they
were before. First Choice Mechanical, which
(36:45):
is a client local in Phoenix, AZ.
They're they're selling over 100grand a month from this tool,
just the tool itself. And so, you know, really if you
maximize, you use it right and you put on your site, you're
essentially leveraging all the current traffic you're already
getting on the site. You would already get those
leads, but now you're just getting more of those good
(37:06):
leads, you know? So that's kind of how it works.
Awesome, and I know it's just for HVAC, but do you see a tool
like this working for other services in the home services
space? Yeah, there is other tools.
I mean, you look at roofing, there's a company called Roofal
Roofer. There's different companies in,
(37:26):
in different industries that arealready doing this a little bit.
I'm sure there's certain industries that don't have
something, but I believe most industries are going in this
direction. Roofing, they've been doing it
for a while now. You know, HVAC it's, it's kind
of a newer roofing. A lot of companies have already
been doing online pricing. And so I think this is where the
industry is going. A lot of people are doing it.
(37:47):
And if you're an HVAC company and you don't have something
like this, I would ask yourself,like, why do I not want my
pricing on my website? You know, what am I most afraid
of happening? OK.
And, and I will tell you that there's companies much bigger
than yourself that are doing it,and they're selling a heck of a
lot more replacement units than you are.
(38:08):
And so this is kind of where theindustry is going.
And it makes sense for any otherindustries too, you know,
roofing, plumbing, plumbing for water heaters.
And we have that tool built intoours as well.
But yeah, like roofing all theseother high ticket industries
that you're able to actually create the price online because
(38:28):
some industries are different, like remodeling, it's hard to
like come up with a price because they were modelling
projects really depending on what the homeowner wants.
And so, you know, for things like roofing, HVAC, water
heaters, you know, stuff like that where it's more more fixed
products, it's easier to come upwith price online.
(38:49):
Awesome. I'd like to switch gears here.
I'd like to ask you about comparing essentially
traditional marketing versus digital marketing.
Where do you fall on that? I know you're more of a digital
marketing guy, but do you think there's still a place for
traditional marketing? And how should you disperse your
spending on both of those? Yeah, 100%.
(39:09):
So, you know, traditional marketing actually works very
well, very, very well. And you know, I've had a lot of
people, you know, say, you know otherwise on that.
But I will tell you that if you're going to start a new
company today, you should obviously do both.
I'd probably put myself, I'd probably put more of my eggs
(39:31):
into digital marketing because that's what I'm good at.
But all the traditional marketing efforts work very well
as well and they work good in contingent.
So like if you have your Facebook ads running and your
Google ads running and your online stuff doing, but you
don't have any traditional marketing, well, they're just
finding you online. They don't actually see you in
person too. And so if you have your
traditional marketing efforts and you're doing mailers and
(39:52):
you're doing TV radio and you you have all the stuff out there
and you're going to the conventions and the local home
shows and stuff like that, but you're also running ads, it
actually has a better effect because now your ads are going
to convert at a higher rate. And you know, if you, if you
didn't have the traditional marketing, your ads are going to
(40:13):
convert at like let's say an average of 3% or 4%.
If people are so familiar with you because of the traditional
marketing ever say you've done, then your ads are going to
convert at a higher rate than than not.
I've seen this happen in many industries where, you know,
businesses will contract us to, to like run their ads for their
(40:34):
actual business, like they do AB2B business where they sell
the businesses. And so a lot of those companies
have like a very good reputationin their industry and they've
done things traditionally where they've, you know, people just
known about them from the eventsor they've maybe done mailers to
every company in the area or whatever.
And when they run Facebook ads, it just works way better than if
(40:55):
you were to launch a new business and run Facebook ads.
And that proves my point that ifyou do the traditional
marketing, you're going to have a much higher success rate with
your digital marketing, which isultimately going to grow your
company even more. So I would do both.
I don't think 1 is better over the other.
I think if I had to choose one, I would do digital.
But if you know, if I were to grow a company all over again, I
(41:16):
would do both. Yeah, awesome.
Yeah. Now, this is something that I've
heard from you a lot is taking the Omni channel approach and
that this is, I, I feel like a lot of marketers are saying this
nowadays that especially I, I come from an SEO background of
even people in the SEO space, they're not saying it's dead,
but you have, you can't just putall your eggs in one basket.
You have to diversify, you know,circle into social media,
(41:39):
everything regarding digital andthen even things regarding
traditional as well. So kind of playing off of that.
Is there anything that you'd saymaybe you can hold off till
later? Like I think radio is definitely
1. You know, I talked with Jim
Clout, who's like a top radio guy.
He said honestly, radio is only for companies doing over $10
million a year, maybe billboards, maybe even SEO.
(42:00):
Is there anything that you'd saylike hold off until $1,000,000
or so? Yeah, I mean, if I were to
start, you know, concrete holding company all over again,
I would I would run Facebook adsto about $1,000,000 a year, get
a website up, start running Google ads at about $1,000,000 a
year and start kind of going omnipresent STO Google,
Facebook. And then at that maybe $1.52
(42:23):
million level, I would start doing, you know, mailers.
I'd start hitting neighborhoods with mailers.
I would start doing some TV advertising and radio marketing,
but I would probably keep 60% or70%, probably more, you know,
more of my budget into the digital stuff.
That's tried and true from my experience because that's what
(42:43):
I'm good at, right? So you got to look at what
you're good at too, Like from your experience, like maybe
you've had a lot of success withTV or maybe you've had a lot of
success with certain home shows and there's a home show every
other weekend or whatever. Like focus on what you're good
at and you know, as long as you're confident with it
winning, then then I would do that.
Awesome. And what are you tracking with?
(43:04):
Do you use go high level or do you use something else for, you
know, all your funnels and CRMS and such?
Yeah. For like for our clients or
internally for our business? Yeah, yeah.
For clients. For clients, I mean usually
they're on ACRM like server stayin or house call pro or you know
drip jobs. One of these CRMS, they
basically have source tracking. So whenever a lead is generated,
(43:25):
it goes into the CRM, it tags itas Facebook, Google, LSA,
whatever platform it is. And so that way you can pull a
report and be like, oh, we sold,you know, $200,000 last month
from Facebook, or we sold, you know, $140,000 last month from
this home show. So most CRMS have tag tracking
(43:45):
or source tracking, and that's the best way to do it.
Awesome. Cool.
What? What are the last questions I've
got for you? Marco is where do you see the
future of local marketing, home service marketing?
Is it going to change much with all this AI stuff?
And are there going to be robotstaking over just like overall,
what is your consensus of what'sgoing to happen over the next
few years? Yeah, Over the next few years, I
(44:07):
would say, you know, AI is goingto become more prevalent.
As a marketer, you're going to want to continue to adopt and
adopt the AI and start using it in your business because if
you're not, your competition is,I don't think contractors are
going to like figure out how to like and want honestly to have
(44:27):
the care and want to like do allthis themselves.
I still think there's going to be agencies that need to work
with contractors, but you're going to want to become as
efficient as possible. And the way you do that is by
staying on top of the trends andeverything.
And so you know, whether it's, you know, VO3 with Google or
it's captions or using AI to, you know, with your e-mail
(44:49):
marketing or you know, whatever it is, figure out how you can
leverage AI to better, you know,do your services with your
clients. And you'll probably need less
people. You'll probably be more
efficient and it'll probably be better than with the people that
were doing it before anyways. And so figure out ways to do
that. And as a business, if you're a
(45:10):
home, home services company, then you don't figure out how to
use the AI yourself. Just like kind of we were
talking about Danny today, like with with ChatGPT, like, how can
you make your life easier with this?
You know, how do you get the answers to your questions
faster? How do you solve complex
business problems using AI? You know, if there's a big
(45:32):
decision you have to make, then I would feed all of your
thoughts into chat GPTO. Do the voice version where you
can turn on The Voice and just talk to it for 20 minutes about
whatever decision you have to make.
And if it's a big decision, then, you know, put some effort
into it. Have the AI help you make that
decision and, you know, point itat the right directions, you
(45:54):
know, give it the right context so it knows what what you know
what's what as well. But those are things that I'd
recommend for, you know, contractors or even agencies
looking to to grow. Definitely.
I totally agree. Now as we wrap up, I have one
final question for you, Marco, that I'd like to ask all my
guests is what is your final message to home service owners
(46:15):
or even potentially local marketers?
What is your message for them? What do they need to know?
What do you want to tell them? Yeah, home service companies.
I mean, if you're an HVAC company, you definitely want to,
you know, pursue online pricing transparency, any home service
company, look into something like that.
Look for your industry, look up and see if there's an instant
(46:37):
quote tool for your industry, because that's going to
instantly be able to generate more conversions for for your
home service company. And then the last thing I'll
leave you guys with is, is, you know, as businesses, we want to
keep people accountable. And so, you know, something I'm
super big on is, is what is, youknow, what are things that you
(46:59):
should be holding your marketingagency or maybe software
companies accountable for when you hire them, especially
marketing agencies. When you hire a marketing
agency, what are what are the five point things that you
should follow to hold your marketing agencies accountable
and be able to grow your company?
Because it's not about them, it's about you and why you hired
(47:20):
them and how to grow your company.
And you know, you want to followthose steps to maximize that the
efforts that you're hiring and, and you know, there's a reason
why you hired the marketing agency.
Don't forget why you did. And don't just spend money down
the drain. Just spend it.
You want to make sure that you hold your people accountable,
just like you hold your employees accountable.
(47:42):
Do the same thing for your agency and and grow your
company. So that's the last thing I'll
leave, leave them with. Awesome.
So you have to get HVAC quote ifyou're an HVAC company, that
will be in the description below.
And you have to keep your peopleaccountable, whether that's
people on your staff or whether that's the agency you hired or
maybe there's some freelancers or VAS or whatever that may be.
So awesome. I think this is a great show.
(48:03):
Marco, thanks so much for comingon.
And where can people find you and connect with you on social
media? Yeah, absolutely.
If you just I have a Facebook profile and probably the most
active on on Facebook, just search my name Marco Sipola or I
think it's Marco Sipola 1/2 is like the profile.
So shoot me Adm on there, message me anytime.
(48:25):
I'm pretty active on on Facebookfor the most part.
And you can find us at HVAC quote dot AI.
So it's dot AI, HVAC quote dot AI for the HVAC software as
well. So appreciate your time, Danny,
and thanks for inviting me on here.
Awesome. Definitely.
Yeah. OK, so both those links will be
in the description and anything else you'd like to plug or
mention? No, that's it.
(48:47):
Cool. Alright, thanks so much Marco.
This has been a blast and hope to have you on again sometime.
Awesome.
Host
Danny Leibrandt
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