October 21, 2025 • 51 mins
Most home service owners think branding is just a logo or wrap, but Dan Antonelli knows it’s the difference between being invisible and unforgettable.
Dan started painting signs by hand at fifteen, learning how clarity, color, and layout decide whether someone even notices your business. That passion grew into KickCharge Creative, a 60-person agency that’s built thousands of home service brands across the country.
After decades in the industry, Dan has seen what most owners miss—a weak brand quietly taxes every marketing dollar, keeping your booking rate low and your cost per lead high.
He’s helped companies like Buhler Air and A1 Garage Door use brand clarity to grow from small local shops to multimillion-dollar operations. In this episode, Dan shares how the right name, wrap, and identity can change the economics of your business, why safe designs never sell, and how invisible brands are silently draining profit from even the best-run companies.
It’s an eye-opening look at the business side of branding—how design drives data, how perception shapes pricing power, and why “good enough” might be the most expensive phrase in your company.
What You Will Learn in This Episode
• Why most home service brands are invisible and how to fix it
• How branding directly impacts booking rate, close rate, and average ticket
• The high cost of initials, last-name logos, and generic design
• Why your trucks are your most powerful and underused marketing tool
• When a rename or rebrand makes sense—and when it doesn’t
• How strong design lowers customer acquisition cost across every channel
• The importance of unifying brand, web, and ads under one accountable team
• What KPIs actually measure brand success beyond impressions or clicks
• Why simplicity and disruption beat cleverness in design
• How clarity, not creativity alone, builds profitable growth
More From Profit & Grit
Book your complimentary Financial Insight Session with Tyler Martin, fractional CFO for home services and the trades, here:
http://cfointrocall.com
Learn more at http://cfomadeeasy.com
Follow the show for weekly interviews with HVAC, plumbing, and home service owners and experts who share what it really takes to grow, scale, and profit in the trades.
If you listen to any of the following shows, we’re sure you’ll love ours too!
To The Point Home Services Podcast, Toolbox for the Trades, Masters of Home Service, Home Service Business Coach With David Moerman, BlueCollar.CEO, The Home Service Expert Podcast, Next Level Pros, Blue Collar Business Podcast, Home Service Millionaire with Mike Andes, The Contractor Fight with Tom Reber, and Blue Collar Success Group
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Tyler Martin, a fractional CFO for home services and the trades
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
I've helped more than 3,000 contractors rebrand
their business.
The most common mistakes I seeare easy to avoid, and fixing
them can instantly increase thepricing power and the close
rate, booking rates, andeverything about their marketing
spend.
SPEAKER_01 (00:16):
Welcome to Profit and Grit with Tyler, where blue
collar owners and insiders spillthe real story behind their
hustle, building businesses thatthrive through sweat and smarts.
We'll dig into their journeysfrom scaling chaos to growing
the bottom line with lessons andgrit that pay off big.
Here's your host, the BlueCollar CFO, Tyler Martin.
SPEAKER_02 (00:39):
Today's guest is Dan Antonelli, president of Kick
Charge Creative.
Dan has spent more than 30 yearsshaping the look and feel of
over 3,000 home service brands.
He started out as a sign painterand grew his one-person shop
into the nation's leadingbranding agency for contractors.
(01:02):
Today we're digging into whatmakes a home service brand
unforgettable, why mostcompanies get it wrong, and how
the right branding can fuelgrowth, culture, and reputation.
Whether you're running an HVACshop, a plumbing, electrical, or
roofing company, Dan's insightswill give you practical tools to
(01:24):
stand out and grow profitably.
Let's talk with Dan now.
Hey Dan, welcome to the Profitand Grace Show.
How are you doing today?
I'm awesome, Tyler.
How are you?
I'm awesome too.
I'm really excited.
You're like an icon in homeservices as far as I'm
concerned.
So I'm really excited to haveyou here.
SPEAKER_00 (01:41):
Thank you.
Appreciate that.
SPEAKER_02 (01:42):
So, with that, if I can't believe someone wouldn't,
but if they don't know who youare, what do you do?
Tell us a little bit aboutyourself and uh let's go from
there.
SPEAKER_00 (01:50):
Yeah, absolutely.
Uh my name is Dan Antonelli.
I run Kick Charge Creative.
We are a full service uhmarketing agency here in New
Jersey.
We have about 60 employees atthis point.
This is actually our 30th yearin business, which kind of blows
my mind a little bit that we're30 years into this.
It's really exciting.
I still am super excited aboutwhat we're doing.
(02:13):
I started lettering hand-paintedsigns and trucks when I was 15
years old.
So I'm I'm going on almost 40years of seeing my work out in
the open on vehicles and thingslike that.
And and uh it still, you know,really still kind of blows my
mind that 40 years later, likethat still energizes me and
(02:33):
motivates me and gets meexcited.
So I'm super blessed to beworking in the trades.
The trades has done so much tome, to my team, to my family.
So I can't even express howgrateful I am that I get to do
what I get to do.
And I also always like to saythat I'm I'm also grateful just
to be here today.
Um, having gone through somehealth issues about four years
(02:55):
ago with my heart.
I shouldn't be here today, buthere I am.
And uh I really look at everyday as a blessing.
So again, Tyler, I'm grateful tobe here today to get to talk
about this stuff and to still behere preaching about brands and
things that I'm passionateabout.
SPEAKER_02 (03:08):
Yeah.
And thank you, by the way, forwhat you add to the community.
I mean, you've taken, I believeyour company has taken the whole
industry to another level, justin terms of taking branding
seriously, taking your imageseriously.
And, you know, I even today whenI drive around and I do this
because of you, I'm looking athome service vehicles.
(03:30):
And honestly, nine out of 10 arehorrible.
Like, yeah, and and I knowyou're so much more than just
vehicles, but just using that asan example, there's still so
many that can be impacted andhave a stronger brand.
SPEAKER_00 (03:43):
Oh, 100%.
Yeah.
And it's sad.
I mean, honestly, that thatmakes me sad as you go because
you look at these examples whenyou're driving and I'm doing it
for 40 years.
So, so yeah, but you're you'resad because that business either
doesn't know that what they haveactually is hurting them, right?
So you have that aspect of it.
(04:04):
And then I'm I'm also sad on theother side of it that somebody
sold them that as somethingthat's was supposedly going to
help their business.
So, you know, I spent so manyyears writing for different sign
magazines and being on stagestalking to other designers
because I I felt it was soimportant.
Like I look at ourresponsibility as being sacred,
(04:24):
like you're trusting me withyour livelihood.
So I had better know what I'mdoing, right?
So so it makes me sad sometimesto see the work that's being put
out that is not going to movethe needle and that the ROI is
severely marginalized becausewhoever sold it to you doesn't
really understand branding andhow to actually design an
effective truck wrap.
So yeah, no, I I feel like we'veraised, we've brought up legions
(04:47):
of brand snobs, I call them to acertain extent, because every
client who comes through us atthe end of it, they're so
educated on what to do and whatnot to do.
And then those are the ones outthere on the streets sending me
texts and saying, look at thistruck.
That's like I think it's kind offunny that there's so many more
people that are so much moresensitive to it now than than
(05:08):
ever before.
SPEAKER_02 (05:09):
So it is interesting.
So I can say this from afirst-person view.
I have a client that recentlywent through your pro through
your company for branding, andit is amazing, like when you get
to sit through that process andkudos to your team, by the way,
because it's just soeye-opening.
Like it's it's so much more likeI think I hear people say, Oh,
it's a logo, you're gonna paythat much for a logo, you're
(05:30):
gonna pay that much, whatever.
But it's so much more than that.
Like when you immerse yourselfin that and you get in those
conversations, my client wasreally awesome.
They wanted me to be part ofthat.
So I got a front row seat, andit's just it's so much bigger.
And when you walk away and thenyou combine it, I read your
book, you combine it with that,it just makes you think about
things way differently thanprobably, you know, than I
(05:51):
thought even before.
And I thought I had a little bitof a feel for branding, but and
I still probably have a littlebit by standards, but at least
I'm a lot more aware in terms ofthe impact and how much deeper
it is.
I mean in culture, I'm preachingto the choir, but it just has
such a deep impact.
SPEAKER_00 (06:05):
Yeah.
And I think that I think you'respot on with that assessment
because some people will belike, oh my God, it's that much
for just a logo.
And as soon as you put that wordjust in front of that word, then
you know you're signaling thatyou don't truly understand.
And and to the defense of manypeople that have not gone
through that experience, that donot know what it's like on the
(06:26):
other side of having an amazingbrand, I can almost understand
it.
Like, you don't know what youdon't know.
But when you go through it andyou get to the other side and
you see the impact on culture,you see the impact on
recruitment, you see the impacton all the KPIs that truly
matter to you, then you're like,oh my God, like this is the best
investment I ever made, bestsingle investment I will ever
(06:48):
make in marketing my company.
Um, but it it sometimes, unlessyou know what that you know end
game is going to do for you, youdon't understand it.
And so it's easy to just sort oflook at a number and just wrap
your head around and say, Oh myGod, that's so much money for
just a logo, but notunderstanding what this is truly
going to do for your business.
I think the other thing, too,Tyler, is when you think about
(07:10):
when you think about mindsetchange that happens after a
rebrand as well.
And I think that that's the parttoo that people really
underestimate.
They go through this processinitially, maybe just wanting to
solve some brand problems, andthen they get all this stuff
done, and then they see whatit's done to their own mindset
and they're re-engaged in thebusiness, they're re-energized
(07:31):
in the business, they're proudto wear the uniform and the
team's proud to wear theuniform.
And the team themselves alsorecognize the fact that you are
now taking steps to make abetter life for them and a
better future for them.
Uh, so there's so many benefitsthat go beyond just the cool
truck that gets done.
But again, a lot of people don'treally understand that.
But that's part of why I wantedto write the book because I
(07:52):
wanted people to understand, youknow, the psychology behind what
we do and its effect across allthese channels, not just the
marketing channels, but theinternal channels.
SPEAKER_02 (08:02):
Yeah.
So I'm the master of deviating.
And uh, so I'm gonna I'm gonnapull back here a little bit.
I wanted to hear your journeyfirst, and so apologize, but I
get excited about talking aboutthis.
Uh I want to start with when youso 15, you're your sign painter.
Take me through like that earlystage as you reflect on that.
How did that mold your journeyof where you're at today?
SPEAKER_00 (08:24):
Yeah, and so and initially I actually started out
as a pinstriper.
So I would pinstripe cars,motorcycles, things like that.
And you would find in doingpinstriping, people would want
you to do lettering.
So then you figured out how tolearn to do lettering.
Like I would come home from ahigh school and I would hand
letter alphabets.
You know, my friends, hey, we'regonna go have a party.
Yeah, I gotta go home and lettersome alphabets.
Like I wasn't the cool kid,let's put it that way.
(08:46):
So you started doing lettering,and then people would want, hey,
I got a business.
Can you do my truck?
Can you do a sign for the frontof my storefront?
And so I started doing a lot ofthose things.
And I wonder being blessed toget a job at a sign shop in
Staten Island, New York, where Igrew up.
You may hear a little bit of myaccent, although I'm in New
Jersey now.
I still have a little bit of NewYork left in me.
And I worked under an amazingsign painter, and he was just
(09:10):
insanely talented when it cameto layout and composition.
So the fundamentals of what hetaught me is really evident in
the work that goes out of KickCharts today.
So a lot of the lessons aboutlayout, about legibility, about
how the brand name comes forwardon a truck, how to maximize the
canvas.
You know, I still have picturesof some of the work that him and
(09:32):
I did together.
And I could look at that work,and honestly, I could put that
work out on the street today,and it would function perfectly.
Wow.
So the lessons about legibility,impact, making sure that it was
easy to discern what the companydid, like all those lessons and
fundamentals he taught me.
And I was just, again, superblessed to go through that
experience.
And, you know, so I'm 17, 18 atthis point.
(09:54):
My parents like, hey, you shouldreally think about going to
college.
And so I don't say begrudgingly,I went to college.
I would say I was excited to goto college, probably more so
because I wanted to get out ofthe house than I was excited
about learning something.
But I did study advertising, Idid study communications.
And so that experience, I gotimmersed a lot in the
advertising world at the collegethat I went to, at the
(10:17):
University of Scranton.
And um, I learned a lot aboutmore the psychology behind
advertising.
So, in the end, it wasn't adesign school, it wasn't an art
school, but I learned more aboutthe strategy behind advertising.
And I think that that experienceand what I learned there was
really crucial in my journey.
And I actually worked while Iwas at the university in their
(10:38):
publications office under an artdirector who then also taught me
layout and design.
So I really got the best of bothworlds.
Um, you know, I was supposed todo an internship.
We were supposed to be 60 or 70hours for the whole semester,
and I would not leave.
I was just there every singleday, no matter what.
Like, teach me.
I don't care.
I'm I know I'm supposed to bedoing something else or in class
(10:59):
or I did my hours already, andthey couldn't get rid of me.
And it was great.
They taught me so much.
So I got sort of my designschool from them.
I got the education aboutadvertising from the university,
and then I graduated and Iworked at a health insurance
company doing graphic design inNew York City.
So while I was there, I startedthe business on the side, like
many entrepreneurs.
And uh, you know, I was workingmy ass off.
(11:22):
I mean, I was doing 60, 70, 80,90 hour weeks for probably about
a year until you know, my wifefelt confident that I had enough
business to sort of quit my dayjob.
Yeah, I haven't looked backsince.
So it's you know, that was 30,30 years ago, and um I started
in my basement, you know.
So my twins were just born inthe year 2000, so I got to see
(11:46):
them kind of grow up.
I stayed, I stayed as a one ortwo-person operator for for the
first five or six years thatthey were they were born, which
is great.
And then I started actuallyhaving employees come to my
house and work in my basement,and then I finally got an
office.
I'm like, I can't do thisanymore.
And we shared an office withanother company, and then we
outgrew them and took over thewhole office, and then we built
(12:08):
our current space in 2017.
So we have about 50, 300 squarefeet here, and we have about 30
employees.
SPEAKER_02 (12:16):
Hey, Dan, so just a business question.
It would have been very easy foryou to go down the path of being
just like, I don't want to saylow end, but just middle of the
road price type of agency, andthat's what you do.
Where did you decide?
Because this is what I see intrade services a lot is we
underprice or we go down thepath of we're competing with Joe
(12:36):
down the street.
And you, it feels like you madea conscious choice that I'm
gonna be high-end and I'm gonnadeliver high value.
When did that happen, or how didthat happen?
And what was your decisionmaking on that?
SPEAKER_00 (12:47):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like it was gradual and it was
kind of interesting because whenI teach other sign companies
about rap design, I always putup the first logo that I ever
sold.
Like I have it, as a matter offact, the guy just retired after
30 something years, and it wasthis the logo we did for an
automotive shop, and I sold itfor$25.
SPEAKER_01 (13:07):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (13:07):
And I remember saying, I say to the people in
the class, like, listen, firstof all, we all start somewhere.
So I don't expect you people tobe able to be selling branding
at this price point that we sellon, but we all do start
somewhere, and then like yousaid, you start making a
decision that first of all itwould be better for me to do,
you know, one logo for athousand than two for 500,
(13:28):
right?
Right.
So just the economies if youstart realizing that.
But I think when I reallystarted seeing the impact and
seeing the value of what we wereactually doing, and we just
started raising the prices, butnot only just raising the
prices, we started deliveringmore value with what we were
doing.
So the hours that we werebudgeting for each project with
every price increase that we'vehad have reflected that.
(13:52):
So I think at the price pointwe're at now, I think we have
almost 60 or 70 man hoursdevoted to the development of
every single brand.
But I think, you know, to yourpoint, like the impact and the
value, I think is how we startedreally realizing and recognizing
that we were changing the livesof these companies.
We were changing the marketingand the ad spend that they
needed to spend with by havingbetter brands.
(14:14):
Like we were doing all theseamazing things.
We're like, why are we we'recharging so little for this?
And the return that they'regetting is is insane.
So we, you know, just trying tobe fair to us as far as what our
value is, you know.
So that was kind of a journey,you know.
And it's funny too, because evenover the years, I could look
back to, you know, 10 years agowhen when maybe we were charging
5,000 for a logo at that point,and thinking, man, no one's
(14:38):
gonna pay 6,000 and no one'sgonna pay in every single price
point where I thought we hadreached sort of the the cap of
where the market would bear,like we've we've always just
gone gone through that.
And and we don't want to reallyobviously be the the lowest cost
provider at this this service,but uh, you know, I look at the
illustration work even that wedo now and and from sketch to to
(15:00):
completed piece of art, I meanthat might be a 30 or 40 hour
endeavor just just on the theart itself, right?
So forget about everything elsethat goes in before that.
Um, and the guys that we have onour team, I mean, these are guys
that I have like handpicked overover 20 years and and sought the
best of the best in the world uhto do because they're very rare.
Like these guys that understandbrand, understand lettering,
(15:23):
understand how it has tofunction on a truck, you know,
they're like one in a hundred.
Like when you when you look fora a designer and someone that's
that says that they can dobranding, there's literally a
lot of graphic designers thatthink that they can do branding,
most can't, right?
Uh very good at executing anexisting brand onto other
marketing platforms, butideating on something new,
typically not, right?
(15:44):
So so you you know, to yourpoint, part of the problems I
think contractors have when theysay, How do I how do I raise my
prices?
Is the fact that they don't looklike they deserve to be paid
what they're asking, right?
So that's a big thing we seewhen people who come to us is
they perform a great service,just don't look like they do.
SPEAKER_02 (16:01):
And they might not feel like it because they don't
look like it.
SPEAKER_00 (16:04):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (16:04):
Yeah, right, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (16:06):
They don't have the confidence that a great brand
will bring them as well.
SPEAKER_02 (16:09):
And just I want to echo something you said because
I I've got a firsthandexperience now, having worked
with you guys.
You know, I will admit when I wefirst were signing up with you,
I was like a little bit worried.
I'm like, there was a part ofme, and I'm just being honest,
like, man, are we really gonnainvest this much?
You know, here's my bean counterbrain working are we really
gonna invest this much for somelogos and designs?
(16:31):
Like, am I missing somethinghere?
And then when I had theexperience, like these are
full-on concepts.
I can't remember if it was fouror three.
I think it was four.
I think it was a bonus one.
I think it was supposed to bethree, and we got a bonus one.
And these are full-on concepts.
And the interesting thing is soI've done like 99 designs, I've
done all these different places.
You know, when you, you know,I've hired people individually.
(16:53):
When you get them, you don't getfull-on concepts that are
generally really good.
Like almost each concept couldstand on its own, like in terms
of, or they could.
I mean, they could be an idea,you may not like it, but it it
in it because of the aestheticsor whatever, but it fits to its
own, like it's that high ofquality.
So right away, as soon as Iexperience it, I'm like, oh man,
this is on a whole nother level.
And then even now, as we'regoing through the shirts and
(17:15):
we're making our finaldecisions, I mean, the shirts
are like, I was joking with theowner.
I was like, dude, how many ofthese shirts are you sending me?
He hasn't answered yet.
But but yeah, so so I do I willsay going through it brought a
whole nother level of awarenessand saying, man, I can see
value, there's a lot of valuehere outside of just even the
end product, just the process.
SPEAKER_00 (17:36):
Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_02 (17:37):
Yeah, yeah.
Anyway, one last thing uh beforeI jump over to the next thing I
want to talk about.
Is there something for contractscontractors that you could
share?
You've gone to your ownadmission, working from home,
your home, building yourbusiness from home, having a
small staff today.
You have 60 people, you're afull full service agency.
What's the lesson there of goingfrom, and I'm just kind of
(17:57):
making up these numbers, butgoing from like a million-dollar
shop to a$10 million shop, isthere something you could share
with us that could have been ofthat you've experienced in that
scaling that you could sharewith contractors in general that
they should be aware of?
SPEAKER_00 (18:09):
Yeah, I mean, one one notion I think that has has
really shaped me, and especiallygoing back to when I was first
working in the sign shop, isthere was a magazine called
Sinecraft magazine.
And that was the only source ofinformation for the sign
business.
And it was devoted to mainlypeople that were hand letters
that did a lot of work wouldpaint.
And if you were able to get yourwork in this magazine, you had
(18:32):
made it to a certain extent.
Like that was the benchmark,that was the gold standard of
recognition.
And and when I worked for thisgentleman, his name is Bert
Arthur, he would say everythingthat we do should be of the
level that it could be in thatmagazine.
And so I always took with thatmindset that always making sure
that every single thing that wedid was not good enough.
(18:56):
Like good enough means it'sshit.
Like that means it's crap,right?
And always making sure thateverything we did was at a very,
very high level.
And I think that that mindsethas really changed.
So I used to think that therewould be a point in time where
you would get to this top andyou'd be like, man, I made it.
Like I'm there, like it'sawesome, like I'm at the top,
I'm the best we'll ever be.
(19:16):
And then I really realized at acertain point that once you
think you've made it to the top,then there's nowhere to go but
down.
And so accepting the fact thatthere is no pinnacle that every
day you should be growing, everyday you should be doing better.
And and anything you're doingtoday should not be considered
to be good enough for tomorrow.
So always be innovative.
Um, and just maintain thatstandard, you know, set the
(19:38):
standard with your team as faras what the expectations are for
you to represent the brand andmake sure that they're living up
to those expectations.
And if they don't, they're notthe right fit for you and
they're not going to take you onthe journey to where you want to
go.
SPEAKER_02 (19:50):
Yeah.
I heard something I'd be curiousif you think if you agree with
this about your own business.
I've heard like when you're, youknow, a million-dollar shop,
you're kind of just doingeverything yourself.
And then as you get to maybe I'mjumping all the way to 10
million, you've now set upprocesses systems, you've got
things refined.
And then once you get afterthat, you're kind of thinking
more legacy.
(20:10):
You're kind of thinking like,what's what's this all about for
the future?
Do you kind of agree with thatin terms of how you view your
own business?
SPEAKER_00 (20:17):
Yeah, 100%.
And I, you know, listen, I amnot a process guy.
I am blessed to have many peoplehere that are very process
driven.
Um, and you know, we're we'renorth of 10 million now.
And I can tell you for sure thatif we didn't have people here
that were process driven, therewas no way that we could have
been successful at what we are.
(20:37):
So I have an amazing right hand.
Her name is Terry Brakes, andshe runs the agency.
She's our COO and CXO.
And so having her run all day today and all those things, which
I hate, like I hate dealing withall those things.
Like I'm very much visionary inthe sense of I have ideas and
then I just let them know whatthose ideas are, and then they
(20:58):
execute the ideas.
I try to remove myself fromtelling them how to execute
those ideas.
Um, sometimes I get in the weedstoo much, and I think that
that's just the instinct andnatural inclination for most
entrepreneurs, but learning toreally trust the team, trust the
process.
I will say this, too, like evenjust the experience I went
through after I had my heartsurgery where I could not work
(21:20):
and I absolutely had to rely onthem to execute, they all rose
to the occasion.
And you could see that theythrived under that.
And so that experience was superhelpful for me to step back.
And to your point early, whenyou said about thinking about
legacy, you know, I go to thesetrade shows, like I was just at
Tommy Mello's Home ServiceFreedom event last week, and
there had to be over a hundredkick charge clients there, and
(21:42):
you talk to them and you youhear from them the gratitude
that they have for what you'vedone for them and the impact
you've had on their life.
So continuing to build thoselegacies is a really big part of
what I'm trying to do.
You know, we want to figure outhow we can scale so we can
impact even more people's lives,right?
So that's kind of the motivatingfactor for for me right now is I
(22:04):
want I want to have deeperimpact.
I want to affect more people'slives.
And I've grown a team that canhelp us to scale and impact even
more people's lives.
So absolutely I think that thatis accurate when you start
getting past that, where you'reno longer really in day-to-day,
but it's more about, hey, whatare we, what are we really
building here and how can I helpguide us in that journey?
SPEAKER_02 (22:26):
Right.
You mentioned visionary.
Do you guys follow like the EOSmethodology?
Because a lot of times they'lluse the visionary term and then
there's the implementer, whichsounds like your COO.
Is that do you guys follow that?
SPEAKER_00 (22:37):
No, we don't follow it hardcore.
We went through some EOSpractices, I would say probably
about six years ago or fiveyears ago, which helped us
define a little bit more of whatour objectives were.
The one thing I will say, andit's not necessarily a knock on
EOS, I just I just think for acreative shop, I think it's a
little bit harder to sort of fitinto that specific operating
(22:59):
system.
We I think when we think aboutthe people right peep, right
seats, right people, or it'sright people, right seats, I
think, whichever it is.
SPEAKER_02 (23:08):
I mean, depending on how you're looking at your
thing, right?
SPEAKER_00 (23:10):
One thing that I think we've done a great job of
is we've encouraged people,regardless of what seat they are
in, uh, to be able to thinkabout things that maybe aren't
specifically defined in theirrole.
And so I always like the notionthat everyone on the team can
contribute, even if it's notexactly in their predetermined
job title.
(23:31):
And I think that that's beenuseful too, because we've seen
amazing things come from peoplethat you would say, well, that's
not really what they're supposedto be doing, but they're
thinking so differently aboutthis that they add so much value
to it.
So yeah, so I think we've takensome of the really amazing parts
of it, US, and then blended itinto some other things that I
think have worked really wellfor us too.
But yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (23:52):
Very cool.
So I want to kind of pull back alittle bit and just talk about
the bigger picture of branding.
I've read that sometimes youfeel oftentimes branding sucks.
So I want to just dig into thata little bit.
What makes like what is suckybranding in your mind?
SPEAKER_00 (24:06):
Yeah, so there's a lot of sucky branding out there
for sure.
I I think as you look at brandsfor most companies, I would say
the biggest thing you yourecognize is that when they
start the business, they'rebootstrapping as much as they
possibly can.
So to say they they have thebudget to invest on a real brand
(24:27):
and invest with a real brandingagency, a lot of them really
won't have that.
So they bootstrap it, which isfine, and that's totally
understandable.
But the problem is, is thenthree years later, four years
later, five years later, theythey've got this this brand that
was never professionallyexecuted, and it no longer
represents who they are todayand what they've evolved into.
(24:49):
So I always ask owners, and weand we have actually a page on
our website if people actuallywant to take this test.
It's a self-test.
It's called uh the URL issparktest.kickcharge.com.
So it'ssparktest.kickcharge.com.
And you can literally take thistest and and grade your own
brand on the 10 criteria that weuse to judge branding.
But the short answer I would sayis if you look at your brand
(25:12):
today and you can legitimatelysay that it represents what
you've evolved into, then keepit.
But if it does, if it no longerreally represents who you are,
the level of service youprovide, and it that's when you
start thinking it's time tomaybe make make a change, you
know.
And when you think about whatbranding is truly trying to do
in terms of perception.
(25:33):
So everything that we try to dowith building an amazing brand
is control what Mrs.
Jones thinks before you get tohave the experience of you
working in her home.
So before you get to ring thedoorbell, what does she think
she's going to get from yourcompany?
And the effect of that is is soprofound when you look at the
effect of your booking rate,your close rate, your average
tickets, all those things.
(25:54):
So look at your brand today andbe honest with yourself and say,
Oh my God, does this look like apremium home service company?
Or does it look like a guy thatjust started, you know, a couple
of months ago and was foodstrapping and did the best he
can?
And there's nothing wrong withthat.
It's just where do you want togo?
So, so even looking at somebodylike Tommy Mello, who we
rebranded when Tommy Mellow was30 million in revenue.
(26:15):
So, what what person at 30million in revenue is saying, Oh
my god, my my brand sucks.
It's not working.
Um, it's hard to it's hard tosay that it's not working at 30
million in revenue, but he knewwhere he wanted to go, and he
knew that the brand no longerrepresented the level of service
that they were providing.
They were a premium home servicecompany doing garage door
(26:36):
service, and and certainly itdid not look like a premium home
service company.
So, you know, we fixed thebranding, and I think it's four
years later or five years later,is that 300 million in revenue?
So he he 10x the business.
And, you know, a lot of thepsychology behind what we did to
address his weak branding is thesame psychology means for
everybody, you know, for colorsto composition to layout, like
(26:59):
all those things were affected.
So I just say, you know, look atwhat you have today and ask
yourself that that hardquestion.
Does it does it look like youknow what we've evolved into and
what we actually provide?
And and in a lot of instances,it really doesn't.
SPEAKER_02 (27:12):
So what do you think when we are talking like that
one to two million dollar shop?
They started out originally,just you know, no money in their
branding, and now they'regetting to a certain level.
What should they be thinkingabout?
When should that investment andthe rebranding happen?
SPEAKER_00 (27:28):
Yeah.
Well, it's kind of a funny thingto say, but you know, we we like
to say that the the best time toinvest in branding was
yesterday.
The second best time to investin branding is today, right?
Because everything getscompounded later on.
So the longer you wait, nowyou've got to redo more trucks.
Now it's costing you more inaverage tickets and booking
rates and close rates.
(27:48):
Like so, so all those metricsare affected by having a core
brand.
So people get hung up on thenotion of, you know, why would I
invest in it, but notunderstanding that, well, what
if you could increase yourbooking rate by 10% by having a
better brand?
Would you do that?
Do you know what that wouldequate to from a revenue
perspective on year one, if yourbooking rate went up 10%?
What about if your close ratewent up 5%?
(28:09):
What would that actually meanfor you?
What if you could raise youraverage tickets by 25%?
So those are the things thatpeople don't necessarily
correlate with getting that newbrand, but those are the
specific metrics that we canmeasure and we actually see on a
daily basis.
So at that level, I think youknow, the things, and again,
too, the things that you seebeing done wrong when they first
(28:30):
started the business is probablyno one advised them on how to
name their company.
That is probably the number onechallenge that home service
businesses have is they don'thave a great name.
So naming is a huge piece.
It's actually the biggestchapter in the book because it's
the most important.
You get the name wrong on dayone, you will spend a lifetime
trying to fix it and tooverspend overcoming that
(28:52):
deficiency.
So you make the next questionyou should ask me is well, what
makes a bad name?
So I'm gonna answer that.
Stand, what makes a bad name?
Yeah, initial-based names arethe worst possible things you
could ever name your company.
So you you want to be JT Heatingand Air, huge mistake.
unknown (29:08):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (29:08):
You want to be a last name brand, you want to be
Martin Heater Heating and Air,another mistake, right?
So last name brands,initial-based brands, the
absolute worst things you couldname your company because there
isn't a promise that isassociated with a last name
brand or an initial-based brand.
And worse than not having apromise is the fact that I can't
make it live in someone's mindwithout a significant amount of
money and ads spent to do it,right?
(29:30):
So people are saying, Oh my god,there's huge companies with last
name brands and they're sosuccessful.
I'm like, Yeah, but they've hadto spend a lot of money to make
that happen.
All we're trying to do is iswhat's the quickest way to live
in someone's mind rent-free?
And a name will be a big part ofit, the visuals would be another
huge part of it, you know.
So always thinking about what wecan do to make the brand sticky
(29:52):
is a thing to consider.
So again, when you're at thatone million, two million, it's
looking at crow, again, you haveto you got that fork in the row
where you say, Is this going totake Me to where I want to go,
or do I have to have a littlebit of short-term pain in
renaming to put me on the righttrajectory?
And I'll get there twice asfast, but initially it's going
to be a little bit of anobstacle.
Like we renamed last year, orthis year we're on pace to
(30:13):
probably rename about a hundredhome service companies.
We do it all the time.
There's a lot that goes into it,which people don't understand.
Even when they name their ownbusiness, a lot of people do it
wrong and don't understand eventrademark issues and things that
can arise by doing it.
But I will say that you know thepeople who go through it,
especially if they've had a weakname or a last name-based brand,
and then they go with somethingdifferent, they're like, Oh my
(30:33):
god, what a huge difference itit makes.
People can remember my name.
These are the same people who goto Mrs.
Jones when the job is done, andshe's like, Who do I make the
checkout to?
SPEAKER_02 (30:42):
You know, like really just worked with you and
they don't even know.
SPEAKER_00 (30:45):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (30:45):
So yeah.
When you say a hundred, whatpercentage of companies that
come to you do you thinktypically you end up changing
their name?
SPEAKER_00 (30:53):
Um, I would say a third to 25%.
Wow.
Wow.
It's a lot.
Yeah.
But it it also is something notto be entered into lightly, you
know.
So it's not like every singleperson walks through the door
and that's the first thing wetell them they have to do.
There's there's a number ofcriteria that we look at.
We look at years in business, welook at current brand equity.
Uh, we look at, you know, again,challenges with the existing
(31:14):
name.
Is it hard to spell?
Is it location based?
You know, things like that whereyou know that there's
challenges.
But if I've got a 30-yearcompany with a really awful name
and they're they're north of 5million in revenue, it's it's
not an automatic where I'm like,this is a good idea.
You know, so you've got to havesome judgment to think about
whether or not it makes sense atthat point in time.
(31:36):
That's right, it's it's best toaddress it as early as you
possibly can.
You know, typically you're undera million, under two million in
revenue, it's it's really ano-brainer, it's really pretty
easy.
Uh, but when you start gettingnorth of those numbers and and
you've been around a while, andthen you've also been well
branded, meaning like the truckis legible, I can read it, and
those types of things, butsometimes you see those
(31:56):
companies have been around for30 years and they're still
virtually invisible in their owncommunity.
So longevity doesn't alwaysindicate something that has a
ton of brand equity, but it is abenchmark to think about when
you when you evaluate it forsure.
SPEAKER_02 (32:10):
That brand equity, is that something that you just
determine based on your ownexperience, or is there some way
to measure that?
Or how do you how do you knowwhen you say you have a lot of
brand equity?
SPEAKER_00 (32:20):
So it's definitely based on on experience, but I
think again, you judge thecurrent brand, you judge what
the name is, you look at the adspend, the ad spend actually,
you know, as a numbers guy, youknow, you you probably see a lot
of indicators that might saythere's something actually not
working very well here.
So if our cost per acquisitionis super high, well, why is our
(32:41):
cost per acquisition super high?
It may not be just that themarket is competitive, it may be
that no one knows we exist.
And if no one knows we exist,we're going to spend an awful
lot of money getting them toknow we exist.
Um, so we encourage even justthings like, and this is
slightly off topic, but justlike, what are you actually
doing as a company to be visiblein your own community?
What are you doing?
The legwork, you go intocommunity events, or you go into
(33:02):
parades, and you're sponsoringlittle leagues, like those are
all the little things that PE isignoring.
They're like, PE, let me justbang money into LSA and Google's
fan.
But what are you doing as afamily-owned business that is is
very distinctive and unique,right?
So making sure that that name isvisible in the community.
Um, so you do judge thosethings.
I think in general, Tyler, Iwill say that most people
(33:25):
overestimate their own brandequity.
They think that they're morevisible in their community.
And the reality is, is they'rethey most are not as visible as
they really are.
SPEAKER_02 (33:35):
Yeah.
Do you have an example thatcomes to mind, at least, where
you've done a name change andit's had a huge impact?
Well, it's the branding too, butit's had a huge impact.
Does anybody come to mind?
I know you have a milliontestimonials.
SPEAKER_00 (33:47):
Yeah, there's one, and it's a really unique example
of using a last name brand infavor of a non-last name-based
brand.
And the the brand, the companyis called Bueller Eating and
Air.
Oh, I love that.
And they're in they're inJacksonville, Florida.
They used to be called AirSource America, uh, which is a
really strange name.
It sounds like an oxygen supplycompany.
(34:09):
And he was the same thing.
He would literally get to thedoor and they're like, What's
what's the name of this company?
They knew his name.
His last name is Bueller, it'sJason Bueller.
And this is a person too, and Ithink it's a good point, and
especially Tyler, for you as anumbers guy, you'll appreciate
this.
But he was at 2 million inrevenue when we rebranded him.
And this is about five yearsago, five or six years ago, and
(34:30):
was just growing like fivepercent a year, 10 a year, like
nothing, like you know, youknow, you could see the
trajectory, but it was not notanything amazing.
He was 10 years into it, Ithink, at that point, at 2
million in revenue.
And I said to I said to him,Jason, I said, I said, dude, why
why don't we embrace this name?
Because it's such a memorablename.
People know the name from themovie.
Let's just go all in on it.
(34:52):
And we created this brand, it'sa huge head with sunglasses, and
it says Bueller, and the taglineis Stay Cooler with Bueller.
And he literally went to, Ithink he's north of 25 million
in revenue right now.
But what's the beauty of histrajectory and how much he was
growing is he was growing likealmost 100% every year at a four
(35:15):
or five percent ad spend.
So I think that that's that'sreally where you recognize that
that visibility in the communitywas affecting so much of the
digital spend and the rest ofhis marketing spend that people
were no longer just typing inair conditioning repair,
Jacksonville, Florida, they weretyping in Bueller Air.
And as a matter of fact, like wehad stats from him from one July
that he had over 1500 brandedkeyword searches for his name
(35:38):
alone.
So imagine how much it wouldhave cost to buy those keywords
or to buy that click instead ofpeople typing in your name.
And I think that that's thebeauty of that disruption and
having that name that sticks insomeone's head, that they're
just typing in your name now.
And now you're not competingwith every other air
conditioning company.
(35:58):
You're just competing againstyour own branded keywords, which
is going to be a much less costper click, even if you're paying
for the click than the others,the other one.
So that's a that's that I mean,we have so many, but that's one
that sticks in my head is likean amazing story, not just as it
relates to building somethingthat's sticky, but how it
affected the marketing strength.
SPEAKER_02 (36:15):
But doesn't that also have an anecdotal kind of
funny story too?
Didn't he the big head he waslike totally paranoid about?
He thought it was way overboard,and then that ended up being
like everybody said they lovedit or something.
SPEAKER_00 (36:28):
Well, yeah, so it is it is a funny story, but like
literally the day before he'ssupposed to rap six trucks.
He he sends me a text in themorning, he's like, Dan, like I
can't do this.
Like the head's too big.
That's literally what he said.
He said, The head's too big, andyou know, I don't I probably
shouldn't curse on this podcast,so I won't, but I'm like, I'm
like, Jason, the the effing headis not too big.
(36:51):
And and I said, just let me domy thing, bro.
Like, let me do my thing.
And he's like, All right, like Idon't know, like it's it just
feels like it's so big.
And I'm like, that is the wholepoint.
You know, if I make the headsmaller, then then it's less
disruptive.
But having this big giant headon the side of your van, people
gotta point to it, they're gonnaremember it, it's gonna be
sticky.
Oh, that's beautiful, bewell it,be it, big head, bewell it.
(37:13):
Like, that's how the repetitionworks.
Well, of course, like monthslater, it's like, oh my god, I'm
so glad I listened to you, andeverything like that.
But but you know, I sometimesfeel like we're a brand
psychologist or or or therapistbecause we often have to talk
people off the ledge because thenatural inclination for someone
is to go to where it's safe,right?
They see what all these othercompanies are doing, and they're
(37:33):
like, that feels safe.
Like that feels like an airconditioning company should look
like.
And I'm like, no, the the minuteI start doing something that
looks like what what the otherair conditioning companies are
doing, then it's less likely todisrupt, it's less likely to
stand out.
Like, you want to do whateveryone else is doing, then why
didn't we do Sun and Snowflakesfor your logo?
Yeah, you know, we're fire andice.
Why didn't we do that?
Well, because we were trying todo something disruptive
(37:55):
disruptive.
So it happens more frequentlythan you might think, where
where literally it's the ninthhour and or the 11th hour and
people get cold feet because itfeels foreign to them.
It feels like, oh man, we'rereally going up there.
Yeah.
If it doesn't make you feeluncomfortable, it's probably not
gonna work as well as it could.
SPEAKER_02 (38:12):
Yeah, yeah.
It's got such a ring to it, too.
Like I can see how it justpeople catch on to it.
It reminds me of I had uh LouHobaika, and everyone likes a
hobaika.
I think that's a slogan orsomething like that.
It just sticks with you.
Once you get their name down,it's like you just it just
framed in your head.
It's it's one of those types ofbranding uh that Bueller has.
(38:33):
And like you said, because ofthe movie, that makes it extra
exciting.
Yeah.
Anyway, okay, I want to switchgears and talk about uh you're
now going to a full serviceagency where you've introduced,
I guess, one a client can cometo you and get all services.
Is that correct?
SPEAKER_00 (38:50):
Yeah.
So we were in the digital spacemany years ago.
We got out of the digital spaceand we acquired a digital
marketing company in January.
So, you know, we have theirwhole entire team now.
We we run the digital marketingfor about 40 or 50 home service
companies now.
But what we found like is thatwe would do branding for
someone, and then they would goto a social media company, and
(39:13):
then we start seeing ads thatalready had messed up the
branding that we just created,like wrong fonts, wrong color,
things like that.
And it would literally make meinsane.
Like I would screenshot it andsend it to my mouth to my
client.
I'm like, dude, what are wedoing here?
Like it's the wrong font.
That's it's everything's wrong.
And then I would see the samething in email marketing, I
would see the same thing ontheir website, brochures, even
(39:35):
sometimes truck wraps.
They'd have us do this firsttruck wrap, and then their wrap
company would do the second, andthe second one would be all
messed up, and it would justmake me insane.
So we launched this.
I mean, we had done a lot ofthese things individually, like
we did email marketing, we didsocial media marketing, we had
done all those things, but welaunched Kick Charge one with
the notion that everyone reallycould benefit by having a
(39:55):
unified marketing strategy.
SPEAKER_02 (39:57):
Sure.
SPEAKER_00 (39:57):
So it's like part fractional CMO because we're
really figuring out budgets,really figuring out analysis of
your marketing spend and wherewe should be budgeting for
different parts of the year.
And then we can execute acrossall the channels.
So I could do your email, I cando your social, um, we can do
your digital marketing.
Obviously, we can do yourbranding and we do your print
collateral.
Like we had always done theprint collateral and some of
(40:18):
those other services, but Ithink people are are really
hungry for a fractional CMOrole, especially when you start
getting north of five million inrevenue, uh, where you're like,
I don't know where I'm supposedto be doing it.
My digital marketing companysays I should be spending this.
Well, first of all, how do weknow your digital marketing
company is actually performingwell for you?
(40:39):
Right.
Do we know the key metrics thatwe can judge that?
And we're not even talkingabout, you know, the monthly
report that they send to you,which they can spin any number
of ways to make it seem likethey're doing it.
SPEAKER_02 (40:49):
Right, right.
I've seen it a million times.
Drives me crazy.
SPEAKER_00 (40:52):
So we really wanted to do something, first of all,
that was fully, fullytransparent because I want you
to hold me accountable for theresults.
I want to make sure that youfeel value in what we're
providing.
And and so integrating sometechnologies on the websites
that we handle the digitalmarketing for, like
SearchFlight.
I don't know if you've everheard of Search Flight, Tyler,
but it's an amazing aggregatorof data that analyzes your
(41:14):
customer acquisition costs, yourlead costs, your booking rates,
your close rates, like all thesethings.
How many open estimates?
And what I love about it too isbecause so much of the so much
of what you should be doing isright there in SearchFlight.
So yeah, I was just looking atbooking rate for a client today,
and whose booking rate was justa little bit over 30%.
And I'm like, I'm like, we hadwe had$800,000 in revenue
(41:36):
opportunities this month that weprovided for them, and they only
closed for half of it.
And I'm like, dude, like we gotto fix the booking rate because
imagine if we fixed the bookingrate and we got up to 50%.
That would have been another200,000 in revenue for you.
Like, like invest in your CSRs,like fix the problem.
Like, so so I just love that wecan look at this data and we can
help people really understand.
(41:57):
And then, okay, well, shoulderseason is coming up, but what
should we be doing two monthsprior to shoulder season to make
sure that we're not strugglingduring those slow months, right?
So looking at those things, Ithink has been great.
And I think people really lovethe fact that now we can really
oversee.
And even if you don't use us forall those services, you can have
us as a basically a third partyto help manage and look at those
services.
SPEAKER_02 (42:16):
That's what I was gonna ask you.
Like someone that wants to enterinto your firm, do they have to
enter in on the branding sidefirst, or can they enter in on
advertising, for example, tostart with?
SPEAKER_00 (42:26):
Yeah, they they can enter in any any which way.
But certainly they do have weakbranding, it will be part of a
conversation because we knowit's going to affect the other
metrics.
But we will do whatever we canwith what you have if that's
that's the parameter.
SPEAKER_02 (42:39):
And I want to echo something you said about the
CMO.
I feel like this is the biggestgap in that five to let's say 15
million where they don't havein-house help.
They hire an agency.
Agency tells them what they wantto hear to some degree, tells
them to spend more money orwhatever.
And then they give them datathat really they don't
understand unless they reallytear it apart.
(42:59):
I mean, I've seen this so manytimes.
They'll give them back an ROASnumber.
And I'll say, Well, how are youcomputing the ROAS number?
I'm just curious.
Oh, well, we're we're taking thelifetime value potentially of a
client.
Well, I mean, dude, that'stotally distorted.
Like, come on.
Well, that's the industrystandard.
No, it's not.
Like in the client thinksthey're getting like a 20x
return or whatever that numberis.
(43:19):
And it's not.
It's like, it's just, it's nottrue.
And it without that CMO, thatstrategy part, I think, you
know, I want to share, share twostories with you.
There was something on LinkedInyesterday, I'm not going to name
the company name, but the guyliterally wrote a post about how
his essentially his company isgoing out of business and he
blamed it on the agency.
I'm not sure if this is totallytrue, but I think there's some
element of truth that the LSA, Ithink he said the keywords
(43:43):
weren't grouped correctly orsomething.
And he didn't realize it.
And it turned out uh he waslosing all his lead generation
because they had done this, andnow he's having to lay people
off.
He was turning over vehiclesbecause he couldn't make the
lease payments.
What are your thoughts when youhear that?
SPEAKER_00 (43:57):
Sadly, it happens more often than than really than
you think.
You know, and I and I think thatthat's that's one of the reasons
initially why I got out ofdigital marketing, you know,
five years ago was because itwas the one area that people
were most frustrated with.
And so I thought so carefullywhen we were looking to acquire
a digital marketing company tomake sure whoever we were
(44:18):
looking at was delivering value,was delivering great results
that I could put my name behind.
Because listen, the kick andcharge brand is something that
we've worked so hard over 25years to develop a reputation.
I was not going to put my nameassociated with something that I
couldn't stand behind and that Icouldn't be proud of.
And I see every single day theresults that we're getting for
these companies.
And it's just really incredible,I think, the work that we're
(44:41):
doing in that particular space.
But there's a lot of bad playersin that space.
And and and I sort of hate thefraud, I hate the deception.
Like I hate that it's like allthey're, you know, all digital
marketing companies are snakeoil.
Like it sucks that that's whatthe industry is known as today
because there's been so many badplayers and there's people like
that that got taken advantage ofthat didn't know.
(45:02):
I think that that's why evenjust having someone looking over
their shoulders to ensure thatwhatever they're being sold is
actually working.
And again, like we won't build awebsite unless Searchlight is
integrated on it.
Because without Searchlight,that to me, you can't hide from
the data in Searchlight.
There's no, there's no like wayto spin it.
It is what it is, you know.
So I love looking at Searchlightand I love that we include that
(45:24):
as part of our fee.
Like it's free, like you don'tpay extra for what we included
because I want to make sure wecan be held accountable for what
you're spending.
So if I can demonstrate, youknow, we just had a client
today, the same thing I was justsaying, the same guy spent$9,700
and had$800,000 worth of revenueopportunity.
Like you would spend$9,000 allday long if I could generate
(45:46):
$800,000 worth of revenueopportunity all day long.
But it's there, you know.
But then I I saw the bookingrate was was weak.
And I'm like, we got to fix thebooking rate, bro, because like
if I can get the booking rate to50% or 40% up from low 30s,
that's that's another 200,000 inrevenue right there.
SPEAKER_02 (46:02):
You're printing money basically.
SPEAKER_00 (46:03):
And I think Tyler, too.
The other cool stuff on that isyou can even look at the open
estimates.
You're like, okay, why do wehave so many open estimates?
And who's doing the follow-up?
Are we using rehash?
Are we using chirp?
Like, what's happening withthis?
So, like, you can literally lookat that screenshot and you could
identify so many deficient areasand so many things that need to
be improved, but you have toknow enough about what the data
is telling you.
And as an owner, you know, youknow some of it, right?
(46:26):
But it's hard sometimes to knowexactly what the data is
actually pointing to that needsto be fixed.
So while I'll say we're we'rewe're great at digital
marketing, I love beingproactive in a sense of reading
the data and trying to helpowners understand, hey man, like
we fixed this, and this willjust multiply the effect of the
ad spend, you know, and lookingat that and being able to help
(46:47):
educate them on some of thosechallenges that the data is
literally telling you, like justlooking at the data, you know.
SPEAKER_02 (46:53):
So do you have any concerns about one of the knocks
I hear with larger agencies isit's hard to maintain that
quality as they get bigger?
And when I talk to the communityand I'll bring up names, they'll
be oh man, they're they'reterrible now, they're just too
big.
How do you plan to circumventthat as much as possible?
SPEAKER_00 (47:11):
What we're doing is we're just trying to minimize
how many accounts each person isresponsible for and then
anticipate when we get to acertain threshold where we know
that's gonna push us over the orpush us over needing another
person.
We're anticipating that andhiring ahead of it because I
don't want to do that to you,man.
I'm not gonna not gonna scalefor the sake of scaling and then
lose what we set out to doinitially in the process.
(47:32):
It's even the same thing withbranding.
Like they were like, well, howcan you do five brands a week
and maintain that that quality?
We've been able to do that, youknow, all day long.
But again, you have to invest inthe right people, you have to
invest in the infrastructure,and you have to just make sure
you can support it in the waythat which people expect to be
supported from a kick chargebrand.
SPEAKER_02 (47:50):
Yeah, very cool.
Okay, in terms of last things Iwant to cover here, do you have
a mantra that you tend to leanon as an entrepreneur or
anything that come to mind?
SPEAKER_00 (47:59):
Yeah, like I I think I mentioned earlier, like the
just the notion of two things Iwould say design as if lives
were at stake is one of thethings that does lead us here.
And we are very diligent aboutmaking sure that each team
member understands how crucialtheir role is in the work that
we're doing for our clients.
So that's definitely one.
And I mentioned earlier, justthe notion of nothing you do
(48:22):
today should be considered to begood enough for tomorrow.
SPEAKER_02 (48:25):
I love that.
And that just basicallyemphasizes how fast things
change too, right?
I mean, we're just constantlyevolving world, especially now
in the world of AI.
Awesome stuff, Dan.
Um, so many good things.
I do want to mention as we closeout here, your wonderful book,
Branded, Not Blanded, KickCharge, your home service brand.
You've got a second edition thatjust came out in September.
(48:46):
I read the first vision edition.
It was great.
I believe you said the secondedition has more data.
I think she had case studiestoo.
What else is in the secondedition?
SPEAKER_00 (48:54):
Yeah, so the second edition has an entire chapter on
data and analytics.
So the the data behind rebrands.
And then we also had an entirechapter on brand story and how
important brand story is and thedevelopment of a home service
brand.
And then, yeah, and then there'sprobably another two dozen case
studies uh highlighting theexamples of what's happened to
these companies afterrebranding.
SPEAKER_02 (49:14):
Very cool.
And then websites, guys, uhInstagram, Kick Charge Creative
is the handle.
And then company uh website iskickcharcharge.com.
Uh, I'll include Dan's LinkedInand Facebook in the show notes.
And then last thing I just wantto mention, Dan, you mentioned
sparktests.kickcharge.com.
(49:35):
People can go there if they wantto just get it sounds like take
a little test to see where yourbranding stands.
Is that correct?
SPEAKER_00 (49:40):
Yeah, it's an interactive website where
there's a video of me talkingabout each criteria.
And then you're gonna self-judgeyour your brand and and enter
the number of one through ten oneach category.
It's gonna add it up and thengive you a score at the end.
SPEAKER_02 (49:54):
Awesome.
Okay, hey Dan, thanks so muchfor your time.
You're as much as I expect is anawesome guest with a wealth of
wisdom.
So thanks for sharing.
SPEAKER_00 (50:01):
Thanks for having me on, Tyler.
Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02 (50:06):
So Dan's story is proof that branding isn't just
about looks, it's about growth,confidence, and culture.
What I hope you take away isthis the way you present your
business impacts the jobs youwin, the prices you can charge,
and the people you attract.
If you're listening andwondering how branding ties into
(50:28):
your financial health, that'swhere I come in.
I help home service businessowners get clear on their
numbers, fix cash flowheadaches, and build strategies
for profitable growth.
If you want to talk throughwhere your business is today and
where you want it to go, goahead and book a complimentary
no pressure intro call atcfointrocall.com.
(50:51):
Let's map out our next stepstogether.
Most of all, thank you so muchfor listening.
Have a fabulous week.
I've helped more than 3,000 contractors rebrand
their business.
The most common mistakes I seeare easy to avoid, and fixing
them can instantly increase thepricing power and the close
rate, booking rates, andeverything about their marketing
spend.
SPEAKER_01 (00:16):
Welcome to Profit and Grit with Tyler, where blue
collar owners and insiders spillthe real story behind their
hustle, building businesses thatthrive through sweat and smarts.
We'll dig into their journeysfrom scaling chaos to growing
the bottom line with lessons andgrit that pay off big.
Here's your host, the BlueCollar CFO, Tyler Martin.
SPEAKER_02 (00:39):
Today's guest is Dan Antonelli, president of Kick
Charge Creative.
Dan has spent more than 30 yearsshaping the look and feel of
over 3,000 home service brands.
He started out as a sign painterand grew his one-person shop
into the nation's leadingbranding agency for contractors.
(01:02):
Today we're digging into whatmakes a home service brand
unforgettable, why mostcompanies get it wrong, and how
the right branding can fuelgrowth, culture, and reputation.
Whether you're running an HVACshop, a plumbing, electrical, or
roofing company, Dan's insightswill give you practical tools to
(01:24):
stand out and grow profitably.
Let's talk with Dan now.
Hey Dan, welcome to the Profitand Grace Show.
How are you doing today?
I'm awesome, Tyler.
How are you?
I'm awesome too.
I'm really excited.
You're like an icon in homeservices as far as I'm
concerned.
So I'm really excited to haveyou here.
SPEAKER_00 (01:41):
Thank you.
Appreciate that.
SPEAKER_02 (01:42):
So, with that, if I can't believe someone wouldn't,
but if they don't know who youare, what do you do?
Tell us a little bit aboutyourself and uh let's go from
there.
SPEAKER_00 (01:50):
Yeah, absolutely.
Uh my name is Dan Antonelli.
I run Kick Charge Creative.
We are a full service uhmarketing agency here in New
Jersey.
We have about 60 employees atthis point.
This is actually our 30th yearin business, which kind of blows
my mind a little bit that we're30 years into this.
It's really exciting.
I still am super excited aboutwhat we're doing.
(02:13):
I started lettering hand-paintedsigns and trucks when I was 15
years old.
So I'm I'm going on almost 40years of seeing my work out in
the open on vehicles and thingslike that.
And and uh it still, you know,really still kind of blows my
mind that 40 years later, likethat still energizes me and
(02:33):
motivates me and gets meexcited.
So I'm super blessed to beworking in the trades.
The trades has done so much tome, to my team, to my family.
So I can't even express howgrateful I am that I get to do
what I get to do.
And I also always like to saythat I'm I'm also grateful just
to be here today.
Um, having gone through somehealth issues about four years
(02:55):
ago with my heart.
I shouldn't be here today, buthere I am.
And uh I really look at everyday as a blessing.
So again, Tyler, I'm grateful tobe here today to get to talk
about this stuff and to still behere preaching about brands and
things that I'm passionateabout.
SPEAKER_02 (03:08):
Yeah.
And thank you, by the way, forwhat you add to the community.
I mean, you've taken, I believeyour company has taken the whole
industry to another level, justin terms of taking branding
seriously, taking your imageseriously.
And, you know, I even today whenI drive around and I do this
because of you, I'm looking athome service vehicles.
(03:30):
And honestly, nine out of 10 arehorrible.
Like, yeah, and and I knowyou're so much more than just
vehicles, but just using that asan example, there's still so
many that can be impacted andhave a stronger brand.
SPEAKER_00 (03:43):
Oh, 100%.
Yeah.
And it's sad.
I mean, honestly, that thatmakes me sad as you go because
you look at these examples whenyou're driving and I'm doing it
for 40 years.
So, so yeah, but you're you'resad because that business either
doesn't know that what they haveactually is hurting them, right?
So you have that aspect of it.
(04:04):
And then I'm I'm also sad on theother side of it that somebody
sold them that as somethingthat's was supposedly going to
help their business.
So, you know, I spent so manyyears writing for different sign
magazines and being on stagestalking to other designers
because I I felt it was soimportant.
Like I look at ourresponsibility as being sacred,
(04:24):
like you're trusting me withyour livelihood.
So I had better know what I'mdoing, right?
So so it makes me sad sometimesto see the work that's being put
out that is not going to movethe needle and that the ROI is
severely marginalized becausewhoever sold it to you doesn't
really understand branding andhow to actually design an
effective truck wrap.
So yeah, no, I I feel like we'veraised, we've brought up legions
(04:47):
of brand snobs, I call them to acertain extent, because every
client who comes through us atthe end of it, they're so
educated on what to do and whatnot to do.
And then those are the ones outthere on the streets sending me
texts and saying, look at thistruck.
That's like I think it's kind offunny that there's so many more
people that are so much moresensitive to it now than than
(05:08):
ever before.
SPEAKER_02 (05:09):
So it is interesting.
So I can say this from afirst-person view.
I have a client that recentlywent through your pro through
your company for branding, andit is amazing, like when you get
to sit through that process andkudos to your team, by the way,
because it's just soeye-opening.
Like it's it's so much more likeI think I hear people say, Oh,
it's a logo, you're gonna paythat much for a logo, you're
(05:30):
gonna pay that much, whatever.
But it's so much more than that.
Like when you immerse yourselfin that and you get in those
conversations, my client wasreally awesome.
They wanted me to be part ofthat.
So I got a front row seat, andit's just it's so much bigger.
And when you walk away and thenyou combine it, I read your
book, you combine it with that,it just makes you think about
things way differently thanprobably, you know, than I
(05:51):
thought even before.
And I thought I had a little bitof a feel for branding, but and
I still probably have a littlebit by standards, but at least
I'm a lot more aware in terms ofthe impact and how much deeper
it is.
I mean in culture, I'm preachingto the choir, but it just has
such a deep impact.
SPEAKER_00 (06:05):
Yeah.
And I think that I think you'respot on with that assessment
because some people will belike, oh my God, it's that much
for just a logo.
And as soon as you put that wordjust in front of that word, then
you know you're signaling thatyou don't truly understand.
And and to the defense of manypeople that have not gone
through that experience, that donot know what it's like on the
(06:26):
other side of having an amazingbrand, I can almost understand
it.
Like, you don't know what youdon't know.
But when you go through it andyou get to the other side and
you see the impact on culture,you see the impact on
recruitment, you see the impacton all the KPIs that truly
matter to you, then you're like,oh my God, like this is the best
investment I ever made, bestsingle investment I will ever
(06:48):
make in marketing my company.
Um, but it it sometimes, unlessyou know what that you know end
game is going to do for you, youdon't understand it.
And so it's easy to just sort oflook at a number and just wrap
your head around and say, Oh myGod, that's so much money for
just a logo, but notunderstanding what this is truly
going to do for your business.
I think the other thing, too,Tyler, is when you think about
(07:10):
when you think about mindsetchange that happens after a
rebrand as well.
And I think that that's the parttoo that people really
underestimate.
They go through this processinitially, maybe just wanting to
solve some brand problems, andthen they get all this stuff
done, and then they see whatit's done to their own mindset
and they're re-engaged in thebusiness, they're re-energized
(07:31):
in the business, they're proudto wear the uniform and the
team's proud to wear theuniform.
And the team themselves alsorecognize the fact that you are
now taking steps to make abetter life for them and a
better future for them.
Uh, so there's so many benefitsthat go beyond just the cool
truck that gets done.
But again, a lot of people don'treally understand that.
But that's part of why I wantedto write the book because I
(07:52):
wanted people to understand, youknow, the psychology behind what
we do and its effect across allthese channels, not just the
marketing channels, but theinternal channels.
SPEAKER_02 (08:02):
Yeah.
So I'm the master of deviating.
And uh, so I'm gonna I'm gonnapull back here a little bit.
I wanted to hear your journeyfirst, and so apologize, but I
get excited about talking aboutthis.
Uh I want to start with when youso 15, you're your sign painter.
Take me through like that earlystage as you reflect on that.
How did that mold your journeyof where you're at today?
SPEAKER_00 (08:24):
Yeah, and so and initially I actually started out
as a pinstriper.
So I would pinstripe cars,motorcycles, things like that.
And you would find in doingpinstriping, people would want
you to do lettering.
So then you figured out how tolearn to do lettering.
Like I would come home from ahigh school and I would hand
letter alphabets.
You know, my friends, hey, we'regonna go have a party.
Yeah, I gotta go home and lettersome alphabets.
Like I wasn't the cool kid,let's put it that way.
(08:46):
So you started doing lettering,and then people would want, hey,
I got a business.
Can you do my truck?
Can you do a sign for the frontof my storefront?
And so I started doing a lot ofthose things.
And I wonder being blessed toget a job at a sign shop in
Staten Island, New York, where Igrew up.
You may hear a little bit of myaccent, although I'm in New
Jersey now.
I still have a little bit of NewYork left in me.
And I worked under an amazingsign painter, and he was just
(09:10):
insanely talented when it cameto layout and composition.
So the fundamentals of what hetaught me is really evident in
the work that goes out of KickCharts today.
So a lot of the lessons aboutlayout, about legibility, about
how the brand name comes forwardon a truck, how to maximize the
canvas.
You know, I still have picturesof some of the work that him and
(09:32):
I did together.
And I could look at that work,and honestly, I could put that
work out on the street today,and it would function perfectly.
Wow.
So the lessons about legibility,impact, making sure that it was
easy to discern what the companydid, like all those lessons and
fundamentals he taught me.
And I was just, again, superblessed to go through that
experience.
And, you know, so I'm 17, 18 atthis point.
(09:54):
My parents like, hey, you shouldreally think about going to
college.
And so I don't say begrudgingly,I went to college.
I would say I was excited to goto college, probably more so
because I wanted to get out ofthe house than I was excited
about learning something.
But I did study advertising, Idid study communications.
And so that experience, I gotimmersed a lot in the
advertising world at the collegethat I went to, at the
(10:17):
University of Scranton.
And um, I learned a lot aboutmore the psychology behind
advertising.
So, in the end, it wasn't adesign school, it wasn't an art
school, but I learned more aboutthe strategy behind advertising.
And I think that that experienceand what I learned there was
really crucial in my journey.
And I actually worked while Iwas at the university in their
(10:38):
publications office under an artdirector who then also taught me
layout and design.
So I really got the best of bothworlds.
Um, you know, I was supposed todo an internship.
We were supposed to be 60 or 70hours for the whole semester,
and I would not leave.
I was just there every singleday, no matter what.
Like, teach me.
I don't care.
I'm I know I'm supposed to bedoing something else or in class
(10:59):
or I did my hours already, andthey couldn't get rid of me.
And it was great.
They taught me so much.
So I got sort of my designschool from them.
I got the education aboutadvertising from the university,
and then I graduated and Iworked at a health insurance
company doing graphic design inNew York City.
So while I was there, I startedthe business on the side, like
many entrepreneurs.
And uh, you know, I was workingmy ass off.
(11:22):
I mean, I was doing 60, 70, 80,90 hour weeks for probably about
a year until you know, my wifefelt confident that I had enough
business to sort of quit my dayjob.
Yeah, I haven't looked backsince.
So it's you know, that was 30,30 years ago, and um I started
in my basement, you know.
So my twins were just born inthe year 2000, so I got to see
(11:46):
them kind of grow up.
I stayed, I stayed as a one ortwo-person operator for for the
first five or six years thatthey were they were born, which
is great.
And then I started actuallyhaving employees come to my
house and work in my basement,and then I finally got an
office.
I'm like, I can't do thisanymore.
And we shared an office withanother company, and then we
outgrew them and took over thewhole office, and then we built
(12:08):
our current space in 2017.
So we have about 50, 300 squarefeet here, and we have about 30
employees.
SPEAKER_02 (12:16):
Hey, Dan, so just a business question.
It would have been very easy foryou to go down the path of being
just like, I don't want to saylow end, but just middle of the
road price type of agency, andthat's what you do.
Where did you decide?
Because this is what I see intrade services a lot is we
underprice or we go down thepath of we're competing with Joe
(12:36):
down the street.
And you, it feels like you madea conscious choice that I'm
gonna be high-end and I'm gonnadeliver high value.
When did that happen, or how didthat happen?
And what was your decisionmaking on that?
SPEAKER_00 (12:47):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like it was gradual and it was
kind of interesting because whenI teach other sign companies
about rap design, I always putup the first logo that I ever
sold.
Like I have it, as a matter offact, the guy just retired after
30 something years, and it wasthis the logo we did for an
automotive shop, and I sold itfor$25.
SPEAKER_01 (13:07):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (13:07):
And I remember saying, I say to the people in
the class, like, listen, firstof all, we all start somewhere.
So I don't expect you people tobe able to be selling branding
at this price point that we sellon, but we all do start
somewhere, and then like yousaid, you start making a
decision that first of all itwould be better for me to do,
you know, one logo for athousand than two for 500,
(13:28):
right?
Right.
So just the economies if youstart realizing that.
But I think when I reallystarted seeing the impact and
seeing the value of what we wereactually doing, and we just
started raising the prices, butnot only just raising the
prices, we started deliveringmore value with what we were
doing.
So the hours that we werebudgeting for each project with
every price increase that we'vehad have reflected that.
(13:52):
So I think at the price pointwe're at now, I think we have
almost 60 or 70 man hoursdevoted to the development of
every single brand.
But I think, you know, to yourpoint, like the impact and the
value, I think is how we startedreally realizing and recognizing
that we were changing the livesof these companies.
We were changing the marketingand the ad spend that they
needed to spend with by havingbetter brands.
(14:14):
Like we were doing all theseamazing things.
We're like, why are we we'recharging so little for this?
And the return that they'regetting is is insane.
So we, you know, just trying tobe fair to us as far as what our
value is, you know.
So that was kind of a journey,you know.
And it's funny too, because evenover the years, I could look
back to, you know, 10 years agowhen when maybe we were charging
5,000 for a logo at that point,and thinking, man, no one's
(14:38):
gonna pay 6,000 and no one'sgonna pay in every single price
point where I thought we hadreached sort of the the cap of
where the market would bear,like we've we've always just
gone gone through that.
And and we don't want to reallyobviously be the the lowest cost
provider at this this service,but uh, you know, I look at the
illustration work even that wedo now and and from sketch to to
(15:00):
completed piece of art, I meanthat might be a 30 or 40 hour
endeavor just just on the theart itself, right?
So forget about everything elsethat goes in before that.
Um, and the guys that we have onour team, I mean, these are guys
that I have like handpicked overover 20 years and and sought the
best of the best in the world uhto do because they're very rare.
Like these guys that understandbrand, understand lettering,
(15:23):
understand how it has tofunction on a truck, you know,
they're like one in a hundred.
Like when you when you look fora a designer and someone that's
that says that they can dobranding, there's literally a
lot of graphic designers thatthink that they can do branding,
most can't, right?
Uh very good at executing anexisting brand onto other
marketing platforms, butideating on something new,
typically not, right?
(15:44):
So so you you know, to yourpoint, part of the problems I
think contractors have when theysay, How do I how do I raise my
prices?
Is the fact that they don't looklike they deserve to be paid
what they're asking, right?
So that's a big thing we seewhen people who come to us is
they perform a great service,just don't look like they do.
SPEAKER_02 (16:01):
And they might not feel like it because they don't
look like it.
SPEAKER_00 (16:04):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (16:04):
Yeah, right, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (16:06):
They don't have the confidence that a great brand
will bring them as well.
SPEAKER_02 (16:09):
And just I want to echo something you said because
I I've got a firsthandexperience now, having worked
with you guys.
You know, I will admit when I wefirst were signing up with you,
I was like a little bit worried.
I'm like, there was a part ofme, and I'm just being honest,
like, man, are we really gonnainvest this much?
You know, here's my bean counterbrain working are we really
gonna invest this much for somelogos and designs?
(16:31):
Like, am I missing somethinghere?
And then when I had theexperience, like these are
full-on concepts.
I can't remember if it was fouror three.
I think it was four.
I think it was a bonus one.
I think it was supposed to bethree, and we got a bonus one.
And these are full-on concepts.
And the interesting thing is soI've done like 99 designs, I've
done all these different places.
You know, when you, you know,I've hired people individually.
(16:53):
When you get them, you don't getfull-on concepts that are
generally really good.
Like almost each concept couldstand on its own, like in terms
of, or they could.
I mean, they could be an idea,you may not like it, but it it
in it because of the aestheticsor whatever, but it fits to its
own, like it's that high ofquality.
So right away, as soon as Iexperience it, I'm like, oh man,
this is on a whole nother level.
And then even now, as we'regoing through the shirts and
(17:15):
we're making our finaldecisions, I mean, the shirts
are like, I was joking with theowner.
I was like, dude, how many ofthese shirts are you sending me?
He hasn't answered yet.
But but yeah, so so I do I willsay going through it brought a
whole nother level of awarenessand saying, man, I can see
value, there's a lot of valuehere outside of just even the
end product, just the process.
SPEAKER_00 (17:36):
Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_02 (17:37):
Yeah, yeah.
Anyway, one last thing uh beforeI jump over to the next thing I
want to talk about.
Is there something for contractscontractors that you could
share?
You've gone to your ownadmission, working from home,
your home, building yourbusiness from home, having a
small staff today.
You have 60 people, you're afull full service agency.
What's the lesson there of goingfrom, and I'm just kind of
(17:57):
making up these numbers, butgoing from like a million-dollar
shop to a$10 million shop, isthere something you could share
with us that could have been ofthat you've experienced in that
scaling that you could sharewith contractors in general that
they should be aware of?
SPEAKER_00 (18:09):
Yeah, I mean, one one notion I think that has has
really shaped me, and especiallygoing back to when I was first
working in the sign shop, isthere was a magazine called
Sinecraft magazine.
And that was the only source ofinformation for the sign
business.
And it was devoted to mainlypeople that were hand letters
that did a lot of work wouldpaint.
And if you were able to get yourwork in this magazine, you had
(18:32):
made it to a certain extent.
Like that was the benchmark,that was the gold standard of
recognition.
And and when I worked for thisgentleman, his name is Bert
Arthur, he would say everythingthat we do should be of the
level that it could be in thatmagazine.
And so I always took with thatmindset that always making sure
that every single thing that wedid was not good enough.
(18:56):
Like good enough means it'sshit.
Like that means it's crap,right?
And always making sure thateverything we did was at a very,
very high level.
And I think that that mindsethas really changed.
So I used to think that therewould be a point in time where
you would get to this top andyou'd be like, man, I made it.
Like I'm there, like it'sawesome, like I'm at the top,
I'm the best we'll ever be.
(19:16):
And then I really realized at acertain point that once you
think you've made it to the top,then there's nowhere to go but
down.
And so accepting the fact thatthere is no pinnacle that every
day you should be growing, everyday you should be doing better.
And and anything you're doingtoday should not be considered
to be good enough for tomorrow.
So always be innovative.
Um, and just maintain thatstandard, you know, set the
(19:38):
standard with your team as faras what the expectations are for
you to represent the brand andmake sure that they're living up
to those expectations.
And if they don't, they're notthe right fit for you and
they're not going to take you onthe journey to where you want to
go.
SPEAKER_02 (19:50):
Yeah.
I heard something I'd be curiousif you think if you agree with
this about your own business.
I've heard like when you're, youknow, a million-dollar shop,
you're kind of just doingeverything yourself.
And then as you get to maybe I'mjumping all the way to 10
million, you've now set upprocesses systems, you've got
things refined.
And then once you get afterthat, you're kind of thinking
more legacy.
(20:10):
You're kind of thinking like,what's what's this all about for
the future?
Do you kind of agree with thatin terms of how you view your
own business?
SPEAKER_00 (20:17):
Yeah, 100%.
And I, you know, listen, I amnot a process guy.
I am blessed to have many peoplehere that are very process
driven.
Um, and you know, we're we'renorth of 10 million now.
And I can tell you for sure thatif we didn't have people here
that were process driven, therewas no way that we could have
been successful at what we are.
(20:37):
So I have an amazing right hand.
Her name is Terry Brakes, andshe runs the agency.
She's our COO and CXO.
And so having her run all day today and all those things, which
I hate, like I hate dealing withall those things.
Like I'm very much visionary inthe sense of I have ideas and
then I just let them know whatthose ideas are, and then they
(20:58):
execute the ideas.
I try to remove myself fromtelling them how to execute
those ideas.
Um, sometimes I get in the weedstoo much, and I think that
that's just the instinct andnatural inclination for most
entrepreneurs, but learning toreally trust the team, trust the
process.
I will say this, too, like evenjust the experience I went
through after I had my heartsurgery where I could not work
(21:20):
and I absolutely had to rely onthem to execute, they all rose
to the occasion.
And you could see that theythrived under that.
And so that experience was superhelpful for me to step back.
And to your point early, whenyou said about thinking about
legacy, you know, I go to thesetrade shows, like I was just at
Tommy Mello's Home ServiceFreedom event last week, and
there had to be over a hundredkick charge clients there, and
(21:42):
you talk to them and you youhear from them the gratitude
that they have for what you'vedone for them and the impact
you've had on their life.
So continuing to build thoselegacies is a really big part of
what I'm trying to do.
You know, we want to figure outhow we can scale so we can
impact even more people's lives,right?
So that's kind of the motivatingfactor for for me right now is I
(22:04):
want I want to have deeperimpact.
I want to affect more people'slives.
And I've grown a team that canhelp us to scale and impact even
more people's lives.
So absolutely I think that thatis accurate when you start
getting past that, where you'reno longer really in day-to-day,
but it's more about, hey, whatare we, what are we really
building here and how can I helpguide us in that journey?
SPEAKER_02 (22:26):
Right.
You mentioned visionary.
Do you guys follow like the EOSmethodology?
Because a lot of times they'lluse the visionary term and then
there's the implementer, whichsounds like your COO.
Is that do you guys follow that?
SPEAKER_00 (22:37):
No, we don't follow it hardcore.
We went through some EOSpractices, I would say probably
about six years ago or fiveyears ago, which helped us
define a little bit more of whatour objectives were.
The one thing I will say, andit's not necessarily a knock on
EOS, I just I just think for acreative shop, I think it's a
little bit harder to sort of fitinto that specific operating
(22:59):
system.
We I think when we think aboutthe people right peep, right
seats, right people, or it'sright people, right seats, I
think, whichever it is.
SPEAKER_02 (23:08):
I mean, depending on how you're looking at your
thing, right?
SPEAKER_00 (23:10):
One thing that I think we've done a great job of
is we've encouraged people,regardless of what seat they are
in, uh, to be able to thinkabout things that maybe aren't
specifically defined in theirrole.
And so I always like the notionthat everyone on the team can
contribute, even if it's notexactly in their predetermined
job title.
(23:31):
And I think that that's beenuseful too, because we've seen
amazing things come from peoplethat you would say, well, that's
not really what they're supposedto be doing, but they're
thinking so differently aboutthis that they add so much value
to it.
So yeah, so I think we've takensome of the really amazing parts
of it, US, and then blended itinto some other things that I
think have worked really wellfor us too.
But yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (23:52):
Very cool.
So I want to kind of pull back alittle bit and just talk about
the bigger picture of branding.
I've read that sometimes youfeel oftentimes branding sucks.
So I want to just dig into thata little bit.
What makes like what is suckybranding in your mind?
SPEAKER_00 (24:06):
Yeah, so there's a lot of sucky branding out there
for sure.
I I think as you look at brandsfor most companies, I would say
the biggest thing you yourecognize is that when they
start the business, they'rebootstrapping as much as they
possibly can.
So to say they they have thebudget to invest on a real brand
(24:27):
and invest with a real brandingagency, a lot of them really
won't have that.
So they bootstrap it, which isfine, and that's totally
understandable.
But the problem is, is thenthree years later, four years
later, five years later, theythey've got this this brand that
was never professionallyexecuted, and it no longer
represents who they are todayand what they've evolved into.
(24:49):
So I always ask owners, and weand we have actually a page on
our website if people actuallywant to take this test.
It's a self-test.
It's called uh the URL issparktest.kickcharge.com.
So it'ssparktest.kickcharge.com.
And you can literally take thistest and and grade your own
brand on the 10 criteria that weuse to judge branding.
But the short answer I would sayis if you look at your brand
(25:12):
today and you can legitimatelysay that it represents what
you've evolved into, then keepit.
But if it does, if it no longerreally represents who you are,
the level of service youprovide, and it that's when you
start thinking it's time tomaybe make make a change, you
know.
And when you think about whatbranding is truly trying to do
in terms of perception.
(25:33):
So everything that we try to dowith building an amazing brand
is control what Mrs.
Jones thinks before you get tohave the experience of you
working in her home.
So before you get to ring thedoorbell, what does she think
she's going to get from yourcompany?
And the effect of that is is soprofound when you look at the
effect of your booking rate,your close rate, your average
tickets, all those things.
(25:54):
So look at your brand today andbe honest with yourself and say,
Oh my God, does this look like apremium home service company?
Or does it look like a guy thatjust started, you know, a couple
of months ago and was foodstrapping and did the best he
can?
And there's nothing wrong withthat.
It's just where do you want togo?
So, so even looking at somebodylike Tommy Mello, who we
rebranded when Tommy Mellow was30 million in revenue.
(26:15):
So, what what person at 30million in revenue is saying, Oh
my god, my my brand sucks.
It's not working.
Um, it's hard to it's hard tosay that it's not working at 30
million in revenue, but he knewwhere he wanted to go, and he
knew that the brand no longerrepresented the level of service
that they were providing.
They were a premium home servicecompany doing garage door
(26:36):
service, and and certainly itdid not look like a premium home
service company.
So, you know, we fixed thebranding, and I think it's four
years later or five years later,is that 300 million in revenue?
So he he 10x the business.
And, you know, a lot of thepsychology behind what we did to
address his weak branding is thesame psychology means for
everybody, you know, for colorsto composition to layout, like
(26:59):
all those things were affected.
So I just say, you know, look atwhat you have today and ask
yourself that that hardquestion.
Does it does it look like youknow what we've evolved into and
what we actually provide?
And and in a lot of instances,it really doesn't.
SPEAKER_02 (27:12):
So what do you think when we are talking like that
one to two million dollar shop?
They started out originally,just you know, no money in their
branding, and now they'regetting to a certain level.
What should they be thinkingabout?
When should that investment andthe rebranding happen?
SPEAKER_00 (27:28):
Yeah.
Well, it's kind of a funny thingto say, but you know, we we like
to say that the the best time toinvest in branding was
yesterday.
The second best time to investin branding is today, right?
Because everything getscompounded later on.
So the longer you wait, nowyou've got to redo more trucks.
Now it's costing you more inaverage tickets and booking
rates and close rates.
(27:48):
Like so, so all those metricsare affected by having a core
brand.
So people get hung up on thenotion of, you know, why would I
invest in it, but notunderstanding that, well, what
if you could increase yourbooking rate by 10% by having a
better brand?
Would you do that?
Do you know what that wouldequate to from a revenue
perspective on year one, if yourbooking rate went up 10%?
What about if your close ratewent up 5%?
(28:09):
What would that actually meanfor you?
What if you could raise youraverage tickets by 25%?
So those are the things thatpeople don't necessarily
correlate with getting that newbrand, but those are the
specific metrics that we canmeasure and we actually see on a
daily basis.
So at that level, I think youknow, the things, and again,
too, the things that you seebeing done wrong when they first
(28:30):
started the business is probablyno one advised them on how to
name their company.
That is probably the number onechallenge that home service
businesses have is they don'thave a great name.
So naming is a huge piece.
It's actually the biggestchapter in the book because it's
the most important.
You get the name wrong on dayone, you will spend a lifetime
trying to fix it and tooverspend overcoming that
(28:52):
deficiency.
So you make the next questionyou should ask me is well, what
makes a bad name?
So I'm gonna answer that.
Stand, what makes a bad name?
Yeah, initial-based names arethe worst possible things you
could ever name your company.
So you you want to be JT Heatingand Air, huge mistake.
unknown (29:08):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (29:08):
You want to be a last name brand, you want to be
Martin Heater Heating and Air,another mistake, right?
So last name brands,initial-based brands, the
absolute worst things you couldname your company because there
isn't a promise that isassociated with a last name
brand or an initial-based brand.
And worse than not having apromise is the fact that I can't
make it live in someone's mindwithout a significant amount of
money and ads spent to do it,right?
(29:30):
So people are saying, Oh my god,there's huge companies with last
name brands and they're sosuccessful.
I'm like, Yeah, but they've hadto spend a lot of money to make
that happen.
All we're trying to do is iswhat's the quickest way to live
in someone's mind rent-free?
And a name will be a big part ofit, the visuals would be another
huge part of it, you know.
So always thinking about what wecan do to make the brand sticky
(29:52):
is a thing to consider.
So again, when you're at thatone million, two million, it's
looking at crow, again, you haveto you got that fork in the row
where you say, Is this going totake Me to where I want to go,
or do I have to have a littlebit of short-term pain in
renaming to put me on the righttrajectory?
And I'll get there twice asfast, but initially it's going
to be a little bit of anobstacle.
Like we renamed last year, orthis year we're on pace to
(30:13):
probably rename about a hundredhome service companies.
We do it all the time.
There's a lot that goes into it,which people don't understand.
Even when they name their ownbusiness, a lot of people do it
wrong and don't understand eventrademark issues and things that
can arise by doing it.
But I will say that you know thepeople who go through it,
especially if they've had a weakname or a last name-based brand,
and then they go with somethingdifferent, they're like, Oh my
(30:33):
god, what a huge difference itit makes.
People can remember my name.
These are the same people who goto Mrs.
Jones when the job is done, andshe's like, Who do I make the
checkout to?
SPEAKER_02 (30:42):
You know, like really just worked with you and
they don't even know.
SPEAKER_00 (30:45):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (30:45):
So yeah.
When you say a hundred, whatpercentage of companies that
come to you do you thinktypically you end up changing
their name?
SPEAKER_00 (30:53):
Um, I would say a third to 25%.
Wow.
Wow.
It's a lot.
Yeah.
But it it also is something notto be entered into lightly, you
know.
So it's not like every singleperson walks through the door
and that's the first thing wetell them they have to do.
There's there's a number ofcriteria that we look at.
We look at years in business, welook at current brand equity.
Uh, we look at, you know, again,challenges with the existing
(31:14):
name.
Is it hard to spell?
Is it location based?
You know, things like that whereyou know that there's
challenges.
But if I've got a 30-yearcompany with a really awful name
and they're they're north of 5million in revenue, it's it's
not an automatic where I'm like,this is a good idea.
You know, so you've got to havesome judgment to think about
whether or not it makes sense atthat point in time.
(31:36):
That's right, it's it's best toaddress it as early as you
possibly can.
You know, typically you're undera million, under two million in
revenue, it's it's really ano-brainer, it's really pretty
easy.
Uh, but when you start gettingnorth of those numbers and and
you've been around a while, andthen you've also been well
branded, meaning like the truckis legible, I can read it, and
those types of things, butsometimes you see those
(31:56):
companies have been around for30 years and they're still
virtually invisible in their owncommunity.
So longevity doesn't alwaysindicate something that has a
ton of brand equity, but it is abenchmark to think about when
you when you evaluate it forsure.
SPEAKER_02 (32:10):
That brand equity, is that something that you just
determine based on your ownexperience, or is there some way
to measure that?
Or how do you how do you knowwhen you say you have a lot of
brand equity?
SPEAKER_00 (32:20):
So it's definitely based on on experience, but I
think again, you judge thecurrent brand, you judge what
the name is, you look at the adspend, the ad spend actually,
you know, as a numbers guy, youknow, you you probably see a lot
of indicators that might saythere's something actually not
working very well here.
So if our cost per acquisitionis super high, well, why is our
(32:41):
cost per acquisition super high?
It may not be just that themarket is competitive, it may be
that no one knows we exist.
And if no one knows we exist,we're going to spend an awful
lot of money getting them toknow we exist.
Um, so we encourage even justthings like, and this is
slightly off topic, but justlike, what are you actually
doing as a company to be visiblein your own community?
What are you doing?
The legwork, you go intocommunity events, or you go into
(33:02):
parades, and you're sponsoringlittle leagues, like those are
all the little things that PE isignoring.
They're like, PE, let me justbang money into LSA and Google's
fan.
But what are you doing as afamily-owned business that is is
very distinctive and unique,right?
So making sure that that name isvisible in the community.
Um, so you do judge thosethings.
I think in general, Tyler, Iwill say that most people
(33:25):
overestimate their own brandequity.
They think that they're morevisible in their community.
And the reality is, is they'rethey most are not as visible as
they really are.
SPEAKER_02 (33:35):
Yeah.
Do you have an example thatcomes to mind, at least, where
you've done a name change andit's had a huge impact?
Well, it's the branding too, butit's had a huge impact.
Does anybody come to mind?
I know you have a milliontestimonials.
SPEAKER_00 (33:47):
Yeah, there's one, and it's a really unique example
of using a last name brand infavor of a non-last name-based
brand.
And the the brand, the companyis called Bueller Eating and
Air.
Oh, I love that.
And they're in they're inJacksonville, Florida.
They used to be called AirSource America, uh, which is a
really strange name.
It sounds like an oxygen supplycompany.
(34:09):
And he was the same thing.
He would literally get to thedoor and they're like, What's
what's the name of this company?
They knew his name.
His last name is Bueller, it'sJason Bueller.
And this is a person too, and Ithink it's a good point, and
especially Tyler, for you as anumbers guy, you'll appreciate
this.
But he was at 2 million inrevenue when we rebranded him.
And this is about five yearsago, five or six years ago, and
(34:30):
was just growing like fivepercent a year, 10 a year, like
nothing, like you know, youknow, you could see the
trajectory, but it was not notanything amazing.
He was 10 years into it, Ithink, at that point, at 2
million in revenue.
And I said to I said to him,Jason, I said, I said, dude, why
why don't we embrace this name?
Because it's such a memorablename.
People know the name from themovie.
Let's just go all in on it.
(34:52):
And we created this brand, it'sa huge head with sunglasses, and
it says Bueller, and the taglineis Stay Cooler with Bueller.
And he literally went to, Ithink he's north of 25 million
in revenue right now.
But what's the beauty of histrajectory and how much he was
growing is he was growing likealmost 100% every year at a four
(35:15):
or five percent ad spend.
So I think that that's that'sreally where you recognize that
that visibility in the communitywas affecting so much of the
digital spend and the rest ofhis marketing spend that people
were no longer just typing inair conditioning repair,
Jacksonville, Florida, they weretyping in Bueller Air.
And as a matter of fact, like wehad stats from him from one July
that he had over 1500 brandedkeyword searches for his name
(35:38):
alone.
So imagine how much it wouldhave cost to buy those keywords
or to buy that click instead ofpeople typing in your name.
And I think that that's thebeauty of that disruption and
having that name that sticks insomeone's head, that they're
just typing in your name now.
And now you're not competingwith every other air
conditioning company.
(35:58):
You're just competing againstyour own branded keywords, which
is going to be a much less costper click, even if you're paying
for the click than the others,the other one.
So that's a that's that I mean,we have so many, but that's one
that sticks in my head is likean amazing story, not just as it
relates to building somethingthat's sticky, but how it
affected the marketing strength.
SPEAKER_02 (36:15):
But doesn't that also have an anecdotal kind of
funny story too?
Didn't he the big head he waslike totally paranoid about?
He thought it was way overboard,and then that ended up being
like everybody said they lovedit or something.
SPEAKER_00 (36:28):
Well, yeah, so it is it is a funny story, but like
literally the day before he'ssupposed to rap six trucks.
He he sends me a text in themorning, he's like, Dan, like I
can't do this.
Like the head's too big.
That's literally what he said.
He said, The head's too big, andyou know, I don't I probably
shouldn't curse on this podcast,so I won't, but I'm like, I'm
like, Jason, the the effing headis not too big.
(36:51):
And and I said, just let me domy thing, bro.
Like, let me do my thing.
And he's like, All right, like Idon't know, like it's it just
feels like it's so big.
And I'm like, that is the wholepoint.
You know, if I make the headsmaller, then then it's less
disruptive.
But having this big giant headon the side of your van, people
gotta point to it, they're gonnaremember it, it's gonna be
sticky.
Oh, that's beautiful, bewell it,be it, big head, bewell it.
(37:13):
Like, that's how the repetitionworks.
Well, of course, like monthslater, it's like, oh my god, I'm
so glad I listened to you, andeverything like that.
But but you know, I sometimesfeel like we're a brand
psychologist or or or therapistbecause we often have to talk
people off the ledge because thenatural inclination for someone
is to go to where it's safe,right?
They see what all these othercompanies are doing, and they're
(37:33):
like, that feels safe.
Like that feels like an airconditioning company should look
like.
And I'm like, no, the the minuteI start doing something that
looks like what what the otherair conditioning companies are
doing, then it's less likely todisrupt, it's less likely to
stand out.
Like, you want to do whateveryone else is doing, then why
didn't we do Sun and Snowflakesfor your logo?
Yeah, you know, we're fire andice.
Why didn't we do that?
Well, because we were trying todo something disruptive
(37:55):
disruptive.
So it happens more frequentlythan you might think, where
where literally it's the ninthhour and or the 11th hour and
people get cold feet because itfeels foreign to them.
It feels like, oh man, we'rereally going up there.
Yeah.
If it doesn't make you feeluncomfortable, it's probably not
gonna work as well as it could.
SPEAKER_02 (38:12):
Yeah, yeah.
It's got such a ring to it, too.
Like I can see how it justpeople catch on to it.
It reminds me of I had uh LouHobaika, and everyone likes a
hobaika.
I think that's a slogan orsomething like that.
It just sticks with you.
Once you get their name down,it's like you just it just
framed in your head.
It's it's one of those types ofbranding uh that Bueller has.
(38:33):
And like you said, because ofthe movie, that makes it extra
exciting.
Yeah.
Anyway, okay, I want to switchgears and talk about uh you're
now going to a full serviceagency where you've introduced,
I guess, one a client can cometo you and get all services.
Is that correct?
SPEAKER_00 (38:50):
Yeah.
So we were in the digital spacemany years ago.
We got out of the digital spaceand we acquired a digital
marketing company in January.
So, you know, we have theirwhole entire team now.
We we run the digital marketingfor about 40 or 50 home service
companies now.
But what we found like is thatwe would do branding for
someone, and then they would goto a social media company, and
(39:13):
then we start seeing ads thatalready had messed up the
branding that we just created,like wrong fonts, wrong color,
things like that.
And it would literally make meinsane.
Like I would screenshot it andsend it to my mouth to my
client.
I'm like, dude, what are wedoing here?
Like it's the wrong font.
That's it's everything's wrong.
And then I would see the samething in email marketing, I
would see the same thing ontheir website, brochures, even
(39:35):
sometimes truck wraps.
They'd have us do this firsttruck wrap, and then their wrap
company would do the second, andthe second one would be all
messed up, and it would justmake me insane.
So we launched this.
I mean, we had done a lot ofthese things individually, like
we did email marketing, we didsocial media marketing, we had
done all those things, but welaunched Kick Charge one with
the notion that everyone reallycould benefit by having a
(39:55):
unified marketing strategy.
SPEAKER_02 (39:57):
Sure.
SPEAKER_00 (39:57):
So it's like part fractional CMO because we're
really figuring out budgets,really figuring out analysis of
your marketing spend and wherewe should be budgeting for
different parts of the year.
And then we can execute acrossall the channels.
So I could do your email, I cando your social, um, we can do
your digital marketing.
Obviously, we can do yourbranding and we do your print
collateral.
Like we had always done theprint collateral and some of
(40:18):
those other services, but Ithink people are are really
hungry for a fractional CMOrole, especially when you start
getting north of five million inrevenue, uh, where you're like,
I don't know where I'm supposedto be doing it.
My digital marketing companysays I should be spending this.
Well, first of all, how do weknow your digital marketing
company is actually performingwell for you?
(40:39):
Right.
Do we know the key metrics thatwe can judge that?
And we're not even talkingabout, you know, the monthly
report that they send to you,which they can spin any number
of ways to make it seem likethey're doing it.
SPEAKER_02 (40:49):
Right, right.
I've seen it a million times.
Drives me crazy.
SPEAKER_00 (40:52):
So we really wanted to do something, first of all,
that was fully, fullytransparent because I want you
to hold me accountable for theresults.
I want to make sure that youfeel value in what we're
providing.
And and so integrating sometechnologies on the websites
that we handle the digitalmarketing for, like
SearchFlight.
I don't know if you've everheard of Search Flight, Tyler,
but it's an amazing aggregatorof data that analyzes your
(41:14):
customer acquisition costs, yourlead costs, your booking rates,
your close rates, like all thesethings.
How many open estimates?
And what I love about it too isbecause so much of the so much
of what you should be doing isright there in SearchFlight.
So yeah, I was just looking atbooking rate for a client today,
and whose booking rate was justa little bit over 30%.
And I'm like, I'm like, we hadwe had$800,000 in revenue
(41:36):
opportunities this month that weprovided for them, and they only
closed for half of it.
And I'm like, dude, like we gotto fix the booking rate because
imagine if we fixed the bookingrate and we got up to 50%.
That would have been another200,000 in revenue for you.
Like, like invest in your CSRs,like fix the problem.
Like, so so I just love that wecan look at this data and we can
help people really understand.
(41:57):
And then, okay, well, shoulderseason is coming up, but what
should we be doing two monthsprior to shoulder season to make
sure that we're not strugglingduring those slow months, right?
So looking at those things, Ithink has been great.
And I think people really lovethe fact that now we can really
oversee.
And even if you don't use us forall those services, you can have
us as a basically a third partyto help manage and look at those
services.
SPEAKER_02 (42:16):
That's what I was gonna ask you.
Like someone that wants to enterinto your firm, do they have to
enter in on the branding sidefirst, or can they enter in on
advertising, for example, tostart with?
SPEAKER_00 (42:26):
Yeah, they they can enter in any any which way.
But certainly they do have weakbranding, it will be part of a
conversation because we knowit's going to affect the other
metrics.
But we will do whatever we canwith what you have if that's
that's the parameter.
SPEAKER_02 (42:39):
And I want to echo something you said about the
CMO.
I feel like this is the biggestgap in that five to let's say 15
million where they don't havein-house help.
They hire an agency.
Agency tells them what they wantto hear to some degree, tells
them to spend more money orwhatever.
And then they give them datathat really they don't
understand unless they reallytear it apart.
(42:59):
I mean, I've seen this so manytimes.
They'll give them back an ROASnumber.
And I'll say, Well, how are youcomputing the ROAS number?
I'm just curious.
Oh, well, we're we're taking thelifetime value potentially of a
client.
Well, I mean, dude, that'stotally distorted.
Like, come on.
Well, that's the industrystandard.
No, it's not.
Like in the client thinksthey're getting like a 20x
return or whatever that numberis.
(43:19):
And it's not.
It's like, it's just, it's nottrue.
And it without that CMO, thatstrategy part, I think, you
know, I want to share, share twostories with you.
There was something on LinkedInyesterday, I'm not going to name
the company name, but the guyliterally wrote a post about how
his essentially his company isgoing out of business and he
blamed it on the agency.
I'm not sure if this is totallytrue, but I think there's some
element of truth that the LSA, Ithink he said the keywords
(43:43):
weren't grouped correctly orsomething.
And he didn't realize it.
And it turned out uh he waslosing all his lead generation
because they had done this, andnow he's having to lay people
off.
He was turning over vehiclesbecause he couldn't make the
lease payments.
What are your thoughts when youhear that?
SPEAKER_00 (43:57):
Sadly, it happens more often than than really than
you think.
You know, and I and I think thatthat's that's one of the reasons
initially why I got out ofdigital marketing, you know,
five years ago was because itwas the one area that people
were most frustrated with.
And so I thought so carefullywhen we were looking to acquire
a digital marketing company tomake sure whoever we were
(44:18):
looking at was delivering value,was delivering great results
that I could put my name behind.
Because listen, the kick andcharge brand is something that
we've worked so hard over 25years to develop a reputation.
I was not going to put my nameassociated with something that I
couldn't stand behind and that Icouldn't be proud of.
And I see every single day theresults that we're getting for
these companies.
And it's just really incredible,I think, the work that we're
(44:41):
doing in that particular space.
But there's a lot of bad playersin that space.
And and and I sort of hate thefraud, I hate the deception.
Like I hate that it's like allthey're, you know, all digital
marketing companies are snakeoil.
Like it sucks that that's whatthe industry is known as today
because there's been so many badplayers and there's people like
that that got taken advantage ofthat didn't know.
(45:02):
I think that that's why evenjust having someone looking over
their shoulders to ensure thatwhatever they're being sold is
actually working.
And again, like we won't build awebsite unless Searchlight is
integrated on it.
Because without Searchlight,that to me, you can't hide from
the data in Searchlight.
There's no, there's no like wayto spin it.
It is what it is, you know.
So I love looking at Searchlightand I love that we include that
(45:24):
as part of our fee.
Like it's free, like you don'tpay extra for what we included
because I want to make sure wecan be held accountable for what
you're spending.
So if I can demonstrate, youknow, we just had a client
today, the same thing I was justsaying, the same guy spent$9,700
and had$800,000 worth of revenueopportunity.
Like you would spend$9,000 allday long if I could generate
(45:46):
$800,000 worth of revenueopportunity all day long.
But it's there, you know.
But then I I saw the bookingrate was was weak.
And I'm like, we got to fix thebooking rate, bro, because like
if I can get the booking rate to50% or 40% up from low 30s,
that's that's another 200,000 inrevenue right there.
SPEAKER_02 (46:02):
You're printing money basically.
SPEAKER_00 (46:03):
And I think Tyler, too.
The other cool stuff on that isyou can even look at the open
estimates.
You're like, okay, why do wehave so many open estimates?
And who's doing the follow-up?
Are we using rehash?
Are we using chirp?
Like, what's happening withthis?
So, like, you can literally lookat that screenshot and you could
identify so many deficient areasand so many things that need to
be improved, but you have toknow enough about what the data
is telling you.
And as an owner, you know, youknow some of it, right?
(46:26):
But it's hard sometimes to knowexactly what the data is
actually pointing to that needsto be fixed.
So while I'll say we're we'rewe're great at digital
marketing, I love beingproactive in a sense of reading
the data and trying to helpowners understand, hey man, like
we fixed this, and this willjust multiply the effect of the
ad spend, you know, and lookingat that and being able to help
(46:47):
educate them on some of thosechallenges that the data is
literally telling you, like justlooking at the data, you know.
SPEAKER_02 (46:53):
So do you have any concerns about one of the knocks
I hear with larger agencies isit's hard to maintain that
quality as they get bigger?
And when I talk to the communityand I'll bring up names, they'll
be oh man, they're they'reterrible now, they're just too
big.
How do you plan to circumventthat as much as possible?
SPEAKER_00 (47:11):
What we're doing is we're just trying to minimize
how many accounts each person isresponsible for and then
anticipate when we get to acertain threshold where we know
that's gonna push us over the orpush us over needing another
person.
We're anticipating that andhiring ahead of it because I
don't want to do that to you,man.
I'm not gonna not gonna scalefor the sake of scaling and then
lose what we set out to doinitially in the process.
(47:32):
It's even the same thing withbranding.
Like they were like, well, howcan you do five brands a week
and maintain that that quality?
We've been able to do that, youknow, all day long.
But again, you have to invest inthe right people, you have to
invest in the infrastructure,and you have to just make sure
you can support it in the waythat which people expect to be
supported from a kick chargebrand.
SPEAKER_02 (47:50):
Yeah, very cool.
Okay, in terms of last things Iwant to cover here, do you have
a mantra that you tend to leanon as an entrepreneur or
anything that come to mind?
SPEAKER_00 (47:59):
Yeah, like I I think I mentioned earlier, like the
just the notion of two things Iwould say design as if lives
were at stake is one of thethings that does lead us here.
And we are very diligent aboutmaking sure that each team
member understands how crucialtheir role is in the work that
we're doing for our clients.
So that's definitely one.
And I mentioned earlier, justthe notion of nothing you do
(48:22):
today should be considered to begood enough for tomorrow.
SPEAKER_02 (48:25):
I love that.
And that just basicallyemphasizes how fast things
change too, right?
I mean, we're just constantlyevolving world, especially now
in the world of AI.
Awesome stuff, Dan.
Um, so many good things.
I do want to mention as we closeout here, your wonderful book,
Branded, Not Blanded, KickCharge, your home service brand.
You've got a second edition thatjust came out in September.
(48:46):
I read the first vision edition.
It was great.
I believe you said the secondedition has more data.
I think she had case studiestoo.
What else is in the secondedition?
SPEAKER_00 (48:54):
Yeah, so the second edition has an entire chapter on
data and analytics.
So the the data behind rebrands.
And then we also had an entirechapter on brand story and how
important brand story is and thedevelopment of a home service
brand.
And then, yeah, and then there'sprobably another two dozen case
studies uh highlighting theexamples of what's happened to
these companies afterrebranding.
SPEAKER_02 (49:14):
Very cool.
And then websites, guys, uhInstagram, Kick Charge Creative
is the handle.
And then company uh website iskickcharcharge.com.
Uh, I'll include Dan's LinkedInand Facebook in the show notes.
And then last thing I just wantto mention, Dan, you mentioned
sparktests.kickcharge.com.
(49:35):
People can go there if they wantto just get it sounds like take
a little test to see where yourbranding stands.
Is that correct?
SPEAKER_00 (49:40):
Yeah, it's an interactive website where
there's a video of me talkingabout each criteria.
And then you're gonna self-judgeyour your brand and and enter
the number of one through ten oneach category.
It's gonna add it up and thengive you a score at the end.
SPEAKER_02 (49:54):
Awesome.
Okay, hey Dan, thanks so muchfor your time.
You're as much as I expect is anawesome guest with a wealth of
wisdom.
So thanks for sharing.
SPEAKER_00 (50:01):
Thanks for having me on, Tyler.
Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02 (50:06):
So Dan's story is proof that branding isn't just
about looks, it's about growth,confidence, and culture.
What I hope you take away isthis the way you present your
business impacts the jobs youwin, the prices you can charge,
and the people you attract.
If you're listening andwondering how branding ties into
(50:28):
your financial health, that'swhere I come in.
I help home service businessowners get clear on their
numbers, fix cash flowheadaches, and build strategies
for profitable growth.
If you want to talk throughwhere your business is today and
where you want it to go, goahead and book a complimentary
no pressure intro call atcfointrocall.com.
(50:51):
Let's map out our next stepstogether.
Most of all, thank you so muchfor listening.
Have a fabulous week.
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