Picture your painting business flourishing as you master the art of reputation marketing with insights from Oscar Wimshurst of Nice Job, our latest guest on the Profitable Painter Podcast. Together, we tackle the financial complexities and tax essentials that could make or break your business's growth. As a fellow advocate for small businesses, I, Daniel of Bookkeeping for Painters, join forces with Oscar to discuss how customer trust and social proof, achieved through strategic reputation management, can eclipse even the slickest sales pitch.
This episode is brimming with guidance on transforming negative feedback into a showcase of your dedication to customer satisfaction. We share real-world tactics for responding to less-than-stellar reviews, ensuring that your public engagement becomes proof of your commitment to excellence. Moreover, we delve into the mechanics behind gathering a steady flow of reviews to maintain a sterling business image. You'll learn how to set up efficient systems that not only collect valuable customer feedback but also automate the follow-up process, boosting your business's image with minimal effort.
But that's not all – we also reveal the secret sauce in generating referrals and how they amplify your business's reach beyond traditional marketing. Learn how staying memorable to your clients can result in a steady stream of word-of-mouth recommendations. Plus, we discuss leveraging the combined power of reviews and referrals in organic marketing, utilizing customer testimonials to paint your business in the best light across various channels. By the end of this episode, you'll be equipped with actionable strategies to turn every satisfied customer into a vocal advocate for your painting business.
Link to Nice Job:
https://get.nicejob.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Profitable Painter Podcast.
The mission of this podcast issimple to help you navigate the
financial and tax aspects ofstarting, running and scaling a
professional painting business,from the brushes and ladders to
the spreadsheets and balancesheets.
We've got you covered.
But before we dive in, a quickword of caution.
While we strive to provideaccurate and up-to-date
financial and tax information,nothing you hear on this podcast
(00:22):
should be considered asfinancial advice specifically
for you or your business.
We're here to share generalknowledge and experiences, not
to replace the tailored adviceyou get from a professional
financial advisor or taxconsultant.
We strongly recommend youseeking individualized advice
before making any significantfinancial decision.
(00:42):
This is Daniel, the founder ofBookkeeping for Painters, and
today I'm here with Oscar WimHurst.
Oscar is the head ofpartnerships at Nice Job, the
reputation marketing platformthat helps painters win reviews
four times faster.
A reformed investment banker,oscar now loves helping small
businesses grow and get thereputation they deserve.
Welcome to the podcast, oscar.
(01:03):
How's it going?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
It's going really well, Thanks Daniel.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Awesome.
So can you tell me about yourjourney from starting in
investment making to working atNice Jobs?
How did that come about?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, it kind of coincides with the move from the
UK to Canada.
So I'm English People may haveworked that out by now but I
post university I worked for sixor seven years in London in the
city, and so I was in kind ofinvestment management.
(01:38):
So I was working with ultrahigh net worth individuals,
institutions, kind of managingtheir investments, helping them
save tax, that sort of stuff,and it was, you know, a suit and
tie, commuting into the cityevery day kind of job.
And having done that for anumber of years, my girlfriend
(01:59):
now wife and I made the decisionthat we wanted to kind of move
abroad and try a different lifesomewhere else, and so we moved
to Canada.
I now live in Vancouver, bc,and my kind of one aim when we
moved here work-wise was to notwear a suit.
And so I was kind of reallyinterested in getting into the
(02:22):
kind of software space and endedup taking a job, daniel, with a
company you might be familiarwith but Bench Accounting, up
here in Vancouver, so like abookkeeping software company,
and I was working inpartnerships there and I loved I
just loved the difference ofworking with small businesses
(02:44):
and contractors versus workingwith the ultra high net worth
and just the level offulfillment you get from
providing us a tool or a servicethat dramatically impacts
somebody's day-to-day life,versus maybe saving them a few
million dollars in tax orwhatever.
So that was kind of how I madethat switch max or whatever.
(03:07):
So that was kind of how I madethat switch.
And then, um, my wife, sarah,is actually working at nice job
in in the product team for anumber of years.
She started back in 2019 and,um, a couple of years ago just
let me know that they werelooking to kind of build out
their partnerships function andrecommended that I speak to the
guy that was, you know, the VPof partnerships for the group
and initially I thought it was aterrible idea us kind of
(03:30):
working under the same roof forthe same company.
But had the conversation anywayand every time I spoke to
somebody from Nice Job I reallyliked the mission that they were
on, the people they were tryingto help, the problems they were
trying to solve.
So I ended up taking the roleand it's having a look back.
It's been great, it's awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
So I'm excited about this topic.
Today we're talking aboutreviews, referrals, reputation
management, organic marketing.
I'm super excited to get intothings.
It kind of reminds me of I justfinished reading poor charlie's
almanac.
He goes into all the differenttendencies that we have and
(04:13):
humans have in their, theirbrains.
One of them social prooftendency, like if you see social
proof that makes you morelikely you're gonna buy because
you want to.
You know, follow what everyoneelse is doing.
And also you have theincentive-caused bias If you
have an incentive to dosomething, you're more likely
going to do it.
And these tendencies we canleverage to our benefit in our
(04:35):
businesses by kind of gettingthat key into that lock and
unlocking those tendencies,using them to our advantage,
which gets into the reviews, thereferrals, that sort of thing.
And so I guess we can startwith reviews.
Let's talk about the power ofonline reviews.
How have you seen onlinereviews change, painting
(04:59):
businesses' growth, and whatimpact has that had on clients'
businesses?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, it's pretty huge.
I think my first exposure to itreally outside of checking
reviews in my own life foranything that I ever buy my
first exposure to it was when Iwas a college student and I had
a kind of a door-to-door salesjob.
I would come and fly over tothe US in my summer breaks and
(05:31):
sell books door-to-door, and oneof the kind of core tenants
that we were taught by one ofthe senior guys in the company
is that, hey, the reason peoplebuy is they like you, they like
your product and they like thefact that other people are
buying it.
And often that third piece ofthe puzzle is like can be the
biggest element there.
That exactly what you'retalking about, that social proof
(05:52):
, that added trust, thatevidence that people like the
service, like the products areworking with you, can have.
And you know, years later nowall the marketing data tells us
the story.
You know we, we know that nineout of 10 people begin their
their search for service onGoogle.
We know that that same 90% ofpeople probably trust the voice
(06:16):
of the customer and reviews waymore than they trust any ad copy
or any sales copy or anythingthat a salesperson might tell
them about the service over thephone.
So so we know that these thingsmatter just in terms of
businesses being chosen, evenjust to pick up the phone and
call them.
But what's interesting is howreviews really the role that
(06:41):
they play in actually havingpainters show up where they need
to show up.
You know, it's all very wellbeing chosen because your
reviews are good, but how do youactually get found in the first
place?
And the interesting thing aboutreviews is that they help you
show up without having to spend.
You know the thousands andthousands of dollars that you
might feel like you need tospend in order to be competitive
.
(07:04):
Where this is most important iswhat's known as the Google
three-pack, the map pack.
People kind of call itdifferent things, but that kind
of little Google map square thatshows up at the top of a Google
search about 95% of the timewhen you're searching for a
local service.
The three things that powerthose.
Usually there's three companiesthat show and maybe like a
local service ad, like asponsored company that's in
(07:26):
there, and what powerssomebody's appearance in that
list is three things relevance,distance and prominence.
Now, relevance and distance,you know.
Distance you can't really domuch about either they're in
your area or they're not.
Relevance you can do stuffabout that.
Have you got all the rightservice tags on your business
profile?
(07:46):
Are you correctly displayingwhat you do as a company?
But the third one, thatprominence piece, is a big
factor, and that's Google tryingto figure out how well known is
this business, how prominentare they?
How much work are they doing inthe community?
Do people like the work?
And the only way they canreally figure that out is
ratings and reviews, and sothat's maybe like one thing that
(08:09):
people are getting tounderstand.
Now A lot of painters are justfiguring out that reviews are
having a big role in themactually showing up in the first
place, and if you get in thatmap pack, the results are
amazing.
When you talk aboutclick-through rates people
actually clicking on thatbusiness and going and checking
them out it's something like 45%in the map pack versus 8% if
you're not in it.
So these days it's not evenenough just showing up on the
(08:32):
first page of Google.
You actually have to show up inthat map pack to really make a
difference.
So that's the first kind ofthose are the two things I think
where reviews just simplyhaving a huge impact.
One is helping people be found,and the other one is helping
them be chosen.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, that's huge.
I was actually just talking toBrandon Pierpont of Painter
Marketing Pros about this andhis recommendation if you're a
painting business that's under amillion, definitely focus on
getting those reviews Because,like you said, you can get in
that map pack and just focus onthe basics.
(09:08):
Having that review captureprocess that you're always
getting more and more reviewstopic.
(09:28):
One of the hesitations thatoften comes up is especially
with using automation.
If you're using automation,like an automated follow-up to
get a review is what if I get abad review or there's a
hesitancy there?
Where should I send this out?
Because I think they are okaywith what we did, but maybe not.
But maybe I'm getting a badreview.
What?
What's your take on on on, uh,bad reviews?
Speaker 2 (09:48):
yeah, it's, it's a fascinating topic like we could
do a podcast just on that,daniel.
But just just quickly onbrandon's point, I think he's, I
think he's bang right.
You know, I think if you'rethinking about your marketing
approach in general, it'simportant to kind of walk before
you can run and and therereally is no point going crazy
and starting to spend, you know,thousands on ads if you haven't
(10:09):
got the reviews and thereputation to back it up.
You know you're just going toget frustrated with your
marketing company because you'respending all this money.
People are coming to find youbut they're going with your
competitor because they've got abetter reputation.
So and then on the flip side,if you're over a million and
you're working with a marketingcompany, by having a really
great review strategy, you'rejust going to improve your
(10:30):
overall return.
You're going to, you're goingto get more bang for your buck
with your marketing dollars justby focusing on that one piece
of the puzzle.
So yes, it's super importantpart of your overall kind of
marketing stack if you were tolook at it that way.
But yeah, to get to your umquestion on bad reviews, I think
it's um part of.
(10:51):
It is a bit of a kind of partof it is a almost a kind of
philosophy shift and a mindsetshift.
Um for, for business owners andthe tricky thing is, I think
it's hard, you know, if you'veinvested a lot of emotional
energy and physical energy intobuilding and growing this
business, and the thought ofsomebody not appreciating what
(11:14):
you're doing or using a publicforum to kind of say something
negative about your business canbe a really stressful thing to
worry about.
But I would say, as you look atit, volume is always more
important than, to an extentlike I'm not saying you should
just go and just go mad and havea three-star rating with 5,000
(11:35):
reviews.
That's not going to be good.
But the volume and thefrequency of reviews here is the
important piece of the puzzlein helping with these things
that we just mentioned.
And if you have a 4.7 or 4.8star rating with 250 reviews,
often you're going to look likea much more authentic business
than somebody that has 30reviews at a perfect five star
(11:57):
rating.
Everybody knows that peoplerunning small businesses are
always going to run into thosepeople that you just can't
please and you try your hardest.
Maybe it's some misalignedexpectations, maybe it's
somebody asking something thatyou just you could never do and
you try your best to make themhappy but you just can't and
(12:18):
they're unreasonable.
These people exist and if youstart thinking about your
reviews as a public forum forpeople to trust your business,
then you kind of start worryingless, I think, about those bad
reviews, because what matters isnot that the review was left,
it was how was it dealt with,and often those bad reviews and
(12:42):
how people respond to them givethe consumer a much better
insight into that company.
That, at the end of the day,allows them to feel good about
picking up the phone and callingthem.
If you see somebody that left abad review and the business
owner responded personallysaying, hey, I'm sorry, you had
this experience.
We really want to make thisright.
Feel free to call me at thisnumber and we'll make it better.
(13:05):
That's an incredibly powerfulthing to see and it's a chance
for you as a business owner todisplay how much you care about
your customers, to give ademonstration of your customer
service in a public space.
And then if you get theconsumer that came back and they
left a little like some peoplesay, hey, would you mind
deleting that review?
If they figure it out.
I think the best thing to do isgo back and leave a little edit
(13:28):
at the bottom saying hey, justthe edit to this.
I got in touch with a businessowner.
He was awesome.
I'm in a much better spot.
You know that's.
I would say that's like a sixstar review.
You know, it's super, superpowerful.
I was at the PCA expo, daniel,with you guys, and I had a guy
called Brian come up to me, Ithink he said I could use this.
He said I could use this story,so I'm going to use it.
He works for Riggins Paintingand he said hey, I had a
(13:52):
customer about two months ago.
She was very open with me andshe said the only reason I
called you guys is because Iread your bad reviews and so
people are used to it.
They know that it's out there.
It's not going to turn peopleoff like one bad review.
What matters is your responseand how you deal with them.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Yeah, I think that's key.
That's a great point, becauseif I just reflect on how I use
reviews, when I'm looking atwhether it's purchasing a book
on Amazon or a service or goingto a restaurant, I look at the
bad reviews and it does lookweird.
(14:28):
If someone's just five-star andit's just like okay, that's
weird.
You almost suspect somethingthat's going on there.
Are these just bots reviewingthem?
But then I look at the badreviews and look at the business
owner's response or thereasoning that the person had
(14:49):
for giving a bad review, because, like you said, there are crazy
people out there, as we allknow.
So I think other people knowthat too, so they are somewhat
understanding if you're going toget a bad review and especially
if you can, like you said,demonstrate your customer
service process on full displayby responding to them quickly
(15:10):
and getting it solved and allthat stuff.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Yeah, and people know that nobody's perfect.
I think that's what it boilsdown to and I don't think people
are expecting perfection.
And I think that part of methinks, hey, if I'm a consumer
and I'm looking at a business, Iwant to know that if something
goes wrong, if somebody makes amistake or if there's, you know,
(15:33):
some kind of unavoidable mishap, I want to know, I want to feel
comfortable this business isgoing to deal with that well and
they have and they take care ofthe customer and they want to
make things right.
Because at the end of the day,it all boils down to that issue
of trust.
The whole point of thesereviews is that they're going to
try and get somebody fromsomebody that's just surfing and
(15:56):
browsing your Google businessprofile or your website to
somebody that's going to pick upthe phone and take an action,
and anything you can do toincrease that trust is going to
help you.
And if there's a nagging doubtat the back of somebody's mind
because they're looking at thisbusiness that's been around for
15 years and they've only everhad five-star reviews, all it
(16:17):
takes is that little naggingdoubt or that little negative
effect to that trust factor thatthey might just not, they might
just not pick up the phone.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
That's good, so yeah.
So now we know why we should betrying to get reviews.
What process should we be using, or what processes have you
seen other painting businessesuse, in order to make sure that
their business is constantlygetting reviews, whether that's
five star or maybe four star ormaybe one star?
What process should that you'veseen be most successful in
(16:51):
painting businesses?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
successful and painy businesses.
Yeah, and I would.
I would, I would to lead intothis.
I would say that sometimes thebest, the best defense against
bad reviews is a good offenseand is getting you know for
every every one bad review youget.
You get a hundred good reviews,or something like that, and the
only way you do that is byhaving that constant review
engine.
A couple of thoughts about howto do it.
(17:17):
Well, I think the first thingis SOPs.
We hear about SOPs for all thewalks of life on the production
side of running a paintingbusiness, but you should really
think about an SOP for gettingreviews, and the reason I say
that is that it needs to besomething that isn't a manual
process.
(17:37):
You know you're not expecting auh, you know you don't want to
have something where you're justtelling texts like, hey, or
telling painters, hey, we, youknow we need to go and get more
reviews, and then some of themare good at it, some of them are
bad of it.
Um, it's an easy thing to drop,it's an awkward conversation.
It needs to be something that'sbuilt into your process.
That would be the first place Iwould start, and the easiest
(17:59):
way to make it something that'sbuilt in is just by automating
it, and whether that's nice job,whether that's a similar
software or whether that'ssomething that you do yourself.
That would be.
Step one is how do I, how do Ibuild in an automated process to
either to getting a text or anemail out, or something like
that, to my customer?
That way it becomes somethingthat you don't have to worry
(18:23):
about, particularly if you're abusiness owner.
You don't have to say right atthe end of every day, I need to
send out three text messages tocustomers, or I need to go
through all the differentcustomers I had this week and
get things out.
It's unrealistic, it's notscalable and it's going to have
worse effects than if you justautomated.
And then the second thing ishow am I following up when I go
(18:46):
and speak, like when I was downat the PCA?
I think the biggest takeawaythat I want people to kind of
leave with is what's myfollow-up process?
Because people want to help youout.
They're just busy.
And I think a lot of paintersget frustrated because they know
that reviews matter.
(19:06):
They ask their customers toleave a review.
The customer says, yeah, I'lldefinitely do that.
And then you know they check aweek later and it hasn't
happened.
And then that's.
Then they kind of get into themindset of oh well, you know,
they check a week later and ithasn't happened, and then that's
.
Then they kind of get into themindset of oh well, you know, it
doesn't work for me.
My customers just don't leavereviews, and that's, that's a.
That's a very kind of piece ofnegative self-talk that I hear
(19:26):
quite frequently.
Um, but the chances are if theyjust followed up, it would be a
completely different picture.
To give you an insight into,that, Nice Job has a four-step
process to get reviews fromcustomers.
We send a text message after thecompletion of a job and then we
have three follow-up emails.
And if you were to look at theperformance of those individual
(19:48):
steps, one through four, thefirst text message is always the
best performing one, and thereason for that is you're asking
at the right time.
Timing matters with thesethings.
Somebody has just come in.
They've seen their brand newpainted kitchen.
They're like, oh, this isawesome.
And they get a text right, thenasking for review.
You've got a lot of momentum onyour side.
But after that, the next bestperforming step is the fourth
(20:11):
one, and so it just shows thevalue of that follow-up and that
just shows me that these peopleare on your side, you're not
bugging them, they don't getannoyed with you.
You know we've got 30,000 homeservice professionals on NiceJob
and that data across theperformance of those steps is
consistent across the piece.
(20:31):
It just shows us the value ofhaving that process and that's
and it comes back to theautomation piece and why that's
so important.
Cause I talked to painters andsay, hey, how many of you have
got time to follow up four timeswith every single customer?
And then I'm going to say,oscar, not in your life, but if
you can automate that processand build that in so you don't
have to think about it, that'swhen you really start doing some
(20:53):
damage with with gettingreviews yeah, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
It's really interesting that the it makes
sense that the first requestwould be that the most responded
to, but the fourth one, yeah,is the second most, not the
second or third one.
That's interesting that itworked.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
It works out like that yeah, it's amazing, and I
often look at accounts like Iwas looking at one Actually.
Yeah, so we work with guys fromA1 Painting, a1 Painting Plus I
don't know if it's, I forgetthe exact name, but I met them
down at PCA I think it's Laceyand they actually have a
(21:31):
five-step process.
They've added another messageonto their nice shop campaign
that happens 30 days after thefourth one, and it's crazy how
many.
They've added another 200reviews just from that, just
from that step alone.
Um, and so I just think aboutall the painters that are just
leaving reviews on the tablejust because they're not
(21:52):
building a a stronger follow-upprocess.
You know, if you're just doingone message, great Like at least
it's a start, that's betterthan just not asking, and at
least you have that automationand you're doing something.
But I kind of I promise peoplethat are listening that if you
have the ability somehow tobuild in a multi-step follow-up
(22:12):
process, you're going to beamazed at the results you get.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, no, that's really good.
Um, one of the things that I'veheard, the hesitancy with
automating this is, you know,they, they might be afraid, oh,
I'm, I'm uh, annoying people,which you kind of addressed,
that we kind of saw through thedata that you're not really
(22:38):
annoying people.
They just haven't got to it yet, they're busy.
But does Nice Job have a way torealize, when someone has
actually gave that review, it'snot going to keep reminding them
to give that review, right,yeah, we do?
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yeah, we do, and I think that's kind of our secret
sauce, if you will.
It's this ability to match yourcustomers up with the names you
know of people that are leavingthe reviews, so that we're only
following up with the peoplethat haven't left it.
Now I would say the caveat tothat is it can never be 100%,
(23:17):
because occasionally you'll seethat somebody leaves a review
and they spell their name wrongor they use a random initial
instead of their name, sooccasionally the odd person kind
of falls through the net.
But by and large, it's thereason that we can build this
amazingly robust campaign isbecause we have the ability to
(23:38):
only follow up with the peoplethat need reminders.
Yeah, that's crucial.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Yeah that's awesome, okay, cool.
So I'd like to try to dig intoreferrals, because referrals are
huge.
I mean getting referrals and ifyou can get your business to
grow off of referrals, that'sjust money in your pocket.
So you don't have to go out andpay for Facebook ads, you don't
(24:02):
have to pay for direct mail,you don't have to go door
knocking If you can get yourreferrals up high enough.
That's where you want to beright.
So what have you seen?
Work with painting businesses.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
As far as getting referrals, the first thing I
would say is that, um, just inthe comparison of reviews versus
referrals, I think referralshave this amazing reputation
because you know they're superhot leads.
Um, people don't often have towork hard to close them.
(24:37):
But often the downside toreferrals is it's often a
one-to-one relationship Onecustomer makes.
Maybe you're lucky and theymake two or three referrals, but
often they might just refer youto somebody else they know that
needs it.
The power of reviews is thatthere's a limitless number of
people that can see that reviewand it almost acts like a
(24:59):
referral in and of itself outthere in the market.
So I think that's aninteresting thing to look at
those two things and for peopleto really refocus on.
Where am I going to direct mostof my energy?
I would probably direct most ofmy energy towards reviews, but,
that being said, referrals.
(25:23):
I think the difference withreferrals is that it's difficult
to kind of pinpoint that exactmoment, because often people
don't know somebody off the topof their head right there, and
then that is looking forsomebody, and what you really
need to to build into yourreferral strategy is is
consistency over a longer periodof time and so where, in order
to get a review, you might lookat a time horizon of two weeks
(25:45):
to build a campaign, whereas ifyou want to enroll somebody into
a referrals campaign, so withthe nice job referrals product,
ours runs over over six monthsand I think that cadence of
nudging people and remindingthem, but over a much longer
time horizon, is much moreeffective than just bombarding
(26:07):
them in the short instance,particularly with projects like
painting, where it doesn't comearound too often that somebody
is looking to do a paintingproject.
So that's one thing, the otherpiece.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
So I'm sorry, I was just saying that makes sense
because you might have anoutstanding experience with,
with somebody and completelyyeah, I'd refer you, but you
know, I I don't right now, Idon't know anybody that's
getting their house painted, soI wouldn't be able to give a
referral, even if I wanted to.
Yeah, so you know, but over thenext six months, maybe in a
(26:42):
year, maybe that, maybe thatwill come up and be like oh yeah
, I know somebody, exactly, andit's just about staying top of
mind.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
It's just about making sure that you're touching
them enough times over a longerperiod so that when something
does come up they know who tothink of.
And the other thing you canthink about is just using
incentives in your referral,like making sure you're letting
people know that if you do dothis, you know either there's a
gift card in it for them,there's a discount off a future
service, or there's somethingthat you can offer where you can
(27:09):
incentivize that referral.
Kind of coming back to that,you know the poor Charlie's
almanac piece about.
You know, if somebody knowsthere's something in them for
them, they're more likely toremember to do it and they're
more likely to think of you overa competition.
So I would say that again, withreferrals, a lot of the same
principles apply.
The more you can automate it.
(27:31):
I would say asking for referralsfor painters is even more of an
awkward conversation thanasking for reviews, because
you're kind of asking somebodyto tap into their personal
network and to kind of almostput themselves on the line
vouching for this other person.
So again, the more you can takeyourself and your own kind of
personal embarrassment out ofthat situation and hand it over
(27:54):
to a pre-built campaign, themore success you're going to
have.
And the other thing I would sayis the importance of having
some mechanism to track yourreferrals, so having some way of
knowing where the lead camefrom and who they came from, so
that way you can follow throughon any of those promises you've
(28:16):
made of incentives or thingslike that, and that way you can
also give a more dedicated salesfunnel to that lead that came
through.
You know you can drop the nameof the person that referred them
.
You can use that project as anexample when you're going
through your estimates orwhatever.
So, yeah, so trackingeffectively tracking referrals
is really important.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Yeah, are there any particular incentives that
you've seen work exceptionallywell for doing a referral
program, like whether it's adiscount on future services or
just cash?
Is there any particular onethat you've seen work
particularly well?
Speaker 2 (28:56):
I think it depends on service line.
I think if you're lucky to bein a space where you have a lot
of repeat business, likeexterior cleaning for example,
it's much easier for you tooffer those future service
discounts.
I think in painting, wheresomebody may not have they might
not be looking at an exteriorrepaint for another five years
(29:18):
or something it's difficult tobuild up the same level of
excitement with a futurediscount.
So I would be veering towardsgift cards or some sort of
tangible physical gift.
I think the nice thing about agift over a discount is that you
can really look and touch andfeel it and it is likely to have
(29:40):
knock-on effects of turningthat person to even more of a
vocal support of your business.
Um, so I would kind of belooking down those lines if I
was a painter, but I can't saythat I've seen.
Um, I want to add the caveatthat this is just me thinking
off the top of my head.
It's not.
It's not based on any anyscience.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah so we talked about reviews, referrals.
How do we tie these things intoour overall organic marketing
strategy?
What can we do to really makeourselves shine in our
communities and to get ourorganic marketing going by
(30:24):
leveraging those two thingsreferrals and reviews?
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Yeah, I think it's the difference between being
passive in your approach andbeing kind of proactive and on
the front foot.
And I think if you have anintentional strategy towards
review generation, you will see.
(30:48):
You know you will seeimprovements and you will see
benefits.
Just from some of the stuff wetalked about earlier.
You know you'll start showingup more, your phone's going to
ring more but, like you'retalking about, you know there
are.
There is way more that you cando to actually put the
customer's voice at the frontand center of your marketing
approach and we know, based onthe data, it's going to land
(31:11):
with consumers and it's going tohelp you.
The first couple of things youcan think about is how am I
using my reviews on my website?
How am I using my reviews on mysocial media?
Those are two kind of reallyeasy places to start.
Social media is one where Iknow that painters are
encouraged whenever they go tosome sort of marketing, whenever
(31:34):
they hear a marketer talk aboutthe importance of being on
social media and being present,and it doesn't matter if it's
good.
You know you just have to dothings the whole time and I
think that can be daunting andintimidating because you have to
be constantly thinking ofcontent.
Well, the good news is that afive-star review is super easy
content that you don't have todo anything to.
You just have to blast it outthere and people love to look at
(31:55):
it.
It's free, easy and performsreally well content-wise On your
website.
When it comes to your website, Ithink there's really easy ways
that you can sync your reviewsautomatically to your website
and that just has an immediateimpact on the trust factor.
(32:16):
Now, if I go to a painter'swebsite and I read a bunch of
testimonials that are justwritten in the same copy as the
website and it's done in thesame style and they're
permanently written on thereagain, those things are ringing
in my mind, have been like it.
Does this person exist?
Did they just type it up?
You know it's all slightlyunbelievable, but if they are,
(32:40):
if you have some kind of widgeton there that is linking you
know a, a live stream of yourreviews as and when they're
coming in, so you can see thathey, this review was left on
Google two days ago.
It completely transforms thatbelievability from that website.
So, and there are free toolsout Sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
I was going to say, and I think nice job, has a
widget where you can actuallyjust plug that in.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
There you go.
I was going to.
I was going to talk about freetools, but, yes, it's all
included in the Nice Job product.
So Nice Job has a number ofdifferent widgets that we do put
on there and they have anamazing impact on the conversion
rate of that website.
So how many visitors areactually turning into leads?
That's what we look at.
But over and above those twothings, daniel, I think there's
an amazing opportunity to kindof leverage your reputation or
(33:31):
what people are saying in youradvertising strategy.
So are you looking through yourreviews and are you seeing what
do people like?
If I know that people in myarea like the fact that I'm on
time, am I talking about that inmy paid ads?
If I know that people in myarea like the fact that I'm on
time, am I talking about that inmy paid ads?
If I know that people reallylike the fact that I'm
knowledgeable, am I saying youknow the most knowledgeable
(33:52):
painter in Vancouver, orsomething?
These are really easy ways thatyou can have a kind of holistic
approach to your marketing,using the voice of the customer.
And then, if you want to goover and above that, you know
there's loads you can do, youcan put it.
You can put reviews on youryard signs, on your truck wraps,
on your t-shirts.
You know you can get creativewith it, but I think it's really
(34:13):
it comes from thatphilosophical change of how am I
shifting from a ad copy thatI'm writing into marketing copy
that my customers are writing?
Speaker 1 (34:24):
copy that I'm writing into marketing, copy that my
customers are writing.
Yeah, yeah, and I really likethe idea of coming through your
reviews and seeing the voice ofyour customer, like you said,
and also just using thefive-star reviews as easy
content, like social medias,like you said.
We keep hearing over and overagain we got to keep posting on
social media and that's justlike such an easy thing, low
(34:47):
hanging fruit.
That's amazing, because whodoesn't want to show off the
five-star review?
And people are interested, likeyou said.
So, yeah, I think that's greatCool.
Are there any other things thatyou would recommend paying
business owners to consider,things that you would recommend
painting business owners toconsider, whether it be
referrals, reviews, organicmarketing, anything that we
(35:10):
haven't covered so far?
Speaker 2 (35:13):
I would say, I'd say I'd say one thing that's
particular to painters.
That I think is a good way totake.
Like, if you're doing reviewsalready, a good way to take it
to the next stage is thinkingabout how you, how you can make
those reviews visual.
Are you attaching photos of thework you did to those reviews?
(35:35):
A really, really great thingyou can do is actually, when
you're sending a review invitesout to people, why not just
attach a photo of the of thefinished product and just remind
people of what you did,particularly in those follow-up
messages?
That's been proven to have animpact on A the number of people
that leave the review, but alsoB the overall rating impact
(35:56):
that I have.
People are much more likely toleave those great reviews if
they're just reminded of theawesome work that you did.
One thing that NiceJobs recentlybuilt is we've built an
integration into CompanyCam, theproject management software,
that has a kind of inbuilt photocapture tool and we're a month
(36:18):
into having this integration andit's amazing to see.
You know we have painters thatare taking before and after
photos on CompanyCam, syncingthem automatically to nice job
and then when that review invitegoes out by a nice job, the
customer sees it before andafter photo and that's just like
a really, really cool thingthat you can build into your
approach.
And then think about that fromthe backend or the marketing
(36:40):
side, when that's turned into asocial post and everybody else
is seeing the work that you did,along with the, with the review
that you did.
If somebody is going onto yourwebsite and they're seeing a
bunch of before and after photoswith attached reviews of happy
customers, it's like you're justtaking a review strategy from
kind of a two to a seven, youknow, overnight.
So I think that would besomething I would add for sure.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Oh, yeah, that's awesome, awesome.
A company came integrationpulling in those pictures and
it's the before and after areincorporated into those
automated follow-ups, like, hey,we, we did your.
Uh, here's what we did, just asa reminder, like to get a
review from you.
That's awesome, that's super,that's super cool, cool, well,
(37:22):
awesome, oscar, I reallyappreciate your time.
How can folks learn more about?
Uh, nice job and and how canthey get a hold of you?
Speaker 2 (37:31):
yeah, I mean I would say on nice job um, check us out
, google nice job, read ourreviews.
That'll tell you everything youneed to know.
Um, our website isgetnicejobcom and everything
that you need to see is on there.
My email is oscar at nicejobcomReally easy to remember, I
(37:54):
would say.
If you're a PCA member, we are anational business partner of
the PCA, so there are discountsavailable to PCA members to try
NiceJob.
Even still, we have a 14-dayfree trial that everybody gets
just to try out the software andgive it a go.
The nice thing about that freetrial is it's not just you
(38:14):
kicking around having a look atthings.
We can take your last sixmonths of customers and run a
campaign out to all of them.
So we have people that can get20, 30 reviews just in the first
two weeks of using NiceJob,which is nice when it's
completely for free.
After that, if people areinterested, nicejob is 75 bucks
a month.
So again, you talk aboutsomething that really doesn't
(38:34):
break the bank for somethingthat is a pretty foundational
part of your marketing approach.
If you can generate 100 to 200new reviews a year that bring in
a whole bunch of business, niceJob is very quickly going to
pay for itself.
So yeah, I'd love to talk toanyone.
Feel free to reach out.
I'd love to chat.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Amazing, Awesome.
Thank you, Oscar.
I really appreciate your timeand for those listening.
We will talk to you next week.
Thank you, Daniel.
Welcome to the Profitable Painter Podcast.
The mission of this podcast issimple to help you navigate the
financial and tax aspects ofstarting, running and scaling a
professional painting business,from the brushes and ladders to
the spreadsheets and balancesheets.
We've got you covered.
But before we dive in, a quickword of caution.
While we strive to provideaccurate and up-to-date
financial and tax information,nothing you hear on this podcast
(00:22):
should be considered asfinancial advice specifically
for you or your business.
We're here to share generalknowledge and experiences, not
to replace the tailored adviceyou get from a professional
financial advisor or taxconsultant.
We strongly recommend youseeking individualized advice
before making any significantfinancial decision.
(00:42):
This is Daniel, the founder ofBookkeeping for Painters, and
today I'm here with Oscar WimHurst.
Oscar is the head ofpartnerships at Nice Job, the
reputation marketing platformthat helps painters win reviews
four times faster.
A reformed investment banker,oscar now loves helping small
businesses grow and get thereputation they deserve.
Welcome to the podcast, oscar.
(01:03):
How's it going?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
It's going really well, Thanks Daniel.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Awesome.
So can you tell me about yourjourney from starting in
investment making to working atNice Jobs?
How did that come about?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, it kind of coincides with the move from the
UK to Canada.
So I'm English People may haveworked that out by now but I
post university I worked for sixor seven years in London in the
city, and so I was in kind ofinvestment management.
(01:38):
So I was working with ultrahigh net worth individuals,
institutions, kind of managingtheir investments, helping them
save tax, that sort of stuff,and it was, you know, a suit and
tie, commuting into the cityevery day kind of job.
And having done that for anumber of years, my girlfriend
(01:59):
now wife and I made the decisionthat we wanted to kind of move
abroad and try a different lifesomewhere else, and so we moved
to Canada.
I now live in Vancouver, bc,and my kind of one aim when we
moved here work-wise was to notwear a suit.
And so I was kind of reallyinterested in getting into the
(02:22):
kind of software space and endedup taking a job, daniel, with a
company you might be familiarwith but Bench Accounting, up
here in Vancouver, so like abookkeeping software company,
and I was working inpartnerships there and I loved I
just loved the difference ofworking with small businesses
(02:44):
and contractors versus workingwith the ultra high net worth
and just the level offulfillment you get from
providing us a tool or a servicethat dramatically impacts
somebody's day-to-day life,versus maybe saving them a few
million dollars in tax orwhatever.
So that was kind of how I madethat switch max or whatever.
(03:07):
So that was kind of how I madethat switch.
And then, um, my wife, sarah,is actually working at nice job
in in the product team for anumber of years.
She started back in 2019 and,um, a couple of years ago just
let me know that they werelooking to kind of build out
their partnerships function andrecommended that I speak to the
guy that was, you know, the VPof partnerships for the group
and initially I thought it was aterrible idea us kind of
(03:30):
working under the same roof forthe same company.
But had the conversation anywayand every time I spoke to
somebody from Nice Job I reallyliked the mission that they were
on, the people they were tryingto help, the problems they were
trying to solve.
So I ended up taking the roleand it's having a look back.
It's been great, it's awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
So I'm excited about this topic.
Today we're talking aboutreviews, referrals, reputation
management, organic marketing.
I'm super excited to get intothings.
It kind of reminds me of I justfinished reading poor charlie's
almanac.
He goes into all the differenttendencies that we have and
(04:13):
humans have in their, theirbrains.
One of them social prooftendency, like if you see social
proof that makes you morelikely you're gonna buy because
you want to.
You know, follow what everyoneelse is doing.
And also you have theincentive-caused bias If you
have an incentive to dosomething, you're more likely
going to do it.
And these tendencies we canleverage to our benefit in our
(04:35):
businesses by kind of gettingthat key into that lock and
unlocking those tendencies,using them to our advantage,
which gets into the reviews, thereferrals, that sort of thing.
And so I guess we can startwith reviews.
Let's talk about the power ofonline reviews.
How have you seen onlinereviews change, painting
(04:59):
businesses' growth, and whatimpact has that had on clients'
businesses?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, it's pretty huge.
I think my first exposure to itreally outside of checking
reviews in my own life foranything that I ever buy my
first exposure to it was when Iwas a college student and I had
a kind of a door-to-door salesjob.
I would come and fly over tothe US in my summer breaks and
(05:31):
sell books door-to-door, and oneof the kind of core tenants
that we were taught by one ofthe senior guys in the company
is that, hey, the reason peoplebuy is they like you, they like
your product and they like thefact that other people are
buying it.
And often that third piece ofthe puzzle is like can be the
biggest element there.
That exactly what you'retalking about, that social proof
(05:52):
, that added trust, thatevidence that people like the
service, like the products areworking with you, can have.
And you know, years later nowall the marketing data tells us
the story.
You know we, we know that nineout of 10 people begin their
their search for service onGoogle.
We know that that same 90% ofpeople probably trust the voice
(06:16):
of the customer and reviews waymore than they trust any ad copy
or any sales copy or anythingthat a salesperson might tell
them about the service over thephone.
So so we know that these thingsmatter just in terms of
businesses being chosen, evenjust to pick up the phone and
call them.
But what's interesting is howreviews really the role that
(06:41):
they play in actually havingpainters show up where they need
to show up.
You know, it's all very wellbeing chosen because your
reviews are good, but how do youactually get found in the first
place?
And the interesting thing aboutreviews is that they help you
show up without having to spend.
You know the thousands andthousands of dollars that you
might feel like you need tospend in order to be competitive
.
(07:04):
Where this is most important iswhat's known as the Google
three-pack, the map pack.
People kind of call itdifferent things, but that kind
of little Google map square thatshows up at the top of a Google
search about 95% of the timewhen you're searching for a
local service.
The three things that powerthose.
Usually there's three companiesthat show and maybe like a
local service ad, like asponsored company that's in
(07:26):
there, and what powerssomebody's appearance in that
list is three things relevance,distance and prominence.
Now, relevance and distance,you know.
Distance you can't really domuch about either they're in
your area or they're not.
Relevance you can do stuffabout that.
Have you got all the rightservice tags on your business
profile?
(07:46):
Are you correctly displayingwhat you do as a company?
But the third one, thatprominence piece, is a big
factor, and that's Google tryingto figure out how well known is
this business, how prominentare they?
How much work are they doing inthe community?
Do people like the work?
And the only way they canreally figure that out is
ratings and reviews, and sothat's maybe like one thing that
(08:09):
people are getting tounderstand.
Now A lot of painters are justfiguring out that reviews are
having a big role in themactually showing up in the first
place, and if you get in thatmap pack, the results are
amazing.
When you talk aboutclick-through rates people
actually clicking on thatbusiness and going and checking
them out it's something like 45%in the map pack versus 8% if
you're not in it.
So these days it's not evenenough just showing up on the
(08:32):
first page of Google.
You actually have to show up inthat map pack to really make a
difference.
So that's the first kind ofthose are the two things I think
where reviews just simplyhaving a huge impact.
One is helping people be found,and the other one is helping
them be chosen.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, that's huge.
I was actually just talking toBrandon Pierpont of Painter
Marketing Pros about this andhis recommendation if you're a
painting business that's under amillion, definitely focus on
getting those reviews Because,like you said, you can get in
that map pack and just focus onthe basics.
(09:08):
Having that review captureprocess that you're always
getting more and more reviewstopic.
(09:28):
One of the hesitations thatoften comes up is especially
with using automation.
If you're using automation,like an automated follow-up to
get a review is what if I get abad review or there's a
hesitancy there?
Where should I send this out?
Because I think they are okaywith what we did, but maybe not.
But maybe I'm getting a badreview.
What?
What's your take on on on, uh,bad reviews?
Speaker 2 (09:48):
yeah, it's, it's a fascinating topic like we could
do a podcast just on that,daniel.
But just just quickly onbrandon's point, I think he's, I
think he's bang right.
You know, I think if you'rethinking about your marketing
approach in general, it'simportant to kind of walk before
you can run and and therereally is no point going crazy
and starting to spend, you know,thousands on ads if you haven't
(10:09):
got the reviews and thereputation to back it up.
You know you're just going toget frustrated with your
marketing company because you'respending all this money.
People are coming to find youbut they're going with your
competitor because they've got abetter reputation.
So and then on the flip side,if you're over a million and
you're working with a marketingcompany, by having a really
great review strategy, you'rejust going to improve your
(10:30):
overall return.
You're going to, you're goingto get more bang for your buck
with your marketing dollars justby focusing on that one piece
of the puzzle.
So yes, it's super importantpart of your overall kind of
marketing stack if you were tolook at it that way.
But yeah, to get to your umquestion on bad reviews, I think
it's um part of.
(10:51):
It is a bit of a kind of partof it is a almost a kind of
philosophy shift and a mindsetshift.
Um for, for business owners andthe tricky thing is, I think
it's hard, you know, if you'veinvested a lot of emotional
energy and physical energy intobuilding and growing this
business, and the thought ofsomebody not appreciating what
(11:14):
you're doing or using a publicforum to kind of say something
negative about your business canbe a really stressful thing to
worry about.
But I would say, as you look atit, volume is always more
important than, to an extentlike I'm not saying you should
just go and just go mad and havea three-star rating with 5,000
(11:35):
reviews.
That's not going to be good.
But the volume and thefrequency of reviews here is the
important piece of the puzzlein helping with these things
that we just mentioned.
And if you have a 4.7 or 4.8star rating with 250 reviews,
often you're going to look likea much more authentic business
than somebody that has 30reviews at a perfect five star
(11:57):
rating.
Everybody knows that peoplerunning small businesses are
always going to run into thosepeople that you just can't
please and you try your hardest.
Maybe it's some misalignedexpectations, maybe it's
somebody asking something thatyou just you could never do and
you try your best to make themhappy but you just can't and
(12:18):
they're unreasonable.
These people exist and if youstart thinking about your
reviews as a public forum forpeople to trust your business,
then you kind of start worryingless, I think, about those bad
reviews, because what matters isnot that the review was left,
it was how was it dealt with,and often those bad reviews and
(12:42):
how people respond to them givethe consumer a much better
insight into that company.
That, at the end of the day,allows them to feel good about
picking up the phone and callingthem.
If you see somebody that left abad review and the business
owner responded personallysaying, hey, I'm sorry, you had
this experience.
We really want to make thisright.
Feel free to call me at thisnumber and we'll make it better.
(13:05):
That's an incredibly powerfulthing to see and it's a chance
for you as a business owner todisplay how much you care about
your customers, to give ademonstration of your customer
service in a public space.
And then if you get theconsumer that came back and they
left a little like some peoplesay, hey, would you mind
deleting that review?
If they figure it out.
I think the best thing to do isgo back and leave a little edit
(13:28):
at the bottom saying hey, justthe edit to this.
I got in touch with a businessowner.
He was awesome.
I'm in a much better spot.
You know that's.
I would say that's like a sixstar review.
You know, it's super, superpowerful.
I was at the PCA expo, daniel,with you guys, and I had a guy
called Brian come up to me, Ithink he said I could use this.
He said I could use this story,so I'm going to use it.
He works for Riggins Paintingand he said hey, I had a
(13:52):
customer about two months ago.
She was very open with me andshe said the only reason I
called you guys is because Iread your bad reviews and so
people are used to it.
They know that it's out there.
It's not going to turn peopleoff like one bad review.
What matters is your responseand how you deal with them.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Yeah, I think that's key.
That's a great point, becauseif I just reflect on how I use
reviews, when I'm looking atwhether it's purchasing a book
on Amazon or a service or goingto a restaurant, I look at the
bad reviews and it does lookweird.
(14:28):
If someone's just five-star andit's just like okay, that's
weird.
You almost suspect somethingthat's going on there.
Are these just bots reviewingthem?
But then I look at the badreviews and look at the business
owner's response or thereasoning that the person had
(14:49):
for giving a bad review, because, like you said, there are crazy
people out there, as we allknow.
So I think other people knowthat too, so they are somewhat
understanding if you're going toget a bad review and especially
if you can, like you said,demonstrate your customer
service process on full displayby responding to them quickly
(15:10):
and getting it solved and allthat stuff.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Yeah, and people know that nobody's perfect.
I think that's what it boilsdown to and I don't think people
are expecting perfection.
And I think that part of methinks, hey, if I'm a consumer
and I'm looking at a business, Iwant to know that if something
goes wrong, if somebody makes amistake or if there's, you know,
(15:33):
some kind of unavoidable mishap, I want to know, I want to feel
comfortable this business isgoing to deal with that well and
they have and they take care ofthe customer and they want to
make things right.
Because at the end of the day,it all boils down to that issue
of trust.
The whole point of thesereviews is that they're going to
try and get somebody fromsomebody that's just surfing and
(15:56):
browsing your Google businessprofile or your website to
somebody that's going to pick upthe phone and take an action,
and anything you can do toincrease that trust is going to
help you.
And if there's a nagging doubtat the back of somebody's mind
because they're looking at thisbusiness that's been around for
15 years and they've only everhad five-star reviews, all it
(16:17):
takes is that little naggingdoubt or that little negative
effect to that trust factor thatthey might just not, they might
just not pick up the phone.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
That's good, so yeah.
So now we know why we should betrying to get reviews.
What process should we be using, or what processes have you
seen other painting businessesuse, in order to make sure that
their business is constantlygetting reviews, whether that's
five star or maybe four star ormaybe one star?
What process should that you'veseen be most successful in
(16:51):
painting businesses?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
successful and painy businesses.
Yeah, and I would.
I would, I would to lead intothis.
I would say that sometimes thebest, the best defense against
bad reviews is a good offenseand is getting you know for
every every one bad review youget.
You get a hundred good reviews,or something like that, and the
only way you do that is byhaving that constant review
engine.
A couple of thoughts about howto do it.
(17:17):
Well, I think the first thingis SOPs.
We hear about SOPs for all thewalks of life on the production
side of running a paintingbusiness, but you should really
think about an SOP for gettingreviews, and the reason I say
that is that it needs to besomething that isn't a manual
process.
(17:37):
You know you're not expecting auh, you know you don't want to
have something where you're justtelling texts like, hey, or
telling painters, hey, we, youknow we need to go and get more
reviews, and then some of themare good at it, some of them are
bad of it.
Um, it's an easy thing to drop,it's an awkward conversation.
It needs to be something that'sbuilt into your process.
That would be the first place Iwould start, and the easiest
(17:59):
way to make it something that'sbuilt in is just by automating
it, and whether that's nice job,whether that's a similar
software or whether that'ssomething that you do yourself.
That would be.
Step one is how do I, how do Ibuild in an automated process to
either to getting a text or anemail out, or something like
that, to my customer?
That way it becomes somethingthat you don't have to worry
(18:23):
about, particularly if you're abusiness owner.
You don't have to say right atthe end of every day, I need to
send out three text messages tocustomers, or I need to go
through all the differentcustomers I had this week and
get things out.
It's unrealistic, it's notscalable and it's going to have
worse effects than if you justautomated.
And then the second thing ishow am I following up when I go
(18:46):
and speak, like when I was downat the PCA?
I think the biggest takeawaythat I want people to kind of
leave with is what's myfollow-up process?
Because people want to help youout.
They're just busy.
And I think a lot of paintersget frustrated because they know
that reviews matter.
(19:06):
They ask their customers toleave a review.
The customer says, yeah, I'lldefinitely do that.
And then you know they check aweek later and it hasn't
happened.
And then that's.
Then they kind of get into themindset of oh well, you know,
they check a week later and ithasn't happened, and then that's
.
Then they kind of get into themindset of oh well, you know, it
doesn't work for me.
My customers just don't leavereviews, and that's, that's a.
That's a very kind of piece ofnegative self-talk that I hear
(19:26):
quite frequently.
Um, but the chances are if theyjust followed up, it would be a
completely different picture.
To give you an insight into,that, Nice Job has a four-step
process to get reviews fromcustomers.
We send a text message after thecompletion of a job and then we
have three follow-up emails.
And if you were to look at theperformance of those individual
(19:48):
steps, one through four, thefirst text message is always the
best performing one, and thereason for that is you're asking
at the right time.
Timing matters with thesethings.
Somebody has just come in.
They've seen their brand newpainted kitchen.
They're like, oh, this isawesome.
And they get a text right, thenasking for review.
You've got a lot of momentum onyour side.
But after that, the next bestperforming step is the fourth
(20:11):
one, and so it just shows thevalue of that follow-up and that
just shows me that these peopleare on your side, you're not
bugging them, they don't getannoyed with you.
You know we've got 30,000 homeservice professionals on NiceJob
and that data across theperformance of those steps is
consistent across the piece.
(20:31):
It just shows us the value ofhaving that process and that's
and it comes back to theautomation piece and why that's
so important.
Cause I talked to painters andsay, hey, how many of you have
got time to follow up four timeswith every single customer?
And then I'm going to say,oscar, not in your life, but if
you can automate that processand build that in so you don't
have to think about it, that'swhen you really start doing some
(20:53):
damage with with gettingreviews yeah, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
It's really interesting that the it makes
sense that the first requestwould be that the most responded
to, but the fourth one, yeah,is the second most, not the
second or third one.
That's interesting that itworked.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
It works out like that yeah, it's amazing, and I
often look at accounts like Iwas looking at one Actually.
Yeah, so we work with guys fromA1 Painting, a1 Painting Plus I
don't know if it's, I forgetthe exact name, but I met them
down at PCA I think it's Laceyand they actually have a
(21:31):
five-step process.
They've added another messageonto their nice shop campaign
that happens 30 days after thefourth one, and it's crazy how
many.
They've added another 200reviews just from that, just
from that step alone.
Um, and so I just think aboutall the painters that are just
leaving reviews on the tablejust because they're not
(21:52):
building a a stronger follow-upprocess.
You know, if you're just doingone message, great Like at least
it's a start, that's betterthan just not asking, and at
least you have that automationand you're doing something.
But I kind of I promise peoplethat are listening that if you
have the ability somehow tobuild in a multi-step follow-up
(22:12):
process, you're going to beamazed at the results you get.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, no, that's really good.
Um, one of the things that I'veheard, the hesitancy with
automating this is, you know,they, they might be afraid, oh,
I'm, I'm uh, annoying people,which you kind of addressed,
that we kind of saw through thedata that you're not really
(22:38):
annoying people.
They just haven't got to it yet, they're busy.
But does Nice Job have a way torealize, when someone has
actually gave that review, it'snot going to keep reminding them
to give that review, right,yeah, we do?
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yeah, we do, and I think that's kind of our secret
sauce, if you will.
It's this ability to match yourcustomers up with the names you
know of people that are leavingthe reviews, so that we're only
following up with the peoplethat haven't left it.
Now I would say the caveat tothat is it can never be 100%,
(23:17):
because occasionally you'll seethat somebody leaves a review
and they spell their name wrongor they use a random initial
instead of their name, sooccasionally the odd person kind
of falls through the net.
But by and large, it's thereason that we can build this
amazingly robust campaign isbecause we have the ability to
(23:38):
only follow up with the peoplethat need reminders.
Yeah, that's crucial.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Yeah that's awesome, okay, cool.
So I'd like to try to dig intoreferrals, because referrals are
huge.
I mean getting referrals and ifyou can get your business to
grow off of referrals, that'sjust money in your pocket.
So you don't have to go out andpay for Facebook ads, you don't
(24:02):
have to pay for direct mail,you don't have to go door
knocking If you can get yourreferrals up high enough.
That's where you want to beright.
So what have you seen?
Work with painting businesses.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
As far as getting referrals, the first thing I
would say is that, um, just inthe comparison of reviews versus
referrals, I think referralshave this amazing reputation
because you know they're superhot leads.
Um, people don't often have towork hard to close them.
(24:37):
But often the downside toreferrals is it's often a
one-to-one relationship Onecustomer makes.
Maybe you're lucky and theymake two or three referrals, but
often they might just refer youto somebody else they know that
needs it.
The power of reviews is thatthere's a limitless number of
people that can see that reviewand it almost acts like a
(24:59):
referral in and of itself outthere in the market.
So I think that's aninteresting thing to look at
those two things and for peopleto really refocus on.
Where am I going to direct mostof my energy?
I would probably direct most ofmy energy towards reviews, but,
that being said, referrals.
(25:23):
I think the difference withreferrals is that it's difficult
to kind of pinpoint that exactmoment, because often people
don't know somebody off the topof their head right there, and
then that is looking forsomebody, and what you really
need to to build into yourreferral strategy is is
consistency over a longer periodof time and so where, in order
to get a review, you might lookat a time horizon of two weeks
(25:45):
to build a campaign, whereas ifyou want to enroll somebody into
a referrals campaign, so withthe nice job referrals product,
ours runs over over six monthsand I think that cadence of
nudging people and remindingthem, but over a much longer
time horizon, is much moreeffective than just bombarding
(26:07):
them in the short instance,particularly with projects like
painting, where it doesn't comearound too often that somebody
is looking to do a paintingproject.
So that's one thing, the otherpiece.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
So I'm sorry, I was just saying that makes sense
because you might have anoutstanding experience with,
with somebody and completelyyeah, I'd refer you, but you
know, I I don't right now, Idon't know anybody that's
getting their house painted, soI wouldn't be able to give a
referral, even if I wanted to.
Yeah, so you know, but over thenext six months, maybe in a
(26:42):
year, maybe that, maybe thatwill come up and be like oh yeah
, I know somebody, exactly, andit's just about staying top of
mind.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
It's just about making sure that you're touching
them enough times over a longerperiod so that when something
does come up they know who tothink of.
And the other thing you canthink about is just using
incentives in your referral,like making sure you're letting
people know that if you do dothis, you know either there's a
gift card in it for them,there's a discount off a future
service, or there's somethingthat you can offer where you can
(27:09):
incentivize that referral.
Kind of coming back to that,you know the poor Charlie's
almanac piece about.
You know, if somebody knowsthere's something in them for
them, they're more likely toremember to do it and they're
more likely to think of you overa competition.
So I would say that again, withreferrals, a lot of the same
principles apply.
The more you can automate it.
(27:31):
I would say asking for referralsfor painters is even more of an
awkward conversation thanasking for reviews, because
you're kind of asking somebodyto tap into their personal
network and to kind of almostput themselves on the line
vouching for this other person.
So again, the more you can takeyourself and your own kind of
personal embarrassment out ofthat situation and hand it over
(27:54):
to a pre-built campaign, themore success you're going to
have.
And the other thing I would sayis the importance of having
some mechanism to track yourreferrals, so having some way of
knowing where the lead camefrom and who they came from, so
that way you can follow throughon any of those promises you've
(28:16):
made of incentives or thingslike that, and that way you can
also give a more dedicated salesfunnel to that lead that came
through.
You know you can drop the nameof the person that referred them
.
You can use that project as anexample when you're going
through your estimates orwhatever.
So, yeah, so trackingeffectively tracking referrals
is really important.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Yeah, are there any particular incentives that
you've seen work exceptionallywell for doing a referral
program, like whether it's adiscount on future services or
just cash?
Is there any particular onethat you've seen work
particularly well?
Speaker 2 (28:56):
I think it depends on service line.
I think if you're lucky to bein a space where you have a lot
of repeat business, likeexterior cleaning for example,
it's much easier for you tooffer those future service
discounts.
I think in painting, wheresomebody may not have they might
not be looking at an exteriorrepaint for another five years
(29:18):
or something it's difficult tobuild up the same level of
excitement with a futurediscount.
So I would be veering towardsgift cards or some sort of
tangible physical gift.
I think the nice thing about agift over a discount is that you
can really look and touch andfeel it and it is likely to have
(29:40):
knock-on effects of turningthat person to even more of a
vocal support of your business.
Um, so I would kind of belooking down those lines if I
was a painter, but I can't saythat I've seen.
Um, I want to add the caveatthat this is just me thinking
off the top of my head.
It's not.
It's not based on any anyscience.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah so we talked about reviews, referrals.
How do we tie these things intoour overall organic marketing
strategy?
What can we do to really makeourselves shine in our
communities and to get ourorganic marketing going by
(30:24):
leveraging those two thingsreferrals and reviews?
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Yeah, I think it's the difference between being
passive in your approach andbeing kind of proactive and on
the front foot.
And I think if you have anintentional strategy towards
review generation, you will see.
(30:48):
You know you will seeimprovements and you will see
benefits.
Just from some of the stuff wetalked about earlier.
You know you'll start showingup more, your phone's going to
ring more but, like you'retalking about, you know there
are.
There is way more that you cando to actually put the
customer's voice at the frontand center of your marketing
approach and we know, based onthe data, it's going to land
(31:11):
with consumers and it's going tohelp you.
The first couple of things youcan think about is how am I
using my reviews on my website?
How am I using my reviews on mysocial media?
Those are two kind of reallyeasy places to start.
Social media is one where Iknow that painters are
encouraged whenever they go tosome sort of marketing, whenever
(31:34):
they hear a marketer talk aboutthe importance of being on
social media and being present,and it doesn't matter if it's
good.
You know you just have to dothings the whole time and I
think that can be daunting andintimidating because you have to
be constantly thinking ofcontent.
Well, the good news is that afive-star review is super easy
content that you don't have todo anything to.
You just have to blast it outthere and people love to look at
(31:55):
it.
It's free, easy and performsreally well content-wise On your
website.
When it comes to your website, Ithink there's really easy ways
that you can sync your reviewsautomatically to your website
and that just has an immediateimpact on the trust factor.
(32:16):
Now, if I go to a painter'swebsite and I read a bunch of
testimonials that are justwritten in the same copy as the
website and it's done in thesame style and they're
permanently written on thereagain, those things are ringing
in my mind, have been like it.
Does this person exist?
Did they just type it up?
You know it's all slightlyunbelievable, but if they are,
(32:40):
if you have some kind of widgeton there that is linking you
know a, a live stream of yourreviews as and when they're
coming in, so you can see thathey, this review was left on
Google two days ago.
It completely transforms thatbelievability from that website.
So, and there are free toolsout Sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
I was going to say, and I think nice job, has a
widget where you can actuallyjust plug that in.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
There you go.
I was going to.
I was going to talk about freetools, but, yes, it's all
included in the Nice Job product.
So Nice Job has a number ofdifferent widgets that we do put
on there and they have anamazing impact on the conversion
rate of that website.
So how many visitors areactually turning into leads?
That's what we look at.
But over and above those twothings, daniel, I think there's
an amazing opportunity to kindof leverage your reputation or
(33:31):
what people are saying in youradvertising strategy.
So are you looking through yourreviews and are you seeing what
do people like?
If I know that people in myarea like the fact that I'm on
time, am I talking about that inmy paid ads?
If I know that people in myarea like the fact that I'm on
time, am I talking about that inmy paid ads?
If I know that people reallylike the fact that I'm
knowledgeable, am I saying youknow the most knowledgeable
(33:52):
painter in Vancouver, orsomething?
These are really easy ways thatyou can have a kind of holistic
approach to your marketing,using the voice of the customer.
And then, if you want to goover and above that, you know
there's loads you can do, youcan put it.
You can put reviews on youryard signs, on your truck wraps,
on your t-shirts.
You know you can get creativewith it, but I think it's really
(34:13):
it comes from thatphilosophical change of how am I
shifting from a ad copy thatI'm writing into marketing copy
that my customers are writing?
Speaker 1 (34:24):
copy that I'm writing into marketing, copy that my
customers are writing.
Yeah, yeah, and I really likethe idea of coming through your
reviews and seeing the voice ofyour customer, like you said,
and also just using thefive-star reviews as easy
content, like social medias,like you said.
We keep hearing over and overagain we got to keep posting on
social media and that's justlike such an easy thing, low
(34:47):
hanging fruit.
That's amazing, because whodoesn't want to show off the
five-star review?
And people are interested, likeyou said.
So, yeah, I think that's greatCool.
Are there any other things thatyou would recommend paying
business owners to consider,things that you would recommend
painting business owners toconsider, whether it be
referrals, reviews, organicmarketing, anything that we
(35:10):
haven't covered so far?
Speaker 2 (35:13):
I would say, I'd say I'd say one thing that's
particular to painters.
That I think is a good way totake.
Like, if you're doing reviewsalready, a good way to take it
to the next stage is thinkingabout how you, how you can make
those reviews visual.
Are you attaching photos of thework you did to those reviews?
(35:35):
A really, really great thingyou can do is actually, when
you're sending a review invitesout to people, why not just
attach a photo of the of thefinished product and just remind
people of what you did,particularly in those follow-up
messages?
That's been proven to have animpact on A the number of people
that leave the review, but alsoB the overall rating impact
(35:56):
that I have.
People are much more likely toleave those great reviews if
they're just reminded of theawesome work that you did.
One thing that NiceJobs recentlybuilt is we've built an
integration into CompanyCam, theproject management software,
that has a kind of inbuilt photocapture tool and we're a month
(36:18):
into having this integration andit's amazing to see.
You know we have painters thatare taking before and after
photos on CompanyCam, syncingthem automatically to nice job
and then when that review invitegoes out by a nice job, the
customer sees it before andafter photo and that's just like
a really, really cool thingthat you can build into your
approach.
And then think about that fromthe backend or the marketing
(36:40):
side, when that's turned into asocial post and everybody else
is seeing the work that you did,along with the, with the review
that you did.
If somebody is going onto yourwebsite and they're seeing a
bunch of before and after photoswith attached reviews of happy
customers, it's like you're justtaking a review strategy from
kind of a two to a seven, youknow, overnight.
So I think that would besomething I would add for sure.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Oh, yeah, that's awesome, awesome.
A company came integrationpulling in those pictures and
it's the before and after areincorporated into those
automated follow-ups, like, hey,we, we did your.
Uh, here's what we did, just asa reminder, like to get a
review from you.
That's awesome, that's super,that's super cool, cool, well,
(37:22):
awesome, oscar, I reallyappreciate your time.
How can folks learn more about?
Uh, nice job and and how canthey get a hold of you?
Speaker 2 (37:31):
yeah, I mean I would say on nice job um, check us out
, google nice job, read ourreviews.
That'll tell you everything youneed to know.
Um, our website isgetnicejobcom and everything
that you need to see is on there.
My email is oscar at nicejobcomReally easy to remember, I
(37:54):
would say.
If you're a PCA member, we are anational business partner of
the PCA, so there are discountsavailable to PCA members to try
NiceJob.
Even still, we have a 14-dayfree trial that everybody gets
just to try out the software andgive it a go.
The nice thing about that freetrial is it's not just you
(38:14):
kicking around having a look atthings.
We can take your last sixmonths of customers and run a
campaign out to all of them.
So we have people that can get20, 30 reviews just in the first
two weeks of using NiceJob,which is nice when it's
completely for free.
After that, if people areinterested, nicejob is 75 bucks
a month.
So again, you talk aboutsomething that really doesn't
(38:34):
break the bank for somethingthat is a pretty foundational
part of your marketing approach.
If you can generate 100 to 200new reviews a year that bring in
a whole bunch of business, niceJob is very quickly going to
pay for itself.
So yeah, I'd love to talk toanyone.
Feel free to reach out.
I'd love to chat.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Amazing, Awesome.
Thank you, Oscar.
I really appreciate your timeand for those listening.
We will talk to you next week.
Thank you, Daniel.
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