August 5, 2025 • 53 mins
Most roofing companies pour time and money into getting leads… but then blow it when it counts most.
In this episode, Josh Crouch shares how to STOP leaving money on the table. You’ll learn:
✅ The #1 mistake roofers make after leads come in (and why it happens)
✅ How automation and AI can follow up faster than your team ever could
✅ The easiest way to plug the holes in your sales process without hiring more admin
✅ Why being the fastest to reply—even if you’re not the cheapest—wins jobs
✅ Simple automations that help you book more appointments, nurture leads, and stay top of mind
Josh isn’t just a tech guy, he’s been in the trenches hauling furnaces through Wisconsin winters. Now he helps contractors use technology to grow without chaos.
If you’re tired of slow follow-up and lost sales, this episode will show you how to finally get control.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What do you do when the winter is the coldest in 30
years, your company's down tothree techs and you're running
furnaces around town just tosurvive?
In this episode, we're sittingdown with Joshua Crouch to
explore how he went from gruntwork in the HVAC world to
launching multiple businessesand becoming one of the leading
voices in home servicesautomation.
(00:20):
Josh is the co-host of theService Business Mastery podcast
and the founder of RelentlessDigital and Trade Automation
Pros.
He's built the name aroundusing automation and AI to
eliminate inefficiencies andcreate better customer
experiences in service business.
Joshua isn't just a tech-savvyentrepreneur.
(00:43):
He's someone who knows exactlywhat it's like to work a 20 hour
day delivering furnaces duringa snowstorm and still showing up
the next day asking how do wemake this thing better?
If you've ever felt stuckbetween growing your business
and drowning in manual tasks,this episode is a goldmine.
We're breaking down realautomation strategies you can
(01:06):
use today to stop leaving moneyon the table, let's jump in with
Joshua Crouch.
Welcome to the Roofing SuccessPodcast.
I'm Jim Alleyne and I'm here tobring you insights from top
leaders in the roofing industryto help you grow and scale your
roofing business.
Joshua Crouch, how's it goingtoday?
(01:27):
Service Business MasteryPodcast.
Relentless Digital man, it'sgood to have you on.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, we got a few things goingon.
There's always opportunitiesout there and, honestly, I just
can't keep my hands off ofopportunities.
So we just keep buildingbusinesses and seeing what we
can do with them.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
That's the way to go, man.
We've, you know, we've gottento know each other through a
mastermind group in the digitalmarketing space and um, and
through the podcast space andshared a lot of things there.
You've shared a lot with me.
You guys have a very successfulpodcast in the home services
space and uh, and wanted to haveyou on and talk about marketing
and talk about you know,business in general and for my
(02:10):
audience.
Now this is the roofing space.
You got all you HVAC guys andyou know all those you know you
could.
You know it's a littledifferent business, but let's
introduce you to the roofingindustry.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, so I first of all appreciate it.
I've always enjoyed our chats,jim, especially when we're
getting in person and some ofthose events that we go to.
But so my name is Joshua Crouchand I was an HVAC contractor
for nine years.
I worked at three differentHVAC companies and cut my teeth
there.
I am not a technician.
(02:43):
I'm definitely better atbusiness, sales, operations,
marketing, technology.
That's where I've always lived.
I've been a grunt when my teamneeded it.
I've hauled in and out furnacesand air conditioners and did
all the grunt work.
But I'm not the guy that'sgoing to probably turn the
wrench real well, and my wifeknows that.
So I am not allowed to hang anypictures or anything on the
(03:05):
wall anywhere, because when we Imoved to Arizona about three
years ago when we were inWisconsin, I would do it and I
just thought, fine, I know theright stuff, but I just just
couldn't quite get the holesright.
So I made too many holes thathad to get patched up, and so I
just I stick to what I'm good atand I hire for everything else.
I stick to what I'm good at andI hire for everything else.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
That's a good way to do things.
That's a that sounds like you,uh, you're, you're focused on
being a business owner.
Then not, not, not, uh, uh, notself-employed.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
I will.
I will say it it thatphilosophy has served me very
well.
Um, you don't think about it atthe time, so you're kind of
like, oh man, I'm a man, Ishould be able to do this stuff.
But honestly, it served me verywell because I know what I'm
good at and what I'm not good atand I hire for the things I'm
not good at, and that's reallysomething that's really helped
(03:54):
propel our digital marketingcompany, our podcast.
We even have a company thathelps coaches.
It's not really home.
It doesn't have to be homeservice specific it anyone in my
.
It's not really home, itdoesn't have to be home service
specific.
It's called trade automationpros.
We teach people how to useautomation and ai together to
really get the outcomes theywant.
With all that with.
We all know that you probablygot all your listeners probably
(04:15):
shaking their head at this.
They probably got 10, 15, 20,30 softwares.
They don't all communicatetogether, so data has to get
entered here and here and here,especially when it comes to
proposals, and then invoicingand all these sorts of things or
leads coming in, and it justgets like it's very difficult.
It's very time consuming work.
You have to hire more adminpeople or VAs and it's just.
(04:35):
It's a mess and it just createsunnecessary complication and
additional overhead.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Yeah, it's amazing to me that people still do so many
manual actions when there areso many tools available.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
I think they're scared of it.
To be honest, like I, I haveasked this question probably a
dozen times in the last four orfive years and the response is
always.
I always chuckle because I'mlike if you could automate
anything, what would youautomate?
And most people are like Idon't know, what can I automate?
They don't know.
(05:12):
They don't know that this stuffexists.
We take it for granted whenwe're in the space that you and
I have been in, that weliterally see these tools
everywhere, all day, all thetime, and we get accustomed to
using them and people just don'tunderstand that the stuff is
out there and we can take datafrom multiple places, put it
into one thing and make it dosomething else, and it just
(05:35):
happens on repeat.
We don't even know what'shappening.
It just keeps happening, and sowe we go around.
We do a lot of presentations athome service shows.
You will see us at roofingshows later this year and next
year.
So we will see you guys willcrash the party, um, but we'll,
we'll try to bring some of thatstuff to the roofing space as
well.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
that's awesome and and it's really, you know, it's
some of it's a lot of the stuffthat we did at roofer marketers
and our job nimbus marketing.
You know the.
You know we really focused onthat up front lead generation.
And you know the.
You know we really focused onthat upfront lead generation.
And you know I've had, you knowwe work in the roofing and
solar reform alliance with AdamBenzman and he's you know,
launching, launching a programabout how to be your own, the GC
(06:19):
of your own marketing, and oneof the things that that we see
on the marketing side is thateveryone just thinks about the
lead but not what happens afterthe lead comes in.
And it's been so challenging.
But that's where the automationcomes in, that's where the AI
comes in, that's where all ofthese things fill the gaps,
(06:41):
because I'm sure at every HVACbusiness that you worked in,
everyone made their phone callswhen they were supposed to.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, no.
So my first experience was sothe first year I was in the
trades was 2013.
I didn't know what I was doing.
I didn't grow up in the trades.
I don't have some of thetypical stories that you hear
where it's like I grew up in thetrades of second, third
generation or my father's unclewas in the trades and brought me
in.
I literally went to a job ad.
I've always loved numbers, dataand statistics so I thought
(07:13):
accounting was going to be mycareer.
I found out pretty quickly.
I hated accounting because itwas boring.
And no offense to any accountsI love you, you're great, I need
you we all do but it justwasn't for me.
And so I found a job ad as anaccountant for this local HVAC
company I never heard of.
I got the job.
I wasn't a very good accountant.
I very quickly kind of tookover office management because I
(07:36):
did grow up in a small familymartial arts environment.
So we had three schools.
I ran two of those schoolsmyself when I was young, so I
did have some businessexperience.
And then our marketing was likewhatever I could create on
whatever program was up in early, late 2000s, early 2010s.
So I had some chops there, butto do it for an HVAC company
(07:59):
when someone needed demand.
I had no idea what I was doing.
The winter of 2013 comes in andI don't know if you remember
this winter, because I'm sureyou had the same weather I did
in being in Wisconsin.
It was the coldest winter in 30years.
The day I walked in March of2013,.
We had 20 techs by September.
We had three because wecouldn't pay people on time and
(08:22):
I didn't really know this at thetime.
I was writing their net payrollchecks.
I didn't realize we weren'tpaying with fully.
I didn't really know this atthe time.
I was writing their net payrollchecks, I didn't realize we
weren't paying with fully.
I didn't.
I didn't know any of this stuff.
We weren't paying withholdingtaxes.
We owed our only line of creditto get new equipment, which, in
the HVAC space, you getequipment every day Like.
You need a line of credit wasthe time it took for me to write
a check, drop it at the bankand the bank to cash it.
(08:44):
So we had like a two day lineof credit.
Nobody would give us a line ofcredit because the business
owner that I worked for hadterrible credit in a bankruptcy
on his right Just all the badthings.
Like it was.
It was the best learningexperience I've ever had in my
life and it was also probablythe most stressful three years
of my life.
That's probably when I startedlosing my hair because I saw the
(09:04):
potential.
We had a really big customerlist, but then we had this
winter, so we went from beingable to serve with 20 techs to
three and then the coolestwinter in 30 years hits.
We have a customer list ofabout 30,000 people and we got
our ass handed to us.
I was literally out.
I was more of a parts runnerthat year.
(09:25):
I just literally was runningfurnaces, picking furnaces up,
dropping them off, going to thesupply house Like you stay at
the job, I'm going to like runin between Milwaukee and Madison
.
It was a shit show it was.
We ended up getting it all.
We started learning and Istarted getting a little bit
better and and and we startedfiguring things out.
We started paying our taxes.
We paid the tax debt and allthose things, but it was like a
(09:47):
massive learning experience.
But to talk about making phonecalls and this is where the
story started from was 2014,.
It was a very mild winter.
I've never experienced thisbefore.
And between Thanksgiving andChristmas, we all know a lot of
people don't like spending money.
And between Thanksgiving andChristmas, we all know a lot of
people don't like spending money, especially on things like
(10:08):
roofing, hvac, maybe plumbing,because of Thanksgiving, but
they don't want to spend money.
So I had to start outboundcalling and setting up tune-ups
and I had no idea what I wasdoing and I hated it Literally
hated it.
And at that time texting peoplewas not an option.
Reaching out with all thedifferent things we have today
(10:29):
was not really an option.
We didn't our.
Our crm that we use was a dosbased system that nobody knew
how to operate, so it was allkeyboard and I had no idea what
I was doing like.
I couldn't pull reports Icouldn't get, we didn't have
email address.
We had nothing like.
We just so poorly ran for somany years.
I learned a lot of veryvaluable things very quickly.
(10:50):
But outbound calling candefinitely work it still works
today it's just it's not fun.
It's really not at all.
I hated it.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, and it's amazing how many of the calls
don't get answered or don't getresponded to.
And it's amazing how many ofthe calls don't get answered or
don't get responded to Now, 10years later.
Think about it like we're only10 years later.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
It's a completely different world.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
It was unrecognizable from when I started,
unrecognizable right, and it'sonly been 10 years and it's
moving fast.
What are the most effectiveautomations that you see
companies putting into place?
That that like that 80, 20 rulewhere they get like put, put
these in place.
(11:36):
That's an 80%.
The others fill the gaps andreally make that, make up the
difference.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Yeah, that's an awesome question and a lot of
times people want to get reallyspecific and really complicated
when they start learning whatautomation can do.
But honestly, if you focus onjust a few core things, one for
me is anywhere you get a lead,have a speed to lead system
Immediately, immediate textmessage or email, whatever is
more comfortable for you,because every market is a little
(12:04):
different.
That way, some people arereally active with text, some
markets.
Everyone hates text, everyone'slike stop, unsubscribe, I hate
you.
But speed of lead.
So web form, submissions, chaton the website, anything with a
Facebook lead form.
If you have a web form thatyou're sending Google ads to,
(12:27):
angie, homeadvisor, thumbtack,even Yelp has an API now, so you
can.
Anytime you get leads in thosesources, you can funnel those
into a conversational whetherit's an AI bot or someone
answering it, at least sendingthe first text message out and
starting the conversation.
And then what's nice is becauseyou can funnel all of those
things into one place.
(12:48):
You can put them in a pipelineso that way somebody can manage
the pipeline internally if youdon't want to use some sort of
AI system to constantly followup, and that would be like you
got to get that in place.
Missed call text backs is huge.
Everyone thinks they don't missany calls until we like we as
an agency you guys might've donethis too we have an entire call
(13:11):
tagging team.
Pretty soon we'll have an AIanalysis tool that you can
immediately, instantly know whathappened with those
opportunities.
And what will happen isCallRail and other tools will
say the call was answeredbecause they thank you, that
this call may be recorded.
Thanks for calling ABC Roofing.
This call may be recorded.
The technology says that wasanswered.
Well, then it rings four timesand then somebody hangs up and
(13:35):
it happens all the time.
I think I've seen our missedcall rate like 15 to 17% of all
calls, and that's over tens ofthousands of calls per month.
So do the math, you can figurethat out Like it's a lot of
missed opportunity.
And so just those things ingeneral.
Just tighten up the ship, plugthe holes, if you will, in your,
in your, in your leaking bucket, and you're instantly going to
(13:58):
be more profitable and book morejobs.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, that's.
That's the first thing to do,right?
It's making sure that you'renot leaving money on the table.
We did some analysis at Rooffor Marketers and it was at a
time when we analyzed this.
There was 40% of leads thatcame into that we helped
generate for companies wereunanswered or or or or not
(14:25):
responded to, so they're notresponding too quickly like I've
seen some studies done.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
It's crazy, literally .
Um, I think the company'svalvometer.
They're out of indianapolis,they do a little home service.
They do some other stuff too.
They have multiple industriesthey serve.
But they did a study of like500 contractors or something
like this and it's from like2022 or 23, during COVID and
they found that like the like 40or 45% of contractors didn't
(14:51):
reply within five days.
Like just being fast, you don'teven have to be good, just
being fast is a leg up from yourcompetition.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, I have a, we have.
We have our lake house innorthern Minnesota you know
about the lake homes inWisconsin there and I called a
gutter company to have aconversation about getting some
new gutters on the place andthey gave me a call back in 28
days.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
It was convenient for them at that point.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
By that time I'd had someone drive up from
Minneapolis, complete the joband go home and been paid before
they even called me back.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Yeah, and the thing is that business probably
doesn't even they probably don'teven realize it because it's
just the way they've been doingbusiness, but they're.
They're spending money onmarketing or a company or
someone.
Internally they're just blowing.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Or someone said you should.
This is how they came about.
Was I asked around?
Hey, who could I use for this?
Oh, use, use, so-and-so.
So now they have peoplechampioning, championing their
business, and they don't eventhey don't even call back.
That championing ended at me,it's over.
(16:12):
Before we carry on with theepisode, let's give a shout out
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(16:35):
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(16:56):
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journey today.
They don't even call back.
Right, like that.
Championing ended at me, likeit's over.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Yeah, I was making a YouTube video the other day for
our channel and one of thethings I talked about was we're
not like your quality of work.
You may be the best.
The company that answered in 28days may be the best gutter
company the world has ever seen,but it doesn't matter.
There's so many othercompetitors.
(17:34):
Somebody else will do close togood enough work and they'll get
paid, and you don't need to bethe best.
Sometimes the focus on theselittle like being the best just
gets us in our head Like youneed to also serve the customer.
The customer is really whatmatters, and being fast is going
to get you way more business.
And that's just one I shouldsay one automation, because it
(17:58):
is multiple things you got toconnect to one place, but it's
one set of automations that isgoing to make your ROI and your
marketing spend and your netprofit go up, Because you're
already spending that money.
You might as well get theopportunities that are coming
with that, or at least knowwhere you're weak.
There's tools out there.
Now we're creating one calledPhoneTap.
It's an AI call analysis.
(18:18):
It's an instant AI callanalysis tool which can automate
workflows based off of outcomes.
So think of like qualified leadnot booked because of pricing
objection, and now that might bemore home service Cause we have
like service fees.
I know roofers probably go outfor like free estimates a lot,
but whatever the case is forthat type of business, then you
can automatically alert amanager, an owner, somebody in
(18:41):
your business to go do somethingwithin five minutes of that
call being hung up before theyget the work done, before they
get to somebody else.
And it's stuff like that thatreally is what contractors need.
It's the stuff that's going tomake decision making very simple
for them and very effective.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
That's a good thing, a good, a good thought process
for people as they're, as we'removing into, especially into the
AI age.
Right, like, what can, what canyou do that that helps you get
to those decisions faster, thatget that gets you to those,
those, um, those things thatmatter, those things that'll
move the needle quickly?
Um, what other, what otherparts of of companies are you
(19:22):
seeing automations done?
Well, like we're on the frontend of the funnel here.
This is awareness considerationinto the buying decision a
little bit.
Where else are you seeing a lotof automation and AI being
implemented?
Speaker 2 (19:37):
The most obvious one, and this doesn't matter what
business type you're in or whatyou do for a service, but it's
it's estimate followups.
We all know when new jobs comein, new estimates come in, the
salespeople are going to run tothe new one and they might
eventually get back to the otherones, but we all know the stat
like the, the, the magic isbetween touch point seven and 12
(19:59):
.
Most people follow up maybeonce or twice, and so having a
system where you have nurtureand this gets into a broader
discussion about contentmarketing, because I think a lot
of people, one contractors as awhole have gotten better at
creating content, but they don'tcreate enough of it and that
(20:20):
content you create servesmultiple purposes I think this
is a concept that doesn't reallyget talked about a lot.
It's like you've got to createcontent Okay, cool, why and what
and how and what's the purpose,because some content like this,
for example, this for me, is avery, very top of the funnel.
I just want you to know that weexist.
(20:41):
It's top of funnel.
Just know that RelentlessDigital exists and you can
always reach out for questionsif you have them as you get down
to the middle of the funnel.
If somebody booked an estimatewith you, they want to know you
know maybe, the materials youuse.
What's the warranty?
Why should they choose you oversomebody else?
What are your core values?
Maybe some video testimonialsof happy customers you've served
(21:03):
in the past that live in theirmarket?
Things like that can be reallyvaluable middle of funnel
towards bottom of funnel contentto get them to actually move
forward with something.
And I think contractors I seesome people do really well,
really funny stuff online.
But it's the content drivingpeople from top of funnel hey,
I'm aware of your company downto my solution and how it can
(21:26):
help you Really takes practiceand skill.
So the more you practice, themore you get accustomed to it,
the more you pay attention tocontent marketing, you'll start
to see that it will all cometogether.
But the content market isn'tjust for the social media
platform.
It's for email.
It's for sending prospects thatare in your pipeline.
(21:46):
It's for sending people thatmaybe don't know if they want to
get an estimate on the roof.
Maybe they're in the.
There's a little leak.
I don't know if I need someone,or my.
I know my roof sold but I don'tknow if it needs to be replaced
yet, but they're not really.
They're trying to do researchphase.
Content can help becauseeveryone absorbs content
differently.
Um, email video text posts,local Facebook groups, Um, and
(22:12):
it's just.
It served me extremely well atthe last two HVAC companies that
I was at and then my marketingcompany now, and, of course,
with the podcast, we put outepisodes every week.
Content marketing is thecurrent and probably future
currency, especially as AIbecomes this massive behemoth of
a thing and we don't know whoto trust anymore.
(22:32):
Being authentic on camera andshowing the authentic brand and
the people and who you are andwhat you do for the community is
going to become, I think, evenmore powerful, because a lot of
people are using it just toregurgitate a bunch of stuff.
Right now, this is like howmuch crap can I put out and
hopefully it sticks and I growand I get followers?
Speaker 1 (22:51):
yeah, I just did a podcast recently.
Uh, the guys from East CoastRoofing Systems out in
Philadelphia area and, if Iremember right they talked about
their content is almost.
It's so educational.
Just, they want their customersto be so well-educ, educated,
(23:13):
before they reach out to them.
That's just a goal.
I think it's a mindset thingwith content.
Content is hard.
There's a I guess business ishard in terms of needing leads,
right like there's a need fornew business and so so much
effort goes into that now andnew business, that a lot of the
(23:37):
other things.
It's like well, I'll do thatone day.
I'll do that someday.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
One day never happens One day never happens.
Just do it.
Just do it Literally.
Turn your camera on.
It doesn't matter if the soundsucks, if the quality of the
video sucks, just start andthere's, you know.
I mean I know you know thisbecause there's a lot of tools
out there that can help.
I think a lot of people likethey don't know what to create a
content on.
One of the easiest ways I tellpeople is go to a tool like
(24:10):
answerthepubliccom oralsoaskedcom.
You get free searches, freesearches, yep, and they just
pull people also ask questionsfrom Google.
So type in roofing replacement,roofing repair.
They'll give you 200 or 300ideas on content to create and
this is literally search enginessaying hey, people also who
search this term also searchthese questions.
So it's like a hidden key tothe kingdom.
(24:34):
Just start shooting.
You know the content doesn'thave to be great.
It doesn't have to be movieproduction.
Honestly, I've seen contentthat doesn't get edited perform
way better than stuff that's gotfancy edits and fancy camera
and everything else, especiallywhen it comes to local
businesses, because people knowyou're not going to have a huge
budget for like movie levelproduction.
Grow into that at some point.
Then you can all be tommymellow and be this big audacious
(24:58):
guy.
He's got cameras following himeverywhere.
But the for the, the rest of us, mere mortals, just just start
with your phone, because thequality of everything on there
is great it is, and it that's agreat one.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
So it google's essentially telling you what
it's google's data and whatpeople are searching for.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
So you can't know where to look right.
I mean, that's the key,everything.
Just if you can cut through thenoise and just like hey, I got
two tools today, let's go createa free account, type in
something that's relevant, thatyou want to create some maybe
you want to create some contenton and just see what ideas pop
up.
Most of them have an exportfeature so you can export them
into like a Google sheet or anExcel document.
And now you have a massive listand then when you get new free
(25:41):
searches the next day or nextweek or whenever they renew,
just do another one, put thislist together and then, honestly
, what I like to do is I timeblock and I will.
I usually record one hour aweek.
Now, at this point, becausewe've been doing it so long, I
have actually hired someone toliterally help me with like
content, ideas and all that kindof stuff.
But when I started out, Iliterally just like I found a
(26:04):
question, I just answered thequestion and just start basic
Act like if you have to havesomeone literally ask you the
question while you're on camera,they'll be behind the camera
and just answer the question tothe best of your knowledge and
post that.
It can be as simple as that.
It doesn't have to be somefancy thing.
And then, once you get used toit, you get better.
And then you start diving intoit and you want to improve and
(26:26):
you want to improve the editingand add some B-roll and all of
those things.
But everybody gets started withjust a camera and their first
videos suck.
So don't worry.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
They will suck, but it's okay.
Who should?
Speaker 2 (26:44):
be on camera for a company.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
It's a great question .
Speaker 2 (26:53):
My personal opinion, is the owner, especially if
you're privately held is theowner especially if you're
privately held is the owner.
It's one reason we've neverdone social media for clients is
because it is extraordinarilyhard to speak their brand into
existence regularly.
We can create graphics and wecan put stuff together to, you
know, put some information outthere that's valuable and
educational, but speaking thebrand and like that brand voice,
(27:14):
everybody's got a littledifferent way of going about it.
The best content we alwayscreated was when I did it in
house or I had a team and Itrained them how to what I
wanted them to say, and theyjust kind of get used to the way
I talk and the way I pushthings through it.
It's the best way to putcontent out.
And I know that sucks to hear.
If you're an owner, maybe, andif you're lucky and you have a
(27:34):
big enough organization, maybeyou have a GM, a service manager
, uh, someone in a high levelposition that wants to create
content.
Maybe you have techs that wantto create content.
I've seen, uh, companies usetheir techs.
They're really um, they'rehigher level technicians and
they help them create content.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
but typically it starts with the owner them
create content, but typically itstarts with the owner.
Yeah, in most cases it's got,it's got to be the owner.
Um, in my opinion too, um, itstarts there.
But I've seen a lot.
I've seen some companies thatdo a good job of getting the
team involved, and I think it'sit's a special thing when they
(28:11):
do.
But it's a lead by example alittle bit right.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Well, you can have a lot of fun with it.
So they're not in the roofingspace but for anyone listening,
I would go find climate expertsin Florida.
His name is Derek Cormier.
Their content is hilarious.
They have some of the funniestkids.
They usually take some sort oftrending thing and they take it
for the trades.
Their hvac and plumbing companycontent is is hilarious.
(28:38):
Like I don't typically watch alot of home service content
because I'm not really theaudience for that, but it's
hilarious like I actually watchtheir videos because this is
hilarious, so I always take timeto watch their stuff.
So if you want some inspirationand you feel like you got a
creative team, derek would bethe person to reach out to,
because he's he's doing a greatjob.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Yeah, that's awesome and that's that's the thing.
You have to be yourselves in it, right?
So I would assume, if I met theowners of of that company,
that's their personality, right.
That's the culture that they'vebuilt in that company.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
They're, they're probably, it's, probably's,
probably oh yeah, there's teammembers in almost every single
one of his videos and, honestly,I've gotten to the point like I
recognize the team membersalmost more than I recognize him
, because I've seen every videothat I watch.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Yeah, I think there's a little.
You know, we kind of talk aboutautomation and ai a little bit
and in content, but, like man,this thing is changing fast.
You know we we now have zero, alot of zero click searches on
Google for people that don'tunderstand what that is.
It's, it's the answer beingpresented without having to go
(29:44):
to a website or or anotherproperty.
You know, more people are goingto asking questions on chat,
gpt and cloud and perplexity andall the other AI solutions.
What do you see changing indigital marketing right now?
I know you're enjoying theepisode, but let's give a shout
(30:05):
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(30:55):
We now have a lot of zero-clicksearches on Google For people
that don't understand what thatis.
It's the answer being presentedwithout having to go to a
website or another property.
More people are going to askingquestions on ChatG, gpt and
cloud and perplexity and all theother AI solutions.
(31:16):
What do you see changing indigital marketing right now?
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Well, I have some good news.
The local side, like the peoplethat are searching for a
service company near me like theservice you offer near me, or
in my area, for a servicecompany near me like the service
you offer near me or in my areathat I don't.
I think Google would have amassive war on its hand if they
got rid of the Google businessprofile.
And the Google business profileis still where a lot of people
go to local search BecauseChatGBT, if you ever ask it for
(31:46):
like reviews and stuff, I'veseen it pull TripAdvisor reviews
for the trades.
It's either that or it'spulling from Bing Places Bing
reviews for the trades.
It's either that or it'spulling from Bing Places.
Bing Places is connected toFacebook and most contractors
don't get a lot of reviews onFacebook, so it's not very
reliable.
So the good news is the localside.
So very bottom of the funnelcustomer knows they need to hire
someone and they're going totry to pick a provider.
I think that's safe for now.
(32:09):
I say for now because we don'tknow, but you're absolutely and
honestly, I think a lot ofpeople think chat GPT is
stealing all their traffic.
It's actually AI overviews onGoogle stealing their traffic.
I did an audit for a plumbingcompany, cause I was just like
why is the traffic in thewebsite goes?
I was looking at their rankings.
I'm like nothing's reallychanged here and they've ranked
(32:30):
for a lot of blogs like eitherone, two or three.
And so I started.
I went into a incognito browserwhere I can use the ai overview
, because the when you have aworkspace account for a reason,
it doesn't work as well.
Um but, and I started typing inthe same exact query I was
finding in google search consoleand, sure enough, they're still
there as one of the sources,but the answer is right there
(32:50):
for them.
And then by the time you got totheir actual blog post and I
have a 32-inch monitor I had toscroll to get to the first blog
post because the answer wasright there.
So they were sourced in the AIoverview.
They were still the number oneblog position, but they lost
probably 60% to 70% of thetraffic to their website and it
(33:12):
was all informational blog styletype content.
So it's I don't know if anyonehas the answer for that yet,
because that's going to be thenorm moving forward.
So it's chat.
Gbt is probably stealing sometraffic the same way, but yeah,
google itself is stealing amajority of your traffic right
now, whether whether you know itor not.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Yeah, and it's special.
So those queries just forpeople listening.
A lot of times thoseinformational queries didn't
have ads on them Not yet theydidn't right.
So the local search resultshave ads.
There's Google ads.
There's local services adsright.
There's the spot in the.
There's the Google ad in themap section.
There in the GBPs right.
(33:54):
There's Google ads.
There's local services adsright.
There's the spot in the.
There's the Google ad in themap section.
There in the GBPs right.
There's revenue being generatedon that local on the bottom of
funnel roofing company near meAsphalt shingle versus metal
roofing.
There was no ads there.
So, if you think about it, fromGoogle's P&L they can't get rid
of.
Just as you were saying thatI'm like they can't get rid of
(34:16):
that.
They can't disrupt theirrevenue stream in that way.
They can't take that out.
That's the P&L, that's whatthey're funding everything else
with.
Is our Google ads money, right?
So so it is.
You know that's a realizationthat you're probably a little
bit safer there.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Well at some point.
I know ChatGPT is technically anon-profit but they're going to
have to run ads.
They got tens of billions ofdollars in funding.
Those investors want that moneyback.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Someone's going to get their money back At some
point they're going to have ads.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Perplexity has already started playing around
with ads, which they're quite abit smaller.
But either way, what's going toend up happening is we're going
to you're going to have tomanage all these platforms and
it's going to be and who knowswhat other ones are going to be
created.
You know deep seek at itsmoment I haven't really seen a
lot with that, but manis isgetting like it's getting wild.
There's still a lot of newprograms coming out and they're
(35:14):
becoming a lot cheaper andcheaper and cheaper to create
because the technology is better, um, but being omnipresent has
never it's, it's, it's alwaysbeen important, but it's been
growing in importance and that'swhy we talked about content
marketing.
It's going to be more importantthan ever.
We're probably I told jim thisbefore we jumped on we're
probably going to miss the dayin two or three years.
We're going to miss the dayswhen Google was the main
(35:36):
behemoth, because now we have toput our ad spend in all of
these different places and ourattention in all of these
different places, and it's goingto become very difficult to
really measure results becausethere's just going to be a lot.
It's going to be a lot of data,like we're all going to have to
(36:00):
get much better as marketers toreally understand what's
happening.
Um, I've already seen somebodycome up with reporting to see um
try to explain this in a waythat makes sense to people.
But, um, so when chat, gbt,gemini or perplexity has traffic
and it refers to your website,so somebody clicks one of those
source links and goes to yourwebsite.
I I've seen people createreports on that already.
I did, I did one for relentlessand I've seen that we had like
six LLM sessions in the last 20days, like and, and what I've
(36:26):
noticed is actually the timespent on the website coming from
those.
I've did a few other tests.
It's actually a lot higher thannormal Google traffic because
they get an answer and nowthey're going deeper down the
funnel, right, because they gotan answer like okay, now I want
to know who to hire.
So it seems like they'respending more time on the
website from that.
But that's, it's early, sodon't, don't call me.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
In six months that could be not the case and we're
kind of, you know, I mean I'm,I'm, I'm old enough and have
been around this, this.
I've been building websitessince since the early, early
2000s, you know when, when therewas Ask Jeeves there was, you
know, there was Yahoo there was,there were multiple places
(37:09):
right and and.
And.
So, thinking about it in thatframe of reference, it's just
that again, there's a race.
Right now there's going to be alot of people, a lot of places
that come in, a lot ofproperties that become relevant
and then irrelevant over time.
We'll have to see what happens.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
But well, you know the thing that I think a lot of
there's a lot of there's a lackof clarity when it comes to,
like people say ChatGPT iscutting into Google's search
dominance.
But the funny thing is Googleis still growing as far as
number of queries, so that whatthat means is people are using
multiple search platforms fordifferent things.
(37:51):
It's not like for like.
When people say this, what I doon ChatGPT, I don't usually
search the web different things.
It's not like for like.
When people say this chat, whatI do on chat, you be T I, I
don't usually search the webthat much, I just help have it
as an assistant.
Well, that counts as a queryand an ask when they do those
reports.
But I'm not eating into Google.
I still go to Google for for alot of things.
Um, so, it's not.
I'm not cutting into whatGoogle is doing, and most people
(38:13):
that don't know this world likeyou and I know this world
really well and your listenersprobably know quite a bit about
this world Regular homeownersare still just going to Google.
That's just how we grew up.
A whole generation of people isjust going to Google because
now we can get our AI answers inGoogle.
So do I need ChatGPT except forlike an assistant to do other
tasks, and that's what I think alot of people are using it for.
(38:35):
So when people say, oh, it'schat GPT is growing, I'm like
yeah, it is, but they're doingdifferent things over here.
I'm helping it, help me withvideo outlines and video scripts
and webinar slides and thingsthat I would never ask Google
for.
So that's just my two cents onit.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
I think we're also entering a period of time.
There's a couple of thingsconverging, one of them is AI,
but it's converging with thepost-COVID slowdown.
That's my theory.
Yeah, I did a.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
I was on To the Point .
It's a home service podcastwith Christiana.
She's got a marketing companyright here in Arizona.
I'm in Arizona now.
I said Wisconsin.
I've been in Arizona for threeyears.
We talked about this because Idid a Google Trends study and
for anyone listening to this, ifyou haven't heard Google Trends
(39:32):
, just go to trendsgooglecom,type in your main roofing and
then just go down to your state.
You can kind of drill, drilldown by state and you can go
last 12 months, last 30 days,last five years.
I think it goes out to likefive years.
But you can see the trends andwhat I noticed when I was
looking at like august of 23,that exact thing where I was
looking at like ac repairdropped off a cliff, like the.
The search volume and the trenddropped hard after a certain
(39:56):
point and a lot of people werestarting to claim like I don't
have the leads, I'm not havingmy, my uh record months, like I
was month over month when it wasduring covid.
Everyone's like another recordrecord month, another record
month.
Everyone was having a greattime and getting real fat, real,
real fast, right, um so, andit's this post-COVID slowdown is
(40:16):
different.
People aren't at home as much.
A lot of these big techcompanies are forcing people to
come back to work.
So now they're back to I'm onlyhome a few hours a day.
That can wait.
They don't like it doesn'tmatter to them as much because
they don't use the home as much.
So there's a lot of that atplay too.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
It's, and I think that that's one of the things.
It's kind of the there's alittle bit of blame getting
pushed on the AI right now iswhat I'm saying.
Like it's not just people don'trealize.
Oh my goodness.
Well, shoot, shoot, things are.
Things are slower.
I know you're enjoying theepisode, but let's give a shout
out to another one of oursponsors.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
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Speaker 1 (41:20):
People don't realize.
Oh my goodness, well shoot,things are are slower, and I've
seen it, you know, in in many ofthe trades you know, I have a
friend that's an electricalcontractor.
He's like man.
People just aren't calling asoften right now and so it.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
You know there's a lot of uncertainty in the
economy, right like you know,the regardless of where you lean
politically, there's tariffsand some of that stuff can be
good or bad how depends how youlook at it, but that the uns
whenever it's just like yourhome, your home estimate if
they're not, if they're confused, they're not going to buy.
(41:58):
So if they're not sure ifthey're going to have money for
this or they're not sure what'sgoing to happen to the housing
industry, their mortgage ratesor all these different things.
It just creates a lot of likewell, we'll wait.
We'll wait and see what happensuntil we know things are
booming, like I just sawyesterday.
This is the worst it's everbeen.
As far as sellers to buyers forhomeowners, which is usually
(42:20):
the real estate market's areally good indicator of kind of
where things are.
And typically and I'm assuming,roofing kind of follows a
trajectory like HVAC.
Hvac equipment typically getsreplaced like every 15 to 17
years.
15 to 17 years ago was 2008.
We all know what happened in2008, 2009, slowed down with
construction, so there's not asmany new homes and roofs I'm
(42:43):
assuming are 20, 25, 30 years,probably depending on where you
live and some of those factors.
But we're also coming up onthat for the roofing industry
too, where there's going to be aslowdown because there's not as
many new homes built anddepending on where you are like
I'm in Arizona, it's boom town.
You wouldn't know.
The economy is not great here.
There's new constructionprojects everywhere, but a lot
(43:03):
of other places don't have thesame new construction build out
right now.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Yeah, it's, it's challenging.
So you mentioned omnipresence.
You know I love omnipresence.
Man, that's my like.
Being best known beats bestevery time we're you know, and
(43:32):
and so what?
Speaker 2 (43:34):
what are you seeing tactically that is, helping
people become omnipresent intheir, in their marketplaces.
Well, I think I think thebiggest thing comes back to
video content.
I didn't share this.
I shared it on my social mediafeed maybe a month ago and I
realized I was looking up.
I was just looking up our brand, I don't even remember why, but
when you look up your brand, ifyou have short form videos and
you have your social mediaaccounts connected to your
Google business profile, there'susually a one called short
(43:55):
videos and it will pull inInstagram, facebook, linkedin,
tiktok videos into your feed.
So what that's telling me andGoogle's Google's always one of
(44:15):
those things.
They'll never directly tell youwhat's helping.
So you kind of have to see like, well, what do they have access
to and what are they?
What are they showing on here?
Cause you've kind of got to puttogether the pieces, and that's
why there's a lot of marketingcompanies putting together the
pieces, cause it's it's amystery, but short videos pop up
in, like all of my short videosthat get posted are on there.
So Google is clearly pullingthose in and to.
(44:39):
To make matters worse, google'sunder two antitrust lawsuits
right now One for their adsplatform and the other one is
for.
I think it has to do withsearch and not allowing
competitive products into search, because everything's Google,
google, google.
So Google's under a lot of hotwater and a lot of pressure
right now too, where they mayhave to sell off some of their
features, so it's in their bestinterest.
(45:00):
For example, if you're inEurope, the European Union is
very tough against techcompanies.
Here in Europe, the EuropeanUnion is very tough against tech
companies.
We are not here in the States,so in Europe the search results
are a lot different.
They pull in things like TikTok, videos and Facebook, so it's a
lot different if you look thereversus here.
Here it's still a lot of Googlestuff, but it is starting to
(45:23):
shift a little bit, wherethey're starting to pull
different things in from socialmedia platforms.
If you look up your brand, thisis a great way to know which
sites are the most important orones that Google's pulling
information from.
Usually LinkedIn shows up.
Usually Facebook shows up likeone of the top two or three.
So just Google your brand andthen just see what's on page one
.
That's a good indicator ofwhat's important for Google, and
(45:43):
so if you don't have listingson those platforms.
Get them at least get a listing.
Start posting on there, hire aVA.
Start, just start puttingcontent out there, because we
never know what they're pullingsources from.
So if we're sharing our fivestar Google reviews on four
different platforms, now all ofthose platforms know we do great
(46:04):
work and they all see that fivestar content and it just
creates this ecosystem where, ifwe're searching for best roofer
in my area, that gives freeestimates that's like a chat GPT
type search right, that's avoice search we can start.
If we have everything pointingto we do five star work and
we're great, chances are betteryou're going to be listed.
(46:25):
So just things like that, andthis again, can all be automated
.
I automated review responses insocial media posts back in 2018,
2019, before we had AI.
Now AI has made it a thousandtimes better.
My posts were always the same,but now we can do all this and
we don't have to set up once andit just runs and we don't have
to spend our time.
So then we can do all this andwe don't have to set up once and
(46:46):
it just just runs and we don'thave to spend our time.
So then we can spend our timeon creating two or three really
really good pieces of contentper week, versus like, oh, I got
to post today, what am I goingto post about?
What am I going to post about?
And that's the kind of stuffthat we really like helping
contractors with.
Just be smarter.
Just, you don't have to.
You don't have to.
You don't have to do the hustlegrind mentality all the time or
(47:07):
work 18 hours a day and alwaysbe online and always be
answering people.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
You can have technology help you with a lot
of this stuff.
Yeah, it's, ai is here.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
So, like you better is better accept it because I
actually have a really funnystory, um, about one of our,
because we have ai chat bots forour clients and so we this lady
in in texas it was right indallas she came in in the so she
had a conversation with rachelthat's the name we gave our ai
(47:39):
bot, just because rachel soundslike a really wholesome, good
person that you know is reallypersonable and fun and smiley.
So she had a conversation, shebooked an appointment.
She came into the office withfresh baked cookies and asked
the receptionist if she couldgive these to Rachel.
The office person didn't knowwhat she was talking about at
(47:59):
first.
Once it like dawned on her midconversation and she's like, oh
yeah, sometimes people call meRachel.
She didn't want to tell her itwas an ai bot that booked the
appointment, had theconversation with her, she's
like, yeah, rachel was so warmand giving and she was so
helpful.
I just want to bake thesecookies and give them to her.
And I'm like this is wild, likeyou never think this stuff would
(48:20):
happen in your lifetime.
But people don't know thedifference and, especially as it
gets better and better, theyjust don't know.
Um, I'm still of the belief youshould tell them it's an ai
assistant.
But I know phone calls.
I think it's by law you have to, but chats are little little
gray area if you will.
But that stuff is happening andwe've had other stories where
(48:42):
people like left five starreviews and named the ai chat
bot in the reviews and said, hey, rachel was great and helped me
out and all this type of stuff.
So people are, they don't knowthe difference in.
This.
Stuff is working and it isbooking appointments and is
helping contractors grow withouthaving to have a massive
overhead.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
Yeah, and it's.
It kind of comes back toearlier.
What we were talking about isthat speed to lead, that AI
chatbot was communicatingquickly and efficiently, and
that's all people want issomeone to communicate with them
, like they just want to becommunicated with.
(49:21):
They don't want the phone callfive days from now.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
Well, not only that, like you know, millennials are
the largest home buying group inthe country.
Now I'm an old millennial, Ijust turned 40.
So I'm at the very like I thinkthere's like maybe two years
more than me as a millennial age.
But now we have Gen Z becomingyoung twenties, mid twenties and
they're starting to buy homes.
So boomers still own themajority of they're the largest
(49:49):
homeowner group.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
I know it's a little confusing, but it's because they
have multiple properties.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
The ones that are buying the properties now are
millennials and we do businessdifferently.
Right?
We want chat, we want onlinebooking, we want online pricing,
we want all of the things thatwe don't want to have to sit on
the phone for 10 minutes andhave you qualify us.
We just don't want to do that.
My wife shares this story a lotand I share it on her behalf is
anytime we hire a contractorfor our house, if they don't
(50:16):
have some way to chat or bookonline, she just moves on to
someone else, Because that'sjust the world we live in today,
and so if you don't have thosethings, you might be missing
opportunities and again youdon't, just like.
We gave the example about thegutter company that was 28 days
later.
You don't even know you'remissing the opportunity because
you don't even have the option.
(50:57):
What are the main things that acontractor needs to do going
forward to make sure that theysurvive and thrive.
Going into this era, my biggestthing would be to own your list
so that way you can alwaysremarket that list.
I've actively for both ourpodcasts, for our marketing
company.
Even when I was in the trades Ialways made sure we collected
email addresses.
That was before text messagingwe got became a lot more popular
.
Own that list, grow that listas often as possible.
(51:21):
Make sure it's a good list,though Don't don't go buy a list
of homeowners and stuff thatthat stuff doesn't work.
And then you said you send anemail and you're going to ruin
your domain's reputation, butevery single person that calls
you fills out a form.
Make sure that is requiredfield to send a mobile phone
number and get an email address,because with all of these
(51:41):
different platforms and we don'tknow exactly what's making
people push them to buy today,the best way to ever get ahold
of someone is direct outreach,and we do that a lot with
clients now, in the homes ofHVAC specifically, it's a little
easier to get tune-ups and getback in the door right, because
obviously most people arewell-trained.
Like I need to have someonecome tune up my AC.
(52:02):
Um, but roofing will maybe alittle harder that way, but at
least with the email you cannurture them and teach them
about their roof, teach themabout their home, get them to
feel really good about like oh,these guys are always teaching
me something that's valuable.
You will stand out when itcomes time to get that roof
replaced.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
That would be my main thing.
Speaker 2 (52:23):
And, of course, we talked about automation Fill the
gaps in your bucket.
Start realizing, regardless ofhow awesome you think your team
is, you have holes in yourbucket.
You're just not looking hardenough.
Every business does, mybusiness does.
We're always constantly tryingto find a better way to reach
out to prospects, reach out topeople that requested
(52:43):
information faster, and to justfill the bucket, you know,
because if you plug the holes,you don't have to fill it with
water, and that water beingmoney, your profit, that's right
.
So you don't have to keepfilling the bucket if you fill
the holes.
Speaker 1 (52:59):
Man, it was great having you on this has been
another episode.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
I'm glad we're able to do this.
Speaker 1 (53:03):
Yeah, man, this has been another episode of the
Roofing Success Podcast.
Speaker 3 (53:07):
Thank you for tuning into the Roofing Success Podcast
For more valuable content.
Visit roofingsuccesspodcastcomWhile there.
Check out our sponsors forexclusive offers, shop for
merchandise and sign up for ournewsletter for industry updates
and tips.
Also join the Roofing SuccessFacebook group to connect with
other professionals and stayupdated on the latest trends.
(53:29):
If you enjoyed this episode,please subscribe, like, share
and leave a comment.
Your support helps us continueto bring you top industry
insights.
The website link is in thedescription.
Thanks for listening.
What do you do when the winter is the coldest in 30
years, your company's down tothree techs and you're running
furnaces around town just tosurvive?
In this episode, we're sittingdown with Joshua Crouch to
explore how he went from gruntwork in the HVAC world to
launching multiple businessesand becoming one of the leading
voices in home servicesautomation.
(00:20):
Josh is the co-host of theService Business Mastery podcast
and the founder of RelentlessDigital and Trade Automation
Pros.
He's built the name aroundusing automation and AI to
eliminate inefficiencies andcreate better customer
experiences in service business.
Joshua isn't just a tech-savvyentrepreneur.
(00:43):
He's someone who knows exactlywhat it's like to work a 20 hour
day delivering furnaces duringa snowstorm and still showing up
the next day asking how do wemake this thing better?
If you've ever felt stuckbetween growing your business
and drowning in manual tasks,this episode is a goldmine.
We're breaking down realautomation strategies you can
(01:06):
use today to stop leaving moneyon the table, let's jump in with
Joshua Crouch.
Welcome to the Roofing SuccessPodcast.
I'm Jim Alleyne and I'm here tobring you insights from top
leaders in the roofing industryto help you grow and scale your
roofing business.
Joshua Crouch, how's it goingtoday?
(01:27):
Service Business MasteryPodcast.
Relentless Digital man, it'sgood to have you on.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, we got a few things goingon.
There's always opportunitiesout there and, honestly, I just
can't keep my hands off ofopportunities.
So we just keep buildingbusinesses and seeing what we
can do with them.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
That's the way to go, man.
We've, you know, we've gottento know each other through a
mastermind group in the digitalmarketing space and um, and
through the podcast space andshared a lot of things there.
You've shared a lot with me.
You guys have a very successfulpodcast in the home services
space and uh, and wanted to haveyou on and talk about marketing
and talk about you know,business in general and for my
(02:10):
audience.
Now this is the roofing space.
You got all you HVAC guys andyou know all those you know you
could.
You know it's a littledifferent business, but let's
introduce you to the roofingindustry.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, so I first of all appreciate it.
I've always enjoyed our chats,jim, especially when we're
getting in person and some ofthose events that we go to.
But so my name is Joshua Crouchand I was an HVAC contractor
for nine years.
I worked at three differentHVAC companies and cut my teeth
there.
I am not a technician.
(02:43):
I'm definitely better atbusiness, sales, operations,
marketing, technology.
That's where I've always lived.
I've been a grunt when my teamneeded it.
I've hauled in and out furnacesand air conditioners and did
all the grunt work.
But I'm not the guy that'sgoing to probably turn the
wrench real well, and my wifeknows that.
So I am not allowed to hang anypictures or anything on the
(03:05):
wall anywhere, because when we Imoved to Arizona about three
years ago when we were inWisconsin, I would do it and I
just thought, fine, I know theright stuff, but I just just
couldn't quite get the holesright.
So I made too many holes thathad to get patched up, and so I
just I stick to what I'm good atand I hire for everything else.
I stick to what I'm good at andI hire for everything else.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
That's a good way to do things.
That's a that sounds like you,uh, you're, you're focused on
being a business owner.
Then not, not, not, uh, uh, notself-employed.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
I will.
I will say it it thatphilosophy has served me very
well.
Um, you don't think about it atthe time, so you're kind of
like, oh man, I'm a man, Ishould be able to do this stuff.
But honestly, it served me verywell because I know what I'm
good at and what I'm not good atand I hire for the things I'm
not good at, and that's reallysomething that's really helped
(03:54):
propel our digital marketingcompany, our podcast.
We even have a company thathelps coaches.
It's not really home.
It doesn't have to be homeservice specific it anyone in my
.
It's not really home, itdoesn't have to be home service
specific.
It's called trade automationpros.
We teach people how to useautomation and ai together to
really get the outcomes theywant.
With all that with.
We all know that you probablygot all your listeners probably
(04:15):
shaking their head at this.
They probably got 10, 15, 20,30 softwares.
They don't all communicatetogether, so data has to get
entered here and here and here,especially when it comes to
proposals, and then invoicingand all these sorts of things or
leads coming in, and it justgets like it's very difficult.
It's very time consuming work.
You have to hire more adminpeople or VAs and it's just.
(04:35):
It's a mess and it just createsunnecessary complication and
additional overhead.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Yeah, it's amazing to me that people still do so many
manual actions when there areso many tools available.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
I think they're scared of it.
To be honest, like I, I haveasked this question probably a
dozen times in the last four orfive years and the response is
always.
I always chuckle because I'mlike if you could automate
anything, what would youautomate?
And most people are like Idon't know, what can I automate?
They don't know.
(05:12):
They don't know that this stuffexists.
We take it for granted whenwe're in the space that you and
I have been in, that weliterally see these tools
everywhere, all day, all thetime, and we get accustomed to
using them and people just don'tunderstand that the stuff is
out there and we can take datafrom multiple places, put it
into one thing and make it dosomething else, and it just
(05:35):
happens on repeat.
We don't even know what'shappening.
It just keeps happening, and sowe we go around.
We do a lot of presentations athome service shows.
You will see us at roofingshows later this year and next
year.
So we will see you guys willcrash the party, um, but we'll,
we'll try to bring some of thatstuff to the roofing space as
well.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
that's awesome and and it's really, you know, it's
some of it's a lot of the stuffthat we did at roofer marketers
and our job nimbus marketing.
You know the.
You know we really focused onthat up front lead generation.
And you know the.
You know we really focused onthat upfront lead generation.
And you know I've had, you knowwe work in the roofing and
solar reform alliance with AdamBenzman and he's you know,
launching, launching a programabout how to be your own, the GC
(06:19):
of your own marketing, and oneof the things that that we see
on the marketing side is thateveryone just thinks about the
lead but not what happens afterthe lead comes in.
And it's been so challenging.
But that's where the automationcomes in, that's where the AI
comes in, that's where all ofthese things fill the gaps,
(06:41):
because I'm sure at every HVACbusiness that you worked in,
everyone made their phone callswhen they were supposed to.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, no.
So my first experience was sothe first year I was in the
trades was 2013.
I didn't know what I was doing.
I didn't grow up in the trades.
I don't have some of thetypical stories that you hear
where it's like I grew up in thetrades of second, third
generation or my father's unclewas in the trades and brought me
in.
I literally went to a job ad.
I've always loved numbers, dataand statistics so I thought
(07:13):
accounting was going to be mycareer.
I found out pretty quickly.
I hated accounting because itwas boring.
And no offense to any accountsI love you, you're great, I need
you we all do but it justwasn't for me.
And so I found a job ad as anaccountant for this local HVAC
company I never heard of.
I got the job.
I wasn't a very good accountant.
I very quickly kind of tookover office management because I
(07:36):
did grow up in a small familymartial arts environment.
So we had three schools.
I ran two of those schoolsmyself when I was young, so I
did have some businessexperience.
And then our marketing was likewhatever I could create on
whatever program was up in early, late 2000s, early 2010s.
So I had some chops there, butto do it for an HVAC company
(07:59):
when someone needed demand.
I had no idea what I was doing.
The winter of 2013 comes in andI don't know if you remember
this winter, because I'm sureyou had the same weather I did
in being in Wisconsin.
It was the coldest winter in 30years.
The day I walked in March of2013,.
We had 20 techs by September.
We had three because wecouldn't pay people on time and
(08:22):
I didn't really know this at thetime.
I was writing their net payrollchecks.
I didn't realize we weren'tpaying with fully.
I didn't really know this atthe time.
I was writing their net payrollchecks, I didn't realize we
weren't paying with fully.
I didn't.
I didn't know any of this stuff.
We weren't paying withholdingtaxes.
We owed our only line of creditto get new equipment, which, in
the HVAC space, you getequipment every day Like.
You need a line of credit wasthe time it took for me to write
a check, drop it at the bankand the bank to cash it.
(08:44):
So we had like a two day lineof credit.
Nobody would give us a line ofcredit because the business
owner that I worked for hadterrible credit in a bankruptcy
on his right Just all the badthings.
Like it was.
It was the best learningexperience I've ever had in my
life and it was also probablythe most stressful three years
of my life.
That's probably when I startedlosing my hair because I saw the
(09:04):
potential.
We had a really big customerlist, but then we had this
winter, so we went from beingable to serve with 20 techs to
three and then the coolestwinter in 30 years hits.
We have a customer list ofabout 30,000 people and we got
our ass handed to us.
I was literally out.
I was more of a parts runnerthat year.
(09:25):
I just literally was runningfurnaces, picking furnaces up,
dropping them off, going to thesupply house Like you stay at
the job, I'm going to like runin between Milwaukee and Madison
.
It was a shit show it was.
We ended up getting it all.
We started learning and Istarted getting a little bit
better and and and we startedfiguring things out.
We started paying our taxes.
We paid the tax debt and allthose things, but it was like a
(09:47):
massive learning experience.
But to talk about making phonecalls and this is where the
story started from was 2014,.
It was a very mild winter.
I've never experienced thisbefore.
And between Thanksgiving andChristmas, we all know a lot of
people don't like spending money.
And between Thanksgiving andChristmas, we all know a lot of
people don't like spending money, especially on things like
(10:08):
roofing, hvac, maybe plumbing,because of Thanksgiving, but
they don't want to spend money.
So I had to start outboundcalling and setting up tune-ups
and I had no idea what I wasdoing and I hated it Literally
hated it.
And at that time texting peoplewas not an option.
Reaching out with all thedifferent things we have today
(10:29):
was not really an option.
We didn't our.
Our crm that we use was a dosbased system that nobody knew
how to operate, so it was allkeyboard and I had no idea what
I was doing like.
I couldn't pull reports Icouldn't get, we didn't have
email address.
We had nothing like.
We just so poorly ran for somany years.
I learned a lot of veryvaluable things very quickly.
(10:50):
But outbound calling candefinitely work it still works
today it's just it's not fun.
It's really not at all.
I hated it.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, and it's amazing how many of the calls
don't get answered or don't getresponded to.
And it's amazing how many ofthe calls don't get answered or
don't get responded to Now, 10years later.
Think about it like we're only10 years later.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
It's a completely different world.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
It was unrecognizable from when I started,
unrecognizable right, and it'sonly been 10 years and it's
moving fast.
What are the most effectiveautomations that you see
companies putting into place?
That that like that 80, 20 rulewhere they get like put, put
these in place.
(11:36):
That's an 80%.
The others fill the gaps andreally make that, make up the
difference.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Yeah, that's an awesome question and a lot of
times people want to get reallyspecific and really complicated
when they start learning whatautomation can do.
But honestly, if you focus onjust a few core things, one for
me is anywhere you get a lead,have a speed to lead system
Immediately, immediate textmessage or email, whatever is
more comfortable for you,because every market is a little
(12:04):
different.
That way, some people arereally active with text, some
markets.
Everyone hates text, everyone'slike stop, unsubscribe, I hate
you.
But speed of lead.
So web form, submissions, chaton the website, anything with a
Facebook lead form.
If you have a web form thatyou're sending Google ads to,
(12:27):
angie, homeadvisor, thumbtack,even Yelp has an API now, so you
can.
Anytime you get leads in thosesources, you can funnel those
into a conversational whetherit's an AI bot or someone
answering it, at least sendingthe first text message out and
starting the conversation.
And then what's nice is becauseyou can funnel all of those
things into one place.
(12:48):
You can put them in a pipelineso that way somebody can manage
the pipeline internally if youdon't want to use some sort of
AI system to constantly followup, and that would be like you
got to get that in place.
Missed call text backs is huge.
Everyone thinks they don't missany calls until we like we as
an agency you guys might've donethis too we have an entire call
(13:11):
tagging team.
Pretty soon we'll have an AIanalysis tool that you can
immediately, instantly know whathappened with those
opportunities.
And what will happen isCallRail and other tools will
say the call was answeredbecause they thank you, that
this call may be recorded.
Thanks for calling ABC Roofing.
This call may be recorded.
The technology says that wasanswered.
Well, then it rings four timesand then somebody hangs up and
(13:35):
it happens all the time.
I think I've seen our missedcall rate like 15 to 17% of all
calls, and that's over tens ofthousands of calls per month.
So do the math, you can figurethat out Like it's a lot of
missed opportunity.
And so just those things ingeneral.
Just tighten up the ship, plugthe holes, if you will, in your,
in your, in your leaking bucket, and you're instantly going to
(13:58):
be more profitable and book morejobs.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, that's.
That's the first thing to do,right?
It's making sure that you'renot leaving money on the table.
We did some analysis at Rooffor Marketers and it was at a
time when we analyzed this.
There was 40% of leads thatcame into that we helped
generate for companies wereunanswered or or or or not
(14:25):
responded to, so they're notresponding too quickly like I've
seen some studies done.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
It's crazy, literally .
Um, I think the company'svalvometer.
They're out of indianapolis,they do a little home service.
They do some other stuff too.
They have multiple industriesthey serve.
But they did a study of like500 contractors or something
like this and it's from like2022 or 23, during COVID and
they found that like the like 40or 45% of contractors didn't
(14:51):
reply within five days.
Like just being fast, you don'teven have to be good, just
being fast is a leg up from yourcompetition.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, I have a, we have.
We have our lake house innorthern Minnesota you know
about the lake homes inWisconsin there and I called a
gutter company to have aconversation about getting some
new gutters on the place andthey gave me a call back in 28
days.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
It was convenient for them at that point.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
By that time I'd had someone drive up from
Minneapolis, complete the joband go home and been paid before
they even called me back.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Yeah, and the thing is that business probably
doesn't even they probably don'teven realize it because it's
just the way they've been doingbusiness, but they're.
They're spending money onmarketing or a company or
someone.
Internally they're just blowing.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Or someone said you should.
This is how they came about.
Was I asked around?
Hey, who could I use for this?
Oh, use, use, so-and-so.
So now they have peoplechampioning, championing their
business, and they don't eventhey don't even call back.
That championing ended at me,it's over.
(16:12):
Before we carry on with theepisode, let's give a shout out
to one of our sponsors.
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they're not working hard, butbecause they're missing the
structure to growth, withoutchaos or their culture's falling
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(16:35):
burned out.
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(16:56):
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journey today.
They don't even call back.
Right, like that.
Championing ended at me, likeit's over.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Yeah, I was making a YouTube video the other day for
our channel and one of thethings I talked about was we're
not like your quality of work.
You may be the best.
The company that answered in 28days may be the best gutter
company the world has ever seen,but it doesn't matter.
There's so many othercompetitors.
(17:34):
Somebody else will do close togood enough work and they'll get
paid, and you don't need to bethe best.
Sometimes the focus on theselittle like being the best just
gets us in our head Like youneed to also serve the customer.
The customer is really whatmatters, and being fast is going
to get you way more business.
And that's just one I shouldsay one automation, because it
(17:58):
is multiple things you got toconnect to one place, but it's
one set of automations that isgoing to make your ROI and your
marketing spend and your netprofit go up, Because you're
already spending that money.
You might as well get theopportunities that are coming
with that, or at least knowwhere you're weak.
There's tools out there.
Now we're creating one calledPhoneTap.
It's an AI call analysis.
(18:18):
It's an instant AI callanalysis tool which can automate
workflows based off of outcomes.
So think of like qualified leadnot booked because of pricing
objection, and now that might bemore home service Cause we have
like service fees.
I know roofers probably go outfor like free estimates a lot,
but whatever the case is forthat type of business, then you
can automatically alert amanager, an owner, somebody in
(18:41):
your business to go do somethingwithin five minutes of that
call being hung up before theyget the work done, before they
get to somebody else.
And it's stuff like that thatreally is what contractors need.
It's the stuff that's going tomake decision making very simple
for them and very effective.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
That's a good thing, a good, a good thought process
for people as they're, as we'removing into, especially into the
AI age.
Right, like, what can, what canyou do that that helps you get
to those decisions faster, thatget that gets you to those,
those, um, those things thatmatter, those things that'll
move the needle quickly?
Um, what other, what otherparts of of companies are you
(19:22):
seeing automations done?
Well, like we're on the frontend of the funnel here.
This is awareness considerationinto the buying decision a
little bit.
Where else are you seeing a lotof automation and AI being
implemented?
Speaker 2 (19:37):
The most obvious one, and this doesn't matter what
business type you're in or whatyou do for a service, but it's
it's estimate followups.
We all know when new jobs comein, new estimates come in, the
salespeople are going to run tothe new one and they might
eventually get back to the otherones, but we all know the stat
like the, the, the magic isbetween touch point seven and 12
(19:59):
.
Most people follow up maybeonce or twice, and so having a
system where you have nurtureand this gets into a broader
discussion about contentmarketing, because I think a lot
of people, one contractors as awhole have gotten better at
creating content, but they don'tcreate enough of it and that
(20:20):
content you create servesmultiple purposes I think this
is a concept that doesn't reallyget talked about a lot.
It's like you've got to createcontent Okay, cool, why and what
and how and what's the purpose,because some content like this,
for example, this for me, is avery, very top of the funnel.
I just want you to know that weexist.
(20:41):
It's top of funnel.
Just know that RelentlessDigital exists and you can
always reach out for questionsif you have them as you get down
to the middle of the funnel.
If somebody booked an estimatewith you, they want to know you
know maybe, the materials youuse.
What's the warranty?
Why should they choose you oversomebody else?
What are your core values?
Maybe some video testimonialsof happy customers you've served
(21:03):
in the past that live in theirmarket?
Things like that can be reallyvaluable middle of funnel
towards bottom of funnel contentto get them to actually move
forward with something.
And I think contractors I seesome people do really well,
really funny stuff online.
But it's the content drivingpeople from top of funnel hey,
I'm aware of your company downto my solution and how it can
(21:26):
help you Really takes practiceand skill.
So the more you practice, themore you get accustomed to it,
the more you pay attention tocontent marketing, you'll start
to see that it will all cometogether.
But the content market isn'tjust for the social media
platform.
It's for email.
It's for sending prospects thatare in your pipeline.
(21:46):
It's for sending people thatmaybe don't know if they want to
get an estimate on the roof.
Maybe they're in the.
There's a little leak.
I don't know if I need someone,or my.
I know my roof sold but I don'tknow if it needs to be replaced
yet, but they're not really.
They're trying to do researchphase.
Content can help becauseeveryone absorbs content
differently.
Um, email video text posts,local Facebook groups, Um, and
(22:12):
it's just.
It served me extremely well atthe last two HVAC companies that
I was at and then my marketingcompany now, and, of course,
with the podcast, we put outepisodes every week.
Content marketing is thecurrent and probably future
currency, especially as AIbecomes this massive behemoth of
a thing and we don't know whoto trust anymore.
(22:32):
Being authentic on camera andshowing the authentic brand and
the people and who you are andwhat you do for the community is
going to become, I think, evenmore powerful, because a lot of
people are using it just toregurgitate a bunch of stuff.
Right now, this is like howmuch crap can I put out and
hopefully it sticks and I growand I get followers?
Speaker 1 (22:51):
yeah, I just did a podcast recently.
Uh, the guys from East CoastRoofing Systems out in
Philadelphia area and, if Iremember right they talked about
their content is almost.
It's so educational.
Just, they want their customersto be so well-educ, educated,
(23:13):
before they reach out to them.
That's just a goal.
I think it's a mindset thingwith content.
Content is hard.
There's a I guess business ishard in terms of needing leads,
right like there's a need fornew business and so so much
effort goes into that now andnew business, that a lot of the
(23:37):
other things.
It's like well, I'll do thatone day.
I'll do that someday.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
One day never happens One day never happens.
Just do it.
Just do it Literally.
Turn your camera on.
It doesn't matter if the soundsucks, if the quality of the
video sucks, just start andthere's, you know.
I mean I know you know thisbecause there's a lot of tools
out there that can help.
I think a lot of people likethey don't know what to create a
content on.
One of the easiest ways I tellpeople is go to a tool like
(24:10):
answerthepubliccom oralsoaskedcom.
You get free searches, freesearches, yep, and they just
pull people also ask questionsfrom Google.
So type in roofing replacement,roofing repair.
They'll give you 200 or 300ideas on content to create and
this is literally search enginessaying hey, people also who
search this term also searchthese questions.
So it's like a hidden key tothe kingdom.
(24:34):
Just start shooting.
You know the content doesn'thave to be great.
It doesn't have to be movieproduction.
Honestly, I've seen contentthat doesn't get edited perform
way better than stuff that's gotfancy edits and fancy camera
and everything else, especiallywhen it comes to local
businesses, because people knowyou're not going to have a huge
budget for like movie levelproduction.
Grow into that at some point.
Then you can all be tommymellow and be this big audacious
(24:58):
guy.
He's got cameras following himeverywhere.
But the for the, the rest of us, mere mortals, just just start
with your phone, because thequality of everything on there
is great it is, and it that's agreat one.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
So it google's essentially telling you what
it's google's data and whatpeople are searching for.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
So you can't know where to look right.
I mean, that's the key,everything.
Just if you can cut through thenoise and just like hey, I got
two tools today, let's go createa free account, type in
something that's relevant, thatyou want to create some maybe
you want to create some contenton and just see what ideas pop
up.
Most of them have an exportfeature so you can export them
into like a Google sheet or anExcel document.
And now you have a massive listand then when you get new free
(25:41):
searches the next day or nextweek or whenever they renew,
just do another one, put thislist together and then, honestly
, what I like to do is I timeblock and I will.
I usually record one hour aweek.
Now, at this point, becausewe've been doing it so long, I
have actually hired someone toliterally help me with like
content, ideas and all that kindof stuff.
But when I started out, Iliterally just like I found a
(26:04):
question, I just answered thequestion and just start basic
Act like if you have to havesomeone literally ask you the
question while you're on camera,they'll be behind the camera
and just answer the question tothe best of your knowledge and
post that.
It can be as simple as that.
It doesn't have to be somefancy thing.
And then, once you get used toit, you get better.
And then you start diving intoit and you want to improve and
(26:26):
you want to improve the editingand add some B-roll and all of
those things.
But everybody gets started withjust a camera and their first
videos suck.
So don't worry.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
They will suck, but it's okay.
Who should?
Speaker 2 (26:44):
be on camera for a company.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
It's a great question .
Speaker 2 (26:53):
My personal opinion, is the owner, especially if
you're privately held is theowner especially if you're
privately held is the owner.
It's one reason we've neverdone social media for clients is
because it is extraordinarilyhard to speak their brand into
existence regularly.
We can create graphics and wecan put stuff together to, you
know, put some information outthere that's valuable and
educational, but speaking thebrand and like that brand voice,
(27:14):
everybody's got a littledifferent way of going about it.
The best content we alwayscreated was when I did it in
house or I had a team and Itrained them how to what I
wanted them to say, and theyjust kind of get used to the way
I talk and the way I pushthings through it.
It's the best way to putcontent out.
And I know that sucks to hear.
If you're an owner, maybe, andif you're lucky and you have a
(27:34):
big enough organization, maybeyou have a GM, a service manager
, uh, someone in a high levelposition that wants to create
content.
Maybe you have techs that wantto create content.
I've seen, uh, companies usetheir techs.
They're really um, they'rehigher level technicians and
they help them create content.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
but typically it starts with the owner them
create content, but typically itstarts with the owner.
Yeah, in most cases it's got,it's got to be the owner.
Um, in my opinion too, um, itstarts there.
But I've seen a lot.
I've seen some companies thatdo a good job of getting the
team involved, and I think it'sit's a special thing when they
(28:11):
do.
But it's a lead by example alittle bit right.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Well, you can have a lot of fun with it.
So they're not in the roofingspace but for anyone listening,
I would go find climate expertsin Florida.
His name is Derek Cormier.
Their content is hilarious.
They have some of the funniestkids.
They usually take some sort oftrending thing and they take it
for the trades.
Their hvac and plumbing companycontent is is hilarious.
(28:38):
Like I don't typically watch alot of home service content
because I'm not really theaudience for that, but it's
hilarious like I actually watchtheir videos because this is
hilarious, so I always take timeto watch their stuff.
So if you want some inspirationand you feel like you got a
creative team, derek would bethe person to reach out to,
because he's he's doing a greatjob.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Yeah, that's awesome and that's that's the thing.
You have to be yourselves in it, right?
So I would assume, if I met theowners of of that company,
that's their personality, right.
That's the culture that they'vebuilt in that company.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
They're, they're probably, it's, probably's,
probably oh yeah, there's teammembers in almost every single
one of his videos and, honestly,I've gotten to the point like I
recognize the team membersalmost more than I recognize him
, because I've seen every videothat I watch.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Yeah, I think there's a little.
You know, we kind of talk aboutautomation and ai a little bit
and in content, but, like man,this thing is changing fast.
You know we we now have zero, alot of zero click searches on
Google for people that don'tunderstand what that is.
It's, it's the answer beingpresented without having to go
(29:44):
to a website or or anotherproperty.
You know, more people are goingto asking questions on chat,
gpt and cloud and perplexity andall the other AI solutions.
What do you see changing indigital marketing right now?
I know you're enjoying theepisode, but let's give a shout
(30:05):
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(30:55):
We now have a lot of zero-clicksearches on Google For people
that don't understand what thatis.
It's the answer being presentedwithout having to go to a
website or another property.
More people are going to askingquestions on ChatG, gpt and
cloud and perplexity and all theother AI solutions.
(31:16):
What do you see changing indigital marketing right now?
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Well, I have some good news.
The local side, like the peoplethat are searching for a
service company near me like theservice you offer near me, or
in my area, for a servicecompany near me like the service
you offer near me or in my areathat I don't.
I think Google would have amassive war on its hand if they
got rid of the Google businessprofile.
And the Google business profileis still where a lot of people
go to local search BecauseChatGBT, if you ever ask it for
(31:46):
like reviews and stuff, I'veseen it pull TripAdvisor reviews
for the trades.
It's either that or it'spulling from Bing Places Bing
reviews for the trades.
It's either that or it'spulling from Bing Places.
Bing Places is connected toFacebook and most contractors
don't get a lot of reviews onFacebook, so it's not very
reliable.
So the good news is the localside.
So very bottom of the funnelcustomer knows they need to hire
someone and they're going totry to pick a provider.
I think that's safe for now.
(32:09):
I say for now because we don'tknow, but you're absolutely and
honestly, I think a lot ofpeople think chat GPT is
stealing all their traffic.
It's actually AI overviews onGoogle stealing their traffic.
I did an audit for a plumbingcompany, cause I was just like
why is the traffic in thewebsite goes?
I was looking at their rankings.
I'm like nothing's reallychanged here and they've ranked
(32:30):
for a lot of blogs like eitherone, two or three.
And so I started.
I went into a incognito browserwhere I can use the ai overview
, because the when you have aworkspace account for a reason,
it doesn't work as well.
Um but, and I started typing inthe same exact query I was
finding in google search consoleand, sure enough, they're still
there as one of the sources,but the answer is right there
(32:50):
for them.
And then by the time you got totheir actual blog post and I
have a 32-inch monitor I had toscroll to get to the first blog
post because the answer wasright there.
So they were sourced in the AIoverview.
They were still the number oneblog position, but they lost
probably 60% to 70% of thetraffic to their website and it
(33:12):
was all informational blog styletype content.
So it's I don't know if anyonehas the answer for that yet,
because that's going to be thenorm moving forward.
So it's chat.
Gbt is probably stealing sometraffic the same way, but yeah,
google itself is stealing amajority of your traffic right
now, whether whether you know itor not.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Yeah, and it's special.
So those queries just forpeople listening.
A lot of times thoseinformational queries didn't
have ads on them Not yet theydidn't right.
So the local search resultshave ads.
There's Google ads.
There's local services adsright.
There's the spot in the.
There's the Google ad in themap section.
There in the GBPs right.
(33:54):
There's Google ads.
There's local services adsright.
There's the spot in the.
There's the Google ad in themap section.
There in the GBPs right.
There's revenue being generatedon that local on the bottom of
funnel roofing company near meAsphalt shingle versus metal
roofing.
There was no ads there.
So, if you think about it, fromGoogle's P&L they can't get rid
of.
Just as you were saying thatI'm like they can't get rid of
(34:16):
that.
They can't disrupt theirrevenue stream in that way.
They can't take that out.
That's the P&L, that's whatthey're funding everything else
with.
Is our Google ads money, right?
So so it is.
You know that's a realizationthat you're probably a little
bit safer there.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Well at some point.
I know ChatGPT is technically anon-profit but they're going to
have to run ads.
They got tens of billions ofdollars in funding.
Those investors want that moneyback.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Someone's going to get their money back At some
point they're going to have ads.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Perplexity has already started playing around
with ads, which they're quite abit smaller.
But either way, what's going toend up happening is we're going
to you're going to have tomanage all these platforms and
it's going to be and who knowswhat other ones are going to be
created.
You know deep seek at itsmoment I haven't really seen a
lot with that, but manis isgetting like it's getting wild.
There's still a lot of newprograms coming out and they're
(35:14):
becoming a lot cheaper andcheaper and cheaper to create
because the technology is better, um, but being omnipresent has
never it's, it's, it's alwaysbeen important, but it's been
growing in importance and that'swhy we talked about content
marketing.
It's going to be more importantthan ever.
We're probably I told jim thisbefore we jumped on we're
probably going to miss the dayin two or three years.
We're going to miss the dayswhen Google was the main
(35:36):
behemoth, because now we have toput our ad spend in all of
these different places and ourattention in all of these
different places, and it's goingto become very difficult to
really measure results becausethere's just going to be a lot.
It's going to be a lot of data,like we're all going to have to
(36:00):
get much better as marketers toreally understand what's
happening.
Um, I've already seen somebodycome up with reporting to see um
try to explain this in a waythat makes sense to people.
But, um, so when chat, gbt,gemini or perplexity has traffic
and it refers to your website,so somebody clicks one of those
source links and goes to yourwebsite.
I I've seen people createreports on that already.
I did, I did one for relentlessand I've seen that we had like
six LLM sessions in the last 20days, like and, and what I've
(36:26):
noticed is actually the timespent on the website coming from
those.
I've did a few other tests.
It's actually a lot higher thannormal Google traffic because
they get an answer and nowthey're going deeper down the
funnel, right, because they gotan answer like okay, now I want
to know who to hire.
So it seems like they'respending more time on the
website from that.
But that's, it's early, sodon't, don't call me.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
In six months that could be not the case and we're
kind of, you know, I mean I'm,I'm, I'm old enough and have
been around this, this.
I've been building websitessince since the early, early
2000s, you know when, when therewas Ask Jeeves there was, you
know, there was Yahoo there was,there were multiple places
(37:09):
right and and.
And.
So, thinking about it in thatframe of reference, it's just
that again, there's a race.
Right now there's going to be alot of people, a lot of places
that come in, a lot ofproperties that become relevant
and then irrelevant over time.
We'll have to see what happens.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
But well, you know the thing that I think a lot of
there's a lot of there's a lackof clarity when it comes to,
like people say ChatGPT iscutting into Google's search
dominance.
But the funny thing is Googleis still growing as far as
number of queries, so that whatthat means is people are using
multiple search platforms fordifferent things.
(37:51):
It's not like for like.
When people say this, what I doon ChatGPT, I don't usually
search the web different things.
It's not like for like.
When people say this chat, whatI do on chat, you be T I, I
don't usually search the webthat much, I just help have it
as an assistant.
Well, that counts as a queryand an ask when they do those
reports.
But I'm not eating into Google.
I still go to Google for for alot of things.
Um, so, it's not.
I'm not cutting into whatGoogle is doing, and most people
(38:13):
that don't know this world likeyou and I know this world
really well and your listenersprobably know quite a bit about
this world Regular homeownersare still just going to Google.
That's just how we grew up.
A whole generation of people isjust going to Google because
now we can get our AI answers inGoogle.
So do I need ChatGPT except forlike an assistant to do other
tasks, and that's what I think alot of people are using it for.
(38:35):
So when people say, oh, it'schat GPT is growing, I'm like
yeah, it is, but they're doingdifferent things over here.
I'm helping it, help me withvideo outlines and video scripts
and webinar slides and thingsthat I would never ask Google
for.
So that's just my two cents onit.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
I think we're also entering a period of time.
There's a couple of thingsconverging, one of them is AI,
but it's converging with thepost-COVID slowdown.
That's my theory.
Yeah, I did a.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
I was on To the Point .
It's a home service podcastwith Christiana.
She's got a marketing companyright here in Arizona.
I'm in Arizona now.
I said Wisconsin.
I've been in Arizona for threeyears.
We talked about this because Idid a Google Trends study and
for anyone listening to this, ifyou haven't heard Google Trends
(39:32):
, just go to trendsgooglecom,type in your main roofing and
then just go down to your state.
You can kind of drill, drilldown by state and you can go
last 12 months, last 30 days,last five years.
I think it goes out to likefive years.
But you can see the trends andwhat I noticed when I was
looking at like august of 23,that exact thing where I was
looking at like ac repairdropped off a cliff, like the.
The search volume and the trenddropped hard after a certain
(39:56):
point and a lot of people werestarting to claim like I don't
have the leads, I'm not havingmy, my uh record months, like I
was month over month when it wasduring covid.
Everyone's like another recordrecord month, another record
month.
Everyone was having a greattime and getting real fat, real,
real fast, right, um so, andit's this post-COVID slowdown is
(40:16):
different.
People aren't at home as much.
A lot of these big techcompanies are forcing people to
come back to work.
So now they're back to I'm onlyhome a few hours a day.
That can wait.
They don't like it doesn'tmatter to them as much because
they don't use the home as much.
So there's a lot of that atplay too.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
It's, and I think that that's one of the things.
It's kind of the there's alittle bit of blame getting
pushed on the AI right now iswhat I'm saying.
Like it's not just people don'trealize.
Oh my goodness.
Well, shoot, shoot, things are.
Things are slower.
I know you're enjoying theepisode, but let's give a shout
out to another one of oursponsors.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
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(41:14):
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Speaker 1 (41:20):
People don't realize.
Oh my goodness, well shoot,things are are slower, and I've
seen it, you know, in in many ofthe trades you know, I have a
friend that's an electricalcontractor.
He's like man.
People just aren't calling asoften right now and so it.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
You know there's a lot of uncertainty in the
economy, right like you know,the regardless of where you lean
politically, there's tariffsand some of that stuff can be
good or bad how depends how youlook at it, but that the uns
whenever it's just like yourhome, your home estimate if
they're not, if they're confused, they're not going to buy.
(41:58):
So if they're not sure ifthey're going to have money for
this or they're not sure what'sgoing to happen to the housing
industry, their mortgage ratesor all these different things.
It just creates a lot of likewell, we'll wait.
We'll wait and see what happensuntil we know things are
booming, like I just sawyesterday.
This is the worst it's everbeen.
As far as sellers to buyers forhomeowners, which is usually
(42:20):
the real estate market's areally good indicator of kind of
where things are.
And typically and I'm assuming,roofing kind of follows a
trajectory like HVAC.
Hvac equipment typically getsreplaced like every 15 to 17
years.
15 to 17 years ago was 2008.
We all know what happened in2008, 2009, slowed down with
construction, so there's not asmany new homes and roofs I'm
(42:43):
assuming are 20, 25, 30 years,probably depending on where you
live and some of those factors.
But we're also coming up onthat for the roofing industry
too, where there's going to be aslowdown because there's not as
many new homes built anddepending on where you are like
I'm in Arizona, it's boom town.
You wouldn't know.
The economy is not great here.
There's new constructionprojects everywhere, but a lot
(43:03):
of other places don't have thesame new construction build out
right now.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Yeah, it's, it's challenging.
So you mentioned omnipresence.
You know I love omnipresence.
Man, that's my like.
Being best known beats bestevery time we're you know, and
(43:32):
and so what?
Speaker 2 (43:34):
what are you seeing tactically that is, helping
people become omnipresent intheir, in their marketplaces.
Well, I think I think thebiggest thing comes back to
video content.
I didn't share this.
I shared it on my social mediafeed maybe a month ago and I
realized I was looking up.
I was just looking up our brand, I don't even remember why, but
when you look up your brand, ifyou have short form videos and
you have your social mediaaccounts connected to your
Google business profile, there'susually a one called short
(43:55):
videos and it will pull inInstagram, facebook, linkedin,
tiktok videos into your feed.
So what that's telling me andGoogle's Google's always one of
(44:15):
those things.
They'll never directly tell youwhat's helping.
So you kind of have to see like, well, what do they have access
to and what are they?
What are they showing on here?
Cause you've kind of got to puttogether the pieces, and that's
why there's a lot of marketingcompanies putting together the
pieces, cause it's it's amystery, but short videos pop up
in, like all of my short videosthat get posted are on there.
So Google is clearly pullingthose in and to.
(44:39):
To make matters worse, google'sunder two antitrust lawsuits
right now One for their adsplatform and the other one is
for.
I think it has to do withsearch and not allowing
competitive products into search, because everything's Google,
google, google.
So Google's under a lot of hotwater and a lot of pressure
right now too, where they mayhave to sell off some of their
features, so it's in their bestinterest.
(45:00):
For example, if you're inEurope, the European Union is
very tough against techcompanies.
Here in Europe, the EuropeanUnion is very tough against tech
companies.
We are not here in the States,so in Europe the search results
are a lot different.
They pull in things like TikTok, videos and Facebook, so it's a
lot different if you look thereversus here.
Here it's still a lot of Googlestuff, but it is starting to
(45:23):
shift a little bit, wherethey're starting to pull
different things in from socialmedia platforms.
If you look up your brand, thisis a great way to know which
sites are the most important orones that Google's pulling
information from.
Usually LinkedIn shows up.
Usually Facebook shows up likeone of the top two or three.
So just Google your brand andthen just see what's on page one
.
That's a good indicator ofwhat's important for Google, and
(45:43):
so if you don't have listingson those platforms.
Get them at least get a listing.
Start posting on there, hire aVA.
Start, just start puttingcontent out there, because we
never know what they're pullingsources from.
So if we're sharing our fivestar Google reviews on four
different platforms, now all ofthose platforms know we do great
(46:04):
work and they all see that fivestar content and it just
creates this ecosystem where, ifwe're searching for best roofer
in my area, that gives freeestimates that's like a chat GPT
type search right, that's avoice search we can start.
If we have everything pointingto we do five star work and
we're great, chances are betteryou're going to be listed.
(46:25):
So just things like that, andthis again, can all be automated
.
I automated review responses insocial media posts back in 2018,
2019, before we had AI.
Now AI has made it a thousandtimes better.
My posts were always the same,but now we can do all this and
we don't have to set up once andit just runs and we don't have
to spend our time.
So then we can do all this andwe don't have to set up once and
(46:46):
it just just runs and we don'thave to spend our time.
So then we can spend our timeon creating two or three really
really good pieces of contentper week, versus like, oh, I got
to post today, what am I goingto post about?
What am I going to post about?
And that's the kind of stuffthat we really like helping
contractors with.
Just be smarter.
Just, you don't have to.
You don't have to.
You don't have to do the hustlegrind mentality all the time or
(47:07):
work 18 hours a day and alwaysbe online and always be
answering people.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
You can have technology help you with a lot
of this stuff.
Yeah, it's, ai is here.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
So, like you better is better accept it because I
actually have a really funnystory, um, about one of our,
because we have ai chat bots forour clients and so we this lady
in in texas it was right indallas she came in in the so she
had a conversation with rachelthat's the name we gave our ai
(47:39):
bot, just because rachel soundslike a really wholesome, good
person that you know is reallypersonable and fun and smiley.
So she had a conversation, shebooked an appointment.
She came into the office withfresh baked cookies and asked
the receptionist if she couldgive these to Rachel.
The office person didn't knowwhat she was talking about at
(47:59):
first.
Once it like dawned on her midconversation and she's like, oh
yeah, sometimes people call meRachel.
She didn't want to tell her itwas an ai bot that booked the
appointment, had theconversation with her, she's
like, yeah, rachel was so warmand giving and she was so
helpful.
I just want to bake thesecookies and give them to her.
And I'm like this is wild, likeyou never think this stuff would
(48:20):
happen in your lifetime.
But people don't know thedifference and, especially as it
gets better and better, theyjust don't know.
Um, I'm still of the belief youshould tell them it's an ai
assistant.
But I know phone calls.
I think it's by law you have to, but chats are little little
gray area if you will.
But that stuff is happening andwe've had other stories where
(48:42):
people like left five starreviews and named the ai chat
bot in the reviews and said, hey, rachel was great and helped me
out and all this type of stuff.
So people are, they don't knowthe difference in.
This.
Stuff is working and it isbooking appointments and is
helping contractors grow withouthaving to have a massive
overhead.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
Yeah, and it's.
It kind of comes back toearlier.
What we were talking about isthat speed to lead, that AI
chatbot was communicatingquickly and efficiently, and
that's all people want issomeone to communicate with them
, like they just want to becommunicated with.
(49:21):
They don't want the phone callfive days from now.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
Well, not only that, like you know, millennials are
the largest home buying group inthe country.
Now I'm an old millennial, Ijust turned 40.
So I'm at the very like I thinkthere's like maybe two years
more than me as a millennial age.
But now we have Gen Z becomingyoung twenties, mid twenties and
they're starting to buy homes.
So boomers still own themajority of they're the largest
(49:49):
homeowner group.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
I know it's a little confusing, but it's because they
have multiple properties.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
The ones that are buying the properties now are
millennials and we do businessdifferently.
Right?
We want chat, we want onlinebooking, we want online pricing,
we want all of the things thatwe don't want to have to sit on
the phone for 10 minutes andhave you qualify us.
We just don't want to do that.
My wife shares this story a lotand I share it on her behalf is
anytime we hire a contractorfor our house, if they don't
(50:16):
have some way to chat or bookonline, she just moves on to
someone else, Because that'sjust the world we live in today,
and so if you don't have thosethings, you might be missing
opportunities and again youdon't, just like.
We gave the example about thegutter company that was 28 days
later.
You don't even know you'remissing the opportunity because
you don't even have the option.
(50:57):
What are the main things that acontractor needs to do going
forward to make sure that theysurvive and thrive.
Going into this era, my biggestthing would be to own your list
so that way you can alwaysremarket that list.
I've actively for both ourpodcasts, for our marketing
company.
Even when I was in the trades Ialways made sure we collected
email addresses.
That was before text messagingwe got became a lot more popular
.
Own that list, grow that listas often as possible.
(51:21):
Make sure it's a good list,though Don't don't go buy a list
of homeowners and stuff thatthat stuff doesn't work.
And then you said you send anemail and you're going to ruin
your domain's reputation, butevery single person that calls
you fills out a form.
Make sure that is requiredfield to send a mobile phone
number and get an email address,because with all of these
(51:41):
different platforms and we don'tknow exactly what's making
people push them to buy today,the best way to ever get ahold
of someone is direct outreach,and we do that a lot with
clients now, in the homes ofHVAC specifically, it's a little
easier to get tune-ups and getback in the door right, because
obviously most people arewell-trained.
Like I need to have someonecome tune up my AC.
(52:02):
Um, but roofing will maybe alittle harder that way, but at
least with the email you cannurture them and teach them
about their roof, teach themabout their home, get them to
feel really good about like oh,these guys are always teaching
me something that's valuable.
You will stand out when itcomes time to get that roof
replaced.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
That would be my main thing.
Speaker 2 (52:23):
And, of course, we talked about automation Fill the
gaps in your bucket.
Start realizing, regardless ofhow awesome you think your team
is, you have holes in yourbucket.
You're just not looking hardenough.
Every business does, mybusiness does.
We're always constantly tryingto find a better way to reach
out to prospects, reach out topeople that requested
(52:43):
information faster, and to justfill the bucket, you know,
because if you plug the holes,you don't have to fill it with
water, and that water beingmoney, your profit, that's right
.
So you don't have to keepfilling the bucket if you fill
the holes.
Speaker 1 (52:59):
Man, it was great having you on this has been
another episode.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
I'm glad we're able to do this.
Speaker 1 (53:03):
Yeah, man, this has been another episode of the
Roofing Success Podcast.
Speaker 3 (53:07):
Thank you for tuning into the Roofing Success Podcast
For more valuable content.
Visit roofingsuccesspodcastcomWhile there.
Check out our sponsors forexclusive offers, shop for
merchandise and sign up for ournewsletter for industry updates
and tips.
Also join the Roofing SuccessFacebook group to connect with
other professionals and stayupdated on the latest trends.
(53:29):
If you enjoyed this episode,please subscribe, like, share
and leave a comment.
Your support helps us continueto bring you top industry
insights.
The website link is in thedescription.
Thanks for listening.
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