June 7, 2024 • 58 mins
Step into The TradeMarke Podcast, your go-to podcast for everything marketing in the trades. Hosted by award-winning industry marketing experts, Sarah Ghirardo from Remarketable and Eric Thomas from Rival Digital. Together, we're here to unite the worlds of trades and marketing, bringing you insights, stories, and strategies from the heart of the industry. Whether you're a trade professional, a marketing expert, or somewhere in between, this is the place for you. Listen in as we're here for the big ideas, the game changers, and the everyday successes. Because at The TradeMarke, we're with the trades and for the trades.
In this episode, we sit down with McKena Harless, a marketing expert with a unique background in the trades. We dive into her journey, starting with a random question about her favorite quote, and explore her experiences working from home, her family, and her career in marketing within the trades. McKena shares her insights on the challenges and rewards of working from home, the importance of having a purposeful life, and how she navigated her career path from studying communications to becoming a key player in the trades marketing industry.
We discuss the significance of social media for contractors, the common mistakes they make, and how to create engaging content that resonates with their audience. McKena emphasizes the importance of showcasing the people behind the brand and building relationships through social media. She also provides valuable tips on running ads, posting frequency, and the evolving landscape of PPC and SEO.
Join us as we uncover the secrets to successful marketing in the trades, the power of branding, and the importance of not forgetting the people—both your team and your customers. McKena's journey and expertise offer valuable lessons for anyone looking to make their mark in the trades and marketing industry.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Step into The Trademark, your go-to podcast for everything marketing in the trades.
Hosted by award-winning industry marketing experts, Sarah Girardo from Remarketable
and Eric Thomas from Rival Digital.
Together, we're here to unite the worlds of trades and marketing,
bringing you insights, stories, and strategies from the heart of the industry.
(00:21):
Whether you're a trade professional, a marketing expert, or somewhere in between,
this is the place for you.
Listen in as we're here for the big ideas, the game changers,
and the everyday successes.
Because at The Trademark, we're with the trades and for the trades.
Hey, everyone. Welcome to The Trademark. We are here today with McKenna Harlith,
(00:43):
and she has a wild background of marketing in the trades.
And we're so excited to talk to her just about all sorts of things.
But my favorite thing is to start off with a random-ass question.
And so, McKenna, what is your favorite quote that you kind of live by? Oh, my gosh.
(01:04):
I would say right now, working from home, creating a family.
My favorite quote would be a Bible verse, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
And so working from home, I mean, there's some days where I literally don't
leave the four walls of my home.
And so from a worldly perspective, it's like, what did I do today? Did I have any impact?
(01:28):
And so I actually have a big blackboard that I bought off of Facebook Marketplace
in my living room. And that's what's written across it.
So just as I walk throughout the day,
Just being mindful of like, even though a lot of what I do is digital,
talking to a lot of people, and then also mundane as far as being a mom,
being a wife, like doing laundry, making dinner.
(01:50):
It has purpose because it's there for me to serve the Lord and serve my family.
So good question. I love that. I love that because it is hard to work from home.
And I don't think people really realize that. They're like, oh my gosh, you don't have to leave.
You're like, you're right. Yeah. I don't leave.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think, I mean, I'm busier at my work from home jobs
(02:15):
than I ever was in my office jobs.
And so it's people, I hear grouchy people talk frequently about basically discrediting
work from home jobs because they assume that you can just work in your pajamas
and you're working four hours a day.
And it's not at all that. I mean, sometimes I wear pajamas.
(02:36):
I might wear sweatpants from the waist down because you don't know what I'm wearing.
Otherwise, I'm grinding from eight to
five and probably even maybe more efficient because I don't have a lot of the
distractions that I'd have within office jobs of people walking into your office
because they're bored or you just innocently go to go get a cup of coffee and you
(02:59):
end up chatting in the break room for a half hour.
And so I'm very focused here. My breaks are just probably a lot more productive
because I'll go fold a load of laundry than I would, you know,
scroll endlessly on Facebook.
So yeah. Yeah. So tell us what you do from home now and tell us a little bit
about your background and how you got to where you are today.
(03:22):
Yes. So super random because I was raised in the trades.
I remember when I was about five, my dad came home.
Well, even before that, when I was like two, my mom had just had my sister and
he came home from a super solid bank job and told her that he was going 100%
(03:42):
full-time commission at an air conditioning company.
Did not know anything about air conditioning. He just knew he wanted to make big money.
And my mom, after crying, came too.
And he went and joined this air conditioning company, met another guy there.
Air conditioning company just did not operate with integrity.
And so he was like, hey, let's go. He and this other guy, the other guy said,
(04:05):
let's go create a company where we're going to provide good service,
which I know is a lot of contractors.
That's their origin story. It's coming exactly from that perspective.
And so So they went and my dad was his sales manager to the owner.
And then 10 years later, he purchased it from the owner.
And then he actually sold it two years ago. And so it's very much been a part of my identity.
(04:29):
But I was always resistant to it because I just envisioned the trades a lot
of from the perspective of what I was hearing.
My dad in the car on the way to church, on the way to the grocery store having
to put out fires or him not being there at dinner because he's out on sales jobs.
And so just had a lot of negative connotation with the trades.
(04:51):
It's just a bunch of bubba's trying to make money and sweating a lot. And went to school.
I actually went to school to study communication because I could talk to a brick
wall and just studied marketing within that and intended to go get a big fancy
job at a big fancy PR firm or something like that.
(05:11):
And just God's timing truly of coming home. And my dad had a position in his marketing department.
At his company, working under his marketing director as just kind of somebody
to help the marketing director, but then also running social media and just
helping to cultivate the culture.
And so I prayed about it and had a lot of humility just because I had realized
(05:34):
through those four years in college that credit, shout out to my dad.
He had created a really good company and there was actually a lot happening
in the trades that I did not know about.
And so I went to go work for him and did that for four years.
And when I took over his social media, I really just created content that I
as a young person would want to see.
(05:55):
And my dad was in one of the best practice groups at the time,
Service Nation Alliance.
And we had a lot of friends, contractor friends through that.
And they were seeing the content that we were putting out and they just wanted
a lot of coaching and ideas and inspiration.
And so I just really started meeting with a lot of them and got to speak at
(06:16):
breakout sessions and stuff like that for conferences.
And I had a lot of imposter syndrome because I'm comparing myself to influencers
on Instagram with content that they're creating.
And I'm like, this is nothing like what they're doing.
But yet all of these contractors are telling me that I'm doing a really good job.
And that's just because as you've experienced, the trades is just something
(06:37):
that is playing catch up right now in a lot of areas, is, especially of marketing.
And so it was just, I just happened to come in at the right time as far as saying,
Hey, you know, people don't really want to just see your pictures of condensers or electrical panels.
You know, they want to see the people that are, are installing those things
(06:58):
and helping to build relationships with them.
And so through that, I got to know a lot of different contractors,
a lot of different vendors, and including Crystal Williams who owns Lemon Seed marketing.
And so she and I just became dear friends. And when my dad sold the company,
I had just become so exposed to this really cool hidden world of the trades.
(07:21):
And so got to hear about what Crystal was doing, wanted to be a part of it.
And so I went to go work for her.
It's been about three years ago now, and she's just rocking and rolling,
helping contractors out, manage their marketing.
And so got a new kind of unique perspective of what it looks like to be the
creative side and the strategic side of marketing outside of just,
(07:43):
you know, the social media branded side.
And then I had a baby a year ago, like a whole, a whole, I gave birth to a whole human.
You had a human. Oh my gosh. What a gift.
My gosh. And it really does just, I mean, it's cliche, but it just thrusts you
into this whole different perspective.
Like what is the meaning of life.
(08:05):
And so, so I just knew I wanted to like slow down life and just really invest in her and our family.
And so I, again, much like coming to know Lemon Seed, had gotten to know new
vendors through Lemon Seed, including one called Witt Digital.
And so the owners, Steven and Andrew, are just men that operate like with such
(08:26):
integrity and they're super cool.
And so I hit them up and was like, hey, looking to just slow things down a little
bit so I can raise this baby.
And so I've been working here for about eight months.
It hasn't been that long, but yeah, just doing a whole lot of different stuff,
but just trying to get as much exposure as I can so that I can just help contractors
as best I can. So it's fun.
(08:48):
I mean, that's a giant background when you really think about it, right?
Like social to a child manager, to being in the business with your dad and learning like.
Do you actually like it? Right. And then learning what he does,
because like, you're right, you see a perspective as a child.
And it can create trauma because, you know, you're like, man,
(09:12):
I wish my dad was there more.
I wish like this. And as a child, you're always like, you want more time.
And how cool is it that you get to give your daughter more time?
Right? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
And that's the most important thing when it comes to working just in general,
as we chase our bigger goals and bigger dreams, we're only chasing time.
(09:36):
And I always think about that with my kids, because, you know,
I've been working so hard for so long.
It's like, now that they're older, it's like, where did the time go? go.
Yeah. So I always think about that. But I found you.
Yeah, I found you because of your social media. And it was way before crystal.
(09:58):
And I just loved what you were doing. And I was like, dude, this is awesome to watch.
Because it's so it's such a cool perspective, right? And what?
So what are your tips for social media with contractors? Like,
what would you teach them? Yeah.
Yeah. So I think, I love my contractor friends.
If I can just hug all of them, I would, because they carry such a burden, right?
(10:23):
The large motivator for them is to run a healthy, successful business where
they can keep all these people paid, provide them insurance,
401k benefits, whatever else they want to.
And so, so much of what drives them when they're looking at what they're doing
for marketing is what's my return on investment going to be.
(10:44):
And so when I started running social media and having more conversations with
other contractors, that was just a lot of the questions that I would get is,
well, what's your ROI on that?
And I finally, once I got over the imposter syndrome and realized that I had
something figured out, I would just start telling them like, I don't know.
I can tell you some metrics that I have of success and kind of some confident
(11:09):
feelings and things that we're seeing within the business that are indicative
that what we're doing is working.
But that's the first thing that I think once you can kind of let go of this
expectation that whatever you post has to bring in ROI,
it has to have a tracking number and each post needs to be a call to action of call me for service.
(11:31):
I think that kind of opens up the possibilities a lot more and it makes it a lot more fun.
And so I usually tell contractors whenever I'm talking about social media and
coaching them on it is really,
if you'll just ask yourself, what kind of content could I put out here to give
them a window into my business and my business's culture,
(11:53):
that usually leads to a lot of inspiration because that's really all that social media is there for.
I mean, when you look, I'll start usually if I have a fancy presentation or
something with Facebook or metas, they're.
Mission statement, Pinterest, LinkedIn.
(12:13):
And most of the time, what it's all geared towards is building relationships,
person to person, or in LinkedIn's case, business to business.
And so that's what contractors forget is this platform is not here for you to make money.
That's an added bonus of it. If we want to put out ads, boost posts,
(12:34):
things like that. But for the most part, all that Facebook is trying to drive
is a platform that's algorithm is built towards engagement, where people are
connecting with people.
And so if you can create content that equals that, then you will see that your
content will get far more engagement because you're providing what Google's
goal is, or excuse me, Facebook's goal is all of their goals, right?
(12:59):
It's the same thing. I mean, people buy from people.
And I think when we make our ads so pretty and when we focus so much on what
our brand should look like,
it's almost like we are taking away from our brand sometimes because we're not showcasing the people.
And so I think that's a great piece of advice is that the content should,
(13:22):
a big significant part of it should be about your people and what they're doing
and how they're doing it.
I mean, people love to watch people do things.
Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, it's funny. I saw a meme the other day and it was like
all of us at 11 o'clock at night.
And it's a screenshot of there's these guys out there that are making tons of
(13:44):
money from like lawn mowing people, mowing lawns.
And it's, it's because it's like satisfying and they'll, they'll narrate it
throughout the whole thing as far as, you know, their thought process and,
and you know, what they were doing and how much all the dirt way that they removed
and just different random stuff like that.
But, but yes, it's, it's really just connecting the people with the people.
(14:07):
I love one contractor that I think his content, his content is so underrated.
And so I need everybody that listens or watches this to go follow him fixed, right.
And guaranteed his name is Roy white and he is the pure has the purest soul. I love him.
And he, to me, in my opinion is doing content.
So he has a gal in his office that runs it and she doesn't put a bunch of emojis
(14:32):
and a bunch of hashtags and a bunch of mumbo jumbo in their captions.
I don't know if I've ever seen, if rarely, a post about offers or call us today, anything like that.
It's just all about this family that they've built.
If they have a technician, they just post the other day. If they had a technician
that got married, they'll post and it'll just be pictures of them in their wedding,
(14:56):
wishing them congratulations. populations.
One of their technicians just saved up, worked super, super hard and bought his dream truck.
And so they did this long post, like just giving him a shout out about how hard
that he worked and they were so happy for him.
And then they adopted a dog and they do these like DNA reveals.
And so they'll do Facebook lives or they'll open the envelope for the first
(15:19):
time and read out his DNA.
And so it's like this whole dramatic thing. It's great. And so that to me is,
what people are really searching for is just to understand that you're not just there to make money.
You're not just there to take their money. You're there to build relationships
and just the differentiation and that you're like a real human being that makes mistakes.
(15:40):
That's when I would tell contractors to do Facebook lives.
They'd be like, well, what if I mess up? I'm like, well, congratulations.
You've just told everybody that you are a real life human being who makes mistakes.
So, and they will be able to relate. So, so yeah.
Yeah. I feel forward often on my My social media is like, oh,
(16:02):
this went out. Let me delete it.
Yeah. Yeah. So and then, I mean, there is like the business side of social media
that you have to do as well.
So, again, being able to see the forest for the trees, I think,
is really beneficial when you understand the business of Facebook,
(16:23):
you know, Meta, Pinterest, YouTube, all those things.
Is that they are selling something and it's you.
And a lot of people say that because they're selling advertisements to businesses
like where we're running social media ads to try and get people to go ahead and call your business.
(16:44):
And so if you can create content that keeps people on the Facebook platform
more, then Facebook is also going to reward that because they're going to know, oh,
people want to watch this three-minute video. And so I'm going to get to display some ads.
And then hopefully they'll think, oh, Facebook brings me joy.
And so I'll stay on Facebook because you saw good content and interacted with it.
(17:08):
And so that's why I'm slow to recommend clients ever directly post their YouTube
video link or directly post their blog links to Facebook because Facebook doesn't
want you to take people away from Facebook. They want to keep people there.
Yeah, it's the same thing with Google, right? It's the same thing with every platform.
(17:30):
They want you to play in the platform and make yourself sticky because they
have adoption and utilization metrics that they have to hit as product managers
that built that product.
And I think a lot of people don't think of it as a product,
product but when you really think about it
from a tech perspective all of these
(17:52):
platforms are building product so that you
stick to the product and you
use the product that makes sense absolutely and i think it doesn't make sense
to a lot of people out there because they're just like oh it's just like where
our friends are at right and you're like yeah but you're not marketing to yourself
(18:13):
and I highly doubt you're marketing to your friends,
but your friends are boosting your posts because they like your content. And,
But they're also probably wasting your money because they like your content. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
So it's like a catch-22 when it comes to posting.
How often would you recommend people run ads on social media? Oh.
(18:41):
So we usually recommend like for our clients, most of the time I see like a
$500 a month budget usually gets them pretty far.
And you also have to kind of ask yourself, what's the goal?
So are you looking for just impressions? So I'll compare it to a virtual billboard.
You just wanted to get impressions versus are you wanting lead generation as
(19:05):
far as actually getting correlated calls?
Calls and so then we'll set up a different type of ad which
usually is more expensive just due to the nature of the ad so
as far as like amount of postings
for the ads i have to ask my social ads specialist on that honestly but for
the most part that's just what we look at is typically that budget of about
(19:26):
500 a month and then looking at impressions i always say videos like if you
can put together a video that's an ad that's going to run a lot better for multiple
reasons because Facebook just likes videos a lot more.
Even if it's, I'll say, I'll tell people, even if it's like a graphic and one
of the words like bounces off the screen with animation, that's still going to register as a video.
(19:48):
And so that's gonna be better than just a still photo.
So when it comes to ads.
That's a couple of little tiddly bits that I have there. I like that.
And how often should they be posting on social media just in general?
Yeah. So I usually recommend like three to five times. If you're going to do
three, I would make sure they're like really strong posts.
(20:12):
If you do five, then I think any more five is kind of the sweet spot.
Even four to five, three is like bare minimum.
But four to five, it just seems with the amount of content people are pumping
out anymore more that four to five is more so the sweet spot these days.
But the biggest thing is if you can do three really, really well, then do three.
(20:34):
If the idea of doing four or five leads you to just doing a bunch of like crap
content, then I would rather you just stick with three because Google,
I keep saying Google that's because my jobs are blending together.
But if you keep, you know, putting crap content out there, Facebook's paying attention to that.
And so they're going to start giving you less and less engagement because they're
(20:58):
just seeing a trend of like, oh, these people just aren't putting out stuff that anybody likes.
And so, so yeah. And then I would even add on there, one of those posts a week
being at least one video.
And even if you want to get even more in depth, I would say like a reel,
like a video, 90 seconds or less, because Facebook is trying to compete with
(21:21):
TikTok and YouTube shorts.
So they really like the reels right now. So yeah. Yeah. Great feedback.
And really thinking about nobody goes to your Facebook profile to look at all of your posts.
So you could repost the same things.
And I think people forget that. It's like repurpose your post.
(21:42):
And it doesn't it. I've seen people do it the same day, right at different times
of the day. And you're like, wow, I thought I saw that. And I thought I liked it.
And then you go back and you're like, oh, you're reposting strategy is repurpose.
And so there's just so many different strategies out there when it comes to social media.
And it's not that you have to create new content every day.
(22:04):
It's that you have to create content that you can edit and make it look different
if you want to, or just repost the same things and give it a whirl and give
it a test because social is constantly changing.
And the algorithm of what they want, what they like, and just like Google,
you know, I know now you're working a lot with Google and PPC and SEO.
(22:25):
So tell me about transitioning from social primarily into that.
World. Yeah. Google. Yeah. Well, cause even, even in the midst of that transition,
it was working on the larger marketing strategy.
And part of what we did at lemon seed is, or they still do is,
is holding their vendor partners accountable, which is necessary because you
(22:48):
know, these contractor firms, they excel largely on the technical side,
just like my dad's origin story.
Like they were just really good guys who were technically claim client who wanted
to go and provide good service.
They weren't marketing minds who wanted to go do air conditioning service.
And so for them to then try and understand, you know, like bend their brains
(23:11):
to try and understand how all of this stuff works.
It's over, it's overwhelming for somebody like me. And this is what I do for
a living, let alone somebody who's like coming from, you know,
the technical minded of like, how do I fix this condenser?
What does it look like? Like we need to make sure that this is the right tonnage, all this stuff.
And so when I was trying to hold these vendor partners accountable,
(23:33):
I really didn't fully understand all of the ins and outs of the strategy of
SEO, how it needed to work, performance metrics of PPC, all those different things.
And so I was just thinking, man, how can I best help contractors?
And this was the field that I just felt like needed more exploration.
And so, but you're exactly right that there is a mimicking of just kind of an
(23:55):
educated a guess to some degree with both social media and Google,
because they're both, it seems evil to some degree, but like they're both changing
their algorithms and not really telling anybody and they just want to see if
anybody can figure it out.
And so, so yeah, very much the same thing transitioning to Google,
but I think just realizing like.
(24:16):
How much control Google has was like what I was not at all prepared for.
But then also to realize to some degree, like how for the user Google is.
And that's where a lot of people end up getting in trouble is because they're
trying to game the system for their business.
And so they're utilizing black hat practices, whether it's the agency or it's
(24:38):
the contractor trying to just game the system.
And then they get in trouble and they're like, Oh, that dang Google.
Well, Google's rules, i will say
to google's credit if i can give them any is to
protect the consumer they want to make sure that you're not doing anything that's
going to mislead them and and give them bad information so so yeah but it's
(24:59):
been fun i like it i have a lot more respect for friends like eric who do digital
stuff because it is robust so it is robust yeah everyone's like do you did you ever
want to get into seo and i was like no i built a website
once and actually i i did websites at
service titan too for like a beta and i
was like yeah this is no this
(25:22):
isn't something that i'd really love to do for the rest of
my life seo is and seo is right now it's changing by like literally the second
of search is what i tell people like you are changing search and now Google
is such a mess because of all the they want to compete with AI.
(25:44):
They want to compete with open AI. They want to bring it in and then they totally
change their feed and then they're now losing ad revenue, which of course they would.
But then us as people who are marketers just in general, we're all like,
what do you want from us? You know, like... Yeah, literally. It's like...
(26:09):
Oh no. Like, yeah. Yeah. And there's so much to watch.
I've said like, just to watch the transition.
Cause I have a lot of clients that talk about how their Google LSA accounts
aren't performing as well anymore.
And I'm like, well, if I think about Google as a business, we were having a lot of conversations,
(26:29):
you know, a year ago about,
Hey, pull your money from PPC because lsa has
better lead quality higher conversion rate and
so now i see a year later lsa performing
worse and i'm like it's i mean my
conspiracy theorist is like it's because google is like
(26:50):
trying to figure out how do i kind of get people back to ppc
because we're losing money but also like not totally screw
over this other department that we have so it's
it's been interesting to watch that develop yeah yeah
and when lsa came out so i was on like
the beta for that so i'm really old but
i was on the beta for that and i remember speaking to them and they were like
(27:14):
yeah no that product doesn't talk to this product and i was like wait what and
they're like yeah and then this product doesn't talk to that product and i was
like but why they're like they're They're just different departments.
Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. I could never wrap my head around that.
I was like, so you're just – well, I get that you want to monetize like just
(27:38):
the entire page, right? Like that's the goal.
And to make it e-commerce because it's faster in the conversion,
right? And that's the other goal.
But now with SGE, like we saw – we're seeing Google slow down.
It was 30 seconds that you had to be. Now with SGE, the response is coming back
at sometimes 60 seconds and it changes every day.
(28:01):
But it's like where you're chasing
wild goals with different search experiences, right, at this moment.
And it's causing a lot of frustration and confusion, but I think it always has for marketers.
You know, it's, you're like, oh, I don't know what Google's doing today. Right.
(28:21):
We'll just figure it out as we go. Yeah.
Well, I mean, it's even, you know, as my clients are coming to me and this has
been a kind of a slow start to the season, it feels like for some.
And so they're like, Hey, I'm slow.
And so I'll look at their SEO rankings and they're all over the place.
And then I'll look at the next day and they're in a completely different position.
(28:42):
And so we've just been talking as a team of like, how do you dictate what's
an actual issue versus just the Google algorithm doing whatever it's doing right now.
And so, and then same for PPC, you know, it's just PPC has just become such
a more competitive landscape, which we all know.
It's just now to see it in real time. Like I had a client just yesterday that
(29:04):
I pulled some reports for year over year and their cost per click has tripled.
And so it's just like, just due to the sheer competitiveness of that landscape.
And they're not at a size that they could even compete with that.
Like to ask them to give me triple what they're spending right now,
like they can't even afford.
And so it's like, okay, so do we stay here? Do we put this somewhere else?
(29:25):
Is it effective where it's at right now? Like, what do we do? And so.
Yeah. And, and yeah, I read an article the other day that cost per acquisition
went up by 30% year over year.
And typically Google has like a 10% that you forecast in and on average that
you know, it's going to go up, but 30%, it's like, we're not the market saturation.
(29:50):
Someone with a bigger budget is the market saturation. And we are now competing
with, you know, distributors.
We're competing with Walmart.
We're competing with Angie, you know, Home Depot, all of these really big national
brands that have big budgets.
And because, you know, I saw Walmart go out and with train and then I saw a
(30:13):
solar company partner with them as well earlier in the past couple weeks and I was like.
Now we're competing with Walmart. Yeah. Like, that's insane, you know?
Yeah, can you imagine Walmart's marketing budget? Oh, my God.
Right. I know. I was like, oh, that's – I'm always jealous of the bigger budgets.
(30:34):
I will not lie to you. I'm like, oh, you have a giant budget. What do you do with it?
But, you know, I was talking to Amber McKee on another podcast,
and she was like, yeah, we're looking at other ways to go digital,
but like, in strategic, interesting ways. She was like, what about Amazon?
Like, what about she was just mentioning so many different ones.
(30:56):
And I'm always big about voice search.
So like, what about your Alexa?
What about like, how do you create skills? How do you create more automations like to be in the home?
So your Alexa is talking to you every single day about the weather and how your
unit is doing and things like that and smart home.
So it's really, it's a marketer's game right now of where do I pay to play that
(31:22):
makes sense, but it's also going to bring me something back.
And with the economy just being so wild as well, And I think people paid more
in taxes this year, right?
Like, I know I did.
And I'm just like, what? Like, you know, it's just an interesting market out there at this moment.
(31:47):
And I'm very excited to see where the trades are going to go.
And I think it's going to be like more app-based, like instant gratification
subscription services is what I'm seeing a lot.
You know and i think too like and i don't know how some contractors
listening to this will feel about it but it's like you got
(32:09):
to go do more boots on the ground type work to get
your brand out there and and so it's funny
just to see that resistance whenever i say something like that to a client because
i'm more than willing if their ppc budget is no longer going to be effective
i'm more than willing to tell them like this is not where you should be putting
this money you'd be more better served to spend this on you know heck you could
do a ton with like five thousand dollars a month just in community branding
(32:32):
or local events and stuff like that.
But the resistance of that,
because it's a lot easier to go and just dump money into PPC because they don't
have to do anything versus to ask them to go and sponsor a chamber luncheon
and speak on a podium about their services and shake hands, kiss babies.
(32:54):
It's a lot more work and effort. And I'm not denying that, it's just more so
how hard are you willing to get what was coming easily previously?
And so, especially on that digital landscape, just as it's changing so much.
And then, yeah, to your point, we're going to have to get creative.
And I think it's going to involve a lot of contractors.
Being open to learning new things and being open to trusting some vendor partners
(33:18):
to provide that for them because they're not going to be able to figure that out.
And if you are, all the more power to you. But I would also say you're probably
better served to invest that into having somebody do it than you investing the
time to try and figure out how to do it.
Yeah, most definitely. And for the vendors out there, I would highly recommend
helping with their strategy, right?
(33:40):
Because often they're like, oh yeah, we run this for you. And you're like, great.
And they don't say what the strategy is. And I'm like, no, there's like a whole
content strategy behind this.
And all vendors need to be working together for this partnership.
Because and that was the great thing about when I talked to Crystal,
I was like, hey, like, if you could just bring in all together in one room,
(34:03):
and have a conversation, right? Right.
Because, you know, you have this reporting in the back end of any CRM that you
have that tells you the job types, business units, the prices,
what's happening per zip code.
Like you can create a great content strategy and then you go after what makes sense in those areas.
(34:26):
You have to get so localized, like so it's almost down to the neighborhood at this point.
And and so that's
what i really appreciate about like these cmos kind
of style businesses is that they're bringing vendors together to
have a conversation to develop a strategy that makes sense versus hey like here's
(34:48):
fifteen thousand dollars go spend it on ppc well your market is saturated you're
you're gonna get five clicks in some areas and it's gonna cost you like a a jillion dollars.
And it just doesn't make sense, right? You're like, I don't want to do things that don't make sense.
And marketers are gamblers, is what I really like to think about.
Because if you think about it, like we gamble with other people's money every single day.
(35:13):
And don't tell my clients that, but yes.
We're just like hoping and promising. We're like, yeah, no, we tested this with
some other area and it worked really well.
But some things we, We, they are the test, you know, like we're constantly test.
So, and I know people don't like to hear that, but you are a test because we
don't know if Google is going to work today the same way it worked yesterday.
(35:36):
Yeah. We just don't. Yeah. And as much as we want to be great marketers and
be like, yeah, no, this is tried and true.
That doesn't happen. Yeah, no, absolutely.
Especially in this market right now. And so it's just like, it's then the added
complication of like, how do you position your contractor
(35:59):
to be in a place where like, if you try something and it fails,
like they're still going to be okay.
And because for a lot of them, they don't want to hear that.
They don't want to do those risky see things because that's the underlying problem.
I love asking contractors what their, as we're talking about their overall marketing
strategy, and if I'm hitting any resistance towards what I'm proposing,
(36:22):
one of the questions I'll work in the conversation is like, so what's your profit margin right now?
And once I find out their profit margin, it usually is a lot lower than where it needs to be.
And that's where the resistance is coming from towards my marketing strategy
that I feel very confident in is because they don't know if they,
they, they right now are not positioned to take a risk.
(36:43):
They need to take a certain, you know, a certain certified decision.
And, and a lot of marketing isn't that. Yeah.
Yeah. And, and that's a great point. It's again, and I think we've all been preaching it this year.
It's like when you can have excellent marketing, but if your operations are
poor, Like, we can't do anything about that beyond providing content.
(37:09):
And if you have vendors, they don't know all of your data unless they are tied into it.
And even if they are, they're probably working with, you know, other companies too.
So like, there has to be communication back and forth. But the other biggest
part is that what we've learned is that they, you're right, they don't know their profit margin.
(37:33):
That's the best question to ask because they're like, we don't know.
We don't know our breakeven number.
We don't know how much it costs to go out to the home.
And, you know, that is marketing blindly. That is running a business blindly.
Absolutely. I hate it for you, to be honest.
And I don't use the word hate, but you got to get your numbers set properly.
(37:57):
And then you need to think of marketing as an investment. So when you're having
those conversations with contractors, it's just like you're having a conversation
with a financial analyst and they're like, well, what's your risk tolerance?
Lawrence, you know? Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely.
Absolutely. So, yeah. And I know that's a really hard conversation to have and,
(38:18):
and trust me, I've had many of them, you know, everyone's like,
well, my marketing sucks.
And I'm just like, yeah, it's, it's your operations.
And it's just that it has conversion opportunities and we have to flip the script
in our mind and think in abundance instead of the scarcity mindset of like,
oh no, well, this is happening and you know.
(38:40):
It's fine. Fail forward. Let's move on. Let's figure it out.
Right? Well, that's what I've enjoyed about.
And one reason why I came to work at WIT was because we want access to their service titan.
And the reason being is we want to be able to own up to the fact that our campaigns
aren't bringing in good quality by looking at how much revenue it's generating.
(39:02):
And so we have expectations for performance metrics for PPC, for SEO.
And so, but most of the time what ends up happening and I pat myself on the
back, you know, that I have a really good team that's performing well,
because they'll be getting, you know, all the calls volume that we need to,
they'll be getting all the rankings that we need to.
And then I'll step into their service site and I'm looking at like the call
(39:24):
booking rate is low. The average ticket is low.
Cancellation is hot. You know, all these different elements where I try and
diplomatically enter into those conversations of like, hey, I promise you,
like if it was us, I would tell you, which is that's all part of building that relationship. Right.
But also like, look at all this data that I can present to you that's showing
(39:45):
where you are missing opportunities.
And so that's why you're not getting the return on ad spend for PPC that you're wanting.
Not, not me, but it's like, look at all the opportunities that you're missing in the home.
And so, so yeah, it's helpful to exactly to your point.
Like when you can tie the two together with all your vendors where everybody's
able to see big picture wise.
(40:07):
And there's not that disconnect of everybody, you know, the left hand doesn't
know what the right hand's doing, then there is a beautiful synergy.
So that happens, it's a lot more productive. So yeah, and I think you mentioned
something incredibly important. And they were the KPIs, right?
You were like, Oh, if the call center is not performing, that's where it like
the marketing piece can go out, you're going to have, you know,
(40:29):
10 to 12% of wasted spend just in general in marketing, because if you're direct mail,
like for real, after COVID,
the NCOA and all all the scrubs are just a mess,
right? The USPS data is a mess.
After for email, like you're going to have wasted spend because and it's not even wasted spend.
It's just you cleaning up a list, because a might not have cleaned up a list.
(40:52):
There's just wasted spend in every marketing channel.
And so yes, we know that. But if it hits the call center, and someone literally
calls you, like you need to book the call, right?
They're, they're, they're picking up the phone to, to call you.
And if they didn't book the call, then you have, you know, you have to give
(41:15):
them scripts, like your call center scripts to help them to coach them to measure what they're doing.
And then if, you know, it books the call books, and there's a cancellation rate,
which is a huge thing, because you have to over forecast, right.
And then it just keeps on going through through the entire customer journey
of all these conversion opportunities that either need more content because
(41:38):
they received a no, or they need more content because they need a nurture.
And, and I really think that, you know, when you start to look at your operations
in that way, it opens up a door of saying, Oh, yeah, my marketing doesn't suck.
Like it is like we need to tighten the ship.
Like we all need to get on board and, and understand how we,
(42:02):
we really just row together instead of like one's going this way and one's going this way.
Well, and like, what does it look like for you to use your CRM and like not
forget that it can help you with your marketing?
Like, I think a lot of these guys are like, oh, well it helps me like with my
scheduling, obviously.
Like it helps me, you know, with customer lists and it helps me with pricing
(42:24):
and all that stuff, it's like, that's great.
But also like, especially with how robust the CRMs are, like this should also
be helping you, you know, direct your marketing and, and don't.
And, and so if you're forgetting that, then you're not going to be setting up
your customer database the way that it should be.
You're not going to be emphasizing the importance of, you know,
your CSR booking the call correctly because you don't really care.
(42:47):
She books a call correctly right now. Cause all you care about is that she gets it on the board.
And it's like, well, now you just lost the added features of these CRMs that
can help give you that more confidence that you want in your marketing strategy,
because then you're going to be able to look at the data, which the technical
mind contractors love the data.
And so it's like, if I can show you all day long, how everything's working,
(43:10):
then you are going to have more confidence.
But most of the time, I can't tell you clearly like, yes, this is working because
I can't show it to you in your CRM because it hasn't been managed correctly.
So yeah. And the CRM is the entire thing is marketing.
It's the entire thing. Like if you looked at, for me, I like to look at the full dashboard.
(43:30):
And then my favorite part is to scroll down to the very bottom and look at the heat map.
And look at the revenue on the heat map. And then it's like,
oh, where's your office located? And it's normally really green right there.
But then I see them going out everywhere. And as they go out,
their average ticket decreases.
And I'm like, so you didn't even break even on any of these jobs,
(43:53):
but you're running them just because you're thinking that you need to run more
when really that green is telling you to market more. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty interesting. You know,
I like to do and I don't think people appreciate it as much because I do a five
minute transparency deep dive when someone has a just they come to me and they're
(44:15):
like, OK, well, what do you think? And I was like, OK, here's what's going to happen.
I'm going to go and just be like Rain Man and go on your account.
I'm going to speak out loud. I'm going to be as transparent and honest as possible at this moment.
You might not like the words that are coming out of my mouth,
but like we're going to look at the very easy overview.
(44:35):
And by the time that I'm done, they're just like, oh, and you know,
you're defeating and I'm like, I don't want to defeat you. I was like,
this isn't what it's about.
This is to show you how to use your CRM in ways that you can visualize because,
you know, everyone has a different story when it comes to data.
(44:57):
And your CSR is going to have a a different story than your marketer,
than your technician, than anyone.
And so you've got to understand, like, what's the big picture story that you're
really doing and telling your
team, because they need to know how to tell the story too in their jobs.
So yeah, most definitely.
And then what else do you see as opportunities like being an account manager
(45:22):
and looking at the branding of these companies and where they're,
you know, all of a sudden they're like,
oh, well, we rebranded, right?
That's a big one. And then they come to you and they're like,
now that we rebranded, what should we do? Or what do we do with this?
Yeah. Well, and I love, I mean, I'm watching all these contractors get all these
(45:44):
beautiful logos because it's kind of like the hot thing to do right now,
which it is, I mean, very frequently it is the best decision that you can make
for your business in a lot of areas.
But it's also once you kind of are done riding the high of like the shock and
awe of having super beautiful truck wraps and this super beautiful logo.
Hope you went out. Can you hear me now?
(46:08):
Stupid AirPods.
But once you're able to finish riding that high, getting the truck wrap rewrapped
and it looks beautiful and the community is excited, it's like,
how do you tell the story after that?
And so it's almost when talking to these clients, it's like,
I would rather you not spend all this money on a new truck wrap and a new logo
(46:32):
if you don't know what you're going to do with it after that.
And so when I was working at Lemon Seed, that was like half of my work.
And even now with my clients at WIT, sometimes if their PPC,
their SEO is performing great, I'm like, okay, but why is your business called this?
How are you communicating that to your community that like, this is what it
means and this is what you're going to do with it instead of it just being like,
(46:56):
and a lot of times for these contractors,
they don't know the answer because i get
it trying to name a business is not easy and so
they just kind of put something together that sounded good maybe
it's their family name maybe it had something like remotely
due to air conditioning and heating but it doesn't i've seen some that don't
(47:17):
and you're just like your name is seo surge like i said yeah and so you're just
like when people especially with what What you and I are talking about,
we're like, the landscape is so competitive.
Like, how are you going to differentiate yourself with the arsenal that you already have?
(47:37):
It's like you can already cover a lot of ground if you would just simply answer
that question. It's like, why are you named SEO search?
And what should that mean for the customer to expect when they choose you? you.
And so I had a client or I have a client right now that their tagline is always on call.
(47:58):
But they're not open 24 seven. And so, and I've been trying to work with them
to kind of connect the dots of like, when you utilize that tagline now their, their mascot is a duck.
And so it was supposed to be a funny play off of like, you know,
a duck call, like this duck brand, which I love.
But again, it's, it's those thought out elements of like, okay,
(48:19):
so your tagline is always on call, all, but you're not open 24 seven.
And so you need to be thinking about like when you're, what,
what does that look like when it actually plays out in real life?
Other than just like, oh, that's fun. Like that would look great on the side of a truck.
How going, what's the name of your mascot? Does he have a personality?
(48:40):
And I know Crystal talks a lot about that at lemon seed too.
It's like, what, what's the personality of this mascot? Does he have a name? Does he talk?
Does he not? Does he have a dance? Does he have a go-to song?
It's like actually getting a personality, especially for clients that go and get mascots.
It's like, don't just let it be a character on the side of the truck.
And then you as the owner are really actually the mascot.
(49:03):
Like let the mascot live and breathe
and give your company life so that you have the freedom especially
as the owner to like not be the face of the company because that's
those big bucks for us to have this brand that would carry on so yeah i agree
with you i think like you know yes a picture is really pretty and a new truck
(49:24):
wrap is really flashy and it does stand out when you're at a customer's home,
but there's a service level expectation that you are still driving home with your brand.
And so you get to define the voice strategy, the community strategy,
because you can't just wrap a truck and expect phone calls to come in and get
(49:46):
a new logo and expect phone call. It doesn't happen like that.
Like, where are you going to strategically place Face that in the community
and let them know that you are now this person and this person has a voice and
this person has a tone and this person, like you said, has a persona.
Personality, and it goes so deep.
(50:08):
And so, you know, even when I rebranded the company, I was like,
okay, people buy from people.
I'm going to put people on my track. and and you know
we got a lot of hits because there were
people on it but we still needed to bring them
out more and that meant we had to bring our own people out right and
so it was great to design it it was great to think about it but at the same
(50:33):
time I there were other layers that I had to like work really fast to create
because I didn't think about them yeah yeah no and I love I love what you said
as far as like you set the tone that this should have an experience.
And so that's the thing that I think you almost put yourself in.
The potential to have a problem even is because people do expect that if you
(50:56):
have this top tier branded look, they have an expectation that you should provide top tier service.
And so when you don't, when it's not an experience from, you know,
when the CSR answers the phone until the technician walks out the door.
And even after that, like, what does your follow-up texting look like?
Your follow-up emailing, different things like that.
It's like, you've now disappointed them
(51:19):
maybe more than if they would have just called the truck in the truck where
like they really know what to expect from a truck in a truck they were
expecting an experience when they chose you and so
what does it look like to provide that experience like i love wizards of ads
they even talk about like the power of scent like do you have the potential
with the brand that you've been given to associate a scent with with your logo
(51:40):
dan antonelli's i love when he uses fruit i just think it's so funny like Like a plum.
I saw like, so what does that look like? Do you, for every new install,
do you send them like a bushel of fresh plums?
Or if like, it's a peach, like, can you send them like a peach scented candle
or something like, well, you might have feelings about scented candles and AC,
(52:02):
you know, air conditioning.
Right. No, guys, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
My dad, side note, my dad, if my mom ever would light a candle,
we would, as soon as my dad got home, he'd blow it out.
You would just hear or like smell, you know, the smoke of a wick being blown
out. And he'd give us a lecture about VOCs and stuff like that.
(52:24):
And it was, that's no fun. The house smells great. Like let it smell like that if the body works.
Now, I guess I get it now that I'm like fully immersed in indoor air quality, but candles.
So yeah, it's just like, again, how do you play it out from,
and even small, all, like if you as a contractor thinking, okay, how do I.
(52:45):
Build out my brand? Like, just ask yourself, like, how do your,
how do your girls answer the phone? And where can you work in?
Like, even your brand just there just to start. So. Yeah.
And, you know, take it to, and then, and then look at the keywords as to what
the customers are using and then also saying about you and your reviews.
And that gives you more of like, okay, that's a common service language.
(53:08):
Like, how do I develop where we all speak the same speak? and that's part of our brand.
And really looking at it from a keyword perspective of, okay,
they keep saying that we're trustworthy, worry-free and I don't know,
whatever. Those are words of platitude.
Like we, of course, our expectation as a homeowner, if I'm calling you is to
(53:31):
be trustworthy and I'm not worry-free to happen, right?
I was working with this great digital provider and he had a great book and he
was like, Like, yeah, no, those are words of platitude. They don't mean anything.
And you're like, oh, man, that could have changed everything.
But it wasn't that you had to change it. It was about how you had to show it and then speak about it.
(53:54):
And that's where that common service language really came in.
It's like, if we speak about it, we have to be about it. And my friend once told me that.
And I was like, oh, you're right. I need to be about it, not just speak about it. But...
Yeah, it's just, there's so many different branding strategies.
And you're right, it's not just a pretty logo and a new truck wrap.
(54:17):
It is a full thought out, what does this look like from a culture,
from an expectation, from your consumers?
Like, where does it go? How do you place it?
And I love that you said that because, you know, even working from an agency
side, you get to see all of these different perspectives.
(54:39):
And all these different things, because they all influence each other, right?
Your brand is only as strong as your search.
And your brand, your reputation can end and start your search at the same time.
So yeah, it's, it's pretty interesting out there.
But I really think that you're on the money when it comes to just take it to the next level.
(55:06):
Take it to the next thought, right? Right.
Okay. So if you had one tip, we'll wrap this up.
If you had one tip to give a contractor today, what would that be? Oh, man.
I would say don't forget the people. And when I say that, that's going to resonate
(55:27):
in one of two ways for the listener, especially the contractors.
It's like, don't forget your team.
If you've been neglecting fostering a healthy company culture,
a healthy company family, then you're definitely about to see that as you go in the summer.
And then maybe for you, it also resonates. It's like, don't forget the people that you're serving.
(55:52):
I've seen desperate postcards come into my mailbox for, you know, install a condenser.
Like they were speaking about tonnage from the perspective of like,
hey, we're offering this much tonnage of the air conditioning versus like the
pricing is now going to be this cheap of this much tonnage.
(56:15):
And I'm like, nobody understands what you're, the average consumer doesn't know
what you're talking about.
And so it's just like, remember,
and maybe it's like, this sounds dumb, but maybe it's just a good reminder for
you to like, go call a local contractor and like, get a free estimate just so
that you can experience that from like a first person experience again.
(56:37):
And like remind yourself what it's like to be on the receiving end of that.
And then to remind yourself what it's like to show up to your work that you
don't own every day and what it looks like to provide a workplace that people love to come to.
Yeah. Don't forget your people is what comes to mind right now. I love that.
(56:57):
I love that. That's the perfect way to end. And I really appreciate you,
McKenna, taking the time to be on The Trademark and speak about your immense
knowledge in marketing in the trades and always excited to watch your growth.
And for those listening out there, thank you so much for joining us.
And if you love this episode, please leave us a review. McKenna, thank you again.
(57:18):
Thank you. I'm honored. I appreciate your time.
Yeah, no problem. All right. And that wraps up another episode of The Trademark,
where we bridge the worlds of the trades and marketing one story at a time.
We can't wait to see you next time. Thank you to The Trades for giving back
big, loving big, and taking massive action.
(57:39):
Don't forget to join us next time for more engaging conversations and innovative ideas.
If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave us a review and share it with your
colleagues and friends in the trades and marketing.
Your support means the world to us stay
connected with us off the air by following us on social media we'd love to hear
your thoughts and get your feedback until next time keep making your mark in
(58:03):
the trades thank you for listening to the trademark goodbye for now and remember
we're with the trades for the trades.
Step into The Trademark, your go-to podcast for everything marketing in the trades.
Hosted by award-winning industry marketing experts, Sarah Girardo from Remarketable
and Eric Thomas from Rival Digital.
Together, we're here to unite the worlds of trades and marketing,
bringing you insights, stories, and strategies from the heart of the industry.
(00:21):
Whether you're a trade professional, a marketing expert, or somewhere in between,
this is the place for you.
Listen in as we're here for the big ideas, the game changers,
and the everyday successes.
Because at The Trademark, we're with the trades and for the trades.
Hey, everyone. Welcome to The Trademark. We are here today with McKenna Harlith,
(00:43):
and she has a wild background of marketing in the trades.
And we're so excited to talk to her just about all sorts of things.
But my favorite thing is to start off with a random-ass question.
And so, McKenna, what is your favorite quote that you kind of live by? Oh, my gosh.
(01:04):
I would say right now, working from home, creating a family.
My favorite quote would be a Bible verse, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
And so working from home, I mean, there's some days where I literally don't
leave the four walls of my home.
And so from a worldly perspective, it's like, what did I do today? Did I have any impact?
(01:28):
And so I actually have a big blackboard that I bought off of Facebook Marketplace
in my living room. And that's what's written across it.
So just as I walk throughout the day,
Just being mindful of like, even though a lot of what I do is digital,
talking to a lot of people, and then also mundane as far as being a mom,
being a wife, like doing laundry, making dinner.
(01:50):
It has purpose because it's there for me to serve the Lord and serve my family.
So good question. I love that. I love that because it is hard to work from home.
And I don't think people really realize that. They're like, oh my gosh, you don't have to leave.
You're like, you're right. Yeah. I don't leave.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think, I mean, I'm busier at my work from home jobs
(02:15):
than I ever was in my office jobs.
And so it's people, I hear grouchy people talk frequently about basically discrediting
work from home jobs because they assume that you can just work in your pajamas
and you're working four hours a day.
And it's not at all that. I mean, sometimes I wear pajamas.
(02:36):
I might wear sweatpants from the waist down because you don't know what I'm wearing.
Otherwise, I'm grinding from eight to
five and probably even maybe more efficient because I don't have a lot of the
distractions that I'd have within office jobs of people walking into your office
because they're bored or you just innocently go to go get a cup of coffee and you
(02:59):
end up chatting in the break room for a half hour.
And so I'm very focused here. My breaks are just probably a lot more productive
because I'll go fold a load of laundry than I would, you know,
scroll endlessly on Facebook.
So yeah. Yeah. So tell us what you do from home now and tell us a little bit
about your background and how you got to where you are today.
(03:22):
Yes. So super random because I was raised in the trades.
I remember when I was about five, my dad came home.
Well, even before that, when I was like two, my mom had just had my sister and
he came home from a super solid bank job and told her that he was going 100%
(03:42):
full-time commission at an air conditioning company.
Did not know anything about air conditioning. He just knew he wanted to make big money.
And my mom, after crying, came too.
And he went and joined this air conditioning company, met another guy there.
Air conditioning company just did not operate with integrity.
And so he was like, hey, let's go. He and this other guy, the other guy said,
(04:05):
let's go create a company where we're going to provide good service,
which I know is a lot of contractors.
That's their origin story. It's coming exactly from that perspective.
And so So they went and my dad was his sales manager to the owner.
And then 10 years later, he purchased it from the owner.
And then he actually sold it two years ago. And so it's very much been a part of my identity.
(04:29):
But I was always resistant to it because I just envisioned the trades a lot
of from the perspective of what I was hearing.
My dad in the car on the way to church, on the way to the grocery store having
to put out fires or him not being there at dinner because he's out on sales jobs.
And so just had a lot of negative connotation with the trades.
(04:51):
It's just a bunch of bubba's trying to make money and sweating a lot. And went to school.
I actually went to school to study communication because I could talk to a brick
wall and just studied marketing within that and intended to go get a big fancy
job at a big fancy PR firm or something like that.
(05:11):
And just God's timing truly of coming home. And my dad had a position in his marketing department.
At his company, working under his marketing director as just kind of somebody
to help the marketing director, but then also running social media and just
helping to cultivate the culture.
And so I prayed about it and had a lot of humility just because I had realized
(05:34):
through those four years in college that credit, shout out to my dad.
He had created a really good company and there was actually a lot happening
in the trades that I did not know about.
And so I went to go work for him and did that for four years.
And when I took over his social media, I really just created content that I
as a young person would want to see.
(05:55):
And my dad was in one of the best practice groups at the time,
Service Nation Alliance.
And we had a lot of friends, contractor friends through that.
And they were seeing the content that we were putting out and they just wanted
a lot of coaching and ideas and inspiration.
And so I just really started meeting with a lot of them and got to speak at
(06:16):
breakout sessions and stuff like that for conferences.
And I had a lot of imposter syndrome because I'm comparing myself to influencers
on Instagram with content that they're creating.
And I'm like, this is nothing like what they're doing.
But yet all of these contractors are telling me that I'm doing a really good job.
And that's just because as you've experienced, the trades is just something
(06:37):
that is playing catch up right now in a lot of areas, is, especially of marketing.
And so it was just, I just happened to come in at the right time as far as saying,
Hey, you know, people don't really want to just see your pictures of condensers or electrical panels.
You know, they want to see the people that are, are installing those things
(06:58):
and helping to build relationships with them.
And so through that, I got to know a lot of different contractors,
a lot of different vendors, and including Crystal Williams who owns Lemon Seed marketing.
And so she and I just became dear friends. And when my dad sold the company,
I had just become so exposed to this really cool hidden world of the trades.
(07:21):
And so got to hear about what Crystal was doing, wanted to be a part of it.
And so I went to go work for her.
It's been about three years ago now, and she's just rocking and rolling,
helping contractors out, manage their marketing.
And so got a new kind of unique perspective of what it looks like to be the
creative side and the strategic side of marketing outside of just,
(07:43):
you know, the social media branded side.
And then I had a baby a year ago, like a whole, a whole, I gave birth to a whole human.
You had a human. Oh my gosh. What a gift.
My gosh. And it really does just, I mean, it's cliche, but it just thrusts you
into this whole different perspective.
Like what is the meaning of life.
(08:05):
And so, so I just knew I wanted to like slow down life and just really invest in her and our family.
And so I, again, much like coming to know Lemon Seed, had gotten to know new
vendors through Lemon Seed, including one called Witt Digital.
And so the owners, Steven and Andrew, are just men that operate like with such
(08:26):
integrity and they're super cool.
And so I hit them up and was like, hey, looking to just slow things down a little
bit so I can raise this baby.
And so I've been working here for about eight months.
It hasn't been that long, but yeah, just doing a whole lot of different stuff,
but just trying to get as much exposure as I can so that I can just help contractors
as best I can. So it's fun.
(08:48):
I mean, that's a giant background when you really think about it, right?
Like social to a child manager, to being in the business with your dad and learning like.
Do you actually like it? Right. And then learning what he does,
because like, you're right, you see a perspective as a child.
And it can create trauma because, you know, you're like, man,
(09:12):
I wish my dad was there more.
I wish like this. And as a child, you're always like, you want more time.
And how cool is it that you get to give your daughter more time?
Right? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
And that's the most important thing when it comes to working just in general,
as we chase our bigger goals and bigger dreams, we're only chasing time.
(09:36):
And I always think about that with my kids, because, you know,
I've been working so hard for so long.
It's like, now that they're older, it's like, where did the time go? go.
Yeah. So I always think about that. But I found you.
Yeah, I found you because of your social media. And it was way before crystal.
(09:58):
And I just loved what you were doing. And I was like, dude, this is awesome to watch.
Because it's so it's such a cool perspective, right? And what?
So what are your tips for social media with contractors? Like,
what would you teach them? Yeah.
Yeah. So I think, I love my contractor friends.
If I can just hug all of them, I would, because they carry such a burden, right?
(10:23):
The large motivator for them is to run a healthy, successful business where
they can keep all these people paid, provide them insurance,
401k benefits, whatever else they want to.
And so, so much of what drives them when they're looking at what they're doing
for marketing is what's my return on investment going to be.
(10:44):
And so when I started running social media and having more conversations with
other contractors, that was just a lot of the questions that I would get is,
well, what's your ROI on that?
And I finally, once I got over the imposter syndrome and realized that I had
something figured out, I would just start telling them like, I don't know.
I can tell you some metrics that I have of success and kind of some confident
(11:09):
feelings and things that we're seeing within the business that are indicative
that what we're doing is working.
But that's the first thing that I think once you can kind of let go of this
expectation that whatever you post has to bring in ROI,
it has to have a tracking number and each post needs to be a call to action of call me for service.
(11:31):
I think that kind of opens up the possibilities a lot more and it makes it a lot more fun.
And so I usually tell contractors whenever I'm talking about social media and
coaching them on it is really,
if you'll just ask yourself, what kind of content could I put out here to give
them a window into my business and my business's culture,
(11:53):
that usually leads to a lot of inspiration because that's really all that social media is there for.
I mean, when you look, I'll start usually if I have a fancy presentation or
something with Facebook or metas, they're.
Mission statement, Pinterest, LinkedIn.
(12:13):
And most of the time, what it's all geared towards is building relationships,
person to person, or in LinkedIn's case, business to business.
And so that's what contractors forget is this platform is not here for you to make money.
That's an added bonus of it. If we want to put out ads, boost posts,
(12:34):
things like that. But for the most part, all that Facebook is trying to drive
is a platform that's algorithm is built towards engagement, where people are
connecting with people.
And so if you can create content that equals that, then you will see that your
content will get far more engagement because you're providing what Google's
goal is, or excuse me, Facebook's goal is all of their goals, right?
(12:59):
It's the same thing. I mean, people buy from people.
And I think when we make our ads so pretty and when we focus so much on what
our brand should look like,
it's almost like we are taking away from our brand sometimes because we're not showcasing the people.
And so I think that's a great piece of advice is that the content should,
(13:22):
a big significant part of it should be about your people and what they're doing
and how they're doing it.
I mean, people love to watch people do things.
Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, it's funny. I saw a meme the other day and it was like
all of us at 11 o'clock at night.
And it's a screenshot of there's these guys out there that are making tons of
(13:44):
money from like lawn mowing people, mowing lawns.
And it's, it's because it's like satisfying and they'll, they'll narrate it
throughout the whole thing as far as, you know, their thought process and,
and you know, what they were doing and how much all the dirt way that they removed
and just different random stuff like that.
But, but yes, it's, it's really just connecting the people with the people.
(14:07):
I love one contractor that I think his content, his content is so underrated.
And so I need everybody that listens or watches this to go follow him fixed, right.
And guaranteed his name is Roy white and he is the pure has the purest soul. I love him.
And he, to me, in my opinion is doing content.
So he has a gal in his office that runs it and she doesn't put a bunch of emojis
(14:32):
and a bunch of hashtags and a bunch of mumbo jumbo in their captions.
I don't know if I've ever seen, if rarely, a post about offers or call us today, anything like that.
It's just all about this family that they've built.
If they have a technician, they just post the other day. If they had a technician
that got married, they'll post and it'll just be pictures of them in their wedding,
(14:56):
wishing them congratulations. populations.
One of their technicians just saved up, worked super, super hard and bought his dream truck.
And so they did this long post, like just giving him a shout out about how hard
that he worked and they were so happy for him.
And then they adopted a dog and they do these like DNA reveals.
And so they'll do Facebook lives or they'll open the envelope for the first
(15:19):
time and read out his DNA.
And so it's like this whole dramatic thing. It's great. And so that to me is,
what people are really searching for is just to understand that you're not just there to make money.
You're not just there to take their money. You're there to build relationships
and just the differentiation and that you're like a real human being that makes mistakes.
(15:40):
That's when I would tell contractors to do Facebook lives.
They'd be like, well, what if I mess up? I'm like, well, congratulations.
You've just told everybody that you are a real life human being who makes mistakes.
So, and they will be able to relate. So, so yeah.
Yeah. I feel forward often on my My social media is like, oh,
(16:02):
this went out. Let me delete it.
Yeah. Yeah. So and then, I mean, there is like the business side of social media
that you have to do as well.
So, again, being able to see the forest for the trees, I think,
is really beneficial when you understand the business of Facebook,
(16:23):
you know, Meta, Pinterest, YouTube, all those things.
Is that they are selling something and it's you.
And a lot of people say that because they're selling advertisements to businesses
like where we're running social media ads to try and get people to go ahead and call your business.
(16:44):
And so if you can create content that keeps people on the Facebook platform
more, then Facebook is also going to reward that because they're going to know, oh,
people want to watch this three-minute video. And so I'm going to get to display some ads.
And then hopefully they'll think, oh, Facebook brings me joy.
And so I'll stay on Facebook because you saw good content and interacted with it.
(17:08):
And so that's why I'm slow to recommend clients ever directly post their YouTube
video link or directly post their blog links to Facebook because Facebook doesn't
want you to take people away from Facebook. They want to keep people there.
Yeah, it's the same thing with Google, right? It's the same thing with every platform.
(17:30):
They want you to play in the platform and make yourself sticky because they
have adoption and utilization metrics that they have to hit as product managers
that built that product.
And I think a lot of people don't think of it as a product,
product but when you really think about it
from a tech perspective all of these
(17:52):
platforms are building product so that you
stick to the product and you
use the product that makes sense absolutely and i think it doesn't make sense
to a lot of people out there because they're just like oh it's just like where
our friends are at right and you're like yeah but you're not marketing to yourself
(18:13):
and I highly doubt you're marketing to your friends,
but your friends are boosting your posts because they like your content. And,
But they're also probably wasting your money because they like your content. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
So it's like a catch-22 when it comes to posting.
How often would you recommend people run ads on social media? Oh.
(18:41):
So we usually recommend like for our clients, most of the time I see like a
$500 a month budget usually gets them pretty far.
And you also have to kind of ask yourself, what's the goal?
So are you looking for just impressions? So I'll compare it to a virtual billboard.
You just wanted to get impressions versus are you wanting lead generation as
(19:05):
far as actually getting correlated calls?
Calls and so then we'll set up a different type of ad which
usually is more expensive just due to the nature of the ad so
as far as like amount of postings
for the ads i have to ask my social ads specialist on that honestly but for
the most part that's just what we look at is typically that budget of about
(19:26):
500 a month and then looking at impressions i always say videos like if you
can put together a video that's an ad that's going to run a lot better for multiple
reasons because Facebook just likes videos a lot more.
Even if it's, I'll say, I'll tell people, even if it's like a graphic and one
of the words like bounces off the screen with animation, that's still going to register as a video.
(19:48):
And so that's gonna be better than just a still photo.
So when it comes to ads.
That's a couple of little tiddly bits that I have there. I like that.
And how often should they be posting on social media just in general?
Yeah. So I usually recommend like three to five times. If you're going to do
three, I would make sure they're like really strong posts.
(20:12):
If you do five, then I think any more five is kind of the sweet spot.
Even four to five, three is like bare minimum.
But four to five, it just seems with the amount of content people are pumping
out anymore more that four to five is more so the sweet spot these days.
But the biggest thing is if you can do three really, really well, then do three.
(20:34):
If the idea of doing four or five leads you to just doing a bunch of like crap
content, then I would rather you just stick with three because Google,
I keep saying Google that's because my jobs are blending together.
But if you keep, you know, putting crap content out there, Facebook's paying attention to that.
And so they're going to start giving you less and less engagement because they're
(20:58):
just seeing a trend of like, oh, these people just aren't putting out stuff that anybody likes.
And so, so yeah. And then I would even add on there, one of those posts a week
being at least one video.
And even if you want to get even more in depth, I would say like a reel,
like a video, 90 seconds or less, because Facebook is trying to compete with
(21:21):
TikTok and YouTube shorts.
So they really like the reels right now. So yeah. Yeah. Great feedback.
And really thinking about nobody goes to your Facebook profile to look at all of your posts.
So you could repost the same things.
And I think people forget that. It's like repurpose your post.
(21:42):
And it doesn't it. I've seen people do it the same day, right at different times
of the day. And you're like, wow, I thought I saw that. And I thought I liked it.
And then you go back and you're like, oh, you're reposting strategy is repurpose.
And so there's just so many different strategies out there when it comes to social media.
And it's not that you have to create new content every day.
(22:04):
It's that you have to create content that you can edit and make it look different
if you want to, or just repost the same things and give it a whirl and give
it a test because social is constantly changing.
And the algorithm of what they want, what they like, and just like Google,
you know, I know now you're working a lot with Google and PPC and SEO.
(22:25):
So tell me about transitioning from social primarily into that.
World. Yeah. Google. Yeah. Well, cause even, even in the midst of that transition,
it was working on the larger marketing strategy.
And part of what we did at lemon seed is, or they still do is,
is holding their vendor partners accountable, which is necessary because you
(22:48):
know, these contractor firms, they excel largely on the technical side,
just like my dad's origin story.
Like they were just really good guys who were technically claim client who wanted
to go and provide good service.
They weren't marketing minds who wanted to go do air conditioning service.
And so for them to then try and understand, you know, like bend their brains
(23:11):
to try and understand how all of this stuff works.
It's over, it's overwhelming for somebody like me. And this is what I do for
a living, let alone somebody who's like coming from, you know,
the technical minded of like, how do I fix this condenser?
What does it look like? Like we need to make sure that this is the right tonnage, all this stuff.
And so when I was trying to hold these vendor partners accountable,
(23:33):
I really didn't fully understand all of the ins and outs of the strategy of
SEO, how it needed to work, performance metrics of PPC, all those different things.
And so I was just thinking, man, how can I best help contractors?
And this was the field that I just felt like needed more exploration.
And so, but you're exactly right that there is a mimicking of just kind of an
(23:55):
educated a guess to some degree with both social media and Google,
because they're both, it seems evil to some degree, but like they're both changing
their algorithms and not really telling anybody and they just want to see if
anybody can figure it out.
And so, so yeah, very much the same thing transitioning to Google,
but I think just realizing like.
(24:16):
How much control Google has was like what I was not at all prepared for.
But then also to realize to some degree, like how for the user Google is.
And that's where a lot of people end up getting in trouble is because they're
trying to game the system for their business.
And so they're utilizing black hat practices, whether it's the agency or it's
(24:38):
the contractor trying to just game the system.
And then they get in trouble and they're like, Oh, that dang Google.
Well, Google's rules, i will say
to google's credit if i can give them any is to
protect the consumer they want to make sure that you're not doing anything that's
going to mislead them and and give them bad information so so yeah but it's
(24:59):
been fun i like it i have a lot more respect for friends like eric who do digital
stuff because it is robust so it is robust yeah everyone's like do you did you ever
want to get into seo and i was like no i built a website
once and actually i i did websites at
service titan too for like a beta and i
was like yeah this is no this
(25:22):
isn't something that i'd really love to do for the rest of
my life seo is and seo is right now it's changing by like literally the second
of search is what i tell people like you are changing search and now Google
is such a mess because of all the they want to compete with AI.
(25:44):
They want to compete with open AI. They want to bring it in and then they totally
change their feed and then they're now losing ad revenue, which of course they would.
But then us as people who are marketers just in general, we're all like,
what do you want from us? You know, like... Yeah, literally. It's like...
(26:09):
Oh no. Like, yeah. Yeah. And there's so much to watch.
I've said like, just to watch the transition.
Cause I have a lot of clients that talk about how their Google LSA accounts
aren't performing as well anymore.
And I'm like, well, if I think about Google as a business, we were having a lot of conversations,
(26:29):
you know, a year ago about,
Hey, pull your money from PPC because lsa has
better lead quality higher conversion rate and
so now i see a year later lsa performing
worse and i'm like it's i mean my
conspiracy theorist is like it's because google is like
(26:50):
trying to figure out how do i kind of get people back to ppc
because we're losing money but also like not totally screw
over this other department that we have so it's
it's been interesting to watch that develop yeah yeah
and when lsa came out so i was on like
the beta for that so i'm really old but
i was on the beta for that and i remember speaking to them and they were like
(27:14):
yeah no that product doesn't talk to this product and i was like wait what and
they're like yeah and then this product doesn't talk to that product and i was
like but why they're like they're They're just different departments.
Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. I could never wrap my head around that.
I was like, so you're just – well, I get that you want to monetize like just
(27:38):
the entire page, right? Like that's the goal.
And to make it e-commerce because it's faster in the conversion,
right? And that's the other goal.
But now with SGE, like we saw – we're seeing Google slow down.
It was 30 seconds that you had to be. Now with SGE, the response is coming back
at sometimes 60 seconds and it changes every day.
(28:01):
But it's like where you're chasing
wild goals with different search experiences, right, at this moment.
And it's causing a lot of frustration and confusion, but I think it always has for marketers.
You know, it's, you're like, oh, I don't know what Google's doing today. Right.
(28:21):
We'll just figure it out as we go. Yeah.
Well, I mean, it's even, you know, as my clients are coming to me and this has
been a kind of a slow start to the season, it feels like for some.
And so they're like, Hey, I'm slow.
And so I'll look at their SEO rankings and they're all over the place.
And then I'll look at the next day and they're in a completely different position.
(28:42):
And so we've just been talking as a team of like, how do you dictate what's
an actual issue versus just the Google algorithm doing whatever it's doing right now.
And so, and then same for PPC, you know, it's just PPC has just become such
a more competitive landscape, which we all know.
It's just now to see it in real time. Like I had a client just yesterday that
(29:04):
I pulled some reports for year over year and their cost per click has tripled.
And so it's just like, just due to the sheer competitiveness of that landscape.
And they're not at a size that they could even compete with that.
Like to ask them to give me triple what they're spending right now,
like they can't even afford.
And so it's like, okay, so do we stay here? Do we put this somewhere else?
(29:25):
Is it effective where it's at right now? Like, what do we do? And so.
Yeah. And, and yeah, I read an article the other day that cost per acquisition
went up by 30% year over year.
And typically Google has like a 10% that you forecast in and on average that
you know, it's going to go up, but 30%, it's like, we're not the market saturation.
(29:50):
Someone with a bigger budget is the market saturation. And we are now competing
with, you know, distributors.
We're competing with Walmart.
We're competing with Angie, you know, Home Depot, all of these really big national
brands that have big budgets.
And because, you know, I saw Walmart go out and with train and then I saw a
(30:13):
solar company partner with them as well earlier in the past couple weeks and I was like.
Now we're competing with Walmart. Yeah. Like, that's insane, you know?
Yeah, can you imagine Walmart's marketing budget? Oh, my God.
Right. I know. I was like, oh, that's – I'm always jealous of the bigger budgets.
(30:34):
I will not lie to you. I'm like, oh, you have a giant budget. What do you do with it?
But, you know, I was talking to Amber McKee on another podcast,
and she was like, yeah, we're looking at other ways to go digital,
but like, in strategic, interesting ways. She was like, what about Amazon?
Like, what about she was just mentioning so many different ones.
(30:56):
And I'm always big about voice search.
So like, what about your Alexa?
What about like, how do you create skills? How do you create more automations like to be in the home?
So your Alexa is talking to you every single day about the weather and how your
unit is doing and things like that and smart home.
So it's really, it's a marketer's game right now of where do I pay to play that
(31:22):
makes sense, but it's also going to bring me something back.
And with the economy just being so wild as well, And I think people paid more
in taxes this year, right?
Like, I know I did.
And I'm just like, what? Like, you know, it's just an interesting market out there at this moment.
(31:47):
And I'm very excited to see where the trades are going to go.
And I think it's going to be like more app-based, like instant gratification
subscription services is what I'm seeing a lot.
You know and i think too like and i don't know how some contractors
listening to this will feel about it but it's like you got
(32:09):
to go do more boots on the ground type work to get
your brand out there and and so it's funny
just to see that resistance whenever i say something like that to a client because
i'm more than willing if their ppc budget is no longer going to be effective
i'm more than willing to tell them like this is not where you should be putting
this money you'd be more better served to spend this on you know heck you could
do a ton with like five thousand dollars a month just in community branding
(32:32):
or local events and stuff like that.
But the resistance of that,
because it's a lot easier to go and just dump money into PPC because they don't
have to do anything versus to ask them to go and sponsor a chamber luncheon
and speak on a podium about their services and shake hands, kiss babies.
(32:54):
It's a lot more work and effort. And I'm not denying that, it's just more so
how hard are you willing to get what was coming easily previously?
And so, especially on that digital landscape, just as it's changing so much.
And then, yeah, to your point, we're going to have to get creative.
And I think it's going to involve a lot of contractors.
Being open to learning new things and being open to trusting some vendor partners
(33:18):
to provide that for them because they're not going to be able to figure that out.
And if you are, all the more power to you. But I would also say you're probably
better served to invest that into having somebody do it than you investing the
time to try and figure out how to do it.
Yeah, most definitely. And for the vendors out there, I would highly recommend
helping with their strategy, right?
(33:40):
Because often they're like, oh yeah, we run this for you. And you're like, great.
And they don't say what the strategy is. And I'm like, no, there's like a whole
content strategy behind this.
And all vendors need to be working together for this partnership.
Because and that was the great thing about when I talked to Crystal,
I was like, hey, like, if you could just bring in all together in one room,
(34:03):
and have a conversation, right? Right.
Because, you know, you have this reporting in the back end of any CRM that you
have that tells you the job types, business units, the prices,
what's happening per zip code.
Like you can create a great content strategy and then you go after what makes sense in those areas.
(34:26):
You have to get so localized, like so it's almost down to the neighborhood at this point.
And and so that's
what i really appreciate about like these cmos kind
of style businesses is that they're bringing vendors together to
have a conversation to develop a strategy that makes sense versus hey like here's
(34:48):
fifteen thousand dollars go spend it on ppc well your market is saturated you're
you're gonna get five clicks in some areas and it's gonna cost you like a a jillion dollars.
And it just doesn't make sense, right? You're like, I don't want to do things that don't make sense.
And marketers are gamblers, is what I really like to think about.
Because if you think about it, like we gamble with other people's money every single day.
(35:13):
And don't tell my clients that, but yes.
We're just like hoping and promising. We're like, yeah, no, we tested this with
some other area and it worked really well.
But some things we, We, they are the test, you know, like we're constantly test.
So, and I know people don't like to hear that, but you are a test because we
don't know if Google is going to work today the same way it worked yesterday.
(35:36):
Yeah. We just don't. Yeah. And as much as we want to be great marketers and
be like, yeah, no, this is tried and true.
That doesn't happen. Yeah, no, absolutely.
Especially in this market right now. And so it's just like, it's then the added
complication of like, how do you position your contractor
(35:59):
to be in a place where like, if you try something and it fails,
like they're still going to be okay.
And because for a lot of them, they don't want to hear that.
They don't want to do those risky see things because that's the underlying problem.
I love asking contractors what their, as we're talking about their overall marketing
strategy, and if I'm hitting any resistance towards what I'm proposing,
(36:22):
one of the questions I'll work in the conversation is like, so what's your profit margin right now?
And once I find out their profit margin, it usually is a lot lower than where it needs to be.
And that's where the resistance is coming from towards my marketing strategy
that I feel very confident in is because they don't know if they,
they, they right now are not positioned to take a risk.
(36:43):
They need to take a certain, you know, a certain certified decision.
And, and a lot of marketing isn't that. Yeah.
Yeah. And, and that's a great point. It's again, and I think we've all been preaching it this year.
It's like when you can have excellent marketing, but if your operations are
poor, Like, we can't do anything about that beyond providing content.
(37:09):
And if you have vendors, they don't know all of your data unless they are tied into it.
And even if they are, they're probably working with, you know, other companies too.
So like, there has to be communication back and forth. But the other biggest
part is that what we've learned is that they, you're right, they don't know their profit margin.
(37:33):
That's the best question to ask because they're like, we don't know.
We don't know our breakeven number.
We don't know how much it costs to go out to the home.
And, you know, that is marketing blindly. That is running a business blindly.
Absolutely. I hate it for you, to be honest.
And I don't use the word hate, but you got to get your numbers set properly.
(37:57):
And then you need to think of marketing as an investment. So when you're having
those conversations with contractors, it's just like you're having a conversation
with a financial analyst and they're like, well, what's your risk tolerance?
Lawrence, you know? Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely.
Absolutely. So, yeah. And I know that's a really hard conversation to have and,
(38:18):
and trust me, I've had many of them, you know, everyone's like,
well, my marketing sucks.
And I'm just like, yeah, it's, it's your operations.
And it's just that it has conversion opportunities and we have to flip the script
in our mind and think in abundance instead of the scarcity mindset of like,
oh no, well, this is happening and you know.
(38:40):
It's fine. Fail forward. Let's move on. Let's figure it out.
Right? Well, that's what I've enjoyed about.
And one reason why I came to work at WIT was because we want access to their service titan.
And the reason being is we want to be able to own up to the fact that our campaigns
aren't bringing in good quality by looking at how much revenue it's generating.
(39:02):
And so we have expectations for performance metrics for PPC, for SEO.
And so, but most of the time what ends up happening and I pat myself on the
back, you know, that I have a really good team that's performing well,
because they'll be getting, you know, all the calls volume that we need to,
they'll be getting all the rankings that we need to.
And then I'll step into their service site and I'm looking at like the call
(39:24):
booking rate is low. The average ticket is low.
Cancellation is hot. You know, all these different elements where I try and
diplomatically enter into those conversations of like, hey, I promise you,
like if it was us, I would tell you, which is that's all part of building that relationship. Right.
But also like, look at all this data that I can present to you that's showing
(39:45):
where you are missing opportunities.
And so that's why you're not getting the return on ad spend for PPC that you're wanting.
Not, not me, but it's like, look at all the opportunities that you're missing in the home.
And so, so yeah, it's helpful to exactly to your point.
Like when you can tie the two together with all your vendors where everybody's
able to see big picture wise.
(40:07):
And there's not that disconnect of everybody, you know, the left hand doesn't
know what the right hand's doing, then there is a beautiful synergy.
So that happens, it's a lot more productive. So yeah, and I think you mentioned
something incredibly important. And they were the KPIs, right?
You were like, Oh, if the call center is not performing, that's where it like
the marketing piece can go out, you're going to have, you know,
(40:29):
10 to 12% of wasted spend just in general in marketing, because if you're direct mail,
like for real, after COVID,
the NCOA and all all the scrubs are just a mess,
right? The USPS data is a mess.
After for email, like you're going to have wasted spend because and it's not even wasted spend.
It's just you cleaning up a list, because a might not have cleaned up a list.
(40:52):
There's just wasted spend in every marketing channel.
And so yes, we know that. But if it hits the call center, and someone literally
calls you, like you need to book the call, right?
They're, they're, they're picking up the phone to, to call you.
And if they didn't book the call, then you have, you know, you have to give
(41:15):
them scripts, like your call center scripts to help them to coach them to measure what they're doing.
And then if, you know, it books the call books, and there's a cancellation rate,
which is a huge thing, because you have to over forecast, right.
And then it just keeps on going through through the entire customer journey
of all these conversion opportunities that either need more content because
(41:38):
they received a no, or they need more content because they need a nurture.
And, and I really think that, you know, when you start to look at your operations
in that way, it opens up a door of saying, Oh, yeah, my marketing doesn't suck.
Like it is like we need to tighten the ship.
Like we all need to get on board and, and understand how we,
(42:02):
we really just row together instead of like one's going this way and one's going this way.
Well, and like, what does it look like for you to use your CRM and like not
forget that it can help you with your marketing?
Like, I think a lot of these guys are like, oh, well it helps me like with my
scheduling, obviously.
Like it helps me, you know, with customer lists and it helps me with pricing
(42:24):
and all that stuff, it's like, that's great.
But also like, especially with how robust the CRMs are, like this should also
be helping you, you know, direct your marketing and, and don't.
And, and so if you're forgetting that, then you're not going to be setting up
your customer database the way that it should be.
You're not going to be emphasizing the importance of, you know,
your CSR booking the call correctly because you don't really care.
(42:47):
She books a call correctly right now. Cause all you care about is that she gets it on the board.
And it's like, well, now you just lost the added features of these CRMs that
can help give you that more confidence that you want in your marketing strategy,
because then you're going to be able to look at the data, which the technical
mind contractors love the data.
And so it's like, if I can show you all day long, how everything's working,
(43:10):
then you are going to have more confidence.
But most of the time, I can't tell you clearly like, yes, this is working because
I can't show it to you in your CRM because it hasn't been managed correctly.
So yeah. And the CRM is the entire thing is marketing.
It's the entire thing. Like if you looked at, for me, I like to look at the full dashboard.
(43:30):
And then my favorite part is to scroll down to the very bottom and look at the heat map.
And look at the revenue on the heat map. And then it's like,
oh, where's your office located? And it's normally really green right there.
But then I see them going out everywhere. And as they go out,
their average ticket decreases.
And I'm like, so you didn't even break even on any of these jobs,
(43:53):
but you're running them just because you're thinking that you need to run more
when really that green is telling you to market more. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty interesting. You know,
I like to do and I don't think people appreciate it as much because I do a five
minute transparency deep dive when someone has a just they come to me and they're
(44:15):
like, OK, well, what do you think? And I was like, OK, here's what's going to happen.
I'm going to go and just be like Rain Man and go on your account.
I'm going to speak out loud. I'm going to be as transparent and honest as possible at this moment.
You might not like the words that are coming out of my mouth,
but like we're going to look at the very easy overview.
(44:35):
And by the time that I'm done, they're just like, oh, and you know,
you're defeating and I'm like, I don't want to defeat you. I was like,
this isn't what it's about.
This is to show you how to use your CRM in ways that you can visualize because,
you know, everyone has a different story when it comes to data.
(44:57):
And your CSR is going to have a a different story than your marketer,
than your technician, than anyone.
And so you've got to understand, like, what's the big picture story that you're
really doing and telling your
team, because they need to know how to tell the story too in their jobs.
So yeah, most definitely.
And then what else do you see as opportunities like being an account manager
(45:22):
and looking at the branding of these companies and where they're,
you know, all of a sudden they're like,
oh, well, we rebranded, right?
That's a big one. And then they come to you and they're like,
now that we rebranded, what should we do? Or what do we do with this?
Yeah. Well, and I love, I mean, I'm watching all these contractors get all these
(45:44):
beautiful logos because it's kind of like the hot thing to do right now,
which it is, I mean, very frequently it is the best decision that you can make
for your business in a lot of areas.
But it's also once you kind of are done riding the high of like the shock and
awe of having super beautiful truck wraps and this super beautiful logo.
Hope you went out. Can you hear me now?
(46:08):
Stupid AirPods.
But once you're able to finish riding that high, getting the truck wrap rewrapped
and it looks beautiful and the community is excited, it's like,
how do you tell the story after that?
And so it's almost when talking to these clients, it's like,
I would rather you not spend all this money on a new truck wrap and a new logo
(46:32):
if you don't know what you're going to do with it after that.
And so when I was working at Lemon Seed, that was like half of my work.
And even now with my clients at WIT, sometimes if their PPC,
their SEO is performing great, I'm like, okay, but why is your business called this?
How are you communicating that to your community that like, this is what it
means and this is what you're going to do with it instead of it just being like,
(46:56):
and a lot of times for these contractors,
they don't know the answer because i get
it trying to name a business is not easy and so
they just kind of put something together that sounded good maybe
it's their family name maybe it had something like remotely
due to air conditioning and heating but it doesn't i've seen some that don't
(47:17):
and you're just like your name is seo surge like i said yeah and so you're just
like when people especially with what What you and I are talking about,
we're like, the landscape is so competitive.
Like, how are you going to differentiate yourself with the arsenal that you already have?
(47:37):
It's like you can already cover a lot of ground if you would just simply answer
that question. It's like, why are you named SEO search?
And what should that mean for the customer to expect when they choose you? you.
And so I had a client or I have a client right now that their tagline is always on call.
(47:58):
But they're not open 24 seven. And so, and I've been trying to work with them
to kind of connect the dots of like, when you utilize that tagline now their, their mascot is a duck.
And so it was supposed to be a funny play off of like, you know,
a duck call, like this duck brand, which I love.
But again, it's, it's those thought out elements of like, okay,
(48:19):
so your tagline is always on call, all, but you're not open 24 seven.
And so you need to be thinking about like when you're, what,
what does that look like when it actually plays out in real life?
Other than just like, oh, that's fun. Like that would look great on the side of a truck.
How going, what's the name of your mascot? Does he have a personality?
(48:40):
And I know Crystal talks a lot about that at lemon seed too.
It's like, what, what's the personality of this mascot? Does he have a name? Does he talk?
Does he not? Does he have a dance? Does he have a go-to song?
It's like actually getting a personality, especially for clients that go and get mascots.
It's like, don't just let it be a character on the side of the truck.
And then you as the owner are really actually the mascot.
(49:03):
Like let the mascot live and breathe
and give your company life so that you have the freedom especially
as the owner to like not be the face of the company because that's
those big bucks for us to have this brand that would carry on so yeah i agree
with you i think like you know yes a picture is really pretty and a new truck
(49:24):
wrap is really flashy and it does stand out when you're at a customer's home,
but there's a service level expectation that you are still driving home with your brand.
And so you get to define the voice strategy, the community strategy,
because you can't just wrap a truck and expect phone calls to come in and get
(49:46):
a new logo and expect phone call. It doesn't happen like that.
Like, where are you going to strategically place Face that in the community
and let them know that you are now this person and this person has a voice and
this person has a tone and this person, like you said, has a persona.
Personality, and it goes so deep.
(50:08):
And so, you know, even when I rebranded the company, I was like,
okay, people buy from people.
I'm going to put people on my track. and and you know
we got a lot of hits because there were
people on it but we still needed to bring them
out more and that meant we had to bring our own people out right and
so it was great to design it it was great to think about it but at the same
(50:33):
time I there were other layers that I had to like work really fast to create
because I didn't think about them yeah yeah no and I love I love what you said
as far as like you set the tone that this should have an experience.
And so that's the thing that I think you almost put yourself in.
The potential to have a problem even is because people do expect that if you
(50:56):
have this top tier branded look, they have an expectation that you should provide top tier service.
And so when you don't, when it's not an experience from, you know,
when the CSR answers the phone until the technician walks out the door.
And even after that, like, what does your follow-up texting look like?
Your follow-up emailing, different things like that.
It's like, you've now disappointed them
(51:19):
maybe more than if they would have just called the truck in the truck where
like they really know what to expect from a truck in a truck they were
expecting an experience when they chose you and so
what does it look like to provide that experience like i love wizards of ads
they even talk about like the power of scent like do you have the potential
with the brand that you've been given to associate a scent with with your logo
(51:40):
dan antonelli's i love when he uses fruit i just think it's so funny like Like a plum.
I saw like, so what does that look like? Do you, for every new install,
do you send them like a bushel of fresh plums?
Or if like, it's a peach, like, can you send them like a peach scented candle
or something like, well, you might have feelings about scented candles and AC,
(52:02):
you know, air conditioning.
Right. No, guys, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
My dad, side note, my dad, if my mom ever would light a candle,
we would, as soon as my dad got home, he'd blow it out.
You would just hear or like smell, you know, the smoke of a wick being blown
out. And he'd give us a lecture about VOCs and stuff like that.
(52:24):
And it was, that's no fun. The house smells great. Like let it smell like that if the body works.
Now, I guess I get it now that I'm like fully immersed in indoor air quality, but candles.
So yeah, it's just like, again, how do you play it out from,
and even small, all, like if you as a contractor thinking, okay, how do I.
(52:45):
Build out my brand? Like, just ask yourself, like, how do your,
how do your girls answer the phone? And where can you work in?
Like, even your brand just there just to start. So. Yeah.
And, you know, take it to, and then, and then look at the keywords as to what
the customers are using and then also saying about you and your reviews.
And that gives you more of like, okay, that's a common service language.
(53:08):
Like, how do I develop where we all speak the same speak? and that's part of our brand.
And really looking at it from a keyword perspective of, okay,
they keep saying that we're trustworthy, worry-free and I don't know,
whatever. Those are words of platitude.
Like we, of course, our expectation as a homeowner, if I'm calling you is to
(53:31):
be trustworthy and I'm not worry-free to happen, right?
I was working with this great digital provider and he had a great book and he
was like, Like, yeah, no, those are words of platitude. They don't mean anything.
And you're like, oh, man, that could have changed everything.
But it wasn't that you had to change it. It was about how you had to show it and then speak about it.
(53:54):
And that's where that common service language really came in.
It's like, if we speak about it, we have to be about it. And my friend once told me that.
And I was like, oh, you're right. I need to be about it, not just speak about it. But...
Yeah, it's just, there's so many different branding strategies.
And you're right, it's not just a pretty logo and a new truck wrap.
(54:17):
It is a full thought out, what does this look like from a culture,
from an expectation, from your consumers?
Like, where does it go? How do you place it?
And I love that you said that because, you know, even working from an agency
side, you get to see all of these different perspectives.
(54:39):
And all these different things, because they all influence each other, right?
Your brand is only as strong as your search.
And your brand, your reputation can end and start your search at the same time.
So yeah, it's, it's pretty interesting out there.
But I really think that you're on the money when it comes to just take it to the next level.
(55:06):
Take it to the next thought, right? Right.
Okay. So if you had one tip, we'll wrap this up.
If you had one tip to give a contractor today, what would that be? Oh, man.
I would say don't forget the people. And when I say that, that's going to resonate
(55:27):
in one of two ways for the listener, especially the contractors.
It's like, don't forget your team.
If you've been neglecting fostering a healthy company culture,
a healthy company family, then you're definitely about to see that as you go in the summer.
And then maybe for you, it also resonates. It's like, don't forget the people that you're serving.
(55:52):
I've seen desperate postcards come into my mailbox for, you know, install a condenser.
Like they were speaking about tonnage from the perspective of like,
hey, we're offering this much tonnage of the air conditioning versus like the
pricing is now going to be this cheap of this much tonnage.
(56:15):
And I'm like, nobody understands what you're, the average consumer doesn't know
what you're talking about.
And so it's just like, remember,
and maybe it's like, this sounds dumb, but maybe it's just a good reminder for
you to like, go call a local contractor and like, get a free estimate just so
that you can experience that from like a first person experience again.
(56:37):
And like remind yourself what it's like to be on the receiving end of that.
And then to remind yourself what it's like to show up to your work that you
don't own every day and what it looks like to provide a workplace that people love to come to.
Yeah. Don't forget your people is what comes to mind right now. I love that.
(56:57):
I love that. That's the perfect way to end. And I really appreciate you,
McKenna, taking the time to be on The Trademark and speak about your immense
knowledge in marketing in the trades and always excited to watch your growth.
And for those listening out there, thank you so much for joining us.
And if you love this episode, please leave us a review. McKenna, thank you again.
(57:18):
Thank you. I'm honored. I appreciate your time.
Yeah, no problem. All right. And that wraps up another episode of The Trademark,
where we bridge the worlds of the trades and marketing one story at a time.
We can't wait to see you next time. Thank you to The Trades for giving back
big, loving big, and taking massive action.
(57:39):
Don't forget to join us next time for more engaging conversations and innovative ideas.
If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave us a review and share it with your
colleagues and friends in the trades and marketing.
Your support means the world to us stay
connected with us off the air by following us on social media we'd love to hear
your thoughts and get your feedback until next time keep making your mark in
(58:03):
the trades thank you for listening to the trademark goodbye for now and remember
we're with the trades for the trades.
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