Master The NEC | Episode 17 | Grassroots marketing Concepts for Contractors - Ask Paul | National Electrical Code

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Master of the NEC podcast, the ultimate
destination for anyone passionate about the electrical trade. Whether you're
a season electrician, an eager apprentice, or just someone who
wants to dive deep into the world of electrical work,
you've come to the right place.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Join your host, Paul.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Abernavi, a true authority in the industry with over thirty
eight years of trade experience, as he electrifies your mind
with in depth discussions, expertips, and valuable insights that will
keep you ahead of the curve. Each episode, Paul will
illuminate the complexities of the trade de code, the National
Electrical Code, and share the latest industry trends, all while

(00:39):
empowering you to take your electrical career to the next level.
So hear up, plug in, and get ready to supercharge
your knowledge because with the Master of the NEEC podcast,
the power is in your hands.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Now get ready. Here is your host, Paul. What's up, everybody,
Welcome to another episode to Master the NEC. My name's
Paul l Abernathy, your host. Thanks for joining me today
on this episode where we're going to talk about grassroots

(01:14):
gorilla marketing for electrical contractors and electricians. Whether you're doing
some side hustles and you want to learn how to
make a little bit extra money, obviously doing it legally,
you know how I am about that, but also growing
your business. If you're an owner of a business and
you're trying to grow it and you're thinking, dude, I'm
heading into twenty twenty five and I want to think,

(01:35):
how am I going to leverage my marketing without spending
a fortune? And so there is many ways that you
can do it in guerrilla marketing, but there also is
a mental state that we need to put you in
so that you can take your business to the next level.
Or maybe you're working for somebody and you're thinking, look,
I want to branch out. I want to do my
own thing, and so there's ways to do it, and

(01:57):
all you need to do is start getting your hooks
in the mart marketing game and realizing that everything is
marketing everything. And as much as I tried to resist
this for years and tell people, look, I'm just an electrician.
I don't deal with marketing. I don't deal with any
of that type of stuff, you really do have to
realize that as an owner of a company, marketing is

(02:18):
very crucial obviously licensing get everything right. But once you
get everything set, the next thing that you got to
worry about is how am I going to market this thing.
I'm going to get this thing out there so that
I've stopped spending money out and I start bringing income
and money in. And again, one of the biggest misconceptions
that I see out there with people that tell you

(02:40):
or maybe give you business advice on how to start
your business, one of the biggest mistakes that I see
out there is that they tell people that you got
to pay yourself first before you pay everybody else or
pay other things. I don't Seepas are famous for this shit.
They will tell you, well, if you're going to be successful,
make sure you pay yourself first, dude. They obviously have

(03:02):
never been in business where you actually have. It sounds
like their business is almost nearly one hundred percent of
income and zero expenses, so they're just rinking in the money.
They don't have any expenses going out, so they can
easily say that, well, they can't relate to what the
plumbing contractor or electrical contractor mechanical contract They can't relate.

(03:24):
Although they try to give you great advice, they cannot relate,
so you really shouldn't listen to their advice. Now you
can listen to their tax advice, you can listen to
their those types, but they don't know anything about how
your business runs. Now, if you're an electrical contractor, and
I've been an electric contractor, was in multiple states for
many years before I decided that it's better for me

(03:46):
to teach it and explain it than it is to
do it. Get an old fatten and lazy should not
be a career path for me. So I started going
into teaching and educating and expanding that type of area.
And I realized that, you know, as a contractor, I
have to pay my vendors. I have to pay my help,

(04:07):
I have to pay my contribution to the taxes. I
have to pay all of this stuff first before I
pay myself. And that's why so many people struggle, is
because they don't realize that, and they take their money
first because they've been listening to that advice. And yes,
you got to live, I get it, but you've got

(04:27):
to make sure that your people are paid, your vendors
are paid. You don't want to incur debt just so
you can pull a meager paycheck when you're starting out.
And so one of the things that we talk about
is the fact that you need to know how to
do marketing, whether it's again low cost gorilla marketing, why

(04:48):
it's important to do it. And many of you heard
the little stories of me taking business cards and actually
sliding them in the boxes at home depot and lows
right in the lighting aisle, in the ceiling fan aisle,
And it's a true story. It is one hundred percent
true that I used to go in there if I
was in there for something anyway, that I mean, I

(05:10):
didn't just go there to do it. If I was
in there for something, then I would take a business card.
And usually when they seal the lights and the fixtures,
or they seal the fans whatever, it still leaves opening
in the side to cover to slide your card in
there so that when they cut it and open it,
the car will fall out first because it's not in
the box. It's basically just under the lid. And I

(05:32):
did get calls from that, And you know, it costs
literally nothing but the business card. That was it. That's
all it cost. Now, don't go out there saying Paul
told me to do it. And you go get caught
and then you blame me. I'm just telling you that's
what I did. And if it gives you an idea
to do that, that's an example of some really grassroots marketing. Also,

(05:52):
I will say it and we'll cover some topics here.
I've got some topics I want to talk about. But
I also was famous for anytime I went to the
grocery store. Anytime I went it to to basically take
a business card and slide it down in the seal
just above the door lock where the handle was. I
just would slide a business card right there. I didn't
put them under the windshield because I was more worried

(06:13):
that the that the they would go and it would
blow off and somebody would see it, and then I'd
get calls about littering. So I'd slid it down right
there under the seal where the windshield wiper was. I mean,
not which whoever, where the door lock was a handle.
That's how I used to do it. But you know,
to each his own. But the point was I would
do that to cars on the left and to the

(06:34):
right of me when I was in the shopping center,
I was in the grocery store I was hungry as
a contractor. I did everything I could to realize that.
And it was part of those neat things like coupon clippers.
You know, coupon clippers, and they get this really this
this big high when they got a bunch of coupons
right and they are able to get everything on their

(06:58):
grocery list for nothing. That's like a euphoric high for them.
That was the same way for me as a contract
I was like, dude. I would ask them, I'd say,
or I'd write on my business cards in the bottom
right HD if I did it at home depot or
l and that type of thing. And in my business cards,

(07:18):
I had unique business cards made up. I got them
at Vista Print. They were always cheap, and I would
have if I gave a five to ten percent off
the first news service or whatever when you present this card,
and then i'd have so I knew where it came
from if they wanted it now, if they called me
and didn't present the card, then they didn't get the discount, right.

(07:39):
But I always ask where'd you get it from? Where'd
you hear about us? Because I was always wanting to
know where my efforts were working. That type of scenario.
So there's just some grassroots stuff that I used to do.
So let's get into today's episode and try to cover
a few things here that we want to talk about.
So one of the things that we're going to do

(08:01):
here is we're going to explain and highlight some of
the challenges that electricians or electrical contractors face when marketing
on a extremely tight budget, or maybe it's not tight,
but maybe you created a or you've imposed a tight
budget for let's say a certain length of time to
see what your ROI is or returnal investment is for

(08:23):
that effort, maybe like a subdivision, maybe you're targeting that
type of thing or whatnot. And so you've got the
labor of the people that are door hanging or putting
up the cards or hanging out the cards. So you
want to track your reternal investment, and a good way
to do that again is to put something on the
card or the advertisement or the marketing material that allows

(08:44):
you to see if you're going to give somebody a
discount or a new customer discount or something like that
that you can actually keep track of that. So, again,
I like to keep track of all of my low
budget grassroots marketing because I wanted to see what's actually working.
And to be honest with you, if I door hung,

(09:06):
I had door hung door hangers made at Vista Print,
very cheap. You could actually use their thing and design
it right there. But I always had the ability to
do software, so I did my own designs and uploaded it.
I believe in door hangers, not flyers. Door hangers.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
There's also fifty five Print. I think that does mass
doorhanngers for a really low price. And when I say
low price, I mean it's going to be three or
four hundred dollars. But again that's just part of the marketing, right,
it's still cheap. I could just I could tell you
digital marketing for example, and we market it on Google

(09:43):
and it was shit. It was it could be four
or five six hundred dollars a day, and there was
no guarantee on anything. At least there's no guarantee with
door hanging. But you're putting it right there on the
customer's door. Uh. And so again there's a high probability
that that'll least see it. And I'll talk about in
an episode. I'll give you guys a tip on how

(10:05):
you design your Doorhanngers, I got some great tips on
how you can design them so that you can get
a really good impact when somebody sees it and it
lingers around. In other words, it doesn't go straight into
the trash. I'll give you some insight on that too
in a future podcast. All right, let's do that. So
what we're setting stage here for you, we're going to

(10:26):
be talking about tight budget marketing for electricians and electrical contractors.
We'll be we're gonna emphasize and really focus on the
importance of the marketing because even if you already have
income coming in, you already have customers, you already have clients.
You should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, I don't
even have something for this ever, stop your marketing as

(10:52):
an owner. You never want to get to the complacent
stage where you think you got enough business coming in,
like I don't need any more work. That is not true.
It's just what work are you trying to achieve? And
direct or maybe you're saying, Okay, I want this type
of work versus this type of work. Maybe you're not
doing any more rough ends, but you're thinking, hmm, I
can still do smart homes. I can still do some
Alexa stuff or or Google device stuff, or I could

(11:15):
smart house some stuff I could do, you know, change
lumina airs and change receptacles for real estate agents and
freshen up a house. There's other things that you know,
there's different areas I could do generators. I could do generating.
There's a bunch of different energy management systems. So there's
always ways that you can, but you never should stop. Right. So,

(11:36):
marketing is something that keeps your name out there, keeps
your company out there, keeps your relevant. And the old
thing is that it takes usually six to seven times
I think that's the number, six to seven times putting
your your service or your widget in front of somebody
for them to react. It takes at least a certain

(11:58):
amount of time for for them to react and actually
buy something or call you for a service. Right, So
it takes that time that you have to be aware
of and so you have to be persistent that type
of thing. Okay, Now, next we're going to talk about
why budget marketing works, and you know, we're going to
explain how low cost strategies can deliver a again an

(12:22):
extremely high ROI when you properly plan it and you
execute it properly right, and we're going to be focusing
on the consistency of our low budget marketing. Okay, so
low cost big volume, that's what we're talking about, low

(12:42):
cost big volume. So that's what we'll be focusing on
today in today's podcast. Okay, So let's start out by
talking about free or low cost digital marketing tools, things
that we can utilize. We're trying to grow our business,
trying to grow our side hustle. We're trying to we're

(13:05):
trying to take our our Saturday and Sunday to make
it our Monday through Friday effort. Or maybe you already
own a business and you're trying to free up your
weekends but you want to maximize the time during the
week and you have some downtime. Then this is stuff
that you need to focus on, right the very first
thing that I'll tell you, And it doesn't become more

(13:27):
evident than when you see everybody freak out about TikTok
going away social media. This sheer number of people on
social media is crazy. Now, advertising on social media is expensive.
If you want to have some type of ad campaign,
I tell people in the low cost budgeting marketing, you

(13:47):
do not want to do that. You do your own,
You start to gather your followers, you start to gather everything.
Do it yourself, create your own ads, make them very quick. Again,
remember those social media TikTok's and all those which, by
the way, TikTok currently is banned, but it'll be back.
I don't think people really believe that it's going to

(14:08):
stay away. Trump loves it, People love it. One hundred
and seventy million people use it. It ain't going anywhere.
It's just temporarily on a hiatus. But this should be
a mark for you, all you out there in your business,
This is the perfect time. If you're a big TikToker,
this is the perfect time for you to die. Versify
your social media presence. Go to Facebook, go to Instagram,

(14:32):
go to LinkedIn, get your business profile. Don't be afraid
to establish what you want it to be. Like me,
I use it master the NEC on all my platforms
except for LinkedIn, which is business. So I use my
full name on that one, Paul Abernathy. But everywhere else
I kept it consistent, and you should too, keep it consistent. Now,

(14:54):
if you already have accounts in all these and it's
all muddled up. But you don't have that much of
a following or you haven't built it up up. Then
I encourage you to get new accounts, create your user
name that is consistent with your business okay, or if
you're using one for personal, go again and establish one
for your business and keep it consistent through all of

(15:14):
your platforms. Now, what you're gonna do is you know
you're going to do things like share short clips of
projects you've done, testimonials, short tips, things like that. But again,
you're not there to get TikTok famous or YouTube famous
or Instagram famous for that's for those people who want

(15:35):
to do that. I don't care about that. I never
care about it. It's funny how we go to these
shows and people come up and they go, have you
seen somebody over there? Oh, I've seen him on TikTok,
And I'm like, dude, you're enamored with somebody that just
does videos and shares them on social media, and all
of a sudden, now they're an influencer. Like I give
a damn about them. I really don't. I don't. I'm

(15:56):
just a guy sharing code stuff. It's all I am.
And And so what you want to be focusing on
is for your business, is focusing on your name, your brand,
how you're sharing it out there, and you're looking for
local customers in your market. It's not going to do
you any good. If you're in Kansas City and you're
trying to put something on social media and you're trying

(16:18):
to pull people from Nebraska, doesn't do you a bit
of good. Focus. Focus, focus. I'm not the guy you
come to if you want to be a TikTok or
Instagram or LinkedIn or YouTube, whatever whatever influencer, because I'm not.
I mean I'm not. I don't care anything about that stuff.
And if I did, why would I create fast tracks

(16:40):
Tube and pull people away from those platforms. Think about
it for a second. I don't care about that stuff.
I care about electricians and helping them get their game
to the next level. But you, as a business, you're
thinking about how do I reach that local market? Okay,
so think broader than the generic Facebook, Instagram. So you

(17:00):
need to be on next door if there's a next
Door in your area, because that's a local business marketing
tool that's local. Follow their rules, don't get in trouble
for spamming or whatever it is. But again, next door
Facebook marketplace in your area, they have groups that are
specific to your area. Make sure that you follow the
rules that they have. You don't want to be spamming

(17:23):
your business in somewhere that you accept the rules it
says you won't spam your business. That wouldn't be good
for your business, but there are avenues for you to
do that. Also, when you're creating this content from a
local standpoint, not trying to be an influencer, but local,
trying to get business from local because that's where your
bread and butter is. Make sure you show before and

(17:45):
after pictures of projects that is impactful. But I'll give
you some advice, especially to electricians, stop showing videos and
pictures of code violations because it makes it people that
do know everyday person doesn't know. But you open yourself
up to be a target people like me who see

(18:06):
this stuff and want to post it. And what it
ended up doing is it taints your It taints your
feed from a bunch of people just harassing you in there.
I'm just saying, Okay. The other thing that I tell
you is don't be afraid to do short videos. As
a contractor. You don't have to be professional, don't be
afraid to do little a day in your life type

(18:27):
of videos, like a three minute, two minute, one minute
video of like something like Philly Kaso does. He says,
can I have a kid? And he shows you something
in his day in his life. That type of thing
really works good. But for local customers to build your
local business, to get money for doing actual work, make

(18:47):
it relevant to them right say you know, for example,
say hey, we're going out on a project here in
so and so city where you are, be very specific
to the viewer right away, where you're at at. Don't
give the name, don't give the name of the people.
But that's the key, biggest key I can give people
when they're doing local marketing is make sure that within

(19:09):
the first ten seconds of somebody watching that little video
about you and your company, that you say where you're
at and what you're doing today. That is so critical
that people forget when it comes to the gorilla marketing
and using these social media platforms. Let them know. If
you're trying to get local business, installing receptacles, installing illuminaiirs,

(19:30):
doing rough ends, finishing out basements, whatever, do these little
videos put them on your social platform that we just
talked about, and focus locally. Do things like nextdoor and Facebook,
market places and things like that. Share them that way.
But within the first ten seconds, let them know what

(19:51):
you're there, who, where you're at, where you're doing business,
and what you're getting ready to show them. Let them
know up front, so at least if they click off
of it, they know that you're servicing this market in
this area, and this is what you do. Get it
out there as quick as you can. Okay. I'm just saying.

(20:12):
The next thing that you got to do. If you're
a local business, you have got to take advantage of
any free listings that you can take advantage of, like
Google Business, those type of things, anything, any of those
services that are being being local things like that. Get

(20:33):
your free listings. But when you go into it, don't
half asset. I mean, go into it professional. Don't just
go in throw a picture up. No, look, make sure
you already have a logo that you like, okay, make
sure you already have able to give a good go over,
a good script basically in you know, i'd say fifty

(20:55):
words or less what it says about your company, Show
your logo, show some pictures, of your work. Preferably do
a half screen shot before and after. It's great and
it only takes you a second on a job to
take a picture of something and then take a picture
of it after, even if it's something simple as changing
illumina air and outdoor light. Just take a picture before

(21:15):
what it looks like crap, take a picture after it
looks like good, and say we can freshen up your
look on your house quickly. Things like that. That's how
you should be doing it from a local standpoint point right. Okay,
so what you want to do is you do your
business with Google. It's free now. Granted, they're going to

(21:37):
hound you to death. Okay, let me tell you. Once
you list and get your free listing, they're going to
call you and ask you constantly for verification, you know,
wanting to upgrade you and get you to advertise locally.
And I'm not a big believer in those things like
Angie's lists and all that kind of stuff where they
want to negotiate a price with you, or you've already

(21:59):
got to pay money before you even got the first lead.
I am again, I don't believe in any of those
type of things. I don't believe in any of that.
It's a waste of money in my opinion. But anyway,
Google my business or any of those local business things
you definitely want to do. You want to make sure
that you pop up in Google Listening, also Google Maps.

(22:19):
Make sure you're in Google Maps as well, and you
go in and read about getting your free listening and
just get the free one. Get it, but make sure
you're not going and putting your cart before the horse.
Make sure you have the name you want to use.
Make sure you know and we can talk about choosing
a name for your business, because that's important as well,

(22:39):
but to you know, make sure that you have everything
in place before you go set up these profiles, because
once they get set up and they start getting out there,
I don't know what happens when you go in and
you start mop changing things. It just seems like I've
watched it, it's like your traffic drops off, and it
just something happens that initial push. Make sure you get

(23:01):
it right the first time, So take some time. If
you've got any questions on how to do that, I
am always here. You can just go to Paul Abernathy
dot com and submit a question. I handle literally thousands
of questions a month from people on the code, on business,
on recommendations, hiring, firing, you know people. Some people just
want a motivational pick me up they're struggling. That's what

(23:25):
Paul Abernathy dot com is all about. And it's paid
for by Wix. You know, it doesn't cost anything, so
jot that down. It's also in our mobile app. We
have a free mobile app that allows you to be
able to get to let's ask Paul with one click,
and so it makes it so easy for you to
do it while you're there. Just ask the question and
we'll either do it in a podcast or we'll respond

(23:46):
back in an email as time permits that type of thing.
So anyway, that's what we got going on for that.
So again, be very specific on your Google business listing
or any of those business listenings right now. The next
thing I will tell you is, right out the gate,
start asking your customers right away for reviews. Ask them

(24:09):
and a lot of those things like my Google, my
Business and all that kind of stuff have the ability
for you to share a link so people can give
a review. Now here's my advice. You're not going to
have a situation you're not gonna be like my brother,
who everybody loves is a contractor. But everybody loves my brother,
me not so much. So what happens is when you

(24:30):
solicit these reviews, you have to get used to where
you feel comfortable with the person that's going to give
you a review, and you can develop that as you're
doing the service call, as you're working with them, as
you're doing the job, you'll get a good feel whether
or not this is somebody's like, you know what, they'd
give me a good review. And they're the ones that
you want to share the link or give them a

(24:51):
link and say, hey, can I text you a link
for you to be able to do a review? Can
I send you this? That type of thing, And a
lot of times people will even use are NFC cards
that we have that you can just simply tap on
their phone and put this information and even a survey
can just be tapped and it comes up right on
their phone. We have customers of ours who have what's

(25:12):
called the just the NFC Survey card. When they say
can you give us a survey and they go yeah,
they just pull the card out and tap their phone
and the survey thing pops right up on their phone
and they fill it out right there, and now you've
captured a review. Because reviews on those type of things
like the Google my businesses are key. Get as many
good reviews as you can, right, but only ask for

(25:35):
the reviews if you know you're gonna get a good one. Again,
as a fine science to that, you'll get the feel.
If you go through a job and you feel like
the guys are just a real dick, then probably not
the one you want to ask for a review. Okay.
So again people say, well, no, that's filtering reviews. Damn right,
it is. This is your business we're talking about, dude,
it's dog eat dog world here. You only want the

(25:57):
good reviews. Okay, Okay. Next, I want to talk a
little bit about on one other before I talk about websites.
I want to talk about a resource. For example, if
you're if you do your shopping at home depot. If
you shop at home Depot, they have an app and

(26:18):
a process that you can get set up for where
if you're buying some products there, you create a number
of credits. And when you create these credits, you can
have them refer work to you. Because there's a lot
of people that go to these places that buy illumina airs,
buy ceiling fans. I used to do quite a few
of these, and you know it's it's and what happens
is they will share that with you and it comes

(26:40):
off of the credits, So you're buying product there anyway,
So you might as well get in that program. And
if you get in that program, and I think Low's
has that too, but I always found Lows a little
bit tougher to deal with. And I don't even if
they still do it, but I know home Depot does,
and it's really cool because they will, actually they do
send you work. You may not get all the work

(27:01):
that gets sent to you, but I used to get
my fair share, and and it was just really easy
work too. It was like putting in illuminator here, putting
in a ceiling fan here. Okay, prices today are a
lot better than it was when I was doing it.
Put in a ceiling fan. Now you can get one
hundred and fifty tw hundred fifty three hundred bucks for
about an hour's worth of work. I'm just saying, even
if you just send one of your guys to do it,

(27:23):
that you know what I'm saying, and you don't do it.
But either way, that's something you should look into, especially
if you're growing your business, because what happens is is
what I found is that put me in contact with
a customer who bought something at home Depot. But then
I used to get that loop effect whereas they would
send me their cousin. Once I did a good job

(27:45):
for them, they would send me their neighbor would call
me and they didn't have to go through home Depot
or the app. They would just call me. So I'd
go to them and I'd give them five or six
business card and say please share it with some friends,
and that type of thing I really appreciated. I'd explained
to them that I'm you know that I'm a contractor
and I'm trying to build my name, and I appreciate it.

(28:05):
They would do that. You know, some people will and
some people won't. But what did it cost you? It
cost you a couple of damn business cards? That's it,
you know what I'm saying. So I mean, hey, ain't
no shame in my game. I have no problem giving
that stuff out. So again, check out home deposts if
they still have that service. I haven't looked to see,
but they had it just when I was in Texas,

(28:26):
and again I was a contractor in Texas as well
as well as Virginia and they had it. So I'm
pretty sure it's still out there, so go check it out.
Doesn't really, it doesn't cost you anything. You're already buying
it home depot anyway some things. So anyway, good to
check that out. Okay, let's talk about websites. Now here's
where people tend to turn out. They end up think going,

(28:46):
oh God, here we go. I don't want to get
into a big old website. Dude, you don't have to today.
Websites are so easy with the templates. All you got
to do is fill in a little bit of information
about your country company and add a couple of pictures. Wis,
for example, is probably the easiest I have ever seen
to get you started. And you can even buy a

(29:10):
domain directly through them, and if you already have a domain,
you already should know how to hook up and forward
that domain to whatever your wis account would be. But
at the end of the day, everybody should have at
least one page landing page about their services at a
company that you can use to expand on it. It's

(29:30):
all about the cost per character. Folks. You heard me
talk about this. If I've got to run an ad
on let's say I'm running an ad in even Craigslist,
because I'll talk about that later a little later. But
even if I do that, I'm going to pay or
I'm going to be limited to the amount of information
that I can give. So I need to get them

(29:53):
somewhere as quickly as possible, to capture them in order
to be able to then hold them with a with
an engaging video. And it doesn't add to be professional video.
It just has to be you being honest about what
you do, your service and what you can do for them.
Everybody wants to know what you do for me, Okay,
So you know, as much as they might sound like

(30:15):
they want to help the world, everybody, believe it or not,
is somewhere inside or like, well, I get it, but
what is in it for me? So I'm gonna have
to I have a limited amount of time to explain
to them what's in it for them? What I can
do for them, beautify their home, make it safer, offer
them a good price, reliable service, local licensed. Maybe I'm

(30:39):
a CMECP, and I'm going to market myself over everybody
else because I've been through some extra training because I can.
I can put it in code compliant. But I'm also
raised my game and i want them to know about it.
It's up to you to sell yourself. You're always going
to be selling yourself. But the amount of time that
it takes to capture that customer and keep them, I

(31:02):
can't put that in print everywhere. It costs a fortune.
So that's why you do the same thing, and your
social media you do the same thing, and your physical
ads get them to a place, get them to a
place where you can share about what you do. Now,
that was so great about when we had the Sparks card,
we had the mobiles, because again I could tap their

(31:25):
phone and send them directly to a concise thing that
explained everything about my services, even a video, even this
type of stuff, coupons, things like that. People didn't understand that,
and I was a little ahead of my time, I
think for something like that, but that gets people the
information they need quickly. And today we have attention deficit disorder.

(31:48):
People just don't want it to drag on much like
this podcast is Dragonuly okay, all right, so you got
to have a landings. Now you can go to Wicks, Squarespace,
word Press. They have templates, very simple, fill in the
blank quickly, but you need to do it. If you
don't know how to do it, then you need to

(32:09):
find somebody that can do it. It's well worth the
investment to have a simple one page constantly scrolling that
you can add stuff to template. Simple and easy for that.
But you have to have a web presence, okay, because
again I can use ten words and get you to
somewhere that I can use a thousand words in a

(32:32):
video and engage you than it is to try to
put fifty words on an ad and then people aren't
going to read past the first ten to fifteen words
and you've lost them already. So again, try to get
them over to a web presence, get them over to
whether it's your my Google, maybe it's your Google listing,

(32:52):
maybe it's a Yelp listing. We haven't talked about Yelp.
I should have mentioned that you should always have a
Yelp listing. Also, folks, these are local things, okay, you
need to have all the things that are local. And again,
before you go signing up for these things, make sure
you've already written down very structured. This is what the

(33:14):
name I'm going to use, consistent, This is what my
message is going to be. These are the images I'm
going to use. Be think about it. Just don't go
do it. Think about how you want to do it,
because this is all about a mindset. Okay, all right,
next door, talk a little bit about local networking and partnerships.

(33:34):
You've heard me talk about this on other partnerships. I'm
a big believer in finding other plumbers, HVA, technicians, general contractors,
people that you can develop a network. Now, we used
to be called BE and I Business Networking International, where
you could pay some money and you'd be the only
trade in that group. So the goal was that everybody
else that's doing work will end up sharing your business

(33:57):
card with them. And the problem with that is some
of them, even though you're in the group, they don't
know you. They haven't formed a relationship with you, and
so it takes a while for you to go to
these meetings and speak. You get like you get, you know,
one minute to speak and tell everybody about your company
every week and hand out business cards and then givers
gain you give other referrals to other people. But my

(34:19):
experience when I started with that and I was in that,
that it took a while for people to warm up
to you. Once they warmed up to you, or they
called you out to do a little work for them
and they liked it, then they would be very enthusiastic
about sharing you with other people. But you had to
That was a curve you had to get passed. It's
like a good old boys club still is. I don't

(34:39):
care what anybody says. It was. It was you got
to get past the good old boy thing and once
you're accepted then they will do that. Well, my concept
is just screw that shit. My concept is skip it.
Go straight to the people that can make you money.
Is the people that will be on a job and say, hey,
I know electrician that can help you out. I know
a plumber that can help you out. I know an

(35:00):
HVAC guy that can help you out. So for me,
I would say I targeted the plumber that what I
felt was a well established plumber, not a little Jimmy
plummer who maybe has one helper and doesn't do very
much work. I looked and try to target established plumbers,
established HVAC contractors, general contractors, established real estate agents, established

(35:22):
home inspectors. What I did was I tried to create
my own network. And they might say to me, well,
I've already got somebody I recommend, and I would say,
that's fine. Can I give you a couple of business cards?
You know, case they get booked up and they can't
help your customer. I'm right here, give me a shot.
I'm not asking to be your number one. I'm asking
to be possibly your number two. And they might say,

(35:46):
but what happens is people get busy and they can't
get something done, and everybody's impatient that you might move
up to the number one spot. It's worth It costs
you nothing but your time to form these relationships, and
in turn, you're going to agree to say, you know what,
if I see some plumbing issue, I'm going to give

(36:07):
I'm gonna give you a call again. And if they
tell you that you're not the number one, say, you know,
he it's cool. I've got plumber friends I know too
that I really like. But I want to make sure
that your name is in the mix. And I'm willing
to put your name in the mix. You'll buy them
a cup of coffee at Starbucks. I mean, don't be
afraid to be rejected. I think that's the number one
thing that I see for young entrepreneurs today is that

(36:31):
the pride is so damn deep rooted that they're not
willing to accept rejection. Like if I go to electrical
plumbing contractor and I say, hey, man, I love what
you do, I love the volume you do. I would
like to recommend you to my customers. And I'm growing
my business and I'm building a network of people that
I can trust, and I think you can be somebody

(36:52):
I trust. And if they go and I'm not interested,
it's okay, move on to somebody else, because there's going
to be somebody else out there that is hunger, that
gets the concept and understands it. And you don't lose anything.
What do you lose a cup of coffee? And it
doesn't always mean that you have to talk to the
person that's the owner, right It might be the project manager,
business manager, it might be somebody. You'd be surprised how

(37:15):
many project managers for companies that are not the owner,
but are the ones that do the day to day legwork.
They're the ones that hire the subs and things like that.
The owners might not, but if you're hungry and you're
able to do it as an owner, then you're out
there hustling to get your business grow. At some point,
you may have a project manager that you're going to

(37:36):
train to do the exact same thing that you just did,
and they're going to be constantly out there for you
as your mouthpiece. It trickles down, buddy, and if you
get if you get an employee that's not willing to
promote your business for you as as you would, then
you need to get rid of that cancer in your company.
I know some people hate to hear that, but look,

(37:58):
if your employee is not willing to speak as highly
of the company that they work for as you are
that own the company, then get rid of their ass
and move on. Okay, I'm just saying. If that's all
they care about is a paycheck and they don't want
to help you make more money so that they in
turn can make more money, then you need to weed

(38:19):
them out find somebody else. Trust me, there's people out
there that will so anyway, that's what we're talking about.
So build your network, don't be afraid to get out
there next thing I'm going to tell you to do.
Some people may be uncomfortable with this, and this is
community involvement. Don't be afraid to sponsor a little league

(38:42):
team and have the name on their jersey or banner
at the ballpark where everybody will be sitting at the ballpark's.
It sounds like a lot, but in most cases these
are one time, five hundred buck things that'll put a
banner on the baseball field at the end zone. And
when you design that banner or you talk to them,
just make sure one thing, they make your name as

(39:03):
big as possible, your big as possible on that banner,
within their guidelines, and make sure it says on there
exactly what you do. God, I don't know how many
times I go and see these banners and see this
stuff from people, and I look at it and I'm like,
what the hell do they do? Their name is terrible,
their logo sucks. I don't even know what they do,

(39:25):
and so I don't give them any peace of mind.
Comes to mind a commercial that I've seen on Newsmax.
It's this Joe Lee thing and it's basically you have
to go research it. It's about a shower head. But
they spent so much money doing a commercial that it
took about fifteen times to me watching that damn thing
to say, you know what, let me go google what

(39:46):
this hell? This thing is not everybody's gonna do that.
But they're commercial. You might say, well, they're commercial. Worked,
didn't it, Paul? You finally did it? No, But that's
not a good return on my investment because every time
they run that ad, it costs money. So they got
to watch that ad over and over again before they

(40:06):
know what to do. And that's just not a great
way to do it. I don't believe that's a great
way to do your marketing. You need to get it
up front what you do, and what your name is
and your number. That's it. Get it out there so
I tell everybody else. I don't care about the other
shit around the banner. All I want is my name
as big as possible. I want to be what I

(40:28):
do as big as possible in respect to the layout,
and then I want my phone number on there. That's it.
That's what I want. I want people to know at
first glance what I do. That's the other thing I
hate about people that do the market you know, do
the stuff on their vans and their trucks. I've seen
companies with the name of their business on the side

(40:49):
of it, but they don't put underneath it electrical contractor
or a mechanical contractor or whatever. That is the stupidest
thing I've ever seen. You have just wasted a rolling
marketing idea because you only have a brief amount of
time for somebody to be engaged. And to me, if
anybody recommended that, I don't know where their head is at.

(41:12):
Because you want it to be right in your face,
what you are, what you do, and who you call.
It has to be in the face for somebody because
it's only a brief moment. Okay, all right. Anyway, so
community involvement, school programs, charity projects. If the cost is right,
it's not real expensive, and you look at it and say, well,

(41:35):
you know, basically this event, if I sponsor it, if
I get one sale, it'll pay for the event, so
it's a net zero so I didn't cost me anything.
Then it's worth it and it helps support your community,
and people think about that. Okay. Also bundling in this,
we'll talk about again those local business groups like B

(41:56):
and I's. If you have a business or commerce, trade commerce,
that type of thing, trade organizations. Example, I'm here in Louisa, Virginia,
that's where our offices are now, and I don't join
the local commerce because there's from my perspective, there's nothing
that it can give me because I'm not a local contractor. Right.

(42:18):
But I could join it if I'm trying to get
people that are possibly wanting to pass an electric exam, right,
But mine is a little broader because I'm trying to
get people all over the state, not just one local area,
which may have a very small return on investment. So
for me, it wouldn't make sense. But if I'm a

(42:40):
local contractor and I'm doing work in this specific area,
then it makes all the sense for me to join
that chamber of commerce, so that local marketing group or
something like that in order for me to network and
build relationships. And you never go to these events, folks,
without you wearing something with your company name on it.

(43:03):
Always promoting yourself always. You know how you know how
people used to say, God, that guy's self promotes all
the time. He's all full of himself. You know those
people that say that, and they say that about me,
They say about Mike Cold they say about others, you
don't get it. I remember years ago I came up
with the it was the Electrical Guru, and I took

(43:29):
so much crap from people on Mike Holt's forum from
other places saying and this is their own thing, and
this is this is coming from their inside inadequacies. Is
what they would say is boy, he thinks he's the guru.
And it would drive them crazy. They would start topics
on message boards. Go google it, you'll still be out there,
to the point where I finally got rid of it.

(43:51):
But I got to thinking about it years later and
I was like, you know what, they did not get me.
It wasn't about me thinking I'm the guru. It was
it was marketing, and it was working. I had an
awesome logo, I had all this type of stuff that
was focused around the Electrical Guru and all this kind
of stuff. But it's all marketing. I'm still just Paul

(44:13):
Abernathy trying to educate people on the National Electrical Code.
Whether you like what I put out or you don't.
You agree or disagree, you have that prerogative. We don't
always have to agree. You can do your own thing.
You don't have to watch my videos, listen to my podcast,
take my courses, watch our videos on fast tracks too.
You have that freedom to do whatever you want. But
if you choose, then it's up to me to make

(44:35):
sure I market it properly so that you know exactly
what I'm presenting to you. And that's what the electrical
Guru was all about. So here's what's so funny is
when I let that domain go and you go back
years later to get it. Now they want ten grand
for the URL. I'm just like, really, but it's like,
you know, I should have kept it. I broke my

(44:56):
cardinal rule. My cardinal rule is when you buy domains
that you buy all of the three mains. You buy
the dot com, the dot net, and dot org because
it's cheap. It's cheap real estate. Cost you about fifteen
bucks a year for each one. That is cheap real estate.
If you don't believe me. If you don't believe me,
ask Dustin from Electricianne why he doesn't have dot net

(45:20):
dot org from Electriciane. You know why he doesn't because
I own them, okay, and I got them before he
was incorporated, before that was anything that's changed. So they're
not for sale. They're free. I would never sell them
to him. Here's a message to Dustin out there. If
you ever watch my podcasts or listen to my podcast Dustin,

(45:42):
if you want the dot org or the dot net
for Electricianne, all you gotta do is reach out to me,
call me. I'm willing to forgive and I'm willing to
give them to you. I don't need them, Okay. It's
just principle, is what it is for me. I'm saying.
And every business should own their dot net, dot com

(46:05):
and dot org. Okay, that's your tip of the day.
You get your business if you're lucky enough to get
a URL and it's available in all three of those, dude,
that's just part of expenses, your yearly expenses.

Speaker 1 (46:15):
Dude.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
It's under fifty bucks for three domains. What you do
with them, you can have them all forward like mine,
the nets and orgs, they all forward to the dot coms, right,
and so it's like real estate. Once you own it,
you own it. All you're doing is paying a yearly
tax if you will on it to keep it. Nothing's free, folks.

(46:36):
I own my home, it ain't free. Every year I
pay property taxes and all these other day nothing's ever free, Okay,
just saying, so get out of that mentality. Okay, let's
talk about content marketing on a very light budget educational videos.
One good way to get in with your customers is

(46:58):
to produce quick videos. They don't have to be professionally produced,
just use your smartphone, very simple, but do very quick
tutorials or safety tips to position yourself as the expert
in the industry in your local market. So again, things
like even if you're going you're going on a job

(47:19):
and you're just replacing illumin air, if there's one little
tip that you can give somebody, like calking around it
or sealing around it, or or pushing the wires back
tightly so you know that they're not going to come
in content. It doesn't matter, just a minute or two
that you can have where you're teaching somebody something. And
I think the problem that people have is they and
I struggle with this, is that I do so many

(47:42):
videos and the moment that I think that if I
do a training on something that somebody will go or shit, Paul,
that everybody knows that, and I'm like, dude, why did
I waste my time? I have done videos on something
that is the very simplest concept, and I get people
sending me emails and texts and all this going, that's brilliant,
thank you, That's what I needed. And I'm sitting there
going you should have already known that. I mean, I

(48:04):
could do a video, for example, on explaining the twenty
five ms or less in the ground rods and all
those rules. But I'm sitting there thinking everybody should know that, right,
but they don't. You'd be surprised how many people are
electricians that are licensed that don't know those rules. And
the reason for that is they're used to putting in

(48:24):
the stuff. They're not so necessarily used to the code.
And they may have gotten their license to grandfathering, or
they took an exam, and some exams aren't created equal
as others. And there are a lot of people that
pass electrical exams because they're good test takers. There's people
that get their license and pass an exam. Just because
they pass an exam doesn't mean they know the code.
They just knew enough to pass an exam. And that's

(48:47):
what exam prep is all about. It's trying to give
you the tools to get you passed. We can't teach
you everything about the NEC and an exam prep course,
you'd never finish the damn thing. Y'all know how thick
that codebook is. But the goal is to give you
what you need, the low hanging fruit that most test
locations will put in their test or at least teach

(49:07):
you the skills on how to maneuver the NEC in
order to be able to answer these questions. And as
you move through our courses, for example, you will learn
different things that you will retain and that's going to
help you. Okay, So that's the whole concept here. So
don't be afraid to do educational videos and share them
on your Google's, my Space, your your yelps. You're all that.

(49:30):
The next doors little tips that may help the general
homeowner to the point where they go, oh crap, you know,
let me just hire this guy. Like maybe you're hanging
up a ceiling fan. Maybe you have a little tip
that you like to use when you're hanging up a
ceiling fan or something. You don't have to show the
whole thing, just to tip. The point is you will

(49:51):
become the expert in that local market and when people
see it, they'll be like dude, I'm gonna hire this guy.
Because again, everybody that sees some body on TikTok LinkedIn
all these others, they see the videos, they see them,
they think that there's some influencer or whatnot in that
type of thing, and it's just it's crazy to me.

(50:11):
I appreciate going to events and people coming up to
me and and and you know, seeing how how they
love our content and all this stuff. But my next
question to me is did you learn something? Because all
this other shit doesn't matter. Did you learn anything? That's
what I'm focused on. Did you learn something? Okay, So
do some quick videos. Pick it so that you look

(50:32):
very intelligent, okay, be very selective on what your tip
you're giving, okay, and just get it out there in
your in your market and share it again next door,
all those local driven types of stuff, but also on
your even the stuff that's broader like your YouTube's and
all that type of stuff. Just stay consistent. Okay. Now,

(50:54):
the next thing I'll tell you to do is and
it's become amazingly easier today than it used to be. Uh.
And it doesn't matter whether or not it seems like
a cheesy response. When you do this, but it does help,
and that is start thinking about writing some blogs. Blogs
can be educational as well. Ask some tips your local markets.

(51:16):
Stay specific to your local market with these tips. There's
no sense. For example, if I'm an electrical guy and
I want to get business in let's say Louisa County,
it doesn't do me any good to do some blogging
on national things or blogging on the national electrical code.

(51:37):
It doesn't do any good because those people don't care
about that. Remember what you're focusing on, not trying to build.
I'm not here to build somebody as a you know,
to do what I do on the internet, that type
of thing. I'm trying to help the contractor. So your
your blog should be very focused to your market. Like,
for example, if you write a blog about the temperatures

(51:57):
like right now, next week it's going to be down
eight degrees in Virginia. Maybe if you're a plumber, you
write a quick thing on the tips to keep your
plumbing pipes from freezing or whatever that you can share
out there on your social media. Very local specific like
next door is great for this type of thing. Your
yells give them something that locally they can take away

(52:21):
and then at the end of it, add into what
you do as far as your company, and you'd love
to earn their business. That type of thing that's what
you're going for. Is no sense in most of you
trying to gather a national audience when your real money
for you is your local audience. So that's the biggest
shift that I tell people all the time. I'm not
here to educate influencers. I'm not here to create people

(52:43):
to sell online stuff. And no, my focus is for you,
the contractor, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, general contractor or whatever. Build
your market local. And these tips are going to help
you build it local. Okay, So blogging and also in

(53:03):
that tip that you do, make sure you include keywords
in there like affordable electricians near me or emergency electrical repair.
Write that in your verbage so that it gets picked
up by search engines. Okay, as it's put out there.
That type of thing, and this is the kind of
tips that you're probably going to put over on that
web page, that one page web page that you're going

(53:25):
to do. Okay. Next is email marketing. You should be
collecting a list from all your customers on all of
your things that you do. You should ask to join
the newsletter so that you can send out a newsletter
or maintenance reminder or updates or whatever. So capturing emails
are very important. So however you do it, make sure

(53:47):
you're capturing and retaining emails. You know, we do this
through our websites where you register and then people say, well,
why'd you email me this? Because when you registered, did
you read the fine print? The fine print says we
could email you stuff. If you don't don't want to
get emailed anything, don't register. Hello, Okay, So that type
of thing. So next is a word of mouth. So

(54:10):
some people have said out there that says what is
the most popular or what is the most effective form
of advertising? And it is obviously word of mouth or
a good referral strategy. But I will tell you the
problem with word of mouth is if you do great
for somebody, they tend to maybe tell one or two people.
If you do something shitty, they tell fifty. They go
out of their way. So this is why I always

(54:31):
tell people in my leadership class that I do the
mentoring masterclass on leadership that the leader's electricians take, masters take,
or whoever's going to be interacting with the customer. It is
so important that you don't realize that the first impression
means a lot. But you can overcome a bad first
impression with how the rest of your encounter goes with

(54:55):
that customer. So maybe you started off in a fad impression,
maybe something happened, but don't give up. And a lot
of what I used to see with electricians, for example,
in those masterminds that we would do, is they would say,
you know, after the first when I realized that customer
didn't like me or whatever, that I just was there
to get the job done and get the hell out. No,
you have got to build skills. Okay, these are called

(55:18):
soft skills. You have to be able to take a
negative and turn it into a positive, and you have time.
So I hear people say first impressions are hard to overcome.
They're tough, but can it be overcome? Absolutely? Should you
be training your staff specifically in techniques to overcome a

(55:39):
bad first impression? Absolutely, you should be, absolutely, And there
are ways to do that. And I hold a webinar
on that how to overcome a bad first impression. Everybody
in the company should watch that video, everybody, everybody, because
there are ways to overcome a first impression. I'm not

(56:02):
talking about on the internet. I'm talking about not talking
about saying something bad on the Internet, and people go,
I don't like this guy, he's a prick. No, no, folks.
I work with people to build their local business. I'm
not worried about building your Internet presence. When it comes
to nationally getting somebody from Illinois and you're in Maryland,

(56:23):
that is not it. There's many facets to this, but
every company should have every one of their electricians that
interact with a customer take a course on soft skills
so that they understand how to overcome a bad first
impression or how to make sure that you set a
good first impression so that you can even grow on

(56:45):
that during your interaction. Right, and then during that interaction,
that's when you can ask for the referral. That's what
you can ask for testimonies because you have built this up, folks.
It's not brain surgery.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
Now.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
Look, if you have a shitty attitude and you're always
then this is gonna be tough for you. This is
gonna be tough for you. It's not gonna work for you.
And if I'm the owner, I'm getting rid of you
unless you're just such a good ass worker that I'm
gonna say, you know what, I will send you out
there to do the work. But you are forbidden. You're
a forbidden to talk to customers. You are forbidden. I'm

(57:19):
gonna send somebody with you. Okay, maybe the helper is
not the one that's the electrician, but maybe the helper
is more can interact with the customer better than I
want him talking or her talking. I don't want you doing.
I want you there to do the work, Get in,
get out and go. I want somebody else talking. Okay,
that's up to you, But I can't that. Those are

(57:40):
the kind of people I'm like. You know what, you
have to be able to turn a frown upside down.
You've got to be able to learn it. And that's
a skill that can be taught, but you have to
be open to it. If you're just an a hole
from the beginning, it's not going to really help you much.
If you don't want to interact with people, or you
hate people. I mean, I don't like people. I love animals,
I don't. I don't care much for people, But when
I'm interacting with them, they would never know, you know,

(58:01):
what I'm saying. So anyway, it's it's a it's a process.
And if your company is interested in that, webinar, let
me know, we come out and uh, we will do
it at your location, at your facility, and uh, it's
basically about three hours and we teach you. We do
some one on ones, we do some examples, we do

(58:22):
some peer to peer uh, and then I explain how
you have to go at it as a mentality. Uh
and uh yeah, if you're interested in that, reach out
to our office. It's it's basically it's a soft skills training.
That's what it's called. If you're interested in that. Okay,
So word of mouth can be great and then sometimes
it can be very bad. But you can minimize the

(58:44):
bad by that first impression and understanding how to build
how to repair a not so good first impression. The
next thing to do is really all contractors should be
thinking about a loyalty program. I know they don't. I
can tell you this that I did not have one
when I was in Virginia. I did when I moved

(59:05):
to Texas, especially if you're doing grassroots marketing. If I'm
going to let me give you an example why this
is important to do loyalty program. So one of the
things that I would do with door hangers, okay, is
it is I would go around when I would target
a neighborhood that I knew was between five to ten
years old. Okay, I would go Google Maps, I would

(59:27):
look at it, Google Earth, find out where it is,
look at it. And then what I would do is
when I was targeting that subdivision specifically for my door hanger.
One of the things that I would do on this
is that when I would go out there, is when
I would get work, I would say, look, those projects

(59:48):
usually meant that they had more than one thing that
need to be fixed. I'll give you an example my home.
It's in McKinney, Texas. You know, the roof probably needs
to be redone, it needs to have some other stuff
done or whatnot. It needs to this or that, and
you know, and so chances are for the most of

(01:00:09):
these homes that if you get the initial call to
put in illumina air or to add a circuit, or
add some recess lights or do something, there is a
high probability they're going to need something else done. And
so you want to be able to say, you know
what if you call me back, you'll get a five
percent discount on any future work you want done. You

(01:00:29):
don't have to no special code, just let me know.
I'll keep track of you and keep this card. I'd
have a loyalty card and I'd say keep this card
and just show it to us and you'll get five
percent off or whatever you feel comfortable with. Maybe you
set a minimum threshold of how much they spend. It's
up to you, but give the customers a discount if
they repeat and want you back out there. Okay. Another

(01:00:52):
thing that you can do with that is get those
people that we talked about, you met with that, if
you refer them as far as your network and say, look,
I would like to be able to offer my customers
a five percent off for your services. Maybe there's a
money threshold. Maybe they don't feel comfortable with that, but
maybe they're like, well, if they spend five hundred with us,
we'll give them this discount or whatever. Maybe it's a monitory,

(01:01:14):
it doesn't matter. It's worth a shot, it's worth a try.
If they say naw, I'm not going to do that,
then don't. But you should be giving a loyalty program
because I want to squeeze as much money as I
can out of every opportunity. So for example, when I
used to do the home depot stuff, which again is free.

(01:01:35):
I mean, as long as you're buying product from home
depot in what I used to do with that is Man,
you'd be surprised in how many returns that I got
that I would they would call me back again. Dude.
I had some houses that I was called out there
to put a ceiling fan in, and then two weeks
later I got called to put another ceiling fan in
and they didn't even go through home Depot. They already

(01:01:56):
just had my number. They were They loved my work,
they loved what we did. So I had one job
where I can just remember in my mind, this was
in McKinney that I bet. I bet that woman caught
us out there probably ten times to do I mean
to replace some switches, to add a light, to change illuminair,

(01:02:16):
to put in seeling fans, and dude, I had to
give that woman a discount, a loyalty discount. She was
making me money, and guess what she shared it with
their friends. So I used to tell her, I said,
you know what if you share this with your friends,
I will give them the same discount I'm giving you
five percent off. Just have them take a picture of

(01:02:39):
your card so that they can show us when we
get there. That way they were engaged in that type
of thing, or just refer it and I can go look.
All they have to do is tell me. I mean,
if they didn't have that, I would say, just who
are you talking about now? I used to have a
little book of the loyalty customers in it that type
of thing. So anyway, however you want to do it.
But again I have no problem giving a discount because

(01:03:03):
I did not have to work for that. I can
already figure that it would have cost me a freaking
fortune in the advertising to get that customer or maybe
or you know, if I had done more marketing. But
I just got it for free. So anyway, that's a
loyalty program. I lastly, one thing I'm going to tell
you is with every job you do, leave your mark.

(01:03:26):
And what does that mean? Leave your mark whether or
not you come up with stickers that you if I go,
for example, when I would go to do a service call,
whether I had to go into the panel or not,
and usually I did because I'd have to turn the
panel off because I ain't working on anything live. I'm
not trying to be a hero. I took an opportunity
to put my sticker on their panel. They didn't give

(01:03:47):
me permission. I didn't ask for permission. They can rip
it off if they want. I don't care. But I did.
I went and I would put my sticker on the
inside door or somewhere on that panel. Okay, hell, I
didn't care if I put it on the outside of
the door of the panle I put my little state
wasn't big, A small little sticker that said Electrician and
it had my number on it. Ain't no shame in

(01:04:10):
my game. You can do that with magnets. You can
do that with labels. I knew a lady contractor who
used to do a lot of work, and all of
her work it was above us. When she would do
above suspended ceiling work, she had those little tags that
looked like h like ID tags for like trash bags,
you know what I'm saying. It's like a square rectangle,
and then it had little tail on it that you

(01:04:30):
feedback through it and tighten it like a tie wrap
with a label on it. She had those with her
business name Everything Electrician, you know, all that kind of stuff.
And she would put it randomly on the MC above
the ceiling or other areas around raceways or whatever. And
I used to see she used to come to my seminars,
and she's also the lady that used to do her
color coding for her services and everything. She'd use all

(01:04:53):
kinds of wild colors like pink and lavenders and whatever.
Because everybody thinks black, red, blue, and brown or yellow
is a requirement. It may be something that the local
jurisdiction requires, maybe something in the specifications, but it's not
in the NEEC unless you're talking about a high leg.
And if it is, it's a high leg, it's orange.
If you're going to color code it. If you don't
want a color code and you want to put labels

(01:05:14):
on it, that's fine, then it doesn't have to be orange.
But the point was, she made it a point, and
one of the guys in a seminar one time said
to her, and this was back when I was in
Virginia doing these seminars. I'm back now, but they said
to her, they said, well, you're just making it easier
for the lawyer to find you. And she came back
with response so dagon quickly. It was incredible. She went

(01:05:35):
back and said, you know what, that lawyer might need
electrical work done too. I don't have a problem with that.
And she would elaborate and say, look, I stand by
every bit of my work. I don't care if a
lawyer sees my name on the work or somebody contact me.
I'm going to do it right the first time. And
then she looked up at me and she said, that's
why I'm here, that's why I come to your webinars.

(01:05:56):
That's why I take the training of mister Abernathy, because
I want to learn the code, because I take this
job serious. It's my profession, no different than a doctor,
a lawyer, you know that type of thing. She took
it very serious, and so she didn't have a problem
putting her name branding her stuff everywhere. And I was like,

(01:06:16):
you go, girl, that's exactly what a successful entrepreneur wants
to do. Those things are cheap, getting things printed with
your name on it like that this to print another
place that says so damn cheap. But all you have
to do is have one person see at one time
and remember it and boom it paid for itself. Okay,
so leave your mark, always leave. You know, magnets are

(01:06:38):
a bit expensive. Leave a sticker to put a sticker.
If you get an opportunity to put a sticker on
the panel or something like that, then take that opportunity,
but brand it. Make sure that you leave your mark
before you leave. Okay, let's see cost effective advertising that
will go over local classifieds and online platforms craiglists, Facebook, Marketplace,

(01:07:02):
next door. You've already heard me talk about those yard
signs and vehicle branding. Get some yard signs made up,
and when you're doing work for customer, ask them if
you can put you get those cheap ones, you know
what I'm saying, like the one of the political ones
that get made up. They're not overly expensive. I used
to get these things made up cheap, and ask them

(01:07:24):
if you can put a yard sign in the yard.
And again, be very clear, name of your company and
what you do, and a phone number. Dude, don't be
over crazy, straight up put what you want. Often tell
people all the time about sales, the zig ziglar approach

(01:07:45):
to sales. People say, I have a hard time closing
my sales. I have a hard time getting the sale.
When I'm rattling on to somebody and where he and
han back and forth, and what I ask him is
I say to him, I say, well, did you ask
for the sale? They go, what do you mean? I
was telling them about my service? I'm like, did you
ask for the sale? Did you tell them? I'd like

(01:08:07):
to earn your business? What is it going to take
for me to get this done for you today? Or
can we go in and get you in the books
for next week or whatever's commeding for you. I really,
I really think this can benefit you. I really want
to earn your business. You seem interested in what we got.
When can we make this happen? Well, if they say, well,
I got to talk to the wife, then what you

(01:08:28):
say is that's no problem. Is she available? I'd love
to explain this to her too. It'd be great. You know, again,
you're going to have a number of people that are
just going to push you off. But if you don't
ask for the sale, you're never going to get it.
So if I ask somebody, can I put a yard
sign in your yard? And I'm really trying to grow
my business in this area in your neighborhood, Can I
put a sign on there and tell them say you

(01:08:50):
know what, and be very specific, you know, say look,
can I just do it for a week. I'll come
back to the end of the week and pick it up. Okay,
And you make sure you set a reminder on your phone.
You know. Now today we have phone reminders to say,
go pick up sign at this address and that type
of thing. But ask if you can put a sign
for a week, maybe two weeks. Ask it. Also, branding

(01:09:12):
of your vehicle, Dude, I'm not saying go out and
spend thousands of dollars on a vehicle wrap, but you
should at least get magnetic lettering. A magnetic signs Vista
print makes them cheap. You don't need to letter your
whole vehicle, but if you're in a van, you need
to have something that says what the hell you do
on it. Don't just put your name on it. Nobody

(01:09:32):
cares about your name. They want to know what you do.
And I'm gonna put on their Abernat the electrical services
it says right in the name would I do I'm
gonna put under an electrical contractor, and I'm gonna put
under it. No job too small, No job too big
and now I'm gonna put the biggest I can in
my phone number, and I'm gonna put that on the sides.

(01:09:54):
But I'm also gonna put it on the back of
my vehicle if I have a vehicle that can have
me put it on the back like the like a
van door. Because people are stopped at a stoplight behind you,
they can see it. They can snap a picture of it.
Now a lot of people even put big QR codes
on it so people can do the QR code. And
that's fine. It's not gonna work on the side of
the vehicle really too much. But putting the back when

(01:10:15):
somebody stopped behind you, why not. It's not gonna hurt anything.
And that's when you send them to your website or
that one page that you can capture them. Now you
have got them now, and that's where you can do
a quick intro video says hey, thanks for coming to
my life. I'm a big believer of that. Folks on
those little one page things say hey, thanks for coming

(01:10:36):
to my thanks for coming to my website. I'm a
local contractor trying to earn your business. I'm very proud
of what I do and I think I can you know,
tell them a little bit about a story, but let
them know right away the market that you're serving. God,
so many people don't listen to that. It's local. You're
not trying to be national. You're just trying to be local.

(01:10:57):
Stop thinking big, think very microscope in your area. Okay,
all right, so that's what i'd say. Please get something
on your vehicle and you can take them off if
you don't want it on your vehicle in the evening
or whatever. You just pull them on or pull them off.
It's fine. And then lastly again flyers and doorhanngers. I
am a big believer in those. I believe in segmenting

(01:11:20):
your locations. I mean I will go, for example, I
would sit down as a contractor and I would say, Okay,
I'm going to target this subdivision. I know there's probably
three hundred and fifty homes in this subdivision, or four
hundred this subdivision. Okay, this one's about five years old.
So they're starting to have problems. Switches to stop working,
illuminators need to be freshened up. Things. Okay, Maybe they

(01:11:40):
want to add an EV charger, Maybe they want to
do something. Maybe they're adding a basement addition or finishing
off an attic. I don't know. I don't know, but
I'm targeting that. Maybe they want to put in a generator,
maybe they want to maybe they want to cost effective
GIN ready set up. Maybe they want an energy management system.
I don't know. I used to have multiple types of
flyers and doorhanngers depending on what I was targeting for

(01:12:02):
that area. So anyway, I target that area and I
hang those door hangers, and again I put a referral
code on it. I put in so that I can
track it. If I'm going to give a new customer discount,
I make sure that they give me this flyer so
that can track my ROI. But again, it's inexpensive. Doorhangers

(01:12:23):
are cheap, And I'm not just saying use this to print.
You go google it and you google cost effective door hangers,
and you're going to find companies that will printers that
will make these things for hardly nothing nothing. In fact,
you may even have a printer that's local to you,
and you want to keep the business local. Go to
them and say, hey, I'd like you to do some
printing for you, and what's the best price you can

(01:12:45):
do for me? Don't be afraid to ask for that,
you know what I'm saying. So anyway, those are just
some tips on that type of thing. So let me
give you some real quick pro tips to help enhance
your success. And we'll kind of do that and we'll
conclude this number One, track your ROI okay, make sure
that you either write a reference, write a number, uh,

(01:13:09):
you know, keep an effort so that when you do
have a customer call, you know where it comes from,
whether you get the specific cards and you have a
little space a box, a white box that you manually write.
Because if you want to buy a bunch of cards
and you don't want to have to put a separate
number in each one, that's fine, get a maide, but
put a little area in the bottom right or in
the back where you can write a code on it

(01:13:29):
so that you can track your efforts, like I use
this code for this neighborhood, so you can see what's
your returnal investment. And you can always ask the customer
what is the code that's on your card and they'll
give it to you. That's like saying how would you
how did you get how did I? How did I?
How are you referred to me? Well, you're doing it
because of the card. That's the thing. Keep track of

(01:13:53):
it and things that work for you, rents, repeat and
do it again again and again. Okay, relationships, build other
relationships with the other trades that are in your market.
Try try try to find a good plumber, good hvac
and vice versa. If you're a mechanical guy, find somebody

(01:14:14):
that y'all can refer business back and forth, and you
can create your own little network. It takes a little work,
but it will pay dividends in the end when you
have somebody that's out there selling for you when you're
not even out there. Business Networking International is a great
example of that if they have it in your area.
But it is a bit of a commitment. So you
can do this yourself by building your own little reliable network.

(01:14:35):
Reach out. And if you already have a company that
does plumbing and mechanical, then you need to treat them
like separate entities, and you also grassroots market between each
one of your entities. Separate. In other words, if you
do plumbing and mechanical and electrical, don't do a flyer
that has all three of these services. Okay, if you're

(01:14:56):
focusing on electrical. Just do one for electrical mechanic. And
the reason for that is people will throw things away
unless it's geared towards what they need, and it kind
of makes them trigger. So rather than doing a flyer
that tries to cover everything, you do, make it very focused,
like this week, I'm gonna hit this neighborhood of five
hundred homes. I'm gonna be focused on my electrical business.

(01:15:18):
That way, I could also come back a month two
month later and do the same thing with a different
looking flyer. I can focus on my mechanical business. Okay,
I don't want to burn up my leads with one
flyer that's gonna get so cluttered that people read it
and they get confused, like I don't know what the
hell you offer. So again, I like to be very targeted. Yes,

(01:15:40):
it costs money to buy these flyers. Yes, it costs
some money to do all that, but it's not nearly
the amount of money it would cost you to get
into an advertised marketing campaign. Somewhere I've done it. I
can tell you through the years of experience. Okay, that
type of thing. Don't do the Angie's lists. Don't do
those type of things. Okay. Now, also be consistent. So

(01:16:02):
if you're gonna do social media, you're gonna be doing
those those little you know, tips videos whatever. Be consistent.
Try to do it at least one a week or
two a week. Be very consistent. If you want to
do you could probably get ten of them done on
one job. Then you can keep them in the can
and that way you can you get already taken care
of and you use them that type of thing. Like
maybe you're an HVAC guy. Maybe one tip that you

(01:16:24):
do is how to read the name plate on an
outside unit. Maybe another little tip video is how to
know when a capacitor needs to be replaced, and you
know that type of thing. There's so many things that
you can do as as electrician as well. You know
it's like like, oh, you're using too much quattach. Would
it benefit you to think about installing LEDs. Well, we
can help you because we can show you which LED

(01:16:45):
fixtures will look the best in a certain application. You
want to get that interaction started, okay, but be consistent
on it. Okay, So let's conclude with this. Summarize now
marketing marketing marketing business cards. Make sure you're listed on
all of the local channels, Yelps, my Google, my business.
Make sure you're doing the next door. Make sure you're

(01:17:10):
doing all of that. Be consistent. Make sure you already
know your name and everything before you go setting up
these accounts so that they can be consistent through all
of them. Make sure you get your facebooks, make sure
you get your TikTok if it comes back. Make sure
you get your Twitch and Instagram and Facebook. Be consistent.
Don't have a bunch of different names. Be consistent with

(01:17:32):
that so that you can be very like I do.
Master the NEC is consistent on all of my platforms. Okay,
all right, folks. That is it. That is all we've
got to talk about. When it comes to the marketing
in the grassroots marketings that I can think of, Just
get out there and make your business successful. And I

(01:17:54):
think you will follow those tips that you'll find that
you can get a good firm hold of low cost
marketing in your region, grow your business, stop thinking national,
thinking local, and really focusing on the people. And again
we're not talking about just just getting the accounts. We're

(01:18:15):
talking about actually using them, actually getting your banners made,
your flyers made, your doorhanngers, made your business cards made
doing those little things at home depots and lows and
putting them in the windshield or putting them in the boxes.
If you choose all those things, you have to constantly
be marketing yourself. If you're the boss and you got

(01:18:37):
people that work for you and they don't understand soft
skills when dealing with customers, and how to overcome a
bad first impression. If they don't understand any of that stuff,
or do you feel like they won't listen to you
because you're the boss and you're having trouble, and then
I'm more than happy to come in and do a
training session on them and lay down the law for you.

(01:18:57):
And if they don't want to follow it, get rid
of them, get somebody else. Or if you have a
really good worker who's untrainable in that area, then just
make sure that they're focused on working and that they
do not interact with the customer. It's sometimes that's easier
said than done, but it can be done, all right. Okay,
first impressions are important, but they but a bad impression

(01:19:18):
can be overcome if you know how to do it.
All right, All right, folks hopefully got something out of
the day's episode. Until next time, Stay safe, God bless them.
We'll catch you on an upcoming episode of Master the
NEC podcast. Till then, take care.

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):
Thanks for tuning into another electrifying episode of the Master
THENEC podcast. We hope you're feeling more powered up and
ready to tackle the electrical world with the knowledge and
confidence you need to succeed. Remember, in the electrical grade,
knowledge is power, and we're here to make sure you
stay plugged into the latest inside chips and code up days.

(01:19:55):
If you enjoy today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave
us a review, and share the podcast with your.

Speaker 2 (01:20:01):
Fellow electricians and industry pros.

Speaker 1 (01:20:04):
Until next time, keep your tools sharp, your circuits clear,
and you're my focused because here at the Master of
the NEEC podcast, we're all about sparking your success. Stay safe,
stay smart, and keep mastering the trade. From all of
us here at Electrical Code Academy, thank you for all
your support and we will see you on the next

(01:20:26):
amazing Master of the NEC podcast episode.

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Master The NEC | Episode 17 | Grassroots marketing Concepts for Contractors

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Master The NEC | Episode 17 | Grassroots marketing Concepts for Contractors