STOP Burning Cash on Branding! Branding Myths Busted

Before you spend tens of thousands of dollars on rebranding and getting a new logo and a caricature and a truck wrap and billboards, you need to watch this video so you can put your money where it matters and you can make more of it. At the end of the day, you're in this business to collect more thank you notes, that is serving customers and then being so satisfied that at the end they write you a big check, they hand it to you and they say, thank you so much for helping me through this project. Now, sadly, there are many roofing companies that I've witnessed do what I call making wishful investments, where the advice that they got was you need a new brand, so they spend tens of thousands of dollars to do so, and they look around and not much has changed. Now, I'm not saying that brand doesn't matter at all because that wouldn't be fair. But what I am doing in this video is sharing with you a challenging perspective so you can analyze the investments you're making in your business to actually get a return on your investment and putting allocating your money where it matters because in my opinion, brand is far lower on the list than most people believe it to be. By the way, this, this whole thing came up because in our community, the one that I run called the Roofing and Solar Reform alliance, where we help great roofing companies make an even bigger impact together. It's application only and everyone signs a mutual non disclosure. It's a place where we can share our winning secrets. Now we've got a retail company who is spending lots of money on rebranding and another company, an owner chimed in, it was like, dude, you shouldn't be doing this. Now, challenging perspectives like this is powerful and it helps us make smart decisions. That's what I hope to help you do today. So let's get started. Roofing sales is personal development in disguise and the reward for growth is life changing. I hope my content helps you create a richer life and bank account. All right, I want to shatter these three myths for you right now. Let's start with myth number one. Myth number one, well known equals well paid. You get to choose do you want to be well known or well paid? And this is, by the way, not to throw shade at anyone, but I objectively have observed that there's a lot of people in the roofing world, contractors who are very well known, especially amongst contractors. Now, their businesses aren't astronomically large, they're very well known. But I wonder, are they well paid? There's A lot of them in the like 3 to 7 million mark. Yet just off the top of my head, we have a member in RSRA doing $30 million a year. Are they well known? No, they are not well branded, but they are quite well paid. Team number is doing $45 million a year. By the way, team number one was in North Carolina. Team number two is in Texas. Are they well known? No, but they're doing $45 million a year. They're well paid. Team number three, they did $55 million a year one or two years ago. I can't recall. Off the top of my head. Are they well known? The answer is no. In fact, they spend very little money on marketing, but they are very well paid. So there is, in my opinion, not a direct correlation between being well known and well paid. I hope this might ruffle some feathers a little bit and only for the sake of you challenging your own perspective. Okay, let's move on to myth number two. Brand gets leads. I believe that to be false branding will get leads at some point after you one had a large enough brand, a large enough presence and spent enough money to develop it, which might make sense for a company doing $100 million a year or more. And it might not make sense for your company that's doing $10 million or even $15 million and less. In fact, there's another member of ours that recently joined the Roofing and solar form alliance that is in Colorado. They're doing about $30 million a year. And are they well known? No, not really. But they are quite well paid. In fact, I've been working with them for years and watched them go from 7 million to 15 million to 30 million, nearly doubling. And it's been incredibly powerful to witness. But again, they are not incredibly well known, but they are well paid. And again, circling back to myth number two, that brand gets leads. So. So let me break this down. A lot of people think, okay, if I have a cute brand and a character and I wrap my trucks and get a billboard, then I am naturally going to get leads. That is not true. What gets leads is a powerful marketing system. A marketing system in a marketing process gets leads. When you know that when you invest money into a lead source. And by the way, I've done another video recently. I'll put a link up here. All those lead sources, the pros and cons of each. There's tons of ways to get leads. When you have a system where you can predictably insert money and get a particular return out and you know your Customer acquisition cost. That's what gets leads. The ability to intrigue people, to raise their hand, reach out, have your team convert into an appointment and then your sales team follow through with that. That's what gets leads is your marketing system. The brand can help once you have again enough presence and spend behind it. Let me elaborate. If you're coming, let's say it's doing $7 million a year and you've got two trucks running around that are branded and everyone else is in their own. And when I say branded, I mean wrapped. How big of a brand can you get? People aren't going to say I see you everywhere. Meanwhile, if you have 25 trucks running around that are logoed and wrapped and you have the budget for billboards and people are seeing you everywhere, then you are top of mind when they need a roof. I'm going to give you another example. If you're injured in Iraq, call in your mind, likely just filled in the blank with whatever personal injury lawyer is in your market. Now that's branding at play, where these personal injury lawyers have spent literally millions of dollars. In fact, I worked with one as a sales consultant, believe it or not. In fact, I helped take a law firm from a 76% close rate on cases that they had ideal cases they could actually help with. They called them wanting cases up to a 90 to 100% close rate. Yes, those are real numbers for five years running. And I know what it takes for them to get those phone calls. In fact, it can cost hundreds of dollars to make the phone ring. If you have a large enough company, your brand could help get some leads. But I want to ask you this, is it going to be the thing that gets you leads? No. It helps, but it isn't the lead source. The companies I know with a strong brand still spend a boatload of money on their marketing and they have strong marketing systems. So please don't have it. Make a wishful investment thinking that your brand is magically going to get you more leads. Now let's move on to shatter myth number three. Brand makes sales easier. Brand makes sales easier. Does it? I don't think so. What makes sales easier? A sales system. See, as we go through this, you don't need to be well known to be well paid. You need to be the most well known and trusted roofer in the neighborhoods that you serve. Or, which is why the companies I've mentioned that are doing 30, 45, $55 million a year that aren't well known or well paid, they don't have a strong brand, but they have a strong marketing process. Okay? In a marketing system, some of that blends direct sales, meaning door to door sales and direct mail. Others include digital marketing, referral systems, networks, et cetera. This marketing system is what gets them leads. Then the sales process that they have in place allows them to close those leads. Because if you're getting leads because you've got a brand, but you have no sales system in place to convert those leads, it doesn't matter how good your brand is, the brand doesn't make sales. Remember, that brand doesn't get you leads. Marketing gets you leads. And a sales system is one that makes you sales. Your marketing gets people into an appointment where they are ready to buy, where metaphorically, like, the table is set for them. That's one of the things that we help our members do in the Roofing and Solar Reform alliance using our sales tools. And it's one of the reasons that one of our members, by the way, heard at roofcon quite a few salespeople who were upset at the Roofing and Solar Reform alliance because their company's not a member. And they showed up in the house and they're having a hard time selling because people that were members got to that homeowner first and they allowed the Roofing and Solar Reform alliance endorsement do some selling for them. And they said, are you a member of Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance? They said no, and they're not getting the sale. So that's what marketing does is it sets the table for your salespeople. Now, in conclusion, you might be saying, all right, Adam, are you anti branding? The answer is no. But I look at a company who has a limited budget because all of us do. Some of us have a higher limit on our budget if we spend money on brand, which can be important. I would only do it after we have these things in place. First is to understand that well known doesn't equal well paid. All right? Our business operations, how profitable we are, our business structure, all the things that we help our members with together and we shared, like our pay plans, our operating systems, the KPIs we track. This is what helps us get well paid, okay? That's our systems, our processes, all that jazz. And the beauty of working in a tight knit community is being able to collectively share that information. Next, your brand doesn't get leads, it's your marketing that gets leads. Your marketing system. And if you don't have this dialed, you don't have the right KPIs to track. And you have a cash machine, then brand doesn't matter. And then again not your brand but your sales system. That's what is going to get you sales. Now at this point, once you have these three things in place, a strong business operating principle which is with systems and processes, with a strong marketing system and a strong sales system. Now, now what I want you to do is pour money into your brand because then it will accelerate all of these things. But without it, you are wasting your money in making a wishful investment. All right. I hope this helps you figure out where to put your marketing spend. And if you want help figuring this stuff out and you want to be part of a value aligned community so you can avoid the bad advice, the expensive mistakes, figure out which vendors to use, where you should allocate your budget, what KPIs to watch, then I invite you to apply to join. Now in the meantime, I've got more free goodies for you. You can hop right into this very next video to learn all the different lead sources and their pros and cons. I'll be seeing you in the next one.