Get More Calls w/ Unique Digital Marketing | Podcast Ep. 59 | Toolbox for the Trades

Ryan Redding, welcome to the Toolbox for the Trades podcast.

I am so glad to be here. Thanks for the invite. What is up everyone? Driving around.

I am so excited for you to be here. I'm glad that you are too. You are the host of the new podcast Blue Collar CEO and you are also the founder of DP Marketing Services, which is a marketing agency that specifically caters to folks in the trade industry. Now, when you and I first met, and this is kind of how I really want to start off the conversation, you and I are just two people who accidentally fell in love with the service industry. Totally didn't expect to get here. So I would just love for you to tell us your story. How did you get into the trades?

Yeah, I always tell people entirely by accident. So my background was in marketing and maybe, gosh, it was a few years ago, there was an opportunity to be able to, like, you think about Main street small America, where there's bakers and chiropractors and self storage places and plumbing shops. They're all just kind of on Main street usa and they all have really crappy websites. So it was one of those, you know what I mean? It's like everyone goes there, they walk in off the street. No one really has the knowledge or the money to do something. So early on it was like, let's just give them a high quality website that, you know, doesn't suck and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. So really that we started just doing like inexpensive, decent websites for these Main street small businesses. And so yeah, we picked up chiropractors and bakers and self storage places and plumbers at the same time. One of the plumbers we picked up, he was nothing special. Like he was just one of this small army of just, you know, businesses. His business just kind of blew up. He went from a guy working out of his garage, could barely like pay his bills to now he's a nexstar company. He spends his time golfing. It's just like the night and day transformation of his business through the impact of digital. And he was the first person to say, bro, look, you got to just focus on people like me. We don't know what we're doing. We need the phone to ring. And I gotta be honest, I wrestled with it for a while. Yeah, because it's one of those things where it doesn't sound sophisticated. It doesn't have this thing you talk about at cocktail parties or whatnot. Dang it. He was right. We kind of started focusing on just the trades we actually get specifically plumbing, H vac, electrical. We have a handful of remodeling companies we work with. But really in the process kind of completely fell in love with the blue collar trade and became just really passionate about helping these guys and these women build really successful, really profitable business. Helping them not only reach their personal goals because that feels a little bit utilitarian, but help them like have a really positive impact on the communities that they serve and that they teams they support. So yeah, it's been a lot of fun to stumble into it. How about you? Like what's your. How did you end up in the trades?

Oh my goodness, we're doing. I love when an interviewer interviews me. This is the risk you run into when you have a podcaster on your podcast. So very similar to you. I actually grew up in the trade, so my father's a carpenter, so I was surrounded by handymen, contractors my entire life. Had no aspirations or ideas that I would ever get into it. I got my degree in psychology, neuropsychology, was going to become a mental health counselor, Googled the starting salary for mental health counselor in New York City, which is where I'm from, and was like, oh boy, that's, that's, that's tough. I had gotten into tech at the time and was working at a bunch of B2B SAS companies and just kind of like hopped from one of them to another as progressively each of those softwares, while great softwares, well intentioned team, just didn't fit a niche, wasn't serving a market in a way that was truly disruptive and transformational. So I kept working on all these startups that just weren't doing anything. Had a stint in comedy where I was trying to break into the entertainment industry in la, which is what got me out here. Turns out that's a lot harder than you think it's going to be.

I got to see some of that footage.

Oh, it exactly exists. It exists. If you, if you were to really try and Google me, you could actually. No, just a simple Google of my name. We'll, we'll yield some stuff. So, you know, have fun after this. But I came across Service Titan after I'd been in LA for maybe two or three years, fell in love with their story. You know, two founders who, immigrant story, came from Armenia, their fathers worked in the trades, worked their butts off to put their sons through, you know, phenomenal colleges, get the best education they could. And then these two sons met on a ski trip. That's how the story goes. And we're like, you know what? Before we go work for Google or Facebook or for all these crazy companies, let's build software for our dads. And it hasn't stopped since. So I was really taken by one the mission, because my dad's in the industry. And he actually says to me all the time, because he listens to this podcast. He says, if I had your podcast when I had my company, my dad had a carpentry franchise in the 90s, things would have been different. So, which makes me feel really good, right? And the more I worked at Service Time, got to know the customers, the folks that actually that weren't even on Service Titan yet, partners such as yourself, the more I just fell in love with it. I was like, this is the most supportive industry I've ever been a part of. And everyone in it has a really interesting and unique story. So it just. It's really cool. And I actually love talking about it at dinner parties because it's definitely not what people expect.

Yeah, totally. And it's funny hearing about your dad, because my dad had a similar background too. He was in pest control and did pest control, really, until the dot com thing started taking off and people stopped using the yellow pages and started using AOL or Ask Jeeves or whatever. The big search engine was pretty pre 1996. And his business did the opposite maybe of what your dad was. He just tanked. He struggled to pivot, struggled to transition mentally as like modeling the business into this new era of marketing and customer expectations and even just adopting technology for the business to operate. Everything was on paper. So it's interesting.

It's super interesting. And I mean, talking about, you mentioned digital and your explanation before, you know, the digital shift has made such a tremendous impact on this business. But I will say there are folks we actually have, Crystal Williams, who was on a couple episodes ago at the tail end of season three, who she serves a service area that still uses yellow Pages, and they still got yellow pages from 20 years ago. So it's so fascinating to be able to see the different makeup of the country and how what works in terms of marketing for a business in Atlanta works so different for someone in, say, Plano, Texas, you know, just because of the types of customers that are there. And I imagine that within your role, you probably have clients also all over the country, maybe all of north over North America. And you probably have to make those pivots a lot, don't you?

Yeah, we. That's one of the both fun and interesting things about what we Do. So we're very narrow on the companies we work with. And so because of that we can work with companies kind of across. So our guys are all over the US And Canada. But some markets we can be really, really laser focused on what we do and have a massive impact. Some we have to get really clever. But what comes to mind is we actually work with a company in Denver which when most people think Denver, big metro area, right. Very affluent, very economically and I think we diverse. They are a 97 year old company which is rare in the trades to begin with. The phone book is a significant lead source for them. But it's not because. It's not because of what most people think of in the phone book which is, oh, there's a problem, open it up. It's a generational thing. This company has worked with three generations of customers. Great grandma worked with the same company as grandma, worked with the same company as mom. Mom. And now like kids are coming into the picture. So they just pass down this like family knowledge. The phone numbers that are written down like in the silverware drawer, they just pass them down the generations. It's really, really fascinating how that's playing out.

That is, that is really fascinating. So this client specifically, I really would love to just learn more about the types of tactics you implement for consumers. Consumers, clients across the, the continent. For this, that one in particular, like when you said that to me, I was like, okay, so it's a generational thing. If I was in that business, I may be thinking, all right, how do I get my name out there still? Because eventually that piece of paper that's in the silverware drawer underneath, something is going to get lost or it's going to go away. So what kind of work do you do from the marketing perspective to strategize against that?

Yeah, so we're, the whole point of our focus right now is essentially replacing a generational segment that's dropping off. Sure, it sounds really weird and really cold, but we're kind of saying, hey, people over 65, you guys are rocking your phone book number like great. We're going to narrow our focus and we're going to focus on the emerging demographic that's coming into place. So we focus really hard on digital strategies because that's the, that's the native language of the generation, like born in the 80s and after. Right. Is digital first. So it's for us it's kind of, it's not replacing their mix, it's augmenting what they've already done for decades way before us, way after us. But to bring them into a new customer segment that hasn't been cultivated to date.

Interesting. So what do you. So I love this. I'm trying to think. So I'm in that age bracket right by. I should have a house, but I live in Los Angeles. We established that. I don't have one, but if I were a homeowner in my early 30s, what kind of messaging would you give to me? As someone who was raised in the digital world and you have this client now who's been around for 97 years, what kind of levers are you pulling? Are you working on brand campaigns? Are you getting them ramped up on social? Are you doing email, ppc, SEO? A little bit of everything.

Yeah. So our preferred approach, the nerd term for those who aren't marketers is called Omni Channel. It essentially means you're doing different things for different reasons. However, at the end of the day, you're moving everything forward. So for that specific client, we're doing a combination of unbranded, organic, branded search. We're doing a lot of top of funnel things. They do sponsorships with local TV stations for sporting events. We do a lot of things on social, including getting into TikTok, which has been a lot of fun. So we're trying to essentially do up and down the funnel and fill out those segments as we move forward. Direct mail, in our experience tense, it can go either way. If it's a company that has a brand presence and a previous customer base, it's a really, really efficient way to cultivate leads. If it's cold outreach, if it's an unknown company, for instance, if a company comes into a market space, if they're focusing on direct mail, either email or physical, sometimes we find it's not super efficient. So in this case, because of their customer base is so dang huge, it's a super fantastic tool. And even if they haven't been a direct customer before, they know someone in their family's history has. So it's been passed down. And so even with like the social campaigns, it's a lot of fun because we do a lot of work showing the, the history of Denver with the history of the business where, hey, this company is around when that building was constructed and you see like this service truck driving down the road like a guy in overalls and suspenders. I mean, it's fantastic. It's a lot of fun.

That's so cool. And also blessings to whoever was running the marketing for the company. You know, 97 years ago and was like, someone will want these photos. Because it is hard to get photos from contractors when you're trying to beef up your social media pulling teeth.

I think, yeah, that's something. Guys don't realize how important how visual people are, you know, like just visual creatures. And it's hard to communicate that sometimes. Guys, I know it's. No one likes getting their picture taken, but come on.

I know. I agree. So digital. I hear this a lot when I talk with contractors. It's not necessarily that they say it, but it's definitely a theme in our conversation, which is I turn wrenches. I know how to install a brand new way water heater or H vac system. I don't. Why do I have to learn marketing? Right? There's so much that goes into digital. I mean, I already listed a bunch of them. How do you even. How should folks listening right now be considering or be thinking about their marketing, their digital strategy? If they're kind of like, I'm working with someone and I'm pretty sure they're doing a good job or it's like, I'm kind of plugged in, I'm kind of not like, what are some tips that you have in the work that you do to pass on to our listeners who maybe are working with an agency or doing it in house and maybe feel a little self conscious about is this actually working?

Yeah, that's. There's a lot to that question because that's, that's, there's just a lot there. So on one hand, and the reason I say that is because marketing is a massive field of study. Right. I studied marketing as an undergrad in college. It was later part of my MBA program. It's a huge field and you can have people in subject matter expertise within a very, very, very narrow sliver of what marketing would encompass. And they're exceptionally good at what they do. But that doesn't mean anyone who knows anything about mass media like tv, Billboard, radio, it doesn't mean they know anything about digital. So it's just this huge thing. And I think for a lot of people, not just people in the trades, but just general layman, it can be overwhelming, especially when you hear vernacular thrown at you that you're not used to understanding. What's an impression rate, what's a ctr, what's a coa, what's a cpl? There's all these sorts of secret code that in my experience, guys are just really intimidated to raise their hand and be like, I don't know what that means. Can you walk me through. So for us, one of the values that's important to us when a client first contact us, reach out, is we want them to understand at a management level what the data is saying. We don't think they should be marketing tacticians, we don't think they should be marketing strategists. We're not asking them to hop into AdWords and like leverage a PPC campaign with the lookalike audience or whatever. That's not what we're saying. What we're saying is from a management perspective, how does, how does one understand and assess the people that we're paying money to, or the people are bringing in a house, or, you know, my cousin Bob, are they doing what they need to be doing and do I have the confidence that it's moving us where we need to go?

Yeah.

In fact, we literally, because this is such a big topic, not to get into a plug, but a couple years ago I literally wrote the book on digital marketing for plumbing and H Vac contractors. It's literally called the book on Digital marketing for plumbing and H Vac Contractors. And the whole point is to kind of decode, demystify and de jargon like a very complicated field and put it into kind of a practical, tangible way of guys who just want to turn wrench, at least they can follow along, know if they're getting bsed, know if, if they're getting meaningful results. Yeah, I think it's a challenge all around. I'm going to take that a baby step further. One of the other things I think is difficult for a lot of guys who are in the trades. One of the things I've learned to love about them is they're very transactional. It's like, hey, I do X, you give me Y. And it's this kind of give and take. And there's this natural sort of rhythm that they're used to. There are a lot of types of marketing strategies that don't have that transactional sort of feel, I think, of branding. Branding is a really good one because it's one of those where you put a lot of time, thought, research, care, money and time. Like you could spend months and years building out a really well thought brand campaign and you might not see a direct dollar that you could correlate from that work in a measurable period of time that makes you feel warm and fuzzy. But that doesn't mean that it's worthless. Right. It just means it's a different tool for a different reason. And you have to measure it differently. You can't go, hey, we got this billboard. How many new calls did we get on the board today? That sort of attribution will absolutely cause a breakdown just because they don't understand what they should be measuring and why.

I love this point you made. Thank you for making it. And I actually wanted to talk to you a bit about attribution and as a marketer myself who works at a company where marketing is given an allocated amount of dollars that are expected to drive leads, there are certain initiatives, this podcast, for example, where it's very hard to show a. If someone listens to one podcast, then they, you know, purchase service titan. Like, it's very hard to have that attribution. But all of those top funnel initiatives, in my case, you know, a podcast, a brand initiative. I'm trying to think what would be another kind of like, top funnel social media even. Like, how can sometimes I see, you know, how can we justify being really active on organic Facebook? Like, no one's. No one's checking out our Facebook page.

It's like.

But, you know, maybe they check out your Facebook page when they're trying to book and your Facebook page pops up.

Yeah.

And they see your smiling faces and they're like, oh, this company looks nice. Yeah, I'll go with them. It's so hard to point to that because that isn't going to show up on a number. You're right.

So here's. Yeah. One of. And I actually just did a video in this on. On our YouTube channel a couple months ago. But there's a common error with. With marketing attribution. And this is. This has been true for decades. Right. So it's not just like post Google or whatever, which is. Marketing is really good at measuring the point of last touch. Right. So the classic example is getting a coupon out of the Sunday paper, taking it down to your grocery store, and getting 50 cents off that watermelon. Right. Like, the grocery store knows the publishing date. They know the editorial that you pulled it from. They're able to track it down to, hey, that ran on that date and this particular newspaper. Great, that coupon worked. And they're right. Right. That coupon was the appropriate little trigger that caused them to cut it out and get the watermelon. The problem is, and this has been historically true again, is that it doesn't do a really good job of painting the picture that led people to cut out that coupon in the first place.

They could have passed a billboard that was like, fresh watermelons at ABC Grocery. And they're like, oh, that sounds really good.

It's incredibly difficult to measure those points of influence. Right? Radio jingles, any sort of slogans, any sort of previous brand experience, your neighbor mentioning it to you in your cul de sac for a block party. It's really hard to get a true conversion funnel mapped out for a direct person's encounter. You can only measure the last touch. So that's to say measuring the last touch isn't worthless. It's not that it's invalid valid, it's just if you make every decision you make off of is this tactic or this channel good or bad based on that point of last touch, you're probably missing out on the bigger story that tells the influence of actually that customer journey. That's kind of a big one for me too. And I think the coupon is just an easy way to kind of help put it in people's mind on those. And to be honest, it goes that way with brand campaigns because people don't realize I'm a huge, huge fan of top of funnel marketing. I don't love paying for radio time. I don't know of another medium which gets inside people's bones as efficiently as radio does over time. Yep, it just gets in your bones. And you can't get these jingles out of your head. Those create really, really cost efficient lead generation on every other channel. However, it's really hard to point to it and go, because that radio ad ran on this date, we got cheaper leads being converted on this date. It's really hard to drive that. There is. I don't know if you've been reading about this with your background. Google is working on in their crazy sort of Project X world where everything's kind of side experiments, they are working on a process to do customer acquisition attribution through the life stage, not just the point of last touch. From what I've read, it's a little bit freaky, but it's kind of cool that. Yeah, it's kind of cool that people are trying.

I will just say that a couple things. One, to be a marketer for a watermelon sounds super fun.

Dream job.

Dream job. Two, it's when you get into like the life cycle. Oh, Google's going to be doing some creepy stuff. I am sure of it. Yeah, when you really like pull the hood, you look under the hood of like how marketing actually works. It's, it's pretty terrifying in a lot of ways, but also incredible and fascinating and enables businesses to grow. But it can be a big Fit Big Brothery at times.

Oh, yeah. And I will stop short because of the listening audience on my worst case dystopian fears of Big Brothers. I'm sorry, Big Brothers, if you're listening right now, I really like you. Please don't cancel my tv.

So tell me about. So I imagine because you actually explained that really beautifully, the Last Touch and the flaws in it and why you need to focus on Top of Funnel as well, I imagine you probably have to explain that a lot to a lot of your clients. Am I correct in that?

Oh, totally. Yeah. Another. Another practical example is. So Pay per click, right? Pay per Click is a digital tool. Love it or hate it. I am not a massive fan of things like AdWords, but it's really good at targeting what you want. That said, one of the things we do, especially in a competitive market, is actually bid on the company's actual name. Right? So if the name of your business is Johnny's Heating and Cooling, we're totally going to build out an AdWords campaign for Johnny's Heating and Cooling. And the idea being we're also trying to play defense. So a lot of times contractors. We have a guy in Atlanta, I just had this conversation with him the other day. He's like, why am I paying money for my own name on AdWords? These people are going to go to me anyways. That's like the thought process going back to that transactional. They're already looking for me. Why are we paying for the ad? And I have to put it into his mind of, because if I'm competing against you, right. We work with like one company per service area, so we don't work with competitors. When a company like us identifies the competition we're taking down, we are totally bidding on the competitor's name and we will absolutely steal those searches. So for. For us as playing, supporting our clients, we also have to protect them from people who would do what we do. Right. We have to think defensively about making sure that we make it harder for other companies to compete into that segment. So even that the point of Last Touch sometimes can be tricky to understand. Why is that important to do one thing or another? Because they think, hey, if they're already searching for us, the job's done. Oh, bro, we're halfway there.

So another thing I really liked about you when we first chatted was in addition to educating your clients on best marketing tactics, explaining about attribution, explaining about Last Touch, the flaws and why Top of Funnel is so important, and how it can be frustrating that it's hard to measure, but it can be really impactful. Right. I wanna learn about the other key business, key business best practices you try to educate your customers on. Cause we said like a lot of people who run these businesses, they started off as technicians, they started off in the more technical of the business. They say, you know, okay, I'm going to start my own business and I'm going to do it and it's going to be great because I'm an excellent technician. And then they get in and now they're in a, you know, super high stakes MBA program almost where you can't make any mistake, where you can't make any mistake or else, you know, you lose your livelihood. So can you share some of the other, you know, kind of core lessons that you impart on your clients or that you think is really important for the trades as a whole to be aware of?

Gosh, this is a big topic. So let me start by saying there's a joke in marketing that great marketing makes a bad product fail faster. Right? So a lot of these guys are like, hey, I just need phone calls, I just need leads, I need my job board full. If that's the focus, if that's like the most important thing in the world, what will likely happen is that those more leads will drive that company to a more quick demise. Because really, everyone listening to this right now, they're not in the job of turning a wrench anymore. They're not reseeding toilets, they're not installing a mini split. These guys are in the customer service business, they take care of people. And the thing about people is people aren't exactly logical beings who sometimes feel, we're emotional beings who sometimes think. So we really need to be mindful of the customer experience from start to finish, before they call you, before you pick up the phone, to how you answer the phone, to how you wrap up the call and move on. It is really important to be putting the customer at the center of every part of your decision making process. If you think the customer is a burden or a chore or an obstacle to get to your next job, you're completely missing the point on why that phone is trying to ring to begin with. The other part. So customer is a huge kind of categorical thing that in some ways filters into every aspect of the business. Right?

Sure.

Other ones would be things like knowing your pricing. I'm always, I'm always, always shocked of how many, how many guys don't understand how much it costs per hour to actually run their business. And what their prices should be set at. I'm always struck. So at this point they think, hey, all I really need is X many calls. I can run them cheaper than anyone else in town. When I hear that mentality, my alarm bells start going off because there's usually a lack of understanding. The busier they get, the more expensive, the more quickly they bleed through cash. They don't have the financial acumen to be able to put that into a way that makes sense to them. So I would say kind of categorically, we spend a lot of time just focusing on those two huge things of always encouraging financial acumen, always putting the customer behavior and experience at the part of the story. There's all other ways to improve efficiency and operations that are less sexy, less fun. You can hire people to fill those roles at some point, but kind of in my experience, if you, if you don't know how to take care of people and if you don't know how the cash works, you're going to have a really hard time with everything else. So we spent a lot of focus there. Other things that are really important that are sometimes higher level, like when guys are wanting to transition from a $3 million company to a $10 million company.

Oh, such a big jump.

It's a huge, massive jump. So our focus changes then to a lot of leadership acumen. Right. It's less about like business strategy and more about developing the leadership muscles so that they think about things fundamentally different. So that's. That becomes a big focus for us too. And that frankly, the larger the companies get, that becomes more and more the types of conversations which are really, really fun. Yeah, it just kind of depends where they are in the life cycle, I guess is kind of where the most pressing concerns are for them.

I love that. And you actually just gave me an interesting way to think about it because I'm always thinking about, all right, what's the difference between a company that pulls in 750,000 a year versus a million? What's the difference between a million and 3 million? 5 and 10, 10 and 15, 20 plus. And leadership, the more I talk with folks, seems to be the thing that really you need to work on yourself. I had Keith Mercurio on last season and he said that owners, if you want to grow and you want to hit those double digit millions dollar marks, you need to focus on your leadership like there's no other way to do it. Because it sounds like that financial acumen, price your services. Right. Figure out how much it takes to run your business. And how much it's going to run your business as it grows and scales. That's like check number one. Check number two. Are we taking care of our customers so we're getting a good reputation in the community? People are coming back, all that stuff. Check number two. It sounds like once you have finances and customer service down and you figured out a way to do it efficiently, you figured out a way to scale it. Now it's time for you to turbocharge, turbocharge yourself as a leader and make other leaders within your company.

Yeah, there's, it's. I would totally agree with that. There's always ways to kind of outsmart things. You know, you could, you can improve efficiencies by how you organize the stock, your truck before the day starts, but at some point that's just going to help you save money. That's not really going to be the thing that boosts, boost your revenue, boost the footprint of the company over time. The thing that will really scale the business, not just help you trim the bottom line, but really expand the top line is absolutely leadership. In fact, I would put it to say a lot of guys forget, but right when all this stuff with COVID first started happening in early 2020, there's a period of time there where it felt like every hour, like things were so dramatically changing so quickly. People were stressed, they were anxious. Like it was, it was weird, right? I don't, I don't want to experience that again. It was uncomfortable, but really quickly. I don't know if you saw this, but I felt like across the landscape, there were Companies who within 30 minutes of news coming out were going out of business. They just, they struggled to get their head around how to navigate the choppy waters that were coming. And they're like, I'm done. It's been rough for too long. I can't do this. I'm out, I'm done. And they just, they quit. There are other companies who were like, guys, we've been building this and preparing for this for a long time. Not the public health thing, but with their leadership skills. And all those companies did, in my opinion, all they did, they didn't do marketing better, they didn't do strategy better, they didn't do anything better. All they did was, was flex the leadership muscles that they had been working on for years. And it wasn't just the high level executives. It was for every person on the team. They just stepped up. And it was really, really, in some ways impressive and in some ways really sobering to see the Night and day difference of the influence that that leadership capacity had on either successful organizations or organizations who couldn't quite weather the uncertainty. It's a huge deal.

Yeah. I mean, the more I learn about how service businesses work, and by doing this podcast and just Speaking to over 50 people, we've done over 50 interviews at this point about how can contractors be more successful. It always, always, always just goes back to leadership, because at the end of the day, you're a service business that needs people, and people are in demand right now. And if you don't create an environment where people feel empowered, secure, challenged, you're really not creating a place where people are going to stay very long. And I think we've gotten a little bit more sophisticated in terms of what we'll tolerate from business owners, especially in the last few decades. You know, they talk a lot about how millennials have very different, different expectations for workplace environments. Like, flexibility is very important to them. Flex time off, opposed to just kind of like, I'll be in from nine to five for 40 years and then I'll retire and then I'll die. Like, that doesn't I get a watch. I get to watch. Like, it's much more important to folks to enjoy the people they work with, to feel challenged and to feel like a part of the team. And at ServiceTitan with our customers, some of our most successful customers, I'm seeing the most successful customers are doing that for their team members. And they say, my first priority is as a people manager and to make sure that folks are happy within the company and within this role. So I 100% agree with you, Patrick.

I think it was Patrick Lencioni, who's an author, if no one's read him or heard him speak, he's got some really interesting, interesting things to say. But I'm going to screw up the quote. It's something along the lines of, if you can get everyone in an organization rowing in the same direction, there is no industry like, you can dominate any industry with any competition at any point in time. Just imagine the synergy of everyone on your team looking at the same target, understanding the same priorities, making the same decisions, not the same way you would, but for the same values you would.

Yeah.

Nothing companies could not accomplish if they had that sort. And really, that's not. That's not having the right people in place necessarily. That's not doing things smarter than other people. That's just having a team led by solid leaders. Rowing in the same direction has nothing to do with smarts or Luck or skill at that point, it's just. Are you investing in yourself and your people?

Yeah, kind of a. Bit of a. Kind of contradicts this podcast a bit. Top tips, tricks and tactics to dominate your industry. Spoiler alert. It's leadership.

Yeah. So there you go. There's 50 episodes. Commits to sound bite. You're welcome. It took you that long.

Thank you so much, Ryan. I'll retire after this episode, so I would love to hear. So we talked finances, customer service, leadership. Those are your two big three. Can you share with me an example where you had a client who you coached on this and they put it into action and they had really excellent results? Either. Either topic.

Yeah, we've got dozens of cases like that. It's some. Sometimes I tell people these stories and they think I'm like BSing them because they're borderline dramatic. We literally have cases where guys will call us. Nobody likes calling marketing companies. Let's just get it out there. No one's like, hey, you know what I'm going to do today? I'm going to go call a couple of marketing companies because that sounds like a lot of fun. They're usually trying to solve a problem, and sometimes those problems really suck. One particular case comes to mind of a guy who's. I didn't find this out till later. His wife had left him, he was getting ready to lose his kids by the courts. His business was circling the drain, and he felt like he was like a last ditch attempt. And I'm happy to report that three years after the fact, his family's back together, his team is growing. He's actually expanding into different trades in different areas. It's a night and day turnaround. He takes his family vacations in Tulsa, where we are. That's the weird sort of affection and appreciation that that work has done for him. Because to your point, these guys just, they just want to work. They just want to run the call. They just want to turn the wrench. And that is fantastic. But if we can help solve the baseline problem of let's get the phone call to ring. Right? That's, that's the utilitarian issue. Now let's move our focus to actually helping you think and build yourself and the business as a whole. That's really where the life change starts happening. We have tons of cases like that. It's. And yeah, they sound made up, but they are. Yeah, they're humbling. We actually, we have a wall in our office and it's lined with the faces of contractors with stories like that. It's just, it reminds us of why we do what we do. It's a really powerful reminder of the why for us.

We actually have a very similar thing at ServiceTitan too. We have a Slack channel called Change Lives, which is one of our three core values. And folks will post in there about these very dramatic stories. We had one story a couple months ago that has stood out to me a lot. After implementing Service Titan, this woman lost 50 pounds because she was finally able to go exercise and she didn't have to be chained to the desk at all times. She was able to.

Awesome.

I know, right? And it's like, oh, this, it feels really good to work for a software that is able to do that for people. And when you kind of think about it like the work you do, the work I do and my team does, it filters into these communities that are all across the North American continent. So really like we're having this ripple effect which I think finding meaning in what you and the work that you do can be very rewarding. So if anyone's listening and you haven't figured out a way to kind of make that work, why for you and your team, please do, because I think it does make a significant difference.

Totally agree.

But we talked about attribution, we talked about the top big three things that people should do, talked about top of funnel stuff. I would love to know a little bit about how you approach lead generation. And I know this is a very loaded question as a marketer asking a fellow marketer how do you get leads, but especially thinking about rural area versus metropolitan area and kind of what are these strategies that you look at when you're, when you're trying to make more phone calls come through?

Yeah, that's a good question. So let's keep it just like rule versus like dense metro. For me, I think some of the biggest differences involve differentiation and efficiency. So for instance, we have a guy we work with who's in kind of rural Virginia next to our company. He's running a multimillion dollar multi trade business because he's the only one in a three county area who thinks about business at the way he does. His trucks have awesome wraps. He puts a lot of focus on service. He uses Titan so customers get these text notifications when guys are being dispatched. It is heads and tails above anyone else in his three county radius. So it's really easy for him to stand out. And because of that, because it's really easy, he's able to be really, really efficient with other things. He doesn't have to do AdWords, he doesn't have to do Facebook lead ads. He has this really dominant brand presence that allows him to kind of penetrate everything really efficiently. If you take that just up the road in same state in Virginia, like Northern Virginia, this is like, for those who aren't really familiar, there's a whole lot of cities crammed around Washington, D.C. with some very massive players with very large budgets. And it is really, really difficult to do the exact same steps and solve the differentiation problem and solve the efficiency problem. Right? Those become a deal. So then you have to figure out, how do you niche around the competitors you're working against? How do you find a way through their weakness and exploit those opportunities, and how do you find a way to do that as efficiently as you possibly can? It's always a chore, to be honest. And it's strange. Every market is different. Los Angeles, New York, Northern Virginia, Dallas, Fort Worth. These are really aggressively competitive areas. And sometimes you can't just do the same thing everyone else is doing because all it's going to make it do is really crappy for you really fast. You have to find a way to stand apart and do not what everyone else is doing in those cases.

I like those two keywords you just said there, which is differentiator and finding your niche. Do you do a lot of work with Personas and developing Personas with your clients?

It depends. We like to. That helps us do better work when we know who we're writing copy for. We're really, really lucky if the companies already have them. Somebody's already walked them through that. It's like, oh, fantastic. We'll take everything you got on these Personas. Sometimes we help them build them out. Sometimes they don't quite understand why we're wanting to. Sometimes it seems like more of a headache for them. And we're like, okay, we're not. We don't want to cause a headache right now, so we'll just. We'll circle back later. It's really important to understand who your target customer is. Don't spend your energy and effort on not your target customer. So it will make everything worse for you. And I think not just for the trades. I think that's true for everyone who goes into business for themselves. As you go, well, who's going to buy your product or who's going to buy your service? And almost every time universally, people respond, everyone, everyone's gonna want my new cookie, you know, like, no, no, brah. So I'm bringing it back. No One's gonna. Not everyone wants your cookie. You have to find the way to identify the people who do want your cookie. Find a way to communicate in a way that they understand that you're solving their problem and then give it to them quickly. And so understanding those Personas at a detailed level is really helpful for that. So yeah, it's not a like academic business exercise that you can just skip over if you're, if you're serious about focusing your efficiencies. Understanding your target customer is a huge, huge one.

But then also going back to the first client of yours that you referenced in the 97 year old company, you know, that also potentially raises a flag much earlier than you would have known it before, which is okay, our main core audience segment is aging out and it's sad and it's a cold way to describe it, but it's. We need to start doing, laying the groundwork now to get those younger generations on board with the business and turn them into customers.

Yeah, so that was actually one of the ones we lucked out on because they had hired an outside company who specialized in the market research to help them identify the various Personas in their geographic reach that they wanted to focus on. So they actually, I think right now have eight Personas. And the way that the business is structured is each of those eight Personas are represented and targeted in different ways. So we're not saying there's only one Persona, there's only one person. You can never talk about anyone else. It's just you clearly think through your messaging, your product mix, your offering, any sort of promotions are targeted to that one Persona. You do that once, go to Persona two. How are we going to do the same thing for this next group? And when you start doing that, especially when you have a really large metro area, you could cross, you could cross analyze that sucker for days and have a lot of fun. There's lots of ways to bring value to the people you've identified in a way that the business can actually implement.

Well, yeah, I also like the idea of really getting, having a strong differentiator because at the bottom line, if you are an H Vac contractor, there's millions. Right. There has to be hundreds of thousands of h vac contractors.

480,000.

480,000 exactly. So they all can do the same thing you do. Right. But what is it about the thing that you're doing that makes it special and is going to make the customer, if your Persona is, you know, a young family maybe who just bought a house in Your area, how are you going to communicate to them that you are the best fit for them? Even though when you actually take out all the bells and whistles, everyone's kind of doing the same thing, right?

Yeah. That's always interesting because at some level the point you're making is that to a certain degree a lot of those services are like what we'd call like commodities, right?

Sure.

What's the difference between this toilet paper band and this other toilet paper brand? And that's a really awful comparison. But you think through, there are lots of manufacturers who make different types of toilet paper and they all do just fine. There are lots of fast food restaurants who make the same type of hamburger and they all do just fine. So just because you're like, hey, we make a burger, cool. But there's a world of difference. I would argue between, like, so I'm in the southern region between a whataburger in and out, right?

Yeah.

They're both solid, they're both burgers, they're different. So you've got to find a way to say not just, hey, we can turn the wrench. Not just, we can hop off your ac, but what value or maybe even another way, what experience do you provide to the customer that makes you more meaningful and more valuable? Yeah, that's a tough question to answer for a lot of people.

I have a question for you. Just as a marketer in general, do you get really excited and geek out when you are properly targeted and you can tell like, like, oh, they know me so well.

I have a drawer. This is nerdy. I have a drawer full of either like emails I've gotten like physical mail, I've gotten like stuff. I'm like, son of a gun, you did really good. Yeah, yeah. And actually one of them just went out of business. There was a bank called Simple. Did you ever hear it was like a digital bank? No, they just like merged. They were acquired. But I think BBVA and BBVA kind of sucked them up. I'm still bitter about it. But everything simple did was brilliant. Like brilliant. And I would save every email. Like, literally. I felt like a nerd. It was just so well thought. And what would happen if people just did like that all the time? I mean, it was such an enjoyable experience working with Simple. Better days.

Better. Well, I think that's actually one thing that contractors can do is they're trying to wrap their head around marketing, trying to become more marketing savvy as they work with agencies like yours or with an in house marketer. Right. Is to think about how you were receiving ads and messages. Really interesting. I feel like once you turn that switch on, obviously you and I are both in the marketing world, so it's kind of always on for us. But when I first got into marketing, when I made that switch, I was like, oh, crap. Like, huh. All right. I see this and I see what's effective and I see what's not. Like, I look at the direct mail pieces that I receive, that I throw out, and I look at the direct mail pieces that actually make me stop and go, like, huh, that's interesting. So I think that's a good, good tip for folks to do. Do you have any other, like, tips for owners or operators who are just, like, trying to just be more savvy about marketing?

Yeah, I still kind of come back to the old school thing of, like, know your messaging. I think messaging is really, really difficult, and I think a lot of times it gets glossed over. I think people are. Are so drawn and so compelled to a good story. Even today on Facebook, I was one of the companies we work with. They got a lead, and literally the lead came in was like, hey, I'm in that red house down the corner that my uncle Bob got for me and so. And so's neighbor. I need a price on my ac. And, you know, for a contractor, they're just like. They just mean, okay, got it. We're going to go out and give you a quote here. But for people, we just naturally communicate with stories. That's how we, like, that's how we fall in love. That's how we remember things. That's how we talk to each other. And sometimes we forget about that. You know, we focus on the steak and not the sizzle. And the more companies can dial into not only what story they're telling, but how are they crafting those messages in a way that. That connects with their targets in a way that accurately portrays the brand promise and brand experience that the company can provide. The companies that can do that well cannot be stopped. They will be extremely effective. A good one that comes to mind. Like, not a trade, but to help people kind of wrap their head around it. I feel like Wendy's is always dialed in on their messaging. Yeah, always. From Twitter to TikTok, everything that they touch is like holy Moses. They know exactly who they are. They know exactly how they're penetrating the noise. They are differentiating themselves. They put on a masterclass on leveraging messaging at a high level.

Well, another thing you said there that I just want to highlight Again, they know who they are. So that's, I think, another big thing for folks to do. Know what your business is. Like, know who. Like, just know who you are and know what you offer, what you're really good at, what you're maybe not so good at, where you want to work with where you don't want to work in terms of services offered. And kind of just be familiar with that and make sure that everyone on the team knows that as well, right?

Oh, totally. And there's. I take this from Marcus Buckingham, who wrote a book, something about, like, go discover your strengths or strengths finder. He wrote a couple books, but his whole thing is people don't know what you're not good at until you show them. Right. So focus on the things that you're really good at. Focus on the painful problems that you can solve really well for customers. Do those things really well. Don't try to be everything for everyone, because it will be really awful. Yeah. Leverage the strengths.

Agreed. I have a couple rapid fire questions for you. I have to say I love it. I love having marketers on this podcast because it lets me geek out a bit. So thank you again for coming.

This is fun.

Is there anything we should have talked about that we didn't talk about?

Oh, that's tough. Oh, gosh. What didn't talk about? We talked about a lot of things. How about this? Stop. Stop comparing yourself to the other guy. I'm just gonna do that one.

Oh, my goodness.

Yeah, that's a. We could probably chase that rabbit for a while. But social media is fantastic at a lot of things. It is really bad about letting you think that somebody else's social media life is the true version of the social media presence of the business, is a true reflection of the business. Stop saying, well, so and so is doing this. And so, like, just focus in on what you do well. Focus in on taking care of your customers, taking care of your team. The rest will kind of fall into place. But, yeah, stop comparing yourself to everyone else.

Not just in business. I mean, in real life, in, like, personal life, too. Yeah. Don't compare your real life to someone else's highlight reel. Right. Because that's what social media is. But I hear that a lot because obviously there's some big players in Los Angeles, in Southern California that have really big budgets. And sometimes you'll see people go like, man, I can't believe that they're spending this much. Or they're doing all these, like, should I be doing that? And I totally get it. Right. Because no one knows what the heck they're doing. We have no idea what we're doing. Right. That's like the big secret that you find out when you become an adult is we don't know what we're doing. And so I think people are always trying to find out. Like that person looks like they know what they're doing, but they actually don't. And what they're doing for them is not going to work for you because it's two totally different things. Right. So I 100% agree with that. I'm glad you brought that up before. I definitely want to do the rapid fire questions next, but before I need to learn more about how you're doing TikTok. Because I love TikTok as a consumer. My for you page is completely tailored to me. It is all dog content. I love it. I would love to know what you're doing with your clients on TikTok. Give me some ideas, give the listeners some examples.

The most honest version of this response is that this is still totally work in progress. Two Octobers ago I went to a conference in Austin, Texas and I remember them coming out on stage be like hey, there's this thing called TikTok coming out. It's really big for like 13 through 15 year olds. It's really big in Asian communities. You might want to think about it the next five years or so. It's kind of a thing. And I feel like maybe three months later it was everyone everywhere was on TikTok and I was like what is happening right now? And it took me a while to figure out how people are using it, how it's spreading outside of the 13 to 15 year old group. So really what we're using it for is anything dance related is a lot of fun. That gets a lot of things right. So if anyone's not familiar with TikTok, it's a kind of a video meme sort of platform. It's hard to describe but it's comedy is a big part of it. So we have guys who will post videos of something going wrong in a comedic sort of mean fashion or the dance sort of things that I, I'm not going to do because, because I care about the people who may be watching this at some point in time. But just have fun, be human, be, be yourself. Don't, don't. You know, if you're a 65 year old guy in a truck, please don't try to pretend like you're a 13 year old girl. That's not the point. Just have Fun. What's crazy though, when we started having guys experimenting with it and we started coaching them on this or that, I honestly never in a million years thought that these guys would get leads. I was like, okay, it's just something else to add to the mix. Eventually this age group will age up. They'll become paying customers. At some point, these guys get leads. Actual literal people saying, hey, I found you on TikTok. And I'm like, this is. That's nuts. To me, everything about that transaction is nuts. So I don't feel like we have a good grasp yet because TikTok doesn't have geographic borders necessarily, so it's really hard to say, hey, we're going to localize content for just people. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, we're still trying to figure out exactly how to scale that well, but it's been a lot of fun to try. So, yeah, if nothing else, have fun. Go out, try, watch the dog videos.

Showcase your team, showcase some cool stuff that happens on the job. Learn some sounds. It's a, it's a behemoth of a platform. Like I'm trying to make my own TikToks. Just as a marketer, I feel like I should be familiar with it. And yeah, it's tough. It's a tough, It's a tough platform.

Yeah. We have one guy the other day they did a voiceover, like the owner of the company did like this voice email to everyone on the team about, hey guys, here's the things you need to know for this week. And it sounded very like angry school teacher talking down to the pupils. So he did like a voiceover video where he's speaking the words through her audio. It was hilarious. Something about seeing a bearded man driving down the truck, driving down the road in a truck with a 32 year old woman's voice. That was fantastic.

Oh, I love that. Oh my goodness. This has been a great conversation. Ryan, I'm going to hit you with some rapid fire questions. Are you ready?

Let's roll.

How do you take your coffee?

Straight up, black and nerd coffee. I'm very nerdy in my coffee.

Nerd coffee? Like mushroom coffee or.

No, not that. I don't know if we're seeing the same thing. No, I'm very picky in my coffee. I like very, very good quality coffee. I kind of do the whole like Chemex brew thing. Yeah.

Oh, wonderful. So you're a pour over guy.

Totally. No, no cream, no sugar and not crappy coffee.

Got it. If you could have dinner with one person, dead or alive. Who would it be?

Oh, Elton John.

Wow. I mean, I think he'd be a blast. What's the number one thing you're trying to learn about right now?

Oh, gosh, I'm trying to learn the. I just picked up a book that I've been going through called who Not How. That's what I'm working on is how to. How to solve problems by who's Not. How's.

Ah, interesting. If money weren't an object so you had unlimited resources, what's the first thing you would do?

Say that again. I think I lost your audio.

If money weren't an object so you had unlimited resources, what's the first thing you would do?

I would buy an island in the Philippines and like one of those little small islands that is room enough for a house and a yard.

Love it. What's the number one thing every contractor must do to run a successful business?

Hire smart people.

Finally. Any more book recommendations? You've actually given a few throughout the episode, but any go to books that you would like to prefer.

Yeah, that's a good one. So anything. Patrick Lencioni is really good. Anything. Marcus Buckingham is really good. I'm sure a lot of the guys here have read things like the E. Myth, which is always a really good book. There's one called Culture Eat Strategy for Breakfast. Oh, I like that one. It's based off a quip of a guy named Peter Ducker who was like a business Guru in the 70s. He just made this quip one day of like, you know, people are talking about strategy of this strategy that it's like, yeah, culture eats strategy for Breakfast. It's about the importance of organizational culture. It's fantastic.

That's really good. Nice. Well, Ryan, I had a blast. I'm excited to come on Blue Collar CEO because we're going to do a little. Oh, no, I'm not going to do it. You had a John Brewer on Blue Collar CEO.

Yeah, John. Yeah. John's good people, people. Now with Titan, he's really good people.

We will definitely link to that episode. John Brewer is a former customer of service Titan turned now one of our. I believe he's a pro product specialist, but I could be wrong on that. I have to check, but I think that's going to be a great episode. So I look forward to listening to that and this was a great conversation. Ryan, thanks so much for your time.

This was so much fun. Thanks for having me on.

See you later. Bye.