The Magic of Story Telling For Lead Generation with Joseph Hughes Youtube

Foreign. Hey, everybody. It's good to have you back here on Contractor Radio. Our last several podcasts were pre recorded and set up so I could do some traveling while that was going on. So this is kind of my first time back in the studio in a couple of months and I could not be more pumped up about the guy I'm going to be talking to. It's one of the guys in this industry that I align with quite well. There's a lot of morals and ethics there. He works really hard to help his clients succeed and he puts them first, which sometimes is a little bit difficult to find in some of your vendors and people that are available out there to help you as service providers. He's got a wealth of knowledge. He's been at this a while, which. Excuse me. Which means that we're going to have an expert on here today. And I don't bring on many marketing people. Like I said, they're kind of hard to find, really good ones. And I haven't had this guy on and I think it's been about three years. And there was a post from him out there. He's like, hey, I have a challenge I put in front of myself to be on a certain amount of podcasts in a certain amount of time and like, hey, I'm your boy. Come on, let's talk about it. So without further ado, let's bring on the master of personal marketing mastery.

How's that?

Is that a good enough introduction to your superstar nest? That is Joseph Hughes. Good to have you, man. How's things going?

I mean, they're going okay, but now I got to live up to this big introduction here. I'm a little bit nervous.

Oh, man, you're going to be just fine. You got no worries. So everybody, Joseph Hughes, Contractor Dynamics. You may not know him. We have a lot of new listeners and people that have been downloading our podcast here in the last year or so. I don't know what happened, but I guess people kind of like it. And so, Joseph, just give us a little background on you, Contractor Dynamics, and what you guys do.

Sure, yeah. First of all, thank you so much, Jim, for the opportunity. I know that we've, you know, we chatted before, many times, and when I, when I was several years ago, kind of getting started in the roofing industry, specifically, you were one of the people that, that I looked up to and I still do. So it's okay.

I was wondering if you still do or not.

And then I got to know you and then. Yeah, no, yeah.

So you still do.

And yeah, so it's an honor to be here. So appreciate the time. Getting this in on a Friday afternoon. Love it. So, yeah, Contractor Dynamics, we started in 2013, so a little over 10 years ago, I grew up in my family's commercial construction business here in New Jersey and New York City. Cut my teeth in that for a couple of decades, and then wanted to go out on my own. So had the construction background, had a passion and still have a passion for business and marketing and started Contractor Dynamics back in 2013. And the past four years we have been a marketing training company which is a little bit unique in where we train roofing companies on how to do their own marketing. So we help them build out a marketing machine and run that machine inside their company. So that is what we're focused on. We've got a team of 13 right now, and we've got awesome clients that we have the opportunity to work with. And yeah, we face challenges just like anyone else does and just, you know, show up every day and try to get a little bit better every day. And that's what we're all about.

So we talked about some things we want to talk about, but I got something else you just like, because this is not something that you see often. You've been at this 10 years now, 2013, guess what? So have we. We start. We just had our anniversary. Okay, well, it's exactly 10 years. And so I want to ask you about that. Like, how does it feel to be like, accomplish being in business 10 years when we know that 97% of businesses after 10 years are no longer in business? How's it make you feel?

It's cool. I mean, in some ways it was just another Tuesday, you know, but like hitting that 10 year mark. But yeah, looking at the stats, you know, as business owners, we're always, there's always areas where we're dissatisfied. Right. We want to do more and we feel like we should be further along. But then you look at that and you're like, all right, well, you know, I might not be doing everything right, but I'm definitely doing some. We as a team are definitely doing some things right. And, and yeah, just really grateful for that because, yeah, I mean, small businesses, like, sometimes you're one or two decisions away from not from not making it. And I think that there's a little bit of luck that goes into it. And certainly, you know, we've, we've been through ups and downs, so very grateful and, and never taking that for granted. Like, I'm never like, oh, we've been in business 10 years, like there's no risk for us going out, you know, like going out of business or, you know, having a tough time or whatever. I think that that healthy paranoia, if you want to call it that, or just healthy, like, you know, skepticism.

We're going to run out of customers at some point.

Yeah, just, I think a little bit of that is, is always, you know, kind of healthy. Right. That keeps. Keeps you on your. On your toes.

Yeah, I have a lot of the same stuff. And I don't know about you, but there's. It's like a roller coaster. Right. Like there's certain times where you're just really pushing hard and there's other times, if we're probably honest with ourselves, we might get a little complacent here and there or we need to out for a little bit just to re. Rejuvenate ourselves. And that's a challenge for a small business. It's cool to see you still here because there's so many others that have put up and vanished, showed up and vanished, especially in the marketing world. And you're the right guy. You're the right guy to still be a business serving people well. So kudos to you. Congratulations.

Thank you. And you as well. That's really cool.

Yeah, it's something to be proud of. I mean, have you ever read the book Gap in the Game?

Oh, yeah.

Right.

I have to think about it daily now that I read that. I have to think about it daily because, yeah, we're always like, by default we're in the gain. Right. I mean, sorry, by default we're in the gap.

Yeah, exactly. You're always like, hey, what's the next thing I got to get more customers? And you're always thinking about that. And you're never thinking about like, what did you do? Like, what all did you accomplish over these last 10 years? And from everything I can see, Joseph, you've accomplished some pretty amazing things. So I want to get some insight from you. I want to talk to you about a little bit of insight and one of the big things that I want to ask you about, because this is your world. Why would a contractor choose to bring their marketing in house and do it themselves when there's so many? And yeah, there's some not so good ones, but there's a lot of actually good ones too out there, third party. What are some of the deciding factors of like, hey, you know what? I think I'm gonna bring this in house? Sure.

Yeah. I mean, Great, great discussion to unpack. And there's certainly some amazing marketing companies out there that can, that can really be an amazing asset to any business. And I really don't think it's a con. It's an either or thing. Ideally, if you have the resources, it's a both and thing. Like you're doing some of your marketing in house and you're also maybe outsourcing some of the technical aspects of it. But what we see, and we used to be a full service done for you marketing agency. And the reason that we switched over back in 2019 is because we saw the need for contracting companies to be doing, to be understanding some of the marketing. Like back in the day, like 2016, 17, like marketing was, it was pretty easy like for us to generate customers for our clients. To generate customers, you could run some basic Facebook ads and really do really well. And then, you know, 2017, 2018, just more and more noise, more and more people on social media, more and more people just in general competing for our business. Sorry, More and more businesses competing for our attention. And so we saw the need for every company to have an understanding of their marketing and to be building their brand. And a lot of times that comes from the content that they're putting out there. Video content, photo content, telling their story, getting out there in the community. And there's still a lot of like roofing and contracting companies that to this day they're like, you know, I'm not a, and I appreciate this, you know, hey, I'm not a marketing expert. I just want to pay someone else to like generate business for me that five years ago that, that worked pretty decently. Now it just doesn't work as well anymore. What's changed?

What, what's changed about. Is it just that there's so much going on out there?

Well, it's a combination of that. There's like more noise than ever. And it's also that we, we as people, as consumers, we're just, we're becoming savvier than, you know, every year we become more savvy. So it's, we're doing more research. We're doing our research online. We're doing a lot of research before we reach out to a company. So Google, Google stat that I use all the time is that 70, 70% of the buying decision is made before someone reaches out to a company for the first time. So, you know, where are people doing their research? It's online. It's, you know, maybe in local groups or in, in person asking for referrals. And things like that. So people are doing their research long before they're reaching out to a company. So that's, that's another factor as well.

I'm proof of that. Somebody is going to sell me a Jeep Gladiator here pretty soon. I know everything there is to know about them, the different prices of them, the components of them. And even like a service history with this particular dealer is not so hot. The review low, so I don't buy it from there. Like, I know pretty much everything I want to know before I walk in the door.

Right, exactly right. So, yeah, and there are again, great marketing agencies that can, that can help you show up on Google and run ads and do all sorts of things. But we've seen that if you're say, a roofing company company, for example, and you don't understand how marketing works and you don't have the ability to do some content and share your story and share why you're different and all that sort of thing, then you're not, you're not gonna, you know, you're not gonna get great results from an agency. You're not gonna be able to talk with them and collaborate with them and meet with them. And in the worst case, you're gonna get taken advantage of because they're just. There's no understanding there. So I use the analogy like, hey, if I don't understand the, the basic finances of running a business and I just like, hire a bookkeeper and you know, like, you know, number one, I might not get like the results that I want. Number two, I might get taken advantage of. I don't understand anything. But. So I need to understand at least the basics of my finances so that I can work effectively with my bookkeeper and have regular meetings with her and, you know, make sure that we're getting the best results. So you don't have to be a marketing expert. But it does pay huge dividends to have a basic understanding of how things work. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it strikes me and this has been a little bit of involvement for me because like you said, it used to be easy. It was actually like, hey, I didn't have to know a whole lot. Run an ad here, do a thing there, that was going to be okay. And every year it gets more and more and more. There's some science to it, there's a bit of art to it. There's your own personal story is really what seems to be the thing drawing people now. And instead of just the, like, the blatant ads, I think people Got kind of tired of that. Is that a fair assessment?

Yes. And we actually had a meeting about that today. So we have like a marketing training meeting every Friday. And so one of our, one of our marketing trainers, Haley, she brought up this. She's. So people have heard of it. You've heard of a marketing funnel, Right. So it's typically where you have, you know, a lot of like some brand awareness and you have like some lead gen ads. Well, if you're talking about like whether it's Google or social media, Facebook ads, it used to be where you could, like you said you could turn on an ad, generate a bunch of leads and you're good to go. Right now, a lot more budget that what that we are spending on our marketing and that we are encouraging our clients to spend. It's a lot more on that brand awareness, like getting people to know who you are and just a little bit on that lead gen because ultimately, like the customers that we want, they're the ones that have seen our content over and over and over again. Same thing with like a contracting company. Right. Like, you don't necessarily, you don't really want. There might be exceptions, but most people don't want that lead that just saw one single ad. They opt in. They have no idea who you are. Right. You want to tell that story, get people to know who you are. And so we're seeing kind of a shift where a lot more of that time and energy and budget is going toward the brand awareness, getting people to know who you are. And then just a little bit on that lead gen and seeing a lot of good results from that. So that's something that we just kind of realized this year actually. And that's, that's, that's what we do. And I think just from looking from afar, I think that's what you guys do as well. Like a lot of brand awareness. The podcast, top of funnel stuff.

Yeah, it's like, well, they say that this was, you know who Rory Vaden is? You ever hear him?

You brought him up a couple times.

Yeah, like this whole like your reputation or your brand is a, is a equation. It's your, your reach times your results. Like you have great results and no reach and nobody knows about. You don't get anything. And so, and vice versa, if you can have bad results and wide reach, soon enough people will bury you because you got bad results.

Right, right.

We've, we've really been harping on this, like, hey, we have to share that result in our reach and get that out there. And the more of that that's out there, people will. Will either choose to follow us because it draws them, it's magnetic to them, or it will repel them. And a lot of our culture comes out in that way. We're pretty. We're pretty much pretty clear about who we are. Right. And a lot of people that's not attractive to. We're coaches. We're going to push you hard. We're going to challenge you. It's going to. This is not easy. I can't snap my fingers and solve all your problems overnight. This is not a silver bullet thing. If that's what you're attracted to. Well, you're going to continue to have the same problems that you're having, which is trying to solve it with some kind of magic trick instead of actually doing the hard work that's necessary. That's not going to be attracted to some people other will. And that really is what gets an ideal client. I really hate interrupting, but I've got some important information for you. If you haven't tried out Atlas Shingles, you should, because they put you first as a contractor. They want to give you a competitive advantage out in the field so that you can win more sales and be more profitable. Check out Atlas in your local area, find your local rep, get hooked up with them today, and start making more money tomorrow. Do you see your clients doing the same thing in the roofing room?

As far as what, wanting something immediate or.

So we sometimes get sold on this idea that, hey, this is an immediate. I can start working your marketing. You're starting leads, and things are going to be great. And the reality is people want to know more about you before they engage with you, and they want to understand who you are, your culture, your brand, all. Do I actually want to be involved with these people or not? Are your roofers experiencing the same thing?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, people. The other part of, like, the. What has changed in marketing is, I think Ryan Schontz calls it the Amazon Ification of everything. Where we. We want to. We want to see, like, all the steps of the process. We want to know what's going on. We want to feel like we're in control of, like, when our package is showing up, even though we're not in control of that. So we want to be in control of, like, hey, is this contractor going to show up when he says he's going to show up? Is this going to go according to, you know, plan and budget and all that stuff? So, yeah, people. People want that level of Comfort for sure. And they, yeah, I mean that, that's what they're seeking. Right.

Because I think they're looking at multiples too. Like I want to buy a widget on Amazon. I' at several of those widgets to see which one has the highest reviews, which one gets delivered the quickest, which one has the components that I'm looking for on that widget. The service that I want, the people are buying from service providers that same way today, I think, yeah, 100%.

Right. And I talk about a lot like, hey, I'm here at the Jersey Shore. I don't need to hire the best roofing company in New Jersey. Like, I don't even know who that is. Like, how do you measure that? Right. I mean, yeah, we have some great clients that I retire, but what, what I want, what my wife and I want is someone that we feel comfortable with and it's not a risk free decision at all.

So you feel like you know them. Right?

If you like and know them, they're going to take care of me. You know, of course price has got to be, you know, reasonable. Ish, whatever that means. Right. But it's about that, hey, are you going to take care of me? That sort of thing. So I just referred to a roofing, a local roofing company to one of my friends over in the next town today and referred that roofing company with zero hesitations at all. Right. And it just, that just feels so good. Right. I can go on. I send them the Google profile, five star reviews, 40 something reviews. Like I feel 100% about that, you know, and, and that's whether it's someone hiring a contractor or someone referring a contractor. You just want to know, like, hey, I know that Luke is going to take care of my buddy Eric 100%, you know.

Well, I think that comes from how connected we are today and how much information is available. So there's all this information available to us. We're all connected, social media and that type of stuff. So those two combinations of things of all the information being available and all of us being connected, we're looking at, hey, who do I know that knows somebody? As a matter of fact, I almost posted it yesterday. I'm looking for somebody that can create a simple app. That's all I'm looking for. Like, I need somebody that can actually do that. Does anybody in my network know somebody? Because, well, if I just go out there and go, hey, how about you? What's the chances of having a good experience? Pretty low.

Right, right. And that's going to be. You might have, you know, it might end up being a good app, but, like, that you're busy, right? I'm busy. Everyone's busy. Like, you don't want to add stress to your already, like, busy life by trying to, like, you know, micromanage someone or deal with some issues or whatever. So it's just like, hey, who's going to, like, be able to do this for me and not, like, add additional, like, busyness and stress to my life?

Well, people talk all the time. What's the number one reason people buy something? Okay. Especially something of, you know, high ticket. I don't think it has anything to do with price or value, to be honest with you. I think it has to do with how much stress is this going to cause me. Is it going to be very little or a whole lot? And I'm like, I'm willing to pay extra for very little. Oh, yeah, I don't need any more stress. I don't need any more busy. I don't need anything else on my plate, which is kind of a dynamic of America more than it is maybe other countries out there just because of how. How we're wired. Right. Every day is a day of I go out and get it right. And we're all so technologically tuned in right now that we thought technology was going to slow things down for us and, and make things easier. It's actually sped it up and we just do more and less time, which creates this. I don't have any extra time, so can I get the stress off me? I'm willing to pay for that.

Yeah, absolutely.

So. So you're seeing that from the service industry as well.

Yeah, I mean, people want to do their research, they want to feel comfortable. And, you know, if you have no content out there, if you have, like this old weird. I actually had a. I don't do many, like, sales calls, but I did a sales call this week with a contractor and his Facebook hadn't been updated since 2021. And I'm like. And I said to him on the call, on the zoom, I'm like, hey, I assumed you had, like, another Facebook that just wasn't seeing because you have. This one hasn't been updated in two years. He's like, oh, no, I just been slacking with it, you know, but you might have a prospective homeowner or homeowner, prospective client who looks at that. It's like, oh, these guys are out of business. Like, you know, I'm going to move on. Right. So, yeah, If I didn't see a.

Post since 21, I'm like, eh, see you later. Yeah.

And you never know. So like, that's the thing, like, you know, there might be old school people out there or, you know, whatever other contractors. Like, oh, I don't need that, I'm doing fine. But you don't know how much business. And I don't want to be a fear monger, but like, you don't know how much business you're potentially missing out on because you know, people are doing the research and just not feeling the warm and fuzzies about you. Right. It's a bunch of stock photos. One of our clients has posted a, a, a job ad today. She's a roofing company owner and she's looking for someone and she used a stock photo and the image as a graphic. And I messaged her, I'm like, come on, you know, I love your job posting. It's great. I would love to see a picture of you instead of that stock photo. So, yeah, people want to do business with people.

Yeah. So can I still be a one trick pony marketer? Like, hey, I just got Facebook figured out and I get enough leads for that or do we have to have more of a broad marketing channel approach? Like I need to be Facebook and LinkedIn and, and Instagram and TikTok and Google and all the other things. Like, it can be a pretty big thing.

I would say there's a middle ground, Jim. Like, and we've evolved as a company too because like our training program used to be called Facebook Ads Mastery and it was very focused on just that. And to the point that I mentioned before, like, marketing used to be pretty easy. We used to be able to run Facebook ads for our roofing companies in Dallas. And it was just, it was easy. Nowadays it's shifted to where, yeah, again, savvy consumer, they're doing their research, right. So it's a combination of social media, your website's, your home base, Google reviews. Absolutely crucial. The offline stuff as far as like, you know, having clean, clean vehicles and clean job sites and branding your job sites, like your yard signs. Maybe you're using the catch all that's branded, maybe it's the equipped or that's wrapped, you know, maybe your signs at the little league field, like some of these things. Like I know we're, you know, digital and social everything these days, but like, I encourage people not to forget about like the 250 sign banner at the little league field that people are seeing all the time.

You Know, I'm glad you brought that up. I've always had this, like this got taught to me by a mentor a long time ago. Whatever everybody else is doing, do something different. Yeah, I've heard you say that noise.

Right, Right.

And so I look at it today and it's so heavy on the Google, SEO, Facebook, social media stuff. Right. It seems like noise. So what exists out there that may not be noise anymore? And so it could be something like a billboard or it could be the sign at the baseball field, or it could be direct mail. Do you see people using direct mail and having success with that?

Well, I'll tell you what, like, you know the Val pack, I don't know if they have it there in Texas.

Yeah, they do.

Okay, well that, I mean, how many times have you opened that and sifted through that? You know, it maybe once a year. But if you get a single like big postcard, like I don't know if you know the ones that that dope marketing uses, like the big six by nine where it's just one company on there. Yeah, that's, I think that's fantastic. Especially if you're, you know, targeting different neighborhoods and things like that. Where you're, where you're one of one, you're not one of many.

Right.

It's the same with those, those whole magazines. If you're just one, like how many contractors are in those things? Like, you're one of many. So you know, think about where you can be one of one like a, a postcard or you know, whatever it might be. But yeah, it's about, it's about being that, like, think about being that top of mind. You want to be that top of mind company. So say your roofing company at the Jersey Shore, Monmouth county, where I am, like, like when someone needs a roof, like, how can you be a top of mind company with everyone? You know, it might not be someone that needs a roof. It might be someone that like me today refer to roofer to a friend who had some shingles blown off after a recent like windstorm or something like that. Just being that top of mind company. And that's going to be online for sure. But, but offline too. So yeah, to answer your original question, like that, that macro approach and just understanding like, you know, where should I put my time? You know, how much time should I put into digital? How much time should I put into offline? Money, the energy, the resources. That's a puzzle and it's, it's part of my job too at Contractor Dynamics. You Know, there's so many different ways you can market a business. Like, you know, where is my, my time and energy and resources going to be most effectively spent?

Yeah. Sometimes it feels like whack a mole. What's the thing this week? Right? Like, is it Facebook? Is it Google? Is it this? Is that. Do you, do you believe in the concept of like buying in on two or three? This boat? Like you said, hey, it's some kind of middle ground, right? So you can't do it all, not, not one person effectively. It doesn't seem like, is it like, hey, buy into two or three and go hard at them and, and be.

That one of one, two or three, like platforms.

Yeah. Like, okay, what, what do you like to do? Okay, I like to do video and I like to, like, do. I like to write.

Okay.

Based on that. Is. Is that how I would choose where I want to market? Because I like those things or the other way around, where. God, you might, you might hate this thing, but you gotta do it because it's just the thing.

I mean, I think it's a combination of both. Like, if you hate the thing and you're forcing yourself to do it, like, you're just not gonna do it long term because it's hard and it takes commitment and, you know, when other things get, get in the way, you're just gonna put it to the side. So, yeah, I've always said, like, and we still do, like, like, don't try to be everywhere. I know TikTok's the thing. And now there's like threads and there's like all this stuff. Right.

I want to see somebody prove to me their ROI on a TikTok.

Yeah, well, I, I think there are.

A couple that's a roofing company.

Right? Right. Maybe for recruiting. It could be, you know, could be good. Sorry, spam call there. But yeah, don't try to be everywhere. So like, as a con, as a, as a residential contracting company these days, you know, Facebook, Instagram, that's where a majority of your market is going to be in terms of social media. LinkedIn for sure. Even, Even residential. I know some residential contractors that are doing really well on LinkedIn. The thing about going deep on a couple and with Facebook and Instagram, it's pretty simple because Facebook owns Instagram or Meta owns both of them rather. And so you can like, you know, do everything pretty much within one platform or, you know, two platforms. And you can go deep on that. Where going deep means, hey, maybe you're posting every day and. Or you're running some ads, you can see what's working and see what people are responding to and you can just improve upon that every week. If you're trying to be everywhere, it's gonna be really hard to get enough like just data to figure out what's working and what's not. So you can continually improve.

So what seems to be the thing that people are responding to today.

As far as like what, what type of social media?

I'm a contractor. Okay. I'm a home service contractor. I do high ticket stuff. I'm a roofing guy, I'm a fencing guy, whatever it is. Right. What are people responding to? Are they responding to like my stuff about the community service we're doing? Are they responding to the ads? Like I have this big incentive on some ad or that. What are they responding to?

Yeah, it's several things. It's going to be, yeah, community involvement for sure. You know, especially a local contractor. Of course behind, I don't say behind the scenes but just like showing like telling stories about your projects. It might be before, during and after. If you're building a house, it's going to be, you know, just doing videos every week for a few months of building that house or if it's a roof, just, you know, showing what goes into that. Showing your people video testimonials from your customers, of course. So those things, I think a lot of contractors rely too much on the, you know, thousand dollar off your, your next roofing project or something like that. And there's just not a lot of value in it. Like I've always seen them and I'm like, well, I don't even know what.

A roof is gonna cost that you built a thousand dollars in.

Yeah, right, exactly. So, so it's not like a commodity where there's like a known price of what the thing is. Right. So yeah, it's just anything you can do, just get to, you know, get people to connect with you, to see who you are, see how you do things. See like maybe what your process is, your customer testimonials. Like there's, it's never just one thing, it's just consistently a blend of those, those ingredients.

Yeah. In our world we work with our clients on the strategy. Like how are you going to market that? Are you going to do it yourself? Are you going to have somebody else do it? Are you going to be into this or that? What things fit you? Okay, this is our strategy. Okay. Go talk to Contractor Dynamics or go talk to Hook Agency or one of those guys, right?

Yep.

On that particular thing that they're the specialist app. I hate interrupting these videos, but this thing is something that every contractor should have. It's companycam. It is the one piece of software every home service contractor should use to document their jobs. Every picture you ever take is associated to the address you took it. It's like Instagram. For every project that you have, give a link to the homeowner, share it to them while you're doing your inspection, and win more sales. If you want to find out more about CompanyCam, check the description below. Save a few bucks by following our link. One of the ones I always wonder, like, you would know better than me. Good. It seems like a good tactic to me would be when I'm doing my inspections, which is something I'm already doing.

Yeah.

And I'm looking at the product somebody else did before me, I would be looking at any of the areas where maybe it wasn't done the way it should be. And I would. I would. It would just be my. My shtick. Okay, what's wrong with this roof installation?

Right.

And just let people, like, give a whole bunch of comments and then give them the. Give them the story. Like, hey, this is what we should have been looking for.

Right.

Like, that would be really strong for engagement, because that's what it seems like what I really want. I want engagement. Some back and forth.

Right, right, right. Because, you know, everyone's going to have comments and ways that they would do it and things like that. Yeah, for sure. I think, like, and. And what you. You asked before, that was like, what's. What are people connecting with these days? Like, to give a pointed answer to that, it just. It's just telling stories about showing, you know, showing your work every day, telling stories about the projects you're doing and not being like, hey, check out this monster roof we just did. You know, no one cares about that. So telling a story about that, which can include, yeah, doing the inspection and going and looking at, you know, the. The gaps in the decking and talking about, like. And I think a lot of contractors, like, you know, they have like. Like the contractor goggles on, and they don't. They're talking about, like, you know, roofing industry terms that homeowners have no idea what they're talking about. Right. So they might say, hey, the decking is. Is bad, or there's gaps in the decking. And, like, as a homeowner, you might be thinking like, well, you're on a roof. Like, the deck is down there. Like, what are you Talking about. So you have like, explain, like all the decking is the plywood that goes under the roof and all that. So. Yeah, absolutely. I think right now in our, in our home, we have like attic ventilation issues because it's been like, I know it's hot there in Texas. It's been very hot here in Jersey as well. It's.

It's come visit for a minute.

No, I know. Yeah, but that's why I prefaced it with that. But like, our air conditioner is not keeping up. Like our upstairs zone of our AC is not keeping up. It's just not getting cool. And we think it's an attic ventilation issue and we have a guy coming out. But I think there's like the way that the house was built, like, it's just not properly ventilated. So, yeah, that would be a great opportunity for this contractor be like, hey, here's the issues here and here's how it should be done and here's what we're going to do to make sure this attic is properly ventilated so these people can, you know, sleep when it's, you know.

Yeah.

And 95 degrees out.

Somebody sees that out there in the interwebs.

Yeah.

They go, hey, I'm going to go up in my. Man, my attic is roasting. I needed. I'm going to call that guy.

Right, right.

So, yeah, creating this story that somebody now has a question about their own place or maybe they already know and they just thought that's the way it's supposed to be.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And that's. And that's the power of like telling a story in terms of. Instead of just like blasting out your offers and things like that. Because especially when it comes to an issue that's like attic ventilation, it's not just like tearing off a roof and putting another roof on. Like, it's a. It's a problem solving thing. Right. So people want to. People want to feel comfortable with a guy or a company that they're calling out that they can actually solve that problem.

So if, if I've heard you correctly, we gotta be good storytellers.

Yeah, I guess that's a, that's a very good, like, you know, taking everything we've been talking about and extracting that one thing. Yeah. Facts tell, stories sell. Absolutely.

And so is there a roadmap to telling a story is like, hey, if I follow this framework or this roadmap, I could tell a good story because I think I can be in a room and there might be one person there that's a good storyteller. It's not something that we're naturally good at. I don't think we know people that are good at it. But are we. Is there a format?

I think there are many formats. And yes, it's funny you bring that up, because it's something that we always. One of our core values is continually learning and improving. And our video guy, John, he's amazing, and he's always giving me tips on how I can be better and tell stories and things like that. So we were actually slacking this morning, and I was like, hey, John, you told me before that I need to tell more. He calls them micro stories, like, micro storytelling. And, like, do you have any, like, resource for that? And he sent me over this, like, PDF and this website I was studying a little bit this morning just to kind of incorporate some stories into, you know, what I'm already doing. Right.

It's all people have time for today. Micro stories.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Micro stories. Yeah, totally. So, yeah, there's, I think, a lot of frameworks. We use a couple of them. One of them we use for. I use it pretty much every day when I write my content or do videos. And it's five parts. It's hook problems, credibility, solution, call to action. And so the hook. So most people, most contractors will get up there with their phone and pretend this is a phone. Hey, I'm Joe. I'm out here on this roof today. And, you know, it's 97, right? So the hook is like, hey, Houston homeowners, like, or whatever it might be, like, get someone's attention, hook them in just, like, the subject line of an email. And then the next thing is, like, identify the problem that. Or make them aware of a problem that they might not know they have or connect with a problem that they might be thinking that they have, like, attic ventilation. You know, they might be, like, laying in bed every night, like, oh, it's so hot. We got to do something about it. So just kind of, like, connecting with them. And then once you really connect with them with that problem, going into the credibility, like, hey, I'm Jim Johnson. I own a roofing company. We help a lot of homeowners with this thing because no one cares who you are until they know, you know, how you can help them. Right? Like it or not, and then the solution and then call them to action at the end. So, you know, that's a rough framework. Like, I don't always have, like, a call to action in my videos because you don't want to be salesy all the time and things like that. But a call to action could be like, you know, hey, go up in your attic. Go up in your attic tonight and see how hot it is.

You know, if it's warmer than 93 degrees, you should maybe do something about that.

Yeah, exactly. So it could be, hey, follow me for more tips just like this. Or if you can't get in your.

Attic, give me a call.

Right, Totally. Yeah. So that's a good one. Another one I use is three E's. So it's experience, experience something that could be on their job site, talking to a customer, whatever, extract a lesson from that and then educate people about it. So that's a good one. I like to do. I try to do that every evening. Kind of reflect on what happened during the day and try to like write a piece of content about that thing and educate more people. You can also entertain people. I'm not that great at entertaining, but, you know, something I gotta work on.

The only way I'm entertaining is if you see a picture of me, you start laughing. All right, so that was good, that last piece right there. Like, hey, all this is kind of becoming about storytelling because I want to either be a part of the story. I like the story you're sharing, or I like you because of that story. I think that's as important in our marketing today. Helping our listeners today with some of those frameworks is really good. Is there a plate? Like, can they just start googling like micro stories and stuff like that? Or is there a resource that people can go to?

Micro stories. I forget what the one that John sent me was. I forget what it was. I don't know. I have it on my phone, which I don't have.

If it's something you can send me, I'll put it in the show notes.

Well, I do have the. I do have a PDF for that five part framework. Just went through the hook. Problem, credibility, solution, call to action. So, yeah, we can.

You got a link to that thing that we can put in the show notes for people?

Yep, I can. We can shoot it over to you and get it. Yep.

My boy Paul, he's a. He's an absolute rock star. He's your John, right? He's my Paul. All right, cool.

Yeah. Oh, I've met Paul. Yeah, yeah, Curly hair guy.

Yeah, he'll handle that for us. So awesome. He's. He's a. He's an absolute unbelievable human being.

Yeah, I think it helps a lot because a lot of times you know, people might hear me or other people, like, hey, do you. Your videos tell your stories? And people might be bought into that concept. But it's like, all right, well, what do I say? What do I do? Like, you know, it's like saying like, if someone that's never gone to the gym, like, hey, go to the gym and start working out, they're like, oh, what do I do? You know, you need a bit of a, you know, a template for that. So I think it takes some of the thinking out of it.

So talking about stories, we're going to go a whole different route now.

All right.

Because you've been in business 10 years. I. You're one of those guys that I've known for a long time now. I trust you. And I feel like, hey, you got a pretty good finger on the pulse of things. Over the last few weeks, maybe a couple months, I've noticed this underlying, like, theme that's going through our industry. And I think it started longer ago than that. But really seeing it more prevalent here lately, this. I'm going to use the term, I feel like it's fear mongering. If you don't get your crap together, you're going to be out of business in a week. Feel to it, right? If you're not doing it this way, if you're not doing these marketing things, if you're not doing this, if you're not doing that, you're going to get swallowed up by the venture capital companies, you're going to get put out of business by those guys. That kind of thing seems to be pretty. Have you noticed any of that?

I have noticed a little bit of it, yeah. I try not to, you know, subscribe or get involved in. In that too much, but. Yeah.

Do you think that's really a thing? Like, here's the, the quote. So the reason I'm bringing this up, you talked about storytelling, so this is storytelling. You tell a story and you're drawing people in to this story and they're going to have a reaction to it emotionally. That's what stories are all about. They create emotion. And so you tell a story that there's going to be 60 roofing companies within five years and all the rest will be out of business. What's your first reaction to that?

So my first reaction, and I don't really want to get specific because I know you're talking about. And I like and respect him.

I do, too. I love him to death.

In general, I think that, you know, it's. It's bold to make claims, a claim, any claim, if you, you know, not able to back it up. Right. I try to never be like absolute with my language, like, hey, I think this is going to happen, you know, but yeah, I think never.

Right?

What's that? Yeah, never say never, for sure. And hey, I, I think it's, I think it's healthy to have some sort of discourse around macro trends and shifts in industries and things like that. And a micro story of mine is that I grew up my family's construction business and we did a lot of government contracting for the federal government, for local municipalities, city governments in New York, city agencies and things like that. And a lot of that was based upon like the transportation or the infrastructure bills that got passed, like that year where, you know, hey, there's $300 million earmarked for, you know, infrastructure projects over the next three years. Right. So we look at those trends and, you know, try to make adjustments accordingly. And so I think some of that is, is healthy for sure.

But I agree, I think the conversation is very healthy.

Yeah, but I, I mean, I think.

You, you gotta, like, I think the extremism can be.

Right.

Irresponsible. Yeah.

Because I spoke with one of my good friends this week who has a roofing company and he's looking at potentially taking on investors or selling it. And we were referencing some of these conversations that are going on on social media. Right. So people are making decisions about their futures not just on one Facebook post, of course, but using those inputs as pieces.

It's not one Facebook post, it's many out there. And people are tying. It's like, hey, if you don't get your, if you don't get your stuff together, you're going to get swallowed up.

Right, Right.

And there's a lot of truth to that. Like, you do need to get your stuff together. I got, I got a call from a supplier the other day. He goes, do you know anybody that can help somebody get their technology down? I'm like, well, what do you mean by technology? Like, I go, any. These guys do not operate with any technology at all. I like, really, how long they've been in business? He was like, 60 years. Really? And how big are they? 100 million. Like what?

Mind blowing. Crazy.

It just proves to me though, that it's still possible. Right, Done. So I think the conversation is super valuable. We should be aware of the trends that are coming in and doing the things they do. But as soon as I saw some of those posts, I went, okay, let me go look at something similar. And so 30, 40 years ago, probably 30 years ago, waste management was this big thing, Right. Like, they. They swallowed up all these smaller garbage companies. And it did happen, and it's happening right now in our industry that, yes, there's venture capital, investment firms and stuff like that out there looking for the right choices to purchase or acquire. There's other roofing companies doing that, and then there's the owners that are looking at exiting because of that. Right. Like, that's a healthy conversation we should have. As a matter of fact, it's probably the number one thing I coach on right now.

Okay.

Our coaches are still getting people through and building big companies and all that stuff, but once again, I get built up. They're now having these opportunities, and it's the biggest thing I'm coaching on at this point.

Wow.

Those conversations are absolutely healthy. And it is something that you should pay attention to it. But I did a quick search. I'm like, well, how many. How many garbage companies? And I mean, in two seconds, it's like over a thousand. As a matter of fact, the very first one was like, top 100. Like, here's the top 100. I went, well, if that's the top 100, how many are there? And there's like several different sources. There's a thousand. There was another one that's like 10,000. It's like, okay, so not quite as extreme as what we're hearing. So be cautious of that. But know that, hey, this stuff is coming and we need to pay attention to how do we position ourselves. Oh, here I am interrupting you again. But this is an important message you do not want to miss because it's about AI AI in sales. Could you imagine having every sales call recorded, analyzed, tell you what's winning, Share it with everybody else so they can start winning. Everybody's closing percentages go through the roof. If you haven't heard of Rilla voice, you need to go check out Rilla today in the comments below. So that's what I really want to talk to you about. What are some of your words of advice for these companies from a marketing perspective? To position themselves for these opportunities that exist because they are an opportunity, but they're also a threat, depending on where you sit. Right. What are some of your suggestions there?

Yeah, well, it can be an opportunity if that's what you envision for your business, or it can be, like you said, a threat if you. If you want to keep your business and continue to grow it. And I think that. I think it's. It Makes sense. Look at the context of the last few years where, you know, maybe it's been a frothy environment like an investor term throw out there. But you know, maybe the barrier to entry in terms of starting a roofing company has been pretty low. And you know, maybe you didn't need a lot of business skills to be necessarily successful with business. And so I think that like what you said before we started hitting record here, Jim, was like, control what you can control. Right. And so you can't worry about like everything outside your control. But how can you build a stronger business? How can you build out? You know, a lot of people get in the business, myself included, without the business skills needed to run a business. And, and I'm working on those every week. We're continually building those out. And I know that that's what you help your clients with and we help our clients with on the marketing end for sure. And so the more business skills that you can build out, the more anti fragile you're going to be, the stronger position you're going to be in. And in terms of building your marketing, I would argue that every successful contracting company, every successful company has a system for generating their own customers. You know, that might be door knocking. You might be $100 million roofing company that has an amazing door knocking system. That might be your thing. Great. It doesn't have to be social media. Right. But you should have a system for generating your own customers. If you're dependent on an outside party to fill up your pipeline and feed your sales reps with leads, then that's a vulnerability. So how can you strengthen your, your systems? How can you create a brand where.

Everyone knows changes on them and the way that they get those leads tomorrow.

Oh yeah, 100%. Like, hey, we saw it during the pandemic where door knocking was all of a sudden illegal in.

Can't even go outside.

Yeah. 100. So that was, that was temporary. But. But still. Yeah. And, and as far as you see.

It in Facebook, Facebook changes the algorithm and everything's all thrown off for the next three or four months until you kind of figure out what it is you're supposed. Google similar thing like their position. You got to think about their business, their position. Business is the business of making money from the ads they run. So how do they, how do they play the game to get the most equity out of that investment? Right. And so I think we have to be on top of that stuff more than just at a surface level. Which is why I love what you do. Because you're teaching them the why behind their marketing instead of just the execution of their marketing. And I think that's, I think that's where a business owner and their marketing leader really need to understand. While they may not handle all of it, they better understand why they're doing it.

Yes, 100%. And we used to just focus on the execution when we were a younger company because that's kind of all we knew. And quite frankly, that was all that was necessary to drive a lot of results. But now it is more of a macro approach and you need to understand how the different parts work. So, and that would include. One of the things I wanted to touch on is, and I kind of did with the Amazonification, but like the client experience that you're providing and then technology can play a role into that too. So creating that memorable client experience so you are more referable, you know, that's, that's a way to be more attractive to build a stronger brand, Right? So if a company's coming in to look to, to buy up a roofing company, they're looking at the strength of like, hey, do you have a system for generating referrals or are you just, you know, relying on good old word of mouth? You know, that's not really predictable, right? So anything that you can build out that's like predictable, that's systematic, you have sops around it that's going to make you so much more valuable, whether you're looking to be bought or whether you're just looking to run a successful company, it's going to benefit you either way, in my opinion.

I can, I can remember it wasn't all that long ago that people said websites were going to become obsolete. You needed to, needed to build up your Facebook page, and that was where people were going to go. I'm like, I don't think that's what's going to happen. And the reality of it doesn't seem it's turned out. As a matter of fact, your website's become more and more and more important because that's home plate. That's what you're driving all the runs into, your hitting singles and doubles. You mentioned it earlier. And I'm hitting singles with my organic stuff. I'm throwing doubles out there with a little bit of paid stuff, and I'm throwing triples and holes. Runs out there with the big bucks, right? So if it's home plate, that experience at home plate, it better be a joy whenever you cross it, right? And so that experience, like, what is some of the Advice that you give to clients whenever it comes to their website to make that experience something that the person stays. Because it's about how long do they stay? Are they there a blip or are they going to hang out for a while?

Well, they're going to be there a blip unless there are certain things on there that are going to interest them. So like, like how easy it is it to find the information that they need. So like, you know, simply where do you operate? How do I contact you? Give people multiple options, right? Phone number, text, a textable phone number. Might be the live chat, might be the form. Give people multiple options because, you know, people want to choose what's easiest for them, not what's easiest for you. Answering their questions. You know, they're going to be doing their research, how much does the roof cost? Things like that. So have those answers. Show off your people. Show off your people. Like to see a process, right? Because we all have bad experiences with contractors. So if I see a process on your website, like, hey, we have this simple three step process or five step process. Obviously there's many more steps, but like the macro process, it just gives me a level of comfort that like, all right, these guys know what they're doing. They've been here, they've done that. It's not just this guy that's going to, hey, I'll show up next week. They have a process for the way they do things.

Things.

So all those things that can make people feel like, you know, comfortable, the warm and fuzzies, like all that stuff. It is awesome. So get away from the stock photos. You put some video on there, show your people, get some video testimonial.

Give me the stock photos of residential, commercial and repairs with the little blip underneath it. And then, hey, here's our contact number. Like that, that does. Yeah.

Again, like, Jim, that used to work. And like we built, we've built a couple hundred different website. Like sometimes when con, like back in the day, they didn't have any photos. We'd throw the stock photos on there. And then like we realized we got to a point where like, all right, we can't do this anymore. This is not helping you at all. And that's why one of the reasons we transitioned over into, into training because like, like helping them understand the importance of like putting photos on there and videos. Yeah, I mean it sounds basic, but like people do business with people, they want to feel that connection. So the more you can do that, the better.

Yeah, that's, that's some Good advice. So, takeaways today. Tell great stories. Learn how to be. Well, start with learn how to be a good storyteller. Tell great stories and have a easy to use website for them to take action with you. The ones I like the best. Like for me, because I think about the Amazon. Amazon vacation. Is that how you say it? I've never said that word before in my life.

I think so. Ask Ryan. Sean.

But you think about that. And what is it that I'm contacting you for? In most cases, the reason people have landed finally at your website is they're looking to get an appointment. They want you to come out. Why don't I just make that appointment something I can schedule in their world? Like, go. Okay, here's the calendar and there's the date and time I'm going to be home.

Boom.

Pick that one. That's what I'm looking for. If I was going to have somebody come out to my house to install a fence, that's what I'd be looking for. I don't need to talk to you. I've already figured all that out. Just get out here.

Right? And also, like, I don't want to pick up the phone and call you and then not get an answer. And then you're gonna, you're gonna call me back an hour later when I'm doing a podcast. I'm not gonna answer you. And there you go. We lost. We're not.

I just don't want to talk to you. I really don't. Like, I seriously, I don't want to call anybody and talk to somebody. I want to make this fast and easy at my. It's 11 o' clock at night. I can't call you. This is the time I had to be able to look, I know. I want an appointment. Can I do that? Oh, fill out this form. Nope, don't want to do that either.

Right.

I want to set a freaking appointment right now.

I was texting with someone earlier and we're looking to actually line up another podcast for next week. And he's like, hey, in the text today, he's like, hey, can you shoot me a few times that you're available next week? I'm like, oh, it sounds like so much work. Like, oh my gosh, I know this.

Is going to go back and forth now, right? Yeah, here's my times. Those don't work for me. How about these times?

Yeah, and if he doesn't have like a calendar or something like that, I'll just send him my calendar and he can pick a time that, you know, that's on my calendar, because it's like, that's just too much work, you know?

What did you get from me?

What?

What did you get from me?

From you?

Yeah, for this podcast. What'd you get from me?

Actually, yeah. When I messaged, you did not do.

A calendly link because. No, you.