Episode #541 - How To Build An Award Winning Brand with Matt Shoup

Welcome to this edition of the million dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell. All right, I'm talking with Matt Shoup. Hello, Matt.

How you doing?

It's exciting to get you on. We've had a lot, lot of things happening this summer. I know you had a busy summer. And I'm curious, what do you want people to know if there's a headline about your accomplishments, the main accomplishments you've had in business and in life that would give you your credentials that people say, yeah, this guy's learned some stuff. This, he's figured some stuff out. How would you. What would be the simplest way of getting that across to people that you.

Don'T do it by yourself? It takes a team and leading a team and pouring into other people and investing in other people and your, you know, your team and your success is only as good as your, you know, least developed person, I would say.

Yeah. And so, team, what's the biggest accomplishment you'd point people to that you feel like you've had that other people could understand where you, that you went out, that you were most proud of, that having a team allowed you to do.

You know, so we own a number of companies here in northern Colorado. I would say one of the, you know, proudest or biggest accomplishments is we've won a lot of awards. But one of the biggest awards that we've won as a company was the Better Business Bureau TORCH awards for ethics. And it was actually one of the few awards where you have a totally independent panel of judges that are, that are judging the company, interviewing members of the company, interviewing members of the community that had interacted with the company. So I think it spoke really, you know, highly and well to the people that were looking to grow and develop within the company.

Now you're saying there was a lot of competition in the ethics department?

Yeah, maybe. Maybe not as much in this business. But, you know, I share that just because, like, you know, a lot, a lot of awards. I wrote a book in 2011 about how business owners can win business awards. And, you know, there's a process to it. A lot of them, not all of them. It's, you know, if you can get in there and you can apply, you can have a good pitch and a good story, you're going to run a pretty good chance of winning the award. But like this one, we had nothing to do with, like, we, we Couldn't share anything with them. We were nominated independently and the community and our team was, was really interviewed independently. So it was a very pure award, I'd call it.

So let's talk about that for a minute. You know, you can. I was told in sales early on that we're all in, you know, everybody's job, number one job is to prospect. No matter where you are in the food chain of the company, you know, sales prospecting is your priority. Nobody escapes that, you know, helping, helping the company find new business. But a lot of it's an interesting thing about awards when you're not familiar with the concept. You would think I would think, you know, before I started doing this podcast series and have gotten educated from award winners, it's like, you know, if you want an award, you need to apply for it. It's kind of like one thing I do with my short attention span mind is I've always done photography for, you know, several hundred years. And the way you win, the way you win awards in photography is you have to go through the process of actually applying, you know, sending in an image, you know, so that you can be considered and you can't get your feelings hurt when you make a big effort one time and then you don't win it and you thought you should, and then they come up with some stupid other choice and you get mad and go home to mama and like your kid, you take your ball home and don't play with anybody else again. You know, it's like, you can't do that with awards. You can't do that in business and sales. Nothing is promised, nothing's guaranteed. But you got to be out there pitching, talking, making yourself, making people aware of you. So talk about how. What would you say to people that would wake them up and say, maybe I should put some. Because, you know, when you're in business, you run ragged from morning to night. Just, just, you know, people used to say, you know, why do you work so hard? You know, I always tell them, I said, it's because I'm dumb. If I knew, if I knew exactly what I was supposed to be doing, I wouldn't have to be doing all this stuff that appears to be wasted after I do it, you know, but in the beginning, you don't know what you don't know. You don't really know what you should be doing. But, you know, you've got to attack because the right choice in the beginning will look about like all the other choices. You know, it'll have a little appeal and it's, you only find out it's the right choice by hammering it through, you know, and so we're run ragged doing new things, following up, solving problems and then to take time out, like to think above, like elevate your things, like, you know, we're doing a good job. Why don't we try and get some recognition and apply for some awards? That's like something you do later. And so why is that something people should think about doing now?

Yeah, I think really, really great question. Some misconceptions I think that I had as a new business owner is I would look out there at the awards landscape and was following a lot of companies that had won awards for a long time. And I said, you know, these guys, they've been in business longer than I have. They're a bigger company, they've got a better story. You know, why would anybody want to give me an award? And it wasn't until I, you know, pulled the curtain back and understood how the, you know, the awards business and industry works is that like they're looking for great stories, they're looking for companies of all shapes and sizes and scopes. And you know, when I, when I won our first award as a company, it wasn't, it wasn't a, you know, huge national one. It was just a local chamber award. The exposure that came with that for the minimal time investment and almost $0 investment is, it was very substantial. Like we directly earned business from that. And each one of those awards, it's, you know, it's a little, a little honor badge. It's a little stamp that you can put, you know, on your business card, your website, your email signature. And you know, I tell business owners like, hey, you guys, you know, we're busy. I understand it. You know, we're, we're 50, 60, 70, 100 hours a week. Just, just set aside 60 minutes a week to go through the process of searching these things out and going after them because they don't find you. There's a couple of them where others cann nominate you. But 98 of the awards we've won, we had to go find them and go after them. They're not just going to come knocking on your door.

Yeah, that's a great phrase and concept like these awards are not going to come find you. And that's what, that's what people think. I know, that's what I thought for, of course, I was not in a business where we really got awards. You know, we were in sales and things like that. But at the company level, they would go for awards and they did. But at my level, you know, never thought about it, but when I did think about it, I thought, well, you know, you do such an outstanding job, people notice and you get asked to do things and you get recognized, but not so much you've got, if you want the awards, you got to go looking for them. And where do you go look, you know, how do you know what kind of awards would be suitable for your business, your unique business?

Yeah, no, really, really good question too. So a couple of things that I did is, you know, I was just tracking the other companies. So where we live in northern Colorado, there were a couple of big companies up and coming companies and I mean they seemed to be, to be winning all of the awards. So I was following those, those companies and kind of their news feeds and their social media feeds individually. So you know, one step or approach would be look at, look at other companies that, that are earning these and winning these. Another thing is just depending on what industry you're in, you know, we have a residential paint contracting, roof contracting business. So that's a direct industry where there's industry specific awards. I'm also in the real estate industry as well. So totally different subset of awards with, within there and then literally you can just jump on, you could jump online, you could type in, you know, your city, small business, type in your city, type in awards. Cruising the social media. And it's, it's like one of those things, right? You don't see red Corvettes on the road until you want to buy a red Corvette and then that's all you see. And it really was, it opened my eyes. I mean these things were just kind of floating right under the surface and, and I just never recognized them until I started looking for them.

What percentage boost would you say you got from your first award and what percent of you know, the as you get, you know, like you've started several businesses and I'm sure you've gone through the process with the different business. What kind of boost have you seen from a winning awards and how it affects the bottom line?

Yeah, so I love numbers and I love marketing. That's another thing that hopefully we'll have some time to get into. But I mean I'm very big on tracking the investment so I remember the first award that I won and I don't know if this was luck, but I kind of track ratios. But literally I spent 45 minutes searching for it, applying for it, writing the write up, grabbing a testimonial Turning everything in. A little bit of follow up found out we won the award. And then it was, you know, just, we had a little icon, little logo. And I remember going out on my next sales appointment and this was back to three to four years into the business, so we were still fighting to build some reputation and was sitting with, you know, really sweet couple, and they're like, hey, it's, it's between hiring your painting company and another painting company. And you know, on paper, you're both nice guys, you both have a great presentation, you're both professional. Price is the same, right? She's just, they're both checking off all the boxes and they're like one of the only things that we can see different is that, you know, this Small Business Development Center Chamber award that you won really, really spoke to us. And you now you have something that the competition doesn't. And I'll tell you, in the painting industry, residential paint contracting, um, I joke, you know, if you show up and you're, you know, you're cleanly dressed and you don't scare the wife, like you're gonna steal her purse and maybe one of her kids and you're not drunk, like, you'll, you'll get 80% of the business. I mean, we are in a really interesting business where there's just a lot of riff raff. But that, that directly landed me an award. So I looked at, hey, I spent, you know, a little less than an hour and landed an additional $4,000 of, of revenue. And, and that, that was pretty cool. So, I mean, that right there was. That convinced me that was all I needed to keep going after this.

Yeah. And I guess it's subtle in a lot of ways. You don't always know that they notice that on your site or in your literature, your marketing thing. Let's follow up on how did you. Why, why did. When along the way have you got really dialed into marketing and numbers? Because you're right up my alley.

Yeah, we're going to, we're going to have fun. You know, I've always loved Matt, just math and statistics and numbers. Like, I just, I tell people I always have math and numbers running, you know, running around my head. And I kind of, you know, taking you back to my origin story of my very first business. I was 10 years old. I asked my parents for $200 for a boombox and they said, nope, go find a way to make your own money. We're not going to give you $200. You know, get out of here. And they're like the only from us is $4 a week to cut the grass. And I'm like, hey, okay, I make $4 a week cutting grass. If I could go make, you know, that 10 more times in a week, that's, that's a, that's a great deal. So I asked if I could use their lawnmower. I went and proceeded to knock on neighbors doors and you know, charge anywhere from 10 to $15 to, to MoW, mow grass for the neighbors. And I landed a few accounts. So just in my mind as I'm doing that, I'm thinking, okay, if I do this many, you know, this many lawns, I knock on this many doors, I'll earn this much money and then I'll have my, my end game, end goal, my, my boombox right in three and a half weeks or, or whatever it is. So I, I literally, I had a little notepad of how many doors I knocked on, how many accounts I landed. And it's just, that's how that process works for me. That whole roi, the whole process of determining that seeing, you know, seeing what worked has something I've just, I've always really naturally enjoyed it and, and I didn't know at 10 years old that like this is a fundament in business. It's just kind of how my, how my brain was wired.

It is amazing how many people that turn into entrepreneurs started when they were kids with, they had an experience like that. When I was eight years old, I don't know why, I have no idea how any of this is like surreal, but I saw in TV guide an ad that you could sell TV guides. Now this is back in the 1820s, you know, because I'm ancient. Yes, but for 15 cents for a TV guide and you know, that was how you found out what was on tv. There was nothing else. You know, there was no cable or no Internet and none of these guides that are on TV now. So you had to go to TV Guide. And somehow I built up a route in our neighborhood of 50 houses that I'd collect the 15 cents, give them their thing, I'd keep 4 cents and I'd send a check to the company for 11 cents times 50. And I was an entrepreneur and that when you're young and that gets in your system, it never leaves. I wish someone had come along and told me about the lawn thing because I could have made a whole lot more money cutting grass.

Yeah, the lawns was great. And then that turned into shoveling snow and then pedaling candy bars out of the, the middle school locker. So no, it was always a fun endeavor. Like that's business was something for me that I really found, you know, identity and purpose and acceptance. And I mean, I wasn't the, you know, I wasn't the, the sports kid, the jock. You know, I had big, big buck teeth and some headgear, got, got bullied and beat up a lot growing up. So I mean, business was just kind of my outlet and my escape and I've just, just totally, totally leaned into it.

So what got your attention as your first. What was. Captured your imagination and when got. Did you get started in business?

Yeah. So I mean, you know, the, the story I just shared that being being 10 and mowing lawns, I mean, that was like, hey, you know, here I want a boombox. I've got some resources to go and mow lawns and count money and make my money. So I was always doing a little bit of that while I was going through, you know, school, middle school, high school. But you know, I'd say what my first, you know, official business was when I was in College. So from 1999 to 2003, I was at Colorado State University here in Fort Collins. And I got approached by a national college painting company. So basically they offer students an opportunity, an internship with them to learn all about the, the painting industry. So it was a very sales and marketing focused and driven organization. So that kind of brought me back to my roots. You know, I'm 18, 19, getting, getting back to that. So I made, gosh, I made six figures over four years in college painting houses. And I just share that number because I managed to spend like twice what I made graduate, graduate Colorado State. And you know, I wasn't going to stay in painting. It's a, you know, it's a dirty, dirty business. Hard work. You're sweating in the summer. It's seasonal. Like, here's all the reasons I didn't like it and actually was a bad painter. So I jump into the mortgage business back in 2003, 4, 5. And you know, if you remember those days, everybody was in it. Everybody was able to make, you know, some good amounts of money. But I ended up working for a very conservative bank that I just. We didn't get along. I had to wear a suit and tie to the office every day and meet these quotas and make these calls. And you know, I was planning my escape from the bank. And literally one day the, the bank, mortgage, bank president, the mortgage division calls me in and fires me. Can we, can we curse on can we curse on the show if it's quoting?

I think he probably will, but go ahead. Yeah.

I mean, he said, put all your in a box. You know, he literally, like, I had not even met the guy yet. It was the new, the new incoming president. He's like, matt, you know, I'm so and so, put your in a box, you're fired. And I'm standing there in shock and went and grabbed everything and literally stepped out. So you, you know, you asked about when it, when it really clicked for me. I mean, my, my first official business is, you know, it's March 2005. I'm 20. What, 22, 23 years old, recently married, lots of debt, you know, had these dreams to go conquer something in the business world. Not really knowing yet. And all I knew how to do was paint houses. So I literally grabbed my stuff, stepped into the parking lot and I, you know, made a couple thousand. Like, hey, I'm never going to work for somebody again. I pulled off the tie. I'm like, I'm never wearing a tie to work. I'm just gonna be me. I'm a T shirt and kind of guy and I'm gonna go give this painting thing a run. And that's, that's when our, you know, M and D painting, our painting company launched and then really never, never looked back. But I remembered those lessons from being nine years old. I'm like, hey, I can knock on this many doors at this time and I, you know, I know how to do the proposals and the estimates and just got right back into that space very quickly because I, I was forced to, like, really forced to.

You knew the proposal, how to do the proposals, and all because of that apprenticeship program you went, right?

I did, yeah. That was kind of my, you know, my JV per se. Right. I was there learning, you know, learning all the ins and outs of the business and I, I just knew if I put in the work that I could generate those results.

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